Beaker

PERFORMER	Richard Hunt 1977-1991
	Steve Whitmire 1992-2016
	David Rudman 2017-present
	→CASTING HISTORY...
DEBUT	1977
DESIGN	Jim Henson designer
	Don Sahlin builder

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Beaker is the hapless assistant to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. He made his first appearance in Muppet Labs sketches during the second season of The Muppet Show. Kermit the Frog describes Beaker by saying "If somebody has to get hurt, it's almost always Beaker."^[1]

The Muppet Show

Prior to Beaker's debut, Dr. Honeydew appeared in Muppet Labs segments by himself, but the timid assistant added a new level of comedy to the sketches. Dr. Honeydew's experiments and inventions always seem to go awry, and Beaker is their perpetual victim. He has been shrunk, cloned, punched, deflated, zapped, turned invisible, and blown up, but he always comes back for more, though he appears to exist in a state of constant fear.

Starting in the third season, Beaker was occasionally seen as an assistant stagehand to Beauregard. While Bunsen was seldom seen outside of Muppet Labs, Beaker has sung "Feelings" and, accompanied by The Swedish Chef and Animal, "Danny Boy." He was an assistant video DJ to Dr. Teeth on the compilation video "Rock Music".

Movies and specials

On a few occasions, such as in The Great Muppet Caper and The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show, Beaker has been electrocuted, causing his eyes to light up.

Some of Beaker's more memorable roles in the specials have been in The Muppets Go to the Movies, in which Beaker plays the role of "The Angel of Death" in a foreign film, and in The Muppets at Walt Disney World, where he gets a bucket stuck on his head throughout the special.

Muppets Tonight

As seen in Muppets Tonight, Beaker does a mean Little Richard impression in Episode 208, and knows how to beatbox.

Internet sensation

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 favorite cinematic scientists. They beat Star Trek's Mr. Spock, their closest rival, by a margin of 2 to 1 and won 33 percent of the 43,000 votes cast.

In July of 2008, Beaker starred in the popular, award-winning viral video "Ode to Joy." Beaker performed the song in a split-screen number: playing violin, timpani, metronome, and vocals (replacing the lyrics with extended "Meemeee"-ing). Inevitably, disaster ensues. The video was nominated in the Music category of the 2009 Webby Awards, as well as the 'People's Voice' award. Beaker won the Webby Award and accepted the award at the June 8th ceremony.

In 2010, Beaker recorded a performance of Dust in the Wind, accompanying himself on guitar, but he is interrupted by a cascade of critical YouTube-style popup comments.

Speech

“These days, after we did the viral stuff, I get the impression that Beaker is a guy who goes home at night, you know he’s pretty intelligent, he’s a smart guy, he works in a lab, and he probably doesn’t have much of a social life. He’s pretty introverted because he really can’t talk, so his only means of communication is the internet. I love the idea that he spends all of his time in front of a computer, which is perfect for the YouTube stuff.”
—Steve Whitmire, Toughpigs interview

Beaker normally communicates through a series of high-pitched "mee-mee-mee" noises. (In books and merchandise, it's often spelled as "Meep".) In some of his earlier appearances, Beaker's language sounded more like that of someone who was too terrified to get any real words out of his mouth. His "meeping" language began in episode 219. He did manage to muster "Bye Bye" in the Banana Sharpener Muppet Labs segment, and "Ready!" in a 1981 promotional video for Muppet Stuff. In The Muppet Movie, his line "Sadly temporary" (echoing Bunsen) was quite clear, as well as his line "Make-up ready!" and his "Radiant Wonderfulness" line from The Muppets' Wizard of Oz. He re-used the "Sadly temporary" line in Muppets from Space. In The Muppet Christmas Carol, Beaker let out an "Oh, dear!" He also muttered an "Oh no!", before falling head first in episode 107 of The Jim Henson Hour. In the video game Muppet Monster Adventure, during the opening cutscene where Robin is told that his friends were turned into monsters, Robin says "Oh no!" Beaker replies, "Oh yes!"

While he was at WWE, Beaker was able to say "Santino", "Sorry", "Yeah" and "Wow." In their ESPN Tournament Challenge "Bracketology" video, Beaker was able to say "selections", "Mike Wazowski", "fiddle", and "bracket" (YouTube). In the extended cut of Muppets Most Wanted, he briefly imitates the Swedish Chef's mock Swedish when asked to translate it.

Relatives

While no direct Muppet relatives of Beaker appeared on The Muppet Show, multiple Beaker clones were featured in episode 514. In an appearance on the Halloween episode of WWE Raw, the wrestler Sheamus reveals that he is a relative of Beaker, but will be unable to attend the annual family reunion but reminds Beaker to tell Aunt Teresa hello. In The Muppet Show Comic Book: Family Reunion arc, it was revealed through Bunsen's Genebuster that Beaker was related to Gary Mayo, a famous TV panelist, as well as an Aunt Dolly.