Kermit the Frog loves Atlanta

•Large Vintage Kermit Star T-shirt

•25th Anniversary Muppet Show watch

•”Time Flies” watch

•1980s vintage plush Kermit

•1980s Miss Piggy door poster

•Plush Wembley Fraggle, autographed by Steve Whitmire

•Fraggle Rock board game

•Fraggle Rock Show & Tell “Wembley and the Doozers”

•Gobo Happy Meal toy car

•A rare Uncle Traveling Matt postcard record

The online auction goes live on Monday, Feb. 2 at noon. It will end on Friday, Feb. 6 at noon. Go to http://on-myajc.com/1Hd2rHq for more information.

It’s not easy being green.

It's even harder raising green.

The Center for Puppetry Arts needs some of that green to build a new museum.

Luckily, they have a little green friend to help them.

Part-time Atlanta resident Kermit The Frog, and his human alter-ego, Steve Whitmire, have contributed some Muppet memorabilia to the cause, which the center is auctioning online, beginning Monday, Feb. 2.

The goodies include such non-Muppet items as a plush Fraggle Rock creature and a satin Kermit jacket of the sort that hipsters wear on rock ‘n’ roll tours.

Proceeds from the auction will support renovations at the Midtown puppet palace, including a new space to display the center’s collection of Jim Henson puppets and artifacts — the most extensive Henson collection on the planet.

Henson was a long-time supporter of the Atlanta center, and was present at its opening in 1978. That was the same year that Whitmire, an 18-year-old Berkmar High School graduate, joined Henson’s puppet masters, becoming the youngest member of the troupe. (The next youngest was twice his age.)

It was the job that Whitmire had been dreaming of since he was 10 years old. The Lilburn boy was a “Muppet fanatic.” He and his “Otis the Beach Bum” puppet had a regular show on Don Kennedy’s brand-new UHF channel, WATL, when he was 17 years old. Whitmire also performed at Six Flags and in Atlanta’s short-lived indoor theme park, The World of Sid and Marty Krofft.

As part of the Henson company, Whitmire performed Rizzo the Rat and other characters, both on the children’s television show Sesame Street and in Muppet specials and movies. Henson voiced and performed many characters, but his oldest and best-loved creature was Kermit, who made his debut in 1955. Kermit, says Whitmire, was essentially a stand-in for Henson, a stable, thoughtful CEO in the middle of a nutball world.

In 1990 Henson died suddenly and tragically of a bacterial infection. He was 53. Whitmire, to his own surprise, was chosen to carry on as Kermit. “It was very hard to do,” he said. “We were literally still mourning his death.”

Now, after 25 years of Kermit, Whitmire is no longer green at being green. He has gone from “the kid” to being, at 55, one of the performers with the most tenure. Kermit is a philosopher, and the role has given Whitmire opportunity to reflect.

Kermit “is considered the leader of the group, the level-headed center of this swarm of insane characters,” said Whitmire. “As a result of that, he’s Everyman.” Whitmire describes performing Kermit as a sacred responsibility, a “devotional task.” He’s giving voice and life to a noble tradition, a character as imperishable as Scrooge or The Little Tramp.

Henson’s philosophy was that one performer, and one only, was in charge of a character. Therefore, since 1990, any time you heard Kermit, you were hearing Whitmire.

Whitmire thinks it was instinct that inspired that rule. But he sees the reasoning behind it. “He managed to treat these characters not as puppets, but as real entities in the world,” he said. “Sitting in the room with Kermit, he can have a conversation with you, and 10 years from now he can remember having that conversation.”

In 2004, the Jim Henson Company was bought by The Walt Disney Company. So far, said Whitmire, Disney has acceded to the inconvenient rule that gives custody of a character to a single actor. “I don’t own the character that I perform, which can be tough, so I am always at the beck and call of the corporation,” said Whitmire. “But we seem to be seeing eye to eye, and it seems (they have) a growing appreciation of what the old guard brings to the table.”

At Whitmire’s house is a bedroom that is knee-deep with collectibles. It started out as his own private museum. Now it’s just an overgrown closet.

After he hands these things over to the Center for Puppetry Arts, Whitmire gets his guest bedroom back.

“I’d rather it go into the hands of people who would appreciate it, and do some good for a non profit that I care about,” he said.