Crazy Harry

Crazy Harry
The Muppets character
First appearance The Muppet Show
Created by Jim Henson
Portrayed by
Information
Species Muppet
Gender Male
Occupation Pyrotechnician

Crazy Harry is a Muppet with an explosives fixation, who appeared in The Muppet Show and was originally voiced and operated by Jerry Nelson.

Crazy Harry has black scruffy hair, an uncombed chin curtain beard and huge, egg-shaped baggy eyes. Early in season one, he played triangle with the pit band. He usually carried a plunger box which would activate a hidden charge, often to his victim's chagrin. Once he assisted Gonzo the Great in a cannonball-catching act, but perhaps overdid it on the powder, which resulted in an absurdly-stretched right arm for Gonzo. In episode #28 he provided the "Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta!" chorus of "Chanson d'Amour", happily blowing the stage and performers to smithereens with his little plunger and cackling. Harry also played solo backup for Jean Stapleton's performance of "I'm Just Wild About Harry", with a collection of plunger boxes forming an "explodaphone", providing explosions at the end of every verse of the song.

In the show's first couple of seasons, Harry's appearances were a regular running gag. After those first seasons, the gag was shelved along with Crazy Harry for the remainder of the show's run. Crazy Harry also appeared in The Muppet Movie, complete with his explosive equipment, as one of the many Muppets in the audience to whom Kermit the Frog screened the film. He appeared in The Muppets Take Manhattan as a wedding guest.

In 2009, he appeared in The Muppets music video "Bohemian Rhapsody".

In 2011, he appeared in The Muppets, most notably blasting his likeness onto Mount Rushmore—destroying Abraham Lincoln's face in the process—before being yanked off-stage by a cane.

In 2014, he appeared in Toyota Highlander commercial, blasting Gonzo the Great from a cannon, like a human cannonball, through the sunroof.

In 2014 he appeared in Muppets Most Wanted. A criminal uses the noise of Harry's explosions to cover the sounds of a break-in.

References in other media

For the commercials for the then new TNT cable channel, Crazy Harry would be featured at the end of the commercials, prefixing his use of his plunger with the question "Did someone say TNT?" - followed by a maniacal laugh after the explosion.

In the Dresden Files novel Blood Rites, several references are made to the "Bolshevik Muppet who liked to blow everything up". The phrase "Bolshevik Muppet" was then used as a warning by Harry Dresden to his allies just prior to setting off a large explosion.

Casting history

Main Performers

Alternate Performers

External links