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| Kermit The Frog at the Museum of American History, photo by Kevin Galens |
"Television is a dangerous medium because it hypnotizes people and totally sucks the creativity out of your brain. But when it’s used correctly and thoughtfully, like ‘The Muppet Show,’ it can be a really powerful thing. (...) I sing a lot of songs in different voices, as different characters, and that probably crept in from ‘The Muppet Show."- Jim James
(Dallas News, August 2008)
In a 2005 interview with The Georgia Straight Jim James talks about his first musical experience.
"People ask me what my first musical experience was, and it's what I heard on The Muppet Show. I like the way that show appealed to both older people and younger kids. That's kind of where I wanna shoot with My Morning Jacket-to create something that people of all ages can really enjoy."- Jim James
(The Georgia Straight interview, November 2005)
Interviewer: A lot of people were surprised to read recently about you writing songs for the Muppets, and were immediately disappointed to find out the collaboration got squelched. What did Jim Henson mean to you as a kid?- Jim James
Jim James: Jim Henson will always be one of the greatest artists of all time. As long as there are human beings living, there will be an audience hungry for his work. He is like Beethoven or Dylan or Shakespeare or anyone else in that line of artists that will always endure. We were really bummed about the Muppets fiasco, but that is the corporate music scene for you, and Disney is about as corporate as they get. We were working with a guy there, and then there was some corporate takeover and he was fired and our project was dropped. There ya go. End of story. Most big corporations like Disney seem to no longer care about art like they used to. It’s just a battle to move units. They forget that it was great art that got them where they were in the first place. It is a shame that the Muppets were bought by Disney, but hey hey, what can you do but keep on hugging your old Kermit doll. Luckily, on the Disney side of things at least there is Pixar. They are making the enduring art from that realm now, like Wall-E and the Toy Story movies. Maybe they will ask us to make a computer Muppet movie?
(A.V. Club interview, May 2011)
Interviewer: Is it true that some of these songs (Circuital) were originally written for The Muppets?(Toronto Sun interview, May 2011)
Jim James: Yeah, one of the guys at Disney was a big fan of our band and asked us to write new music for Electric Mayhem, the Muppet Show band. It was supposed to be kind of a Gorillaz thing where we wrote the music and would play behind a screen. But then the guy got fired and the whole project pretty much got s---canned. So instead of letting the songs die, we resurrected them for the album. Outta My System was one of them. We actually have a more Muppety version we're going to release to give people a taste of what we were thinking.
Interviewer: You've also been on American Dad. What's the attraction to those shows?
Jim James: I love entertainment that can be fun for the whole family, but isn't afraid of being weird. Mom and Dad could sit down and watch the Muppet Show with the kids and everybody would be entertained, but it wasn't mindless children's entertainment. It was still a little bit risky. I would love to be involved with something like that.
