Okay, let’s start at the beginning: Perhaps you’re familiar with a series of TV and radio commercials for Dos Equis beer, featuring an unbelievably suave guy dubbed The Most Interesting Man in the World. Because people on the internet are clever and silly, it wasn’t long before the character and his tagline (“I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis”) became a meme. The meme spread across this great wild internet of ours, as scores of people came up with their own jokes following the “I don’t always ______, but when I do, ______” format. For example:
Recently, your friends from this here Tough Pigs website did an interview with Caroll Spinney in which we asked him for his memories of Jerry Nelson. During that interview, Mr. Spinney pointed out that in fact, the Dos Equis commercials are wrong. That dude up there could never be the most interesting man in the world, because the most interesting man in the world was Jerry Nelson.
Upon further reflection of this remark, we realized that Jerry Nelson needed his own meme. So over the past few weeks, the funny and clever Muppet fans of the Tough Pigs forum have come up with dozens of great ideas for a new meme we’re calling The Most Interesting Muppeteer in the World. Here’s a selection of them:
Jogchem Jalink:
Ryan Roe:
Larissa:
Joe Hennes:
Roz Strand:
Andrew Leal:
Matt Soberman:
Matt Soberman:
David Hirsch:
Abigail:
Robyn Learn:
Anthony Strand:
Joe Hennes:
Kim M:
Meagan Barbeau:
Nick:
Andrew Leal:
Anthony Strand:
Roz Strand:
Abigail:
Matt Soberman:
Ryan Roe:
Robyn Learn:
David Hirsch:
Meagan Barbeau:
Ryan Roe:
Laura Chafe:
Scott Hanson:
And there you have it. In addition to being a nifty creative exercise, this meme thing had an unexpected side effect: It’s a fun test of our knowledge of Jerry’s characters, whether we’re reading someone else’s meme and trying to figure out what character it’s referring to, or racking our brains to come up with a character no one has used yet. I’ll even confess that there just might be one or two of these that I’m not 100% certain I understand… but I’m not going to tell you which ones because I don’t want to look like an ignorant Muppet fan, and that’s the worst thing in the world to be.
Thanks to all the brilliant folks at the Tough Pigs forum for coming up with these. If you want to make your own Most Interesting Muppeteer in the World meme image thing, you can do so right here!
And click here to be less interesting than Jerry Nelson on the Tough Pigs forum!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
