Jennifer Barnhart's Zoe!

[antsamthompson9]

We finally have audio of Jen's Zoe! It's very, very brief, but it's the best we're gonna get:

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Yeah. It's hard to tell how Jen's Zoe sounds from that clip. From what I hear it's not too bad, but it would be nice to see the show in its entirety and see how much airtime she gets there. Oh, well. Maybe she'll appear more in season 37 along with Billy Backhurst's Ernie.

 

[Drtooth]

Here's the first actual clip.

Ehhhh... I'm not a "wrong sounding Muppets" guy, but Zoe somehow went through puberty. Her voice is much deeper. Eh, she gets the laugh down.

 

[mr3urious]

Zoe sounds like she went through puberty and suffered a bad head cold.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Wow, the puppeteering is spot on, but the voice is just wrong. It sounds way too deep. I don't mind so much that it doesn't sound like Fran's Zoe, I just generally don't like the voice Jen used. She sounds like a forty year old woman.

Still, i'm happy Zoe's getting a street story this season, and it already looks like there's more of a plot then most of the street scenes in season 46. And yes, she did at least get the laugh right. Overall, she did a great job, her voice just needs a little work.

 

[antsamthompson9]

I'm just happy that Zoe is back.

 

[D'Snowth]

Obviously, Jen's Zoe isn't going to sound like Fran's, and that's understandable, because no recast character has ever sounded 100% exactly like the original performer's character. But, as everyone else has been saying, I agree, Zoe just sounds years and years older than she's supposed to be.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

I agree with the other comments here, Zoe does sound like a teenage. I know Jen's very talented and all, but maybe they should have someone else give Zoe a try. I mean look at Ryan's Elmo, he's gotten pretty spot on with the voice, you'd hardly know that it isn't Kevin. With Zoe, we'd know the voice changed even if we didn't know about Fran's retirement. But that's the way it was with Billy's Ernie at first too, so maybe Jen will improve with time. You never know.

 

[D'Snowth]

That's the way it always is with any recast, it takes a while for everybody adjust: it takes the performers a while to adjust to get used to the feel of the character, but find a little bit of the character in themselves to make the characters their own - as I've said before, nobody's done that quite like Marty did with Telly and Snuffy, he quite fantastically breathed new life into two previously depressive, Eeyore-ish characters; and it takes us a while to adjust to the new voices and such, but after time passes, you do get used to it and accept it - I remember how long it took me to adjust to Eric doing Frank's characters and David doing Cookie, but I don't even think about it anymore, and haven't for years now.

Zoe had a unique voice to begin with, mainly because Fran had a unique voice, and all things considered, Zoe was pretty much tailor-made for Fran (so much so they considered naming the character Frannie in honor of her, but she didn't want that). Jen's just starting out with Zoe, so it's hard to judge the performance and voice for now . . . I mean, yes, this is so far one of the more obvious differences we've noticed yet, but surely Jen can make Zoe her own with time.

As for Gladys, I think that can be forgiven - was ever really that major a character to begin with? Even when Richard did her?

 

[Schfifty]

Woah, I did not expect Zoe's voice to sound that deep. She sounds about 10 years older even though her laugh is still there.

It's gonna take time for her to get the voice right, sure, but I'm happy to finally get to see Jennifer's Zoe in action. It's been what, a year now since the announcement was made?