Anthony Strand: I said a minute ago that everyone is there, but everyone is not there, because then the door opens and Kermit the Frog comes walking in. And Kermit is played by Steve Whitmire now. Except, tell me what you guys' thoughts are, I don't think he sounds like Steve here. Like I know it's him, I know it to be him, it's a weird thing, he's playing Kermit for the first time.
Joe Hennes: They digitally altered his voice. That's been on public record.
Ryan Roe: But aren't there versions out there of the altered version and the non-altered version?
Joe: So they rerecorded it or I don't know what they did, but both versions are Steve and one of them is digitally altered, but they do sound slightly different. So I don't know which one any of us listened to, but only one of them is just Steve's voice doing Kermit with no effects on it. Isn't that weird?
Anthony: Well, it's especially weird because, he comes in and says "What a good song. I knew you guys could do the tribute for Jim. But do you have something silly to end with?" And if you're like me, that line delivery is burned into your brain. Cause I think about that all the time. And like you say, it's digitally altered, but it's also just strange because, we know what Steve sounds like as Kermit, and this isn't it. So after this very emotional moment, like if Bob Cratchit came strolling in, it'd be one thing, it'd feel more like his debut, but instead it just feels like... I mean, I cannot imagine, your boss and mentor just died, you're taking over his most important character, and you have a handful of lines at the end of the thing. It's not like he really gets to play Kermit here.
Ryan: I remember reading a newspaper article maybe a week before this aired, where they quoted Jane Henson saying that Kermit was gonna continue, there was a different performer that was gonna be playing him, and she said something like, "He won't quite be the same at first, but then little by little, he's gonna get his personality back." So they were preparing people for the fact that Kermit was returning, he's gonna live on, he's not gonna sound exactly the same as you're used to, but still, it must have been so much pressure coming at the end of this special about how important Jim Henson is to then be the new guy. "Okay, here's his most important character, now it's you, go."
Joe: Here's the thing though, I'm just gonna say it, cause I'm sure everyone who watches this thinks it, people definitely thought this back in 1990, but man you hear that for the first time, especially after having just celebrated Jim and heard Kermit's voice over and over again in these clips, it sounds awful. And it has nothing to do with Steve's performance. Because Steve's Kermit later sounds different. And I can differentiate between Jim's Kermit, Steve's Kermit, Matt's Kermit, like these are different versions of the same character played by 3 different human beings. This one's got that weird robotic lilt to it, it doesn't feel like Kermit's personality yet, it's only a couple lines, but like the Muppets were just mourning someone 2 seconds ago and now Kermit's just kinda like "Oh good, I'm glad all my friends are having a good time". It's like who's this guy? He's very Micky Mouse. And in that moment when he's teasing there's more Muppet stuff to come, don't worry, it's like do we want that if this is what it's gonna be like?
Anthony: Did you feel that way when you were 8 years old? You didn't.
Joe: Yes I did, because we knew this was gonna end with this is the new Kermit, this is what we're gonna expect from now on. But it's like we don't want it, we don't like it. And here's the thing: This is the young human being in me saying this, because what I didn't know was you need to give it a few years, you need to let him get into the role, you need to get used to it, you need some really fun productions, and then you'll get used to it, more importantly, he'll get used to it, and then that'll be Kermit and that's that, and that's fine. But in that moment, there doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of confidence behind don't worry, it's the same old Kermit. Like you don't get any of that in this moment. It's just a scary thing for the future of the franchise when you know nothing about it.
Ryan: It's not this is the same old Kermit, it's here's a little glimpse of Kermit to remind you that Kermit's gonna continue. That's the message to us, is that the Muppets are gonna keep on going.
Joe: I'm gonna throw this scenario out to you which I'm very grateful didn't happen, if they replaced Kermit with a Mickey Moused version and this was the first glimpse of that, and we ended up getting someone who's very much watered down, very kid-friendly, and not representing the Kermit we all love in any way, then we would be looking at this moment as being like, we should've known in that second that this was not gonna end well. Not knowing what it was gonna be, and this is all we have for the next 2 years until MCC, cause we really didn't get much of Kermit between those 2, then that's just our assumption until we're proven wrong.
Anthony: Right, but let me say this, from the year 2022, the fact that MCC is the next thing, and Kermit's not playing himself, he's playing beloved literary character Bob Cratchit, a character played by the likes of Gene Lockhart and David Warner in the past, he's standing in the footsteps of giants, Steve is so good as Kermit in that movie. And I think it's because he has such solid material to work with, he doesn't have to try to reinvent Kermit, he gets to be Bob Cratchit, he gets to be a little Wembley-ish, frankly, at times, and I think that that helped him so much.
Ryan: Yeah, it's a transition.
Joe: Oh, I completely agree.
Anthony: I think that might be what stopped what you're saying from happening.
Joe: I think you're right. But the fact that he goes kinda straight from MCC to MTI where Steve does not get to play Kermit as Kermit for years after taking over this character until MT, and even then, it was just like once in awhile, he needed that practice. And I'm also saying all this to talk a little bit about Matt Vogel's Kermit, and a lot of people having that negative reaction to the new Kermit of like this is not good. I personally didn't think that, but a lot of people did and that's okay. But we need to give these things time, to let them find the character, and then we will get used to it, and the character will be back again, and it will be a little bit different and that's okay. But I don't know what they coulda done to give us that confidence right off the bat. That's an impossible task.
Ryan: Well, especially not in the last 45 seconds of this special.
Anthony: Although, weirdly Steve in this special, the 5 lines, that's how many lines Matt has had in 5 years.
Ryan: Just about.
Joe: Yeah, that's tough too. They need a new movie or TV show or whatever to let these guys play and neither of them got that at the beginning of their career as Kermit.
Anthony: I mean we can talk about this another time, but like, MN, Kermit's barely in it, MHM, Kermit's barley in it. The stuff that they have done, he's not doing much, unlike MCC, where he gets a big song, in the first 15 minutes.
Joe: But like you said, he doesn't get to be himself in MCC. Like both of these guys have to go years before they're gonna get that chance to really play. It's just tough, and I have very vivid memories of watching this for the first time and not feeling that confidence. I just felt like it was worth mentioning because a lotta people probably felt the same way.
Ryan: So I would not go as far as to say that he sounds bad here, but he definitely just sounds different. We talked about this a lot on our website, our forum, social media, that if there had been Twitter when this special aired, people would've been so up in arms about "How dare this new person think that he can play Kermit?" But it's the same kinda situation, he just sounds different, and he's gonna adjust the voice a little bit, and eventually people will get used to it, and that's what's happening now.
Joe: I mean, the one thing that I disagree slightly with what you said is the fact that they felt the need to add that robotic sounding course correction for the voice which made it sound artificial. And like the new guy doesn't have the voice right, so we have to digitally change it later on. That kinda felt like a vote of no confidence from behind the scenes a little bit. And thank goodness as far as I know, this is the only time they ever did that. But you know what's interesting too? When Kevin Clash left SS, I couldn't even tell you what productions, there's a couple of productions where they needed someone to do the voice of Elmo, before Ryan Dillon was cast as Elmo officially, and it's other performers doing it and they had to digitally change it. Cause they were kinda on a time crunch to get Elmo content out there, and nobody was doing the perfect Elmo voice just yet. So to find those things and to hear them you go "Man, the audio's a little uncanny valley, like it just doesn't sound right." And it's not because it's a different person doing it, it's because it sounds like it's been digitally altered.
Ryan: So do you think we would find this less weird if they hadn't digitally altered it, if it was just the new guy doing his best attempt at a Kermit voice and maybe it doesn't sound like the Kermit we're used to, but it still sounds like a person rather than a digitally altered person?
Joe: I mean it definitely would have sounded weird because it's different and it's the first time a character had really been recast in Muppet canon at that point, with the exception of Miss Piggy from the beginning of TMS which doesn't really count.
Ryan: The first major recast.
Anthony: You guys, justice for Snuffleupagus, guys.
Ryan: Yeah, I was sitting here going through my head like maybe there was another. But yes, you're right.
Joe: Yeah, Telly, Grundgetta, all those guys. But I think looking back at it, if it had not been digitally altered at all, then I might not have been triggered to have these memories as much because, it would sound like Steve's Kermit. But it doesn't sound like Steve's Kermit or Jim's Kermit because of that.
Ryan: Right, it's some other thing.
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