The Scariest Muppets Ever
Who's your favorite Muppet? Chances are it won't be any of the creations on this list, who are just so damned scary that it's a wonder Jim Henson ever let them out of the Creature Shop.
Uncle Deadly
It's only fitting that the scary Uncle Deadly made his debut on an episode of The Muppet Show hosted by Vincent Price. This sepulchral creature was once a perfomer in the theater that the Muppets now use, until he was murdered on opening night... by the critics. His malevolent spirit has haunted the theater ever since. Voiced by Jerry Nelson, Uncle Deadly showed up sporadically on the TV show and even went with Kermit to host The Tonight Show. He's also seen in 2011's new The Muppets movie.
Crazy Harry is one of those Muppets that reflects a very particular period in time - he's kind of like a felt stereotype of a 70s terrorist, all wild eyes and cartoonish explosives plunger. All he needs is a kidnapped Patty Hearst muppet. Harry was the assistant to the Great Gonzo in many of his daredevil stunts, and when he shows up you know something is going to be demolished in exceedingly violent fashion. Collateral damage? Who cares, they're puppets.
Over the years, Big Bird's imaginary friend has been redesigned a bit to look less creepy, but when he first showed up on Sesame Street in 1971 he was a nightmarish apparition. For some reason, Henson's designers chose to make the enormous hairy elephant have a pair of yellow eyes like a Hep C sufferer. Couple that with flowing, scary eyelashes and his trademark voice and you had a creature that would haunt your dreams. Special mention is owed to a skit from this period that has children crawling beneath his pendulous belly.
Fraggle Rock was one of Jim Henson's most unique creations, a sprawling ecological parable with a massive cast. There were some truly horrifying entities inhabiting the world of the Fraggles, but none freaked us out as much as Wander McMooch. This toadlike con man was a long-time nemesis of Marjorie the Trash Heap, and whenever he showed up you knew that some kind of negative shenanigans would erupt. His visual design was deeply unpleasant, like a greasy homeless dandy with reptile skin.
Digit
A general rule is that the more humanlike a Muppet looks, the more terrifying it is. Digit, from the short-lived Jim Henson Hour, was a robotoid creature who served as the Technical Director for MuppeTelevision. He also totally creeped viewers out because he was like a human being who had been terrifyingly transformed into a pastiche of felt and mystery. His blank eyes made him look like the victim of a back-alley lobotomy. Needless to say, he didn't join the pantheon of classic creations.
Pepe
Some animals lend themselves very well to Muppetization - dogs, frogs, anything easily anthropomorphized. And then there's Pepe the King Prawn. First showing up on the ill-fated Muppets Tonight, Pepe is one of those characters that the Henson organization has put an unusual amount of marketing push behind, despite his utter unpleasantness. He's very much a creation of the late '90s, with "attitude" and all that entails.
One of many stand-alone Muppets television specials, The Muppet Musicians Of Bremen featured a very bizarre technique where the evil characters - including Caleb Siles here - were played by human actors in giant costumes in long shots, but their facial expressions were done with hand puppets in closeup. The villainous farmers were incredibly creepy to look at, walking in the uncanny valley for a little too long. It's worth seeing if you want to be chilled to the bone.
We're going to give you a little extra value with this one, as the Riverbottom Nightmare Band are too scary to be separated. These villainous rockers are the carnivorous Chuck Stoat, the creepy Stanley Weasel, the cold-blooded Fred Lizard, limbless Howard Snake and band mascot Pop-Eyed Catfish. This quintet was responsible for all kinds of cruel shenanigans, but it's the performance of their unforgettable theme song that earns them a place on this list. Let's share a video, shall we?
Dead Tom
Muppet Treasure Island isn't the best of the Muppet movies by any means, but it does have an unusually chilling meta-commentary on the nature of the Muppet universe in the form of Dead Tom. One of the pirates under the captaincy of Long John Silver, Dead Tom is actually a human skeleton being operated as a puppet by another Muppet. Is this some kind of twisted revenge fantasy? Is playing with our corpses what Muppets dream about? I don't want to know.
"Cookie Monster?" I hear you asking. "How could that hilarious blue-furred glutton be scary?" Like many Muppets, Cookie Monster didn't start life in the form we know him in today. Cookie's earliest appearances were in commercials and industrial films, and before Sesame Street went on the air, the sweets-loving monster sported one feature that eating too much sugar is guaranteed to give you: a really messed up grill. Yes, the early days of Cookie Monster not only depicted him with green fur, but with a mouth full of rotten, broken, snaggly teeth. Scary.
In many ways, The Dark Crystal was the triumph of Henson's artistry as a puppeteer, boasting a tremendous assortment of fanciful creatures brought to life without a drop of CGI. The film's antagonists, the flightless avian Skeksis, are still horrifying to this day. Their weird way of moving, cadaverous voices, and general unhealthy pallor combine to make them utterly creepy to look at. Manipulating the complex puppets was an arduous task as well, with many puppeteers nearly passing out after a day of filming. Easily the scariest Muppets ever.
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