Muppet Fandom: The Timeline

Published: April 22, 2024

The following article – and all of its incredible research – was provided by Tori Schmidt. In addition to being fascinated by Muppet fandom, Tori also runs the Muppets No Context Twitter and hosts the Muppetwt Awards, The Muppies, and The Muppet Hall of Fame.

What deserves a hall of fame? Ever since I was little, for whatever reason, I was obsessed with the concept of a hall of fame. There’s something about a definitive list of the central figures in a movement or community that appeals to me. So in 2022, I decided to create The Muppet Fan Hall of Fame to celebrate the lives and careers of significant players and creators in the Muppet fandom (including many ToughPigs). But after the first class had been inducted, I wondered if a fandom needed a hall of fame. Is there enough history and legacy here to justify something like this?

So I started to think about Muppet fandom in a historical context and began to look for a place that chronicled the history of the fandom. Still, I didn’t really find anything concrete. Muppet Wiki had some great pages that did a great job of telling parts of the story, but they didn’t have everything. ToughPigs had some great self-histories about the site but little about the rest of the fandom. The resource that justified The Muppet Fan Hall of Fame didn’t exist, so I had to see if I could make it exist.

So, after more hours of research than I’d like to admit, I present my 174-point bulleted timeline of the Muppet fandom. Doing my best to tell the whole story, to show what fandom has looked like in the past 70 years, to prove that yes, Muppet fandom does deserve a hall of fame, and hopefully show how we got to where we are now. Because what’s a community worth if we don’t know our past?

1954 – The Muppets are created.
1978 – The official Muppet Show Fan Club is launched.
1978 – The Center for Puppetry Arts opens, they would eventually dedicate an entire wing to the Muppets, and would host various fan events over the years.
1979 – The Committee to Award Miss Piggy an Oscar (CAMPO) is formed by two fans (Bruce Collin and Jim Hall) as a tongue-in-cheek campaign to get Miss Piggy an Oscar nomination for The Muppet Movie. This is the first known documented large-scale Muppet fan project.
1982 – The official Muppet Show Fan Club sends its final newsletters.
1983 – Muppet Magazine more or less replaces the function of the fandom newsletter.
1986 – Young fan Michael Dixon appears with Jim Henson on the show Breakfast Time, an early formal fan interaction.
1988 – The Museum of the Moving Image opens. Over the years, the museum would become an essential destination for any Muppet fan and would host dozens of fan screenings, book/documentaries release parties, and other fan events.
1989 – The first Muppet-related newsgroup, alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork, is launched.
Early 1990s – The fan site Muppets Home Page launched.
1990 – alt.tv.muppets, which would become the main Muppet newsgroup and a hotbed for early Muppet fandom, launches.
1990 – After hearing about the death of Jim Henson, Filk musician Tom Smith writes the tribute song “A Boy and His Frog.”
1992 – Danny Horn launches MuppetZine, a fan-run Muppet magazine, which acted as a proto-print version of ToughPigs. Issue number 2 features some of the first art from fan artist Christopher “Smig” Smigliano, who would go on to design the ToughPigs logo and be the website’s resident in-house artist.
1994 – The newsgroup alt.tv.sesame-street is launched.
1996 – MuppetZine interviews Muppet writer Jerry Juhl, possibly the first interview between a Muppet professional and a fan.
1996 – The fansite Backstage with the Muppets debuts.
1996 – The fansite Muppets and Stuff launched. Ironically, all Muppet stuff would be removed from the site in 1997.
1996 – The fansite Sesame Street Lyrics Archive debuts.
1997 – The last regular issue of MuppetZine is published.
1997 – Bert Is Evil, a very odd parody site featuring edited pictures of Bert alongside notorious bad people, is launched.
1997 – The popular newsgroup rec.arts.henson+muppets is launched. The new group is the result of alt.tv.muppets users seeking a space with better moderation.
1998 – The fansite and forum Muppet Central is launched, along with Muppet Central Radio, a 24-hour online Muppet radio channel. The forum would be a very active community, one that leads to many Muppet fans finding each other. It would also be an occasional place for Muppet professionals to interact with fans.
1998 – The Sesame Street fan site, Hooperfan’s page, receives its last update (the creation date is unknown).
1999 – Fan artist Jamie Carroll becomes prominent in the community.
2000 – The Fraggle Rock fan site Fraggle Rocker is launched.
2000 – The first annual Official Farscape Convention is held, the same year The Official Farscape Fan Club is launched.
2000 – The first known Muppet fanfic is posted on Archive of Our Own. It is a truly bizarre Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Cookie Monster crossover fanfic.
2000 – The video game Muppet Monster Adventure features a gallery of fan art.
Early 2000s – The Official Bear in the Big Blue House fan club premieres.
Early 2000s – An individual known as KermiClown begins tape trading. He is responsible for helping to spread a lot of rare and unique Muppet-related material across the internet.
2001 – The fan site MuppetDanny’s The Best Jim Henson’s Muppet Website….. Ever! launched
2001 – Danny Horn launches his Muppet fan blog site Tough Pigs (along with its accompanying forum). The earliest article still extant on the site: “Merger Go Round, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Beaker Doll.”
2001 – MuppetFest, a two-day fan convention celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Muppet Show, featuring many panels and screenings with Muppet professionals, a Muppet museum, and culminating in The Muppet Show Live, is held in Santa Monica, California.
2001 – The fan site Muppet Home Page closes down.
2002 – Kynan Barker, the second Tough Pig, begins to collaborate with Danny Horn and to write for the site.
2002 – Tough Pigs holds its first Ugly Toy Pageant, a semi-annual event to judge ugly Muppet toys.
2002 – Tough Pigs holds its first annual Halloween Parade spotlighting Muppet-themed costumes.
2002 – The fan site Kermitage is launched, the only fan site that was ever officially approved by the Henson Company.
2002 – Play with Me Sesame features fan art sent in by young fans.
2002 – The fan site Sesame Beat launched.
2002 – The Richard Hunt fan site, Your Face! launches.
2002 – The BBC documentary I Love Muppets interviews several fans.
2002 – Future Muppet performer Warrick Brownlow-Pike posts a petition to get Fraggle Rock on DVD. This petition would be successful, as the company that would go on to release Fraggle DVDs said it was the result of direct fan support.
2002 – It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie mentions Muppet fan sites, one of the first official recognitions of the online fan community
2003 – The Tough Pigs articles “Grover’s Mom.com” and “My Week with Grover’s Mom” are published, a series diving into the history of Grover’s mommy that would lay the groundwork for what would eventually become Muppet Wiki.
2003 – Scott Hanson launches the fan site Back Stage Left, a site that would be a beta test for many features that would become a part of the Muppet Wiki.
2003 – The first Tough Pigs Fest, an early internet fan meet up, takes place.
2003 – The Sesamstraat fan site Sesameplanet is launched.
2003 – The fansite Sesame Street Encyclopedia is launched.
2003 – The Jerry Nelson fan site Halfway Down the Stairs is launched.
2004 – Backstage with the Muppets closes down.
2004 – Fan artist Noah Ginex becomes prominent in the community.
2004 – The Dead Hensons, a Jim Henson cover band from San Francisco, release their self titled EP.
2005 – Danny Horn and Scott Hanson launch Muppet Wiki, a database of the entire history of the Muppets and the whole Henson world. The site would become a cornerstone of the fandom. It would become an invaluable resource for both fans and professionals alike. The first sentence on Muppet Wiki: “Fozzie Bear is a bear.” Admins Guillermo Gomez and Peter Papazoglou are major early contributors to the wiki as well.
2005 – The unofficial news site The Muppet Newsflash is launched.
2005 – Bert is evil, finally, shuts down.
2005 – After The Walt Disney Company holds auditions for alternate puppeteers for the Muppet characters, Kynan Barker launches Save The Muppets (with the slogan “One Muppet One Voice”), a fan-led campaign in opposition to casting multiple performers for every character.
2006 – Several of Muppet Wiki’s future admins make their first edits to the site, including Andrew Leal, Tony Whitaker, Nate Downs, Henrik Rytter, Wendy Peters, and Julian Kleibeler.
2006 – Guillermo Gomez uploads classic Sesame Street clips to YouTube, one of (if not THE) first person to do so.
2006 – The Bear Wit Project, an early internet viral video and a Muppet fan film parody of The Blair Witch Project, is released.
2006 – On the first anniversary of his passing, the first Jerry Juhl Day is held, a holiday all about silly jokes created by some folks on the Tough Pigs forum.
2006 – Fan edits of Muppets lip syncing to popular songs start making the rounds. This would become quite popular in the mid 2010s.
2006 – Kermitage is effectively defunct after the site is vandalized by hackers.
2006 – The fan site Sesame Street Encyclopedia shut down.
2006 – By its first anniversary, Muppet Wiki has already amassed 12,130 articles, about 1,000 a month.
2007 – Danny Horn steps away from regular writing duties for Tough Pigs.
2007 – Tough Pigs welcomes two new owners, Joe Hennes (first article: The Life of a Gordon) and Ryan Roe (first article: Christmas Cheer: Big Bird on Deal or No Deal). The site transitions from mainly one man’s blog to a vibrant fan site featuring many staff writers. In addition, news becomes a new major focus for the site. Anthony Strand (first article: Tough Pigs: November 9th, 1970) also starts writing for the site around this time.
2007 – Ryan Roe and Joe Hennes create Apple Juice Dance, a puppet comedy YouTube channel that would eventually turn into the ToughPigs YouTube channel.
2007 – The first Muppet fan podcast, The MuppetCast, launches, hosted by Steve Swanson.
2007 – Halfway Down the Stairs shuts down.
2007 – The Sesame Lyrics Archive receives its last update.
2008 – Matt Vogel participates in an interview for Tough Pigs via e-mail.
2008 – Joe Hennes and Ryan Roe visit the set of A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa and begin the relationship between ToughPigs and the people who make the Muppets.
2008 – Tough Pigs holds their first annual April Fool’s Day celebration, becoming a Topo Gigio fansite.
2008 – Future admin Shane Keating begins editing Muppet Wiki.
2008 – MarshallGrover (Shane Keating), one of the largest Sesame archive channels on YouTube, begins uploading.
2008 – ToughPigs holds its first mock presidential election (Gobo vs Ernie, with Ernie and his VP Bert winning). Future winners include Gonzo (2012), Big Bird (2016), Kermit the Frog (2020), and Rowlf the Dog (2024).
2008 – The Dark Crystal Wiki is launched.
2009 – Ryan Dosier launches The Muppet Mindset, a site for slightly more casual fans and one that was “an answer for fans looking to express themselves.” The site also contained the series Weekly Muppet Wednesdays, with a different Muppet spotlighted each week. Jarrod Fairclough starts writing for the site later in the year.
2009 – Tough Pigs redesigns the layout of the site for the first time.
2009 – Muppet Wiki surpasses 20,000 articles.
2009 – Future admin Jonathan Brangwynne starts editing Muppet Wiki.
2009 – Sesame Street: A Celebration- 40 Years of Life on the Street cites Muppet Wiki as a resource, the first of many official Muppet books to do so.
2009 – Both the Disney-owned Muppets and Sesame Street join Twitter, which would lead to direct fan interaction with the Muppet characters. Around this time the Muppets also join Facebook.
2009 – The fanzine “The Rainbow Connection: Richard Hunt, Gay Muppeteer” by Jessica Max Stein is published.
2009 – Fan Artists Dave Hulteen and Peter Savieri become prominent in the community.
2009 – The Dead Hensons perform their final show.
2010 – FrogFan76, the Mildred Huxtetter-loving puppet who was a prominent video creator in the fandom (and the self-proclaimed “Bestest Muppet Fan on the Internet) releases his first YouTube video.
2010 – The fan podcast The DJ Bob Show launched.
2010 – The unofficial news site The Muppet Newsflash closed down.
2010 – The fan site Muppet Musings launched.
2010 – Matt Wilkie (first article: Kermit the Frog Makes History) begins writing for ToughPigs.
2010 – The first annual The Muppet Madness Tournament, a March Madness-style event for Muppets, is launched. Bert & Ernie are the first winners.
2010 – The first Muppet Vault, a series of fan events featuring screenings, trivia, prizes, and other Muppety activities hosted by the folks from ToughPigs, is held in Brooklyn.
2010 – Seamstress and fan artist Emily Engel makes her first Muppet replica.
2011 – Disney releases The Muppets, the first theatrical Muppet movie in 12 years; the movie and media coverage around it creates a new wave of Muppet fandom online and launches the Muppets to a new height of online prominence.
2011 – The popular subreddit, r/muppets, is created (it currently has almost thirty thousand members).
2011 – “The Muppets Should Host the Oscars,” a Facebook page that would ultimately reach 30.000 likes, is launched.
2011 – MuppetFans.com, a short-lived hub for ToughPigs, The Muppet Mindset, and The MuppetCast, is launched.
2011 – ToughPigs interviews Abby and Rosita, their first Muppet interview.
2011 – D23, the official Disney fan club, holds their first Muppet event.
2011 – The Muppets Studio launches “The Muppets’ Fan-A-Thon,” a campaign to get The Muppets Facebook likes.
2011 – Fan artist Mike Boon publishes his iconic Muppet Alphabet design as part of a Threadless T-shirt design contest.
2011 – Fan Artists Kenny Durkin and Dave Alvarez become prominent in the community.
2011 – The Twitter account Muppet Quotes is launched.
2011 – The final Official Farscape Convention is held (11 in total).
2011 – Sesame Workshop launches “The Case of the Missing Gordon,” a fan-sourced campaign to identify the actor who played Gordon in the original Sesame Street test pilot. 29 days after the search begins, Garret Saunders is recognized as the original Gordon.
2012 – Matthew Soberman (first article: Fred vs Buster: The 2012 Muppet Stakes) and Julia Gaskill (first article: Steve’s Hair: The Journey of a Muppeteer’s Head of Hair) join the ToughPigs staff in the same week. Staci Rosen (first article: Have Yourself Some Very Little Muppet Christmas Merchandise) joins later this year.
2012 – Muppet Wiki and Muppet Central are both mentioned in the commentary track on the Blu-ray release of The Muppets (2011 film).
2012 – The Muppet Mindset holds their first annual April Fool’s Day prank (announcing an Angus McGonagle attraction for the Disney Parks).
2012 – The Muppet Mindset publishes its 100th Weekly Muppet Monday article, which was dedicated to Kermit The Frog.
2012 – The Tumblr/Twitter account Eight Muppety Notes is launched.
2012 – Muppet Stuff, a fansite explicitly dedicated to merch and created by Chris Stulz, launches.
2013 – KermiClown begins to upload his vast collection of material to YouTube.
2013 – YouTuber Adorkable Rachel, known for her quirky and high-energy videos primarily about Muppets, posts her first video.
2013 – Fan site MuppetsHenson launches.
2013 – Zach Woliner’s popular fan edit, “Of Fraggles & Death,” is released.
2013 – The Jim Henson Company launches The Dark Crystal Author Quest to find a fan to write a new Dark Crystal book.
2013 – ToughPigs hosts its first panel at New York Comic Con to promote Jim Henson: The Biography.
2014 – The movie Muppets Most Wanted is released, a shot of Kermit and Constantine from the film is turned into the “Dark Kermit” meme. A shot of Kermit drinking Lipton tea from a tie-in ad is also turned into a meme, “The Tea Lizard.” These two memes more or less cemented The Muppets as a prominent part of meme culture.
2014 – ToughPigs and The Muppet Mindset report from the red carpet for the premiere of Muppets Most Wanted, along with both sites separately interviewing Kermit and Constantine, and both sites being quoted in a TV spot for the film.
2014 – The Facebook page Muppet Memories is created.
2014 – Kieran Moore starts writing for The Muppet Mindset; his staple would be weekly top ten lists.
2014 – Archivist Garrett Gilchrist makes his first Muppet restorations.
2014 – Frog Kissin’, the first ToughPigs-hosted podcast, launches, as do the fan podcasts Getting Felt Up and Trial by Stone.
2014 – The fan site Muppet Hub launched, featuring an incoming YouTube presence and classic blog structure, along with being a home for the podcast 11 Point Collar and later, Let’s Talk the Muppets.
2014 – Becca Petunia (first article: Weird Science: A Guide to the Romance of Bunsen and Beaker) begins writing for ToughPigs.
2014 – During his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video, Cookie Monster calls out Marshall Grover by name.
2014 – ToughPigs releases the viral video Too Many Cookies!
2015 – Ryan Dosier leaves The Muppet Mindset and transfers ownership of the site to Mindset writer Jarrod Fairclough.
2015 – ToughPigs hosts The Snuffy Awards, an award show for Muppet productions (which is rebranded as The Fozzie Awards for 2016).
2015 – ToughPigs hosts “Unboxing!“, a series of unboxing videos of Muppet artifacts in partnership with The Jim Henson Company.
2015 – The fan site Muppet Stuff publishes its first site-branded video on YouTube.
2015 – Fan Artist Megan Barbeau becomes prominent in the community.
2016 – ToughPigs begins publishing their “Muppet Show: 40 Years Later” review series and The Muppet Mindset celebrates the anniversary with the article “40 Favorite Muppet Show Moments,” in which 40 people (including many Muppet professionals) gave their favorite Muppet Show moments.
2016 – Muppet History, launches its YouTube channel.
2016 – The last Weekly Muppet Wednesday was published on The Muppet Mindset (the Muppet spotlighted was Gloria Estefan the penguin).
2016 – The last Muppet Vault event is held.
2016 – ToughPigs publishes their first video review on YouTube.
2016 – Louie Pearlman (first article: Make America HATE Again: Ronald Grump on Sesame Street) starts writing for ToughPigs.
2016 – Studio 54’s “54 Below” holds its first of many Muppet tribute concerts.
2017 – The Museum of the Moving Image opens its permanent Henson exhibit, which includes a collection of fan letters sent to Jim Henson, including one by future fan artist Jay Fosgitt.
2017 – The flagship ToughPigs podcast Movin’ Right Along: A Muppet Movie Podcast launches, as do the fan podcasts Skeeter-ial and Muppet Minute.
2017 – Future admin Gavry begins editing Muppet Wiki.
2017 – A bagel, one of the most extensive Henson archives on YouTube, begins uploading.
2017 – ToughPigs and The Muppet Mindset break the news of Steve Whitmire’s departure from the Muppets.
2017 – A LEGO concept set for 123 Sesame Street is first posted on Lego Ideas by Ivan Guerrero; the set would later gain traction and would eventually be approved and made into an actual product.
2018 – The social media account Muppet History (created by Joshua Gillespie) is launched; the account would go on to amass over 280 thousand followers on Twitter and would become the primary source of fan content for the casual fan.
2018 – Muppet Songs, one of the largest collections of Muppet songs on YouTube, publishes its first video.
2018 – The Muppet Mindset releases the underrated classic, “Arrested Develmuppet.”
2018 – The last Muppet Madness Tournament takes place; Cookie Monster is the winner.
2018 – The fan podcasts Puppet Tears, Kermit the Pod, and The Nanny State launch.
2018 – ToughPigs holds the first Muppetational May – a month-long event were fans gave their answers to opinion based Muppet questions. The event would be held again in 2019 and a fan art version of the event would be held in 2024.
2019 – YouTuber Defunctland (Kevin Perjurer) releases his five-part Defunct TV docuseries all about the life of Jim Henson; the video series is credited by many as their first introduction to the works of Henson.
2019 – The fan podcast MuppetTrek launches.
2019 – ToughPigs launched the “50 in 50” series, one review a week for 50 weeks of each of Sesame Street‘s first 50 seasons.
2019 – Shane Keating (first article, “Sesame Gang Gets Insured With Farmers“) starts writing for ToughPigs.
2020 – Fan artists Richard Michael Gomez, Iffy, and Nico G become prominent in the community.
2020 – The ToughPigs podcasts 15 Seconds to Curtain, Cabin Fever, and The Muppets: The Sitcom: The Podcast launch, as do the podcasts Bear Left (Right Frog), A Feat of Lunatic Daring, Muppet Profiles, and It’s Time to Talk the Muppets.
2020 – The Twitter account One Muppetational Shot is launched.
2020 – Muppet Wiki is officially acknowledged by the Muppets Twitter account in a post supposedly made by Walter.
2020 – The first “Great Con-Junction” (an official Dark Crystal fan convention) is held.
2020 – The viral Muppets Hamilton YouTube video is released.
2020 – Sesame Stream shuts down, as does Muppet Hub.
2020/2021 – Due to the combination of the release of The Muppet Show on Disney Plus and many other factors, including the COVID-19 lockdown, there is an influx of fandom activity on Twitter, a new sector of the fandom, commonly referred to as Muppetwt or Muppet Twitter, comes into creation.
2021 – The podcasts Kermitment, Muppeturgy, Muppet Fans Talking, The Muppet History Podcast, Muppetsational, It’s Time to Meet the Muppets, It’s Time to Watch the Muppets, The Very Manly Muppet Show, Mup-It-Up, and It’s the Muppet Show Podcast launch, as do the ToughPigs podcasts Hubba Wha?! and To Introduce Our Guest Star.
2021 – The Muppet Mindset merges with ToughPigs; the merger creates a new archive of previous Mindset content. Following the merger, former Mindset owner Jarrod Fairclough becomes an official co-owner of ToughPigs.
2021 – ToughsPigs celebrates its 20th anniversary with a new site design, a special podcast series (ToughPigs at 20), and The Great Muppet Mural, a fanart project in collaboration with over 75 artists. This anniversary also leads to a shoutout by the official The Muppets account on Twitter.
2021 – Beth Cook (first article: “Review – Fraggle Rock: The Ultimate Visual History“) starts writing for ToughPigs.
2021 – The MupMet Gala, a parody of the Met Gala themed around people posting Muppet-themed outfits on Twitter, holds its first annual event on Jim Henson’s birthday.
2021 – J.D. Hansel launches the parody page “A Bad Jim Henson Biopic“; a sister page, “A Bad Jim Henson Bistro,” is launched later in the year.
2021/2022 – A new wave of gimmick accounts that focus on posting Muppet content daily (i.e. Muppet GIF of the Day, Daily Wembley Fraggle) start to appear.
2022 – The Muppetwt Awards, a fan-run award show that gives awards to both official Muppet productions and to various elements of the fandom (such as Twitter accounts, podcasts, and fan art), has its first annual ceremony.
2022 – The ToughPigs podcasts, Fraggle Talk and The Great Muppet Fandom Panel, launch, as does the podcast Live From Muppet Land.
2022 – The fan documentary The Making of the Great Muppet Mural, directed by Dave Hulteen, is released.
2022 – Future admin Maddox Potter starts editing Muppet Wiki.
2022 – The second “Great Con-Junction” is held.
2022 – J.D. Hansel (first article: “Review: Back to the Rock- Episode 6 ‘The Legend of Icy Joe’“) starts regularly writing for ToughPigs, Katilyn Miller (first article: “Muppet Hopefuls for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games“) and Drake Lucas (first article: “Report: The Official Sam and Friends Book Launch“) also start writing for the site.
2022 – The Muppet Fan Hall of Fame holds its first ceremony. The first class includes Danny Horn, Joe Hennes, Ryan Roe, Ryan Dosier, Jarrod Fairclough, Joshua Gillespie, J.D. Hansel, and Chris “Smig” Smigliano, along with Matt Vogel and Dave Goelz, Yvette Nichole Brown, and Bobby Moynihan in side categories.
2022 – The charity fanzine Behind the Mayhem launches (the following year, the same team would make “The Lovers, The Dreamers, and You” fanzine).
2022 – For the first time in years, Danny Horn creates a new Muppet fan project, the Twitter account Muppet Pictures.
2023 – The ToughPigs podcasts The Muppets Mayhem: Backstage Pass, The Worst of the Muppets, and a classic variant of Fraggle Talk launch, as does the podcast What the Muppet.
2023 – Muppet Wiki officially completes their Sesame Street episode guide with over 4,000 articles.
2023 – The Muppet Table Reads, a community group that does table reads of various Muppet productions, holds their first read.
2023 – ToughPigs launches the “Fraggle Rock: 40 Years Later” review series.
2023 – The ToughPigs Discord server (moderated by Becca Petunia and Katilyn Miller) is launched, and subsequently the ToughPigs forum is retired.
2023 – The second Muppetwt Awards take place along with the second annual Muppet Fan Hall of Fame, with inductees Shane Keating, Scott Hanson, CAMPO, Becca Petunia, Anthony Strand, and Dave Hulteen, with Lucas Ross and John Tartaglia in side categories.
2024 – The ToughPigs podcast The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast is launched. Not A Muppet Show podcast is also launched.
2024 – Due to Google shutting down Google Groups (formerly Usenet), all the old Muppet newsgroups permanently shut down after over 30 years.
2024 – Muppet History’s page on Facebook is hacked and eventually deleted. A new replacement page is then created.
2024 – ToughPigs has a special introduction before the Fathom Events screenings of The Muppet Movie.
2024 – Third and final annual Muppetwt Awards take place, along with the third annual Muppet Fan Hall of Fame, with inductees Matthew Soberman, Julia Gaskill, Kynan Barker, Jamie Carroll, Kenny Durkin, Peter Savieri, FrogFan76, and Tony Whitaker, with Craig Shemin, Leslie Cararra-Rudolph, Warrick Brownlow-Pike, Danny Trejo, and Neil Patrick Harris in side categories.
2024 – On social media, the Muppets launch their 70th birthday celebration, spotlighting one Muppet a week and encouraging fans to celebrate that Muppet with conversation and art. A podcast series in collaboration with ToughPigs “70 Years, 70 Muppets,” also debuts.

Thanks to Matthew Soberman, Dave Hulteen, Joe Hennes, J.D. Hansel, Ryan Roe, Becca Petunia, Tony Whitaker, Scott Hanson, Ryan Dosier, Jarrod Fairclough, Shane Keating, Gavry, and Kieran Moore for helping to better my research and/or fixing some grammatical errors.

Resources used: Muppet Wiki, ToughPigs, Youtube, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Google Groups, Apple Podcasts, Discord, The Muppet Mindset Archives, Muppet Stuff, The Muppetwt Awards Website, MuppetsHenson, The Internet Archive (and The Wayback Machine), The Dark Crystal Wiki, Sesame Lyrics Archive, Hooperfan’s page, Wikipedia, Reddit.

Anecdotes, observations, and things that couldn’t fit in the timeline:

While Twitter and, to a slightly lesser extent, YouTube get most of the spotlight in this article, don’t be fooled; every social media site has a Muppet community. Instagram is the go-to place for many Muppet artists. Tumblr was pretty popular in the early 2010s, so I am sure there was some more Muppet stuff on there. Facebook is a vital source of communication for fans, particularly back in the day, but it still tends to be the go-to place for some older fans.
I can not stress enough that there was a Farscape convention for ELEVEN years. How Farscape maintained enough relevance for 11 consecutive years of a convention is beyond me. Who went to these? Where are these people now?
It’s really interesting how many of these old fan sites are just archives of select aspects of the Muppets, and how they all quickly disappear once Muppet Wiki comes on the scene.
I tried to find when the first Muppet-themed burlesque show was and when the first Muppet-themed drag performance was, but was unsuccessful. I know both existed by the 90’s but they probably started happening much earlier.
I would do more research on Muppet fanfiction but the first thing I found was so bizarre I’ve decided to not touch it again with a 10 foot pole. Plus, other fanfiction sites aren’t easy to search by creation order.
It’s important to note that The Museum of the Moving Image really is an integral part of the fandom. So many Muppet fans got to meet each other for the first time there; the monthly screenings held there are really kinda like monthly family reunions. (This also, to a slightly lesser degree, applies to The Center of Puppetry Arts.)
The downfall of Twitter, in general, did lead to a slight dent in Muppetwt with some people definitely leaving, but this felt too objective and not Muppet-related to include.
Partially due to Twitter’s decline, Discord seems to be slowly becoming the primary home of the Muppet fandom.
It was exciting digging through Muppet Wiki and seeing what fan stuff they had cataloged, which fan sites had pages and which did not, and how some pretty significant parts of modern fandom are not cataloged. In contrast, footnotes from the 2000s have their own pages.
I’m 99% sure I’m missing at least a few fansites from the ’90s and 00’s; there were just so many in the early days that some HAD to slip through the cracks.