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New Collectibles • 11/21 - The Muppets Original Soundtrack CD • 11/01 - The Muppets Green and Red Christmas CD Reissue (with Two Bonus Tracks) • 10/11 - The Muppets: The Movie Junior Novel, Frogs Are Funny Book, The Muppets: Reusable Sticker Book and I Am Kermit the Frog Book • 10/01 - Doodling with Jim Henson Book • 9/13 - Fraggle Rock Classics Volume 1 Comics • 9/6 - Elmo's Music Magic DVD • 9/5 - Tales of a Sixth Grade Muppet Book • 8/23 - Muppets: The Green Album and Jim Henson: The Guy Who Played with Puppets Book • 8/16 - The Muppets Take Manhattan Blu-ray/DVD and Muppets From Space Blu-ray/DVD |
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Kermit Love dies at 91 Big Bird and Mr. Snuffle-Upagus were designed by Kermit Love who also performed hot dog vendor "Willy" on Sesame Street Courtesy of the Associated Press
Love died from congestive heart failure Saturday in Poughkeepsie, near his home in Stanfordville, Love's longtime partner, Christopher Lyall, told The New York Times. In addition to his work with Henson, Love was a designer for some of ballet's most prominent choreographers, including Twyla Tharp, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine Love also designed costumes and puppets for film and advertising, including the Snuggle bear from the fabric softener commercials. "Sesame Street," public television's groundbreaking effort to use TV to teach preschoolers, premiered in 1969. Henson designed the original sketches of Big Bird, and Love then built the 8-foot, 2-inch yellow-feathered costume. It was Love's idea to add a few feathers designed to fall off, to create a more realistic feel. "The most important thing about puppets is that they must project their imagination, and then the audience must open their eyes and imagine," he told The New York Times in 1981. Looked like Santa, acted like the Grinch Love also helped design costumes and puppets for Mr. Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster, among other characters. He even appeared on the show himself as Willy, the fantasy neighborhood's resident hot dog vendor. But Love always insisted Henson's famous frog wasn't named for him, according to The New York Times. Caroll Spinney, who has played Big Bird since "Sesame Street" began, said he knew Love was gravely ill but didn't know he'd died until Tuesday.
In addition to designing the Big Bird costume, he added, "Kermit really helped me with dramatic coaching, and he was wonderful at that." Born in 1916, Love began making puppets for a federal Works Progress Administration theater in 1935. He also designed costumes for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater. From there he began working with the New York City Ballet's costumer. In his 2003 book, "The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch): Lessons From a Life in Feathers," Spinney recalled that after a year on "Sesame Street," he felt he couldn't live in New York on his salary. Love told him to give it a month; the next week, Big Bird was on the cover of Time magazine and Spinney couldn't imagine leaving.
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Kermit Love, the costume designer who helped puppeteer Jim Henson create Big Bird and other "Sesame Street" characters, has died. He was 91.
"Kermit was definitely a totally unique person," 74-year-old Spinney said. "He looked very much like Santa Claus but was a little bit more like the Grinch."
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