| Revision as of 00:54, 9 June 2006 edit12.170.48.217 (talk)No edit summary← Previous edit | Revision as of 14:35, 15 June 2006 edit undoToughpigs (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users72,901 editsNo edit summaryNext edit → | ||
| Line 24: | Line 24: | ||
| * | * | ||
| * | * | ||
| * | * | ||
| * | * | ||
| * | |||
| ] | ] | ||
Revision as of 14:35, 15 June 2006
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is a fictional character from The Muppet Show, performed by Dave Goelz. The Muppet was a bald, bespectacled, lab-coated scientist who would do periodic science segments from "Muppet Labs...where the future is being made today." The face of the muppet had no eyes, only glasses, and his experiments always went awry, usually causing great harm to his long-suffering assistant Beaker (Richard Hunt), a nearly mute Muppet with shocked red hair. In the first season of The Muppet Show, Honeydew worked alone. In the second season, he was accompanied by Beaker.
Beaker would end up blown up, electrocuted, eaten by large monsters, or having body parts fall off. Beaker only communicates by repeating the word "Meep!". He rapidly became a favourite with audiences, who sympathized with his humorous sufferings, or merely laughed at them. Occasionally, Beaker got his own back, especially when he inadvertently made several copies of himself and spent the rest of the episode chasing Honeydew in revenge. Some of the inventions that the duo created and tested included: edible paper clips, a gorilla detector, hair-growing tonic, banana sharpener, and a robot politician.
The two scientists were later incorporated into the Muppet Babies animated series. Dave Coulier voiced Bunsen, and Frank Welker provided Beaker's squeaky meeps. Following Richard Hunt's death in 1992, the role of Beaker was taken over by Steve Whitmire.
In a 2004 Internet poll sponsored by the BBC and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew were voted Britain's favourite cinematic scientists. They beat Mr. Spock, their closest rival, by a margin of 2 to 1 and won 33 percent of the 43,000 votes cast.
Appearance
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's name was derived from the traditional piece of lab equipment, the bunsen burner, plus the fact that his head was shaped like a honeydew melon. He was rumored to be modeled to resemble Lew Grade, whose company ITC Entertainment produced The Muppet Show. Henson responded in a Judy Harris interview:
- Bunsen Honeydew was not specifically Lord Grade when we did him. It would have been easy to make him much more like Lew Grade if we had tried to and, in retrospect, I wish that we had. The character that owns the Muppet theatre only appeared a couple of times and I always - in looking back - wished that I had made that to look just like Lew Grade because he's very caricaturable.
One of his most endearing features is his lack of eyes, despite the fact that he wears glasses. Occasionally, Honeydew lifts his glasses or removes to clean them as if to get a better look at things, which is something of a running gag.
Biography
According to the official Muppets website, he graduated from Carnegie Melonhead University and is employed as an assistant to Dr. Pinhole Burns. He is the founder of Muppet Labs.
Trivia
- Bunsen also made a cameo appearance in the Elmo's World "cameras" episode.
External links
- Official Muppets website
- MSNBC article of Britain's favourite cinematic scientists.
- Muppet Wiki: Dr. Bunsen Honeydew
- Muppet Wiki: Beaker