Character: Super Grover
Hand type: Rod
Builder credits:
Puppet pattern – Wally Wingert
Puppet seamstress – Maggie Roberge
Nose covering – Alex McGee; Alex In Wonderland
Cape pattern and fabrication – Alex McGee; Alex In Wonderland
Helmet fabrication – Alex McGee; Alex in Wonderland
Foam head and tummy fabrication – Wally Wingert
Mouth plate fabrication – Wally Wingert
Logo fabrication – Wally Wingert
Fur trimming and styling – Sergio Lopez
Fur dyeing – Jurgen and Scott
Foam lip dyeing – Wally Wingert
Height (including his helmet): 43”
Notes: For information on the base Grover puppet, please see the Grover page.
The backstory to how Grover got his Super Grover costume is fun. Apparently his mom made it for him, which explains several of the charming “homemade” attributes of his costume. I wanted to make sure that the costume we made for mine didn’t look too slick or professional. We wanted to keep it looking “mom made.” But adding the Super Grover costume elements to the base Grover puppet posed certain challenges.
The chest logo – I had to figure out a way to get the logo to stay on his chest without any visible pins or attachments.
First, I extracted his logo from a Super Grover photograph, cleaned it up and printed it at the correct size. I used that print as the pattern to cut the logo out of yellow-gold felt. As is the case with the original logo, I traced the bolt and the letter G with a Sharpie marker. This would help maintain that “mom made” look.
I painted the letter G light blue with acrylic paint. Then I attached three thin metal pieces on the back of the logo. These pieces would correspond with the three very powerful magnets that I mounted in Grover’s chest on the inside of his fur. So the logo simply attaches to the puppet with magnetic power, and no pins or stitching is needed. And best of all, for consistency, they will attach in the same exact place every time; no guesswork.
The cape – Super Grover’s cape is very light and somewhat sheer. (In the movie “Follow That Bird” you can actually see through it in certain shots!) This quality gives it the look and flow it needs when air hits it. But it also helped in keeping the overall weight of the puppet minimized. I found the perfect fabric in the color I liked. I found the yellow wrist ties. But finding the vintage “chunky” yard for the tie around his neck was very difficult. Luckily, my friend Alex at Alex In Wonderland had some in stock and dyed it to match the color I needed.
The helmet – By far the most difficult part of this costume was the helmet. We considered several different ways to go about it, but we figured the original designers at Henson would have done it as simply as possibly.
Alex McGee at Alex In Wonderland created the entire thing out of L200, a rubbery, flexible material that’s amazing for creating all sorts of effects, armor and costume pieces. She coated the finished helmet with latex and then painted it silver. As is the case with the original, the side and top knobs are simply small wooden drawer pulls that are available at any hardware store.
After using the puppet for a day at Monsterpalooza, I discovered that the ties that tied under his chin to affix the helmet to his head weren’t enough to keep it from falling back on his head when I manipulated the mouth. For the rest of the weekend I did a quick fix using a large safety pin and duct tape.
After considering many alternate, permanent solutions to the problem, I finally decided on using wig clips. I affixed three of them to little leather pieces, which I glued to the inside bottom of the helmet. Then I can simply snap the wig clips into the fur on the back of his head, and it holds the helmet into place nicely.
My original idea for displaying a Super Grover replica Muppet in Planet Wallywood was to have him mounted to one of the beams of my vaulted ceiling in my living room. That way it looked as if Super Grover was flying overhead.
At this stage, my pal Drew Massey and I are still fabricating the suspension device which will hold the puppet in position using monofilament. The device itself will be hung with thin rope through two eyelets mounted in the beam, and we will be able to raise it and lower it whenever we want. The rope will be tied off at the wall using a boat cleat. This allows us to lower him and remove him from the device in case we want to take him out to a show for the weekend.
Given the fact that Super Grover would be mounted in a flying position for display, but could also be removed and used as an actual puppet, I needed to consider certain aspects that would give me that flexibility. Especially the arm rods.
All the other rod puppets I have are equipped with arm rods that are permanently affixed in the puppet’s wrists. But since Grover would be displayed in a flying position, permanent rods weren’t an option, as they would ruin the look of the display. So I had to make them removable.
Inside Grover’s wrists are little pieces I made from Magic Sculpt. Toward the front of the piece I embedded a piece of armature wire and covered it with a foam rubber thumb piece. Toward the back of the piece I embedded a small cap nut with a little duct leading to it that matched the girth of the arm rod.
On the tip of the arm rods I used epoxy to attach small threaded heads. This allowed me to screw the arm rods into the ducts of the Magic Sculpt wrist pieces, and seat the threaded heads into the embedded cap nuts for a secure fit.
Since Super Grover would eventually need to be hung by strings (much like a marionette) I had my seamstress Maggie sew little loops into six different points of his body. I constructed the loops out of the same fur I used on the puppet so they would be virtually undetectable when not in use.
She sewed them into the backs of his hands, the back of his neck, his butt, and the bottoms of his feet. These six areas will correspond to preset strings and hooks on the suspension device for mounting.
As we are still in the fabrication phase of the suspension device, please check back in the near future to see our progress.
These are the wrist pieces I fabricated out of Magic Sculpt that gave his thumbs poseability, and also provided small canals to accommodate the arm rods and allow them to be screwed into the embedded cap nuts.
A fun, super photo op!
Super Grover loves the Icons of Darkness Wednesday Addams display
Even superheroes need to rest a bit from time to time.
Muppet writer Kirk Thatcher (who started working with the Muppets back in 1987) was spotted by Super Grover’s cute little super eyes.
After a day of doing super feats, Super Grover rests his little super body in the hotel room.