Muppet Puzzle / Problem

[MathMuppet]

Hello fellow Muppet fans.

I am participating in a puzzle contest, hold by the student organization De Leidsche Flesch. This is a puzzle that I was unable to solve. Could you help me solving it? This is the puzzle:

Puzzle: Mah Na Mah Na

The following 16 words are given:

Fozzie - Dr. Teeth - Zoot - Gonzo
Animal - Kermit - Robin - Elmo
Grover - Sam - Bert - Janice
Ieniemienie - Pino - Oscar - Fat Blue

Four of these words belong together, because they define a keyword. What are the keywords?

 

[The Count]

Well... First of all, those aren't "words", they're character names. Secondly, "Fat Blue" is doubly wrong because it's a specific type of Anything Muppet from Sesame Street, whereas the actual character's name is Mr. Johnson—that's a common mistake that most everybody makes. Thirdly, any Muppet fan will tell you that the proper response to "Mahna Mahna", (when refering to the song as is often the case) is "Doo-doo-do-doo-doo" as quipped by The Snowths.

This may not be the answer you're looking for, without any further info it's the best I can give. Hope this helps somewhat and welcome to the forums.

 

[MathMuppet]

Hello The Count, thank you for your reply.

It seems to be that the given 16 words are 16 Muppets / character names, however I am not totally sure if this is the case in this puzzle. Of course it seems to be most likely, but puzzles and especially puzzles of this kind can be counterintuitive.

You are totally right that "Fat Blue" is an incorrect character name. Thus if the 16 words are 16 character names, then it is most likely to assume that Mr. Johnson is meant. Please note that I, and the puzzle makers, are not native English speakers. That could be the reason for several mistakes in the puzzle.

The title of the puzzle is "Mah Na Mah Na". It could be the case that this title gives a hint for the solution of the puzzle. However, this does not have to be the case. This puzzle is thus quite uncertain in many ways.

The most likely exercise of this puzzle is to characterize the 16 character names into 4 groups of 4 character names that define a keyword. I tried several keywords, like color, band (Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem), unibrow.

Do you have other suggestions for possible keywords?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

I'm a bit confused as to how exactly you are supposed to solve the puzzle. Could you explain a bit more?

Like, are the characters already in the groups of four or do you need to pick them out and sort them into groups of four yourself?

 

[MathMuppet]

At this moment I assume that the given character names are not already sorted into groups of four. Thus the exercise is to sort them into groups of four defined by four unknown keywords.

 

[The Count]

Hmm... Again, "Mah Na" should be corrected to "Mahna" (one word).

Since there are four Electric Mayhem members (Dr. Teeth, Zoot, Animal, and Janice) maybe those together with the keyword of "Music"?
I'm thinking maybe Gonzo with his love of chickens, Bert with his love of pigeons, Sam the Eagle, and Pino could go together with the keyword of "Bird"?
Dunno what other solutions to offer, hope you have better luck figuring this with the other people who made the puzzle.

 

[Hubert]

So does the title have to do with the puzzle solution? Are we solving a direct association with "Mahna Mahna," or is that just the title name to show that the puzzle is about Muppets?

(Also, is Pino the blue monster waiter at Charlie's Restaurant that is performed by Dave Goelz? And who is Ieniemienie?)

 

[The Count]

Hubert... Ieniemienie is a young inquisitive girl mouse from Sesamstraat, the Dutch co-production of Sesame Street. Which leads me to believe that Pino is the blue-feathered cousin of Big Bird's from that same international version of the show.
The monster you're thinking of is actually named Piño with the Spanish letter "ñ" (which sounds like an ny).