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Bear in the Big Blue Podcast - Becca's Faves · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

0:02
Oh, hi, it's you. I'm so glad to see you.
0:08
And you're just in time. Come on in.
0:11
Hey, wait a minute. What's that smell?
0:21
Have you just been, you know, I didn't have this part planned?
0:28
What were the other ones that we used?
0:30
Have you just been listening to a podcast and have you just been
0:33
panicking about the state of political affairs?
0:36
Oh, yeah, no, that's good. Have you just been wondering
0:41
what joke Becca is going to make in this part of the opening?
0:46
Because you smell like you're confused and a little
0:50
disappointed. Or maybe you just smell this so,
0:54
so mediocre all the time. Well, I'm so glad to welcome you
1:01
once again to Bear in the Big Blue Podcast, A Bear in the Big
1:06
Blue House podcast brought to you by toughpigs.com.
1:10
It's the podcast where me, Becca Petunia, a lifelong Tough Pigs
1:14
fan. Me, I think that's true too.
1:17
But me, Becca Petunia, a lifelong Bear in the Big Blue
1:23
House fan talks about bear with. Me, Joe Hennis, who's watching
1:28
Bear in the Big Blue House for the very first time.
1:30
And hey, wait a minute, looks like we have mail.
1:36
What's in the mail today? What's in the mail today?
1:43
There's no way we can afford the rights of this song.
1:46
I know I'm done singing it. Oh, I'm done.
1:48
I'm done because I'm done. Because I just realized we have
1:52
a package and inside why it's Danny Horn from toughpigs.com.
1:58
I'm Danny Horn from toughpigs.com.
1:59
How how are you doing? This is so exciting.
2:01
Hi Danny. And Danny, of course, is not
2:03
only from toughpigs.com, but also from the Muppet Pictures
2:07
social media feed and. And the fantastic Miss Piggy
2:12
podcast. That's true.
2:13
Season 2, which is. On this podcast channel, you
2:17
should go back and listen to those.
2:18
Yeah, if you want to listen to a podcast that actually is like
2:22
well scripted and well thought out, why don't you pause this
2:26
podcast, pause it, come back, come back.
2:29
We, we want you to listen to this one, but why don't you
2:32
listen to every episode of Danny's podcast and then then
2:36
you can. Come back.
2:37
You are welcome, welcome, welcome to do that if you'd
2:40
like. See that?
2:41
See, see you. You thought you thought out a
2:43
nice joke there. Yeah, I think things are now one
2:47
thing actually Speaking of of not necessarily like thinking
2:50
stuff through. I'm a little disappointed that
2:52
there isn't a constant soundtrack in this podcast.
2:55
Like I don't want to talk out of turn or anything, but like, if
2:57
this was my podcast, like every sentence there'd be like a
2:59
little guitar strum or like a little piano RIP.
3:02
Do you? Want me to get my ukulele out,
3:04
should I just? That would be great.
3:07
It's not tuned. And punctuate.
3:09
Punctuate every emotion. That's such a key part of Bear,
3:12
though, are those little acoustic guitar riffs that play
3:15
like anytime a character moves from one place to another.
3:20
Or has like an emotional reaction to something or
3:22
anything. It's actually a thing we
3:24
shouldn't probably there might be Baron the glue house viewers
3:28
out there who don't really notice that consciously.
3:30
It's a bad thing to notice consciously because it.
3:34
Isn't it like, isn't that like a Looney Tunes thing though?
3:36
I mean like old cartoons, every little action has a little like.
3:40
A little little strum too. But it's always an instrument,
3:42
like a little. It's my invitation of of
3:47
cartoons for a podcast. You can't see, you can't see.
3:50
But it was really well animated in case.
3:52
Anybody here listening has never seen a cartoon, but Danny, I'm
3:58
so glad that you're on our episode today and I'm I'm sorry
4:02
that I didn't have a better joke written.
4:05
Either of the jokes were better. What was I even thinking?
4:08
You were inside a package it, but I'm so glad that you're it
4:11
was. Beautiful, I loved it.
4:13
Danny, we actually talked about you on the first episode.
4:16
Already heard that because you, you know, you started writing
4:23
Tough Pigs in 2001 and before that you wrote the Muppet scene
4:29
and we were talking about how in 2001, you know, when they're
4:34
honestly was it always the most Muppet things to talk about you.
4:40
You used to write about bear in the Big Blue house fairly often.
4:46
And we talked about how the only reason that I found tough pigs
4:50
in the 1st place back in like 2004 was because I was looking
4:56
for bear, bear in the big mouse content.
4:59
And you weren't you were the you were the only place that had it.
5:01
Muppet Wiki didn't exist yet. Great.
5:05
Well, I have. I have always loved Bear and
5:08
definitely like when Tough Pig started and all of a sudden I
5:10
had to write a whole ton of content.
5:12
It was so delightful to have Bear to fall back on.
5:16
Yeah. So like, how did you do you
5:18
remember? I mean, I guess you just kind of
5:19
said, but like, how did you feel about it at the time,
5:22
especially? We've been talking about, like,
5:24
compared to other Muppets, stuff of the era.
5:28
You know, we've been, we've been thinking about this in
5:30
conversation with, you know, Elmo's World was about to begin.
5:35
Muppets Tonight had gone off the air, and I guess Muppets from
5:39
Space was on the horizon. Yeah, Farscape existed.
5:44
You watched that like once and I I don't think you loved.
5:48
It well, so I I know you said that you were six when Baron the
5:53
Big Blue House started, is that right?
5:54
Correct. I was 26, so I was well outside
5:59
the the the age range that was supposed to like this show, but
6:03
I just adored it. I thought it was fantastic.
6:05
I and I owned a ton of merchandise.
6:07
That's the thing that I like remember really well about that
6:10
period of my life was like, I've just I bought everything anyway,
6:15
but like I had multiple blue house like dollhouse sets.
6:20
It was. It was pretty intense.
6:23
I would love that. And it feels like it's so one of
6:26
the weird things is like there was a lot of bear merch at the
6:30
time and I didn't own any as a kid.
6:32
You know, again, I was, I was 6. So I certainly would have been
6:35
in the target audience to have parents buy that stuff for me,
6:39
but they didn't. A lot of Sesame Street stuff
6:42
that you know, I still have, but it is like impossible to find
6:47
bear merch now. I'm sure the kind of.
6:49
Thing that you look on eBay and it's like yeah, I guess I could
6:53
get a plush doc hog for like $95 but like.
6:58
That's what it cost at the time though, right?
7:00
Yes, exactly. And in the.
7:01
Earliest too, Yeah, but but it but isn't that part of like the
7:06
fact that there really isn't much of A of an adult fan base
7:10
for Bear? Because that's kind of where
7:12
like the, the, the nostalgia merch comes from, like, you
7:17
know, decades later and the, oh, I love this as a kid.
7:20
So I'm going to show it to my kids thing.
7:23
That actually, you know, considering that it was 20 years
7:24
ago, that is kind of ripe for coming back one of these days.
7:29
Yeah. But but one thing that the thing
7:31
that I really love about Baron the Blue House is just the the
7:34
level of sincerity that goes into it.
7:37
That there was other shows, even like Muppet shows, there was
7:41
like Big Bag and I did like the Animal show, but what's the
7:45
other one? The the dancing one?
7:48
Forgetting this. Hold on, hold on, time out.
7:50
But you liked the you liked the Animal show.
7:53
You did not like Animal Jam, which I think you're.
7:56
Animal Jam, that's the thing. That's the dancey show.
7:59
I can't believe I forgot that. That's great.
8:01
Telling stories with Tommy de Paola.
8:02
I remember that one and and all three of those were like aimed
8:06
at around the same age range, but we're like super like
8:11
obviously structured by like a team of educators and they were
8:14
really boring. And bear definitely it has that.
8:19
It has like a structure that they use, which is kind of nice
8:22
to go through the the show, but it doesn't feel like it's like
8:26
just built like a you know it. It feels like there's actually
8:31
like real feeling and real thought behind the show.
8:33
And also it has like real jokes in a way that those those shows
8:36
never really did. I I think part of what what
8:40
you're talking about too, is like they have a structure.
8:42
They have to it's a it's a house or so we fall down, but it no,
8:46
it has a structure, but it's not so strict.
8:48
It's not the like, and now it's this prime time for this time
8:51
part of the show and that part of the show, like if shadow
8:53
didn't show up, nobody would notice like one of the episodes
8:56
that we watch that we're going to discuss.
8:57
There's no totter. And I didn't think about it
8:59
until afterward of like, oh, like they we didn't like check
9:03
in with everybody in this. Yeah, yeah.
9:06
I thought that was strange too. And and you know, let's actually
9:11
get into the episodes and sort of like the theme for this week
9:15
because you know, the first week we kind of just got at the
9:21
basics of what Bear in the Big Blue House is.
9:24
We met the characters. We learned that the characters
9:28
are usually bothering Bear about some problem that Bear handles
9:32
with boys and Grace. And then in the second week we
9:36
talked about Bear and the Big Blue House as a kind of cozy,
9:39
comforting show with with some of the episodes about sleep and
9:45
some of the episodes about helping each other.
9:48
The theme this week is episodes that make me laugh.
9:52
And I will tell you that maybe not always for the right
9:59
reasons, although I will also say probably definitely for the
10:04
right reasons because I mean, we'll get into it.
10:08
So for folks at home and let me just make sure I have the
10:12
episode numbers correct here. Vamping, vamping.
10:16
Vamping. Which, by the way, the episode
10:18
numbers don't always coincide with Disney Plus because there's
10:21
missing episodes there. Yes I'm that's why I had to
10:23
check it because I think I may have said wrong episode numbers
10:27
in past weeks. I just realized this today, but.
10:30
So you did, at least to me. Well, not the wrong episode
10:33
numbers, but the but you didn't like like Disney Plus numbers
10:37
are not the same as the real accurate episode numbers that
10:39
you were probably using. Because for some reason that
10:42
actually no one knows the answer to certain episodes are not on
10:46
Disney Plus. And we'll talk a little bit more
10:49
about that at the end when we set you guys up for next week.
10:53
This is actually. This is a very appropriate
10:55
conversation because Oops might have made some mistakes.
10:59
And that's the first episode. With the previous episode
11:01
Numbers episode. 211 Oops, my mistake, Venom.
11:08
Oops. All berries?
11:09
Oops. All bear and the bear.
11:12
I'm going to jump. I'm going to jump out of order
11:14
slightly and say that the second episode we'll talk about is
11:17
episode 320. Let's get interactive.
11:22
And then the infamous episode 239 when you've got to go, AKA
11:30
the toileteers episode. We watched it and while I was
11:35
watching it, I I texted, I texted Joe and Danny and I was
11:39
like, guys, I don't know, do we want to talk about the
11:42
toileteers episode? And Danny, would you care to say
11:45
what you what you what you texted back?
11:48
I believe I said that's the only thing I want to talk about.
11:51
Yeah, you said if we didn't talk about toilet tears, you were.
11:55
You were. You were dropping out and we
11:56
was. Crushed.
11:57
Yeah. I also would have, would have
12:01
insisted on talking about the toilet tears episode because I,
12:04
even though I've only before started this podcast, only seen
12:08
a little bit of bear here and there.
12:09
Like that episode is infamous because it's the, it's the poop
12:12
episode. And like, like, of course I want
12:14
to see the poop episode. We have to talk about the
12:16
episode that everyone knows. Exactly 'cause this is somehow
12:19
the one that every, the one that everybody knows.
12:22
But before we get to the one that everybody knows, let's,
12:27
we'll, we'll save that. That'll be our big finale, much
12:30
like the big, much like pooping, much like the big finale in that
12:35
episode, which has probably like the biggest finale of of any
12:41
bear episode. But let's start with oops, my
12:44
mistake. And I chose this one again
12:48
because it it it does make me laugh.
12:50
And again, that was kind of the loose theme I was going for this
12:53
week. But also it makes me laugh
12:56
because of Lois, a character I love.
13:01
So let's start here, Joe, because I've been asking you
13:03
about your opinions on different characters.
13:06
Let's start here. What was your opinion on Lois
13:09
the Blue Footed Boobie? First of all, disappointed they
13:14
never said the word booby like they never said out loud.
13:16
We just we knew. But.
13:18
They do say it in. Other episodes Oh well I stand
13:24
corrected. No, I agree Lois was very funny.
13:27
Lois was a good like comedy stick thing and I the the main
13:34
thing that I noticed was that any other show, no matter what
13:38
the era would have made this a Lily Tomlin spoof like they like
13:43
would have been What's the name of the character Edith something
13:46
No no, no, little Edith is the little girl character Ernestine
13:50
Ernestine the. There we go.
13:51
Yeah. God, I got her.
13:53
I'm so embarrassed. Oops, my mistake.
13:55
I talked about Ernestine for like 10 minutes on moving right
13:58
along once. Also, like this is my MO is just
14:02
me saying things and my brain not catching up to my mouth.
14:06
It's like I just got to keep talking as if I know what I'm
14:09
saying, saying yes, Ernesty. I feel like like any other show
14:12
would have had, you know, Lois saying, you know, 1 ringy dingy,
14:16
2 ringy dinghies or whatever and or at least doing like the voice
14:20
a little bit as a little wink wink nudge nudge for the
14:22
parents. They obviously didn't need it.
14:25
And also not one child watching bear in the Big Blue house would
14:29
understand that reference. So.
14:31
Might as well be something. Original here's.
14:33
The question even they wouldn't even recognize what an operator.
14:36
Is. Yeah, I was about to say that.
14:38
I Bear. Bear says I have to make a call,
14:42
picks up his landline, which is already it, kind of.
14:45
Feels like numbers on it. It's a.
14:48
Rotary dial, Rotary dial landline, and kids love Rotary
14:52
dials. I only knew about telephone
14:56
operators because of Ernestine's appearances on Sesame Street
15:03
about two years prior to this. And the the great thing about
15:08
about Lois then is that her whole shtick is that she can't
15:11
hear very well, or at least she can't hear people's names very
15:14
well. So like they have this
15:15
completely unnecessary operator who, well, can't really Cameron
15:20
It feels like a systemic issue. This is actually like, but is.
15:24
Is the problem that she can't hear very well or is it that
15:28
because because like, like even in this episode, you know, bears
15:31
like, oh, I want to talk to Doc Hog and she's like, Doc Hog got
15:34
it and then sends them to the wrong place.
15:36
So she heard him, she repeated it, but then sent him to the
15:40
wrong. But here's the other thing that
15:42
I I liked about her. I mean, this isn't about her as
15:44
a character, but her as like a concept is being able to see
15:47
these other animals and that are like these fun characters, these
15:50
really cool looking puppets. The the giant frog.
15:53
Whatever the big frog, whatever I can.
15:55
Remember, big Bullfrog is literally.
15:57
His name? He never gets a fuller name than
15:59
that. I I was looking.
16:00
For Big, Bullfrog shows up in future episodes too, as does
16:03
Jacques. The fact that his neck swells
16:07
when he talks, it's like, what a cool.
16:10
Like they didn't have to do that.
16:11
They kind of just gotten Milton the frog, you know, from the old
16:16
song of the Cloud forest. I hate to break this to you, I
16:19
hate to break this to you, but Jeremiah the tortoise from the
16:23
episode we talked about last week, Big Bullfrog, Jacques and
16:28
Lois are all leftover puppets from Jim Henson's Animal Show.
16:34
Well, there you go. Well then, that just goes to
16:37
show how good the animal show is.
16:39
Let's talk about that instead. I mean I loved that show too
16:42
when I was this age. It aired like a year earlier
16:45
than this. I mean, that makes sense.
16:48
They made new puppets every week for that show.
16:50
What else are you going to do with them?
16:51
And those puppets were gorgeous, were gorgeous.
16:54
I mean, you can see from what you were just saying, weirdly, a
16:58
lot of them show up on Bayer. We are going to see more of them
17:02
in the episode we're going to watch for next week and we'll
17:06
talk about that. I was originally going to show
17:08
you another one that has like 10 of them just randomly in the
17:12
background. There's like a Flamingo and and
17:16
a giraffe and it's just like, OK, this is happening.
17:19
Yeah, where does where's Bear supposed?
17:21
To live, they never see. I mean, it's Woodland Valley I
17:25
because he says like it's our Woodland Valley telephone
17:28
operator. I've always said that I think
17:30
Woodland Valley is in upstate New York.
17:32
The show was filmed in Queens, obviously.
17:35
I once tried to figure out how much Bear's Big Blue house, like
17:42
how much the rents would be, and I was looking at looking at
17:46
areas in in upstate New York to compare it to.
17:51
Specifically, what I was trying to see is if Bear's house was
17:55
actually larger than the average house as a one bedroom 1
18:00
bathroom house. I was trying to figure out if it
18:04
could be classified as big or if it's bare in the average sized
18:09
house. But but is it possible that
18:14
bears Big Blue house is like in a zoo and that's why there's
18:18
like giraffes and flamingos and stuff?
18:21
Have you ever considered this? We're clearly going to have to
18:24
watch the episode Raiders of the Lost Cheese, which features
18:28
those animals, and we'll figure it out.
18:31
Great. I have so many questions that we
18:33
really shouldn't be wasting time right now, but they're in,
18:37
they're in my brain and I can't wait to get them out.
18:39
So. Any other any other thoughts
18:41
about oops, my mistake, my mistake.
18:44
Beyond Lois, I do really enjoy Bologna on the outside, bread on
18:48
the inside, sandwiches, which I think is so funny because it is
18:53
such a like, there's no way you could make this mistake.
18:57
This is not something that you could accidentally do.
19:00
What would that look like when pop is like whoops.
19:04
Let me just slap down lettuce and bread on top of the lettuce.
19:10
It is, it is. They're just so excited.
19:12
They make, they make such a big deal about how like when you
19:15
make a mistake, you can discover something new.
19:18
And like, there's all these upsides to making mistakes.
19:21
And this felt very timely to me because I felt like we've, we
19:24
all just made a big mistake just a little while ago and we, we're
19:28
going to have four years just to sit here and think about it.
19:30
And I don't feel like that's going to lead to any new
19:32
discoveries or any kind of love. I mean, are you talking about,
19:36
are you talking about the big mistake that I made that was I,
19:41
I didn't get enough grading done this weekend?
19:44
Yes, that was it. The next four years of that
19:47
Becca. Is going to be such.
19:49
A nightmare to deal with. No, I mean, truth be told, like,
19:53
the silver lining of that is like, OK, so we're all going to
19:56
see who we are and who our neighbors are.
19:58
And we're going to see who stands up and who fights and who
20:00
protests and who writes letters. And, you know, And like, there's
20:04
going to be a lot of good to come out of it from, like, human
20:07
beings showing that, showing their good side.
20:10
Now, society may not really benefit from it.
20:14
A lot of people are really going to hurt.
20:15
From it, but at. Least like God, I'm looking for
20:17
that silver lining. It's.
20:18
Somewhere out there. Well, listen.
20:21
Well, one thing one thing that would help is is like a thing
20:25
that Pip learns and really takes to heart is that Bear says, you
20:29
know, sometimes laughing at someone else's mistakes can hurt
20:32
their feelings and that crushes Pip.
20:36
Pip had no idea. And I really, I would love to
20:40
live in a in a Big Blue house right now where hurting
20:42
someone's feelings causes like that kind of immediate redress
20:47
of grievances. Yeah, I wish when I wish
20:50
whenever somebody calls me gross on Blue Sky, I could just be
20:54
like, I could just be like, you know, calling somebody gross
21:00
hurts their feelings. And then they would be like, Oh
21:03
my God, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
21:08
Let's go make sandwiches with clams on the outside.
21:13
You know what would say? It would save me a lot of time
21:17
because I've been getting, I've been getting a lot of those
21:20
lately. A.
21:21
Lot of claims. Yeah, let's say that.
21:24
Yeah, but like, but I, the way I saw that scene, you're both
21:30
completely correct. But like, it is this thing where
21:33
I think I, I've seen it a lot, at least in my life, where like,
21:40
I thought you were in on the joke.
21:41
I thought we were laughing at this together and you know, cuz
21:44
pip and pop are always on the same page.
21:46
Like why would? Why would pop think?
21:48
Otherwise, this is one of the one of the rare schisms between
21:52
PIP and YEAH. It's like, oh, I thought we were
21:54
both laughing at this. I'm sorry.
21:55
Like I'll, you know, like I'll correct my, you know what I'm
22:00
doing here? Course correct.
22:02
But but yes, but it is a little bit like I'm laughing directly
22:05
into your face. And I don't.
22:07
I didn't notice that you weren't happy about it.
22:10
You weren't also laughing. I forgot.
22:12
This is the episode. This is the episode that also
22:14
gives us Pip and Pop's origin story.
22:17
That is right. That was Bear I find.
22:20
I find it really hard to believe that Bear didn't notice the
22:24
pond. In the Otter pond.
22:25
Backyard 'cause it seems to be right outside his back door.
22:30
He really kicked that ball far. You know, I actually assumed
22:34
that this was a flashback. Is this not something from a
22:36
previous episode? It is not from a previous
22:38
episode. Also exciting I I love seeing
22:43
Muppets getting wet and to see Pip and pop in the in.
22:46
The little tongues. Like fraggle style.
22:48
Love it. It upset.
22:50
It upset me a little bit just 'cause I I then, And that
22:53
happens to another episode too, where either Pip or Pop gets wet
22:57
or they both is that then I'm thinking about like, so do they
23:01
try out or do they have like an extra extra puppets that can get
23:04
wet? I believe they have like a set
23:07
of pip and pops that can get wet much like they do with the
23:11
fraggles. They just put a mirror like one.
23:15
They just put a mirror between. They look a little different.
23:19
You can't do the mirror technically.
23:22
Technically Pop's ears are higher on his head and I believe
23:27
Pip's eyes are closer together, but you really got to look
23:30
closely to see that. Wow, worth it.
23:36
But they obviously have a bunch of pip and pops because that's
23:40
part of how they do so many of their quick, quick movements.
23:45
Yeah. They also.
23:47
Seem like really easy puppets to build, like they're so simple.
23:50
It's the same again. It's the same pattern as the the
23:55
Prairie dogs from the Muppet Show.
23:57
And if you guys watched finally we can talk about the the
24:01
unaired pilot. They literally just were the
24:05
Prairie dogs from the Muppet Show in that pilot.
24:08
They did not build new puppets at all.
24:10
By all accounts, those are the Prairie dogs from the Muppet
24:13
Show. And we know from The Muppet Show
24:16
that we built like 10 of those things.
24:18
Right. Yeah, at least yeah.
24:23
Actually, that's a good thing, as long as we're talking about
24:25
origins. So we've been meaning to talk
24:27
about the pilot for a while now And, and Joe and Danny, this was
24:31
your first time seeing the pilot.
24:33
So for folks at home, we've talked briefly about it, but the
24:36
pilot takes place in a different Big Blue house that I think is
24:41
ugly and atrocious. It's bad.
24:43
Yeah. It's it's kind of like bears Big
24:46
Blue efficiency apartment. But it also felt like like, no,
24:51
no, this is a placeholder, like once you approve the show.
24:53
We get a real budget. Yeah, we're gonna build a real.
24:55
What it really looks like, Yeah, it definitely felt like it was
24:58
meant to be. Temporary and and instead of Pip
25:01
and Pop, you have Pummel and Pop who are brown because they are
25:06
just the Prairie dogs from the Muppet Show from the Crystal
25:09
Gale episode. And you've also got a little
25:16
blue mouse voice been performed by Peter Linz, except her name
25:22
he's Mouse and Bear. Bear does use she her pronouns
25:27
for her, despite her sounding almost the same as Tutter.
25:30
Exactly the same, yeah. It's a little softer if you're,
25:33
like, paying close attention, yeah.
25:36
Doesn't. Her voice isn't quite as
25:37
scratchy in the back as Tutter. Which is funny because as our
25:41
friend Shane pointed out, and I noticed as well, but I want to
25:44
give Shane some credit for bringing it to light in a
25:47
conversation we were having. The theme song, it's still the
25:51
mouse voice even in the theme song, in the finished version,
25:56
it doesn't have that scratchiness because it's the
25:58
same audio from the from the pilot.
26:02
But anyway, you know, any, anything that we want to say
26:05
about that pilot besides the house being kind of ugly.
26:08
And, you know, I think other than that, I think they
26:12
absolutely had what made the show work at that point.
26:17
And we will. We should tell people, by the
26:19
way, if they haven't seen it's on Internet Archive, that's the
26:22
place where they can. Yeah, we'll post a link in the
26:24
show notes. OK, cool.
26:25
But the thing about the thing about it too, worth noting is
26:31
all of that stuff would later be reused in episodes as well.
26:34
And that shows just how much they they kind of already knew
26:37
what they were doing. You know Joe, last week you saw
26:42
in the In the Clip show episode. You saw the clip of them
26:46
singing. Need a little help today with
26:49
Pip and Pop in the sink. I recognize the song.
26:52
Yeah, I was like, Oh yeah. There it is, which is from the
26:56
episode Water, Water Everywhere from from the first season that
27:00
we didn't watch because you saw it in the clip show, which also
27:03
features that same bit with the the living room table made into
27:09
a boat, except unsurprisingly, in the actual show.
27:12
So it's Ojo who does that because Ojo's whole thing is I
27:16
am imagining things and building things is her thing.
27:21
So actually Speaking of that, the I mean, I think the, the
27:24
biggest change from the pilot to the show is, is the number of
27:28
characters. And you know, it's we really
27:30
just see Pomo pop bear mouse, that's it.
27:35
And you know, I, I've said this before, Danny, you, you didn't
27:39
hear me talking about this, but like, I'm not a huge fan of Ojo
27:42
and I'm not a huge fan of Treelo.
27:44
I'll say yet. I'll say yet just in case that
27:47
changes. But like, not not huge.
27:49
So I didn't miss either of them, but it did make the the house
27:52
feel much smaller, which, you know, just like this cast,
27:56
especially when they're saying goodbye.
27:57
And it's like, well, thanks for doing two things with us.
27:59
Everybody. Seeing ya and but also it's less
28:03
about I think, how many characters are in the house
28:05
because really bear only interacts with one or two at a
28:07
time anyway most of the time. But not having the let's step
28:11
away and meet and meet up with Shadow, not having like, oh, Doc
28:14
Hogg might show up and definitely not having Luna at
28:16
the end to show that like there, there's so much more than like
28:21
the little conversation we were having in the kitchen.
28:23
Right. It is, of course, like, yeah,
28:26
but like, what would you recap with Luna?
28:27
You did two things. But it doesn't have to be a
28:32
recap. I mean, I know it is a recap.
28:33
I know I. Like just for bear to be like
28:36
Luna, you're a cool looking puppet.
28:37
Luna being like I know, let's sing a.
28:39
Really. Song together?
28:40
Yeah. It would have been funny too if
28:42
in this pilot it wasn't voiced by Lynn Figpen and Luna was
28:46
voiced by like, Joey Mazzarino or something.
28:48
We should. It was just like Joey's painted
28:51
face in the sky. His actual face.
28:54
We should know Joey Mazzarino is pip in in this Joey Mazzarino
28:59
from Sesame Street. Long time writer.
29:01
Colombo, Murray. Stinky, Horatio.
29:07
This is his best character though.
29:09
You think Pip is his best character?
29:10
Pip and pop are. Great characters?
29:12
Oh no, Pip and Pop are great characters but he doesn't voice
29:15
Pip in the main show is what I'm saying?
29:16
Is he Pippa? Is he pommel or is he pup?
29:19
I think he's pip, am I wrong? Oh, he's so Joey Mazzarino was
29:23
only the. Pilot pommel.
29:24
That's right, he's pommel because there is no PIP in the
29:27
pilot. Oh, OK, Well, never mind.
29:29
Yeah. But but it's also, I mean, this
29:32
is something we there's a totally separate topic, but like
29:34
as I'm watching and I know Tyler Bunch as a performer so much
29:38
more now than I would have at this time.
29:40
And I'm listening for his voice and he usually does these
29:43
baritone voices. Like he could really hear it in
29:45
dog hog. But in so in a character like is
29:48
he Pip or pop? Is he pop?
29:49
He's pop these pop. So like in pop and Treelo, it's
29:52
really hard to pick out like, Oh yeah, I recognize that as as
29:57
Tyler. And now I see specifically for
30:01
for Pop, he's doing an impression of Joey Mazzarino's
30:05
Pop. You know what I mean?
30:06
Yeah, At. Least that's how I'm choosing to
30:09
hear and it's. And not just.
30:10
Imitating. Peter Linds.
30:11
It's also, it's also, you know, Treelo.
30:15
The only other time that I think you really hear Tyler Bunch
30:17
quite do a Treelo is if anyone remembers Niblet from Abby's
30:23
Flying Fairy School. That one was I didn't know that
30:28
he was niblet. He was niblet.
30:30
Wow. From Abby's flying.
30:33
OK, so let's we'll do a podcast about that another time.
30:38
I don't think anyone wants to do that.
30:40
Nobody wants to do that. No.
30:41
So let's move on. The the Abbey's Flying Fairy
30:43
School podcast is gone again. Sorry everybody.
30:47
You can read about it on my blog.
30:53
It wasn't funny. I don't know why I laughed so
30:55
loud at that. It really wasn't funny.
31:00
Folks, if you don't know, there were characters named Gottigan
31:03
and. Waste their time with this.
31:06
They don't need to know these things.
31:07
I'm sorry, I'm used to Hubble while where I had to explain
31:10
everything after I said a fact that no one knew.
31:15
And you can find out more about that by watching the Gulliver's
31:18
Travels miniseries. No, I'm kidding.
31:20
So anyway, let's get interactive.
31:27
Let's get interactive. This episode makes me laugh a
31:30
lot because it is vaguely about computers, but also vaguely
31:34
about interacting and how that means literally anything anyone
31:39
can do. Yeah, they are actually pretty
31:43
ambivalent about computers and this.
31:46
They spend a lot of time like they start looking at a computer
31:50
and then like twice in the show, like Ojo and and Tutter decide
31:57
to go outside after they've like played with the the animals and
32:01
then Bear plays with a puzzle that also requires him to go
32:05
outside. And I'm like this.
32:07
Is not. This is not the thing that
32:09
happens with computers. I'm obsessed with the fact that
32:12
Doc Hog has a business puzzle. Computer only seems to have two
32:18
pieces of software. He's got the animals app and the
32:23
puzzle app. Yep.
32:26
The puzzle The puzzle gives you a puzzle intended for a
32:29
three-year old and the. It takes Bear forever to work.
32:36
Out he's he's a doctor. Should he have like patient
32:40
files on there? Like there's so much on that
32:42
other. Stuff.
32:43
He should be using that computer.
32:44
For. That is what the Animals app is.
32:46
That's essentially how he files. Our guest from last week, Eli,
32:50
who was watching these with me, was like, maybe the animals are
32:54
his patients because. I can see that.
32:58
I can see that. I mean, I will say when I was
33:00
the age I was when this show was on, the only two things I wanted
33:06
to do on the computer were look at pictures of animals and
33:10
puzzles. So maybe, maybe bear in the Big
33:13
Blue House was on to something. But I just, I mean, I remember
33:19
when I, when I was a kid, like really maybe when I was like 8
33:22
or nine years old, we had a computer and like, that's
33:26
pretty, it was really early for anyone.
33:27
This would have been like 1990, maybe even earlier.
33:30
And there wasn't much you could do with it.
33:32
It was basically a word processor.
33:34
And like maybe we had Tetris. I don't really remember, but we
33:39
at some point we got Prodigy and Prodigy was like the beginnings
33:44
of the, you know, the public Internet.
33:46
But like it wasn't like you could go to a website because no
33:48
one was hosting websites yet. So they were essentially.
33:51
I don't know how to describe it better than saying like there
33:53
were apps like you could access. Things.
33:57
It was like a newspaper basically.
33:59
Pretty much, but I remember specifically that there was a
34:02
Sesame Street. Whatever it was.
34:04
App thing and even though I was at this point a little bit too
34:08
old for Sesame Street or like for for that kind of educational
34:10
content, it's still like, well it's Sesame Street and they got
34:13
it. So I got to look at it and it's
34:15
like they were just these little games, little 8 bit characters
34:18
and stuff and it was just like, you know, do you know what a dog
34:21
is? And I'd be like yeah like, well
34:23
good job. So like what?
34:25
What Doc Hog has on his computer reminded me so much of that that
34:29
product. Yeah.
34:32
But I also recognize that, like, you know, I could see people in
34:35
the writers room, you know, with the curriculum team being like,
34:38
oh, we want to teach computers and then being like, OK, but you
34:40
can't do a whole episode. They're just sitting in front of
34:42
the screen. So, like, have them go outside.
34:45
Yeah. And it's like, OK, well, now the
34:46
episode's about going outside, and then they bother bringing
34:49
the computer into it. And again, like, you feel like I
34:52
have to assume Bear is just humoring the kids at home when
34:56
he's acting like he doesn't know the answer to the Riddle.
34:59
I feel like we're going more play by play than usual, but I
35:02
these episodes kind of merit it. Yeah.
35:04
Bear's Bear's Riddle is like dirt, seeds, water and a pot.
35:11
What do you get? And I'm like, Bear, you know
35:13
this. You're clearly.
35:15
Just lumbering. Me because you it's.
35:17
Also not a Riddle. It's neither Riddle nor puzzle.
35:20
It's just a question. Yeah.
35:24
And and really has nothing to do with with computers at all.
35:27
No, no, you could have done an information in a book.
35:30
Yeah. Yeah, you could have had someone
35:33
pass by your window and be like, hey, hey, quick question for
35:35
you, Bear. What?
35:37
What do you get when you get water and dirt and seeds?
35:40
But they do. You know what?
35:41
Does that? What does that make?
35:43
But they insist anyway that like, well, computers you can
35:47
do. You can do a whole lot of things
35:49
with computers. You just click with the mouse
35:51
and something neat happens. I wish that like deep fake are
35:55
revenge porn. I wish this is an episode about
35:57
Bear teaching them how to play like Tetris or or solitaire or
36:04
Minesweeper. Get minesweeper in there.
36:06
Castle Wolfenstein Castle Wolfenstein would have been out
36:08
by this point. See, I was going for social
36:10
media. Yeah, I I got you.
36:12
He he clicks on that and and all the things that that little
36:16
tutter is going to learn that day.
36:17
Listen. I.
36:18
Don't. What a day to be interactive.
36:20
I don't want to know what doc hog posts.
36:26
But computers can be very interesting and fun.
36:28
Yeah, you know, and interactive. And interactive.
36:31
And shortly after this, by season 3 of Bear we were maybe
36:35
one year away from Or or did did tough pigs already exist by this
36:41
point? I don't remember when.
36:42
Season 3. Came out, started 2001 and this
36:45
episode. Aired 19 OK.
36:47
This was still 1999, OK. This isn't the between times
36:51
between Muppet Xenon and Tuppix. This is how we measure time.
36:54
Here, this is the Muppet Central era, right?
36:59
And that's, and that's, that was the next thing Bear was going to
37:01
show them. He was going to be like, look,
37:03
you can download all sorts of greeting cards from this
37:06
website. Look on this website, they're
37:09
talking about how bad our show is.
37:13
This is soon this is This website has a web ring and you
37:17
can visit all the different Beauty and the Beast websites.
37:20
Danny, Danny, What's a web ring? I know what a web ring is, but a
37:26
very. Over complicated search engine,
37:29
kind of kind of where everybody had a page, one that was just
37:34
like one page and it had a whole bunch of pictures, mostly from
37:37
Beauty and the Beast. But that you needed it because
37:40
you couldn't just go to likebeautyandthebeast.com, you
37:43
needed to go to likegeocities.com slash 23B
37:46
slash etcetera, etcetera. Daisy's home page.
37:49
Right, Danny, isn't it? How?
37:51
About Remington Steel. Danny, isn't it weird to know
37:54
that I'm 20 years younger than you and I still somehow managed
37:59
to be part of the old guard of Muppet fans?
38:02
And there's a hundreds of Muppet fans younger than me who know
38:08
even less about web rings. Now they all know, though,
38:13
because they all listen. To this podcast, it's considered
38:16
part of the old guard of Muppet fans at this point.
38:19
Well, people ask me sometimes, like, you know, I'm blah, blah,
38:22
blah. Like, does that make you feel
38:23
old? And I'm like, you know what?
38:25
When you're old, you just kind of feel old all the time.
38:27
You don't really nothing. There's nothing new coming up.
38:33
Well, one thing that isn't new, but that we have to discuss is
38:37
of course the Toilet Tears episode of Bury the Big Blue
38:40
House. And let me just, you know, I
38:43
mentioned this actually on Haba Wah.
38:45
I had a question about the toilet tears in one season.
38:48
I forget why I had a question about the toilet tears, but I
38:53
did. But this was an episode that
38:59
Mitchell Kriegman, the show's creator, claims he felt was
39:03
really important to do for for curriculum reasons, but Disney
39:09
was very reluctant to to let him do.
39:14
And he was like, at this point, Bear in the Big Blue House was
39:17
so popular that they couldn't say no.
39:21
And so we did it, even though they didn't want us to.
39:25
But here's what let me just put this out there.
39:27
Why that doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying that a story is
39:30
incorrect, but the reason it doesn't make any sense is I'm
39:33
assuming that they released a home video of this episode for
39:37
parents to buy to help with potty training.
39:42
And if that's true, then Disney made a lot of money off of this
39:47
episode that they wouldn't have made off of other episodes
39:49
because like, I know from my experience working in children's
39:53
television that like potty training materials, like sell
39:57
like hotcakes. Yeah.
39:59
Or at least they did at the time when people were buying physical
40:01
media. OK, this was around the time as
40:04
well that Elmo discovered potty time and there was at least some
40:09
books and I don't know what else.
40:10
Probably a video. There was a video, and again, if
40:14
my memory serves correctly, it was at least at one point,
40:17
Sesame Street's highest selling title for physical media.
40:22
Because. Because parents just bought it
40:24
over and over and over again. So looking at Muppet Wiki now
40:28
what it says on Muppet Wiki and let's make sure that we have
40:31
this accurate says. According to Mitchell Krigman,
40:35
this episode was created at a point in which Baron the Big
40:38
Blue House was so respected by Disney that he could get away
40:41
with murder and get away with murderers and quotes.
40:45
Despite this, he did not want this episode to slip by, so he
40:48
specifically mentioned that it was being planned to Disney's
40:51
executives, only for nobody to seem to care.
40:56
After the rough cut of the episode had been made, he called
40:59
up an executive and insisted that they needed to see it
41:02
first. Upon seeing it, the executive
41:05
panicked, stating that it either couldn't air or that it had to
41:08
be neutered down so much that it basically wouldn't be what it
41:12
was anymore. Backed up by his staff and
41:15
educational experts, Kriegman finally convinced the brass to
41:19
at least take the episode to test market.
41:22
They did so, and the episode received high ratings.
41:28
It's a great episode. It's super helpful.
41:30
And like, and it's not like like stupid, like blue humor.
41:34
It's not like they're. Right.
41:35
They don't think pee jokes or anything.
41:36
Yeah. But I, I find this, I find this
41:39
episode as a bathroomly challenged person, I find this
41:43
very comforting as an episode because I have to go to the
41:46
bathroom like all times, like including a minute and 1/2 after
41:50
I just went to the bed. Like anyone who's hung out with
41:52
me is aware. And this is not, and this is not
41:55
an old thing. This is just like this is the
41:56
way that I have always been. That's part of being an old
42:00
Muppet fan is that suddenly you have to go to the bathroom all
42:02
the time. I might be younger than you 2,
42:05
but let me tell you something about hormone replacement
42:08
therapy. We are on the same page.
42:12
I'm not actually going to tell you something about hormone
42:15
replacement therapy, but. You can Google a couple of a
42:18
couple of observations about what what you read 1 is.
42:21
I appreciate that the the phrase backed up was in there as if
42:25
it's like, it's like, no, we can't do the the bathroom
42:27
episode because we're backed up. The second thing being when
42:34
Kriegman says that they could have gotten away with murder, a
42:36
part of me is like, what if? They did the murder mystery
42:40
episode. What if they did the murder
42:41
episode of Bear in the Big Blue House?
42:43
You know, Oh no, there's been a murdar.
42:45
There was a time, there was a time where Pip and there's blood
42:49
there, There's blood everywhere. There was a time where Pip and
42:52
Pop could murder someone on 6th Ave. and it wouldn't affect Pip
42:58
and Pop's rating in the Pulse. True that.
43:04
So anyway, we see like 2. So we see 2 characters sitting
43:07
on the toilet in this episode, which is adorable both times.
43:12
Especially with Tutter when like it's like that tiny little
43:17
toilet he's sitting on, it's so cute.
43:21
And he's and he's yelling like, hey, Tutter, how are you doing?
43:24
Just fine Bench. It's fine I.
43:26
Just had to poop which is just so beautiful.
43:29
I. Think though one.
43:30
Thing I just got AI just got a white bear.
43:33
I'll be right there. One thing that is really
43:35
interesting is I feel like, and, and to put like my educator hat
43:39
on, like I think it is really interesting how with Tutter,
43:44
they kind of address a, a problem that kids legitimately
43:49
have with like going to the bathroom.
43:52
That isn't usually addressed where it isn't like Tutter is
43:55
afraid of the bathroom, but it's like Tutter would rather do fun
43:59
things and he doesn't want to miss out on fun things.
44:03
And it's also fun because we see that.
44:05
I mean, it's in the next season, but in the episode we watched
44:08
last week where Tutter didn't want to go to bed because he
44:11
wanted to play Go Fish with Jeremiah and Doc Hog, where it's
44:15
like Tutter doesn't want to. Tutter's got real FOMO.
44:18
He has real FOMO anxiety. Well, and to to that point, like
44:24
this isn't an episode that's teaching kids how to transition
44:28
from diapers to to body training.
44:31
This is aim toward kids who've already been potty trained, but
44:34
there's still in those early years where it's like, yeah, you
44:37
need to like listen to your body and know when you know or like
44:40
it's okay to step away and do do your thing, but not like, OK,
44:43
let me explain what the potty is, even though they literally
44:45
explain what a potty is in this episode.
44:48
My, the biggest take away from this episode is the, the missed
44:52
opportunity from the top of the episode when Bear is smelling
44:57
the audience, because I really thought there was going to be a
44:59
moment where Bear's like, wait, is that do you have an accident?
45:06
Do you need to OK, It's it's fine.
45:09
It happens to everybody. Let's you know, let's let's take
45:12
you into the bathroom. We'll tell Pip and Pop to go,
45:14
you know, hang out in someone else's sink for a few minutes
45:18
and we'll talk. It's but you're, you're
45:22
absolutely right that they handle this very well and
45:25
surprisingly tactfully, as much as like, you know, look, of
45:29
course I'm going to I'm only human.
45:33
I'm going to laugh when Tutter screams.
45:35
It's OK, bear. I just had to poop.
45:37
I, I'm only human. But they do handle this really
45:41
tactfully. And I think, you know, again,
45:43
putting like my my educator's hat on, even though I do not to
45:49
educate kids of this age, but like putting my educator's hat
45:52
on. The the lesson of like you need
45:55
to listen to your body, which Bear really hammers home a
45:59
couple times both to the audience and to Ojo, I think is
46:04
a really, really important lesson that goes beyond just
46:08
potty training. And like, yeah, if you listen
46:11
and you're like, like we talked about last week, like, I'm tired
46:15
so I need to stop working right now or like, I'm not feeling
46:19
well so I need to rest right now.
46:22
That, like, listening to your body and being in tune with your
46:25
body is so essential. And it's so essential for all
46:29
types of health. So maybe this is actually the
46:32
wisest bear in the Big Blue House episode of all.
46:39
And also Tutter says poop. And Tutter does say poop, and
46:43
let's not forget that. The thing we haven't covered,
46:46
the thing we haven't covered is Ojo having an accident, Ojo
46:49
almost making it to the to the toilet and feeling real bad
46:54
about leaving something behind. And there's like, it's OK, I'll
46:59
just clean it up, you know? Followed by no footage of Bear
47:03
actually cleaning it up. Yeah, I don't want to.
47:05
He was, he was down there. He was on his knees for a
47:07
second. Yeah.
47:08
But what I really thought, again, because this is where my
47:11
mind goes, where I thought was going to happen, is that he was
47:14
going to go into the bathroom and Ojo was going to be like, I
47:17
need a pair of scissors because I need you to cut the poop out
47:21
of my fur. Because that's the thing that
47:24
happens with bears. That's what I that's where my
47:27
brain went. Joe that what happens every time
47:29
a bear shits in the woods. Well, not, I mean, they don't
47:32
have scissors, so they just deal with it, you know?
47:34
Yeah. Joe.
47:36
But also. Show you're the producer, Danny,
47:39
you're the founder. Can I leave that in?
47:44
Yes, I said it out loud. I don't care.
47:46
Here's the thing. I'll tell you why you can leave
47:48
it in because literally, if you go, if you go, get your your
47:51
Blu-ray copy of the 2011 Muppet movie out of your closets,
47:56
because I know that it's not on display.
47:58
And you look at the special features at the, at the, I
48:03
believe it's the one of the blooper reels.
48:05
Amy Adams makes the same joke. She's talking about Ozzy Bear
48:08
having to cut poop out of his fur.
48:13
And if Amy Adams can say it, then I can say it.
48:15
And I, that's where I always, that's my, that's my, my
48:18
philosophy on life. And neither of you have won an
48:21
Oscar. In my opinion, the shadow song
48:23
just doesn't really make any sense in the sense.
48:25
Yes, let's talk about the shadow song, which is just.
48:29
It's challenging, Yeah, where they're all singing Potty, potty
48:34
party because clearly they got to this point and they were
48:37
like. We got nothing.
48:40
There's no nursery. There is no nursery rhyme.
48:44
My favorite part is when they say Alaska, China, Mexico and I
48:51
just like show. They show Inuits and they show
48:55
some Chinese people and they show some Mexican people and and
48:58
then they just keep dancing and yelling potty.
49:03
It's fulfilling. I like it very much.
49:04
Yeah, I I'm curious, what? So Joe, what do you think about
49:07
Shadow at this point? Well, I I mentioned this last
49:11
week because Danny last week Becca was like, Oh, didn't you
49:15
like this is like the best Shadow 1 of of the series.
49:19
I I actually enjoyed this one and I was like, but you, you
49:22
we've been slamming these things left and right.
49:24
So I've been tuning out like I don't care about shadow.
49:28
So I missed the good one, I guess.
49:29
Oops, I'm not going back. But I I did note that like, yes,
49:33
they made-up a stupid potty song because they don't have a
49:37
nursery rhyme and I'm just imagining the writers and the
49:40
writers were going like, well, can we just change the words to
49:42
Hickory Dickory? Don't.
49:43
That doesn't make any sense. Pretty blind mice, but they have
49:47
to go to the bathroom. No, that's nothing.
49:49
That's fine. We'll just say potty, potty,
49:50
potty. Moving on.
49:52
I I think you gotta approach Shadow as if like Shadow is a
49:57
weird hot mess and whatever's going to come out of her today
50:02
is going to be weird. The Bo Peep thing with the sheep
50:04
going disco dancing was weird as well.
50:07
Especially the fact that both the Sheep and Bo Peep seem to be
50:10
voiced by Peter Linz. So Shadow, you just, you see,
50:14
whatever comes out of her is going to be crazy.
50:18
I don't know, I just I feel like shadow needed a she needed an
50:23
upgrade between season 1 and season 2 and she never really
50:26
got it. So it's just like, OK, it's more
50:28
of the same thing. Yep, like more of the like, hang
50:31
on, let's take a break from the interesting stuff and we'll get
50:34
back to we'll get back to it after we see some shadow like
50:38
also poorly like made shadow puppets, like they look like
50:42
they're they were like cut out and like by hand without like
50:46
having stenciled at first. And then like they just made one
50:50
copy and it's like never did a second, second draft.
50:53
It's all part of the mystique. The Feminine Mystique.
50:58
Sorry, did I? Did I cut out for a minute
50:59
there? No, we heard you.
51:01
We used to. We just don't have anything to
51:03
say we agree with you. You, you guys froze on my end,
51:07
You guys froze on my end. And I was like, OK, I'll just
51:09
wait till it's back. I don't feel, I don't feel like
51:11
I said something stupid. I feel very confident in my
51:15
observation. Didn't at all.
51:16
So let's talk a little bit about this episode's exciting
51:20
conclusion, which is Pip and Pop's Toileteers song, which is
51:24
a real show stopper. It is a bop.
51:27
Loved it. With classic Muppet choreography
51:30
too, of like shifting back and forth in this rhythmic way,
51:34
that's really fun. Bears got a tambourine.
51:37
Yeah, we are clean and dry. You guys you froze from?
51:42
Megan why I love. Just talking about how much we
51:44
like the Toilet Tears song. Oh good, I'm glad I agree.
51:50
You know, that reminds me that there was a there was a
51:52
soundtrack album. I believe I have.
51:54
I might even have two different soundtrack.
51:55
Albums There's 2 soundtrack albums.
51:57
Is this on either one? It is, It must be.
52:00
It's the Best Song. So here's what I love.
52:03
One thing I love about the song. So it starts out as like a South
52:07
Asian, like like a vocal harmony thing with pip and pop.
52:13
And they've got some interesting like choreography between the
52:18
two of them. They're kind of weaving back and
52:19
forth and then it jumps genres into like, like a gospel song
52:25
and like, Bear brings out the tambourine he's slapping against
52:28
his butt. And like, I didn't think that
52:30
those two genres went together, but they did.
52:34
And they're both, they both have such good energy in two very
52:37
different ways. And it's a thing that you can
52:39
imagine, like if you are teaching your kid potty
52:43
training, if you are trying to like get them through this,
52:46
this, you know, the big transition time.
52:50
I can see, I can see parents singing the toiletear song and
52:53
kind of helping their kids along.
52:55
And, and to like induct kids into a club that feels very much
52:58
just like, oh, how exciting for you, you get to be a toiletear.
53:02
You know, that's, that feels like, like a little bit of
53:06
strategy to trick your kids. And the great thing is, the
53:10
great thing is Joe, Danny. You guys are toiletears.
53:17
Anyone who uses the potty or is going to use the potty is a
53:24
toilet tear. What if you're someone who used
53:27
to use the potty? That's on a conditional basis.
53:33
What you have to do is you have to write an appeal.
53:36
You got to send the appeal to Treelo.
53:38
You have to wait for Treelo to learn how to read and then.
53:43
Oh, you know what we forgot? Treelo with the diaper.
53:46
Little baby Treelo. Yeah, baby Treelo.
53:49
What do you think, Joe? Did that sell you on Treelo?
53:52
No, but I did think it was cute, but like that was not nearly
53:55
enough to sell me on Treelo. I will say I did notice one of
53:59
your first complaints about Treelo was that you didn't like
54:03
how Treelo would say something and then Bear would repeat the
54:06
exact same thing to translate. I noticed they do that a lot
54:10
less. They've started to trust that
54:13
kids can figure out what, Treelo says, and Bear just responds as
54:18
if he's having a conversation. Or counterpoints.
54:22
Treelo isn't actually saying anything interesting and nobody
54:25
cares about translating. Pockets anymore.
54:29
Oh, Treelo. Like like like when when Ojos in
54:31
the bathroom and Treelo is like trying to get bears attention.
54:34
Like it doesn't really matter what Treelo is saying.
54:35
It's trying to get bears in there.
54:36
And then when Treelo is walking away, Treelo is like says
54:39
something along the lines of like, oh, I hope oh Joe is OK or
54:42
something like that. But like, it doesn't matter.
54:45
Like it that doesn't add anything to the story, but it's
54:47
it is cute. Don't get me wrong, it is cute.
54:49
I believe I love Treelo. I'm trying to.
54:51
I was trying to think of what is my defense of Treelo beyond like
54:54
Treelo is super cute and I really.
54:55
Like Treelo is super cute. That's the only defense, but
54:58
that's I think the only defense needed because I think that's
55:01
all Treelo exists to be. Yeah, super cute lemur who knows
55:07
how to use the body, which is, you know, all of a sudden the
55:10
idea of having 5 animals just hanging around your house.
55:14
This episode This episode points out that there are some
55:17
drawbacks. He only has one bathroom.
55:19
I guess he has two eyes of a mouse.
55:22
Right. Well, and yeah, the bathroom is
55:24
where Pip and Pop like to hang out, which is just awkward.
55:28
If you actually got to keep and pop out, could you get out
55:30
please? OK, cool.
55:33
Well, at least it's easy for them to get out because they can
55:35
apparently just dive through the drains.
55:38
OK, that that's a whole. I have so many questions about
55:40
that too. Just logistically being funny.
55:47
So coming in for a landing here, Danny, do you have any, any last
55:53
thoughts on on any of these episodes or Bear in general?
56:01
Bear is adorable. It's kind of all that I got that
56:06
I like. Actually, I do everything.
56:08
That one thing that I really that I love about all three of
56:12
these episodes is and, and this is, you know, the same as with
56:16
every episode in the show is it's all about human connection
56:19
or like animal connection, characters connecting with each
56:23
other. So, you know, they talk about
56:25
like, well, computers are fun, but also like hanging out with
56:30
your friends is, is good too. And nothing beats going outside
56:33
and playing with your friends and, and with making mistakes is
56:36
all about the relations between these people.
56:38
And then they even make going to the potty like a team
56:44
experience. And that is just something
56:46
that's so that's so beautiful about Bear, that it's always
56:49
about like valuing the people around you and having like the
56:53
friends and the loved ones around you, making every every
56:56
moment kind of important and special.
57:00
And that's the thing that I love about Bear.
57:02
Well, and that brings me into, brings me into a great
57:05
transition into our discussion of what we're going to talk
57:08
about next week. Because next week, I don't know
57:12
if you've checked your calendar, but next week, assuming you're
57:15
listening to this when this comes out, is Christmas and also
57:19
Hanukkah and also Kwanzaa, and also the Feast of the Winter
57:25
Berry. Hurray, that's nothing.
57:28
Well, you're gonna learn all about it in the two episodes
57:31
we're watching, A Berry A Berry Bear Christmas Part 1 and 2, And
57:40
I want to bring this up here at the end because, folks, for some
57:46
reason, A Berry Bear Christmas Part 2 is not on Disney Plus.
57:53
Really. Yeah, I don't understand why.
57:56
And I actually, I wrote an article for Tough Pigs.
57:59
I'll probably link it next week or I guess I could link it both
58:01
weeks. Who knows?
58:02
The world is my oyster or clam if I was Pip and Pop.
58:06
But I wrote an article about how personally I kind of like a
58:09
Barry Bear Christmas just as A1 parter with a kind of melancholy
58:14
ending. I think it's a really
58:16
interesting episode when it's that.
58:19
And we'll talk a little bit about that next week too, Joe.
58:21
But I do want to let everybody know and we'll post a link.
58:25
We'll post a link in the Tough Pigs Discord because I'm sure
58:28
all of you at home are going to be watching along with us.
58:32
But a Barry Bear Christmas Part 2 is on the Internet Archive.
58:38
Not as good quality as it would be if it were on Disney Plus,
58:41
but you know, you make, do you? You will get to see the Bear
58:45
family do some caroling and and and a special Santa Claus and
58:51
all that. And deal with homelessness.
58:53
Well, that happens in Part 1 and Part 2, so you're going to get
58:56
to see that too. Lots of homelessness talk.
59:00
Wow, you guys are really selling this.
59:02
It's so excited. It's so creative.
59:04
So no, I am actually very excited.
59:06
I'm very excited. Dikembe, the Gemsbach from the
59:08
animal show is going to show up Dikembe the gems box.
59:11
So get ready for Dikembe. I actually have a teaser that
59:14
Joe will make you excited. Dave Goals is in the.
59:17
That is very exciting. I enjoy.
59:19
I like his work very much. I know you do.
59:22
You're gonna Dave goals. Dave Goals plays a character who
59:24
is in both of these episodes and not in any other episode of Fair
59:28
in the Big Blue House. Yep.
59:30
But thank you both for being here so much.
59:36
Danny, I know we talked a little bit about your, the stuff that
59:39
you do, but do you want to do you want to plug anything or
59:42
share your socials? Absolutely, folks should listen
59:45
to the fantastic Miss Piggy podcast, which is on this very
59:48
podcast feed. Just scroll back and you can
59:50
hear all of those episodes and also I am on I am doing the
59:55
Muppet Pictures feed which is now on Blue Sky as well as
59:59
Facebook and X. It's two pictures of the day and
1:00:03
it's lovely and come in and follow that and you will see
1:00:06
gorgeous. And Joe, where can people find
1:00:08
you? All of my Muppet related work is
1:00:12
found on Tough Pigs. You're probably already
1:00:14
following at least one or two of those social media feeds or
1:00:18
bookmarking that website and checking in every single day.
1:00:21
If you are interested in things that I write that are not
1:00:23
Muppets, you can find me on Letterboxed at Tough Pigs Joe,
1:00:28
or you can read my media reviews on Sub Stack at Joe Consumes
1:00:33
Media. And if you want to find me or or
1:00:37
my personal stuff, I'm on most socials at Tall Girl Petunia.
1:00:45
I feel like Blue Sky and Instagram are where I usually
1:00:47
post these days. And like Joe said, you can find
1:00:52
my work and also Danny Horn sometimes your work on
1:00:56
toughpigs.com and also just years of it only being your work
1:01:00
in the archives at toughpigs.com or Tough Pigs on any of the
1:01:05
socials. Of course, if you want to
1:01:08
support Tough Pigs you can donate to our Patreon or buy a
1:01:14
T-shirt from the tough pigs T public store.
1:01:17
We have a T-shirt with Tutter on it that I designed the Tutter
1:01:21
St. trumpet company shirt from Muppets Mayhem, which also
1:01:26
double S as a cute Tutter the mouse thing.
1:01:29
I want to thank obviously Danny and Joe for being here with me
1:01:33
today. And I want to also thank
1:01:39
Johannes for being the Tough Pigs Muppet fan podcast
1:01:43
executive producer. I want to thank me for editing.
1:01:48
You got to thank yourself. If if you want to hang out, you
1:01:52
should check us out on the Tough Pigs discord where we're talking
1:01:56
about this podcast and all sorts of other things.
1:01:59
Weird amount of content about Sesame Strauss, the the, the,
1:02:03
the Dutch Sesame Street Co production.
1:02:05
Sure, why not? And oh, I want to thank Will
1:02:10
Carroll for designing the show's logo.
1:02:12
You think if I wrote these down, I'd remember them?
1:02:16
But in the end. But if you wrote them down, you
1:02:18
wouldn't make mistakes. And that's part.
1:02:20
Apparently good things happen when you make.
1:02:22
I don't make mistakes. We're not going to have any
1:02:25
raisins. Oh, goodbye.
1:02:32
Goodbye, good friends, goodbye. Hey, it's been really fun.
1:02:36
And next week we're going to celebrate Christmas.
1:02:40
See you everybody. Don't forget the flush.
1:02:43
I'm just wiping bear.