Skits of the Early 70s

[Oscarfan]

The Two-Headed Monster made a second appearance in the special during the Monkey song. The Monkey character does a bunch of crazy things, including turn into the monster.

 

[D'Snowth]

Now I know I have to look at the tape again, because I had forgotten about that.

 

[minor muppetz]

I've heard stories that in one insert they taped, Caroll right-handed for Cookie, and during the whole insert, Frank basically kept a firm grip on Caroll's hand to limit his actions.

I've heard about Frank putting his hand on the right-hand performers hands so they wouldn't gesture too much. Though I don't know of many segments where it's obvious his character's holding onto the left hand (I think I've noticed it in a few Harvey Kneeslapper segments).

As for his comfort level, another thing to keep in mind toois that even then Caroll knew Jim was one of the greats in the art of puppetry, so it might have been a little intimidating for him to perform alongside the master like that.

I wonder if that might explain him being better as Big Bird and Oscar, since those two were primarily on the street while Jim didn't perform on the street often, allowing Caroll to concentrate better without the awe of performing with Jim.

as for the scene with Oscar and Telly in China, I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure that was chromakey, I'd have to take another look...

It's been a few years since I've watched the special, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't chromokey. As I said, Spinney and Meehl were in China for the shooting, performing Big Bird and Barkely, respectively, so it wouldn't have really been much trouble for them to perform those two.

 

[D'Snowth]

I've heard about Frank putting his hand on the right-hand performers hands so they wouldn't gesture too much. Though I don't know of many segments where it's obvious his character's holding onto the left hand (I think I've noticed it in a few Harvey Kneeslapper segments).

I think the hardest thing about being a puppeteer is right-handing; the 40 Years book really delved into that and just what the real challenges were that went into it: I read Tyler Bunch said being a big person has prevented him from doing a lot of right-handing (once right-handing for Baby Bear, and during a break, David said in Baby Bear's voice, "I've never been so aware of my wight hand befowe in my life"), so he ends up with a lot of minor one-shot characters. It's ironic, because some text has said that the right-hand is the hand that does most of the action, but speaking with right-handers they pretty much say the opposite... as with Frank, I think that's probably his way of reminding them you're not the performer here, I am, I'll lead, you'll follow.

I wonder if that might explain him being better as Big Bird and Oscar, since those two were primarily on the street while Jim didn't perform on the street often, allowing Caroll to concentrate better without the awe of performing with Jim.

Perhaps, but to his credit, I can't exactly say that his performances as Big Bird and Oscar were exactly stellar in those early days either, but then again, that was partly due to poor puppeteering conditions: the first Oscar was built specifically for a right-hand, but the way they had Oscar's home set up forced Caroll to work the puppet left-handed, which pretty much ruined the puppet... not to mention, the first Big Bird didn't have a monitor inside it, so he really couldn't see much of what he was doing... as a puppeteer, I can attest to that, the monitors are a HUGE reliance, without those, you're practically working blind, and it's a tremendous handicap.

 

[minor muppetz]

If Frank Oz did accept the role of Big Bird when offered, I wonder how many character's he'd have performed by now (or if he'd currently be a director). Would he have been limited to maybe two or three roles (it was already decided he'd perform Bert before Big Bird was created, but did Jim have any of his fellow performers in mind for the role of Oscar before searching for a Big Bird performer?).

 

[D'Snowth]

It's also interesting to note that in the early days of the Muppets, like the commercials for La Choy, Purina, Wilkin's Coffee, etc, even they usually consisted of two or more characters, Jim dubbed the voices for all of them.