Julie Zobel began her career at Henson in New York City in 1980 as part of the Costume Department. She specialized in designing, creating, and building the large walkaround characters that were employed by arena shows and public relations, such as Sesame Street Live, The Muppet Show: On Tour!, and Muppet Babies Live! She worked on numerous other Henson productions and toy prototyping during those years as well.
In 1991, she moved out to Los Angeles to be part of the L.A. Creature Shop when Dinosaurs went into production and remained there to be a part of opening the west coast Creature Shop. Her work in Los Angeles has often been for outside production companies who want realistic animal puppets to match performing animals in movies such as Dr. Dolittle. Fifteen years after leaving the New York Workshop, Zobel continued to work with familiar Muppet characters until her retirement in 2019.[1]
Muppet/Henson credits[]
- Sesame Street: Costume designer/builder
- Fraggle Rock: Costume/puppet designer/builder
- Sesame Street Live
- Around the World: Assistance with design and supervision of construction
- Save Our Street: Design and supervision of construction; design of additional costumes
- Big Bird and the ABCs: Costume production supervisor
- Sleeping Birdie: Design of additional costumes
- Let's Play School: Design of additional costumes
- The Muppet Show: On Tour!: Design and supervision of construction; design of additional costumes
- The Muppet Show on Tour: 2nd Edition: Design and supervision of construction
- The Tale of the Bunny Picnic: Puppet builder
- Muppet Babies Live!: Design and supervision of construction
- Puppetman: built Clyde
- Inner Tube: Costumes
- The Song of the Cloud Forest: Puppet builder
- Dinosaurs
- Muppet Classic Theater: Floorwork, Muppet Workshop
- Muppets on Wheels
- Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree
- Aliens in the Family
- Things That Fly
- The Phantom: Specialty costume designer/builder
- George of the Jungle: Gorilla costumer
- Dr. Dolittle: Puppet builder
- Jack Frost: Jack Frost costume designer
- The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas: On-set puppet technician
- Cats & Dogs: Senior fabricator
- The Country Bears: Project supervisor
- The Ladykillers: Puppet prop builder
- The Muppets' Wizard of Oz: Senior puppet builder
- The Producers: Puppet builder
- Tinseltown: Puppet builder
- Where the Wild Things Are: Fabricator
- The Simian Undercover Detective Squad: Puppet costume design
- Turkey Hollow: Fabricator
Sources[]
External links[]
- Henson.com Podcast Interview with Zobel - "Restoring the Skeksis Video Podcast"