Jim Henson’s Rock and Roll Monster

Music was always central to the mission of The Muppets.

Rock and roll permeated every part of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

The Muppet Show (1976-1981) served as a weekly platform for the biggest music stars of the era with surreal performances by Debbie Harry, Alice Cooper, and Johnny Cash just to name a few. Here’s Elton John backed by the legendary Electric Mayhem and performing a song that really sounds like it was conceived with Muppets in mind.

Then there’s Sesame Street, birthplace to one of the funkiest house bands ever to grace a public broadcasting studio. Read on here if you want to know what became of that band.

All of this to say, it’s fitting that the Muppets made their primetime television debut with a creature named Rock and Roll Monster way back in 1966.

Muppets at Midnight

Even before this breakout performance, there is generous evidence that the Muppets were at once a channel for Henson’s unique brand of humor and his love of music.

The Mississippi-born puppeteer began his rise to fame with a short-form variety show called Sam and Friends. The creatures that would one day become the Muppets first appeared in daily 5-minute lead-in slots for the fledgling Tonight Show.

Sam and Friends ran from 1955 to 1961—spanning Tonight Show hosting stints by Steve Allen and Jack Paar respectively.

The breakout star from Sam and Friends was an ambiguously amphibious character named Kermit. Here’s Harry the Hipster warning a young Kermit about the dangers of jazz improvisation:

While some additional footage of Sam and Friends is available on YouTube courtesy of Henson’s archives, the original broadcast tapes are actually lost to history. Sam and Friends ended its run in 1961, but Henson’s puppets continued to rise in profile through appearances on the variety show circuit and an array of television commercials.

Dig this reel of actual commercials which use the threat of violence to sell Wilkins Coffee.

Primetime Puppets

By 1963, Henson had officially dubbed his creations The Muppets. He also teamed up with lifelong creative partner Frank Oz (Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear, etc.), and set his sights on building an entertainment empire.

It was also during this period that Henson received a Best Short Film Academy Award nomination for a trippy 1965 project called Time Piece.

The surrealist art-house film was hardly the stuff of mainstream entertainment. But the critical recognition did give Henson’s rising profile another boost.

The following year, the Muppets made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed introduced the act as Jim Newsom’s Puppets (though you can see in the video below that his error was edited through the seamless magic of overdubbing).

It was thus that both the Muppets and the three-headed Rock and Roll Monster made their primetime debut on September 18th, 1966, performing a song called “Rock It to Me”.

The tune heard above is actually a recording by a garage band called The Bruthers. The Bruthers included Joe Delia on vocals and keys. He would go on to an illustrious career as a session and touring musician, a scorer of films, and the frontman for Joe Delia and Thieves.

“Rock It To Me” was not a hit for The Bruthers nor was their lone single—”Bad Way to Go”. The latter is, however, a highly collectible slice of hot wax among garage enthusiasts.

One-Hit Monster

The Rock and Roll Monster was not nearly as prolific as Joe Delia. Though the Muppets would go on to make 25 Ed Sullivan appearances in the coming years, the three-headed monster would show up just once more in the primetime spotlight.

By the time of his cameo apperance in the 1968 Muppets on Puppets documentary-style special, the monster’s middle head had been replaced by an early forerunner to Grover named Fuzzyface.

Rock and Roll Monster On the High Seas

In 1969, Jim Henson was invited to be a part of the new Sesame Street program on PBS. He brought Fuzzyface with him. By Season 2, Sesame Street had been retooled to focus on Jim Henson’s increasingly popular cast of creatures. Fuzzyface was re-dubbed Grover and a star was born.

The Rock and Roll Monster collected dust in obscurity for the next several decades. Today, it is actually possible to see the Rock and Roll Monster perform, but only at sea. The three-headed musician was revived in 2019 as part of a live variety show–alongside a Muppet likeness of the late-great Jim Henson—for the Sky Princess cruise company.