Inspired by my
brother's investigations, some browsing on the Internet teaches me that Paul Benedict, who had a secondary role on "The Jeffersons," played the
Mad Painter. One of his victims (in particular, a #3 on her sandwich bread and
a #7 on her purse) was the even-more-later-famous Stockard Channing, of "Grease" and "West Wing" fame.
More obscurely-famous Sesame Streeters:
Mrs. Garrett played Molly the Mail Lady; (already-famous)
Alan Arkin did several sketches with his wife.
That Muppet Wiki seems like an amazing resource, for example, refuting the
It's a Wonderful Life connection to Bert & Ernie. I learn that the heavyset blue muppet customer of Waiter Grover (who I had in my adulthood mentally nicknamed the Jewish Muppet) is actually named
Mr. Johnson, which doesn't sound very Jewish at all. (A full list of Mr. Johnson's sketches is in a
different article, though.) Who can pass up this
publicity photo of Kermit and Miss Piggy with Luke Skywalker and Yoda?
The origin of Cookie Monster. And I can envision my brother
checking this variety show out at the Museum of Television.
My brother's post satirizes the latter-day Sesame Street's oversolicitousness of 21st-century youth, but it's based on very real events, such as the ban of
Don Music in 1998 or the decision to
end the Snuffleupagus gag in 1985. Someone should compile all those for a Muppet Wiki article.
Separately, Tyler Cowen should do an analysis of the
Doozers' Sisyphean economy. It only makes sense as some sort of elaborate mating ritual, but that seems to
contradict canon.
