 | |
| PERFORMER | Frank Oz |
| DEBUT | 1965 |
| DESIGN | Jim Henson designer |
Splurge is a tall purple monster, who appears in the special Hey Cinderella! The deep-voiced, almost monosyllabic Splurge expresses a great fondness for radishes. Kermit the Frog recruits him to tend to the horses for Cinderella's coach ("He likes to pat them," Kermit says), but when he scares the horses off, he ends up providing her transportation to the ball.
The puppet was built in 1965 for the first Cinderella pilot, and he has the distinction of being the first larger-than-life Full-Bodied Muppet that Jim Henson built.
Splurge appeared in a sketch on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1966. In this appearance, his fur is blue. He is also referred to as being the mother of a small monster. He also made a cameo in a La Choy presentation reel. In The Muppets on Puppets, he appears during a feature on Muppet monsters, destroying the set and cleaning up his mess afterwards; Jerry Juhl performed the character in this instance.
A slightly altered version of Splurge appeared during one of Kermit's lectures in the first season on Sesame Street (First: Episode 0015). Here, Splurge's mouth doesn't move, and he has large eyelashes, rather than a unibrow.
The full body puppet for Splurge is part of the Center for Puppetry Arts collection and was on display during 2020.
Scary Scary Monsters
In 1998, the Jim Henson Company created "Jim Henson's Scary Scary Monsters", a new line of children's books inspired by Jim Henson's early sketches. The books introduced seven monster friends who live in the secret land of Ovadare. Six of the monsters were created for the book line -- and the seventh was Splurge.
Splurge's personality underwent a change for the book series; the back cover of the first book describes him this way: "Splurge is like a big, big baby. He's scared of mostly everything, except butterflies." Splurge carries around a "cuddle" wherever he goes; the cuddle is a rock, and he has a wooden box full of spare cuddles.
Splurge starred in his own Scary Scary Monsters book in 1999. In New Friend, Blue Friend, Splurge finds a furry blue bedroom slipper, which falls over the waterfall from Somewhere Else (the monsters' name for our world). Splurge names the slipper Floofy and makes it his new cuddle friend.
Other Appearances
Splurge was posed for a photo in 1966, with two girls pretending to brush his tooth. (The interview with Jim Henson was very loosely connected to National Dental Week.)[1]
Splurge was given his own entry in The Muppets Character Encyclopedia.
Book appearances
Merchandise
A plastic hand puppet was released in 1970 in conjunction with the release of Hey Cinderella! along with a promotion on cans of Hawaiian Punch. A Splurge "shoelace muncher" was released in a set of Jim Henson's Scary Scary Monsters KFC promotional toys in 1999.
Sources
- ↑ Mimi Mead, "One Beautiful Pointed Tooth: Splurge Seven-Foot Puppet", Journal Herald (Dayton, Ohio), January 31, 1966, pg 35.