Michael K . Frith Michael Kingsbury Frith ( born July 8 , 1941 ) is the former Executive Vice President and Creative Director for Jim Henson Productions . His contributions to Muppet projects have been extensive and varied . Frith began his career at Random House in 1963 as a children ' s book illustrator and editor . He was Editor - in - Chief of the Beginner Books series , the line of books created by Theodor Geisel ( Dr . Seuss ) . In 1971 , when Random House began publishing , Frith was named editor and art director of the Sesame series . He produced a series of five annual large - format Sesame Street Storybooks , and contributed artwork for four of them : " The Sesame Street Storybook " ( 1971 ) , " The Sesame Street 1 , 2 , 3 Storybook " ( 1973 ) , " The Sesame Street ABC Storybook " ( 1974 ) , and " Big Bird ' s Busy Book " ( 1975 ) . During that time , Frith worked as a freelance designer for several Muppet projects ; he supplied character sketches for " The Muppet Musicians of Bremen " and also helped redesign Mr . Snuffleupagus for " Sesame Street " . Appreciating Frith ' s talents as a designer , Jim Henson brought him on board his creative team . One of Frith ' s first major assignments was designing the cast of The Land of Gorch sketches for " Saturday Night Live " . Frith recalled his beginnings with the Muppets in " The Saturday Evening Post " ( December 1980 ) : " The first drawings I ever worked on were characters for " Saturday Night Live " . The Muppets did regular segments for a season featuring characters about as far removed from " Sesame Street " as you could get . Jim asked me to come over one day to talk about creating Muppet personalities - - specifically , strange , mossy , warty creatures . Instead of traditional ones with cartoon eyes - - round , white and black - - he had become fascinated with taxidermist eyes : cow , camel and tiger eyes . Around this simple concept of a different eye evolved a whole new concept which led to the creation of the crazy - eyed loonies we enjoy today . " Frith also described his collaboration with the builders : " All I do is doodle something on an envelope on the subway while coming to work . It ' s the puppet builders who are true geniuses in coming up with personalities . Working with them is an experience you can ' t begin to describe . Every artist is fascinated by the Pygmalion dream - - to carve Galateas and get living , breathing creatures . " Frith joined Henson Associates full - time as Art Director in December of 1975 . He was named Vice President in 1978 , and Executive Vice President and Director of Creative Services in 1985 . Frith ' s projects and credits include : In 1996 , Frith left Henson Productions to start a new company , Sirius Thinking Ltd . , with John Sculley , Christopher Cerf and Norman Stiles . Sirius is the multi - media children ' s education company that created " Between the Lions " , an award - winning educational puppet show on PBS , in 2000 . Frith served as the Executive Producer , Creative Director , Conceptual Designer and Co - Creator of the show . Additionally , with wife Kathryn Mullen , Frith is a co - founder of No Strings International , an organization which makes educational and preparedness puppet films for children around the world . Previously , Cerf and Frith wrote James Bond parody " Alligator " ( 1962 ) as " I * N FL * M * NG " . External links . _ _ NOWYSIWYG _ _