On Tuesday August 4th 2015, the entertainment world was shocked when this tweet hit from Kermit the Frog:
Here is the official statement from @RealMissPiggy and myself regarding our relationship: pic.twitter.com/uHCSsokqWR
— Kermit the Frog (@KermitTheFrog) August 4, 2015
Most of the tweets and responses were of shock and consultation (read FrogFan76’s tweet and Facebook posts from that time to get an idea of the hyperbole). I however had a different approach to the news. My initial and continuing thoughts are “So What?”.
To understand, you need to see the Muppets and the Kermit/Piggy relationship the way I see it. Stay with me to the end of the article to understand.
First of all, I believe this is just promotion for the upcoming ABC television show The Muppets. (make sure to have the period). As we saw in the “sizzle reel” that was the pitch for the ABC executives, Kermit and Piggy were on the outs and Kermit had moved on with another pig named Denise (Head of Marketing). Miss Piggy has also moved as well (persuing Topher Grace).
The whole rocky relationship began in the first episode of The Muppet Show (in which the Muppet Glee Club sang “Temptation”). Over the years couple has been more out than in. But let’s look into this even further.
Up Late with Miss Piggy is the show-within-the-show where Miss Piggy is a talk show host. The Muppets is the behind-the-scenes of that show, in which Kermit is dating Denise, and which is all fake to begin with. Similar to The Office, where everything we see is portrayed by actors. Kermit and Piggy are acting, playing a version of themselves, just like we have seen in the 2011 film also called The Muppets (don’t get me started on this). They are puppeteered actors. The Muppets haven’t been apart forever; remember, they just did a television special Letters to Santa just a couple of years earlier.
So already, there is confusion. Kermit and Piggy announced as themselves, not their characters, that the breakup is real. Yet there is another issue that drives this. The issue is that (get ready, I’m about to blow someone’s mind with this) they are puppets that are not real!
If Steve Whitmire and Eric Jacobson weren’t the brilliant actors that they are (taking up for the even more brilliant Jim Henson and Frank Oz) this wouldn’t ever have been believed. As they stated recently at San Diego Comic Con and again at Disney’s D23 Expo, the characters all live in a box (without air holes!) waiting for the puppeteers to put them on and bring them to life. We also heard at D23 Expo how this isn’t the first time that the pair were planned to split. The Muppet writers have talked about breaking them up ever since Jim Henson’s death.
I believe that movies and tv specials were not the best plan to have them break up, as those don’t have the same built-in continuity that a TV show does. This new show is the best idea for moving the characters forward. However, I believe that this “breakup” is only temporary as it’s been shown that as many times that Kermit has been frustrated and “broken up” with Piggy during the years, that he is extremely jealous when he sees her in any romantic relationship that doesn’t involve him.
So, to sum up: characters in a show, portrayed by actors (playing a version of themselves) portrayed by Eric Jacobson (a male who is married) and Steve Whitmire (another male who is married) are making news by breaking up? Who cares!
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