Little Jerry and the Monotones
From Muppet Wiki
Little Jerry and the Monotones is a rock group on Sesame Street that first appeared as a music group in 1970.
Originally, in the First season, the group appeared as protype hippie Anything Muppets that would usually appear in muppet inserts such as musical numbers, including Good Morning Starshine, but later on in the 2nd season, the group evolved into a musical group, with Little Jerry as the frontman and backup singers Big Jeffy, Chrissy and Rockin' Richard, along with a few changes being made in some of their songs. Eventually, however, basic features, hair, and clothing were kept for the individual members in order to maintain the band's continuity, though some small changes (such as nose color or different eyes) were sometimes made. All members of the band are named after the people who performed their voices; Little Jerry is named after Jerry Nelson, Rockin' Richard by Richard Hunt, Christopher Cerf was Chrissy, and Jeff Moss supplied the bass voice for Big Jeffy, though sometimes, a few of the members (particularly Chrissy and Rockin' Richard) had different voice performers in a few of their songs.
Although there were usually four members of the band, an extra member, being an un-named Purple Anything Muppet, appeared in the song "A Body Full Of Rythym", and an un-named Green Anything Muppet performed by Joe Raposo appeared in the song "Surprise!".
In an episode from 2000, the group, with the Pumpkin Monotone absent, made a comeback appearance in a concert to perform "When You Move the Mouse, It Makes the Arrow Go." The group shed most of their hippie garb and wore more contemporary, yet still flashy clothes. Little Jerry's dashiki was traded in for a white shirt, black vest, and sunglasses, while Big Jeffy wore a fringed leather vest instead of his bone necklace and triangle-patterned shirt. The Lavender member of the band appeared among the other two wearing an Elvis-like pompadour, and now wore a black coat and a yellow shirt, instead of his flowered-dashiki, black-velcroed vest, and medalion, and was introduced by Little Jerry as "Richie".
The band also appeared in two early 70s sketches with Grover, (although weren't really considered to actually be the group, but just your typical hippies). In one sketch, Grover demonstrates the word "Exit", with the band exiting and entering the door where the exit sign is. In another sketch, Grover demonstrates the word "Walk", with the band holding up the letters representing the word.
Some of the group's songs can be found at the video section of sesamestreet.org.
 Hippie prototypes of the Monotones, holding up the CTW sign at the ending of Episode 0001 |
Songs
- Additional music videos
- "A Body Full of Rhythm"
- "Danger"
- "Mad"
- "Mountain of Love"
- "Proud"
- "Sad"
- "Surprise!"
- "When You Move the Mouse, It Makes the Arrow Go"
- Album only
- Two performances
The Monotones, (without Little Jerry), also sang back-up for Don Music, in the song "Mary Had a Bicycle."
