Steve Whitmire has left the Muppets, Matt Vogel to continue as Kermit

[DARTH MUPPET]

Cheryl commented some more. But, hey! At least we got a behind the scenes look at The Jim Henson Exhibition!

http://www.toughpigs.com/today-whitmire/

In the Whitmire part of the interview he makes it seem like only Whitmire can play Kermit like you can never recast the role. that to me is arrogant and I totally disagree the real Kermit is JIM HENSON!

 

[DARTH MUPPET]

And why shouldn't we all? We continued to be Muppet fans after Jerry passed away; we continued to be Muppet fans after Kevin's scandal forced him to resign from SST; we continued to be Muppet fans when we lost Jane and John Henson within a year of each other; we continued to be Muppet fans when Joey voluntarily left SST; why shouldn't we continue to be Muppet fans after this?

totally agree, parts will be recast for whatever reason, death, Firing or what ever doesn't mean we stop being fans.

 

[Muppetboy09]

So has it been delayed again?

They are usually posted anywhere between 12:00 and 3:00, so I'd give it a couple hours before we worry about it being postponed

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

In the Whitmire part of the interview he makes it seem like only Whitmire can play Kermit like you can never recast the role. that to me is arrogant and I totally disagree the real Kermit is JIM HENSON!

Certainly Jim originated the character, and he's one of the people all future performers will draw inspiration from, but I don't think there's any one definitive Kermit, or Miss Piggy, or Dr. Teeth. The REAL Kermit is whoever is playing him at that time. If it was just one person's character, the character wouldn't grow and just become a stale impression of the previous performer.

 

[muppetlover123]

Either way what I got from the video is we possibly have some new Muppet Projects on the way.. in the video Steve said they just had a conference call with all the puppeteers and them saying they all need to rest up for all the work they have coming up. So that's good

 

[Writersright]

In the Whitmire part of the interview he makes it seem like only Whitmire can play Kermit like you can never recast the role. that to me is arrogant and I totally disagree the real Kermit is JIM HENSON!

Another interesting thing is that Disney offered him 'consolation prizes' like a Disney Legend award if he signed an NDA. (On a side note, this year's Disney Legends are a joke when you consider the 'Disney' part of it.)

Now, to your point...I think legacy Muppets are very hard to shape since the Muppets are part of the Muppeteer's own personality. Grover, Piggy and Fozzy are not just characters, they're part of Frank Oz.

Now when a performer 'inherits' a character, they can't 100% duplicate the character because they're obviously not the same person as the original performer. The character will then mostly be like it was with the original performer mixed with the style of the new performer. This way we have characters like the Jim-Kermit, Steve-Kermit, Frank-Grover & Eric-Grover. Honoring the characters and original performer as much as possible but adding a bit of the new performer to fill in "the gaps".

That being said, the roles can of course be recast but recasting does change the characters a bit so it's something that needs to be done as few as possible with the 'main' Muppets.

Steve isn't Kermit, but he's a big part of the current Kermit and a part of the current Kermit is Steve.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Either way what I got from the video is we possibly have some new Muppet Projects on the way.. in the video Steve said they just had a conference call with all the puppeteers and them saying they all need to rest up for all the work they have coming up. So that's good

I can't wait! Whatever it is, i'm starving for anything more than the Thought of the Week videos.

 

[scooterfan360]

i fault who ever had the idea of having writers, who didn't really have any knowledge of the Muppet characters or their personalities, write scripts that caused the characters to seem out of character.

 

[CBPuppets]

Either way what I got from the video is we possibly have some new Muppet Projects on the way.. in the video Steve said they just had a conference call with all the puppeteers and them saying they all need to rest up for all the work they have coming up. So that's good

Now I'm lost, I thought Steve was fired

 

[D'Snowth]

i fault who ever had the idea of having writers, who didn't really have any knowledge of the Muppet characters or their personalities, write scripts that caused the characters to seem out of character.

That's exactly what I've been saying for years.