Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Miss Piggy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miss Piggy is a Muppet character primarily played by Frank Oz. In 2001, Eric Jacobson began performing her, although Oz has not officially retired.
She began as a minor character in The Muppet Show TV series, but gradually developed into one of the central characters of the show.
She is a pig who is convinced she is destined for stardom and nothing is going to stand in her way. She presents a public face of the soul of feminine charm, but can instantly fly into a violent rage whenever she thinks she's insulted or thwarted. Kermit the Frog has learned this all too well since he is the usual target for her karate chops. When she isn't sending him flying through the air she is often smothering him in (unwanted) kisses.
The first draft of the puppet was a blonde, beady-eyed pig who appeared briefly in the 1975 pilot special, The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, in a sketch called "Return to Beneath the Planet of the Pigs." She was unnamed in that show, but by the time The Muppet Show began in 1976, she was recognizably Miss Piggy -- sporting large blue eyes, wearing a flowing white gown, and jumping on Kermit, the love of her life. The fact that she was intended to be a bit player is reflected in her formulaic name, which some say was patterned after Miss Mousey[citation needed], Kermit's love interest in the 1974 special The Muppets Valentine Show.
Miss Piggy soon developed into a major character, as the Muppet creators recognized that a lovelorn pig could be more than a one-note running gag. Frank Oz has said that while Fozzie Bear is a two-dimensional character, and Animal has no dimensions; Miss Piggy is one of the few Muppets to be fully realized in three dimensions.
Miss Piggy's personality and voice has been seen and heard in some other female characters Frank Oz performed before the character's debut. For instance, a Sesame Street Muppet skit from 1971 featuring Snow White had the titular character performed by Frank Oz and acting (as well as sounding) like Miss Piggy.
In an interview with the New York Times in 1979, Frank Oz outlined Piggy's biography: "She grew up in a small town; her father died when she was young and her mother wasn't that nice to her. She had to enter beauty contests to survive, as many single women do. She has a lot of vulnerability which she has to hide, because of her need to be a superstar."
In The Muppet Movie she has just won such a contest (Miss Bogen County) when she first meets Kermit and joins the Muppets.
Eventually in the films, Kermit started returning her affections and (unwittingly) married her in The Muppets Take Manhattan; although subsequent events suggest that it was only their characters in the movie that married, and that their relationship is really the same as ever.
Miss Piggy has a pet poodle, Foo-Foo.
In the Jim Nabors episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit briefly reveals that Miss Piggy's second name is Lee, an homage to the actress and singer Peggy Lee. However, this is the only time (apart from various magazine articles and a Muppet book) that a character calls her Piggy Lee. Furthermore, in the Avery Schreiber episode, Miss Piggy "allows" Avery to call her by her real name "Pigathius." Thus, it could be said that Miss Piggy's real name is "Pigathius Lee," although these mentions are one-note comical asides, and don't necessarily represent the history of the character.
Miss Piggy recently starred in the TV-movie The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, appearing as all four witches. She also played a significant role in the 2002 Weezer music video Keep Fishin'.