Illustration by Caroll Spinney for a 1973 issue of The Puppetry Journal.
A large family of Anything Muppets.
Semi-blank versions of Green, Fat Blue and Lavender, from the song "Fat Cat."
Anything Muppets (sometimes referred to as "AMs") are "empty" Muppet heads. Facial features, bodies and clothes can be added to make any kind of character. The corresponding family of monster puppets are known as the AM Monsters.
A similar group of puppets known as Whatnots appeared on The Muppet Show. Some Anything Muppets have also appeared in Muppet movies and specials.
The Anything Muppets were introduced in the first episode of Sesame Street, in a sketch involving Gordon. An Anything Muppet appeared without any facial features, and Gordon introduced her as an Anything Person and proceeded to give her and four other Anything Muppets who appeared in sequence eyes, noses, and hair to form a family.
During the first seasons of Sesame Street, they were known as "The Anything People" who could be anything they wanted. Usually the live actors, like Bob, would turn them into different characters. This concept was abandoned after a few seasons, although every once in a while an Anything Muppet character would take off his nose or lose his mustache.
Although these puppets were usually used to create human characters, animals were also sometimes concocted from Anything Muppets, until the late 1980s, including the Tortoise and the Hare, The Three Little Pigs, and Captain Vegetable. This practice could be seen in The Miss Muffet Play. Aliens, such as The Gonk and The Geefle, and monsters such as Bennett Snerf, Arlene Frantic, Fenwick, Rosemary and Pamela could also be made from Anything Muppets.
Main Sesame Street characters that are made from Anything Muppets include Count von Count, Prairie Dawn, The Amazing Mumford, Mr. Johnson, Roosevelt Franklin, Guy Smiley, Lefty the Salesman, Biff and Sully, the Twiddlebugs, Sherlock Hemlock, and Little Jerry.
Types[]
The following types of Anything Muppets appear on Sesame Street; terms for these are derived from CTW style guides and other official sources:
Unknown titles[]
In addition, a few other types have been used less frequently; official titles are currently unknown.
A number of Anything Muppets were also built between the 2010s and 2021, but with more natural human skin tones and used less frequently. Several of these were based on existing Anything Muppet patterns.
Notes[]
Four examples of Anything Muppet characters from the song, "Family."
- The term "AM" is also used to refer to various background characters, such as monsters, animals, Honkers, Dingers, and other creatures. In these cases, scripts call AMs "animated Muppets."