"I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" is a musical routine performed by Jim Henson on variety shows in the early years of the Muppets. The bit was later performed on stage as part of Henson Alternative's Stuffed and Unstrung in 2010. The song, a variation of the closing number from Lerner and Loewe's musical My Fair Lady sung by Rosemary Clooney, is about someone realizing that he has fallen in love only after the object of his affection has left him.
Original Muppet bit[]
The Muppets' sketch, developed by Jim Henson, was performed on several different variety shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s - including NBC's Tonight!, The Steve Allen Show, The Jack Paar Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.
In the bit, a woman (originally Kermit the Frog wearing a wig) lip synchs to the Rosemary Clooney recording, singing to a small creature that is covered entirely by a piece of cloth with a happy face drawn on it. As she sings, the creature eats the mask off its own head, revealing itself to be Yorick. The startled woman keeps singing even as the creature tries to munch on her hand or feet. The sketch is considered a classic example of the Muppets' variety show acts, and excerpts are often used in retrospectives about Jim Henson.
Stuffed and Unstrung revival[]
"I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" performed at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in 2011.
Henson Alternative's "Stuffed and Unstrung" features a re-creation of the classic Henson routine. Brian Henson commented on the inclusion of vintage Henson sketches saying "They've aged beautifully... They're still hysterical."
While the original bit featured Kermit the Frog in drag, the new incarnation features an original puppet built for the show. The new puppet, a yellow-skinned female in a purple dress and pearls, features a similar design to the Kermit's original appearance. The original bit also featured a purple skull named Yorick, a character from Henson's Sam and Friends. The new bit features a similar character built by the company's New York Creature Shop. While reminiscent to Yorick, the new puppet has a cleft chin, pointier nose, more masculine brow, and yellow eyes. This Yorick look-a-like puppet was used as a component for the puppet of G. Gerald Mitty from No, You Shut Up!. The cover used in this version was recorded specifically for Puppet Up! The unnamed woman is also slightly stronger than Kermit-in-drag (at least in recent performances), with her slapping (and pushing) the Yorick look-a-like keeping herself at a safe distance. Also in recent performances, after the Yorick look-a-like finishes munching on the woman's arm, the woman moves herself to the edge of the wall, getting away from the Yorick look-a-like as possible.
Before accepting a Disney Legend award on behalf of his father, Jim Henson, at the D23 Expo in 2011, Brian Henson performed "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" with Leslie Carrara-Rudolph. For this performance, the original Rosemary Clooney recording was used.
In recent performances of the sketch (i.e., at Knott's Scary Farm starting from 2019), Grant Baciocco typically lip-syncs the yellow female puppet in case of the Glow-Worm sketch while he is still performing the green puppet, while other puppeteers (including Ted Michaels, Jess McKay, Brian Jones and Drew Massey) have taken turns in performing the Yorick rebuild.
Videos[]
