Last night, a brief Twitter exchange between writer Chris Roberson and myself got me to thinking about the early career of one of the Muppets, Rowlf the Dog. As noted in his Wikipedia entry, ‘Rowlf was actually the first true Muppet ‘star’ as a recurring character on The Jimmy Dean Show, first appearing in a show telecast on September 19, 1963.”

Exploring further for online evidence of Rowlf’s role on the shoe, I was fortunate to run across a seven-minute clip of Dean and Rowlf discussing music, courtesy of the always enlightening blog for the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Why would an animation site cover the early work of a Muppet? As noted by the blog: “Animators can learn a lot from puppeteers when it comes to creating a living, breathing character.”

Check out the post, as it is almost as informative as the YouTube clip.