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WaPo: Muppet creators family speaks out about the firing of Kermit's puppeteer
- Thread starter KSweeley
- Start date
But it still does air on PBS. It just airs on HBO first. (The only time Fraggle Rock made it off paid cable television was for the animated series. It wasn't an offshoot, not anymore than any other Henson project was. I was extremely jealous of my cousins who had HBO and got to watch it.) Sesame Workshop has gone on record that it was either the HBO deal or the show was dead.
I also enjoyed the newer Muppet series from two years ago, but that was a mess of mismanagement and a huge clash of egos... and I'm not talking about the performances...
Fraggle Rock aired on CBC in Canada. If you had an antenna in your house, you could get the CBC. So it was effectively public television.
Dr. Zoidberg
Member
The majority of GAF siding with the performer/little guy against executives from a large corporation does not surprise me at all. I'm guessing neither side is blameless here, but both should have kept quiet if they were professional. Then Steve decided to air his side publicly which of course had the desired effect of rallying noisemakers on the Internet so now other parties have publicly responded (poorly), and the court of Internet opinion is now in session. It may turn into a PR issue for the Hensons/ABC/Disney which may or may not have been Steve's intention but that's certainly the likely result.
Choose your poison.
Did I just watch someone croak?
1000% this. More so than the voice of a cartoon character, these people were their characters. Jim Henson was Kermit. I haven't been able to enjoy anything Muppets related since his passing.
I am very open to hear the new voice and see the new performance, and just hope that an effort was made to get back to a proper Kermit and not this pseudo-Kermit we've had for over two decades now.
It was taped here in Toronto. If you're ever at the CBC building they have some of the puppets on display there.
WordAssassin
Member
You need to check out the ABC series they tried to do a few years ago. I'm not saying it was bad, I actually kind of got used to it after a while and wanted to see where they went with it, but it was NOT the Muppets that I've grown up with for the past 30 years. Initially I really hated the show because the Muppets are supposed to embody hope, fun, positivity, etc. But they are all stressed out and depressed and unhappy in the ABC show and it's just fucking weird.
I think that both parties have blood on their hands in this. I think that it sounds like Kermit's actor was a massive, egotistical pain in the ass, but the way they has been handled by the Hensons has also been terrible. As someone above me said the truth lies somewhere inbetween. From that new Brian Henson interview it sounds like the guy was a dick for a long time and they just put up with him while trying to discourage his behavior but when Disney had finally had enough of it, Hensons were so burnt out on him that they just let him get fired.
I mean if that "you gotta treat me well or you don't get the Muppets cause I'm Kermit and Kermit is the Muppets" thing is true, you can't fuckin' talk like that to Disney, you know? They're Disney. They don't have time to deal with that kind of shit. I mean, you CAN talk like that to them, but you'e gonna wind up on your ass with no job.
tkscz
Member
Whats fucked up is that people seem to ignore that when Kermit broke up with her.
But watching the original Muppet show, Kermit was always a depressed, bitter victim. He had to run the show, be over worked, under appreciated, deal with everyone's bullshit AND deal with an abusive girlfriend. He ALWAYS was like that unless she only means Kermit from Sesame Street, who was happier, but still got angry easily.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Granted that this comment does not appear to have been intended for public consumption, but this is a pretty ugly thing to say about a man who worked 30 years on the character.
DeviantBoi
Member
Was he writing the scripts himself?
Was he the director in every Kermit segment?
Weird reason by the family.
Was he the director in every Kermit segment?
Weird reason by the family.
……forgetit
Member
Choose your poison.
Great, now my office is looking at me weird
Old school Kermit was always under tons of pressure, but still managed to be sunny and optimistic when needed. New Kermit just seemed dead inside.
Seems like a pretty reasonable direction for his character after decades of this, being unable to die like he was cursed by God himself.
spyroflame0487
Member
Did anyone post that picture of the Muppet Vision 3D thing at Disney World where they took down the giant "Jim Henson's" part of the sign
because that makes me immediately write Disney off no matter what.
because that makes me immediately write Disney off no matter what.
excelsiorlef
Member
Again it comes from the fact that the puppeteer started claiming he was hand picked by her father when he was hired by her brother... who also supported having him removed from the job, among other things.
I remember reading that there was an understudy for Kermit years ago, he had played him in very minor parts. I don't remember his name though.
I wonder what Jim would think of all this... :/
I remember him talking about that and he very clearly said that Brian asked him a short time after the funeral and that he was incredibly honoured. So I don't know what's going on here. Although, Jim was very much moving away from performing and even filming at the time, having sold The Muppets to Disney and left his team mostly to do their own thing once he came up with the concept for Fraggle Rock, so he may have said something in passing to Steve that nobody else knew about... who's to say? If Steve was really being an ass then sure, that's reason enough to let him go. But Cheryl's tweet is strangely angry and vindictive.
IsntChrisL
Member
There's more to this story. The Muppets are not an improv group. Kermit's lines were written for him just like the rest of the Muppets. And even with that in mind I still don't know what the hell she's talking about.
DizzyCaffeine
Member
Because the guy who played Kermit has been going on a publicity tour since being fired. He was even on the Today show this morning.
yo I forgot all about this. Sesame Street Kermit had a fucking HAIR TRIGGER, lmao... I remember seeing that scrunched up angry frog face so often hahaha
IdreamofHIME
Member
She saw some memes on Facebook and thought they were canon.
This is where my interest lies as well. If he was terrible to work with, sure fire him. But Cheryl Henson is making it seem like he had creative control of the character beyond notes being passed to writers and on his own made Kermit into a nihilist.
excelsiorlef
Member
It's amazing how effective getting your story out first sets the overall narrative.
I've seen it, and I still wouldn't read Kermit that way on the show. Stressed out and more sarcastic that normal? Sure. But angry and depressed? Nah. Kermit still spent the show trying to do right by the other Muppets when he could and genuinely cared about them.
And even if that were the case, Whitmire wasn't writing the show. He played the character that was written, just as he has for every Muppets project since taking over the character. It would be weird to judge his performace over an almost 30 year career on one failed TV show.
Edit: And that's not to say ol' boy didn't deserve to get fired. I don't know how he was as an employee. But Cheryl's reasoning is pretty bs too.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
MAKE THE MUPPETS GREAT AGAIN!OP, do you want to add the actual Facebook post in question?
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Okay, but there's a difference between a guy being self-important and tearing another human being down. She's of course entitled to think whatever she wants of him, but this is a very ugly way of expressing herself. He has certainly been very aggrieved in public, but he hasn't been disrespectful when he talks about the people he blames for the unfolding of events.
Fancyarcher
Member
Yeah this sounds like a bunch of B.S. as far as I can tell. Steve comes off like a real jerk based off this and a few interview, but it sounds like he was also tired of playing the role, which is entirely fair.
Kermit was secretly an asshole behind the scenes the whole time.
Kermit was secretly an asshole behind the scenes the whole time.
Muppet of a Man
Member
Man, all this drama has me yearning for the original Jim Henson Kermit of old. He was amazing and just can't really be replicated.
WordAssassin
Member
I know we're in "he said she said" territory with this whole thing, but I read that when people came in to audition if he didn't like them for whatever reason he took a huge shit on them and wouldn't let them audition or get the roles. So it sounds like it could have been a situation where someone got an overinflated ego and was throwing his weight around well outside his boundaries, especially if that "I'm Kermit and Kermit is the Muppets so do what I say or you have no Muppets" quote is true.
Also to everyone saying "they're just actors reading a script" I'm fairly sure that's not the case, and the Muppeteers are encouraged to ad-lib and improvise to make their characters feel more natural and "their own". Which could tie into this guy becoming incredibly attached to Kermit and thinking he was like his gatekeeper or something along those lines. "Nobody knows him like I do" sort of thing.
There are reports that multiple people over several decades told him that the way he was behaving was out of line and it was going to bite him in the ass. It would appear he didn't listen and it finally did.
PeskyToaster
Member
No one is looking good in this.
DrROBschiz
Member
oh man i did not expect puppeteer drama to capture my attention this afternoon
WordAssassin
Member
Once again, the Muppeteers are heavily encouraged to improvise and make the Muppets "their own". So yes the writing has something to do with it but it's not the only thing.
Basically:
Even if everything the Henson kids says is true, that doesn't absolve them from the way they've handled the fallout. That Facebook post is rough. I can understand where they're coming from, they're the friggin Henson kids and I'm sure the Muppets, especiallyKermit, are extremely dear to them. But that post wasn't exactly professional.