The New Generation of Muppet Performers

[MrBloogarFoobly]

Here's one thing that irritates me a bit about the new generation of Muppet Performers. Well, not the performers themselves: they're great! But I feel like it's a disservice to Steve Whitmire (I know, he's old guard), Eric Jacobson, Bill Barretta, etc, etc, that in interviews, the muppets are interviewed, not the performers, as it was in the days of Henson and Oz.

On one hand, it's nice that interviewers are treating the Muppets like real creatures, but on the other hand, I really think the super talented guys/girls behind the characters need to be credited more. Everyone knows Jim Henson's name, Frank Oz's name... a lesser amount know Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson, and Richard Hunt. But pretty much no one apart from Muppet fans know that 1) Kermit isn't performed by Jim Henson's son, 2) That Eric Jacobson is doing Piggy and Oz's characters, and that Oz doesn't perform anymore, and so on.

I guess it's nice that the Muppeteers don't have ego problems.

 

[Puckrox]

While I really do see your point, even back in the day really the only Muppeteers to ever be interviewed were Jim Henson and Frank Oz (and nowadays it's really only Kevin Clash). Even back then Richard, Dave, Jerry, and Steve didn't get interviewed. I know I would personally love it if the Muppeteers were interviewed more often nowadays, but I don't know if this is going to change anytime soon, unfortunately.

 

[minor muppetz]

It seems it like until the past decade it had been rare for Muppet performers other than Jim and Frank to be interviewed as themselves (and a great deal of those interviews in the past decade were on Muppet Central, The MuppetCast, Tough Pigs, The Muppet Mindset, and other websites). Though most of Jim's interviews featured him accompanied by Kermit.

 

[Speed Tracer]

I guess that's why we've got the Mindset and Tough Pigs - there are and will continue to be great interviews with Steve, Dave, Matt, Eric, David, Bill, Peter, et cetera