It seems that Frank Oz has been kicked out of the modern day Muppet projects…

[mbmfrog]

According to this deadline article written yesterday, it seems that Frank Oz, Jim Henson’s co-partner and friend, has been kicked out of the modern day Muppets projects and that includes Sesame Street apparently which surprised me as I would have thought that he would be involved with 50th anniversary of the series he helped out on….

https://deadline.com/2021/08/frank-oz-muppets-disney-doest-want-him-1234824670/

 

[D'Snowth]

It also contradicts what he's been saying for a few years now that the reason they don't ask for him anymore is because they can't afford him, so I really don't know what to believe.

On another note, there are rumors that this is also the real reason why Steve Whitmire was let go from SS: because they couldn't afford to pay what he wanted as a salary.

 

[datman24]

According to this deadline article written yesterday, it seems that Frank Oz, Jim Henson’s co-partner and friend, has been kicked out of the modern day Muppets projects and that includes Sesame Street apparently which surprised me as I would have thought that he would be involved with 50th anniversary of the series he helped out on….

https://deadline.com/2021/08/frank-oz-muppets-disney-doest-want-him-1234824670/

I don't think that this implies that he was "kicked out" per say. Disney just has no justification to bring him on board for any modern-day Muppet projects. Also, it might be because he's too expensive to hire, compared to the other Muppet crew members.

 

[Grumpo]

The original TheGuardian article they quote is well worth reading on its own.
To me it's not as much a "Disney shocker" as the headlines seem to make it sound. Basically, Frank says pretty much the same things he always does when asked about modern Muppets, in addition to tidbits like:

I ask if it was strange for Oz’s four children, all now in their early 30s and late 20s, that Yoda and Fozzie was their father.

“No, because they only liked Power Rangers,” he smiles.

As for Frank's work with Muppets, the most shocking thing was to realize just how close The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made! came to production back in 2009, with his full involvement, before Disney had a change of head and change of heart.

 

[rexcrk]

I always take articles like this with a grain of salt because who knows what’s actually true or not. Not that I would expect Frank to lie, but you never know.

That said, if *I* were in charge, I’d be begging for Frank Oz’s input on anything Muppet-related lol.

 

[D'Snowth]

Again, this brings us to the problem that other veteran Muppet Performers have been addressing, in that Disney seems hesitant and reluctant to allow any of their input to be heard or taken into consideration, and instead, just seem to go with whatever half-brained idea they can pull out of a hat - whether it's in the Muppet spirit or not - and as such, we end up with failed projects, like the ABC show that tried way too hard to be like other mainstream "sitcoms" out there to make the Muppets feel more mainstream so they would appear to mainstream audiences, which resulted in what was basically THE BIG MODERN MUPPET BANG OFFICE FAMILY THEORY.

This is also, according to his side of the story, what Steve Whitmire kept fighting for: preserving the Muppets' integrity, rather than continually just go with whatever flow Disney has in mind, since it clearly wasn't doing much good for the Muppets anyway . . . and, I mean, if a number of the veteran performers keep saying this, it must hold some merit, don't you think? It's also possible that all of that nitpicking is what got Steve into trouble, because, unfortunately, that's how life often is: if you "step out of line" and dare to challenge the powers that be, they can show you the door and not think twice about it.

 

[minor muppetz]

Yeah, I didn’t think the headline was really that bad like some fans are saying on Facebook. One fan said that they want nothing to do with him, I said it seems they just don’t invite him back (and he’s mentioned being too expensive and demanding), I was told that’s basically what not being invited back implies, I am at a loss on if that’s really the case here.

I saw him pretty much confirm this on his blog. He said that after the Disney deal, when Sesame Workshop’s finances started getting low, he’s show up for Sesame Street whenever he happened to be doing something else in New York, he did whatever it took to stay but eventually got to a point where he couldn’t without violating union rules

 

[D'Snowth]

I saw him pretty much confirm this on his blog. He said that after the Disney deal, when Sesame Workshop’s finances started getting low, he’s show up for Sesame Street whenever he happened to be doing something else in New York, he did whatever it took to stay but eventually got to a point where he couldn’t without violating union rules

He also said he started dedicating one day a year to SS "just for fun," and it seems like that's whenever he would do those parodies (Mad Men, Birdwalk Empire, Upside Downtown Abbey, etc.) since he had pretty much passed the torch onto Eric Jacobson and David Rudman as far as Bert, Grover, and Cookie Monster are concerned.

But as far as SW's finances are concerned, some are saying this was the real reason Steve was let go from SS: he apparently wanted more than they could afford to pay him as far as a salary is concerned (some say he demanded more than what's considered a typical Muppet Performer's salary since, being Kermit, he felt he was entitled to more), so they let him go.

 

[Oscarfan]

I think the fact that Steve lived in another time zone didn't help much either.

He was also coming in for awhile to do stuff that wasn't even being shown on the domestic show.

 

[minor muppetz]

He also said he started dedicating one day a year to SS "just for fun," and it seems like that's whenever he would do those parodies (Mad Men, Birdwalk Empire, Upside Downtown Abbey, etc.) since he had pretty much passed the torch onto Eric Jacobson and David Rudman as far as Bert, Grover, and Cookie Monster are concerned.

The part I quoted was about Steve, not Frank.