Something buggin me about Steve's Kermit...

Okay.

I love Steve's Kermit. Except for one little small nitpicky single solitary thing.

He has a problem keeping his (Steve's) arm out of the frame.

For example, I was watching two episodes of Muppets Tonight today (Garth Brooks and Paula Abdul), and I saw Kermit's "sleeve cuff" that extends out of his waist at least four times. It was very distracting, driving me crazy, and I don't remember EVER seeing a production with Jim where you could see that part of Kermit.

It totally took me out of the show.

Sorry--just had to get that off my spindly little chest.

There have been many times when Jim got the Kermit sleeve in frame. It happens on the muppet show and it happened in MTM, not sure about other productions. It happens.

I do notice that sometimes we see more of it, like in the Prince episode, but it's really no biggie. It is a bit distracting.

BTW, in the trailer for MTM you see the performers heads and hands and so forth a bunch of times. I guess the trailer wasn't cropped right.

If anything, Steve Kermit bothers me when he can't keep the voice. This was especially annoying near the end of AVMMC when Kermit rushes back to the theater. That is not Kermit's laugh, that is Rizzo's laugh.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I suppose it's always kinda difficult to get used to someone new doing the voice of a character we know so well!
One thing that does amuse me is Gonzo's rapidly changing voice in TMS! One minute it's really high and scratchy, and then it's more like the Gonzo in the later films!

Hmmm. I never noticed the sleeve thing on Steve's Kermit. Are you referring to the string that moves his arm? I've seen that on Jim's Kermit several times. Maybe, I'm thinking of something different than you're thinking of.

As for Gonzo, yeah, I've noticed a bit of a change on his voice from "The Muppet Show" to the later films. I just hope Dave Goelz isn't getting too old to portray the character. We'd run out of Muppateers. After all we no longer have Jim, Richard, or Frank. (Well, maybe we'd still have Frank if he'd take a break from directing and return to do a Muppet project, but Eric's doing a good job filling in his shoes. I'll stop here since I'm getting way off subject.)

the voices which i found the most 'not-alike' the original are the two old guys it is nearly always little disturbing. but i guess no one can get better than this

I don't know if it will ever be something I accept totally. I've done it with all the other characters that have new performers (accept Statler) but I hjust can't accept Kermit completly yet. I think it's because I'm not good with accepting that people can actually die, especially when I can pop in a tape and watch their work like with Jim. It's imature I suppose, but I just never accepted the fact that when people die they are gone.

Back to the subject, I have noticed that Steve has Kermit do a lot of scrunches, and they look weird to me and out of place too. I've noticed this in interviews as well. Also, Steve adjusts the hand he uses to operate Kermit's head a lot. I don't think Jim's Kermit had so many facial ticks. It's just an example of the many subtle differences in performance which can be much more distracting than the voice. He's still really talented and is probably the best for the job.

BTW, those two old guys are Statler and Waldorf. Waldorf was played by Jim and Statler was played by Richard. Jerry Nelson now plays Statler, though Steve does a dead on performance of Richard's Statler and when you hear and see it it just seems right. I hope Steve takes over Statler and that Jerry does some more of his charaters like Robin, Floyd, ect.

Oh, and about Gonzo, I've have noticed a HUGE difference between current Gonzo and TMS Gonzo. At times I thought that someone else was doing Gonzo at one point. It's the most dramatic change in a characters voice I've ever heard. Also, I can do a great early Gonzo from the Muppet Show, but can't do the current voice, but it sounds like the current Gonzo voice is easier to maintain.

I forgot some stuff I wanted to say.

For some reason I'm able to accept Steve's Ernie much more than Kermit, which is odd because they are pretty much the same. Also, it seems that Steve doesn't have the same freedom with Kermit that Jim had, for obvious reasons. During the Daily Show interview with Kermit, it seemed like Steve was worried about getting into trouble for adlibing something he shouldn't because it might ruin Kermit's publically perceived personality. I'm sure Jim really didn't have to worry about that, since he couldn't fire himself.

On the topic of Eric, I was surprised to find out that he had done piggy and Fozzie in AVMMC. In fact, while watching the movie I had thought that Frank got back that energy from TMS. These characters are in very talented hands. Tweaking could always been done (like Fozzie and Bert sigh a lot more than they should) but he is definatly the best they could have gotten and I'm glad because I was worried for awhile that no one could ever do as good a job as Frank.

The only problem I have with the current Statler and Waldorf is that their punchline laugh seems a bit too forced. But that's just one monster's opinion.

Was it ever established whether the Piggy video at Muppetfest was Frank or Eric ? I had heard it was a closet Eric performance done on video as if by Frank to see if anyone noticed but not sure if it's true or not.

I've read that too and read that 90 percent of the audience was fooled. I can only assume it was true.

Actually Jerry originally performed Statler ( Sex and Violence..)
I would like to see him perform his classic characters more often
especially Floyd!
I don't believe I've ever heard Steve performing Statler.....(I might have missed this )
when was this?

Craig Shemin confirmed that it was indeed Eric on the MuppetFest videos.

In the music video keep fishing with Weezer it's steve who performs Statler

This is a really neat topic. Every set is different, but generally puppeteers usually have to work together with camera people to ensure that their arms stay out of shot. When this happens, it can be for a variety of reasons (often it is not really the puppeteer's fault).

If the height of the puppet is changing through out the shot (rising or sinking) then it is probably the fault of the puppeteer. If the puppet is at a consistant height and the puppeteer's arm is visible throughout the shot it is probably the fault of the camera operator since they are ultimately responsible for framing a shot. Good directors also know to watch out for this during onset playback.

One problem I've encountered with this myself is that often times the framing you see on a monitor in the studio will not exactly match up with the framing that a viewer will see if your monitor is not set-up properly. It actually takes quite a bit of technical know-how to avoid this sort of problem. Also, during multi-camera TV shoots a puppeteer is not always able to see every camera angle being recorded in their monitor.

Another problem that occurs frequently is that because film and TV (especially TV) is done on a very tight schedule, sometimes a decision will be made to "move on" if the day is behind schedule and the director has an otherwise perfect take where the performer's arm is slightly visible.

Sometimes people just really mess up too. I heard about one show where they filmed an entire scene with the puppeteer's entire body in the shot! No one - not the puppeteers, director or crew - noticed until the episode was being edited together.

I don't think it is really fair for us to pick on Steve about this. I have noticed it too, but I've also seen Jim do it countless times as well. It's much, much harder than it looks to pull of absolute perfection in puppetry.

That said, there's still really no excuse....

Hear, hear. Heck, most of the time for me there is no "Jim's Kermit" and "Steve's Kermit." He's just Kermit.

Buck-Beaver, are you in (or have you ever considered going into) public speaking?

-Kim

Nah, do enough of that at work.

Guys,

On the subject of Kermit, I thought he was really good in The Muppet Christmas Carol. I thought that was excellent.

But when Kermit now talks about peace and harmony and that kinda thing, I always find it forced. Whereas with Jim, it just seemed natural.

I still cant get used to Steve's Ernie. I just dont like it. Its too 'Fun'.

Dave's Waldorf and Jerry's Statler are good, I would love to hear Steve carry on with the voice that Richard gave Statler tho.

With Gonzo's voice it is natural, Peoples voices change. And as Gonzo has got older in time his voice has changed. But all the way through he has always had a terrific singing voice, I just love 'Mr. Spaceman' on the Kermit Unpigged album !


see ya

Guys,

Sorry, just to add one more thing...


It really saddens me that we will not be able to hear Piggy sing a real good song again. It seems that Eric can only do the high pitch ala 'Santa Baby'.

Remember when Piggy sung 'I Will Survive' and 'Gonna Miss Miss Piggy' ?
Those songs had heart and were sung with attitude, And i dont think Eric can reach that.


see ya

I'm sorry, but I don't get why everybody has to be so nitpicky. I mean, we could just not have these characters at all.

-Kim