Speaker 1: Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Off the Record. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. Today, we're continuing
Speaker 1: our Labyrinth Week celebration honoring David Bowie's unforgettable star turn
Speaker 1: as Jaref, the baby abducting goblin King. My guest today
Speaker 1: is a puppeteer who performs several characters in the film.
Speaker 1: He's one of the two headed guards that Jennifer Connolly's
Speaker 1: character out maneuvers with logic. He's also one of the
Speaker 1: fiery figures in the Chili Down dance sequence, the one
Speaker 1: who gets his head kicked around like a soccer ball.
Speaker 1: And my favorite, he was Ambrotious, the trusty dog of Cerdidimus.
Speaker 1: But these roles, as impressive as they are, are just
Speaker 1: a minuscule part of his resume. This gentleman's name is
Speaker 1: Steve Whittmeier, and if you know anything about Muppet history,
Speaker 1: that's all I need to say. I know I toss
Speaker 1: around the world legend a little too freely, but in
Speaker 1: this case, there's no other word for it. His work
Speaker 1: was a huge part of my childhood and probably yours
Speaker 1: as well. For twenty six years he was the voice
Speaker 1: and soul of Kermit the Frog, not to mention Ernie
Speaker 1: of Burton, Ernie Fame, Rizzle the Rat, Bean, Bunny, Wembley, Fraggle,
Speaker 1: Statler of Statler, and Waldorf Fame. The list goes on
Speaker 1: and on. His story is so genuinely inspiring to me.
Speaker 1: Steve grew up loving puppetry, especially Jim Henson's Muppets. After
Speaker 1: hosting a kid's cable show in his native Atlanta with
Speaker 1: his puppet Otis, he was invited to audition for his hero.
Speaker 1: This led to years working alongside Henson on all manner
Speaker 1: of projects, The Muppet Show, Fraggle, Rock the Dark, Crystal,
Speaker 1: and of course Labyrinth. After Henson's death in Steve was
Speaker 1: absolutely gutted his mentor was gone. And then he got
Speaker 1: the news that Jim had hand picked him to carry
Speaker 1: on his signature character Kermit. Up to that point to
Speaker 1: have been the only person to ever perform as our
Speaker 1: favorite amphibian. Now put this in your own terms. Say
Speaker 1: you're a massive Rolling Stones fan and you find out
Speaker 1: that Mick Jagger has chosen you to step into his
Speaker 1: platforms in front the band. Imagine that incredibly potent mix
Speaker 1: of excitement, ecstasy, and sheer terror. Steve obviously excelled at
Speaker 1: the role he did it from for eights Babies like me.
Speaker 1: He is Kermit, Sesame Street, Muppets, Christmas Carol, Muppet's Treasure Island.
Speaker 1: It's all him and now he's creating new characters and
Speaker 1: his web based series cave In, where he voices the
Speaker 1: hilariously crabby Weldon, the I T. Guy. It was an
Speaker 1: honor to speak with Steve about Muppets, the cosmic philosophy
Speaker 1: of puppetry, whether or not it's actually easy being green,
Speaker 1: and of course his unforgettable encounters with Bowie on the
Speaker 1: set of Labyrinth Enjoy To start sort of at the beginning, well,
Speaker 1: how did all this speakin for you? Were? You were
Speaker 1: ten with Sesame Street began and you wrote a letter
Speaker 1: that's correct. I I was ten years old and night.
Speaker 1: I had been a Muppet fan for a very long
Speaker 1: time prior to that. But the Muppets were really, prior
Speaker 1: to Sesame Street, were kind of almost just an act
Speaker 1: that went on variety shows, you know, they didn't have
Speaker 1: their own show and stuff like that, and so it
Speaker 1: was a matter of waiting until they were gonna be
Speaker 1: on you know, the Tonight Show or something like that
Speaker 1: to get to get the chance to see them. And
Speaker 1: when Sesame Street happened, suddenly the Muppets were on TV
Speaker 1: every single day, and I was just at that right
Speaker 1: age to get you know, really obsessed and become a
Speaker 1: pride a fan of it. I started trying to build
Speaker 1: my own puppets and all that sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: you know, Rocky start with that. It's not an easy
Speaker 1: thing to do. And so I ended up writing that
Speaker 1: letter to Jim Henson and a few months later he
Speaker 1: actually wrote back to me, which was amazing now that
Speaker 1: I look back at it, you know, it seems of
Speaker 1: unlikely and surprising. Uh, you know, at a time when
Speaker 1: there was no social media, and it really was you know,
Speaker 1: a letter with the stamp on it. To get a
Speaker 1: letter back from Jim was pretty special. And he directed
Speaker 1: me to some simple muppet patterns that he had published
Speaker 1: and I think a Woman's Day magazine some years before,
Speaker 1: super super simple, as a way for me to start
Speaker 1: making puppets. So that was really what started me. And
Speaker 1: once I started doing that and learning how to do that,
Speaker 1: I started adding a little inch here or a little
Speaker 1: shape there, and and started stiddling around with making different
Speaker 1: shapes and making my own puppets as well. But my
Speaker 1: initial thing was to try and copy every character that
Speaker 1: Jim had done, from Kermit to Ernie to Birt to
Speaker 1: everybody on Sesame Street. And I think I read that
Speaker 1: your friends in high school we're calling you Kurmit, like
Speaker 1: this almost seems faded in a way. Well that's true.
Speaker 1: They did, mostly because I had my my pretty actually
Speaker 1: pretty poor Kermit puppet that I've made by comparison to
Speaker 1: the real one, of course, but whenever there were school
Speaker 1: talent shows or corral recitals or things like that, I
Speaker 1: took every opportunity I could should be on stage you
Speaker 1: doing something, not me personally, I was hiding. Of course
Speaker 1: I was in a puppet stage, but to have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to do something with puppets from my classmates and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So I ended up using Kermit quite
Speaker 1: a lot, the not very good version of Kermit I
Speaker 1: was probably doing at the time, but it did gave
Speaker 1: me the nickname. You're working on this this television show
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, the Kids Show with Otis and the kids.
Speaker 1: All through town. They're calling in there talking to you.
Speaker 1: I mean The thing that always boggles my mind about
Speaker 1: your work is how much improv is involved, especially for
Speaker 1: something like that. I mean, not only are you giving
Speaker 1: a performance with your body and doing the voice and
Speaker 1: doing the vocal work, but then you have to be
Speaker 1: that quick to like think of what the character would
Speaker 1: say to these kids. I mean, how do you learn that?
Speaker 1: I bet you're something that you don't learn. It's just
Speaker 1: something that that's kind of born with. It's a funny thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how you learn it, um because
Speaker 1: it's something I always did. I mean, I'm a pretty
Speaker 1: good improv person when it comes to doing characters that
Speaker 1: I know quite well. Once I know a character. Once
Speaker 1: I've done a character for a while, and it's very
Speaker 1: natural to play in that character's voice. I'm less good
Speaker 1: at straight improv, you know, I don't do that quite
Speaker 1: as well, But if I know the character, I can
Speaker 1: tear in a conversation indefinitely. And that really is what
Speaker 1: I was doing back in the late seventies. What you know,
Speaker 1: as I was graduating high school and doing that first show,
Speaker 1: you know, it was more than two hours a day
Speaker 1: on the air live and taking these phone calls. So
Speaker 1: we had to fill a lot of time with a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of talk. And I never gave it a
Speaker 1: second thought. I just sort of did it. So to
Speaker 1: say how you learned that, I think you just you
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, yeah, you just jump in and do it.
Speaker 1: And it really was always throughout my career it's been
Speaker 1: my favorite thing to do, no matter which character, whether
Speaker 1: it would be Rizzl the rad or Kermit the Frog
Speaker 1: or whoever, It's always been my favorite thing to do
Speaker 1: is just to have the opportunity to carry on a
Speaker 1: conversation in character. Is it's great fun I mean, and
Speaker 1: this is probably a funny question. Where do you go
Speaker 1: during that? Do you are you very present in or
Speaker 1: where are do you? Almost kind of like I I
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of musicians and they say that
Speaker 1: when they're on stage playing solos, they don't know where
Speaker 1: they go. They just kind of go away and they're
Speaker 1: not there and just sort of the music takes over.
Speaker 1: Is that what it's like for you when you're playing
Speaker 1: a character? You know, it's the funny that you should
Speaker 1: put it that way, because I can imagine I'm I'm
Speaker 1: sort of not a great accomplished musician, but I've done
Speaker 1: a little bit of music as well, and that can happen,
Speaker 1: you know, And and there is a similarity. I think
Speaker 1: it might be true with many many artistic pursuits. Frankly,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, it's odd. It's hard to describe.
Speaker 1: You know. We watch what we're doing on a monitor
Speaker 1: as we work, so we're seeing our work as the
Speaker 1: audience will see it. And I got to a point
Speaker 1: where I was looking at criminal on the screen and
Speaker 1: not thinking about it anymore. It was almost as though
Speaker 1: I retracted from anything that I was conscious of doing
Speaker 1: and began to just witness it, just to watch it
Speaker 1: as though I were an audience member. And there were
Speaker 1: plenty of times, I mean a lot of times still
Speaker 1: are when I would drift off into that character and
Speaker 1: not even think about what that character was going to
Speaker 1: say next, and and honestly quite often be surprised by it,
Speaker 1: very removed from being the character and really more watching
Speaker 1: the character just come out and evolve and kind of
Speaker 1: channel through you, you know. And I'm sure it's the
Speaker 1: same way with musicians, you know, and as incredible men.
Speaker 1: It really does, it's alive, It takes on a life
Speaker 1: of its own. It really does. And to me, that
Speaker 1: is the key to whenever the Muppets have done something
Speaker 1: successful and their connection to the audience was always about
Speaker 1: that sort of believability. You know, they were just as
Speaker 1: much there and alive as the people as a human
Speaker 1: actor or you know, talk show host or whatever that
Speaker 1: they were speaking with just absolutely key and unfortunately I
Speaker 1: think that's a little bit missing these days, that they're
Speaker 1: not quite as strong as they might have worn't been.
Speaker 1: But but that's a lot of it. The character is
Speaker 1: such a deeply ingrained character and we all know that
Speaker 1: character when we see it, and it's very important that
Speaker 1: that stay that way for that connection to exist. There
Speaker 1: are things that the character will and will not do,
Speaker 1: choices they will and will not make. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny that that is. To actually know that character
Speaker 1: as a real person is definitely fascinating to me. I
Speaker 1: guess my question to you, in sort of a broad sense,
Speaker 1: is is there one thing that separates good puppet performers
Speaker 1: from from the great? Is there is there one thing
Speaker 1: that you can that you can articulate or is it
Speaker 1: a series of many, many, many small things that are
Speaker 1: honed over time. You know, it's hard to put my
Speaker 1: finger on one the future of the thing. I think,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of stuff. It's really interesting when I
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to be critical of anybody's art.
Speaker 1: I mean I think people progress at different stages. You
Speaker 1: learn everybody starts to square one, and you learn through
Speaker 1: this process. You know whether you're a musician, whether you're
Speaker 1: a puppeteer with you're an accurate, whether you're an artist,
Speaker 1: a painter, or whatever. It's interesting when I look at
Speaker 1: a lot of the puppetryes that's out there these days,
Speaker 1: it tends to appear to be a lot like what
Speaker 1: we were doing back in about nineteen eighty. You know,
Speaker 1: it hasn't progressed a great deal in terms of what
Speaker 1: it is that people are doing in many many cases,
Speaker 1: and that's just a matter of time and learning and
Speaker 1: what style of person wants to do. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: what always helped me to be the best I could
Speaker 1: be with puppeteering and performing these characters is to put
Speaker 1: them first. It really was a matter of looking at
Speaker 1: those characters as though they were living, breathing entities in
Speaker 1: the world. The minute they become a character, franchise you've
Speaker 1: kind of lost the point, you know, and from the
Speaker 1: point of view of the people who are producing the
Speaker 1: material for these characters, they need to be their point
Speaker 1: of view and their sensibility, and the group dynamic of
Speaker 1: the group of characters needs to be the focus through
Speaker 1: which you look at everything you do. I guess, going
Speaker 1: back a little further, how did you go from being,
Speaker 1: you know, a teenager with with your own homemade kermit
Speaker 1: to actually working with Jim Henson? How did you you
Speaker 1: first cross pass? I understand you you met Carol Spinney,
Speaker 1: who is legendary performer Big Bird, oscar the Grouch. How
Speaker 1: did you you first enter the Muppets orbit? That's exactly
Speaker 1: how it began. I um time from Atlanta originally it's
Speaker 1: still lived here, and I never heard of these things.
Speaker 1: But there was this puppetry festival, this gathering of puppeteers
Speaker 1: taking place in Atlanta, and I heard about it and
Speaker 1: decided to go because I thought it'd be fun to
Speaker 1: meet Carol, you know, someone who worked with the Muppets.
Speaker 1: And I was about I guess I was seventeen or eighteen,
Speaker 1: and it hadn't really clicked for me that I would
Speaker 1: be considered for a job. I mean, I didn't go
Speaker 1: for that purpose. I just wanted to meet someone who
Speaker 1: worked with the Muppet just you know. And so I
Speaker 1: met him, and I happened to be the only person
Speaker 1: at this festival who at that point in time was
Speaker 1: actually doing Muppet like puppets, Muppet style puppet The puppets
Speaker 1: I had created in my own look like the same style.
Speaker 1: So I spent the weekend this was a weekend long
Speaker 1: thing with Carol and his wife Debbie. We faced contact info,
Speaker 1: but I I didn't necessarily spect to ever hear from
Speaker 1: him again. And about four months later he called and
Speaker 1: said Jim was looking for new puppeteers for Sesame Street time.
Speaker 1: He was he was shooting the Muppet Show, but he
Speaker 1: was looking for new Sesame Street performers and thought I
Speaker 1: should audition. So what that led to was was eventually
Speaker 1: ending up in New York with Jim, who called me
Speaker 1: and invited me to come up and spend the two
Speaker 1: days with him. And Jim's idea of an audition was
Speaker 1: to spend about I don't know, maybe an hour with
Speaker 1: puppets on our hands, and the rest of the week
Speaker 1: was spent sitting around talking and getting to know each other.
Speaker 1: He really wanted to know there, and you know, I
Speaker 1: was very young. I can only imagine what that must
Speaker 1: have been like and whether I was someone that he
Speaker 1: felt would fit in with his group of people. Uh
Speaker 1: so that that interpersonal kind of you know, connection between
Speaker 1: the group was super important to him. Yeah. What was
Speaker 1: he like as as a person, Well, he was I
Speaker 1: think one of the best ways to put it might
Speaker 1: be to say he was an integral thinker. He was
Speaker 1: someone who seemed to have a pretty good grasp on
Speaker 1: seeing a situation from multiple points of view and multiple angles.
Speaker 1: And he was quite a collaborator. He had a great
Speaker 1: organizational sense in terms of bringing the right people in
Speaker 1: for the right projects. And he would meet someone in
Speaker 1: the course of life or you know whatever, and he
Speaker 1: would maybe not work with that person for four or
Speaker 1: five years, and but he would remember them and he
Speaker 1: would have this thought in minds that, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: this person I met would be perfect for this project.
Speaker 1: So he's really really a student making those kinds of
Speaker 1: calls on people, you know, stuff like that, and just
Speaker 1: a terrific person to work with. I always say that
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I worked for Jim. I feel
Speaker 1: like I worked with him, which was really really special.
Speaker 1: That's funny because I speaking to many of of David
Speaker 1: Bowie's colleagues and friends, they all said something similar about him,
Speaker 1: is that he he was so good at at sort
Speaker 1: of this almost social alchemy in a way, like he
Speaker 1: would he knew how to put a team together and
Speaker 1: even if it could be years down the road, he
Speaker 1: would remember people and think, oh, yeah, that person would
Speaker 1: be perfect for for doing X, Y Z and And
Speaker 1: that's why that whatever he's involved was so good. Was
Speaker 1: that he brought in people, didn't tell them what to do,
Speaker 1: let them be themselves and bring the most authentic gifts
Speaker 1: to the project. And that was that was really special. Yeah, Jim.
Speaker 1: Jim was a bit like that. He would come in
Speaker 1: with the vision and an idea, quite happy for everyone
Speaker 1: to have their particular input in that project. You know,
Speaker 1: he was the final arbiter of what we actually did
Speaker 1: and didn't do, but more often than not, he gave
Speaker 1: us an enormous amount of freedom just to add our
Speaker 1: you know, our our thing to whatever it was we
Speaker 1: were doing. At what point did David get involved with
Speaker 1: with Jim for the for the Labyrinth projects? I know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like that had a long gestation period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't give you a definite answer on that.
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure. I do know that when he
Speaker 1: began talking about Labyrinth and sort of sharing it with us,
Speaker 1: he'd been working on it for a little while at
Speaker 1: that point. And when I say as, I mean, the
Speaker 1: pup tears. You know, I remember a particular conversation. We
Speaker 1: were in Toronto working on some other work, and he said, um,
Speaker 1: something that I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said there were
Speaker 1: a couple of people he was looking at for the
Speaker 1: role of Jared. One of them was David Bowie and
Speaker 1: the other was Sting. I remember very distically having a
Speaker 1: conversation with him where I said, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: think Sting is amazing, but I sure hope you go
Speaker 1: with David Bowie if he's willing to do it. And
Speaker 1: Jim said, no, no, I I hope so too, And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a matter of whether he's he's going
Speaker 1: to be interested or not. You know, that was pre
Speaker 1: asking I or free getting an answer, but I was.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just a massive fan of David
Speaker 1: Boie from the time I was in high school. You know,
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust was that that whole album was just a
Speaker 1: trademark time. I mean, it was just it was the
Speaker 1: music that I did but in my high school rock bands,
Speaker 1: you know. So it was a very big deal, very
Speaker 1: big deal to me to have the chance to meet
Speaker 1: him and work with it. Oh man, I can only
Speaker 1: imagine when did you first meet? You know, I have
Speaker 1: a few embarrassing moments in my life. This is one
Speaker 1: of them. Before we started shooting, we were rehearsing some things.
Speaker 1: We were there for maybe a week before the shooting began,
Speaker 1: and Jim decided to have a gathering at his house
Speaker 1: in Hempstead. We all go in Bowie. David Boye is
Speaker 1: gonna be there. Jennifer Connelly was there, the cast, you know,
Speaker 1: the main producers and people, and you know, all of
Speaker 1: us puppeteers. And I remember we were sort of standing
Speaker 1: in the full circle of people and I was one
Speaker 1: of a handful of people who was introduced to David.
Speaker 1: He was very gracious and kind of quiet, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and you know, very nice to meet you
Speaker 1: kind of thing. After a moment, I said, You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to I was very young as well, You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to forgive me just a little bit if throughout
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks we're shooting together, if you
Speaker 1: catch me staring at you, I don't mean anything by it.
Speaker 1: I'm just such a massive fan. And he smiled, but
Speaker 1: he also took a step back, and I remembered it,
Speaker 1: and then shortly after he accused himself, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've blown it. I have I have
Speaker 1: made a complete fool of myself in front of one
Speaker 1: of my heroes with this fanboy thing. And now how
Speaker 1: can I go in and work with him? You know?
Speaker 1: So that was actually the first meeting, and then we
Speaker 1: go in and begin the work. You know, we're working
Speaker 1: on labor, working every day and see fine, we were
Speaker 1: working okay, but one day for some reason, so we
Speaker 1: go we go to the dailies every day that you know,
Speaker 1: we see the work we did. The day before. We're
Speaker 1: leaving the daily theater I'm working. I'm walking back to
Speaker 1: my dressing room with a hand a handful of puppeteers
Speaker 1: and we're all gonna gathering our stuff to go home,
Speaker 1: and somebody ran up behind me and put you know,
Speaker 1: like you might run up behind somebody put both hands
Speaker 1: on their shoulders and kind of jump off the ground
Speaker 1: and really pressed on their shoulders for a second, you know,
Speaker 1: just the sneak up on them. It was David Boys
Speaker 1: and I had absolutely I I don't know why in
Speaker 1: that moment he chose me, but he came to me,
Speaker 1: put hands on my shoulders, look, you know, with all
Speaker 1: the other puppeteers, and said, hey, I'm going he still
Speaker 1: has makeup on from the days as the character. He said,
Speaker 1: I gotta go out and get all his makeup off
Speaker 1: once you come up, and we'll sit around and talk
Speaker 1: for a while. And I was flabbergasted. I don't know
Speaker 1: why he chose me in that moment, but he did.
Speaker 1: So that's exactly what we did. So I didn't drive
Speaker 1: in the UK at that point because I had never driven.
Speaker 1: I was a little bit afraid to be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the road, so I didn't have a car.
Speaker 1: My one way to get home was that every day
Speaker 1: they sent a mini cab for me, like a little
Speaker 1: car that this guy would drive me home. And we're
Speaker 1: working in Elstree, which was quite a distance from where
Speaker 1: I was staying. So you know, I had like one
Speaker 1: shot to get home, so if I didn't leave right then.
Speaker 1: I remember the very first thought in my mind was, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, how am I going to get home? I'm
Speaker 1: sleeping here. Yeah, and but and then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: it would be worth it to sleep here. So so anyway,
Speaker 1: he you know, so I go. I follow him up
Speaker 1: to the to the makeup lady is working on taking
Speaker 1: the makeup off. We sat around for probably two hours
Speaker 1: or so and just talked about everything under the sun
Speaker 1: that we could think that I could think, I have
Speaker 1: to talk to David Boe about things like at the time,
Speaker 1: Prince was incredibly popular, height of Purple Rain popularity. We
Speaker 1: talked about Prince, and then somehow we got around to
Speaker 1: the topic of the fact that I had gone out
Speaker 1: and bought my own little recording you know, home recording
Speaker 1: studio and my you know, Yamaha d X seven synthesizer,
Speaker 1: which was a big deal at the time, you know.
Speaker 1: And and he said, oh, do you have any of
Speaker 1: your music here? And I did, and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: go get it. I gotta hear it. So I got
Speaker 1: to play my music for what it's worth for David Bowie,
Speaker 1: who was extremely encouraging and extremely enthusiastic about it, which
Speaker 1: was a really big deal for me. Any problimed me on,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like like, it seems very like
Speaker 1: sincere compliments. I don't think he would have done that
Speaker 1: just to be nice. You know, he wouldn't have said
Speaker 1: anything bad, but he also wouldn't have gone out of
Speaker 1: his way to say, well, that's that's really quite good.
Speaker 1: You know, we wanted to know the lyrics. He really
Speaker 1: was in tune to it, so that was a very
Speaker 1: big deal for me. And then I as as I
Speaker 1: recall the the woman who was doing the makeup actually
Speaker 1: gave me a ride home so I didn't get stuck there.
Speaker 1: This sounds like a top three, maybe even top two
Speaker 1: life moment ever. I mean, good lord, that's incredible. It
Speaker 1: was a pretty big deal. And you know, obviously I
Speaker 1: will never forget that how nice congratious he was to me,
Speaker 1: and of course that we worked on set and had
Speaker 1: a great time, you know, these silly characters that we
Speaker 1: were doing together along playing alongside him when he was singing.
Speaker 1: Just a wonderful guy. And I was very surprised. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I ran into him a couple of
Speaker 1: times after that, just because of the connection. I was
Speaker 1: able to get tickets to a to a concert or
Speaker 1: two and I got to pop backstage and say hello,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. But that was really my
Speaker 1: moment was that evening when he decided he was going
Speaker 1: to spend some time with me, you know, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, you probably remembered what you said to him
Speaker 1: the first time he met and that was like, that
Speaker 1: was the moment you had the time. I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe so maybe so. We had spoken briefly on the set,
Speaker 1: just in the course of working, but it was really
Speaker 1: about the work. So yeah, who knows that that is amazing?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I mean that that that shoot. It seems
Speaker 1: like a really incredibly hard, arduous shoot, but also it
Speaker 1: looks like a really fun shoot. Did Did David have
Speaker 1: a good sense of humor? Yeah? I think he did,
Speaker 1: And I think he had to to deal with this
Speaker 1: because yeah, it was it was a complicated shoot. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's a professional. He's used to working in a
Speaker 1: set and you know, he knows what it's like to
Speaker 1: work on a film. But sometimes are are things that
Speaker 1: we would do with these mass scenes of puppets. It
Speaker 1: takes a long time to set him up. It takes
Speaker 1: a long time to get them working. You've got so
Speaker 1: many characters working out at the same time, and Jim's
Speaker 1: trying to coordinate those characters to do things because it
Speaker 1: was all practical effects at that point, you know, so
Speaker 1: everything had to work in camera. So yeah, yeah, very
Speaker 1: patient guy and but just always a gets us of
Speaker 1: humor and you know, he always seemed to be enjoying himself,
Speaker 1: which was terrific. What was the uh, the trickiest scene
Speaker 1: for you to shoot? Was it that? The chili down scene.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good estimate on the hardest thing we did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it was the early day of computer controlled cameras,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to to match these shots over and
Speaker 1: over again with cameras that that tried to do the
Speaker 1: same motion. And you look at it now and you
Speaker 1: can kind of see this little halo around all the characters.
Speaker 1: You know, it's pretty crude by today's special effects standards.
Speaker 1: But I I did the the guy who was the
Speaker 1: one whose head comes off and gets kicked across the
Speaker 1: room and stuff like that, So I was I was
Speaker 1: doing the head of that character, which means, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got I don't know how many maybe fifteen twenty
Speaker 1: puff of tears, all dressed in black clothing with these
Speaker 1: hoods on, so we can hardly see running through a
Speaker 1: black set that was kind of slippery and so real time,
Speaker 1: you know, they had my that head had to fly
Speaker 1: across the room as though it had been kicked or hits,
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever that was about. So I'm running
Speaker 1: through space trying to make his head twy across. You know.
Speaker 1: The choreography for that just is absolutely stunning and I
Speaker 1: can't get over because in addition to the physical demands
Speaker 1: of the character, you also have to deliver a performance too,
Speaker 1: which is the thing that I can't run my mind
Speaker 1: around doing all of those things all at once. That's
Speaker 1: unbelievable to me. It's aught to think about sometimes, yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when it says choreographs and blocked as that. That
Speaker 1: was done by a guy named Charles Oggins, who I
Speaker 1: think he's still around, but he was a very talented
Speaker 1: dancer and choreographer and we all worked with Charles to
Speaker 1: figure this out. But it was a great coordination effort.
Speaker 1: You know, um, three or four people per character trying
Speaker 1: to do that thing. Now, did you have any choice
Speaker 1: over which characters that that you were playing. I mean,
Speaker 1: if because obviously there were just so many, or was
Speaker 1: it really just like, hey, you can you grab one
Speaker 1: of these one of these goblins right now? We need
Speaker 1: to get forty five people in the castle. Right now,
Speaker 1: we need everybody we can get, or did you get
Speaker 1: the sort of pick and choose, like being one of
Speaker 1: the guards or well Jim, Jim chose which one of
Speaker 1: those guards I was. I was one of the four heads,
Speaker 1: and he chose Uh as when you said guards, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the guys who were the the top and
Speaker 1: the bottom of the doors. You know, there were four
Speaker 1: guys who when and she chooses which door to go through,
Speaker 1: almost like with playing cards, almost, Yeah, and Jim chose
Speaker 1: who would do which one of those just I don't
Speaker 1: know whether he had specific reasons for choosing. He just
Speaker 1: made a choice. The four of us who did that.
Speaker 1: I think when it came to the goblins, I probably
Speaker 1: had some free reign on that although they sort of
Speaker 1: had their goblins they're gonna put in the front, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know I did one of those guys, and I
Speaker 1: remember choosing the one I loved was this little guy
Speaker 1: with a flat head with a long, skinny nose, and
Speaker 1: I loved that carried that puppet was such a great puppet.
Speaker 1: So I may have rushed in and grabbed that guy
Speaker 1: because I loved him so much, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there, aside from your your moment, your private moment
Speaker 1: with David, you have any favorite moments from from on
Speaker 1: the set, anything stick out? Oh? Wow, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a little hard for me to remember a lot of that. Um,
Speaker 1: what I really recall is the camaraderie of this massive
Speaker 1: project coming together, and Jim was obviously very busy and distracted,
Speaker 1: but he always kept a good humor and had a
Speaker 1: moment to smile. One of my favorite things is that
Speaker 1: no movie would allow you to do this these days.
Speaker 1: Jim always loved it when I would bring like my
Speaker 1: um early days it was a Super eight camera, but
Speaker 1: then it was home video and shoot stuff. Uh. He
Speaker 1: loved the fact that I was documenting things and we
Speaker 1: didn't always have behind the scenes people. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got some videos people have never seen. I don't
Speaker 1: know whether I have anything of David particularly, but of
Speaker 1: just the process of shooting that film. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, and I don't even know what the
Speaker 1: legality is of showing it somewhere, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I mean a lot of stuff of Jim
Speaker 1: specifically talking to my camera about the process. You know,
Speaker 1: he loved the fact that I was you know, I
Speaker 1: knew him and we worked together for years, and that
Speaker 1: I was the guy shooting that. You know, you have
Speaker 1: here a little documentary. That's amazing. Oh, you gotta do
Speaker 1: something with that. That's so cool. I'd love to see that.
Speaker 1: I hope I can at some point. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to get it out of
Speaker 1: the world little bit. What was Jim's working relationship like
Speaker 1: with David, because they they're saying early they kind of
Speaker 1: seemed very similar in a lot of ways. I imagine
Speaker 1: them them really hitting it off. Yeah, I mean, it
Speaker 1: certainly seemed on the set that it was wonderful, you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how much they kept in touch
Speaker 1: after the film was over. It wouldn't surprise me if
Speaker 1: they did, but I don't really know that. But certainly
Speaker 1: on set it was great. I mean, I think they
Speaker 1: tended to agree on most of what was going on. Well,
Speaker 1: for instance, is that I don't think Jim in any
Speaker 1: way imagined there being music in this film. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was going for that. But when
Speaker 1: David wanted to do music for the film, it suddenly
Speaker 1: became a bit of a musical, you know. Suddenly a
Speaker 1: character would break into song, you know, and that changed
Speaker 1: the certainly the feel of what I said, what the
Speaker 1: direction I think Jim was going in. I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think he was looking for it to be
Speaker 1: a musical. I forgot David Bowie and he wants to
Speaker 1: wants to do his thing, Well, yeah, what are you gonna? Right?
Speaker 1: And David wanted to do music for it, and I
Speaker 1: mean the music is great, you know, but in terms
Speaker 1: of their relationship, I mean, as best I could certainly see,
Speaker 1: it was professional and friendly and they certainly seemed to
Speaker 1: be enjoying the silliness of working together. But David playing
Speaker 1: this kind of strong lead character who seemed to have
Speaker 1: these other intentions in some ways. You know, what was
Speaker 1: David and Jennifer Connelly's uh friendship? Like, like what was
Speaker 1: there were they sort of like were they friends on set? Well?
Speaker 1: You know, they certainly had to work closely together and
Speaker 1: place some kind of intimate stuff together, and obviously she
Speaker 1: was fourteen at the time, but he was playing a
Speaker 1: sort of a fantasy in her mind in a certain way,
Speaker 1: you know, real coming of age kind of thing for her.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether we really know. At the end
Speaker 1: of the film, we sort of indicate that these were
Speaker 1: all real things that happened to this this character, but
Speaker 1: in a way it was very metaphorical in its in
Speaker 1: this whole thing about this coming of age story her.
Speaker 1: I feel like they worked together incredibly well. I can't
Speaker 1: give you any insight on their direct relationship in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, how how that was to work together, but
Speaker 1: it seemed like as was typical with most of the
Speaker 1: things Jim did, and this was a massive undertaking this
Speaker 1: particular project. I never felt that there was any kind
Speaker 1: of tension from anyone, you know, Jim. Jim tended to
Speaker 1: have a set where people were enjoying the work, you know,
Speaker 1: as we as we got through it. I mean it
Speaker 1: it looks like a blast. I mean, do you do
Speaker 1: you remember seeing it all completed for the first time?
Speaker 1: Was it at the premiere? The first time we saw
Speaker 1: the film was in Toronto. We might have been shooting
Speaker 1: Fraggle Rock so talk about two extremes of different projects. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we were. We were sort of in the
Speaker 1: middle of the four years, the four or five years
Speaker 1: we did on Fraggle when Labyrinth came along, and I
Speaker 1: seem to recall Jim having a Toronto screening West where
Speaker 1: we did Fraggle, and and all of us going to
Speaker 1: a theater seeing it there. I mean I was blown
Speaker 1: away by For me, I loved it immediately because I
Speaker 1: loved everything about it from David you know, I was
Speaker 1: also a big rocky horror fan. Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt like there were some parallels between Tim Curry's
Speaker 1: character in that and what David was doing. Even it
Speaker 1: was very, very different, but this powerful sort of figure
Speaker 1: was sort of almost like the sexual tension thing going on.
Speaker 1: There seems to be some similarities, and I loved everything
Speaker 1: about it. I can't tell you. I I can think
Speaker 1: of at least a dozen women in my life that
Speaker 1: say that their first crush was David Bowie in that movie. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess so. And it's really interesting I do.
Speaker 1: I do comic cons these days quite often, and the
Speaker 1: number of people, the cost players who come through dressed
Speaker 1: as the two characters, you know, the Sarah character and
Speaker 1: David's character, and oftentimes there's two women doing that. A
Speaker 1: lot of women dressed as him in that film. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a very kind of androgynous character, but a lot
Speaker 1: of his stuff was that way. You know, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: actually I have several friends who have just addressed up
Speaker 1: as a chair for Halloween too. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things that you've been involved
Speaker 1: with that that just means so much for so many people.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, of course obviously, Kermit, I mean,
Speaker 1: how did you receive the news that you were I
Speaker 1: don't even know what the word is. The phrase would
Speaker 1: be just to to now inhabit that character. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty shortly after Jim's death. You know, we
Speaker 1: were all going through an incredible period of just down
Speaker 1: depression the morning, you know, terrible, terrible thing. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't too long after that because Jim's family was still
Speaker 1: in the process of theoretically trying to make the deal
Speaker 1: work where he was selling his company to the Walt
Speaker 1: Disney Company, which fell apart at that point, didn't happen,
Speaker 1: but everybody was making a go of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: the plan was to go ahead with that, so Kermit
Speaker 1: needed to continue to exist. And from what I gather,
Speaker 1: although he and I never talked about it, Jim had
Speaker 1: knowing that he was going into Disney. He was sort
Speaker 1: of like John Lasseter became. He was gonna be this
Speaker 1: new creative force within Disney. Um many many projects and
Speaker 1: ideas were being run by him for his thoughts. He
Speaker 1: was gonna be the real, a real creative force within Disney.
Speaker 1: And I think he felt that he might suddenly be
Speaker 1: in a position where he simply didn't have the time
Speaker 1: to perform Kermit anymore. Uh. And he'd been the Kermit
Speaker 1: for thirty five years at that point, so rather than
Speaker 1: Kermit go away, And it wasn't like he wanted to
Speaker 1: hold open auditions, as was Jim's way of doing it.
Speaker 1: He wanted to pass it on to someone that he
Speaker 1: felt could handle it. I guess, and there he felt
Speaker 1: that about me, because he had mentioned it to a
Speaker 1: couple of people to his wife, Jane and I think
Speaker 1: Frank Coz and a few other people, but a small
Speaker 1: group that in the event that he was not able
Speaker 1: to continue to do it, he was thinking about acting
Speaker 1: me if I would give it a shot. Jim was
Speaker 1: the only person everyday Kermit. We we all did our
Speaker 1: characters and nobody else did our characters. So to suddenly
Speaker 1: be told that was a big deal, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: and very scary to me and insimidating. But I immediately
Speaker 1: said I would give it a try. And it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, the way it was put to me was,
Speaker 1: would you like to try it? And I immediately said yes.
Speaker 1: But it was an incredible honor and just really scary
Speaker 1: at the same time. You know, I cannot even begin
Speaker 1: to imagine. I mean, what was it look for you
Speaker 1: when you were handed I don't want to call him
Speaker 1: a puppet because that seems really disrespectful, but when when
Speaker 1: you were handing Kermit for the first time he was yours?
Speaker 1: What was that would you remember, like like having him
Speaker 1: in your hand for the first time and knowing that
Speaker 1: this was now a part of you. I had stood
Speaker 1: in for Jim like once or twice, but but I mean,
Speaker 1: that's all that means is I put the puppet on
Speaker 1: while he did another puppet, and then he immediately took
Speaker 1: it back, and you know, he would dub the lines later.
Speaker 1: So dog I had never had the puppet on the war.
Speaker 1: But really the first time I had any contact with
Speaker 1: the actual physical puppet after Jim's death, and knowing that
Speaker 1: it was now up to me to try to make
Speaker 1: it work, was very private. I mean, they actually sent
Speaker 1: me a Kermit puppet um within weeks after Jim died,
Speaker 1: and we talked about this for me to begin to
Speaker 1: fiddle around with it. So it came to my home,
Speaker 1: you know, in a box, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: I remember very very specifically that when I took the
Speaker 1: puppet out of the box, it smelled like Jim. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means exactly. Jim didn't smell,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean, you have a spent
Speaker 1: you know. It was the last puppet that he had used.
Speaker 1: You know, we had worked together just a few weeks before.
Speaker 1: I remember it so well. And I put the puppet on,
Speaker 1: and I'm standing in my bedroom in front of a
Speaker 1: dresser mirror, you know, And I knew how to make
Speaker 1: a puppet work, you know, I've done that a lot
Speaker 1: by it. So I remember holding it up to the
Speaker 1: mirror and having Kermit look at the mirror and sort
Speaker 1: of then as though he was looking at we were
Speaker 1: looking at each other in the mirror, you know, and
Speaker 1: then uh, you know, my hands turned Kermit's face towards me,
Speaker 1: and I really it was it was uncanny. I got
Speaker 1: this sense of it was almost like kermittt was saying
Speaker 1: to me, Okay, well go on say something. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got it, you got it, do the voice. And
Speaker 1: it completely freaked me out. I I took the puppet off.
Speaker 1: I put the puppet in another room and I didn't
Speaker 1: go near it for about three weeks. It was a
Speaker 1: very weird, weird, kind of strange moment. And eventually I
Speaker 1: remember Brian Hanson. I think it was Brian who got
Speaker 1: in touch with me and said, you know, how's it going.
Speaker 1: We sort of need to It would be good for
Speaker 1: us if we could see something that you're doing, you know.
Speaker 1: And I so I put together a tape of me singing.
Speaker 1: I think it was not it's not that easy being green.
Speaker 1: They sent me a track and I recorded my us
Speaker 1: on top of it and shot it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever sounded exactly like Jim. But I
Speaker 1: realized quite early on that the most important part of
Speaker 1: this process was going to be to make sure Kermit
Speaker 1: state who Kermit was, that the character needed to be consistent,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I just knew that. And the fortunate
Speaker 1: part for me was that I at that point I
Speaker 1: worked with Jim for a little over twelve years and
Speaker 1: beside him almost all the time when he was doing Kermit,
Speaker 1: doing other characters or assisting in with Kermit or something
Speaker 1: like that, and so I really had a sense of
Speaker 1: where Kermit came from from within Jim. You know, that
Speaker 1: was super important. The things that were affectations of Gems
Speaker 1: that were really Jim that became a Kermit, and how
Speaker 1: that seemed to happen, you know. So those were things
Speaker 1: I was able to recall my own experience of that.
Speaker 1: And I could have watched YouTube videos all day long
Speaker 1: of the work that him and done, and it would
Speaker 1: not have given me what I really needed, which was
Speaker 1: that interior, you know, origination point from Jim. So that's
Speaker 1: really the only way it would have been possible. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, knowing Jim, it seems to have been
Speaker 1: much more helpful than being any kind of impressionist or
Speaker 1: anything to your right, well, exactly exactly, And it's very
Speaker 1: easy to copy somebody sometimes, you know, you can just
Speaker 1: copy what they do and do your impression of them.
Speaker 1: But I knew from doing my own characters, you know,
Speaker 1: because I've done a number of my own characters by then,
Speaker 1: that to do that would mean that Kermit would become
Speaker 1: very stale, very quickly, and he would just be a copy,
Speaker 1: you know, be a parrot. And I didn't want him
Speaker 1: to be a clone of Jim. He needed to be
Speaker 1: based on that, but he needed to evolve, He need
Speaker 1: to continue to grow, otherwise he wouldn't be viable as
Speaker 1: a character going forward. I must imagine be like a
Speaker 1: jazz player getting a lead sheet to a to a
Speaker 1: jazz standard. You got the chords there, You've got the
Speaker 1: basic structure, but then you veer off of that and
Speaker 1: you make it your own, and you do your own thing.
Speaker 1: You put your own in flect fins on it. It's
Speaker 1: a funny thing. I hadn't thought about it until you
Speaker 1: said it. Just then. The natural way that we would
Speaker 1: all make that statement is to say, you know, you
Speaker 1: start with the basis and something and then you make
Speaker 1: it your own, and and that's true, but it really
Speaker 1: what it boiled down to was to start in the
Speaker 1: basis of Jim's Kermit keep his influence a part of
Speaker 1: it rather than make it my own. It's almost as
Speaker 1: though I was just trying to allow Kermit to continue
Speaker 1: to grow. And that really came in handy in the
Speaker 1: first couple of projects we did shortly after Jim's death.
Speaker 1: One of them was the Muppet Christmas Carol and the
Speaker 1: other was Muppet Treasure Island. Both were cases where sort
Speaker 1: of playing Jim playing Kermit, but then Kermit was playing
Speaker 1: an additional role. It wasn't really Kermit, you know, he
Speaker 1: was other characters within those stories. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of a challenge too. It's like three times removed, you know, Oh,
Speaker 1: I can only I mean, we just watched Muppets Christmas
Speaker 1: Carol this year. I mean I was I was actually
Speaker 1: thinking about watching, like, oh my god, you're right, this
Speaker 1: is Kermit as Bob chriss Bob cratchit as Kermit or
Speaker 1: wait a wait, now I know I'm confused exactly. That
Speaker 1: was my first really major thing as Kermit after Jim's death,
Speaker 1: and it was the right tone and the right type
Speaker 1: of project, and the Muppets were I think very well
Speaker 1: cast in that Kermit was the right character to play
Speaker 1: that character, you know, and you were Beans as well? Right,
Speaker 1: being Bunny, I was being a was Rizzo as well.
Speaker 1: Rizzo with Gonzo is one of my guys, and yeah,
Speaker 1: many many things. Be Bean is my favorite in that
Speaker 1: And I still I could I get choked up to
Speaker 1: this day. I first saw this movie when it came
Speaker 1: out and I was like five years old whenever the
Speaker 1: camera pans over to to to being Bunny and when
Speaker 1: he's sleeping outside of the hold, like, I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't handle that. To this thirt and three years old,
Speaker 1: I can't. This a little shivering thing. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a nice little moment, but it kind
Speaker 1: of gets the point across. You know, God, how does
Speaker 1: that feel for you? I mean these movies, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you get this old time and
Speaker 1: in many different ways from people who are much more
Speaker 1: articulate than me. But I mean, these these movies, these characters,
Speaker 1: these moments that there are a huge part of my
Speaker 1: life and millions and millions of others. I mean, how
Speaker 1: does it feel to know that you've had that kind
Speaker 1: of impact on people? I mean every year at Christmas,
Speaker 1: we watched this movie with my family, you know, my
Speaker 1: girlfriend and it's just it's really special for us. What's
Speaker 1: that like for you? Yeah, it's a funny thing. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason why I love doing the comic
Speaker 1: cons is because I get to meet so many of
Speaker 1: the fans. You know, when we were doing this work
Speaker 1: over the years, we worked in a studio, kind of
Speaker 1: in this vacuum. You know, we didn't have a live
Speaker 1: audience that you didn't see people and pre Internet, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got the feedback that you've got, but it was
Speaker 1: a little bit different than there was no social media
Speaker 1: or anything like that. You don't know what people are thinking.
Speaker 1: You know what the reviewers you're thinking, but that's about it.
Speaker 1: So it's gratifying to know that there was a documentary
Speaker 1: done some years ago about George Harrison and I believe
Speaker 1: Martin Scorcese directed. It's a great documentary. Living in the
Speaker 1: material world one of my favorites. Love it and forgive me,
Speaker 1: but I always get for money pies on. I get
Speaker 1: Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam mixed up because of their names,
Speaker 1: not because of what they looked like. I think it's
Speaker 1: Terry Gilliam who is in there being interviewed because all
Speaker 1: of that time. You know that the money Piespines flying
Speaker 1: circus time and George Harrison's involved with them, and all
Speaker 1: that was going on at exactly the same time we
Speaker 1: were doing The Muppet Show in England. He makes the
Speaker 1: statement in there basically where he says, it was a
Speaker 1: little arrogant on our part, but we were doing what
Speaker 1: we wanted to do with almost no regard for the
Speaker 1: fans whatsoever. It's like John Lennon said, you know, we
Speaker 1: we it didn't matter whether anybody liked it. We were
Speaker 1: gonna do it anyway. And that's actually it wasn't arrogant,
Speaker 1: but that's exactly the way Jim was. Jim did what
Speaker 1: he wanted to do, and it just so happened that
Speaker 1: people responded to it. You know, he did a lot
Speaker 1: of things people didn't respond to. I mean, labretth wasn't
Speaker 1: immediate big success. It was you know, it's been it's
Speaker 1: become more of a cult success than it was an
Speaker 1: immediate success. And he would have loved that. But it
Speaker 1: was true of all of this work. And I resonate
Speaker 1: with out to the extent that while I'm having this
Speaker 1: great opportunity to meet fans who love the work. It
Speaker 1: was purely for selfish reasons, you know, And it wasn't
Speaker 1: about money, and it wasn't about fame. It was about
Speaker 1: doing this incredible thing and having the opportunity to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, dream come true. You know how many people
Speaker 1: have a dream when they're when they're a teenager and
Speaker 1: then get to actually do it. I mean, that's that
Speaker 1: is absolutely unbelievable. I mean, you know, some of it
Speaker 1: is luck, but a whole lot of its talent, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it is just plain luck. You know,
Speaker 1: it really is. I mean I look back at it,
Speaker 1: and you can it's very You can look back at
Speaker 1: scenarios and see how things fell into play. So you
Speaker 1: could say it's serendipity or it's meant to be, and
Speaker 1: maybe it is, but it also is just interesting to
Speaker 1: see the pattern of how everything fell into place for
Speaker 1: me to end up in the right place at the
Speaker 1: right time. When Jim I was the right age, he
Speaker 1: was looking for young people. He wanted like a person
Speaker 1: to come over and become a part of his core team,
Speaker 1: and I became that person. Could have been somebody else, know,
Speaker 1: but it happened to be me. Right is the right
Speaker 1: time you know, when is the when you when you're
Speaker 1: going out and you're meeting fans at comic cons. What's
Speaker 1: the most common thing that people say? Oh, just say
Speaker 1: say this in so and so's voice. Is there a
Speaker 1: common thing that people come up to you and ask
Speaker 1: you to do? People do ask me to do the voices,
Speaker 1: and I actually rarely do it. I usually tell them,
Speaker 1: you know, I really, I really don't do the voices
Speaker 1: outside of when I was performing the characters, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to let people down. But I would say the
Speaker 1: most common thing they say is quite similar to what
Speaker 1: you were stating, and it's always great to hear it,
Speaker 1: and that is that it's just such a huge part
Speaker 1: of their lives, you know that it's um they usually
Speaker 1: have some memory of a parent or grandparent or a
Speaker 1: time in their lives when the Muppets for whatever reason
Speaker 1: might have meant something to them in particular. And I
Speaker 1: resonate with that because I was actually the same way
Speaker 1: prior to working with Jim. You know, it was. It
Speaker 1: was a massive part of my life for a good
Speaker 1: nine or ten years before any notion of ever doing
Speaker 1: it as a career came about, you know, So I
Speaker 1: know exactly what they feel. There's a connection. I used
Speaker 1: to look at the Muppet as a kid. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize this at the time, but I know it now.
Speaker 1: I think the audience was looking at these characters as
Speaker 1: you know, you sort of saw pass them to the
Speaker 1: person who was performing them, because they because they were
Speaker 1: a unique aspect of whoever that performer was. You know,
Speaker 1: it was a particular performer. They didn't switch around characters,
Speaker 1: and that person would potentially be that character for their
Speaker 1: whole life as far as Jim was concerned. So the
Speaker 1: connection is through the puppets to the performers, between the
Speaker 1: audience and the performer, like any other performer. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like it might be through music to a musician.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a very similar kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: Jim was not extremely precious about the characters he He
Speaker 1: really seemed to look at that the Muppet as the puppet.
Speaker 1: You know, the puppets were tools tools of his artistic expression,
Speaker 1: like a paintbrush or or if he'd been a carpenter,
Speaker 1: you know, Kermit might have been a hammer, you know,
Speaker 1: or a guitar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you never know. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's such an interesting way to put I never
Speaker 1: thought of that. I was gonna ask you, and I
Speaker 1: know you you canna think I'm a crazy person for
Speaker 1: asking this, but like, what was your relationship like with
Speaker 1: the figures themselves? And the fact that you had Kermit
Speaker 1: shipped to you like boggles my mind because I think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's just it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that would be sent with like armed guards and in
Speaker 1: like some kind of special truck, like you know, on
Speaker 1: loan from the Smithsonian or something like did you have
Speaker 1: a special place for it, did you? Or was it
Speaker 1: like you just said, was it just a tool and
Speaker 1: you just kind of put it over there when you
Speaker 1: were done? And yeah, I kind of was that. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting thing with puppeteers, and I'm sure there are
Speaker 1: ways to relate this to other artists and the type
Speaker 1: of work they do with whatever the tools of their tradear.
Speaker 1: I had built so many characters, and when you start
Speaker 1: with a concept for character and you build it from
Speaker 1: the inside out to be whatever it's gonna be, that
Speaker 1: you always have that objective view of it along with
Speaker 1: the subjective you from the point of view as a character.
Speaker 1: So I should look at Kermit differently. When Jim was
Speaker 1: doing Kermit to a certain extent. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: We never talked to our characters. We don't relate to
Speaker 1: the characters like we sit there and talk to the puppets,
Speaker 1: you know. They we put them on. We do what
Speaker 1: we do and we have a great time doing We
Speaker 1: stay in character and they say cut and we keep
Speaker 1: going for ten minutes and stuff like that. But it
Speaker 1: is all about just us doing a performance with the characters.
Speaker 1: We don't feel like we have a separate relationship with
Speaker 1: the characters per se. But I remember one time I
Speaker 1: walked on the set and Frank was doing Piggy, and
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, Miss Piggy looked at me and said, oh, hello, Stephen,
Speaker 1: And it was so cool and and I mean by
Speaker 1: by this point, yeah, by this point I had been
Speaker 1: working with the Muppets at Puppets forever, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've better been doing in Puppets for twenty years and
Speaker 1: with the Muppets for five, so but it was still
Speaker 1: there was something cool about Ms Piggy speaking to me
Speaker 1: because Frank would normally do that. It's just something that
Speaker 1: came out of his mouth. You know, I have to
Speaker 1: walk on the set, you know, but I totally get that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what it feels like. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: not the normal way that I would look at it.
Speaker 1: You know, it has been such a joy talking. Before
Speaker 1: I let you go, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about the new series that you're doing featuring this amazing character.
Speaker 1: Well didn't the I t guy and Internet troll tell
Speaker 1: me tell me more about about your new series. So
Speaker 1: Weldon basically came about after I was no longer a
Speaker 1: part of the Muppets, and I was thinking, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that to do this work from doing series
Speaker 1: over the years that if you walk away from doing
Speaker 1: it for a while, it's like getting back on a bicycle.
Speaker 1: You know, you can still ride, but it takes a
Speaker 1: minute to get your balance. So I thought, I want
Speaker 1: to look for something that that basically I can do
Speaker 1: on little no budget, that just keeps my skill set growing,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, keeps me sharp with the puppetry,
Speaker 1: the improv and all that stuff. So that's how this
Speaker 1: came about. It seemed appropriate, you know, well it's really
Speaker 1: a return back to you were talking about this kid's
Speaker 1: show with those things that I did forty years ago.
Speaker 1: It's very much the same kind of thing, only instead
Speaker 1: of people calling in on the telephone, they now call
Speaker 1: in on discord. You know, this is via the internet.
Speaker 1: The basic point of the show was is for this
Speaker 1: character to have exchanges with whoever is calling in. Therefore,
Speaker 1: most of the material just comes out of the conversation
Speaker 1: and somebody gets really slow and boring. I used to
Speaker 1: go back and edit the shows after the live stream.
Speaker 1: What we post is a slightly tightened version most of
Speaker 1: the time. But that's the fun of it, you know.
Speaker 1: And I've got this kind of It's funny because certain
Speaker 1: people out there who watched this character have almost become
Speaker 1: cast members. I mean, you know, they call every month
Speaker 1: and they are almost a part of the show, so
Speaker 1: we expect for them to check in. You know, is
Speaker 1: a real undertaking to do this. As simple as it
Speaker 1: is in concept, it actually I overcomplicated like crazy because
Speaker 1: I hear about the production values on it. You don't
Speaker 1: you don't do what I did for thirty forty years
Speaker 1: and then just do something that's tackie. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do something that's got to be confestivety to. So we
Speaker 1: do these production numbers that run in every show. It
Speaker 1: can be to where from to to. We've done some
Speaker 1: ten minute long narratives. I have one puppet that I built,
Speaker 1: which is Weldon, So Weldon is um played all the
Speaker 1: roles and all the production numbers we do if there
Speaker 1: are multiple characters. I've always loved shooting against green screen
Speaker 1: and what can be done in terms of of placing characters,
Speaker 1: you know, into scenarios, into stats, into polices. So that's
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're doing. I'm lucky to be
Speaker 1: working with a young man named Liam Nelson who has
Speaker 1: his own production company, h Do Heaven Productions, and so
Speaker 1: the studio we worked in is a tiny little space,
Speaker 1: but we're able to do some pretty ambitious things in here,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm loving it. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: fun little character to do. And you know, I'm also
Speaker 1: developing some other things too, but it takes a walk
Speaker 1: for those things to get off the ground. Some of
Speaker 1: it is with former colleagues who I've worked with who
Speaker 1: really want to work together, and uh, some other ideas
Speaker 1: that will be probably bigger shows, but also bigger shows
Speaker 1: cost more money, so you know, we have to pull
Speaker 1: all that together. You know. Oh it is it is
Speaker 1: hysterical I I watched a few episodes before speaking you,
Speaker 1: and it is it's so great. I really love it.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so excited to so we're gonna do next
Speaker 1: all So that's so exciting. Oh well, thank you, I'm
Speaker 1: and I'm glad we talked about it, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really mostly doing it as a learning experience. And
Speaker 1: and by the way, one of the I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not just the puppetry. I'm doing everything. I'm writing music.
Speaker 1: I'm playing the music and recording it. Any any music
Speaker 1: to hear on there I do, and and all of
Speaker 1: the editing and most of the writing, although I have
Speaker 1: Jim Lewis, a former colleague who works with the Muppets,
Speaker 1: is helping me produce it. I've been around those things
Speaker 1: my whole life. But I'm really learning the practicality of
Speaker 1: doing it now, which is fun, you know, hard and fun.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that sounds like an absolutely mammoth
Speaker 1: undertaking it is, but uh, we do. We do one
Speaker 1: per month, We do the last variety of every month.
Speaker 1: We do a live stream per month, and I would
Speaker 1: not be able to pull anything more than that together
Speaker 1: because I'm doing it virtually all myself. I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you so much for your time night. Before
Speaker 1: I let you go, I have one final question. You're
Speaker 1: gonna hang up on me. What's Kerman's favorite David Bowie album?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how would I possibly up? There's gotta
Speaker 1: be a great answer to that, right, wow. Trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what it is at the climb inside Kermit's
Speaker 1: head for a minute. I think, uh, it might album.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the song might be a laddinsane
Speaker 1: I always, I always, I always say it like that,
Speaker 1: a Laddin saying, because I know that was fun. But
Speaker 1: Kermit loved fun, so that could easily be it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know when we um when we were doing around
Speaker 1: the Labrary, I guess after Labyrinth, David's son who was Zoe,
Speaker 1: But I think he went with Joey in the end
Speaker 1: worked at the Creature Shop for a while. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you knew that. Oh that's right, yeah, he yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he is, and but for for a number
Speaker 1: of years there, I believe he. I don't think I
Speaker 1: ever actually met him, but he was working in the
Speaker 1: Creature shop, presumably working on building fabricating stuff. You know, Well,
Speaker 1: that's a funny full circle there will. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought so too, but yeah, I was. It was it
Speaker 1: really hit me very hard when when I heard that
Speaker 1: he had passed away. You know, it was it was just,
Speaker 1: you know, he was just he was just such a
Speaker 1: part of my life and he was always there, and
Speaker 1: we always and we worked together and they're always even
Speaker 1: though you know, after that point, I see him once
Speaker 1: in a while, but and we weren't super close friends,
Speaker 1: but it felt like there was a connection, and I really,
Speaker 1: I really mourned over that. A little Bit Off the
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