Something buggin me about Steve's Kermit...

[Gonzo]

Okay.

I love Steve's Kermit. Except for one little small nitpicky single solitary thing.

He has a problem keeping his (Steve's) arm out of the frame.

For example, I was watching two episodes of Muppets Tonight today (Garth Brooks and Paula Abdul), and I saw Kermit's "sleeve cuff" that extends out of his waist at least four times. It was very distracting, driving me crazy, and I don't remember EVER seeing a production with Jim where you could see that part of Kermit.

It totally took me out of the show.

Sorry--just had to get that off my spindly little chest.

 

[WiGgY]

There have been many times when Jim got the Kermit sleeve in frame. It happens on the muppet show and it happened in MTM, not sure about other productions. It happens.

I do notice that sometimes we see more of it, like in the Prince episode, but it's really no biggie. It is a bit distracting.

BTW, in the trailer for MTM you see the performers heads and hands and so forth a bunch of times. I guess the trailer wasn't cropped right.

If anything, Steve Kermit bothers me when he can't keep the voice. This was especially annoying near the end of AVMMC when Kermit rushes back to the theater. That is not Kermit's laugh, that is Rizzo's laugh.

 

[Miss_Beaker]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I suppose it's always kinda difficult to get used to someone new doing the voice of a character we know so well!
One thing that does amuse me is Gonzo's rapidly changing voice in TMS! One minute it's really high and scratchy, and then it's more like the Gonzo in the later films!

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Hmmm. I never noticed the sleeve thing on Steve's Kermit. Are you referring to the string that moves his arm? I've seen that on Jim's Kermit several times. Maybe, I'm thinking of something different than you're thinking of.

As for Gonzo, yeah, I've noticed a bit of a change on his voice from "The Muppet Show" to the later films. I just hope Dave Goelz isn't getting too old to portray the character. We'd run out of Muppateers. After all we no longer have Jim, Richard, or Frank. (Well, maybe we'd still have Frank if he'd take a break from directing and return to do a Muppet project, but Eric's doing a good job filling in his shoes. I'll stop here since I'm getting way off subject.)

 

[Phillip]

Quinn - great topic. Steve does this quite a bit on Muppets Tonight. It's hard to say if it's always Steve or the director who sets up the shot. What really bugs me is the inconsistency of it... Kermit's height is always changing in some shots (I guess he has REALLY bendy knees).

I will say this though, it wasn't until 1997-1998, when MT was running on Disney that I finally got use to Steve's Kermit. Up until MT, I would ALWAYS think of Jim and miss him so much when Kermit was onscreen. Somewhere along the MT run (likely in the second season), I accepted Steve's Kermit as Kermit. Not that he is in any way the same as Jim, but that I wasn't bothered every single time our favorite frog was on. Steve seems to do a few more facial scrunches with Kermit, especially in interviews. I've grown to appreciate Steve's Kermit for all the talented assets he brings to the table as a performer. But like all of us, it takes time to get to that point (if it happens at all). Some people said they felt that way in 1999 with MFS ("Kermit is back!") or 2002 in VMMC, or not yet at all. It's a personal thing.

 

[WiGgY]

I don't know if it will ever be something I accept totally. I've done it with all the other characters that have new performers (accept Statler) but I hjust can't accept Kermit completly yet. I think it's because I'm not good with accepting that people can actually die, especially when I can pop in a tape and watch their work like with Jim. It's imature I suppose, but I just never accepted the fact that when people die they are gone.

Back to the subject, I have noticed that Steve has Kermit do a lot of scrunches, and they look weird to me and out of place too. I've noticed this in interviews as well. Also, Steve adjusts the hand he uses to operate Kermit's head a lot. I don't think Jim's Kermit had so many facial ticks. It's just an example of the many subtle differences in performance which can be much more distracting than the voice. He's still really talented and is probably the best for the job.

BTW, those two old guys are Statler and Waldorf. Waldorf was played by Jim and Statler was played by Richard. Jerry Nelson now plays Statler, though Steve does a dead on performance of Richard's Statler and when you hear and see it it just seems right. I hope Steve takes over Statler and that Jerry does some more of his charaters like Robin, Floyd, ect.

Oh, and about Gonzo, I've have noticed a HUGE difference between current Gonzo and TMS Gonzo. At times I thought that someone else was doing Gonzo at one point. It's the most dramatic change in a characters voice I've ever heard. Also, I can do a great early Gonzo from the Muppet Show, but can't do the current voice, but it sounds like the current Gonzo voice is easier to maintain.

 

[WiGgY]

I forgot some stuff I wanted to say.

For some reason I'm able to accept Steve's Ernie much more than Kermit, which is odd because they are pretty much the same. Also, it seems that Steve doesn't have the same freedom with Kermit that Jim had, for obvious reasons. During the Daily Show interview with Kermit, it seemed like Steve was worried about getting into trouble for adlibing something he shouldn't because it might ruin Kermit's publically perceived personality. I'm sure Jim really didn't have to worry about that, since he couldn't fire himself.

On the topic of Eric, I was surprised to find out that he had done piggy and Fozzie in AVMMC. In fact, while watching the movie I had thought that Frank got back that energy from TMS. These characters are in very talented hands. Tweaking could always been done (like Fozzie and Bert sigh a lot more than they should) but he is definatly the best they could have gotten and I'm glad because I was worried for awhile that no one could ever do as good a job as Frank.

 

[Splurge]

BTW, those two old guys are Statler and Waldorf. Waldorf was played by Jim and Statler was played by Richard. Jerry Nelson now plays Statler, though Steve does a dead on performance of Richard's Statler and when you hear and see it it just seems right. I hope Steve takes over Statler and that Jerry does some more of his charaters like Robin, Floyd, ect.

The only problem I have with the current Statler and Waldorf is that their punchline laugh seems a bit too forced. But that's just one monster's opinion.

 

[Luke]

Was it ever established whether the Piggy video at Muppetfest was Frank or Eric ? I had heard it was a closet Eric performance done on video as if by Frank to see if anyone noticed but not sure if it's true or not.

 

[WiGgY]

Was it ever established whether the Piggy video at Muppetfest was Frank or Eric ? I had heard it was a closet Eric performance done on video as if by Frank to see if anyone noticed but not sure if it's true or not.

I've read that too and read that 90 percent of the audience was fooled. I can only assume it was true.