Elmo and Cookie Monster

[Cookie3001]

Yeah, I believe Rick Lyon puppeteered Grover in most scenes. If Frank's voice was dubbed in for the full special he did an awful lot of improvising with Grover, I thought he only did that when performing a character live. And on unrelated not there is apparently a scene where Kevin is doing Grover and one short line ("yes sir") remains undubbed, I'll have to keep an ear out for that next time I watch it

 

[MuppetSpot]

Yeah, I believe Rick Lyon puppeteered Grover in most scenes. If Frank's voice was dubbed in for the full special he did an awful lot of improvising with Grover, I thought he only did that when performing a character live. And on unrelated not there is apparently a scene where Kevin is doing Grover and one short line ("yes sir") remains undubbed, I'll have to keep an ear out for that next time I watch it

No, Rick Lyon only did Grover when he was a background player in the special. The Muppet wiki has the correct information on the Grover page which reveals that Steve and Kevin did him as well.

 

[Cookie3001]

I should also point out that Cookie was quite vibrant in Elmo in Grouchland. Personally I don't understand why it was Cookie who went down the can to save Elmo and not Grover but that's a debate for another thread. I'm not sure if Frank did this movie but I honestly wouldn't be surprised as nearly every scene Cookie is in you can hear him talking in the background

 

[MuppetSpot]

I should also point out that Cookie was quite vibrant in Elmo in Grouchland. Personally I don't understand why it was Cookie who went down the can to save Elmo and not Grover but that's a debate for another thread. I'm not sure if Frank did this movie but I honestly wouldn't be surprised as nearly every scene Cookie is in you can hear him talking in the background

I don’t know what went down with Elmo in Grouchland or who puppeteer Cookie there.

I know it wasn’t Frank, he only did voices and Bert’s scenes except the first one from what has been rumored.

 

[Cookie3001]

@MuppetSpot I looked on Muppet Wiki and it didn't say anything about Frank not puppeteering in the movie. Usually I would assume that they just made a mistake but he might have given that it was noted on the page for Cinderelmo. It was shot alongside Muppets From Space and I don't know how much puppeteering he did there other than Piggy in only 2 scenes

 

[MuppetSpot]

@MuppetSpot I looked on Muppet Wiki and it didn't say anything about Frank not puppeteering in the movie. Usually I would assume that they just made a mistake but he might have given that it was noted on the page for Cinderelmo. It was shot alongside Muppets From Space and I don't know how much puppeteering he did there other than Piggy in only 2 scenes

I’m getting this information from how the audio quality and my sharp eye with puppetry skills to notice that wasn’t Frank doing his characters. There is a huge difference with recording and live

 

[Oscarfan]

Precisely. It's very obvious when something is dubbed. For EIG, Frank seemed to only be there for the various interjections from Ernie and Bert (which seem to me like they were put in late in the process to help quell kids' fears during uneasy/scary moments).

Also for that, there was a thing they did with Cookie in Grouchland that got cut, so I guess that's why he went there. While they're in jail, they manage to steal the keys and pass them through the cells until Cookie eats them. It doesn't sound like much of a justification for him being there at all, but whatever.

As for CM being in things less than Grover, I guess at they time they felt you could get a little more mileage from Grover in a narrative story like that. With CM, you're pretty much just waiting for him to eat something every time he's onscreen, whereas Grover has a little more leeway in what he can do.

 

[MuppetSpot]

Precisely. It's very obvious when something is dubbed. For EIG, Frank seemed to only be there for the various interjections from Ernie and Bert (which seem to me like they were put in late in the process to help quell kids' fears during uneasy/scary moments).

Also for that, there was a thing they did with Cookie in Grouchland that got cut, so I guess that's why he went there. While they're in jail, they manage to steal the keys and pass them through the cells until Cookie eats them. It doesn't sound like much of a justification for him being there at all, but whatever.

As for CM being in things less than Grover, I guess at they time they felt you could get a little more mileage from Grover in a narrative story like that. With CM, you're pretty much just waiting for him to eat something every time he's onscreen, whereas Grover has a little more leeway in what he can do.

The only other character you could use to eat the keys other than Cookie would be Herry.

You mentioning Grover getting more mileage than Cookie reminds me of in CinderElmo, how Cookie after his post-monster scene, he was written out.

 

[Cookie3001]

Precisely. It's very obvious when something is dubbed. For EIG, Frank seemed to only be there for the various interjections from Ernie and Bert (which seem to me like they were put in late in the process to help quell kids' fears during uneasy/scary moments).

Also for that, there was a thing they did with Cookie in Grouchland that got cut, so I guess that's why he went there. While they're in jail, they manage to steal the keys and pass them through the cells until Cookie eats them. It doesn't sound like much of a justification for him being there at all, but whatever.

As for CM being in things less than Grover, I guess at they time they felt you could get a little more mileage from Grover in a narrative story like that. With CM, you're pretty much just waiting for him to eat something every time he's onscreen, whereas Grover has a little more leeway in what he can do.

You're absolutely right about that. Cookie wasn't used as much as most other characters in any new material in the 90's due to Frank's busy schedule directing movies and stuff. It wasn't really until David started doing Cookie and they used him more often, the writers were able to expand his character a lot more. Grover definitely had a lot more character to him giving the writers more to work with, and I can imagine what it would have been like if it were Grover instead of Cookie going into the can to save Elmo. They would probably have him insist constantly that he will be the one to save Elmo then fail miserably when he tries, then in the end he would probably take credit for saving Elmo

Also on that note another reason might be Frank making the decision which character he performs the most and I believe he mentioned in a Toughpigs interview that Grover was his favorite character to perform

 

[MuppetSpot]

I think I remember somewhere that Grover was the favorite of the writers like Joey. I could understand why they got a lot more leeway out of him say someone like Bert or even Cookie.