In the Felt.
My girlfriend and I just got back from Monday night's Kimmel Show with Kermit, as audience members. We were in row 4, centre stage, maybe 8-10 feet from Kermit.
This was truly a childhood dream come true: Seeing a muppet, and Kermit no less, in the "felt".
Kermit's entrance into the studio was pre-recorded, which we watched them make from the monitors in foyeur prior to being seated. Steve Whitmire was there, practising with Kermit actions, entering the studio, walking across the stage, sitting down, doing funny close-ups etc. It was totally bizzare seeing Kermit on the end of an arm.
For the first segment of the show, Kermit's introduction, Steve was lying on the floor in clear view of the audience, his arm reaching under the chair, and he was watching a monitor in order to correctly provide Kermits line-of-sight and arm actions. I was worried at first, worried that seeing
behind the scenes of a muppet would destroy the magic but thankfully, it didn't. To me it just looked like there was a man lip-syncing to Kermit's voice, not providing it.
It was fascinating to see Whitmire 'operating' Kermit. The illusion of Kermit being alive was not lost by the fact that Steve was there. Actually, whilst
in character, Steve did a marvelous job of allowing Kermit to exist as an extention of himself. At one point between breaks, Steve coughed, but it was Kermit that made the action. At another time during a break, one of the production crew said something to Steve, and whilst he was answering he continued to move Kermits mouth to his reply, as though unconsciously. Was it Steve or Kermit, that the production guy was talking to? Aside from all this being seriously funny, it really seemed as though Kermit and Steve Whitmire, were one and the same.
After the first segment, when they brought the guests on, Kermit moved seats, and Steve moved to behind the chairs and was no longer visible (interesting to note that a second Kermit was used for the next segment. For one very brief moment, we witnessed a limp,
frozen-in-time Kermit be covered by a black silk cloth and taken away, to be replaced by a
clone. Now however, Kermit really was there alone, sans-muppeteer, sitting on the back of a chair, fully alive and animated.
Kermit was in great form, I don't think I took my eyes off of him the entire show. Although the cameras weren't on him for very much of the time throughout the taping, he still remained fully alive, moving his eyes from Jimmy to the guests and back again as they chatted, looking down to watch the monitors at the appropriate times, gazing around the studio, smiling and giggling to the audience. Even between breaks, when Whitmire chose not to rest his arm, Kermit sat there bopping to the band playing air-guitar to himself whilst production crew swarmed the stage giving notes, touching up Jimmy's makeup etc. Kermit even sat there scratching his butt at one point!
I barely remember Holyfield and Darryl Hannah, I was there for Kermit only. As I said, this was a childhood dream come true and I still can't really believe I was there, merely feet away from Kermit the Frog, resplendent and live, charming and funny, scratching his butt, coughing and clearing his throat between breaks.
If you live in the LA area, and regardless of whether you're a Kimmel fan or not, or could care less about the
other guests or not, I recommend highly going to one of these Kermit shows - you will not regret it. I believe there are still tickets for the Wednesday (with Animal!), Thursday & Friday shows. Kermit did mention there being other guest muppets in addition to Animal on Wednesday. Tickets are free and you can get them from
http://www.1itoa.com, by calling in (866 JIMMY TIX), or from outside the El Capitan on Hollywood Boulevard from about 2pm - 5pm.
Oh, by the way, I mentioned in another thread that I'd try to get photos from inside the studio - it didn't happen, and was not at all possible. The studio was dark and there were production and camera crew everywhere. The glow from my screen would have been a beacon and I was not willing to risk missing Kermit by being removed from the studio by security, sorry.
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