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

[MrBloogarFoobly]

A statement like that means nothing unless you have a resource to back it up.

I see. But when accusations fly against other people without actual documentation, they must be true. Gotcha.

 

[Censored]

I see. But when accusations fly against other people without actual documentation, they must be true. Gotcha.

There has to be some source of information beyond a stand alone sentence. If you think what you're saying is true, you should wait to obtain some source of documentation before posting it.

 

[Censored]

Sorry, I can't, this comes from particular Muppeteers who work on Sesame. You can believe it or not, I don't really care. But you're quick to believe Whitmire possesses a similar list despite having no real evidence other than here-say.

Which Mupetters? Where did you hear it and from who?

 

[D'Snowth]

But this is commonly known in the puppeteering community.

Really? I've never heard such.

 

[CBPuppets]

As far as recasts go, I've dealt with them before, like how Stephanie D'Abruzzo Took over Prairie Dawn after Fran Brill's Retirement and I even delt with hearing Eric Jacobson's Bert and Grover for the first time.

 

[D'Snowth]

The kids are still the custodian's of their father's legacy, which is why, like Jim, they chose to sell to Disney, the long term home of their fathers characters and legacy. Disney didn't have to consult or include them in the recasting process at all, but they did out of respect. They were the owners. It's Kermit. The closest character to their dad. They know him. They know Kermit. Steve knows Steve's Kermit. While yes, it should matter what the puppeteers think, they don't own the characters. It doesn't matter how long anybody owned them. Only who owns them now. Who owns them now fired Steve Whitmire.

You're partly right in one aspect: it should matter what the performers think, because this is how Jim himself worked. He may have initially created the characters with something specific in mind, but he encouraged everyone else to pretty much fill in the gaps themselves and take their characters in whatever direction they felt would work best. Biggest example would certainly be Big Bird: Jim's original concept of Big Bird was to have him be a dumb country bumpkin would provided comic relief on the street, but it was Caroll who felt Big Bird needed to be represented as a kid (an overgrown kid at that) so the kids watching the show could have a character they could better relate to. And Jim even encouraged the others to try and come up with their own characters, and this is how characters like Rizzo and Elmo came to be: Steve found the box of rat puppets used for THE MUPPET MUSICIANS OF BREMEN, played around with one, and developed it into Rizzo; meanwhile, one of the writers of SST took a liking to the bright red AM monster that was always thrown into inserts, and eventually developed it into a primitive version of Elmo that Brian Meehl and later Richard Hunt played as written, then Kevin Clash took a step further and developed him into the unconditionally loving little red menace he is today.

 

[CBPuppets]

I watched many documentaries in which Frank Oz explains that A character voice comes from creating a good character

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, because performing a Muppet is more than just doing a voice, you have to act through your arm and your hand and transfer your feelings and emotions into the puppet, and then the voices comes from that. This is why most of the time, it was important with Jim that if you were going to voice a character, you had to actually phyiscally perform the character as well.

Conversely, Sid and Marty Krofft would have little people inside their suits, then bring in voice actors to dub all of their voices.

 

[CBPuppets]

For me, it's not enough to perform a character, but you gotta think like the character!

 

[ErinAardvark]

For me, it's not enough to perform a character, but you gotta think like the character!

And that's not as easy as it sounds, I'm sure!