In honor of Women’s History Month, as well as International Women’s Day (March 8th), ToughPigs will be shining a spotlight on the women who helped make the Muppets what they are today, as well as our favorite female Muppet characters!
We all know there are amazingly talented people who work on screen when it comes to any Muppet production. We here at ToughPigs have written so so SO many articles about Jim, Frank, Dave, Bill, Peter, etc. It’s easy to remember the work being put in when we are watching a performer do their craft right before our eyes.
But when it comes to the Muppets, it is – at times – easy to forget about the people behind the scenes. What’s more, we tend to focus on the men doing the work. This isn’t a conscious flaw, mind you, society has trained us to more actively praise men’s work – when there are as many wonderful women working just as hard.
And such wonderful women have worked for the Muppets over the years! Below I’ve spotlighted a handful of phenomenal women who have done incredible things for the Henson Company, Muppet Studios, and Sesame Workshop, ranging from the conception of the Muppets up until this very day.
Enjoy this brief look at some wonderful, talented, hardworking ladies!
Caroly Wilcox is best known for her time at Sesame Street, though she worked on Muppet and Fraggle franchises as well. From 1969-1990 she built and designed puppets for Henson productions, and she eventually went on to become the Sesame Workshop Supervisor. Her design sketch of a furry red monster would one day become the ever-popular Elmo, and she’s responsible for the build of Miss Piggy that was shot underwater in The Great Muppet Caper. She did work on puppet builds and designs for nearly twenty Henson productions, building characters such as Gobo Fraggle, the Snowths, Doglion, Two Headed Monster, Kermit the Forg, and many others – not to mention doing occasional puppeteering when needed.
Amy Van Gilder is probably best known for her cameo in The Great Muppet Caper alongside Jim Henson, but don’t let her brief appearance at the Dubonnet Club fool you. She was hired during the first season of The Muppet Show to design puppets, and went on to do puppet design for Emmet Otter, Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock, Muppets Tonight, and a couple Muppet movies. She currently works for Disney’s Imagineering Department, helping integrate the Muppets into the Disney theme parks.
Any fan of Miss Piggy’s style and outfits back in her Muppet Show days has Calista Hendrickson to thank. She costumed and styled Piggy on The Muppet Show, in the first three Muppet films, and in the 1980 and 1982 Miss Piggy Calendars. She also did costumes for Emmet Otter, built the babies in Bobby Benson’s Baby Band, and did work in licensing & publishing.
Judy Freudberg was a Sesame Street writer for thirty-five years. She started out in 1971 as a typist for season 3. By season 7 she had become a full-fledged staff writer, and she continued writing until her retirement in 2010. Freudberg co-wrote the script to the Sesame feature, Follow that Bird, and she also co-created and served as head writer for the ‘Elmo’s World’ segments. She wrote several songs for Sesame, including ‘Gimme Five’ and we are all still in debt to her for helping create that gem of a song.
Sherry Amott worked on The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie, and she accompanied Jim on his less Muppet-centric work of Emmet Otter, The Dark Crystal, Dreamchild, and Labyrinth. She served primarily as a costumer, character designer, and animatronic designer in her time with Henson. Skilled in many areas of design, Frank Oz also brought her along to act as Head of Fabrication of Audrey II in his film Little Shop of Horrors. Her most well-known character design is Barkley from Sesame Street.
Emily Wilson (top left), Angeli Millan (top right), Nell Scovell (bottom left), and Margee Magee (bottom right) all wrote for the 2015 show The Muppets. Between the four of them they worked on eleven episodes on the short-lived series. Wilson, Millan, and Magee, most notably, all worked together on the seventh episode, “Pig’s in a Blackout.” Besides being staff writers, Scovell also served as a co-executive producer of The Muppets, while Wilson, Millan, and Scovell all acted as producers of several episodes.
Rollie Krewson is a well-known name within the Muppet fan community, and rightly so. Krewson started as an intern with the Muppets in the early 70’s, going on to take part in the vast majority of Muppet and Henson productions that have been made. She’s built and designed an array of well-loved characters – Rugby Tiger, Zoe, Foo-Foo, Wendell Porcupine, Fizzgig, and Red Fraggle, just to name a few. She currently works primarily for Sesame Street, where she has won 7 Emmy Awards for her craft.
You can’t talk about beloved behind-the-scenes people without naming Jocelyn Stevenson. Starting off writing children’s books for the Henson company, she was one of five to become a co-creator on Fraggle Rock – unsurprisingly, she was the only woman in the group. She went on to write nineteen episodes of Fraggle Rock, pen the script for The Tale of the Bunny Picnic by herself, and be the story editor of The Christmas Toy (which, it is noted, was written by another amazing woman, Laura Phillips). Stevenson has written over twenty Henson-related books (primarily for children), and she also acted as a producer and writer on The Animal Show, The Hoobs, and Mopatop’s Shop. In 2015 she received a BAFTA Special Award at the British Academy Children’s Awards.
When it comes to Stephanie D’Abruzzo, fans are most aware of her work done on screen (and on Broadway). That said, D’Abruzzo has produced and edited several compilation reels for screenings with the Jim Henson Legacy, the Museum of the Moving Image, and Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts. She also has played a key role in Matt Vogel’s new(ish) series, ‘Below the Frame,’ by writing, producing, editing, and composing original music for it.
Susan Juhl co-wrote seven episodes of Fraggle Rock, some of which include ‘Mokey’s Funeral,’ ‘Uncle Matt Comes Home,’ and the ever-festive ‘The Bells of Fraggle Rock.’ As her surname would imply, Susan was married to the late Jerry Juhl, so it goes without saying her ties with Muppet productions are quite heavy.
Emily Perl Kingsley was a staff writer at Sesame Street for an impressive 45 year run, retiring in 2015. Along with being a writer for the show, she wrote many children’s books, hundreds of songs for Sesame, and some direct-to-video releases. She’s won a whopping 21 Emmys for her work with Sesame Street. Kingsley’s most known for encouraging the inclusion of Sesame episodes focusing on people with disabilities. A powerful quote from Emily Perl Kingsley reads:
“We include kids with disabilities just as part of the gang. Children in the audience get validation when they see others like themselves. Their siblings receive gratifying reinforcement seeing kids like those in their own families. We take the strangeness out of it. Why should difference be equated with fear?“
Leslee Asch made her debut with the Henson Company at the end of the 70’s. She built puppets for Emmet Otter and The Muppet Show, and went on to design and build for Fraggle Rock, The Great Muppet Caper, and several other productions. She served as the Executive Director of the Jim Henson Foundation for a while and remains as a board member of the Foundation to this day.
Amy Mebberson is a name easily recognized by most nerds (I’m sure you’ve seen her work all around Tumblr). Besides providing us with cute Pocket Princess comics, she’s done a lot of work on both Muppet comics and storybooks. Working through BOOM! Studios, she illustrated the comics Muppet Peter Pan, Muppet Sherlock Holmes, and The Muppet Show Comic Book: Family Reunion. She has also drawn several variant covers for other issues of Muppet comics, was a guest artist for Legends of the Dark Crystal: The Garthim Wars, and created those Muppet stickers you’re oh so fond of using on Facebook. Find out more about her artwork and appearances over at her web-site.
Bonnie Erickson is perhaps the most well-known puppet designer to have worked within the Jim Henson Company. Erickson was the builder behind Miss Piggy, Statler and Waldorf, Zoot, the Newsman, the Country Trio, George the Janitor, and many, many others. After joining to do work on The Frog Prince, she became head of the workshop department and oversaw work on The Muppet Show, Musicians of Bremen, The Muppet Movie, and several other productions. She also served as a design consultant for The Christmas Toy and Fraggle Rock. She acted as Creative Director of the Product Division of Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) for thirteen years.
Geri Cole has been writing for Sesame Street for two seasons, brought on for season 46 when Sesame made the transition to HBO. She wrote the script for the special Once Upon a Sesame Street Christmas and co-penned (with ToughPigs’ very own Joe Hennes) the parody of Birdman that was produced by both Sesame Workshop and Mashable. Besides staff writing, Cole also worked as a Sesame production assistant for several years and performed the character Segi at the 2015 Annual Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala.
Dulcy Singer was an executive producer of Sesame Street for eleven years. During her time there, she oversaw the handling of the death of Mr. Hooper, as well as the adoption of the character Miles. She produced many direct-to-video movies and specials likes Don’t Eat the Pictures, Elmo’s Sing-Along Guessing Game, and Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, the last of which she received an Emmy Award for in 1979.
We have so much to thank Karen Falk for. Working as the Head Archivist for the Jim Henson Company, she is important in the preservation of the history of all things Henson-related. She has contributed to several interviews, panels, books, and reports with her knowledge of Muppet / Henson history. You might also recognize her from the Unboxing Series ToughPigs did a while back!
Without Joan Ganz Cooney, we may very well have never gotten Sesame Street. Convinced television could educate children when used the correct way, she started the Children’s Television Workshop. In bringing Sesame to life, she became one of the first female executives in American television history. She would later go on to act as an executive producer on Follow That Bird, and she still serves on Sesame’s executive committee board to this day. In 2007, Sesame Workshop founded The Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a non-profit “grounded in detailed educational curriculum.” Over the years she has been awarded the National Institute for Social Sciences Gold Medal, the Frederick Douglass Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Award, the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and dozens of other medals, awards, and honors.
No list of amazing behind-the-scenes ladies would be complete without the one, the only, Jane Henson. While she certainly spent a fair amount of time in front of the camera in the early years, Jane did more than her fair share of heavy lifting behind the camera as well. She co-created Sam and Friends with Jim, and she helped create the television monitors that would allow puppeteers to view their own performances in real time. She was a helping hand in the hiring of new talent (specifically Steve Whitmire), and she would occasionally train newly hired puppeteers in the art of lip syncing. She also served on the boards of both The Jim Henson Legacy and The Jim Henson Company, was president of The Jane Henson Foundation, and helped fund the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit.
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by Julia Gaskill
