Fan Club Newsletter
1978 - Volume 1, Number 3
Performer Profile
RICHARD HUNT is Scooter, Sweetums, Statler, Beaker, Janice, Nigel,
Wayne and Gladys on the "Muppet Show." He is literally a born actor:
everyone in his family has at some time worked in show business. His father,
now deceased, was an actor, his brother a singer. His mother and three
sisters are also involved in show business. Richard, 27, has always
known that he would wind up somewhere in the entertainment field, but the
idea of puppeteer-ing never occurred to him. Although he adored the
Muppets, he had no thought of adding his own mad-cap personality to theirs
when he went job-hunting after his high school graduation. Through a
friend, he landed in, but not on, radio, preparing weather reports for
N.Y. disc jockey Cousin Brucie Morrow. "My qualifications for it," he
admits, "were absolutely zilch. I used to stick my hand out the window,
feel what was going on out there and write the report." In spite of his
sober dedication to science, Richard didn't last long as a
mini-meteorologist. "I quit, went home, and watched more Muppets. Then one day I
thought, 'Hey, why don't I try to get with them?'" Richard, whose arm had
never before hoisted anything more exotic than a basketball, found
himself puppeteering, finally working up to a Muppets special on "The Ed
Sullivan Show." The fledgling puppeteer rated high marks, and has been
with Henson, since, working on "Sesame Street," various Hen-son specials,
and now The Muppet Show.' Good-humored, optimistic, and equipped with a
full-time sense of fun, Richard Hunt radiates health and energy. He
credits his vitality to "two things: heredity, which I got free, and
orange juice, which I buy by the gallon ... No, three things. Being with the
Muppets helps, too."
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