Matt Vogel

Matthew J Vogel II (born October 6, 1970) has been a Muppet performer for the Jim Henson Company since the 1990s. On Sesame Street, Vogel served as the assistant puppeteer for Ernie, performing either one or both hands while Steve Whitmire performed the head and vocal. Eventually, Vogel's ability to mimic the sound and performance of Caroll Spinney's Big Bird was put to use. As of 2006, Vogel's primary performances as Big Bird are the "Journey to Ernie" segments. Vogel has also, occasionally, operated the Big Bird puppet to a vocal track by Spinney in scenes where Big Bird is in the same scene as Oscar the Grouch, letting Spinney perform Oscar. He's also taken over Jerry Nelson's characters, on the recommendation of Nelson himself. With The Muppets Studio, Vogel is, as of 2008, the voice of '80s Robot Floyd Pepper, Lew Zealand, Crazy Harry, Robin the Frog, & Camilla the Chicken. He has also taken over the puppetry of Nelson's most famous character, Count von Count, but Nelson continued to provide the voice of the Count until his death on August 23, 2012. Starting in 2013, Vogel assumed both voice and puppetry duties of the Count. As of 2010 and 2011, he provides both the puppetry and voice of Sweetums and he performed him as well as Uncle Deadly (another of Nelson's Muppet characters) in the 2011 movie The Muppets. In a recent video posted on Muppetcentral.com, Matt Vogel has taken over the Count's voice. It sounds almost identical to Nelson's Count, only a little softer. Vogel performed the Muppets that were used in Kenneth's view of the world in the 30 Rock episode, "Apollo, Apollo." He lives in New York City with his wife Kelly and his five children.