Visual Thinking

thumb|300px|right|The original "Visual Thinking" routine from Sam and Friends, featuring Kermit and Harry.
Visual Thinking is a Muppet sketch that originated on Sam and Friends in April 1961Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show, and went on to feature in a number of appearances over the years. The concept consists of characters visualizing their thoughts with the aid of on-screen animation.
==Sam and Friends==
In this classic mix of puppetry and animation, Harry the Hipster demonstrates the art of Visual Thinking to Kermit; and what it does to you once it gets out of control.
This is one of the most well known Sam and Friends scenes that shows up in most documentaries. A clip was shown on The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years, where it was mistakenly dated to 1959. The entire sketch was uploaded on The Jim Henson Company's YouTube Channel. It's one of the few videos on their channel to feature Kermit, since his rights are owned by The Walt Disney Company.
Kermit and Harry would re-enact the skit as a part of the unsold 1962 pilot for Mad Mad World and for a 1966 appearance on The Mike Douglas Show.
==Variations==
The skit was remade for an Ed Sullivan Show appearance on October 2, 1966, with Kermit as the hipster and Grump as the straight man. The sketch was performed on Ed Sullivan again on June 4, 1967."Jim Henson's Red Book" entry, 6/4/1967 – Sullivan “Visual Thinking” It was also performed, with an updated Kermit the Frog, on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971 and The Tonight Show in 1974.
A Sesame Street sketch from season 3 featured an Anything Muppet hipster and his square foil, demonstrating a similar lesson about shapes. According to the book Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street, "Visual Thinking" was also the inspiration for Sesame Street's "Speech Balloon" letter segments.
Image:Visualthinking(saf).jpg|Sam and Friends, 1961
Visual thinking mike douglas 1966.jpg|The Mike Douglas Show, 1966
PDVD 027.JPG|The Ed Sullivan Show, 1966
Image:Visualthinking(tdcs).jpg|The Dick Cavett Show, 1971
Image:Visualthinking(tts74).jpg|The Tonight Show, 1974
VisualThink-SS.jpg|A similar sketch on Sesame Street, 1972
==Sources==
==External links==
*Tough Pigs Anthology -- Hipsters and Squares (Sesame Street "Visual Thinking" transcript)
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Category:Sam and Friends Segments
Category:Repeated Sketches
Category:Variety Show Sketches
Category:Sesame Street One-Shot Sketches