The Teeny Little Super Guy
NOTES: A series of 13 animated shorts created by Paul Fierlinger. They debuted in 1982 (after a two year production) and ran until 2001. I don't believe they've been shown since.
The character was voiced by writer Jim Thurman.
The films' unique look was achieved by pasting cels inside transparent plastic cups, so that a movement cycle could be achieved by simply rotating the cups. Here's some background production quotes from Paul Fierlinger via a Wikipedia LiveJournal posting:
"... instead of cycling them as flat sheets on an animation stand, I could roll them up to look like cups and move them around real household objects – just the way kids do when they play with ordinary objects."
"We ended up cutting the character out of the cels and pasting to the inside of Clear Plastic Dixie cups with Scotch spray (it’s transparent) and ran a test, using Larry's (Larry Gold) house as backgrounds (read “we” as X wife, Helena and two little sons Peter and Philip and little daughter Emily). Dave Thurman and Jim Thurman (Sesame Street writer who became the TLSG writer and V.O.) liked the results and I was given a budget to create 3 spots in 3 weeks (2 minutes each I think, but they might have been longer)."
"I had a couple of months to create the hundreds of cups that were needed to play out any possible scenario and create the sound tracks."
"The composer was Larry Gold. His friend, Stuart Horn; an eccentric, dreamy, sometimes charmingly sleazy and enormously creative gay guy wrote the song’s lyrics. The four-part harmony was sung by a period Rock Star, Singer, Songwriter, and Actor, Ezra Mohawk and John Avarese and recorded on a four-track Teac reel-to-reel machine in Larry’s kitchen on 2nd Street (we are all Philadelphians)."
Thanks to Muppet Wiki and Wikipedia.
The Teeny Little Super Guy
Sung by Essra Mohawk and John Avarese
Music by Larry Gold
Lyrics by Stuart Horn
Announcer: Paul Fierlinger
Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Teeny Little Super Guy
Female Singers:
Teeny Little Super Guy
Pops right up before your eye
He's no bigger than your thumb
Teeny Little Super Guy:
Snap your fingers, here I come
Now stop me if you've heard this one...
Female Singers:
Don't look in the sky
Don't look in the sea
He's inside of you and me
Teeny Little Super Guy:
Did I ever tell you about the time?...
Female Singers: You can't tell a hero by his size
All: I'm just a Teeny Little Super Guy
Transcribed by the archive Webmistress Tiny Dancer