IT may ruffle Big Bird’s feathers, but Mr. Noodle is “Sesame Street’s” fastest rising star.
For the past two years, Mr. Noodle has been a featured player in “Elmo’s World,” the final fifteen-minute segment added to appeal to 2-to-5 year olds without losing their parents.
Bill Irwin originated Mr. Noodle then passed the yellow tie to his fictional brother, also Mr. Noodle, played by Michael Jeter, Emmy-award winning actor from “Evening Shade” – and seen most recently as a death row inmate in “The Green Mile.”
For Jeter, who talked to The Post on a break from fleeing imaginary dinosaurs on the set of “Jurassic Park 3,” it’s his favorite job in a 20-year career.
“There’s something about the really childlike imagination that’s required to do the thing,” he says. It takes you back to the fundamentals of what we do. It’s simply pretend.
“Anything going on in my life, and therefore stressful, goes away. His world is far too simple to have anything like that in it. It’s a child’s world.”
Mr. Noodle exists only within Elmo’s imagination, according to Jeter. He is “someone who does everything wrong – which gives the children the opportunity to tell him how to do it right.”
Whether he is using a broom to brush his thinning hair or fumbling a phone call, Noodle is “a learning tool and a self-esteem booster.
“This dumb grown-up who doesn’t even know how to pick up a phone [has] the spirit of a child. He just throws himself into anything, with some trepidation.
“There’s the fear, but he takes the leap. As is the case with most kids – and a lot of us grownups.”
The diminutive 48-year-old from Tennessee discovered his new status as a kiddy star while riding in the Kentucky Derby parade last summer. Lining the route were young mothers and little kids shouting “Mr. Noodle! Mr. Noodle!”
“Among little kids, I’m a face that has an impact. Mr. Noodle has impressed me on their minds. When they see me they’re fascinated and then they break out in little smiles.”
Jeter may be the toddlers’ Elvis, but the character’s power transcends kids TV. Mr. Noodle is the closest thing to silent comedy available on the tube.
Jeter is “Buster Keaton reincarnated,” according to “Elmo’s World” head writer Judy Freudberg, “We were going for that original silent picture-type of thing. Michael has this great voice, but right now Mr. Noodle does not speak and he probably never will.”
In fact, Jeter’s hero happens to be Buster Keaton.
“His physical comedy is very different in style. What he was able to elicit from the audience was always something that I admired. He could elicit a very specific emotion very easily by his physical actions.”
Jeter has also embroidered Noodle with his own sensibility.
“The one thing I have given him that the original Noodle didn’t have is a bit of an edge: the 2-3 year old mark where the little kid can look at you and you know the little kid’s thinking ‘Oh, now, come on.’
“That moment of edge that I see in kids that says ‘You know, I’m not as big a dope as you think.'”
“I do, of course, exaggerate it.”
Comedy this physical has its hazards.
Jeter’s injuries have become a joke on the set, where a triage nurse is on duty when Michael is working. The first season he dislocated his shoulder while walking an imaginary dog; this season a tricycle accident required stitches.
Who is Jeter’s favorite “Sesame Street” character?
Why Mr. Noodle, he chuckles, and tells an old actor’s joke: Ask the extra what the movie is about and he says it’s about a fellow standing on the corner.