Mr. Johnson (Sesame Street)

Mr. Johnson
Sesame Street character
Mr. Johnson with Grover in A Celebration of Me, Grover
First appearance	1969 (Fat Blue) 1972 (Mr. Johnson)
Voiced by	Jerry Nelson
Information
Aliases	Fat Blue, Mr. Blue, Mr. Blue Man, Sir (by Grover)
Gender	Male

Mr. Johnson is a character in Sesame Street. He is Grover's regular customer at Charlie's Restaurant and other restaurants as well. He is a fat Anything Muppet who has become increasingly frustrated over the years with the service Grover provides (however, in the earlier skits, Mr. Johnson was calmer and Grover was the one who would get irritated, but as the years went by, the situation reversed). Mr. Johnson was mainly performed by Jerry Nelson, and is mostly seen as a customer at Charlie's Restaurant. Mr. Johnson is always called "Sir" politely by Grover.

Synopsis

In the restaurant sketches, Mr. Johnson goes to Charlie's Restaurant, which is a table service restaurant that he visits on a regular basis. Johnson is a nice and pleasant fellow; but even so, he can still be a bit impatient. He's usually in a hurry and has no time to wait while Grover, the waiter at Charlie's, torments and harasses Mr. Johnson with his antics and mistakes. As a result, Mr. Johnson is eventually turned into the angry victim. However, in the earlier sketches, Mr. Johnson and Grover's sides were switched; Johnson was a lot calmer and Grover was usually the one who would get annoyed. Sketches typically end with Mr. Johnson either walking away in a huff, getting hurt, or fainting. Despite the fact that Grover ruins his dining experiences, Mr. Johnson always goes back to Charlie's (he even says to himself, "Why do I keep coming back to this place?").

Other sequences with Grover and Mr. Johnson encountering each other include sketches on an airplane, at the airport, in a telegram office, at a rent-a-car agency, at fast food or other types of restaurants, at the movies, at a portrait studio, at a baseball game, at a department store, as a hot dog vendor, as a fitness gym trainer, as a salesman, in an art gallery, framing work, and in a taxi. In the sketches, something usually drives Johnson to lose his patience and get very infuriated at Grover.

In two other sketches, Mr. Johnson attends the park, with Grover showing up to annoy him: One sketch, with Mr. Johnson wanting to eat his lunch all alone, whilst Grover is playing the guitar and singing (Mr. Johnson also says a quote from Casablanca: "Of all the benches in all the parks in the world, I had to pick this one!" {"Of all the stools in all the gin joints in the world, I had to pick this one!"}), and another one, with Johnson wanting a long hot dog with mustard or two short hot dogs with mustard. In one skit, Mr. Johnson attended the Birdland concert/nightclub, and got pestered by the Squirrel Nut Zippers singing "Put a Lid on It" (and in that same skit, Johnson's first name Fred was mentioned during the song).

Several sketches also take place in Mr. Johnson's apartment at 14 Sesame Street, where Grover is involved in delivering singing telegrams (also with Elmo), selling wigs, delivering pizza, doing home renovation on Johnson's new house, or other door-to-door activities. In most cases, as with the restaurant skits, Johnson ends up fainting.

In one sketch, Simon Soundman (another Anything Muppet with the same pattern as Mr. Johnson) eats at Charlie's and says, "I don't know why my brother recommended this place. The service is terrible." This means that Simon and Johnson are brothers.

On June 13, 2011, Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz reprised their respective roles as Mr. Johnson and Grover in a new Sesame Street sketch uploaded on YouTube parodying the musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark called SpiderMonster the Musical.

In popular culture

• Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, has called Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele the "perpetually dissatisfied customer at Grover's restaurant," complemented by footage of Mr. Johnson.

External links

• Fat Blue on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki
• Grover and Mr. Johnson on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki
• Mr. Johnson on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki
• Tough Pigs: Grover the Waiter skit collection