Rainbow Connection

(5/12/16 EDIT: Fuck you, ABC.  Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you)


Done in pen and ink and colored in photoshop, like pretty much all my art.  The logo I got from the Muppet wiki.

I'm pretty jazzed about the new Muppets series that's premiering on ABC in the fall (Sept 22nd).  I watched the ten minute pilot on YouTube and it elicited more genuine laughs from me than the last couple movies combined.  While I've remained a fan at heart, I'm afraid my enthusiasm for the Muppets has not been entirely consistent throughout the years, but watching that pilot helped to rekindle my fondness for them.

The Muppets had perhaps a greater influence on my tastes and creativity than anything else in my life.  The earliest fanart I ever produced was probably crude crayon drawings of Bert and Ernie or other Sesame Street characters.  I haven't really drawn the Muppets in a long time, though- hardly at all since leaving elementary school.  Maybe I was trying to make up for that somewhat by doing a piece with as many characters as I could fit into it as I could.

Even though some of them are only visible as partially obscured faces, this is easily the most characters I've ever crammed into a single drawing.  I had planned out which characters were going to be in this piece at the beginning, but then I just kept adding more and more as I went along.  And there are still more that I thought of that I ended up not having any room for.  

Characters pictured:

Angel Marie
Gorgon Heap
Mean Mama
Denise
Beautiful Day Monster
Zondra
Dr. Julius Strangepork
Happy yellow creature/Thingy-Thing
Constantine
Nigel
Lips
Big Mean Carl
Johnny Fiama
Yolanda
Statler 
Skeeter
Robin
Waldorf
one of The Mutations
Sweetums
Thog
Lew Zealand
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew
Beaker
Bean Bunny
The Swedish Chef
Camilla
Sal Minella
Bobo
Beauregard
Behemoth/Gene
Pops
The Snouths
Mahnah Mahnah
Wayne
Wanda
Mulch
Dr. Phil van Neuter
Marvin Suggs
one of the Muppaphone creatures
Chip
The Newsman
Walter
Uncle Deadly
Dr. Teeth
Pepe
Floyd Pepper
Janice
Zoot
Link Hogthrob
Crazy Harry
Clifford
a penguin
Jim
Rowlf
Gonzo
Miss Piggy
Animal
Fozzie Bear
Rizzo
Scooter
Sam the Eagle
Gaffer
Foo-Foo
Kermit the Frog


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EDIT: I've removed the two characters exclusive to Sam and Friends (Yorick and Sam) that were originally in this pic and replaced them with other characters (Denise and a penguin).  I thought it would be cool to include a nod to Jim Henson's earliest show in this pic, but part of me started to think that they felt out of place.  It would be different if I'd made this piece a tribute to various Henson projects- Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, etc.- but this was really intended to just encompass The Muppet Show and its spin-offs.  Sure, The Muppet Show might be considered a spin-off of Sam and Friends; Kermit got his start there, after all.  But imagine if I'd done a done a big group pic of the cast of Daria, but had also included Beavis and Butt-Head in the scene.  It would just feel slightly off.  Maybe I'm anal-retentive, but that's my main reasoning for making the change.  Also, after seeing the pics of Denise, I thought it would be nice for the new show (as I type this, just a few days away from it's premiere, August 22nd!) to have some representation.

The really tough part of this was finding someone to replace Sam with.  I'd drawn so many major Muppet characters, there weren't a lot of great choices left that would fit into that little space over Jim's shoulder, but penguins were pretty pervasive in the Muppet world. 


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2nd EDIT: The flat coloring was making me kind of sick to look at, so I finally decided to add shading to this pic.  Also I added three more characters (Lips, Big Mean Carl and Yolanda), though I had to move Gorgon Heap and Behemoth to make them fit.  


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3rd EDIT: Added Chip.


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4th EDIT: Added Nigel.  Oy, this is getting ridiculous.  I swore I was done with this thing.

That brings the total to, um...  

Sixty six!  Sixty six Muppets!  Ah ah ah!