Here we are, the final day of our week-long interview with Steve Whitmire, and boy are my arms tired! Be sure to clickity-click here to read parts one, two, three, and four!


ToughPigs: On Studio DC, the Ashley Tisdale segment, I thought that was one of the only redeeming segment of the whole special. The choreography that Kermit was doing: how did you do that?

Steve Whitmire: It was SO HARD. There were two of us, a guy named Bruce Lanoil and myself. I was in the head and he did both hands almost throughout. I was just so afraid of it because at that point, I wasn’t familiar with the number. We were trying to match the original. When I first heard the song, I thought it was out of character for Kermit, but in the context when we actually did it, it was totally fine. [Ashley] of course knows the number by heart, she’s done it a thousand times, and was perfect the first time, but I kept having to stop her. We had a great choreographer, Bonnie Story, who choreographed the original. We had to do it in slow motion, and I had to ask Ashley, “show me what you just did in slow motion,” and she would do the moves in slow motion and Bruce would do the arms, and then we’d try it with the music track and it was ten times faster than we remembered. It was really hard. And Bruce is considerably shorter than me, so I was just dragging the poor guy all over the sound stage. He was just floating above the ground trying to keep up. It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done from a manipulation standpoint. And it was saved by the edit, because we’d obviously stop-and-start. Very tough one, but also something to be proud of.

TP: So that was just a normal Kermit puppet with arm rods.

SW: Yep, normal Kermit puppet. And one of the things that Disney wants to do, and it’s very expensive, but they do it on virtually everything we do, is they digitally remove the rods. You see Piggy sitting in a chair on that special and motioning, and there’s no arm rods. It throws me sometimes, I expect to see the arm rods, but they removed every one from that piece, so Kermit’s just leaping through the air.

TP: Do you think that’s a good decision?

SW: I like it. Jim would have liked it too. Whatever new technology there was, he always wanted to jump right in the middle of it. He would have been fine with all that stuff. He was surprisingly not terribly precious about the characters, he was willing to just, you know, do things, just experiment. And in many ways, that’s the reason why he and Frank balanced each other so well. Because Frank is extremely intense and analytical about the characters, and Jim is much more whimsical and free-spirited. The balance of that is what defines the Muppets to me, and that’s what I always tried to learn in the early days when I showed up as this 18-year-old. I had the best teachers in the world, I had Jim and Frank and Jerry and Richard and Dave. Jim was the overseer, he could see the big picture. He would look at a frame and he was seeing the whole thing, almost squinting, and he’d say “We need a puppet up here.” He was never just watching Kermit or his character, he was looking at the whole thing all the time. Frank was very focused and analytical about character and comedy and what’s funny and precise. Dave was extremely precise as a manipulator. Every move was sharp and perfect. Like, if a puppet had to spin in place, obviously we have to run around in a circle, everything was precision and I love that. Jerry was this guy who had these incredible characters that just came out of nowhere. One thing I noticed about Jerry is that he wasn’t afraid to use just his own voice. He’d just do a little thing to it, it wasn’t some extreme character voice. Richard was a lot about justice. He was always about the underdog. He’d bring people in and help them and show them and give tours of the workshop. He was a great diplomat for the Muppets as much as anything. All of that together, and being able to take the best of the little pieces and integrate it into something was very important to me.

TP: Have you seen the Muppet parodies like Sad Kermit or BeakerRoll on the internet?

SW: Yes. It’s a little sad. I had people send me some of the pieces that have been edited for YouTube, and I don’t find any of that stuff really offensive, but I kind of understand it. We sort of live in this deconstructionist world these days where the best way to pay tribute to something is to take it and break it down into little pieces and put it back together the way they like it. And I also think part of that is because we’re not doing very much. If our stuff was out there, there wouldn’t be a void to have the Muppets. Again, I’m not offended by it, I’m not a puritan, it’s art. And some of them are done so well. The lip sync is perfect. So I kind of giggle at it and shake my head, there’s no point in being offended by it. At the same time, I don’t think Jim would have been offended by it either. As an aside, when we were doing Fraggle Rock, Jim was in Toronto, and I went out to lunch one day. I went across the street and someone had made these Muppet hot pads for your oven. And it was this knitted Ernie head. It was pretty terrible. And it was $10, so I bought it. I took it back and I said “I got you something over lunch,” and Jim smiled and I handed it over to him, and the look on his face… it was really devastating to him. And he said “Do I have to take that?” And he was serious, so I said, “No, of course not!” And I realized, he never had a problem, he almost let people rip him off if it was good. When people made things that he didn’t feel were up to par, then it upset him. I don’t think he took a lot of legal action against things like that, but he wanted it to be at least complimentary. So I can’t really say what he’d think about [the videos]. I don’t think anyone confuses that for us. Nobody’s going to think we’re going to do that. But again, the more we do, maybe the less room there will be for it.

TP: Right, as we’ve seen from the official viral videos.

SW: Yeah, and it’s interesting, another thing I noticed about that is we only did the four, and we haven’t had time to do any more, we’ve been busy with other things. But I’ve noticed, for a while there, you’d go to the main YouTube page and they were being recommended there for people to see. Now when you go there, occasionally you’ll see a Mahna Mahna or another Muppet video, and it’s like there’s a hunger for that. And we’re not filling that void, but we’d like to, and we will once we get back on track.

TP: I’ve noticed that there tends to be trends on blogs related to Muppet videos, where for a few weeks every blogger will be posting the Mahna Mahna video, and then a few weeks later it will be something else, like The Leprechaun Brothers. It’s exciting for us, because people other than us are talking about the Muppets.

SW: People want the Muppets out there. I know when Charles Schulz died, I was a huge Peanuts fan when I was a kid, before the Muppets, I think his family decided it wasn’t going to go on, nobody else was going to draw the strip. And it really upset me. It wasn’t because I would pick up the newspaper and read Peanuts every day, but I just sort of knew that they were there, and soon they weren’t going to be. I’d like to think that [the Muppets] are a part of our culture, and I think people think the same way. Yet, we go out there and we do a series, and it’s hard to keep it on the air. We have our fans, and I think Disney has strategies that will build us up. If we do another series, and I hope we will, by the time we get there, I hope we will have found our following again. To that end, I think the Disney Channel specials serve a really good purpose, just to draw that group in. We were kind of on the periphery of them in a way. They weren’t Muppet specials, it was just a lot of stuff with the stars that were already there. At least we got that audience, and apparently, that show rated extremely high for Disney Channel.

TP: So you think there would be a big marketing push behind a new series?

SW: Oh, I think there would be. Things move very slow in a company like Disney, but they move. And a lot of it has been about establishing the Muppets within Disney. We’re trying to reach the other departments in Disney and say, “Hey, we’re here, and this is what we can do.” It’s a lot of reproving who the Muppets are and now there’s a lot of interest because we’ve had some recent successes between the viral videos and the Disney Channel.

TP: I’d [Ryan] actually seen you once before, in Hondo, Texas, in Extreme Makeover. How involved were you in the making of that episode?

SW: As it turned out, pretty involved in the making of it. It was one of those Disney-ABC connections. At the time, the producer was a pretty big fan of the Muppets. It was great, I had such fun. I guess a lot of that show was ad-libbed anyway. We had a vague outline of what we were going to shoot, and I ad-libbed the whole thing. I had so much fun on that show. I love it when Kermit’s in unexpected places, like Hannity and Colmes. Nobody expected Kermit to be there, we did it a couple of times, it didn’t make any sense. Nightline’s a good example of that, and Extreme Makeover worked the same way. It was just great fun. Having him ride around in the John Deere vehicle, I have one of those at home, so it was perfect (laughs). One of the fun things was, I guess Ty [Pennington] always runs around with his own camera, and they built one for Kermit, and it was an actual camera! So I was really running the camera, and I could turn it around and have Kermit film himself. I had two monitors, one of the camera on me, the broadcast version, and one for Kermit’s camera.

TP: When you do a shoot like that, when it’s just Kermit, how much crew do you have with you? Is it just you and a puppet wrangler?

SW: Usually, somebody from our studio is there and somebody like [puppet designer] Jane Gootnik, Jane herself if possible, though she wasn’t on that shoot. Jane was hired a month after I did, so she’s got a 30-year history with the Muppets too. It’s especially important, especially if it’s on location like that, for someone to be able to just dive in and do something in a hurry, like a rigging thing, because there’s just no time. But in that case there was just four of us, including Carmen Osbahr who puppeteered Kermit’s right hand for us. And then I think Jim Lewis probably contributed ideas from Los Angeles for the writing. On that shoot, I was literally in the bus, and Kermit was driving it. And that was really scary, because no one could see. I just put the thing in drive, hit the gas, went fifty feet and hoped it stayed on the road. They said, “The only thing that could happen is you could run into the ditch,” and I said, “I know! I could run into the ditch!” (Laughs)

TP: How about when it’s a talk show appearance? Do you have stuff pre-written?

SW: Almost always. Usually we’ll have Jim Lewis write something, I always try to get Jim to write for Kermit if I can because he has such a great sensibility for Kermit, in the way that Jerry Juhl did for Kermit on The Muppet Show. I think Jerry wrote most of Kermit’s stuff on The Muppet Show. So, usually he’d write several pages of talking points, and I can rely on those. And it’s a mix, he gives me three choices for every answer, and sometimes it’s ad-libbed. Occasionally we’ll have an interview where they’ll go straight down the script and I’ll just read the answers while trying not to sound like I’m just reading them.

TP: I remember seeing Kermit and Fozzie being interviewed and hearing some funny responses when asked about the Jason Segel movie, like they hadn’t heard about the movie.

SW: Yeah, we had to come up with something to say, because we kept getting asked.

TP: Was that written by Jim Lewis?

SW: No, that was just Eric and me being silly. We did 100 interviews around then and we try to do something different for each one, even though it doesn’t really matter. And that was the first satellite media tour we did with just Kermit and Fozzie, with Eric and me. And it was great, the two of them haven’t been seen together all that much, so it was nice to have Kermit and Fozzie back together instead of it always being Kermit and Piggy. It gets a little old after a while. We’d always get the same three questions. “Are you married?” Oh no, we’re not married, or maybe we are. We’d really like to move beyond that, but we can’t because that’s what everyone wants to know. But it’s great to have that Kermit and Fozzie dynamic back. Two pals, two buddies. And in the same way, it’s great to have that little core group: Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Scooter. To have those main Muppet Show characters back in a way is also nice.

TP: Do you feel like there’s a different dynamic there between you and Eric and you and Frank?

SW: A little. Eric’s just so darn close to Frank, it’s really incredible. His voice is so close, and obviously the other part of that is the character. And I would have to say that in the last few months, he has just gelled as Piggy. We did a satellite media tour not too long ago, and she was like she’d never been before. And the challenge for Eric has been that it’s so easy for her to always be angry. Because that’s sort of the default position: she gets mad, she hits somebody, she storms out. But to play her as anything other than angry, you really have to dig into the character. And he gets in there so well, and that takes a long time. If we can get through an interview without Piggy getting angry, then I think it’s a great thing (laughs). It’s different than Frank, but less different. It just takes a long time. Frank’s characters are so deep, there’s so much to them, it’s just a hard thing to do. Eric hasn’t really worked with Frank on the characters, so he’s just kind of taking the character from what he sees.

TP: When was the last time you worked with Frank Oz?

SW: The last time we worked together was… (thinks) a while ago. I’m not even sure I can remember. It’s been quite a while. Probably the last thing was Sesame Street. Every so often, he’ll come in and do Bert. And that’s a little weird for me, with them both doing the character, but it’s Frank. You can’t say no to Frank. If Frank said he wanted to come back and do Piggy for something, he should do it, and I think Eric would be totally fine with it. (Laughs) I don’t expect that to happen.

TP: I think that’s all we have. Thank you so much, Steve, for taking the time to talk with us.

SW: You’re so welcome. As you know, as we’ve said repeatedly and repeatedly, we love reading ToughPigs because you’re our best critics (laughs).

TP: Well, we’ll continue to criticize you as long as you continue to make stuff.

SW: Exactly, it’s a reciprocal arrangement. I said this back at MuppetFest, and I think the crowd got it, but it feels like we’re in this sort of partnership, we’re kind of in this together. Especially with the Muppets, and I don’t know if other actors feel this way, but with us doing these characters that are ongoing for years and years and years, the fans contribute nearly as much to this as we do in keeping it alive, especially during the slow times.Once again, super special thanks go out to Steve Whitmire for taking the time to chat with us, plus being an extra cool guy!

And thanks to all of our dedicated ToughPigs readers for sticking it out for this entire week. As Steve said, he can't do this without us, and we can't do this without you!

Click here to sing the praises of Steve on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: disney, interview, Muppet performers

Back for more of your daily Steve Whitmire interview? Don't forget to check back to parts one, two, and three!


ToughPigs: Feel free to not answer this question, but how does your relationship with Disney work, contract-wise? If they decide to make a Muppet production, are you contractually obligated to perform?

Steve Whitmire: No, we’re freelancers. We’re still freelancers, just as we were with Henson. And that’s nice. Jim was always about a handshake, and while things would certainly be more formal with a big corporation like Disney, but it’s very laid-back, very easy-going in that respect.

TP: And you have a similar relationship with Sesame Workshop?

SW: Yeah, we’ve always been freelancers.

TP: There’s one glaring omission from the recent Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock DVD sets that have been coming out over the last few years, and it’s that there’s no commentary. If they would have asked you, would you have contributed commentary to a few episodes?

SW: That would have been fun, yeah.

TP: Too bad they didn’t ask then.

SW: Treasure Island, we did one, I think. And Muppets From Space.

TP: When Elmo makes public appearances, he makes reference to the fact that he doesn’t know he’s on a TV show. Is that a Sesame Workshop decision?

SW: I think on Sesame Street, they try to play it off like it’s a real street, that that’s really real life for those guys. And I think for Sesame, it kind of makes sense. Because Elmo’s so young, he’s meant to be young, in our world he really is, but I mean he’s meant to be a little kid. So Kevin just tries to keep him like a little kid. But I’ve heard Kevin do interviews with more funny, adult things, not just adult humor but in adult interviews where Elmo breaks out of character a little bit, and it’s always funny.

TP: Yeah, we saw him at the Long Island Huntington event where Gonzo was flirting with Zoe, and Elmo was kind of in the middle of that. It was the kind of thing you’d never see on Sesame Street.

SW: (Laughs)

TP: I have a few questions from some of the ToughPig forum members that are not Muppet related. Anthony wants to know who your favorite superhero is.

SW: Oh my god. Probably Batman. And probably the original, the original being the Adam West show. By all means. And it’s really funny, we’ve had the opportunity to run into him a couple of times and Eric Jacobson and I are like drooling groupies. You know, we did the TV Land Awards a few years ago and Eric and I were like stalkers. There was an interview online with Adam West later where you see my hand reach out from behind and I snap a picture with my phone. Very nice guy, we met him and talked to him. And I started thinking about it, and you know, Batman, when I was 10 years old, he’s this guy who has this true identity, which is a little like us when you think about it. He puts on his mask, we put on these puppets and nobody knows who you are. Maybe that was part of the warped childhood I had that led me here (laughs).

TP: Carolyn from our forum wants to know, “How is your work with cats going?”

SW: That’s a good thing to mention, especially since we’re online. I’m on the board of this place called the Shambala Preserve, which is Tippi Hedren’s place. She’s a very dear friend, I’ve probably known her for 15 years now. I do a lot of video editing for them. In my spare time with her in LA, I go to the preserve and I shoot, which is fun for me, I shoot all this video and edit it into these little pieces they can use for fund raising. In fact, I’m in the middle of one that we’ll put on YouTube once we’re finished with it. So you ask me if I work outside of Muppets: Yes, I’ve got my volunteer work at Shambala. But that’s big cats. My wife Melissa and I did almost a year of intensive work at a local humane society outside of Atlanta in 1987. We had almost that whole year off from Muppet work. Really hands-on work, cleaning the cat cages and giving injections to the cats. At the end of that, we had 13 cats of our own. And at one point, we had 36 cats that we were fostering (laughs). We were crazy, we were insane.

TP: Did you name them all?

SW: They all had names, but they all had stupid names, because we knew people were going to adopt them. It was a ridiculous thing to do, but good for the cats. So I don’t do that stuff so much anymore, but I still do the Shambala stuff when I can.

TP: Speaking of your wife, Melissa, I noticed on the Muppet Wiki that she’s puppeteered a few times with the Muppets. I don’t know much about her; is she a professional puppeteer as well?

SW: I don’t think she’d think of herself as a professional. She’s not one of those people who decided she wanted to work with the Muppets when she was a kid like us. She basically decided to do it because she’d be sitting around on set in the early days, and it just sort of made sense. It’s something she kind of picked up, we needed extra people and she never had any aspirations to be a big Muppet star with a main character, so sometimes we’d need people to do background characters. She worked intensively on The Dark Crystal with Kathy Mullen. She was Kira’s right hand for the whole film. So any time you’d see Kira’s right hand, that was Melissa. And she worked on Muppets Take Manhattan as one of the background puppeteers. Kermit’s Swamp Years I think she puppeteered a little bit. And she worked on a few things where she didn’t get credit in the end.

TP: If you let us know what they were, we can make sure she gets credit for them on the Wiki.

SW: I’ll let you know, I can’t remember offhand (laughs).

TP: Kynan from our forum wanted to ask you about tractors. Care to explain?

SW: (Laughs) Kynan cruised through LA and we met, and we owed him a slight debt of gratitude [for the Save the Muppets campaign]. Tractors, yes. I have several. I’m a farm guy. Not a legitimate farm, but I do a lot of mowing when I’m not with the Muppets. I’m a bit of a homebody. I mow about six acres a week. So John Deere is very important to me. (Laughs) Hard to imagine, I guess, but that’s what I do when I’m not working. They’re green, the John Deere tractors.

TP: What other interests do you have besides puppetry?

SW: There’s an author named Ken Wilber who most people haven’t heard of, but he’s the most translated author in the world. He’s an amazing guy, he’s just a thinker. And for the last few years, he’s written on what he calls “integral theory.” It’s the idea that everyone is right on some level, whether it’s politics, math, science, the world at large, puppets, showbiz, being a lawyer, whatever. Everybody brings a piece of the puzzle that makes the world up to the same table. And it’s a matter of choosing those things and integrating all of that together, which is a huge part of what’s happened to Disney in the last five years. And I’ve been reading his stuff for maybe 8-10 years, and I met him a couple years ago, and he’s a terrific guy. And his stuff is extremely academic to wade through. But yet, it’s a pretty simple idea. It’s the idea that the more you can integrate things together in your life, the better chance you have at getting through your life. And he calls himself a mapmaker. And he literally has taken every discipline in the world, and I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but he’s brought all that into one place, and he’s integrated it together in his books. It’s not conservative, it’s not liberal, it’s every point of view. And it goes all the way from the lowest levels of everything up to these spiritual places. It fits the Muppets perfectly. And I can look at the characters that we’ve created, and that Jim created, and they all fall under these different levels of development. It’s not something any corporation will look at and say, “We should look at that map,” but for me, and from the Muppet point of view, I use it every day.

TP: So where do Kermit and Rizzo fall on that level of development?

SW: Well, now we’re really getting complicated. Rizzo is very egocentric, in that he is very much about himself. There’s all these levels of development: there’s egocentric, ethnocentric, world-centric. As people develop through their lives, they go from being totally focused on themselves to being focused on their immediate family or group to being focused on the entire world, where they slowly accept that we’re all a part of this big machine, and beyond, whatever that might be. So Kermit’s a little bit by the world-centric and above level, while Rizzo is much more egocentric. It’s a great dynamic to play for these two guys.

TP: It’s too bad you can’t have them interacting with each other very often.

SW: Exactly. I tried that yesterday, it’s impossible. We were just being silly, because we needed as many puppets on screen as possible, so I had one on each hand. I can’t even make them look in the right place when I do that. I was having them talk to Madison, this little girl on set, and I got confused, I got it backwards. (Laughs)We're almost at the end! I know, it's quite sad. Come back tomorrow for the final part of our interview with Steve where you'll see him talk about Kermit choreography, his fellow Muppeteers, and how to make a frog drive a truck.

Click here to talk tractors on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: disney, interview, jim henson company, Muppet performers

Are you ready for part 3 of our interview with Steve Whitmire? Feel free to refresh with part one and part two!

And special thanks to Rick Lyon for the use of the image at the top of this article!


ToughPigs: So, you recently took over performing Statler and, more recently, the Newsman. What is that like? And how did you prepare for those?

Steve Whitmire: For Statler, I was trying to decide if I should make it more like Jerry’s original, or do I make it like Richard’s, which everyone knows from The Muppet Show, or do I make it like Jerry’s since Richard’s. He’s just been passed around a lot. It’s always been a problem for me that the characters got passed around. I get very conservative about this idea of one person doing the characters, and we shouldn’t recast them so the character can grow and not be different every time we see them. So, I’ve tried to aim for more like what Richard did on The Muppet Show. And I know I don’t really sound like Richard, and I have so much fun doing the character. And they only do like three lines at a time, but when we ad lib with them between scenes, it’s so much fun. We have so much fun.

TP: And you work so well with Dave Goelz.

SW: Yeah, you guys know there’s all these Muppet duos. Jim and Frank did all these characters together like Ernie and Bert, and Fozzie and Piggy with Kermit. Jerry and Richard did a lot of characters together like the Two-Headed Monster, and Floyd and Janice. They always seemed to team up as a performing team, and Dave and I do that too. Dave was actually the person who suggested that I do Beaker when Richard died. So I had to learn to make that noise by sucking air in. So it wasn’t “Mee Mee Mee”, it was ((sucks air in)) “Mee Mee Mee.” You’re pulling air in the whole time, so if you’re doing a long thing, and you forget and take a deep breath, you’re doing the wrong thing. You have to exhale before you start. It’s bizarre, and Richard could do that. I had to learn to do that without choking. (Laughs) The truth of the matter is, it’s always hard… the more you know about the person who did these characters, the harder it is to take them over, because it’s something we never had to do when the person was alive or still doing the character, because we have a desire to be really faithful to what that person created.

TP: Do you think that’s easier with a character like Beaker where he never actually speaks?

SW: A little bit. And it helps that Dave is consistent with Bunsen. I can’t tell you exactly where that character came from, from within Richard, because I just don’t know. Whatever was going on in Richard’s head with what he did with that character, I don’t know what it was. I’m winging it in that respect, I’m taking it in a different direction. These days, after we did the viral stuff, I get the impression that Beaker is a guy who goes home at night, you know he’s pretty intelligent, he’s a smart guy, he works in a lab, and he probably doesn’t have much of a social life. He’s pretty introverted because he really can’t talk, so his only means of communication is the internet. I love the idea that he spends all of his time in front of a computer, which is perfect for the YouTube stuff. (Laughs)

TP: Can you describe for us what you’ll be doing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year?

SW: Yeah, we’re on the Macy’s float, which is kind of a big deal to me. It’s the last float of the parade before Santa. So, I’m basically in a box, which is very much like a coffin, and I’m working lying on my back with my arm up for about three hours (laughs), at the end of which, I sing a song. So it’s going to be wild and crazy.

TP: Will you be singing live?

SW: Fortunately, the song’s probably going to be prerecorded. But the fun thing about things like that are that we’re fixing it so I’ve got a monitor with four images, one of which, the most important one probably, is from a camera mounted in the float shooting the back of Kermit’s head and a big wide shot of the audience, so I can see what Kermit is seeing. And we’ve got a PA system, and I also have the ability to hear the crowd, so Kermit can actually communicate with the crowd.

TP: So they’ll be able to hear you.

SW: Right, they can hear me and I can hear them. I can really talk to them, which to me is really important. I mean, to those people, they will know that it’s really Kermit. I think that’s great.

TP: So, you’ve seen the New York Times article [which explains Disney’s extended plans for the Muppets]. Have you been involved in any of the plans Disney is making, or is this all news to you?

SW: I know about most of what’s been mentioned, to the extent of what’s been mentioned there. I’m not hugely involved yet. At this stage, most of the plans are something that happens on a corporate level. They own the characters and that’s the way it works. That article was more from the executive side of things, it was really talking about Disney’s approach to the Muppets. When we talk, it’s more about the characters. It’s really nice to know, now that we’re with people at Disney who “get it,” it’s nice to know we have that behind us, because it’s very easy for the Muppets to just sort of disappear. To have somebody behind us who understands the characters, but has that machine that can get them out there. And as it gets more integrated, this corporate side with this little family business thing, I think it’s starting to work. Someone told us once that we’d never be able to have our own creative little bubble within Disney, but it’s really starting to feel that way. That’s what we need.

TP: Do you see things getting better and better from here on?

SW: It feels like it, and Letters to Santa is a real good example of that. I feel really positive about it. We keep saying, and I’ll probably say this and it’ll be a big flop, but it feel like it’ll be one of those perennial shows and it’ll really catch on. It’s just so true to the characters. A lot of that happened when we started having script meetings with the writers and they had a great face and we added little character bits, and then we’re running as we go.

TP: Is there a lot of ad-libbing?

SW: Some. We’re always free to try. We have to be careful when we’re shooting out of order, that you don’t do an ad-lib where you realize that what you said doesn’t work in the story anymore. (Laughs) It’s really coming together well. We’ve got a really short time frame to shoot a pretty complicated show. It’s really just beautiful. Perfect Muppet stuff.

TP: One thing they mentioned in the New York Times article is that there’s going to be a “Desperate Housepigs” sketch on the Desperate Housewives DVD set.

SW: Oh, I heard something about that. I don’t think that’s definite though.

TP: So that hasn’t even been shot?

SW: No, we haven’t shot it yet. There’s been talks about doing some things with other shows that have something to do with Disney. I don’t know much; I can’t give you any info on that.

TP: Likewise, the Muppets appearing on Nightline? Do you know anything about that?

SW: There’s been talk about doing something related to the piece they did years ago. Again, it’s just out there, there’s no plans to actually do that yet. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but years ago Jim and Frank went on Nightline to explain the bull and bear market.

TP: Right, there was some great stuff with Rowlf and Sam.

SW: Yeah, they loved that, and they want to go back to it. And there’s the obvious relationship there with ABC because of Disney. And Letters to Santa is NBC, which is great.

TP: That’s a good point, I’m glad Disney has allowed you guys to do that. I remember when you were on Saturday Night Live a few years ago, that was terrific. We didn’t expect you guys to even be on NBC, let alone the surprise of being on Saturday Night Live.

SW: Yeah, it was a surprise to us too. To my knowledge, aside from the characters that Jim built for Saturday Night Live, the Muppets have never been on the show before. It was the first time. Only parodies, no real Muppets. By the way, you’ve seen the one where they knock over the puppet stage and they get into a wrestling match? I got so many calls the next day from people who know me saying “Was that you guys? Did you do that?” No, we’d never do that. (Laughs) I laughed at it, but I started getting calls from people thinking it was me. I don’t even look like that! (Laughs)

TP: On that note, do you ever overhear people in public talking about the Muppets, and you want to stand up and say something?

SW: Not too much. I can say, I won’t say anything specific, but I’ve seen things on Muppet Central and ToughPigs, and I’m just dying to get in on the conversation, but I really shouldn’t comment. You know, people saying, “You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, it’s this way!” You know how it is, whatever it might be. I’m dying to do it, but I kind of have to lay low. (Laughs)Y'all come back now, you hear? Tomorrow, I mean. It's the only place you'll see Steve talk about where Kermit and Rizzo fall into different levels of spiritual and psychological development. No, really.

Click here to try out your Beaker impression on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: disney, interview, Muppet performers

Click here to read part one of our week-long chat with Steve Whitmire!


ToughPigs: There’s been thousands of Muppet characters. Do you have any favorite obscure characters that haven’t shown up in recent years?

Steve Whitmire: I love, and this just happens to be someone I did at the time, there was a character named something like Eugene. He was a little weasel character who was alongside the director on Muppets Tonight. A little fuzzy thing. I always liked doing those kinds of characters. Rizzo started out that way, as a character who didn’t speak. Just a little character who was always there and always, you know, upstaging. And recently, on XD, when we see inside of Animal’s room, he has a little white bunny rabbit with him, and I did the rabbit. I just love the characters who are just there. They don’t have any lines, they just contribute to the atmosphere. And they’re all rodents for some reason. (Laughs)

TP: Are there any previous characters that you would want to bring back?

SW: It seems really important that we get back to some of the Muppet Show characters that have been missing for a while. But those are kind of coming back. What I’d like to see, if we ever get back into doing another series, is the opportunity to bring in new characters. And I think it’s really time we get into some new characters too. Just to grow the group a little bit. We’ve got the core here, and it’s working pretty well at this stage, between Eric and Dave obviously, and Bill is so great. But I’d like some new characters, and that might mean finding some new performers. When I came along, it was a great time because Jim was actively looking for a handful of new people, and the Muppets were on their way up. And I get letters from a lot of people who say they’d really like to puppeteer with the Muppets, and some of them have some real experience, and it’s just a really tough time for people to break into it with us. I always encourage people to do it anyway, don’t get stuck on the idea to work with the Muppets, just do it if you enjoy it. But it’s hard, right now it’s more about the Muppets getting more known again as a group.

TP: Do you think a new series would help with that?

SW: It has always proven to be the best time for new characters to develop because the writers may have an idea, and they build a puppet, and it’s in for a week. And then if it works, it has a chance to grow. And it seems that our characters always have a chance to grow and evolve over time. The first season of Fraggle Rock is nothing to write home about. And by the second season, we were starting to figure out who they were, and thankfully it was at a time in the world of television where they could afford to give us some time to develop this without just saying “Well, that didn’t work!” and pull it off the air, which is what they do now. (Laughs)

TP: Hugh Fink, Andrew Samson, and Scott Ganz have just been hired by Disney to write for the Muppets. From what they’ve told me, they’ve been hired to give the Muppets a more “prime time” feel and language. How do you feel about their involvement and this new direction Disney wants to take the Muppets?

SW: It seems okay. Two things always sound scary: when someone says they want to give the Muppets a “new feel,” because you never know what that’s going to mean until it’s done, and you can look back at it and say, “Oh, so that’s what they meant.” The other thing that’s always difficult to hear is when people say they’re the biggest Muppet fans and they want to write for the Muppets. Often times, they’re seeing the characters from the outside, and they really don’t know what they feel like on the inside, so it doesn’t work. But once we started working with these guys, they’ve really risen to the occasion. It was a good choice, it turned out to be a great choice, and that hasn’t always been the case with outside writers when they come in.

TP: So, what’s your take on the Jason Segel script?

SW: I haven’t met them, I keep hearing about it. I don’t know what they’re writing, we’re outside of it at the moment. I’ve heard that it’s happening, but I haven’t had any discussions about it. If they’re writing it, then once they’re finished I’ll see it and then I can probably comment about it. And in a way, that’s not bad. Jim was always very collaborative with us on everything we did, but it wasn’t like we all sat down in a room and conceived of the “first idea.” Jim was always very selective about the first three or four people he brought in on a project. He would often have an idea, and then he’d step back and let those people develop it into something. So there was always a bit that would go on before the next round when he’d bring in the puppeteers, or a broader group of puppeteers. It’s easy to get into what I call “endless meeting syndrome” where you’d get twelve people around a table, and everyone’s got ideas, and none of them really get used because the last thing that was said usually gets done. So it’s nice to have a core that expands into a bigger group, I think. That’s the good thing, that’s the smart way to really do it. And in addition to that, the more they bring us in near the early stages, the more we can give them about character, especially if it’s writers who know the Muppets but don’t know them from the inside. We can easily supply some of that. And that’s happening, so that’s a good thing.

TP: I have a question here from ToughPigs forum member and Muppet Wiki moderator Scott Hanson. There’s something they’ve been stumped on at the Wiki, and hopefully you can remember.

SW: I’ll try. You guys usually know more than I know.

TP: In the Dizzy Gillespie episode of The Muppet Show, they don’t know who performed Astoria, Waldorf’s wife, and the rumors say that it was you.

SW: Wow. And I ought to know that. But frankly, I don’t remember.

TP: Yeah, I wouldn’t expect you to…

SW: That’s interesting, because it wasn’t that long ago when we were talking about what were the names of their wives, and I think it was only the one, I don’t think Statler had one. It could have been me. I can’t answer, I don’t know!

TP: I promise I don’t have any more questions like that.

SW: (Laughs) That’s okay, I wish I could remember that.

TP: I don’t know if you heard, The Christmas Toy is coming out on DVD next month.

SW: No! That’s great! Is that Henson or Disney?

TP: That’d be Henson. Well, I was going to ask you if you contributed anything to the special features, but you obviously haven’t if you haven’t heard about it.

SW: Nope, I haven’t been involved in special features. I loved working on that show. That was just one of those Toronto productions during Fraggle time. It was a great break from Fraggles, because it was such an intense shoot. We had great fun on Fraggle Rock, but it was intense. And we went off to do this other silly thing, and the hardest thing for me was that Jim wanted me to do this little mouse. And to come up with a voice for this little mouse that wasn’t Wembley or Rizzo (Laughs), it’s like what am I going to do now? It was Rizzo in falsetto, is what it ended up being. I probably couldn’t even do the voice now. My voice has changed, and I know they sometimes change over the years, but my voice has changed and it makes it hard sometimes to do some of those older voices.

TP: Do you ever go back and watch some of the old stuff like that?

SW: I do, and I don’t think I even have a VHS of [The Christmas Toy], I’d love for that to be on DVD.

TP: Yeah, we’re very much hoping it’s going to be unedited.

SW: Yeah, me too.

TP: It’s got Kermit the Frog bookending the film, which is why the Emmet Otter DVDs have been edited versions.

SW: Yeah, I heard about that.

TP: Have you heard much about the Emmet Otter musical that’s premiering in Connecticut this December?

SW: I heard about it, but I’m not involved with it. And I wasn’t involved with the original. What have I heard? Tyler Bunch is involved, it’s half puppets and half sort of costumes suggesting puppets.

TP: Are you planning on seeing it?

SW: I probably won’t end up seeing it. I probably wouldn’t come to Connecticut just to see it. [ed. – On a side note, Dave Goelz mentioned in an earlier conversation that he probably won’t see it either, as he wouldn’t want to leave his family in LA just to fly across the country for a play. It’s too bad he won’t be able to critique the performances of Wendell Porcupine and Pop-eyed Catfish.] I’d love to see it just to see what they’ll do with it.Come back tomorrow for part 3 of our chat with Steve Whitmire where you'll read all about his performing new characters, his buddy movie life with Dave Goelz, and Disney's future for the Muppets!

Click here to take credit for performing Astoria on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: disney, interview, jim henson company, Muppet performers

Recently, the one and only (as far as I know) Steve Whitmire agreed to sit down with us for an informal chat. And true to the teachings of Richard Nixon, we taped the whole dang thing.

Over the following week, I'll be posting segments from the interview, so keep on coming back here to ToughPigs to read what the voice of Kermit has to say.

Special (and obvious) thanks to Steve Whitmire for helping to make all of this happen!

ToughPigs: First off, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us. So, I want to ask you about the viral Muppet videos that have shown up on YouTube. A source tells me that you were kind of the moving force behind those. Is that true?

Steve Whitmire: The idea for that came from the whole department at Disney. Actually it was Dave Cook who decided we should originally be involved in that. So kudos to the executive force, you know? I had a lot to do with putting it together, making it work, along with the guys from a company called Soap Box, which I think is an outside production company that was brought in to produce the pieces. Great group of guys. They hadn’t worked with the Muppet before, but they’re very big fans and eager to learn about the characters. I helped in that respect, just in terms of “We should get a music director for this,” “This is hard to do, we should prerecord these.” We went the route of, when we were in the studio, we had each separate character pumped into the ear of the performer so we could hear what we were doing. In other words, we were doing it to a mass playback. Really important in something like that to be able to distinguish what we were doing. And then we worked with a guy named Ed Mitchell who was the music director, who we had worked with in the past on Sesame Street, and he won the Grammy for directing the Red and Green Christmas album. But Ed is terrific, and he really understands the Muppets and their sensibility, and what we need with our limited abilities to get through it. So he was instrumental in pulling that together. We recorded that Stars and Stripes thing, we all did our own little pieces, and thought it was going to sound great. We went into the control room to hear the playback and it was just a mess. It sounded like a zoo, you know, with all the noise. Ed’s the one who got us adjusted, got everything back on the right mark to make it sound good.

TP: Yeah, that’s a great piece. They all are.

SW: Well, I loved working on those. To me, it really felt like a real return back to the old Muppet stuff. That’s something I’ve always pushed for and fortunately there’s a group at Disney now who really understands that. And what they don’t understand, they listen to. It’s really nice.

TP: Who directed those?

SW: In the end, Kirk Thatcher directed them. But that was a last minute thing. It was originally going to be directed by one of the guys from Soap Box. And I did a lot of the prep on it, but I really wasn’t looking to direct them. And at the last minute, we had just come off of the Studio DC: Almost Live the day before, so Kirk came into the studio the next day and oversaw it as the director. It would have been fun to direct, since I did so much prep on them, but it was easier not to do that. It was easier just to concentrate on the performers’ part.

TP: Actually, we were trying to figure out: were you Beaker?

SW: Yeah, I was Beaker in all of that. And Kermit. Oh wait, Kermit wasn’t in those, was he? What am I thinking? It was Beaker and Gonzo. I actually puppeteered Gonzo for that, because Dave was having surgery at the time. And then he dubbed it. But musically, I love the music of the Muppets so much. And we’re getting back and doing more of it, but it’s been missing for a lot of years. So we did four strong pieces that were all about music, and just sent them out there and see what they did. And they did very well. I’m just thrilled that they did well with not just our fans on the internet, but everybody who saw them. I hope we do more of those. And if not those kinds of pieces, at least more viral videos. I think we have to top what we did last time somehow. (Laughs)

TP: The Muppets.com sketches have been pretty great too.

SW: Oh yeah, I love that stuff. That was kind of the first indication to me that we were in a good place with Disney. All of the sudden, we were doing that kind of stuff, those short little bits. It’s a great way to reintroduce the Muppets to people who don’t know them.

TP: Were the viral videos the first time you were involved in the concept stage of a Muppet production?

SW: I guess we kind of always took them. We definitely did more in-depth work on that than a lot of the other things we do. We always collaborate and have input on nearly everything. I was kind of sitting at home, plucking out notes on the piano, trying to think of what character should sing what. So, that kind of stuff on those things. I love doing that.

TP: I know Bill Baretta has kind of been transitioning into directing more. Have you thought about doing the same?

SW: Not really. I never had a great desire to direct anything big like Kirk does. I would like to do some of the little things, where you work hard and it really pays off and all of the details on the viral pieces. That would really be fun to do, but to do films and specials, I’m not really interested in it. It takes so much personal time, and I’d just as soon have my time for me. When I’m not working, I want to go home. (Laughs) I’m a real homebody. I’m very domestic. (Laughs)

TP: You are one of, or the only, main Muppeteer to not work outside of the Muppets. Frank Oz has directed, Jerry Nelson has his work with music, Dave Goelz did some work with Walt Disney World. Was that a conscious choice, or did the opportunity just never come up?

SW: A little bit of both. The way my whole time with the Muppets timed out, with Jim’s death and doing Kermit, it was at a point where… my whole life changed overnight in terms of the amount of time I spent working. I went from doing Rizzo and I’d walk in and hang out at the crafts services table, or I’d do a couple of lines and I’d do a background puppet, and suddenly I was doing this big thing. It takes so much time, and there’s so much demand for Kermit, with all of the appearances that we do, and I love it. But I’d just as soon get away from it when I’m not doing it. I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t needed to do that, I’ve had a decent career and I make a decent living, and I’d also just rather have the free time in between.

TP: Have you ever been asked to do any of the Henson company stuff like Puppet Up?

SW: No, we haven’t been involved with that. I think Brian found a team of folks to do that, and they were available. If they asked us, they have to work around [our schedules] all of the time. So, not a lot of contact since the sale. Which is fine, they kind of do their thing and we do ours.

TP: There was the issue a few years ago about the Muppet recasting. Has that situation resolved itself?

SW: It has. It was a real tough patch. I always try to see it from both sides of the issue. It was necessary to get these characters back out into the world. It seemed like the way to do it, I guess, from a certain point of view to have a bunch of people doing them everywhere. But actually, as soon as the Muppets moved under [Muppet Studios], they just didn’t see the need, and there really wasn’t a need for it as it turned out. The idea was that we were going to be this gigantic worldwide thing and they were going to need that. But I think they understand now why it’s important, to keep them individual. And to be frank on that issue, I kind of look back on that whole episode and I’m kind of happy for it. Because it certainly gave me the responsibility to do some deep thought on what it is we do, and how it works, and why it’s important. And I’m not sure if Jim was actually conscious of why it’s important. He just instinctively knew that you cast someone and they stay that character. But it gave us the chance to analyze it a little bit, we sort of had to, and I’m glad for that now. I could give a lecture series on the individuality of the Muppets, the integrity of the Muppets (laughs).

TP: Had they ever asked you to be involved in something like the Muppet cruise?

SW: I did one, really in order to just make sure that Kermit stayed Kermit. It was just a weird time. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, why it was happening. Especially the people who were being asked to duplicate the characters. I don’t think they knew what was going on exactly. It was just a rough patch. And we got over it, and I’m glad it’s behind us. And it feels like it really is behind us. There’s been no indication [of more recasting], and that’s just not something they’re interested in doing.

Come on back here tomorrow to read what Steve has to say about obscure characters, Disney's new direction for the Muppets, and The Christmas Toy!

Click here to discuss this discussion on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Labels: disney, interview, Muppet performers

Has everyone read Joe Hennes' article from September 9th, in which he told the story of visiting the set of the new Muppet TV special Letters to Santa? (If you haven't, you should click on this link right here and read it.) In Joe's article he mentioned that he was invited by some of the Muppet people to come back for day of studio shooting. He recently took them up on that offer, and this time I got to come too.

I met Joe at the studio in the early afternoon. As we entered the stage, Joe said, "Nathan Lane is here," and yeah, actually, there he was. He's playing an airport security official in the special, which will also include appearances by Uma Thurman, Jane Krakowski, Jesse L. Martin, Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos, Richard Griffiths, Disney Channel star Madison Pettis, and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. But with all those celebrities, is there any space in the special left for Muppets?

As a matter of fact, there is space, which is good, because the first scene I saw them shoot featured Bobo, and the Bobo puppet is frigging enormous. He's so bulky that when Bill Barretta performs him, he has to wear a harness kinda thing to keep Bobo steady. One take ended abruptly with Bobo toppling over, which cracked up everyone in the room, including Nathan Lane. Lane found Bobo pretty hilarious in general, and he struggled to get through a few takes without laughing. Hearing Bobo speak inspired several people in the room to do their own Bobo impressions, which makes me wonder if the annual informal holiday Talk Like a Pirate Day should be replaced by Talk Like Bobo Day.

Between takes, Joe introduced me to director Kirk Thatcher, who told us that Letters to Santa was greenlit and put into production quite suddenly. The whole shoot, in fact, will total only 15 days, which is less time than I take between trips to the laundromat.

After the scene was finished, I met and chatted with Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, and Noel MacNeal. Here's the thing about real live Muppet people: They're impossibly friendly, and they're almost as interested in the Muppet fan community as we are in them. Several of them commented on the recent New York Times article about Disney's big plans for the Muppets, which they described as "mostly accurate." They did not, however, comment on the difficulty of the Sudoku in that issue of the Times.

After the scene was finished, it was time for the cast and crew's favorite part of the day: lunch break! Joe and I talked some more with Steve and Kirk, as well as Bill Barretta. Among other things, they mentioned that Frank Oz had briefly dropped by the set last week to say hello. Apparently he's a bit of a Muppet fan himself.

One thing that came up over and over again throughout the day was a feeling of optimism among everyone involved. All the puppeteers believe Letters to Santa is a genuinely good Muppet production in the spirit of the classic stuff. Dave Goelz described it as the best thing they've done since Muppet Treasure Island, with "the perfect mix of lunacy and heart." I think every single puppeteer we talked to used the word "heart" in their assessment of the new special. This thing is lousy with heart. Which is great news for all the fans, unless maybe there's a faction of fans who've always felt the Muppets would be better if they were really mean.


During the break, we also got to talk to Andrew Samson and Scott Ganz, two of the writers on the project (along with Hugh Fink, who wasn't there that day). They have a lot of ideas for the Muppets, and I really got the impression that they're One of Us. Or Two of Us, or whatever. They're a couple of guys who grew up watching and loving The Muppet Show and the movies, and they want to see the characters get back to doing the kind of material they did in their heyday. Also notable: Scott's wife Brooke ran the "Sesame Seventies" fan website a few years ago, which was a fun and groovy celebration of Sesame Street's crazy disco records.

Soon it was time to start shooting again, and it was more airport stuff. One thing that struck me as the day went on was the fact that, although we only saw a tiny portion of the production, every single shot we saw them do had a joke in it, and all the jokes were funny. Unless we just happened to see the only funny scenes in the entire special, that bodes well. And as Joe pointed out, the performances seemed to get funnier with every take. If that's always the case, how do they know when to stop?

Another thing I noticed: Muppet performing is hard work. The scenes we saw them shoot had several human extras, but the sets were not "built up" to allow the puppeteers to perform standing up, so they had to sit and kneel and crouch and contort and roll around on wheely things (which probably have a real name other than "wheely things"). And while we tend to take for granted that a Muppet can do anything a human can do, the mere act of Rizzo putting his coat in an airport security bin required several attempts to get right.

Of course, it would have been easier to just cut the Rizzo coat-placing. I'm sure it's not crucial to the plot, but they kept doing it until it worked. I know this is going to sound cheesy, so maybe you want to skip this paragraph, but somehow it seemed very true to the spirit of the Muppets, and even to Jim Henson's own creative philosophy. From Kermit playing the banjo in an actual swamp in The Muppet Movie to Gonzo driving a lawn mower in Muppets From Space, it's always been about creating a world in which the Muppets are real, living beings. So they did take after take until Rizzo got it right. Man, if it had been a real airport, the people in line behind Rizzo would have been seriously ticked off: Just drop your coat, already! (And by the way, what's this talking rat doing at the airport?)

And after all that trouble with the Rizzo shot? They immediately did it again, with a shot requiring Pepe to hold various objects in each of his four hands, and drop them in the bin one by one. This required Bill Barretta, Matt Vogel and Peter Linz to squeeze in close together so they could each perform a prawn hand or two. I couldn't help but think it's a good thing none of the Muppet performers smell bad. Marty Robinson called that gag "a joke that's easy to write, but hard to do"... but once again, they did it until it worked.

While this stuff was going on, Joe and I got a chance to talk to the aforementioned Marty, Matt, and Peter, and they were all a bunch of jerks. No, of course that's not true at all. Like everyone else, they were as nice as could be and very enthusiastic about the new special. This was also about the time I saw one of the puppet wranglers stapling Kermit's winter shoes together so he could hold them in the next scene. I think it would be amazing, when your friends ask you what you've been doing at work, to be able to say, "Oh, today I stapled Kermit the Frog's shoes together."

To a humble, slack-jawed yokel like myself, the whole process of shooting a big TV project like this is pretty impressive. Great care was taken for every shot to ensure that no puppeteers' hands or heads were seen onscreen. Kirk Thatcher made sure Fozzie carried the same candy cane from shot to shot, for "continudity" purposes. And a few times, Kirk and the writers had to confer on whether or not a particular joke would be allowed in a Muppet special.


Speaking of which, here's an interesting tidbit: Remember Gonzo/The Tin Thing's line "Those are my nipples" in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz? I thought that was pretty darn funny, but I was surprised it made the cut. Well, the story behind that came up during a discussion about what the Muppets can and can't get away with: Dave Goelz thought up the line and jokingly suggested it to Kirk Thatcher, prefacing it by saying, "We'll never actually use this, but it would be funny if Gonzo said..." And then Kirk put it in the movie! And that's the story of Gonzo's nipples.

The next scene we saw was an interaction between Fozzie and Bobo. Have we ever even seen those two talk to each other before? Here you have two of the greatest fictional bears ever (equal to Winnie the Pooh, and miles above Andy Williams' Cookie Bear) and they're both part of the same entertainment franchise, but I really don't remember ever seeing them in the same scene. I predict that once viewers find out about this moment, they'll flock to the special by the billions.

During this scene, Scott Ganz told us that a lot of the last-minute additions to this production were "stolen" directly from the script he and Samson and Fink wrote for the now-canceled election special. Which is reasonable. If you're working on a new Muppet special, and you happen to have a perfectly good, unused Muppet script lying around, you might as well use it, right?

At one point, there was a young kid present on the set... I'm not sure who he belonged to, but he was having a good time. As things were getting set up for one of the last scenes of the day, Bill Barretta brought Pepe over to talk to him, which was pretty great, although I'm not sure the kid had any idea who Pepe was. Pepe asked him about school and his favorite subjects, but he politely rebuffed the kid's attempts to stick a candy bar wrapper in his mouth.

It was also around this time that some glossy photos of the main Muppet cast (not to be confused with The MuppetCast) were making their way around the room. These were being autographed to give away to kids, and each puppeteer actually signed his characters' names on each copy. Of course, they could have easily gotten some intern to do that, but instead they guarantee that those kids get the authentic John Hancocks of Kermit, Bunsen, Animal, et al. And for the record, Eric Jacobson does a lovely Piggy signature.

The last shot of the day required Kermit, Gonzo, Pepe, Rizzo, Fozzie and two penguins, so it was all hands on deck for the puppeteers (For those of you keeping score: Steve was Kermit while Noel was Rizzo, Peter was Fozzie's right hand, and Matt and Marty were the penguins). This was some kind of POV shot, apparently taken from the perspective of another character watching the Muppets from a distance, and there didn't seem to be any specific scripted dialogue.

This allowed the puppeteers to ad lib, and danged if they didn't come up with something different to say for every single take. Once, Gonzo confided to Kermit, "If you run fast enough [through the metal detector], you don't have to take your belt off." Another time, Kermit noted that the security checkpoint is easier to get through when you don't wear clothing.

After a few successful takes of this shot, Kirk Thatcher announced that it was a wrap for the day, and everyone quickly dispersed. Joe and I, amazed that we were allowed to stay so long without being politely kicked out, said our thank-yous and exited to the real world, a world where prawns can't talk and bears rarely wear sweaters.

There's still a lot we don't know about Letters to Santa. And we know even less about the Muppet feature film that's being planned for 2010. But I have to say, I'm feeling more optimistic about the future of the Muppets today than I have in quite a while. The creative people know -- and they know that we know -- that not every production from the last 10 years or so has been a home run. But the enthusiasm on that set was pretty infectious, and while I've been "cautiously optmistic" about most of the recent Muppet productions, this time around I think I'll drop the adverb and just look forward to seeing what my favorite characters are up to this Christmas.

Click here to comment on this article on the Tough Pigs forum!

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Labels: celebrities, christmas, in development, interview, Muppet performers, Muppets on TV, the muppet show

About a week ago, I found a post on a Brooklyn Heights blog with an image of a notice on a lamp post saying that “Muppets Prod, Inc.” would be filming in the area on Monday morning. Being a Brooklynite myself, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see real live Muppets, as I’m sure none of us could. So I woke myself up extra early and bustled down to the Heights for what I hoped would be a good show.

For those who don’t know, “Letters to Santa” (working title) is a Muppet Christmas movie set to premiere on NBC this holiday season. According to the description written on a notice: “Our characters are forced to give up their Christmas vacation plans, of escaping the NY snow, to help get Santa’s lost mail into his hands before Christmas Eve.” I don’t know about you, but I’m gripping the arms of my easy chair already!

I showed up at 8:00am and stood on a street corner in front of a Cosby-esque brownstone and watched as 16 people stood in the late summer heat wearing winter coats, hats, and scarves. There was no doubt about it, this was a Christmas movie. A synagogue had been altered slightly to look like a US post office. The people all stood impatiently as a mailman drove his van up to the building, walked up the stairs, and went back to do it all over again. And again. And again. I forget that when making a real film, one take is never enough. The repetition made me dizzy.

But still, no Muppets to be seen. That’s when I saw Steve Whitmire and Bill Barretta, and a minute later, Kirk Thatcher. Now, people who know me well know that I’m fearless when it comes to talking to celebrities on the street. I’ve approached many here in New York, and most of them are happy for the attention. But when Steve and Bill walked past, I suddenly turned to a nervous ball of sweat and shakies. Crap! There goes my chance. Might as well go home, head in my hands.

Knowing the fuzzy ones were nearby, I wouldn’t even think of leaving until I saw a Muppet, so I stayed. I waited until Kermit made his little green face shown, followed immediately by Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Camilla, Pepe, and a team of rat carolers (adorned with tiny reindeer antlers). They went through a scene a few times and while I marveled at the fact that there were real Muppets mere feet away, I noticed that the crowd around me grew and grew. Parents were holding their kids up in the air to see Miss Piggy, kids were refusing to go to the playground (lest they miss the frog do something funny), and adults were dumbfounded that this was actually happening in their neighborhood. One woman in particular was completely unfazed, as Brad Pitt was two blocks away just last year. Psshh, girl didn’t know what she was talking about: Frog always trumps Pitt.

During a pause in filming, Steve brought Kermit into the crowd to say hi to some of the kids (he did this several times during the day, and while this might get tiring to you or me, he seemed to find a new delight with every child he made smile, and rightly so) when I finally found the courage to introduce myself. He shook my left hand since Kermit was sitting on his right, and said that he loves ToughPigs.com (Hi Steve!), but he really must get back to filming and he’ll try and stop for a conversation later. Ok, that might have been a very polite blowoff, but at least he was enthusiastic.

During the next pause in filming, the crew took an ice cream break (ye gods, I want to work for these people!). Steve came and found me in the crowd. Come on, he said, I’ll introduce you to the guys. I didn’t care who “the guys” were, I’d be following. Steve then introduced me to Martin Robinson, Tyler Bunch, Noel MacNeal, and Matt Vogel (Hi guys!). They were kind enough to chat with me for a while. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much info on upcoming productions (which was what most of my prepared questions involved), but I did get a lot of behind-the-scenes tidbits.

For example: Martin Robinson has no idea that people know what he looks like, as evidenced by the fact that I congratulated him on his recent marriage before he said his name. Puppet designer Jane Gootnick is the one responsible for the recent appearance of The Swedish Chef’s wedding ring. Dave Goelz performs, and has always performed, the eyes for Sweetums via remote. Martin Robinson was able to have his wedding on the Sesame Street stoop for free because nobody had ever asked before (though he did have to pay three unions since they were using a TV studio). And so on and so forth.

While we were milling about, an entourage of large black cars filled the street. None of us had any idea what was going on. Then New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg stepped out and readied himself for a cameo in the movie. Someone mentioned that he must be filling the role listed as “Handsome Celebrity Male” in the script. Well, they’re about half right (Sorry, Mike! I couldn’t resist). Then, just as quick as he appeared, Mr. Mayor fled into the night, joining David Dinkins and Ed Koch on the list of New York Mayors with articles on the Muppet Wiki. Yeah, I’m sure that’s why he agreed to it.

Puppet designer Bonnie Erickson, who, to my knowledge, hasn’t worked on a Henson production in some time, also showed up for the filming. It turned out that she lives only a few blocks away, and a phone call from Dave Goelz sent her running to the set. She also claims to enjoy ToughPigs.com (Hi, Bonnie!), and was just as thrilled to see the Muppets making a quality production as I was. And then her husband asked to take my picture, which means I’ve got to become famous quick, or else the photo will be worthless.

When the puppeteers got ready for the next scene, Steve pulled me aside again and helped me to find a cranny-like nook to squeeze into to watch the filming up close. When Kirk Thatcher saw this, he introduced himself (and no, Kirk, we almost never say you’re a bad director!) and took me into the director’s tent to watch the monitors over his shoulder. After every shot, Kirk would swear, yell, or wisecrack, then turn around and explain to me why directing is hard. And then I bit my tongue to keep from bringing up his appearance in Star Trek IV.

I then met Hugh Fink (formerly a writer for Saturday Night Live) and Andrew Samson who, along with Scott Ganz (not present), have been given a 1-year development deal with Disney to write for the Muppets. According to Fink, their pitch to Disney consisted of an idea for a Muppet roast and the previously announced election special. Disney loved the latter idea and had them sign on the dotted line. Unfortunately, now neither production is going forward, but they did write the script and screenplay for “Letters for Santa”, and they’ll continue to write for the Muppets for as long as the funny holds out. It seems that Disney’s finally getting a clue as to who their audience should be, and they’re showing it by hiring Fink to give them a “late night sensibility”, which sounds a whole lot easier to stomach than the ill effects of Studio DC.

I also discovered that not only did Paul Williams provide the music for the film, but it all stemmed from his original pitch. And that gives a whole new credence to the production. Add that to the great performers, Kirk Thatcher, and new writers Hugh Fink, Andrew Samson, and Scott Ganz, and we’ve got a Christmas movie that might just make it onto a few shelves. I know it’ll be on mine.

The last person I met was Kevin Frawley (apologies if I spelled your name wrong!), who talked up the recent Muppet productions with such enthusiasm that he gave me a true hope that the Muppets are back in the entertainment game for good. He also showed an unwavering faith that the Jason Segel-penned Muppet Movie will premiere in 2010, no matter what the trends of in-development movies are. He seemed genuinely concerned that the Muppets were previously only being kept barely alive for merchandising purposes and that he is making it his personal vendetta to keep them making quality productions. That’s a man I want fighting for the Frog.

At this point, I got a slight fear, like a sneeze about to ruin my family’s Thanksgiving dinner, that I might be looking over everyone’s shoulder a little bit too much. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that I may be there to have fun, but everyone else is there to work. So I made the hardest decision of my life and left the set. The puppeteers and crew were all incredibly cordial and never hinted that I was disturbing them, and a few made the offer for me to go back later this month (assuming they approve of this write-up, I suppose). So I guess I’ll do that. Y’know, if I’m still into Muppets by then.

It’s nice to know that we’re all on the same team, the fans and the creators. Everyone wants every production to be great, and everyone wants there to be more of everything. I want to thank everyone who took the time to talk with me, including the folks I mentioned in this article, the puppeteers, the P.A.s, the Creative Affairs department, and anyone I may have accidentally stepped on. Special super thanks to Steve Whitmire, who turned me from an outsider to an insider. Also for being the Frog.

There are a few things that I learned that didn’t quite fit into this article, so please head on over to the ToughPigs forum where you’ll get some more details about the Emmet Otter musical, the Muppet election special, and more. It’s also a great place to find me if you have any questions (but sorry, I won’t reveal plot details or anything said under strict confidence. However, I will plagiarize this book I have about ethics).

Labels: celebrities, christmas, in development, interview, Muppet performers, Muppets on TV

On Wednesday, I reviewed You Can't Rock Sittin' Down, the new album by the Mighty Weaklings, a band that includes Sesame Street Muppet performer Matt Vogel (He's the one standing in front of the playground in that picture). Today, ToughPigs.com is pretty darn happy to present an interview, conducted via e-mail, with Mr. Vogel himself.

TOUGH PIGS: How did you come to be involved with Sesame Street? What was the first thing you did on the show?

MATT VOGEL: In 1994, I answered an ad in Backstage looking for a left-handed puppeteer. I’m not a left-handed puppeteer—but I am left-handed and I thought that was close enough. The job was to be the secondary performer of a full-body Coca-Cola Polar Bear puppet that Muppets had built for live appearances. I met with John Henson (the primary performer) and soon after started doing polar bear appearances.

My first Sesame Street gig was for a home video called Tell the Truth. I played some background characters with Stephanie D’Abruzzo. My first season on Sesame Street was in 1996. I did a lot of right-hand work, but also got to do some small characters including one of Kingston Livingston III’s Crew Four.

TP: Was it intimidating for you coming to work alongside Sesame veterans like Jerry Nelson and Fran Brill?

MV: Both Fran and Jerry are such great performers and they were very welcoming to me right from the beginning. They made me feel comfortable and at ease… but I was—and still am—in awe of them. So, I wouldn’t say that I was intimidated. Although I did see Fran wrestle a mountain lion. Not intimidating, but impressive.

TP: How and at what point was it decided that you would become the alternate Big Bird? Was the audition process open to any puppeteers beyond the Sesame cast?

MV: They were looking for someone to perform Big Bird at live appearances when Caroll Spinney was unavailable. So, Caroll held a workshop/audition with a few of the Sesame Street puppeteers. I’d never met Mr. Spinney before and when I was introduced to him as “Matt Vogel”, he shook my hand and said, “You know, your last name means ‘bird’ in German, this might be the job for you.” That was a bit intimidating. Caroll told us his history with Sesame Street and Jim Henson and then he had us each put on Big Bird and give it a shot. That was very intimidating—trying to sound like Big Bird right in front of the man who IS Big Bird. After that, I met with Caroll one-on-one a few times to work on Big Bird. Even now, Caroll continues to give me pointers and I consider him one of my mentors.

TP: Was Journey to Ernie your first gig as Big Bird?

MV: Well, my first real job as Big Bird was a live appearance in front of an auditorium full of Kmart managers. Seriously. Big Bird was revealed behind a giant revolving K (for Klassy).

My first Big Bird appearance on Sesame Street was not “Journey to Ernie”, but I think it was in a scene with a bunch of other characters and I said only a line or two.

TP: How are the Journey to Ernie segments produced?

MV: We shot those on a huge blue screen. I would only see a rough sketch of what the final animation would look like, I’d have to imagine the action that would be animated later. I found “Journey to Ernie” to be challenging because of how we had to shoot it, the physicality of the segment, and the fact that being inside Big Bird is disorienting—you only see what the camera’s shooting. There’s no peripheral vision, it’s like you’re working in a yellow bubble.

TP: Have you ever taken a crack at being Oscar the Grouch?

MV: Oh, sure…at home for my kids when I’m cranky. But I’ve never done it seriously.

TP: You were Big Bird for the Sesame Street segment with Laura Bush. What was that like? Did the Secret Service have to frisk the bird?

MV: The First Lady came to the Street prepared and she was very sweet. The Secret Service did not frisk Big Bird, but they did shake down Elmo.

TP: What's your favorite Sesame Street thing you've done? Do you have a favorite character you've performed on the show?

MV: I’ve had a lot of opportunities to perform some fun characters on Sesame Street. Some of my favorites are Howie Eatswell from the “Meal or No Meal” sketch, David Letterguy, Hansel (of Hansel & Gretel), and Herb the Dinosaur. But I also do a lot of right-hand work on the show and some of my favorite times are assisting puppeteers like David Rudman, Steve Whitmire, Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz.

TP: What kind of hilarious or fascinating anecdotes can you tell us from behind the scenes at Sesame? Come on, you must have a million of 'em.