Bert Through the Years

The evolution of Bert.

Image	As seen in / Year	Notes
	Sesame Street early Season 1 (1969)	The original Bert had an immobile unibrow and his hair appeared to be unkempt in some sketches. Early in the first season, Bert's eyebrow gets slightly repositioned, losing his grumpy facial expression for a more neutral one.
	Sesame Street later Season 1 - Season 2 (1969-1971)	Bert's head shape is refined, with a more flexible neck and eyes that appear further apart. His eyebrow does not cover his eyes and his skin is slightly paler.
	Sesame Street Season 3 (1971-1976)	Bert gets an eyebrow mechanism, allowing it to move up and down. His head also becomes more teardrop shaped. His eyes become slightly smaller, and his colors are more vibrant. By Season 4, his eyebrow becomes considerably thinner.
	Sesame Street late Season 5 (1973-1976)	Bert's head is revised, as the puppet began to develop a slight fold under the nose when the eyebrow mechanism was used. The pupils of his eyes are smaller and not as focused, and his eyebrow is thinner.
	Sesame Street Season 8 (1976-1983)	Bert has darker Antron fleece skin, which is a bit more gold than the previous version. He also has a much taller and rounder head. His eyes start out slightly smaller, but are replaced the following year, as well as getting sturdier shoulder joints. A version of this design was also built and used for Follow That Bird.
	Sesame Street Season 14 (1982-1989)	Both skin and clothing colors are brighter. Also, Bert's nose is smaller and his head is more rounded.
	Sesame Street Season 25 (1989-1996)	Bert's head is slightly wider with even smaller, more separated eyes.
	Sesame Street Season 28 (1996-1998)	Bert has a taller head, his hair is most often combed upward (rather than messy like Ernie's hair), and he has a more rounded eyebrow.
	Sesame Street Season 32 (1998-2001)	Bert's head is shorter and a bit thicker than the previous version. His eyes are positioned closer together and his nose is longer.
	Sesame Street Season 35 (2002-2011)	Once again, Bert's head is taller, much like the 1996-1998 puppet. His antron fleece skin appears smoother and lighter yellow, and his nose is more red-orange in color.
	TomTom promo (2011-present)	Bert's head becomes thinner and his eyes are farther apart.
	Sesame Street Season 45 (2014-present)	This version of Bert is interchanged with the previous version. Bert's head is wider and slightly shorter. His nose is higher up, and his eyebrow is thicker.
Predecessor Puppets and Planning
	Design sketches for Sesame Street (circa 1969)	Early sketches immediately established the contrast between Ernie's horizontal stripes and general look and Bert's vertical stripes and leaner appearance.

Chroma key shirts

In order to accommodate Chroma key (i.e. blue or green screens), the stripes on Bert's shirt occasionally change color as to not be keyed out.

Bert's shirt changed from thin blue, orange, and green stripes, to slightly thicker brown and orange stripes in The Wild Duckie Chase.

In Play with Me Sesame, the green stripe is changed into a darker green, as opposed to its traditional lighter green.

In chroma key scenes on Sesamstrasse in Germany, instead of blue, orange and green stripes, the stripes are blue, red, and orange.