Barbara Walters and Elmo at the 2005 Annual Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala.
Barbara Walters with Sully in Sesame Street All-Star 25th Birthday: Stars and Street Forever!
Barbara Walters with Kermit.
Barbara Walters (1929-2022) was a journalist and television personality known for hard-hitting questions and in-depth reporting for a wide variety of topics from politics to celebrities.
Walters interviewed Miss Piggy in 1986 for a TV special, LIFE: 50 Years, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Life magazine.
She appeared in two Sesame Street specials. The first was Sesame Street, Special (1988), where she represented a news correspondent as a "person in your neighborhood" with Bob (and appeared in the celebrity version of "Put Down the Duckie.") She returned in Stars and Street Forever! (1994), where she reported from her 20/20 set on Sesame Street with Sully.
In 2005, Walters hosted the Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala.
Kermit and Miss Piggy made guest appearances on Walters' talk show, The View, and they were also interviewed by Walters in the 2012 special Best in TV.
On the back cover of The Year of Roosevelt Franklin, Walters' review of the album is quoted among others.
References[]
- Walters was nearly parodied on The Muppet Show as the scripted character Barbara Falters.
- Dialogue from a TV screen in the April 10, 1984 edition of The Muppets comic strip consists of "Baba! Mama!" in repeated phrases. Miss Piggy explains that she's watching Barbara Walters interviewing her mother.
- In Miss Piggy's Hollywood, a Jim Henson Hour special, Gonzo tricks Family Ties star Justine Bateman to show up for an interview with Miss Piggy by claiming that the interview is with Barbara Walters.
- Walters was spoofed as Baa Baa Walters in a season 20 sketch on Sesame Street.
- In Sesame Street Unpaved, it's pointed out that Zoe shares her astrological sign, Libra, with Barbara Walters ("If you were a Muppet, which one would you be?").
- Walters is one of the crossed-off celebrities in Kermit the Frog's rolodex in The Muppets.