How Muppets Drive Cars: A Look Behind the Scenes
Way back in 1976, The Muppet Show hit the airwaves and started a global phenomenon. Of course, this wasn’t the first project to feature Jim Henson’s irascible creations — Kermit in particular dates all the way back to the 1950s. Nevertheless, it was The Muppet Show that turned Kermit, his pals, and Henson himself into household names. Over the years, the Muppet characters have done any number of crazy and unexpected things. With the entire series recently hitting the Disney+ streaming service, now’s as good a time as any to take a behind-the-scenes look at how these puppets can pull off that most human of actions: driving cars.
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Teaching puppets to drive cars
For a cast of characters that has done everything from reenacting A Christmas Carol to flying spaceships, driving might seem like a comparatively simple task. However, teaching puppets to drive cars is more complicated than you might think.
In 1979, Jim Henson and his hard-working crew of artists and performers decided to tackle this complicated challenge and more when they began work on The Muppet Movie. This feature-length adventure may have been a heartfelt comedy, but it was also a milestone in film puppetry. The film features incredibly complicated sequences involving the Muppet characters that were all accomplished without computer trickery. We get to see Kermit ride a bicycle, Miss Piggy perform an underwater dance, and, in one of the film’s best moments, Kermit and Fozzie embark on a road trip.
Here’s the scene in question. Give it a watch, and while you’re doing so, try to imagine the logistical challenges of making a sequence like this work:
Pretty amazing, isn’t it? With the great characters, writing, and music, it’s easy to forget that you’re looking at two puppets driving a car. How in the world did they pull this off?
How they did it
The secret to this amazing sequence is pure movie magic. When you watch the film, it truly looks for all the world like Fozzie is driving, steering, and otherwise operating the car. In reality, the car itself was being puppeteered every bit as much as Fozzie and Kermit were.
The car used for the sequence was specially modified so it could be operated entirely from its trunk. A stunt driver took up position in the trunk and drove the car with a joystick. Also in the trunk was a TV set that showed a live recording from a camera positioned in the car’s front grille. Meanwhile, legendary puppeteer Frank Oz was crouched down in the driver’s seat operating Fozzie. Thanks to his careful puppeteering, the illusion of a bear driving a car was created. Pure movie magic.
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Do you have a favorite Muppet character, series, or movie? Let us know in the comments!
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