Also, fun fact, his voice is the guy who also plays this guy in the same show and if the credits hadn't told me I'd have never ever guessed because wow that's some range!
Wow I had no idea! Super cool.
Pilot and Fozzie were a couple of the last cuts from my list. Pilot is such an amazing bit of puppetry—what an incredible thing to build and execute! Puppets really are the best medium for cool space creatures.
Fozzie I agonized over, but my list was 90% muppets already, the deadline was imminent, and someone had to go. It was a bad cut tho; very hard. Fozzie is just as important to the dynamic as Kermit and the rest, an essential part of the muppet joie de vivre. Plus I figured he was a shoe-in and didn't need my help. Guess I misjudged there. He sure as heck deserves better than 39th; though come to think of it getting upstaged by magical punching Ghaleon is a strong Fozzie move.
Here's the erudite minds at NPR putting it better than I ever could:
Fozzie Bear's dreams of comedic greatness are unattainable, his optimism smacks of desperation and delusion, his jokes (such as they are) exist mostly to provide opportunities for Statler and Waldorf to perform windmill dunks at his expense, and his signature catchphrase ("wocka wocka wocka!") is a tragic cry for validation. He's all sweaty effort, all the time, in that way that so many of us get when we're pursuing the acceptance of others. So how do you make Fozzie lovable without also making him... deeply sad?
The secret lies, at least in part, in the aforementioned optimism: Fozzie is a dreamer, and a sweetly soulful one at that. If you can't be great, being liked is a hell of a consolation prize.
I think Fozzie has a lot to offer beyond the bad stand-up shtick, and his humanity is a big part of that. He might be clueless when it comes to comedy but he has a piercing insight into the tenderness of the soul. He embodies how to live with grace and meaning even when life perpetually dangles success out of reach.