Eric Jacobson

Eric Jacobson is an American puppeteer, best known for performing the Muppet characters Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle for Disney's The Muppets Studio, as well as Sesame Street characters Bert, Guy Smiley and Grover—all roles that he inherited from the characters' original performer, Frank Oz (except for Guy Smiley whose original and best known performer was Jim Henson). As of 2015, Jacobson is Caroll Spinney's successor for Oscar the Grouch.

Career
Jacobson, a native of Fort Worth, initially started playing Bert and Grover on Sesame Street in 1998, and officially joined the cast of the classic Muppet Show Muppets in 2001. His role expanded on Sesame Street in 2002 to include new Grover segments, particularly Global Grover. However, Oz occasionally came in to Sesame Street to record new material with those characters.

In 2001, the same year that he worked on The Book of Pooh, where he worked on Piglet and Kanga, he also began playing Miss Piggy, debuting at the "Muppetfest" convention. Subsequently, in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), he performed the roles of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and Animal. In The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005), he began performing Sam the Eagle.

Jacobson has appeared in numerous other television shows and movies as well.

Other Works
Jacobson performed Harry the Duck and other characters on Bear in the Big Blue House.

Outside of Henson, Jacobson has worked on The Puzzle Place, Jack's Big Music Show, and Disney's The Book of Pooh (plus a TV show called Once Upon a Tree, in which he performed Billy Bob the Bobcat). He also has performed on stage performing live puppet theater in New York City with The Puppet Company, The Cosmic Bicycle Theater, and The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park.

In 2013, Jacobson served as puppeteer for Shaggy Rogers (with Matthew Lillard serving as Shaggy's voice) for the DVD movie, Scooby Doo! Adventures: The Mystery Map.

Guest appearances
Jacobson performed Miss Piggy for appearances on Rove Live, Live with Regis and Kelly, The Tony Danza Show, Good Morning America, This Morning, WWE Raw, Take Two with Phineas and Ferb, Good Luck Charlie, WWE Tribute to the Troops, and also performed Miss Piggy for an appearance in an episode of the Disney Channel Original Series So Random!.

Jacobson performed Grover during appearances on Good Morning Australia, Rove Live, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He performed Fozzie Bear during appearances on Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, @midnight, and Big City Greens (voice only role as the character of Dr. Enamel). Jacobson performed Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Animal for an appearance on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Jacobson performed Bert for the character’s appearance in the Between the Lions' second season episode "Tweet! Tweet!".