Neil Patrick Harris

thumb|300px|right
Neil Patrick Harris (b. 1973) is an actor who first gained note for playing the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D. from 1989 to 1993. He later found success on Broadway and on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother for nine years as the womanizing Barney. 
Harris made two guest appearances on Sesame Street during Season 39 where he played The Fairy Shoeperson in Episode 4162, and featured with Elmo to demonstrate the word "curly" in a Word of the Day segment . He also appeared in two "Backstage with Elmo" segments for Sesamestreet.org.
He later appeared in the 2011 film The Muppets, manning phones at the Muppet Telethon while complaining about the fact that he wasn't hosting. He also features in the celebrity montage of "Mah Na Mah Na" during the film's end credits.
Harris was one of several admirers, experts, and professionals interviewed about Jim Henson's life and career for the 2015 PBS documentary In Their Own Words: Jim Henson.
In 2020, he guest-starred in the season finale of Fraggle Rock: Rock On!, interacting with Boober Fraggle. The following year, a foreword he wrote for Fraggle Rock: The Ultimate Visual History was published by Insight Editions.
For Harris' 50th birthday in 2023, Jim Henson's Creature Shop gifted him a Doozer and a "special message from the Fraggles" while visiting the Jim Henson Exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image.The Jim Henson Company's official Instagram
In 1990, Harris appeared in character, as Dr. Howser, on The Earth Day Special, which also included an appearance by the Muppets. In 1993, he was one of the hosts for the Disney Channel's pediatric AIDS benefit For Our Children, for which Baby Sinclair was another co-host.
==Outspoken Muppet fan==
Prior to his first actual appearance in a Muppet project, Harris went on the record about his love of the Muppets and the work of Jim Henson in general, and has continued to do so. In 2005, in the TV Guide column "What I'm Watching,"TV Guide, December 5-11, 2005. Harris expressed his admiration for Jim Henson, in answer to the question "Who's your all-time TV hero?":
In a 2009 issue of TV Guide, he mentioned some of his favorite shows of the past, including Fraggle Rock -- "because I can't ever do a list without including the Muppets!"TV Guide, April 20-May 3, 2009. p 41. He tweeted on June 17, 2010 that it was "priceless" to be getting a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame the same year the Muppets do. 
On the February 15, 2008 episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, he discussed his Sesame Street appearance. He and Conan O'Brien also talked about Harris' love of the Muppets and his admiration of Jim Henson, when Harris shared that the only fan letter he had written as a child was to Henson.
As host of the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009, Harris had planned to include Statler and Waldorf in the balcony for the show, but the Muppets were unavailable.New York Magazine
In 2017, Harris appeared in a video to promote the crowdfunding campaign for the Museum of the Moving Image's Jim Henson exhibit.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/899731242/the-jim-henson-exhibition-at-museum-of-the-moving
==Sources==
==External links==
*IMDb
*Internet Broadway Database
* Defamer: "Neil Patrick Harris Is The Greatest Fairy In All The Land", with a clip of his Late Night appearance.
__NOWYSIWYG__
Category:Celebrities
Category:Muppet Movies Cameos
Category:Sesame Street Guest Stars
Category:Online Henson Guests
Category:Fraggle Rock Actors