The Worst Thing

Remember this post?

Remember how I said that Ron Stoppable said "I'm losing everything I ever cared about"?

I'm afraid I have to report that things did not get better.

THEY GOT SO MUCH WORSE.

I'm not going to catalog how things have gotten worse. As everything slips into a downward spiral, I'm trying to be positive and trust that either I'll stop moving downwards or I'll touch the bottom and be able to push off. And some good things have happened, too. I haven't yet seen permanent solutions to any of my problems, but I have been blessed with temporary fixes. There's no doubt who is in charge of my life. I keep getting reminders that Heavenly Father isn't going to let me hit the bottom—or, if He does, there will at least be a cushion at the bottom.

But I do want to talk about THE WORST THING OF ALL which is that Steve Whitmire is no longer performing Kermit the Frog. He is no longer performing with the Muppets.

Guys. Since I found this out last week, I've been devastated. My heart is broken. The first thing I said was, "This really hurts me."

It does, though. It's personal. I've been a Muppet fan my whole life, and Steve is my favorite Muppeteer. I love his performances. I also love his story; I actually wrote about his life for a project in college.

For those of you who don't know the story, when he was growing up Steve was also a Muppet fan...who was discovered by Caroll Spinney as a teenager and then hired by his idol, Jim Henson. For close to 40 years, the Muppets have been this man's life. He worked on pretty much every Jim Henson from The Muppet Show on, and when Jim passed away in 1990, Steve took on the role of Kermit.

Heaven knows I think Steve has done a great job as Kermit, but honestly if he wasn't playing Kermit anymore, I wouldn't care so much as long as he was still playing his other characters, like Bean Bunny and Rizzo the Rat. (And my favorite Muppet of all time, Wembley Fraggle. Wembley is not part of the current Muppet brand, though—more on that later.) I don't however, care about Waldo C. Graphic. I'm pretty sure nobody does.

Anyway, this has bothered me far more than the firing of a man I've never met should. I've never broken up with anyone, but a while back one of my friends and I decided we should stop being around each other for a while. I'd go around town but every place reminded me of that friend because we'd gone so many places together. Everywhere was haunted, or tainted, if you will. That's kind of what this is like. The Kermit the Frog plaque I ordered came in the mail...and reminds me that Steve was fired. I see my Wembley Fraggle doll...and remember that Steve was fired. I'm folding laundry and hang up my Kermit shirt...and oh yeah, Steve was fired!

On Tuesday night, I could not go to sleep. At first it was just general insomnia but after a while it turned into "I can't sleep because Steve was fired and I need some answers right now!

So I was up until around 2:30, looking for answers.

I discovered, much to my shock, that since I'd originally learned of the issue the entire Internet had exploded. Suddenly, there were comments from Disney reps and Jim Henson's kids (??) everywhere!

Before I proceed, I will share with you my biases. Here's how I feel about everyone involved:

Disney: I'm a devoted Disney fan. I've seen a lot of sneering comments about Steve's firing saying that Disney is a heartless company that only cares about money. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, Disney cares about money. But I don't think that's all they care about. The only real contention I have with them is that they've never really been able to figure out how to use the Muppets to their best advantage, which is a shame.

Jim Henson's kids: I don't really care about them...at all.

Steve Whitmire: You know how I feel about him.

Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you my reactions to everyone's comments:

Disney: I find Disney's comments to be rather vague. Some of the things they vaguely mentioned sound like legitimate concerns. Some of the things they vaguely mentioned didn't make much sense to me. For example, that Steve wouldn't accept an understudy. I was always under the impression that Muppets aren't supposed to have understudies. Let me explain...take Sara Bareilles. She's a successful singer-songwriter, right? And right now, she's starring in Waitress on Broadway. Now, if you went to see Sara Bareilles in Waitress and she suddenly got sick and her understudy had to go on, you would be disappointed, right? Especially if the main reason you'd gone to the show was to see Sara Bareilles. But it wouldn't be a travesty. However, if you'd bought a ticket to a Sara Bareilles concert and she suddenly got sick, her manager wouldn't send an understudy on. If the manager did that, it would be a travesty. That's how it's always been with the Muppets. For years, they've been marketed as celebrities, not characters—which is what makes them viable guest stars, such as when the Sesame Street Muppets were guest stars for the MoTab Christmas concert alongside Santino Fontana. There's only one Santino Fontana, and he's always played by Santino Fontana. There's only one Kermit, and he's always played by the performer who currently "owns" the role of Kermit.

Jim Henson's kids: I find the Henson kids' comments to be unnecessarily personal and weirdly timed. It's odd to me that if they had concerns about Steve that they didn't voice them earlier, particularly at the time when Steve was still working for them and not Disney. I also am not sure how much weight their comments should have when, as far as I'm aware, none of them has worked with Steve in years.

Steve Whitmire: For someone who has just lost his job, his passion, his friends, and to all appearances his life's purpose, he seems to be doing well. Whether his firing was actually deserved or not, I feel like he should be angry right now. But he doesn't really seem to be.

So I didn't really find any answers. In fact, I'm more confused than ever, but I can tell you that in spite of how much everything is changing and how depressing it is to be powerless to stop it, the way I feel stays the same. I'm still a devoted Disney fan. I still don't really care about Jim Henson's kids. And I still really love and admire Steve Whitmire's work.

Now, in the interest of positivity, here are some good things that have happened because of this.

The Muppeteer taking over Kermit's role (Matt Vogel) is extremely talented. I don't yet know if he has the chops for the role, but I don't doubt that he'll work very hard.

Initially, I was hoping Steve no longer working with Disney would mean that he would be more available to play Wembley in the supposed upcoming Fraggle Rock movie. Unfortunately, since the Henson kids own Fraggle Rock, I'm guessing they will not be bringing him back. Apparently Kevin Clash, the former performer of Elmo, will now be playing Wembley?! I actually find this news to be kind of disturbing. I don't have anything against Elmo, but I keep having this horrific vision of a Wembley-Elmo and aaaaahhhhh noooooo. Is nothing sacred anymore?! Plus no one could ever play Wembley the way Steve could.

BUT something else that actually is good news...well. When I wrote my college project about Steve Whitmire, my professor was pushing for me to interview him.

And I was like, "Um, this man is impossible to get ahold of! He has no Internet presence! I only know he's a real person and not a conspiracy because I've seen interviews with him on Fraggle Rock bonus discs!"

Here's what I actually ended up writing within the project itself (it was a narrative that mashed up my life with Steve Whitmire's):

Guess what? Steve doesn’t have an e-mail address, at least not one you can find on Google. I discovered this after I tried every single search term I could think of. The closest thing I found was a website explaining that if you want Muppeteers to sign photos of their characters, you have to send the photos care of Sesame Workshop and pray they fall into the right hands. Unless I became a writer for a posh magazine overnight, there was no way I was going to be able to interview Steve Whitmire. I would just have to make do without an interview, and he would just have to remain unaware of my insignificant existence.

He doesn't have a Facebook or Twitter, either.

However, following Disney's announcement, he started a blog about his work with the Muppets. I found this blog during my answer quest. It was pretty amazing to hear more about his viewpoint in his own words. So, naturally, I decided to subscribe to the blog.

Within a few minutes, I had in my inbox an email that called me by name.

Even though I knew it was just an automatic message Steve Whitmire had typed out when he set up his blog, I couldn't help but squeal a bit inside with excitement!

And even though I still had didn't have the answers I wanted, I finally felt peaceful enough inside to go to sleep.