Noel MacNeal

**Noel MacNeal** (born September 15, 1961), sometimes credited as **Noel McNeal** or **Edward Noel MacNeal**, is an American puppeteer, writer, actor, singer, and director of children's television who has performed since the early 1980s. He was the voice and puppeteer of Bear on *Bear in the Big Blue House*. He also starred as Kako on *Oobi*, Leon MacNeal on *The Puzzle Place* and was the assistant for Jim Henson as Magellan on *Eureeka's Castle*. On *Jack's Big Music Show*, he was the puppeteer for the title character and the Big Bad Wolf, though he also served as a writer and puppet coordinator.

## Career

Noel portrays the environmentally friendly character ZoZo, a mascot for safer streets, green transportation, and useful public spaces. This Jim Henson designed and created walk around puppet is used by Livable Streets Education to talk about these issues with young children and families.

While Bear is his most famous character, MacNeal has also performed Mrs. (Mommy) Snuffleupagus and various Snuffleupagus relatives on *Sesame Street*, the Fish Tones, a singing fish fountain, on the ACE Award-winning series *Eureeka's Castle* on Nick Jr, Leon MacNeal in *The Puzzle Place*, Raphael in *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III* and Madame Chairbird in the *Sesame Street* film *Follow That Bird*. His repertoire of characters also includes Kako on the Nick Jr. series *Oobi*, Blue on Nick Jr.'s *Blue's Room*, Rabbit for The Disney Channel's Emmy Award-winning series *The Book of Pooh*, Lionel on PBS's *Between the Lions*, Knock-Knock on *The Great Space Coaster*, and Mr. Blik for the first two episodes of Nickelodeon's *Catscratch*. In addition, he’s performed with and/or for Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney, Emma Thompson, Wayne Brady, Dave Chappelle, Donny and Marie Osmond, Tom Bergeron, Regis and Kelly, Matt Lauer and Katie Couric.

Noel is also a television writer. His scripts have been featured on PBS Kids Sprout's *The Good Night Show*, The Disney Channel's *Bear in the Big Blue House*, PBS's *The Puzzle Place*, *The Magic School Bus* and *Cyberchase*, TLC's *Salty's Lighthouse* (in which he re-wrote an original episode of the British children's TV series Tugs for its own segments) and Nickelodeon's *Eureeka's Castle*, *Rocko's Modern Life*, *Gullah Gullah Island*, *The Loud House*, *SpongeBob SqaurePants*, *Mike, Lu & Og*, *Mona the Vampire* and *Catscratch*. He is also a script and television directorial adviser and consultant for the international versions of *Sesame Street* as well having directed episodes of *Bear in the Big Blue House* and PBS Kids Sprout's *The Good Night Show*.

In 2003, Noel received a Daytime Emmy Nomination as "Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Series". Noel is now the resident puppeteer for the HBO series *Last Week Tonight with John Oliver*. MacNeal was noted for his portrayal of Mr. Nutterbutter, and operated a seagull puppet in another episode.

## Trivia

* Noel MacNeal was born to a white father and an African-American mother, making him biracial.
* The reason why MacNeal puppeteered Jack instead of David Rudman is because of a lack of diversity in the initial casting.
* MacNeal was a replacement for Jim Henson for writing duties on *Rocko’s Modern Life* after his death on May 16, 1990.
	+ Although, Henson's audio as Grandpa Wolfe remained intact for the show.
* Despite their similar surnames, Noel MacNeal is ***NOT*** related to voice actress Tress MacNeille.
* MacNeal wrote the most episodes in the series, even more than Emily Rudman.
* Opposite to co-star Tim Lagasse, who puppeteered the most characters, MacNeal did puppetry for the least amount of characters, only doing Jack and the Big Bad Wolf.
* + However, if one counts Kathryn Mullen and Kermit Love, they were the only non-guest stars to portray only one character.