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Well, Detroit Institute is kind of a key - probably the largest permanent collection of puppets in the US.
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When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.
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There's great value in being able to step back and laugh at yourself, at life and at attitudes. Laughter helps you put everything into perspective.
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I'm sure Kermit will stay young a lot longer than I will.
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We started off with this fairly grand concept of, if you were to tackle it at a children's level, eliminating war. What would you do?
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Yeah, I think we did the term Muppets before we got the show Sam and Friends - a few months after I started working.
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You're assisting the audience to understand; you're giving them a bridge or an access. And if you don't give them that, if you keep it more abstract, it's almost more pure. It's a cooler thing.
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At the University of Maryland, my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design, stage design or television design.
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When The Muppet Show ended, we all sat around and said, what kind of television show would we like to do. We felt the need these days are for some quality children's programming.
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I couldn't do ventriloquism. I don't have any interest in splitting myself in two, the way a ventriloquist does — half-himself, half the dummy on his knee.
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There are people who think that we should never reveal anything, never show puppeteers and all of that. It tends to be something that parents worry about more than kids, because kids work just at face value.
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Life's like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.
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The whole idea with the show from the start was to go international.
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Yeah, well when I first started working, it was $5 a show; it was probably a little higher by the time I got to my own show, but I remember that they put me under contract at $100 a week, which to me was really an astronomical price.
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With 'The Muppet Show' we used to play with a lot of different styles. That's what it was: a variety thing.
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As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood.
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I've always thought that science fiction films set in our world have always rung false.
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The puppets in 'Dark Crystal' were very complicated, and some quite unpleasant. In that movie, I think we got into areas a bit too realistic.
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It's into the same bag as E.T. and Yoda, wherein you're trying to create something that people will actually believe, but it's not so much a symbol of the thing, but you're trying to do the thing itself.
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I always felt that I was not a part of things in general. I've always been outside of things.
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It has always been difficult to get Big Bird to be very pretty. Big Bird in England is much more gorgeous.
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I do remember doing shows strictly in black and white, too, so you're right.
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Puppets have the same sort of graceful aging that cartoon characters have.
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There was a little afternoon show that was called Afternoon. Back in those days in television, most local stations had a midday show for housewives that had a series of things. It was like a variety show for midday.