"As real as they get," a bemused puppeteer nodded with a genial, albeit tired smile.
The puppeteer remains unremarkable; for, he was merely man, not Muppet. What memory does remain is a set of thin rods, manipulating Fozzie Bear's furry, Cheetos-hued arm. Happily, Red Fraggle was also present. What Fozzie, Red and their handlers did not realize - or perchance, they did - was the Muppet siren call.
As it had been day's end, Scooby-Doo's Daphne Blake and her BFF (neither Freddy nor Velma, this day) had been blissfully wending their way out of the Exhibit Hall, toward Lou & Mickey's in The Gaslamp for their traditional, après-Day1 martini. Suddenly, sans explanation, Daphne had mystically diverted course and drifted to the Hasbro booth: the lure of the felt being greater than the lure of the olive.
"Yeah?! Really real Muppets?!" Daphne's lids lifted, her lips now exposed too many teeth.
"Yep," Fozzie Bear's handler uttered simply. Red Fraggle nodded affirmatively, her butterscotch-and-tangerine pom-poms quaking like aspen leaves atop her head as her honey-coloured, four-fingered hands opened wide in welcome.
Jeepers! Daphne's brain went amok amok amok! Her limbic lobe flooded and braced itself, ready to determine the strength and duration of the inevitable, oncoming embrace. It was hug overload.
Squeeeeee! Real Muppets! Daphne's mind squealed.
For a former Muppet Fan Club member, few random meet-and-geeks, even at a pop-culture hot-spot like Comic-Con, could have buttoned up the day with a greater deluge of emotion and pure, childlike belief.
For a girl with a mild Peter Pan Complex, a well-worn hashtag of #notadulting, and a literary repertoire smithied on a foundation of Disney, Peanuts, Beatrix Potter and, clearly, The Muppets, Day1 of SDCC 2013 sparks brilliantly as a Favorite Comic-Con Memory.
Cheers to Fozzie, Red and their handlers, CCI and, most warmly, Jim Henson, whom we miss terribly.
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