My niece recently asked “What’s a Muppet?”, and the first answer that came to mind was Homer Simpson’s answer to the same question: “Well, it’s not quite a mop, and it’s not quite a puppet.” Much like Homer, I have fond memories of the Muppets’ antics and, much like Homer, I do not really know that a Muppet actually is. I know enough at least to know that Muppets, in fact, have very little to do with mops.

As I started to think about what makes a Muppet a Muppet, I came to the conclusion that people use the word “Muppet” like they use the word “Band-Aid”. Legally, Band-Aid is the trademarked name for the specific brand of adhesive bandages manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. However, because Band-Aid is the best-known brand of bandage, the term is used by the general public as the word for bandages in general. In legal terms, this is called a generic term.

Since the Muppets are probably the most popular puppets in the world, the word “Muppet” has also become a generic term for any puppets appearing in TV shows or movies. Even Yoda from Star Wars has been called a Muppet, thanks to being performed by Frank Oz, a major contributor to many Muppet shows and movies. “Muppet” is even used as a slang word for “stupid person”. Like “Band-Aid”, “Muppet” is a legally trademarked word referring to a specific brand.

In this case, the trademark is owned The Muppet Studios, a division of Disney, and refers to the puppets originally created by Jim Henson. Puppets designed by Jim Henson first appeared on television in the 1950s. His early puppet designs were patented in 1959. These early Henson puppets include the cast of the show Sam and Friends (featuring the earliest appearances of Kermit the Frog) and the mascots of Wilkins Coffee. Jim Henson’s puppets became household name in the 1970s with the debut of The Muppet Show, which was followed by several other shows and a number of movies.

Why exactly these puppets came to be called Muppets is unclear. A possible explanation is that it is a combination of “marionette” - rather than Homer Simpson’s suggestion of “mop” - and “puppet”, though even Jim Henson himself challenged this, noting that his puppeteers did very little work with marionettes, and claiming that “Muppet” was a word made up without a specific meaning to distinguish his unique brand of puppets.

The puppet characters on Sesame are also usually called Muppets, due to Jim Henson’s involvement in the early days of Sesame Street. At first, the Jim Henson Company owned both the Muppet Show Muppets, and the Sesame Street Muppets, and characters made regular crossover appearances between the two shows. The current legal situation is a little tricky.

As we’ve seen, Disney now owns the trademark to the word “Muppet” and the rights to the Muppet characters. The Jim Henson Company sold the Sesame Street Muppets to Sesame Workshop in 2001, making the two groups of characters legally distinct, separate brands. However, Sesame Street is still clearly allowed to refer to its characters as Muppets. In the show’s closing, the puppet characters are explicitly called the “Sesame Street Muppets”. The simplest explanation is that the Sesame Street characters are still the kind of puppets known as Muppets, but are not part of the brand called The Muppets.

Muppets are also notable for their distinct style of humour. Traces of these can be seen in Jim Henson’s earliest puppets. The Wilkins Coffee commercials use the same style of slapstick humour that later Muppet shows and movies use extensively. Another major element of Muppet-style humour is the interaction between the Muppets and human characters, especially celebrity guest stars. Celebrity appearances and references to pop culture were a major aspect of The Muppet Show and remains a major element in later Muppet productions. Another key element of Muppet humour is that many of their jokes are intended for the benefit of the adult audience, while still remaining appropriate for the children watching.

This is all a much more comprehensive answer that I ever thought possible when a small child asked “What’s a Muppet?”. Of course, a four-year-old has no interest in the legal status of the Muppet trademarks. I could tell her something along the lines of: the Muppets were created by a man named Jim Henson, they’ve been around for 60 years (they’re almost as old as Grandma!), they like coffee (especially Wilkins Coffee), they sing, they dance, they have famous friends and they like hitting each other.

The simplest answer, though, is that the Muppets are the most famous puppets in the world.

Joel Balkovec

When not over-analysing famous puppets at the behest of small children, Joel Balkovec writes family-friendly Fantasy fiction under the name J.B. Norman. His website is www.realmgard.com. Also, he has a bird on his head.