Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House stuff Works dot Com about rainbow and what
Speaker 1: a Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Hey,
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, Hey Josh Clark. It's a beautiful day here
Speaker 1: at How Stuff Works, Hunt it is. I have a
Speaker 1: question for you, Jy. Have you ever been half sleep?
Speaker 1: And have you heard voices? Chuck? Josh, I've heard them
Speaker 1: calling my name? Is that the sweet sound that calls
Speaker 1: a young sailor? Oh? I can't remember the next line.
Speaker 1: It might be one and the same. I think it
Speaker 1: is one and the same. Yes, clearly we were speaking
Speaker 1: of none other than top hit Academy Award nominated song
Speaker 1: Rainbow Connection is performed by a certain philosophizing frog in
Speaker 1: a swamp at the beginning of the Muppet movie. Huh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about how the Muppets work today.
Speaker 1: I know Josh is like rocking in his chair right now.
Speaker 1: He's so excited. I love the Muppets. Who doesn't love them? Uppet? Everybody?
Speaker 1: You show me someone that doesn't love the Muppets, and
Speaker 1: you know they've got a butt kicking coming to them
Speaker 1: via me. Yeah, Chuck's the Muppet enforcer, Muppet love enforcer. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we should probably give a disclaimer, Chuck. If
Speaker 1: anybody is really attached to illusion and doesn't really want
Speaker 1: to know, like the nitty gritty details of how muppets
Speaker 1: are made and moved about, they should probably not listen
Speaker 1: to this one, right, People that don't even want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that they are puppets. Yeah, the lovers, the dreamers
Speaker 1: and me. Yeah that's awesome. Yeah. So um, Chuck, let's
Speaker 1: start at the beginning. Let's start back in. Gotta start
Speaker 1: with Jim Henson. Yeah, well, yeah, there are no ups
Speaker 1: without Jim Henson and even says it right there in
Speaker 1: the article how Muppets Work, which you can find on
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. Right right, Uh, Washington, d
Speaker 1: C has a local TV station and uh, and I
Speaker 1: think the winner of nineteen fifty five, Um, a young
Speaker 1: college freshman, Jim Henson. Dude, until probably had no idea
Speaker 1: that this went back that far. No, this guy was
Speaker 1: starting something huge at this time, right, I mean it's puppets,
Speaker 1: Like puppets were relegated to what children's birthday parties, stuff
Speaker 1: like that. This guy's bringing them on the TV. Exactly huge.
Speaker 1: And what what what was kind of surprising is that
Speaker 1: this show Sam and Friends, Right, that was his first show,
Speaker 1: the one on the local Washington d c UH television station,
Speaker 1: was for adults. Absolutely, it was I believe there was
Speaker 1: some satire involved, correct, a ted political satire parody. They
Speaker 1: parodied other television shows and it ran for six years
Speaker 1: and got him on Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and actually this is where um, a little lizard like
Speaker 1: creature who came to be known as Kermit debut. Should
Speaker 1: I do it? Yeah? Hi? Who Kermit d Frog? Here?
Speaker 1: That is wonderful, Chuck revealed before the the UM, I
Speaker 1: guess the real, the real that's run by a hamster
Speaker 1: started rolling. Um that he started with Kermit. That was
Speaker 1: your first voice, first voice? What else do you get?
Speaker 1: My voices are mediocre at best, But I still like
Speaker 1: doing him. I gotta tell you, Nail Kurmit, but I've
Speaker 1: been doing Kermit since I was like six km. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you've got him. I'm trying to get a ya
Speaker 1: out of Chuck, but have a limited range. Well, Kermit
Speaker 1: lizard like Kermit, as we'll call him Um. It was
Speaker 1: joined by some other wonderfully named puppets that weren't quite
Speaker 1: called muppets yet these are still puppets in Henson's mind.
Speaker 1: You had Sam Yorick Harry the Hipster, one of my favorites,
Speaker 1: Professor Magcliff. I'm surprised it wasn't a hippie rob. No
Speaker 1: hippie rob yet give it another decade. Mush Melon and
Speaker 1: Chicken Liver was part of the regular cast, and basically
Speaker 1: it was Henson and a classmate of his um named
Speaker 1: Jane Nabel, who later became Jane Henson. They met up
Speaker 1: and she kind of assisted him early on. They fell
Speaker 1: in love. They did fell in love, and she was
Speaker 1: actually replaced when they got married and had kids by
Speaker 1: one frank Oz. Frank a nineteen year old Frank Oz,
Speaker 1: and he was originally um hired just to be the
Speaker 1: right hand literally of Rolf the Dog. Right they call
Speaker 1: that technique right handing. We'll get into that, which we'll
Speaker 1: get into and Rolf actually fun fact, Rolf the dog
Speaker 1: with the big floppy ears, who's performed with the likes
Speaker 1: of Liberacci among others, was actually created specifically to sell
Speaker 1: Purina dog food. Yeah. After he did Salmon Friends, he
Speaker 1: produced TV commercials for a while with the early muppets,
Speaker 1: a bunch of them. So this is a clearly we've
Speaker 1: we've transitioned into the era where there were muppets. We
Speaker 1: went from Salmon Friends and now muppets are starting to
Speaker 1: come about. Ralph Kermits now Frog. He's made that sexual
Speaker 1: transition from lizard to frog, that right of passage that
Speaker 1: every lizard has to go through. Um, and uh, there's
Speaker 1: still no TV show. We're in the sixties and everyone's
Speaker 1: getting to be aware of the muppets, Chuck, Like you said, Uh,
Speaker 1: they were on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Jimmy Dean Show,
Speaker 1: which you should have been in the green room for
Speaker 1: that one sausage everywhere. Um. He did create some pilots,
Speaker 1: but they never took no one ever, bottom up No.
Speaker 1: And he got really close with ABC, but they walked
Speaker 1: on a deal. Um. What really kind of catapulted him
Speaker 1: into a possible TV deal was the formation of kids
Speaker 1: show called Sesame Street, the children's television network started by
Speaker 1: Joan and Coney Right and Jim Henson always kind of
Speaker 1: thought of his puppets and then muppets as um uh
Speaker 1: for adults, like this is adults stuff like you can
Speaker 1: even today there's um puppet Up Uncensored. It's a live
Speaker 1: improv muppet puppet show for adults. It's carried on by
Speaker 1: his son Brian. And that's very much in the tradition
Speaker 1: of Jim Henson's original idea, which is these are puppets,
Speaker 1: but they're for adults. Like there's just that kind of
Speaker 1: ironic twist that these puppets are cursing, you know. But
Speaker 1: apparently somewhere along the way he came to figure out
Speaker 1: that um children could be a very sophisticated audiences a
Speaker 1: quote in the article, So he went along with Sesame Street, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's really where it blew up. Everyone who grew
Speaker 1: up in the United States and probably elsewhere watch Sesame
Speaker 1: Street as a kid and may still and that's where
Speaker 1: we were introduced to uh, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird
Speaker 1: and Burton Ernie Cookie Monster. Doesn't get any more classic
Speaker 1: than that. Grower's my favorite Sesame. Yeah. I did little
Speaker 1: video one time with a Grover Finger puppet. Did you
Speaker 1: This is back in like the old VHS days where
Speaker 1: you could edit like I literally had to edit it
Speaker 1: all in camera as I shot it, and I used
Speaker 1: like a ween song and I Grover finger Puppet. He's
Speaker 1: pretty fun. So this had nothing to do with Karate Chuck. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: these are just my early filmmaking days. It's fun. So okay,
Speaker 1: So Sesame Street takes off and still going today. I mean,
Speaker 1: this has got to be one of the longest running
Speaker 1: television shows of all time. Yeah, I think sixty Minutes
Speaker 1: has a beat. Maybe General Hospital. You know General Hospital
Speaker 1: has been on since the mid fifties. Who cares. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but dude, that's a really long time for a single
Speaker 1: television show to run. That's a lot of crap, it
Speaker 1: is They just shovel it on nothings. Yeah, back to
Speaker 1: the goodness of the Muppets though. So he's almost there,
Speaker 1: He's so close. He's been shooting pilots. None of them
Speaker 1: were getting taken up. ABC's Walked Um and a little
Speaker 1: show called s Live starts up in nineteen Yeah. I
Speaker 1: did not know this until I read this article. I
Speaker 1: didn't either. I'm a big fan. I'm trying to sound
Speaker 1: like I did know this, alright. Um, the the first
Speaker 1: season and included sketches Um called The Land of Gorge,
Speaker 1: which were larger muppets, and the SNL writers said, we're
Speaker 1: not writing for puppets. Yeah, in fact they're I think
Speaker 1: they're head writer is famously quoted saying I don't write
Speaker 1: for felt, which I thought was kind of was that
Speaker 1: Al Franken? Now what now Franken? I can't remember his name,
Speaker 1: but Senator Al Franken, Senator Al Francin is so crazy.
Speaker 1: Um so that was very short lived. Finally, Henson strikes
Speaker 1: a deal with UM I t C and they start
Speaker 1: shooting The Muppet Show in London and syndicating it out
Speaker 1: at CBS. And this is Yeah, the pilot, though I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting. I should mention was the name of
Speaker 1: the pilot was called Sex and Violence. They actually UM
Speaker 1: I was watching it earlier and um, one of the
Speaker 1: muppets comes out, not when I could identify by sight.
Speaker 1: Uh comes out and there's this huge thing carved out
Speaker 1: of stone. It's a sex and violence and uh, the
Speaker 1: announcer says, and now the end of sex and violence
Speaker 1: on TV. And the Muppet presses a dynamite plunger and
Speaker 1: blows up the sex and violence and then the Muppet
Speaker 1: Show theme starts, well, there you have it. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Then I thought it was just one of
Speaker 1: those ironic names or something. I don't think like Jim
Speaker 1: Hinson was trying to be ironically funny. I think he
Speaker 1: was still but sure, yeah, got you the end of
Speaker 1: sex and Violence. So yeah, the Muppet Show was born
Speaker 1: and the rest is history. The end, the end. Thanks
Speaker 1: for coming, Chuck, What was your favorite Muppet d How
Speaker 1: did you get your voice to do that? It's anytime
Speaker 1: you say those three words together that happens. Let me
Speaker 1: try You should try to hum or the judges. We
Speaker 1: see old guys in the balcony. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 1: was it? Statler and Waldorf? Statler and Waldorf. Those guys
Speaker 1: were excellent, and Jim Hinson actually voiced Waldorf. I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk about who the creator actually voiced specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did obviously did Kermit the Frog, He did Rolf
Speaker 1: the Dog. He and Waldorf. Uh. He did Doctor Teeth
Speaker 1: of Electric Mayhem, the Electric Mayhem, which was the the
Speaker 1: hippie band. Yeah. I think Dr Teeth was probably modeled
Speaker 1: after Dr John that's a guest, but probably I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had he had that kind of new Orleans accent,
Speaker 1: didn't he? Yeah? And then link Hogthrob of Pigs and
Speaker 1: Space of what excellent, And he did the Ernie half
Speaker 1: of Burton Ernie. Yeah. Who I have to say, Ernie's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite characters. I know he's set to
Speaker 1: me Street, but he's one of my favorite buppets. Um.
Speaker 1: I kind of go for the really sweet, kind hearted
Speaker 1: ones really Ernie, Fozzy, Yeah, Bunsen, which one was Bunsen
Speaker 1: the Little Professor, a little affable professor with Beaker the most. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you seen Beaker doing oh to Joy? It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube. Type in meep and oh to Joy
Speaker 1: and it will come up. Yeah, He's like me, me, me, Me,
Speaker 1: me me. It's pretty cool. And of course the chef,
Speaker 1: the chef who was Swedish chef, who actually has the
Speaker 1: distinction of being the only muppet with live human hands
Speaker 1: unsupposed or uncovered by gloves or anything like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was watching a clip of the Swedish chef and
Speaker 1: you can very easily see why they did that. He
Speaker 1: has to put like dashes of things in and pinch
Speaker 1: and stuff in, and so he actually has I believe
Speaker 1: frank Oz's hands and then then Henson doing his head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll talk about the muppeteering and Manto because
Speaker 1: it gets pretty intense. So I get ahead of myself
Speaker 1: sometimes I know it's just exciting. Uh. And then frank
Speaker 1: Oz of course, which was the other half. And I
Speaker 1: think the quote in the article, which I thought was cool,
Speaker 1: as Jim Henson said that Frank Oz was probably the
Speaker 1: person most responsible for the Muppets being funny. Right, Frank
Speaker 1: Oz is a very funny guy. He is. He also
Speaker 1: did h He also puppeted and voiced Yoda and All
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Oh you knew that, did you? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think everyone did it. Frank Oz did Yoda. Uh. And um,
Speaker 1: he did Rolf the Dog. I'm sorry he right handed
Speaker 1: Route the Dog. Jim did the voice. Let's remember this
Speaker 1: is what he was hired for it an, that's right.
Speaker 1: He did Bert the Burt half. He did Grover, your
Speaker 1: favorite cookie monster animal who doesn't love animal? A lot
Speaker 1: of screaming with that one, Miss Piggy and Fozzy Bear
Speaker 1: of course, to to the iconic characters. And you know,
Speaker 1: frank went on to direct movies. I mean he worked
Speaker 1: with Hinson for like thirty years and then directed movies.
Speaker 1: He directed Uh What About Bob? And Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Speaker 1: and with other classics. You're gonna tell you Dirty Rotten
Speaker 1: Scoundrels is funny. The greatest thing he's ever made, and
Speaker 1: he's acted to. He was in The Blues Brothers briefly.
Speaker 1: Oh was he the the corrections officer at Hands and
Speaker 1: Back is prophylactic? Yes, he is. Later on he reprises
Speaker 1: that role sort of in Trading Places. He plays the
Speaker 1: officer checking out danack Royd in prison in that film
Speaker 1: as well. So he's a specialist. He plays officers giving
Speaker 1: prisoners there type cast. Yeah. Yeah, so Chuck you one
Speaker 1: to get into um a little behind the scenes stuff, Yeah,
Speaker 1: why not? We might as well. Um, well, let's start
Speaker 1: with how a Muppet is made. Yeah, Josh, the Muppets
Speaker 1: were created only by Jim Hinson. He did all the
Speaker 1: original sketches and he built some of the original muppets
Speaker 1: when he was still kind of a small shop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he figured out pretty quick that he had too
Speaker 1: many in his head and he needed too many to
Speaker 1: just do it himself. So yeah, he started out, um,
Speaker 1: using some materials like paper machee that didn't work out
Speaker 1: because it was too hard, and then he tried um
Speaker 1: different kinds of foam. I think he's foam rubber, but
Speaker 1: found that that deteriorated. Yeah, so he's reticulated polyphone, which
Speaker 1: is I imagined very much like foam rubber, but a
Speaker 1: little more durable, right, And I think it's more flexible
Speaker 1: because that that gave him the opportunity if you stick
Speaker 1: your hand in Kerman's head to operate the puppet, to
Speaker 1: move your knuckles around and like he would raise an
Speaker 1: eyebrow and it would give him a little more feature
Speaker 1: to his face. I chuck. You know, I love lore.
Speaker 1: I want it's poss this one out. Kermit Lizard Kermit
Speaker 1: pre Great Transition. Kermit was actually made from his The
Speaker 1: skin of Kermit was made from fuzzy green coat Jim
Speaker 1: Henson's mother owned, and his eyes were two halves of
Speaker 1: a toy which I'm not familiar with. I wouldn't either,
Speaker 1: wacky wacky stacks yea stacks half. Yeah. They always kind
Speaker 1: of looked like ping pong balls with the little pupils
Speaker 1: drawn on them. Yeah, well, let's go ahead and talk
Speaker 1: about that. The pupils. Yeah, that's they They say that
Speaker 1: they did the eyes last when they're building muppets because
Speaker 1: it's the most important part, and the pupils are actually
Speaker 1: very important. And this I didn't know either. Um, the
Speaker 1: bigger the pupil, the younger the muppet. Pretty cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it really kind of makes sense. It gets the
Speaker 1: point across that they're kind of wide eyed and innocent,
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with the horrors and evil of the world. Right.
Speaker 1: And it says they also tilt the pupils end slightly
Speaker 1: to give them more focus. Well, they move them closer together,
Speaker 1: because if they just put them, you know, on these
Speaker 1: huge eyes where they should be in the middle, muppets
Speaker 1: would look like they had easy eyes. Right. And the
Speaker 1: man responsible for this was one of the first guys
Speaker 1: that Jim Hinson hired. His name was Don uh Salen Salon.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that this guy was like the
Speaker 1: man behind the man in a lot of ways. Jim
Speaker 1: Henson was this very creative, artistic person and he knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing. But I think Don Solon was
Speaker 1: the one who's like, okay, i'll make it work. Well.
Speaker 1: He was definitely the master, like a sower. It sounds
Speaker 1: like he came up with the Henson stitch, which he
Speaker 1: very graciously um named after Henson. The Henson stitch, which
Speaker 1: is a I guess, a method of sewing that hides
Speaker 1: the scene. Yeah, you don't wanna. You don't want to
Speaker 1: see a scene right there. It's like I forgot that's
Speaker 1: a puppet exactly. And this, uh, this is so chuck
Speaker 1: full of things I never knew. I'm so glad we're
Speaker 1: doing this. Kermit the Frog actually has a stitch, Henson
Speaker 1: stitch going right up the center of his nose, and
Speaker 1: you would never know it because the Henson stitch and
Speaker 1: the little fuzzy felt kind of helps to hide it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the fuzzy felt actually um is called Andron fleets.
Speaker 1: That's the covering of Kermit and most of the other
Speaker 1: You know that that kind of muppet skin, they actually
Speaker 1: call it muppet fleece. That that fabric sort of like
Speaker 1: a worn tennis ball. Yeah. You know you've arrived when
Speaker 1: there's a type of textile named after your creation, a
Speaker 1: stitch named after you. Uh so most muppets. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: there's either two ways you can go about it. There's
Speaker 1: either the hand and rod method of operating or a
Speaker 1: live hand. We talked about the live hand, and that
Speaker 1: is when you literally stick your arm into the arm
Speaker 1: of the puppet, into a glove or in the swedishchef's case,
Speaker 1: a natural hand. Right, and there's actually two people operating.
Speaker 1: And let's start with the hand and rod one or
Speaker 1: rod in hand. Yes, so most muppeteers chuck or right handed. Um,
Speaker 1: and so they're their right hand would be inside the muppet,
Speaker 1: operating the head the face, that kind of thing. Their
Speaker 1: left hand would be holding the two rods that were
Speaker 1: attached to the muppets hand. Grover's an example of a
Speaker 1: hand and rod one. Um, so the left hand would
Speaker 1: make the hands clap. That kind of thing is two
Speaker 1: very in dowels, which you can move them with your fingers, right,
Speaker 1: so one person can operate it. Uh. And actually, since
Speaker 1: they the most muppeteers were right handed and they were
Speaker 1: operating with their left hand. Um, most muppets are left
Speaker 1: handed since they were operating the hands with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another cool fact, except there was one muppeteer who was
Speaker 1: left handed and all of her muppets were right handed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, man, I'm learning so much. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then um, occasionally you know clearly, if one person
Speaker 1: is operating both hands, there's a limited amount of things
Speaker 1: they can do. That's where the right handing comes in.
Speaker 1: If you need uh specific movements done with both hands,
Speaker 1: then a second puppeteer comes in operates only the right hand,
Speaker 1: which is what frank Oz was hard to do in
Speaker 1: the case of Ralph right Um. Ernie is another example
Speaker 1: to see right handed. Yeah, so there's a there's one
Speaker 1: muppeteer who's there two guys standing next to each other. Um,
Speaker 1: there's one guy who has his right hand up as
Speaker 1: high as it can go. He's operating the face, and
Speaker 1: then his left hand is up the arm of the muppet,
Speaker 1: and then the other guy has his right hand up
Speaker 1: the muppets right hand. There's two people operating these three parts,
Speaker 1: and they do a pretty good job. But you really,
Speaker 1: you think about it, and you just you look at
Speaker 1: Ernie or something, and you don't you wouldn't think that
Speaker 1: there's two people operating him, and that sounds very cramped
Speaker 1: and close and it is. Yeah, I mean talk about
Speaker 1: henson Um at the beginning of the Muppet movie when
Speaker 1: Kermit's on the log. Oh yeah, well sure, when the
Speaker 1: shots in the movies where you don't see a human Well,
Speaker 1: what I guess, let's backtrack a little. What they usually
Speaker 1: do um was a technique that Henson invented called platforming up,
Speaker 1: So they would build the actual muppet stage about eight
Speaker 1: you know, six to eight feet off the ground so
Speaker 1: the puppeteers could stand fully upright so they don't have
Speaker 1: to bend over. Sometimes when that wasn't possible, they built
Speaker 1: trenches for the for the muppeteers to get down in.
Speaker 1: And then for the movies, which is what you were
Speaker 1: talking about, for the scenes where like Kermit was sitting
Speaker 1: on the log and singing Rainbow Connection. At the opening
Speaker 1: of the film, Jim Hinson was in a little capsule
Speaker 1: cramped down underwater, underwater sealed uh, with the thing all
Speaker 1: around was sticking up out of the water, probably disguised
Speaker 1: as a read that allowed him to breathe exactly. But
Speaker 1: they were showing off right out of the bat they
Speaker 1: right out of the gate. They did a three sixty
Speaker 1: shot of Kermit on the log to show that right,
Speaker 1: no wires is not a marrionette. Pretty cool, Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. I love that. And then they did
Speaker 1: scenes where they were like riding bicycles, and in some
Speaker 1: cases I think they had to have multiple h They
Speaker 1: called it muppet switching, where they had like a full
Speaker 1: body Muppet that they would occasionally have to use the
Speaker 1: marrionette wires, or they would have a little person in it,
Speaker 1: or they would have a little person, or they would
Speaker 1: use a remote control which came a little bit later. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: this is my favorite. When they had a muppet driving
Speaker 1: a car, the car was actually being driven, so the
Speaker 1: Muppet would be in the front seat. Uh, the muppeteer
Speaker 1: would be crouched down in the back seat operating the Muppet,
Speaker 1: and then there would be a little person in the
Speaker 1: trunk driving the car with remote control looking at a
Speaker 1: video screen. Yeah, they're actually extremely sophisticated. What they have
Speaker 1: to do. This is incredibly complex. Imagine having to build
Speaker 1: like you have to know exactly what's going to happen
Speaker 1: in every scene. Then you have to build the set
Speaker 1: to accommodate a human person and a muppet and their muppeteer,
Speaker 1: so there may be several different levels. It sounds very dangerous.
Speaker 1: And then as a muppeteer as well, Chuck Um. They
Speaker 1: have and they have had since the seventies monitors strapped
Speaker 1: to their chest so they can see what the what
Speaker 1: their muppet is doing. Right, it is backwards, so they
Speaker 1: have to know that if they're if they are looking
Speaker 1: at the screen and they want their muppet to move left,
Speaker 1: they have to move right. I mean, I imagine that
Speaker 1: the wiring, the neural connections of these people's brains are
Speaker 1: very unusual. If you could slap them in a wonder
Speaker 1: machine and take a look at them next to like
Speaker 1: one of ours, I'll bet you've noticed some real distinction.
Speaker 1: We should write a article on muppeteers brains would be good.
Speaker 1: Uh and you're dead on man, because one of the muppeteers,
Speaker 1: there's been about a hundred of him, one of them
Speaker 1: named Dave Gold, said it takes maybe five years to
Speaker 1: do everything without thinking about it. In fact, I still
Speaker 1: find it difficult. And Frank Oz said, what you're doing
Speaker 1: is so complicated that you really don't have time to
Speaker 1: think about what you're doing. First your body understands and
Speaker 1: then your mind grasp what you're doing. Sometimes so very
Speaker 1: complicated stuff. There's there's one other kind of muppet. We've
Speaker 1: got hand and rod uh live hand or right hand muppets,
Speaker 1: and then there's full body muppets like Big Bird. Sure,
Speaker 1: so this is actually you know Big Birds as tall
Speaker 1: as he looks, um, what is he like? Eight feet tall?
Speaker 1: He's pretty tall. So there's a muppeteer and they're probably
Speaker 1: a fairly tall muppeteer on platform shoes five inch shoes. Uh,
Speaker 1: standing up with his right hand going up to Big
Speaker 1: Bird's mouth and it's a it's a reach to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can you imagine. I'll bet they feel like Neil
Speaker 1: Pert all the time? Right, you know what you should
Speaker 1: look on the on the article actually, and there's some
Speaker 1: really good illustrations, excellent illustrations. It shows like Big Bird
Speaker 1: with the person inside of it, and it is a
Speaker 1: stretch man that would get really really tiring, just physically exhausting,
Speaker 1: I would imagine. So the right hands up, the left
Speaker 1: hands controlling left hand, and then there's a wire connected
Speaker 1: to the left elbow that's connecting Big birds right hand
Speaker 1: or that's that's controlling Big birds right hand. Which is
Speaker 1: why if you notice, if you watch Big Bird, when
Speaker 1: the right hand goes up, the left hand goes down.
Speaker 1: When the left hand goes down, the right hand goes
Speaker 1: up because it's Uh, it's like a little Pulley system, right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: We were we were talking about, you know, um, muppeteers
Speaker 1: performing in trenches on the set or platforming up or
Speaker 1: you know, how difficult it is to create these sets. Uh,
Speaker 1: And once you know what they're doing, you can see
Speaker 1: it pretty easily. Like I was watching a clip of
Speaker 1: Steve Martin playing dueling banjos with some muppets class on
Speaker 1: The Muppet Show, right classic, and they're doing it, like
Speaker 1: I guess in between performances because they're out in the
Speaker 1: theater seats and Steve Martin doesn't move the whole time,
Speaker 1: so god knows how many like pits are on either
Speaker 1: side of him and how far he would fall if
Speaker 1: he stepped one way or the other. And then some
Speaker 1: of the other muppets are in the seats rows of
Speaker 1: seats behind him, so that clearly provides a trench for
Speaker 1: the muppeteers too. And once you once you kind of
Speaker 1: know how they did it, you can you can see
Speaker 1: the techniques in use. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, I bet
Speaker 1: it was a cool set to visit, for sure. The
Speaker 1: sets were usually speaking of sets were um, there were
Speaker 1: a couple of ways they could do it. They're either
Speaker 1: muppets sized when there was only muppets involved, which would
Speaker 1: be scaled down obviously, or when um obviously. You know.
Speaker 1: The Muppet Show was famous for having celebrity guests each
Speaker 1: week when humans interacted, and as they do in Sesame
Speaker 1: Street too, they would have kind of a mix. Some
Speaker 1: things would be human size and then they would do
Speaker 1: it's a technique called forced perspective when they would make
Speaker 1: like a door, you know, seven eighths the size of
Speaker 1: a real door in the background to make it look
Speaker 1: like it's really far away, or just to bring everything,
Speaker 1: you know, to where it all matches up. Fantastic, pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is cool. What's the quote from Carol Burnett? Because
Speaker 1: that the article talked about, you know, humans interacting with
Speaker 1: muppets and once it like to act with you know,
Speaker 1: poly Era. She said something like, when you're standing next
Speaker 1: to Kermit and interacting with them, you totally believe him.
Speaker 1: And she she was on the Muppe Show a lot, wasn't, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was. And the other cool thing was they said
Speaker 1: that between takes that they said the puppets would often
Speaker 1: just kind of chit chat with the actors, like making
Speaker 1: small talk, just totally buy into it. Yeah, I love it, man,
Speaker 1: that would have been an awesome show to do. It
Speaker 1: was a good time for it too, And Chuck, if
Speaker 1: you notice there's um a lot of there's so much
Speaker 1: going on on the Muppet Show. They really nailed the
Speaker 1: realism in part because there were so many muppets going around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the big scenes, right, and then you have like
Speaker 1: the stars clearly like ms Piggy, Kermit, Swedish Chef Buns
Speaker 1: and Beak Girl them, um, but then you also have
Speaker 1: some muppets who you just like you you don't really
Speaker 1: recognize the background extras basically right, And and there's actually
Speaker 1: a name for these muppets. They create blank slate my
Speaker 1: bits and then you know, depending on what they need,
Speaker 1: they have all sorts of costumes eyebrows, eyes, noses, all
Speaker 1: that stuff that they can just switch out real quick.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. And what do they call them? Well, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of names that originally they were called anything Muppets,
Speaker 1: but the one I like, they were called what Knots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that. I knew you would like whatnots over
Speaker 1: anything Muppets. Well, who wouldn't The Whatnots would be a
Speaker 1: good band name. Uh so, yeah, they were basically the
Speaker 1: background extra of The Muppet Show and they would just
Speaker 1: interchange these uh these guys and girls. I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess they were gender specific. Sure. Yeah. Ms Piggy actually
Speaker 1: had her own costume designer or her own real human
Speaker 1: costume designer for the Muppets. One of the few, well
Speaker 1: not few, but one of the one of the Muppets
Speaker 1: that were close A lot of them were in the buff. Yeah. Kermit, well,
Speaker 1: Kermit actually wore his trench coat sometimes. Well when he
Speaker 1: was on Sesame Street, he was the roving reporter where
Speaker 1: he had the trench coat and the hat and everything,
Speaker 1: which was pretty awesome. I loved the idea of a
Speaker 1: frog reporter. But then on The Muppet Show, his character
Speaker 1: was the kind of the lead producer of the show.
Speaker 1: That was kind of the idea of the show. That
Speaker 1: leads me to the thirty Rock thing that what's gonna
Speaker 1: tell you about the television show thirty Rock? That was
Speaker 1: there's a thing on the internet, so one did on
Speaker 1: a blog I think, where they linked the Muppet Show
Speaker 1: to thirty Rock and how they were basically the same show.
Speaker 1: And Liz Lemon was Kerment trying to pull this show
Speaker 1: together amid the craziness, and Jane Karkowski was Miss Piggy,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the other characters, but they kind
Speaker 1: of tied each one to the other. And the only
Speaker 1: one who they couldn't get a representation of was the
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin character, which I thought was pretty interesting. Maybe
Speaker 1: he would be Carol Burnett, Yeah, maybe so, but I
Speaker 1: think they said he could have been both Waldorf and
Speaker 1: Statler something like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Um Chuck the uh. I guess that's kind of emblematic
Speaker 1: of the Muppets, right. The Muppet Show produced a bunch
Speaker 1: of spinoffs. First of all, you've got the three movies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: You've got The Muppet Movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, and
Speaker 1: The Great Muppet Caper, all three of them excellent, excellent film.
Speaker 1: And apparently there's uh Seth Rogan and Jason Siegel, the
Speaker 1: actors from Knocked Up, were trying to make another Muppet
Speaker 1: movie and I don't know if yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's ever gonna happen, but they were kind of
Speaker 1: in talks with the Hint and people to write a
Speaker 1: script and make another Muppet movie. There's a did you
Speaker 1: ever watch Frago Rock? Did I watch Fraggle Rock? I didn't, actually, dude,
Speaker 1: Fraggo Rock was on when I was eleven, twelve and
Speaker 1: thirteen on HBO, so right when I first got h
Speaker 1: you just answered the question. So yes, I lived and
Speaker 1: breathed Fraggo Rock. Down, Chuck, you will be happy to know,
Speaker 1: or possibly dismay, that there is a Frago Rock movie
Speaker 1: that's supposed to have already come out. It hasn't yet,
Speaker 1: but I imagine it's coming down the pike. It is.
Speaker 1: I looked it up today and right now they had
Speaker 1: the date listed as eleven. Good god, so we'll see okay,
Speaker 1: and uh, Frago Rock is not the only one. Did
Speaker 1: you ever watch Muppet Babies? I did not. That was
Speaker 1: after my time. That was right in my time, actually
Speaker 1: embarrassingly maybe slightly after, but I still watched it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a really, really good cartoon. Barbara Billingsley played
Speaker 1: the nanny whose face you never saw. Yeah, they used
Speaker 1: to have some great adventures. I didn't know. That took
Speaker 1: me along on. And then my favorite was emmett Otter's
Speaker 1: jug Band. Christmas have you seen that? Man? Are you joking?
Speaker 1: How old are you? It came out in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: I was six years old. Et Otters Jug Band Christmas.
Speaker 1: Have you seen a Jerry? Jerry hasn't seen it. Emitt
Speaker 1: Odors Jug Band Christmas is one of the best Christmas
Speaker 1: specials ever in the history of Christmas specials. I'll check
Speaker 1: it out. It was awesome. The the river Bottom Nightmare
Speaker 1: Band was there. There were two bands. There was em
Speaker 1: Hotter clearly with his jug band were these old nice
Speaker 1: Otters that played country jug music, and then there was
Speaker 1: the Evil Faction, which was the River Bottom Nightmare Band
Speaker 1: and they did this like hard rock, heavy metal stuff
Speaker 1: and they had a snake muppet that was swimming around
Speaker 1: in a tank and it was awesome. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I will check that out. I'll add that to a
Speaker 1: Christmas story and it's a wonderful life. You totally should. Well,
Speaker 1: that's pretty much muppets. They're still going on. As we mentioned,
Speaker 1: Brian Henson's doing the puppet up Uncensored Crop Show. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think you can catch him at a comic con
Speaker 1: in San Diego, Australia. TBS had some stuff. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: If you type in pup it up on the Internet,
Speaker 1: it will bring up some stuff for you. There was
Speaker 1: a Broadway show. There is a Broadway show called Q.
Speaker 1: It's like, um, a revision of Sesame Street but adults
Speaker 1: a little more drama. Yeah, they had to work it
Speaker 1: out with the Hintson Company to get approval and umour
Speaker 1: for best Musical. Good move there. And I want to
Speaker 1: just recommend if anyone visits Los Angeles ever or lives
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. If you live there, you know about it.
Speaker 1: But the Jim Hinton Company is located at the corner
Speaker 1: of Libre and Sunset, and it was the original Charlie
Speaker 1: Chaplin Studios. So it's this really cool old kind of
Speaker 1: English tutor uh studio. But it's it's small. It's not
Speaker 1: like some big studio's right in the middle of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: so it's not very big. But um you drive ei
Speaker 1: there now and it's got a big archway right when
Speaker 1: you drive in, and on top there's like an eight
Speaker 1: foot tall kermit dressed as the Charlie Chaplin little tramp
Speaker 1: character with the top hat and cane. And here it's
Speaker 1: really cool and the Hitler mustache and Hitler mustache. Now
Speaker 1: I don't think he has the mustache. Actually, so Chuck.
Speaker 1: I want to leave everybody with a really chilling thought.
Speaker 1: Imagine Jim Henson back in n had decided to go
Speaker 1: into accounting and this world was a world without muppets?
Speaker 1: Are you trying to make me cry? Isn't that a
Speaker 1: weird thought? It really kind of barrels it into perspective.
Speaker 1: We should write a book called a World without Muppets,
Speaker 1: like some sort of reality. Be awful. It's nothing but war.
Speaker 1: So thank you. Jim Henson, who everyone knows. Sadly in
Speaker 1: passed away of a kind of pneumonia, and they said
Speaker 1: it wasn't actually pneumonia, but it was. It was a
Speaker 1: bacterial infection that shut his organs down. Basically, he complained
Speaker 1: of flu like symptoms to his wife or his x
Speaker 1: Y food he was still close with. I think they
Speaker 1: were separated at the time. And I went to the
Speaker 1: hospital and twenty hours later died. It's very, very sad.
Speaker 1: But his children continued that tradition, and his son does
Speaker 1: not actually do the voice of Kermit as many people thought.
Speaker 1: His son Brian, A lot of people thought that he
Speaker 1: took over for Kermit. It was actually me for Kermit,
Speaker 1: Yes you did. That's my side gig. So that's muppets.
Speaker 1: I could go on for hours, I know you could.
Speaker 1: I gotta stop you right here. We're gonna press stop
Speaker 1: on the Stopwatch. Okay, okay, Chuck. Are we doing any
Speaker 1: listener mail today? No, Josh, no listener mail. Because this
Speaker 1: is a special episode. We want to play it out
Speaker 1: with a little treat for the fans, A little snippet
Speaker 1: from a song we all know and love. So uh,
Speaker 1: without further ado, take it away. Thanks for coming, everybody.
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