Doll-A-Day 2019 #208: Fozzie Bear and the Jim Henson Exhibition,Imagination Unlimited

  Today's doll is an excuse for me to do a post on my trip to the Jim Henson exhibit. He's this guy.

This is, of course, Fozzie Bear.

This particular Fozzie measures about 9 or 10 inches tall.

He was made by Just Play.

The character of Fozzy was created specifically for The Muppet Show. He's played down a bit today,and not used as much as he used to be.

He has embroidered eyes.

The original performer for Fozzie was Frank Oz,who also performed Miss Piggy,Cookie Monster,Bert, and Yoda. He performed Fozzie less over the years,as he became a popular movie director. For "Muppet Treasure Island", for instance, Fozzie was performed by Kevin Clash, (Who also performed Elmo.),and his voice was dubbed in by Oz later. These days Frank Oz has retired from performing, and Fozzie is performed by Eric Jacobson.

He has his hat. I got this guy recently, and his hat is much better than my other one's.

This doll is a pretty good likeness. That may sound funny,because Fozzie isn't a person,but it's not as easy as you think to make a doll of a Muppet that really looks like them.

And of course, there's Fozzie's famous polka dot tie.

  Recently we went to the Jum Henson exhibit at COSI. I didn't take my camera because I figured they wouldn't allow me to use it inside. So I ended up using Ken's phone, which takes really crappy pictures. Therefore I apologize for the quality of the pictures. With a lot of manipulation I managed to improve them, but they still stink. Some of the exhibit was dark,and I couldn't take a picture without using the flash. Everything was under or behind glass,so I got a lot of flare. There were a few things that were well lit,and I could get by without a flash. Unfortunately, these things were few. So again, sorry!

  The entrance to the exhibit was a huge furry arch.

Emma and Ivy being Muppets at the entrance. That pink stuff is all faux fur!

Ken,Ivy, and Emma. Emma is doing her Muppet pose.

There were quite a few Muppets on display,but no Fozzie. There was, however,an 70's Kermit puppet.

The black on his eyeballs looked like a flocked sticker.

He looked just like the Kermit dolls you used to be able to buy. I thought at first he wasn't even a real Kermit.
 

Ivy and Ken in the background,and yes, Ken stands like a flamingo.

Ivy and Ken at the entrance. Kermit was the first thing we saw.

We got to see some early puppets from TV commercials.
 

Although the Wilkins Coffee guys were reproductions.
 

One puppet was from some early commercials,but also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show,and was redone for The Muppet Show. I knew he looked familiar.

 

 

These very early puppets were used for a project that never aired.

There were several screens showing early projects,clips from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show,and other things.

Emma and Ivy watching one of the screens.

We got to see the story board for the original Sesame Street '6' film,and there was a screen showing the finished film. I remember it from when I was a kid.
 

It's the one where the baker falls down the stairs with the trays of pies.

You could build your own Muppet,using velcro facial features and hair.

It's the guy with the 'big blue head' who is always annoyed by Grover the waiter.

They had a set up where you could operate a puppet in front of a monitor and test your puppeting skills with a prerecorded backing. I didn't photograph that, because we quickly yielded it to a couple of little kids.
You could also become a part of the Muppet Show opening.

Ivy is just being Ivy,while Emma Muppeets it up.Ken didn't even realize he was in the picture!

 Some of the puppets looked just like you'd think they would. Bert and Ernie are a good example.

They're quite large,but I figured they would be.

That's Emma,being annoying in the background.

Ivy and Emma both being annoying in the background.

Still being annoying.

 Ernie had his Rubber Ducky. It occurred to me how many of that same duck they've had to come up with over the years.

Their hands were a bit dirty,just like you'd think they must get after a lot of use.
There were puppets who were bigger than I thought they'd be though. Grover was huge!

 I didn't expect him to be so big!

He did look just like you'd expect him to though.

Grover's big,hairy, three fingered hand.

 

Beaker and Bunsen Honeydew were a combination though.

Bunsen was smaller than I imagined him.
 

But Beaker was gigantic.

 

You can really see the texture of the fabric here. 

It was interesting to see what the puppets were really made out of. Some of them were made from felt,some from fleece,and some were carved from foam.
There were design sketches of some puppets.

  The Count, from Sesame Street was kind of a small guy.

 

"Two,ah ah ah..."

Move along, you two.

 

But the Count wasn't nearly as small as the worms in the 'Wriggling Brothers Circus',including Oscar the Grouch's pet worm Slimy.

Everything in this was so tiny,and it was behind glass.so it was impossible to get a good picture of it.

These three puppets were made for The Muppet Show.

 There was a screen showing the sketch the puppets appeared in.

The one on the left may look familiar. He was based on Jim Henson.
 

The puppet in the middle was based on Frank Oz.

And the puppet in the middle was based on Muppeteer Jerry Nelson. 

  I loved getting a close up look at these obviously hand crafted puppets! These guys weren't like Kermit and Grover. They didn't look like the toys you can buy in a store. 

They had such detail,like the hand painted vest on the Frank Oz puppet.

All this hand painting on the back was going to be seen hardly at all on screen.

 And the Jerry Nelson puppet's crocheted vest and woven belt.

 And Jim Henson's fringed vest.jacket.

 

The original design sketches for the outfits were on display.

Like a lot of Muppets, these guys have hair and facial hair made of feathers!
 

You could see the middle of the feather up the back of Jim Henson puppet's head.
 

I could see where the feathers were stitched to the head on the Frank Oz puppet.

The Scooter on display had legs and everything.

That was a little weird. His shoes were scuffed. Emma quoted me, quoting Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann character, explaining to her mother about her doll's dirty socks,(after putting them on the dog and letting him run around in the yard.),and suggested it was where he had been walking around.
 

His jacket didn't have the Muppet Show logo on the back.

 You may have seen my post on my Fisher Price Scooter doll HERE.

The screen Ken is looking at in the background shows the guest star of every episode of The Muppet Show. The show was so popular that celebrities were requesting to appear on it. Ex-Beatle  George Harrison wanted to be on because his son liked the show. He was turned down when he asked because they were fully booked!

Scooter has been changed over the years. For a while his head and face were flattened out,and his eyes were changed. Luckily he's now back to his classic original design. This Scooter is the original style.

There were some early design sketches for Scooter.

 

 There was no actual Miss Piggy puppet.
 

She was only represented by her iconic lavender gloves,complete with ring...

Ring and all.

...and some costume sketches for "The Great Muppet Caper".

Although Baby Miss Piggy and Baby Fozzie were there.

These were not the actual puppets used in "The Muppets Take Manahttan". They're 'photo puppets' used for publicity photos.

They were probably at least 18 inches tall in their sitting positions. Probably closer to 2 feet tall.

Awww!!!

The little Kermit doll Baby Piggy is holding looked faded,like a favourite doll who has been loved a lot.

There were three large puppets from the 1982 movie "Dark Crystal", a fantasy film based on the art of Brian Froud,and directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Criticized at the time for it's dark story and characters,the movie has since developed a cult following. Although critics were disturbed by the dark aspects of the film,it was praised for the advances in animatronics used in it's production.
  The two main characters Jen and Kira were there. They were probably as tall as I am. (Admittedly,that's not that tall.) 

They were interesting to look at up close. Jen looked like his face was starting to deteriorate.

But look at those eyes! I wish I could have gotten a better picture.

A lot of design work went into those costumes. There was so much to see there.  Most of it would never have been really seen on screen.

 The hands and feet were weird.
 

They look a lot less real because they look shiny and artificial.. Maybe it's because they have started to deteriorate,or maybe they do actually put make-up or something on them to touch for the movies.

 Augra was huge! She was way bigger than I would have thought.
 

There was so much detail in the puppet,and in her clothes.

Look at those horns.

When Unsentimental Niece was a kid she wished Augra could be her baby sitter!

Instead she just had me...
There were also some props from the movie.

And lest we forget, the movie "Labyrinth" was also a Jim Henson project. It was the second collaboration between Henson and Brian Froud. Based on the art of Brian Froud, with a script by Monty Python's Terry Jones,and executive produced by George Lucas,the movie was directed by Jim Henson,and featured a large cast of  Muppets.

Character sketches.

The dolls from the main character,Sarah's, bedroom,which later turned out to be characters in the Goblin world,were on display.

 
The movie had it's UK premier while I was living in London,and I wanted to go and try to see Jim Henson and Terry Jones. But I didn't get to,because I had to babysit that night!
 David Bowie's Goblin King costume, and Jennifer Connelly's huge ball gown were on a revolving platform so they could be viewed from all sides. It made them hard to photograph though,as they kept moving!

Emma was ahead of me. That's her in the background.

Ken,back,left, was still looking at the movie posters.

There were two puppets from the TV series Fraggle Rock.

That's 'Red' and 'Wembley'.

You may have seen my post on my Red doll HERE.

 
The other object in the case is one of the headsets worn by the Muppeteers when they performed a puppet. This particular one belonged to Steve Whitmire.

Whitmire was the performer behind Wembly,Rizzo the Rat and Bean Bunny. After Henson's death he was cast as the new voice of Kermit,after being asked by Henson's son Brian and widow Jane. He later took over the performance of Beaker and Statler after the death of Richard Hunt, and Jerry Nelson's retirement. In 2016 Whitmire was fired from the Muppets. The reason is debated. I was disappointed,as I thought he was just getting the hang of Kermit's voice. 
Some of the advances in animatronics and performance were displayed.This device is called a Waldo. It allows puppeteers to control the facial movements of a puppet figure remotely.
 

Emma passes by in the background.

The yellow part serves as mouth of the puppet off camera. It's operated by the puppeteer in the standard way, by the puppeteer's hand inside it. The movements of the Waldo 'mouth' are transferred to the onscreen puppet via cables off camera.
  Some of the other displays included storyboards for TV spots and movies,like this one from "The Great Muppet Caper".

Shew! This post took forever! I took a lot of pictures, then spent forever fixing them. It also didn't help that when Ken sent them to me off his phone, that they came out all mixed up and not in order anymore,and some of them came through tiwce,which only served to confuse me!
  So anyway, there it is, See you tomorrow for another doll.