Actually the copies of characters is something I don't particularly like to talk about in articles but just for your information, most characters there's only one.

If you take a character and you call him a frog, or like Rowlf, our dog, call him a dog, you immediately give the audience a handle.

Somebody like a Piggy or a Kermit, there needs to be several versions and so there will be several of them.

At the University of Maryland, my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design, stage design or television design.

No time is wasted time

No, there's not much competition between puppeteers in general because everybody's working their own style.

I don't know exactly where ideas come from, but when I'm working well ideas just appear. I've heard other people say similar things - so it's one of the ways I know there's help and guidance out there. It's just a matter of our figuring out how to receive the ideas or information that are waiting to be heard.