Chatting with Kermit & Miss Piggy about the new Muppet Movie

When I was a young girl (back in the Stone Age…) I used to LOVE to watch The Muppet Show. I would love forward to it every Sunday night. I’ll even go so far as to admit that I used to sing along with the theme song at the opening of every show. 🙂

♫ It’s time to play the music
It’s time to light the lights
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight. ♫

Back then I would never imagine MEETING any of the Muppets. Things like that don’t happen to people like me. So you can imagine how THRILLED beyond I was when I met Kermit and Miss Piggy back in January. I was fortunate to see them shooting a scene for the new Muppet Movie that will be in theaters in November 23, 2011.

 

As if meeting them once wasn’t a thrill of a lifetime, I had the opportunity to hang out with Kermit and Miss Piggy again back in September.

It was a lot of fun interviewing Kermit and Miss Piggy with some other wonderful bloggers who were with me at the press junket. I thought you might be interested in hearing what the divine Miss P and the lovable Kermit had to say.

Q: How was it working at the French Vogue?

Miss Piggy: I did not really work there.  This is a movie we’re talking about. You all know that, right?  It was, it was lovely. I wish we’d actually shot on location, Paris. We shot here in the back lot.

Q: How was it wearing all those designers’ clothes?

Miss Piggy: Those are real and it’s wonderful, it’s fabulous. I love to do free clothes from, from fashion designers. 

Kermit: How do you get free clothes? I don’t have a lot of experience with clothes.

Miss Piggy: You know, it’s, it’s all about showing up and making experiences and you’re seen out with the fashion designers, you wear the clothes. You’re kind of like a walking (ad).

Kermit: I’m sort of like a walking, naked guy.

Q: Who’s your favorite designer?

Miss Piggy: Oh, I don’t want to answer that.  Uh, but when people ask me who I’m wearing I normally say “It’s Kermit’s”.  Yes, he’s the one I love to wear the most.

Kermit: I’m not sure I understand what that means but okay.

Q: I think we’re noticing a big diamond ring on your finger.  Is there any announcements or anything?

Miss Piggy: No.

Kermit: It just means she’s been eating more cracker jacks.

Miss Piggy: I’ve been wearing this for a long time.  This is more wishful thinking. 

Kermit: I’m sorry I didn’t hear that, what?  I did hear that, but…

Miss Piggy:  One day I’ll replace this with the real deal. 

Kermit:  Yeah, but it’ll be a little smaller I’m afraid.

Miss Piggy:  That’s all right.  As long as it comes from you and it cost a lot. 

Kermit: Oh, believe me the price will be very high.

Q: So what were you doing all these years before you started production on this last movie?

Kermit: Oh, lots of stuff.  You know, it’s been, it’s been quite a few years since we’ve done a big movie. You know, we haven’t done that in a long time but, uh, we’ve done lots of other stuff that we can talk about.  We just thought we were trying to come back to the big screen.

Miss Piggy: Yes, we’ve done a lot for the small screen. 

Kermit: Yes, yes and even smaller.

Miss Piggy: And even the smaller screen, on the Internet.

Kermit: Yeah, we’ve done a lot of that.

Miss Piggy: You know the Internet?  

Kermit: We did a bunch of viral videos over the last couple of years.  We did the Bohemian Rhapsody, so we’ve been together.

Miss Piggy: We launched us into the stratosphere.

Kermit: Yes, into the ether net.

Q: Do you find it’s easier to be green now?

Kermit: I think so.  It’s taken on all these new meanings.  When I said that originally, when I sang that song it was about being accepted in the world and these days it’s a lot more about the environment I think, you know.  People are kind of taking it to mean that. But, uh, I think it’s just about being comfortable in your own skin.

Miss Piggy: I love that so much.  When you sing that. It makes me a tear up a little bit because I know it must have been hard for you being accepted in the world as a frog.

Kermit: It can be tough especially in Hollywood so you have to make your place in the film industry.

Miss Piggy: But you did that.

Kermit: I did.

Q: How did you like your new costars?

Kermit: Oh, wonderful. It was wonderful working with Jason. You know, Jason actually wrote this thing to begin with and it went through about 17 thousand rewrites but he’s the guy who wanted to make this movie with us. 

Q: What’s your favorite part of the movie making experience?

Kermit: I like lunch.  No, the pace is good for a frog. I’m a pretty laid back guy so you have plenty of time to sit around and learn your lines. You don’t gotta hurry up and wait. I don’t really have a trailer to myself.  We’re already calling security I think.  I just have a small, like a child’s that I stay in, you know. I don’t take up a lot of space.  Saves on hotel costs, you know.

Miss Piggy: I usually make him come to my trailer. I think it’s, uh, a lot of the same.  The trailer, my trailer.

Kermit: Of course you really enjoy that closing scene out on the sidewalk on Hollywood Blvd.

Miss Piggy: Yes, I did.

Kermit: Your fans were everywhere.

Miss Piggy: I know. I’m so, you know, I have such adoring fans and it was wonderful to, uh, to get up close and personal with them even if they were actors pretending to be my fans. I knew that deep down underneath they did love me.

Q: How do you stay so beautiful after all these years in Hollywood?

Kermit: You just made a new friend.

Miss Piggy: Well, uh, I think, uh, I think it all can be accounted to love.  I have so much love in my life.  Yes, it just washes the years away.

Q: When did you know it was love at first sight?

Miss Piggy: I think you kind of answered the question. I think it was at first sight.  You know, but, uh, in the Muppet movie that is just a reenactment thing, dramatization of how we first met.  We actually met on the Muppet Show.

Kermit: That’s true. Piggy was a chorus bit. She was a singing, dancing chorus bit and she sort of stood out from the rest, you know. 

Miss Piggy: I was just a chorus girl for, uh, for about half of the number. I was leading…

Kermit: …The song, the show and me.

Miss Piggy: And his heart.

Q:  A lot of us have sites that are geared around children.  Do you have any messages for the children?

Kermit: I think, uh, I think it’s important to let kids be kids. That’s important and, uh, and, uh, and try to do that when we get to be our age too, you know. Kids don’t understand that.

Miss Piggy: Kids need to play. They need to go outside and play and run and jump and skip and have fun.

Kermit: I love kids and they’ve been such a huge part of my life and my success all the way from the Sesame Street days, you know.  And, uh, again I love the idea of kids being kids, you know, and adults being kids too sometimes, you know.  Take care of them, nurture them. 

Q: What is your favorite piece of merchandise that has come out featuring you guys?

Kermit: Oh, my goodness. I personally, I like the lunchboxes.  That was a long time ago.  I love being on a lunchbox, you know. I’d rather be on the lunchbox than in the lunchbox, you know. 

Miss Piggy: Actually I’m really not up with all the merchandise. 

Kermit: Actually I have to say Piggy’s books.  She’s got a couple of them.

Miss Piggy: Oh yes, yes I love my books.

It was so much fun interviewing them. They are delightful and so full of life!

Kermit and Miss Piggy were kind enough to take more pictures with us.

I was fortunate to see a few clips from the new Muppet Movie. It is HYSTERICAL! Even from the few brief clips I thought it was probably one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long, long time.

Check out the photo of me, Kermit and Miss Piggy (above). Notice Miss Piggy and I have similar outfits? I guess that means I know what is fashionable if I picked out a similar outfit as Miss Piggy. Of course I don’t have a boa. I guess I need to get a boa because you never know when you’ll need to wear one. 🙂

Here is the movie’s trailer.

For more information about the new Muppet Movie visit www.Disney.com/Disney. You can also follow them on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/MuppetMovie). They are also on Twitter (www.Twitter.com/MuppetsStudio) and on YouTube (www.YouTube.com/MuppetStudio).

Keep an eye out for our interview with Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller who wrote The Muppet Movie.

Kimberly

*I was not compensated for this post. I was a guest of Walt Disney Studios at the press junket. Any opinions expressed are my own.