Blustering Bellowpane Monster

PERFORMER	Tom Vandenberg
DEBUT	1983

Blustering Bellowpane Monster appears in the first season Fraggle Rock episode "You Can't Do That Without a Hat", where he was performed by Tom Vandenberg. The name "Blustering Bellowpane Monster" isn't mentioned on screen; the creature is named in an internal document, The Encyclopedia Fragglia, which was compiled by the cast and production staff. The puppet's tag is labeled "Leroy Bug".

In the episode, Boober is so sure that with his hat he isn't afraid of anything that he insults the monster by asking if it swallowed a trumpet. The monster, highly insulted, blew his nose trumpet at Boober, blowing the hat away and setting up the main plot of the story.

Not much is known about the monster; judging by the fact that the Fraggles gasp when Boober walks up to it, it may be a notoriously mean monster.

Designer and fabricator Sal Denaro says, "This puppet was something I designed and fabricated sometime between 1978 and 1979 for The Muppet Show. I was not asked to make him; I just built him with the expectation that he would be used for the TV show. I made him in between my job casting the foam latex characters of Miss Piggy, Statler and Waldorf, etc. When he was shipped out from the NYC Muppet workshop to London, it I was the last I saw of that puppet as he was modified from what I had made."

The character was later recycled in other productions, as Mergie in the video Neat Stuff To Know & To Do and Singalotti in Mopatop's Shop. The puppet also surfaced in Inner Tube and Muppets Tonight.

The puppet made its first appearance in 10 years in The Muppets.

Filmography

• Fraggle Rock
  • Episode 104: You Can't Do That Without a Hat
• Inner Tube
• Muppets Tonight
  • Episode 102: Garth Brooks (audience cameo)
  • Episode 105: Cindy Crawford (audience cameo)
  • Episode 107: Sandra Bullock (audience cameo)
  • Episode 108: Jason Alexander (audience cameo)
  • Episode 109: Whoopi Goldberg (audience cameo)
  • Episode 110: Martin Short (audience cameo)
• Mopatop's Shop
  • Episode 134: You Are What You Are (as Green Monster)
  • Episode 154: Singalotti (as Singalotti)
  • Episode 325: Stan the One Man Band (as Singalotti)
• The Muppets
• Muppets Most Wanted

Gallery

Original design

Original design

Original design in the Muppet Workshop in 1980

Blustering Bellowpane Monster as Mergie in Neat Stuff To Know & To Do

Blustering Bellowpane Monster as Green Monster in Mopatop's Shop

External links

• Denaro's Bellowpane Prototype