Biography

Brian Giuseppe Meehl (also known as Brian Muehl; born August 24, 1952), is an American puppeteer and writer. Meehl was born in Canandaigua, New York, and grew up mostly in Iowa City, Iowa.

Meehl worked on the last six shows of The Muppet Show. He then worked on Sesame Street, performing Barkley, Grundgetta, Telly Monster, and an early version of Elmo, among other characters. His work with Henson also included roles in the films, The Dark Crystal, The Muppets Take Manhattan and The Great Muppet Caper.

In 1984, Meehl left the Muppets and began writing for children's television series including Between the Lions, Codename: Kids Next Door, Cyberchase, the TUGS segments for Salty's Lighthouse, Eureeka's Castle, and The Magic School Bus, with the only exception being the general-interest nature and science documentary series Eyewitness for the BBC and DK Vision, where he also served as script supervisor for a number of episodes in the first season before leaving the series entirely during the second season.

Meehl has written seven young adult novels: Out of Patience (2008), Suck It Up (2009), You Don't Know About Me (2011), and Suck It Up and Die (2012). He released an eBook and paperback adult novel, Pastime, in 2012. More recently, Meehl has completed his Blowback Trilogy: Blowback '07, (2016), Blowback '63 (2017), and Blowback '94 (2020) about time-traveling teenage twins who fall back into little known but pivotal events in history.