Ten years ago I published the statement that I wanted Muppet fans to be “the smartest fans in the world”.  I want you to have access to an in-depth understanding of the inside workings of the Muppets because you already have a connection to them and I think you should at least be given the opportunity to gain even deeper insights as to why that attraction might be waning a bit now. There are tangible reasons as to why you might be feeling that way. That is the purpose of this post. 

If your attraction isn’t waning, then this post is likely not for you.

What prompted me to write this is seeing literally thousands of comments, and receiving as many messages and emails over the last ten years, from people like you, people who sense that Kermit the Frog’s days are numbered. In both cases most of the criticisms are from casual viewers, not deeply devoted Muppet fans.  That says to me that it’s the public at large that senses something has gone wrong.  

I am told that within the Disney performer circle – and this is important – all of these people are written off as being “haters”, and are ignored. However, it’s an awful lot of people and, honestly, the vast majority of the comments and messages I see aren’t hateful, they are discerning – there’s a big difference.  After a decade to adjust, what is before them obviously doesn’t work, and ignoring the problem increases it.

Also, there are fans who think that as long as something green with ping-pong ball eyes hops around on screen, it constitutes Kermit the Frog.  Further, sentiments are expressed essentially saying that ‘something is better than nothing’…what a sad state of affairs in memory of Jim Henson.   I love the fans, but with respect (and I DO have great respect for Muppet fans), on these couple of points you are mistaken.  

Kermit, as Jim created him, contains years of depth and growth.  Without default attention to that, do you really believe it’s Kermit just because it looks like him? He is the top of the Muppet pyramid, the spoke in the middle of the Muppet wheel around which all things Muppet revolve, and without Kermit being fully intact (with all his historical depth) there is no future for the Muppets – no new directions, no exploitative ’reboots’, nothing that nurtures the historical connection to you, the audience.  That connection as it was originally established, is vital.

Please note that I am relaunching this post after a flawed technical attempt due to unforeseen issues with the website.  If you and I have an in-person conversation you’re likely to interpret what I say differently than if you read something I have written. The interpretation of written opinions is left with the reader to add tone and attitude despite the intentions of the author. I want to say that while the handful of you who saw it and commented the first time around seemed to resonate with the content by taking it in much the way I intended, there were folks who clearly misinterpreted my intent as “egotistical” and “mean”. 

That sort of misinterpretation is bound to happen no matter what, but my hope is that deeper explanations can help. Since, evidently, skimming the surface of this issue in a blog post rather than writing an entire ‘book’ is insufficient to reach an understanding for many out there so I am taking another stab and adding more detail to the post. After decades of study and ten years outside of the Muppets, my focus here is on the dissipation of Jim Henson’s influence within what he brought into the world just as was my focus when I was on the inside. My intent is to inform, not offend by being truthful in all that I convey. This is ultimately about you gaining further understandings on the difference between true evolution and mere alteration for ‘fame and fortune’.  

That said, I have been asked innumerable times for my opinions on the topic of the present state of the Muppets, as well as Kermit, himself, because I lived on the inside of all of this for years.  What follows is for those critically thinking fans who care about why something is awry. If you are at a stage where you think we need the Muppets at any cost, this post is not for you unless you seek to gain deeper understandings of what constitutes their integrity from someone who was their primary defender.

* * * 

In the 1960’s a band called “The Buggs” was literally manufactured to copy the Beatle’s iconic sound by recording cover versions of their music.  A few years later, Alan Haney became known as being the original Elvis impersonator, again performing the songs and impersonating the voice.  Many others followed throughout the decades copying the work and style of many other groups.  The list of so-called ‘tribute bands’ goes on and on…  

None of these ‘tribute acts’ claimed to be the actual thing.  There was no attempt to make the public believe that what they were seeing and hearing was the genuine article, the actual people, themselves.  None had the depth and creative spark that brought about the respective phenomena in the first place.  Without the bonafide original having created a connection with the audience* these tribute bands are no more than impressionistic copy-cats garnering attention by pretending to be representative of something of immeasurable value.

And so we find ourselves in a world where, when we look at the Muppets, what is before us at this point is, essentially, a tribute band.  The difference?  They are claiming to be the genuine article, and you are expected to believe that.

Let me explain more:

I first became acquainted with Kermit the Frog in the mid-1960’s as he originally began to appear as a character.  He was no longer the anonymous abstract ‘thing’ Jim Henson created, but had become a frog who was developing a distinct, individual persona supplied in an ongoing way from a single individual performer* 1 .  That individuality was the basis for his achieving a connection with us, the audience, as it allowed him to evolve in a consistent and anticipated fashion over more than the two decades that followed.

Our expectation of who he had become was the result of the character being the extension of a specific performer who created the whole of him.  When Kermit spoke it had the gravitas of a direct connection with the artist underneath, and once established alterations to replace the source (Jim Henson, in this case) were literally unconscionable.

The methodology of characters emanating from one specific performer applies to all of the core Muppets, and it established WHO Kermit is.  It isn’t “Jim’s Kermit”, it’s simple Kermit and that is who connected with the world.  You know him and you expect him to be himself.  If he isn’t, you know that, as well.

I think we can all agree that the most devastating occurrence in the history of the Muppets was Jim’s unexpected death in 1990.  Even if you weren’t around during that timeframe – trust me – it was devastating.  Someday, I’ll tell you all about our last conversation about a month prior in which he discussed with me our plans for going forward.  But for now I want you all to understand that there was a second devastating and insidious turn of events that began to take hold behind the scenes in addition to losing Jim.  It stemmed from the commodification of the Muppets without the wisdom and guidance of their creator.

Technically, the Muppet characters began to be a commodity prior to Jim’s death.  Since it was necessary to assign a monetary value to them to facilitate the sale of the company to Disney, their worth had to be measured in dollar signs.  But their was a stipulation: Jim’s intent was for the characters to continue to be performed by their original performers indefinitely.  ForJim, that was at the core of their value.  

A part of his reason for selling to Disney was a trust that the characters would be protected partially through keeping this particular methodology ongoing.  That way, the individuality of each character would continue to evolve just as it had for years while maintaining their individual relationships with the fans.   I know firsthand that the rejection of this fundamental core principle within the Muppets during the negotiations of the sale was a large part of why Jim was having second thoughts about his decision to sell to Disney.

But, additionally, the Muppets becoming thought of as a brand to be bought and sold brought about what I believe to be the most devastating thing to damage the Muppets in their history outside of Jim’s death: the wholly objective corporate approach of treating the characters as ‘roles to be portrayed by actors who audition‘ rather than to continue to view them as ‘direct extensions of artistic expression from specific individual originative performers‘*.  Read that important last sentence one more time – it is a fatal error. 

Viewing the Muppets primarily as ‘roles’ began as soon as Jim was gone, and altered the perception from seeing them as individual entities who exist in our own world to being a corporate owned puppet character franchise with people hired to play them, an exterior/objective way of seeing them rather than an interior/subjective approach.  To really understand what I am saying here you have to differentiate between the interior and exterior of the characters.  In other words, the corporate thinking goes that all the years of interior development done by an originator can be replaced by simply auditioning someone who can lip-synch, approximate a voice, and focus the eyes, even if that person has no true understanding of the reasons behind why the world has a solid and loving connection with that character.

The “lets just hire someone new” mentality serves multiple purposes for corporate owners, but at the top of the list is that if bringing the Muppets to life is as simple as auditioning for them whenever you like, you are never beholden to a designated performer.  All that “depth of character” stuff has no tangible place around a boardroom table. The non-creative temporal executives in charge can hire and fire at will those who would otherwise be committed for life under the guise of ‘it’s just a role played by a hired hand’.  Trouble is, thanks to Jim’s methodology, in the case of the Muppets the performer of a character is the primary ongoing thread that runs through them indefinitely beyond owners, executives, and projects.

Make no mistake, this is a part of the thinking, a partial truth (like many purely objective corporate truths…) that ignores the ‘interior/subjective’ importance of how the deep connection with you, the audience, came about in the first place (i.e., that connection isn’t about their little green puppet, it’s about your expectation of who you have grown to care about).

As it has become the standard for on-going established characters who are well known by the fans to be recast in cattle call auditions and handed off to performers (as though they won first prize in a reality show competition), the true subjective ‘art of the Muppets’ has begun to  disappear for all time leaving the top tier Muppets to continue on based upon a list of their cliche traits that can be observed in YouTube videos – it’s all that’s left upon which to base them..  

That’s bad enough, but even worse are new ‘interpretations’ of the very characters you and I know so well.  As is standard in any production, from Broadway roles to franchise movie characters, different performers stepping into any role commonly bring their own interpretations in order to ‘make it their own’, evidently a stated goal amongst the Muppet puppeteers of today.  With no one in charge to provide knowledgeable guidance about the origins, and the Muppets viewed as ‘roles to be played’, the door remains wide open for a highly visible and recognizable soul like Kermit  (as well as all the rest) to be changed at the whim of whoever ends up underneath him. 

But I want you all to know that from day one throughout nearly three decades not once did I ever have the notion to ‘make Kermit my own’ – on the contrary.  It was absolutely vital in my process to make certain that any egotistical notion of ‘marking territory’ never happened so that Kermit remained based solely upon Jim’s foundational original*.  It had to be that way – there is no other way for what I consider to be a living, breathing persona to stay consistently convincing as it evolves.

This differs entirely from the present-day recasting process. I think what bothers me the most is the presumption that altering the qualities that you and I, as fans, connected with for decades is somehow acceptable and desirable.  My standard analogy is that the Muppets are treated like a box of Crayons or a palette of paints for the next selected person to use to draw and color their own picture.  They still do the same old stories using the same old jokes and sight gags, but without legitimate evolution**.  

It is as though producers and performers who never sat in the same space as we did with Jim are somehow qualified to redefine what Jim and the rest originated.   It’s nothing less than sheer hubristic arrogance.  Trust me – what was conceived and put forth in the late 1970s was not only ‘good enough’ to have allowed the Neo-Muppets to have jobs today, it was the biggest phenomena on the planet.  At its core, none of it is in need of so-called “re-imagining” by anyone.

We are left with no new ideas for them, only surface observations made by owners, producers, and performers.  That’s all that’s available for reference leaving the Muppets to be viewed objectively, as objects from the outside, rather than from the core of the character’s subjective hearts and minds, the original sources to which direct access has been eliminated.

Enter a big, shiny reboot of “The Muppet Show”, an idea I pitched multiple times from 2010 forward only to see it entirely ignored.  But I had very specific reasons for proposing bringing back the series at that juncture.  My reasons for placing the Muppets in their original surroundings was to give a new ensemble of Muppet Performers a familiar place to hone their historical knowledge of characters they had been gifted while working alongside Kermit who was, at that point, twenty years intact, and while they had access to the small number of people who were there in the days of origin.  

But make no mistake, this is a ‘Hail Mary’ right out of the Disney playbook used when nothing else is working – garner attention from the press by bringing in a recognizable Hollywood name to produce, and place the characters in a setting so familiar that any lack of depth and logic is more likely to go unnoticed (think “The Muppets” in 2011…it doesn’t matter whether or not you liked it, it was still the Muppets paying tribute to themselves). You will see this tactic of using the “star name” again and again (although I do believe that Seth Rogan is likely a good choice to be a show runner for a Muppet project , and I love that Emma Stone spoke of Piggy in the press as thigh she was a living actress…if only they had access to characters still operating with a basis steeped in Jim’s influence). 

* * * 

I have also been told by sources that the hope of the top performers is that after ten years this new Muppet Show reboot can be used by them to “prove” that by marketing the Muppets in front of the traditional red curtains you will believe that they are providing faithful versions of the characters.  Does that strike you as a bit disingenuous?  The expectation is that you, the viewers, have forgotten Jim and his influence, and sadly, maybe you have.  But there can not be a faithful continuation of something as unique and established as “The Muppet Show” without Kermit fully intact at the top of the pyramid, and even then servicing the other core characters is an uphill climb.  

So, at this point, I urge those of you who are savvy enough to see beyond the hype to gain the deepest possible understanding of all that Jim brought to the uniqueness of his characters that will be ignored for all time.  I don’t hate Disney, or the Hensons, or Matt (I’m the one who pushed to bring him into the Muppets at Disney in the first place).  Watch the new show, and enjoy it if you enjoy it.  Just do so with clarity that the present state of things is the product of treating the Muppets as ‘WHAT they are’ rather than as ‘WHO they are’, and it leaves us all with a result that doesn’t faithfully approach the magic and integrity of the original.

* * * 

As is standard in any production, from Broadway roles to franchise movie characters, different performers stepping into any role commonly bring their own interpretations in order to ‘make it their own’, evidently a stated goal within the Muppets of today.  With no one in charge to provide knowledgeable guidance about the origins, and the Muppets viewed as ‘roles to be played’, the door remains wide open for a highly visible and recognizable soul like Kermit  (as well as all the rest) to be changed at the whim of whoever ends up underneath him. 

But I want you all to know that from day one throughout nearly three decades not once did I ever have the notion to ‘make Kermit my own’ – on the contrary.  It was absolutely vital in my process to make certain that any egotistical notion of ‘marking territory’ never happened so that Kermit remained based solely upon Jim’s foundational original*.  It had to be that way – there is no other way for what I consider to be a living, breathing persona to stay consistently convincing as it evolves.

This differs entirely from the present-day recasting process. I think what bothers me the most is the presumption that altering the qualities that you and I, as fans, connected with for decades is somehow acceptable and desirable.  My standard analogy is that the Muppets are treated like a box of Crayons or a palette of paints for the next selected person to use to draw and color their own picture.  It is as though producers and performers who never sat in the same space as we did with Jim are somehow qualified to redefine what Jim and the rest originated.   It’s nothing less than sheer hubristic arrogance.  

Trust me – what was conceived and put forth in the late 1970s was not only ‘good enough’ to have allowed the Neo-Muppets to have jobs today, it was the biggest phenomena on the planet.  At its core, none of it is in need of so-called “re-imagining” by anyone.

* * * 

The word “channeling” gets thrown around a lot these days.   I often see the term used to indicate that someone is somehow receiving some sort of divine inspiration from someone else who has moved on or died, an originator of something whose torch is now represented by them.  I take the word channeling very seriously, and I am very aware that when I was tasked with carrying on Kermit my first and biggest challenge was to fully inhabit him in the exact same way that Jim did to the best of my ability. 

 To whatever extent I was able to preserve the core of Kermit, that ability did, indeed, rely upon so-called ‘channeling’ of all that I knew from within an interpersonal relationship with Jim*.  Without having had that direct relationship, no amount of calling my objective opinions “channeling” would have netted anything of integrity where Kermit is concerned.  To put it simply, I can attest that it is simply not possible to faithfully inhabit a character as well known and recognizable as Kermit from only being the most dedicated of fans and watching countless old videos of what the originator did prior.  

 With a definitive soul like Kermit, you know him when you’re with him just as you’d know a parent, your spouse, or a close friend, and having looked him in the eyes for decades, so do I. Think about it, if someone walks into the room wearing your best friend’s favorite shirt and talking in their general register with their accent you’re still going to know instantly that the person before you is not who you have come to know.  It cannot be stressed enough – it is vital to the Muppets that those who write for them, produce their projects, and perform them, view every aspect, every small detail, of what effects them through the eyes of the characters, themselves, as the first priority by treating them as though they are living, breathing souls*.  But first, you have to have fidelity.

A very important part of my process was to try and falsify any notion that came into my mind about Jim in the tradition of Karl Popper before applying it to Kermit*.   That simply means that I made no assumptions about what Jim did or who Jim was.  Even though he and I had worked together for a while, I put any educated hunches through vigorous examination to find evidence and data to either confirm my hunch, or rule it out.  If one is to actually achieve an internal realization of another person’s psyche, it is an extremely vital endeavor to use actual data based on direct knowledge of that originator as a sort of ‘checks and balances’ methodology.  Otherwise, self policing one’s own opinions will not magically make an opinion truth. 

Once and for all, folks, the Muppets as originally created are not defined by ‘WHAT they are’, they are defined by ‘WHO they are’ (somebody make a T-shirt…). A character like Kermit does not function with multiple performers, as versions, or as new interpretations, either simultaneously or even subsequently.  Treating The Muppets as roles is inaccurate because unlike ordinary fictional characters who live entirely in their on-screen world, the Muppets are both the characters and the actors within their films. As actors, they maintain a functioning existence in our own real world just as any other actor does often appearing as themselves both live and in television interviews. 

This isn’t George Clooney vs. Val Kilmer vs. Michael Keaton as Batman because there is no living person going on “Good Morning America” claiming to be “Batman”, an actual individual entity in this world who goes home to Wayne Manor after the interview.  Batman is an onscreen role – Kermit is a tangible present-day individual in this world, a fully realized persona with a personal lifelong history no different than that of anyone you know in your day-to-day life.  That is what you are connected with, and you are seeing the effect of all that having disintegrated.  

I have said many times in the past that I believe those of us who were giving life to the Muppets were in a sort of partnership with the audience that allows them to be brought to life.  The majority of the responsibility is on performers, but without an audience willing to suspend their disbelief, their connection to the Muppets would not exist.  ‘Who Kermit Is’ is established and should not be subject to ‘he’s doing the best he can’, or “give it more time’, or debates over one “version” vs. another “version” any more than who YOU are can be. It’s either Kermit or it isn’t.  

At a point when the audience is debating versions of Kermit, within their minds there is no longer Kermit to debate.

So you say you have trouble with the voice? Let me tell you, what is missing is a far greater loss than a voice. Virtually everything of Jim that he put into Kermit – his thought processes and timing, certain southernisms and expressions, quirks and affectations, historical references and contextual background, that slight indignant inquisitiveness, his general outlook and life philosophy, that old-fashioned understated uneasiness when things are going very wrong while still accepting it for what it is, even the manipulation style – all things that had to be observed in Jim to be understood and implemented, all things that I worked to make sure were kept alive at the core of Kermit – gone – gone for good.  Why? Because they can’t be synthesized, only passed on to the right person at the right time….and even that is a ‘maybe’.

But perhaps the most devastating loss of all is that there is no longer a basis for us to ever find out the truth of what Kermit would and should be doing next. Without Kermit continuing to be the vessel of Jim‘s influence, we have lost Jim for all time, just as without Jim‘s influence continuing within Kermit, he is lost, as well.

And while you’re rolling that thought over in your mind, take time to remember the list of those people claiming to protect Jim’s legacy who put this plan into action, and who supported it, both wholeheartedly and tacitly.

If the truth is true, then it isn’t egotistical, it’s just the truth.  It’s what is.  All of what I am sharing with you here isn’t theory, it’s tested, and despite whatever you may be absolutely certain of to the contrary I have no interest what-so-ever in being re-involved with the Muppets of today.  

That’s because I served with Kermit. I know Kermit. Kermit was a friend of mine. Folks, that green frog puppet is no Kermit.  His heart and soul are here with me…

 

1 This fundamental approach applies to all of the Muppets. I am choosing to focus specifically on Kermit the Frog as the primary original character in the brand without whom the Muppets ensemble as we have come to know it can not fully function.  He is the subject of scrutiny in the many questions I have received from fans asking for my insights into his demise.

* Key points in my process of establishing Jim Henson’s origination as the core foundational element of Kermit after Jim’s death.

**Evolution is best defined as the process of ‘transcending and including‘ previous stages.  For that to take place within character development, it is vital for those previous foundational stages to be fully known and understood.