Before Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, Jim Henson made short corporate films for IBM. Here, Rowlf the Dog — famous for his appearances on the Jimmy Dean Show — joins the IBM sales team and aspires to join the 100-percenters club:
If you’re not up on early TV ads, he’s spoofing Avon, Timex, and Wrigley’s Doublemint gum. And Sperry-Rand was a competing brand.
Before Cookie Monster appeared on Sesame Street, this toothy version of the voracious big blue monster introduced a coffee break:
Kermit the Frog does the same:
These two no-name muppets perform what would become a go-to gag on The Muppet Show:
The first thing I thought when I saw these was “I hope they work them into a future season of Mad Men.”