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''Teeny Little Super Guy'' was an
animated short
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...
featured on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
's ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) a ...
''. The shorts featured a small animated man, the Teeny Little Super Guy, who resides in a live-action, regular-sized kitchen. He is a small, bald man who wears a yellow hat, a yellow long-sleeved shirt, red pants and black shoes. He also lives attached to a clear plastic cup. Robert W. Morrow described the shorts as including "parables of childhood conflict and striving."
Background
''Teeny Little Super Guy'' (TLSG) was created by animator
Paul Fierlinger
Paul Fierlinger (born March 15, 1936 as Pavel Fierlinger) is a creator of animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries. He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Early life
Paul Fierlinger w ...
as a series of 13 installments for
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
's ''Sesame Street'' in 1982. The first ''Teeny Little Super Guy'' cartoon took two months to create. The series of segments were frequently shown on ''Sesame Street'' for several years. However, in the late 1990s the segments were shown sporadically (eventually not appearing on the show at all from 1997 to 2000). The segments reappeared briefly on ''Sesame Street'' in 2001 and a short clip (a part of the theme song only) was shown on ''Sesame Street's'' 35th anniversary special, ''The Street We Live On'' (2004). The shorts have not appeared on ''Sesame Street'' since that time in 2002–present.
Production
The production for ''Teeny Little Super Guy'' started in May 1982 with
Paul Fierlinger
Paul Fierlinger (born March 15, 1936 as Pavel Fierlinger) is a creator of animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries. He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Early life
Paul Fierlinger w ...
, Larry Gold,
Jim Thurman
James Frederick Thurman (March 13, 1935 – April 14, 2007) was an American actor, writer, director, cartoonist, and producer. He is best known for the writings of TV gags for the likes of Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, and Dea ...
, Tom Sloan, Stuart Horn, Ondre Oceanas, and Edith Zornow. In August 1982, the production for the shorts developed more seriously into filming the first two shorts. On February 17, 1984, the first short premiered on ''Sesame Street''. Composer Larry Gold wrote the theme song, with lyrics by Stuart Horn. Actor and longtime Sesame Street writer Jim Thurman performed all character voices. The production started filming in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
at Paul Fierlinger's house in the Philadelphia suburbs. It ran periodically on ''Sesame Street'' from 1984 until 2001.
, one of the Teeny Little Super Guy cups, along with a picture of Fierlinger rotating the cups, was inside the public display case at the
Brooklyn Public Library
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is the public library system of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is the sixteenth largest public library system in the United States by holding and the seventh by number of visitors. Like the two othe ...
along with the other Sesame Street contributors. The display also includes another picture of the character with a yellow balloon. The plaque at the library mentions that "Teeny Little Super Guy," an instant hit two seasons later in 1984, was shot by stop-motion filmmaker Fierlinger using common household objects. Most of the animation was done by Tom Sloan along with Ondre Ocenas and Helena Fierlinger.
In Episode 4196 of Sesame Street,
Luis
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...
was inspecting Leela's troubled washing machine. He managed to extract seven items, including the famous Teeny Little Super Guy.
The filming was done primarily in Fierlinger's house and his studio next door. It was filmed using a 16mm
Bolex
Bolex International S. A. is a Swiss manufacturer of motion picture cameras based in Yverdon located in Canton of Vaud. The most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. Originally Bol, the company was founded by ...
with an electric motor drive giving a shutter speed of about 1/6 of a second. This allowed for higher
f-stop
In optics, the f-number of an optical system such as a camera lens is the ratio of the system's focal length to the diameter of the entrance pupil ("clear aperture").Smith, Warren ''Modern Optical Engineering'', 4th Ed., 2007 McGraw-Hill ...
s and therefore having the 3D objects to be in better focus. Some of the scenes used early
video assist
Video assist is a system used in filmmaking which allows filmmakers to view and distribute a video version of a take immediately after it is filmed.
Usage
Originally developed to show the camera's view to more people than the one looking through ...
to see how the scene looked on a TV monitor.
Segments
Cast
Voices
*
Jim Thurman
James Frederick Thurman (March 13, 1935 – April 14, 2007) was an American actor, writer, director, cartoonist, and producer. He is best known for the writings of TV gags for the likes of Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, and Dea ...
performed all voices for the short
Music
*Theme and all incidental music - Larry Gold
*Theme vocals -
Essra Mohawk
Essra Mohawk (born Sandra Elayne Hurvitz on April 23, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter who has recorded a dozen albums, many receiving critical acclaim.
Her best-known songs include "Sufferin' Til Suffrage" and "Interjections!" (both from ...
*The voice of the Teeny Little Super Guy -
Jim Thurman
James Frederick Thurman (March 13, 1935 – April 14, 2007) was an American actor, writer, director, cartoonist, and producer. He is best known for the writings of TV gags for the likes of Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, and Dea ...
*Lyrics - Stuart Horn
References
External links
*
Background on ''Teeny Little Super Guy''''Teeny Little Super Guy'' LiveJournal Community*
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdrBPJYfTC8&feature=player_profilepage "Baseball game"and
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4iHcNxQprI "Cooperation Swing"episodes on Sesame Street's YouTube channel
{{Sesame Street Characters
Sesame Street characters
Sesame Street segments
1980s English-language films