I have my Animal magnet here at work--he's looking at me right now. I love the Rita Moreno ep from S1 of the Muppet Show, when Rita's singing "Fever," and he keeps going into wild riffs in the middle of her sultry smooth jazz beats, and she goes over to him, says a lot of Spanish to him, and concludes with "Cool it," and he just blinks at her with his big furry black eyelashes, and goes into another extended riff at the next opportunity. She ends the segment by smashing his head with some cymbals.

My favorite Muppet from The Muppet Show remains the Swedish Chef (another example of Frank Oz and Jim Henson working in tandem on the same muppet, just like Rowlf). "Bork Bork Bork!!"

Oh, goodness, he's hilarious. Even just seeing the hands surprised by the head who is surprised by the hands and all back again, without anything special going on, and yet they're still coordinated in a, well, not "crazy", but definitely unique, way? Hilarious. And that's before he actually even does anything!

I *adore* Sam the Eagle, because of his stiff self-righteousness.

Yup! And when he's with Rowlf, it's even better, because nothing bothers Rowlf.

My father is a wake-up-and-go-to-sleep-with-the-sun sort of person, and it forever puzzled him that my mom is such a night owl. All of us took somehow after her in one form or another (though I absolutely love getting up really really early in the morning, and experience the change in the air and light when the sun rises), and he's constantly amazed that we love to stay up late and become active then.

4 min 23 seconds because I can't freaking spell and I kept thinking it hadn't picked up West Virginia.

I always start with the south, go north, go west and then go up the east coast.

Oh, and I'm blaming my 3:30 states quiz result on my still learning to type with these acrylic nails, otherwise I could have gotten them all in in less than two minutes and in alphabetical order (my job deals with lots of states' lists, so I know them in order, sad to say).

I'm not sure I've ever successfully named every state in New England.

In 6th grade, we had to fill in a blank map of the states every Friday until we scored 100. Some kids were taking it all year.

I'm not sure I've ever successfully named every state in New England.

There's only six! Of course, most of them have frakking long names that are hard to spell.

I couldn't come up with two states! I had to look them up. So sad. But I still did it in less than five minutes, which I think is pretty good for using reference books.

It's easier when you don't have to remember where they go.

I usually just sing the Animaniacs "State Capitals" song in my head. Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus is the capital of Ohio. There's Montgomery, Alabama south of Helena, Montana and there's Denver, Colorado next to Boise, Idaho.

Even just seeing the hands surprised by the head who is surprised by the hands and all back again, without anything special going on, and yet they're still coordinated in a, well, not "crazy", but definitely unique, way? Hilarious.

Frank Oz (who did the hands) would deliberately do something off-script to trip up Jim Henson, who had to improvise the words to match the action. I was just reading the Wikipedia entry for the Chef and enjoying the highlight reel of his best skits (I love the strangling spaghetti), and wish I had these:

In 1980, Jones New York offered a small collection of blue and yellow Swedish Chef kitchen linens including an apron, pot holders, and toaster cover.