Celebrating 25 Years of ToughPigs

By Editor | August 18, 2026 |

On August 13, 2001, Danny Horn launched ToughPigs dot com. (You may have heard of it.) We’ve been studying our calendars – Gregorian, Julian, and Hensonian – and it seems that this month, ToughPigs is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

25 years. That’s insane. How many fan sites that were around in 2001 are still going today? Is it an achievement worth celebrating, or is it proof that we can’t recognize when we’ve overstayed our welcome? Either way, it means we’ve stuck around this long, and we’re not going anywhere.

We’ll be celebrating this epic anniversary all month long, and we’ve got some fun features in the works. We’ll have plenty of retrospective and introspective articles, a podcast miniseries, new merchandise, and a few exciting surprises.

And we’re kicking off the first feature today! We’re pleased to announce the ToughPigs Logo Project. Some of our extremely talented artist friends will be giving us their takes on the ToughPigs logo, which we’ve had at the top of this website in one form or another for a quarter century. The logo will be rotating every few days throughout the month (and beyond??). But don’t worry – lovers of Smig’s iconic art will be pleased to know that we’ll return to our masthead when all is said and done.

The first new logo comes to us via our good friend Dave Hulteen, whose work has been featured here many times, and he’s continued to grow as an artist and branch out into more official work in the Henson world, including the covers of the Sam & Friends books.

And just a reminder, if you’re in the NYC area, we hope you’ll attend Henson Fan Appreciation Day: A Salute to Henson Fans (But Mostly ToughPigs) at The Museum of the Moving Image this Sunday, August 9th. We’ll be celebrating Muppet fandom and the shared history of those of us who love everything Jim Henson touched. There will be a panel discussion, a special screening, and maybe a surprise or two!

Thanks to all of you who’ve been reading, following, and listening to ToughPigs for all these years. We hope you’ll enjoy celebrating our 25th anniversary with us! Stay tuned!

by Joe Hennes – [email protected]