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Kermit puppeteer exit: “Not my decision”

Actor who exits as the voice of Kermit after 27 years says the role was his life's work.

This week, news broke that Steve Whitmire, the longtime puppeteer behind beloved Muppet Kermit the Frog, would no longer be voicing the character he has played since the passing of Jim Henson in 1990.

The reason has not been detailed but in a personal blog post, he has stated that it was not his choice to leave the role.

“For me the Muppets are not just a job, or a career, or even a passion. They are a calling, an urgent, undeniable, impossible to resist way of life,” he wrote of his career. “This is my life’s work since I was 19 years old. I feel that I am at the top of my game, and I want all of you who love the Muppets to know that I would never consider abandoning Kermit or any of the others because to do so would be to forsake the assignment entrusted to me by Jim Henson, my friend and mentor, but even more, my hero.”

Whitmire noted that he was told by Muppets Studio executives in October 2016 that the role of Kermit would be recast.

“I have offered multiple remedies to their two stated issues which had never been mentioned to me prior to that phone call. I wish that we could have sat down, looked each other in the eye, and discussed what was on their minds before they took such a drastic action,” said, adding that he retained hope that Disney would “reverse their course” in the ensuing nine months. Ultimately, they did not.”

“In a statement a spokesperson for The Muppets Studio wrote: “The Muppets Studio thanks Steve for his tremendous contributions to Kermit the Frog and The Muppets franchise. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Source: TIME

4 Responses

  1. No mention of those well used words ”çreative differences”,I would think that Steve has found himself in a familiar position for contractors and employees who became part of the company furniture, and confront a new management with new contract ideas. I’m not sure that a show which as old and established as the Muppets needs new ideas, unless the producers know something their young viewers don’t.

  2. It’s not the first change of voice by Kermit. Jim Henson originally did the voice himself. In 1970 he released a song called Rubber Duckie one year before Sesame Street started screening in Australia.

    1. Agreed, but why now? Seems like corporate politics. Whitmire was informed 9 months ago but hoped against hope that it wouldn’t happen, but it did.

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