Weekly Muppeteer Wednesdays: David Rudman

Today's Weekly Muppeteer Wednesdays post was written by Tom Stroud.

DAVID RUDMAN

Born...
June 1, 1964

Notable Muppets...
Baby Bear, Cookie Monster (2001-), Right Head of the Two Headed Monster (1992-), Sully (1992-), Scooter (2008-), Janice (2008-)

WHO IS DAVID RUDMAN?
David Rudman first worked with Muppets as an intern with the Muppet Workshop in the summer of 1981. After he graduated from high school, Richard Hunt helped him get a job as a Muppet performer, beginning with background characters in The Muppets Take Manhattan. He also began working on Sesame Street, beginning mainly with background roles.

After years of background roles, he finally got his first major role in the early 1990’s, with his new Sesame Street character Baby Bear. Around that time he also took over some of the late Richard Hunt’s characters, namely Sully and the Two Headed Monster’s right head. Although Sully was eventually dropped from the show, the Two Headed Monster and Baby Bear continued to be popular characters, and still are today. However, neither of them are as popular as David’s most recent role, Cookie Monster, which he took over in 2001 after Frank Oz’s formal retirement from performing.

David has performed with the classic Muppets as well, performing background characters in Muppet*Vision 3D, The Muppets at Walt Disney World, and Muppets Tonight. He also worked on The Muppet Christmas Carol, where he performed Peter Cratchit and the Swedish Chef. Recently (first in Studio DC: Almost Live!), David has taken over two of Richard Hunt’s most popular Muppet characters, Scooter and Janice. He performed Scooter and Jaince in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, and presumably performed them in The Muppets as well.

He has also created a few non-Henson TV shows with his brother, Adam Rudman. Adam and David have created both Bunnytown, a Playhouse Disney show which David also produced and directed, and Jack’s Big Music Show where he played the appropriately named main character, Jack.

Rudman continues to work with both Sesame Street and the Muppets as one of the main Muppeteers. His work as Baby Bear and Cookie Monster means that David's work can be seen and heard in nearly every episode of Sesame Street and now that he has taken over Richard Hunt's characters for the Muppets, Rudman is heavily involved in almost everything they're doing as well.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com

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

Got a Question? Ask Cookie Monster!

The world we live in is full of questions... Where will we go when we die? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Who do we ask these questions? Well, hopefully, you won't want to ask Cookie Monster said questions. (Because, let's face it, he probably doesn't know either.) But, you might want to ask him some other sort of question! If that is the case (how could it not be?) then you should be very interested in Huffington Post's Social Interviews series because they will be interviewing our friend Cookie Monster very soon!

How does one go about asking the great Cookie Monster a question? Well, it's simple really... as Huffington Post explains:
Do you have a question? If so, please leave your name, city and question in the comments below; tweet your question to @huffingtonpost with hashtag #socialinterviews; or email one to submissions@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line "Social Interviews."

So, what are you waiting for?! I know you have a question for Cookie Monster... and now's your chance to ask! Oh, me so excited...

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Live, From New York, it's COOKIE MONSTER!

Greetings, Muppet fans! What did you do last night? Me? I had a Christmas party... which turned out to be a bad thing, because Cookie Monster spent his Saturday night caroling with Jeff Bridges! Yes, that's right, Jeff Bridges, who hosted Saturday Night Live last night, brought out Cookie Monster during his monologue to sing "Silver Bells" with him. It was a wonderful, amazing clip which you can now see below!



Hey, if that ain't enough to get Cookie back to host the show, I don't know what is! As Jeff Bridges would likely say, man, those silver bells ring-aling so good!

Speaking of bells... remember last year when we posted about all Muppet fans ringing bells on December the 21st? If not, read more in last year's post here. But, we'll be ringing those bells once again this year, Muppet fans! Yes, on Tuesday, December 21st at 9:00pm, yours truly, Lisa the Intern, the British Correspondent, and, believe it or not, Jerry Nelson will all be ringing a bell for this magical time of year. Please join us in creating the Muppety spirit by ringing your own bell at 9:00pm on Tuesday. I promise you it'll be the feel-good moment of your year!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Weekly Muppet Wednesdays: Cookie Monster

Today's Weekly Muppet Wednesday article was written by Michael Wermuth, Jr. with edits by Ryan Dosier.

COOKIE MONSTER

Performed by...
Frank Oz (1969-present)
David Rudman (2001-present)

First appearance...
Sesame Street Season 1 Episode 0001 (1969)

Most recent appearance...
Sesame Street Season 42 (2011)

Best known role...

Ravenous devourer of food and objects of all kinds--but mostly COOKIES!

Best friend...
Ernie

Well-known quotes...
“Me want cookie!”

"C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me!"

“Me not exactly TAKE the cookies; Me EAT the cookies!”

WHO IS COOKIE MONSTER?
Cookie Monster is the furry blue monster with googly eyes whose favorite food is cookies. Despite his name and favorite food, Cookie Monster does eat more than just cookies, including a wide variety of fruits and vegetables (but no, he didn’t give up cookies or change his name in 2006) in addition to various items that shouldn’t be eaten--including telephones and plates and tables and more. Cookie Monster often uses big words, and ususally says “me” instead of “I.” Cookie Monster has also hosted two recurring segments on Sesame Street: “Monsterpiece Theater,” under the identity of Alistair Cookie, and “The Letter of the Day," sometimes co-hosted by Prairie Dawn.

A number of monsters resembling Cookie Monster were around before Sesame Street began. The first such monster had dark green fur and visible teeth, created for as series of un-aired commercials for Wheels, Crowns, and Flutes, where it was called the "Wheel Stealer." Afterward, this monster appeared in an IBM industrial film (which was remade with the same monster in a sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show), in which the monster eats a talking machine, which describes each part as it gets eaten by the monster, and in the end the monster suffers explosive consequences.

When Sesame Street began, Cookie Monster was just one of many generic monsters with no consistent name or personality, though even then he was usually performed by Frank Oz. The character's personality wasn’t determined until after a season one sketch that DIDN’T feature Cookie Monster. This sketch involved a monster couple, Ralph and Trudy Monster. The wife had to correctly answer some questions about her husband, and after winning, they were given a choice of prizes including an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii, a free car, and a cookie. I don’t think I need to give away what prize was chosen. But although Cookie Monster was not in the sketch, the personality transferred.

Since the early days, Cookie Monster has become a Sesame Street staple and one of the most popular characters on the show. (Arguably the second most popular behind Elmo--definitely the second most merchandised.) Cookie Monster is also one of the few characters to have remained on the show for all 41 seasons. Cookie Monster's highlights over his 41 year career are varied and extremely impressive, including appearances in all of the Sesame Street specials.

In Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, there is a running gag where Cookie Monster tries to contact Santa Claus to let Santa know he wants cookies for Christmas, but he gets so excited thinking about the cookies that he eats all modes of correspondence (including the pencil, typewriter, and telephone).
In Follow That Bird, Cookie Monster travels in Gordon’s Volkswagon during the search to find Big Bird. Throughout the trip, Cookie Monster eats various parts of the car, including the roof and the front hood. Of course this running gag has a payoff when it comes to rescuing Big Bird at the end.

In a famous sketch, Cookie Monster participates in a guessing game with Kermit. Kermit has a “mystery box,” and promises to give Cookie Monster a cookie if he can guess what’s inside after listening to the clues. However, despite Kermit’s insistence that it is not a cookie, Cookie Monster keeps guessing that it’s a cookie, only giving the correct answer after Kermit tells Cookie Monster what it is.

In recent years, Cookie Monster's popularity has grown with the new generation and old fans alike. Even after the fairly recent "Veggie Monster" myth in which the media blew Cookie Monster's eating of a few fruits and veggies way out of proportion and claimed that he would stop eating cookies forever. This is, of course, untrue. As we all know, Cookie Monster could never give up cookies (or legally change his name)--but who doesn't like a nice apple now and then?

Most recently, Cookie Monster made an audition tape to host Saturday Night Live, which has appeared online as part of Sesame Street’s official YouTube channel (there’s also an official Facebook page created in an effort to make this a reality).

COOKIE MONSTER SONGS

• "It's a Circle" with Herry Monster
• "Up and Down" with Herry Monster
• "One of These Things"
• "C is for Cookie"
• "Me Lost Me Cookie at the Disco"
• "Fuzzy and Blue (and Orange)" with Grover, Herry, and Frazzle
• "Me Gotta Be Blue"
• "Healthy Food"
• "The First Time Me Eat Cookie"

WHY DOES SESAME STREET NEED COOKIE MONSTER?
Kids identify with Cookie Monster because he is so child-like himself. Not to say all kids are monsters... but they are all innocents who love what they love and are proud of it. Cookie Monster is just that, a cookie monster--there is nothing he loves more. But when met with temptation or a hungry friend, Cookie Monster almost never chooses cookies first. As he himself once said, "Maybe friend someone you give up last cookie for." If that isn't one of the greatest life lessons, I don't know what is. He may not seem like it, but Cookie Monster is perhaps one of the greatest teachers Sesame Street has.

Besides that, Cookie Monster is the perfect example of an incredible, complex, hilarious character being derived from a single joke: the love of the cookie. From that very simple premise, one of the most popular television characters ever was developed. Cookie Monster clearly defines Jim Henson's mantra of "Simple is good" in many ways... in that he started from a simple idea, that he is a very simple puppet (basically a shag carpet with eyes and arms), and that he has a very simple mind. Cookie Monster's main desire will always be cookies, yes, but from that has come an amazingly layered and hysterical character.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

News Update: December 2, 2010

NEWS UPDATE: December 2, 2010

The latest news from the set of The Muppets with Jason Segel is that there are, well, Muppets on the set! Yes, a few days ago, On Location Vacations posted quite a few new pictures from the set featuring Jason Segel, Walter (who is looking wonderful), Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gozno, Janice, Zoot, Beaker, Bunsen, part of Scooter, and more! This is hugely exciting and the Muppets look AMAZING. More please!

There have also been three more celebrity cameo announcements for The Muppets: Mickey Rooney, Ricky Gervais, and Emily Blunt. Mickey Rooney was pretty much confirmed when a close friend of Rooney's posted a picture of two directors chairs; one that said, simply, "The Muppets" and another that said "Mickey Rooney." One would have to assume that means he's in the movie. Gervais and Blunt have been reported as being in the film by The Hollywood Reporter... but who knows what that means. What are your thoughts on these possible cameos?

Unless you live under a rock, then you've surely seen Cookie Monster's brilliant audition tape to be a host of Saturday Night Live. If you haven't (or if you have and just want to watch it again), check it out now...



The video has over one million views and the Facebook campaign page has over 100,000 members. With numbers like that, it seems highly likely that we'll be seeing Cookie Monster on SNL sometime in the near future. I for one am thrilled by this prospect and think that it would be an awesome, awesome outlet for the Sesame Street characters. Let's make it happen!!

Have a wall? Like the Muppets? Well then, you should consider ordering some Muppet FatHeads! What are FatHeads, you ask? Good question. FatHeads are basically a cross between stickers and posters. They're high-quality materials and are shaped like sports players, movie stars, and more. And now, there are Muppets! Check out the picture and see for yourself! As you can see, there are plenty of Muppets included: Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal, Swedish Chef, Bunsen, Beaker, Rizzo, and Pepe. The cost is over $100... but if you have the wall space, it's definitely worth it!

There is some sad news for BOOM! Studios and The Muppet Show Comic Book as Roger Langridge announced that he is leaving the comic after the upcoming next arc ("The Four Seasons"). Langridge cited his reason for leaving as just wanting a change and a readjustment in his life which is entirely understandable. While we'll miss Roger an extreme amount, we at The Muppet Mindset would like to wish him a smooth transition and we sincerely hope he continues to make people happy with his incredible talent.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier