Kermit Love, who was the creator of Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Cookie Monster and most importantly Snuffleupagus, died last week Saturday (21 June 2008). I know this isn’t major news, but as someone who loves Snuffleupagus, which is why I have my blog address as “thesnuffy.com”, I was sad when I ran across this news today. As a kid I always loved when Big Bird would meet up with his best friend, Snuffy. It brings back such fond childhood memories. I even had a book where Snuffy met his friend Todd Porter that my grandma and grandpa had made for me.

If you did not know, which I didn’t realize until now, that Kermit Love portrayed the character of Willy the hot dog vendor. He also created the Snuggle bear for the Snuggle fabric softener. And I know many of you might think that his name was the inspiration for Kermit the Frog’s name, but Jim Henson had picked out that name before Kermit Love came to help create the Sesame Street characters. I was really amazed at his accomplishments when I read them and it is kind of sad that there wasn’t more news regarding his passing.

You can read more here about his life and passing.