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Lately I've been wondering: Could Henson have decided to drop Lips during production of The Great Muppet Caper? I hope I worded that right.
Lips appears throughout The Great Muppet Caper, as part of the main group, but there are quite a few group scenes where he's absent:
In addition to those, Lips seems to appear and disapear when the Muppets go to the mallery gallery. He's there when they enter, goes past the gate, is up on the roof when the Muppets first get on the roof... And then he's not seen again until after Miss Piggy crashes her motorcycle through a window. Of course in this case I imagine that the Mallery Gallery sequence was shot over multiple nights. Maybe they just forgot to send Lips on some of those nights.
Of course Lips does appear as part of The Electric Mayhem in all musical performances by the band. Given that he was created just to give Steve Whitmire a member, I wonder if Henson or the writers thought much about developing his personality. But I can't help but wonder if they put him in the movie because he was a newer character and part of the band, and then they decided during the movie that he wasn't neccessary.
But there is a bit more for me to say on the subject. Recently the Jim Henson's Red Book site had an entry on the end credits sequence, showing some production material. While Lips did appear in that sequence, I couldn't tell if he was in the storyboards shown (some characters were drawn really small). But for that sequence when considering options on how the Muppets would be thrown out of the plane (the last thing shot for the movie), two considerations were having people dressed as Muppets and dummies built to look like characters. There was a note listing what characters to make costumes of and what characters to make as dummies. A list was made for pretty much everybody in that scene, except for Lips (and Sam... and I think Lew Zealand).
Also, Lips seems to be absent from most promotions for the movie. Of course most of the promotion focused on just Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo. But Lips seems to be absent from any promotional material showing the Happiness Hotel bus. The McDonald's glass that showed that bus included everybody in the main group except for Lips and Lew Zealand (Sam the Eagle was also on that glass, though he was never on the bus).
With the exception of the I Love Liberty special, Lips was pretty much absent from the Muppets for a few years following the movie. I don't think he was in The Muppets Go to the Movies (I would expect him to be in the orchestra at the very end, but we see several characters standing in front of the orchestra, in a way that it blocks the orhcestra, excluding Animal and maybe Nigel... But Floyd is among those standing ahead of the orchestra), and he definately wasn't in The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show or Rocky Mountain Holiday, though it seems like during the early 1980s they weren't including all of the original five in Muppet productions; Dr. Teeth wasn't in any of those producitons, either. When The Muppets Take Manhattan came out the band was present, without Lips (who was only there for the wedding, and not sitting with The Electric Mayhem). But then for the remainder of the decade they seemed to care enough to put him with the band whenever The Electric Mayhem appeared.
Lips appears throughout The Great Muppet Caper, as part of the main group, but there are quite a few group scenes where he's absent:
- The bicycle scene. Of course Bunsen, Beaker, Rowlf, and Lew Zealand are also absent from that scene, but the rest of The Electric Mayhem is there.
- The two scenes with the Muppets preparing to stop the jewell thieves. Though I noticed that Rizzo was also absent during the scene where Gonzo tells the gang about the jewell thieves plans to steal the baseball diamond.
In addition to those, Lips seems to appear and disapear when the Muppets go to the mallery gallery. He's there when they enter, goes past the gate, is up on the roof when the Muppets first get on the roof... And then he's not seen again until after Miss Piggy crashes her motorcycle through a window. Of course in this case I imagine that the Mallery Gallery sequence was shot over multiple nights. Maybe they just forgot to send Lips on some of those nights.
Of course Lips does appear as part of The Electric Mayhem in all musical performances by the band. Given that he was created just to give Steve Whitmire a member, I wonder if Henson or the writers thought much about developing his personality. But I can't help but wonder if they put him in the movie because he was a newer character and part of the band, and then they decided during the movie that he wasn't neccessary.
But there is a bit more for me to say on the subject. Recently the Jim Henson's Red Book site had an entry on the end credits sequence, showing some production material. While Lips did appear in that sequence, I couldn't tell if he was in the storyboards shown (some characters were drawn really small). But for that sequence when considering options on how the Muppets would be thrown out of the plane (the last thing shot for the movie), two considerations were having people dressed as Muppets and dummies built to look like characters. There was a note listing what characters to make costumes of and what characters to make as dummies. A list was made for pretty much everybody in that scene, except for Lips (and Sam... and I think Lew Zealand).
Also, Lips seems to be absent from most promotions for the movie. Of course most of the promotion focused on just Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo. But Lips seems to be absent from any promotional material showing the Happiness Hotel bus. The McDonald's glass that showed that bus included everybody in the main group except for Lips and Lew Zealand (Sam the Eagle was also on that glass, though he was never on the bus).
With the exception of the I Love Liberty special, Lips was pretty much absent from the Muppets for a few years following the movie. I don't think he was in The Muppets Go to the Movies (I would expect him to be in the orchestra at the very end, but we see several characters standing in front of the orchestra, in a way that it blocks the orhcestra, excluding Animal and maybe Nigel... But Floyd is among those standing ahead of the orchestra), and he definately wasn't in The Fantastic Miss Piggy Show or Rocky Mountain Holiday, though it seems like during the early 1980s they weren't including all of the original five in Muppet productions; Dr. Teeth wasn't in any of those producitons, either. When The Muppets Take Manhattan came out the band was present, without Lips (who was only there for the wedding, and not sitting with The Electric Mayhem). But then for the remainder of the decade they seemed to care enough to put him with the band whenever The Electric Mayhem appeared.
