In Defense Of Kermit

In Defense of Kermit
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Kermit the Frog

Kermit the Frog

Watching the drama unfold this past week re; the firing of longtime Muppeteer, Steve Whitmire, I thought I’d throw my two cents in the ring, re: the Kermit Situation. As, having grown up with The Muppets in the early 70s, and then getting a chance to work with them behind the scenes on Sesame Street in the mid-2000’s, I was one of a handful who got a glimpse behind the curtain as to the inner workings of The Muppets, The Sesame Workshop, and Sesame’s parent co., the CTW (Children’s Television Workshop).

As you can probably imagine, working with The Muppets is a surreal experience. But, like any job, both good and not so good. There were more than a few amazing moments; i.e. For the annual Xmas party, back before everyone became so PC - and cheap, we would turn the Sesame set into a “70s go-go bar” and Ernie and Bert, Elmo, Telly, etc., would perform hilarious R-rated skits to sheer delight of the guests. Watching a dancer gyrating in Big Bird’s nest was quite a sight. Or, when the crew was bored, they would put slutty, suggestive postcards of women dressed in lingerie, smoking cigarettes in a bowling alley men’s room, in the rack in Mr. Hooper’s store, keeping them just out of focus of the viewer at home. If you saw what some of the boxes of cereal were called, you’d never let your kids watch again. But, let’s keep that between us.

As much fun as it was working for the Muppets, there was a dark side, too. Way before HBO came along and saved the day, PBS decided, in the interest of the almighty dollar - and because they were pissed about CTW apparently selling the rights to broadcast episodes of Sesame Street without consulting them - they hacked the season down from around 26 episodes to, at its worst, about 10.

Being a production assistant and finding out the job you could count on for at least half the year has been trimmed to what amounts to a two-month flash in the pan, is no fun. One of the things I remember most about that time was Caroll Spinney (Big Bird), coming to me for advice. One of my daily tasks was shuttling the cast back and forth from their apartments to the set. Incidentally, a vivid memory was riding around w/ then-unknown Muppeteer John Tartaglia when Avenue Q was still in development off B’way and talking about how huge it was going to be.

Caroll is/was, as I’m sure you can imagine, the nicest, most docile person you could ever hope to meet. IMO, the reason Big Bird has lasted as long as he has, and is still so revered by millions, is due specifically to the fact that so much of Caroll is in the character. Gentle, compassionate, inquisitive, and funny. When he explained to me that the powers that be were thinking of replacing him with someone “younger” and “hipper,” I was in shock. They’d already ruined Snuffleupagus - changing his perfectly suited voice of so many years and making him talk normal was a catastrophic mistake - so the thought of the suits’ starting to ‘clean house’ of legendary cast members was even crazier.

Caroll, being Caroll, had no agent/manager so I became his de facto advisor. Each day, as we made the trip from NYC to Kaufman Studios, we would discuss his options. My main suggestion was he threaten to go public, as a character as legendary as Big Bird being thrown under the bus by the numbers crunchers would not go over well in the public eye. It was so long ago that I don’t recall what we finally agreed was the best course, but, needless to say, Big Bird is still Big Bird, and has been since day one, without interruption.

When it comes to the Kermit fiasco, you don’t have to be a puppeteer to sympathize with a co-worker who’s been blindsided by the brass. In fact, these days, it’s an accident when Corporate does the right thing and attempts to communicate the issues they may have with their loyal employee of many years, as opposed to the all-too-familiar, Death by Sniper Bullet.

Having not spent nearly as much time with Steve Whitmire, as I did with some of the other Sesame Street cast members, I can’t really comment on the Henson Co.’s take that he was difficult to deal with, except to say that the times I was around him, I found him to be easy-going, professional, and completely dedicated to his job.

A muppet is a unique kind of celebrity. Because you get the best of both worlds. If you’re an Elmo or a Kermit, you get to reap the financial benefits as well as the status that goes along with being an international superstar, all while being able to walk the streets and, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, never having to worry about being recognized and/or hassled for an autograph. Your privacy is virtually undisturbed. On the other hand, since no one outside of the biz really knows who you are, in situations like the one Steve Whitmire now finds himself in, you may be on the losing end. Point being, if Kermit, himself, was endangered of being replaced by a “New” Kermit, kind of like the Coke/New Coke disaster, upon word hitting the streets, the public outcry would be massive, and would most likely result in you keeping your job. However, because no one really knows who Steve Whitmire is, while he definitely has his supporters, it’s nowhere near the same as if, say, Vin Diesel was being ousted from Fast/Furious without explanation.

Of course, celebrities have their demands, and, being celebrities, so do The Muppets. And, while there were no demands for dressing rooms stocked full of pink kittens, there were definitely moments of “Do you know who I am?” One that will live on forever with me was when Kevin Clash (Elmo) refused to get into a town car to take him home because it wasn’t the Navigator he requested. I just don’t see Steve Whitmire being that type of guy. I could be wrong, but, if I was on a jury, after witnessing the near-death experience of Big Bird, I would have to lean towards siding with the defendant.

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