Everyone knows by now I have an incredible love of all things Muppets. Hell, even if this is your first time at my blog you could probably piece that together simply based on my wordpress’s name. The Girl Who Loves Muppets. It’s a title I’ve carried with pride for the last twenty months of my life. What a glorious twenty months they’ve been.
As of the last five months, however, I’ve been kind of overly invested in this ideal of hugging a certain individual involved with the industry. I wouldn’t go so far to say I’m obsessed with this aspiration, but I certainly haven’t shut up about it.
The individual, you ask?
No, not the blue furry guy who loves to shove cookies in his mouth during all hours of the day. The man operating Cookie Monster. David Rudman.
Looking back through my all my tweets, it looks like this was something I decided to start up on the 9th of April. I began to try to get this hashtag to trend: #JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudman. Of course, it hasn’t, and I believe I’ve only ever successfully gotten three other people to tweet it. Otherwise it’s been all me.
Here are some examples of how I’ve used said hashtag in the past:
Hey David Rudman, there’s a hug in your future with my name on it.
#JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudmanWhat’s good bribery to get a hug? Cookies? Nah, that seems a little too obvious.
#JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudmanThis point would probably be easier to get across if David Rudman actually had a twitter…
#JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudmanKnock knock. Who’s there? Julia! Julia who?
#JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudmanExposition, joke, joke, funny, joke, blah blah blah, you get the gist.
#JuliaWantsToHugDavidRudman
This has, truthfully, been one of the strangest ways I’ve chosen to express my Muppet love. To choose one particular Muppeteer and focus all my appreciation on him? Not that I don’t constantly rant about my appreciation for all other first and second generation Muppeteers. Of course I do. I wrote that entry last month about how I would’ve died of glee to meet Eric at Comic-Con, I’ve written countless pieces on Jerry this last week, I wrote an article over on Tough Pigs about Steve’s hair, etc. etc. etc. David Rudman’s not even my number one Muppeteer. That high honor goes to the one, the only, Dave Goelz… but it seems lately I’ve been putting a special focus on Rudman. It’s been several months now and I can’t help asking myself… why did I choose Rudman for my hugging goal?
No. Seriously. I honestly can’t remember why.
For starters, I know nothing about David Rudman. Besides the obvious (he works for Sesame/Muppets and operates Cookie, Baby Bear, Janice, Scooter, etc.), I really don’t know much about him. I’ve never seen/heard him give an interview, and I’ve never read one either. The only pictures I’ve seen of him are behind the scenes at work or at special events (and there are far too few of him even in those aspects), and the only video footage I know of is him performing his characters. I know absolutely nothing about this man’s life.
SO WHY DO I WANT TO HUG HIM SO BADLY?
I remember back in March (and, for all I know, this may be what started this hugging aspiration) I had just been given a copy of The Muppets and I was watching it for the first time on DVD. It was one in the morning, and I really should have been sleeping because my family was catching a 7am flight to Italy for spring break that same day. But I was content eating ice cream, waiting for my dad to come back from fetching my brother from Eugene, and watching Muppet goodness. There was one point during the film, and it could’ve been with Scooter or maybe with Janice, though I have a sneaking suspicion it happened during a Miss Poogy scene, where I screamed into the abyss of my empty Portland household, “David Rudman is a god!” I don’t know why I yelled this. I was just suddenly overcome with such an appreciation for this man and all that he’s accomplished so far in his career.
There’s a reason I hold David, Steve, Eric, Matt, and Bill up on a pedestal. They’ve taken Muppets originated by other people and made sure they lived on. I suppose there are others that could’ve taken up the characters left behind from Jim, Jerry, Frank, and Richard, but let’s face facts, the second generation Muppeteers are killing it in the best possible way. Does David’s Janice sound exactly like Richard’s? No, neither does his Scooter (though, I will say, this Cookie Monster is impeccable). But the characters have remained true and have not changed a lick.
So I guess what I’m saying is that I really don’t know why I have this goal of hugging David Rudman someday. And that’s okay. He’s an incredible performer and, from what I’ve heard from other Muppet fans, he’s a really stand up guy. He deserves all the hugs in the world.
I just hope he doesn’t have a heart attack when the day comes where I finally get to hug the hell out of him.
(Oh shit. OH SHIT. I just found my first ever David Rudman interview. I now know what his real voice sounds like. And now I actually know about him as a person… so… that kind of cancels out a lot of what I just wrote… but oh well, screw it. I’m so happy right now!)