Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
HOLLYWOOD Q&A
Q: It seems that Rizzo the Rat isn’t in the Muppet cast anymore. What happened? He and Gonzo made a good team.
A: It depends who you ask. Some say he was dropped as part of the high-profile firing of Muppeteer Steve Whitmire (“CAVE iN”), but if you ask Rizzo himself, he was shouldered out to make room for a new guy. Either way, it ain’t pretty.
Rizzo the Rat started as a background character but came into his own when he was tasked with co-narrating “The Muppet Christmas Carol” (1992) alongside Gonzo. That partnership bore fruit for several years afterward, and Rizzo maintained his new, high profile. That is, until 2011, when he was barely seen and never heard in the bigscreen hit “The Muppets.”
His screen time has been down ever since.
In the next big-screen film, “Muppets Most Wanted” (2014), he was given enough time to say that he and some of the other characters had been shouldered out to make room for new Muppet Walter (voiced by Peter Linz, “Sesame Street”).
This is, of course, a joke for the film, but in terms of screen time, he’s right. Walter, a brandnew character without the decades of backstory that Rizzo boasts, has in fact been a featured character in those two movies and some other recent productions.
Meanwhile, Rizzo’s screen time has decreased to the point that he’s been completely absent from all of the recent Muppet shows and films; something likely to do with Whitmire’s absence — he was fired in 2017 for “unacceptable business conduct” (per Muppet Studios).
Some of Whitmire’s bigger characters — including a certain famous green frog — were recast. Rizzo, however, hasn’t been seen since.
Though the rat may yet return — provided producers find the right new voice for him.
Q: Is the guy who played Jason’s friend on “The Good Place” the same actor who was in “Kong: Skull Island”? What else can you tell me about him? I thought he was great in both, even though they’re very different roles.
A: “Kong: Skull Island” (2017) is indeed a bit of an outlier on Eugene Cordero’s resume. His role as Pillboi on “The Good Place,” on the other hand, was right up his alley.
Like so many of today’s comedy favorites, he came up through the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe. Since then, he’s become a main player in TV creator Michael Schur’s personal troupe.
Schur is one of the most successful sitcom creators of the moment, having created “The Good Place” as well as “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” and Cordero is the only actor to have appeared in all four series.
Mostly small roles (“The Good Place” was the only one in which he appeared for more than one episode), it’s still an impressive run considering how successful each of those shows was.
Cordero has been in demand from more than just Schur. More recently, he’s had starring roles on sitcoms “Tacoma FD” and “Star Trek: Lower Decks,” and supporting roles in many more.
He’s also been branching out in recent years. Starting with 2017’s “Kong: Skull Island,” he’s been testing out dramatic and action-oriented fare. He also had parts in the big-screen musical drama “The High Note” (2020) and in Clint Eastwood’s 2018 drama, “The Mule.”