Big Bird and Grover

[minor muppetz]

Has anybody noticed that Big Bird and Grover seemed to be a duo during the shows early years? They were together in the sketch where Big Bird had Grover do two chin-ups, and Big Bird appeared at the end of the sketch where Grover demosntrated heavy and light, and I've read about an epsidoe that begins with Big Bird and Grover cleaning the Fix-It Shop, and they were the last two characters seen in the opening sequence of epsidoe 406. I've also heard of a sketch where Big Bird tried to cure Grover's hiccups.

However, with Big Bird normally appearing in street scenes more than non-street scenes, and with Grover (and Frank Oz's other characters) eventualy being reduced to just appearing in inserts (especially non-street ones), and with many of Big Bird's sketches not being repeated in years, the two haven't interracted much until 2002. They then only interracted in various books.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Yeah,they sure did appear alot together back in the early 70's.

 

[Mistersuperstar]

A lot of the original characters we only see in inserted clips appeared with the human characters on the street. It's a shame that some of the best characters are rarely seen in new skits.

 

[Drtooth]

I believe they broke up in the late 70's due to a certain other TV show that Frank, jim, and Richard were doing at the time.

But I see Big Bird as a Kermit/ fat Albert type figure. He gets along with everybody. Like he's the M.C. of the show. =But other than JTE, i really haven't seen Ernie and Big Bird together quite often.

He interacts most with Oscar, Elmo, Snuffy, and mostly the Humans. But sometimes he's with other characters. I never seen him with Sherlock hemlock, though.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Yeah. I agree. It would be good to see more Big Bird/Grover moments. Now that Eric is performing Grover now, it can be done.

 

[minor muppetz]

It seems like Kermit and Grover started to appear together less starting in the 1980s. Of course, it also seems like there was a brief "revivial" of Kermit and Grover as a team during the late 1990s, with two new Kermit and Grover sketches (Muppet Wiki mentions two very similar-sounding sketches. I'm not sure if they are really different or if they are the same) as well as their newest team-up, The Best of Kermit on Sesame Street.

Ernie and Cookie Monster seemed to have broken up as a duo in either the late 1980s or 1990s. Ernie has very rarely (if ever) interracted with Cookie Monster since Steve Whitmire took over as Ernie. Even with David Rudman performing Cookie Monster, they are rarely together, and their skits are also rarely shown anymore.

 

[JLG]

One of the first things that jumped out at me when I first saw 1970s episodes was that characters like Grover and Bert were actually on the Street. The Museum of Television and Radio has #1141 from 1978, prominently featuring both of them interacting with Big Bird. So at least that late, Frank Oz was still showing up for some of the main tapings. As an 80s kid, I never saw that at all. (Rare occasions, like Ernie's late song with Snuffy in the arbor, I must have just missed). Seeing Grover talking to the Bird and to Maria was surreal to see for the first time.

 

[muppet maniac]

They were also together in a scene from 1971, where Grover was standing in the window of Gordon and Susan's apartment, and Gordon (Matt Robinson) had a measuring stick.

 

[fuzzygobo]

I remember the Big Bird/Grover chin-up skit from way back when too. Big Bird was acting like Kermit, announcing for us viewers a particular concept, and Grover doing the actual physical labor. Grover demonstrated a number of times how to do two chin-ups, until every last child in the Western Hemisphere was able to grasp the concept of the number 2.
Then Big Bird grandly announces "And now Grover will demonstrate the number 18!" Poor Grover then loses his grip and falls into God-knows-what far beneath him.

Each Muppet character was like a different element on the periodic table. Combine any two, and you get a new compound.