Frank Oz

Destined to become Jim Henson's key performing partner and the man who would give life to characters as diverse as Grover, Cookie Monster, Fozzie Bear, and Miss Piggy, Frank Oz arrived in New York in 1963. "It was August. I was nineteen years old, and Jim asked me to come to work with him part time in New York. I walked up those narrow stairs and opened the door to the Muppets studio-two small rooms, a nook for the secretary, Carol, and a bathroom. Don Sahlin worked in the back workshop next to Jim's animation stand and opposite the big Yorick head that starred down at the people below on East 53rd Street. Jerry Juhl had a desk in the room next to the Ampex tape machine. Opposite Jerry's desk there was a dart board on the closet door with lots and lots of holes on the door. Above the dart board hung the papier-mache moose head would light up. There was a big black chair and ottoman. Jim's chair. He would sit on it or lie in it working on character or script ideas.
"This is the room where Jim, wearing his bright flowered ties and speaking just above a whisper, would hold meetings wiht clients. This is where Don Sahlin would try his practical jokes. This is where Jim and I and Don and Jerry would here that Kennedy had been shot. This is where we'd eat deli sandwhiches and those funny-tasting East Coast pickles. For the kid from Oakland, everything here was new and strange and exciting and adult."

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