The Muppets: Alive or Nah?

Published: February 13, 2019

Recently, we learned that Fozzie Bear provided the voice of a cartoon character.

Oh boy. There’s a lot to unpack in that sentence.

So, Fozzie – a puppet bear created by Frank Oz and currently performed by Eric Jacobson – was the voice of Dr. Enamel – a dentist on the Disney Channel series Big City Greens. Is that something we’re all just accepting? A fictional character performed by a fictional character?

Is Fozzie Bear a bear, a humanoid comedian, a pile of felt and foam controlled by a human being, or all of the above?

Meanwhile, Kermit the Frog recently ended a stint in a stage performance of “The Wonderful Winter of Oz“. Follow this track: Matt Vogel as Kermit the Frog as The Great and Powerful Oz who’s really a conman from Nebraska. Not that Vogel got any promotion – it was all about Kermit, the real life Frog, acting in a play that you can go to and see with your own two eyes.

Both Kermit and Fozzie have been “hired” as actors. Not their performers, not as brands, but as if they’re card-carrying SAG-AFTRA members and not puppets.

Honestly, all of this is sort of amazing.

I’m definitely of two minds about Disney’s decision to push the characters in this way. And, historically, it seems that Jim Henson was too.

Jim always knew that the Muppets were the stars of the show. Nobody cared about hiring a group of odd bearded men, but Kermit or Piggy making an appearance on a talk show would be huge news. Even after Jim Henson became a household name, he didn’t always find it necessary to peek out from behind the curtain to remind viewers that someone else is responsible for making the Frog sing and dance.

But also! Jim knew that the Muppet performers deserved credit, often giving them shout-outs at the end of performances, or bragging about their great work during interviews. This has been a point of contention in recent years, as Disney seems to (mostly) want to erase all signs of puppeteers, as if they were green screened arm rods. In the past few big Muppet projects, you’d be hard pressed to find any sign of the Muppet performers, whether it be interviews, set photos, or DVD commentaries. Instead, the Muppets themselves popped up for all these appearances (except the commentaries – what a pile of missed opportunities!) as if they made the movies or TV shows themselves, with no help at all from a troupe of triple-threats just below the frame.

Of course, I say all of this as someone who desperately wants to see and learn about every morsel of the Muppet world, including (but not limited to) how a puppet comes to life, where a puppeteer is hidden in a scene, how a song gets recorded, what the names of those two old guys in the balcony are, and how these amazing performers ended up following in Jim Henson’s footsteps. But maybe that’s not such a huge priority for the casual fan.

Maybe – just maybe – it’s way more exciting for people who aren’t at the level of, say, running a Muppet fan site, to honestly believe that the Muppets are real. Not in a “maybe I’ll get a photo with Gonzo someday!” sort of real, but in a living, breathing, paying rent sort of real.

I can totally understand that viewpoint. I mean, if I had the choice of whether or not to believe that I might actually run into Lew Zealand at the grocery store, I might choose to live in the fantasy. Not everyone is required to show interest in what happens behind the scenes (despite the fact that I will argue until I’m blue in the face that revealing the magic makes the magic that much stronger and increases the power to inspire young creative minds).

For what it’s worth, it seems that Disney is starting to wise up about how to handle that tricky balance regarding who’s in control of a character. When Kermit appeared as the Wizard of Oz, Matt Vogel appeared on stage for his bow during the curtain call. When Fozzie Bear voiced a character on Big City Greens, he was listed as the voice of Dr. Enamel, and Eric Jacobson was listed as Fozzie’s “Personal Handyman” (though why he wasn’t listed as a “Dental Assistant” will forever be a missed opportunity).

All in all, none of it matters as long as the Muppets are out there doing good work. It’s another conversation entirely to decide whether voice acting and stage acting are worthy of these former movie stars. But as long as Muppets are out there in the world and Muppet performers aren’t being completely ignored or erased, there’s hope.