Why did they stop the Muppet likeness of Special Guests?

[Censored]

I've seen it mentioned on here and the Muppet DVD that the short lived "tradition" of brining a muppet-likeness of the human guest star at the end of the show was only done in the first two produced episodes. However, I don't recall reading an explanation as to why they stopped doing it. Some theories I have is that it may have been too much trouble to specially design a new muppet for each show, they may have thought that a muppet likeness would take away from the new gags with all the muppets coming on stage at the end, or they may have thought that some guests may not like having a caricature of themselves. The only celebrities to ever be "muppet cloned" were Juliet Prowse and Connie Stevens. No male guest star ever got the honor.

There are several celebrities that I think would have looked interesting as a muppet, such as Harvey Carmen, Phyllis Diller, Alice Cooper, etc. Also, if they had consistently kept that tradition, it would have been interesting to see how they'd do it for Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy! Muppet versions of a ventriloquist and his dummy? It would have been interesting

 

[abiraniriba]

There are several celebrities that I think would have looked interesting as a muppet, such as Harvey Carmen, Phyllis Diller, Alice Cooper, etc. Also, if they had consistently kept that tradition, it would have been interesting to see how they'd do it for Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy! Muppet versions of a ventriloquist and his dummy? It would have been interesting

bolding mine

They did do a likeness of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Well, sort of. Fozzie Bear tried to do a ventriloquist act as part of his stand-up routine with a dummy that looked very much like Charlie McCarthy, unfortunately his act devolved into a question of which one was the dummy.

 

[Censored]

bolding mine

They did do a likeness of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Well, sort of. Fozzie Bear tried to do a ventriloquist act as part of his stand-up routine with a dummy that looked very much like Charlie McCarthy, unfortunately his act devolved into a question of which one was the dummy.

I remember that, but that was kind of different from the actual muppet caricatures that they did of guests in the first two episodes. Wouldn't it have been cool to see a detailed muppet of Edgar Bergen, carrying a smaller detailed muppet of Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd?

Also, on the Harvey Carmen episode, while they didn't make a muppet likeness of him, they did in fact make him look like a muppet. LOL

No, the idea of bringing out a muppet likeness of a special guest was some kind of experiment in the first two (semi-pilot) episodes that was scrapped for whatever reason.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

They also made a Muppet likeness of Marty Feldman in his episode of The Muppet Show.

 

[Censored]

They also made a Muppet likeness of Marty Feldman in his episode of The Muppet Show.

Ah, I didn't know that, but was it done as an official gift to him at the very end of the show, like with Juliet Prowse and Connie Stevens, or was it in a different context? I thought those Prowse and Stevens episodes were the only ones that had that official format of the muppet likeness as a parting gift, but I could be wrong.

 

[Xerus]

They did make two Muppet likenesses of Paul Williams in that, "Just An Old Fashioned Love Song", skit.

 

[jediX]

My theories:
1: Creating so many puppets is uneconomical if they are not going to be able to be reused.

2: Guest stars constantly change their plans, so if they spent the time, resources, and labor to create a likeness and the guest didn't show, they would be stuck with a puppet that couldn't really be used for anything because it had the likeness of a person (which then leads to likeness issues and such). I remember hearing a story that Richard Pryor was supposed to be a guest but then backed out, which led to the Chris Langham (a writer on the show) guest choice. Don't quote me on that, but I'd like conformation as to if I'm even close to correct.

3: It was a concept that was used in early episodes and then removed in one of the many show concept retools. I'm sure you are all familiar of such changes so it is redundant to get into them.

 

[Luke]

They also made a Muppet likeness of Bernie Brillstein - Jim's manager. It was given to him as a gift.