The Muppets

Jim Henson's Muppets blended cuteness and eccentricity with equally playful songs, delivering more than thirty years of family entertainment that transcended its youthful target audience. While Sesame Street concentrated on preschool viewers and introduced numerous beloved children's television figures, the characters featured on The Muppet Show and in the accompanying films cultivated a sharper, more urbane visual style and comedic tone. Puppeteer and artist Henson fashioned an early prototype of Kermit the Frog in 1955 for the Washington, D.C.-area children's program Sam and Friends, where he worked as a puppet designer; once The Muppet Show launched in 1976, the ensemble had expanded to include Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rowlf the Dog, and the house band Dr. Teeth & the Electric Mayhem, with their signature fusion of intricate puppetry and music already fully formed. Alongside Henson, the principal original puppeteers and voices were Frank Oz, Richard Hunt, and Dave Goelz.

The soundtrack for the 1972 television special The Frog Prince appeared in 1976 and marked one of the group's earliest album releases. A soundtrack drawn from The Muppet Show followed in 1978 and spotlighted signature numbers such as "Mah Nah Mah Nah," "Bein' Green," and the series theme; the scores for 1979's The Muppet Movie, 1981's The Great Muppet Caper, and 1984's The Muppets Take Manhattan matched the caliber of contemporary stage musicals, most notably through the enduring "Rainbow Connection." The 1988 release The Ghost of Haffner Hall incorporated contributions from the Chieftains' Paddy Moloney and stood as the last Muppet project completed before Henson's death from pneumonia in 1990. His son Brian assumed the role of Kermit's voice, allowing the franchise to proceed with 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1995's Kermit Unpigged, 1996's Muppet Treasure Island, and 2005's The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. Soundtracks also accompanied the animated Muppet Babies series and its films, among them Muppet Babies: Rock It to the Stars. The characters returned to live-action feature films in 2011 with The Muppets, whose album mixed classic Muppet numbers, original material performed by the human cast, and updated covers given a distinctive Muppet treatment—an approach repeated for the similarly styled 2014 sequel Muppets Most Wanted.