The hands of Lips

[minor muppetz]

when steve whitmire performed lips, where his arms operated by arm wires, or was he a live hand puppet?

Whenever Lips played the trumpet, i noticed that his fingers move along with the trumpet keys. I don't ever recall seeing arm wires on lips, even though he looks like the kind of muppet that would have arm wires. he normally wears shirts with really big sleeves, a possible way to hide the performers arms, and whenever his sleeves are more normal-sized (like whenever he wears a tuxedo) his elbows are closer to the bottom of the screen.

I guess that a performer could put hands inside his hands, but I have also seen apicture of steve whitmire performing lips, and in that picture it looked like he did have arm wires, although it looked like the wires were connected to the elbows.

one other thing. I have read on a few websites that his hands were permaneantly attahced to his trumpet, but I have seen him wearing at least five different shirts (his regular outfit, his tuxedo, his clothes in "boogie in the barnyard", his outfit in "a muppet family christmas", and his outfit in "the muppet christmas carol"). I have also seen some scenes where he wasn't holding his trumpet (like when he was wearing a parachute in the great muppet caper), as well as some scenes where he only held his trumpet with one hand (like during the "happiness hotel" number). did he have removable hands, allowing him to change outfits, or were there multiple puppets, or were his hands removed later on?

 

[Gonzo14]

I remember reading about this on the old Electric Mayhem Site (which was a cool site before it got shut down), Lips originally had the Trumpet permanently attached to his hand, but he was lader remodled to be able to remove the trumpet from his hands.

 

[FISH'N'WOLFE]

I've also wondered how they operated the trumpet keys on Lips trumpet, it would be neat to know how that was done.

 

[That Announcer]

Possibly RC technology on both the hand and trumpet keys?

 

[FISH'N'WOLFE]

Hmm, that's quite possible. It's just that the trumpet is so small, I wonder how they would fit any electronics in there.

 

[That Announcer]

Hmm, that's quite possible. It's just that the trumpet is so small, I wonder how they would fit any electronics in there.

I think if you look at the trumpet again, you can't see inside it, so there's probably a black board over the front of it and some RC stuff inside. It could well be the same equipment you'd find in a toy car.

 

[Vic Romano]

I always assumed that wires connected to Lip's fingers traveled throgh the trumpet valves and into the rod that held up the "trumpet arm", of which a grip like pulley was squeezed to pull the fingers down, making it look like he's pushing the valves.

 

[MrsPepper]

I'm pretty Lips has Steve's hands in his, because I remember reading something like Steve was always good at imitating musical instruments. They could have masked it with a dark arm sleeve, or something.. but I'm not the expert. ^_^;

Edit: Wow Vic, I missed your post. That would be very complicated, but really cool, if that's how it worked!

 

[That Announcer]

I'm pretty Lips has Steve's hands in his, because I remember reading something like Steve was always good at imitating musical instruments. They could have masked it with a dark arm sleeve, or something.. but I'm not the expert. ^_^;

Well, it's possible, as Steve did play the trumpet. I guess it's a sort of Fozzie thing, where if both hands need to be working (see the driving scene in MFS), two puppeteers work it. So maybe Steve did the head and the trumpet arm, and someone else did the other arm. Or the other arm was pinned down and there was no other puppeteer.

However, Vic's theory is plausible, as the workshop was not unaccustomed to making strange riggings.

 

[MrsPepper]

Yeah, the other arm, from what I've seen, is pinned down, since you hold the trumpet with two hands. I used to play the trumpet, it's fun. Lips is a much better player tham what I'd ever been, though.