It's time to announce the winners of last week's Sesame Street/Muppet Show/Fraggle Rock Trivia Contest! Because there were so many fascinating entries, I consulted our friend Joe Hennes of ToughPigs.com ("Muppet Fans Who Grew Up"), who has written some great articles about Sesame Street for us. Joe has handed me the envelope—here are the three lucky winners:
1. Guy Smiley's real name is Bernie Liederkrantz. This one's from Amy, and arrived just in time for today's post about the real names of fictional characters.
2. Joe Raposo, who wrote hits for Sesame Street like "Being Green," "ABC-DEF-GHI," and "C is for Cookie," also composed the theme song for Three's Company and The Ropers. Thanks, Dani!
3. And Taylor S. provided the backgrounds on a bunch of Fraggle names: "Gobo" stands for "go between," which is a lighting term for movies, TV, and theater. It means "take off your hat" in ancient Fraggle language. "Mokey" was named for a childhood friend of Jim Henson's. Her name is "put on your hat" in ancient Fraggle. She is also the only Fraggle with movable eyelids. "Red" had the most hair of any Fraggle, she was the first to meet Kermit and Robin (Kermit's nephew) in A Muppet Family Christmas. She was one of the group of puppets to sing at Jim Henson's memorial service. "Wembley" was named for Wembley Stadium. his name comes from the Fragglish word "to wemble" which means "going to and from between two things without being able to make up your mind." In the ancient Fraggle language "Wembley" means "no scratch nose in public." The Wembley puppet is unique because he can roll his eyes. "Boober" was named after an angry cow encountered by one of Jim Henson's daughters. In ancient Fraggle it means "tie "˜em to a rock."
Congratulations, Amy, Dani & Taylor! I'll be in touch about your prizes. Thanks to everyone who submitted a fun fact! We'll do this again soon. What should be our next category?