No I’m not thinking of the Heavy Metal reference to “Stars & Stripes Forever”. OK maybe just for a minute. Happy 4th of July Muppet Style!

Have a great weekend!

From Pigs in Space to the ever changing cyberspace, The Muppets are still going strong out on the intertubes. You can follow The Muppets Studio via http://twitter.com/MuppetsStudio

I wrote about Beaker awhile back, to see him sing “Feelings” and read my post click here .  He has the best sounding Mee Mee Mee’s don’t you think?

While wandering around Target last night looking for a new shower curtain liner, I found a little gem of a book called Jim Henson’s Doodle Dreams. The front cover says, Inspiration for Living Life Outside the Lines. Being the Jim Henson admirer that I am, I just had to pick one up for myself.

The featured art is by Jim Henson while the text comes from writer/producer Jim Lewis. Lewis was a former Jim Henson Company staff writer.

According to Muppet Wiki:

“Lewis was the Muppets’ primary in-house writer, contributing to countless interviews, promotional material and Muppet appearances. He was responsible for a large amount of web content and a great many of the press quotes attributed to the Muppets, and he also wrote much of the Gonzo/Rizzo/Kermit material on the Muppets from Space DVD commentary. In this capacity, Jim Lewis contributed a great deal to maintaining the tone and consistency of the Muppet characters in the years since Jim Henson’s death.”

Jim Lewis has written for Kermit, Miss Piggy, and various other Muppets for more than 20 years. He helped Kermit the Frog with his recent, top selling autobiography, Before You Leap: A Frog’s Eye View of Life’s Greatest Lessons.

Doodle Dreams is a great stocking stuffer for any Jim Henson fan, and anyone who is inspired to live life outside the lines. Click me for more inspiration from two pop culture icons, Kermit & Debbie Harry.

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”-Jim Henson

I was talking about Beaker today with some friends. No not laboratory glassware, but Beaker, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s assistant. If you’re still not sure who I am referring to, you’re either much younger than I am, or just plain clueless about Muppets trivia.

Either way, let me school you a bit about Beaker, one of the quietest characters that was a favorite with Muppet Show fans. He was perpetually worried looking, and rightfully so since he was subjected to some crazy experiments by Dr. Honeydew. Beaker’s high pitched voice squeaking, “Mee-mee-mee- mee,” was a hit with audiences. He did have a musical performance with a couple of my favorites The Swedish Chef, and Animal. There would be no Tommy Lee if there had been no Animal. Beaker’s solo performance of the song “Feelings” can be seen here via Youtube:

In 2008 he was involved in the controversial online meme known as “Rickrolling”. This is much too techy for me to explain but if you’re interested you can check out our good friend Wikipedia to find out more.

The Muppet Show has an official website but you have to travel through the big Disney internet portal to see it. Just like most great ideas, Disney bought The Muppets in 2004. The site is interactive with videos, music, and games, and even some retro clips from their DVD season releases. If you go to the music section you can see the Weezer video starring the Muppets called “Keep Fishin”. Not my favorite Weezer song, that would of course be the song Suzanne, but its fun watching Miss Piggy and friends on stage with them. I could devote a whole website to the Muppets but that’s been done already. I like this one called Muppet Wiki. If you have any exciting, interesting or underground knowledge of the Muppets you can even submit it to them to keep the wiki going. What a great word that is… wiki. Which leads me to this 80’s rap tune Jam On It by Newcleus… all you wannabe break dancers out there remember this one, if not just listen for the wiki wiki wiki wiki…. shut up!