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The Toby Gribben Show

John Kennedy

Season 2022, Ep. 174
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John Kennedy is a puppeteer who has performed on various Muppet projects since the early 1990s.


Kennedy began building puppets as a child in his hometown of Plainfield, Indiana where he performed shows at local libraries. One of his first professional jobs was as a singing, dancing, banjo-playing puppeteer at the Indianapolis Union Station Festival Marketplace.


While working on a bachelors degree in theatre at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), Kennedy wrote to the Jim Henson Company and was invited to several performer workshops in New York City. Around the same time, Kennedy coincidentally landed a job as a dancer in the Muppet revue, Here Come the Muppets, at Walt Disney World. He relocated to Orlando, Florida, and in a few weeks found himself working beside Jim Henson himself. Kennedy would go on to work with the Jim Henson Company and the Muppets in a relationship that continues to this day.


In addition to puppeteering, Kennedy has lent his other skills to various Henson projects. He helped write songs for The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss (including the "Fox and Knox" theme), and choreographed Kyra Sedgwick's musical number in Episode 4213 of Sesame Street.


In later years, Kennedy developed a career as an author and has written two popular puppet making books, Puppet Mania! and Puppet Planet. He also hosts puppet making videos on the internet, builds puppets for various non-Muppet projects in the United States, and has taught MFA classes in puppetry at the University of Central Florida.

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