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Frank Oz

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Richard Frank Oznowicz (b. May 25, 1944), better known as Frank Oz, is one of the foremost Muppet performers and Jim Henson's closest collaborator.

Contents

Early Years

Frank Oznowicz was born in England, spent parts of his childhood in Belgium, and moved to America when he was five. The son of puppeteers Isadore "Mike" Oznowicz and his wife Frances, with two other siblings, young Frank was performing as part of the Oznowicz Family Marionettes troupe by age 12. Despite this background, "I don't have a love of puppets," Oz explained in a 1987 interview "I did it as a means of expression. I was able to express myself and please my parents. It was also safe to hide behind puppets because at that point I was a little shy."[1] He had no desire to go into puppeteering professionally: "I just did it as a hobby to get some money-- I really wanted to be a journalist." [2]

Beginnings With Henson

At the age of 17, Oz first met Jim Henson at the Puppeteers of America festival in California. His first impression of Henson was as "this very quiet, shy guy who did these absolutely ******* amazing puppets that were totally brand new and fresh, that had never been done before."[3] At age 19, in 1963, he joined the burgeoning Muppets, Inc. as a right hand for Rowlf the Dog in variety appearances and later on The Jimmy Dean Show. It was here that Jimmy Dean introduced him as "Frank Oz...," mumbling the last part of his name. Thus, Oz began using the shortened form of his name that he's known by today. [4]

He also worked on commercials, replacing Jane Henson as key assistant. While Henson dubbed all of the voices, he and Oz would alternate when performing such buddy duos as Scoop and Skip, and the new puppeteer assisted on such characters as the Southern Colonel and Nutty Bird. His most notable commercial role was as The LaChoy Dragon. This was Oz's first, and one of his very few, experiences, as a full-bodied puppet performer, and one which he did not relish:

I hated it. I hated doing it totally. Jim knew I hated it. I think he relished it. The La Choy dragon was a *****. I was totally blind in there. I always hated being inside characters, but I was the main performer and that was my job.[5]

Sesame Street

Oz with Cookie Monster
Oz with Cookie Monster

On Sesame Street, Frank Oz originated the characters of Bert, Grover, and Cookie Monster, and performed them exclusively for nearly 30 years. During this time, he performed a great number of minor characters, including Lefty the Salesman. He was also offered the role of Big Bird, but because of his experience as The LaChoy Dragon, he turned down the role.[6]

According to the book Sesame Street Unpaved, during the show's early years he was in almost every sketch, but by 1998 he only appeared on the Sesame Street set four days a year, performing nearly fifteen sketches with his characters during those four days. As of 2006, he is still taping appearances during a limited schedule for new segments. He recently performed Grover in the 2006 direct-to-video production Elmo's Potty Time.

Middle Years

Between the beginning of Sesame Street and the start of The Muppet Show, Frank Oz performed in nearly every major Henson production, including The Great Santa Claus Switch, The Frog Prince, and The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. One of his most significant characters during this time was The Mighty Favog on Saturday Night Live.

The Muppet Show

Frank Oz was one of the main performers on The Muppet Show, performing several of the show's stars. Oz performed Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal, as well as secondary characters Sam the Eagle, George the Janitor and Marvin Suggs.

Fozzie Bear was originally intended to be his main character, and Miss Piggy was originally meant to be a supporting character. In fact, during the first few episodes of the show's first season, Frank Oz shared the role of Miss Piggy with Richard Hunt. Once the writers and producers realized that Miss Piggy was more than just a one-joke character, and had more star potential than Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy became a major part of the Muppet cast, and Frank Oz performed her full-time.

In addition to performing these main characters, Oz also normally performed the hands of The Swedish Chef while Jim Henson performed the body and voice. During these sketches, Oz would often do someting unexpected with the hands, without telling Jim Henson beforehand. The Muppet Morsels quote Oz as saying that the best Swedish Chef sketches were unrehearsed.

In addition to performing, Frank Oz also wrote the songs "The Rhyming Song" and "Jamboree". He was also credited on The Muppet Show as a creative consultant.

Branching Out

In 1980, George Lucas contacted Henson about a puppet character he wanted for his next Star Wars film, a creature known as Yoda. Since Henson was pre-occupied, Oz was assigned as chief puppeteer and as creative consultant, while other Henson alumni worked on the fabrication. The backwards-talking sage made his debut in The Empire Strikes Back, and Oz has performed Yoda in all subsequent Star Wars films, first as a puppet and then as a CG creation.

Oz has also been a frequent cameo player in the films of John Landis, in which he was often cast as a grizzled or surly official. This began with An American Werewolf in London and extended to The Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Spies Like Us, Innocent Blood, and most recently, Blues Brothers 2000.

In 2001, he supplied the voice of Fungus in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc.

Directorial Career

Frank Oz made his directorial debut on Sesame Street when he directed the Number Three Ball Film segment. When production began on The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson decided to let Frank Oz co-direct the movie with him. According to an interview with Oz,

[Jim] said, 'Do you want to direct Dark Crystal with me?', and I said, 'Why?, I don't know how to direct. You could do it yourself. Why would you want me to direct with you?' He said, 'Because it would be better'. And that's all that mattered. He didn't care about the credit. He knew that he had some weaknesses and he knew that I had some strengths, and so we worked together that way. [7]

A few years later, Oz directed The Muppets Take Manhattan. According to Oz,

There was a script written by two other writers, and I said to Jim that I didn't think this was in the right direction. I may have been wrong about this, but the point is that Jim allowed me to rewrite it and I rewrote the script. [Then] he asked me to direct it. I was very grateful, and that was the first directing job I had really done on my own. [8]

After this, he directed his first non-Henson movie, Little Shop of Horrors, adapted from the Broadway play. In the 1987 interview with The Advertiser, Oz explained the empowering aspects of directing:

Five years ago I would have hemmed and hawed while talking to you... But you get raw, naked, savage power as a director and all of a sudden you talk a lot.

Following the film's success, Oz became an in-demand director, primarily of live action comedies such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob?, and The Stepford Wives. In 2001, he directed his first drama, The Score, and in 2007, he directed his first independant film, Death at a Funeral.

Because of his career as a director, he became too busy to perform as often as he had previously. He would still perform a few days on Sesame Street every season, and would often find time to perform in major (and sometimes minor) Muppet productions, though the producers often had to work around his schedule (and in some cases, other performers performed his characters and he looped the dialogue later).

Frank Oz and Jim Henson

Watching Jim's Ernie teasing Frank Oz's Bert and driving him to distraction was to witness unadulterated glee!
- Caroly Wilcox[9]

And so it was with the many characters on which the two collaborated. Together, Jim Henson and Frank Oz made such memorable pairings as Ernie and Bert, Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, and the aforementioned Swedish Chef. Two other characters that Oz performed, Fozzie Bear and Grover, would play off Henson's Kermit the Frog on numerous occasions, and The Salesman was always trying to pull one over on poor Ernie. Other pairings of the team's characters include Rowlf and Fozzie. As in the case of Kermit and Miss Piggy, Henson's characters often became the victim of one of Oz's characters, and vice versa. For example, Kermit would become victim to Marvin Suggs in episode 506 of The Muppet Show, as well as Oz's character of Animal. The first time this occured was in episode 110, when Animal beat on Kermit like a drum. The two also worked together during the early 1980s while co-directing and performing in The Dark Crystal.

It can also be noted that Frank Oz's character Grover had several interactions with Jerry Nelson's characters, including Herbert Birdsfoot, The Amazing Mumford and Mr. Johnson.

Current Muppet Status

Starting in the mid-1990s, after more than thirty years of Muppet performing, Oz began to transition himself away from his Muppet duties to focus on directing. He occasionally performs his characters on Sesame Street, but following Muppets From Space, his classic Muppet Show characters have been recast to other performers, mainly Eric Jacobson.

In an interview, Oz explained why he distanced himself from the Muppets:

There were a lot of reasons. One was that I was a dad, I have four kids. The reason was that I was constantly asked to do stuff. And also, I had done this for 30 years, and I had never wanted to be a puppeteer in the first place. I wanted to be a journalist, and really what I wanted to do was direct theatre and direct movies.

So it was a slow progression, working with Jim, but I felt limited. As an actor and a performer, you feel limited because you're not the source for the creation, and I wanted to be the source. I wanted to be the guy and show my view of the world. And if I screw it up, then I screw it up, but at least I tried.

And as a director, what you're really showing is you're showing the audience your view of the world. I don't know why, but I thought I say things a certain way, and I wanted to express myself. I've always enjoyed, more than anything else, bringing things to life, whether it be characters or actors in a scene or moments in movies. I've done so much with puppets, that I've wanted to work with actors.[10]

In a 2000 interview, Oz said,

I've made a policy over the last 15 years of not having any pictures with my characters and I, at all, in the same shot. That is because, as a director, I can walk on a film for 18 hours a day for a year -- work my ass off -- and people will see it and say "Ah, yeah, that's nice. That was a good film", Then they see one picture of me and one of my characters, and they go ape****. They'll freak out and say, "You do that character!" The power of the Muppets, and the popularity of these characters, is so iconic in people's lives, that I've had to distance myself from it publicly. [11]

Muppeteer Credits

Directoral Credits

Henson Projects

Non-Henson Films

Additional Credits

Trivia

Awards & Honors

1974

  • Daytime Emmy for Individual Achievement in Children's Programming for Sesame Street.

1976

  • Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Children's Programming for Sesame Street.

1979

  • Daytime Emmy for Individual Achievement in Children's Programming for Sesame Street.

1999

  • American Comedy Awards Creative Artist Award presented by John Cleese

See Also

Sources

  1. ↑ Reddy, Muriel. "The Wizardry of Oz." The Advertiser, March 19, 1987
  2. ↑ Borgenicht, David. Unpaved New York: Hyperion, 1998.
  3. ↑ Plume, Ken. FilmForce Interview. February 10, 2000
  4. ↑ Interview, The Merv Griffin Show, 1983
  5. ↑ Plume, Ken. FilmForce Interview. February 10, 2000
  6. ↑ Borgelnict, David Sesame Street Unpaved page 33
  7. ↑ Plume, Ken. Film Force Interview. Febuary 10, 2000
  8. ↑ Plume, Ken.Film Force Interview. Febuary 10, 2000
  9. ↑ Jim Henson: The Works
  10. ↑ Oz, Frank August 7, 2007 interview
  11. ↑ Plume, Kenneth. "Interview with Frank Oz", IGN.com. February 10, 2000.
Retrieved from "http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Frank_Oz"

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