Teeny Little Super Guy was an animated short featured on PBS's Sesame Street

Sesame Street

Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

. The shorts featured a small animated man, the Teeny Little Super Guy, who resides in a live-action, regular-sized kitchen. Robert W. Morrow described the shorts as including "parables of childhood conflict and striving."

Background

Teeny Little Super Guy (TLSG) was created by animator Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger is a creator of animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries. He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design.-Early life:...

 as a series of 13 installments for PBS's Sesame Street in 1982. The first Teeny Little Super Guy cartoon took two months to create. The series of segments were frequently shown on Sesame Street for several years. However, in the late 1990s the segments were shown sporadically (eventually not appearing on any episode from 1997–2000). The segments reappeared on Sesame Street in 2001 and a short clip (a part of the theme song only) was shown on Sesame Street's 35th anniversary Special, The Street We Live On.

Production

The production for Teeny Little Super Guy started in May 1982 with Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger is a creator of animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries. He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design.-Early life:...

, Larry Gold, Dave Connell

Dave Connell

Dave Connell was an Irish soccer player during the 1970s and 1980s. He is currently the Head Coach of the U19 Republic of Ireland women's national football team and works as a Football In Community Development Officer for the Football Association of Ireland .A classy right back, Connell played for...

, Jim Thurman

Jim Thurman

James George Thurman , was an Emmy-winning American writer, actor, photographer, director, cartoonist, and producer...

, Stuart Horn, Patrick McMahon, and Edith Zornow. In August 1982, the production for the shorts developed more seriously into filming the first two shorts. On November 19, 1982, the first short premiered on Sesame Street. Composer Larry Gold wrote the theme song, with lyrics by Stuart Horn. Actor and longtime Sesame Street writer Jim Thurman

Jim Thurman

James George Thurman , was an Emmy-winning American writer, actor, photographer, director, cartoonist, and producer...

 performed all character voices. The production started filming in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

 at Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger

Paul Fierlinger is a creator of animated films and shorts, especially animated documentaries. He is also a part-time lecturer at University of Pennsylvania School of Design.-Early life:...

's house in the Philadelphia suburbs. It ran on Sesame Street from 1982 until 2001.

The Teeny Little Super Guy character

The Teeny Little Super Guy always appears on the outside of a plastic cup always facing the camera, and his adventures involved other characters contained inside kitchen containers and utensils (such as R.W. Shipshape, a boy who appears on the outside of a salt shaker). Teeny Little Super Guy's facial expressions were one of the key points to his design, where each time he began a spoken sentence, his cup would shake a little and his facial features would quickly shift around before returning to their normal position over the course of the dialogue. In the short titled "Egg and Spoon Race", Teeny Little Super Guy misplaces his hat. When he discovers it, it is drawn independently on the outside of a thimble, and we see his hair is orange.

Today

Today, one of the Teeny Little Super Guy cups, along with a picture of Fierlinger rotating the cups, is actually inside the public display case at the Brooklyn Public Library along with the other Sesame Street contributors. The display also includes another picture of the character with a yellow balloon. The plaque at the Brooklyn Public Library mentions that "Teeny Little Super Guy," an instant hit two seasons later in 1971, was shot by stop-motion filmmaker Paul Fierlinger, using common household objects. In Episode 4196 of Sesame Street, Luis was inspecting Leela's troubled washing machine. He managed to extract seven items, including the famous Teeny Little Super Guy.

Segments

Airdate	Theme	Episode	Description
1982	Sharing	Swing of Cooperation	Two boys are fighting over a swing. Teeny Little Super Guy shows them how to share.
1986	Practice	Practice Riding Eggbeaters	Teeny Little Super Guy finds his friend Janey giving up on learning how to ride an eggbeater (as one would ride a bicycle) because she keeps falling off. Teeny Little Superguy tells her that it takes practice to be good at something and gives her a set of training beaters to help keep her balance.
1986	Pets	Pet Spoon	R.W. learns how to care for a pet.
1983	Health & Safety	Danger	Teeny Little Super Guy talks about the time he learned the importance of safety.
1987	Health & Safety	The Red Hat	R.W. Shipshape gets a "really good hat" for his birthday, and it blows into the street. R.W. remembers not to cross the street without an adult; Teeny Little Superguy helps him across.
1984	Social Skills	Baseball	Teeny Little Super Guy notices that his friend Alice wants to join a baseball game. He encourages her to go over there and ask them whether she can play.
1985	Health & Safety	Sleep	Teeny Little Super Guy shows his friend Harry the importance of sleep.
1982	Social Skills	School	Teeny Little Super Guy reminisces to his friend Eugene, who starts kindergarten tomorrow, about his own first day at school.

Music

• Theme and all incidental music - Larry Gold
• Theme vocals - Essra Mohawk
  Essra Mohawk
  Essra Mohawk is an American singer-songwriter who has recorded a dozen albums, many receiving critical acclaim. Her best known songs are "Change of Heart" recorded by Cyndi Lauper and "Stronger Than the Wind," recorded by Tina Turner.-Biography:Mohawk was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
  
  
• The voice of the Teeny Little Super Guy - Jim Thurman
  Jim Thurman
  James George Thurman , was an Emmy-winning American writer, actor, photographer, director, cartoonist, and producer...
  
  

External links

• Background on Teeny Little Super Guy
• Teeny Little Super Guy LiveJournal Community
• Details on the production, by Paul Fierlinger
• "Baseball" episode on Sesame Street's YouTube channel