The Muppets

[sousaphone68]

Anybody know who and what was the helicon in the leaving Smalltown number in The Muppets?

[Troy]

Do you have a movie clip or audio file of his recording.. I'm interested to see who it would be

[sousaphone68]

I have searched youtube and have so far failed to find a clip that shows the section I am talking about.
Will keep looking

[Agelaus]

might be no help at all, but here is a picture of the scene, you can see him in the far back.

http://www.me-on-a-diet.com/wp-content/ ... y-song.jpg

[hbcrandy]

Chances are that the person with the helicon was just an extra actor and not a real player.

[Bob Bigalard]

Chances are that the person with the helicon was just an extra actor and not a real player.

It just sickens me to think of that.

[eupher61]

Chances are that the person with the helicon was just an extra actor and not a real player.

It just sickens me to think of that.

Total reality, though.

[David Richoux]

All of the musicians look like high school or maybe college age, agree they could be actors. Possibly recruited from USC or some other area band?
The t-bone player is getting into the role

[eupher61]

I hope it's generally known that in 99% of the movies or tv shows (ads, too) since whatever date (probably the 50s sometime, I'm really not sure), a person shown on screen playing an instrument is NOT actually playing. The actor's unions and the musicians union have agreements that keep that from happening, or give a lot of pay to the musicians who actually do play. I can only think of one instance in the last 20 years, there may be others---Robert Altman's "Kansas City". And it's a smorgasbord of great players, including Christian McBride, Ron Carter, Fathead Newman, Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, and a great singer and friend, Kevin Mahogany. The music is really the best part of the film, and the recordings were done on the set, in a building in the 18th and Vine district in KC.

Often they use musicians who have SAG cards, so the faking is a lot more believable. A past friend, whose name evades me right now, used to make some good money doing that.

I'll have to ask Vince Giordano, but I don't think he actually played on screen in "The Aviator". He was on the soundtrack, and was shown in the movie, but not "live", IIRC.

[David Richoux]

A friend played the drums in the Goldie Hawn movie "Swing Shift" as part of a big band - he was on the set for days, and he is a professional musician - but all that can be seen of him in the final cut was the top of his head...