Dave Goelz is the MuppetA Muppet is a puppet built in the soft foam-and-fleece style... performer behind Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Zoot, Waldorf, Boober Fraggle and Uncle Traveling Matt, performing with the company since 1973.
He came in through the workshop
Goelz trained as an industrial designer and arrived at the Muppets as a builder rather than a performer, moving into performing after he was already inside the shop. That path — build first, perform second — makes him the most useful figure in this glossary for anyone approaching puppetry from the making side.
Why that matters
A performer who has built puppets understands what a mouth plateThe mouth plate is the rigid two-part structure inside a pup... More can and cannot do, why a head is heavy, and where a mechanism will fail under a long take. It is the same reason a driver who has rebuilt an engine drives differently.
Gonzo is the case study
The character has no fixed species, no consistent backstory, and a face built around a drooping nose that gives him almost no conventional expression range. Everything Gonzo conveys comes from head angle, timing and the performer’s commitment — which is a demonstration of how little a puppet’s construction limits it when the performance is specific enough.
Bunsen
is the opposite lesson: a character with no visible eyes at all, whose glasses read as eyes, working entirely on tilt and posture.
He also directs
Goelz directed a number of the Uncle Traveling Matt segments for Fraggle Rock, which were shot in real locations around the world with the puppet in public.
He is one of the last active performers with a direct line back to the original Muppet Show company.