Neil Patrick Harris

Neil Patrick Harris as the Fairy Shoeperson on Sesame Street.

Neil Patrick Harris has Telly's New Shoes

Neil Patrick Harris with the Snowths in The Muppets.

Neil Patrick Harris (b. 1973) is an actor who first gained note for playing the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D. from 1989 to 1993. He later found success on Broadway and on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother for nine years as the womanizing Barney.

Harris made two guest appearances on Sesame Street during Season 39 where he played The Fairy Shoeperson in Episode 4162, and featured with Elmo to demonstrate the word "curly" in a Word of the Day segment (First: Episode 4174). He also appeared in two "Backstage with Elmo" segments for Sesamestreet.org.

He later appeared in the 2011 film The Muppets, manning phones at the Muppet Telethon while complaining about the fact that he wasn't hosting. He also features in the celebrity montage of "Mah Na Mah Na" during the film's end credits.

Harris was one of several admirers, experts, and professionals interviewed about Jim Henson's life and career for the 2015 PBS documentary In Their Own Words: Jim Henson.

In 2020, he guest-starred in the season finale of Fraggle Rock: Rock On!, interacting with Boober Fraggle. The following year, a foreword he wrote for Fraggle Rock: The Ultimate Visual History was published by Insight Editions.

For Harris' 50th birthday in 2023, Jim Henson's Creature Shop gifted him a Doozer and a "special message from the Fraggles" while visiting the Jim Henson Exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image.

In 1990, Harris appeared in character, as Dr. Howser, on The Earth Day Special, which also included an appearance by the Muppets. In 1993, he was one of the hosts for the Disney Channel's pediatric AIDS benefit For Our Children, for which Baby Sinclair was another co-host.

Outspoken Muppet fan

Prior to his first actual appearance in a Muppet project, Harris went on the record about his love of the Muppets and the work of Jim Henson in general, and has continued to do so. In 2005, in the TV Guide column "What I'm Watching," Harris expressed his admiration for Jim Henson, in answer to the question "Who's your all-time TV hero?":

“Jim Henson. He taught me how to be funny and how to share and communicate, and he did it all with felt and cut-up Ping Pong balls. Between the Fraggles, the Muppets, and Sesame Street, he entertained and educated an entire generation. I hope to do a children's show like that someday.”

In a 2009 issue of TV Guide, he mentioned some of his favorite shows of the past, including Fraggle Rock -- "because I can't ever do a list without including the Muppets!" He tweeted on June 17, 2010 that it was "priceless" to be getting a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year the Muppets do. [1]

On the February 15, 2008 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, he discussed his Sesame Street appearance. He and Conan O'Brien also talked about Harris' love of the Muppets and his admiration of Jim Henson, when Harris shared that the only fan letter he had written as a child was to Henson.

As host of the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009, Harris had planned to include Statler and Waldorf in the balcony for the show, but the Muppets were unavailable.

In 2017, Harris appeared in a video to promote the crowdfunding campaign for the Museum of the Moving Image's Jim Henson exhibit.

External links

• Neil Patrick Harris on the Henson Alternative Wiki
• IMDb
• Internet Broadway Database
• Defamer: "Neil Patrick Harris Is The Greatest Fairy In All The Land", with a clip of his Late Night appearance.