Miss Piggy - History

History

Miss Piggy began as a minor character on The Muppet Show TV series, but gradually developed into one of the central characters of the show. She is a pig, specifically, a mangalitsa who is convinced she is destined for stardom, and nothing will stand in her way. She has a capricious nature, at times determined to convey an image of feminine charm, but suddenly flying into a violent rage whenever she thinks she has been insulted or thwarted. Kermit the Frog is often the target of her alternating anger and affection. When she isn't sending him flying through the air, she is often smothering him in (usually unwanted) kisses. Frank Oz assigned hooks or personalities to each Muppet. Miss Piggy's hook was a "Truck driver wanting to be a woman."

The first known appearance of Miss Piggy was on the Herb Alpert TV special Herb Alpert and the TJB, broadcast on October 13, 1974, on ABC. Miss Piggy's voice was noticeably more demure and soft, singing with Herb, "I Can't Give You Anything but Love".

The first draft of the puppet was a blonde, beady-eyed pig who appeared briefly in the 1975 pilot special The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, in a sketch called "Return to Beneath the Planet of the Pigs." She was unnamed in that show, but by the time The Muppet Show began in 1976, she was recognizably Miss Piggy – sporting large blue eyes, wearing a flowing white gown, and pouncing on Kermit, the love of her life.

Miss Piggy soon developed into a major character, as the Muppet creators recognized that a lovelorn pig could be more than a one-note running gag. Frank Oz has said that while Fozzie Bear is a two-dimensional character, and Animal has no dimensions, Miss Piggy is one of the few Muppets to be fully realized in three dimensions. She spawned a huge fad during the late 1970s and early 1980s and eclipsed Kermit and the other Muppets in popularity at that time, selling far more merchandise and writing a book that, unlike any of Kermit's books, wound up on top of the New York Times Bestseller List.

Miss Piggy's personality and voice was seen and heard in other female characters performed by Frank Oz before the character's debut. For instance, a Sesame Street Muppet skit from 1971 featured Snow White performed by Frank Oz and acting (as well as sounding) like Miss Piggy. Another sound-alike came from a contestant in a Guy Smiley sketch called "The Mystery Mix-Up Game".

In The Muppet Show episode 106, Piggy is referred to by the full name "Piggy Lee", and in episode 116, Piggy tells guest star Avery Schreiber that Piggy is short for "Pigathius", which is "from the Greek, meaning 'river of passion'". In another instance, Piggy explains that her first name is actually the more feminine-sounding version of Pigathius, "Pigathia". Also during the Jim Nabors episode when asked what (astrological) sign she was born under she replied that she wasn't born under a sign, she was born over one, "Becker's Butcher shop."

In an interview with the New York Times in 1979, Frank Oz outlined Piggy's biography: "She grew up in a small town in Iowa; her father died when she was young, and her mother wasn't that nice to her. She had to enter beauty contests to survive, as many single women do. She has a lot of vulnerability which she has to hide, because of her need to be a superstar."

Miss Piggy has a pet poodle, Foo-Foo.