The Muppets
are a group of puppets and costume characters created
by Jim Henson and the company he created. Individually,
a Muppet is properly any one of the puppets built by the
Jim Henson Workshop. Though the term is often used erroneously
to refer to any puppet that resembles the distinctive
style of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street characters,
the term is both an informal name and legal trademark
linked to the characters created by The Jim Henson Company.
The word "Muppet" itself was said by Henson
to have been created by combining the words "marionette"
and "puppet"; however, Henson was also known
to have stated that it was just something he liked the
sound of, and he made up the "marionette/puppet"
story while talking to a journalist because it sounded
plausible. Muppets are distinguished from ventriloquist
"dummies", which are typically animated only
in the head and face, in that their arms or other features
are also mobile and expressive.
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