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Fraggle Talk Episode 9: "The Giggle Gaggle Games" with Director Jordan Canning · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

0:17
Hello and welcome to fraggle, talk.
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The Unofficial Fraggle, Rock podcast brought to you by tough
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pics.com. This is the podcast where we
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cover Fraggle. Rock back to the Rock Episode by
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episode along with the talented. Ooh, sirs performers, writers
0:31
and Builders, who helped put it together.
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I'm your host silly creature Johannes.
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Today we are talking about episode 9, the giggle Gaggle
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games in, which the fraggles host, a series of exciting
0:42
competitions. While the crackles just want to
0:44
take a nap. I get it.
0:45
Same Our Guest today has directed dozens of TV shows,
0:49
such as shits Creek. The lake and Astrid and Lily
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save the world as well as upcoming episodes of Star Trek
0:55
strange. New worlds.
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She's also directed three episodes of Back to the Rock.
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One of which Discussing today. We are extremely proud to
1:03
welcome, Jordan canning to the podcast.
1:05
Hi Jordan. Hi.
1:06
Thanks for having me. Of course, thanks for being
1:09
here. First of all, we should clarify
1:12
the three episodes that you directed were Flight of the
1:15
flutterflies Kragle Lagoon. And this one, the giggle Gaggle
1:18
games in case someone out there is wondering, well I'm sure
1:22
we'll be talking about all three even though we're focusing on
1:24
the third but very exciting to have you here to talk about
1:27
those. I'm always excited to talk.
1:29
Talk about Fraggle Rock. Awesome.
1:31
Let's do it. What was your relationship to
1:35
Fraggle Rock before getting hired to work on this show?
1:38
Were you a fan beforehand? Well, I yes, I was a fan.
1:42
I was a big Henson nut when I was a kid.
1:45
But I would say kind of the Muppets and Labyrinth especially
1:51
we're sort of my touchstones. Like I watched, I had Labyrinth
1:55
taped on a VHS tape that I watched like once a week and
2:00
Well, as obsessed with that was obsessed with every Bowie was
2:02
obsessed with his, you know, lavender tights.
2:06
Just loves everything movie. And had seen Fraggle Rock
2:11
obviously had memories of it, but it was only on for sort of
2:14
like a very small window of time at least here in Canada, and it
2:18
was just just a titch before my time when it was actually
2:21
airing. But I know I saw it kind of in
2:25
in reruns when I was a little bit older.
2:27
But once I kind of got Got the opportunity to even interview
2:32
for this job. I mean, literally, what happened
2:34
was my agents wrote me and said, oh, this show got in touch
2:38
shooting in Calgary. We're not entirely sure but we
2:40
think it's the Fraggle Rock reboot.
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Not sure if you'd be interested but just thought I'd throw it
2:45
out there. In case you're a fan of then I
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was like wrote back immediately like oh my God, we got to get
2:50
this job, get me the interview and yeah, just just, just to
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work in that world to work with Henson to just work with Papa.
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I'm a real puppet that I have a puppet of my own.
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I do a lot of really ridiculous voices, and yeah, so it was all
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I wanted to do was get the job. That's great.
3:10
I'm glad you got it, then. I'm glad he I'm going to reach
3:12
in got you in. So if you were big puppet, nuts,
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have you ever directed puppets before?
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Was this your first time? Well, I had a one very tiny,
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brief, puppet, directing stint early early on in my career,
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actually with Frank who worked on Fraggle Rock You did boober
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did world's oldest fraggle, did a whole bunch of other great
3:34
characters and he had a show called playdate that shot here
3:39
in Toronto, which was like a kind of, they were sort of
3:42
11-minute episodes and the puppets were small, they were
3:46
sort of as if like little stuffed animals, came to life.
3:48
So the scale was sort of the real scale of like a kid's
3:51
playroom. And then the puppets were quite
3:53
small, but beautiful and intricate little guys.
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I think it was like a little mouse and a little kangaroo.
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I Remember there were three really cute little animals so I
4:03
had done 111 minute episode of that with Frank in like I don't
4:07
know. 2012 maybe but that was our yeah so you are a pro before
4:13
coming on to talk about the friend.
4:15
Yeah, I know, I know everything. Yeah.
4:18
I'd love to know more about some of the challenges of directing
4:22
puppets and specifically like this Henson style of puppetry
4:26
because it obviously doesn't translate perfectly.
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From directing human beings. To suddenly, you're on a raised
4:33
sets, you've got monitored. So you've got puppeteers, who
4:35
got a million people under the scenes, not just behind the
4:38
scenes? Yeah, well I mean exactly.
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I mean, first of all, like the Rays sets is a real sort of
4:46
messes with your mind a bit because you know you're used to
4:49
my process at least when I need to you know think about how I'm
4:52
going to block a scene or shoot a scene.
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I walk into a room and or ideally the room I'm shooting in
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I sort of Walk around and think. Okay, I would sit down here,
5:02
maybe we'll put the camera here, blah, blah, blah.
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But it's very hard. It was hard to visualize that
5:06
with the puppet say because the the sets were all, you know,
5:09
above my eye line. So you turn of be staring at
5:12
them and thinking okay, where it's going to end now, where's
5:16
the floor and blah, blah blah, but it really wasn't until you
5:19
sort of put a camera up and saw the puppet up in the air that
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you're like, okay, I understand. Now, the geography of this set,
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so that kind of came into place pretty quickly.
5:28
Once we started You know, the other things you just don't
5:32
really consider about puppets, is that things that humans can
5:37
do very, simply it can actually be very complicated tricky for a
5:41
puppet to do. So you kind of have to look
5:45
through the scripts and also with the, you know, expertise of
5:48
the puppeteers who can sort of help you red flag, things kind
5:51
of find things that might be taking a lot of time that maybe
5:55
you can simplify, or at least you give enough time to do it.
5:59
Like, you know, Bear is very simple for a human to walk into
6:02
a room, pick up a phone dialing. Number lay the phone down and
6:07
walk away, but that could easily have to happen in three separate
6:11
shots. If you're doing with the puppet,
6:12
you know, you have a puppet with no phone attached to their
6:15
hands. You have a pup but you do have
6:17
an armed with a phone attached. You have three people doing it
6:20
and you might have to cut in between or you switching arm out
6:23
in the middle of it. He said to be kind of like a bit
6:26
more cunning about how you cover certain things.
6:30
But the public hears were all incredible at finding, you know,
6:34
tricks to do those things, you know.
6:36
And if there was something that was like, okay this is would be
6:39
great but it's going to take five hours to do we'd say okay
6:42
maybe we won't do that. Let's come up with you know
6:45
another idea that's going to be equally as cool but maybe not
6:47
quite as complicated and take up half of our day.
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And they I mean they're always so willing to try new things and
6:57
find like a new way that to do something or like Show a puppet
7:01
doing something. It's never done before.
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So it was really exciting and creative just sort of throw
7:05
ideas out there. Anything kind of puppet do this.
7:07
Maybe like, mmmm, maybe give me a second because I figure it out
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in the corner. Come back.
7:12
They're like, what do you think? So it was always a really,
7:16
really creative and fun collaborative process working
7:19
with the puppeteers. So yeah.
7:23
And then and then the hardest thing sometimes was just like
7:25
hiding their heads, you know, you sort of like picture a shot
7:29
in. Your head.
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You're like, okay, I want to sort of wide shot with Mochi
7:32
here and and then you get a camera and you're like, oh, we
7:34
can't do that because their heads are going to be in it.
7:37
I can't, I can't layer them in that way because you'll see the
7:41
people in the backgrounds head. So either you had to put a bunch
7:43
of rocks, kind of in front of them, to block them, or do you
7:46
have to figure out a different way to do it?
7:48
So you know there were still a steep learning curve once we
7:52
started shooting for sure, for sure.
7:54
Yeah, and I'm sure also, you know, you're coming into the
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show, you know about halfway, Through the season and actually
8:01
little bit past halfway through the season and you get the
8:05
puppeteers already know all the tricks.
8:07
They know we've had to deal with these things a million times
8:09
before or even just, you know, before the show even began like
8:14
they've been working with puppets for, you know, decades
8:17
at this point. Remember.
8:18
So right, especially some of those old timers who worked on
8:20
the original show, which must have been invaluable to have
8:23
their, their know-how on how to how to fraggle.
8:27
Yeah, but I also, To assume that because you're coming in at
8:31
episode 7, a lot of the work has already been done for you so
8:36
where there are things where maybe you're thinking like well
8:40
I wouldn't have necessarily set it up this way but we're already
8:43
in a process so let's just run with it.
8:46
Well, I mean there is definitely I mean, it was a very ambitious
8:51
show in terms of, you know, even just the sets alone like
8:54
obviously by the time. Yes, I got there.
8:56
A lot of, you know, the Great Hall was built all the main sort
8:59
of recurring sets were there. But, you know, for each, I'm
9:04
trying to think in flutterflies, I guess there wasn't there
9:09
wasn't another set in there but Craig a lagoon.
9:11
We built the whole Kragle Lagoon which was a whole new set of
9:14
gigantic set. And, and then there was the
9:18
common caves, which I think was a sort of repurposed version of
9:21
another set, but those were being built as we were in prep.
9:25
So there there was input and sort of, you know, conversations
9:30
with the production designer about like, you know, certain,
9:35
you know, certain things I had in mind for blocking ways to do
9:38
it, sizes of things. And and so there was an ability
9:43
to sort of steer the car a little bit, but yes, it's such a
9:45
huge mistake. Machine that a lot of those
9:47
things need to kind of be happening early on who is harder
9:52
to work with the fraggles or the Levy family.
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No comment. Fair enough.
10:02
Are we get? We could pivot.
10:03
So you directed three episodes in a row?
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But I feel like normally, if you were going to be coming in on
10:09
the TV show, they were kind of space them out a little bit so
10:12
that you would have time to, you know, to shoot and edit and come
10:15
back and go back and Fourth, what were the benefits to being
10:18
able to do three in a row for a show like this?
10:22
Yeah, I mean, actually normally you would do a block of episodes
10:26
block. Usually, you do a block of to, I
10:28
mean, I've done a variety of different versions of how, you
10:32
know. Sometimes you go into a show,
10:33
you just do one episode or you do too, but they're split apart
10:37
often, you know, shows will block episodes together because
10:40
it's more efficient to do. So and you sort of prep, you
10:44
prep the three episodes at once and then you shoot them all at
10:47
once. So I mean mostly shooting in a
10:53
block is an inefficiency thing. You know, you can kind of cover
10:56
a lot of ground and it was a fair amount of time for half
10:59
hours, especially that we're all studio.
11:01
So you didn't have to do any like location scouting or
11:03
anything, that was it, that was a nice chunk of time for this
11:08
show. I mean, it was complicated to
11:10
shoot in some ways but I did always feel like we had enough
11:14
time to get what we needed and then, yeah and then essentially
11:19
you go off another director takes over and does their block.
11:21
And I I work with my editors to deliver each episode, kind of by
11:26
a certain date. So yeah, it's kind of Fairly
11:30
normal. We're the shoots over lapping at
11:34
all so that you can kind of like get things done in certain
11:36
locations with certain performers or was it like we got
11:39
week, one with this episode. We to with that episode week 3
11:42
with this episode we won't. We tried to do it as much kind
11:48
of keeping the episodes together as possible but sometimes for
11:52
Vision sees say, yeah we would we would be shooting some of 107
11:55
and some of them 109 on certain days.
11:57
Some of it was about balancing the schedule, you know, like the
12:00
sequences that always took the longest were the musical
12:04
numbers. So I really wanted to protect
12:07
those. And so we would build the
12:09
schedule in a way where it's like, okay, well we get the full
12:11
morning, you get a full six hours to do a song, right?
12:15
And so then you'd balance out the day a little bit with later
12:17
things in the afternoon or vice versa.
12:21
And then yes, there was there were some need to, like,
12:24
sometimes we had to get out of a set, you know, finish shooting
12:27
one of the sets so they could turn it into another one or so
12:30
they can roll it out of one Studio enroll in a new one, but
12:33
mostly the 1880s were great about trying to keep the
12:36
episodes together. Just for sort of continuity, say
12:38
capital a little bit straight in our heads, that's good.
12:41
Take that does seem to make it easier just like, conceptually
12:44
yeah, especially with you three. Sometimes with to, it's a
12:47
little, you know, it's not so bad, but with three years are
12:49
like, which one is this? Right happening in this episode.
12:53
Yeah right yeah especially when it's like it is one at this
12:56
point in the series. It's one big story that were
12:59
telling ya, very serialized. They did a really cool job with
13:02
the kind of, you know, larger story they were telling over the
13:05
season. So this is when things are
13:07
starting to ramp up with the with the water and we kind of
13:10
find out what just found out incredible Lagoon what you know
13:14
what led to the water, big extra waterfall and now the sort of
13:18
consequences and fall out of that in the Anger of 149 will
13:22
get sorted in the back end of the season.
13:24
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
13:26
And what a cliffhanger is going to be once we get there.
13:29
But let's let's start talking about this one.
13:31
It begins with a shot of a poster of a fraggle hugging, a
13:36
Kragle and then we kind of pinned down and we see what
13:39
looks like the fraggle and the Kragle that the picture is based
13:41
on and they are kind of like giving it a look like.
13:44
I don't know, we've never we've never hooked before.
13:46
That's an odd thing to put on a poster also advertising.
13:50
Yeah. Exactly.
13:51
Do you recall who did the art for, for stuff?
13:55
Like that? Good.
13:57
We've seen a couple of different art styles and like these
13:59
fraggle posters and things like that, the art department on that
14:02
show is just like mind-boggling. I mean, there was the, yeah,
14:06
there's multiple posters like that, you know, there's, there's
14:09
a uncle traveling. Matt one, there's an icy jo1
14:12
even within this episode. There's the for the the Kragle
14:15
fraggle Love Fest but then also that amazing Kragle book, you
14:19
know, all of those. Hand drawn by some genius, in
14:24
the art Department, who I don't want to name because I maybe get
14:28
her name wrong. So, but the art, department just
14:32
went over and above for every single element, every prop ever.
14:36
All of the, I mean, I don't know if there's any in this 10.
14:40
Yeah, I know. There's the, there's the radish
14:42
age, blader, but all of the beautiful little food props and
14:46
drink props were like, I got, I have two of them on my bar.
14:49
Here, they were gifted to me. Is a wrap gift which I will
14:52
tell. That's nice.
14:54
Yeah, little radish milkshake and stuff?
14:55
So yeah, we all those all the posters and stuff were or our
15:00
department. I think, you know, they were
15:02
sort of that was scripted. I think that was scripted in the
15:07
thing, but then we came up with the idea of like, starting on
15:10
the, you know, I wanted to start on the poster and then we were
15:12
like, oh, these are actually two cradle and if I do, they based
15:15
it on. So let's have them in their sort
15:17
of, giving them a look and then they come back later in the in
15:19
the, in the first Song as well we sort of force them together,
15:23
right? Yeah.
15:24
A nice little underdone theme with like Yeah.
15:28
Ee F plot. Yeah.
15:30
Right. We see now that all the crackles
15:33
are in Fraggle Rock. Sort of as refugees we see what
15:37
the fraggle five are doing with each of them, mokey's meditating
15:40
with one of them red is announces to the Kragle.
15:45
She's going to do a one-handed up c2z, gravity bluesy with her
15:49
eyes closed and they really could not care.
15:51
Us when we of course can't decide what he wants to do with
15:54
them. And boober is showing them his
15:56
fresh laundry and one of the crackles blows their nose into
16:00
his laundry which seems Rude by the way.
16:02
Like I think it's just is actually a sign of Kragle
16:05
affection. It's just a different.
16:08
I'm sure you're right. But it also sounds super gross.
16:13
Sorry crackles WebEx blowing up nose sound.
16:16
Yeah right. Yeah and Gobo is showing them
16:20
the doozer. Ins and explaining to them, you
16:22
know, we eat them so that users users can continue to build and
16:26
we all live in harmony and then they'll take a bite and it's
16:28
disgusting. So, yeah, definitely.
16:33
Seeing the fraggles not understand the crackles.
16:36
It's going to be the thing that takes us through this whole
16:38
episode. But the thing that I was having
16:42
trouble wrapping my brain around in this First Act is just that
16:44
the crackles don't seem to be making much of an effort to like
16:47
meet the fraggles halfway. It's just like, you don't get
16:49
us, we don't get you. We just want to get the heck out
16:53
of here. I think at this point when we
16:55
meet them, the crackles are truly exhausted like.
16:59
Yes, that's a good point. Yeah, well, learn later sort of
17:02
Y, but at this point there, you know, barely able to keep their
17:06
eyes open and their trying to be very polite houseguests.
17:09
And they, I mean, I think, you know, they're going along with
17:11
it, but they're just, there's a, there's a sort of, you know,
17:15
miscommunicate it's missed or cross wires going on, I think
17:19
between them and the more Mochi forces it, you know, the current
17:24
of more exhausted, the crackles get.
17:27
So, yeah, they yeah. That's no, no, they're sleepy.
17:32
They're sleepy, and I got it. I know you got, you got, you got
17:34
a little upset when you're sleepy.
17:36
Just like, I just want to be left alone.
17:37
Yeah, we've all been there. Yeah, as you said Mochi, is has
17:42
taken it upon herself to to be the mediator.
17:46
She calls herself a natural connector and she has read this
17:51
Look about crackles that she found.
17:53
I guess I assume there's a fraggle Library where she could
17:56
check these things out. Yeah, there's a there's a
17:58
library. Yeah, yeah, a fraggle Barnes &
18:00
Noble, maybe she's, she's read this thing, back to front,
18:04
upside down on the side. She knows everything there is to
18:08
know about the crackles. And like I said, this is a
18:10
really cool looking prop that you know, handmade hand drawn
18:15
Kragle book and we've talked before on this podcast, about
18:18
how they're really should be, you know, these actually Cheryl
18:21
fraggle books available for us. Normal people to buy in stores.
18:25
I would I would buy a little book all about their Idols.
18:28
Are ya up a little coffee table book.
18:30
I mean the fun thing with the with fraggles stuff is that
18:32
there's no there's no written language, right?
18:34
It's all it's all pic picture, based symbol based sort of
18:40
expression. So yeah, you'd have to sort of
18:43
into it with the pictures all mean, but this is actually a
18:46
good example, of one of the things I was saying about things
18:48
that are in the script for your like when you get to it.
18:51
Actually, this is harder than you think, which is like in the
18:54
script. It says Mochi pulls out a book
18:57
about the fraggles, but for Mochi to pull up, the book is
19:02
actually like quite complicated because she's in the middle of
19:04
talking about. She sort of, says Mochi pulls it
19:07
up. She turns to a page, they look
19:09
at it to do that with Mochi holding it.
19:12
It would be like, a whole bunch of weird cuts.
19:14
So then we were like, well, let's get the Ink Spot to do it.
19:17
I mean, I love the expose the in spots are sort of like, the go
19:19
to helpers. Purrs.
19:21
When you're like oh God how are we gonna do this?
19:23
Just like get a name spot throwing spot in there so then
19:26
we of course leaned into it, through the Ink Spot pops out,
19:28
just you know, ready, opens it up, close it back down.
19:34
I love that, they're so utilitarian.
19:36
Oh there I love them. We got them into everything.
19:39
Yeah, dress them up. Put them in songs.
19:41
They're so funny. Yeah.
19:43
And the great thing about it is about it is, it's not just that,
19:46
like, oh, we can using spots for this this, you know, device, but
19:49
it actually makes the scene more Or fun, you know, it's like
19:52
adding a joke in by accident. Yeah, it's always a nice pot
19:56
makes everything innately more funny because there's such a
19:58
weird little true and they're so cute.
20:01
They're probably one of my favorite.
20:02
I would just like, when they let me, I just put any spot on, and
20:05
we just be sort of walking around, puppeteering with the
20:07
Ink Spot, because they're a perfect size puppet to be
20:11
fooling around with, when you're not a troop of here.
20:13
Yeah. Oh, what a dream, I'd love to be
20:16
ending spot someday. So this is the point in which we
20:23
get our first song the song is same light which is kind of like
20:27
a like a musical theater Style song.
20:29
You know we've got so many different genres throughout the
20:32
series, but this one really does feel like, you know like a high
20:35
school performance of some famous Broadway musical and
20:40
mochi ends up leading like a gospel style chorus of fraggles
20:44
and crackles. Like you said, you know, she's
20:47
bringing the Fraggle. And the Kragle from the poster
20:50
together. Yeah, Forest arranged marriage.
20:54
Yeah, right, exactly. We also get an appearance by the
20:57
Grizzard, which is an old puppet from least.
21:01
The style is from the, the old Fraggle Rock TV show the
21:04
original real original one. Yeah.
21:06
Is it really? Yeah, I love hearing the kind of
21:09
stuff that they've just refurbed, all these fantastic
21:12
puppets, all of the backup puppets, are the original ones?
21:15
There was a whole assertive shelf of all these and all the
21:19
Features the sort of weird backup cave creatures.
21:21
They're all the original puppets, they're in incredible
21:23
shape, that must've been so much fun for you to say, like, oh,
21:27
let's take that interesting one and toss it in the background.
21:31
I can't tell you how I wanted my well, the mud to bunny.
21:34
I was trying so hard to find a reason to bring him in.
21:38
I was going to sort of maybe have him in Kragle Lagoon, like
21:42
singing backup but he's just such a significant character and
21:45
puppet. I was like he can't just be a
21:46
weird. He's going to have his own.
21:48
I'm sure he'll have his own Day in the Sun, but it was the real
21:51
mud. Well, puppet.
21:52
And I put him on. He's an amazing.
21:54
He's a big. That's cool.
21:55
Yeah. And the Grizzard is is second
21:57
best thing because when mud Grizzard is great eyes.
22:00
Yeah. Because exactly it is him.
22:03
Yeah. Yeah.
22:04
Right. Yeah.
22:04
Becomes the, the lizard that we're now calling the Grizzard
22:07
from the episode gone but not forgotten.
22:10
It's a nice little little bit of continuity.
22:12
You know. All these creatures are still
22:13
there, they're still in the Rock, I love it, they work at
22:15
they've been taking such good care of, you know.
22:18
Yeah, and also my favorite moments of the song is probably
22:22
when the song ends and mokey's like out of breath.
22:26
I know that was funny Donna did that once just sort of like as a
22:31
rehearsal and I was like oh my God Donna you have to do that.
22:33
If I keep that I like crazed panting, she's just drunk
22:38
mokey's. Just trying so hard.
22:40
You know, you just your heart goes out to her because she's
22:44
the best of intentions throughout this and she's just
22:47
as She's tth. She's trying too hard, you know.
22:51
Yeah, for real and also, you know, like any, you know,
22:55
Henson's Muppet Sesame, I cannae of those big songs that they do,
22:59
like, their never tired afterward.
23:01
This is just what they do. It's like part of their blood
23:03
and see like Mochi. Just put everything that she had
23:06
into the song and like at the end again at the end of like a
23:09
Broadway performance and you're like, everyone's just like, we
23:11
just did all the big choreography, you know, gave it
23:14
all. We got, you know, like it's like
23:15
wait, like give a like wait for the Applause to die down.
23:19
Take that as an opportunity to kind of catch our breath.
23:20
Yeah. Yeah.
23:22
Love it. Yeah.
23:23
That the big choir, the sort of show choir moment, was amazing
23:28
to do. I was so I always had that
23:30
image, like, that's how I always wanted that to go.
23:34
And then when we finally got to it and I saw sort of the process
23:37
of doing that sort of layered three layered Coral, everybody
23:41
together is actually very hard to do because if you can picture
23:44
it, you have to squish all the puppets together so much enough.
23:48
Hide everybody between them so you can't have any gaps you
23:52
know, we manage history of sort of set them all up and you put
23:55
the camera can be like okay I can see your head, can you
23:57
squished together or can you put your head there?
24:00
Then sometimes, we just like drape, a piece of sort of
24:02
colored fabric over their heads, so they sort of blend it in.
24:05
But once we got it there and Johnny would, you know, Johnny
24:08
would be like left right back, you know, calling out the shots.
24:12
It was so fun and magical to watch all them in that big
24:16
colored, you know? Mass of Puppets singing
24:20
together. It was like a joy.
24:21
Yeah. How many puppeteers, do you
24:23
think are in that scene? Every Puppeteer we had with some
24:26
this in the scene because some people had two two on one arm.
24:30
There are some people double double fisting.
24:32
Yeah, great. Double fragglan.
24:34
Yeah, yeah. The interesting thing about the
24:38
song to same light is it has a lot of really specific
24:41
references to what's happening in the episode.
24:43
The song is about fraggles and crackles and the Grizzard and
24:48
most of the songs on the show have more Universal meetings
24:53
that you can kind of like take out of context.
24:57
I have to assume that the song was probably pre-written maybe
24:59
in pre-recorded before you even got on board.
25:01
Is that right? Well, some of the song I mean,
25:07
they were certainly, by the time we were shooting, they were
25:09
pre-recorded because we were singing to them, but some of the
25:13
songs while I was in prep, like they weren't fully out yet.
25:18
Like when I first started, there were a couple of them well,
25:20
because some of them are Legacy songs.
25:22
I hadn't I could hear sort of the original version or a rough
25:25
10 Persian, but sometimes you get it to a description.
25:27
If you'd like Mochi, sings the song about fraggles and fraggles
25:31
being together in. You're like, okay, I'm right
25:33
over, that'll be yeah. So yeah, those were sort of in
25:38
process for sure, because they had to be most of them were
25:42
recorded with the real voices and sort of finished, by the
25:45
time, we were actually shooting them.
25:46
Which was great. That's cool.
25:47
Yeah, yeah. Next up, we have the return of
25:51
Lyle Kragle. He's back.
25:54
At least the voice performs by Ed Helms.
25:58
Mokey greets him in the traditional Kragle way.
26:01
She says Lyle Miguel, what scragga lagalag1, which I didn't
26:05
even like It just now felt super awkward.
26:08
Yeah. It's and she says, it's she's so
26:11
serious when she does her thing. Like don't yeah.
26:14
Donna came up with that this like kind of like a legging
26:18
something like lifting up her arms Crossing?
26:20
Yeah. Something with the weird our
26:22
movement. Yeah.
26:24
And she came out, she was like, okay, this is what I'm thinking
26:26
and she did that was like a thousand percent.
26:28
That's perfect. Yeah.
26:30
She came in and she committed, you know, and mochi.
26:33
That's the thing about monkey. It's like she has As an idea of
26:37
how this is going to go, and she just cares so much and she
26:41
really, you know, she has a bit of a, you know, she has a blind
26:43
spot for kind of what, you know, how the crackles are actually
26:47
reacting to this. But in her mind she's just
26:50
nailing it Ed Helms. I know was not on set to record
26:55
his lines, but did you get to work with him remotely to record
26:59
his EDR? Why wish I didn't know.
27:02
I know, I wish he killed it. I love lol so much.
27:07
No, but ahead of time for any of this sort of guest roles, they
27:13
did a sort of like rough recording session.
27:16
So kind of you know Edwin in and recorded all the lines and then
27:21
we sort of You know, roughly sort of picked the takes.
27:25
We like the sort of reads we liked our.
27:27
If there was like a fun line he improvised we like, oh, let's
27:29
make sure we get that. So then Johnny, who did Lyle
27:33
like listens to them a lot and sort of got the rhythm of his
27:37
voice. And then he was sort of playing
27:38
it as Ed Helms and then later, they would either use the ATR
27:45
that that Ed had pre-recorded before.
27:47
Or I guess he there he probably had one more session once it was
27:50
all cut together to really finesse.
27:52
The audio. Yeah I assumed but no, I didn't
27:55
get to work with him someday. Yeah, someday it'll happen.
27:59
The crackles are asking for an update on the water situation.
28:03
Then they are told that the wise counsel of fraggles is working
28:06
on it and we get a glimpse of what I guess is the fraggle
28:09
Illuminati. It's yeah the world's oldest
28:13
fraggle henchy the Storyteller large Marvin and I see Joe and
28:18
they have come to a big decision.
28:20
They're going to have a snack now and lunch later.
28:23
I love it. I think that's hysterical that,
28:26
that weird group is together and they're supposed to be the
28:28
experts and they're completely ineffective.
28:31
I loved shooting those scenes, I think that's such a fun Runner.
28:35
You could keep going to back to any time in an episode is just
28:38
letting them all Rift together and sometimes we there was one.
28:42
I can't remember what it was but Donna as Storyteller Rift.
28:46
Something about large Marvin's neck meat and it was funny, but
28:50
didn't make the cut, but Yeah, just those all those and I say
28:56
this with those with those idiots those fraggle, idiots
28:58
together and one table just like, he's a hilarious Ensemble
29:03
moment. Yeah, there really is.
29:04
It's probably also could be a metaphor for what's happening in
29:09
bureaucracy these days. Yeah, yeah exactly.
29:12
Yeah. I'll let the listeners that one.
29:18
We interrupt this podcast for a special postcard from our uncle.
29:22
John tartaglia and a fraggle. Fast fact today's fraggle fast.
29:27
Fact, is everybody loves Barry blueberry who is Barry
29:30
blueberry. Barry blueberry is a character
29:32
that appears in episode 109 a Fraggle.
29:34
Rock back to the Rock. I had so much fun playing him.
29:37
He's this game show host that the fraggles call on for when
29:40
they have Olympic Games. Basically, he's very much
29:44
modeled on those wonderful. One shot characters from the
29:46
original series, that would be on for one or two episodes, and
29:50
we knew that he would had to have like game show host hair.
29:52
And game show host teeth in a microphone for no reason
29:55
whatsoever. And I didn't intend to play him.
29:58
But during the table reads inside the writers room, as we
30:01
were writing the scripts, we would read the episodes out
30:03
loud. I ended up reading him and the
30:05
writers love what? I did so much that everyone's
30:07
like you have to play Barry blueberry.
30:08
So I loved playing him. Getting the cast to laugh,
30:12
getting the crude laughs, he could get away with anything and
30:15
even poor Mochi. When she's going through this
30:17
severe, emotional crisis. Barry is right there to still
30:19
keep the games going and still an ounce of be so.
30:22
Horrible. But of course we learn at the
30:24
end of the episode, he's hanging from the cliff that he's
30:26
actually very much scared of heights.
30:27
So even though he's very obnoxious and as a lot of
30:30
bravado, he has a fear but I loved him.
30:33
He was a lot of fun to do and we hope you enjoy this fraggle
30:36
fastpack. Haha.
30:37
Back to the podcast. So Mochi decides, she is going
30:46
to plan a series of games with the crackles because that's what
30:50
she read, the book. They like games.
30:51
This is something that they can all Bond over and read
30:56
absolutely explodes At The Mention Of games, which is very
30:58
red. That was a great moment.
31:00
Yeah. The cradles just want to, rest,
31:02
of course, mokey announces that she's going to start the giggle,
31:06
Gaggle games, Gobo Esther, isn't it kind of a big production?
31:09
And she says, no, not really. And then we get this great cut
31:12
to, like, Fall is just filled with fraggles and confetti and
31:16
decorations and people are already playing games.
31:19
It looks great, it's a great great set design.
31:23
Yeah. There was very fun to come up
31:25
with that stuff like, you know, we just sort of said, make this
31:29
as insane as possible and like there were different versions of
31:33
games. I can't remember what the first
31:34
version of the poll of nonsense was, but it was something that
31:38
was kind of complicated to do and wasn't maybe going to Be as
31:43
effective visually, as I don't know, it was some, it was, I
31:48
think it was just a sort of rhyming game, and we were like,
31:52
let's add a sort of weird visual thing to this do.
31:55
So, then we came up with this maypole.
31:57
Yeah. Ridiculous spinning around a
31:59
maypole, you know, ribbon thing and yeah, I mean, it is a, it's
32:07
a very fun comedic cut to just like, well, it's kind of a big
32:11
production, right? Right.
32:13
That's a little bit in the middle.
32:17
Was there anything that you wanted to get into this set
32:19
design? That's it was just too much or
32:22
too complicated or was this exactly what you had envisioned
32:26
before hand. It's pretty it's pretty close
32:28
like there were things so the maypole got added in which I
32:31
loved and we added in the what we're skipping ahead slightly
32:34
but when we do the when they do the slip and slide like the
32:38
judge Ink Spots holding up the rat.
32:41
I love that hard. Thank you yeah.
32:43
The best? Yeah, I did.
32:45
Make a note of that. Yeah, the things, but they're
32:47
holding up. Let's see.
32:48
It's a radish. A carrot and an onion.
32:51
Yeah, don't know which one is best, but I agree radish.
32:54
But yeah. No.
32:57
I just, you know, in the confetti it was pretty fun.
33:01
Like, we just, that was one of the, I mean, you talk about sort
33:04
of scheduling with that one. And with the and with one of
33:09
seven, when the, when the Troubadours are there, that was
33:13
Something that we had to kind of purposely schedule separately
33:16
because there was such a big change over in the great hall
33:19
both in terms of like the layout of it.
33:20
And also all the decorations. So, you know, we tried to finish
33:24
all of 107. Then we would go off and shoot a
33:26
bunch of stuff in between and come back and it would be in
33:28
giggle Gaggle mode, right? Yeah.
33:33
And then finally, we got can we got some cranberry blueberry at
33:36
some point? We got to talk about Barry
33:37
blueberry. This is already fragile first
33:39
teams. Yeah the oh I wrote that down to
33:41
the only fraggle would see It's weird.
33:43
You think they're real? Do you think you got your, did
33:45
he got like the near mirror? Yeah, I don't know.
33:48
But I love them so much. And that, I mean, the, when we
33:52
were talking about him and I said, okay, for the his
33:55
microphone, it's got to be like a Bob, Barker, you know, yeah,
33:58
tiny radish long, long Mike neck thing and still, they totally
34:03
made that incredible radish microphone and then Johnny just
34:08
instantly. It's like this character just
34:10
came out of him like as soon as you put Barry blueberry on the
34:12
tank and it's like This voice and it's sort of like voice the
34:17
way. He moves her of always like
34:19
sliding out of frame and sliding back in like guy love, very
34:23
blue. He's gotta come back.
34:25
He really I think he's just like somebody.
34:27
I can't remember, I can't remember, this comes later.
34:30
I have I re-watched the whole season when I first came out
34:35
feeling, doesn't it say Barry blueberry is the one who drew
34:38
all the drawings later. Yeah, that comes up later.
34:42
I love that. Leave it.
34:43
Barry blueberry didn't tell it's hysterical.
34:48
Yes, no. Barry blueberry is easily the
34:51
iconic Henson find character, find of the decade.
34:55
I mean he's just the best. And I also like that.
34:59
He says his own name a lot, which is like that.
35:03
Yeah. The more you say, your own name
35:04
out loud. The more people can be like I
35:06
guess he's kind of a big deal. Like we all know his name.
35:10
Yeah. And the ham and the and the
35:11
wimbley. The confetti gag.
35:14
I love the gag, very good payoff to that gag.
35:17
I think written in there by the amazing Sabrina jalees.
35:20
Who wrote the episode. Yeah.
35:22
It was a good use of Wembley as well.
35:24
Yeah. Yeah.
35:25
Just like, you know, he just wants to be a part of things and
35:27
sometimes it's that confetti cannon at the wrong time.
35:30
Yeah. Terrific.
35:34
This is the point in which we get a little check in with Doc
35:36
and sprockets. Dock is on the phone with mrs.
35:39
Shimmelfinney! Asking, if she could put solar
35:40
panels on the roof to help with her microplastics, Eject.
35:44
Now this segment I believe is was filmed way before you got on
35:51
board. Is that right?
35:52
Yeah. All of the, all of the dock and
35:53
sprocket stuff was filmed block. Shot ahead of its the first
35:57
stuff that they shot before they even started shooting the
35:59
Fraggle Rock, You Know, puppet stuff, so, yeah.
36:05
All of the, all of the block, all of the dock and sprocket
36:09
stuff was blocked shot over. I don't even know how many days.
36:13
Is 12 12 days maybe yeah, of course.
36:16
Yeah, 15 days. Maybe.
36:17
Yeah, yeah. So I got to see it, but I didn't
36:20
get to play with Brock and unfortunately.
36:22
That's a bummer. No, that's all.
36:24
We are any of us really want is just a broken.
36:28
My lap. Yeah, I know, right, so, the,
36:32
the interesting thing about this episode is there's an
36:35
interaction later on between Doc and cotter pin.
36:39
Yeah, so was also with look where the with the cotter pin,
36:43
Kind of pre-recorded as well. So there's no, no, that was
36:46
something to walk up. We're with no, we, I shot the
36:51
doozer stuff. But we went so j.j.
36:54
Johnson who was the first director on he did all of the
36:57
dock and sprocket. So.
36:58
So we talked about kind of how I wanted to shoot it and so I gave
37:02
him like a shot list and in particular that those he shot in
37:05
a way so that we could do a split screen because you knew
37:09
that was always going to kind of be the way we'd shoot the other
37:11
side of it with the Doozers. So that was just smart.
37:14
Yeah and then just somebody would have read the lines with
37:17
her amazing script supervisor, probably read with with Lily
37:21
off-screen. Sure.
37:22
Yeah. Well we can we can kind of head
37:25
on that storyline. We need to come back to it but
37:28
cotter pin and Doc Bond over this idea that they both want to
37:33
make a big difference in the world and everyone seems to be
37:35
standing in their way. But if everyone else is going to
37:38
be so relentless in standing in their way then docking Cotter
37:41
pin should also be relentless and not Up on their dreams and
37:45
the hard work that they're, they're dedicating themselves
37:48
to, which I think is actually a really nice moral there.
37:50
I love it. I love, I mean, I love what
37:53
they've done with Doc. This in this new reboot and I
37:57
love caught up in having such a sort of large role.
38:00
And yeah, I just this great moment of sort of like two girls
38:04
bonding over, like, we're gonna get that done.
38:07
I love it. I love how Lily goes.
38:08
You, you go since I can remember.
38:10
She says she says, of, like you go sister and I'm like, I love
38:13
it but I like it. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
38:16
Helping each other out. That's how it should be.
38:18
Yeah. As you said back at the giggle
38:21
Gaggle games, there's a series of different games that we get
38:24
to see. There's the pole of nonsense,
38:25
that we mentioned, the great radish run, where everyone's
38:28
running with radishes balance on their noses, which is something
38:31
that I believe was taken straight from the first episode
38:34
of the original series. Fraggle, balancing a radish on
38:37
their nose, which is really just contrary to their nose.
38:40
And the the god, what are the names of those slippery leaves?
38:49
Our I don't know about the leaves, but they usually are
38:52
sliding on. Grease berries, green fairy
38:54
exactly Green Parrot and say, Yaks owed.
38:56
But I assumed they were greaseberry leaves.
38:58
Yeah. So, those were both.
38:59
Both those that are things were inspired by are drawn from Canon
39:03
of the original. Yeah.
39:04
And then we kind of, yeah, turned it into this sort of
39:06
Montage of increasingly, insane games were the cradles are just
39:10
trying but failing to, you know, to participate with enthusiasm.
39:17
It was very fun to like so these, you know, You'll probably
39:20
notice, you know, they there's it's a, you know, it's a Mochi
39:24
Forward episode obviously, and you know, all of the other
39:29
fraggles are around. You know, we got boober selling
39:33
radish, Aid and Wembley's pulling the thing and, you know,
39:36
gobos kind of in the crowd or watching and sort of scratching
39:38
his head over, how badly this is going.
39:41
But there wasn't necessarily anything specific for red to be
39:44
doing. And so early on, I was like, I
39:45
think red is just playing all the games.
39:48
Like obviously she would just be Kind of number one front of the
39:53
Lion of every game and Karen, who plays Red, who's a genius
39:56
was like, yes, I'm in and then just threw herself into it, you
40:00
know, because that's what red would be doing.
40:03
You know, she'd be playing the games, she would not only that,
40:07
but I feel like she would be like competing hard.
40:10
Oh, no, no mercy. He wants to win.
40:13
Yeah, yeah. She's like, sappy.
40:15
The crackles are very least. He's like great.
40:17
Get out of my way. Yeah, she's the one who the The
40:21
Ink Spots gave her the radish card.
40:23
Definitely. The crackles our hating this.
40:28
They just, they're very tired cranky and there's, they're
40:34
just. Yeah.
40:34
They're their day just want some peace and quiet, I get it.
40:38
You know, sometimes just a party and you're just like, oh God,
40:40
these people are nice, but I gotta go home, right?
40:43
Yeah. Boober tells Mochi.
40:46
This and mochi says, well, we just haven't found the right
40:49
game yet. She says, gosh and boober is
40:52
never heard her say gosh before. She must be really upset.
40:56
That's the great thing about monkey.
40:57
She's usually so Zen that when she does have a moment of like
41:02
an outburst or like big emotion momentarily.
41:05
Yeah. Yeah.
41:06
It's meaningful. Right?
41:07
Yeah. The and the, I mean, this, the
41:10
stink eye, she gives them as one of my favorite thing that was
41:12
again, something that Donna is sort of improvised in a, in the
41:17
rehearsal. And I was like, oh my God, this
41:19
thing. That guy when she started
41:21
dancing, the turns around and gives them a look and they're
41:23
like, yeah, I think we had like a real sort of Sting music sting
41:29
on that moment. He like a finger but I can't
41:31
remember if it's really there in the Sanford.
41:34
Mix in the final one, but I thought that was so hilarious.
41:37
It killed me every day. If it's not there, it's you can
41:39
already hear it in your head. Yeah.
41:40
Like that's how that's how strong that stink.
41:42
I was yeah mokey the crackles. Runoff and mochi is now.
41:48
Consoling herself. Standing on her hands and
41:50
crying, Gobo thinks a traveling, Matt postcard will help.
41:56
And here we get our shot of traveling Matt's.
41:58
He's at a dog park. Learning how to communicate with
42:00
dogs things to the orb of understanding, which is a tennis
42:03
ball. And again, you, you aren't at
42:06
all involved with these write this now, I wish they'd flown me
42:08
to La, so I could have shot this in the sunshine in the middle of
42:10
winter. But no, all the Travelling, Matt
42:13
stuff, they were sort of second unit things.
42:17
Some were shot in La, some were shot in Alberta Aah.
42:20
And yeah, but they were sort of picked up as, as they could be
42:25
gotten. Yeah.
42:28
Where they went, like this one in particular, for example, was
42:32
it done already? By the time you were filming
42:34
your episode or was it now, and none of them were?
42:38
Maybe one of them was done? I think.
42:41
No, not even when I was filming, like, Even when we were editing,
42:46
I think for one or two of them they were still like we just had
42:51
a blank spot in the edit where it would be.
42:53
Like now we go to traveling Matt, but they were shot way
42:57
down the road. Yeah, sure.
42:59
Yeah. Do you know who directed them?
43:02
I don't I think there were different people because I know
43:06
I was going to if I'd been able to stay an extra few days, I was
43:10
going to do the traveling Matt of the previous episode 1.
43:14
So they were interesting like Paul, I think Paul Fox who did
43:17
the block before me. He he shot one of the ones that
43:21
was either in his episode or in JJ's episode.
43:25
So they were sort of kind of using some of the directors who
43:28
were there to shoot some of them but then the ones in La I'm not
43:31
actually sure. I'm sure I think Alex, the
43:36
showrunner was there for some of the one of the showrunners was
43:38
there for some of them? I don't know.
43:41
There's my answer. That's all right.
43:42
We don't need to know, we're not interviewing those people who
43:44
aren't, we don't, we don't care. So mokey's realizing after this,
43:51
brilliant insightful postcard that she's never actually asked
43:54
the crackles what they want. So the fraggles all heads a
43:57
calming cave to find the fraggles and the excuse me, the
44:01
crackles. The crackles are there and they
44:03
are dead asleep. Turns out that Kragle sleep for
44:07
most of the day and that's why they all have those droopy
44:10
eyelids. They're nocturnal.
44:12
Yeah, they're nocturnal but not just nocturnal like it because I
44:15
feel like they, we could have seen more of like oh well
44:18
they're asleep during the day. They're awake at night it really
44:21
does seem like know they're asleep for like 20 hours a day,
44:24
lucky to get him for lunch. Exactly.
44:27
Yeah. Yeah.
44:29
And none of this was written in the Kragle book which Each Lyle
44:32
points out was not even written by a Kragle.
44:35
Exactly. We got to check your sources.
44:37
Yeah, check your sources. That is the moral of this story
44:41
happened. Sometimes go straight to the
44:42
source. You can just talk check your
44:44
sources. Yeah, yeah.
44:47
Turns out that the crackles live and play on a different plane
44:50
that they access via a dream state, which is trippy for a
44:54
kids show, but I'm here for it and because we get to see it
44:59
obviously makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
45:02
We get to see the fraggles dream sharing with, Lyle to see what
45:07
it's like with the with the, with the crackles work in play
45:12
in their dreams. This is something that was
45:13
introduced in the original series episode boobers dream.
45:16
Yeah. Which was also the episode that
45:18
introduced the character sidebottom for those who were
45:21
wondering, I love sidebottom so much.
45:24
We got sidebottom on this show, right?
45:26
Oh, you gotta get sidebottom. Yeah, yeah.
45:28
Well you can then, you know, if you're familiar with that
45:31
episode, I very much Drew from that, in terms of how we shot,
45:35
you know, them kind of falling asleep, going into the dream
45:38
world, you know, all of them laying down on their backs, with
45:40
their heads together in this sort of flower like, you know,
45:47
the layout or and of course, we can do it really cool because we
45:51
had a crane and we'd added like a spin and pushed in on it and
45:54
stuff. So yeah, that was that was and
45:58
it's the song to, you know, is a rewrite of the original.
46:03
I love that song. So yeah.
46:05
Yeah. That way.
46:06
That was intentional in spirit inspired by moment in the
46:10
episode. Yeah definitely I actually
46:12
watched while I was watching the episode I paused it went back to
46:16
the original to watch how it was filmed for the song dream, a
46:20
dream and see like you said it's that same overhead shot which is
46:23
a beautiful shot by the way. It's so nice to see them in full
46:28
body without, you know, when you see them in full body up,
46:34
upright walking or whatever. You know, sometimes you have to
46:41
have them in blue screen, you have to have the Puppeteer and
46:43
blue screen. It's quite a complicated thing,
46:46
but just to be able to lay them out and just, I mean, the
46:48
puppeteers were all crammed under that rock puppeteering
46:51
mouths and sort of like, having them sort of breathe, just a
46:54
little bit. They're sort of chest going up
46:55
and down, but it was it's just nice to see their full bodies,
47:00
you know. I agree.
47:01
Yeah. It makes it more real.
47:02
Yeah. And it must must have been
47:04
really convenient that Mochi is the Star of this episode because
47:08
she's the only one with working eyelids.
47:11
Oh my gosh. You get to see her eyes closed.
47:15
I'd something I think when I was like, thinking about it, I
47:18
definitely it didn't. I didn't think that hard about
47:20
it, but yes, it worked out great that she could access very
47:23
lucky. Yeah, yes.
47:24
And like we love to see, you know, eyelids on characters who
47:27
don't normally have them, you know.
47:29
Yeah, violins play. Crack me up so much.
47:33
Yeah. Yeah.
47:34
And well and also, you know She's so talented.
47:38
It's manipulating those eyelids my mind for all different kinds
47:42
of emotions. Yeah, we get a peek into what
47:48
it's like inside of the Dreamscape.
47:51
And well, first of all, continue the conversation about the song,
47:54
the original song is very much like a lullaby.
47:56
It's very, it's very sweet song. This one starts that way and
48:00
then very quickly picks up and it becomes 6 into kind of like a
48:03
surfer, kind of like the moon little bit.
48:06
Yeah. Yeah, everybody's just jam it in
48:09
a weird psychedelic, dream world, they're jamming they're
48:12
dancing, they're swinging on vines all the crackles have lost
48:15
their eyelids. They're all right around color.
48:18
They're all now wearing colorful kind of fun old versions of
48:21
their wardrobe to they had this sort of yeah monotone look.
48:25
And then they had the very fun like Wilds, you know, dream
48:28
looks yes and going back to what we were talking about.
48:32
The top of this episode boober, blows his nose.
48:34
On a crackles sweater which could be Brother as you know,
48:38
he's giving them back their their greeting or their gift,
48:43
whatever, whatever their tradition was or if you're like
48:46
me, who thought this was really rude?
48:48
This was boobers revenge of like, oh, you're going to mess
48:50
up my stuff. I'm gonna mess up your stuff.
48:52
Now that we're on your Turf. Sure.
48:55
Yeah, I mean you can read it over you or not only Bluebird
48:59
would do that. He's a nice guy.
49:01
Yeah, I was going to say this was a really crazy song to shoot
49:04
because it was we shot at all blue screen.
49:07
Dean and sort of I had like loose ideas and images of like
49:10
what I wanted to see. But this was something that was
49:13
a very like cart before, the horse sort of situation where we
49:17
were like, okay, well, I kind of think they're going to be like
49:21
bouncing and swimming and swinging on vines.
49:25
And then I had this idea of them, all laying, you know, sort
49:29
of mimicking, the top-down circle thing them all laying on
49:32
the Petals of a flower with Lyle in the middle singing up to the
49:35
camera. So we shot them.
49:37
That's sort of shot everybody in that kind of, you know,
49:42
position. So we could layer that in and
49:44
then we also shot you, they're not used that much Lyles is the
49:48
only one. We also shot a bunch of them
49:50
just their hands. Like so we were going to do is
49:52
sort of like, Bohemian Rhapsody Queen kind of thing like
49:55
layering there. So yeah, whatever.
49:57
We didn't end up doing that but right, that's actually we just
50:00
sort of did like a, you know, blue screen hose down and be
50:04
like, okay mokey you got four. Two minutes.
50:07
Let's Okay, mokey's swimming Mochi jumping mokey, you know,
50:11
swinging singing all sorts of stuff.
50:13
So yeah, it along of texting with out ahead of time we were
50:16
like maybe we'll shoot it in slow-mo with a with a fan
50:20
blowing. But here's a fun fact.
50:22
Puppets look weird in slow-mo because they don't have the
50:25
micro movements of their face that it doesn't really look like
50:28
anything. So interested in bitch that idea
50:31
I mean y-you still a once when when wimbley and 107 when I see
50:35
Joe's like going to hit Wembley That's funny because he sort of
50:38
screaming and moving it right singing.
50:41
You don't really get the same effect as like a human in slow
50:45
motion. Anyway it was, it was fun to
50:47
shoot and sort of a roll of the dice, a little bit of like.
50:50
Okay. Here's a weird bunch of stuff on
50:53
blue screen. I hope we can make something
50:56
cool and psychedelic out of it. It must also be really
51:00
interesting fun. I don't know to really have a
51:03
day where you're like, okay everyone just dressed in blue,
51:06
like, head to toe. So cover your head, get out, get
51:09
into the box, you know, here we go.
51:12
Yeah, blue screen. Stuff is fine.
51:14
Yeah, I love it. The crackles.
51:17
Ask if they can just stay in calming cave until this water
51:20
situation is resolved, which is a great compromise, the fraggles
51:24
get their space. The crackles have a place where
51:26
they can rest, of course, the Water Crisis is still going on,
51:30
but at least they don't have to sit through another round of
51:32
giggle Gaggle Gaggle Gaggle games.
51:35
It's a hard thing to say. Here, we also get our check in
51:39
with the gorg family. Papa is ordering Junior to
51:42
finish building the fountain. He makes it very clear that
51:45
they're taking all the water from cells for no other reason
51:47
than the fact that they want to control it.
51:50
The gorgs are not good people, not really people but I'm not
51:55
gonna be professionally the dad. Yeah, exactly.
51:58
Yeah, you're very greedy and self-serving.
52:00
Yeah, yeah they are. And as Junior finishes, The
52:05
Fountain, the water Waterfall that fills fraggle, Pond has
52:08
completely stopped, which is not a good thing.
52:14
Did you get to film this bit of the with the gorgs?
52:17
Or was that week? Another shoot for another day.
52:20
Now the gorgs that it was just the just the stock and sprocket
52:23
stuff. We're done separately and a
52:24
traveling Matt but all the gourds and Doozers and fragile
52:27
stuff for all incorporated into the same 15 days.
52:30
We had to shoot Cool. I feel like it must be a blast
52:35
to get to like be there with like the gorgs castle and like
52:39
the folks in the Gap the gorgs garden and got Castle or is an
52:44
amazing set like it's gigantic. The garden is has like working,
52:49
you know, you can actually have water flowing through it.
52:52
Everything is just oversized and amazing.
52:55
It's it is an awesome set. Yeah, that we shot that.
52:58
I think that was my first day we shot, all are gorg stuff on day
53:00
one. And then it was Because I didn't
53:03
actually have a ton of gorg stuff in my three episodes in
53:06
the first and 107 and 109. There was only really one scene
53:10
was just in 108 where there was this sort of recurring jr.
53:13
Jr. And you sure Frank?
53:17
A lot of Juniors? Yeah, yeah.
53:19
In back in Fraggle Rock of Barry blueberry is back and he is
53:23
literally hanging from the edge of a cliff.
53:26
He says, I'll tell you one thing, this can't be good.
53:28
You're looking at a real Cliffhanger folks.
53:31
I'm Barry blueberry classic. I had to get one more in there.
53:33
Yeah mazinger yep. I don't know how he got up there
53:37
though. Oh you never asked questions
53:40
about how Barry doesn't think you just does it.
53:42
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah that was that was fun and
53:44
also quite a complicated thing to shoot in some ways but I want
53:48
I really wanted to do that kind of you know top-down looking
53:53
down at him Die Hard sort of shot.
53:56
Yeah we talked about a lot about how we do that.
53:58
Actually that part was actually pretty easy because you Johnny
54:01
actually could hide just uh, Nice and do that part.
54:04
But then there's a second puppet that you can kind of animatronic
54:08
head puppet that in the wider shot where he was further away.
54:13
Hanging from the cliff, we had the animatronic one on, so you
54:16
could just, you don't want to stay on that too long or Beyond
54:18
too close because it, you can sort of tell it's animatronic if
54:21
you look really closely at it. But it was just enough for him
54:23
to start to like move that you could cut into the close up with
54:27
Johnny actually puppeteering the puppet.
54:30
Yeah, that's are the episode ends, which is such a bizarre
54:35
thing, not so much for this season of Fraggle Rock, but it's
54:38
just for fraggle, Fraggle, Rock as a whole.
54:40
That there can be an episode that ends on a cliffhanger.
54:43
You know, we're not used to the serialization of these kids.
54:46
It's got to learn about Cliffhangers.
54:49
There's Cliffhangers in life. That's an important lesson.
54:53
Yeah. Yeah.
54:54
Right. We're not always going to get
54:56
closure. I mean that we will get closer
54:58
if you watch the next episode of brick, but now you're not
55:00
getting that that all-important closure.
55:02
Was there. Do you have any other memories
55:05
of this episode or the other two that you filmed that we didn't
55:07
really get around to or interesting things that you you
55:11
wanted to accomplish that? Maybe maybe with a challenge or
55:14
you didn't get gets it to actually see on screen in the
55:18
end? I mean I'm not sure what you
55:20
guys talked about 4107, I'm not sure how much you talked about
55:22
the doozer party but that's about the dinner party and that
55:27
was a real highlight 1/8 of a page for me because that was,
55:31
you know, it literally all it It said, was like the Doozers
55:34
party, you know, and then one comes down and says happy helmet
55:38
appreciating, but the amount of work and effort that went into
55:41
that 20 seconds, maybe of screen time.
55:46
It's just like a sort of comedic cut to and then cut away from
55:50
was a, truly, a joy like the, you know, the Creature Shop and
55:57
the art Department, the amount of work that went into it.
55:59
They just went nuts. They, you know, they were like
56:01
okay, how many Different crazy hats.
56:04
Can we build for all of these Doozers?
56:07
So you know, I took hundreds of pictures but like, you know.
56:11
Yeah. So many hell different helmets
56:14
you know the big you know it's like a big disco ball head with
56:19
a helmet on it. They would just went cracked
56:21
with the with the helmet stuff and then there was like little
56:24
mini Tiki Bar and a, you know, the you know, the teacup ride
56:29
and the they did, you know, Deadmau5 kind of The Daft Punk
56:34
kind of DJ everything was Wild and the thing with the Doozers
56:40
tooth because he took quite a long time to takes a really long
56:44
time to set up the doozer stuff. It's very finicky.
56:47
They're very obviously, they're small and they're they're fussy
56:52
so we kind of found by the time I was shooting they had learned
56:56
that the best way to do it was just sort of like they would be
56:59
setting up the doozer stuff while we're off on another
57:02
stage. Ting stuff.
57:03
And then we would kind of come in and be like, okay, just
57:05
change it to do and he ping-pong back and forth so that you know,
57:09
by the time they were ready, we could just come over, shoot the
57:11
shot and then move on. But I mean, it took almost the
57:14
full. It took pretty much a full day
57:16
to get, sort of, you know, there was the big wide shot where, you
57:20
know, the Liberace doozer comes in at the end and then there was
57:25
sort of like three other shots, you know?
57:27
But the DJ the teacup ride and like the And whatever.
57:33
The other one is the one doing this.
57:36
The my God conga line but every time I would come over there, I
57:44
was just like Overjoyed to see the insanity that was going on.
57:49
Like all these little Doozers with insane hats on like dancing
57:53
and you know to have buying a cocktail and oh my God anyway I
57:58
thought yeah that's hysterical and obviously a lot of work So
58:02
much work. Yeah.
58:04
Which is appropriate for Doozers?
58:05
Yeah. Yeah.
58:06
Like a one-off joke? Yes.
58:07
Exactly. The Doozers.
58:08
Don't mess around. They're going to party.
58:10
They're going to party as hard as they can for one.
58:13
One night only. So that was my favorite.
58:17
That doozer thing to do, I mean I love 107, I think almost 7:00.
58:21
We shot a lot of the Earth's and so I really have a real soft
58:25
before and I loved the script and I loved the music, you know,
58:29
the especially When, you know, the first one, where we did the,
58:35
the fraggles like dance line like the sort of Soul Train
58:39
dance. Like oh God, yeah, that's the
58:41
ballast. One of the best scenes in the
58:42
series Ya. Allah.
58:43
It's so fun to do, everybody was just like, this is having the
58:47
time of their lives because we rehearse it and then literally
58:50
just set the camera up and set up the dance line.
58:53
And everybody would just go do their turn.
58:57
Someone else would do it. And I mean, I love seeing how
59:00
everybody danced and You know, the Storyteller is the
59:04
Storyteller slapping her ass and then sort of like popping her
59:07
chest killed me every time. Donna, did I think this is the
59:11
funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.
59:13
That's incredible. This is one of those things
59:15
where, you know, I'm not a puppeteer, but when I see some
59:18
of these puppets and how they move, it's like I don't know how
59:21
you got your arm do that. Like I have no idea.
59:25
So many joints in there, they move all smooth so differently
59:28
in uniquely. Like, even just that Soul Train
59:30
thing where you're like, They all have completely different
59:33
dances. None of them are moving the
59:35
same. They are all magically just
59:37
seemed like unique living creatures.
59:40
So, that was a, that was so much fun.
59:45
Anyway, yeah. II mean, I had that literally,
59:47
the time of my life. It was the best job of my entire
59:50
career. No, that's great.
59:52
I'm so glad to hear that. Hope I get to go back.
59:53
Yeah, yes us to. I mean, that's, that's the whole
59:56
thing also, is like, we're keeping our fingers crossed for
59:59
season 2. Sleet, like, I mean, you nailed
1:00:03
these episodes so be great to see you coming back to Fraggle.
1:00:05
Rock, I know you're, I want to live, you're apart, you're part
1:00:09
of the of the family now. So I mean, I feel like if
1:00:12
there's going to be more fraggles, there's got to be
1:00:14
more, Jordan canning, as well. Thank you.
1:00:18
I am basically a human help it. Well Jordan, thank you so much
1:00:22
for being here. This was a blast, thank you for
1:00:24
the great work that you did on the show and helping to make
1:00:27
Fraggle Rock back to the rock as fun and respect.
1:00:31
All to the original as possible and hopefully, if there's a
1:00:35
season 2 will do more of these episodes and what gets talk to
1:00:37
you again, that would be a dream.
1:00:40
Fantastic, well that brings us to the end of another episode of
1:00:43
Fraggle talk, but stay tuned as tough pigs own.
1:00:46
Beth cook talks more about the themes of this episode in our
1:00:49
dive deeper segments coming up right now.
1:01:03
Welcome to dig deeper. This is Beth cook and I am
1:01:06
joined once again by executive producer and president of
1:01:09
television at the Jim Henson company Hallie Stanford.
1:01:12
Well, you need to know something about me that when people ask
1:01:16
me, what who's your favorite, who's your favorite new
1:01:19
character? Italia.
1:01:22
It's kind of like a, it's kind of like an equal Jam Dylan loud,
1:01:27
crackle. But at the end of the day, Lyle
1:01:30
Kragle wins my heart. See I thought you were gonna say
1:01:33
Barry blueberry. No, No, Berries, Lyle Kragle,
1:01:39
lovely, love him, love him, love him.
1:01:41
Played by Ed Helms who was absolutely extraordinary and
1:01:44
again he designed the look of the aisle including his very
1:01:48
funky outfit that he wears in the dream.
1:01:50
In his dream song. That's so great.
1:01:54
I had no idea that the voice actors had such ohyeah on
1:01:58
Solutions. Oh, they did about how they look
1:02:00
and same with Jam Dylan with his hair and so, anyway science,
1:02:06
that crazy outfit that crazy Lyle so love, I love this
1:02:11
episode and it's a lot about allyship and there's a big
1:02:17
Refugee messaging going on through.
1:02:20
Put it on how to welcome a culture, how to support refugees
1:02:28
what they need and we did a lot of we did a lot of research.
1:02:33
I know the writers room, definitely talk with
1:02:35
organizations about what would be most important to share.
1:02:38
And I shared a story that when we had these exchange students,
1:02:45
come to visit us from Mexico City in high school, we We we
1:02:51
thought we knew what they would want, right?
1:02:54
We were like, we're going to have a giant crazy picnic and we
1:02:58
had this giant crazy picnic where we did all these games and
1:03:01
it wasn't it was literally insane and they were so tired.
1:03:04
First of all, let me do this on their first day.
1:03:06
They must have been exhausted. They didn't speak English.
1:03:10
It was like, it was just like such disaster.
1:03:14
And so I think the guys thought that was so funny and they're
1:03:17
like, we got it, we got to do that.
1:03:19
Like Somebody's gotta just They know what they need.
1:03:22
And it was for Smokey who thinks that she's very attuned with
1:03:24
everyone and that became giggle Gaggle games.
1:03:28
And I will tell you, heads up that all of those exchange
1:03:31
students ended up having a great time because they actually told
1:03:34
us what they really wanted to do.
1:03:36
And I'll tell you what, my exchange didn't really want to
1:03:38
do, she wanted to see Empire Strikes Back.
1:03:40
So I was like, okay, let's do it.
1:03:43
So anyway, it was just all about like learning about who they
1:03:46
are, what's important to their culture, what they need and you
1:03:51
can see that in this particular episode that it takes all of
1:03:55
them. Well, maybe not all of them, you
1:03:57
know? Like I think some of them see
1:03:58
what's going on. Like they're like, I don't think
1:04:00
this is going well, but it takes Lyle to advocate for them and to
1:04:06
teach them. Hmm, what, what, what they
1:04:09
really mean, or just sleep. I'll have that connection in
1:04:13
travelling. Matt segment, where he goes to
1:04:15
the dog park. Yes, and he so wants to connect
1:04:19
with these creatures. But first, he has to admit that
1:04:22
he knows nothing about them and discovers, the orb of
1:04:25
understanding great, it's terrible.
1:04:29
I love it. I love it.
1:04:32
That was, and I think that again, you know what this is
1:04:34
gonna sound so crazy when I say, but we actually like we all
1:04:38
think we know we like we were talking about how people project
1:04:40
onto their animals and dogs like, oh absolutely humans,
1:04:44
they're not humans their dogs and their animals and you have
1:04:48
to come at, you know, you have to kind of see it from their
1:04:50
point of view. To.
1:04:50
So we actually, that was quite deliberate to have a to have a
1:04:55
pet in there, you know, which is some part of our family.
1:04:58
And we most, I hope, most everybody care takes at least
1:05:03
some time in their life, a pet. And again, like being a good
1:05:10
friend and Ally do that. That means understanding where
1:05:13
they're coming from also, by the way that doberman was like all
1:05:18
over Uncle traveling Matt. Like I was scared for that
1:05:23
Puppeteer, okay? It's real quickly, I wanted to
1:05:27
touch on the song, Same light. I thought how genius it was.
1:05:32
That Mochi is coming from a place of our differences, don't
1:05:35
matter. We all have the same light
1:05:38
inside of us and it's our sameness that will connect us
1:05:42
not realizing how sometimes differences do matter.
1:05:46
Differences do matter and cultures matter.
1:05:48
And the way that we speak to one In another matters and that, you
1:05:52
know, there's this book, this great book, right?
1:05:55
But the book didn't have all the information, right?
1:05:58
They thought they knew it's like, when we we all just, you
1:06:00
know, like, remember remember the days when we used to bring
1:06:02
along thick books when we were traveling as opposed to our
1:06:05
phones, we thought that that had all the answers in it about how
1:06:10
to behave in certain ways. Well, it didn't and he know what
1:06:13
we, you know, what we need to be encouraged to do is to talk to
1:06:16
people is to talk to the people. You're visiting with ask them
1:06:19
about themselves as It's appropriate and if you don't
1:06:22
know, don't be shy, you know, see you know anyway, so I think
1:06:26
it's a I think it's a good message for all of our Global
1:06:29
Citizens as we continue to travel connect through the
1:06:34
internet and get to know one another to really ask each
1:06:38
other. Who are you and mookie has this
1:06:41
great moment with Lyle where when she does, finally asked,
1:06:46
what do you need? I'd love to hear about your
1:06:48
culture when you would like to tell me about it.
1:06:50
That's when he decides to invite her in.
1:06:53
And I tell her about this wonderful unique thing that they
1:06:56
share isn't that so funky and fun though, like it's like it's
1:07:01
like it's like first of all I said why is it that like we have
1:07:05
to like we're always dream fasting here at the Jim Henson
1:07:08
company, right? Link raggles in the dream scape.
1:07:12
We're, you know, we can be anything we want to be, but yes,
1:07:16
that's right. That once she has admitted that
1:07:19
she and she opens her Heart to wanted to hear, and listen to
1:07:22
who they are. They invite her in and she gets
1:07:24
to go on this. Incredible, magical journey, all
1:07:29
her friends do to, and and it's beyond all expectations,
1:07:34
including mine. I got to be honest with you,
1:07:36
Jordan canning the director, she's so brilliant.
1:07:38
We didn't know what that segment was going to look like until it
1:07:40
got delivered. She had a very specific idea in
1:07:43
mind of what was happening behind, you know, on the green
1:07:45
screen anyway, I think it delivered.
1:07:56
Fraggle, talk The Unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast is brought
1:07:58
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1:08:01
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1:08:05
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segment hosted by Beth cook with special.
1:08:09
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1:08:12
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1:08:15
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1:08:32
Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time down at
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