What surprises me is how "real fans" care less about the voices and characters being off, but hey that's just me.
Keep this discussion from Steve and Eric in mind whenever you think a voice sounds off:
Interviewer: You clearly come close to the voice, but I'm wondering if you ever made any effort to differentiate yourself a little bit.
Steve: No, but I can't help it. I'm not a mimic, really.
Interviewer: I mean, it's pretty close.
Steve: It's in the same ballpark, and it's been 26 years, so I think people have grown accustomed to it. I had a lot of criticism in the beginning and I understand it. I'd walk into a room, and people would say "You sound exactly like Jim" and then people would say "You don't sound anything like Jim". One of the most embarrassing things I did, in the early days we did this phone-in radio thing, to these kinda shock-jocks. So they weren't very nice people to begin with. And they were talking to Kermit, and they spent the whole interview saying "You don't sound anything like Kermit" to Kermit. It was so hard. What could I do? I had to say it was Kermit. So I get it. But we don't have any choice. I hear a lot of people writing or talking online about Jim's Kermit, or Frank's Fozzie or Frank's Piggy vs. Eric's Piggy. And from our point of view, I understand that, but it's a non-existent difference. There's no Frank's Piggy, it's Piggy. And that's the way we have to approach it. Because it doesn't get shared. This is who she is now. They do have to evolve. That's really important.
Eric: Yeah, evolve is the right word. Obviously, these characters are gonna be different on our hands than our predecessors. But we're accepting of that. It was hard for me at first, because I wanted to be able to fool people. And maybe you can do that for a little while, but eventually especially with the Internet these days, people are gonna know. And so I had to come to terms with that, and realize that I'm not Frank. And nobody can be somebody else. But perhaps Piggy can still be Piggy, and be a little bit different than she was before but totally in-character. Totally a character that you can believe in, and continue to believe in and be entertained by.