Why are the muppets called muppets?

Question

I've always thought the muppets were cool, but I wonder why they are called muppets when they are all puppets.

Answer 1

In a 1982 interview, Jim Henson shared that "I think we did the term Muppets before we got the show Sam and Friends - a few months after I started working. It was really just a term we made up. For a long time I would tell people it was a combination of marionettes and puppets but, basically, it was really just a word that we coined. We have done very few things connected with marionettes."

Answer 2

Muppets are puppets invented by Jim Henson and his colleagues. Muppets were specially designed to be on television and in the movies, using camera techniques as well as classical puppeteering techniques to create the illusion of life. Many Muppets are hand puppets with arm wires. However, Muppets now include the most advanced computer and animatronics technology. For the purposes of this newsgroup [a Usenet posting] , "Muppet" covers anything that has been created by The Jim Henson Company or the Creature Shop, including creations in "Muppets Tonight!," "The Muppet Show," "Sesame Street," "Fraggle Rock," "Dinosaurs," _The Dark Crystal_, _Labyrinth_, _Babe_, etc.

Here's Jim Henson's take on the question, from an interview by Judy Harris (full text is at http://www.bestweb.net/~foosie/henson.htm; the article that came out of this fascinating interview is in the April/May 1983 issue of _Cinefantastique_): "Well, to me the Muppets are sort of fuzzy, bright colored, cute, lovable caricatures."
He's explaining why, to him, the creatures in _The Dark Crystal_ aren't Muppets. But we don't listen. La la la, we go.
In the same interview, Henson talks about the origin of the word "Muppet": "It was really just a term we made up. For a long time I would tell people it was a combination of marionettes and puppets but, basically, it was really just a word that we coined. We have done very few things connected with marionettes."

Answer 3

Muppets are puppets invented by Jim Henson and his colleagues. Muppets were specially designed to be on television and in the movies, using camera techniques as well as classical puppeteering techniques to create the illusion of life. The name "Muppet" comes from a combination of the words "marionette" and "puppet," and many of the puppets are hand puppets with arm-wires operated much like marionettes' limbs. However, many Muppets now include the most advanced computer and animatronics technology. For the purposes of this newsgroup, "Muppet" means anything that has been created by Jim Henson Productions or the Creature Shop, including creations in "Muppets Tonight!," "The Muppet Show," "Sesame Street," "Fraggle Rock," "Dinosaurs," _The Dark Crystal_, and _Labyrinth_.

Answer 4

The Muppets are a group of puppets and costume characters, and the company created by Jim Henson. Individually, a Muppet is properly one of the puppets made by Jim Henson or his Creature Shop – though the term is often used erroneously to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive style of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters, the term is both an informal name and legal trademark linked to the characters created by The Jim Henson Company. After frequently changing hands since the death of creator Jim Henson in 1990, The Muppets have been owned by The Walt Disney Company, through the Muppets Holding Company, since early 2004.

The word "Muppet" itself was said by Henson to have been created by combining the words "marionette" and "puppet"; however, Henson was also known to have stated that it was just something he liked the sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet" story while talking to a journalist because it sounded plausible.

Muppets are distinguished from ventriloquist "dummies", which are typically animated only in the head and face, in that their arms or other features are also mobile and expressive. Muppets are typically made of softer materials. They are also presented as being independent of the puppeteer, who is usually not visible, hidden behind a set or outside of the camera frame.

Answer 5

Puppets stay in one place with a hand inside them. Since Muppets move around like people do the 'M' from movement replaced the 'P' so they became Muppets. Like when the 'H' in hotel was replaced by an 'M' when vehicles let people move about freely and lodges were built by roads for people driving. The first motels were called Atels; but it never caught on.

Answer 6

In large Britain and in eire the be conscious muppet has change into used as a comfortable time period of abuse, meaning a stupid, incompetent, or moronic individual, or the glaring interpretation of someone who's inanimated or one way or the different no longer there. it ought to also be utilized (contained in the united kingdom yet no longer in eire) to an aesthetically displeasing individual. The Swedish translation mupp is in many circumstances used in an similar way. The time period muppetry is likewise instantly gaining popularity as an outline for someone, or crew of human beings together behaving in a muppet like fashion. The origins are believed to have come from workers in large agencies, who were unhappy with the low to non-existent element of concept or application, that different colleagues placed into their artwork. as an celebration - "i'm sorry the figures will be late this quarter, because of the extreme quantity of muppetry happening contained in the money owed branch", or "Gregory's muppetry seems to were infectious."

Answer 7

Because there all complete MUPPETS apart frm the frog and the drummer guy the kool.

Answer 8

I reckon Jim Henson just invented the name. Maybe it's short for "my puppets". Weird thing is, Henson talked exactly like Kermit The Frog.

Answer 9

It's a cross between marionettes and puppets.

Answer 10

Because they are " THE MUPPETS"