For this Sci-Friday, enjoy a special moment of joy between Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog and Frank Oz as Fozzie Bear at the World Puppetry Festival in 1980. Henson and Oz, similar to the outtakes of The Muppet Movie, improve for five straight minutes and the result is nothing short of brilliance:
Like all great characters, Fozzie is textured and complex. Frank Oz describes Fozzie Bear as “desperately insecure” and cites the character’s close friendship with Kermit the Frog to be essential to his core. Oz elaborates that, “With Kermit, he would want to find a way to be funny. That’s not altruistic for Fozzie. He’s not trying to make people feel better. He just wants to be a great comedian. But the main thing is that he would need to be with Kermit. He feels alone without Kermit.”
The voice behind Fozzie is Frank Oz, who’s been ‘that guy’ of the Muppet show, TV, and other movies. He was the original voice behind Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle in The Muppet Show, and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover in Sesame Street. He’s also Yoda. Not only that, Oz has directed several great movies including The Dark Crystal (1982), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), What About Bob? (1991), In & Out (1997), Bowfinger (1999), The Score (2001), Death at a Funeral (2007), and an episode of the US TV series Leverage (2011). He was also the lawyer in Knives Out.
The Muppets proved that you don’t need a huge budget if you have a big heart. Fozzie Bear and Frank Oz are a big part of that success story. I hope they inspire you to show your big heart in your work, too.
I enjoy sharing fun scifi stuff every Friday. Go down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Happy Friday and enjoy your weekend! Thanks to Wikipedia for this information about Fozzie and Frank Oz.