Kermit the Frog Puppeteer says he was fired by Disney over the phone

[Aryn]

The Henson family was also on board with his firing so my guess was he was difficult to work with and eventually Disney/Henson family got tired of it. Disney could have handled it better, but I don't think he was a walk in the park either. For Disney and The Hensons to comment on this publicly makes me think they really have a case, so to speak, against what he is saying in the press. They usually keep all this kind of stuff in house.

 

[Madonna3]

Why do we honestly care? He's an employee like anyone else with a job. He didn't please his employers so they fired him. So what? Move on.

 

[HuskieJohn]

This gives quite a few details.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/arts/television/kermit-the-frog-disney-firing.html

 

[Tiki Birdland]

This gives quite a few details.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/arts/television/kermit-the-frog-disney-firing.html

Too bad someone didn't step in to tell them the latest Muppet series was rubbish. I really never understood who the audience was supposed to be.would have tough taking the Jason Segal Muppet Movie concept to the next step would have made an awesome series. Instead, we got a mis-mash of Muppet exisitialism.

 

[Micca]

I used to work in an industry where there were always some employees with the attitude of "They can't fire me, I'm (fill in the blank with someone's name who thinks they're important.) Sometimes they'd get away with it for a long time. Then a new boss comes along and they get fired! They were often stunned that someone actually fired them. Corporate America has little patience with employees who don't "Get with the program" so to speak. They don't care what you've already done, they just want you to follow instructions and deliver. Behind the facade Disney is a huge, global organization where everyone has several people breathing down their neck to get the job done. Except Bob Iger, he has shareholders breathing down his neck.

 

[Smalerie]

I feel like there was bad behavior on both sides and the real situation is a lot more complicated than we can even tell from all this reporting. In the end, Muppet Studios owns Kermit. It's sad that Steve Whitmire is being removed from a property that he has spent so much of his life working with, but at the same time, the company that owns the property gets the final say on what direction they want to go in. I'm not sure what Whitmire hoped to gain by dragging this out so publically. In a PR war, Disney has the big guns.

That being said, I hope some time passes and he's able to do his own solo projects. I'd like to see what he can create using his own vision.

 

[WillJenDisney]

Odd that everyone just assumes it must be evil big business being heartless, and never considers for a moment maybe the guy was an awful employee and deserved for this to happen long ago. Obviously I have no idea what the truth is either way, just find it strange to assume one over the other.