As a designer, illustrator, writer, performer and producer, Michael K. Frith has been deeply involved in the world of family entertainment for almost 50 years. He joined The Muppets/Jim Henson Productions in 1975 as Art Director, becoming Executive Vice President and Director of Creative Services. A key member of the creative teams that developed many of Henson’s greatest successes, he conceived and/or designed scores of television’s most popular characters, from Sesame Street to The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live and a myriad other Henson productions. He was co-creator (credited as Conceptual Designer) on HBO’s International Emmy Award- and Ace Award-winning series Fraggle Rock and co-producer of the NBC series in animation; as co-creator, he was credited as Creative Consultant and Executive Producer on CBS’s four-time Emmy Award-winner for Outstanding Animated Children’s Series, Muppet Babies, for which he reconceived the classic Muppets as infant versions of themselves. He was Creative and Design Consultant on the internationally acclaimed The Muppet Show; Design Consultant on five Muppet movies, creating characters for The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Muppet Treasure Island as well as Sesame Street’s Follow That Bird; on the holiday classic Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas; and on the network television series The Jim Henson Hour, and Muppets Tonight. He was Creative Producer (and designer) of CBS’s  Little Muppet Monsters, and Muppet segment producer on the Emmy Award-winning special, Free To Be…A Family, designer and Executive Producer (and two-time Gemini Award-winner) on the FOX Children’s Network series Jim Henson’s Dog City and on the 1995 CBS Nabisco Family Classics special starring Robert Downey, Jr., Leslie Nielson and Stockard Channing, Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree. He also served as Executive Producer for the Henson/Nickelodeon series, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, for which he twice received Prime Time Emmy Award nominations. In 1978 and 1986, Jim Henson invited him to share in the company’s two George Foster Peabody Awards.

As Art/Creative Director for Henson, his responsibilities included the creation and/or oversight of a vast array of Sesame Street, Muppet, Muppet Baby and Fraggle Rock products and projects. Among his many personal projects were the creation of the five best-selling Miss Piggy calendars (awards for which include the Art Director’s Club Gold Medal for her Kermitage Collection of Muppet-starring “art masterpieces”); the design of a wide variety of award-winning toys, books, album covers, logos and posters; numerous floats and balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day and The Rose Bowl’s "Tournament of Roses" parades; sets, costumes and "walkaround" characters for arena shows; and award-winning Christmas windows for Tiffany’s. He produced the successful touring animatronic traffic safety show, Play it Safe, sponsored by Chrysler-Plymouth, was Muppet consultant on the Sesame Place play park, and headed the Henson creative team developing attractions and characters for Disneyworld/MGM Studios, including the enormously popular Muppet-Vision 3D film and theatre.

In 1996, Mr. Frith left to become, with his wife, director/performer/writer Kathryn Mullen among others, Co-creator of “Between the Lions,” a series for PBS designed to teach children to read. There he served as Executive Producer, Creative Director, writer, performer and Conceptual Designer, designing all the puppets and most of the key animation characters, conceptualizing the sets and storyboarding the show’s action and innovative graphics. In its first two seasons, the series received 13 Emmy nominations (winning four), won the Parents Choice Gold Award, was endorsed by the National Education Association, and won the International Reading Association’s Broadcast Media Award. As Executive Producer, Mr. Frith received two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Children’s Television Series, was nominated for Outstanding Writing, twice for Outstanding Achievement in Design and Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction and Set Design, for which he won an Emmy. In both years, the series won the Television Critics of America Award for Best Children’s Television Program.

As a response to 9/11, he and Ms. Mullen, with UK-based aid-worker Johnie McGlade, co-founded the charity No Strings International, and are now donating their services to the creation of videos designed to help children at risk in the developing world. In 2006 they traveled to Afghanistan to introduce their show ChucheQhalin: A Lesson In Landmine Safety, and to Sri Lanka to test a project aimed at enabling those in affected areas to better understand and protect themselves from tsunamis. No Strings has since completed five short films (translated into numerous languages) on natural disaster preparedness and peace building for Indonesia and the Philippines, four for children in Africa on HIV/AIDS, and three for Haiti on health, trauma and child safety. Michael and Kathryn have also recently shot a pilot in India for a series for the Subcontinent promoting critical and creative thinking. Meanwhile, Mr. Frith has collaborated with NY production house Charlex, designing the CG characters and environments for the animated short film “One Rat Short.” It won the SIGGRAPH Best In Show Award and was shortlisted for a 2007 Academy Award nomination. He also dabbles in the design of furniture, interiors, and stained glass windows; in 2009, an imposing stained glass triptych was installed in the Lampoon Castle at Harvard.

Mr. Frith began his career at Random House, where he became Editor-in-Chief of the ground-breaking Beginner Books series, collaborating closely with series co-founder and President, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), with whom, as "Rosetta Stone," he shares a co-authorship. Author and/or illustrator of a number of books for both children and adults, he was also editor/art director for Random’s Sesame Street and Step-Up book series.

Mr. Frith graduated from Harvard, where he was President of The Harvard Lampoon and co-author of a number of parody bestsellers. A native Bermudian, he began drawing professionally at age eleven, and before college worked variously as a magician’s assistant, writer, disc jockey, cartoonist and host of a children’s television show.

In 2005, the Bermuda Arts Council honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.