Anybody who watched The Muppets growing up will be well acquainted with the Swedish Chef. The character first appeared on The Muppet Show in 1975 pilot of the show and acts like a parody of TV chefs. He is best known for his cooking shows and the phrase "Bork, bork, bork" while talking in a made up gibberish language as he explains what he's doing. However, 50 years after the character first appeared as part of The Muppets, people are shocked to learn one thing about the character that has people 'freaked out' - and no, it doesn't have anything to do with his unusual cooking methods.
Taking to TikTok, one user on the app shared their realisation that the puppet's hands didn't look anything like the rest of his body. "I was 36 years old when I noticed the Swedish chef has human hands!" they wrote on the video while showing a clip of the Muppets character. "Has he always had human hands?! How have I only just noticed," he added in the caption of the video. Others clarified in the comments: "It gets weirder. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't.".
When filming, the Swedish chef usually has human hands in order to make it easier to grab things when he cooks. However, if he's posing for a photo shoot, he is usually wearing photo puppet hands that matches the rest of his puppet demeanour, according to the Muppet Fandom. Because of the extra work that comes with the puppet having human hands, the puppeteer is joined by a second person that acts as the hands. Bill Barretta is the current puppeteer in control the Swedish chef, along with Steve Whitmire who acts like as the hands.
However, other eagle-eyed fans might have noticed another thing about the Swedish Chef's hands - he's actually wearing a wedding ring. This wasn't something that was planned, but happened by accident. In a conversation talking about how the Swedish chef was wearing a wedding ring, Bill revealed on Facebook: "The ring was a mishap at some point when Steve and I started doing it together, we couldn’t reshoot what we had done once we realized it...and so it stuck.".
Just like the TikTok creator, most people seemed to be just as shocked to learn the new fact about the beloved character. "Oh that’s given me the heebie jeebies!" one user wrote, while a second person said: "omg now I'm freaked out.". A third person said: "Omg that’s scary lol.". However another user asked: "how did you only just realise,???" to which the original poster replied: "I am very oblivious obviously" along with a laughing emoji.
