'LABYRINTH' WEEK: Muppet Icon Steve Whitmire Recalls His Time on Set with Bowie, and His 26 Years as Kermit the Frog

character out maneuvers with logic. He's also one of the fiery figures in the Chili Down dance sequence, the one who gets his head kicked around like a soccer ball. And my favorite, he was Ambrotious, the trusty dog of Cerdidimus. But these roles, as impressive as they are, are just a minuscule part of his resume. This gentleman's name is Steve Whittmeier, and if you know anything about Muppet history, that's all I need to say. I know I toss around the world legend a little too freely, but in

this case, there's no other word for it. His work was a huge part of my childhood and probably yours as well. For twenty six years he was the voice and soul of Kermit the Frog, not to mention Ernie of Burton, Ernie Fame, Rizzle the Rat, Bean, Bunny, Wembley, Fraggle, Statler of Statler, and Waldorf Fame. The list goes on and on. His story is so genuinely inspiring to me.

Steve grew up loving puppetry, especially Jim Henson's Muppets. After hosting a kid's cable show in his native Atlanta with his puppet Otis, he was invited to audition for his hero. This led to years working alongside Henson on all manner of projects, The Muppet Show, Fraggle, Rock the Dark, Crystal, and of course Labyrinth. After Henson's death in Steve was absolutely gutted his mentor was gone. And then he got the news that Jim had hand picked him to carry

on his signature character Kermit. Up to that point to have been the only person to ever perform as our favorite amphibian. Now put this in your own terms. Say you're a massive Rolling Stones fan and you find out that Mick Jagger has chosen you to step into his platforms in front the band. Imagine that incredibly potent mix of excitement, ecstasy, and sheer terror. Steve obviously excelled at the role he did it from for eights Babies like me.

He is Kermit, Sesame Street, Muppets, Christmas Carol, Muppet's Treasure Island. It's all him and now he's creating new characters and his web based series cave In, where he voices the hilariously crabby Weldon, the I T. Guy. It was an honor to speak with Steve about Muppets, the cosmic philosophy of puppetry, whether or not it's actually easy being green, and of course his unforgettable encounters with Bowie on the set of Labyrinth Enjoy To start sort of at the beginning, well,

how did all this speakin for you? Were? You were ten with Sesame Street began and you wrote a letter that's correct. I I was ten years old and night. I had been a Muppet fan for a very long time prior to that. But the Muppets were really, prior to Sesame Street, were kind of almost just an act that went on variety shows, you know, they didn't have their own show and stuff like that, and so it was a matter of waiting until they were gonna be on you know, the Tonight Show or something like that

to get to get the chance to see them. And when Sesame Street happened, suddenly the Muppets were on TV every single day, and I was just at that right age to get you know, really obsessed and become a pride a fan of it. I started trying to build my own puppets and all that sort of thing, and you know, Rocky start with that. It's not an easy

thing to do. And so I ended up writing that letter to Jim Henson and a few months later he actually wrote back to me, which was amazing now that I look back at it, you know, it seems of unlikely and surprising. Uh, you know, at a time when there was no social media, and it really was you know, a letter with the stamp on it. To get a

letter back from Jim was pretty special. And he directed me to some simple muppet patterns that he had published and I think a Woman's Day magazine some years before, super super simple, as a way for me to start making puppets. So that was really what started me. And once I started doing that and learning how to do that, I started adding a little inch here or a little shape there, and and started stiddling around with making different

shapes and making my own puppets as well. But my initial thing was to try and copy every character that Jim had done, from Kermit to Ernie to Birt to everybody on Sesame Street. And I think I read that your friends in high school we're calling you Kurmit, like this almost seems faded in a way. Well that's true.

They did, mostly because I had my my pretty actually pretty poor Kermit puppet that I've made by comparison to the real one, of course, but whenever there were school talent shows or corral recitals or things like that, I took every opportunity I could should be on stage you doing something, not me personally, I was hiding. Of course I was in a puppet stage, but to have an opportunity to do something with puppets from my classmates and

stuff like that. So I ended up using Kermit quite a lot, the not very good version of Kermit I was probably doing at the time, but it did gave me the nickname. You're working on this this television show in Atlanta, the Kids Show with Otis and the kids. All through town. They're calling in there talking to you. I mean The thing that always boggles my mind about your work is how much improv is involved, especially for

something like that. I mean, not only are you giving a performance with your body and doing the voice and doing the vocal work, but then you have to be that quick to like think of what the character would say to these kids. I mean, how do you learn that? I bet you're something that you don't learn. It's just something that that's kind of born with. It's a funny thing. I don't know exactly how you learn it, um because

it's something I always did. I mean, I'm a pretty good improv person when it comes to doing characters that I know quite well. Once I know a character. Once I've done a character for a while, and it's very natural to play in that character's voice. I'm less good at straight improv, you know, I don't do that quite as well, But if I know the character, I can tear in a conversation indefinitely. And that really is what

I was doing back in the late seventies. What you know, as I was graduating high school and doing that first show, you know, it was more than two hours a day on the air live and taking these phone calls. So we had to fill a lot of time with a lot of you know, a lot of a lot of a lot of talk. And I never gave it a second thought. I just sort of did it. So to say how you learned that, I think you just you do it. Yeah, yeah, you just jump in and do it.

And it really was always throughout my career it's been my favorite thing to do, no matter which character, whether it would be Rizzl the rad or Kermit the Frog or whoever, It's always been my favorite thing to do is just to have the opportunity to carry on a conversation in character. Is it's great fun I mean, and this is probably a funny question. Where do you go during that? Do you are you very present in or

where are do you? Almost kind of like I I talked to a lot of musicians and they say that when they're on stage playing solos, they don't know where they go. They just kind of go away and they're not there and just sort of the music takes over. Is that what it's like for you when you're playing

a character? You know, it's the funny that you should put it that way, because I can imagine I'm I'm sort of not a great accomplished musician, but I've done a little bit of music as well, and that can happen, you know, And and there is a similarity. I think it might be true with many many artistic pursuits. Frankly, you know, you know, it's odd. It's hard to describe. You know. We watch what we're doing on a monitor as we work, so we're seeing our work as the

audience will see it. And I got to a point where I was looking at criminal on the screen and not thinking about it anymore. It was almost as though I retracted from anything that I was conscious of doing and began to just witness it, just to watch it

as though I were an audience member. And there were plenty of times, I mean a lot of times still are when I would drift off into that character and not even think about what that character was going to say next, and and honestly quite often be surprised by it, very removed from being the character and really more watching the character just come out and evolve and kind of channel through you, you know. And I'm sure it's the same way with musicians, you know, and as incredible men.

It really does, it's alive, It takes on a life of its own. It really does. And to me, that is the key to whenever the Muppets have done something successful and their connection to the audience was always about

that sort of believability. You know, they were just as much there and alive as the people as a human actor or you know, talk show host or whatever that they were speaking with just absolutely key and unfortunately I think that's a little bit missing these days, that they're not quite as strong as they might have worn't been. But but that's a lot of it. The character is such a deeply ingrained character and we all know that character when we see it, and it's very important that

that stay that way for that connection to exist. There are things that the character will and will not do, choices they will and will not make. And yeah, it's it's funny that that is. To actually know that character as a real person is definitely fascinating to me. I guess my question to you, in sort of a broad sense, is is there one thing that separates good puppet performers

from from the great? Is there is there one thing that you can that you can articulate or is it a series of many, many, many small things that are honed over time. You know, it's hard to put my finger on one the future of the thing. I think, it's a lot of stuff. It's really interesting when I and I don't mean to be critical of anybody's art. I mean I think people progress at different stages. You learn everybody starts to square one, and you learn through

this process. You know whether you're a musician, whether you're a puppeteer with you're an accurate, whether you're an artist, a painter, or whatever. It's interesting when I look at a lot of the puppetryes that's out there these days, it tends to appear to be a lot like what we were doing back in about nineteen eighty. You know, it hasn't progressed a great deal in terms of what it is that people are doing in many many cases, and that's just a matter of time and learning and

what style of person wants to do. In my opinion, what always helped me to be the best I could be with puppeteering and performing these characters is to put them first. It really was a matter of looking at those characters as though they were living, breathing entities in

the world. The minute they become a character, franchise you've kind of lost the point, you know, and from the point of view of the people who are producing the material for these characters, they need to be their point of view and their sensibility, and the group dynamic of the group of characters needs to be the focus through which you look at everything you do. I guess, going back a little further, how did you go from being, you know, a teenager with with your own homemade kermit

to actually working with Jim Henson? How did you you first cross pass? I understand you you met Carol Spinney, who is legendary performer Big Bird, oscar the Grouch. How did you you first enter the Muppets orbit? That's exactly how it began. I um time from Atlanta originally it's still lived here, and I never heard of these things.

But there was this puppetry festival, this gathering of puppeteers taking place in Atlanta, and I heard about it and decided to go because I thought it'd be fun to meet Carol, you know, someone who worked with the Muppets. And I was about I guess I was seventeen or eighteen, and it hadn't really clicked for me that I would be considered for a job. I mean, I didn't go for that purpose. I just wanted to meet someone who

worked with the Muppet just you know. And so I met him, and I happened to be the only person at this festival who at that point in time was actually doing Muppet like puppets, Muppet style puppet The puppets I had created in my own look like the same style. So I spent the weekend this was a weekend long thing with Carol and his wife Debbie. We faced contact info, but I I didn't necessarily spect to ever hear from

him again. And about four months later he called and said Jim was looking for new puppeteers for Sesame Street time. He was he was shooting the Muppet Show, but he was looking for new Sesame Street performers and thought I should audition. So what that led to was was eventually ending up in New York with Jim, who called me and invited me to come up and spend the two

days with him. And Jim's idea of an audition was to spend about I don't know, maybe an hour with puppets on our hands, and the rest of the week was spent sitting around talking and getting to know each other. He really wanted to know there, and you know, I was very young. I can only imagine what that must have been like and whether I was someone that he felt would fit in with his group of people. Uh so that that interpersonal kind of you know, connection between

the group was super important to him. Yeah. What was he like as as a person, Well, he was I think one of the best ways to put it might be to say he was an integral thinker. He was someone who seemed to have a pretty good grasp on seeing a situation from multiple points of view and multiple angles. And he was quite a collaborator. He had a great organizational sense in terms of bringing the right people in

for the right projects. And he would meet someone in the course of life or you know whatever, and he would maybe not work with that person for four or five years, and but he would remember them and he would have this thought in minds that, oh, you know, this person I met would be perfect for this project. So he's really really a student making those kinds of calls on people, you know, stuff like that, and just a terrific person to work with. I always say that

I don't feel like I worked for Jim. I feel like I worked with him, which was really really special.

That's funny because I speaking to many of of David Bowie's colleagues and friends, they all said something similar about him, is that he he was so good at at sort of this almost social alchemy in a way, like he would he knew how to put a team together and even if it could be years down the road, he would remember people and think, oh, yeah, that person would be perfect for for doing X, Y Z and And

that's why that whatever he's involved was so good. Was that he brought in people, didn't tell them what to do, let them be themselves and bring the most authentic gifts to the project. And that was that was really special. Yeah, Jim. Jim was a bit like that. He would come in with the vision and an idea, quite happy for everyone

to have their particular input in that project. You know, he was the final arbiter of what we actually did and didn't do, but more often than not, he gave us an enormous amount of freedom just to add our you know, our our thing to whatever it was we were doing. At what point did David get involved with with Jim for the for the Labyrinth projects? I know, it sounds like that had a long gestation period. Yeah, you know, I can't give you a definite answer on that.

I'm not quite sure. I do know that when he began talking about Labyrinth and sort of sharing it with us, he'd been working on it for a little while at that point. And when I say as, I mean, the pup tears. You know, I remember a particular conversation. We were in Toronto working on some other work, and he said, um, something that I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said there were a couple of people he was looking at for the role of Jared. One of them was David Bowie and

the other was Sting. I remember very distically having a conversation with him where I said, well, you know, I think Sting is amazing, but I sure hope you go with David Bowie if he's willing to do it. And Jim said, no, no, I I hope so too, And uh, you know, it's a matter of whether he's he's going to be interested or not. You know, that was pre asking I or free getting an answer, but I was. I mean, I was just a massive fan of David

Boie from the time I was in high school. You know, Ziggy Stardust was that that whole album was just a trademark time. I mean, it was just it was the music that I did but in my high school rock bands, you know. So it was a very big deal, very big deal to me to have the chance to meet him and work with it. Oh man, I can only imagine when did you first meet? You know, I have a few embarrassing moments in my life. This is one of them. Before we started shooting, we were rehearsing some things.

We were there for maybe a week before the shooting began, and Jim decided to have a gathering at his house in Hempstead. We all go in Bowie. David Boye is gonna be there. Jennifer Connelly was there, the cast, you know, the main producers and people, and you know, all of us puppeteers. And I remember we were sort of standing in the full circle of people and I was one of a handful of people who was introduced to David.

He was very gracious and kind of quiet, you know, and and and you know, very nice to meet you kind of thing. After a moment, I said, You're gonna have to I was very young as well, You're gonna have to forgive me just a little bit if throughout the first couple of weeks we're shooting together, if you catch me staring at you, I don't mean anything by it.

I'm just such a massive fan. And he smiled, but he also took a step back, and I remembered it, and then shortly after he accused himself, and I remember thinking, oh my god, I've blown it. I have I have made a complete fool of myself in front of one of my heroes with this fanboy thing. And now how can I go in and work with him? You know? So that was actually the first meeting, and then we

go in and begin the work. You know, we're working on labor, working every day and see fine, we were working okay, but one day for some reason, so we go we go to the dailies every day that you know, we see the work we did. The day before. We're

leaving the daily theater I'm working. I'm walking back to my dressing room with a hand a handful of puppeteers and we're all gonna gathering our stuff to go home, and somebody ran up behind me and put you know, like you might run up behind somebody put both hands on their shoulders and kind of jump off the ground and really pressed on their shoulders for a second, you know,

just the sneak up on them. It was David Boys and I had absolutely I I don't know why in that moment he chose me, but he came to me, put hands on my shoulders, look, you know, with all the other puppeteers, and said, hey, I'm going he still has makeup on from the days as the character. He said, I gotta go out and get all his makeup off once you come up, and we'll sit around and talk for a while. And I was flabbergasted. I don't know why he chose me in that moment, but he did.

So that's exactly what we did. So I didn't drive in the UK at that point because I had never driven. I was a little bit afraid to be on the other side of the road, so I didn't have a car. My one way to get home was that every day they sent a mini cab for me, like a little car that this guy would drive me home. And we're working in Elstree, which was quite a distance from where I was staying. So you know, I had like one shot to get home, so if I didn't leave right then.

I remember the very first thought in my mind was, oh, my god, how am I going to get home? I'm sleeping here. Yeah, and but and then I thought, well, it would be worth it to sleep here. So so anyway, he you know, so I go. I follow him up to the to the makeup lady is working on taking the makeup off. We sat around for probably two hours or so and just talked about everything under the sun that we could think that I could think, I have to talk to David Boe about things like at the time,

Prince was incredibly popular, height of Purple Rain popularity. We talked about Prince, and then somehow we got around to the topic of the fact that I had gone out and bought my own little recording you know, home recording studio and my you know, Yamaha d X seven synthesizer, which was a big deal at the time, you know. And and he said, oh, do you have any of your music here? And I did, and he said, oh,

go get it. I gotta hear it. So I got to play my music for what it's worth for David Bowie, who was extremely encouraging and extremely enthusiastic about it, which was a really big deal for me. Any problimed me on, you know, I mean like like, it seems very like sincere compliments. I don't think he would have done that just to be nice. You know, he wouldn't have said anything bad, but he also wouldn't have gone out of his way to say, well, that's that's really quite good.

You know, we wanted to know the lyrics. He really was in tune to it, so that was a very big deal for me. And then I as as I recall the the woman who was doing the makeup actually gave me a ride home so I didn't get stuck there. This sounds like a top three, maybe even top two life moment ever. I mean, good lord, that's incredible. It

was a pretty big deal. And you know, obviously I will never forget that how nice congratious he was to me, and of course that we worked on set and had a great time, you know, these silly characters that we were doing together along playing alongside him when he was singing. Just a wonderful guy. And I was very surprised. And then you know, I ran into him a couple of

times after that, just because of the connection. I was able to get tickets to a to a concert or two and I got to pop backstage and say hello, you know, things like that. But that was really my moment was that evening when he decided he was going to spend some time with me, you know, for whatever reason. I mean, you probably remembered what you said to him the first time he met and that was like, that was the moment you had the time. I guess, you know,

maybe so maybe so. We had spoken briefly on the set, just in the course of working, but it was really about the work. So yeah, who knows that that is amazing? Oh man, I mean that that that shoot. It seems like a really incredibly hard, arduous shoot, but also it looks like a really fun shoot. Did Did David have a good sense of humor? Yeah? I think he did, And I think he had to to deal with this because yeah, it was it was a complicated shoot. I mean,

he's he's a professional. He's used to working in a set and you know, he knows what it's like to work on a film. But sometimes are are things that we would do with these mass scenes of puppets. It takes a long time to set him up. It takes a long time to get them working. You've got so many characters working out at the same time, and Jim's trying to coordinate those characters to do things because it was all practical effects at that point, you know, so

everything had to work in camera. So yeah, yeah, very patient guy and but just always a gets us of humor and you know, he always seemed to be enjoying himself, which was terrific. What was the uh, the trickiest scene for you to shoot? Was it that? The chili down scene. That's a pretty good estimate on the hardest thing we did. Yeah, because it was the early day of computer controlled cameras, you know, trying to to match these shots over and over again with cameras that that tried to do the

same motion. And you look at it now and you can kind of see this little halo around all the characters. You know, it's pretty crude by today's special effects standards.

But I I did the the guy who was the one whose head comes off and gets kicked across the room and stuff like that, So I was I was doing the head of that character, which means, you know, you've got I don't know how many maybe fifteen twenty puff of tears, all dressed in black clothing with these hoods on, so we can hardly see running through a black set that was kind of slippery and so real time, you know, they had my that head had to fly across the room as though it had been kicked or hits,

you know, or whatever that was about. So I'm running through space trying to make his head twy across. You know. The choreography for that just is absolutely stunning and I can't get over because in addition to the physical demands of the character, you also have to deliver a performance too, which is the thing that I can't run my mind around doing all of those things all at once. That's unbelievable to me. It's aught to think about sometimes, yeah,

especially when it says choreographs and blocked as that. That was done by a guy named Charles Oggins, who I think he's still around, but he was a very talented dancer and choreographer and we all worked with Charles to figure this out. But it was a great coordination effort. You know, um, three or four people per character trying to do that thing. Now, did you have any choice

over which characters that that you were playing. I mean, if because obviously there were just so many, or was it really just like, hey, you can you grab one of these one of these goblins right now? We need to get forty five people in the castle. Right now, we need everybody we can get, or did you get the sort of pick and choose, like being one of the guards or well Jim, Jim chose which one of

those guards I was. I was one of the four heads, and he chose Uh as when you said guards, I'm talking about the guys who were the the top and the bottom of the doors. You know, there were four guys who when and she chooses which door to go through, almost like with playing cards, almost, Yeah, and Jim chose who would do which one of those just I don't know whether he had specific reasons for choosing. He just made a choice. The four of us who did that.

I think when it came to the goblins, I probably had some free reign on that although they sort of had their goblins they're gonna put in the front, and uh, you know I did one of those guys, and I remember choosing the one I loved was this little guy with a flat head with a long, skinny nose, and I loved that carried that puppet was such a great puppet. So I may have rushed in and grabbed that guy

because I loved him so much, you know. I mean, is there, aside from your your moment, your private moment with David, you have any favorite moments from from on the set, anything stick out? Oh? Wow, you know, it's a little hard for me to remember a lot of that. Um, what I really recall is the camaraderie of this massive project coming together, and Jim was obviously very busy and distracted, but he always kept a good humor and had a

moment to smile. One of my favorite things is that no movie would allow you to do this these days. Jim always loved it when I would bring like my um early days it was a Super eight camera, but then it was home video and shoot stuff. Uh. He loved the fact that I was documenting things and we didn't always have behind the scenes people. So, I mean, I've got some videos people have never seen. I don't know whether I have anything of David particularly, but of

just the process of shooting that film. I got a lot of stuff, and I don't even know what the legality is of showing it somewhere, you know what I mean, It's amazing. I mean a lot of stuff of Jim specifically talking to my camera about the process. You know, he loved the fact that I was you know, I knew him and we worked together for years, and that I was the guy shooting that. You know, you have here a little documentary. That's amazing. Oh, you gotta do

something with that. That's so cool. I'd love to see that. I hope I can at some point. Yeah, I want to figure out a way to get it out of the world little bit. What was Jim's working relationship like with David, because they they're saying early they kind of seemed very similar in a lot of ways. I imagine them them really hitting it off. Yeah, I mean, it certainly seemed on the set that it was wonderful, you know. And I don't know how much they kept in touch

after the film was over. It wouldn't surprise me if they did, but I don't really know that. But certainly on set it was great. I mean, I think they tended to agree on most of what was going on. Well, for instance, is that I don't think Jim in any way imagined there being music in this film. I don't. I don't think he was going for that. But when David wanted to do music for the film, it suddenly

became a bit of a musical, you know. Suddenly a character would break into song, you know, and that changed the certainly the feel of what I said, what the direction I think Jim was going in. I don't, I don't. I don't think he was looking for it to be a musical. I forgot David Bowie and he wants to wants to do his thing, Well, yeah, what are you gonna? Right?

And David wanted to do music for it, and I mean the music is great, you know, but in terms of their relationship, I mean, as best I could certainly see, it was professional and friendly and they certainly seemed to be enjoying the silliness of working together. But David playing this kind of strong lead character who seemed to have these other intentions in some ways. You know, what was David and Jennifer Connelly's uh friendship? Like, like what was

there were they sort of like were they friends on set? Well? You know, they certainly had to work closely together and place some kind of intimate stuff together, and obviously she was fourteen at the time, but he was playing a sort of a fantasy in her mind in a certain way, you know, real coming of age kind of thing for her.

I don't know whether we really know. At the end of the film, we sort of indicate that these were all real things that happened to this this character, but in a way it was very metaphorical in its in this whole thing about this coming of age story her.

I feel like they worked together incredibly well. I can't give you any insight on their direct relationship in terms of, you know, how how that was to work together, but it seemed like as was typical with most of the things Jim did, and this was a massive undertaking this particular project. I never felt that there was any kind of tension from anyone, you know, Jim. Jim tended to have a set where people were enjoying the work, you know, as we as we got through it. I mean it

it looks like a blast. I mean, do you do you remember seeing it all completed for the first time? Was it at the premiere? The first time we saw the film was in Toronto. We might have been shooting Fraggle Rock so talk about two extremes of different projects. Um,

you know, we were. We were sort of in the middle of the four years, the four or five years we did on Fraggle when Labyrinth came along, and I seem to recall Jim having a Toronto screening West where we did Fraggle, and and all of us going to a theater seeing it there. I mean I was blown away by For me, I loved it immediately because I loved everything about it from David you know, I was also a big rocky horror fan. Oh my god. Yeah. I felt like there were some parallels between Tim Curry's

character in that and what David was doing. Even it was very, very different, but this powerful sort of figure was sort of almost like the sexual tension thing going on. There seems to be some similarities, and I loved everything about it. I can't tell you. I I can think of at least a dozen women in my life that say that their first crush was David Bowie in that movie. Well, you know, I guess so. And it's really interesting I do.

I do comic cons these days quite often, and the number of people, the cost players who come through dressed as the two characters, you know, the Sarah character and David's character, and oftentimes there's two women doing that. A lot of women dressed as him in that film. You know, it's a very kind of androgynous character, but a lot of his stuff was that way. You know, Yeah, they're actually I have several friends who have just addressed up

as a chair for Halloween too. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, there's so many things that you've been involved with that that just means so much for so many people. I mean, you know, of course obviously, Kermit, I mean, how did you receive the news that you were I don't even know what the word is. The phrase would be just to to now inhabit that character. Yes, yeah, it was pretty shortly after Jim's death. You know, we were all going through an incredible period of just down

depression the morning, you know, terrible, terrible thing. But it wasn't too long after that because Jim's family was still in the process of theoretically trying to make the deal work where he was selling his company to the Walt Disney Company, which fell apart at that point, didn't happen, but everybody was making a go of it. I mean, the plan was to go ahead with that, so Kermit needed to continue to exist. And from what I gather, although he and I never talked about it, Jim had

knowing that he was going into Disney. He was sort of like John Lasseter became. He was gonna be this new creative force within Disney. Um many many projects and ideas were being run by him for his thoughts. He was gonna be the real, a real creative force within Disney. And I think he felt that he might suddenly be in a position where he simply didn't have the time

to perform Kermit anymore. Uh. And he'd been the Kermit for thirty five years at that point, so rather than Kermit go away, And it wasn't like he wanted to hold open auditions, as was Jim's way of doing it. He wanted to pass it on to someone that he

felt could handle it. I guess, and there he felt that about me, because he had mentioned it to a couple of people to his wife, Jane and I think Frank Coz and a few other people, but a small group that in the event that he was not able to continue to do it, he was thinking about acting me if I would give it a shot. Jim was the only person everyday Kermit. We we all did our characters and nobody else did our characters. So to suddenly be told that was a big deal, you know, obviously,

and very scary to me and insimidating. But I immediately said I would give it a try. And it was. I mean, the way it was put to me was, would you like to try it? And I immediately said yes. But it was an incredible honor and just really scary at the same time. You know, I cannot even begin

to imagine. I mean, what was it look for you when you were handed I don't want to call him a puppet because that seems really disrespectful, but when when you were handing Kermit for the first time he was yours? What was that would you remember, like like having him in your hand for the first time and knowing that

this was now a part of you. I had stood in for Jim like once or twice, but but I mean, that's all that means is I put the puppet on while he did another puppet, and then he immediately took it back, and you know, he would dub the lines later. So dog I had never had the puppet on the war. But really the first time I had any contact with the actual physical puppet after Jim's death, and knowing that it was now up to me to try to make

it work, was very private. I mean, they actually sent me a Kermit puppet um within weeks after Jim died, and we talked about this for me to begin to fiddle around with it. So it came to my home, you know, in a box, you know. And you know, I remember very very specifically that when I took the puppet out of the box, it smelled like Jim. I mean, I don't even know what that means exactly. Jim didn't smell, but you know what I mean, you have a spent you know. It was the last puppet that he had used.

You know, we had worked together just a few weeks before. I remember it so well. And I put the puppet on, and I'm standing in my bedroom in front of a dresser mirror, you know, And I knew how to make a puppet work, you know, I've done that a lot by it. So I remember holding it up to the mirror and having Kermit look at the mirror and sort of then as though he was looking at we were looking at each other in the mirror, you know, and then uh, you know, my hands turned Kermit's face towards me,

and I really it was it was uncanny. I got this sense of it was almost like kermittt was saying to me, Okay, well go on say something. You know, you've got it, you got it, do the voice. And it completely freaked me out. I I took the puppet off. I put the puppet in another room and I didn't go near it for about three weeks. It was a very weird, weird, kind of strange moment. And eventually I remember Brian Hanson. I think it was Brian who got in touch with me and said, you know, how's it going.

We sort of need to It would be good for us if we could see something that you're doing, you know. And I so I put together a tape of me singing. I think it was not it's not that easy being green. They sent me a track and I recorded my us on top of it and shot it. I mean, I don't think I ever sounded exactly like Jim. But I realized quite early on that the most important part of this process was going to be to make sure Kermit state who Kermit was, that the character needed to be consistent,

and I mean, I just knew that. And the fortunate part for me was that I at that point I worked with Jim for a little over twelve years and beside him almost all the time when he was doing Kermit, doing other characters or assisting in with Kermit or something like that, and so I really had a sense of where Kermit came from from within Jim. You know, that was super important. The things that were affectations of Gems that were really Jim that became a Kermit, and how

that seemed to happen, you know. So those were things I was able to recall my own experience of that. And I could have watched YouTube videos all day long of the work that him and done, and it would not have given me what I really needed, which was that interior, you know, origination point from Jim. So that's

really the only way it would have been possible. I was gonna say, knowing Jim, it seems to have been much more helpful than being any kind of impressionist or anything to your right, well, exactly exactly, And it's very easy to copy somebody sometimes, you know, you can just copy what they do and do your impression of them.

But I knew from doing my own characters, you know, because I've done a number of my own characters by then, that to do that would mean that Kermit would become very stale, very quickly, and he would just be a copy, you know, be a parrot. And I didn't want him to be a clone of Jim. He needed to be based on that, but he needed to evolve, He need to continue to grow, otherwise he wouldn't be viable as a character going forward. I must imagine be like a jazz player getting a lead sheet to a to a

jazz standard. You got the chords there, You've got the basic structure, but then you veer off of that and you make it your own, and you do your own thing. You put your own in flect fins on it. It's a funny thing. I hadn't thought about it until you

said it. Just then. The natural way that we would all make that statement is to say, you know, you start with the basis and something and then you make it your own, and and that's true, but it really what it boiled down to was to start in the basis of Jim's Kermit keep his influence a part of it rather than make it my own. It's almost as though I was just trying to allow Kermit to continue to grow. And that really came in handy in the first couple of projects we did shortly after Jim's death.

One of them was the Muppet Christmas Carol and the other was Muppet Treasure Island. Both were cases where sort of playing Jim playing Kermit, but then Kermit was playing an additional role. It wasn't really Kermit, you know, he was other characters within those stories. So that was kind of a challenge too. It's like three times removed, you know, Oh, I can only I mean, we just watched Muppets Christmas

Carol this year. I mean I was I was actually thinking about watching, like, oh my god, you're right, this is Kermit as Bob chriss Bob cratchit as Kermit or wait a wait, now I know I'm confused exactly. That was my first really major thing as Kermit after Jim's death, and it was the right tone and the right type of project, and the Muppets were I think very well cast in that Kermit was the right character to play

that character, you know, and you were Beans as well? Right, being Bunny, I was being a was Rizzo as well. Rizzo with Gonzo is one of my guys, and yeah, many many things. Be Bean is my favorite in that And I still I could I get choked up to this day. I first saw this movie when it came out and I was like five years old whenever the camera pans over to to to being Bunny and when he's sleeping outside of the hold, like, I can't, I can't handle that. To this thirt and three years old,

I can't. This a little shivering thing. Yeah, I love that. I mean, that's a nice little moment, but it kind of gets the point across. You know, God, how does that feel for you? I mean these movies, you know. I mean, I'm sure you get this old time and in many different ways from people who are much more articulate than me. But I mean, these these movies, these characters, these moments that there are a huge part of my

life and millions and millions of others. I mean, how does it feel to know that you've had that kind of impact on people? I mean every year at Christmas, we watched this movie with my family, you know, my girlfriend and it's just it's really special for us. What's that like for you? Yeah, it's a funny thing. You know. Part of the reason why I love doing the comic cons is because I get to meet so many of

the fans. You know, when we were doing this work over the years, we worked in a studio, kind of in this vacuum. You know, we didn't have a live audience that you didn't see people and pre Internet, you know, you've got the feedback that you've got, but it was a little bit different than there was no social media or anything like that. You don't know what people are thinking. You know what the reviewers you're thinking, but that's about it.

So it's gratifying to know that there was a documentary done some years ago about George Harrison and I believe Martin Scorcese directed. It's a great documentary. Living in the material world one of my favorites. Love it and forgive me, but I always get for money pies on. I get Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam mixed up because of their names, not because of what they looked like. I think it's Terry Gilliam who is in there being interviewed because all

of that time. You know that the money Piespines flying circus time and George Harrison's involved with them, and all that was going on at exactly the same time we were doing The Muppet Show in England. He makes the statement in there basically where he says, it was a little arrogant on our part, but we were doing what we wanted to do with almost no regard for the fans whatsoever. It's like John Lennon said, you know, we we it didn't matter whether anybody liked it. We were

gonna do it anyway. And that's actually it wasn't arrogant, but that's exactly the way Jim was. Jim did what he wanted to do, and it just so happened that people responded to it. You know, he did a lot of things people didn't respond to. I mean, labretth wasn't immediate big success. It was you know, it's been it's become more of a cult success than it was an immediate success. And he would have loved that. But it

was true of all of this work. And I resonate with out to the extent that while I'm having this great opportunity to meet fans who love the work. It was purely for selfish reasons, you know, And it wasn't about money, and it wasn't about fame. It was about doing this incredible thing and having the opportunity to do it. You know, dream come true. You know how many people have a dream when they're when they're a teenager and then get to actually do it. I mean, that's that

is absolutely unbelievable. I mean, you know, some of it is luck, but a whole lot of its talent, and a lot of it is just plain luck. You know, it really is. I mean I look back at it, and you can it's very You can look back at scenarios and see how things fell into play. So you could say it's serendipity or it's meant to be, and maybe it is, but it also is just interesting to see the pattern of how everything fell into place for me to end up in the right place at the

right time. When Jim I was the right age, he was looking for young people. He wanted like a person to come over and become a part of his core team, and I became that person. Could have been somebody else, know, but it happened to be me. Right is the right time you know, when is the when you when you're going out and you're meeting fans at comic cons. What's the most common thing that people say? Oh, just say

say this in so and so's voice. Is there a common thing that people come up to you and ask you to do? People do ask me to do the voices, and I actually rarely do it. I usually tell them, you know, I really, I really don't do the voices outside of when I was performing the characters, you know,

trying to let people down. But I would say the most common thing they say is quite similar to what you were stating, and it's always great to hear it, and that is that it's just such a huge part of their lives, you know that it's um they usually have some memory of a parent or grandparent or a time in their lives when the Muppets for whatever reason might have meant something to them in particular. And I resonate with that because I was actually the same way

prior to working with Jim. You know, it was. It was a massive part of my life for a good nine or ten years before any notion of ever doing it as a career came about, you know, So I know exactly what they feel. There's a connection. I used to look at the Muppet as a kid. I didn't realize this at the time, but I know it now. I think the audience was looking at these characters as you know, you sort of saw pass them to the person who was performing them, because they because they were

a unique aspect of whoever that performer was. You know, it was a particular performer. They didn't switch around characters, and that person would potentially be that character for their whole life as far as Jim was concerned. So the connection is through the puppets to the performers, between the audience and the performer, like any other performer. You know, it's like it might be through music to a musician.

You know, it's a very similar kind of thing. And Jim was not extremely precious about the characters he He really seemed to look at that the Muppet as the puppet. You know, the puppets were tools tools of his artistic expression, like a paintbrush or or if he'd been a carpenter, you know, Kermit might have been a hammer, you know, or a guitar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you never know. Wow, that's that's such an interesting way to put I never

thought of that. I was gonna ask you, and I know you you canna think I'm a crazy person for asking this, but like, what was your relationship like with the figures themselves? And the fact that you had Kermit shipped to you like boggles my mind because I think, oh my god, it's just it's the kind of thing that would be sent with like armed guards and in like some kind of special truck, like you know, on loan from the Smithsonian or something like did you have

a special place for it, did you? Or was it like you just said, was it just a tool and you just kind of put it over there when you were done? And yeah, I kind of was that. It's really interesting thing with puppeteers, and I'm sure there are ways to relate this to other artists and the type of work they do with whatever the tools of their tradear.

I had built so many characters, and when you start with a concept for character and you build it from the inside out to be whatever it's gonna be, that you always have that objective view of it along with the subjective you from the point of view as a character. So I should look at Kermit differently. When Jim was doing Kermit to a certain extent. I'll give you an example. We never talked to our characters. We don't relate to the characters like we sit there and talk to the puppets,

you know. They we put them on. We do what we do and we have a great time doing We stay in character and they say cut and we keep going for ten minutes and stuff like that. But it is all about just us doing a performance with the characters. We don't feel like we have a separate relationship with

the characters per se. But I remember one time I walked on the set and Frank was doing Piggy, and for whatever reason, Miss Piggy looked at me and said, oh, hello, Stephen, And it was so cool and and I mean by by this point, yeah, by this point I had been working with the Muppets at Puppets forever, you know, I mean, I've better been doing in Puppets for twenty years and with the Muppets for five, so but it was still there was something cool about Ms Piggy speaking to me

because Frank would normally do that. It's just something that came out of his mouth. You know, I have to walk on the set, you know, but I totally get that. Yeah, I know what it feels like. You know, it's just not the normal way that I would look at it. You know, it has been such a joy talking. Before I let you go, I want to talk to you about the new series that you're doing featuring this amazing character. Well didn't the I t guy and Internet troll tell

me tell me more about about your new series. So Weldon basically came about after I was no longer a part of the Muppets, and I was thinking, well, you know, I know that to do this work from doing series over the years that if you walk away from doing it for a while, it's like getting back on a bicycle. You know, you can still ride, but it takes a

minute to get your balance. So I thought, I want to look for something that that basically I can do on little no budget, that just keeps my skill set growing, you know what I mean, keeps me sharp with the puppetry, the improv and all that stuff. So that's how this came about. It seemed appropriate, you know, well it's really a return back to you were talking about this kid's show with those things that I did forty years ago.

It's very much the same kind of thing, only instead of people calling in on the telephone, they now call in on discord. You know, this is via the internet. The basic point of the show was is for this character to have exchanges with whoever is calling in. Therefore, most of the material just comes out of the conversation and somebody gets really slow and boring. I used to go back and edit the shows after the live stream. What we post is a slightly tightened version most of

the time. But that's the fun of it, you know. And I've got this kind of It's funny because certain people out there who watched this character have almost become cast members. I mean, you know, they call every month and they are almost a part of the show, so we expect for them to check in. You know, is a real undertaking to do this. As simple as it is in concept, it actually I overcomplicated like crazy because

I hear about the production values on it. You don't you don't do what I did for thirty forty years and then just do something that's tackie. I'm trying to do something that's got to be confestivety to. So we do these production numbers that run in every show. It can be to where from to to. We've done some ten minute long narratives. I have one puppet that I built, which is Weldon, So Weldon is um played all the roles and all the production numbers we do if there

are multiple characters. I've always loved shooting against green screen and what can be done in terms of of placing characters, you know, into scenarios, into stats, into polices. So that's a lot of what we're doing. I'm lucky to be working with a young man named Liam Nelson who has his own production company, h Do Heaven Productions, and so the studio we worked in is a tiny little space, but we're able to do some pretty ambitious things in here, you know, and I'm loving it. I mean, it's a

fun little character to do. And you know, I'm also developing some other things too, but it takes a walk for those things to get off the ground. Some of it is with former colleagues who I've worked with who really want to work together, and uh, some other ideas that will be probably bigger shows, but also bigger shows cost more money, so you know, we have to pull all that together. You know. Oh it is it is hysterical I I watched a few episodes before speaking you,

and it is it's so great. I really love it. I'm I'm so excited to so we're gonna do next all So that's so exciting. Oh well, thank you, I'm and I'm glad we talked about it, and um, you know, I'm really mostly doing it as a learning experience. And and by the way, one of the I mean, it's not just the puppetry. I'm doing everything. I'm writing music.

I'm playing the music and recording it. Any any music to hear on there I do, and and all of the editing and most of the writing, although I have Jim Lewis, a former colleague who works with the Muppets, is helping me produce it. I've been around those things my whole life. But I'm really learning the practicality of doing it now, which is fun, you know, hard and fun. I was gonna say that sounds like an absolutely mammoth

undertaking it is, but uh, we do. We do one per month, We do the last variety of every month. We do a live stream per month, and I would not be able to pull anything more than that together because I'm doing it virtually all myself. I just want to thank you so much for your time night. Before I let you go, I have one final question. You're gonna hang up on me. What's Kerman's favorite David Bowie album? Oh my god, how would I possibly up? There's gotta

be a great answer to that, right, wow. Trying to figure out what it is at the climb inside Kermit's head for a minute. I think, uh, it might album. I don't know, but the song might be a laddinsane I always, I always, I always say it like that, a Laddin saying, because I know that was fun. But Kermit loved fun, so that could easily be it. Well, you know when we um when we were doing around the Labrary, I guess after Labyrinth, David's son who was Zoe, But I think he went with Joey in the end

worked at the Creature Shop for a while. I don't know if you knew that. Oh that's right, yeah, he yeah, I think he is, and but for for a number of years there, I believe he. I don't think I ever actually met him, but he was working in the Creature shop, presumably working on building fabricating stuff. You know, Well, that's a funny full circle there will. Yeah, yeah, I thought so too, but yeah, I was. It was it really hit me very hard when when I heard that

he had passed away. You know, it was it was just, you know, he was just he was just such a part of my life and he was always there, and we always and we worked together and they're always even though you know, after that point, I see him once in a while, but and we weren't super close friends, but it felt like there was a connection, and I really, I really mourned over that. A little Bit Off the

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