Most longtime Sesame Street fans are familiar with Herry Monster. He was known for being fit and strong, but also carried a stuffed doll. His beloved Hercules.
Herry's strong-but-sensitive nature made him a natural communicator with children. He had a definite "no nonsense" approach with kids, but was also very encouraging. He would have made a good school teacher. Way better than Roosevelt Franklin. Gordon himself could have mentored him.
Click to view... Count to 20.
No such thing would ever happen, however. Instead, Herry Monster was basically PHASED OUT. Not entirely, of course. To this day he is still occasionally featured. But it's been a lot of years since he was a major player on the Street. He did not enjoy the surge in popularity that some of his monster buddies did. Grover and Cookie Monster rose to prominent puppet fame, whereas Herry just kind of got lost in the shuffle.
So how come? Well, I have one theory. One of the luxuries with puppets is that you can make them as colorful as you want. The Sesame Street gang has always nicely incorporated the full spectrum of rainbow colors.
Yet for some reason, in the early years, most of the "monsters" were just different shades of blue.
Over time, a vast assortment of new puppets as colorful as they were diverse would be introduced to the mix, and Herry would eventually be all but forgotten as just another blue monster. Too bad. Sesame Street has always used the term "monster" rather loosely. Herry really looked like a monster. Grover did not.
(Sorry, but you know it's true.)
So hopefully nowadays Herry is enjoying his semi-retirement and not feeling too "blue" about what was essentially a very public demotion. a lot of people would enjoy being a blue monster. At least you fit in.
Click to view... Not fitting in.
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