Statler & Waldorf on movies.com

[OverUnderAround]

*stunned silence*

Beg pardon?

Yep. I was shocked when I heard as well.
Seems Diz when they brought the Muppets did not like the price they heard to re-make Muppets, so Puppetheap won the bidding contract.

Good news is Puppetheap employs former Muppet puppet builders.

 

[ILuVERNIE]

Huh?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Basically, JHC charged too much to build the Muppets, and PuppetHeap's price wasn't so high, so they now get to build the Muppets for Disney--and Puppet Heap hires former Muppet builders. Make sense now?

 

[Barry Lee]

Ahh! We found that randomly and talked about it in this thread, "http://forum.muppetcentral.com/showthread.php?t=27488"

So...where did this appear originally? Does anyone know?

I think this was another pilot for a muppet web series.

And they are right about the new puppeteers, I was lurking on the web at school and found some pictures of all these new people with Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Kermit, and two penguins. One of the henson children were there too, but when I got home, they deleted the pictures to the public. So I didn't have a chance to snatch them. I'm hoping these guys are better, but I hope this doesn't cause any friction between Steve Whitmire and MHC.

 

[ILuVERNIE]

why did they delete the pics?

 

[Barry Lee]

Probablly they found out that some people from the public found the site and could probablly get in trouble for showing the pictures.

 

[KermieBaby47]

I was lurking on the web at school and found some pictures of all these new people with Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Kermit, and two penguins, but when I got home, they deleted the pictures to the public.

Do you remember which site it was? Cuz maybe Google might have it stored in cache?

 

[Barry Lee]

It was a photobucket account, so it would not appear on google. Sorry.

 

[OverUnderAround]

It was a photobucket account, so it would not appear on google. Sorry.

Barry Lee, I'm happy you saw those pictures.
Did you notice when you saw those pictures that it was only a few guys right?
As reported only about 8 or 9 made the final try out.

Not the "Army" of fake muppeteers the 'Save the Muppets' web site campaign had been erroneously claiming would emerge. For those who supported that cause without waiting for the results there never was going to be an "Army" of fake Muppeteers. Final count 8 or 9. (And even from that number some will eventually be dropped.)

And even with those few, the current leadership of MHC doesn't have the skills to market them, so everything has lead to nothing. ...So far.

 

[MWoO]

So you are saying that these new performers can some how to a better job than the skilled performers who have worked with these characters for years, many of which worked with Jim Henson himself. Some how Gonzo is played better by some new guy rather than Dave? Rizzo better than Steve? Jonny Fiama better than Bill?

While I do agree that some of the characters like Statler and Waldorf need to be re-assigned, why get a bunch of new guys? Because they will be cheaper than the real muppetters. It's the same reason JHC lost the contract to make muppets. These people are highly skilled and want to be paid as such and Disney doesn't want to pay for skill when they can get cheaper less skilled people to do the work.