The Great Muppet Caper
1981
As is so often the case in Hollywood, when the second Muppet movie
was
ready for the advertising they wanted "something different". So
they
went to photography as the solution for the poster. Well, they
took
a really nice photograph but it didn't really work. As Jim Henson
knew, without movement and voices the Muppets look like puppets, not
the
living characters we know and love. So they came back to Drew who
could breath life into them as he had done before. The finished
painting
has a more rendered appearance, in Drew's view, rather than is Drew's
usual
choice. This is because of the photographic beginning for the
piece.
This really cinched it for Drew, Jim Henson turning to him to do all
the
Muppet work that he could bear from that point on.
Technical note: Drew did not paint in all the typography on the
poster. He painted the Muppets and the tear in the newspaper and
the background of newsprint color and texture. The type was over
printed in the poster printing process.