Muppet Design

Jim Henson had a great sense of design. I've been doing some research for a project and was impressed with the range of emotions and character traits his characters posess. While much of this comes from how well the characters are performed by their Muppeteers, the design of the characters has a lot to do with it as well.

While everyone knows the Muppets and what they look like, I'd like to look at an animated segment from Sesame Street:



It's a short piece, so you need to establish your characters pretty quickly. Based on appearance alone, you can tell that the king is a kind fellow. He loves his daughters so much that he'd be happy to tell you all about them in song. He probably carries around a bunch of photos of them as well.

The daughters are hard to see in this clip, but on the close-up you can see that this daughter is beautiful yet humble. The eyes and posing of the head are especially nice.

The knights have a nice design to them. Their bodies make it seem as though they are mainly ceremonial in their duties. I doubt they slay dragons or fight in battles.

My favorite character in the piece is the Messenger that shows up at the end. His eyes show his excitement, and his mouth opens wide to help him deliver the great news.

While one could argue that the song and voice work are the strong suit of this piece, for me the character design choices are what make it memorable. The simple shapes and minimal facial details help sell the characters in a fast yet convincing way. This is one of my favorite bits from Sesame Street. Jim Henson and his creative team have a great way of using design elements to help sell a character by looks alone, before the first MEEP, Wakka-wakka, or Yep yep yep.