News Update: Thursday 11th June

News Update – June 11th 2015

ABC announced this week that the new series The Muppets will begin airing on Tuesday September 22nd at 8/7c, just 2 days before Jim Henson and Steve Whitmire’s birthday!

Speaking of The Muppets, the Hollywood Reporter have announced that ‘The Muppet Mobile Theater’ will be travelling across the country giving fans the chance to watch the 10 minute presentation pilot, as well as giving away things like tshirts etc.  You can find the dates and locations here on the Hollywood Reporter website.

This week legendary actor and star of Muppet Treasure Island Tim Curry was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Actors Fund.  While frail after suffering a stroke 3 years ago, he was in good spirits and humor, showing the world why we love him.  Tim has had an incredible career spanning 4 decades, and he has often said that Muppet Treasure Island was his favorite movie to do.  So we salute you, Tim!  And to honor him, you can click here to watch a clip of Tim singing ‘Professional Pirate’ – his only number!

Last week Miss Piggy was awarded the Sackler Center First Award from the Elizabeth A Sackler Center for Feminist Art.  She wrote a great piece for Time Magazine about why she deserved the award, which you can read here.  Our friends at ToughPigs have a fantastic review on the night, including some great video.

This week Muppeteer and director Frank Oz walked the purple carpet at the premiere of Pixar’s Inside Out, which he and Dave Goelz (Gonzo) have a small role in.  Online magazine Glamour spoke with him about his time with The Muppets in a very interesting interview, which you can read here.  While the whole thing is well worth a read, there was a couple of specific quotes that grabbed the attention of a few of us Muppet fans.  When asked if he missed performing Miss Piggy, Fozzie and Animal etc, Frank responded with:

“Yeah, I do. I miss them very much. But I can’t do everything. What happened was, I was off directing for six months and I can’t say [to the Henson Company], “You can’t use [those puppets] for six months.” So I had to give it up, but I do miss it”

Glamour then asked Frank if he would ever want to return to these roles, Frank went on to answer:

“Well, you know, I’m not asked to go do it [because] they have other people doing [the characters and voices] now, and they’re satisfied. But I would love to go back and do it for a short period of time, yeah”

This is some substantial news.  Frank has been vocal over the past decade about not wanting to return to the franchise (he was approached to return for the 2011 film), and has been somewhat critical (but never nasty) about their recent ventures.  So for Frank to say publicly that he misses it and isn’t opposed to the idea of returning, even just for a short time, this is a big deal.  While Eric Jacobson currently does the characters wonderfully, and I would imagine there would be contract issues that would need to be sorted out, it would be absolutely incredible to see Frank pick up the pig or the bear again.  Fingers crossed!