Joey Mazzarino leaving Sesame Street

[dwayne1115]

I have to agree with you on this. If he has been battling for over a year it's got to be something he truly felt it was worth fighting for. I'm almost certain it would have to be with the overall writing of the show. I would think that going down to 30 minutes would Change the format quite a bit. I do wonder who will take over as had writer. Has Sesame ever gone through this many changes in such a short amount of time before?

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I hope Ed Valentine becomes the new head writer,he's got a great resume, plus he loves puppets! http://www.edvalentine.com/writing/

 

[Drtooth]

I have to agree with you on this. If he has been battling for over a year it's got to be something he truly felt it was worth fighting for. I'm almost certain it would have to be with the overall writing of the show. I would think that going down to 30 minutes would Change the format quite a bit. I do wonder who will take over as had writer. Has Sesame ever gone through this many changes in such a short amount of time before?

I think that soon enough we'll have the full reason.

Then again, I give a lot of credit to Joey for being so darn professional and not stating exact reasons and naming names. Any schmuck could leave a show in a huff, blame people mercilessly online or in an interview, and just vent all over the place. Joey kept it classy by saying one slightly peeved thing about the ordeal and moving on.

While I would certainly like to know what went wrong, I'm fine not having it revealed at this time. It will take over a year to see what he's talking about for it to become obvious (that's when season 47 airs on HBO, so add 9 months to that for everyone else, which makes this all the more unnerving with a waiting period), and that's provided it shows up in the show itself.

 

[D'Snowth]

As I said in another thread, I only hope that the speculation that his departure is over taking away Murray's thunder is just that: speculation. As much as Joey's been a key part of both SST and the Classic Muppets for over twenty years, I really hate the idea of it being over something so trivial as that; I mean, Murray showed up in that SNL skit back in the spring, so it's not as if they were getting rid of Murray altogether. No, we don't know what this "heart and soul of the show" Joey's been fighting for is, but I find it hard to believe that he would be so conceited as to think Murray has become the heart and soul of the show -- again, that'd be like if Caroll left years ago because Elmo dethroned Big Bird as the show's unofficial lead Muppet (though Caroll has gone on record admitting that getting used to Elmo's rising popularity was equivilant to an only child getting used to a new baby brother in the family).

 

[Drtooth]

I really don't think Murray being dropped would be a reason either, even if they were planning to slowly drop the block hosting format. I think it just seems like there was a series of fighting the new producers over what the show should be like in a condensed format. I wouldn't say that Joey would've been offended that they didn't want his character around and that was the thing that made him quit so much as his overall supervising stature on the show was being questioned. I wouldn't count phasing Murray out as a reason to leave, but one among a series of many battles going behind the scenes of the show. But the fact that there were battleS means something not good may have been going on vis a vis the new SW higher ups.

Sometimes when you're in one of these kinds of situations, you come at odds with someone over everything, even more trivial things can start to build up. Personally, I'm more worried about the reasons he possibly could have left in a huff and not that he left. At least as it pertains to the show. And considering that won't be apparent until the episodes made without him air, that's an insufferably long wait.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Joey plays Grover in this video

 

[D'Snowth]

I've seen that video before, that was pretty sweet of them.

But in light of the recent news that's just been released regarding the serious scaling back of Muppet characters appearing on the street, I really have a feeling that this is what Joey meant when he said he fought hard for the "heart and soul" for the show; after all, why did those five test pilots fail? Because of a lack of Muppets: test audiences were really only interested in the Ernie and Bert inserts, and before hand, the producers were advised not to mix fantasy and reality, but after the test pilots flopped, the decided to mix fantasy and reality. Big Bird and Oscar were created specifically as Muppets to interact with the humans on the street, and soon more Muppets were to follow. Now they're scaling back on them. I'm almost certain that this is the reason why Joey decided to leave.

 

[dwayne1115]

I've seen that video before, that was pretty sweet of them.

But in light of the recent news that's just been released regarding the serious scaling back of Muppet characters appearing on the street, I really have a feeling that this is what Joey meant when he said he fought hard for the "heart and soul" for the show; after all, why did those five test pilots fail? Because of a lack of Muppets: test audiences were really only interested in the Ernie and Bert inserts, and before hand, the producers were advised not to mix fantasy and reality, but after the test pilots flopped, the decided to mix fantasy and reality. Big Bird and Oscar were created specifically as Muppets to interact with the humans on the street, and soon more Muppets were to follow. Now they're scaling back on them. I'm almost certain that this is the reason why Joey decided to leave.

Which in my mind as a Muppet performer then writer-director He should have quit. Standing up for the Muppets, we need more people doing that!

 

[zucca]

It doesn't even look like they're getting rid of Murray based on the presskit
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/season46/behind-the-scenes/muppet-bios/murray/
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/season46/about-the-show/new-format/new-show-open-and-closing-songs/

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

It doesn't even look like they're getting rid of Murray based on the presskit
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/season46/behind-the-scenes/muppet-bios/murray/
http://www.sesameworkshop.org/season46/about-the-show/new-format/new-show-open-and-closing-songs/

Well this season was filmed while Mazzarino was still there so there's no reason Murray wouldn't still be around.