These are some of the best-known characters on Sesame Street: Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert, Grover, Prairie Dawn, Elmo, and Oscar the Grouch. Sesame Street was created out of the ideologies of the civil rights movement to educate children not just about the “the Three Rs,” but about kindness, compassion, and empathy for others, especially those who aren’t “just like you.” This message was truly brought home by the Muppets, who are the focus of this body of work.
I was the perfect age for the Muppets. I was born in 1966, and I remember watching Sesame Street when it first premiered on November 10, 1969, and being captivated. This continued throughout my childhood, even when I was older and more of an Electric Company age, when homesick and bored—and when I was ten, I fully matriculated to the Muppet Show when it came out in 1976. Instead of GI Joes and other gender-coded toys and action figures, I surrounded myself with puppets, enjoying playing with these more gender-fluid (and character-enhancing and enriching) avatars—that also engendered becoming an artist, creating cartoons, comics, and narrative art throughout my life.
I have also taught fine art and comics my whole professional life, both within the context of the all-too-rarefied world of fine art but also, inspired by Jim Henson and others, the narrative art that can transcend into and have a positive impact on the broader public. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, an artist’s job is to tell stories for a culture to understand itself in order for it to progress, and the Muppets did this, both as part of Sesame Street’s mission, but also by enacting Henson’s desire to bring entertainment that translated his love for life and for others to the people.
Henson’s message, to “Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody—it’s a good life, enjoy it” is a sentiment that permeates all his work. I feel that the secret to making art in any realm is to be able to project one’s agency and feeling into your work, like a puppeteer. By thinking and emoting through your hand and brush or pencil to alchemize the elements and make a greater whole out of the parts, you can bring your work to life. I hope all these works do this to bring about the message of love and peace, which we need so much in these times.
This is based on a poster I had in my room as a kid in the ’70s that I would stare at before going to sleep every night—the Cookie Monster cooking cookies, nibbling the letter A—Muppet poetry! It is a rare image; I had to screenshot it from a Jim Henson documentary from that era. Along with the rest of the world, I love Cookie Monster, as he is voracious in his appetite not only for cookies, but for life, and is a monster who knows what he wants, but does so with good energy and zaniness. His famous song “C is for Cookie” is a cosmic earworm:
Now what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C
Let’s think of other things
That starts with C
Oh, who cares about the other things?
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C, yeah!
I wanted to try to capture the intensity of his focused mayhem making the drawing as animated as possible, a triptych to mimic each of his “cookie cookie” exalta-tions before he gobbles down the cookies with his “Yum Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm”!
This is based on a poster I had in my room as a kid in the ’70s that I would stare at before going to sleep every night—the Cookie Monster cooking cookies, nibbling the letter A—Muppet poetry! It is a rare image; I had to screenshot it from a Jim Henson documentary from that era. Along with the rest of the world, I love Cookie Monster, as he is voracious in his appetite not only for cookies, but for life, and is a monster who knows what he wants, but does so with good energy and zaniness. His famous song “C is for Cookie” is a cosmic earworm:
Now what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C
Let’s think of other things
That starts with C
Oh, who cares about the other things?
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C, yeah!
I wanted to try to capture the intensity of his focused mayhem making the drawing as animated as possible, a triptych to mimic each of his “cookie cookie” exalta-tions before he gobbles down the cookies with his “Yum Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm”!
This is based on a poster I had in my room as a kid in the ’70s that I would stare at before going to sleep every night—the Cookie Monster cooking cookies, nibbling the letter A—Muppet poetry! It is a rare image; I had to screenshot it from a Jim Henson documentary from that era. Along with the rest of the world, I love Cookie Monster, as he is voracious in his appetite not only for cookies, but for life, and is a monster who knows what he wants, but does so with good energy and zaniness. His famous song “C is for Cookie” is a cosmic earworm:
Now what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C
Let’s think of other things
That starts with C
Oh, who cares about the other things?
C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!
Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C, yeah!
I wanted to try to capture the intensity of his focused mayhem making the drawing as animated as possible, a triptych to mimic each of his “cookie cookie” exalta-tions before he gobbles down the cookies with his “Yum Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm”!
Big Bird is so sweet—the secret is that the puppeteer Caroll Spinney who played him (and Oscar the Grouch—a yin-yang of good vs. grouchy) realized that after playing him as a country bumpkin the first few episodes of Sesame Street, that it would be much better to play him as a six-year-old. This worked completely—young viewers could suture into the avatar of the always curious and kind giant yellow bird—and feel their agency (and safety) acknowl-edged and reinforced through a sense of quietude and calm. Although you know Big Bird is played by a man with his arm controlling the beak, it’s nearly impossible to watch and think of the mechanics of the engineering—he alchemizes completely into the avatar and his spirit drives the performance seamlessly.
Spinney was a bit of a loner, but perfect for the role as the full-bodied, walk-around Muppet who was sepa-rated from his Muppet kin in the live action sequences. Supposedly Sesame Street’s main director Jon Stone didn’t get along with the kind-hearted Spinney, but this perhaps added to the slight melancholy, sadness, and loneliness of Big Bird’s soul—the character always wanted to do good but was also worried that he might be in or get into trouble, and was perpetually misunderstood (no one believed him that his best friend Mr. Snuffleupagus was real!). For the first decades of the show, Big Bird was the biggest star (he was somewhat eclipsed by Elmo in Season 17, 1985–86).
The sequence, from the early ’70s, referenced in this painting is famous—Big Bird is wearing skates, which make him symbolically fly as if he was truly free. I chose colored pencil on this delicate Japanese rice paper as it feels like a memory from childhood—which it is both for me and the two little kids in the scene.
This image is from one of the most beloved interactions between Kermit and the real-life kids of Sesame Street. Joey Calvin and Kermit sing the ABCs, but she replaces certain letters with “Cookie Monster!” which frustrates Kermit, who mocks storming off, but Joey calls out to him to say, “I love you!” which makes Kermit come back and reply, “I love you too,” and she kisses Kermit on what would be his nose. The warmth of the sketch has total integrity, and the viewer can see the chemistry Henson would have with his avatar and the kids.
Kermit was like a teacher or parent, trying to control the environment but with loving kindness that was often challenged. But rather than be patriarchal in a gender- normative way, Kermit always acted sensitively. Even when he was frustrated, he would yelp or cry out, but to his own defeat and not antagonizing those who antagonized him. He knew what it was like to be different—green—but also as a male character (without genitals as a puppet!), he was more gender-fluid, being a new model for generations of what it was to be a good guy. The children loved him as much as the adults and the other Muppets, but from a kid’s point of view, these characters were real. Part of the charm of the Joey sequence is that Kermit sees her agency and respects it, and they cooperate—meeting one another in the middle of their ABCs and Joey’s love for Kermit.
Like Cookie, Cookie, Cookie (2024), this is based on a poster I had in my childhood room in the ’70s, that I would gaze at constantly before I went to sleep. Instead of counting sheep I would count the bats along with the Count! Going back to this mode while drawing was my first time revis-iting the Count in decades, and I realized his great allure. Brought to life by classic Muppeteer Jerry Nelson, his cheery Bela Lugosi impression is also a bit like Grandpa in The Munsters, with the same haircut and heart of gold. But the OCDism of the Count is the most intense and attractive and somehow respectful aspect of his character—he truly LOVES to Count (“Ah ah ah” was his staccato laugh when he accomplished his task).
Cardinality is when you can match one object to another, and is an essential part of early math learning, especially in the era of the early ’70s when the CTW came up with his concept. I think there is something deeply satisfying for any viewer of any age to be able to objectify concepts and things (not people!) that are abstract and therefore in chaos until you are able to define and order them and put them into rational thinking, something the Count does in every routine, and for a young viewer, taking something that could be scary—like a monstrous vampire who doesn’t go by the rules—and be able to contain and understand and appreciate and respect their difference is also the very progressive aspect of his concept.
Vampires of the night who dress fashionably well as a fop and live in gothic places with gloomy pets could also be queer people who are “against nature.” Although the Count did have girlfriends in later years when they toned down his character to be less “scary,” he ultimately was truly “queer” in that he didn’t fit into the patriarchal symbolic order, except as an abject outsider—but as he is interpolated and loved by the Sesame Street gang, he also becomes one of an accepted group, like the “crazy uncle” of a family that has a love but doesn’t speak his name.
“I Love Trash” is Oscar’s signature song, one that lovingly stays in your head long after you hear it, repeated through the Sesame Street epochs (most memorably sung by baritone Josh Groban). Oscar revels in his detritus that truly has no other value than a hoarder’s obsession:
Anything dirty, or dingy, or dusty
Yeah, anything ragged, or rotten, or rusty
Yes, I love, I love, I love trash!
Perhaps this is symbolic of Oscar’s own abject agency—he lives in a trash can, but has great confidence and pride, and takes ownership of his single status in relationships, in love and in life.
It was fun painting this. Like Carroll Spinney, who also played Big Bird’s yin to Oscar’s yang, to embroil oneself in his grouchy character was a great release, and edifying as an adult to both embrace the grouchy side of life and project oneself into the pure Big Bird. Oscar ultimately has a heart of gold—he was presented originally to show someone who provided all the negative traits that parents WOULDN’T want their kids to have, but that do exist in their micro culture. But like a grumpy grandpa, he ultimately gets along with the rest of the group, not as abject as he might think, but part of a greater community—and who secretly loves all (or most!) of those around him, and they love him, too.
This is from 1975, episode 0722 of Sesame Street, with the farm field background they used for several sketches in Season 6 of the show. I was nine years old, a little past the prime viewing age for Sesame, but I still watched when I was home sick or bored, and watching now brought back poi-gnant memories, as did rendering this image. “Bein’ Green” was Kermit’s (and Jim Henson’s!) signature song—Joe Raposo wrote the music and lyrics, and the song has since become a standard in “The Great American Songbook,” sung by many—perhaps most memorably, beyond Henson, Ray Charles. The music fit Henson’s personality, his differ-ence as a creator was that he was able to filter through his being as he “became” Kermit, and perfect for projecting his ideology of loving those who are other—and all others—and ultimately oneself. When performing this song on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1974, Henson brought the then-bro culture to a standstill, saying, “I got all wrapped up watching the dumb frog,” and Jack Benny exclaims, “this little louse is the hit of the show,” as Henson so clearly tran-scends the old patriarchal culture into a new era.
For this image I really got into the abstraction of the background, how the framing of the scene by real aspects of nature with tree leaves perfectly encompasses the “wild-ness” of nature—and the transformative aspects of what can’t be contained in understanding nature, to bliss out, like early American Modernists, into the spirituality of the scene. Kermit is a part of nature, just like, for me growing up as a queer gay kid, it took time to fully accept my own difference, but when I did, to do so with aplomb and quiet self-confidence, knowing in myself that I was “right,” and as long as I accepted myself, that hopefully others could accept me, too, and I could live in my future a happy existence, and that “being green” is a good thing:
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why
But, why wonder? Why wonder?
I’m green and it’ll do fine
It’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be
Bert and Ernie aren’t technically gay—the Sesame Workshop says that “puppets are puppets and do not have a sexual orientation,” and that “they were created to teach children that people can be friends with others who are different from them.” However, a controversy first consciously arose when former Sesame writer Mark Saltzman said he wrote the char-acters as a “loving couple” and that he based his writing on his relationship with his romantic partner Arnold Glassman.
As a kid, Bert and Ernie were by far my favorite char-acters; I would delightedly await their bits and had their puppets and paraphernalia around my room. When drawing this, I watch many of the classic sketches, and was struck by the true intimacy of the characters—not just that they live together (albeit separate matching beds, but in the same room as post-Code couples like Lucy and Desi, etc.) and that they have their painted couples portrait in their living room, but also by how close Jim Henson and Frank Oz are when performing the characters, and how they often “slip” into intimacy, touching each other, exclaiming their love for one another, and consciously having deep empathy and compassion for one another despite their differences. Also and importantly, I was thunderstruck by how much they seem to fit the personalities (and difference in race—or felt!) of my husband Andrew Madrid and myself—how the playful joy and free thinking of Ernie matched my husband’s tem-perament, and my more restrained and conservative nature was so like Bert—did we grow into the models of this classic comedy duo in our real lives and find one another?
This scene is an iconic Rubber Duckie routine, where at first Bert doesn’t accept Ernie’s fondness for his toy, but is able to fully embrace and enjoy what it ultimately man-ifests itself as being—a projection of play and good cheer, and animating feelings and joy through objects, much like the puppeteers Oz and Henson do as they “wiggled dolls” (as he categorized their performing) perhaps they too were able to exclaim their real love for one another in the eternal bromance of this classic couple.