{"id":12607,"date":"2022-01-31T08:06:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T16:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/?page_id=12607"},"modified":"2022-02-17T18:02:14","modified_gmt":"2022-02-18T02:02:14","slug":"mrr-05-rowlf","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/mrr-05-rowlf\/","title":{"rendered":"Muppet Replica Resource – 05 Rowlf"},"content":{"rendered":"

MUPPETS MAIN MENU<\/a> | KERMIT<\/a> | ANIMAL<\/a> | GONZO<\/a> | MAHNA MAHNA<\/a> | ROWLF<\/a> | OSCAR<\/a> | ROBIN<\/a>
BEAUTIFUL DAY<\/a> | GLEEP<\/a> | PRAIRIE DAWN<\/a> | BABY JAVA<\/a> | COOKIE MONSTER<\/a> | ROOSEVELT FRANKLIN<\/a>
GROVER<\/a> | SUPER GROVER<\/a> | THE COUNT<\/a> | NATE ATEZ<\/a> | BACKSTAGE BONUS<\/a> | MUPPETS IN ACTION!<\/a>\r\n<\/h4><\/div><\/div>
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Character: Rowlf<\/p>\n

Hand type: Live hands<\/p>\n

Builder credits:<\/p>\n

Pattern \u2013 Wally Wingert, Alex McGee & Shelley Johnson
\nHead and body foam construction \u2013 Wally Wingert
\nMouth plate fabrication \u2013 Wally Wingert
\nNose and eye piece sculptures \u2013 Wally Wingert
\nNose piece replication \u2013 Jim Ojala
\nEye painting and pupil fabrication \u2013 Wally Wingert
\nHead and neck seamstress \u2013 Alex McGee; Alex In Wonderland
\nBody seamstress \u2013 Shelley Johnson
\nFur trimming and styling \u2013 Sergio Lopez<\/p>\n

Height: 25\u201d pinned up\/35\u201d with skirt fully extended<\/p>\n

Notes: I decided to try my hand at puppet building again after a hiatus of over 35 years. On Christmas Eve of 2018 I took on the Muppet character with whom I\u2019ve had the longest history.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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When I was a toddler, my parents loved seeing Rowlf the Dog\u2019s segments on the old \u201cJimmy Dean Show.\u201d In fact, they loved him SO much we named our first dog \u201cRalph\u201d in his honor. Why not Rowlf, you ask? Jimmy Dean had a fairly thick southern accent, and as a result my folks mistakenly thought he was referring to Rowlf as \u201cRalph.\u201d And that\u2019s how our family dog got his name.<\/p>\n

When I was 19 I built a Rowlf based on the Fisher-Price puppet. I utilized the wonderful head that came on the toy, but I completely reconstructed and expanded the body utilizing a different fur. I still have him to this very day.<\/p>\n

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During a search for more elements to use in my forthcoming Oscar the Grouch project, I found a wonderful brown faux alpaca fur. I was happy with the dusty green fur I had found, but I needed a good brown for his unibrow. After getting a sample in I realized that the texture was perfect for a Rowlf replica. Since building Rowlf would be a good first step toward building a more complex Oscar puppet later, I opted to \u201ccome out of retirement\u201d by building Rowlf.<\/p>\n

As with any project like this, you have to choose your target. And even though Rowlf\u2019s look has changed a lot throughout the years, my \u201ctarget\u201d for Rowlf was how he appeared in 1979\u2019s \u201cThe Muppet Movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I made the mistake that (according to what Muppet builder Caroly Wilcox once said) even real Muppet builders make. I made him too darn big. I decided that I wanted his body large enough to house two puppet operators should a piano-playing occasion ever arise. But as a result, his head was about 10% too large to be in scale with my other Muppet replicas.<\/p>\n

My Rowlf made his public debut at the 2019 Wondercon in Anaheim, CA. In the summer of 2021 I shrunk the head patterns I had created for him by 10% and remade his head. This reconstruction process allowed me to fix other issues I had with the first version I made.<\/p>\n

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Once again, Mark Evanier was kind enough to let Rowlf and I crash the Cartoon Voice Actors’ Panel<\/p><\/div>\n

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The new, smaller head (which I had dubbed \u201c10% Rowlf\u201d) was transplanted onto the existing body and he\u2019s now in better scale with the other replicas.<\/p><\/div>\n

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On the old “Jimmy Dean Show” on TV, it was a running gag that Rowlf had a crush on Lassie. Much to Rowlf’s starstruck amazement, Lassie actually appeared on the show a few times. In honor of that, my dog Roxy (great granddaughter of Lassie) cozies up with my Rowlf replica.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<\/div>

More Muppets…<\/span><\/a><\/div>

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QUESTIONS AND QUERIES? COMMENTS OR COMMANDS?
\r\nE-mail Wally!\r\n
wallywingertmail@gmail.com<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>

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