Scooter (Muppet)

Scooter is a Muppet character from the sketch comedy television series The Muppet Show, known for being the backstage stage manager, utility stage crew member, and general all-around "gofer". He was originally performed by Richard Hunt until his death in 1992, and is currently performed by David Rudman.

Scooter is orange with a darker orange sprout of hair. In keeping with the jokes about bespectacled Muppets such as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Scooter's eyes are actually the lenses of his glasses. Hunt based Scooter's personality on his own self from when he was younger.

A few things have been revealed about Scooter's family. As cited in Of Muppets and Men, when pressed about his family, he explained that his mother was a parrot but he didn't know about his father. However, this is not necessarily canonical. Scooter's uncle J.P. Grosse is a humanoid Muppet, suggesting that Scooter is meant to be one as well.

In the animated series Muppet Babies, he was redesigned as a brainy, computer-knowledgeable child and given a tomboyish twin sister named Skeeter, who never appeared as a live-action Muppet. However, she later appears as an adult in the Muppet Show comic series story arc "Family Reunion".

Originally, Scooter got his job as a "gofer" because his rich uncle J. P. Grosse owned the theatre, and he maintained it through a combination of efficiency and nepotism. Originally, Scooter would often use his family connection to his advantage, making unreasonable demands on his uncle's behalf.

His antagonistic role was gradually discarded, and he became a legitimate assistant to Kermit, with the two becoming friends. Eventually, his job was often closer to that of a stage manager, or even that of a subordinate producer, and he would do whatever he could to help Kermit to (albeit unsuccessfully) keep order among the Muppets.

In the second through fourth seasons, Scooter featured in the cold openings, where he would enter the guest star's dressing room to tell them that there are only "fifteen seconds to curtain." However, the number of seconds sometimes changed. In the dressing room, a gag or short comical sketch would occur before the opening theme song. For the fifth season, a new style of cold opening featuring Pops replaced this format.

Scooter sometimes helped Miss Piggy to get Kermit to be romantically interested in her. He was also on good terms with Fozzie Bear, being less annoyed with his jokes than most people, and they performed duets and double acts onstage in a few episodes.