Eric Jacobson

Eric Jacobson (born January 15, 1971) is an American puppeteer best known for performing the Muppet characters Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle for Disney's The Muppets Studio, as well as Sesame Street characters Bert and Grover—all roles that he inherited from the characters' original performer, Frank Oz.

Career

Jacobson initially started playing Bert in 1997, but officially joined the cast as Bert and additional Muppets in 2000. His role expanded in 2002 to include new Grover segments, particularly Global Grover. In 2001, he and David Rudman played Cookie Monster until 2002 when Sesame Workshop chose David as Cookie so there would be more interaction between Bert, Grover and Cookie Monster. However, Oz occasionally comes in to record new material with those characters.

His second role came in 2001 with The Book of Pooh, where he worked on Piglet and Kanga. That year, he also began playing Miss Piggy, debuting at the "Muppetfest" convention. Subsequently, in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), he performed the roles of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal. In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005), as well as Sam Eagle.