The Applause toy company started manufacturing Sesame Street toys and collectables in the mid 1980's taking over the production of plush toys from the Knickerbocker toy company. Of all the companies to make Sesame Street toys Applause is by far my favourite. There's just something about the design of their toys, the quality, and the assortment of collectables they made available that I really enjoy. Applause Sesame toys really bring out the fanatical Muppet geek in me, so I thought it would be fun to celebrate the Applause company with this post. Hope you enjoy this info as much as I do! -Mikey
Applause PVC figures
Sesame characters that Applause marketed
In all, 23 Sesame Street characters were merchandised by Applause:
Alice Snuffleupagus
Baby Natasha
Barkley the Dog
Bert
Betty Lou
Big Bird
Cookie Monster
Count
Elmo
Ernie
Grover / Super Grover
Grundgetta
Honkers
Little Bird (came attached to either Big Bird or Snuffy)
Oscar the Grouch
Prairie Dawn
Rosita
Slimey the Worm (came attached to Oscar)
Snuffleupagus / Snuffy
Telly
Twiddlebugs
Two-Headed Monster
Zoe
Applause made PVC figures of all these characters with the exception of Grundgetta and Telly who were only marketed as plush toys.
Big Bird's teddy bear Radar was also marketed as a plush toy by Applause. Ernie's toy Rubber Duckie was featured on several Ernie PVC figures. I'm not counting these two as "characters" as they are not Muppets.
Grundgetta and Telly plush toys by Applause
Two characters were only marketed as plush toys
Out of all of the above characters, Grundgetta and Telly are the only ones to have only been marketed as plush toys by Applause. The Grundgetta plush toy is my favourite of all the Applause Sesame plush. As of Dec 2023, this plush toy is still the only toy to have ever been made based on Grundgetta. I've seen a catalogue photo of a mini Grundgetta plush, but in all the years I've been collecting Muppets I have never seen this toy in the wild so I cannot confirm if it was ever produced.
Applause made plush toys and a hand puppet of Telly, which are the first toys ever made of the character. Unfortunately, Applause did not make any other Sesame collectables based on these two characters. It would have been especially nice to have Applause PVC figures of Grundgetta and Telly as Applause did an exceptional job on their Sesame figures.
Grundgetta Grouch, photo from Muppet Wiki
In the 80's, Tara Toys made the first PVC figure of Telly but to date a PVC figure of Grundgetta has never been made by any company. She's my favourite female Sesame Street character so I find it quite unfortunate that there has been so little merchandise based on her. I also find it quite strange that she is no longer on the program as she was such a funny and interesting character.
Little Bird and Big Bird PVC figure
Three characters were only marketed as PVC figures
The only products based on Little Bird, Slimey the Worm, and Two Headed Monster were PVC figures. Little Bird came attached to three different PVC figures of Big Bird and one PVC figure of Snuffy. Slimey the Worm came attached to one PVC figure of Oscar the Grouch. I have yet to find an Applause plush toy of Oscar with a plush Slimey the Worm attached, which surprises me as it would have been such a simple thing to do.
The Two-Headed Monster was only available as a PVC figure that was attached to a coiled drinking straw. This was the very first toy to be based on the Two-Headed Monster. Had Applause made a plush toy of the Two-Headed Monster it would have been awesome!
Finger puppets by Applause
Only 11 out of these 23 characters were made as finger puppets.
Applause made a total of 22 Sesame Street finger puppets which were based on only 11 characters. I've always really liked the Applause finger puppets collection. It's surprising to me that Applause didn't expand their finger puppet series with more Sesame characters, especially considering main characters like Zoe, Telly, and Snuffy were not included in the series, while duplicate versions of other characters were. Additionally, although a Grover finger puppet was made it's odd that a Super Grover finger puppet wasn't made as well considering how popular he was. Here are the 11 characters that were made as figure puppets:
Ernie, 3 variations: regular version, firefighter, and baseball outfit
Bert, 2 variations: regular version, and baseball outfit
Big Bird, 4 variations: regular version, postal carrier, western outfit, and baseball outfit
Cookie Monster, 2 variations: regular version, and western outfit
Oscar, 2 variations: regular version, and western outfit
Elmo, 3 variations: regular version, painter outfit, and baseball outfit
Betty Lou, 2 versions: regular version, and doctor outfit
Grover
Count
Alice Snuffleupagus
Prairie Dawn, in western outfit
Applause Sesame mugs
Only 7 out of these 23 characters were included in the popular series of Sesame mugs
Despite how popular they were, and still are to collectors, Applause only made 7 different Sesame character mugs, excluding characters such as Bert, the Count, and Snuffy from the series! I find it odd that Applause didn't make a second series of these mugs as they were so well received by Sesame street fans. Here are the only 7 characters that were included in the set:
Big Bird
Cookie Monster
Elmo
Ernie
Grover
Oscar
Zoe
Characters from the Applause era that were not marketed
Although applause was clearly interested in marketing a wider assortment of Sesame Street characters than the usual main six or so, there were many popular Sesame characters from the 80's and 90's that unfortunately were not marketed at all. Here are 14 of them:
Guy Smiley
Forgetful Jones and Clementine
Frazzle
Herry Monster
Hoots the Owl
Biff and Sully (the construction workers)
Magic Mumford
Sherlock Hemlock
Rodeo Rosie
Baby Bear
Bruno the Trashman (who carried Oscar around)
Yip Yip Martians
Out of these 14 characters only six have since been marketed as toys by other companies:
Guy Smiley
Herry Monster
Magic Mumford
Sherlock Hemlock
Baby Bear
Yip Yip Martians
Forgetful Jones
In regards to Forgetful Jones, it's quite bizarre that no toys were made based on the character. Although Applause made three different series of Sesame toys based on a Western theme, including a set of PVC figures, 5 inch bendy figures and finger puppets (shown below), unfortunately none of these sets included Sesame Street's resident cowboy Forgetful Jones. To date no Forgetful Jones toys of any kind have ever been made. I guess the folks at the toy companies just forgot! I always liked Forgetful Jones so it would have been cool to at least have a PVC figure based on him.
Western themed finger puppet set by Applause
Guy Smiley, photo from Muppet Wiki
Out of the characters that Applause didn't merchandise, various other toy companies have made figures based on some of theme such as Guy Smiley, Herry Monster, Sherlock Hemlock, Magic Mumford and the Yip Yip Aliens, but the remaining five characters noted above, along with Forgetful Jones, have never been marketed as toys of any kind.
A few items based on Guy Smiley have been made by other companies, including an electronic game, a video game, a Christmas ornament and several plush toys, however the fact that no company has ever made a PVC figure based on "everyone's favourite game show host" is in my view the biggest omission of them all!
I find it interesting that there are still so many popular Sesame Street characters that have yet to be marketed, or that have only been marketed once or twice. There's still so much untapped potential when it comes to merchandising Sesame Street toys!!!