The 25 most beloved Muppets

There is only one Muppet to start with. It has to be Kermit the Frog, forever the frontman of the group. He’s the put-upon everyman, or everyfrog as it were. Kermit was the center of the first Muppet movie and the one in charge of running “The Muppet Show.” The Muppets, in canon, owe their careers to the work of Kermit. Plus, the dude plays a mean banjo.

The only thing Miss Piggy loves more than Kermit is herself. She is one of the quintessential showbiz egomaniacs in pop culture. Just don’t mess with Piggy’s spotlight, or her fairly fragile ego. Also, don’t call her a pig if you can avoid it. She knows karate.

It feels like the kind of kid whose favorite “Star Wars” character is Han Solo, also considered Gonzo their favorite Muppet. He’s the outsider, the mysterious one. Of course, where Han is suave, Gonzo is, well, weird. We’re not just talking about the chickens thing, either, though that is incredibly weird. Gonzo also deserves credit for taking more fashion risks than any Muppet.

Since the Muppets first existed, and frequently still exist, within the parameters of showbiz, naturally one of them is a standup comedian. It just so happens said standup, Fozzie, is terrible. All the “wokka wokkas” in the world can’t change that. At times, Fozzie has simply operated as a hacky comedian, but he works best as a character when he has the self-awareness to also be professionally neurotic. When he’s more of a Hank Kingsley type, in a sense.

When you just want some anarchy from your Muppets – and don’t we all want that on occasion – you want some animal. Though the Muppets roster is loaded with anthropomorphic animals, none of them are nearly as wild as Animal. He’s only a step above feral, whether he’s playing drums or hanging out with his friends and bandmates or, of course, in the presence of an attractive woman.

There are pairs and teams within the world of the Muppets, but the only duo we’re inducting together is Statler and Waldorf. As it should be. It’s not merely that the two are always seen together. They are a comedy team through and through. The curmudgeonly, aging hecklers spend an awful lot of time watching variety shows they hate, but they know how to set one another up for punchlines like nobody’s business.

Attempts to expand the Muppet roster in the post-Jim Henson landscape have been spotty, but Pepe the King Prawn was a successful addition. He’s surged to being one of the most popular and most prominent Muppets. Pepe has the ego of Miss Piggy without the cache, but the prawn (don’t call him a shrimp) brings a lot of laughs to the table along the way. Plus, while Piggy only has eyes for Kermie, Pepe is less laser-focused with his loverboy ways.

Most of the Muppets are silly, absurd, or even libidinous. Sam the Eagle stands, humorously, in contrast to everything that isn’t straight-laced and small-c conservative. It’s not just the Gonzos and the Animals of the world. Even Kermit is probably too much of a “weirdo” for Sam the Eagle. There’s a reason he was cast as a CIA agent in “Muppets Most Wanted.”

The “Office”-indebted Muppets sitcom was kind of a mess, but it wasn’t all bad. One thing that came out of it is that tertiary Muppet Uncle Deadly suddenly had a foothold in the landscape. He plays Miss Piggy’s personal wardrobe attendant, recentered as the gossipy, snarky sidekick of a diva one often sees in pop culture. Since then, Deadly has popped up in other Muppet properties, and he’s usually pretty entertaining.

Rizzo is something of a one-note character, which limits his upside, but few Muppets can hit their one note as well. He’s your typical streetwise New Yorker, right down to his accent, and so naturally he is a rat. Rizzo is “edgy” by Muppets' standards, but sometimes that’s exactly what the Muppets need.

We said we weren’t putting any groups in together aside from Statler and Waldorf, and to that end, we are including Beaker but not Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. Bunsen would be nothing without Beaker. He’s an absentminded professor whose only laughs come from Beaker’s antics. It’s Beaker, the meep-ing sidekick, who suffers at the hands of Bunsen’s poorly-considered experiments. And yet, Beaker, like a kinder Wile E. Coyote, is always there for more physical punishment the next time around. Beaker gets our love. Bunsen Honeydew? Not so much.

The Swedish Chef is the most enjoyable Muppet to do an impression of, mostly because you get to just make nonsense noises and say “bork bork bork” a bunch. Additionally, the Swedish Chef stands out because he’s not your typical Muppet. For much of the Chef-centric humor, he needs dexterous hands, and so he is a puppet designed to have human hands, which is wild to look at, but also makes him feel different in his segments.

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem are a dynamic house band for the Muppets, and so the titular Dr. Teeth surely had to make the cut. Plus, he’s the most-loquacious and most-dynamic of the band members, given Animal’s relative lack of conversational skills. His sense of style is hard to beat as well.

The hippy-dippy flower-child archetype is not as prominent as it was when Janice debuted, but Janice keeps that character type going. She has a fun speaking style to imitate, and every “wow” and “fer sure” remains delightful when delivered in her spacey way. Solid guitarist and backup vocalist for the Electric Mayhem as well.

This is the last Electric Mayhem member to make the cut. All of the members of the Electric Mayhem, save for maybe Animal, have an unspoken “stoner vibe” to them, but Zoot’s is probably the strongest. The saxophonist who is always wearing sunglasses seems to be at least a little out of it all the time. Surely, that couldn’t be because of marijuana usage. Not a chance.

Full-body Muppets aren’t usually as fun, but Sweetums is an exception. He’s just so big and so imposing. But, of course, he’s no ogre. After all, his name is Sweetums! We’ll admit that the fact that Sweetums is named Sweetums plays a big role in the fact that we included him on this list. It pairs well with his look.

If you want pure anarchy and mayhem from a Muppet, it helps to go to the tertiary level. Naturally, Crazy Harry can provide that. Hey, it’s not like they call him “Sane Harry.” In essence, Crazy Harry is a pyrotechnician, but also…not so much a pyromaniac as an explodomaniac. The dude always has his detonation plunger on hand, and he’s not afraid to use it.

Somehow, the weirdest thing about this Muppet isn’t that his name is Lew Zealand. You know the Muppet that wears a neck ruff and always throws fish? That’s Lew Zealand. He has a bit of “omg so random” to him, but Lew Zealand has been around since 1978, so we’ll cut him a lot of slack.

Kermit is often the straight man, but The Newsman is always the straight man. He basically centers the Muppet equivalent of a “Weekend Update” segment. However, instead of jokes being worked into the segment, The Newsman just wants to do his job. It’s everything else around him that descends into chaos. The Newsman is perennially put upon, but that is the charm of the character.

Big Mean Carl essentially answers the question, “What if Sweetums wasn’t so sweet?” He’s a large, imposing monster, but Carl also has an insatiable, amoral appetite. Any object, any Muppet, even any human he can get his hands on, he’s liable to try to eat. So, much like Sweetums, Big Mean Carl is not ironically named.

We’re relieved to find out that Joe the Legal Weasel is a reworked prairie dog puppet, because he never looked much like a weasel to us. The joke is that Joe is the Muppets’ lawyer and, well, he’s a weasel. And yet, the joke almost always works. Anytime they want to riff on copyright laws or “don’t try this at home” controversy, you can bet Joe is showing up.

There are a few “New Yawk-uh” rats in the world of the Muppets aside from Rizzo. The one we will shout out is Yolanda. Is it almost entirely because her name is Yolanda? Yes, but also Yolanda has a funny voice, so there’s also that.

You may have been reading this list and seeing secondary and tertiary names and started to wonder “What about Scooter?” We’ll be honest, we were also wondering, “What about Scooter?” We were kind of on the fence about the Muppets’ go-to gofer, His Muppet Friday as it were. Ultimately, we figured Scooter is kind of a glue guy. Maybe we don’t laugh at him a ton, but he facilitates many of the laughs. You need straight-laced characters to make the comedic, absurd ones pop.

Constantine is a one-off Muppet from “Muppets Most Wanted,” but we’ll stump for “Muppets Most Wanted” being underrated and Constantine being a fun character. He’s the world’s most-wanted criminal, the world’s most-dangerous frog, and a dead ringer for Kermit, aside from his mole. Constantine is absurdly, mustache-twirlingly villainous, right down to his broad “Russian” accent. All of that in the world of this film, though, is delightful.

We’ll end with an earworm. This Muppet is named Mahna Mahna. He’s famous for performing the song “Mah Na Mah Na.” It’s one of the classic Muppets bits. Yeah, that’s all Mahna Mahna does. It’s right in his name. Who cares? Most performers would love to have a set piece as well-received as Mahna Mahna.