The Muppets With Andrea Bocelli & David Foster: My Christmas

[Frogpuppeteer]

Did anyone else see this, it was awesome my fam and i saw the whole thing
Kermit and Pepe had my mom cracking up

 

[dwmckim]

I caught it as well. If you missed it though, don't feel too bad as it wasn't spectacular; it was fun but nothing to write home about. Still, since it's a pledge drive special, those who missed it may still want to check their local PBS listings to see if it will (re)air later this week or up til Christmas.

The Muppet segment was just about five minutes. Kermit. Piggy. Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal, Pepe, and some penguins join Andrea on stage and the Muppets ask what they should sing together. Andrea suggests Jingle Bells to which the Muppets enthusiastically agree. The orchestra begins a very legato intro (which causes the Muppets to look around at each other wondering if its the right song). Andrea sings a very slow dramatic version of it til Kermit pipes up that the rest of them feel it should be substantially more uptempo. The Muppets pick up the tempo but Andrea still sings his way slow. Throughout the performance, Piggy is smitten with Bocelli and insists that he's perfect and can do no wrong when the other Muppets want Jingle Bells to be poppier. As Andrea still sings slowly, Piggy sighs that his version is very romantic and the others start agreeing it's not so bad this way.

What stood out for the Muppet Geek part of me was that it seemed that these were all live vocals (Andrea and the Muppets) meaning that three of Eric's characters were onstage at once (and Eric obviously was only puppeteering one) meaning he would have been alternating between voicing the others while two other puppeteers would be lip-syncing to his vocals on the spot.

 

[Kermieuk]

There is a short clip of the performance here. Its at about 44secs into the clip.

The song sounds great on the album.

Chris

 

[Phillip]

The special is not airing here until Sunday December 6. It appears that other markets are showing this at different times as well. I've heard the special will be repeating throughout the month so if you missed it, the special should air again.

 

[Oscarfan]

I liked their appearance, though at the beginning it wasn't all that clear what the problem they had was (to me at least).

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

its on youtube
for those that just want to see the muppet part

 

[ploobis]

Here's just The Muppets spot on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZD0G9Wv2bU&feature=sub

 

[Beauregard]

Haha! Actually, that's the same arrangement as the actual song released, except that the normal song doesn't have any of the cute funny Muppets chatting through it, just the lethargic verses and Muppety choruses.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm glad I found it on Youtube. I'm NO fan of Andrea Bocelli... Andrea Martin, maybe... but not Bocelli.

I'd watch an Andrea Martin Christmas special with the Muppets... hint hint.

I'm agreeing with dw here... it was nice, but nothing spectacular or Earth shattering (as the Bohemian Rhapody was... I'm STILL smiling from that). Very cute, but I ain't buying the CD for it.

Still, it was better than Bocelli's performance on Sesame Street, singing that lullaby to Elmo. That was boring.

 

[dwmckim]

Still, it was better than Bocelli's performance on Sesame Street, singing that lullaby to Elmo. That was boring.

Well lullabyes are SUPPOSED to put people to sleep!

I actually liked his SST appearance and thought it was cute but i was a bit surprised that he actually slightly meandered off key! I guess when you've got such a hugely renowned singer on your show, it's hard to tell him (if anyone noticed via their star-struckness) that they need to do a retake of the recording because he's off.