Brian Muehl

Brian Muehl (pronounced "meal") (b. 1950s), is a Muppeteer & writer who began his Muppet career in the later seasons of The Muppet Show. Trained as a mime, Muehl assisted the principal Muppeteers & he performed small roles. He soon transitioned to Sesame Street, where he took over the roles of Barkley & Telly Monster (Telly later performed by Martin P. Robinson), & he originated characters like Dr. Nobel Prize, & in some of his earliest appearances, Elmo, before Kevin Clash took over the character & made him famous (even though Clash took over that character after Richard Hunt, who took over the character from Muehl, quickly grew tired of it). His other fairly early character is Oscar the Grouch 's equally rotten  trashy  Grouch girlfriend  Grundgetta, whom he had voiced from 1982 to 1984, when Pam Arciero, a fellow Muppeteer completely took over for the  role , performing her, for now, almost 29 years. Muehl also performed multiple roles on The Dark Crystal (& along with Steve Whitmire, was 1 of only 2 Muppeteers to both perform & voice a character).

In 1984 Muehl left the Muppets for reasons he later articulated in a Random House bio:

"The downside of long hours in film & TV studios is all the downtime. Besides growing restless, I had a wife & 2 young daughters I was seeing too little of. So I traded life in front of the camera for life behind it. I became a children's television writer."

Changing his name to Meehl, to reflect the pronunciation, the Muppeteer began churning out scripts for Eureeka's Castle, PBS series Eyewitness, The Magic School Bus, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, & Codename: Kids Next Door. He did return to the Muppets sporadically in the 1990s, notably as a regular on Dog City & a couple of episodes of Sesame Street during Season 25. He also wrote a Sesame English episode, "A Zoo for Jenny."

In 2006, he published his 1st young adult novel, Out of Patience, which examines such issues as baseball & toilets in small-town Kansas. In 2008, he published his second, Suck It Up, a vampire comedy which contains a brief mention of his former character Elmo.

At 1 time, Muehl was a member of Mummenschanz as an interpreter for Andres Bossard.

Muppeteer/Creature Shop Credits

 * The Muppet Show: various (1980 - 1981)
 * John Denver & the Muppets: A Christ mas Together
 * Sesame Street: Barkley (1978 - 1984), Bushman Bill, Captain Breakfast, Clementine (1979 - 1985), The Cobblestones (Keyboardist), Elmo (1979 - 1984),  Grundgetta  (1982 - 1984), Honkers,  Lothar the Grouch , Marvin, Malcolm, Dr. Nobel Prize (1979 - 1984),  Othmar the Grouch , Pearl, Rusty, Shark ("Pearl White Teeth"), Taxi Driver McGillicuddy, Telly Monster (1979 - 1984), Whatshisname
 * The Great Muppet Caper
 * The Muppets Go to the Movies
 * The Dark Crystal: Dying Mystic Master, SkekEkt, Urzah (latter Muppeteer only)
 * The Muppets Take Manhattan: Tatooey Rat
 * Big Bird in China: Barkley & Telly Monster
 * Don't Eat the Pictures: Telly Monster
 * Big Bird in Japan: Barkley
 * The Jim Henson Hour: "Song of the Cloud Forest"
 * Dog City: Bruno
 * Muppet CD-ROM: The Muppets Inside
 * The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss: Binkham Tamino McDoyal the 3rd