The Muppets changed over time

Washington Post

WASHINGTON — My, how the Muppets have grown.

Oscar the Grouch was orange, not the dirty green we know and love him as, on the first season of “Sesame Street.” And the earliest incarnation of Kermit, from 1955, was more of a “milky turquoise,” according to Jim Henson, who, in a 1982 interview, said he created the iconic puppet out of an old spring coat belonging to his mother, with Ping-Pong-ball eyes. A later, more recognizable version from the 1970s greets visitors at the entrance to the current exhibit “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.”

As someone Washington-born and bred, however, I was pleased to rediscover my favorite Henson creations: Wilkins and Wontkins, who shilled for Wilkins Coffee on local television from the late 1950s to the early 1960s in eight-second TV spots featuring Henson’s then-signature brand of strange, macabre humor. One such micro-ad features the ever-cheerful and highly caffeinated Wilkins shooting (yes, shooting, with a cannon) his dour, coffee-spurning companion.

Check ’em out. These “Itchy and Scratchy”-style ads are a politically incorrect tonic to the cuddly love-fest that children’s educational television was soon to become.