on took notice. When he was just a freshman at the University of Maryland, he was offered his own show. The show was called Sam and Friends. Sam and Friends was shown twice every weekday. It was only five minutes long, but the time slots he had were during times when many people were watching. He was on at 6:25 and 11:25 PM. The 6:25 show was on just before the network news hosted by David Brinkley and Chet Huntley. The 11:25 show was on PM before The Tonight Show with Steve Allen (St. Pierre 25). Sam and Friends had “music, snarky humor, and technical tricks” that the Muppets became famous for (“Biography”).The Sam and Friends from 1959 was very different from the Muppets today. The puppets did not speak at the beginning. The only sound was odd distorted music composed by Jim, and sound effects. Originally, there were only two different endings. One ending was that all the puppets would be killed in an explosion. The other ending consisted of one puppet eating all the other puppets (Fionaurora).Sam and Friends was an adult oriented show. It was also where the first “Muppets” got their start. Jim was tired of the traditional painted wood puppet because he thought they were too stiff and not expressive. Trying to create something new, Henson began working on a new style of puppet. Jim shaped carved foam rubber into a shape then covered it with fabric. He called it a Muppet because he thought it was marionette and puppet. The puppets moved by wires outside the body (like a marionette) and by a hand inside the body (like a puppet). Later Henson claimed that he just liked the sound of the word Muppet and it was not because he thought it was a cross between a puppet and a marionette. No matter what the origin of the word is, these new puppets were special because they had large flexible mouths that could show emotion better than traditional puppets (St. Pierre 26).Kermit was one of t...
