While discussing Grover and Cookie Monster, we have focused on the everyman qualities of each (in Grover, his failure to cope successfully with everydayness, and in Cookie Monster, his yearning for that which he cannot have). In these treatises, we have neglected the true everyman: Kermit the Frog.

I expect some to dispute the Sesame Streetness of Kermit; indeed, some have already done so. However, just because he strove for something bigger, and ended up running the Muppet Show (and even ending up in movies), doesn't mean that he lost his Street credibility. He grew up on the Street, and he made his success by working as the on the scene reporter for Sesame Street News. You can take the Frog out of the Street, but never the Street out of the Frog.

We see in Kermit at once a bashful rationality. As a reporter covering the fairytale beat, he was always the one who knew the ending. He always asked the right questions, and always got the wrong answers. Later this shows up as an entrepreneurial practicality behind the scenes of the Muppet Show: he may not want to put Gonzo and his chickens on the stage, but the guest star has locked himself in his room, and the show must go on. Even though he is at the very least embarrassed by Miss Piggy's attention, he weathers it knowing the alternatives are far worse.

Kermit is above all the OBSERVER. Like Christopher Robbins in the Winnie the Pooh stories, his charm is that he asks the questions the viewer, or reader, would ask. He casts a shadow in the brilliant light of insanity created by his muppetkin, and hence makes the light seem all the brighter. In that sense, he is also the straight man: the fellow with the banana in his ear is all the funnier for someone to ask what it's there for, not only for the reply, but for the very reflection on the incongruity itself. Anything funny is funnier if you think about it.

Although Kermit is in some senses a failure (he becomes easily overwhelmed by physical or surreal force), he is in most senses successful. He may not ever come up with the perfect solution, but he always finds a way to squeak by. He counters Gonzo's lofty idealism with a solid practicality that always saves the day, even if it is just making do with what he has. He solves the problems in fairytales: even if he can't make them do what they're supposed to do (it is interesting to note that he leaves the standard of journalistic integrity, impartiality, aside), he makes them come to some sort of an agreement which satisfies everyone. He is practical, rational, observer. He is mediator, troubleshooter, straight man. He is the boss, the only muppet who can organize the others. He is Kermit. Hear him roar.