The new voice of Kermit the Frog, Matt Vogel, has made his debut as the jolly green Muppet, and well, he sounds just like the old Kermit.
On Monday, The Muppet’s YouTube account published its latest “Muppet Thought of the Week” video, which features Vogel voicing the beloved character for the first time. (Check out the video above.)
“Dreams are how we figure out where we wanna go. Life is how we get there,” he says as the frog.
As The Hollywood Reporter Notes, Vogel is only the third person ever to voice Kermit. He takes over for Steve Whitmire, who claims he was let go unexpectedly from the role earlier this year.
Whitmire, who voiced Kermit for 27 years, released a blog post explaining the situation from his point of view.
He wrote:
As I am sure you can imagine, I have experienced every possible emotion since October 2016, when I received a phone call from The Muppets Studio’s executives to say they were recasting. Through a new business representative, I have offered multiple remedies to their two stated issues which had never been mentioned to me prior to that phone call. I wish that we could have sat down, looked each other in the eye, and discussed what was on their minds before they took such a drastic action.
Meanwhile, Disney reportedly said Whitmire was let go due to unprofessional behavior, according to THR, which also states Brian Henson (chairman of the Jim Henson Company and son of the Muppets creator) agreed with Disney.
After Whitmire published his blog post, a representative for The Muppets Studio told HuffPost in a statement, “The Muppets Studio thanks Steve for his tremendous contributions to Kermit the Frog and The Muppets franchise. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”
