Do You Have Miss Piggy?

In 2011, my sister Sharon, who is my junior by 18 months, and I are the mothers of a total of five children, aged one to ten years. Along with our older brother, Scott, in 1969, we were the target audience for a new style of television show aimed at pre-school aged kids. That program was Sesame Street. The Muppet characters created for it by Jim Henson became staples of our toy collection. Sharon acquired Bert and Ernie, Grover, Kermit, and Big Bird. I also recall the Cookie Monster finding his way into our room, where he could join in the fun with our Cher and Wonder Woman dolls, and add his voice to the singing of Barbie-sized Donny and Marie. Somehow, they all fit in one bedroom on the first floor of the two-story Chicago bungalow that our family shared with grand parents and an assortment of pets.

We continued to watch Sesame Street well into the 1970’s because we had added two younger sisters to the bedroom in 1972. Highlights of the year 1976 included painting the bedroom a red, white, and “Navoo” blue bi-centennial motif, and the debut of The Muppet Show on TV (Cue theme: “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights…”). We were introduced to Fozzie Bear, Rowlf, Animal, the Swedish Chef and best of all, the glamorous, liberated, karate-chopping, Miss Piggy! With a whole new cast of toy Muppet characters to amass, Sharon decided to ask Santa Claus for a Miss Piggy doll. So did thousands of other children. I think this was the same year that I asked for a Baby That-Away doll (“Getting into trouble, crawling to and fro...she’s the spunky little girl who’s always on the go.”)

Baby That-Away was not as hard to find as Miss Piggy was. The Miss Piggy craze left bare shelves at many toy stores.

Being a little older than Sharon and possibly more aware of how presents from Santa made their way to our tree on Christmas morning, I recall my mother and my grandmother searching for the elusive Miss Piggy doll. My mother recently said, “After failing to find Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots for Scott one Christmas, I was determined not to fail at finding Miss Piggy.” We had one telephone hard-wired to the wall in the kitchen on each floor of the house. Mom made the calls upstairs at Grandma’s kitchen table, so that Sharon couldn’t hear, as Grandma looked up toy and department store numbers in the phone book.

Dialing Toys-R-Us, K-Mart, Sears at 6 Corners, Goldblatt's at Belmont-Central, Weiboldt's at HIP, and Marshall Field's downtown, she says, “The first few calls started out with "Hello. I'm looking for a Miss Piggy doll for my daughter. They're very hard to find. Do you happen to have any in stock?" By the 4th or 5th call, I fell into a natural rhythm cutting out the unnecessary words, "Hello, DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?" After a few of these calls, I looked at Gram and laughed at how I sounded making these calls. It sounded like Miss Piggy had been kidnapped and held for ransom at some unknown toy store in Chicagoland and I was determined to find and rescue her.”

In my hazy, childish recollection of the scene, I see my Grandmother flipping yellow pages, my mom dialing the phone, with one hand holding the receiver to her ear and one hand over the other ear, making it easier to hear the call. Repeatedly she frantically asks, “DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?” Then, I remember the laughing, because this was a ridiculous question. One child’s dearest Christmas wish was riding on the answer. Mom phoned other Sears, Goldblatt’s, and Weiboldt’s locations as well as every small toy store in the book.

Eventually, Mom was triumphant and found Miss Piggy in a discount toy store on Devon Avenue in the North Town neighborhood of the city. “Kind of a messy store…but there she was!” Christmas was saved as Sharon received and cherished Miss Piggy. When we got older, the phrase, “DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?” became a family motto, used to remind us to be indefatigable and that perseverance had its rewards.

A decade later, I had a friend at Northwestern University who was also captivated by the Muppets. Craig Shemin lived down the hall from me in a dorm that was full of Radio-TV-Film majors, plus theater, journalism, musicians and other creative types. As far as I know, he always wanted to grow up to become a writer for the Muppets. So he did, interning for Henson Associates during the summertime and going to work for what was to become the Jim Henson Company as a staff writer after graduating.

Presently, Craig is the President of the Jim Henson Legacy, an organization dedicated to preserving and perpetuating Jim Henson’s contributions to the worlds of puppetry, television, motion pictures, special effects and media technology. The Jim Henson Legacy and The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service created an exhibit, “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” that stopped in Chicago for a few months at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was being marketed around town as “Muppets at the Museum”.

Craig sent a message to me early in the run of the exhibit that said, “go see it”. Autumn turned into Christmastime and I had not been able to get to the museum. Time to see it was running out and, sensing that I would have to be an idiot to not go and visit an exhibit that one of my friends worked on (with the Smithsonian, no less), I told my sister, Sharon, that I had to go during her holiday visit to Chicago. Sharon was equally eager to go as she had added two Ukrainian High School exchange students to her entourage.

We had a bit of fun getting in to the museum that day, caravanning with relatives and the Ukrainians down to Hyde Park. We arrived in two cars right after the museum opened and I had to wind the stroller with my 11-month old son, Nolan, through a long crowd-control maze to get up to the ticket window. My sister took off to get into a different line in order to purchase a membership to the Museum. By the time I approached the window, Nolan was sliding out of his seat and wailing, 8-year-old Laurel and 6-year-old Lena were twirling around and playing with the fabric holding the maze together, and an already customer-weary museum employee began quizzing me about my ticket needs for the day. "Two kids, 1 adult and 1 infant, please, and I also need tickets for the Muppets," I told her. She tapped on her keyboard and said, "The earliest I can get you in to the Muppets is 2:45pm, is that going to be OK?" "2:45pm?” As the baby screamed for attention I said, “It's 10 o'clock in the morning and we can't see the Muppets until 2:45pm? "Yes, Ma'am, it's for your own protection." "My own protection?" I asked, imagining hotel housekeepers sanitizing the Muppets in between shows. "Yes, Ma'am, for crowd control." I visualized an angry mob of Muppet Vikings leaving a path of destruction behind them as I pondered an over-crowded exhibit. "Oh, um, I need to get in at the same time as my sister and she's in the member line. (Laurel, catch Nolan!)" "You'd better tell her to come over here right now, because now the next available tickets are for 3:00pm, and, you'd better hurry before it sells out for the day."

Briefly, I wondered if announcing, “I know CRAIG SHEMIN” would do any good towards procuring admission. Knowing that it wouldn’t, I pulled a cell phone out of my purse and dialed my sister, ridiculously sending signals to a cell tower somewhere so that I could speak to a person who was in the same room that I was in. A large crowd separated us. Then, I found out, that since we were in the Museum of SCIENCE and INDUSTRY, our cell phones didn’t work. Rather, they barely worked, and when she answered, the call was breaking up. I began shouting "BUY MUPPET TICKETS, NOW!" into the phone, but Sharon heard only the vowels. I could only hear consonants in reply. The museum employee, who very kindly did not roll her eyes at me, ran out of patience and said, "What is your sister's member number?" "I don't know, she's in that big line and the phones don't work here." "Well, do you want the tickets? It will be sold out, SOON." I sent Laurel off to find her aunt in the other line, “Tell Aunt Sharon to BUY MUPPET TICKETS, NOW!” and then turned back to the museum employee. "Yes, yes, I'll take the tickets. The Muppets are the reason we came today.” I said, as if it mattered to the museum employee why a crazy lady with a screaming baby decided to come to one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chicago during Winter Break week.

Finally, with the rest of our party, all with Muppet tickets safely in hand, we embarked on our journey through “Christmas Around the World”, a huge exhibit on weather called “Science Storms”, a Chicago street from the World’s Fair of 1893 and the Fairy Castle. This was fun for some people. My 6-year-old, Lena, is terrified of tornadoes and certain that one is headed for our house every time it drizzles. The tornado vortex and the interior lightning bolts were not for her. Begging to see the Muppets and/or go home commenced early during the day. “Mom, WHEN can we see the Muppets?” “Not yet. Hey, look at the Christmas tree from Sweden!”

The place was packed with families, so much so that I could not even get in the elevator with the baby stroller and ended up carrying the boy in one arm while I hauled the stroller down a flight of stairs with the other arm to get to the cafeteria at lunchtime. No tables were available. Sharon scored a corner of the floor next to a kinetic motion sculpture where we enjoyed a picnic amidst the hubbub. Before the luncheon was finished, Lena piped up, “NOW can we see the Muppets?”

“Nope, not yet.” I said, as we visited the "Farm Tech" exhibit that proclaimed the wonders of modern farming. (Isn't it great that pork is so clean now, modern hog farms, not "factories", don't let the pigs outside to wallow mud! Putting her in a crate that immobilizes her solves the “problem” of a sow crushing her piglets! How fun for the pigs!) Sponsors included Archer Daniels Midland. “Mom, Muppets, PLEASE!”

At last, the appointed time arrived and we took our Muppet tickets to the very colorful entrance of “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.” The ticket system worked and it was not overcrowded inside. It was downright peaceful. Subdued lighting showcased notes, scripts, and storyboards from Mr. Henson’s projects. We laughed at videos of commercials from early in his career, especially the one of the La Choy Dragon, touting chow mein “Quick cooked by dragon fire”. We saw Bert and Ernie in the foam-flesh, and the kids quickly ran off to take part in a puppet show.

I was absorbed in reading all of the framed notes, moving slowly along the wall towards the puppet show area when I turned a corner and there she was, Miss Piggy! Elegantly enshrined in a plexiglass box and resplendently bedecked in the wedding gown that she wore in the movie “The Muppets Take Manhattan”, THE Miss Piggy stood next to her own wedding cake topper. I audibly gasped, then held my breath for a moment. Cameras were not allowed in the room, but many people pulled out their cell phones to get a shot of her. It was a wonderful and strange moment to view Miss Piggy in a state of stillness. Although, to me, she is a lively character, She could not fully be Miss Piggy without Frank Oz. My friend Craig wrote, “She is molded from foam rubber and then covered with flocking material in a special electro-static process.” She was beautiful.

As we may never meet again, I reluctantly walked past Miss Piggy. My daughters and nieces were laughing at a documentary about the Muppets that featured a sketch from “The Muppet Show” during which a Muppet sings “I Feel Pretty” as she removes and replaces her own features while becoming progressively more monstrous looking. I tried to read every caption and bit of information hanging in the gallery. The drawings from spots that ran on Sesame Street for numbers, like “The King of Eight”, made me laugh. I got teary-eyed when I saw my friend’s name, “Craig Shemin”, on a plaque near the exit door. I did not want to leave this haven of imagination. Inside, I could believe that my own dreams and talents amounted to something. Outside, winter cold and the demands of the lives that depend on me ruled my thoughts and kept me awake at night with little time to dream.

Driving away that afternoon, I was very grateful for the opportunity to visit a terrific museum with my family. It gives me tremendous satisfaction to know that it was possible for a few brief moments in Chicago to say, “BUY MUPPET TICKETS NOW! THEY HAVE MISS PIGGY!”