10 Rare & Obscure Muppets You May Not Have Known Existed!

Rare Muppets! You’ve probably heard plenty of stories of people finding priceless ones at garage sales and thrift stores and making millions of dollars selling them on eBay. You may not be lucky enough to be one of those people, but you don’t have to spend time rummaging through your attic or basement for those lost obscure Muppets. You can just watch them on YouTube! Here are ten (10) such rare and obscure Muppets you may not have known existed.

Rare Muppet 1: Gloat the Frackle

Gloat is a little-known Muppet who appeared on the Ed Sullivan-narrated The Great Santa Claus Switch that first aired on CBS in December 1970, as well as in “Fozzie’s Super-Sticky Situation” from the Muppets Meet the Classics: Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (2018) anthology. Gloat is a green Frackle, and one of the many colorful Frackles that have made random appearances throughout the Muppet universe over the last 50+ years. As part of a huge Muppet cast, Frackles have always served as multicolored utility monsters that decorate the sketches and fill out the background. Gloat was first performed by actor/director/puppeteer Greg Antonacci, who also had recurring roles on The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire.

 

Today’s Mupet of the Day is Gloat!

Gloat was built in 1970 for “The Great Santa Claus Switch”. In the special, he was the first Frackle to infiltrate Santa’s workshop, posing as Fred. Here, he was performed by Daniel Seagren, who also portrayed fellow infiltrator Snarl. pic.twitter.com/8nImcmlKyb

— The Daily Muppet (@DailyMuppet) October 13, 2019

 

Obscure Muppet 2: Howard Tubman

Howard Tubman — one of The Tubmans of Porksmith — was often seen with his butler Carter in UK Spots for Muppets Tonight, and made his debut appearance as a wild boar in Muppet Treasure Island. Despite being a member of “America’s oldest and fattest family,” Howard is probably one of the more musically inclined Muppets. He was the choreographer in It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, and represented a number of Muppet musical acts in The Muppets. Howard Tubman is even a big RuPaul fan! If you don’t remember him, here is a whole bunch of clips of him.

Rare Muppet 3: The Snowth

Maybe the most familiar of the Muppets on this here Content Bash list, you probably know the Snowths as the oft-meme’d pair of pink Muppets who sing that famous “Doo do doo do doo” ditty for that “Mah Na Mah Na” song that will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day. Both the Snowths were performed by Frank Oz at the same time, using one arm per puppet. This also mean the Snowths arms were not controlled, so they often flayed around and about, adding an extra layer of Muppet craziness. Perhaps their finest hour was their appearance on Studio DC Hosted by Dylan and Cole Sprouse, when they backed up Miley Cyrus performing her hit single “G.N.O. (Girl’s Night Out).”

Rare Muppet 4: Nigel

How little-known is Nigel? We bet you didn’t know he was the original host of The Muppet Show, kinda. The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, along with The Muppets Valentine Show (1974), were a pair of pilots produced for what would eventually become The Muppet Show as we know it. The former aired in March 1975 but the o.g. host, so “totally lacking in spunk and charisma,” or at least so declared writer Christopher Finch in Jim Henson: The Works, lost the role to the obviously much more popular Kermit the Frog. Spunk-less and charisma-less indeed, Nigel was bumped to conducting the Muppet Orchestra on the iconic The Muppet Show, and more or less did not speak at all for a couple of decades. Here he is dueting with Floyd in episode 218 of The Muppet Show for a performance of “Big Noise from Winnetka.” May his star shine as bright again someday soon.

Rare Muppet 5: Digit

Do you remember the short-lived The Jim Henson Hour that aired for nine (9) episodes in 1989? Shut up. No you don’t. Please don’t be like one of those poseur Muppets fans that only says they’ve seen stuff when they’ve obviously never even heard of it. Because if you did, you’d remember Digit, one of the more awesome Muppets, at least one of the more awesome ones built in the last 35 years or so. Digit made his debut that fateful and memorable 1989, and legendary puppeteer based Digit as a sort of combination of Talking Heads musician David Byrne and Reverend Jim from Taxi as portrayed by Christopher Lloyd. He was also the keyboard player for Solid Foam, and here he is playing with Smokey Robinson on “Just to See Her” during episode 107 of The Jim Henson Hour that everyone but you remembers.

Rare Muppet 6: Shakey Sanchez

This pink lil furry lil guy with the fuzzy hair and yellow eyes made his debut appearance in episode 116 of the iconic The Muppet Show that aired stateside in 1977. He has more or less been a utility Muppet, not unlike a Frackle, often seen in the background and in audiences throughout his 15-episode (or so) run on the classic show. If you’re a hardcore consumer of Muppets content, you may remember this bit from episode 119, where he barely escapes the appetite of Behemoth during this rendition of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”

Obscure Muppet 7: Uncle Deadly

Has any Muppet in the history of Jim Henson’s creations made such a leap from obscurity to prominence? Uncle Deadly went from debuting opposite Vincent Price in 1976 and doing musical numbers to little-used background utility monster for a couple decades, then to a John Travolta in Pulp Fiction-like return to prominency and screen time supporting Chris Cooper in The Muppets (2011) film, and heading up wardrobe for Miss Piggy in The Muppets ABC series (2015-16). Uncle Deadly should be familiar to consumers of more recent Muppets content, but Muppets fans who consider themselves of the old school might be surprised to see Uncle Deadly doing a Muppet Thought of the Week on YouTube. See for yourself how funny he is!

Rare Muppet 8: Sopwith the Camel

Sopwith the Camel — sometimes called Loretta — is perhaps one of the relatively taller Muppets at seven (7) feet tall. She has not made a whole lot of appearances in the 50+ years of Muppets content, and even ended up on the cutting room floor in a scene deleted from The Muppet Movie (1979). The Bactrian oont is named for the Sopwith Camel aircraft from World War I, which you may know as the kind of plane Snoopy flies. Sopwith the Camel is so rarely used that she has been on display at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia since 2015. Here she is with the incomparable Helen Reddy in “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” for episode 313 of the classic The Muppet Show.

Rare Muppet 9: Slim Wilson

That unrivaled guitar virtuoso responsible for that Lubbock Lou and his Jughuggers jug band sound is none other than Slim Wilson. Though Slim Wilson has not really been spotted much since a mid-1990s appearance on Muppets Tonight, he was a regular player when The Muppet Show would do musical numbers. Lubbock Lou and his Jughuggers are due for an ABBA-like comeback that we may never get, but we’ll always have Slim Wilson’s duet with Lou on “Henrietta’s Wedding” from episode 211 — which you may not actually be aware of because it was a UK spot from the 2-minute-longer episodes that aired across the pond. Think of how much Muppets content we’ve been robbed!

Obscure Muppet 10: Rufus

Once upon a time in a year called 1964, Jim Henson and his pals produced a pilot called The Land of Tinkerdee that was filmed but never sold. Here, a big floppy white dog named Rufus made his Muppets debut, one of the first handful of Muppet puppets to be introduced to the world. Save for a role as Cinderella’s dog in Hey Cinderella! (1970) and a scene with Mia Farrow in The Muppets Valentine Show (1974), Rufus has not popped up very often. If you’re conjuring up an image of Rufus in your head, keep in mind that you may be confusing him with Muppy, another big-ass super fluffy white puppet dog that was created for the classic The Muppet Show in 1976. In fact, you can spot both of them together in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). If you are ever in the neighborhood of the UCLA Film and Television Archives and near the Museum of Television and Radio, you can see the original complete The Land of Tinkerdee pilot!

More fun content at Content Bash!

If you love movies and film and content about such things then please check out our other features like Facts About Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Greatest Best Chefs of All Time, The Pope of Greenwich Village, Is Gangs of New York a True Story?, and The Friendship of Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Image Credit: Image by kamian from Pixabay

*****This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Thank you for reading Content Bash!*****