We all know I love geek art, but most of the pieces in my collection are prints. That’s all fine and dandy, but there’s something awesome about having an original piece of art that you know no one else has. Our friend Alex Deligiannis sent me an amazing hand drawn version of our Sasquatch logo one time, but until now that has been the only original art in my collection.

Jeffrey Johnson, aka RedHerringJeff, is a friend of a friend, and a very talented artist. I’ve been stalking following him on Twitter and Instagram for a long time, and finally decided that I needed to commission some art. I wanted some Jim Henson art to compliment my Michael DePippo Animal poster, and I knew Jeff was the man for the job.

I already had an awesome 4×4 drawing of Fraggle Rock’s Boober from Jeff due to a contest not getting posted on the site (hey, I paid for it!), so I commissioned another 4×4, this one of Dr. Teeth, and a 8×10 of my hero, Jim Henson.
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Last year I wrote about my favorite Christmas special, A Muppet Family Christmas, and it’s hard to not write an article about it every year. I love it so much I watch it about ten times each holiday, and it never gets old. It is full of charm, classic Muppet humor, plus Fraggles and Sesame Street characters. What’s not to like?

After watching it last night I realized that I would love to have all the songs from the hour-long special as a soundtrack in my iTunes library. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I decided to remedy that.

I ripped the audio from the video file I have (which has some parts you may not remember), separated all the songs, tweaked the levels a bit, then made sure it had all the proper MP3 meta tags and threw it in an Amazon S3 folder.

It’s ten tracks of pure Muppety Christmas Joy™, and you can download it at the snazzy link below. This is probably not very legal, but seeing as how Disney will probably never be able to release this amazing special again due to the rights of certain songs and the inclusion of the Fraggles and Sesame Street characters, I think I’m doing a public service.

Download Album

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The Top Hat Sasquatch team reads a lot of blog posts every day, and some slip through the crack or just don’t warrant their own post. That’s where Missing Links comes in. Every few days we collect the best links we’ve come across and pass them on to you.

The Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang: Lego Magazine TMNT Ad
I love this LEGO TMNT poster and how it's going for the 1990 movie poster aesthetic.

First Look: Tom Hanks as Walt Disney in ‘Saving Mr. Banks’
Yes please.

Bret McKenzie Will Return for the Next Muppet Movie « ToughPigs
Great news. Bret McKenzie was one of the best things The Muppets had and I'm glad to see he'll back for round two.

J.J. Abrams Forays Into Animation With Adorable ‘Smurfs’-like ‘Beastlies’ | /Film
This is super interesting. These little Etsy characters are adorable and would totally work in films, and kudos to Bad Robot for discovering that.
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Halloween is over and you know what that means, it’s Christmas time. Well, not technically, but according to the laws of retail, tis the season. Rather than be a Scrooge I’m going to embrace Christmas early this year, and with The Muppet Christmas Carol being released on Blu-ray for the first time, I’m ready.

It also helps having a new video of the Muppet Chickens ‘singing’ a Christmas carol.

What about you? Are you ready for the holidays or are you one of the not-until-after-Thanksgiving people?

Man, what a bummer. Jerry Nelson, lifelong Muppeteer and musician has passed away. Jerry is best known for performing Floyd, Robin, Gobo Fraggle, and The Count, and he’s always been my favorite Muppeteer. He had an extremely versatile voice and I always loved when he got to sing.

Jerry had been sick for a while and passed away yesterday on August 23rd, 2012.

In the past few years, his health kept him from performing but he still recorded voice overs for Sesame Street, and even made a cameo appearance in last year’s The Muppets as the theater announcer. He was a gifted musician, and in 2010 released an album called Truro Daydreams. One of my proudest geek moments on the site was when he left a comment on the post I made about his album.

I usually pride myself in keeping my email inbox cleaned out and manageable, but I’ve never been able to archive the email I got from the site the day Jerry Nelson left a comment. I always wanted to send him a quick email letting him know what a huge fan I was, but I never did. I think I’ll keep that email around.

In addition to the Muppet movies, some of my favorite things Jerry was a part of include Follow That Bird and Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas. And of course, it’s impossible to think about Fraggle Rock without Jerry Nelson. He was Gobo Fraggle and Marjory the Trash Heap, Pa Gorg, and many more.

Make sure to read Tough Pigs’ great write up and leave a comment with your favorite Jerry Nelson moments.