Speaker 1: I got Blueberry Mango I found.
Speaker 2: I found it the other day. I was like, all right, group, Yeah, blu.
Speaker 3: Group remember those Intel commercials icons?
Speaker 4: Group Group is coming?
Speaker 3: Is that on your list? Blue Man Group?
Speaker 4: It's not, but it's just an added blue group ship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Blue Man groups definitely Blue Man Group.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's nothing funnier than a Blue Man Group revealed.
Speaker 2: There's like a literary fiction writer who I really like.
Speaker 2: I was on her Wikipedia page and it was like
Speaker 2: she was formal she's divorced from a blue Man and
Speaker 2: you're like, oh wow, You're like that's who that book
Speaker 2: was about.
Speaker 5: That's crazy because they're all like these like art dudes
Speaker 5: from New York. Is how it started, and then it
Speaker 5: just turned into like a Vegas It was like such
Speaker 5: a New York thing.
Speaker 2: I felt like, Yeah, they're like like ex Brooklyn guys
Speaker 2: who like needed work. And I was like, wow, she
Speaker 2: got her heart stomped on by a blue Man that
Speaker 2: I hear.
Speaker 3: You ought to know is actually about bloom Blue Man. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's right. A lot of the founding Blue Man.
Speaker 4: Hello the Internet, and welcome to this spinoff episode of Guys,
Speaker 4: which we're calling the Iconograph. Instead of looking at the
Speaker 4: zeitgeist through current events. We're looking at it through the
Speaker 4: lens of the powerful pop cultural hore cruxes that are
Speaker 4: our icons. We use these characters to create meaning, to
Speaker 4: build identity, to learn conversational French, to know the appropriate
Speaker 4: sound to make when beating the shit out of our
Speaker 4: long term boyfriend, which is there?
Speaker 3: It is hell, that's right.
Speaker 4: In this episode we're talking Piggy's Miss Piggy, if you're nasty,
Speaker 4: and that's why I did leave it for you, Miles,
Speaker 4: with apologies to Kermit the Frog and David Bowie's codpiece,
Speaker 4: maybe the most famous and beloved of Jim Henson's creations,
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy, to be joined, as always by my co host,
Speaker 4: mister Oh.
Speaker 3: I love this. I love it. I love it. Starting
Speaker 3: off and I'm like, it's this, that's not you know, we're.
Speaker 5: Habitual, habitual doing the show one way. That's great, great.
Speaker 5: I love the topic, dude. I love a good love
Speaker 5: a good hy Yah. It's like an earworm. It's like
Speaker 5: an earworm of a thing when you really get it
Speaker 5: like that, it's smart, that's right, it's hitting it tingles
Speaker 5: the brain a little bit.
Speaker 4: Little tease. It is the first thing. It's the thing
Speaker 4: that crystallized the character for Francos when he did, like
Speaker 4: he improvised that, and it was like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: when I understood the character for the first time.
Speaker 5: Drugs with this guy. Wow, oh fuck, yeah, this is
Speaker 5: a character.
Speaker 3: I found it well.
Speaker 4: That who you heard in the background in our third seat?
Speaker 4: One of the very faces on Mount Zeitemore an Emmy
Speaker 4: nominated writer, artist, comedian behind many of the most acclaimed
Speaker 4: podcasts like Cast, Ghost Church, The Bechdel Cast, Sixteenth Minute
Speaker 4: of Fame. She's the New York Times best selling author
Speaker 4: of Raw Dolgh.
Speaker 5: It's Jamie Loft, Jamie.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, hell yeah. Feels good, right good, I feel good.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever hit someone with the high yah.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just like a cute thing to do to your partner,
Speaker 4: as long as you don't like fucking smash.
Speaker 5: Actually she's like a powerful attack she had, Like she
Speaker 5: was like, yeah, his arms, have you seen his arms?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, he goes There have to be ones
Speaker 2: where he just goes flying, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there is there, yeah, where he just goes flying
Speaker 4: like it's a fucking explosion and a mission impossible, Like.
Speaker 3: And I get a YouTube.
Speaker 5: If there's like a basic Piggy compilations just her fucking
Speaker 5: ship up.
Speaker 3: I don't like it.
Speaker 4: I found one earlier. Guys, thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 4: Jamie so so excited to have you here for this.
Speaker 4: I did hear your Bechdel Cast episode about the Muppet Movie,
Speaker 4: so I was like, gotta have Jamie on for Miss
Speaker 4: Piggy because you're you're a Piggy Stan.
Speaker 1: I'm a Piggy Stan.
Speaker 2: I wish, I wish I was more like her, but
Speaker 2: I feel like everyone has their inner Miss Piggy. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I really need to start, uh, you know, really hitting
Speaker 2: people more.
Speaker 3: I think that's that's what we're learning.
Speaker 2: The main takeaway, yeah and.
Speaker 4: Whatever vo She doesn't really understand French, but she sprinkles
Speaker 4: it throughout and that's cute. Do you guys have like
Speaker 4: a singular like, oh, that's when I when Miss Piggy
Speaker 4: was crystallized for me in your memory. Like I was
Speaker 4: looking back and I was like, oh, I think the
Speaker 4: first time I encountered her was on those like reading
Speaker 4: posters in elementary school classrooms like she was, and then
Speaker 4: that was the first time I encountered grown up Miss Piggy.
Speaker 4: Because I knew Miss Piggy from Muppet Babies.
Speaker 3: Right right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I think for me it probably starts like anyone I
Speaker 5: was like, it was always Kermit and Miss Piggy in
Speaker 5: my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I a couple.
Speaker 5: I can't think of, like even if I knew Kermit
Speaker 5: before Miss Piggy. I feel like to me, they entered
Speaker 5: my brain at the same time, even though I think,
Speaker 5: what Kermit she didn't? It was always Kermit first. But look,
Speaker 5: I was a kid, it was the eighties. I didn't
Speaker 5: know shit, we're going to get into it.
Speaker 2: I think my entry point to Miss Piggy. I think
Speaker 2: the first Mubbet thing I remember seeing is Muppet Treasure Island.
Speaker 2: I have a vivid memory of getting into a big
Speaker 2: fight with my cousin because we were fighting over because
Speaker 2: the kid who plays Jim Hawkins, we both had a
Speaker 2: crush on him and we were fighting over who gets
Speaker 2: to marry him, and it was.
Speaker 3: The marriage right and we start.
Speaker 2: We would do that over every like boy protagonist in
Speaker 2: a movie. We also did it over There's a movie
Speaker 2: called Casper A New Beginning, and there was an identical
Speaker 2: looking boy that we would just we would hie out
Speaker 2: each other for this, like you know, mysterious child's hand
Speaker 2: in marriage.
Speaker 1: So I remember miss pegging that Muppet Christmas Carol.
Speaker 2: I feel like I saw the movies before I saw
Speaker 2: the ever saw the TV show right.
Speaker 4: Real quick, some kind of icon bona fee D's because
Speaker 4: last week we talked about how popular Arcle was that
Speaker 4: you know, every season from season two through seven of
Speaker 4: his show like destroyed. What the most watched TV in
Speaker 4: modern times is? I think it was like pulling in
Speaker 4: twenty to twenty seven million viewers a week. The most
Speaker 4: viewed show currently is Monday Night Football at like sixteen
Speaker 4: million people. I just want to read this description of
Speaker 4: the Muppet Show when it was on. It aired in
Speaker 4: over one hundred countries and had a weekly worldwide audience
Speaker 4: by nineteen seventy eight of two hundred and thirty five
Speaker 4: million people. No fucking way stop, because it was everywhere.
Speaker 4: It was like so global.
Speaker 2: I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like
Speaker 2: it Up until fairly recently, I feel it was sort
Speaker 2: of difficult to find old episodes of the Muppet Show.
Speaker 2: I didn't see them until I was in college, and
Speaker 2: the guests they were pulling was like, yeah, so I
Speaker 2: don't know, I feel like whatever, we don't have monoculture
Speaker 2: at all anymore, but particularly like monoculture that was pulling
Speaker 2: so many different kinds of people as the hosts, like
Speaker 2: I've I had the Rudolph narre Of episode had a
Speaker 2: very strong impression of me, like they would have like
Speaker 2: Ballerinas hosting, Yeah, shock culture.
Speaker 1: To two hundred and thirty five million people, that's nuts.
Speaker 4: It is a weird mix of high and low. And
Speaker 4: then just for for my example, the thing that proves
Speaker 4: to me the lasting power, like how iconic them up?
Speaker 4: That's are. Something we were talking about was there's that
Speaker 4: LCD sound System video for Dance Yourself Clean that like
Speaker 4: every white guy is like, have you seen this?
Speaker 3: Have you seen this YouTube video? It's like for Dance
Speaker 3: Yourself Clean, but it's got.
Speaker 4: Muppets in it, and the video like objectively sucks.
Speaker 3: It's not a good video. Was a few days ago.
Speaker 5: You brought it up and we started watching it and
Speaker 5: I was like, I had never seen it.
Speaker 3: I was like this.
Speaker 4: Brian was just and brought it up and was like
Speaker 4: every white guy just like I've been shown this by
Speaker 4: three different white guys, and I was like me too,
Speaker 4: and then we watched it and we were like this sucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys, the City Puitier, like the guests they would
Speaker 2: have on the show were absolutely like yeah, and everyone
Speaker 2: is having the time of their lives, because how could
Speaker 2: you not, like, it's just so cool.
Speaker 1: Harry Belafonte another really good episode.
Speaker 7: Just really, I just said, made that up, rich. I
Speaker 7: just thought the image of acting trash cans funny, believable.
Speaker 7: He'll do that, right, he was.
Speaker 3: You know, it's like Sidney getting a fucking trash can.
Speaker 4: Now we shouln't believe anything you say in the chat
Speaker 4: Right ship. Wait, okay, I feel like I remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: New Mandelac the City More when they had Nelson mandela on.
Speaker 3: After he died. Was right, Yeah, it's just the Benstein bears.
Speaker 1: Well, the Harry Belafonte episode is genuinely great.
Speaker 4: Yes, all right, So Miles, to your point of like,
Speaker 4: Kermit was first, and then Miss Piggy she was invented
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy four, Kermit came around in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 4: Ralph the Dog nineteen sixty two, and then Miss Piggy
Speaker 4: is like the next kind of iconic character. But Ralph
Speaker 4: the dog was like invented for a dog chow commercial.
Speaker 4: It seems like a lot of these things were like
Speaker 4: invented on an as needed basis. They were like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, we need a we need a girl one,
Speaker 4: let's do it. Let's do a pig. And then they
Speaker 4: like kind of iterate on it. But it's Kermit as
Speaker 4: old as fuck. First of all, like the borderline problematic
Speaker 4: that they had a relationship. But uh, then seventy five
Speaker 4: animal Sam the Eagles, Statler and Wald or the Swedish chef.
Speaker 4: Seventy six we got Fozzy, which we can talk about Fozzy,
Speaker 4: but yeah, they just seem to do it on an
Speaker 4: as needed basis. And then you know, now that puppet
Speaker 4: exists and now we can like do stuff with that puppet.
Speaker 4: But I want to talk before because.
Speaker 2: You know the interesting phrasing, interesting phrase. Now we can
Speaker 2: do that, we can do stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can do that. We can think about it.
Speaker 4: We can create backstories as we'll get into you can
Speaker 4: get it. Yeah, now we can.
Speaker 2: Do Now we can do stuff with that puppet. We
Speaker 2: think about it. I feel like Ralph the Dog has
Speaker 2: fallen off in the public, like.
Speaker 4: Falling off.
Speaker 2: I don't dislike Ralph as I dislike other muppets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get to that, but I think he's fallen
Speaker 1: off a bit.
Speaker 4: Not a not a huge Fozzy fan from what I've.
Speaker 1: Heard, not a huge Fozzy fan.
Speaker 2: Fozzy's triggering for me.
Speaker 4: Uh, Miss Piggy for some reason, this tax stand up
Speaker 4: comedian is triggering to somebody.
Speaker 2: I could see Fazzy. Whenever I look, I can see Fozzy.
Speaker 2: If I look in the mirror, I can't see. I
Speaker 2: can't be around Fozzy. I see five fozzis a night.
Speaker 4: It's all Fozzies. Miss Piggy wasn't actually a Jim Henson creation.
Speaker 4: She was actually designed by Bonnie Erickson, who this is
Speaker 4: somebody that I didn't know about coming into this. Uh.
Speaker 4: She also like she's invented a bunch of the mascots
Speaker 4: that are like still roaming NBA stadiums to this day.
Speaker 3: Maybe her like it right up.
Speaker 4: There with Miss Piggy, depending on who you're talking to,
Speaker 4: the Philly Fanatic mascot. She designed.
Speaker 3: The Philly Fanatic. That makes perfect sense because that rocks.
Speaker 5: The Philly Fanatic does feel like something off a Henson show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it has Henson vibes. I mean, she was I
Speaker 4: think like the director of the workshop. But on designing
Speaker 4: the Philly Fanatic, she said, the managers approached us to
Speaker 4: design a mascot who could encourage fans to bring their
Speaker 4: families to the games. So we had to design a
Speaker 4: character who was child friendly, was playful and a little irreverent,
Speaker 4: but not too silly. We'd heard from the Phillies that
Speaker 4: their crowd had booed the Easter Bunny. Was the challenge
Speaker 4: to come up with something that was not going to
Speaker 4: talk down to their audience, Like that is what you
Speaker 4: think about it. In fact, she created a silly billy
Speaker 4: child muppet mass Scott that Philly has just completely embraced.
Speaker 4: Is such an accomplishment that we just like take for granted.
Speaker 2: And then when did the Philly Fanatic launch? Was it
Speaker 2: like around the same time.
Speaker 3: Around the same time.
Speaker 4: She kind of she was just like fucking on fire
Speaker 4: for like four years. She created I mean, she created
Speaker 4: Statler and Waldorf, she created a bunch of like really
Speaker 4: iconic characters, and she created Miss pig So Miss Piggy's
Speaker 4: name was originally Miss Piggy Lee as a reference to
Speaker 4: Peggy Lee, who was a jazz singer who I wasn't
Speaker 4: that familiar with. I went and listened to like her
Speaker 4: top songs on Apple Music, and they're either Christmas songs
Speaker 4: or like wildly depressed.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like rocking around the Christmas Tree? Is Peggy?
Speaker 3: Is that Peggy Lee?
Speaker 2: And I was like, am I confusing? Who's you?
Speaker 3: Is that Peggy something Fever is her? So that's her?
Speaker 4: That's her. But then she has this one called is
Speaker 4: That All There Is? Oh?
Speaker 3: I love that song.
Speaker 4: Oh it's dark. It's like it tells the story of
Speaker 4: like being at a Christmas party or at a birthday
Speaker 4: party when you're young and like is that all there is?
Speaker 4: And going to a circus and being like is that
Speaker 4: all there is? And then she's like and I know
Speaker 4: what you think, I'm going to kill myself. But I
Speaker 4: know if I killed myself as I was like going
Speaker 4: to the Pearly Gates, I'd just be like, is that
Speaker 4: all there is?
Speaker 3: It's a really.
Speaker 4: Dark shit, which there's there's a lot of like dark
Speaker 4: stuff in Piggy like written into her backstory that I
Speaker 4: was not familiar with didn't read to me.
Speaker 2: I wonder if peggyly ever like got like met her,
Speaker 2: because I get it I get why they didn't keep them.
Speaker 3: That's why they had to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's threatened to sue over the puppet, so Miss
Speaker 4: Piggy Lye became simply Miss Piggy.
Speaker 2: Like, now, you'd be honored to have Miss Piggy associated
Speaker 2: Kelly untested if they're like, so there's this pig on TV.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I get hair like you.
Speaker 2: Are already depressing, right, boyfriend.
Speaker 4: She started out she's incredibly abusive.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: She started out like as sort of a background character.
Speaker 4: She was in like a sketch about Planet of the
Speaker 4: Apes where it was like Planet of the Pigs, and
Speaker 4: she was just like one of the characters. She had
Speaker 4: like little button eyes. She didn't have her big like
Speaker 4: beautiful colored iris.
Speaker 3: Eyes like.
Speaker 4: A doll's eyes. And she didn't sound like herself yet
Speaker 4: it was she was at that time played by Jerry
Speaker 4: Nelson doing just like a real standard guy doing a
Speaker 4: girl voice. It was just girl. It's just like that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know it wasn't quite that good. Sorry I'm a
Speaker 4: professional voice man, but yeah, but it does. I mean,
Speaker 4: like I was saying the so eloquently before about how
Speaker 4: they create the puppet and that puppet exists and now
Speaker 4: they can do stuff with that puppet.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: It's it kind of reminds me of like SNL talent, Jamie.
Speaker 4: One of my favorite of your obsessions is like when
Speaker 4: an SNL person like shows up on the thing and
Speaker 4: then two years later they look completely different.
Speaker 2: They got the Veneers, they got.
Speaker 4: The Veneers, they got the glow up.
Speaker 2: They literally I like to like, Lord Michael slams your
Speaker 2: head against the table and thought, he was like, I
Speaker 2: guess you need.
Speaker 3: You need new teeth now.
Speaker 4: But I feel like if you can make their eyes bigger,
Speaker 4: he probably would, right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, give him the watch call what's that
Speaker 2: movie the Clockwork Orange?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but also this is second week in a row
Speaker 4: where we're covering a character who became arguably the most
Speaker 4: iconic thing from their world and who starts out in
Speaker 4: the background, and then we watch as they just like
Speaker 4: grow and grow as the public responds more and more
Speaker 4: to them. But yeah, I just I do think in
Speaker 4: terms of like why we have Miss Piggy, it's like
Speaker 4: having the multiple projects iterating, and then when they needed
Speaker 4: a female character, they went to a woman who just
Speaker 4: like happened to be a genius and was like inventing
Speaker 4: huge chunks of popular culture in like just a few
Speaker 4: short years.
Speaker 2: That's so I still can't get past two hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty five million people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thirty five million people.
Speaker 1: That is just like, wow, Okay, that's everybody. That's isn't
Speaker 1: every person? That's everybody.
Speaker 3: That's everyone in the war people, everyone in the world.
Speaker 2: So people watching puppets on TV, Like, that's that's nuts.
Speaker 5: I mean because it is also I mean, like when
Speaker 5: you think about it, Rkele had twenty something million for
Speaker 5: a few years in America versus two hundred and thirty
Speaker 5: five globally, and you're like, oh, that's why. Like I
Speaker 5: feel like children now, Like you show a kid and
Speaker 5: wherever most places like do you know this character? And
Speaker 5: they'd be like miss Piggy and I'm like do you
Speaker 5: know who this is? And They're like, that's a man
Speaker 5: with suspenders on? Right, So I'm like, that's curcle, but
Speaker 5: that's fun. You're just not cultured.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm also sure I'm guessing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know much about like muppets internationally,
Speaker 2: but it must be like there's so it's like such
Speaker 2: a double bowle show that it's got to be super
Speaker 2: easy to adapt to it basically anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, puppets, upets are great.
Speaker 4: Puppets are Puppets are great. Is also one of my
Speaker 4: conclusions that I come to, like I was saying. Her
Speaker 4: breakout moment came when oz improvised her trademark karate chop
Speaker 4: during a scene with Kermit. Originally the script called for
Speaker 4: a slap, but he decided to go with a karate chop,
Speaker 4: which then allowed him to his quote is the script
Speaker 4: called for Piggy to slap Kermit. Instead of a slap,
Speaker 4: I gave him a funny karate hit. Somehow, that hit
Speaker 4: crystallized her character for me, the coyness, hiding the aggression,
Speaker 4: the conflict of that love with her desire for a career,
Speaker 4: her hunger for glamour image, her tremendous out and out ego.
Speaker 4: Which it's just interesting that that was so foundational for
Speaker 4: him because it's also the first thing, like my brain
Speaker 4: spits out when I like think of miss Piggy. If
Speaker 4: I like have to think of her doing something, it's
Speaker 4: the karate chop.
Speaker 2: It's so good. I love hearing like actors talk about
Speaker 2: like they're silly ass character because it has to be so,
Speaker 2: I mean, and it is important that like it has
Speaker 2: to sound so important. My favorite example of that is,
Speaker 2: do you guys remember when Bill Nihi played mewtwo in
Speaker 2: Detective Pikachu.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I know, well he.
Speaker 2: Did, and I love sometimes I'll go if I can
Speaker 2: watch his interviews about that movie for fun, because he's
Speaker 2: just like when I folds about Mew two and you're
Speaker 2: just like, You're like, yeah, man, you sound like an idiot,
Speaker 2: but that is your Like I just loved it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like frank Oz is like, how how does the
Speaker 1: pig think? Where's she coming from?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna be like and then this is it
Speaker 3: her frustration.
Speaker 5: She's trying to balance it all, her career, her love
Speaker 5: life in this high Yah.
Speaker 3: I'm like, did you really think that at the time?
Speaker 3: Did you know it's just sort.
Speaker 4: Of a performer that's okay, Yeah, Because I think a
Speaker 4: lot of the cases, these moments of inspiration for these
Speaker 4: that kind of characters come when they're like like in
Speaker 4: this case, it was just like I needed to do
Speaker 4: a thing, and I did this instead of the thing
Speaker 4: that the script called for. And then like it like
Speaker 4: kind of all comes together with Rkle like we were
Speaker 4: talking about he like at the audition, he was like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, like I went out of body, like
Speaker 4: I blacked out and like came to and I was
Speaker 4: like everyone was laughing, right, Like that's also like Elvis,
Speaker 4: the character of Elvis, which like wasn't how he actually
Speaker 4: was as a bit because he was like tanking this
Speaker 4: like he was like trying to sing a song and
Speaker 4: it was like all serious and sad, and everyone's like,
Speaker 4: this guy fucking stinks. And then he like started goofing
Speaker 4: around and doing the Elvist voice and people were like.
Speaker 3: Do that, Like I think I.
Speaker 4: Want this guy, but I feel like it's like the
Speaker 4: creator needs to get out of their own way or
Speaker 4: something to like then have it all like come together.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so Frank Oz ends up being the person
Speaker 4: who plays Piggy. I always thought it was because Piggy
Speaker 4: and Fozzy fucking hated each other, but Oz actually plays
Speaker 4: both of them, and so that's why they're never around
Speaker 4: at the same time. Jamie, do you think there's any
Speaker 4: way this is the reason you hate.
Speaker 2: Fozzy Because if Fozzy's on Screenzzy.
Speaker 4: Like literally getting in the way of Kermit and Piggy.
Speaker 1: More, Missy, I just think Fozzy like needs to hang.
Speaker 4: It up, Like I just it's hard for me. You
Speaker 4: think it's because he fucking sucks? Is that why? Well?
Speaker 2: I think he's really he really stinks up the place
Speaker 2: for a number of reasons. But like if all, like
Speaker 2: a lot of the early Muppets movies are about them
Speaker 2: trying to make it big, and it's like Fozzy is
Speaker 2: an active hindrance. I'm not rooting for his success. I like,
Speaker 2: he's not gonna make it. He's not going to make it,
Speaker 2: and he's getting in everyone else's way, and I need
Speaker 2: him to move back home. Where did they where? Because
Speaker 2: I forget in the Muppet movie where you know.
Speaker 4: He gets start from Yeah, I forget. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 4: somewhere isn't he along the way? Don't they like he
Speaker 4: find him somewhere along the way, Like.
Speaker 2: Can I just be Yeah?
Speaker 5: And it's like go back Elselezo Cafe, I think is
Speaker 5: what it was called.
Speaker 2: And realistically, Fozzy's got to go to grad school and
Speaker 2: like he just has to pack it up.
Speaker 1: He bums me out.
Speaker 5: I just love you would be a character in him
Speaker 5: up at film who plays like the bad Hollywood manager
Speaker 5: who's like, look, Kermit, you got to get rid of Fozzy.
Speaker 5: He's getting in the way. He's an active hindrance to
Speaker 5: your career. Kid, Hey, he's a star. You've got a
Speaker 5: natural charisma.
Speaker 3: My friend of God. Get rid of this fuck the manager.
Speaker 4: Isn't that like where managers come from, is they like
Speaker 4: fail and then they're like, well, I didn't hang out
Speaker 4: with these people.
Speaker 2: Let's get Fozzy an internship at w m E. Let's
Speaker 2: just figure something in the mail room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, work your way up.
Speaker 4: He could be Turtle Fazzy. I bet if you asked
Speaker 4: Fozzy which entourage character he was, he'd be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm kind of evinced type.
Speaker 4: Fucking not dude, are you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Fozzy and and and I don't know, I think
Speaker 2: especially if I don't care. If you like Fozzy, if
Speaker 2: Fozzy is your favorite, let's talk, because what does it mean.
Speaker 4: Fozzy can't be anyone's favorite.
Speaker 3: Point No, no.
Speaker 5: I remember, because Fozzy to me was like bummy. I
Speaker 5: didn't like his energy. I didn't like his fucking tie
Speaker 5: or like scarf thing there was just didn't appeal to me.
Speaker 3: Like I was Kermit Gang from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, Kermit has there there's something about him.
Speaker 1: There's just something about that.
Speaker 4: We do ask on every episode, like if they actually
Speaker 4: existed in reality in our world, would this icon have
Speaker 4: been on the Epstein flight logs? And as we've already covered,
Speaker 4: Miss Peggy not on the flight logs. But take another
Speaker 4: look for Fozzy Yes, Sam, like there's it's only a
Speaker 4: matter of time, like a failed comedian, like.
Speaker 3: He would be on fucking kill Tony.
Speaker 4: Who refuses to be in the same room as Miss Piggy,
Speaker 4: as the woman in the group.
Speaker 2: Fozzy would do a private event at mar A Lago.
Speaker 2: He will, Yeah, he would have no issue about it.
Speaker 2: And then he would say business is business.
Speaker 3: He's exactly.
Speaker 5: He's like, welcome to the Foston, Texas comedy scene, is
Speaker 5: what you'd be telling people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's lawless. He's like like all bad.
Speaker 2: Comedians, he's gonna have to he's gonna, you know, the
Speaker 2: only way for him to be successful is by going
Speaker 2: full fascist.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, well and even then they're like this
Speaker 3: guy fucking stinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's big game season. We're taking down.
Speaker 4: Fozzy Fozzy Bear put his head on my wall. So
Speaker 4: to your point about how seriously sometimes performers take their
Speaker 4: roles frank Oza says that like Piggy is his. He
Speaker 4: thinks Piggy was so successful because she's like got the
Speaker 4: most depth and the most going on. And he wrote
Speaker 4: a four page Stanislavskian analysis of Miss Piggy's life that
Speaker 4: is like so dark.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, does she have like a Charles entered him
Speaker 2: and Cheese styles story?
Speaker 4: Yeah, she has kind of a fucked up backstory, all right,
Speaker 4: frank Oz. Although Miss Piggy is essentially humorous to me,
Speaker 4: she's had a sad, difficult, painful life. This is not
Speaker 4: for the audience to know, but the puppeteers should know
Speaker 4: the background of any good character in order to be
Speaker 4: able to improvise. I thought we would get like an
Speaker 4: extensive martial arts background, but it's actually like depressing dust bullshit.
Speaker 4: According to Oz, Piggy grew up in a small town.
Speaker 4: Her father died when she was young. Her mother wasn't
Speaker 4: that nice to her. She had to enter beauty contests
Speaker 4: to survive. She has a lot of aggressiveness, but she
Speaker 4: needs a lot to survive, as many single women do.
Speaker 4: She has a lot of vulnerability which she has to
Speaker 4: hide because of her need to be a superstar. He
Speaker 4: also said the miss Piggy's father chased after other sows
Speaker 4: and her mother had so many piglets she never found
Speaker 4: time to develop her mind. I'll die before I live
Speaker 4: like that, Piggy screamed. She then left for the city
Speaker 4: and got a job wearing a sandwich board for and
Speaker 4: this is where it gets like really fucked up for
Speaker 4: a barbecue stand, and entered a beauty contest under the
Speaker 4: name Laverne. Her big break was a bacon commercial, which
Speaker 4: led her to a job as mascot for a local
Speaker 4: TV sports cast called pig Skin Parade. And then she
Speaker 4: got on The Muppet Show. Just like so much cannibalism
Speaker 4: packed into the last like two paragraphs.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: This isn't for the public to know. This is the
Speaker 3: performer on the flesh of her own mom.
Speaker 5: Was so busy breeding that she didn't have time to
Speaker 5: develop her mind, her mind. Oh, oh my god, I
Speaker 5: thought I was gonna end like fucking grapes of wrath.
Speaker 3: It's like and she had a breastfeed a dying man.
Speaker 4: That really took a turn.
Speaker 2: That told me a lot about frank oz I.
Speaker 3: Where he was at that time, where.
Speaker 2: He was at that is It's so brutal. I do
Speaker 2: like that. I I rewatched a little bit of it
Speaker 2: this morning, like a really good video essay about miss
Speaker 2: Piggy by be kind Rewind on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love her channel.
Speaker 2: I like rewatched the first couple of minutes and I
Speaker 2: was like, I gotta save it for the pod. I
Speaker 2: was just hyped on the pig today. But like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like how that story is, like that's way darker than
Speaker 2: I was aware of. But it does feel like mapped
Speaker 2: on like an old school like I'm just a little
Speaker 2: girl from a little town and I had a hard
Speaker 2: time and here at you know, it was like a
Speaker 2: Marilyn Monroe kind of like sure I took some pictures
Speaker 2: when I was a young Sure pig I wasn't proud of.
Speaker 4: So what Yeah, And I mean maybe that's what the
Speaker 4: like cannibalism is, you know, or the like having to
Speaker 4: sell yourself out. Like I think there's probably like some
Speaker 4: metaphors in there that are just like incredibly dark.
Speaker 2: I love the I don't I don't have an issue
Speaker 2: with that. Her mom catching astray like that, that was
Speaker 2: really hard.
Speaker 3: My mom's a dumb bitch.
Speaker 5: That was really fucking to figure anything out anyway. So
Speaker 5: Fazzi's actually what if his back is like, So Fozzy's
Speaker 5: like actually a sick comedian dude, Like everybody loves him.
Speaker 5: He's so fucking funny. When he enters a space, he
Speaker 5: lights up.
Speaker 4: The wishes she could get with Fozzy, But unfortunately on
Speaker 4: both of them, the.
Speaker 2: Comedic voice of a generation isn't always recognized right away.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it takes some time.
Speaker 5: My hope is that posthumously Fuzzy will be recognized for
Speaker 5: his uh, his contributions.
Speaker 1: But he's really the Venco.
Speaker 3: I don't really Ozz.
Speaker 5: His parents are like puppeteers, like kind of like renegade
Speaker 5: puppeteers too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, puppet nepo.
Speaker 3: That's fun.
Speaker 2: That's fun.
Speaker 5: They like escaped like like Holland or something in World
Speaker 5: War two, and like his parents had puppets that mocked
Speaker 5: eight off. Hitler was just reading like some of his
Speaker 5: They were like about that ship puppeteers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, shit, Okay, the puppet is mightier than the sword,
Speaker 4: as they said, you know, the best way to criticize
Speaker 4: to make a fool of people in power. One cool
Speaker 4: detail that I think I actually got from the be
Speaker 4: kind Rewind episode was that the reason she always wears
Speaker 4: pink and purple and like aqua and like those colors
Speaker 4: is because based on this backstory as psychological aversion to
Speaker 4: the earth tones that she lived with on the farm. Wow,
Speaker 4: that's like the sort of thing I was looking for,
Speaker 4: you know. It's just like and here's like a fun
Speaker 4: design detail that like we explain with and it's like
Speaker 4: she was in a commercial for bad right wearing a
Speaker 4: sandwich board.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Frankaus is like the coolest, one of the coolest people
Speaker 2: to ever do anything. I was like the fact that
Speaker 2: he co created Miss Piggy and then like directed Little
Speaker 2: Shop of Horrors and like bow Finger.
Speaker 3: Like it's just nuts. Wives that movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe not that one, that one, there's a couple
Speaker 2: wee can skip a few.
Speaker 1: But but like Little Shop a Horror.
Speaker 3: Come on, that's great, that's good stuff.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and Yoda.
Speaker 2: I guess the fact that Yoda's number three on the
Speaker 2: list is impressible.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Behind this Piggy and Fozzy, I think that, like I
Speaker 4: want to get to this later, but the fact that
Speaker 4: they are one of the few fictional characters that can
Speaker 4: like show up to Prince Charles's coronation and it like
Speaker 4: makes sense, which kind of makes sense, but like I
Speaker 4: feel like the Henson Company like treated them as if
Speaker 4: they were real, which is maybe why they're like the
Speaker 4: only fictional characters will accept as real.
Speaker 3: Almost.
Speaker 2: I was thinking this this morning, so like there's a
Speaker 2: new Miss Piggy movie coming out and at some point,
Speaker 2: which is like super excited about that I didn't know
Speaker 2: about before today.
Speaker 4: I was so excited. I was talking my colaskl Yes
Speaker 4: and produced by Ammastone on the Stone and Jays.
Speaker 1: It just it just makes sense.
Speaker 2: But I was like, Okay, so we're assuming if we're
Speaker 2: gonna say that movie's gonna be nominated for a.
Speaker 4: Lot of Oscars, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Does Miss Piggy get nominated for an Oscar? Miss Piggy
Speaker 2: is still voiced by a man? Miss Piggy gets nominated
Speaker 2: for the Oscar? Right, It doesn't work if Miss Piggy's
Speaker 2: not nominated for the Oscar. But I mean the gender
Speaker 2: lines and award categories are ridiculous anyways.
Speaker 4: But like this unique case, You're.
Speaker 3: Like, what do we do? It is funny.
Speaker 5: It's like a Supreme Court case that changes everything. It's
Speaker 5: like and in this scenario, how do we move forward?
Speaker 4: We've actually there is precedent, speaking of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: there is president for this because while so, yeah, she
Speaker 4: really becomes the superstar with them up a movie in
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy nine, you know, does the karate chop moment
Speaker 4: of like realization. Frank Oz goes back and like writes
Speaker 4: horrifying backstory, and suddenly she's this fully formed character. And
Speaker 4: the Muppet Movie comes along and everyone is like, who
Speaker 4: is that? Like they I mean, they knew her from
Speaker 4: the show, but like she really Like I was watching
Speaker 4: the Ciskel and Ebert review of The Muppet Movie and
Speaker 4: Ciskel was like, I only liked the movie when she
Speaker 4: was on screen, Like he was like so smitten with
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy. He also like he's also like the part
Speaker 4: where they like flip her upside down and you see
Speaker 4: how bigger thighs are. It's like, oh my gosh, okay man,
Speaker 4: oh cool. There was a fan led campaign to get
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Two
Speaker 4: fans in Cincinnati launched CAMPO, which stood for the Committee
Speaker 4: to Award Miss Piggy and Oscar. They received thirty five
Speaker 4: thousand letters of support and delivered them to the Academy
Speaker 4: of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In response, the Academy
Speaker 4: made this statement, which I just have to include for
Speaker 4: like just a massive l. While the Academy does not
Speaker 4: participate in the pork barrel campaigns, which are an unfortunate
Speaker 4: part of the annual OSCAR campaign, we do wish you
Speaker 4: appropriate success with your commendable support of such a weighty
Speaker 4: candidate of Academy honors. Oh, guys, get fucked honestly fast.
Speaker 2: That's sasty.
Speaker 1: She I mean, miss Piggy has to have been gone
Speaker 1: to the Oscars before.
Speaker 4: She has, so she at those Oscars presented or I
Speaker 4: think introduced Rainbow Connection, which was nominated that year, and
Speaker 4: like did a bit about how she couldn't fucking believe
Speaker 4: that she wasn't nominated, which was like, really good it
Speaker 4: was her.
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson and insult her in the same I.
Speaker 4: Know that's saety backhanded then she So nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 4: Big Year was on the cover of People magazine, which
Speaker 4: referred to her as the Muppet Movies New section. Scottis
Speaker 4: the late seventies were like so weird. I don't know,
Speaker 4: so she's she talks about how the Queen tried to
Speaker 4: fix her up with Prince Charles better than Prince Andrew.
Speaker 4: Thank god, I don't think.
Speaker 2: That would be a real stand on that would that
Speaker 2: would not bode well for the flight log side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would have been she wouldn't have been on there.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: She would have chopped the ship out of him.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wouldn't have made it. Maybe she could have.
Speaker 2: She would have killed him. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The article also suggests Elliott Gould suggests that he fucked
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy in it. He says, I turned down Miss Universe,
Speaker 4: but I couldn't turn down Miss Piggy.
Speaker 2: That actually that pairing. I feel like Elliott Gould does
Speaker 2: have like a little bit of current about him.
Speaker 3: Like she's got a type, Yeah.
Speaker 4: For sure, a type. You got that frog in him,
Speaker 4: He's got he got that frogs early eighties. She has
Speaker 4: such a weird Yeah, good guy who fucks. But everybody,
Speaker 4: I feel like everybody in the late seventies had like
Speaker 4: guy with a ponytail from a documentary about like Orgi's Energy,
Speaker 4: where they're just like we're just here to enjoy each
Speaker 4: other's bodies and like yeah, it's just like I don't that.
Speaker 2: Guy's always there and he's like, oh god, it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it reminds me of that there.
Speaker 1: It's like a kind of an older video now.
Speaker 2: But Chris Fleming made a great song about Polly Couples
Speaker 2: years and years ago, where it's like, it's never the
Speaker 2: person you want to be Pollie, who's Polly, it's a
Speaker 2: guy being like I have one hundred board games at
Speaker 2: my house, like.
Speaker 4: No, no, But in this case we're talking about Elliott Gould,
Speaker 4: which I would I'm on board with miss Piggy and
Speaker 4: Elliott Gould.
Speaker 3: I love that rumor.
Speaker 1: Yeah that would make Kermit jealous too.
Speaker 4: Oh hell yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: We'll get to their relationship. But it's I don't know,
Speaker 4: going back and rewatching some of the stuff. I was like,
Speaker 4: I don't love how he treats her, like obviously, like
Speaker 4: there's a big like re examination of her, like hitting him,
Speaker 4: but also he's like kind of a dick sometimes to her, like.
Speaker 5: Trying to put a wedge between him so you can
Speaker 5: move in on this, like I don't know, girl, like
Speaker 5: I feel like she could do better.
Speaker 1: Well, you're like like me for example, So I'm just saying.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know, I don't know. I got like
Speaker 3: one hundred board games back in White Place.
Speaker 4: I haven't taken my hat off yet, but I'll let
Speaker 4: the ponytail drop out.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 1: That would be a ponytail.
Speaker 3: Reveal, shaking it out. Yeah, this is who I am.
Speaker 5: Like when the nerdy character takes the pencil out of
Speaker 5: their hair and like an eighties like, oh god, like
Speaker 5: whoa long hair.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of like kind of perpetually wet ponytail, just.
Speaker 3: Like a greasy as ponytail.
Speaker 5: It doesn't really like flare out, it's just stuff together
Speaker 5: a little bit like a pig's tail.
Speaker 3: People, Magsie.
Speaker 4: I also just like this detail from the article because
Speaker 4: it was the late seventies and they said the gossipis
Speaker 4: plan that Piggy might be pregnant or had a drinking problem,
Speaker 4: or perhaps a coke addiction, because certainly she has the
Speaker 4: equipment to be snorting something I do just like the
Speaker 4: coke was a fun drug back then, Like they're just
Speaker 4: like we're all doing it. Wouldn't it be cool to
Speaker 4: snort choke with giant pig nostrils?
Speaker 7: Oh my?
Speaker 5: I think if your people pulling out that puppet like
Speaker 5: at parties and being like, yo, dude, let's fucking do
Speaker 5: a line with Miss Piggy.
Speaker 3: They're like, guys, I really shouldn't.
Speaker 5: It's really for performances to like, come on, dude, pull
Speaker 5: her out of the case.
Speaker 3: Let's do a couple of rails with Miss Piggy.
Speaker 2: She I feel like she she would do it as
Speaker 2: in the seventies she did it as a party trick parties.
Speaker 5: Frank Oz was definitely doing It'd be like, oh, I.
Speaker 1: Like and I don't And is that a fun energy
Speaker 1: to bring? I think it sounds fun. But when it
Speaker 1: actually happened, you're like, yeah, man, this is not good.
Speaker 2: We got to get home.
Speaker 5: And it's after as the high is wearing off, You're like, damn,
Speaker 5: what the fuck am I doing?
Speaker 3: Man, you can't do.
Speaker 2: A pigs do Folks, I'm looking at the Muppet wiki is.
Speaker 1: Unbelievably thorough.
Speaker 4: I just like, yeah, it's got its own it's like
Speaker 4: Woki Wikipedia, like it's its whole universe over there.
Speaker 2: Because I was curious, I'm sure we'll talk about it,
Speaker 2: like how like Miss like the Academy Award, think like
Speaker 2: the way that people talk about Miss Piggy's body is
Speaker 2: so like charged and uh, but like she never talks
Speaker 2: about herself that way, which I love about her. She's
Speaker 2: like so confident and amazing.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole page on muppet Wiki this is
Speaker 1: Miss Piggy's weight, and it's just a list of hundreds
Speaker 1: of references. I was like this, who did this?
Speaker 4: H did this?
Speaker 1: And and can I I don't know for certain Wikipedia pages.
Speaker 1: You're like this is against God.
Speaker 4: But but I.
Speaker 3: Do appreciate that the all yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: She was introduced to a whole new generation with Muppet Babies.
Speaker 4: Did you guys watch Muppet Babies?
Speaker 3: Was that before your time?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did babies, missus the miss Piggy. Muppet Baby is
Speaker 2: like a little too sexy for me. Yeah, what's going
Speaker 2: on there? Did you guys like Muppet Babies? I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't watch it. Grow it now.
Speaker 5: I was like, I mean, I was so. It was
Speaker 5: one of the first cartoons I remember watching Watch Baby.
Speaker 4: I remember it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then there was.
Speaker 5: The cartoon I remember there was like a kind of
Speaker 5: there's like a reference to Star Wars and like the
Speaker 5: opening that I really liked that.
Speaker 4: I was like obsessed with other than that. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: was the opening is the thing is the iconic thing.
Speaker 4: And then Nanny's legs, like they had a overseer who
Speaker 4: you only saw her like stockings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, like Charlie Brown.
Speaker 4: Style, right, yeah, yeah, you just saw her like calves
Speaker 4: and it was like very mysterious.
Speaker 2: I love that they did that on Cow and Chicken too.
Speaker 2: That was like when I really loved Yeah, when it's
Speaker 2: just the legs.
Speaker 4: That was a Marvel joint. By the way, Marvel Common
Speaker 4: Animation Department technically made the Muppet Babies, so that's the
Speaker 4: first because it was like the.
Speaker 1: Cheap o animation style of of Yeah.
Speaker 4: Probably they were probably like already making you know, a
Speaker 4: Spider Man comic and we're like, what about what about this?
Speaker 1: We made the Muppet Sexy Babies.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of weird continuity stuff in there, like
Speaker 4: there's a reveal that Statler and Waldorf are the muppets uncles,
Speaker 4: but like, I don't I don't think we need to
Speaker 4: like get too into continuity because I don't, like I
Speaker 4: think the premise is that like the Muppets are all actors,
Speaker 4: Like this is just a SNL style like thing where
Speaker 4: it's like they're just playing different versions of themselves and
Speaker 4: you like never know what's real, so you don't have
Speaker 4: to like worry too much that Statler and Waldorf for
Speaker 4: actually just the worst uncles of all time? Right worried?
Speaker 5: Did you worry that Scott Gardner cartoon Tiny Buppets?
Speaker 3: Yes? Oh yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 5: It was like the Brazilian Mummy Babies when it was
Speaker 5: called like Cormet and Gonzor.
Speaker 3: Was just called I think it's miss woman or something.
Speaker 2: Shit it Miss Piggy is probably the best case scenario
Speaker 2: of like the missus Lady character right like there, it.
Speaker 3: Really isn't right.
Speaker 2: I can't think of them where because it's like they
Speaker 2: try to emulate it a bajillion times or like I
Speaker 2: don't know, I always go back to chuck e cheeselare
Speaker 2: as I want to do and they have a missus Lady,
Speaker 2: like you always have to have one girl, not even
Speaker 2: because you care, but so you can make pencil boxes
Speaker 2: for girls, right right, But miss Piggy, like they just
Speaker 2: there was something in that coke that was special.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh, Brian, I'm gonna have to ask you to stop
Speaker 4: putting pictures of a fazzy var next to Burt Kreischer
Speaker 4: in the.
Speaker 3: Chat.
Speaker 4: It's too distracting. They do both wear brown hats and
Speaker 4: no shirt.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't sell Brian's hard work short. He's finding
Speaker 2: exact poses that are identical. It's like, it's alarming.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 4: Bert Crasers just modeled his career off Fuzzy. That's wild.
Speaker 3: No fucking have a backstory, man, gotta have a backstory.
Speaker 4: So Miss Piggy is seen as an lgbt Q plus icon,
Speaker 4: which is wild because it started from a place where
Speaker 4: Frank and and We'll get to a quote from Marlon
Speaker 4: Brando that I think will kind of put some of
Speaker 4: this into context. But he once told reporters about how
Speaker 4: Piggy takes over and when he talks about her, he
Speaker 4: will become her, using her voice and even adopting her personality,
Speaker 4: and then added, but let's get it straight that I'm straight.
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, all right, man, cool, Okay.
Speaker 2: He keeps telling on himself.
Speaker 4: Really, I know other artists were like, I sculpted the
Speaker 4: David out of appreciation for the human body. Just because
Speaker 4: I sent three weeks on the dick doesn't mean I'm
Speaker 4: not straight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look at his biceps though. Look at those things. Man, sick, right, sick.
Speaker 4: I'm sure a straight guy could do.
Speaker 3: Got to be straight, understand, dude, dick like that.
Speaker 4: After he became a successful film director, he was still
Speaker 4: associated with Miss Piggy. When he directed the two thousand
Speaker 4: and one crime movie The Score, an annoyed Marlon Brando
Speaker 4: would reportedly only refer to the director as miss Piggy.
Speaker 4: Just like, Okay, that's brutal. I just like the seventies,
Speaker 4: just any anyone who was like famous in the seventies
Speaker 4: was just like broken by toxic masculinity.
Speaker 3: They're just like never recovered.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah, man, I I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe there's something I don't know very
Speaker 2: much about Marlon Brando, and it's kind of like none
Speaker 2: of my business when I see Marlin.
Speaker 3: We're good here. It's not for me. That's not really
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: I don't need to know about all of that, especially
Speaker 2: if he's bullying Frank Gaws to the Frank Oz has to.
Speaker 8: Respond in a toxic way to the world, right exactly
Speaker 8: two thousand and one, Brando, Dude, that's like, oh that's
Speaker 8: a yeah, that's doctor Moreau, you're talking.
Speaker 2: That's tough.
Speaker 4: But Eric Johnson, who's been playing Piggy since Oz stepped
Speaker 4: away from the part in two thousand, said in an
Speaker 4: interview that Piggy is a drag act. It's where some
Speaker 4: of the comedy comes from. He did not go on
Speaker 4: to clarify I've slept with like twenty three women of
Speaker 4: them have said, I'm like, good, it sucks. But he
Speaker 4: cited Oz's early description of Piggy as a truck driver
Speaker 4: in a woman's body, and then argued that the character
Speaker 4: breaks down genderbearers, which I think is.
Speaker 2: Right, all right, Eric, nice. Eric.
Speaker 4: People have also pointed out that Chapel Roone seems to
Speaker 4: pull a lot from drag and also Miss Piggy, Like
Speaker 4: there are a couple side by side pictures where it's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: She might have literally Miss Piggy style.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, it's perfect. Miss Piggy also has a wide
Speaker 2: variety of wigs. Yeah, she's just she's maximal.
Speaker 3: She loves animal print, you know.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that that be kind rewind video it's called
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy. Camp and the Death of the Movie Star
Speaker 4: has a really good quote from a camp theorist talking
Speaker 4: about Camp as this like pure surface level celebration of
Speaker 4: like the kind of hoops we have to jump through
Speaker 4: to live our lives. They say, to appreciate camp and
Speaker 4: things or persons is to perceive the notion of life
Speaker 4: as theater being versus role playing reality and appearance, which
Speaker 4: I think is like kind of a perfect frame to
Speaker 4: think of Miss Piggy and kind of the Muppets through. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a good video. Miss Piggy as a feminist icon.
Speaker 4: That's just you know, a lot of people talking about
Speaker 4: body positivity role model who subverts, Like the original punchline
Speaker 4: of her origin is like a you know, lipstick on
Speaker 4: a pig like that sort of thing. But she just
Speaker 4: like I didn't even I hadn't ever even thought about
Speaker 4: that being the original joke until somebody like reading about
Speaker 4: the origin is like, oh yeah, I get it. But
Speaker 4: it's like no, she's just like so glamorous that like
Speaker 4: you don't even. She just like owns it. She's completely confident.
Speaker 4: I feel like you don't like have that initial like
Speaker 4: she's ugly but pretty type thing. It's just like she's
Speaker 4: her own character, that extensive backstory.
Speaker 2: I also like that, like I guess the Miss Piggy
Speaker 2: era I most associate her with, and I like the
Speaker 2: best is that her like kind of nineties Miss Piggy
Speaker 2: where she's kind of like girl boss single a little
Speaker 2: bit like she's a she's a career girl, and she's
Speaker 2: also like a ruthless kind of quite evil career girl.
Speaker 2: And I love that.
Speaker 4: Which one is that? What is that in the ruthless?
Speaker 2: I feel like, I mean most of them I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2: I think it's maybe a Muppets take Manhattan where she's
Speaker 2: really rallying for parts and she'll like lie to get parts.
Speaker 2: She just like she's you know, she's a diva, she's
Speaker 2: an Yeah, And I like that, Yeah, it would be
Speaker 2: it would have been easy to keep the focus on
Speaker 2: her like obsession with Kermit, which like it always does.
Speaker 2: But I feel like her her passions of Kermit and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, being famous are like in Lockstep, So it's
Speaker 2: like almost weird that she had, Like they haven't like
Speaker 2: adapted her to the modern era very frequently.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe this Coloskull and Miss Piggy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, written by col Skull who made o Mary for
Speaker 4: people who aren't familiar but so so funny. Yeah, like
Speaker 4: it could really like get into brilliant dark shut.
Speaker 5: Which what if it's a dust bowl? He's like, I look,
Speaker 5: I went to the source and I just had to
Speaker 5: adapt this.
Speaker 2: Frank Gus in fact doubled down when I brought up
Speaker 2: the Stanoslavskian brief.
Speaker 4: Jennifer Lawrence did say that the Miss Piggy movie is
Speaker 4: fucked up and really dark, which wow, maybe it is
Speaker 4: just a straight up adaptation, all right, But yeah, I
Speaker 4: feel like this, like one of the things driving her
Speaker 4: career throughout has been just the will they won't they
Speaker 4: of Kermit the Frog. Like there was a more recent
Speaker 4: I forget what it was, but I remember it hitting
Speaker 4: the news cycle when they like broke up and everybody
Speaker 4: was like, oh, like Piggy and Kermit broke up. That
Speaker 4: was the second time they had tried that, and the
Speaker 4: first time they did it was actually like called off
Speaker 4: because like they like, to your point, they were going
Speaker 4: to break up. She was going to be single throughout
Speaker 4: the nineties, and it was there was like this whole
Speaker 4: book planned, and then Jim Henson died like that week,
Speaker 4: and so they just like quietly like pulled back on it.
Speaker 2: I said, She's been through enough to see her. We
Speaker 2: can't put her through a breakup.
Speaker 5: Oh because then because he was Henson was doing Kermit's
Speaker 5: voice up until he passed away.
Speaker 4: Basically, yeah, he had been so his last TV appearance
Speaker 4: was on The Arsenio Hall Show in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 5: So funny that there was like seriously, yeah, we got
Speaker 5: Kermit the Frog on tonight, godless.
Speaker 4: And he was like not feeling well at that and
Speaker 4: then he was refusing to like take time off and
Speaker 4: then so I didn't realize. I thought he like died
Speaker 4: of cancer or something. He died of like basically strep
Speaker 4: throat and just like not getting it taken care of.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a really crazy like a bacterial infection
Speaker 4: that just like got worse and worse. And he was
Speaker 4: at that time talking to Disney about selling, you know,
Speaker 4: the Muppets to Disney and Frank Oz this is frank
Speaker 4: Oz's quote on it. The Disney deal is probably what
Speaker 4: killed Jim. It made him sick.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good good for him for saying that. I guess
Speaker 2: I mean because Disney is I went to my for
Speaker 2: my last birthday. My boyfriend brought me to the Henton
Speaker 2: studio like dirty Puppet night. Have you guys ever been No, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's cool. It's like Brian Henson gives the audience a
Speaker 2: tour of the studio beforehand, and then it's like puppet
Speaker 2: improv basically, it's the it's the best way to see
Speaker 2: improv if you absolutely have to is puppet improv you must.
Speaker 4: But it was.
Speaker 2: It was really cool. But I don't even know if
Speaker 2: they're still at that studio or they won't be for
Speaker 2: much longer because Disney has like sort of slowly dismantled.
Speaker 2: I hope maybe the Miss Piggy movie will save it,
Speaker 2: but it seemed like they were going to have to
Speaker 2: leave the studio and you know, go to sort of
Speaker 2: more standard corporate offices, which I have to imagine is
Speaker 2: Disney's fault.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, because it's like they were also like you
Speaker 5: could like lease office space out of there, like I
Speaker 5: remember in the last few years, like yeah, because the
Speaker 5: place on LaBrea right like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, but like everything Kermit yeah yeah yeah, there.
Speaker 4: Was like see a little Kermit statue out front.
Speaker 5: I remember going like back in the day, like meetings
Speaker 5: with startups like that were like like a startup was
Speaker 5: based back.
Speaker 3: There, like you Richard the Hinson Studios, and it was
Speaker 3: that company excess more than seven.
Speaker 2: No, they shouldn't have.
Speaker 3: To do fally bummed out that. I was like, what
Speaker 3: but you got like I'm looking at the original.
Speaker 5: Dark Crystal Puppets in here, and you guys are fucking
Speaker 5: talking about some dumb streaming platform that's not gonna do fuck.
Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, the frog's broke.
Speaker 3: What k he do he do? Man? And make him
Speaker 3: do whatever you want guys. Yeah, and you want.
Speaker 5: Watch this, I can ash on his head right now.
Speaker 5: Won't do shit.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety, they appeared on The Today Show announced
Speaker 4: they were officially breaking up. This is part of a
Speaker 4: publicity stunt called the Pig of the Nineties that where
Speaker 4: she was going to like be an independent woman and.
Speaker 2: Then she's gonna girl boss it up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was gonna grow boss it up. And then
Speaker 4: that was in May, and just days later, Jim Henson
Speaker 4: died of Yeah. It's a crazy sort like he literally
Speaker 4: just worked himself to like he wouldn't He like woke
Speaker 4: up at two am in the morning and was like
Speaker 4: I can't breathe and was like coughing up blood and
Speaker 4: he was like but I don't want to cancel work tomorrow,
Speaker 4: so I don't know, for as a warning to anybody, like,
Speaker 4: don't don't work that hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah alone.
Speaker 2: This is dark, but it would be funny if frank
Speaker 2: Oz was like, yeah, I think it was the breakup that.
Speaker 3: I didn't believe in love. After that, he just really.
Speaker 5: Find this new new direction with Miss Piggy right that
Speaker 5: we're thinking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, you could just really affected him.
Speaker 3: And he really wanted to say something, but he could.
Speaker 4: It was just like a plot, an idea that he
Speaker 4: didn't like at work, so he like blames it. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, Yeah, yeah, I killed Jim.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think? Huh hit off? Maybe I'll
Speaker 3: pitch that next time.
Speaker 2: I will watch basically like any like of the bajilion
Speaker 2: documentaries that there are about Jim Henson, and anytime I
Speaker 2: see even a shred of his like televised funeral services,
Speaker 2: I started bawling. It's so sad.
Speaker 3: I was so upset.
Speaker 5: That was like one of the first celebrity deaths I
Speaker 5: remember as a kid.
Speaker 4: Did you guys know that, like that's how he died?
Speaker 4: That it was I thought you just cancer. Yeah, cancer,
Speaker 4: because he wasn't that old, right, was he in his
Speaker 4: like fifty something?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thank god.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, I just remember I was so deaf
Speaker 5: because I just felt like he was the Muppets truly,
Speaker 5: even like as a kid, I knew they were fucking puppets,
Speaker 5: but I still could connect that, like all things were
Speaker 5: possible through his work and the other people he worked with.
Speaker 2: But yeah, which is like not that they wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been anyways, but it like almost makes it necessary for
Speaker 2: kids to have the Muppets at the funeral, so you
Speaker 2: know that they're like still, oh my god, Oh it's
Speaker 2: so sad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, they're laying flowers on this.
Speaker 2: It's too much, so much. I was like, no, I've
Speaker 2: never been as set. Well that's not fair, but like
Speaker 2: I've never been stunted at a funeral as I am
Speaker 2: watching like low res clips right right right, funeral from
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties. So sad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I do feel like that does like get
Speaker 4: a kind of one of the things that I think
Speaker 4: is truly unique about them, which is the way that
Speaker 4: they exist both in reality and in like the fact
Speaker 4: that they were at King Charles's coronation. I feel like
Speaker 4: they're the only fictional characters who can like show up
Speaker 4: to real events, Like they occupy a weird space between
Speaker 4: worlds for everybody, Like you couldn't just have like like
Speaker 4: Deadpool show up at the royal wedding.
Speaker 3: And we've got Deadpool here.
Speaker 2: You know, what is that the coronation.
Speaker 3: I mean a fascinator on.
Speaker 2: I feel like that they because like other characters I guess,
Speaker 2: do show up places, but it always you can always
Speaker 2: tell it's an ad And then when the Muppet Show, you're.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, like, oh, the Muppets are there exactly? Yeah,
Speaker 3: like damn, oh they were in town.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When uh so Edgar Edgar Bergen Candice Berger from Then
Speaker 4: in Black died. Now when Edgar Bergen, Cannis Bergen's father,
Speaker 4: who was a famous like puppeteer ventriloquist, died, his widow
Speaker 4: and candisberg And asked Jim Henson and Kermit to like
Speaker 4: speak at his funeral, and they said Jim Henson said, uh,
Speaker 4: there seems to be something strange about having a puppet
Speaker 4: in this situation, and Kermit said, I have never appeared
Speaker 4: at a funeral before, and then Henson was like, but
Speaker 4: the family asked if I would bring Kermit and Charlie
Speaker 4: would have liked it. He said about like his Charlie
Speaker 4: and Mortimer were his two characters, and like everybody just
Speaker 4: like burst into tears because they realized like Charlie and
Speaker 4: Mortimer were gone, like at that.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, But yeah, it's sad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just kind of this weird like you know,
Speaker 4: puppets have been like a thing, and like they they
Speaker 4: hold the like the muppets hold this like load bearing
Speaker 4: place in popular culture because they're like our main muppets
Speaker 4: are our main puppets, you know, right, Like there's a
Speaker 4: quote from Bonnie Erickson where she's saying they've been a
Speaker 4: tradition across the world for thousands of years as a
Speaker 4: form of storytelling, but until recently, they haven't been appreciated
Speaker 4: in the United States. We owe allot of that to
Speaker 4: Jim Henson's vision, and so like there's something like sort
Speaker 4: of magical about puppets that like these being the main
Speaker 4: pop culture puppets like allows them to just like occupy
Speaker 4: this weird space where we're like Piggy and Kermit canna
Speaker 4: like get together together at any given time.
Speaker 5: Right right, and now, Jamie, I bet you'd feel terrible
Speaker 5: if you read that. I've read that Fozzy odd after
Speaker 5: a bad open mic gig or something.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you just do it?
Speaker 2: Look, you know my dark Fozzy movie is Fozzi's in
Speaker 2: aa uh and like, who's Fozzy's sponsor? I do feel
Speaker 2: like Fozzy can't drink anymore?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't drink. I feel like almost might sponsors. Yes,
Speaker 3: Almost Dad is almost.
Speaker 4: Dad like kind of has like old you know, musician
Speaker 4: vibe a lot of ship.
Speaker 5: I was drinking hand doing heroin. They're like, oh fuck,
Speaker 5: all right, man, all right, almost Dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, almost Dad has seen ship. You don't just raise
Speaker 2: a kid like that, like Elmo. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It also makes a lot of sense that you
Speaker 3: see the dad. You're like, oh okay, yeah, yeah, in.
Speaker 1: The grand context Elmo. Actually it comes into sharp focus.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I do wonder, like what the drug seems like with
Speaker 4: the Muppets, you know, just generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like the band, the band has to
Speaker 2: Oh yeah that is I love the band so much.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think they're doing intravenous drugs, but a
Speaker 4: lot of acid in the band i'd have to assume
Speaker 4: r Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Keep it fun, they keep it fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, stuff that just kind of makes them
Speaker 5: more muppetty if.
Speaker 3: That's a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something makes you like taste colors?
Speaker 4: Nothing, Yeah, I will say just the last thing I
Speaker 4: have about Miss Piggies. I feel like to encapsulate the
Speaker 4: weird place that she occupies. I don't think any other
Speaker 4: children's character could have simulated an orgasm.
Speaker 3: Did you have you? Guys?
Speaker 4: Do you remember that thing where she was like doing
Speaker 4: a parody of when Harry met Sally with Billy Crystal?
Speaker 2: Oh no, wait, when did that happen?
Speaker 4: They it was the early nineties and she did it
Speaker 4: as like a fake sneeze, but she really like it was.
Speaker 4: It was a long time and it was on the
Speaker 4: Disney Channel too, Yeah, and Muppets tonight. Yeah, so dressing.
Speaker 3: What happened with you last night was as so she
Speaker 3: canceled she had a bad cold.
Speaker 4: Are you sure she had a cold, Yes, I'm sure
Speaker 4: she had a curl. I heard a sneeze twice.
Speaker 3: Your Kniven taste amusing.
Speaker 2: Did you ever think she may have faked the sneeze
Speaker 2: to get out of the date with you?
Speaker 3: Fake the snaze, no way ticket.
Speaker 2: Most women, at one time or another have faked a sneeze,
Speaker 2: take it out of a date?
Speaker 3: Really well, excuse aim moa, miss I'm jealous of babe.
Speaker 5: You don't think that I can tell the difference between
Speaker 5: a real sneeze and a fake sneeze. No, so good
Speaker 5: killing it with the performance.
Speaker 2: Oh oh my god, that's about how people sneeze.
Speaker 6: Oh yo Channel, No god, this is your titus.
Speaker 2: I love the Disney Channel logo just hanging out down.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow, way that all have what cheese having less?
Speaker 4: Peppa hey.
Speaker 3: Ship.
Speaker 5: That was when you said it was a fake sneeze.
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, they'll play with it. I didn't expect
Speaker 5: her to be daggering the table like that under.
Speaker 2: Her feet, the little thing she.
Speaker 4: Was pumping the even a part where like Billy Crystal
Speaker 4: starts like doing a weird what do you do?
Speaker 1: That stopped that man gets so weird about Miss.
Speaker 4: Piggy, I mean, are weird about Miss Piggy.
Speaker 2: This ciscal thing. This ciscal thing really says it all.
Speaker 2: Where he's like, oh, she's so amazing, she's and did
Speaker 2: you see her legs? And you're like, oh, like there's
Speaker 2: there's the line. I remember. I never watched it, but
Speaker 2: I'm always like one small illness away from watching. Do
Speaker 2: you remember Lady Gaga and the Muppets did like special together?
Speaker 2: It was like maybe ten years ago, but Lady Gaga
Speaker 2: and the Muppets did a big thing together. And I
Speaker 2: never saw it, but I feel like she and Miss
Speaker 2: Piggy must have really been vibing, because that's a brain
Speaker 2: of Carpenter is going to be in a Muppet special.
Speaker 3: Wow and lo it was a holiday spectacular, is what
Speaker 3: they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yes, twenty thirteen with Oh God, twenty thirteen
Speaker 2: with guest stars Joseph Gordon Levitt.
Speaker 4: Of course he's.
Speaker 2: He's not fucking like that these days. I mean, Jameson
Speaker 2: Siegel briefly had custody of the Muppets and then he
Speaker 2: had to give them back, and that's that's for the best.
Speaker 3: Probably, that's true. That's true.
Speaker 4: That was a wild time when we were just like,
Speaker 4: let's see what Jason Siegel does with it. It's like, oh,
Speaker 4: just have him and a new Muppet he made up
Speaker 4: be on screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the new Muppet, Like, what the fuck was that that?
Speaker 2: But the songs were great.
Speaker 4: The songs were really good. I thought that movie was
Speaker 4: like pretty fun and the and the music was good.
Speaker 1: He just didn't need the new guy.
Speaker 4: No, what was his name, Walter? They didn't even give
Speaker 4: him a cool name. I don't know Walter, I work
Speaker 4: in it. What the Miss Piggy, Kermit, the Frog and Walter,
Speaker 4: which I guess was kind of the point. But that
Speaker 4: point that sucks, all right? Any anything else about Miss Piggy.
Speaker 3: You guys want to talk about before we get out
Speaker 3: of here. No, I was just I think before the recording,
Speaker 3: I was just.
Speaker 5: Saying, it's funny that how how much of a cultural
Speaker 5: mainstay Miss Piggy is because we had like Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Calling people piggy.
Speaker 5: There's like TikTok videos I'm seeing talking about Miss Piggy
Speaker 5: not being in the Epstein files. And then there was
Speaker 5: a story about the woman who allegedly hit a child
Speaker 5: on a plane because the child called her Misspeaky.
Speaker 4: Couldn't have been the first time a child has called
Speaker 4: her miss.
Speaker 5: Marland woman is facing charges after police in Florida said
Speaker 5: she hit a child who made fun of her on
Speaker 5: a flight from Orlando, holy that she slammed the child's
Speaker 5: head into the window of the plane for corner Miss
Speaker 5: to say a lot energy a legacy.
Speaker 2: You can look like anything a legacy you can look like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just happy that, Like I mean, it's like the
Speaker 2: fact that kids still know who she is even though
Speaker 2: Muppets haven't really like put out a successful project in.
Speaker 4: Like fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for their whole lives is like crazy.
Speaker 5: You's got to be like, I mean, the same way,
Speaker 5: like I show my kid that stuff because I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you're gonna love this bullshit. I love these freaky fucking muppets.
Speaker 5: You're gonna love them too, Yeah, And they do, and
Speaker 5: they fucking do. Like it's it's like it feels like
Speaker 5: one of the few things of like I've tried to
Speaker 5: show my son like other shit like I thought was
Speaker 5: cool from my child, and he's like this shit like
Speaker 5: you can just tell. I mean, he's like not even
Speaker 5: three yet, but it's very clear when something captivates him
Speaker 5: or not. And I showed him the Muppet Christmas Carol.
Speaker 5: His attention was there the entire time. I could not
Speaker 5: believe it.
Speaker 2: And I'm a man of taste, A man of taste. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the best Christmas movie. I think it is, like
Speaker 2: truly my favorite Christmas.
Speaker 3: He loves Michael Kine. He loves Michael.
Speaker 4: Knee, Jamie, where can people find you? Follow you all
Speaker 4: that good stuff?
Speaker 1: You can find me on the back.
Speaker 2: To cast every week, Yeah, every Thursday from now till
Speaker 2: the end of time. Mark my words. Caitlyn Toronto and
Speaker 2: I are gonna cover movies from an intersexual feminist perspective
Speaker 2: and uh then mostly I think Instagram Jamie Christ Superstar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Haven't been posting as much. I'm starting to feel too healthy,
Speaker 2: So maybe I'll start.
Speaker 5: You gotta get back in there, I gotta get call
Speaker 5: you back, let it summon you back into the pit.
Speaker 3: Miles.
Speaker 4: Where can people find you?
Speaker 3: Everywhere? Wow? Perfect? All right, all right, that's it.
Speaker 4: Sorry, that's stick around University.
Speaker 3: Yeah, university.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it comes out on Christmas or Christmas Eve.
Speaker 3: Nine?
Speaker 4: Have we been doing this for that many years?
Speaker 2: Hasn't gotten any better? And and this year is not
Speaker 2: going to be different? Wow, just keeps getting longer. You
Speaker 2: Santa U x oh yeah, X is gonna be God.
Speaker 5: We're gonna do like a live performance like the Disney Theater,
Speaker 5: the Disney Hall or something.
Speaker 2: I've started to apply for grants because we got it.
Speaker 2: We gotta get this in the Dolby. We gotta get
Speaker 2: in the Dolby, I think, or at least Gromans. We
Speaker 2: gotta get Gromans.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's easy. That's easy.
Speaker 4: Let's figure it out.
Speaker 3: We'll do the Mantlebond easy.
Speaker 1: I'd even take the roof, come on, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely take the Montalban roof. It's beautiful up there. Anyway.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned, Stay tuned.
Speaker 4: Stay tuned. Stick around for the No No No notebook
Speaker 4: dump where I get to stuff that I didn't get
Speaker 4: to in the episode. And bye bye bye. All right,
Speaker 4: that was our episode. Always great to see Jamie loftus.
Speaker 4: This is the No No No notebook dump where I
Speaker 4: get to stuff that I didn't get to in the
Speaker 4: main episode that I wanted to. On the subject to
Speaker 4: Bonnie Air, miss Piggy's designer, this has nothing to do
Speaker 4: with Miss Piggy, so I didn't bring it up in
Speaker 4: our conversation, but a quick anecdote that I discovered during
Speaker 4: research that my brain couldn't put down, so I wanted
Speaker 4: to pass it along to your brain, like the supernatural
Speaker 4: std from It follows. So Boddy Erickson, this accomplished designer.
Speaker 4: She's created Miss Piggy and the Philly fanatic, and she
Speaker 4: gets asked to design the mascot for the biggest sports
Speaker 4: franchise in the world. I think the New York Yankees.
Speaker 4: I think it's them or the Dallas Cowboys, but you
Speaker 4: know they're near the top. And so she creates this
Speaker 4: large pinstriped bird like creature with a mustache. The mustache
Speaker 4: is designed to look like the most beloved Yankee on
Speaker 4: the team at the time, maybe of the decade of
Speaker 4: the seventies, Yankees catcher Thurman Munson. He got a big mustache.
Speaker 4: Bird has a big mustache. Win win. So as his
Speaker 4: debut as Dandy the Pinstripe Bird's debut is approaching, two
Speaker 4: things happen. I'm gonna pull from the Wikipedia here Bonnie
Speaker 4: Erickson's Wikipedia. On July tenth, nineteen seventy nine, the San
Speaker 4: Diego Chicken, who was then working for the Seattle Mariners.
Speaker 4: Apparently mascots can be like kind of free agents and
Speaker 4: move between teams, which I didn't realize, But so the
Speaker 4: San Diego Chicken put a hex on Yankees pitcher Ron
Speaker 4: Gidry during a game at the Seattle Kingdom. Yankees outfielder
Speaker 4: Lou Panella, who had gone to manage baseball teams responded
Speaker 4: by chasing the mascot and throwing his glove at him.
Speaker 4: In response, the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said that mascots
Speaker 4: have no place in baseball, which despite the imminent release
Speaker 4: of Dandy, who's supposed to be their mascot. So Dandy
Speaker 4: does in fact debut in late July nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 4: weeks after the incident in Seattle, and then Thurman Munson
Speaker 4: dies in a plane crash on August second, like a
Speaker 4: week after Dandy is introduced. Dandy's immediately put on hiatus.
Speaker 4: They eventually let him come into the stadium, but he's
Speaker 4: confined to the upper deck area like the cheap seats,
Speaker 4: and it doesn't work out. Ericson and her partner Harrison
Speaker 4: declined the Yankees' request to sign another lease. They feel
Speaker 4: the mascot didn't receive the necessary support from management. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you win some, you lose some. She goes on to
Speaker 4: design plenty of other mascots, has a bunch of mascots
Speaker 4: still roaming stadiums in the NBA. She describes her mascots
Speaker 4: as all being gentle anarchists, which fucking rules but I
Speaker 4: think that speaks to the power of puppets and mascots.
Speaker 4: Back to Miss Piggy, a couple ideas I wanted to
Speaker 4: get at but couldn't quite get right in our conversation.
Speaker 4: One has to do with Miss Piggy's relationship with Kermit
Speaker 4: the Frog, which obviously a very part of her mythos
Speaker 4: and iconography. I didn't spend enough time talking about it
Speaker 4: in the episode because it's kind of confusing, Like they're together,
Speaker 4: they get married in either Muppets Take Manhattan or The
Speaker 4: Great Muppet Caper I forget, but then like that gets
Speaker 4: retconned out. They say the priest was like actually defrocked,
Speaker 4: like sort of that, so that is no longer canon.
Speaker 4: But they're just always back and forth. They say they're
Speaker 4: life partners who live together. Kermit has said they've never
Speaker 4: been together. It's the ultimate will they won't they, which
Speaker 4: makes sense from a narrative perspective, But you know, beyond
Speaker 4: the obvious narrative hook, I think there's another way that
Speaker 4: it's important to her status as an icon, because so
Speaker 4: my working theory of the icons we've covered so far
Speaker 4: is that it helps to have some contradiction at the
Speaker 4: core of like our perception of you, you know, like
Speaker 4: so our brains can't just like put you down. That's
Speaker 4: what that's what my brain wants to do. When I'm
Speaker 4: introduced to a new famous person or a character, I
Speaker 4: just want to put him down. There's too many famous
Speaker 4: people and characters. I'm already holding all this shit. I
Speaker 4: don't want to I don't want to have to know
Speaker 4: another one. So if a character or like a person
Speaker 4: is what you expect, if it's like a jock who
Speaker 4: seems like a cocky dick, or like a nerd who
Speaker 4: seems like he lacks confidence, I'm like, I know who
Speaker 4: that is. I can just put them away in a
Speaker 4: drawer and forget about them. But so all of these
Speaker 4: characters so far, or you know, real people with Einstein
Speaker 4: who become iconic, have something unexpected, like some contradiction. So
Speaker 4: with Einstein, a super genius who looks sloppy as hell,
Speaker 4: like can't remember to put his clothes on before he
Speaker 4: walks out the door, and we pretend he was a
Speaker 4: slow child because that's important to us. We want that contradiction.
Speaker 4: He's not like a Benedict Cumberbatch character who's a genius
Speaker 4: he's like an absent space see is that guy on
Speaker 4: something type genius rcle nerd. But he's also extremely confident
Speaker 4: and unflappable. And then with Miss Piggy, beyond the central
Speaker 4: contradiction of like glamorous pig lipstick on a pig as
Speaker 4: a businessman like to say, you know, that joke never
Speaker 4: even really occurred to me. But the contradiction that I
Speaker 4: think is important is that she's a motivated career woman
Speaker 4: who can and will beat the shit out of you
Speaker 4: to like get to the top. She's also primarily driven
Speaker 4: by her romantic love of Kermit the Frog, Like she'll
Speaker 4: cozy up to a producer to get a role, but
Speaker 4: ultimately she just wants to marry this mild mannered, multi
Speaker 4: talented absolute ten. But then she'll also just like bail
Speaker 4: on him repeatedly in order to put her career first.
Speaker 4: She's also sweet and sensitive, but a fucking straight up cannibal.
Speaker 4: So that's one idea that a contradiction is helpful to
Speaker 4: build an icon. And then another idea about why she's
Speaker 4: so iconic is where we were when she was introduced,
Speaker 4: with our relationship to puppetry and just sexual politics at
Speaker 4: that point in history. I think Miss Piggy stands out
Speaker 4: among muppets for some of the reasons we talked about.
Speaker 4: She's a superstar in the narrative, but then she reads
Speaker 4: as a superstar on screen to the point that she
Speaker 4: made Gene Siskel come in his pants, which probably wasn't
Speaker 4: that hard to do. But I do think like the
Speaker 4: way that she was imbued with this kind of outsized
Speaker 4: energy that just like leaps off the screen and gives
Speaker 4: Gene Siskel a boner, is she really like gave Frank
Speaker 4: Oz an outlet for what turned out to be a
Speaker 4: very developed and interesting feminine energy that he wasn't really
Speaker 4: allowed to express in any other way. I don't even
Speaker 4: know if he knew that he was looking to express,
Speaker 4: and people couldn't really get that anywhere else in like
Speaker 4: super mainstream culture at the time, and obviously we wanted it.
Speaker 4: Look at how people have reacted to the freeing of
Speaker 4: drag culture and like the mainstreaming of drag culture. So
Speaker 4: Miss Piggy comes along at a time of like toxic
Speaker 4: masculinity in the late seventies, at a time when like
Speaker 4: Frank Oz has to disclaim that he's straight when he's
Speaker 4: talking about playing her, and she's just like bursting with
Speaker 4: the divine feminine and like could express confidence and body
Speaker 4: positivity and horniness, and she could get away with it
Speaker 4: because she's a puppet, you know. And again, like puppetry
Speaker 4: is this ancient alchemical art that wasn't being used so
Speaker 4: ingeniously and with like such mainstream success anywhere else. I
Speaker 4: quoted Bonnie Eeric cent Er Henson talking about I think
Speaker 4: they've both talked about how humans have used puppets for
Speaker 4: thousands of years in like religious rituals and healing and witchcraft.
Speaker 4: Look at how lou Panella reacted to a chicken mascot
Speaker 4: putting a curse on their picture. Like you could say
Speaker 4: he was being an idiot, but he was also reacting
Speaker 4: to this ancient, powerful human connection to this art form.
Speaker 4: And then Henson comes along and reconnects these jaded, pop
Speaker 4: culture drenched minds around the world with this ancient, deep
Speaker 4: yearning to watch someone breathe life and fully formed characters
Speaker 4: into inanimate objects. And also officially it's kid stuff. People
Speaker 4: consuming mainstream culture don't have their guards up, so ideas
Speaker 4: and energy comes through that they wouldn't usually let through.
Speaker 4: This world of mainstream culture that was just getting used
Speaker 4: to the idea of like strong women let alone drag.
Speaker 3: Acts allows through this new.
Speaker 4: Dimension of like confident divodom that people weren't ready for,
Speaker 4: and it turns out we're deeply ready for at the
Speaker 4: same time. All right, that's going to do it? Or
Speaker 4: the Miss Piggy episode next week. An icon who I
Speaker 4: don't think really fits with that conflict at the core
Speaker 4: of the icon rule that I just made up. I
Speaker 4: think he kind of takes your expectations of the type
Speaker 4: of person he would be and takes it like thirty
Speaker 4: steps further, just like maximalism all the way down. We're
Speaker 4: talking Arnold Twartzenegger. So we have a great guest for
Speaker 4: that one. So I will talk to you then, or
Speaker 4: I'll talk to you in a few hours if you
Speaker 4: listen to the regular episodes of The Daily Zechast.
Speaker 3: Bye bye,