Puppets have been around for thousands of years, but the proto-Muppets that began to appear on Sam and Friends were different. Kermit was there, looking and sounding much as he would later (until his death Henson always animated Kermit and provided his voice). Typical hand puppets have solid heads, but Kermit's face was soft and mobile, and he could move his mouth in synchronization with his speech; he could also gesticulate more facilely than a marionette, with rods moving his arms. For television, Henson realized, it was necessary to invent puppets that had "life and sensitivity." (Henson sometimes said Muppet was a combination of puppet and marionette, but it seems the word came to him and he liked it, and later thought up a derivation.)

Throughout the early 1960s, the Muppets made appearances on the Today show and a range of variety programs. Then, in 1969, came Sesame Street. Henson was always careful not to take the credit for Sesame Street's achievements. It was not his program, after all — the Children's Television Workshop hired him. In fact, Henson hesitated to join the show, since he did not want to become stuck as a children's entertainer. Nonetheless, few would disagree that it was primarily Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Grover and the rest who made Sesame Street so captivating. Joan Ganz Cooney, who created the show, once remarked that the group involved with it had a collective genius but that Henson was the only individual genius. "He was our era's Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, W.C. Fields and Marx Brothers," Cooney said, "and indeed he drew from all of them to create a new art form that influenced popular culture around the world."

Since Sesame Street has been on the air for 30 years and has been shown in scores of countries, Henson's Muppets have entranced hundreds of millions of children. And the audience for the Muppets has not only been huge; it has also been passionate. In fact, given the number of his fans and the intensity of their devotion, Kermit may possibly be the leading children's character of the century, more significant than even Peter Pan or Winnie-the-Pooh.

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Nov. 23, 1970

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