Gonzo puppeteer on The Muppet Show joining Disney+: "It’s gonna be so easy to watch now that I’ll even watch it"

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Dave Goelz has been part of the Muppet family for five decades, puppeteering Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Waldorf. "I’m so thrilled. I gotta tell you, I am beyond thrilled for a least a couple of reasons," he says of The Muppet Show joining Disney+. "One is that it’s gonna be so easy to watch now that I’ll even watch it. When it was on DVD and VHS I never really bothered, so now I’ll be able to do it and I’m looking forward to reliving some of those moments. I’m sure that when I watch the shows I will remember all kinds of little things that happened when we were shooting them. So I’m excited about that. The other reason that’s at the top of my mind is that it’s really about inclusion. It’s this group of sort of misfit characters who find that they can operate together and they can perform in this show, and it sort of creates a home for them. And then, of course, we find that we really enjoy all these aspects of these misfits. I think the world right now really needs more tolerance—we really need more celebration of the differences between us. And the diversity. That’s what enriches life...we just enrich each other in so many ways, and I’m excited about The Muppet Show being up there and showing this group doing that—and also showing human performers from all over the world, and (in some cases) human performers who have passed away that you can rediscover or that younger people can discover for the first time."