Description (Brief)
Ernie is a live-hand puppet originally performed by Jim Henson and currently performed by Peter Linz. In a live-hand puppet, like Ernie, one of the performer’s hands is in the puppet’s head while the other is in one of the puppet’s arms, which has gloves for hands. Another puppeteer is usually needed to operate the other arm, which is known as right-handing.
Ernie lives on Sesame Street with his best friend and roommate Bert. He enjoys taking bubble baths with his rubber duck, and singing the song “Rubber Duckie” about his beloved bath toy. It was released as a single and peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 26, 1970. Ernie, with Bert, has been a part of Sesame Street since the first test pilot episodes and the premier in 1969, and this puppet is the original Ernie puppet used for those pilot episodes.