New and very interesting post from Steve Whitmire

[Grumpo]

I think any kind of salient point he thought to make is negated by making the cover photo of his post a collage of comments about Matt. What an insanely tacky thing to do as a grown adult, for one thing, but also to do in regards to someone you worked with for almost two decades (and longer than Steve worked with Jim, mind you).

Yes, looking at it closely, lot of the people cited in the collage are in no way diplomats intent on civil discussion (some are, though), and are prone to make uncomplimentary remarks targeted at Matt -- which very much clashes with the post itself. The purpose was likely to show that such opinions exist en masse, before going into reasons of what's causing this -- not to support or associate himself with content of the remarks. I agree, overall they make the collage look pretty unpleasant, but it may serve to show that such unpleasantness exists.

Should we assume that means that Steve is indeed supporting and instigating this kind of behavior to target Matt, and ignore the rest of his post? Having been reading Steve's posts for years, i do not suppose he has it in him, looks rather like bad design decision to me. But i guess everyone decides for himself =(

Sorry, but Steve isn't this naive. He could have dropped this blog at any point in the last 10 years. ...
Steve saying "I'm just responding to the fans" is manipulative. It's not his fault. He only did it because the fans asked him too. He doesn't just go after Disney's handling of the Muppets or the writers. He goes after the performance which directly connects to Matt himself...
He can hate Disney, but he should be supportive of Matt.

As for the post itself, citing fans as the reason may not be so implausible. It seems very likely that on the eve of announced Special he must have received lots of fan mail from all sorts of people thinking it's one heck of a time to ask him "hey what you think of the new Kermit", and that reached some boiling point and made him write the whole thing.

Frank was acting in pretty much the same way, if you recall. When asked about Muppets 2015, he replied with something to effect of 'the guys are my brothers but i did not recognize the Muppets". The difference here is, Frank was asked by an interviewer, and Steve was triggered by fans. Both of them acted weirdly by today's standards -- when asked for their opinion they actually replied with what they really think. Must be that generational thing they have in common, trying to keep the Muppets authentic to what they did with Jim. =)

Was it a good time to say these things? I think not, in both cases they could stay quiet or soften their words -- even though in both cases i found that i share their opinion. I have to admit that they have earned the right to express their views, though.

Did it hurt the Muppets? Hardly. Unless it hits the big news, only several hundred, at most several thousand fans pay attention to this stuff. But the fate of Muppets is actually decided by ratings -- that's several million average Joes with TV remotes in their hand. They do not care about performers, they would have hard time answering who Beauregard is, but they can tell instead if they are having fun or not, and work their remotes. Ordinarily, only big news catch their attention -- and that can affect the ratings. Steve's departure was a big hit indeed, his further posts, nope.

Do i believe old narrative about "evil whitmore was the scourge of the muppet world, the skies are clearer with him gone"? Nope, mainly because it is mostly coming from several unhappy kermit wannabes affected by 'One Muppet one voice', and the skies do not look any different for these guys in 10 years after Steve left. If i had to choose between conspiracy theories, the "that's what you get if you actually hit the big news" seems more plausible to me (not a big fan of conspiracy theories, so i believe none of these, really.)

Do i believe new narrative that "crazy steve wants to sink his mentor's ship"? No more than "crazy frank" doing the same thing in 2015. For a simple reason that everybody knows it won't work. Can it help Steve or Frank return to Muppets? Nah, that would take a miracle. Without a miracle, I don't think any of them will even try now. Would any of them try to hurt their ex-colleagues because of that, or just for fun? Again, even if they wanted to (which i doubt) everybody knows it is useless. More likely, they are just doing that generational thing -- expressing honest, albeit admittedly critical, opinions and trying to steer the Muppets back on course. Could actually help, and have someone who's making the decisions take note and come up with some sort of remedy to make future projects better? I have no way of telling.

Does Steve actually hate Matt? Not being Steve i can speak for myself only, not sure if this can be relevant or not -- as for myself, i adore Matt for Sgt Floyd and other Jerry's characters -- though i still feel that his Kermit is a different frog (but is getting better in Special!). At that, i have no ill feelings towards Matt whatsoever -- i would be honored to shake his hand, and i wish him all the success mastering that special frog.

Would it be better to have Steve offer more support and help Matt with Kermit? Would it be better for Matt to call on Steve with a visit of friendship and advice? It would be my dream come true. To have the all Muppet guys, ex and current remain one big close team! Unfortunately, all people who can shed light on what relations they actually have are either bound by NDA and/or want to keep their lives private, both of which i completely understand. I guess this will remain one of those impossible dreams.


P.S. I really don't want to go all duke on this, or offend any of the people i've been reading for years.
My point was, and is, that there is more than one way of looking at things, and that Steve i know by his work and by his posts over the years is totally different from the evil monster the hype paints him to be.
I guess by now everybody had made their mind about the whole affair, and it makes no sense to argue further. Let's just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

 

[MWoO]

As for the post itself, citing fans as the reason may not be so implausible. It seems very likely that on the eve of announced Special he must have received lots of fan mail from all sorts of people thinking it's one heck of a time to ask him "hey what you think of the new Kermit", and that reached some boiling point and made him write the whole thing.

That's my point, though. The "fans" didn't make Steve do anything. People have been talking about "wrong sounding Kermit" for some time now. Steve chose to write this post and go after Matt's performance during the hype of a new Muppet Shiw special when everyone was searching for Muppets. He wasn't forced to. No one made him. He made a choice. He made a choice with his timing and his words. He could have easily waited to see the special and then comment on it. He could have said his beef was with Disney, not Matt, and that people should make up their own mind about his performance.

Steve's choice to comment like this was just unprofessional.