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David Rudman

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Rudman with two of his Sesame Street characters - Baby Bear and Cookie Monster
David Rudman
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Rudman assists Richard Hunt in performing Leo the Party Monster.
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Rudman with Cookie Monster at Sesame Street Day ceremony.

David Rudman (b. June 1, 1963)[1][2] is a core Muppet performer who on Sesame Street plays Baby Bear, Davey Monkey, Chicago the Lion, Humphrey, and assumed the role of Cookie Monster in 2001. For The Muppets Studio, he performs Scooter, Janice, and Beaker, characters that were originated by Richard Hunt on The Muppet Show.

Early career

Rudman graduated from Highland Park High School in Chicago in 1981 and began working for the Muppets that summer, interning as a builder in the Muppet Workshop. His assignments included building Oscar the Grouch for Sesame Street Live and photo puppets for Muppet displays.[3] At the end of Rudman's internship, Richard Hunt helped him in preparing an audition tape for Jim Henson. Rudman used the red monster puppet that would later be established as Elmo for his audition, lip-syncing to "I Can Do That" from A Chorus Line. A few weeks into Rudman's college freshman year, Henson saw his audition tape and hired him as a performer. While Henson advised Rudman to stay in college, he was allowed to work on Muppet projects on his vacations.[1][4][5]

After graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1985, Rudman was cast as Boo Monster, one of the lead characters on the short-lived Little Muppet Monsters.

Sesame Street

Rudman started performing for Sesame Street in season 17. On his first day, Rudman was intended to right-hand for Richard Hunt, but Hunt instead gave his primary performing duties to Rudman. His first Sesame Street segments, taped on November 7, 1985,[6] were "The People in Your Neighborhood" playing an Anything Muppet dentist, and "Scratch My Back" puppeteering Jill, an AM Monster, to a prerecorded song track.[5][7] After Hunt's passing in 1992, Rudman assumed the roles of Sonny Friendly, Sully, and the right (horns up) half of the Two-Headed Monster.

In addition to his work as a Muppeteer on Sesame Street, Rudman has also provided voice-acting for the show, notably as Baby Bear's animated sidekick Hero Guy, as well as in several animated segments. Many Sesame Street cartoons featuring his voicework also include other Muppet performers, such as Joey Mazzarino.

Rudman has received multiple Daytime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series for his work on Sesame Street: 2004, 2010, 2013, and 2014.

The Muppets

David Rudman - Muppets
Rudman with Scooter

In addition to his role in Little Muppet Monsters, Rudman worked as an additional Muppet performer on several projects in the 1980s and early '90s, including The Muppets Take Manhattan, A Muppet Family Christmas, The Muppets at Walt Disney World, Muppet*Vision 3D, The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson along with some home video titles, several Muppet Meeting Films shorts and the Muppet Time interstitials. He played the role of Peter Cratchit and others in the 1992 film The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Rudman drifted away from performing with the classic Muppet characters in the mid-1990s when most of their productions moved to Los Angeles, and he stayed based in New York to work on Sesame Street and other projects.

Rudman says that Steve Whitmire was the one to push for him taking on Richard Hunt's characters within the classic Muppets:

He called me, he actually called me, and said, "Why aren't you doing this?" and I go, "I don't know, it's not up to me." "You should be doing Richard's characters, you had a really great relationship with him, you know the characters." And I'm like, "I'll do it if they ask, of course I'll do it." So then all of a sudden, things started happening.[10]

Shortly after, in 2008, The Muppets Studio held a meeting with Rudman along with Whitmire, Jerry Nelson, Matt Vogel, Marty Robinson and Debbie McClellan to discuss Rudman taking on Hunt's characters and Vogel taking on Nelson's.[11]

In 2008, he officially took over some of Richard Hunt's Muppet Show characters, including Scooter and Janice (and later assuming the role of Beaker following Steve Whitmire's departure from the troupe). His first performance of Janice was in Studio DC Hosted by Dylan and Cole Sprouse and his Scooter debuted in Studio DC Hosted by Selena Gomez (both in 2008). He debuted as Beaker in The Muppets Take the Bowl in 2017.

Rudman spoke about performing Hunt's characters saying:

I love playing Scooter especially. I do play it a little different than Richard and I think he would be okay with that because you can't, I mean, it's hard to, like, do an exact copy because I'm not Richard. I can't do what he did because that was him. So it's tricky because it's bringing a little bit of yourself but also keep a little bit of the essence of what was there before. I love playing these characters. I think about him all the time, but especially when I put Scooter on, the first thought in my mind is thinking of Richard. And so I'm honored that I get to take those characters and keep playing with them.[12]

Rudman has performed Scooter and Janice in featured roles in the films The Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted and the series The Muppets, Muppets Now and The Muppets Mayhem.

Creature Shop

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Rudman on the set of Labyrinth

He performed Goblins in Labyrinth and puppeteered on the Henson series Dinosaurs. He was also the facial puppeteer for Donatello in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Rudman performed Bobut (both puppetry and voice), the alien baby on Aliens in the Family.

Other Work

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Rudman with the puppet cast of his non-Henson television show Bunnytown.

With the Jim Henson Company, Rudman worked on The Tale of the Bunny Picnic, The Ghost of Faffner Hall, Dog City, CityKids, Billy Bunny's Animal Songs and Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree.

With his brother, Sesame Street writer Adam Rudman, he founded the Illinois-based production company Spiffy Pictures, which has produced the children's series Jack's Big Music Show, Nature Cat, and Donkey Hodie (co-produced with Fred Rogers Productions). He has also written and directed live-action films and cartoons for Sesame Street, MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Rudman's work in television commercials include ads for Coke, McDonald's, Cheerios, Disney World, the National Wildlife Federation and most notably as Fingerman for a series of Ziploc bag commercials. Spiffy Pictures is also credited with "Puppet Production" for the 2013 direct-to-DVD movie Scooby-Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map, for which Rudman was a producer and also puppeteered Scooby-Doo.

Credits

for a complete character gallery, see David Rudman characters

Director credits

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Shay, Art. "The Dean of the Digits." Chicago Tribune. June 14, 1992.
  2. ↑ "The People in Our Neighborhood" Facebook post
  3. ↑ The Barretta Brothers: Two of Us Show #27 (00:12:19)
  4. ↑ David Rudman on The Joey and Amanda Podcast
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Gikow, Louise. Sesame Street: A Celebration - 40 Years of Life on the Street. p. 103
  6. ↑ Documents provided by trusted source
  7. ↑ Rudman, David The MuppetCast episode 41
  8. ↑ Sioux City Journal "Change is key to Sesame Street" by Bruce R. Miller, Nov 6, 2009
  9. ↑ The Barretta Brothers Episode #27 (0:44:10)
  10. ↑ Below the Frame Episode 29 (55:17)
  11. ↑ Below the Frame Episode 29 (53:59)
  12. ↑ Below the Frame Episode 29 (56:38)
  13. ↑ David Rudman interview with BBC
  14. ↑ Personal communication with Bill Barretta by Anthony T.

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