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Lips blue
PERFORMER Steve Whitmire 1980-2016
  Peter Linz 2017-present
DEBUT 1980
DESIGN Michael Frith designer
  Mari Kaestle builder
Lips-Trumpet
Lips

Lips, sitting in with the orchestra.

Frith

Michael K. Frith's original design.

Lipscloseup
Lips GMC

Lips in The Great Muppet Caper

ChristmasInRockefellerCenter2009-Zoot&Lips

At Christmas in Rockefeller Center in 2009

ObscureMuppetMovie

In The Muppets (2011)

Episode107 (2)

Lips, rebuilt for ABC's The Muppets in 2015

Lips-TED

Lips delivering a TED talk in The Muppets Mayhem

Lips2016

Lips at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival from 2016.

Lips is the trumpet player from The Muppet Show. The character was created for performer Steve Whitmire, to give him his own member of the Electric Mayhem. He debuted in the fifth and final season of the series, and played trumpet for both the Electric Mayhem and the orchestra. Lips went on to appear as part of the Electric Mayhem in The Great Muppet Caper, A Muppet Family Christmas, The Muppet Christmas Carol and more. Lips has a special mechanism that allows his eyelids to turn inwards, usually used when he's blowing into his trumpet. He has an additional mechanism that allows his fingers to press on his trumpet's valves.

Compared to the other Mayhem members, who participated in skits or the backstage action, Lips functioned primarily as a musician only (with trumpeter Tommy McQuater doing the horn playing) and seldom even spoke. He did have trumpet solos in several episodes, most notably duetting with Hal Linden on "When the Saints Go Marching In" in episode 517. Steve Whitmire once commented upon Lips' silence:

I felt great whenever he played the trumpet, and I felt terrible whenever he spoke, because I wanted to do this Louis Armstrong kind of voice, and at that point and time, there was some question about whether or not we would offend African-American people by this white guy doing a black voice as a trumpet player... We might offend people who liked Louis Armstrong. We weren't sure. I never quite got anywhere with Lips. I'd probably be real comfortable with him now, but at that point, I wasn't sure. I still wasn't ready to do a character.[1]

Two rare examples of Lips speaking include "Barnyard Boogie", in which he sings a verse, and The Great Muppet Caper (yelling "Ding ding!" and "Let's hit the road! How 'bout a little travelin' music?" before "Night Life", and "And me!" during the finale).

In a 2013 interview, Dave Goelz said of the character: "Steve Whitmire has been frustrated that for thirty years he hasn’t really found a character hook for Lips the trumpet player. Just last winter he had to say the line “but we don’t have any instruments.” In a gravelly voice, Steve came out with “Buh we don’ got no insuh-menz.” And the character was born after 30-odd years in labor. I love Lips, and am waiting raptly for his next line."[2] It is not currently known which project this was (and the scene does not appear to have been released).

Despite the character's obscurity, Palisades Toys released a Lips Action Figure in 2004. A Lips costume was released as part of the Xbox Live Marketplace.

In 2009, Lips appeared with the rest of the Electric Mayhem in the NBC special Christmas in Rockefeller Center, his first appearance in nearly two decades. He appeared again in 2011's The Muppets, where he is seen performing in the orchestra pit as he did on The Muppet Show. He would later be seen as part of The Electric Mayhem again in Muppets Most Wanted and as a part of the house band for Up Late with Miss Piggy on ABC's The Muppets. For the latter production, the puppet was completely rebuilt, as the original puppet actually came apart during a YouTube video shoot earlier in the year.[3] He spoke his first full line in over thirty years in the episode "Hostile Makeover" of The Muppets, declaring, "And we love us some gas station sushi!" He would later get more dialogue in "The Ex-Factor", "Going, Going, Gonzo" and "Little Green Lie." Lips performed with the band again in The Muppets Take the Bowl and The Muppets Take the O2, now performed by Peter Linz.

By 2022, Linz fully inherited the character for his expanded role in The Muppets Mayhem. For this series, Lips now speaks primarily in mumbles intelligible to the other band members and Moog. He's also established as being very well-connected with various high-profile celebrities and is the only member of the band to have a smartphone (at first). He has a minor arc during the season where, after a hallucinogenic experience involving expired marshmallows, he is convinced he has to save the world somehow. Prior to the series' debut, this new take on Lips was first seen publicly during the Electric Mayhem's live appearance at the D23 Expo 2022. Linz partially based the voice on a mechanic he knew in Georgia.[4]

According to The Muppets Character Encyclopedia, Lips earned his nickname one cold day in elementary school when his lips got stuck to his trumpet while practicing outside. Behind-the-scenes, Lips was named after the imagery used to promote The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one of performer Steve Whitmire's favorite movies.[5]

Filmography[]

Print appearances[]

Sources[]

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