Statler & Waldorf on movies.com

[MuppetfraggleEX]

Well said. Thanks, LOL

I can: Their parents' bedrooms. The way the Muppets work is, performers spend years learning their craft, and then, when they're ready, they start performing in front of an audience. They aren't just handed major characters, "Here's Piggy, see how you go."

Consider this: Eric Jacobson's first-ever public performance of Miss Piggy was at MuppetFest, in front of several hundred Muppet fans, and every single one of us thought it was Frank. That sets the bar pretty high for understudies, but that's how high it should be. If Eric's Piggy was anything less than flawless, I think there would have been a riot. Literally. And that's the standard we should be able to expect from every performer on every project.

Training understudies to step in when they're needed makes sense. But training them in front of an audience doesn't. Neither does releasing substandard work under the Muppet banner. It hurts the characters, it hurts the brand, and it hurts the fans.

Kynan
savethemuppets.com

Thanks!

 

[AndyWan Kenobi]

Were Yerrid and Massey picked for these roles prior to the current auditions?
I would think so.

True they auditioned as well in Los Angeles, but I think it was Buck-Beaver who went to the Toronto audition who was told that no decision as to the casting from the recent auditions will be done for at least a month or so.

Which makes me think that Yerrid and Massey had already been selected for those roles prior to any audition.

I think you're right about this--after all, didn't these same two performers do the first S&W spot on movies.com, the early-2005 test spot?

 

[unclematt]

I understand everyone wanting to put the Muppets in the best light possible and I understand that that may meen one performer per muppet. But as I said earlier you have to have someone ready in case of emergency and they should have some time performing thier characters in front of an actual audience. I will never forget how dissapointed I was the first time I heard Steve's Kermit. There are still things about Steve's Kermit I dont like but I understand that there are reasons things change. The smoother that change is the better. If we have heard the new performers doing the voices all ready that makes the transition easier. Finally I was not at Muppetfest (somethnig I truly regret) but after hearing Piggy in Oz there is no doubt that it is a different performer. As Steve will never be exactly like Jim, Eric will never be exactly like Frank.

 

[rtgentry]

Yerrid and Massey were performers for the muppets for a while now. If you check out their imdb they were performed in many other puppet performance show also.

 

[OverUnderAround]

So then it's safe to conclude that Yerrid and Massey where hired before the current auditions.

I think it's very important, now that we realize that one fact, that savethemuppets does not claim that the current auditions themselves resulted in Yerrid and Massey filling in for Steve and Dave.

These current auditions cannot be blamed for their hiring.

 

[Luke]

I know Yerrid has done small parts in the Weezer video, Farscape, BITBBH and played Sweetums in Family Feud. Sweetums was more just wearing the suit than puppeteering obviously but afaik that's been his main core Muppet performance other than S&W. Massey has been a little more involved - he played Clifford and Sal in Muppet Wizard Of Oz and assisted the core Muppeteers with the major characters during Muppets Tonight. So yeah both have been on the freelance list at Henson for a while but never used this heavily for a main character, people like Kennedy and Mazzarino are usually the ones brought in for the main characters. Both Yerrid and Massey worked on Crank Yankers.

I'm not massively down on them as performers, they both seem to be up and coming but they were obviously only really beginning to get experienced in performing the Muppets yet they have been used very heavily despite being kept in the background before. It just doesn't look and sound right when you see them doing long dialogues with two very well known Muppets, especially in low budget conditions that probably make things worse. Possibly the auditions were nothing to do with their hiring or maybe them being at the auditons are what brought them to the minds of the people casting but if they did have all this Muppet work set up prior you'd have to wonder what they were doing auditioning in the first place.

 

[Kynan Barker]

Kynan, It's not necessary to be disrespectful to Yerrid and Massey...Your disapproval should stick to management.

All I'm saying is, let the new performers practice behind the scenes, and give the public what we have a right to expect: Real Muppets, not Muppets Lite.

The Muppet standard is -- or should be -- incredibly high, and I'm not going to cut anyone any slack because they're new or inexperienced. And I'm sure not going to cut Disney any slack for putting out cheap, shoddy productions.

Kynan
savethemuppets.com

 

[OverUnderAround]

It just doesn't look and sound right when you see them doing long dialogues with two very well known Muppets, especially in low budget conditions that probably make things worse.

I wish the clips at movies.com had end credits to see who wrote, produced and directed all these segments from day one.

Possibly the auditions were nothing to do with their hiring or maybe them being at the auditons are what brought them to the minds of the people casting but if they did have all this Muppet work set up prior you'd have to wonder what they were doing auditioning in the first place.

I think they were there trying to land the additional roles of Kermit and Piggy.

 

[MWoO]

Steve was new and he was thrown into the mix early on and Richard I believe was some kid who landed a gig on the muppet show and was given main characters right off the back. In an interview with Jim Henson on oneo f those special I think he said that it takes only a year to make the hand move with the mouth and i think these guysh ave that down. Oh, and I think Dave sold computers or something before the muppet show, so it's not like every performer worked with puppets for years and years before being thrown into the mix. In fact on the fraggle season 1 extra disc Karen Prel said something like Jim Henson would give you something to do even if you had no idea how to do it because he knew the capabilities of people when they did not know them. So, what I'm saying is many times performers were just thrown into them ix, got a feel for characters, and became greats.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I finally got a chance to see the new one!

Sam is great. There's that higher-pitched tone thing he does sometimes that was missing, but that's okay. I liked what I saw here.

Waldorf and Statler are performed great; however, I wish that Statler was a little older sounding. Waldorf, in my opinion, has hit it on the head.

The heckling was great, but the writing for Sam was too funny!!