Frank Oz returns to puppetry with Judge Boing Boing shorts

Three “Judge Boing Boing” shorts are now on YouTube

A new series of shorts has arrived on YouTube that fans of puppetry — and especially the Muppets — should be excited about. The series is called Judge Boing Boing and it stars a stupid, eccentric puppet judge in a parody of The People’s Court. Each episode is just a few minutes long and features the cross-eyed, absent-minded judge finding everyone guilty before they really even get a chance to explain their case.

All three episodes are punchy and fun, but what’s truly remarkable about them is who put the shorts together. A number of people involved with the Muppets and Sesame Street participated, including Pepé the King Prawn performer Bill Barretta, who co-created the series and stars as Judge Boing Boing, performing a hilarious impression of the late comedian and actor Ed Wynn. According to the Muppet fan site Tough Pigs, Gonzo performer Dave Goelz and many others are also involved. Most surprisingly though, the series was co-created and directed by Frank Oz, marking his first puppetry project in more than a decade.

Oz began his show business career back when Jim Henson first formed the Muppets. On Sesame Street, he originated the characters of Bert, Grover, Cookie Monster, among many others. When The Muppet Show came along in 1976, he performed Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Animal, and dozens more.

In the 1980s, Oz began directing films. While he remained with the Muppets, directing became his primary focus, especially after Jim Henson's death in 1990. For several Muppets projects in the 1990s, Oz only voiced his characters after the fact, while other performers puppeteered them. He left the Muppets in the early 2000s and stopped performing regularly on Sesame Street a few years later. With both the Muppets and Sesame Street, many of his characters went to Eric Jacobson, who has been a tremendous steward of Oz’s characters.

After leaving Sesame Street, Oz would still come in occasionally and advise the new performers how Henson taught him how to play and let loose with the characters. Sometime in the early 2010s, however, Sesame Street stopped asking him to come, as Oz recently explained on the podcast Under the Puppet.

For years now, it seems that Oz has been itching to get back into the business. In 2021, he told The Guardian “I’d love to do the Muppets again but Disney doesn’t want me, and Sesame Street hasn’t asked me for 10 years. They don’t want me because I won’t follow orders and I won’t do the kind of Muppets they believe in.” He also said he no longer watches the Muppets or Sesame Street, “The soul’s not there. The soul is what makes things grow and be funny. But I miss them and love them,” Oz said.

In the summer of 2025, it seems Oz finally did something about these feelings and teamed up with a variety of Muppet and Sesame Street alumni to make these shorts. In that Under the Puppet interview, he and Barretta explained that they did Judge Boing Boing just for fun, but they also seemed to be considering doing more with the character, possibly even a series. Fans of Oz can certainly hope that more of the silly judge is on the horizon, or that Sesame Street and Disney will wise up and pay a bit more respect to one of the guys who made the Muppets into a phenomenon.