Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Spotlight
CNN Spotlight: The Muppets
Aired May 23, 2014 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Famous.
TERRY CREWS, ACTOR: Hermit is a national icon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And famously in love.
MISS PIGGY, MUPPET CHARACTER: He is my prince.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hermit and Miss Piggy in a most wanted movie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The stars all smiles in public on set another story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you're all right for Kermit?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he was very jealous of how close Kermit and Tina Fey became.
MISS PIGGY: If you come near my frog, you are toast.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, exclusive new revelations on a storybook romance.
KERMIT THE FROG, MUPPET CHARACTER: I'm still hot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I guess ...
MISS PIGGY: Isn't he?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is.
KERMIT THE FROG: You're embarrassing me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: CNN Spotlight, The Muppets.
Hollywood's most famous couple? Sorry, Brangelina. Muppets sweethearts claim the crown.
MISS PIGGY: We're not just one of the A-list couples in Hollywood, we are the ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, we're really big ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the couple. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kermit and Miss Piggy are coupled again in Muppets Most Wanted.
MISS PIGGY: Excuse me. Kermit, do you have a moment?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Their romance? Legendary.
MISS PIGGY: You make me happy ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But their past, a mystery until we did some digging.
For Kermit, the story begins in the swamp as this recently discovered footage reveals.
He's the eldest of several thousand siblings.
KERMIT THE FROG: Dinner guys.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's Angie and Arty and Aloysuis
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brett McKenzie gets close to Kermit while writing music for the frog's most recent movie.
BRET MCKENZIE, SONGWRITER/ FRIEND OF KERMIT: Just a tip of really working with Kermit, don't ask him and that was brothers and sisters.
KERMIT THE FROG: Eugene, Everett and Elaine and Mortimer, and Mary, and Melissa and ...
MCKENZIE: He started reciting every single night except for Steven and Alice.
KERMIT THE FROG: Lwanda, and Yoyo, and Yaya, and Yiyi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meanwhile, in a sty several states to the north, a young (inaudible) squeals her first tune.
MISS PIGGY: No matter what life may bring.
MAGGIE FURLONG, MUPPET EXPERT, YAHOO TV: Poor Miss Piggy was born on a farm in Iowa, seemed to be nice normal enough childhood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Until ...
FURLONG: Her father died tragically in a tractor accident and I think that was the beginning of her daddy issues.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are mommy issues too.
MISS PIGGY: My mother? I don't talk to my mother.
FURLONG: Piggy never got along with her mother. She never appreciated the glamour and the fabulousness.
TY BURREL, WORKED WITH MISS PIGGY: She quit in Iowa about as fast as her stubby legs can take her.
MCKENZIE: It was rock bottom for her. I think time's very tough.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So tough she resorts at one point to posing for a bacon ad.
LARRY KING, THE LARRY KING LIVE: For a bacon product.
MISS PIGGY: I'm not going to talk about that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the while, Kermit keeps his reputation and worked free.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $500.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But then he messes handled by high powered attorney.
KERMIT THE FROG: There must be some mistake. No, I'm Kermit the frog.
MARK GERAGOS, HIGH-POWERED ATTORNEY: I represented Kermit back in the 90s on a rather sensitive and legal matter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are going to be here awhile.
GERAGOS: I can't get into the specifics because of attorney client privilege but let's just say we made it go away.
KERMIT THE FROG: The rainbow connection.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Musical talent becomes Kermit's ticket out of the swamp.
KERMIT THE FROG: There's something that I'm supposed to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got talent, kid. Singing, telling jokes ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A key into meeting with an agent puts him on the road to Hollywood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We picked up a weirdo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He acquires new friends along the way.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He she is folks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then stopping by chance at a county fair, a life changing moment. Miss Piggy and Kermit find their own rainbow connection.
MISS PIGGY: This love was bound for heaven and not for earth.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was it like when you first laid eyes on each?
MISS PIGGY: Well, for me it was haba-haba, who's that hot frog?
KERMIT THE FROG: I guess I looked at her and said, "Well, what do you know. A singing pig. You don't see that everyday."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the start, the relationship is volcanic with regular eruptions, stolen kisses with Lady Gaga and Ellen pushed Piggy's buttons.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Piggy, are you the jealous type?
MISS PIGGY: I'm not the jealous type. I'm just playing just. Yes.
KERMIT THE FROG: I'm not going to give a ...
MISS PIGGY: Ladies ...
KERMIT: Yeah?
MISS PIGGY: ... if you come near my frog, you are toast.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tina Fey ignores that warning working intimately with Kermit on Muppets Most Wanted. But with Insider Bret McKenzie sees it all go down.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hit it boys.
MCKENZIE: They were laughing and just having good time and ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hold this frog down.
MCKENZIE: Miss Piggy saw them. It was just suddenly just furriness. She kept flying over and Karate chopped Tina Fey.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make yourself comfortable.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fey is quick to deny any romantic intentions.
TINA FEY, WORKED VERY CLOSELY WITH KERMIT: That's just my friend. Kermit's my friend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Miss Piggy laughed it off.
MISS PIGGY: I was (inaudible) that's rich. He loves me, he loves me not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miss Piggy turns her relationship and the Muppets into a fortune.
MISS PIGGY: Life is good (ph) when you could be in love.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fortune and fame transformed them into a power couple rivaling KimYe or Billary. They only lacked with mash-up name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe Permit or Kiggy.
KERMIT THE FROG: I'm Kermis the pog. MISS PIGGY: Kermis the pog?
KERMIT THE FROG: Yeah. You know, I really actually -- I really do like that actually. We don't want to mess that up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But for Kermis, dating a Pog isn't readily accepted.
KERMIT THE FROG: I am an amphibian American, I am proud of it.
MISS PIGGY: Kermit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He leverages his celebrity eliciting support from the highest office in the land.
BLITZER: I am taking a certain issue to discuss with the president if I can not to interspecies dating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?
BLITZER: The whole subject of interspecies dating was very sensitive back then.
KERMIT THE FROG: We've actually had the longest interspecies celebrity relationship even including all of the people that went out with Charlie Sheen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you froggy take ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A relationship is one thing, but marriage is another.
KERMIT THE FROG: I do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miss Piggy claims their vows in the Muppet movie are legit, but Kermit insists it was only pretend.
Ever optimistic, Miss Piggy denies her boyfriend's got cold wet feet.
MISS PIGGY: It's mutual, isn't it?
KERMIT THE FROG: Of course. Of course.
MISS PIGGY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is he really going to marry you?
MISS PIGGY: There will be a wedding.
KERMIT THE FROG: Get the car. Get the car.
MISS PIGGY: There will.
KERMIT THE FROG: Yes, there will.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whether we'll ever see a valid Muppet marriage remains achingly unclear.
FEY: They are the greatest will they won't they of all time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So what do you think? Will they or won't they?
FEY: I don't know. I want to live in this romantic tension with them for the rest of our lives.
MISS PIGGY: Either before and never again.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, the man behind the Muppets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel like you owe your careers to Jim Henson?
MISS PIGGY: I really don't know who the Jim person is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They may deny it but we get to the bottom of the man who (inaudible) into gold.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel like you owe your careers to Jim Henson?
MISS PIGGY: Well ...
KERMIT THE FROG: You know, I do have to -- Jim Henson, maybe you've heard of him? No?
MISS PIGGY: I don't think so. Who is he?
KERMIT THE FROG: Well, he's the guy who taught me how to make movies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Before the Muppets find fame in the spotlight, there's a boy with a dream of entertaining people through television. That boy, Jim Henson.
MISS PIGGY: I really don't know who this Jim person is.
KERMIT THE FROG: He was kind of a hit with a beard. I'll show you a picture. Yes.
MISS PIGGY: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a college freshman at the University of Maryland, Henson creates a puppet show for local NBC station as a way into the TV business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: WRC TV Channel Four Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sam and Friends.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sam and Friends is a surprise success for Henson according to his biographer. BRIAN JAY JONES, AUTHOR, JIM HENSON: THE BIOGRAPHY: He wasn't convinced this was something a grown man should be doing for a living. But it just turned out he was so good at it and as he said it was probably because he didn't know what the rules were. So he could kind of make things up as he went along.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More flexible materials create more expressive characters Henson discovers while also experimenting with camera framing that keeps him out of sight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, what are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm taking a course in visual thinking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He calls his characters Muppets and creates a prototype for what would become his biggest star.
JONES: Kermit was initially Kermit the Thing. He was built for the Sam and Friends TV show. He was not a frog. He was not green. He was built from Jim's mother's coat. He's still sort of this milky -- sort of milk of magnesia blue and his eyes really are ping-pong ball cut in half.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within a few years, he hires fellow puppeteer Frank Oz and their work starts getting national attention on programs like the Jimmy Dean Show.
In 1969, Henson's Muppets Incorporated teams up with the children's television workshop to create a series of characters for a new educational program.
Sesame Street is an instant hit with a capital H. And Henson's creations become the beloved icons of an entire generation of young people.
FEY: I'm the original Sesame Street, old school generation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I love you.
KERMIT THE FROG: I love you too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.
JONES: He really wanted TV to be relevant and to matter. So he always loved the idea behind Sesame Street.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Henson's pleased to see the response children have to Sesame Street. But he's got a bigger dream, entertaining audiences of all ages.
The Muppet Show launches in 1976.
BURREL: I have a memory of the opening sequence. You know, the huge, big opening number. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kermit accessed host of the weekly variety show which airs in the evening nationally.
KERMIT THE FROG: The Swedish shop is on next.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Miss Piggy, Fuzzy Bear, Ralph the Dog and Beaker become breakout sketch (ph) players while two grumpy old guys comment on it all from the balcony.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is what I thought.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After this show, nothing hurts.
BURREL: Stepping on the Waldorf, I don't remember what it was that they said but they made my dad laugh. You know, that's one of the weird things that Muppets seems to do which is bring parents and kids together because parents genuinely find it funny.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With subversive humor geared to both parents and kids, each episode also features a celebrity guest among the most memorable Bob Hope, Elton John, and Steve Martin.
FURLONG: The reason is, they wanted to play in a different format. All these celebrities were, you know, doing a tonight show and making a round and doing different interviews and this is their time to tap a whole new audience and to have a little bit of fun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody going to Hollywood.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three years after the Muppet show premiers, they make the jump to the big screen in 1979s the Muppet Movie. It features a chart topping song.
KERMIT THE FROG: Why are there are so many songs about rainbows.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two more films being followed. The Great Muppet Caper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be perfect.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the Muppets Take Manhattan.
Like the Muppet Show, the movie has featured a who's who of Hollywood.
FURLONG: Watching back if you watched the Muppet movie I'm like, "My God, he was in it, she was in it. This is insane." So many people came to play again because the Muppets were fun.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fun Henson style is in demand on screen and off. He consults with George Lucas on the Empire Strikes Back and suggests Frank Oz is the puppeteer and voice of Yoda.
YODA, STAR WARS CHARACTER: Feel the force around you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Henson himself branches out with darker fantasy films. And the lighter HBO series Rattle and Rock (ph).
Henson has built an empire but the day comes when he decides it might be time to sell. He starts talking with Disney.
JONES: Mainly to put the Muppets there where somebody who knew how to manage icons to take care of them while he went off to go be Jim Henson and do other things.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Henson and Disney announced a tentative deal in August of 1989.
JIM HENSON, MUPPETS CREATOR: It's great and fun for us to just be thinking about it right now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But the celebration proves premature. Negotiations over the sale drag on for months.
JONES: They were very close to signing it.
ARSENIO HALL, THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW: Please welcome, Jim Henson.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then in May of 1990, Henson comes down with what he believes is just a cold on an appearance on the Arsenio Hall Show, his scratchy throat is noticeable.
KERMIT: Thank you. Thanks for saying so.
HALL: We'll take a commercial -- is something on your throat?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His illness is much more serious than he realizes. He's in the early stage of pneumonia brought on by a rare and fast spreading bacterial infection. Just 12 days later, surrounded by family in a New York hospital, Jim Henson dies. He's only 53.
His children inherit the responsibility of managing the Muppets. The Jim Henson Company continues making movies including 1999s Muppets from Space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People on earth, do not be alarmed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With rocketing product cost proved challenging. In 2004, Henson's heirs finally seal a deal with Disney and the Muppets moved to a new home for the millennia.
JONES: But I think what he was hoping is people could go on and do new things with them, that he didn't have to be there to sort of, you know, stage manage it. Letting the next generation pick it up, pick up that fortune and moving on and advance it. I think he'd be delighted with that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In three, two ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm going to shoot straight, you guys aren't famous anymore.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesh, I wish she chat a little more curvy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Muppets get a makeover.
KERMIT THE FROG: Let's just start at the bottom and work our way back up to the top.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And make a major comeback.
UNIDENTIFIED MAKE: You're hot. You're having a moment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want this moment to end.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey Animal.
ANIMAL, MUPPETS CHARACTER: Yeah?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look what I found.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In 2011, the Muppets now have come back.
KERMIT THE FROG: It feels wonderful to have another movie on the big screen.
MISS PIGGY: Yes.
KERMIT THE FROG: It's been allow since Piggy and I have been on big screens.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you look at that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disney is now in charge and it taps Muppet fanboy Jason Segel to reboot the franchise.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've got everything that I need.
JASON SEGEL, ACTOR, THE MUPPETS: This is one of the list of dreams for sure. I never really thought that I'd be able to accomplish this. I thought maybe I would get a chance to do a cameo on a Muppets movie. But somehow it had ended up that I wrote it and helped it to get made that meant a lot to me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Once again, stars line up to take part.
Segel's reboot does the trick. The Muppets are back in commercials.
CREWS: They will sing festivals.
KERMIT THE FROG: Yes, happens to me all the time.
CREWS: It was one of the highlights of my whole life. Kermit is a national icon, you know, there's Mickey Mouse, there's Santa Clause and there's Kermit the Frog. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE Welcomed on Jimmy Fallon Show.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a load off, Fanny. Take a load for free.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And a sure sign the Muppets are back. They land a sequel.
FURLONG: They're back with another movie and that's something now that kids are excited about all over again. And again, parents aren't complaining about having to go see it. It's kind of nice.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the sequel, Muppets Most Wanted, the villain is Constantine uses his uncanny resemblance to Kermit to pull off a heist.
KERMIT THE FROG: It's strange -- I mean I should as Constantine but I really don't see the resemblance at all.
CONSTANTINE, MUPPETS CHARACTER: But you know what? I don't see a resemblance either. I think I look nothing like you.
KERMIT THE FROG: I agree. I agree.
MISS PIGGY: You don't.
KERMIT THE FROG: No.
CONSTANTINE: No.
MISS PIGGY: You're a lot less handsome for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Flawlessly ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ricky Gervais plays Constantine's evil accomplice.
CONSTANTINE: Ensuring that my name goes down in history as greatest thief of all time.
RICKY GERVAIS, ACTOR, MUPPETS MOVIE: You mean, our names, right?
CONSTANTINE: Of course. My name first and spacebar, spacebar, spacebar your name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are going to be here a while.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then there is a Tina Fey as a Russian prison guard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lights out. Turn them back on, I can't see anything.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is it about the Muppet comedy that just works?
FEY: Well, I think this is real comedy like -- I grow watching a Muppet show and I realize now like, oh that's the first sketch comedy variety show I ever saw. I was too little to see SNL. And they do real jokes. The characters are really clearly defined. They also physical gags and running gag. They do real jokes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's that Muppet humor that drew Ty Burrel to the project as well.
BURRELL: Anything goes on a Muppet set, so you basically go to work knowing you're going to laugh all day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But there is one problem working with Muppets. Staying focused.
Did you find it more challenging to work with a Muppet than you thought about the co-star?
BURRELL: Yeah, I mean it was distracting at first. I think they probably found it more challenging to work with me because I was so distracted by -- I was so in awe of what they are doing like in awe when the director having to tell me that like, just look at the Muppets, you know, just try to focus on Muppets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems everyone in Hollywood has their favorites.
AMY POEHLER, ACTRESS: I think animal is like one of the best characters ever made.
NIA LONG, ACTRESS: Miss Piggy is everything like I lover her.
TYLER PERRY, ACTOR: You give me Kermit, man.
JOSH GROBAN, SINGER: I love Swedish Chef. I just think he's absolutely insane.
FEY: I love Gonzo. I've always been a Gonzo fan.
BURRELL: Sam Eagle. We bonded pretty heavily.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Partners.
BURRELL: We share the same (inaudible) eyebrow.
MISS PIGGY: Excuse me ...
TURNER: As usual though, Miss Piggy plays the role of sings dealer.
MISS PIGGY: And perhaps I was a little (inaudible).
KERMIT THE FROG: Listen, I love to do that too but ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When all is said and done, Muppets Most Wanted is a Kermit vehicle.
You know, Kermit, Hollywood has surprisingly not produce many amphibian stars maybe ... KERMIT THE FROG: Yeah. I'm always surprised at myself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So well than that didn't deter you though. So what was it inside you that said, I can do this, I can make it in this business?
KERMIT THE FROG: Well, you know, I -- it' odd, you have to dream big and I was just your average banjo playing, talking frog in show business, wanting to entertain people but actually -- frankly it's...
MISS PIGGY: You are selling yourself short.
KERMIT THE FROG: Well, really and truly in the early days, it sort of came down to a couple of choices. I could either work at a biology lab or show business and showbiz seems safer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The showbiz veteran from the Louisiana Swamp now has eight movies under his cowl (ph). And if this newest Muppet adventure clicks, Kermit and the cast will be back for more.
KERMIT THE FROG: Come on everybody strike up the band. Sequel, that's what we do in Hollywood and everybody knows that rules (ph) never quite as good.
