• Alice Dinnean
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• 
  

• 
  Hereford
  Coordinates: 52°03′23″N 2°42′58″W / 52.0565°N 2.7160°W / 52.0565; -2.7160
  Hereford ⁱ/ˈhɛrɨfərd/ is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately 16 miles (26 km) east of the border with Wales, 24 miles (39 km) southwest of Worcester, and 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Gloucester. With a population of 55,800 people, it is the largest settlement in the county.
  The name "Hereford" is said to come from the Anglo Saxon "here", an army or formation of soldiers, and the "ford", a place for crossing a river. If this is the origin it suggests that Hereford was a place where a body of armed men forded or crossed the Wye. The Welsh name for Hereford is Henffordd, meaning "old road", and probably refers to the Roman Road and Roman settlement at nearby Stretton Sugwas.
  An early town charter from 1189 granted by Richard I of England describes it as "Hereford in Wales". Hereford has been recognised as a city since time immemorial, with the status being reconfirmed as recently as October 2000.
  
  wn.com/Hereford
• 
  Herefordshire
  Herefordshire ( /ˈhɛrɨfərdʃər/; abbreviated Herefs.) is a historic and ceremonial county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region (code UKG11) and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire" NUTS 2 region. It also forms a unitary district known as the County of Herefordshire. It borders the English ceremonial counties of Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh preserved counties of Gwent to the south-west and Powys to the west. Hereford is a cathedral city and is the county town; with a population of approximately 55,800 inhabitants it is also the largest settlement.
  The county is one of the most rural and sparsely populated in England, with a population density of 82/km² (212/sq mi). The land use is predominantly agricultural and the county is well known for its fruit and cider production, and the Hereford cattle breed.
  From 1974 to 1998, Herefordshire was part of the former non-metropolitan county of Hereford and Worcester.
  
  wn.com/Herefordshire
• 
  Netherlands
  The Netherlands (ⁱ/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] ( listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").
  
  wn.com/Netherlands
• 
  Pixar
  Pixar Animation Studios /ˈpɪksɑr/ is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned twenty-six Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. It is best known for its CGI-animated feature films created with PhotoRealistic RenderMan, its own implementation of the industry-standard RenderMan image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar began in 1979 as the Graphics Group, part of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm before it was acquired by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs in 1986. The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006 at a valuation of $7.4 billion; the transaction made Jobs the largest shareholder in Disney.
  Pixar has produced twelve feature films, beginning with Toy Story in 1995. It was followed by A Bug's Life in 1998, Toy Story 2 in 1999, Monsters, Inc. in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Cars in 2006, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 (to date, the highest-grossing animated film of all-time, grossing over $1 billion worldwide) in 2010, and Cars 2 in 2011. Eleven of the films have received critical and financial success, with the notable exception being Cars 2, which received substantially less praise than Pixar's previous films. As of February 2012, its films have made over $7 billion worldwide, with its $602 million average gross by far the highest of any studio in the industry. In addition, all of the films produced by Pixar are among the top 50 highest-grossing animated films of all time, with Finding Nemo (#27), Up (#44), and Toy Story 3 (#8) all in the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time.
  
  wn.com/Pixar

• Alice Dinnean
  Alice Dinnean-Vernon is a puppeteer and creative writer who works at The Jim Henson Company. Dinnean-Vernon has performed on many children's television shows such as Sesame Street, Bear in the Big Blue House, Cousin Skeeter, Jim Henson's Pajanimals, Sid the Science Kid and Jack's Big Music Show. She also did work on various non-Muppet productions such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
  In the early 1990s, she performed additional characters for the children's TV series, Sesame Street. Some of her characters include Sherry Netherland, the owner of the Furry Arms Hotel after Julianne Buescher left the show in 1993 and Phoebe also known as Groogel, a member of the segment, Monster Clubhouse, from 2001 to 2003. Dinnean-Vernon left the show in 2004.
  Non-Muppet productions in which she has performed include the horror-humor TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. On the show, she performed as a demon puppet in As You Were and a living mummy hand in Life Serial. After the series ended in 2003, Dinnean-Vernon performed the puppet-like character of Angel in the episode Smile Time along with Peter Linz, and also performed Camilla the Chicken and Foo-Foo, on Muppets Wizard of Oz
  
  wn.com/Alice_Dinnean
• Bill Barretta
  Bill Barretta (b. June 19, 1964) has been performing with the Muppets since 1991, when he performed the body of family father Earl Sinclair on Dinosaurs. He later developed several new characters on Muppets Tonight, including Pepe the King Prawn, Johnny Fiama and Bobo the Bear.
  Along with having his own Muppet characters, Bill has taken over several of Jim Henson's roles, such as Dr. Teeth, Rowlf the Dog, Mahna Mahna and Swedish Chef, and briefly took over Jerry Nelson's role of Lew Zealand.
  His film debut as a principal puppeteer was in 1996's Muppet Treasure Island as Clueless Morgan.
  In addition, Bill has produced two of the Muppets' television movies, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. Bill also provides additional voices on Kim Possible. He is a native of Yardley, Pennsylvania.
  His recent performance was in Disney's The Muppets.
  Bill is the younger brother of the children's book author and illustrator, Gene Barretta.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bill_Barretta
• Bill Brasky
  Bill Brasky was the subject of a series of sketches on the television sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live between 1996 and 1998. The sketches were written by cast member Will Ferrell and writer Adam McKay.
  The format of the sketches resembles the short-form improv game "Two Describe a Third." Three or four friends (known as the "Bill Brasky Buddies") gather in a public place to drink Scotch, smoke cigars, and loudly reminisce about their mutual acquaintance Bill Brasky. While the friends refer to Brasky in both present and past tense on occasion, it appears that Brasky is still alive: some sketches end with Brasky's appearance via a forced perspective shot that makes him look like a giant. (One sketch, set at Brasky's funeral, ends with Brasky breaking out of the coffin holding a glass of Scotch.)
  The discussions begin with an agreement that "Bill Brasky is a son of a bitch," and then proceeds to Brasky's superhuman accomplishments, usually focused on his huge size, virility, celebrity connections, amazing tolerance for drugs and alcohol, and reckless disregard for human life. The stories of Brasky's life and seemingly legendary accomplishments are exaggerated to absurd levels in the American tradition of tall tales.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Brasky
• Bill Hanrahan
  William A. "Bill" Hanrahan (September 14, 1918 – August 7, 1996), was an American radio and television announcer, perhaps best known as the "Voice of NBC News."
  Hanrahan's broadcasting career dated back to the 1940s, when he worked at WELI radio in New Haven, Connecticut , and later went to WNHC radio (now WYBC) where he was a newscaster. By 1950, he had joined the announcing staff of NBC in New York. His radio announcing credits included Inheritance, The Eternal Light, Monitor, and a 1976 special called The First Fabulous Fifty which was a companion to the network's 50th anniversary television special, The First Fifty Years.
  Hanrahan's early television credits include The Nat King Cole Show, for which he was one of the announcers during its short-lived 1956–57 run. He also did a few other entertainment-based shows over the years, including two December episodes of Saturday Night Live in 1981 (the December 5 episode with host Tim Curry and musical guest Meat Loaf and the December 12 episode with host Bill Murray and musical guests The Spinners and The Yale Whiffenpoofs) on which he substituted for Mel Brandt (who was hired to be an announcer for that season following the brief departure of Don Pardo).
  
  wn.com/Bill_Hanrahan
• 
  Bill Murray
  William James "Bill" Murray (born September 21, 1950) is an American actor, comedian and golfer. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). Murray gained additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003), that earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, and a series of films directed by Wes Anderson, including Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012).
  Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, a lumber salesman. Murray's father died in 1967 from complications of diabetes when Bill was 17 years old. Murray, along with his eight siblings, was raised in an Irish American family. Three of his siblings are actors: John Murray, Joel Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray. A sister, Nancy, is an Adrian Dominican nun in Michigan, who has traveled the United States in a one-woman programme, portraying St. Catherine of Siena.
  
  wn.com/Bill_Murray
• Bob Stutt
  Bob Stutt is a Canadian puppeteer/writer, who has starred in various children's television programs throughout his career.
  He has appeared in the following television series:
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bob_Stutt
• Brian Henson
  Brian Henson (born November 30, 1962) is an American puppeteer, director, producer, and technician. The son of puppeteers Jane and Jim Henson, Brian was born in New York City, New York. His sister Lisa is the CEO and he is chairman of the Jim Henson Company.
  Brian Henson was the third child of Jane and Jim Henson. As a child, he made several cameo appearances in some of the filmed segments his father produced for the PBS children's series Sesame Street, most notably in various segments of the "Number Song Series." As he got older, he built the very first Muppet penguin puppet for the opening "Lullaby of Broadway" segment of a season three episode of The Muppet Show guest starring Gilda Radner. During his summer break from high school in 1980, he assisted in the bicycle sequence from The Great Muppet Caper (1981). He helped create and operate a special rigging device that was created to allow the Muppets to ride bicycles, since he was skilled in the use of marionette puppets. A few years later, he similarly operated a marionette of Scooter riding a bicycle in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).
  
  wn.com/Brian_Henson
• Brian Meehl
  Brian Meehl (also known as Brian Muehl), is an American puppeteer and writer.
  Brian Muehl worked on The Muppet Show performing small roles and assisting the principal puppeteers. He later worked on Sesame Street, performing Barkley, Grundgetta, Telly Monster, and an early version of Elmo, among other characters.
  In 1984, he left the Muppets and began writing for children's television series including Between the Lions, Codename: Kids Next Door, Cyberchase, Eureeka's Castle, and The Magic School Bus.
  He has written four young adult novels: Out of Patience (2008), Suck It Up (2009), You Don't Know About Me (2011), and Suck It Up and Die (2012).
  
  
  
  wn.com/Brian_Meehl
• Bruce Lanoil
  Bruce Lanoil is a puppeteer for The Jim Henson Company who frequently works with puppeteer David Alan Barclay and hails from Brooklyn. He voiced The Cat in the Hat and Fox in Socks in the first season of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. He is also the new voice double for Timon from The Lion King. So far he has voiced Timon in Kingdom Hearts II and Disney's "Wild About Safety" shorts. He has also performed a voice sample for an additional character in the 2011 Spyro game, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.
  He worked as a puppeteer on movies such as Dr. Dolittle, Jack Frost, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, and Cats & Dogs.
  Outside of the Henson company, he was an on-set animation reference puppeteer and voice actor for the movies Monkeybone and Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Bruce_Lanoil
• 
  Bunsen Honeydew
  Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is a Muppet from The Muppet Show, performed by Dave Goelz. He is a bald, bespectacled, lab-coated scientist who would do periodic science segments from "Muppet Labs, where the future is being made today." The muppet has no eyes, only completely transparent, lensless glasses. This makes him appear a very absent-minded intellectual. He was named after Robert Bunsen, inventor of the Bunsen Burner. His last name is an obvious reference to the honeydew melon for which his head bears a striking resemblance.
  Honeydew's experiments usually cause great harm to his long-suffering assistant Beaker, a nearly mute Muppet with a shock of reddish hair. Honeydew worked alone in the first season of The Muppet Show, but from the second season onward, the luckless Beaker would always be present.
  Some of the inventions that were created and tested included: edible paper clips, a gorilla detector, hair-growing tonic, banana sharpener, a robot politician and an electric nose warmer. In response to the ancient quest of alchemy to turn lead into gold, Honeydew created a device that turned gold into cottage cheese.
  
  wn.com/Bunsen_Honeydew
• Carmen Osbahr
  Carmen Osbahr is an American actress who has puppeteered Rosita in the popular US children's series Sesame Street, since 1991. Osbahr has also puppeteered Kiki Flores in The Puzzle Place
  Currently, Osbahr also puppeteers Lilly in Johnny and the Sprites.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Carmen_Osbahr
• 
  Caroll Spinney
  Caroll Edwin Spinney (born December 26, 1933), is an American puppeteer most famous for playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on the children's television show Sesame Street. He has sometimes been credited as Carroll Spinney or Ed Spinney.
  Spinney was born in Waltham, Massachusetts (part of the greater Boston area). He has been drawing and painting since he was a child. He graduated from Acton High School.
  He served in the US Air Force.
  While in the Air Force, Spinney wrote and illustrated Harvey, a comic strip about military life. He also animated a series of black and white cartoons called Crazy Crayon. These were done under the pseudonym "Ed Spinney."
  In 1955, Spinney headed to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he created the show Rascal Rabbit. He returned to Boston, joining The Judy and Goggle Show in 1958 as a puppeteer. At this series, he was Goggle, to Judy Valentine's Judy.
  Throughout the 1960s, he performed on the Boston broadcast of Bozo's Big Top, where he played Mr. Lion, who created cartoons from the names of children participating in the show. Through that decade, he was also a commercial artist and animator.
  
  wn.com/Caroll_Spinney
• Cheryl Blaylock
  Cheryl Blaylock is an American puppeteer, actress and comedienne on Eureeka's Castle from 1989 to 1995. Before she was on Eureeka's Castle, she was on Sesame Street, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. After Eureeka's Castle, Blaylock was on other shows like Oobi, The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth, The Reunion ^{[disambiguation needed ]}, and Blue's Room. She also was a cinematographer for Act As If.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Cheryl_Blaylock
• Cheryl Wagner
  Cheryl Wagner, the creator of The Big Comfy Couch, is a Gemini Award and Emmy award- winning Canadian children’s television writer, showrunner and producer who began her career as a performer in both theatre and on the screen. Her Halifax-based touring Merrytime Clown and Puppet Company in which Wagner worked as a clown and puppeteer from 1977 to 1980 provided a fertile ground for her later work as a producer and writer in children's entertainment.
  Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock lured Wagner back to her hometown of Toronto to work as a puppeteer for the full five years and 96 episodes of the series from 1982-87. Wagner was Jim Henson's right hand when he performed his Fraggle characters Cantus and Convincing John. For season 2 to season 5 (1984 to 1987), Wagner provided the voice for the character Ma Gorg.
  In 1984, Wagner performed as the meddling social worker Miss Finch [body suit] for the CTW Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird.
  Other television puppetry work included Annie on CBC's long-running preschool series Mr. Dressup and the role of Mrs. Pennypacker on TVO's Today's Special.
  
  wn.com/Cheryl_Wagner
• 
  Christopher Guest
  Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is a British and American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor, and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that feature a repertory-like ensemble cast. In Britain, he holds a peerage, and has publicly expressed a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically-elected chamber. Despite initial activity in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the House of Lords Act 1999. When using his title, he is normally styled as Lord Haden-Guest.
  Guest was born in New York City, the son of Peter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became The 4th Baron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a former vice president of casting at CBS. Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. His paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was a Labour Party politician who was a convert to Judaism, and his paternal grandmother's father was Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a British officer who founded the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade and the Maccabaeans. Both of Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest had no religious upbringing. Nearly a decade before he was born, his uncle David Guest, a lecturer and Communist Party member, was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting in the International Brigades.
  
  wn.com/Christopher_Guest
• 
  Dave Goelz
  Dave Goelz (born July 16, 1946) is a puppeteer best known for his association with The Muppets, and in particular with the Muppet character Gonzo. His other Muppet characters include Bunsen Honeydew, Zoot (the saxophonist of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem), Beauregard the janitor and Tiny (the humungous chicken in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland) . He also performed the characters of Boober Fraggle and Uncle Travelling Matt on Fraggle Rock. He also performed the puppetry for various characters, including Sir Didymus and Wiseman's Hat (both voiced by David Shaughnessy) in Labyrinth. Outside of puppeteering, he is the current voice actor for the Disney character Figment. After Jim Henson died in 1990, Goelz took over puppeteering Waldorf in 1992.
  Born in Burbank, California, Goelz had an interest in puppetry as a child, including an affinity for the children's television show Time for Beany, but after high school, attended the Los Angeles Art Center's College of Design and began work as an industrial designer. The mechanically-minded Goelz worked for such companies as John Deere, American Airlines, and Hewlett Packard. However, when Sesame Street premiered, he was fascinated by the craftsmanship, as he recalled in a Muppet Central interview:
  
  wn.com/Dave_Goelz
• David Rudman
  David Rudman (born June 1, 1964) is a puppeteer, voice actor and producer, best known as a performer of many of Sesame Street's Muppets. He originated the role of Baby Bear, and has been nominated for two Emmy Awards for his work replacing Frank Oz in the role of Cookie Monster. However, Oz still comes in to record new material with Cookie Monster occasionally.
  Rudman also took over as Richard Hunt's half of "The Two Headed Monster" after his death, along with Sonny Friendly, and also he took over for Sully to Jerry Nelson's Biff, the construction workers. He has also taken over two roles once held by Richard Hunt: Scooter and Janice of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem.
  His first production was Rankin/Bass productions such as Rudolph's Shiny New Year.
  He is currently the executive producer of Jack's Big Music Show on cable TV's Nick Jr. channel, and performs the voice of Jack, the lead character. He is also the executive producer, co-creator, and director of Bunnytown on cable TV's Playhouse Disney.
  
  wn.com/David_Rudman
• 
  Dick Ebersol
  Duncanson McCann "Dick" Ebersol ( /ˈɛbərsɒl/; born July 28, 1947) is an American television executive and a senior adviser for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. He had previously been the chairman of NBC Sports, producing large scale television events such as the Olympic Games and National Football League broadcasts.
  Ebersol was born in Torrington, Connecticut, the son of Mary D. and Charles R. Ebersol, a former chairman of the American Cancer Society. Beginning in 1967, at the age of twenty, Ebersol began his long history with the Olympics when he temporarily dropped out of Yale University to join Roone Arledge and ABC Sports as television’s first-ever Olympic researcher.
  In 1974, he joined NBC as Director of Weekend Late Night Programming. It was in 1975 that Ebersol and Lorne Michaels conceived and developed Saturday Night Live. Named as Vice President of Late Night Programming at age 28, Ebersol became NBC's first-ever vice president under the age of 30. After a brief departure, he returned to SNL in 1981 as executive producer and remained until 1985, spanning the Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal eras.
  
  wn.com/Dick_Ebersol
• Don Austen
  British puppeteer Don Austen joined the Jim Henson Creature Shop in 1986 for the movie Labyrinth. He was a puppeteer for other blockbuster movies including Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), The Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Bear (L'ours) (1988), The Witches (1990), and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).
  Most notably he performed in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), inside both the Ghost of Christmas Present (alongside Michael Caine) and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He also managed briefly to boost numbers in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) as Pirate Crew & Cannibals.
  Austen's British TV debut was on the irreverent cult ITV puppet show Spitting Image. (1987–90)
  Austen voiced and puppeteered Sky One's DJ Kat for more than 2000 award-winning DJ Kat Shows (1989–95) and 200 breakfast shows as Earl E Bird on Channel 4's Early Bird (1991).
  Austen voiced/puppeteered feline gang leader Danny Mogg (1991) in comedy drama series The Wild Bunch. This TF1/Channel 4 co-production, recorded at AB Studios Paris, was a vehicle for French TV star Dorothee.
  
  wn.com/Don_Austen
• Don Pardo
  Dominick George "Don" Pardo (born February 22, 1918) is an American radio and television announcer. He is best known as the voice of the long-running late night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.
  Pardo is noted for his long association with NBC, working as the announcer for early incarnations of such notable shows as The Price is Right, Jeopardy!, and NBC Nightly News. He has acted as the announcer of Saturday Night Live for all but one of its seasons. He continues his voiceover duties during the program's opening montage, several years after his official retirement from NBC.
  Pardo was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, and spent his childhood in Norwich, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was hired for his first radio position at WJAR-AM in Providence in 1938. Pardo joined NBC as an in-house announcer in 1944, remaining on the network staff for the next 60 years. During World War II, he worked as a war reporter for NBC radio.
  In the early 1950s, he served as announcer for many of RCA's and NBC's closed-circuit color television demonstrations, but eventually became one of the top game-show announcers for the network.
  
  wn.com/Don_Pardo
• Don Roy King
  Don Roy King is the director of Saturday Night Live, having assumed the role in 2006. His other directing work includes Survivor (including the live Survivor finales on CBS), The Early Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. He has directed morning shows at CBS and ABC.
  He has directed all four Direct from Broadway musicals captured on film by Broadway Worldwide, most recently Memphis in 2010.
  
  wn.com/Don_Roy_King
• Drew Massey
  Drew Massey is a puppeteer for The Jim Henson Company for the Muppets and has performed in many TV shows, movies, and TV commercials. He also lends his voice for commercials and video games. His film credits include The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, The Producers, Dr. Dolittle, Cats & Dogs, Team America, and Men in Black I and II. Massey has also performed on TV in Greg the Bunny, Angel, Malcolm in the Middle, Muppets Tonight, Cousin Skeeter, Lost on Earth, and Crank Yankers; and in TV advertisements for Foster Farms (as the driver chicken), Sony (the blue guy) and Levi's (as Flat Eric). He is the star of The Sam Plenty Cavalcade of Action Show Plus Singing!, playing the titular role of Sam Plenty.
  
  
  
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• 
  Ellen Greene
  Ellen Greene (born February 22, 1951) is an American singer and actress. Greene has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actor and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films – notably Little Shop of Horrors – and television programs. She starred as Vivian Charles on the ABC series Pushing Daisies.
  Greene was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother is a guidance counselor, and her father is a dentist. She attended W. Tresper Clarke High School, in Westbury, New York. She spent summers at Cejwin Camps in Port Jervis, New York where she performed in musical theater productions, including the role of Tzeitel in a 1966 production of Fiddler on the Roof. She was first married to Tibor Hardik. She also had a relationship with Martin P. Robinson. She has been married to Christian Klikovits since September 25, 2003.
  Greene’s career began as a nightclub singer in clubs such as The Brothers and Sisters, Grand Finale and Reno Sweeney. She received rave reviews from critics such as Rex Reed, George Bell and John S. Wilson. Around this time she befriended the late Peter Allen. Her first starring role was as the lead in the notorious Broadway bomb, Rachael Lily Rosenbloom (And Don't You Ever Forget It) in 1973, which co-starred Anita Morris.
  
  wn.com/Ellen_Greene
• Eren Ozker
  Eren Ozker (Turkish: Eren Özker; 25 July 1948 – 25 February 1993) was a Turkish American Puppeteer. She was one of the original performers during the first season of Jim Henson's popular television series, The Muppet Show.
  Ozker was born in Ankara, Turkey and grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, USA. She received a bachelor's degree in drama from the University of Michigan in 1970. Right after graduating, she toured with the National Shakespeare Company, appearing in Hamlet (Ophelia) and the Merchant of Venice, (Jessica). She moved to New York, USA shortly after to perform in numerous off-Broadway productions. Reviews described her as "an Off-Broadway favorite" and as "a fire-cracker burning at both ends". In 1975 she joined the Hartman Theater Company for its first production The Government Inspector, meeting her future husband William Bogert in the process, during the original production of The Runner Stumbles.
  In 1976 Ozker went to England and joined the cast of The Muppet Show. As the only full-time female Muppeteer on the show at the time, she performed most of the female characters. These included:
  
  wn.com/Eren_Ozker
• Eric Jacobson
  Eric Jacobson (born July 25th, 1970) is a puppeteer and Muppet performer, who has assumed the role of performing Frank Oz's characters since 2001.
  Jacobson initially started playing Bert in 1997, but officially joined the cast as Bert and additional Muppets in 2000.^{[citation needed]} His role expanded in 2002 to include new Grover segments, particularly Global Grover. In 2001 he and David Rudman played Cookie Monster until 2002 when Sesame Workshop chose David as Cookie so there would be more interaction between Bert, Grover and Cookie Monster. However, Oz occasionally comes in to record new material with those characters.
  His second role came in 2001 with The Book of Pooh, where he worked on Piglet and Kanga. That year, he also began playing Miss Piggy, debuting at the "Muppetfest" convention. Subsequently, in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), he performed the roles of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal. In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005), as well as Sam the Eagle.
  Jacobson is currently an active puppeteer for many Muppet productions, such as Disney's The Muppets Studio and Sesame Workshop's Sesame Street.
  
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• 
  Flemish people
  Today, the Flemings or Flemish (Dutch: “de Vlamingen”; French: “les Flamands”) refers to the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons. The Flemings make up the majority of the Belgian population (about 60%). Historically, “the Flemings” also refers to the inhabitants of the ancient county of Flanders, including the French-speaking or Picard-speaking Flemings of the regions around Tournai (today in Wallonia), Lille and Douai (today in French Flanders), who were called “les Flamands wallons” (the Romance Flemings).
  The feel of 'Flemish' being a national identity increased heavily, shortly after the Belgian Revolution. Prior to this, the term 'Flemings' in the Dutch language was in first place used for the inhabitants of the former County of Flanders. Flemish however had been used since the 14th century to describe the language of both the peoples of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant. Italians started in 15th century to describe both peoples as 'Fiamingi', the English and the French followed in the 16th. The sentiments of having somehow a common identity, despite belonging to different states (most notably the share of a common language, the deeply felt need to 'act as one' against any foreign state) existed already in the Middle Ages. An example is the 'Flemish-Brabant Co-operation Treaty' (Vlaams-Brabants samenwerkingsverdag) from 3/12/1339 imposed by the main cities of both states upon their rulers. It must noted that the modern Belgian province of Limburg -nowadays Flemish- was not part of this.
  
  wn.com/Flemish_people
• Fran Brill
  Frances Joan "Fran" Brill (born September 30, 1946) is an American actress and puppeteer, best known for her roles on Sesame Street and playing Lily Marvin in the Frank Oz film, What About Bob?.
  Brill was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Linette and Joseph M. Brill. Her father was a physician. She is a graduate of Boston University.
  She began her career in theater, making her Broadway debut in the 1969 play Red, White and Maddox. Her other theatrical roles include leads at the Roundabout Theatre, Manhattan Theater Club, Playwrights Horizons and many regional theaters including the Long Wharf, Yale Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, the Mark Taper Forum and the Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has been nominated twice for a Drama Desk Award, for What Every Woman Knows (1976) and for Knuckle (1981), respectively.
  From 1974-1975, Brill played Fran Bachman on NBC's daytime drama How to Survive a Marriage. Her character struggled with sudden widowhood, and Brill received over a thousand condolence letters. Brill was also featured in episodes of The Guiding Light, All My Children, The Edge of Night, Hyde in Hollywood, Lip Service and Kate and Allie. She has also guest-starred on nighttime dramas such as Third Watch, Against the Law, Law & Order, and Law & Order: SVU.
  
  wn.com/Fran_Brill
• Frank Meschkuleit
  Frank Meschkuleit is a voice actor who plays the voice of Toopy on the television series Toopy and Binoo. He has also performed as a voice actor and puppeteer on other shows, such as Don't Eat the Neighbours and Dragon. He was also the suit performer for Junior Gorg for the fifth and final season of Fraggle Rock.
  
  
  
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• Frank Oz
  Frank Oz (born Frank Richard Oznowicz; b. May 25, 1944) is an American film director, actor, voice actor and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show, as well as Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover in Sesame Street. His work as a film director includes 1986's Little Shop of Horrors remake and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He is also the operator and voice of Yoda in the Star Wars film series.
  Oz was born in Hereford, England, the son of Frances (née Ghevaert) and Isidore Oznowicz, both of whom were puppeteers. His parents moved to England after fighting the Nazis with the Dutch Brigades. Oz's Dutch/Polish father was Jewish and his Flemish mother was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Oz moved to Oakland, California, United States, with his parents when he was five years old. He attended Oakland Technical High School and Oakland City College. He worked for a time with the Vagabond Puppets, a production of the Oakland Recreation Department, where Lettie Connell was his mentor.
  
  wn.com/Frank_Oz
• 
  George Lucas
  George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film producer, screenwriter, director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2011.
  George Lucas was born in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas, Sr. (1913–1991), who owned a stationery store.
  Lucas grew up in the Central Valley town of Modesto and his early passion for cars and motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his USC student film 1:42.08, as well as his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, American Graffiti. Long before Lucas became obsessed with film making, he wanted to be a race-car driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. However, a near-fatal accident in his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina on June 12, 1962, just days before his high school graduation, quickly changed his mind. Instead of racing, he attended Modesto Junior College and later got accepted into a junior college to study anthropology. While taking liberal arts courses, he developed a passion for cinematography and camera tricks. George Lucas graduated from USC in California.
  
  wn.com/George_Lucas
• 
  Goldie Hawn
  Goldie Jeanne Hawn (born November 21, 1945) is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Shampoo, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the mother of actors Oliver and Kate Hudson. Hawn has maintained a relationship with actor Kurt Russell since 1983.
  Hawn was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Laura (née Steinhoff), a jewelry shop/dance school owner, and Edward Rutledge Hawn, a band musician who played at major events in Washington. She was named after her mother's aunt. She has a sister, Patricia; her brother, Edward, died before she was born. Through her father, Hawn is a direct descendant of Edward Rutledge, the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Hawn was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she went to Montgomery Blair High School. Her father was Presbyterian and her mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Hungary; Hawn had a Jewish upbringing.
  
  wn.com/Goldie_Hawn
• James Signorelli
  James Signorelli is an American director and cinematographer, best known for his work on the TV show Saturday Night Live. He has been the film segment producer for more than 400 episodes of SNL since 1976. He has produced many of the commercial parodies the show is noted for.
  
  wn.com/James_Signorelli
• Jean Doumanian
  Jean Doumanian (born Jean Karabas; ca. 1934) is an American producer. She is probably most well known for her short reign as producer of Saturday Night Live between November 1980 and March 1981. Her style and critiques angered many of the SNL staff, which soon led to the return of producer Dick Ebersol, and later Lorne Michaels.
  Doumanian was born Jean Karabas in Chicago, Illinois. She is of Greek descent, the daughter of immigrant restaurateurs, and was raised Greek Orthodox. She received her last name from her husband, John Doumanian.
  Show creator Lorne Michaels resigned as producer of SNL at the end of its fifth season and the entire cast and writing staff followed. Michaels later claimed that leaving SNL at the end of the fifth season would be the biggest error of his life. Doumanian, who had been an associate producer during the first five seasons of the show and produced a special for Michaels in 1978, was one of the few who stayed around. She was offered Michaels' job running SNL and took over the show for the 1980 season, hiring a completely new cast and new writers (many people refused to go near the show because of loyalty to Michaels). The show was plagued by problems from the start.
  
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• 
  Jennifer Barnhart
  Jennifer Barnhart (born in Hamden, Connecticut) is an American puppeteer, actress and voice-over talent, with a portfolio of television and theatre performances. She is one of the very rarely seen left-handed puppeteers.
  Barnhart graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in acting with a concentration in puppetry.
  Barnhart made her Broadway debut in 2003 and is a featured performer in the Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q, in which she also appeared Off-Broadway and also continues to play the roles that she originated on the said musical. She also stars as Cleo on PBS's literacy education series, Between the Lions, and performed the puppetry for Kanga and Owl on Disney Channel's The Book of Pooh. Barnhart is a Sesame Street Muppet performer who took over the roles of Mama Bear in 2001 and Gladys the Cow in 2002.
  Barnhart also worked as a puppeteer in Johnny and the Sprites, a Disney Channel children's show created by her Avenue Q co-star John Tartaglia.
  She appeared on screen as a puppeteer on Law & Order: SVU in May 2006, episode "Web". In regional theatre, she played the angel in Angels in America (Gallery Players), and Olivia in Twelfth Night and Cassie in Rumors (Connecticut Repertory Theatre). In 2011 she appeared as the police officer Randy Osteen in Tracy Letts's new play "Superior Donuts" at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia. In 2010, she portrayed a Chicago Police Department Detective, Lorna Diamond, in the Law & Order: SVU episode, "Behave".
  
  wn.com/Jennifer_Barnhart
• Jerry Juhl
  Jerome Ravn "Jerry" Juhl (July 27, 1938 – September 26, 2005) was an American television and movie writer, best known for his work with Jim Henson's "Muppets".
  Juhl was born in St. Paul, Minnesota; his family moved to Menlo Park, California, when he was 14. He received a bachelor's degree in theater arts from San Jose State University in 1961 and worked on children's shows for local television stations while in college. He met Frank Oz when they both worked for the Oakland Recreation Department's Vagabond Puppet Theater as teenagers. The two later met Henson at a puppeteer gathering in California.
  Juhl was recruited by Henson as a puppeteer and writer on Sam and Friends. He focused increasingly on writing as other puppeteers, such as Frank Oz, joined the Henson stable.
  Juhl was the head writer on The Muppet Show. He also wrote for the television shows Fraggle Rock, and The Jim Henson Hour. He was involved in some capacity with all of the Muppet films from the first "Muppet Movie" in 1979 to "Muppets From Space" in 1999. According to Lisa Henson, "So much of the humour, irreverence, caring and heart began with Jerry. He was, in many ways, the real voice of the Muppets."
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Juhl
• Jerry Nelson
  Jerry Nelson (born July 10, 1934) is an American Muppet puppeteer, known for his wide range of characters, singing abilities, and his frequent partnership with Richard Hunt.
  Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (he was once rumored to be born in Muskogee, Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}) and raised in Washington, D.C. He began puppeteering for Bil Baird. His first job with the Muppets was The Jimmy Dean Show in 1965. Frank Oz was going to take some time off from puppeteering, so Nelson was hired to perform Rowlf the Dog's right hand in his stead.
  After The Jimmy Dean Show closed, Nelson continued to perform Rowlf's right hand with the Dean show on its live tour. At the conclusion of the tour, Frank Oz rejoined the company. Jerry continued working with The Muppets, performing in variety shows and commercials until in 1966. The amount of work was somewhat reduced, so Jim Henson had to release Nelson. Following this, Nelson puppeteered in a number of projects in the late 1960s, but none of these would make him as famous as his years to come.
  
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  Jim Henson
  James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He died on May 16, 1990 of organ failure resulting from a Group A streptococcal infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes.
  Henson, who was born in Greenville, Mississippi and educated at University of Maryland, College Park, is one of the most widely known puppeteers ever. He created Sam and Friends as a freshman in College Park. After suffering struggles with programs that he created, he eventually was selected to participate in Sesame Street. During this time, he also contributed to Saturday Night Live. The success of Sesame Street spawned The Muppet Show, which featured Muppets created by Henson. He also co-created with Michael Jacobs the television show Dinosaurs during his final years. On June 16, 2011, he posthumously received the Disney Legends Award.
  
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  John Candy
  John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of The Second City and its related Second City Television series, and through his appearances in comedy films such as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, The Great Outdoors, Spaceballs, and Uncle Buck. One of his most renowned onscreen performances was as Del Griffith, the loquacious, on-the-move shower-curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
  Candy was born in Newmarket, Ontario in 1950. The son of Sidney James Candy and his wife Evangeline (Aker) Candy, he was raised in a working-class Roman Catholic family. His grandmother was Polish. Candy graduated from Neil McNeil High School, an all-boys Catholic public school in Toronto, where he played football.
  Candy's first movie role was a small uncredited appearance in the 1973 film Class of '44. He appeared in several other low-budget films during the 1970s, including the bank-robbery thriller The Silent Partner with Christopher Plummer and Elliott Gould. In 1976, Candy played a supporting role (with Rick Moranis) on Peter Gzowski's short-lived, late-night television talk show, Ninety Minutes Live. That same year, as a member of Toronto's branch of The Second City, he gained wide North American popularity, which grew when he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based comedy-variety show Second City Television (SCTV). NBC picked the show up in 1981 and it quickly became a fan favorite. It had won Emmy Awards for the show's writing in 1981 and 1982.
  
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• John Eccleston
  John Eccleston is a puppeteer, writer and presenter known for his work as lead puppeteer of Rygel in Farscape, Groove in The Hoobs and his many roles on British children's television alongside Don Austen. He was also behind the ITV character Gilbert the Alien, who was voiced by Phil Cornwell, He also performed Worth the Dog in the Woolworths adverts (again opposite Don Austen as Wooly The Sheep), Mervin J Minky on MTV's FURtv and Rattus Rattus on the CBBC Horrible Histories series.
  His 'in vision' television career started as one of the original presenters of the UK version of the Mickey Mouse Club, Disney Club, the success of which led to him presenting Run the Risk, The Big Dish, children's magazine show Brill, and Get The Picture for Nickelodeon. It took seven years for him to realise he didn't like being pointed at in the street and he has remained off screen ever since. He worked alongside Don Austen on the Saturday morning children's show What's Up Doc? He and Don provided the voices and operated the puppet wolves Bro & Bro. Their writing skill on this show garnered a spin-off ITV show called Wolf It! What's Up Doc?. John was approached to provide new characters for the BBC flagship series LIVE & KICKING once again teaming up with Don Austen and Darryl Worbey to create THE LEPRECHAUNS - Mr Sage and Mr Onion. The characters appeared across six years - outliving three sets of presenters. John, Don and Darryl teamed up yet again to create Scratch and Sniff (with John playing Sniff) on Ministry of Mayhem (later reworked as Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown) and the Hyenas recorded 15 episodes of the gameshow Scratch 'n' Sniff's Den Of Doom for Granada Kids. John appeared in the award winning short film The Box, directed by Michael J. Bassett and also starring Paul Hendy, Richard Orford and Laurence Akers. He also is the puppetor for Rattus on the CBBC program, Horrible Histories.
  
  wn.com/John_Eccleston
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  John Landis
  John David Landis (born August 3, 1950) is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. He is known for his comedies, his horror films, and his music videos with singer Michael Jackson.
  Landis was born to a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Shirley Levine (née Magaziner) and Marshall Landis, an interior designer and decorator. His family relocated to Los Angeles when he was four months old.
  He began working as a mailboy at 20th Century Fox. His first noteworthy job in Hollywood was working as a "go-fer" and then as an assistant director during filming MGM's Kelly's Heroes in Yugoslavia in 1969; he replaced the film's original assistant director, who suffered from a nervous breakdown and was sent home by the producers. While filming, he met actors Don Rickles and Donald Sutherland, both of whom he would later cast in his own films. Following this, Landis worked on many films made in Europe (especially in Italy and England), most notably, Once Upon a Time in the West, El Condor and A Town Called Bastard (a.k.a. A Town Called Hell). Landis also worked as a stunt double.
  
  wn.com/John_Landis
• John Lovelady
  John Lovelady is a right-handed puppeteer who worked with the Muppets, including on Sesame Street. He stopped working with the Muppets when The Muppet Show Season 1 ended but later joined the syndicated children's series The Great Space Coaster and also performed in a serialisation of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.
  
  
  
  wn.com/John_Lovelady
• John Tartaglia
  John Nicholas Tartaglia (born February 16, 1978) is an American singer, actor, dancer, and puppeteer.
  Tartaglia was born in Maple Shade, New Jersey, U.S.. He joined Sesame Street's puppetry team at the age of 16 part-time, performing as a right hand and many minor characters, including Phoebe and being the understudy for Kevin Clash's Elmo. He performed Ernie for the second season of Play with Me Sesame and Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street 4D. He became a full time part of Sesame Street at the age of 16.
  Tartaglia created and puppeteered the roles of Princeton (the recent college grad) and Rod (the closeted Republican investment banker) in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q, which opened July 31, 2003. For the roles, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical in 2004. He left the cast on January 30, 2005.
  Tartaglia appeared in 2004 at the 14th annual Broadway Bares, which was a great success raising $525,000 to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
  
  wn.com/John_Tartaglia
• Julianne Buescher
  Julianne Buescher (Born February 4, 1965 in Cleveland, Ohio) (last name pronounced Bush-er) is an actress who performs in film, television, and on stage and radio. As a voice artist, she is known for many roles including Anko Mitarashi on Naruto. Buescher is also a skilled puppeteer and has worked for both Sesame Street and The Muppets. She is also a survivor of breast cancer. Buescher also recently received an offer to join the cast of Avenue Q, she can also be heard as the announcer for E!'s The Soup, Gone Bad and Love Chain. Buescher was also a member of The Second City.
  
  wn.com/Julianne_Buescher
• Karen Prell
  Karen Prell (born in Florida) is best known as the performer of Red Fraggle in Fraggle Rock. She also performed some characters in other Jim Henson films, and has enjoyed a significant second career as a computer animator for such studios as Pixar and DNA. In Sesame Street, she performed Deena Monster, which was a background character in the classic Sesame Street. Her website includes notes about working with Jim Henson and pictures of her custom puppets.
  Prell currently^[when?] works as an animator with Valve Corporation.
  
  wn.com/Karen_Prell
• Kathryn Mullen
  Kathryn "Kathy" Mullen is an actress, voice actress, and puppeteer most closely associated with Jim Henson projects. She began performing on The Muppet Show in its third season, primarily as Gaffer the Backstage Cat. She also voice directed Dog City for Nelvana, worked as a designer for The Muppet Movie, a performing assistant for Yoda on The Empire Strikes Back, and was one of the creators of Between the Lions. While reprising this character for several Muppet movies, she also created the character of Mokey - a gentle, New Age style Fraggle - on Henson's Fraggle Rock. She performed the Gelfling Kira in the movie The Dark Crystal, Allegra on "Allegra's Window", and Leona the Lion on "Between the Lions".
  Kathy Mullen, with her husband, former Muppet designer Michael K. Frith, has joined forces with British charity "No Strings" to create a film for children in Afghanistan, warning of the dangers of land mines. In the film, "The Story of the Little Carpet Boy," one puppet loses several limbs before he learns to avoid land mines completely. Kathy and Michael picked up the idea from Johnie McGlade, an emergency aid worker who used a scruffy rabbit puppet to bring smiles to the faces of people who had lived through earthquakes, hunger, or genocide.
  
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  Kevin Clash
  Kevin Jeffrey Clash (born September 17, 1960) is an American puppeteer and voice actor whose characters include Elmo, Baby Sinclair, Clifford, Splinter and Hoots the Owl. He currently serves as Sesame Street Muppet Captain and co-executive producer.
  In the fall of 2006, Clash released an autobiography titled My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud. He is the subject of the 2011 documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey.
  Kevin Clash was born on September 17, 1960 in Baltimore, Maryland. Clash's interest in animation in general, began with watching Disney on television. Clash had a strong interest in being a puppeteer since early age. His parents were very supportive of his ideas. One day Kevin saw his father's nice church coat and decided to use it to make a puppet. When his father got home Kevin hid. His father confronted him and asked what was the puppet's name, then told him to ask permission next time. In his neighborhood growing up, Clash would put on puppet shows for the children that his mother babysat.
  
  wn.com/Kevin_Clash
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  Levi Stubbs
  Levi Stubbles (June 6, 1936 – October 17, 2008), better known by the stage name Levi Stubbs, was an American baritone singer, best known as the lead vocalist of the Motown R&B group Four Tops. He was also a voice artist, portraying villainous characters in films and animated television series, most famously having provided the voice of the alien plant Audrey II in the musical horror film Little Shop of Horrors, and Mother Brain in Captain N: The Game Master.
  Born in Detroit in 1936, Levi Stubbs began his professional singing career with friends Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton, forming a singing group called The Four Aims in 1954. Two years later, after having signed with Chess Records, the group changed their name to the Four Tops. The name change was meant to avoid confusion with the then-popular Ames Brothers. The Four Tops began as a supper-club act before signing to Motown Records in 1963. By the end of the decade, the Four Tops had over a dozen hits. The most popular of their hits (all of which featured Stubbs on lead vocals) include "Baby I Need Your Loving", "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)", "It's the Same Old Song", "Reach Out I'll Be There", "Standing in the Shadows of Love", "Bernadette", "Still Water (Love)", "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)" as well as the late hit "Loco In Acapulco". Although Stubbs was a natural baritone, most Four Tops' hits were written in a tenor range to give the lead vocals a sense of urgency.
  
  wn.com/Levi_Stubbs
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  Lorne Michaels
  Lorne Michaels, CM (born November 17, 1944) is a Canadian-Americantelevision producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.
  Michaels was born Lorne David Lipowitz in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of Florence (née Becker) and Henry Abraham Lipowitz, a furrier. He was the eldest of the Lipowitz children. He has a sister, Barbara Lipowitz, who currently resides in Toronto, and a brother, Mark Lipowitz, who died from a brain tumor. Michaels attended the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto and graduated from University College, University of Toronto, where he majored in English, in 1966. Michaels began his career as a writer and broadcaster for CBC Radio. He moved to Los Angeles from Toronto in 1968 to work as a writer for Laugh-In and The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show. He starred with Hart Pomerantz in The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour, a Canadian comedy series which ran briefly in the early 1970s. During the late 1960s, Michaels married Rosie Shuster, who later worked with him on Saturday Night Live as a writer. She was the daughter of Frank Shuster, one half of the famous comedy team, Wayne and Shuster. Michaels and Shuster were divorced in 1980.
  
  wn.com/Lorne_Michaels
• Louise Gold
  Louise Gold (born 1956) is an English singer, actress and puppeteer whose career has spanned almost four decades.
  From 1977, Gold was a puppeteer and voice actress for The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, and she has performed voice and puppet work on various other Muppet films and specials. She was a founder and lead puppeteer for the satirical television show Spitting Image from 1984 to 1986. She is also known as an actress in musical theatre, having starred in numerous shows on the West End since 1982, playing such roles as Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes, Tanya in Mamma Mia!, Phyllis in Follies, Baroness Bomburst in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Miss Andrew in Mary Poppins, and Mrs Sowerberry and Mrs Bedwin in Oliver!.
  Gold was born in London, England, to parents who were active with Unity Theatre in London. Her father was John Gold (1920–1998), a journalist, and her mother was an actress, Una Brandon-Jones (1916–2010). Her brother, Max, is also an actor. Gold trained at The Arts Educational Schools from age 11.
  
  wn.com/Louise_Gold
• Mel Brandt
  Melville Brandt (June 18, 1919 – March 14, 2008) was an actor and NBC staff announcer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York.
  Brandt joined the network around 1948. His radio announcing credits included The Adventures of Frank Merriwell, Author Meets the Critics, and The Eternal Light. In 1975, he announced for a syndicated radio program called Faces of Love.
  On television, Brandt's familiar voice was heard over the second animated version of the NBC Peacock from 1962 to 1975, announcing that the program was in "living color" on NBC. He also announced the opening of the television soap opera, The Doctors. His introduction was "The Doctors: The Emmy Award winning program, dedicated to the brotherhood of healing." He was also announcer on GE College Bowl on NBC from 1963 to 1970; his introduction was "Match wits with the champions in America's favorite question and answer game, live from New York, the General Electric College Bowl," and after a brief plug for General Electric would introduce "the man with the questions, Robert Earle."
  
  wn.com/Mel_Brandt
• 
  Michael Caine
  Sir Michael Caine, CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor.
  Caine is one of two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s, the other one being Jack Nicholson. In 2000, Caine was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to cinema.
  Caine was born in St Olave's Hospital, Rotherhithe, Southwark in South East London, the son of Ellen Frances Marie (née Burchell; 1900-1989), a cook and charwoman, and Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, a fish market porter. His father was of English, Irish, and, reportedly, Irish Traveller ancestry. Caine was brought up in his mother's Protestant religion (his father was Catholic).
  Caine grew up in Southwark, South London, and during the Second World War he was evacuated to North Runcton near King's Lynn in Norfolk. After the war, when his father was demobilised, the family was rehoused by the council in Marshall Gardens at the Elephant and Castle in a pre-fabricated house made in Canada, as much of London's housing stock had been damaged during the Blitz in 1940-41.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Caine
• Michelan Sisti
  Michelan Sisti (born May 27, 1949) is an actor and musician who played Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Before becoming a Turtle, he had an eighteen year theatrical career including five Broadway shows. Since TMNT, Micha moved from New York City to Los Angeles and has continued to work with Jim Henson Company, Walt Disney Studios, and scores of other movie and television productions, as an actor, director and puppeteer.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Michelan_Sisti
• Miles Goodman
  Miles Goodman (August 27, 1949 – August 16, 1996) was an American musician who composed music for television programs, including Teen Wolf, and many films, notably the toe-tapping tunes from Footloose (1984) and the incidental music to Little Shop of Horrors (1986). As a producer, Goodman specialized in light jazz and classics. Los Angeles-born and raised, Goodman majored in theater at Antioch College. It was his cousin Johnny Mandel who led Goodman to a music career. Goodman studied under Albert Harris during the early '70s and cut his composer's teeth as an orchestrator for a few of Mandel's scores, including Being There (1979). He officially launched his career in 1977, scoring the critically acclaimed but short-lived NBC series James at 15. On this program, he created his signature technique of combining songs with original music. By 1991, after over a decade of scoring an average of four major feature films a year, Goodman decided to take a break and so became a record producer. His first production featured harmonicist Toots Thielemans working with a variety of famed Brazilian artists on The Brasil Project (1992).
  
  wn.com/Miles_Goodman
• Nikki Tilroe
  Nikki Tilroe (December 26, 1941 – September 1, 2005) was an Emmy Award-winning American puppeteer. She is best known for her work as the "Mime Lady" on the children's television series Today's Special. She also operated Muppets on the TV show Fraggle Rock and played "Beaver" on Cucumber.
  Tilroe worked out of Toronto during the 1970s and 1980s, and served as director for Frog Print Theater. In 1975 Tilroe was awarded a "Citation of Excellence in the Art of Puppetry" by Jim Henson. In 1993 she received an Emmy Award as the head puppeteer on the production of The Land of I.
  Tilroe appeared on the children's television show Charlie Horse Music Pizza, and was one of three puppeteers to manipulate the "Snuggle Bear", a puppet designed by Kermit Love. Tilroe also taught puppetry courses through several venues, including the University of Hawaii, the Toronto Teacher's College, at festivals and conferences, and through the O'Neill Puppetry Conference. She also wrote about puppetry, including the 1996 booklet, Movement in puppetry performance.
  
  wn.com/Nikki_Tilroe
• Noel MacNeal
  Noel MacNeal (born September 15, 1961 in Harlem, New York City) is a puppeteer, writer, and director of children's television, best known as the voice and puppeteer of Bear in Bear in the Big Blue House and Breakfast with Bear. He first came to public attention in the early 1980s.
  On November 6, 1999, he married author Susan Elia at Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary. Their son, Matthew, was born in 2005.
  Noel portrays the environmentally friendly character ZoZo^{[citation needed]} a mascot for safer streets, green transportation and useful public spaces. This Jim Henson designed and created walk around puppet is used by Livable Streets Education to talk about these issues with young children and families.
  Among his characters are Bear, Mrs. (Mommy) Snuffleupagus and various Snuffleupagus relatives on Sesame Street. He has also been Magellan, a baby dragon, on the ACE Award winning series Eureeka's Castle on Nick Jr, Leon MacNeal in The Puzzle Place; Raphael in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III and Madame Chairbird in the film Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird.
  
  wn.com/Noel_MacNeal
• Pam Arciero
  Pam Arciero (born May 8, 1954 in Honolulu, Hawaii), is puppeteer and voice-over artist who portrays Oscar the Grouch's girlfriend, Grundgetta, on Sesame Street.
  Arciero earned her Master's in Puppetry from the University of Connecticut.
  Arciero took over the role of Grundgetta for Sesame Street from Brian Muehl, performing her in The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson and Sesame Street: A Is for Asthma.
  She has performed characters for Allegra's Window, Between the Lions, Eureeka's Castle and The Great Space Coaster.
  She performed in Little Shop of Horrors at the Orpheum Theater and served as director for several live shows at Sesame Place and El Capitan Theater in Los Angeles.
  Arciero has served as Artistic Director for the O'Neill puppetry conference since 2002 and continues to participate in puppetry workshops and other events across the country.
  She appears as herself in the documentaries Henson's Place and The World of Jim Henson.
  
  wn.com/Pam_Arciero
• Pepe the King Prawn
  Pepe the King Prawn is a Muppet character created for Muppets Tonight and performed by Bill Barretta, originally as part of a vaudeville double act with Seymour the Elephant. Pepe has become one of the most popular Muppet characters, providing "comedic relief" in major supporting roles similar to Rizzo the Rat and appearing in most major Muppet productions since his introduction. He and Bobo the Bear are the only Muppet characters exclusively created for Muppets Tonight that still feature prominently in the Muppets franchise.
  Pepe is Spanish (his full name is Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales) and speaks with a heavy accent, punctuating his sentences with "Okay?" His character plays on many Latino stereotypes: he has a fiery temper (especially when referred to as a "shrimp"), and thinks of himself as a lothario, often making suggestive remarks, for example when he appeared on The Bonnie Hunt Show to promote his book and A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa. Pepe is also a schemer, willing to betray or at least take advantage of his friends: he allied with Ms. Bitterman in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and works with Rizzo to trick Gonzo into building a Jacuzzi in Muppets From Space. His conscience usually wins out and makes him do what's right in the end.
  
  wn.com/Pepe_the_King_Prawn
• Peter Friedman
  Peter Friedman (born April 24, 1949) is an American stage, film and television actor.
  Born in New York City, Friedman graduated from Hofstra University before making his Broadway debut in The Great God Brown in 1972. Additional theatre credits include The Visit (1973), Piaf and A Soldier's Play (both 1981), The Heidi Chronicles (1989), Ragtime (1998), and Twelve Angry Men (2004). He has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical, Outstanding Actor in a Play, and Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.
  On television, Friedman starred as patriarch George Silver in Brooklyn Bridge, has made numerous guest appearances in such series as Miami Vice, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, Without a Trace, Ghost Whisperer, and Damages, and had a featured role in Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder. Early in his career he performed in several episodes of The Muppet Show in its first and third seasons, and spent a brief time on Sesame Street.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Friedman
• Peter Linz
  Peter Linz (b. June 28, 1967) is an American puppeteer.
  He has voiced many characters on children's television shows, including Blue's Clues, Sesame Street,The Puzzle Place, and Bear in the Big Blue House. Perhaps some of his best known voice roles are Snook in It's a Big Big World and Theo Lion in Between the Lions. He is the voice and puppeteer for the character Walter in the 2011 feature film The Muppets.
  Linz also performed in the Broadway musical Avenue Q.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Peter_Linz
• 
  Richard Dreyfuss
  Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob?, Poseidon, and Mr. Holland's Opus.
  Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1977 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland's Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries categories.
  Dreyfuss was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. Dreyfuss is Jewish. He has commented that he "grew up thinking that Alfred Dreyfus and [he] are of the same family." His father disliked New York City, and moved the family first to Europe, and later to Los Angeles, when Dreyfuss was nine. Dreyfuss attended Beverly Hills High School.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Dreyfuss
• 
  Rick Moranis
  Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is an American actor. Moranis came to prominence around 1980 in the sketch comedy show Second City Television, and later appeared in several Hollywood films including Strange Brew; Ghostbusters; Spaceballs; Little Shop of Horrors; Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Little Giants; Parenthood; The Flintstones; and My Blue Heaven.He is the widower of his only wife Anne Moranis.
  Moranis was born in Toronto, Ontario, and went to high school at the Sir Sandford Fleming Secondary School. He went to elementary school with Geddy Lee, frontman of the rock band Rush. His career as an entertainer began as a radio disc jockey in the mid-1970s, using the on-air name of "Rick Alan" at three Toronto radio stations.
  In 1980, Moranis was persuaded to join the third-season cast of Second City Television (SCTV) by friend and SCTV writer/performer Dave Thomas. At the time, Moranis was the only cast member who had not come from a Second City stage troupe. He became famous for his impressions of Woody Allen and George Carlin, among many others.
  
  wn.com/Rick_Moranis
• Ron Mueck
  Ronald "Ron" Mueck (English pronunciation: /mjuːɛk/ or /muːɪk/; born 1958, Melbourne) is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.
  Ron Mueck began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood. He was the creative director and made, voiced and operated the puppets Greenfinger the Garden Gnome, Ol' Possum, Stanley the snake and Claude the Crow amongst many others. The show was made for Channel 7 Melbourne between 1979 and 1984, broadcast nationally and starred the ex-lead singer of Skyhooks, Graeme "Shirley" Strachan.
  Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, notably the film Labyrinth for which he also contributed the voice of Ludo, and the Jim Henson series The Storyteller.
  Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side. Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles.
  
  wn.com/Ron_Mueck
• Sandra Shamas
  Sandra Shamas (born 1957 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a Canadian comedic actress and writer.
  The oldest of three children born to Lebanese immigrants, Shamas left home at age 17 and moved to Toronto, where she held a variety of jobs before a workshop at The Second City inspired her to pursue a career in performing arts. She acted with Second City and Theatresports, and worked as a puppeteer on the children's series Fraggle Rock before deciding to strike out on her own.
  In 1987, she applied to the Edmonton Fringe Festival to perform her first show, My Boyfriend's Back and There's Gonna Be Laundry. The show, a mixture of personal stories drawn from her own life and observational humour about dating and relationships, was accepted and became the smash hit of the festival, and soon Shamas was on tour performing the show across the country.
  In 1989, Shamas began performing the sequel, My Boyfriend's Back and There's Gonna Be Laundry II: The Cycle Continues. A third show, Wedding Bell Hell, dealing with wedding rituals such as the bridal shower and selection of the wedding rings and dress, made its debut in 1991.
  
  wn.com/Sandra_Shamas
• Statler and Waldorf
  Statler and Waldorf are a pair of Muppet characters. They are two disagreeable old men who first appeared in the television series The Muppet Show heckling the rest of the cast from their balcony seats. They appeared in every episode of the show, except for one. (In one episode, Waldorf appeared alone at the beginning, explaining that Statler was sick, and that Waldorf's wife would substitute. Her name turned out to be "Astoria." She looked remarkably like Statler wearing a dress.) In The Muppet Show, the two were always trashing Fozzie Bear's poor jokes, except for one occasion where Fozzie, with help from Bruce Forsyth, heckled them back. In contrast, they found themselves vastly entertaining and inevitably burst into mutual laughter at their own witticisms. It is later revealed in the Muppet Family Christmas special that the two hecklers were friends with Fozzie's mother, Emily Bear. Despite constantly complaining about the show and how terrible some acts were, they would always be back the following week in the best seats in the house. As to why, the original version of The Muppet Show theme song had Statler admitting, "I guess we'll never know."
  
  wn.com/Statler_and_Waldorf
• 
  Steve Martin
  Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, author, playwright, producer, musician and composer. Martin came to public notice as a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and later became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show. In the 1970s, Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before packed houses on national tours. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.
  Since the 1980s, having branched away from stand-up comedy, Martin has become a successful actor in both comedic and dramatic roles, as well as an author, playwright, pianist, and banjo player, eventually earning Emmy, Grammy, and American Comedy awards, among other honors.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Martin
• Steve Whitmire
  Steven Whitmire (born September 24, 1959) is an American puppeteer. He works for The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop and Disney's The Muppets Studio.
  Whitmire was born near Atlanta, Georgia. During childhood, he professed interest in puppetry. While in high school at Berkmar High School, Whitmire's nickname was "Kermit" because of his interest in the Muppets. He built his own crude version of Henson's alter ego, and performed the character at high school talent shows and choral recitals.
  Whitmire first appeared on local Atlanta TV with his then alter ego puppet Otis. WATL-TV was owned at that time by former Atlanta children's television host "Officer Don" Kennedy. Otis made appearances on various WATL 36 shows with Ludlow Porch, voice of the Georgia Bulldogs Larry Munson, Don Kennedy and Entertainment Page host Artie Goodman. As Otis, Whitmire interviewed Olivia Newton John during a tour promoting an album.
  He worked with puppets after graduating high school, and eventually got a job working on The Muppet Show in 1978. Since then, Whitmire has performed in almost every major Henson company project, including non-Muppet fare such as the feature films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and the ABC television series Dinosaurs.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Whitmire
• Swedish Chef
  The Swedish Chef is a Muppet that appeared on The Muppet Show. He was operated by Jim Henson and Frank Oz simultaneously and is now puppeteered by Bill Barretta.
  A parody of television chefs, the Swedish Chef wears a toque blanche and has bushy eyebrows that completely obscure his eyes. He was one of the few Muppets to employ an actual puppeteer's hands, originally Oz's, in the designs – that is, they were visible to the audience through his sleeves and facilitated handling food and utensils.
  Nearly all Swedish Chef sketches begin with him in a kitchen, waving some utensils while singing his signature song in his typical mock Swedish – a semi-comprehensible gibberish mimicking Swedish phonology and prosody. The song's lyrics vary slightly from one episode to the next, but always end with "Bork, bork, bork!" (translates as 'away/be gone') as the Chef throws the utensils (or whatever else may be in his hands) aside with a clatter that seems to startle him.
  After this introduction, the Chef begins to prepare a recipe while giving a gibberish explanation of what he is doing. His commentary is spiced with the occasional English word to clue in the viewer to what he is attempting; for example, "Aweenda shmure da froog's legs." These hints are necessary as he frequently uses unorthodox culinary equipment (firearms, sports equipment, hand tools, etc.) to prepare his dishes. In the pilot episode of The Muppet Show, the Chef's commentary was supplemented by Chinese subtitles, but this was abandoned for all other episodes of the series. The sketch typically degenerates into a slapstick finale where the ingredients or equipment get the better of him.
  
  wn.com/Swedish_Chef
• 
  Terry Angus
  Terence "Terry" Angus (born 14 January 1966 in Coventry) is a retired English professional footballer who played for VS Rugby, Northampton Town, Fulham, Slough Town and Nuneaton Borough. Despite a series of injuries, Angus was still active as a player up to the age of 40. He is particularly a legend at Nuneaton Borough, known as "Super Terry Angus"
  
  
  
  wn.com/Terry_Angus
• Tim Gosley
  Tim Gosley is a Canadian puppeteer who is primarily known for his work on numerous Muppet productions. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from the University of Alberta and studied puppeteering with Richard Hunt from 1981-1983. He began his career portraying several minor characters on the television program Fraggle Rock from 1983-1987. He then began portraying Basil the polar bear on Sesame Park, the Canadian version of Sesame Street, a role he performed regularly for nine seasons.
  In 1985 Gosley was the puppeteer for Honker in the film Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird. His other television and film credits include The Argon Quest, Blizzard Island, Iris the Happy Professor, Basil Hears a Noise, and Caillou. He has also worked as a writer for the animated television series Fix and Foxi.
  In 2003, Gosley won a Gemini Award for best preschool puppet performance. He has also presented several shadow puppet performances and has toured with his one-man puppet show version of The Ugly Duckling.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Gosley
• Tim Lagasse
  Timothy Lagasse is a puppeteer, puppet designer, and filmmaker. He earned his BFA from the University of Connecticut. Lagasse acts as a puppeteering consultant, and creates puppet films for stations like PBS, MTV, HBO, and Nickelodeon. In addition to his performance credits, Tim also teaches the art of puppetry, lecturing at the Lincoln Center Foundation and instructing students on modern television puppet techniques at the Puppet Arts Program at the University of Connecticut.
  
  wn.com/Tim_Lagasse
• Tyler Bunch
  Tyler Bunch is a puppeteer, puppet designer, director and actor. In addition to his work for the Jim Henson Company, Bunch has created and performed puppets for PBS, Nickelodeon, and Disney's The Muppets Studio. He has acted in a few Off Broadway productions and has made appearances on American television shows such as Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Currently he is directing the PBS children's television series SeeMore's Playhouse. He is also currently slated to be one of the puppeteers for the musical stage adaptation of Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Tyler_Bunch
• Victor Yerrid
  Victor Yerrid is a puppeteer for the Jim Henson Company and has performed Muppet characters in many TV shows, movies, and TV commercials. Yerrid is best known in the Muppet World for his work on the online series Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony, in which he performed Waldorf along with an assortment of other characters.
  Yerrid is also a lead performer of the Jim Henson Company's Puppet Up! improv show and is currently working on The Skrumps for the company as well. He also was a lead puppeteer on the shows Crank Yankers and Greg the Bunny.
  Victor Yerrid is a frequent collaborator and working partner of Drew Massey.
  
  wn.com/Victor_Yerrid
• 
  Vincent Gardenia
  Vincent Gardenia (born Vincenzo Scognamiglio, January 7, 1920 – December 9, 1992) was an Italian American stage, film, and television actor.
  Gardenia was born Vincenzo Scognamiglio in Naples, Italy, the son of Elisa and Gennaro Gardenia Scognamiglio. After emigrating to the United States at the age 2, he lived most of his life in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, he performed in a family acting troupe in Italian-American neighborhoods in and around New York City.
  When Vincent Gardenia was 2-years-old, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York City, and his father established an Italian-language acting troupe that specialized in melodramas. "The titles changed, but they were usually about a son or daughter who gets in trouble, runs away, then begs forgiveness," Gardenia said. At age 5, he made his stage debut in his father's company as a shoeshine boy, and while still a teen-ager he was playing character roles. He continued acting in the company until 1960, five years after he took his first English-language stage role.
  
  wn.com/Vincent_Gardenia
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata

L. Frank Baum: Royal Historian of Oz ()

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