Las Vegas Weekly

Puppet president: Marvin E. Quasniki is the candidate rural Nevada has been longing for

Quasniki leans libertarian—reflecting the beliefs of a quintessential rural Nevadan.

A president from Nevada has to be a joke, right? Yeah, but it’s a pretty funny one.

Marvin E. Quasniki—“a turquoise farmer from Tonopah”—came on the political scene about a month ago with a sales pitch to America based on “good old-fashioned quick fixes and oversimplified proposals.”

The fast-talking puppet with a Walter Matthau-esque, grumpy-old-man quality has a pedigree that doesn’t just stretch back through generations of turquoise farmers; he comes from the finest stock of puppet lineage. Quasniki is a product of the Jim Henson Company’s “Henson Alternative” division, which creates and markets more adult-themed Muppet characters.

A swearing puppet poking fun at political discourse isn’t new territory for the Henson company (remember Sam the Eagle?). But a politician is.

The idea of a puppet candidate for president had been spinning around JHC for a while before the opportunity arose to partner with YouTube for a series of videos that have started to go viral.

And Quasniki is certainly a convincing package: His simple but feisty libertarian leanings are a perfect reflection of a quintessential rural Nevadan. It’s no accident either: The puppeteer behind—or below—Quasniki is a Las Vegas Valley native who passed through Tonopah several times growing up, according to the company.

Even if Quasniki misses at the White House, don’t expect this is the last you’ll see of him: Quasniki for President is one of the headline features on a new YouTube channel the Jim Henson Company is launching with Broadway Video, Geek Chic Daily and Nerdist Industries in April.