Chapter 82: Breaking Ground
“Look—I don’t know. I’ve told you everything I know and that’s nothing,” Scooter snapped. “All I can tell you is that Kermit asked me to try to get everybody together to watch Live with Regis and Kelly today.” He stood awkwardly in front of the video screen that had been set up on the soundstage.
“Isn’t is a little early for publicity for the movie?” asked Rowlf. Unlike some of the others, he was not involved the filming of Fozzie’s Angel and had only come at Scooter’s specific request.
“Yes,” Scooter gritted. “It’s too early for that.”
“Then what could it be?”
“And where’s Piggy? Did anybody tell her?”
“Duh—she lives with Kermit. I think she’d know where he is and what he’s up to.”
“Where is Kermit?” asked Rizzo.
“Yeah—where is the little green tyrant?”
Several heads turned and gave Gonzo a nasty look. “Joking,” he said. “Sheesh—tough room.”
“Kermit’s not a tyrant,” Fozzie said earnestly. “He just likes everything to go the way it’s supposed to go.”
“I was joking,” Gonzo bristled. “I know he’s not like that. I’ve been friends with him forever.”
“Well, I’ve been friends with him longer,” said Fozzie pugnaciously.
“Hey—chill, everybody. Let the redhead speak or he’s gonna pop a vein or something,” insisted Clifford. Scooter gave him a sour look.
“Thanks Clifford—I think,” he muttered. “Look—can everybody just…pipe down for a minute.” To his grateful surprise, everyone complied. Even Animal heeled obediently in the aisle next to Floyd. “Um, I don’t know anything,” Scooter said. “But Kermit said that he and Piggy and Marty were going to be on the show today.”
“They’re in New York? But what about filming today? We supposed to—“
“They aren’t in New York—I know that,” Scooter said. “Nobody asked me to get tickets.”
“Marty could have gotten them.”
“Maybe they drove.”
“They aren’t in New York!” Scooter cried, completely exasperated.
“Geez—you don’t have to shout,” someone muttered.
Not for the first time (and certainly not for the last), Scooter understood the things that could push Kermit into arm-waving hysteria. He pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting a massive headache. Eventually, the sight of Scooter looking more miserable than hysterical got everyone quieted down.
“Apparently Piggy’s going to make an announcement this morning,” Scooter said quietly.
“About the film?”
“You mean this film or the next film?”
“There’s always a next film.”
“Oh, geez. And I thought they weren’t having kids!” someone muttered.
“Is this about them or about us?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” someone bristled.
“Hey—no blood, no foul. I’m just saying—“
“Yeah, you’re always saying—“
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist! It’s not like—“
“If we could just—“
But the intro music was coming on, and Scooter gave up trying to talk in favor of simply turning up the volume. He thought about sitting but found he was to full of adrenaline to light, so he paced restlessly behind the crowd while Regis and Kelly traded early-morning banter and talked about the upcoming show.
“But before we go on—Kelly and I are very excited to be the ones to, uh, bring you some news about one—“
“About a couple of your favorite performers—Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog!” Kelly interposed smoothly.
The studio audience went wild, cheering and clapping. They heard “Ker! Mit! Ker! Mit!” from part of the studio audience and “Pig! Gy! Pig! Gy!”
“That’s right folks,” Regis said, grinning broadly. “The famous frog and his gorgeous wife have an important announcement—and you get to hear it first!”
There was an uncomfortable stir through the little crowd sitting or standing or pacing on the soundstage. This was…this was different. Kermit hadn’t told them first, and a ripple of fear and excitement and uncertainly ran through them like an electric current. Fozzie looked stunned. Scooter looked like he was in pain. One of their make-up ladies burst into tears and others tried to comfort her, but it was all done in deadly silence. They watched the screen.
Kelly turned to Regis and smiled, showing perfect teeth in a perfect smile. Her perfectly-plucked eyes wrinkled in consternation. “But they aren’t actually with us here in the studio, are they?”
“No, Kelly, that’s right. You know they’re finishing up filming for their latest film—Fozzie’s Angels.” He stopped, expertly predicting the audience reaction. They cheered and clapped again and added “Foz! Zie! Foz! Zie!” to their chanting.
Watching the screen, Fozzie put his hands to his mouth, then his flushed cheeks, not certain what his reaction should be.
“Wow! Listen to that, willya?” Regis beamed.
“I know, Regis—the audience is really excited about the upcoming movie.”
“So—so is this announcement about the movie, Kelly? What do you think they’re going to tell us?”
Wish I knew, Scooter thought fervently. He had stopped pacing and was now staring fixedly at the screen.
“Well, since the movie hasn’t wrapped yet, they’re going to join us now through a live video feed.” She looked at the screen that had appeared beside them on the stage, then off-stage. “Do you have them? Have you got—oh! There you are! Hello Kermit! Hello Miss Piggy! We’re so glad to have you on the show today!”
The sight of Kermit and Piggy sitting cozily on a couch looking calm and collected did a lot to ease the tension on the soundstage.
“They look okay,” said Fozzie. “I wonder if—“
“Shhh!”
“But I was just—“
“SHHHHHHH!”
“Stop shhhhing—you’re just making it louder!”
“Well, stop talking! Shh already!”
“Shhhhh!”
Dr. Teeth let out a long, piercing whistle and everybody who could grabbed their ears, but silence reigned once again. Kermit was talking when they quieted.
“—nice of you to let us come on the show on such short notice,” Kermit was saying, nodding and smiling. He was dressed as usual, which is to say, not at all. Piggy was decked out in her usual, chic and smart in a turquoise silk dress. If she was wearing hose, they were very sheer, and her feet were stylish in a sculpted pair of stiletto heels.
“Well, we’re just delighted to have you, Kermit. Miss Piggy, you are looking stunning as usual,” Regis said. Piggy preened and laughed, but did not protest.
“Vous are too kind, Regis,” she said demurely, then batted her lashes for the crowd. When they responded as expected, with whoops and cheers and clapping, she bit her lip and looked at Kermit coyly for a moment, then blew a few kisses from her gloved hand. “Kissy, kissy!” she cried. “Thank you so much!”
At last, the crowd on screen settled down.
“So I understand you two are here to make a very exciting announcement,” said Regis. He turned to Kelly. “Do you know what it’s going to be?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I don’t have a clue, Regis. Do you know?”
“No—I don’t know,” said Regis. “It’s a complete surprise.”
“Then shut up and let them tell us!” shouted Scooter in annoyance. Though several pairs of eyes widened in surprise, nobody shushed him.
As though he could hear Scooter’s impassioned plea through the screen, Kermit turned and looked at Piggy. It was a great look, full of playfulness and affection. The audience loved it. Rowlf noted they were holding hands.
“Well, we do have an announcement,” Kermit said, “but this is really Piggy’s big news, so I’m going to let her tell you. Sweetheart? I mean, um, Miss Piggy?”
Piggy smiled at Kermit, then looked out of the screen at the audience. “Um, well, I just wanted you, Regis and you, Kelly to be among the very first to know that I have accepted a starring role on Broadway revival of Grease, playing Rizzo. Um hum—Betty Rizzo.”
The audience burst into applause.
“Oh my goodness!” cried Kelly. “Oh! Oh—how exciting! That is just wonderful! Isn’t that great, Regis!” The audience response rose in pitch until it was just a solid roar, and Kermit leaned over and whispered something in Piggy’s ear. She giggled, then proffered her blushing cheek for a little smooch. The crowd was chanting wildly.
“That’s just terrific, Miss Piggy! Wow—you’re going to be starring in Grease.” He looked out at the audience. “That seems like a natural choice—don’t you think? Miss Piggy? Grease?”
The crowd thundered their approval, but eventually the roar receded and they could go on with the interview.
“Well, oh my, Kermit, that is some surprising news. What do you think about your wife going to star on Broadway?”
“Oh, it’s great,” said Kermit firmly, nodding. “Nobody deserves this role more than my wife, um, Miss Piggy. She’s…she’s talented, and beautiful and, um, did I say talented? She’s very talented.”
It went on like that for the next several minutes, everyone making nice, Kermit and Piggy presenting a very solid, very united front. Watching the video shoot from off-camera, Marty couldn’t help but be pleased. One thing you could always count on with these two kids—put ‘em in front of the camera together and stuff started to happen.
“So—so what about you, Kermit?” Kelly asked finally. “I mean, this is Piggy’s big news, but what about—what you you going to be doing while she starring on Broadway.”
“Oh, well, he he, it’s not, well, it’s not as interesting as that,” he said, but Piggy jumped right in.
“But it’s very important. Mon Capitan is going to be doing post-production on our movie that is about to wrap.”
“Piggy,” said Kermit, blushing a little with embarrassment.
“What?” Piggy whispered. “You are! And it is important.”
“Um, not that,” Kermit muttered. “I know it’s important, it’s just that, um….”
“What? What…did I do?” She looked at him, quizzical and concerned.
“You, um, you called me, you know, that pet name and we, um, we weren’t going to use that in public,” Kermit muttered sheepishly. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the crowd heard every word of it, and they ate it up, loving his embarrassed pleasure and that way Piggy cooed and apologized to him.
“Gosh, they’re good,” said Scooter. On one hand, he was happy about the announcement, and that the announcement itself was going well. That was good; it was hard not to be impressed by Piggy’s star power. On the other hand, Scooter knew that, while his Boss would love this opportunity for Piggy to shine, it would come at a great personal cost to Kermit himself. Now that he knew what it was like to come home to a happy home, he could appreciate how hard this must be for Kermit to celebrate. On the other hand…he was out of hands. While he could still feel some residual resentment in his chest because Kermit hadn’t told him ahead of time, he could easily now understand the reasons behind the secrecy. News like this—news that put Piggy on one coast, more or less, and Kermit on the other—was bound to fuel the tabloid talk. Scooter felt better and worse at the same rate, at the same time.
Eventually, hosts and guests alike agreed that it was time for a commercial break, and Kermit and Piggy waved at the audience from the screen, which then went black. Scooter wondered exactly where they were, and how soon he’d seen Kermit in the flesh. He thought they must have been filming at Marty’s studio, but he couldn’t swear to it.
Like the crowd in the studio audience, the crowd here was buzzing excitedly. Scooter wasn’t sure what his role was supposed to be, exactly, although he knew that when Kermit arrived they would try to go on with business as usual. The schedule was simply too tight for anything else. They waited through the commercials and watched to see if anything interesting was said about the The Frogs or their pronouncement (it wasn’t) and then clicked the television off as Regis began to talk about their next guest star.
The next half-hour was complete mayhem, and Scooter did little to try to rein it in. People wanted to talk about the announcement—needed to talk about the announcement—and he found that he wanted to talk about it, too.
People who only knew the Muppets through their movies and on-screen personas—people who had never been privy to all the back-stage machinations and drama—were all too likely to assume that Kermit had a relationship with the cast and Kermit had a relationship with Piggy. Piggy’s friendships and loyalties rarely showed up in the movies or on stage. But that was only a partial picture, one side of the coin. While it was true that Piggy tended to inspire awe (okay, sometimes terror) in her cast-mates, she was as much a part of their lives as their fearless leader. Anyone who doubted would only have to look at the footage of Piggy singing to Rowlf’s almost instinctive accompaniment to see the rapport she had with him, and Scooter had had his own moments of puppy-dogging after Miss Piggy. Scooter tried to imagine what life was going to like for all of them once Piggy left for New York.
Before she and Kermit had gotten married (and here Scooter’s mouth twisted into a wry, satisfied smile—he had been chief conspirator number one in Kermit’s proposal coup and subsequent wedding), Piggy had tried on more than one occasion to find success and happiness on her own. Sometimes Kermit had helped send her on her way. Piggy had been fired more than any other regular on the show, and rebuffed almost as much as Lew Zealand. But despite their desperate attempts to stay away from each other, it had become apparent to everyone (before it became apparent to Kermit) that there was no hope of having a happy life without her. Once he given up and given in to his heart’s true desire, things had been better—better for the cast and crew and much, much better for Kermit and Piggy. Anyone who couldn’t see that was, well, suffering from delusions.
There were two men in particular, one suffering and one delusional, who watched the broadcast of the show with hungry eyes.
Seymour Strathers watched the announcement with something like elation on his boyish face. He had, of course, heard the news before the morning’s announcement, when he’d gotten the phone call affirming that he’d receive a finder’s fee from his associate in New York. He had not cared that much for the way the announcement had played—he’d been hoping to see more of Piggy and less of Kermit, but he was trying to be reasonable about it. Of course Kermit would want to be in on the announcement. Kermit wanted to be in on everything that had to do with her. Well, that wasn’t going to be possible anymore, was it? Piggy was going to be in New York, on Broadway, and the little green dictator was just going to have to lump it. Seymour’s cheeks flushed with pleasure. This was happening because of him—because he had lobbied his partners to ask Kermit to bring his troupe to the Palace, because he had made the call that started the wheels in motion for the Broadway offer to be made, because…because once she got away from Kermit, she was much more likely to realize that there was more than one frog in the swamp, more than one fish in the sea, and more than one man who wanted…so much more than to see her on the stage.
The milk in his grubby little refrigerator was more solid than liquid, but Scribbler didn’t let it slow him down. He poured his instant coffee over his stale corn flakes and dug in anyway. His dump of an apartment seemed like a palace after the Palace, where he’d been forced to share his living space (ha! Some living!) with his boss. He had grudgingly agreed to come back to work, and was in the middle of formulating a new plan of attack when Fate intervened once again. This time, Fate didn’t just pop him in the schnoz—she knocked him ascot over tea-kettle into the furniture. Scribbler sat down on his lumpy couch and turned on the morning shows, idly flipping channels.
Time was when he could expect to see his mug and byline on a fairly frequent basis, back when he was the foremost expect on Missy and her reluctant boyfriend. Those times were long gone—gone when she’d gone over to the dark green side and married that frog—but Scribbler still occasionally watched the perky patrol, imagining this host or that hostess toasting his latest over-the-top description of the fabulous Miss Piggy and her dating habits. Her flipped over to ABC in time to hear Kelly Ripa say, “—favorite performers—Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog!” and the ratty old carpet on his floor was instantly littered with cornflakes. He actually fell to his knees, staring at the screen like a man not believing what he sees. It…it wasn’t possible. It just—just couldn’t be. She was going—going to New York, to Broadway, where he’d always known she could go if she wanted to. And—it wasn’t possible! Scribbler let out a small moan of stunned disbelief. It—she— His mind wouldn’t process the information. She was going—and Kermit wasn’t! It was…it was happening, just like he’d imagined it. She was leaving him and going out on her own and…and he would be waiting for her. Just like he had always been waiting for her.
It could be like old times—just her and her dreams and me and mine and no frogs in sight. His phone began to ring, shrill and noisy, and he did not even have to look at it to know who it was from.
Let it ring. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except that maybe, just maybe it could be like it had been before.
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
and Peter Griffin would have you believe, "Grease" is the word. It's got flow, it's got moves, it's got action.
: Cute, cute joke.
That's one of the barbs which Scribbler made sting the most... Making others think Kermit had an iron-clad hold on his wife's performance. And that's what's got her upset with the prospect of leaving for Broadway alone.
