Little Jerry

PERFORMER	Jerry Nelson
DEBUT	1971
PATTERN	Green

Revised wardrobe in later appearances.

Little Jerry is the lead singer of Little Jerry and the Monotones and has performed several songs on Sesame Street, including "Four," "Telephone Rock," "Proud," and "Mad".

His character evolved from a recurring Green Anything Muppet dashiki-wearing hippie (who was usually seen alongside other Anything Muppet hippies) from season 1 and season 2 that (naturally with Anything Muppets) was often interchanged (for example, while the character usually was Green and had moppy red hair, some skits portrayed him with different hairstyles and AM patterns, including a skit where Grover talks about the word "exit," where the character was seen with frizzy black hair instead of his usual red hair (First: Episode 0210), and another skit where the character was portrayed as a Lavender Anything Muppet while spelling out the word "run." (First: Episode 0226) By the time his band name appeared on the second Sesame Street cast album, Little Jerry had become an established character.

By the late 1980s, his original hippie garb had been exchanged for a white and black leather jacket and a chain necklace. In the band's comeback appearance in 2000, he also sports a pair of sunglasses.

Little Jerry is considered to be male, but in one Shalom Sesame sketch, in which an actress dubbed the character for "Proud," host Mandy Patinkin introduced the rocker as female: "Little Jeri (sic) is loud and proud, and why shouldn't she be?."

Little Jerry was named after his performer Jerry Nelson, who later talked about the character and his group in a 2009 interview:

“Little Jerry was Jeff Moss’ thing. I think deep in his heart he wrote that because he loves to sing bass. They were wonderful pieces. They were so much fun to do.”

While Nelson was usually the one who provided his voice, Fran Brill performed him in another season 2 sketch with Grover where the band (unenthusiastically) spells out the word "WALK," while Nelson was puppeteering Big Jeffy.

Notes

• A Jim Henson character resembling Little Jerry who played drums (and sang lead) appeared in a cover of "Spinning Wheel" during Sesame Street's first season.

Episodic appearances

• Episode 2452
• Episode 3898

Video appearances

• Rock & Roll! (1990)

Book appearances

• Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum (1974)
• The Sesame Street ABC Storybook (1974)
• Big Bird's Busy Book (1975)
• The Sesame Street Block Party Coloring Book (1977)
• The Sesame Street Dictionary (1980)

Little Jerry with black hair in the "exit" sketch.‎

Little Jerry as a Lavender Anything Muppet, spelling out the word "run."

A green-nosed Little Jerry makes an illustrated cameo in The Sesame Street ABC Storybook.