I know a lot about Muppets (a side-effect of working at Sesame Street for a decade) but I only learned about this car last week. There’s always more to learn, apparently. — Dan

It’s Not Easy Driving Green

For many of us, our cars are an extension of our personalities. Not all of us — Personally, I’m not much of a car guy. I drive a 2013 Subaru which I got, used, from a family member when they got a new car, in large part because the price was right. But you don’t need me to explain the general idea of how many of us express ourselves through our choice of wheels.

Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, was definitely one of those people. And his love of his cars may have helped British police solve a bank heist.

The debut and overnight success of Sesame Street in 1969 put Jim Henson on the map. He quickly became an acclaimed performer, puppeteer, and TV creative, but also fell into the trap of becoming typecast as a kids’ entertainer. In the early-to-mid 1970s, he started pitching a concept for an adult-oriented puppet-driven TV show. That would become the Muppet Show, which debuted in 1976 in the UK, after initially failing to find a studio in the United States that would support the project.

The Muppet Show rocketed Henson to fame in Great Britain, and his interest in cars became a good way to get in his good favors. Among the trappings of fame was a new car — a custom 1979 Lotus Éclat painted in mint green. It was a trendy car to say the least; as car publication Hagerty notes, “by the 1970s standards of the British auto industry, it was essentially an exotic, if one with four cylinders.” But it wasn’t quite as exotic as Henson wanted it to be. So he had it personalized. The Éclat had pop-up headlights, and that feature provided an opportunity. As his son Brian later explained to The Drive, someone in Henson’s circle — likely a puppet-maker in Henson’s London studio at the time — added cutouts of pupils on those headlights. The result, as seen below, was a transformation: The Éclat became a four-wheeled version of Kermit the Frog, or, as the car was often called, “Car-Mit.”

The car wasn’t very practical — as Brian Henson notes in the above-linked The Drive article, the backseat was too small for an adult and the car was still somehow too wide for the narrow British streets his father often used to get to the studio. But that didn’t seem to bother the bank thieves, who, they day after Henson first received Car-Mit, stole the vehicle to use it as a getaway care for their heist. That turned out to be a bad idea, though, as Carroll Spinney — the puppeteer who performed Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (and a very nice guy, as I can attest, having met him) — said in a reddit AMA in 2015:

It’s unclear if the thieves were caught, but Fozzie Bear was not implicated in the heist — obviously not, as his natural habitat is a Studebaker.

Visit Today’s Sponsor!

Should You Add This to Your Skincare Routine?

Let’s face it—most of us have fallen for the promise of perfect skin in a bottle. Serums, creams, and masks claiming overnight miracles, only to end up half-used and forgotten.

But true radiance doesn’t start on the surface. It starts deeper.

Cellular hydration, elasticity, and a resilient skin barrier are the real foundation of glowing skin. And that begins within.

Pique’s Radiant Skin Duo delivers a potent inside-out ritual:

☀️ Sun Goddess Matcha – Rich in EGCG antioxidants to firm, brighten, and support gut health.
💧 BT Fountain – Beauty electrolytes and clinically proven ceramides to hydrate at a cellular level and smooth fine lines.

Effortless, travel-friendly, and genuinely transformative—this ritual goes beyond surface-level results.

✨ For a limited time, get 20% off + a FREE Starter Kit here:

Glow from within—starting today.

More About Muppets

Today’s Bonus fact: The name “Sesame Street” comes from “open sesame,” the phrase used in “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” The founder of the show, Joan Ganz Cooney, liked that the phrase invited wonder and promised of fun things to come — but it took a while for the executives at Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) to land on that name. Apparently, the conversations around the name were difficult, and Henson decided to use that difficulty for some levity. In 1969, as the show was being produced, CTW also created a promo reel, available here, to help convince stations to air the program. About 6 minutes in (fast forward here), Kermit and Rowlf the Dog meet with a board of Muppet writers to brainstorm a new name — and as you’ll see, it’s as fun as you’d expect (but very late 1960s).

From the Archives: Cookie Monster and The Hand with the Mind of Its Own: Why Cookie Monster can’t make air quotes.

Support Now I Know!

Now I Know is supported by readers like you. Yes, you! Many of my readers donate a few dollars a month to help Now I Know grow and thrive. And in exchange, they get an ad-free version!

Interested in supporting Now I Know? Click here! 

And thanks! — Dan