Muppets Make Dreams Come True on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"

It has been announced that the Muppets will be making a special guest appearance in an upcoming episode of the hit ABC series "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"! The Muppet-filled episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" will air on Sunday, January 3, 2010 (8:00-9:00pm ET) on ABC.


On October 2, 2009 the "Extreme Makeover" team went to St. Paul, Minnesota to help fulfill the dreams of Sandy Morris and her family. Sixteen years ago, Sandy left a promising career in the public school to open a daycare to serve the needs of her community. Sandy runs the daycare out of her 100-year-old home, which is now falling apart. The numerous repairs needed to make the home safe threaten to shut down the daycare. Sandy's dedication to her daycare and her community has produced one of the best daycares in the city; even the Mayor of St. Paul sent his son there. Now it's up to Ty and the designers to build the Morris family a safe home that is a sanctuary for their family and will enable the daycare to remain a center of community life and education.


"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" team leader Ty Pennington, designers Ed Sanders, Tracy Hutson and Paul DiMeo, call upon the help of Sam Champion ("Good Morning America"), the Muppets, community volunteers and others to get the job done. Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Gonzo, Rizzo the Rat and the entire Muppet gang volunteer for "Get on the Bus" campaign and pitch in to help rebuild the Morris family's home.



This is not the first time the Muppets have been on hand to help the design team. Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and Animal helped the team build the home of the Harris family in 2005, and Kermit filled in for Ty as host during the building the Craft family's house durring a special two-hour episode in 2006. You won't want to miss this very special episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." So mark your calendars, set your DVR, or program those VCRs; you won't want to miss this epsidoe of Muppet construction and mayhem on January 3rd on ABC.

The Muppets Make Some More Holiday Appearances

The Muppets are planning to deliver some special holiday cheer with a batch of special guest appearances in the coming week.

Miss Piggy will appear on "The Bonnie Hunt Show" on Friday, December 18th.

Miss Piggy will also appear on "The Wendy Williams Show" on Friday, December 18th.

And rumor also has it that there will be a special Muppet appearance on the Wednesday, December 23rd episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" as well.

Sesame Workshop’s The Electric Company Sparks a Literacy Power Surge With A Brand New Season Premiering January 25, 2010 on PBS KIDS GO!®

Celebrities Recharging The Electric Company Include Dwight Howard, John Leguizamo, Kyle Massey, Chris Massey, LL Cool J, Monique Coleman, Sherri Shepherd and Samantha Bee

American Greetings Joins Beaches Resorts as Sponsors of The Electric Company

New York, NY (December 16th, 2009) – Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street¸ is charged up to deliver a second season of the hit show The Electric Company. The series, designed to combat the literacy crisis facing America’s six-to-nine year-olds, will premier a brand new season of 12 exciting half-hour episodes beginning January 25, 2010 and can be seen 5 days a week on PBS KIDS GO! (check local listings).

Season two of The Electric Company begins with a special three-episode recurring role by kid comedian and Cory in the House star, Kyle Massey, playing Keith’s cousin, PJ. Then, following the premiere week, new episodes will air each Friday. This re-invented version of The Electric Company is designed to appeal to today’s kids with fresh animation, music videos, and exciting narrative storylines. Other celebrities turning on the power this season include: NBA superstar Dwight Howard, Emmy Award-winning actor John Leguizamo, The View co-host Sherri Shephard, actor and rapper LL Cool J, actor Chris Massey, High School Musical star Monique Coleman and comedian and The Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee.

“It is such a thrill to have a season two of a series that, on one hand, was designed to teach today’s tech-savvy kids the incredible power of words, while on the other hand, is such an iconic part of educational television history,” says Karen Fowler, Executive Producer, Sesame Workshop. “By bringing back The Electric Company for a second season, we are continuing to pave the way for kids to make the transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’”


With more than one-third of fourth graders across the United States scoring below basic levels in reading[1], The Electric Company aims to tackle this literacy crisis by coupling a strong literacy curriculum with entertaining and engaging stories. Each week, The Electric Company focuses on a specific literacy themed domain and the entire week’s episodes will introduce vocabulary words that fall within this theme. The premier week of The Electric Company will focus on storytelling and includes vocabulary words such as ‘unbelievably,’ ‘character,’ ‘details,’ ‘detective,’ ‘courageous’ and ‘predictable.’

“PBS continues to be committed to guiding children in literacy skill development and The Electric Company is a comical and fun way for kids to strengthen these skills,” said Linda Simensky, VP, Children’s Programming, PBS. “The second season will not only continue to help children who are at-risk but will also be a helping hand for other children as they develop literacy skills and learn about age-appropriate social-emotional life lessons.”

The Electric Company is a multimedia literacy campaign designed to reach out to today’s 6-to-9 year-olds, not only on television, but wherever kids are: in the community, after-school programs and online. To date, over 20,000 curriculum based outreach kits and over 200,000 magazines have been distributed nationwide. In addition, The Electric Company website has had over 8 million site visits and over 21 million videos streamed[2]. The website also recently won the 2009 Best in Class Interactive Media Award.

Season two of The Electric Company is made possible by the generous support of Beaches Resorts and American Greetings. Both Beaches Resorts and American Greetings are longtime sponsors of Sesame Workshop programming and they continue to champion children’s education by sponsoring The Electric Company.

The Electric Company is part of PBS KIDS Raising Readers, a national literacy initiative focused on using public media to improve the reading skills for children ages two-to-eight, with an emphasis on children from low-income families. The effort is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and a Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of Education, part of a cooperative agreement with CPB and PBS.

Barney™: Egg-Cellent Adventures

Available On DVD March 2, 2010 From Lionsgate And HIT Entertainment

Your search for tee-riffic fun with Barney & Friends™ is over! Baskets full of egg-citement abound when Mother Goose, a nest full of eggs, and a mysterious, carrot-eating visitor bring super-Dino adventures to the whole family. Hop along for the super-dee-duper adventures with Barney and his friends!

Big Friend, Little Friend

Join Princess Tiana, Prince Naveen, and the rest of the characters from Disney’s The Princess and the Frog in this Step 1 reader all about opposites—just in time for the film’s DVD release!

January 12, 2010.

Muppets Make Holiday Appearances on NBC

The Muppets will make some special appearances on NBC this holiday season.

The Electric Mayhem plus Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rizzo the Rat, and Pepe the King Prawn will perform on Christmas in Rockefeller Center on Wednesday, December 2nd at 8/7c.

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy will appear on The Today Show on Thursday, December 3rd.

Andrea Bocelli and the Muppets will perform together on The Jay Leno Show on Monday, December 7th at 10/9c.

Additionally the 2008 holiday special A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa will re-air on NBC this holiday season - Friday, December 4th (8/7c) and Saturday, December 19th (8/7c). Check your local listings for details and be sure to tune in to NBC for some holiday Muppet cheer.

Muppets Partner with US Postal Service to Deliver Holiday Cheer

What do the U.S. Postal Service, the Muppets and Santa Claus have in common? Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night will keep them from delivering dreams this holiday season.

Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear joined Postmaster General John E. Potter today at the historic James A. Farley Post Office lobby in New York City to kick off the holiday mailing season and the Postal Service's Letters to Santa program.

"The holiday season isn't just the busiest time of the year for the Postal Service -- it's our best time of year," said Potter. "For nearly 100 years, the Postal Service's Letters to Santa program has made dreams come true for those in need. This is a time to celebrate how postal employees, charitable organizations and businesses have made a difference in the lives of children coast to coast."

"We're excited to be helping the Postal Service make the holiday special for kids across the country. It's the perfect way to celebrate," said Kermit the Frog. A postmark of Kermit the Frog will appear in the upper right-hand corner of holiday cards and letters mailed throughout the month of December.

"Helping Santa Claus is always a good idea, especially at this time of year," added Fozzie Bear, who saluted the Postal Service for 234 years of delivering holiday cheer -- and saluted Santa just to be on the safe side.

Letters to Santa is a letter-writing campaign that allows members of the public and charitable organizations to respond to children's letters addressed to Santa Claus, the North Pole and other seasonal characters. New York City's program is the largest in the country with tens of thousands of people adopting letters each year.

"We are delighted to partner with The Walt Disney Company and the Muppets to kick off the holiday mailing season," said Postmaster General Potter. "The Postal Service is gearing up for our annual mail delivery to the North Pole to help Santa and his elves get ready for the big day."

For more information on the Postal Service's Letters to Santa program and for a list of participating Post Offices nearby, visit usps.com.

Elmo to Appear on "The Sunny Side Up Show"

Sesame Street's loveable red and furry monster, Elmo, is set to make a set of very special appearances on Sprout's live morning program, "The Sunny Side Up Show" this holiday season. Elmo will appear on the live morning program on Tuesday, December 15, 2009. Elmo will join host Sean and his puppet friend Chica the Chicken to take calls from Sprout viewers, read birthday cards, and send out holiday wishes to families across the country.

Elmo is is not the first "Sesame Street" star to appear on "The Sunny Side Up Show", Big Bird appeared as a co-host on the program in fall 2007, Prairie Dawn made a special Valentine's Day appearance last year, Oscar the Groch stopped by in 2008 for an Earth Day visit, and Grover helped ring in 2009 with special New Year's Eve and New Years Day appearaces. "The Sunny Side Up Show" airs weekdays on the PBS KIDS Sprout television network from 9:00am to 12:00pm ET (check listings for details). So if you get Sprout on your TV, and if you're a Elmo fan, then you'll want to make sure you tune in for a special Muppet appearance.