Kermit The Frog Axed: Creative Differences Or Statistical Miscalculation?

July 26th, 2000 at 3:00 PM - News by Wes George

You might have heard by now that one of the five musical iMac ads unveiled by Steve Jobs during his keynote address at MACWORLD has been removed from the Apple web site without explanation.

The psychedelic raga, White Room by Cream, still graces the Snow iMac commercial. Elvisi Blue Suede Shoes still rocks the Indigo iMac. Ruby, Baby, as performed by Dion , serenades the Ruby iMac. And Steppenwolfis classic Born to be Wild forms a clever juxtaposition with Appleis new optical mouse as it races around the QuickTime window.

But where is the Sage iMac commercial? It disappeared!

There are a number of rumors circulating as to why Apple decided to pull the color Sage iMac commercial starring Kermit the Frog singing his big hit Beini Green from the Kermit Unpigged album.

One Mac related Web site speculated that Apple might have forgotten to get Mr. Kermitis permission to use his song and received a "Notice of Infringement" from the frogis lawyers. Wouldnit that be ironic?

So we did a little checking around and discovered you can still download a segment of Kermitis commercial from those irrepressible youths at macteens.com. But, they donit guarantee it will be there for long.

Secondly, we learned that Kermit the Frog is a wholly own subsidiary muppet of the Odyssey Network, A Hallmark & Henson Network and Jim Henson Company. So Mr. Kermit has an entire copyright administration crawling with lawyers at his disposal.

Furthermore, Mr. Kermit is a big Hollywood star and even does charity gigs for the FCC. He certainly was too busy to return our calls on this matter.

Mr. Kermit also has credentials as a journalist and reliable sources claim he may be in negotiation with one of The Mac Observeris competitors for an editorial position. You have to hand it to him. The frog has a nose for news, as this insightful interview of Lord Vader by Mr. Kermit illustrates.