Eric Jacobson

Eric Jacobson was an American puppeteer who was best known for performing several Muppet characters, as well as Bert and Grover on "Sesame Street" (PBS/HBO, 1969-). Jacobson grew up watching "Sesame Street" on TV, along with The Muppets. Little did he know that he would one day be performing some of each show's iconic characters as a puppeteer. Having harbored a long lingering desire to work as a puppeteer, Jacobson got the once in a lifetime opportunity at the age of 24, when he was hired by The Jim Henson Company to be a background puppeteer on "Sesame Street." Over the next few years Jacobson worked steadily on the show, honing his craft as a puppeteer, while absorbing all the idiosyncratic vocal styles of every character on the show. Then in 1997 he received his first big break when Frank Oz, "Sesame Street's" legendary puppeteer, started passing off his performance duties of Bert onto Jacobson so that he could focus on his burgeoning directing career. Jacobson proved to be a natural fit for the character, and by the mid-2000s he was officially performing Bert and Grover on "Sesame Street," in addition to numerous Muppets, like Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal. In addition to his work on "Sesame Street," Jacobson has also performed his characters on TV shows like "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" (NBC, 2009-2014), "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (ABC, 2003-), and "Saturday Night Live" (NBC, 1975-). In September of 2015 Jacobson also performed the roles of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal on the new primetime sitcom "The Muppets" (ABC, 2015-16). The show took on a mock-documentary format, and featured the trials and tribulations of the various Muppet characters as they put on a fictional late night talk show starring Miss Piggy.