John Tartaglia

A popular emcee of televised children's entertainment during the mid- to late 2000s, actor and song-and-dance man John Tartaglia launched his career by virtue of frequent live-action appearances on the children's series Sesame Street and many Sesame Street: Elmo's World releases. Off-camera, Tartaglia also maintained a foothold as a musical theater star, drawing particularly strong acclaim for his portrayal of a puppeteer in the Broadway musical Avenue Q. That assignment caught the attention of Disney Channel Worldwide president Rich Ross, who sought out Tartaglia and invited him to create and headline his own series, with puppets, on Disney Channel Playhouse. That program, Johnny and the Sprites (which debuted in 2007), starred Tartaglia as a songwriter who moves into a large house and discovers that it is populated by a band of magical Muppet-like characters called Sprites. The program began as a series of five-minute segments but quickly expanded into half-hour mode. It also netted Emmy consideration for Tartaglia.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide