The Ramblings of Jarrod Fairclough, Muppet Nerd - Part 5

Jarrod Fairclough Presents: The Ramblings of a Muppet Nerd – The Museum Of Jarrod Art

Jarrod Fairclough - Hello. Me again.

Let me tell you a little about myself. I'm studying animation, about to begin my third and final year. It means that I'm constantly doodling and drawing, and various times this had led me to draw Muppets, both of The Muppets and Sesame Street categories. Now, I am no professional by any means. I'm no Dave Hulteen, or Chris Smigliano, or anyone like that. I do this for a bit of fun, and I thought maybe I could indulge myself a little. Speaking of indulging myself, remember when I wrote that love letter to Jason Segel a while back? I have to admit I got a little self-conscious when I found out he reads this website. It means he read the letter.  Do... do you think he likes me? Anyway, awkwardness aside, allow me to talk about each of the drawings, and look out for special comments by a mystery guest, which I'm pretty sure I already revealed was going to be Joe Mathieu ages ago...

This was a very quickly drawn picture while I was waiting for some tech guys to come fix the computer I was using. When I say quick, I mean maybe 3-4 minutes tops. Bert is a frequently drawn character by me, I just find his head shape to be really interesting to draw. Plus it's great fun making different expressions just with his eyebrow. This one is nonchalance. I don't really like drawing Ernie too much. His head shape is really confusing, and its delicate to draw, because if you don't get the head just right, you'll end up having Ernie look like a cross between Elmo and Stewie from Family Guy. You'll also notice Ernie doesn't seem to have a left hand. As I said, 3 to 4 minutes.

JOE MATHIEU:  Cute, sketchy version of Ernie and Bert looking somewhat embarrassed about something. The Ed Koren line makes them appear insecure and a bit nervous. Their hair is exactly how I used to draw it in the early 70's when I drew them with pen and ink.

I call this one "1930’s Cartoon." I love the look of those old rubbery characters, like when Mickey Mouse used to have eyes like that. Also done in class between work, I started with Kermit, and went from there. To get the good grey look, I coloured each of the characters their proper colours, i.e. Kermit was green, Fozzie was orange, etc., and then I "grey-scaled" the layers, which turned them black and white and grey. Sam was a last minute addition. I loved this picture so much; I slightly edited it and attempted to enter it into the We Love Fine t-shirt contest. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, it was too much hassle to enter and I didn't bother. Which is good, because much more talented people deserved to win.

JOE MATHIEU: 1936; the year Jim was born. The Muppets have a period, sort of Steamboat Willie, look about them. I have to admit that I first saw Sesame Street on black and white TV!

This picture was done while I was testing out a new drawing tablet I had acquired. I don't have a whole lot to say about it.  n the final piece, I ended up editing Elmo's eyes so they didn't look so oddly proportioned. My sister really liked it, and the final piece got printed out and is now hanging in my little niece's bedroom.

JOE MATHIEU:  Very nice. I would still like to see everyone bunched together, though. Aren't rainbows beautiful?

This one got done during class as well. It's amazing I actually get anything done there. Originally I was going to just draw Gonzo. I was trying to find a good way to draw his nose. Then I drew Camilla, which, can I say, is my favourite part of this drawing. Then I drew the other two. I'm not 100% happy with either. Kermit's top half of his mouth is a little too exaggerated, and I should change it, but meh. Fozzie's too skinny, and he has a weird lover half of his mouth. I complain, yes. But I'm still happy enough with it to share it.

JOE MATHIEU:  Everyone seems happier now that they are in color! I think they would be even happier if they were mashed closer together. Jim always liked the characters smashed together; look at all the group photos with Jim in the middle. He liked all the heads touching, making an all-over pattern. Where's Miss Piggy?

This next one was done for a woman at work. She had asked me to find a good Sesame Street poster for her son's room. His name is Rohan, and he's now 3, I think. When we were talking about it one day, my best friend's mum was there and said, "Why don't you draw a poster?" So I did. But it wasn't this one. Originally I started one with Elmo holding an R, Grover with an O, etc., but then I started doodling in class and drew the background you see here. And I loved it. You'll notice that Grover, Cookie and Oscar look slightly blurry, as does the background. That's because they were all done at one size, and scaled up to make the image the size of two normal pieces of paper together. I really like Oscar and Big Bird in this. And Cookie. Cookie looks dumb. And I love the Count. I love all of them but Elmo, and even then he's pretty good too.

JOE MATHIEU: There's a handsome group! I love the funky architecture growing out of a grassy field, especially with the addition of a medieval castle on the right! I always loved drawing the Count, but the underside of his cape always gave me fits; working digitally would have been a god-send. What exactly is Grover carrying?

Joe, Grover is carrying a cape.

I love this picture. I love this picture more and more every time I look at it. I love the effect of the lights, I love the crazy mouths. I should point out; the mouths were partially inspired by Evan Cheng, after I saw his zombie pictures on ToughPigs. Every time I've attempted to redraw this picture, I've failed. I've only just been able to draw Elmo's head the same without the mouth looking weird. I'll sound a tad arrogant here, but I just really like this drawing, it's one of, if not my favourite one I've ever done!

JOE MATHIEU: I have no idea what this is about, but I love it! These drawings are a lot of fun. I can't help but remember that when we started drawing the Muppets for books and products in the early 70's, Jim did not want a codified style where everyone was forced to draw the characters in the same style with the same technique. He encouraged everyone to interpret the Muppets in their own way. I think it has gone a bit in the other direction these days, but that was how Jim liked it. Also, he didn't think that the drawings had to be overly accurate representations of the puppets, either. I think he felt that the puppets had their physical limitations that the illustrators didn't have to be hobbled by. Good job, Jarrod!

Okay, before we continue, two things. One, "I have no idea what this is about, but I love it!" may just be my favourite review ever. I'm currently getting a website together, and at the top of it I've put that line. Two, I've often thought that the characters are all looking too much the same in all the Sesame books lately. It's nice to know that Jim loved a different look, and it may just be my delusional state, but I read that also as "Jim would have loved this drawing."

Okay, now, next are a few images I didn't get Joe to comment on, because I either forgot or I didn't expect him to comment on it.

This one is Kermit working on his Jim Henson puppet. His pupils are a bit small. Other than that I really like this picture. But then on that Scandanavian fan art site I saw a much better Kermit-Jim Puppet picture, one I love so much I'm considering printing and framing it.

Fozzie's Comedy Club. Just a really quick picture, don’t think I really even outlined Fozzie roughly first. I do these while listening to music, so I tend to zone out. I love the rubber chicken. Also, I want to point out, it was after these that I realized Fozzie's hat flips up, not goes down.

Thanks again to Joe Mathieu. I genuinely cannot put into words how good he has been to me over the last year or so! We've traded e-mails back and forth, and he's become a bit of a mentor in my eyes!

So that's just some of my Sesame Street and Muppet drawings. I'm sure in another six months or so I'll have enough to do another MOJA article. Next time I'll be talking about the wait for The Muppets, and how I managed to see it so many times for free (and no, I didn't download it).

Life is a happy song, my friends. And it's also a fillet of fish. Yes it is.

Jarrod.







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com

"?" with Jarrod Fairclough: Why Does Oscar Wear a Lid Hat?

"?" with Jarrod Fairclough

Because Asking Questions is a Good Way to Find Out Things

Question: Why do drawings of Oscar the Grouch wear a garbage can lid hat? Part 2

Hello Muppet fans, and welcome to part 2 (technically part 3, but we won’t count Katy Perry’s article) of my series of articles.

You may recall a little while ago I questioned why Oscar the Grouch is always drawn with a garbage can lid on his head, when he is never seen like this on the show. I asked for theories and boy oh boy, did I get a hundred e-mails in one night!

...Of course none of them were from you. I totally forgot that putting your e-mail on the internet results in spammers getting ahold of it. Although, on the bright side, I did inherit $250 million from a Nigerian Prince I didn’t even know, so, hey... Every cloud...

But that’s cool, perhaps “?” won’t be much of an audience participation segment.

I did get one e-mail from Beauregard from the Muppet Central Forums, who gave a bit of a theory which makes a fair bit of sense...  Here it is, in all its copied and pasted form:

"Hello there. Beauregard here from the old Muppet Central boards. Wanted to weigh in on the scandal that is going down over at The Muppet Mindset. Oh, wait, that's a whole other e-mail... *ahem* I just wanted to send a clue regarding the dustbin-hat-wearing-Oscar. Have you noticed that the Grouchketeers all wear dustbin lids as hats? Surely they must have taken this fashion cue from somewhere, adding weight to the idea that Oscar himself may have at one time worn said lid-based item as a millinery accompaniment?
Love ya! – Beau"

Awww, thanks Beau, we love you too. Because you’re the only one who e-mailed me. You’re now my favorite... My favorite behind Joe Hennes from ToughPigs, because that’s where this thing really got going.  I managed to get Joe’s e-mail and shot him a note asking if he could talk to Joe Mathieu, the illustrator I mentioned countless times in the article. And the next day, well wasn’t I surprised to see an e-mail from one Mr. Mathieu, with a full on explanation, which totally made sense! So, here, please enjoy it in its copied and pasted form:

"Hi Jarrod

I love your question about Oscar the Grouch’s can lid; I hope I can shed some light.

I think we started drawing the lid as a “hat” for several reasons. You seem to be upset that we drew it this way even though it didn’t exist this way in the puppet world. There were a number of things that we drew different from the actual puppets because they simply worked better in the illustration world. I can remember conversations about this with Jim Henson in the early days. He would show me one of the Muppets, say Bert, and he would tell me not to draw him literally from a certain angle because it wouldn’t look good, but the puppet had to be built that way for mechanical reasons. So we took some liberties because there was no reason to limit the artwork because of a physical, mechanical limitation of a puppet. I think this point of view is not as prevalent today because Jim isn’t here to say it’s OK.

Don’t forget, in the early 70’s we had not seen most of the puppets legs because most of them didn’t have any; Kermit and Grover had legs, Big Bird too, but Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster and most of the rest didn’t. We had to make the legs up and the early style books didn’t help at all. By the way, the ‘73 style book didn’t show Oscar’s lid as a hat; I looked at the book after you asked.

In the case of Oscar, let’s try to remember that garbage can lids are not usually hinged to the base. Oscar’s was built that way so that the performer could throw the lid open and it wouldn’t fall on the floor! When I tried to draw it in its open, upright position, it looked like a halo from an iconic religious painting! So we placed it on his head, and by angling it this way and that, we could intensify his attitude and emotion. And it could fly up in the air if he were really upset and it could land perfectly back on his head.

As for who pictured it this way first, I am not really sure, but I don’t think it was me. I have two possibilities. One is that Michael Frith, who was an early illustrator but also the art director at Random House, might have suggested it to one of the illustrators. Or two, maybe it was Mel Crawford. Crawford was one of the early illustrators who seemed to disappear after a couple of books. He drew the lid as a hat in the Sesame St. 1-2-3 Storybook (1973) on page 24, and that’s the earliest one I can find. I just thought of another possibility; see if you can find a copy of the Oscar Book by Jeff Moss, illustrated by Michael Gross. This might have been the first Oscar book, but I don’t know where my copy is; maybe he tried it, I don’t know.

I hope this has been some help. And thanks for the kind words in your article. Cheers!

Joe Mathieu"

You know what, Joe Mathieu?  That totally makes sense!

So there we go, Oscar has a hat because otherwise he’d look too religious!

I hope that’s answered some questions for you, and be sure my friends that I shall be back very shortly with more questions, because asking questions is a good way to find out things!

Cheers Muppet fans,
Jarrod Fairclough

UPDATE – WRITTEN A WEEK AFTER THIS ARTICLE

Hello Muppet fans.
I am an honorable man, willing to admit defeat when it is necessary. And today, it is so.

For the record, I wrote the above article around a week before writing this update, and I liked the above article too much to re-do it.

Tuesday this week, I was sitting at home, actually reading over my Katy Perry article from the other day, being arrogant and admiring my own work. At midday here in Australia, ABC2 plays Sesame Street. This means I don’t have to be up at some ridiculous hour to watch it on ABC1. Okay, so 8:30am isn’t a ridiculous time, but I like to sleep in. So I notice its 12:03, and I turn over to get myself a bit of a Sesame fix. They’re playing a season 36 episode, all about the Grouchketeers and Telly learning a cheer. Episode 4094, for those of you playing at home.

Now, unfortunately I can’t get a screen-cap of this, so with any luck the awesome Mr. Picture Getter himself, Ryan Dosier, may be able to rummage one up.  If not, I apologize.  But Oscar was wearing a garbage can lid... As a hat... I was shocked, and I audibly laughed, and tried, but failed, to find a picture of it.

So it turns out Beauregard was right!  And we love him for it.

I’ll see you soon, Muppet fans. I’m trying to come up with my next question as we speak...

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier