Meet the Muppets

Some folks on our charity running team, Team AllEars, had a great idea to help build a little fun into our daily lives. Following the premise of The Flat Stanley Project, our team members have been sending four Muppet Pook-a-looz across the country. Pook-a-looz was a short-lived brand of Disney plush toys that depicted characters as flatter characterchures of the original. The Muppets were dispatched across the country after their introduction at the Wine Country Half Marathon.

For a month or so we hosted the Fozzie Pook-a-looz. He traveled north with us to Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota for Grandma's Marathon. Most recently, he traveled to Chicago to join a few other Team AllEars members in the Rock & Roll Half Marathon.





We probably had a little too much fun with Fozzie. The ringleader of the Muppets thought we should be the first to host Fozzie since he was a bear and Tizzel was also a bear. On our team page we shared some of the fun times the two had together in this video:

Last week at the Rock & Roll Chicago Half Marathon something tragic happened.

Eddie was passing Fozzie over to teammate Stan for a photo opp. Unfortunately they had this bright idea while standing on a bridge over the Chicago River..... Fozzie ended up in the drink.


This loss was announced to the team moments later via Facebook post. Within minutes tributes were posted:

Our team Facebook page erupted with comments. Most were sad, but some were skeptical and suspected foul play. Public outcry and media coverage demanded an investigation.

The next day we learned the truth as the film from the race was finally uploaded to Vimeo:

Yep! Eddie procured a stunt-double to take the fall. We shipped the real Fozzie off to the next team member signed up to look after him. We'll miss Fozzie. So will Tizzel.