Any theories on why certain characters didn't make the cut?

[dwmckim]

Guess what.... i have a very special secret. You may find it shocking so you may want to be sure you're sitting down before you read further...

You're never going to see every Muppet that ever existed all in the same movie. There's just too many. Even that final grand finale shot during Muppet Movie's closing number...not all the Muppets that were existence at that time were present and accounted for.

But you know something else? Muppet fans like you and me got a huge present with the last film with lots of minor characters we never thought we'd see again rebuilt and showing up. And the film was a success! And you know what happens when people go and see/buy Muppet stuff? They make more Muppet stuff and there's a good chance that some of those Muppets you wanted to see who didn't make the last film's cut may make their way into this one.

 

[galagr]

Guess what.... i have a very special secret. You may find it shocking so you may want to be sure you're sitting down before you read further...

You're never going to see every Muppet that ever existed all in the same movie. There's just too many. Even that final grand finale shot during Muppet Movie's closing number...not all the Muppets that were existence at that time were present and accounted for.

But you know something else? Muppet fans like you and me got a huge present with the last film with lots of minor characters we never thought we'd see again rebuilt and showing up. And the film was a success! And you know what happens when people go and see/buy Muppet stuff? They make more Muppet stuff and there's a good chance that some of those Muppets you wanted to see who didn't make the last film's cut may make their way into this one.

ok, I think that just about wraps this up, thank you all for giving me positive insight.
I somehow feel for even creating this thread in the first place

 

[Muppetboy09]

I read that they actually lost the Marvin Suggs puppets, and had to start from scratch for the movie. And I was too concerned about Timmy. It seems that there is such a big gap on the left side of the screen without Timmy in the opening number

 

[galagr]

I read that they actually lost the Marvin Suggs puppets, and had to start from scratch for the movie. And I was too concerned about Timmy. It seems that there is such a big gap on the left side of the screen without Timmy in the opening number

They LOST the marvin suggs puppets? That's actually kind of funny if you think about it from the muppaphones point of veiw.
I, too was concerned when Timmy did not appear in the arches. But I figured that maybe in the next movie they'd bring him back.

 

[Drtooth]

But you know something else? Muppet fans like you and me got a huge present with the last film with lots of minor characters we never thought we'd see again rebuilt and showing up. And the film was a success! And you know what happens when people go and see/buy Muppet stuff? They make more Muppet stuff and there's a good chance that some of those Muppets you wanted to see who didn't make the last film's cut may make their way into this one.

I don't really understand why everyone's sweating the lack of presence of Miss Mousy and Mildred Huxteter when we had Link do a musical number and Wayne and Wanda making out. Some of us were just glad Rowlf got a couple lines that were more than 2 words long, and the fact Scooter had a role.

I can look past empty arches filled by characters who would have had to have been rebuilt, and the lack of new characters, and ones that are still hereto not recast because we've basically got back everyone who was missing from MCC onwards. And some of the characters we've seen onscreen have never had much of a role before.

Still, next go around, I hope we'll see Rizzo, more Pepe, and Robin. There just wasn't any room in the script for those guys. And a LOT was cut out, lest we forget.

 

[Duke Remington]

I agree that it was probably because they already spent a fortune on rebuilding Uncle Deadly, Thog, the Mutations, Wayne & Wanda, Behemoth, Beautiful Day Monster and the others.

Thus, they most likely didn't have enough money in the budgets to rebuild Boppity, Gloat, Lenny the Lizard, Baskerville, George, Midlred, Hilda, etc. I, too, am hoping that those folks will pop up in the next movie.

Let's hope that Nick Stoller and James Bobin are reading all this, because they were already very wise to bring back all the long-lost characters that they did revive in the new film and would like them to keep up the good work.

 

[Hubert]

You're never going to see every Muppet that ever existed all in the same movie. There's just too many. Even that final grand finale shot during Muppet Movie's closing number...not all the Muppets that were existence at that time were present and accounted for.

You're right. They weren't all present and accounted for. Fritz was missing.

ok, I think that just about wraps this up, thank you all for giving me positive insight.
I somehow feel for even creating this thread in the first place

Don't feel for creating this thread! It was a good idea for one.

 

[Slackbot]

You're right. They weren't all present and accounted for. Fritz was missing.

Linoleum!

 

[Hubert]

Linoleum!

All present and accounted for, except for Fritz!

 

[minor muppetz]

I can't believe one of the choices was "they found some of them unneccessary to the plot line". You could say that about any of the characters who just show up in the background without lines, in the ending crowd scene and the telelthon opening.

I thought I read a statement from either Bobin, Segel, or Stoller saying that the movie would have "every Muppet you can think of". I can't remember which of the thousands of articles/interviews (and I am sort of exaggerating on the thousands part, but wouldn't be surprised if I am right about there being thousands of articles) it was, but if I am right about what I thought I read, then it comes off as a false alarm. Either that, or they underestimated how many characters we could think of, or they actually couldn't think of many. They do say something in the commentary along the lines of the online fans being more knowledgable, but some things have me puzzled. We know they're big fans of the original trilogy, so they should have been aware of Doglion (for taking that seat), Pops, the Jugband, Gaffer (perhaps... I always felt his little pressence in the Happiness Hotel number was memorable), and all the original characters in The Muppets Take Manhattan (though I don't really care that Beth Bear didn't appear). They recreated the opening, rebuilt most of the large monsters from the opening, must have known who went there, so they must have been aware that people would notice Timmy missing.

I'll have to see if I can find their statement that every Muppet we could think of would be in it. But I think if I didn't see that statement then it'd be more acceptable that a lot of characters didn't appear. I'm not really bummed that we didn't get any characters who only appeared once on the show. On a similar note I've seen official things from The Jim Henson Company that made the claim that every Muppet appeared at the end of The Muppet Movie, but I know that none of the Sam and Friends/early productions characters appeared (Earl Kress confirmed this in his thread about the making of that scene), it's obvious Sweetums wasn't there (because he caught up after the film ended), and pretty much every big character is so big it'd be hard to miss them, whether we're looking for them or not (I am surprised I didn't notice Doglion in the opening scene from TMM until 1998).