Martin Reinl has spent decades creating and performing puppets for television and stage. His work includes the dog Wiwaldi, the circus horse Horst Pferdinand and the meerkats Jan and Henry. He is also part of the German Sesame Street ensemble, where he has performed as Elmo since 2012 and Grover since 2015.
Reinl was born in Mainz in 1975 and grew up watching Sesame Street, alongside shows such as Maya the Bee and The Muppet Show. As a teenager, he recorded sketches featuring Ernie and Bert on VHS, while keeping the tapes’ contents from his school friends. At the time, he wanted to work in television and comedy, but did not initially see puppetry as a career.
After graduating in audiovisual media from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Reinl made a puppet from a toilet roll for the WDR programme Zimmer frei! in 2002. He stayed with the show until it ended in 2016. The work helped launch a varied television career, including developing characters and formats for children’s channels and appearing in entertainment programmes. His own WDR series, The Wiwaldi Show, was nominated for the Grimme Prize.
The opportunity to join Sesame Street came in 2008, when Germany’s NDR, which is responsible for the programme, asked whether he would like to take part. Reinl says the call was one he had secretly been waiting for for years. He has described Jim Henson’s puppets as a lasting inspiration for his own creations.
His new book, Sesame Street: Over, Under and Behind the Scenes, was assembled with his friend Julian Schlichting. Drawing on material from the Sesame Workshop archives in New York, the NDR and former staff members’ personal collections, the illustrated volume traces the programme from the American Sesame Street’s beginnings in the late 1960s through its history in Germany and more recent appearances.
Reinl says the popularity of puppets in German television has shifted over time, depending on the prevailing mood. Sesame Street, by contrast, has recently enjoyed renewed attention. He points to the programme’s anniversary three years ago and to adults’ interest in revisiting the shows they grew up with. For him, the series’ appeal also lies in how it introduced learning indirectly: he remembers it first and foremost as a sketch show, through which he happened to learn the alphabet.
Sources: FAZ.