Friday, May 13, 2011

News Update: May 13, 2011


NEWS UPDATE: May 13, 2011

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, Cookie Monster participated in The Huffington Post's Social Interview series as fans submitted the ravenous blue creature questions. Well, you asked and Cookie Monster answered in the form of a video three days ago on HuffintonPost.com. It's a lot of fun and, as always, Cookie is the answer to all our questions. What more could you need?



Speaking of Cookie Monster... he also recently made the rounds at the AOL studios (coincidentally the parent company of The Huffington Post) (okay, maybe not so coincidentally) as part of their "You've Got..." instructional video series. In his video, Cookie Monster shows viewers the proper way to devour a cookie, and we're surely all much wiser for the experience. Enjoy.



As you all know, Kermit was on-hand (pun totally intended) at Disneyland this past Saturday for the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to interview celebrities. The Muppets Studio posted its official video of the event on YouTube but E! Online, who Kermit was apparently reporting for, has a video of the frog at the premiere as well. Check it out!

Within Henson lore is a story of a magnificent mural of hundreds of Muppet characters gathered together in a single theater from all Henson projects. Bits and pieces of it have been seen before in the background of pictures, but never before has the full mural been showcased... until now. Jeff Christiansen, who had the awesome opportunity to tour The Jim Henson Company lot in Los Angeles took loads of awesome pictures of the mural in all its glory, which can be seen on his Flickr account. But that's not enough, because our good friends at ToughPigs have Photoshopped together the pictures to create a complete look at the incredible piece of art. See for yourself here.

The latest confirmation in the world of cameos for The Muppets is star of The Office (and husband of other cameo star, Emily Blunt), John Krasinski, as confirmed in an interview on Collider.com. Krasinski has awesome comic timing and he seems like he would be a good fit for working with the Muppets. In the interview he states that he might be playing himself, but he's not sure, and he can't say which Muppets he worked with. But... he's in the movie, so there.

Awhile back, Jim Henson's Red Book posted an entry from Jim's diary that stated, "5/2/1971 Kermit reviews 11 Frog books for NY Times Book Review." There was no archivist information provided, however, but friend of the blog Ariel Winter wasn't satisfied with that as she dug up her old copy of these very book reviews and retyped them and collected links to all of the books reviewed on a list on Amazon. Kermit's comments are fun and charming, so be sure to check them out!

It's that time of the year again... time for the Daytime Emmy Awards! Announcements were made this week of the nominations and, as always, Sesame Street cleaned up big time with 16 nominations. This includes all four spots for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series for Kevin Clash (Elmo), Caroll Spinney (Big Bird and Oscar), Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (Abby Cadabby), and Eric Jacobson (Grover). You can see the entire list of all the nominees here, but we took the liberty of breaking down Sesame's 16 nominations for you below:
  • Outstanding Pre-School Children's Series
  • Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series
    • Kevin Clash
    • Caroll Spinney
    • Leslie Carrara-Rudolph
    • Eric Jacobson
  • Outstanding Direction in Art Direction/Set Decoration/Scenic Design
    Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design/Styling
  • Outstanding Directing in a Children's Series
  • Outstanding Achievement in Lighting Direction
  • Outstanding Achievement in Multiple Camera Editing
  • Outstanding Original Song - Children's and Animation
    • "What I Am"
    • "I Wonder"
    • "Rakhi Road"
  • Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing - Live Action and Animation
  • Outstanding Achievement in Technical Direction/Electronic Camera/Video Control
  • Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series
Congratulations to all of our friends at Sesame Street for their once-again amazing achievements and nominations!







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier