Exclusive: Bernie Sanders Opens Up about his Time on the Muppets

Senator Bernie Sanders, who recently announced his bid for the 2020 presidential election, sat down to talk with us about an aspect of his life that his younger demographic of voters may not even know about.

At the beginnings of what would eventually become a long, long political career, Sanders encountered a series of setbacks. In the early to mid-1970’s, after settling down in Vermont, the Senator ran multiple unsuccessful third-party campaigns as an independent.

Unsure of a future in politics, Sanders turned to a not so dissimilar career: comedy.

“I was a man in crisis,” Senator Sanders revealed. “So I did what a lot of us do – I got a job with The Muppets. To be more specific, The Muppet Show. But to be honest, I wasn’t even looking for it.”

According to Jim Henson’s son, Brian, Sanders landed the gig in a less than conventional way.

“My dad has told us this story so many times, it’s become legendary,” Brian said with a grin. “It was opening night, and we were featuring a frog, a pig, a dog, a bear, and a couple other unknown animals – you can imagine our apprehension. And then, somewhere in the middle of the show, two old men start heckling the cast! My dad was pissed. But the audience loved it, and were almost falling out of their seats with laughter, so they let it go on.”

Sanders confirmed the story himself.

“My friend, Michael Bloomberg, and I went out to this new dinner theater and had one too many, you could say,” Sanders said sheepishly. “But come on, we wanted a show not a circus! Oh ho ho ho! Not only that, but I had just lost another campaign and was looking to blow off some steam. We thought we were going to be escorted out and told to never come back; but wouldn’t you know it, they told us to come back EVERY night – and get paid for it too! Understandably, I wanted to separate this life from my political one, so I started calling myself Waldorf, and Michael became Statler.”

The rest is history.


31 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Discover more from Iron E-News

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading