Anticipating the TP Jerry Nelson interview!

[Beauregard]

ToughPigs just posted an announcement that they have an exclusive interview with Jerry Nelson being posted this week! I cannot WAIT to read it!

 

[redBoobergurl]

I just saw that - how awesome! Jerry is so wonderful and good to his fans!

 

[minor muppetz]

Good so far, though it looks a lot like the Muppet Central interview.

I noticed that many interviews with the performers ask about their beginnings with the Muppets. Even the kinds run by people whom I'd expect to be hardcore enough to know this kind of information (Muppet Central, The MuppetCast, Tough Pigs). I wonder if these interviewers actually don't know, or if they are basically obligated to ask so people who don't know would know.

It's a shame that we weren't informed or given the opportunity to post questions to ask. I'd like to know some things about Sam the Robot, his invovlement in Follow That Bird (I've read that he just performed voices for the majority of the movie), and what it was like when Statler and Waldorf were recast in the early 1990s (I don't think any of the official people invovled have discussed what that was like or why it was decided to recast them so soon after their performers death, while more important characters weren't recast for years).

 

[dwayne1115]

You know that is kind of what gets me with these interviews. There are countless interviews with Muppeters, and they ask all the same questions. Ask some new questions or let me do it, Have I not proved myself eough as a good Muppet Intervewier?

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, part two is now online, and while the first part looked a lot like the Muppet Central interview from around 10 years ago, this part focuses on many of his characters, though not Statler or any of his Sesame Street characters.

 

[dwmckim]

A good interview takes into account the whole of the readership. Sure, a lot of people may know some of those basics but a large number of people will be hearing such things for the first time, so you get all the bases covered. Some of those questions may be retreads but the majority of the questions will cover new areas. (Keep in mind it's a three part interview so there's more to come.)

And people don't always answer the same question the same way; they may include different details, anecdotes and the like - and indeed in this case, Jerry went into more detail than what's tended to be his "standard answer".

Now if the same source is interviewing the same subject at a later date, then yeah - it's bad form to repeat questions unless it's in the form of a follow-up. So if this was TP's first interview w/ Jerry and they asked those things the original time, that would be sloppy. But this is his TP debut as an interview subject so allow them to paint the complete picture.

 

[dwayne1115]

Ok i read over the interveiw and it was pretty good. I'm glad Jerry told Disney to go with Matt Volge I think if anyone could do Jerry's Muppets it would be him.

going thorugh a list of his Muppets was ok, but I think it could have been done a little bit different.

 

[minor muppetz]

It was said that the next part will discuss Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live. I hope this one includes another round of character discussions (only from Sesame Street... I'd like for him to talk about more than The Count and maybe Herry Monster and Snuffy).

That fact about Sweetums in The Frog Prince was interesting, revealing that since it was made in canada they were required to have a certain amount of canadian performers... I wodner if that's the case for The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, which would explain why most of the voices weren't from Muppet performers.

 

[Beauregard]

Oh that was a beautiful interview...So wonderful to read and hear and...aww...I really do with Jerry the absolute best in everything he does ever. What a gracious and awesome guy.

 

[minor muppetz]

Part 3 has been posted. I must say, I really liked parts 2 and 3 better. I believe that there's only a few recurring characters not discussed. I think the only really important characters not brought up are Featherstone and Simon Soundman. I also wish that he would have talked about Beard from The Jim Henson Hour (the fact that a picture of Beard is included next to the section on JHH doesn't count).

It is interesting what he said when comparing Brian Henson's directing to Jim and Frank's... I thought Jim Henson was a bit playful as well.

It's also interesting how most sources just say that he gave up on performing Snuffy because the role hurt his back too much, yet here he only says that it was suggested because he was busy with tms, while Snuffy was an important character on the street... I wonder if maybe he had mentioned the role hurting his back, and the producers or somebody deciding to have another performer take over when The Muppet Show was in production.