Where’s Nico?

Amazingly, my last job let me get away with things that I really didn’t figure I could get away with. At one point, I even did a presentation to a conference of their sales folks where I explained what application programming interfaces (APIs) were with the help of a bunch of muppets. It even included a couple brief musical numbers. (I swear this is true)

Another thing I used to do was send out a weekly email regarding a product that I was helping to introduce to the company. Inside the email, I’d put four questions about the product that I’d answer, and a totally made up question that had nothing to do with work, in the hopes that it would get people to actually read the email. Well, that and frankly, I found it a lot of fun to put the fake questions together.

Anyway, I thought it may be fun to share some of those fake questions from time to time on the blog. Let’s kick it off with:

What are the Top 5 muppet side characters?

That’s a tough one!  First off – how do you define a side character?  Snuffleupagus and the Count are pretty awesome, but probably bigger than just ‘side character’ status.  Here’s my top 5, in no particular order:

1. Beaker – the hapless assistant to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew.  What’s not to love?  The guy really speaks no words, but yet communicates spectacularly through his reactions.

2. The Mahna Mahna guy and his backup singers – these guys definitely count as ‘side characters’, as I think all they were ever used for was the one song, but holy cow, what an impression they made in their limited screen time!  Jack Nicholson once won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in ‘A Few Good Men’ despite the fact that he’s only in the movie for maybe 15 minutes or so.  How the Mahna Mahna guy didn’t walk away with a Best Supporting Actor Emmy is beyond me…

3. Floyd Pepper, Janice and Zoot – you knew things were about to groove when you saw the Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem band take the stage.  I’d say Dr. Teeth and Animal probably got enough dialog in to not count as side characters (Animal only ever said one word, his name, but he sure said it a lot), but Janice could sure lay down a sweet guitar lick given she was working with big fuzzy muppet fingers, Floyd Pepper just has an incredible name, and Zoot would always finish off the Muppet Show theme song with that great honking blare on his sax.

4. Link Hogthrob – speaking of great names!  For people my age who grew up watching the Muppet Show, one staple was always the ‘Pigs in Space’ segments, where Link served as Dr. Julius Strangepork, captain of the Swinetrek.  But Link was no one trick piggy – he often served roles as a news reporter or as a police officer.  Talk about range!

5. Sam the Eagle – I debated about this one… he bordered on breaking past ‘side character’ status.  But in a world full of wacky silliness, Sam was always the one there who could keep a straight face.  His pomposity was pretty irresistible.

– Ken 3/21/24