Switching rod-hands and live-hands

This is a list of instances in which a character who is normally an arm-rod puppet appears with live hands, and vice versa.

Live Hands to Rod Hands

Ernie's rod hands.

• Baby Bear
  • Kids' Favorite Songs 2 — "The Bear Went Over the Mountain"

• Beaker
  • The Muppet Show, episode 301 — Muppet Labs

• Chelli
  • Big Bag — opening theme

• Dr. Bunsen Honeydew
  • Muppets Tonight episode 211 — Pretty Woman sequence, and tap dancing with Andie MacDowell

• Ernie
  • "Best Friend Blues"

• Fozzie Bear
  • The Muppet Show season one opening

• Link Hogthrob
  • The Muppet Show episode 205 — "I Talk to the Trees"
  • The Muppet Show episode 224 — Operetta Medley
  • The Muppet Show episode 306 — "Tico Tico"
  • The Muppet Show episode 308 — "The Rhyming Song"
  • The Muppet Show episode 416 — "Golden Earrings"
  • The Muppet Show episode 419 — practicing to be a super hero
  • The Muppets Go to the Movies — hitting a gong
  • Muppet Treasure Island — standing by a gong

• Leo
  • Muppet Meeting Films — "Explosion"

• Hilda
  • The Muppet Show episode 118 — trying to look young in front of Kermit.

Rod Hands to Live Hands

Kermit's live hand, from the 1988 video Wow, You're a Cartoonist!

One of Uncle Traveling Matt's live hands appearance on CITV in 1985.

Miss Piggy's live hand from The Muppets.

• Convincing John
  • Fraggle Rock — "The Secret Society of Poobahs"

• Elmo
  • "Tying Your Shoelace"
  • Music Works Wonders
  • Elmo's Magic Cookbook
  • "Elmo's World: Hands"
  • "Elmo's World: Telephones"
  • Elmo's World: Happy Holidays!
  • Episode 4196
  • Episode 4206
  • Episode 4502
  • Little Children, Big Challenges

• Gonzo
  • Muppets from Space — when examining the telescope
  • A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa — while examining the unsent letters to Santa he discovers in his backpack.

• Grover
  • Super Grover 2.0 sketches, in close-up shots picking up objects.
  • Count on Elmo

• Kermit the Frog
  • Wow, You're a Cartoonist! — drawing sequences.

• Miss Piggy
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol — during the song "Bless Us All," she handles a candle.
  • The Muppets Episode 103: Bear Left Then Bear Write — during the end credit roll, she takes off her sunglasses for the police officer to recognize her.

• Red Fraggle
  • Fraggle Rock "Red's Blue Dragon" — when she picks an apple off the tree, and when she throws a rock to the Blue Dragon
  • "Ring Around the Rock" — when she tosses the ring away

• Sarah Hall-Small
  • The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss "The Cat in the Hat's Art House" — when she is creating a picture of her mom for her mom's birthday

• Uncle Traveling Matt
  • Fraggle Rock "You Can't Do That Without a Hat" — when observing the donut he's inadvertently purchased.
  • Postcards from Traveling Matt — when picking flowers for his outfit.
  • Consistently for the United Kingdom's co-production's month of live presentation for CITV in 1985.

• Zeke
  • The Muppet Show episode 307 — "You're Looking at Country"

• Zoe
  • Sesame Street episode 4409 — in close-up shots of Zoe dropping Leela's cellphone in the flowerbed and picking it up.

Other Alterations

Mokey with one rod hand and one live hand.

• Dr. Teeth originated as a rod hand Muppet in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. During the first season of The Muppet Show, he alternated between rod hands and live hands, eventually remaining a live hand puppet. Appearances by the rod hand Dr. Teeth puppet include: Episode 103 ("Willkommen"), Episode 104 ("Sunny"), and Episode 116 (exiting the stage from "Tenderly"), Episode 218 ("That Old Black Magic"), episode 302 (Leo Sayer's dressing room).

• Grump had rod hands in early appearances (FHA commercial and The Ed Sullivan Show), but when he was in the Muppet Meeting Films he had live hands, except for the meeting film "Let Us Have the Dam Break".

• Mokey Fraggle switched back and forth between live hands and rod hands, depending on what the scene required.

• Sonny Friendly originated as a rod hand Muppet (modified from the Large Lavender Live Hand design) played by Richard Hunt on Sesame Street from Season 18 to Season 23. After David Rudman took over the character in 1992, he became an actual Large Lavender Live Hand. However, in later appearances from the late 1990's into 2000, Sonny Friendly shrank to a Little Lavender Anything Muppet with rod hands.