Who Built Lips?

[LipsGF4Life]

http://forums.delphiforums.com/toughpigs/messages/?msg=16242.1

Thank you! Can I post the twitter photos on here? These photos look great for everyone to see!

 

[minor muppetz]

Thank you! Can I post the twitter photos on here? These photos look great for everyone to see!

I don't know whether it's possible. Not sure whether the people who posted the pictures would mind, but it's not up to me.

 

[minor muppetz]

Seems a few more photos have shown up online, featuring Kermit, Miss Piggy, and others. It's interesting that they are allowed to post photos online but not announce what the project is.

Considering we know Kirk Thatcher is directing, it makes me wonder, would a Muppets person be directing if it was just a guest appearance, even just a performance or sketch, on another person's show? I know that Jim Henson directed the Muppet segment from The Earth Day Special, but otherwise, I don't know of any instances where a short appearance by the Muppets was directed by one of the usual Muppet/Henson people. Then again, I think Kirk Thatcher does direct non-Muppet/Henson projects as well. If it is just a sketch or song on a show not dominated by Muppets, he very well could be directing the whole thing.

 

[LipsGF4Life]

Seems a few more photos have shown up online, featuring Kermit, Miss Piggy, and others. It's interesting that they are allowed to post photos online but not announce what the project is.

Considering we know Kirk Thatcher is directing, it makes me wonder, would a Muppets person be directing if it was just a guest appearance, even just a performance or sketch, on another person's show? I know that Jim Henson directed the Muppet segment from The Earth Day Special, but otherwise, I don't know of any instances where a short appearance by the Muppets was directed by one of the usual Muppet/Henson people. Then again, I think Kirk Thatcher does direct non-Muppet/Henson projects as well. If it is just a sketch or song on a show not dominated by Muppets, he very well could be directing the whole thing.

ya I saw those! I think I saw those pics on here I think

 

[LipsGF4Life]

I made and found 2 videos showing Lips' support.

One is to show Lips' voice, made by youtuber, Anabel Canas

This one is made by me. A comic and public service announcement.

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I wonder is, if they're using the original Lips in this, had they been using it the whole time since 2009?

When Lips made his return in Christmas at Rockefella Center, I thought it was a new puppet. It looked a bit different from the original (not as good as the old one). Then when he appeared in The Muppets, I noticed he looked a lot more like the original than the rebuilt (I assumed at the time) one from 2009 did, and wondered why they would have rebuilt him again so soon after doing so.

Then I asked about this somewhere on Muppet Central about a year ago, and somebody said that the one in 2009 actually was the original while the 2011 one was a new puppet. With that info I guessed that he looked different in 2009 due to "puppet ageing".

Then again, I assumed that most of the long-unseen obscure characters who appeared in The Muppets were rebuilt. I figured the only ones that were the originals were ones used only in the finale and ones used only in the Gulag scenes in Muppets Most Wanted, since those ones weren't used much. But then again, many of the obscure characters who returned in the last two movies who I assumed were rebuilt - Droop, Nigel, Annie Sue, The Mutations, Afghan Hound, Bobby Benson, Wayne and Wanda, Marvin Suggs - I couldn't really tell a difference between those and the older puppets (well, with Marvin Suggs being a whatnot, he tended to look a little different in almost each appearance during The Muppet Show era). I'm pretty sure that Uncle Deadley was newly rebuilt (since he had a main role), and Thog was definitely rebuilt (aside from there being a big visual difference between the original and the current ones, it was confirmed by a former Henson intern that the original had deteriorated long ago).

Back on the subject of Lips, I must wonder if his arm wires are connected to his elbows instead of his wrists. The only times I've seen him with arm wires are in behind-the-scenes photos (including one of the recent photos). In productions, the wires never show (not even in the era before it was possible to digitally remove arm wires). For a long time I wondered if I had just been seeing things when I saw pictures of Steve using arm wires for Lips and if he was actually a live-hands puppet, since his fingers move when he plays the trumpet, his big sleeves could easily hide the performers arms, and when he's wearing outfits with sleeves that aren't so oversized, it seems like his elbows reach the bottom of the screen. If the rods are attached to his elbows instead of his wrists (and he wouldn't be the only Muppet whose rods are attached to his elbows, Bert had arm wires in his elbows during the first season of Sesame Street), perhaps the large sleeves/having his elbows at the bottom of the screen just blocked those wires, though I'd be surprised if they were deliberately trying to hide them (since for many years they usually didn't try to hide the arm wires of other characters from audience view).

 

[LipsGF4Life]

One thing I wonder is, if they're using the original Lips in this, had they been using it the whole time since 2009?

When Lips made his return in Christmas at Rockefella Center, I thought it was a new puppet. It looked a bit different from the original (not as good as the old one). Then when he appeared in The Muppets, I noticed he looked a lot more like the original than the rebuilt (I assumed at the time) one from 2009 did, and wondered why they would have rebuilt him again so soon after doing so.

Then I asked about this somewhere on Muppet Central about a year ago, and somebody said that the one in 2009 actually was the original while the 2011 one was a new puppet. With that info I guessed that he looked different in 2009 due to "puppet ageing".

Then again, I assumed that most of the long-unseen obscure characters who appeared in The Muppets were rebuilt. I figured the only ones that were the originals were ones used only in the finale and ones used only in the Gulag scenes in Muppets Most Wanted, since those ones weren't used much. But then again, many of the obscure characters who returned in the last two movies who I assumed were rebuilt - Droop, Nigel, Annie Sue, The Mutations, Afghan Hound, Bobby Benson, Wayne and Wanda, Marvin Suggs - I couldn't really tell a difference between those and the older puppets (well, with Marvin Suggs being a whatnot, he tended to look a little different in almost each appearance during The Muppet Show era). I'm pretty sure that Uncle Deadley was newly rebuilt (since he had a main role), and Thog was definitely rebuilt (aside from there being a big visual difference between the original and the current ones, it was confirmed by a former Henson intern that the original had deteriorated long ago).

Back on the subject of Lips, I must wonder if his arm wires are connected to his elbows instead of his wrists. The only times I've seen him with arm wires are in behind-the-scenes photos (including one of the recent photos). In productions, the wires never show (not even in the era before it was possible to digitally remove arm wires). For a long time I wondered if I had just been seeing things when I saw pictures of Steve using arm wires for Lips and if he was actually a live-hands puppet, since his fingers move when he plays the trumpet, his big sleeves could easily hide the performers arms, and when he's wearing outfits with sleeves that aren't so oversized, it seems like his elbows reach the bottom of the screen. If the rods are attached to his elbows instead of his wrists (and he wouldn't be the only Muppet whose rods are attached to his elbows, Bert had arm wires in his elbows during the first season of Sesame Street), perhaps the large sleeves/having his elbows at the bottom of the screen just blocked those wires, though I'd be surprised if they were deliberately trying to hide them (since for many years they usually didn't try to hide the arm wires of other characters from audience view).

Well you may have a point. I compared Lips' mouth and nose from the 80s and today, they look different

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing has hit me previously. Could it be that they wanted to know who built Lips because they needed to rebuild him? Perhaps to ask for what material was used?

I was thinking that the Lips seen in 2011 was new, and Steve Whitmire talked about him getting rebuilt for the new show as if the original was the only Lips puppet (would this mean that, when we saw his legs in "Rockin' Robin" and Muppets Most Wanted, they just added a lower-half to the existing puppet?). And I have thought of the possibility that maybe they did rebuild him then and he wore out/deteriorated/whatever very fast while the original remained for so long (they could have used different-lasting material), but now I'm wondering if they just made some minor adjustments to the puppet. I felt like the hair looked a bit longer, but they could have easily replaced the hair on the puppet (someone mentioned that the nose and mouth on the puppet looked different before 2015, but they could have easily replaced the nose, can't really speak for the mouth).

I watched some of Lips' scenes in Muppets Most Wanted recently, and in looking at the face, I felt it looked a bit like it did in the "Kodachrome" music video. In fact I noticed that in Muppets Most Wanted, while he is seen with the band a lot, he seemed to disappear within the last half hour (he's absent from the wedding, and the finale). Could he have been starting to fall apart then, even if he has made a number of appearances in the time between the movie and the new show?