Richard Hunt

Richard Hunt was a puppeteer, best known as a Muppet performer on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and several Muppet movies. His Muppet roles included Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums.

He came from a family of performers. While in middle school and high school, he put on puppet shows for local children, and he was a fan of the then-fledgling Muppets. After high school graduation, and a four-month stint of doing weather reports at a local radio station, Hunt pursued a meeting with Jim Henson. He cold-called from a payphone and was invited to audition.

Subject ID: 54847

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Richard Hunt was a puppeteer, best known as a Muppet performer on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and several Muppet movies. His Muppet roles included Scooter, Statler, Janice, Beaker, and Sweetums.

He came from a family of performers. While in middle school and high school, he put on puppet shows for local children, and he was a fan of the then-fledgling Muppets. After high school graduation, and a four-month stint of doing weather reports at a local radio station, Hunt pursued a meeting with Jim Henson. He cold-called from a payphone and was invited to audition.

After being hired to work on Sesame Street, Hunt mostly performed background characters. One of his first major performances was as Taminella Grinderfall in The Frog Prince, puppeteering the character while Jerry Juhl performed the voice.

Hunt performed Scooter and shared Miss Piggy with Frank Oz until the final quarter of the first season of The Muppet Show. Hunt performed many characters on Sesame Street, including Forgetful Jones, Placido Flamingo, Don Music, Gladys the Cow, Sully, and an early version of Elmo. On Fraggle Rock, Hunt's main role was the performing the facial expressions and voice of Junior Gorg, but he also performed Gunge (one of the Trash Heap's barkers), and several one-shot or minor characters. He also directed several home videos such as Sing-Along, Dance-Along, Do-Along and Elmo's Sing-Along Guessing Game, as well as an episode of Fraggle Rock.

Hunt was close friends with fellow puppeteer Jerry Nelson. Several of their characters were paired, such as Nelson's Floyd Pepper with Hunt's Janice; the Two-Headed Monster; and Nelson's Pa Gorg to Hunt's Junior Gorg on Fraggle Rock.

Subject ID: 54847

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