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The Muppets Mayhem: Backstage Pass - "We Will Rock You" with Dave Goelz (Zoot) · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:05
  Hello and welcome to The Muppets Mayhem Backstage.
• 0:08
  Pass, the unofficial companion podcast to The Muppets Mayhem
• 0:11
  presented by toughthings.com. This is the podcast where we
• 0:15
  tour through every episode of The Muppets Mayhem to uncover
• 0:17
  behind the scenes, stories, Easter eggs and more.
• 0:20
  With the talented cast and crew who helped put the series
• 0:22
  together. I'm your host, dedicated mayhead
• 0:25
  Joe Hennis. Today we're talking about track
• 0:28
  10. We Will Rock you, in which we
• 0:30
  get the band back together and they put on a show at the
• 0:33
  Hollywood Bowl again for our finale, we are excited to
• 0:38
  welcome to return guests and one special first time guest.
• 0:41
  First up, he's cocreator and executive producer of The
• 0:44
  Muppets Mayhem. Please welcome Jeff York's back
• 0:46
  to the podcast. Hey, Jeff.
• 0:48
  Thank you for having me. I didn't need to wave.
• 0:50
  I suppose this is an audio podcast, but thank you.
• 0:52
  I'm glad he was polite. I'm glad that you did.
• 0:54
  That was for me. That was for me and no one else.
• 0:57
  Noted that you waved. I was waving to Dave next.
• 1:02
  He's another cocreator and executive producer, as well as
• 1:04
  the performer beneath and behind Doctor Teeth.
• 1:07
  Please welcome Bill Beretta back to the podcast.
• 1:10
  Hey, Bill. I I, I, I I I didn't guess I'd
• 1:13
  need to Bell. Sorry, yes you did.
• 1:17
  So courteous y'all are so polite.
• 1:20
  Last but certainly not least, a Muppet performer who originated
• 1:24
  and has continued to perform Zoot since 1975.
• 1:27
  It's the one and only Dave goals.
• 1:30
  Hey, Dave. Hey Joe, thank you for upcoming
• 1:33
  me to be there today. I It's fantastic looking for Oh
• 1:38
  no. Questions.
• 1:40
  Oh no, he's got all these. Connection.
• 1:43
  Technical issues. Oh geez.
• 1:45
  Well, we'll try to power through, I guess Can.
• 1:47
  You plug, unplug, and plug in again, Dave.
• 1:49
  Dave, Unplug Dave. I'm running on batteries, Oh.
• 1:56
  It's very cool. It stops.
• 1:58
  A lot of comedy going on. It's very digit of you, Dave.
• 2:02
  Yeah, pulled that one onto the past.
• 2:07
  All right, Digit. Why?
• 2:10
  Yeah, here's my first question. Why isn't Digit on the show?
• 2:13
  You know, I wish, I wish I could have another shot at him.
• 2:16
  We we didn't get that whole show working and and I didn't quite
• 2:19
  land on Digit, but I had a really strong idea for him as a
• 2:24
  guy. Was the idea, Yeah.
• 2:26
  The idea was he's a guy who was a techno music guy and he
• 2:31
  decided to modify himself so he got out the soldering iron.
• 2:36
  Put a. Switch panel on his chest.
• 2:38
  And started rewiring his own self and it was such a great
• 2:43
  idea. It was so much fun.
• 2:45
  And we just, you know, it's one of those things that fell by the
• 2:48
  wayside. All right.
• 2:50
  Well, if Muppets Mayhem gets the second season, Jeff and Bill,
• 2:53
  you know what to do. Right soundcheck.
• 2:56
  He's there. It runs there.
• 2:57
  Makes. The soundcheck guy.
• 2:58
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the amp the Mayhem needs.
• 3:02
  Amp. Basically, we do need another
• 3:06
  character with eyeballs, so that would help, even though it's
• 3:09
  fine. So Dave, how does it feel giving
• 3:14
  Zoot such a huge spotlight? So this is probably his biggest
• 3:17
  role in his entire career with The Muppets.
• 3:21
  Yeah, I I guess I could give you a little back story if I haven't
• 3:27
  before. I don't think I have and go for
• 3:29
  it. In the very beginning we started
• 3:31
  out the Electric Mayhem and did The Muppet Show.
• 3:34
  We we we started them before the Muppet Show, but we got on The
• 3:36
  Muppet Show. The Mayhem was great.
• 3:40
  Jerry Nelson was Floyd. He was like a Beat Generation
• 3:44
  guy, a jazz fan, a musician. He was just Floyd and he could
• 3:49
  do that character perfectly. I was, on the other hand, 27, I
• 3:52
  was not any of those things and I did not know how to do Zoot.
• 3:56
  So I used to give away my lines to Floyd.
• 3:59
  We'd we'd have cold reads every Sunday morning with the guest
• 4:02
  and I would go over to Jerry and I'd say can you can you do this
• 4:05
  line and this line and and he would take him.
• 4:08
  And Jim didn't mind, you know. And so I basically I didn't do
• 4:11
  anything with Zoo because I just didn't know what to do.
• 4:14
  And then we did the Muppet movie and after the premiere in London
• 4:18
  at the party, this little guy came up to me and he said, hey,
• 4:22
  yeah, tell me you're the guy who does zoo.
• 4:24
  I love zoo. I've known so many sax players
• 4:26
  just like him. He's fantastic.
• 4:27
  He really nailed it. I'm Sammy Kahn.
• 4:30
  Now. Sammy Kahn, listeners who don't
• 4:32
  know wrote like, half of the hits of the midcentury, and he
• 4:38
  wrote things for Frank Sinatra and all the big greats.
• 4:41
  So this was an amazing moment. And I thought, well, whatever.
• 4:46
  I guess by not doing anything I must be doing something right?
• 4:49
  Come on to something. I haven't done anything ever
• 4:51
  since then. It's been like 40-6 years or
• 4:54
  something and so. But, but this particular show,
• 4:59
  we had so much scrutiny of these guys because they're the only
• 5:01
  characters that we're doing on the shows that I thought I'd try
• 5:04
  to add. I'd try to deepen him in some
• 5:07
  way. And I did.
• 5:08
  My choice was to make him surreal.
• 5:11
  So that wasn't part of the writing on the show.
• 5:13
  It started when I got there. So you don't see a lot of it.
• 5:17
  But you know, the dude is like a Magritte painting.
• 5:20
  He's he's in another planet. He's not out of it.
• 5:23
  He's just in another place, yeah.
• 5:27
  And I feel like that's that's part of the character's history
• 5:30
  a bit as well. I mean, I'm thinking
• 5:31
  specifically of things like Muppets Sick Manhattan, where
• 5:34
  you know, he's, he's sleepy, but he kind of wakes up and they,
• 5:37
  you know, they're telling him like like nobody's landed yet,
• 5:39
  you know, or like he's kind of not tethered to to this planet.
• 5:45
  Yeah. Well, the reason I chose that
• 5:47
  was it's consistent with what we've done in the past, but it
• 5:50
  could go to other places, you know you.
• 5:53
  He could be running a vacuum cleaner in the living room and
• 5:57
  but there's no vacuum cleaner but we hear the sound so that
• 6:02
  that most of that stuff didn't get in the series because it it
• 6:05
  was a very complicated series to to write for and so it was hard
• 6:09
  to make adjustments for that. But that's the idea that I had
• 6:13
  with him. Yeah, I love the idea that he
• 6:17
  that he and the audience are aware of his surrealism.
• 6:21
  So that he is surreal. I don't think the people around
• 6:24
  him see what's going on, but I think the audience and zoo in a
• 6:30
  sense, are one mind. That's what I loved is that
• 6:33
  they're let in in on his surreal mind and world, you know, So we
• 6:40
  never call attention to it. Yeah, nobody talks to Jimmy Hsu,
• 6:44
  right? Or nobody thinks about the fact
• 6:47
  that his shoe is floating on the couch or looks at it and calls
• 6:50
  attention to it. That's just what's happening.
• 6:53
  And we're lucky enough to be a part of it.
• 6:55
  You know, Dave, is it strange for you to show up on a Muppet
• 7:00
  set and not have Gonzo on your arm?
• 7:03
  No no cuz I've done lots of shows without Gonzo.
• 7:07
  It's strange to have only one character.
• 7:10
  A lot more trailer time. Lot less lines.
• 7:17
  Lot less lines, especially with zoo.
• 7:19
  Not much. Not much to say, very.
• 7:22
  Easy. Weird thing was it wasn't your
• 7:23
  trailer. It wasn't your trailer.
• 7:26
  That trailer time you would just put on it because.
• 7:28
  Trailer Just found a trailer. So in the series we get a solid
• 7:37
  back story for Doctor Teeth, we get a good amount for Animal and
• 7:41
  Floyd's, even a little bit of Janice.
• 7:44
  We don't really find anything out about Zoot before joining
• 7:48
  the the mayhem. I know that there's probably
• 7:51
  some stuff that might be saved for a potential season 2, but
• 7:54
  Dave, do you have like a a back story in your head, like your
• 7:58
  own head cannon of of where Zoot comes from?
• 8:03
  Nodding as he says that, that. You know, I love back stories,
• 8:07
  but just I've always been clueless about Zoot.
• 8:11
  All I know is that he he lives in a flophouse hotel, like a
• 8:16
  downtown hotel, where you pay by by the month for a little room
• 8:21
  with a bed and a little a little bedside table and chair.
• 8:25
  That's all he has. We have some.
• 8:28
  Yeah, we have. We came up with stuff.
• 8:30
  Yeah, we're saving it. But go ahead, Jeff.
• 8:32
  No, we we had a bunch of options of things, different ideas that
• 8:37
  we we're not going to give away. But it just felt silly to do a
• 8:41
  show that took place now and spent half of it in their past.
• 8:45
  Give a little bit, you know, and give and like Janice, for
• 8:48
  example, tease a little more. But you know, all of them
• 8:52
  obviously came from somewhere and we definitely thought about
• 8:54
  all of it. This show was pretty different
• 8:59
  from most other Muppet shows, mainly in that it's more of a
• 9:03
  narrative sitcom, which you did, I know you did in the 2015
• 9:07
  Muppet series, but not really. Aside from that, Dave, for you
• 9:11
  as a performer, did you have any unique challenges to Muppets
• 9:14
  Mayhem that you didn't have in those other Muppet projects?
• 9:19
  Yeah, my foot hurt. I don't know.
• 9:22
  Yeah, What? What happened to your foot?
• 9:25
  Just my right foot hurt A. It's a whole thing, yeah.
• 9:28
  It's a whole thing. You know people aren't
• 9:31
  interested in that, but but it hurt and that made it harder.
• 9:29
  That's another. Jesus, I'm so, so can I I'm
• 9:38
  meant just. Can I say something?
• 9:40
  Sure. I don't know.
• 9:42
  In my mind, I guess I didn't think of it as a situation
• 9:45
  comedy approach. I I think of it as.
• 9:48
  I like your. Thank you.
• 9:49
  Thank you. Clarifying and elucidating.
• 9:52
  I wish people could see what you're.
• 9:53
  So I didn't think of it as a situation comedy.
• 9:58
  I thought of it more as A and I think when we were writing too,
• 10:02
  we thought of it as a big long film, right?
• 10:05
  A big, long movie. And I think a challenge was
• 10:09
  because we're. What's called block shooting,
• 10:13
  where we're shooting several episodes at the same time.
• 10:16
  I think it was difficult for some people to track where you
• 10:20
  are, you know in in this time, right?
• 10:24
  So if I'm doing, I'm doing a scene from episode 3, I'm
• 10:28
  supposed to feel a certain way because I just came after
• 10:31
  episode two. We we approached the writing as
• 10:35
  a big, long film. And that it wasn't necessarily
• 10:39
  situation comedy. As a matter of fact, I remember
• 10:42
  saying to Adam, let's think of this as a, you know, a Goldberg
• 10:49
  movie. How would you write a Goldberg
• 10:51
  movie? You you wouldn't have the same
• 10:53
  setups and immediate jokes and you know, it'd be a little
• 10:57
  different, right? You, you, you kind of approach
• 10:59
  in a different way. And so we would.
• 11:01
  Like a child then? A little bit, yeah.
• 11:04
  But it was something I think we also had to prove to the powers
• 11:07
  that be. Just like, look, we don't want
• 11:08
  to explain everything right up front, Do want to like, piece
• 11:12
  this out and take our time learning and meeting these
• 11:16
  characters. There's we didn't want to set
• 11:19
  everything up and then pay everything off at the end.
• 11:21
  You know, we were trying to find ways of, like Jeff just said,
• 11:25
  letting it play out over time. But yeah, you know, in the block
• 11:28
  shooting aspect is an interesting thing that I think
• 11:31
  was tough to grasp where? Yeah.
• 11:33
  You're shooting different episodes at once.
• 11:36
  And it's not in order. It's not 123 sometimes it was
• 11:39
  1-2 and then part of seven and then we'll do six and eight
• 11:44
  together and 9:00 and 10:00, you know, And I I can't even imagine
• 11:48
  as a performer as an actor what it was like, OK, where where am
• 11:52
  IOK, Nora. Nora was here and.
• 11:55
  Right. And I'm.
• 11:55
  I'm coming from right. It's not even just whole
• 11:57
  episodes. It's scenes from parts of the
• 12:00
  episodes here and. I can.
• 12:03
  Clarify that for you. I didn't know what the hell I
• 12:08
  was doing all the time. None of us did.
• 12:12
  Other puppeteers were the same way.
• 12:14
  We all were like, just trusting Bill.
• 12:18
  It's very mayhem, yeah, But that works for zoot because zoot
• 12:22
  doesn't. Know from but you're right.
• 12:24
  I mean, you guys were so incredibly lucky as were we to
• 12:27
  have Bill there to just. Yeah.
• 12:30
  Yeah, I just to prepare for this, I watched the episode 10 a
• 12:33
  couple times and I and I several times.
• 12:36
  I went, oh, that was part of this episode?
• 12:38
  Sure, right. You know because.
• 12:40
  Yeah, so disorienting to block shoot.
• 12:43
  There were a lot of conversations with our human
• 12:45
  actors, with the mumper performers just about, you know,
• 12:47
  wait, did I already do that? You know, did we already have
• 12:51
  that emotional thing happen? So yeah, it was challenging
• 12:55
  certainly that way. I think, but when they're arcs.
• 12:59
  But it also that's the way we can make this show is that we
• 13:02
  needed to be efficient as far as scheduling and using our sets
• 13:07
  and reusing our sets. So.
• 13:09
  Yeah, hell with the talent. Yeah, I mean, they're just
• 13:12
  gonna. They just have to say the words
• 13:13
  and. You're all puppets to us.
• 13:16
  Yeah, Wow. Dave, as the only original
• 13:20
  Muppet Show performer on set, how often did the cast and crew
• 13:23
  lean on you for, like, information about the bands or
• 13:26
  about what you know? So and so would have done with
• 13:29
  this character anything like that just to kind of maintain
• 13:32
  the legacy. No, they're all arrogant that
• 13:34
  nobody asked me anything. But you know what?
• 13:40
  What I do appreciate about this show was that they went back to
• 13:43
  source. Doctor Teeth is inventing his
• 13:46
  fantabulous language. Animal is has got a very limited
• 13:51
  vocabulary. Those things have drifted off
• 13:54
  over the years, and it happens because of working in a big
• 13:59
  company where we've worked with a lot of people who don't know
• 14:02
  about the history of the characters.
• 14:04
  So, you know, having and also finding a character for Lips.
• 14:08
  Because he's he's always been, he's been worse than dude in a
• 14:11
  way. Like we we've never really spent
• 14:13
  enough time on them to figure out who Lips is.
• 14:16
  And so Peter came in with an idea and that turned out to be
• 14:19
  you know his mumbling character. Janice is interesting because
• 14:25
  she's she's pretty much back to model but different in the sense
• 14:29
  that she's more sympathetic now. You know she was she was
• 14:32
  originally a send up of a surfer girl or Valley girl.
• 14:36
  And or a hybrid of those two. And now she has a sort of
• 14:41
  alternative consciousness kind of sweetness about her, which I
• 14:44
  really like. And, you know, I don't know.
• 14:46
  I guess that's a function of the writing as well as what David
• 14:49
  Rudman is doing with her. Yeah, we wanted to give her the
• 14:53
  kind of compassionate kind of soul, you know, somebody's wants
• 14:57
  to help everybody. And went back when Matt started
• 14:59
  doing Floyd. I coached him quite a bit.
• 15:02
  I would. I would just volunteer.
• 15:05
  Advice, which was generally along the lines of put more
• 15:09
  energy into it. You know that you've got to
• 15:11
  really push those words out. Because I was standing next to
• 15:15
  Jerry for all the years that he did Floyd and there was a lot of
• 15:18
  energy that he put into it. And at first, Matt wasn't
• 15:21
  putting that energy in and now he's got it, you know, so they
• 15:26
  don't need you anymore, is what you're saying.
• 15:28
  Like they they got it down pat? Yeah.
• 15:30
  No, no. Actually talk about energy thing
• 15:33
  when I first started doing Doctor T Dave.
• 15:36
  Said to me, You know, when I used to watch Jim do him, he
• 15:40
  would kind of grit his teeth and do this kind of smile, you know,
• 15:44
  and. Yeah.
• 15:46
  He smiled so wide that it looked painful.
• 15:49
  He would that was getting into teeth, you know.
• 15:53
  And so I started doing that, and it really helped me a lot, you
• 15:56
  know? Yeah, it was.
• 15:57
  And it was also, again, a lot of emphasis, a lot of energy from
• 16:00
  Jim. I mean to see this really thin,
• 16:03
  tall guy. In the recording studio, singing
• 16:07
  his teeth, he put his whole body into it.
• 16:10
  You know, it was like a Willow tree that was trying to make a
• 16:13
  sound like a gorilla. It was really something to see.
• 16:18
  But Jim committed. Wow, that's fantastic.
• 16:23
  I can, I can picture. I can picture that.
• 16:27
  Nice. Can you Can you?
• 16:29
  Let's jump into this episode. Episode 10 are Cold open, where
• 16:34
  we see Nora in the bands. They're singing rock'n'roll all
• 16:37
  night. That's the song we heard them
• 16:38
  singing in the pilot episode. That's a little bit of a
• 16:41
  callback, but Nora still thinks the lyrics are and part of every
• 16:45
  day and not party. Every day.
• 16:48
  The band gives her this cold stare.
• 16:50
  Janice feels bad for her. That was a funny line, and Lips
• 16:55
  settles the arguments by definitively telling everyone
• 16:57
  what the lyrics are in his signature style.
• 17:00
  So that was very cute, yes. But of course this is not a real
• 17:06
  cold open because we left in the previous episode with the band
• 17:10
  all split up. So this is kind of, I guess, a
• 17:12
  little bit out of continuity, a little bit in the past or the
• 17:14
  future. I don't know how you did.
• 17:17
  You just write like a whole bunch of cold opens and then
• 17:20
  just you decide to stick one on the front of this episode, even
• 17:22
  though it didn't fit with the the narrative of the story where
• 17:25
  we're at at this point. We really.
• 17:28
  Progressive little anger. They're coming from Joe.
• 17:31
  Whoa, we definitely, we'd like the idea.
• 17:36
  I mean they they don't have their van and that's something
• 17:39
  we've had consistently. So how do we do the van without
• 17:44
  story wise having the van? And so then we came up with the
• 17:47
  idea that it's a zoot remembering, and he's
• 17:50
  remembering AVHS tape. Somehow that seemed to kind of
• 17:53
  work a little bit, I think. I hope.
• 17:56
  Yeah, I think he was. It was.
• 17:58
  We just went with the the a false start.
• 18:01
  Yeah, you know that that Zoot's in control of running starting
• 18:04
  this episode, and it's just completely off.
• 18:07
  Yeah, and it's weird. He's remembering something we
• 18:09
  have not seen, you know. Again, the surreal side of Zoo
• 18:14
  Total for the audience. I I like the VHS aspect of it.
• 18:18
  That's that is kind of how I remember things as well with
• 18:22
  that little bit of stat, the bad tracking.
• 18:25
  Yeah, we want to do the recap, you know, because it really does
• 18:29
  feel like a Part 2. Yeah, we did.
• 18:32
  We had to have the recap right. We've talked before about
• 18:35
  cliffhangers, but this this previous episode really did end
• 18:38
  on a cliffhanger. Got to see, get the band back
• 18:40
  together, get the band back together.
• 18:44
  Because when we last left off, Nora and Moog agreed that that's
• 18:48
  what they're going to do. So they start with Floyd, who is
• 18:50
  now a successful Jingle writer. We we meet Jenny, his new
• 18:56
  assistant, played by Kristen Schaal, another friend of The
• 18:58
  Muppets. She was in the 2011 Muppet movie
• 19:02
  with animals. She was his anger management
• 19:06
  coach. She also appeared on a TV show
• 19:09
  called At Midnight with Fozzie Bear.
• 19:10
  If you do That and this this scene is hysterical with them
• 19:15
  shouting across that comically long table about Utz.
• 19:19
  Pretzels that are shouting Utz. I thought that was hysterical.
• 19:23
  Is that all on the page or was that Kristen Shaw coming in?
• 19:25
  To be when they were rehearsing. She wasn't at the other end of
• 19:29
  the table. It was it was her in closer
• 19:34
  proximity. And I had said to our director I
• 19:37
  said and and and Kristen was there too.
• 19:40
  I said you guys how would you feel if you were like further
• 19:43
  apart. You know what would happen And
• 19:46
  then they started to play around and then all kinds of things
• 19:48
  started to kind of happen in addition to the great.
• 19:51
  I think scene that's there, but then they started to play
• 19:53
  because all started to feed in, you know, to how they were
• 19:58
  communicating. Lastly, you know the third
• 20:01
  rewrite is in the editing room. And so we just found.
• 20:05
  If we repeat it because we had all these different takes, I'm
• 20:08
  like, let's just throw one more exchange back and forth.
• 20:11
  And I always wanted one more, one more exchange, but it just
• 20:14
  made the confusion funny. The the jingles that he comes up
• 20:19
  with, the flight comes up within this are also terrific.
• 20:22
  Who writes those? I I wrote those.
• 20:26
  Great job. Thank you.
• 20:28
  I have a second career as a Jinglist.
• 20:30
  Yeah, all Floyd's jingles are your specials.
• 20:33
  And we had one that was way too meta, but it was for Disney
• 20:36
  Plus. And something like it, But if
• 20:38
  you already have it, you know you should watch us.
• 20:41
  But if you already have it, you're already watching it.
• 20:42
  I don't remember what it was. Now I've just betrayed my
• 20:45
  bragging. I have a terrible Jinglist.
• 20:47
  Oh no, you still you? Still get the medal like those.
• 20:50
  Those jingles are catchy, and to see Floyd come up with them off
• 20:55
  the top of his head so impulsively, I think makes them
• 20:59
  hit even harder that he could just, like, spew out a song
• 21:02
  about Bennigan's even though they closed in 2008.
• 21:05
  I'll tell you, another little Easter egg is that logo I had
• 21:09
  worked out a little bit, but it was if you see their music notes
• 21:13
  and the the last three notes of The Muppets Mayhem theme.
• 21:17
  Oh, that's clever. I wrote to our composer, Mick,
• 21:21
  and I was like, can you just give me those?
• 21:22
  Like the the sheet music? Let me, I'll incorporate it into
• 21:25
  the logo. That's good.
• 21:27
  I never would have noticed that. And and the first Jingle, of
• 21:31
  course, Jeff wrote to the soup. The soup of the soup song soup
• 21:35
  to do. That's pretty good.
• 21:38
  Jingle for soup? Yeah.
• 21:40
  So Nora and and Mook try unsuccessfully to convince Floyd
• 21:45
  to rejoin the band, but he is too busy.
• 21:46
  He is preoccupied thinking about Jingles.
• 21:49
  Can't do it, Dave. Were you on set for any of this
• 21:53
  or were you in your trailer waiting for Zoo to be called?
• 21:57
  Yeah, great. Someone's trailer.
• 21:59
  Well, you know, we shot this at on the Queen Mary.
• 22:03
  So this, this room is actually inside of the Queen Mary down in
• 22:07
  Long Beach. Yeah.
• 22:09
  Yeah. Because we also, we also shot
• 22:12
  the exterior of Doctor Teeth and Penny on the Queen Mary.
• 22:15
  So we used it. And also, yeah, when they're
• 22:18
  entering and then also that beautiful shot where you
• 22:21
  actually see Long Beach in the background of them out on the
• 22:23
  deck. That's all.
• 22:25
  That's all Queen Mary. So Dave didn't actually have to
• 22:29
  be there that day. It was only Penny.
• 22:32
  Teeth and Floyd. Yeah, you could have told me.
• 22:34
  I wouldn't have stayed in my car, I know.
• 22:36
  I forgot. Forgot, but thank you for doing
• 22:39
  Craft services that day. It was very, very generous.
• 22:41
  It was pretty good. It was all vegan.
• 22:44
  And your head cannon, then, Bill?
• 22:46
  Is Floyd actually on the boat that Dr. Teeth is on?
• 22:50
  Were they just like a few feet apart from each other the whole?
• 22:52
  Time because we do it. No, no.
• 22:54
  We established she's in a building, right?
• 22:56
  He's. Yeah, that's when you see the
• 22:58
  establishing shot. He's in his own building.
• 23:00
  We just have to. Is the building on the Queen
• 23:02
  Mary? I don't know what the Queen Mary
• 23:04
  looks like. I don't know how big the boat
• 23:05
  is, What is happening? Yes, it's on the Queen Mary,
• 23:07
  yeah. Great, it used to be.
• 23:10
  It used to be a very big ship. Smaller now, Oh.
• 23:14
  Yeah, they reduced the size a little bit.
• 23:17
  Part of it sank. Is it eroding from the outside
• 23:20
  in? So Nora and Moo go to Janice's
• 23:26
  commune. All of her followers from the
• 23:29
  digital world are now her followers in the real world.
• 23:32
  They got very culty very quickly.
• 23:35
  They refer to themselves as the for Shirleyans.
• 23:39
  Nora and Moog asked to see Janice, but one of the for
• 23:41
  Shirley and says that the Spirit Mother is not here.
• 23:45
  Even though they can see her just a few feet away, that is
• 23:47
  just her organic skin shell. One very special point out, One
• 23:50
  very special for Shirley. Yes, we should point out that
• 23:53
  for Shirley, that main for Shirley is Hannah Friedman,
• 23:56
  who's one of our writers who is the composer of rock on the main
• 24:01
  title theme song. She desperately wanted to be a
• 24:05
  for Shirley, so we made her to the for Shirley and.
• 24:07
  She's I love that because I I actually took note of this.
• 24:11
  There's so many great celebrity cameos in this thing, and I'm
• 24:15
  thinking, man, that person has a lot of lines.
• 24:17
  Like, don't seem to be a celebrity.
• 24:19
  Like, did someone drop out last minute?
• 24:21
  Yes, right. She's a star in our world, so.
• 24:25
  Yeah, hey, you know what? I'm all for giving writers and
• 24:28
  and crew and and all that. I think she's not credited
• 24:31
  because of SAG rules. I think there's some sort of
• 24:34
  thing cuz she's a writer and possibly a producer.
• 24:37
  There was some sort of thing that she's not credited.
• 24:40
  Oh. Really.
• 24:41
  Yeah. It's.
• 24:42
  Interesting. It is.
• 24:44
  It's a special cameo just for us, for people who are listening
• 24:46
  to this podcast. But yeah, Janice is not
• 24:51
  responding. So they they give up on that and
• 24:53
  they go to visit Zoot at his museum gallery where his
• 24:57
  Instagram photos are on display. It's the Mallory Gallery from
• 25:01
  the Great Muppet Caper. That's a great Easter egg.
• 25:03
  Love it. That's a good one.
• 25:05
  Jeff, you look very proud of yourself.
• 25:06
  I assume this one. It had to be.
• 25:08
  I mean, they please. Yeah, it was.
• 25:10
  They never doubt my mind. Yeah, that's exactly what it had
• 25:13
  to be. It's the Mallory gallery, EI
• 25:14
  want to say, or West. That was the intention.
• 25:19
  Yeah. The other little Easter egg in
• 25:20
  there is that the two humans that he runs into, they're named
• 25:26
  Jackson Cannery and Annie Waits after Ben Fultz songs.
• 25:31
  I'm a Big Ben Fultz fan, so we had to name them.
• 25:33
  So that's what they're. Named.
• 25:35
  Anyway, those folks, by the way, are Arden Mirren from Mad TV and
• 25:39
  Nico Santos from Superstore. Yep, and Garden Zoo Galaxy.
• 25:44
  Three. That's right, he's in the
• 25:46
  Guardians of the Galaxy, and I think Zoo was also there.
• 25:51
  Zoo was in the Guardians of the Galaxy.
• 25:53
  Wow, no, no in in the scene. You know, he could have been in
• 25:56
  the. Guardians of the Galaxy he would
• 25:57
  have. He was in Guardians of Galaxy.
• 26:00
  You were the one of the one of the main ones.
• 26:02
  Yeah. You're one of the.
• 26:03
  Guardians costume, yeah. Yeah.
• 26:07
  Do you have any memories of shooting in this location, Dave?
• 26:11
  Any interesting stories about being there in your own gallery?
• 26:15
  Well, it's a place called Descanso Gardens up in.
• 26:18
  I'm not exactly sure it's something that.
• 26:20
  It's like Glendale or something isn't.
• 26:22
  It it's between Glendale and. Pasadena.
• 26:25
  Yeah, and there's another town up there.
• 26:27
  I can't think of the name of it. I'm.
• 26:29
  I'm being told it's la Canada, la Canada la.
• 26:32
  Canada, La. Canada.
• 26:34
  LA. Canada.
• 26:34
  Oh, excuse me. I'm.
• 26:38
  Yeah, and it's funny. Interesting enough it's a place
• 26:40
  that I heard about my whole life because I grew up in Burbank,
• 26:43
  but I never had gotten there until now.
• 26:45
  So this was oh wow. Really.
• 26:47
  Finished my life when completing something.
• 26:50
  Wow. You had never.
• 26:52
  That's interesting. Have you been back since?
• 26:54
  No, I don't need to. Oh yeah, I checked.
• 26:57
  I'm. Complete now.
• 27:00
  But we actually shot just a little little tidbit.
• 27:03
  We Shot the For Sure Leans and Zoots gallery, both at the
• 27:07
  Skonso Garden. Oh, great.
• 27:10
  Yeah. So you only had two locations
• 27:11
  with this whole thing. You had the boat and you had the
• 27:13
  gardens and that's it. Oh, running back and forth.
• 27:16
  It was interesting and recording at the same time in Burbank.
• 27:21
  So it was quite a thing. Fun fact, I think a couple of
• 27:27
  the pictures, zoo pictures are mine in there.
• 27:29
  And then there's a VFX shot that is not particularly obvious.
• 27:33
  Bill, do you know what I'm talking about?
• 27:35
  You're going to talk about the Yep, but that's my favorite
• 27:40
  Photo, by the way. Moves.
• 27:42
  Yeah, nostril. Moves nostril.
• 27:46
  It was very important that it be sold, so VFX had to put in a red
• 27:52
  sticker. There was a little red circle
• 27:54
  that denotes that it was sold. Amazing for $10,000.
• 27:59
  Very important details. Yeah, Well, and I gotta say, the
• 28:02
  gallery pictures there were done by our art department.
• 28:05
  I think it was. You can correct me, Bill, was
• 28:07
  it? Denise.
• 28:08
  Denise. Yes, Denise and David, yeah.
• 28:11
  They went out and they shot these pictures and then they
• 28:13
  made 4 foot square enlargements of them and they're just
• 28:17
  beautiful. They're beautiful, beautiful
• 28:19
  pictures. And and in fact I got one of
• 28:22
  them. I I she she had a 2 foot square
• 28:25
  one printed for me. But I've got pictures everywhere
• 28:29
  and I don't have a place for it. Now it's but I do want to get it
• 28:32
  up because it's a picture of a part of a lawn chair of 50s
• 28:36
  metal green, pale mint green lawn chair and it's just so
• 28:40
  beautiful. And it's so perfect for Zoo.
• 28:43
  I mean that that's what that was, what makes a production
• 28:46
  really satisfying that when you when you get all these people on
• 28:49
  the crew who are completely In Sync and invested and you get
• 28:53
  work like that to to sort of support the reality, it's
• 28:57
  incredible. Yeah, You know, I'm not.
• 28:59
  I mean, obviously Denise and David and Don Dears and then
• 29:04
  Jane West. Yeah, Bob W Jane men.
• 29:07
  But then also our lead men that I just want to mention that too
• 29:10
  because. I don't know if people know what
• 29:12
  a leadman is, but but they they kind of set, they make sure that
• 29:17
  things look like if you know, it's from 70 years ago, they
• 29:23
  make sure that the props and the things look like they're
• 29:26
  supposed to be, that they've been there for a while or
• 29:29
  they're brand new or you know, it's all about defining that and
• 29:32
  and now I think he may have had a big part with those photos as
• 29:36
  well, Dave. Same as Ron Ron Shulin, but they
• 29:40
  just did a great job with the Shack.
• 29:41
  And you know, our set I designed I thought was just amazing.
• 29:46
  Just an amazing job. Yeah, these photos, they're
• 29:51
  almost too good, I hate to say, because like, Nora walks in and
• 29:55
  she's like, I can't believe that people are buying this stuff for
• 29:57
  $10,000. And then you see the pictures
• 29:59
  and you're like, they're really good.
• 30:01
  Like I. Let's just let's just take a
• 30:04
  moment there, yeah, Yeah. What happens sometimes overlook
• 30:09
  things that are intrinsically beautiful, you know, because
• 30:12
  they're ordinary. You know, you just look at some
• 30:16
  random shot of a guy's nostril, but it expresses something about
• 30:20
  his character. That's a bad example.
• 30:22
  But you know what I mean? It's I mean I think there's just
• 30:26
  there's just like for example I have I have a plastic bottle I I
• 30:31
  I have my soap dispenser in in our bathroom.
• 30:35
  At my sink, they plastic soft soak dispenser from when we
• 30:40
  moved in in 1994, so it's whatever that is.
• 30:44
  Like 29 years old. It's the original container that
• 30:48
  it was on the shelf in the store and I peeled the label off of
• 30:51
  it. I thought, I'm keeping this
• 30:52
  because it's beautiful. It's it's it won't break when
• 30:56
  you drop it. It's made of plastic and it's
• 30:59
  squishy and flexible. When you touch it, it's soft.
• 31:02
  Oh my God. So that's the kind of thing that
• 31:05
  these photos represent? Just common, everyday things
• 31:07
  that are absolutely wonderful. I just want to point out, Dave,
• 31:12
  I think you've mentioned that soap bottle in every interview
• 31:15
  I've ever done with. Somehow it's come up in
• 31:18
  conversation really like four or five times.
• 31:21
  I don't want you to stop. I don't want I'm.
• 31:23
  Not I apologize. I I know I didn't fraggle gaggle
• 31:27
  the original creative meeting for the new Fraggle Rock.
• 31:30
  I know I I brought it down and showed it to everybody on the
• 31:32
  Zoom call, but but I didn't know I'd gone into that with you.
• 31:37
  I'm really sorry. Oh no, no.
• 31:39
  I'm grateful it's a running game now.
• 31:41
  Dave, remember when you threw to me that surprise party and you
• 31:43
  brought it there? I love my bottle.
• 31:49
  Look I've I'm it's just such a it means so much to me the one
• 31:53
  of all the bottles on that shelf in that store that day.
• 31:57
  It's the only one that has been treasured I I would guess, but
• 32:01
  that's because I can see the beauty in life.
• 32:04
  I just like that all of a sudden it just you went with that.
• 32:07
  I have this soap bottle that just came out of nowhere.
• 32:12
  I think everyone's got that soap bottle right?
• 32:14
  Like, everyone's got that thing. Like that 100 years ago.
• 32:18
  That would have been an absolute family heirloom.
• 32:21
  Just any old, you know, water bottle.
• 32:23
  Just a bottle. You know, a bottle of Evian.
• 32:26
  It's just a plastic bottle. It would become a family
• 32:29
  heirloom. They would say, look at this.
• 32:30
  You could see right through it. It holds things.
• 32:32
  It's watertight. But it look, I'm dropping it.
• 32:35
  It doesn't break. People would have just, it blew.
• 32:38
  It would have blown their minds. But that's that movie.
• 32:40
  The the gods must be crazy. That's that's like the whole
• 32:43
  bottle that Falls soap bottle that fell in Dave's bathroom.
• 32:47
  We take things for granted, not zoo.
• 32:51
  Not suits. We do not take zoo for granted.
• 32:55
  I'll say this, Bill and I spent a lot of time working on Zoots,
• 33:00
  Polaroids, and it is an art form to take these pictures that we
• 33:04
  had and to just try to zootify them, you know, because they do
• 33:12
  stand on their own. They're kind of cool, you know
• 33:14
  they. Are there was always, Yeah.
• 33:16
  They're not perfectly. There's no perfect composition.
• 33:20
  It's his. Thing It's, you know, something?
• 33:23
  You would never think is interesting to the normal
• 33:25
  person's eye. You go in on that.
• 33:27
  But like, the interesting thing is off on the side, you know?
• 33:32
  Yeah, but yes, the Zoot is a little untethered from reality.
• 33:38
  He he doesn't even register that Nora and Mooger there to
• 33:41
  convince him to rejoin the band. But you know who does recognize
• 33:46
  that they're there? It's Jimmy the Shoe, and Jimmy
• 33:49
  pops back up. Let's talk about Jimmy.
• 33:53
  Where did Jimmy come from? Can we can we just say it's not
• 33:56
  Jimmy the shoe? It's not Jimmy, Just Jimmy.
• 33:58
  Shoe, right? Like, yeah, Jimmy Shoe.
• 34:01
  Or even just Jimmy. What he is, is his suits shaman
• 34:08
  swear zoot gets. His Shuman.
• 34:11
  He answered the questions, Yeah, So that's all that he's just
• 34:15
  that good. That's what he sure does for
• 34:17
  Zoot. How did he come about?
• 34:20
  I don't know, just showed up. On set one day.
• 34:25
  Yes you do you. Just showed up on set.
• 34:29
  I never saw him before. Do you want me?
• 34:32
  Do you want me to tell? No, I don't want to talk about
• 34:35
  it, I don't think. We don't want to talk about it.
• 34:37
  You don't want to reveal. I don't think this he's just
• 34:41
  zoots shaman. All right.
• 34:45
  And maybe he's always been there, I don't know.
• 34:50
  I you know what I I never saw Jimmy before this series.
• 34:56
  But he could have been there. I mean, Suit has to wear
• 34:59
  something on his feet. Yeah, he doesn't have to, but he
• 35:03
  usually does. I assume he.
• 35:05
  Could have been getting advice all these years, I don't know.
• 35:09
  All right. Well, that's that I guess.
• 35:12
  So we check in with Doctor Teeth and Penny.
• 35:15
  They are about to get on the Queen Mary, although in the
• 35:18
  script it's the Jalapeno Princess, which is pretty cute.
• 35:24
  And and you this was filmed early.
• 35:25
  You said you filmed this at the Queen Mary, which is have The
• 35:29
  Muppets ever filmed there before?
• 35:30
  I feel like every show's been there except for The Muppets.
• 35:34
  Dave, have you ever done anything there?
• 35:37
  On the Queen Mary, no. No, I don't think we've ever
• 35:39
  done something. In my time at least.
• 35:42
  It doesn't matter of time before The Muppets get there, yeah.
• 35:45
  Yeah, and it was beautiful day. It was great actually to shoot
• 35:47
  there. The people were great.
• 35:49
  It was a great place to shoot. Great spot.
• 35:52
  Great being out on the deck, being in that beautiful room.
• 35:55
  Like we talked, we just mentioned for Floyd, beautiful
• 35:58
  inside the history in there's. Unbelievable.
• 36:01
  I remember when we were writing it, we were trying to figure it
• 36:03
  out. I spent a great deal of time
• 36:05
  trying to figure out what that macaroni tube is called that
• 36:07
  animal pops its head out of. And then it was just like, it's
• 36:11
  some term. I lost it.
• 36:12
  But it was like it's even like it's even if we put it in the
• 36:17
  script normal, we'll understand it.
• 36:19
  Yeah, is it not just like a porthole?
• 36:21
  I just assumed it was like a porthole.
• 36:22
  It's not, no. I didn't look it up, yeah.
• 36:25
  It's a vent of some kind. It has some.
• 36:28
  It's called like that, something with a sea or something like
• 36:30
  that. But it was just like this is
• 36:31
  going to help no one. To call, you can tell that none
• 36:34
  of us are sailors. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:38
  It's like, and so we were in meetings and like, it's a
• 36:39
  macaroni thing that you could pop your head out of in a
• 36:42
  cartoon. I love the sound effect of
• 36:45
  animals nails as he slid down that thing.
• 36:48
  Yep, It just makes my spine curl up like a shrimp.
• 36:52
  But it's it's good. That was a late thing.
• 36:55
  That was a sound mix. We were just like when we need
• 36:56
  that sound. You know, adored box.
• 37:01
  Whoa. Yep, it's not even a box.
• 37:04
  Why would you even call it a box?
• 37:05
  Adored box or a door event, they call it.
• 37:09
  Wow. You know, no one should claim
• 37:12
  that this podcast is not educational.
• 37:15
  Everyone learned something today.
• 37:16
  We're all walking away with a little bit of information.
• 37:18
  About ships, yeah. Thank you.
• 37:22
  We're learning. We are.
• 37:26
  Lips is busy. He's giving a Ted talk about how
• 37:28
  to save the world. I'm curious, Jeff, did did you
• 37:34
  actually have a plan for like, what Lips's plan to save the
• 37:37
  world was or was it just he's just going into action to save
• 37:40
  the world? The latter.
• 37:43
  It was just it was that vague. Yeah, I mean we had we had other
• 37:46
  concepts but when we hit upon Ted Talk, literally talking that
• 37:50
  just that all too well. But no, to describe how he was
• 37:57
  going to save the world would betray the true mission which
• 38:01
  it's on the audience. How are you going to say that?
• 38:03
  What are you getting from blips right now and how are you going
• 38:07
  to make a difference in this world?
• 38:08
  Sure. I believe this is the third time
• 38:10
  that a muppet has given the Ted talk.
• 38:13
  Is that true? Scooter does it in the 2011
• 38:16
  Muppet movie. And I'm sorry.
• 38:20
  No sorry. Scooter did it in real life.
• 38:24
  Mistaken. Scooter did it in real life.
• 38:25
  And I think Kerr. I did one in real life about
• 38:28
  something. About puppetry, yeah, yeah.
• 38:33
  But we're the first to do it in fake life, so.
• 38:36
  Scooter, right. Scooter.
• 38:37
  Scooter, I believe is he's working at Google and going to a
• 38:40
  Ted Talk in the 2011 Muppet movie.
• 38:42
  That's what I was thinking of. So it's not quite the same, but
• 38:44
  he does. Yes, Scooter and and Kermit have
• 38:47
  both given Ted Talks in real life and now Lips, which I feel
• 38:51
  like this is not another trend. This is like like Danny Trejo is
• 38:54
  going to be in every Muppet movie and every Muppet project
• 38:58
  will have a new Muppet giving a new Ted Talk.
• 39:03
  That's our new Muppet idea. Is that Ted?
• 39:05
  It was me, Ted. Yes.
• 39:07
  Yeah. Who is Ted?
• 39:08
  Let's find out at his talk. Fly is Ted.
• 39:13
  So Nora and Moog and and Hannah are all trying to figure out
• 39:18
  what to do cuz the band will get back together.
• 39:20
  They deliver the news to Animal, so he upends Hannah's purse,
• 39:24
  grabs her car keys, tells her to drive.
• 39:26
  The animal's going to do the hard work.
• 39:27
  He's going to bring everyone back together.
• 39:29
  So we see him crash through Floyd's ceiling to tell him that
• 39:32
  Nora is gone, zooms into Lips's Ted talk.
• 39:37
  He burst through Genesis yoga tent.
• 39:40
  Sorry, sorry, sorry. I don't know, just popped in my
• 39:43
  head. But you know, there there are so
• 39:45
  many special effects shots in this show that just look
• 39:50
  seamless and nobody would ever think about them.
• 39:53
  And there's there are there are so many, I mean tons.
• 39:56
  Yeah, the shot where animals dumping the bag, yeah was a
• 40:00
  great one. If you notice, there's no way
• 40:02
  all that stuff could probably be in that bag, cuz he just keeps
• 40:06
  going. So that's a special effects
• 40:09
  shot. That's what people pouring stuff
• 40:11
  into the top of the bag as he's shaking people in green around.
• 40:16
  Call it a reverse Poppins. Yeah, that's what.
• 40:20
  There's all kinds of stuff like that.
• 40:21
  Occur to me if he does that, looks like animal.
• 40:24
  Yeah, he just picks up the bag and he turns it up and things
• 40:26
  fall out. Didn't even occur to me that,
• 40:27
  but this one, nor his car, nor his car fighting off is not
• 40:30
  real. It's.
• 40:32
  Hard, right? That's the next one.
• 40:33
  It didn't occur to me either, which is usually I'm always
• 40:37
  aware of how we, how things have to be, have to have been shot.
• 40:40
  But I was so immersed in this episode that I just didn't even
• 40:44
  think about any of that. And I think the reason I love
• 40:48
  this episode was that it paid off all of the layers that this
• 40:50
  series has. And that was a gym thing.
• 40:53
  And he never pontificated about it.
• 40:55
  But he loved layers. He liked layers in depth, people
• 40:59
  in the background doing something unrelated.
• 41:01
  He liked layers of meaning and and he would just always put
• 41:06
  them in and and allow people to put them in.
• 41:10
  And that's what this show has. It has many, you know, lots of
• 41:14
  characters, lots of arcs. And lots of sort of invisible
• 41:24
  meanings too, you know, It's the layer effect is I think one of
• 41:28
  the great achievements here. We haven't done that since since
• 41:31
  Jim really. And and Brian Henson too.
• 41:34
  I think Brian did. Yeah, I know that.
• 41:37
  I just when we hit upon the the album, the photo album and the
• 41:41
  record album and that parallel and I just thought that like to
• 41:45
  pay that off to have that work would be a triumph.
• 41:48
  That Zoo Pictures again, as we said before, having the pictures
• 41:53
  that he's been taking be a map to get us the money that we
• 41:56
  lost. Just.
• 41:58
  Yeah, you know, you know, just for what Dave was saying about
• 42:01
  Jim and something, this is something that Dave told me long
• 42:04
  time ago, was that everybody's opinions or ideas are valid.
• 42:10
  If you have a suggestion that those were welcome, not
• 42:13
  everything may get used. Now maybe not everything works.
• 42:17
  But whenever we start something, I try and say that first to
• 42:21
  people, you know, when we're starting up a project or on a
• 42:24
  set, so the people feel like they're involved, they're
• 42:28
  included and they are a part of it.
• 42:30
  And I wish I could remember the moment, but one of those moments
• 42:34
  that I I can't remember what episode but our COVID.
• 42:38
  One of our COVID. Specialists that were on set had
• 42:42
  a suggestion for a joke as we were doing a scene and there was
• 42:45
  something playing and the line didn't quite work and he said
• 42:48
  what if they were you know and I said well go tell him and he
• 42:52
  went over and he gave the note and we used it and I wish I
• 42:55
  remember what line it was but I remember seeing he had such a he
• 43:00
  felt so good you know and and I think that's what we tried to do
• 43:05
  is make people feel like they were a part of this and.
• 43:08
  And they were. You know what I You're
• 43:10
  absolutely right. And it's more than making them
• 43:13
  feel like a part of it, it's making them be allowed to be a
• 43:16
  part of that's. What I meant and.
• 43:18
  This is something Jim was noted for you.
• 43:20
  You know, he was, he was approachable.
• 43:23
  He didn't have a, you know, an inflated ego.
• 43:26
  He didn't have a, you know, a persona that he felt he had to
• 43:29
  maintain. He was accessible to everyone.
• 43:32
  So he could walk in the door and the custodian would come up to
• 43:35
  him and say, hey, what if Fuzzy did second set?
• 43:39
  Jim would stop and talk to him about it for like 2-3 minutes
• 43:43
  and and they would elaborate on the idea and play around with it
• 43:46
  and then Jim might end up using it or not.
• 43:50
  But the input was great, you know, because it really helps.
• 43:55
  And I always say the feeling in the room.
• 43:56
  I probably said this to you, Joe.
• 43:58
  I know you'll remind me that the feeling in the room gets on the
• 44:01
  screen and if you have a tense set it, it's reflected in the
• 44:06
  work that you do. When you have a really good,
• 44:09
  happy set with people contributing and having fun with
• 44:13
  it, it makes a difference. And working so hard.
• 44:17
  Everybody works so hard on our our projects and our shows, but
• 44:21
  they're they enjoy the challenge, you know, they
• 44:24
  really. They just love it.
• 44:27
  Even though they're working really hard.
• 44:29
  They just they we all enjoy each other.
• 44:35
  I love that. I feel like I've had a few jobs
• 44:38
  where I have not had that. And you know, I think we can all
• 44:42
  say that, you know, it's a joy when you get to work on a set or
• 44:45
  a job where you feel heard, you feel valued no matter what your
• 44:49
  station. And you know, for you guys
• 44:52
  working, you know, at the top level of the creative, you never
• 44:56
  know where the next good idea is going to come from.
• 44:59
  And you don't want to miss out on something just because
• 45:01
  someone didn't feel like they could be comfortable just
• 45:05
  talking to you about it. Yeah, like, like in a
• 45:08
  restaurant. It's really important that
• 45:10
  everybody is happy in a restaurant.
• 45:12
  Yeah. You know, you do know what?
• 45:14
  The guy who is plating. That's right.
• 45:17
  We're a grudge against one of the customers.
• 45:19
  Or the chef. You don't want the chef unhappy.
• 45:21
  No, because, you know, say no more.
• 45:24
  But can I just. Jeff, Jeff, you were going to
• 45:26
  mention you were going to say about the car when Nora leaves
• 45:30
  the shack, when she leaves, before animal gets upset and
• 45:32
  they tell animal tell tell them about the CG car.
• 45:37
  I thought you were joking, We sort of wrote no, no, it's
• 45:39
  absolutely and you see it parked in the driveway in another shot.
• 45:43
  I think it's still, but we did not have a car and we needed
• 45:46
  establishing shots of the house and well, Nora's there and it's
• 45:51
  not the van anymore. Unfortunately, they did shoot
• 45:54
  the house without anything parked in front.
• 45:55
  And we're like we do need her car there and we do need it
• 45:58
  leaving. And so our amazing VFX team at
• 46:02
  Soapbox, we're just like is this the car or they knew what the
• 46:05
  car was and you can go to like a catalog and like Okay and it's
• 46:08
  this color and it's this beaten up.
• 46:10
  And then we go through and you know Bill and I are sticklers.
• 46:15
  They loved us. Adam's like it looks great.
• 46:19
  And Bill and I are like, wait, was that when Nora?
• 46:23
  Left when Laura left the shack. Drove, Yeah.
• 46:25
  That car speeding off, Yeah. CG Yeah, CG car.
• 46:28
  Oh my God. There's that Nora.
• 46:31
  I was. There's.
• 46:31
  It's funny because when I watched it I thought I don't
• 46:33
  remember that car being out there.
• 46:35
  Yeah. But I just dropped it.
• 46:37
  Yeah, Nora is in it. Nora's in the front.
• 46:40
  You can see part of Nora that's great and her stuff, they put
• 46:44
  stuff in there. And then we talked about the
• 46:47
  puffs coming out of the tailpipe.
• 46:49
  Like, is it too much? At first it looked like a little
• 46:52
  too much and but it's need to feel like it's not in great
• 46:54
  shape because she has to break down totally.
• 46:57
  So it was a whole thing that Jeff and I kept.
• 46:59
  We just obsessed at every point. Bill and I just like, you know,
• 47:03
  our attention to detail, we totally care.
• 47:05
  And it does make a difference. You can't have this moment where
• 47:08
  she's going off and she's heated up and it's an emotional moment
• 47:11
  and then it's cartoon smoke, you know, you just like, you know,
• 47:17
  same thing in the sound design when we got that.
• 47:18
  We're like, no, you can't. I love that you want to do this,
• 47:21
  but it's a serious moment, so. I'm sure they were incredibly
• 47:25
  patient. Brooke, Brooke and Nick and all
• 47:29
  those folks over there were incredibly patient.
• 47:31
  They were amazing. So Animal has successfully
• 47:35
  gotten the band back together because Nora is gone.
• 47:38
  But just to clarify, Nora is not dead.
• 47:42
  I think the the runner of of lips thinking that people are
• 47:46
  dead when they're not is throughout the series is
• 47:48
  hysterical. Especially he's got his like,
• 47:51
  little black outfit with the with the little parasol.
• 47:54
  I think that's and that is our reshoot.
• 47:58
  I think Adam referred to a reshoot in the first episode of
• 48:02
  podcast. This was our reshoot that we
• 48:05
  pleaded for. We just needed connective
• 48:07
  tissue. We had written this episode
• 48:10
  while we were shooting and we sort of wrote ourselves into a
• 48:13
  hole, a plot hole, and we saw this here as if there's and we
• 48:18
  were editing it and we're like, this does not work.
• 48:20
  Is there any chance we could do this reshoot?
• 48:23
  My studio stepped up and you know, Bill and I each took a
• 48:26
  stab at trying to reorder. You know, just our in editing is
• 48:31
  it, can this work? It can, but it would be so much
• 48:35
  better if we could shoot the scene until we did.
• 48:37
  We wrote a scene, the three of us, and it was like. 22 scenes.
• 48:41
  Oh right. And then we had, but we spent a
• 48:43
  day, and it was just a fantastic day just to go back at the end
• 48:46
  of this process to sit there as writers again where we started
• 48:50
  to write the scene and it was great, like we just enjoyed the
• 48:54
  hell out of writing together and it just came so easily.
• 48:58
  And then they're like, yeah, no, you are not getting this
• 49:00
  reshoot. And Adam, I think turned inward
• 49:05
  and there's a heel and then Bill's like which?
• 49:09
  Is very uncharacteristic, though very uncharacteristic.
• 49:11
  Very uncharacteristic. Bill goes like he goes at it,
• 49:14
  you know? And Bill was saying, hey, well,
• 49:16
  I did an edit, maybe it works like this.
• 49:18
  Adam couldn't even watch it. It was just like that, you know,
• 49:20
  head down, no eye contact, Okay, I don't know.
• 49:24
  And then again, Muppets stepped up and and then and I think they
• 49:28
  stepped up maybe three or four days before the actual shoot.
• 49:31
  There was one available time. It was going to be a Saturday
• 49:35
  and I think I'm Tuesday or Wednesday even they said Okay,
• 49:40
  We're giving you the money to do this.
• 49:42
  You know it's shot in front of plates, in front of digital
• 49:45
  screens. The preexisting footage that we
• 49:49
  shot, the exterior of the shack and then we grabbed another
• 49:53
  plate from somewhere else, but that was, you know, something.
• 49:55
  We borrowed and put it in on a green screen, but it was crazy.
• 50:00
  I mean, we we worked really, really hard.
• 50:03
  Ten was a tough one and we reordered things.
• 50:06
  And yeah, it was a lot. A lot, a lot, a lot of work.
• 50:11
  And those two scenes, actually, I said green screen, but that's
• 50:12
  wrong. We shot on a virtual wall, an
• 50:15
  LED wall. That's digital back play.
• 50:17
  Soapbox has. It was so worked out great to be
• 50:22
  able to right we walked. It was a trip to walk in to
• 50:24
  soapbox and all of a sudden you saw the shack.
• 50:27
  Yeah, I was like this one would have been a lot easier.
• 50:29
  Yeah. Really.
• 50:30
  Yeah. Don't go there.
• 50:32
  Dave loved. Dave loved Muppets Haunted
• 50:34
  Mansion. He loved.
• 50:35
  I was gonna say that's how you filmed Haunted Mansion, right?
• 50:37
  Was on the virtual the virtual background you wanted to, right?
• 50:40
  And another thing about episode 10 is just that there's a lot of
• 50:43
  emotional payoffs. There you go.
• 50:46
  Keep it going, Dave. I mean, really, I just watched
• 50:50
  it and I found it so affecting. The big emotional payoff in this
• 50:53
  scene is the Mayhem goes into the garage, which for some
• 50:56
  reason they had never bothered to look in at the shack and we
• 51:01
  will see in a moment. It's the Electric Mayhem bus,
• 51:04
  the original bus from the Muppet movie.
• 51:08
  I I will jump ahead a little bit here because we're talking about
• 51:10
  it, but this is not the actually the original bus.
• 51:13
  Is that correct? Cause I feel like I'd read about
• 51:16
  there was a fire or something years ago.
• 51:18
  Yeah, caught on fire. Yeah, Zeut's fault.
• 51:22
  What went into recreating the Mayhem bus?
• 51:27
  I searched for some buses to find the right make and model
• 51:32
  and try and get close. I think we had three options.
• 51:36
  Two weren't as close. This was the closest we could
• 51:39
  get. It was the wrong year but it had
• 51:42
  the similar windows which I thought at least we could get
• 51:45
  away with that. And it also had a, I think, a
• 51:47
  different grill. On the front, but it was close.
• 51:51
  I think it was two years off or something.
• 51:55
  So we found that, I wish I remember, I think in Oxnard or
• 51:58
  something. And then our amazing set people,
• 52:03
  Denise and and everywhere they started painting it, we made
• 52:07
  sure that we got lips on there. I noticed he wasn't.
• 52:10
  On the original 1. His name joined up the back of
• 52:12
  the bus with everybody else. It was one of the things from
• 52:15
  the concept that we were just like the bus has to come back
• 52:18
  and our producers like you, sure you want the bus to come back.
• 52:21
  Like just thinking financially and the amount of research and
• 52:24
  the amount of work and yeah, no, the bus has to come back.
• 52:27
  I love the van, you know, but I love the bus.
• 52:31
  Well and also and also story wise, right Jeff, we we wanted,
• 52:34
  we had to pay off where zoo put the money totally right.
• 52:38
  So we we needed the bus to come back because we wanted that to
• 52:41
  then be how they take go on the road, how they take go on.
• 52:44
  It happened in the 70s, you know, so it wasn't the van.
• 52:47
  And they're like, okay, It's going to be a lot of work.
• 52:49
  We're like, have fun. They did an incredible job.
• 52:53
  I mean, it was just, yeah, it was a crazy thing just to step
• 52:57
  out and just see the bus parked in our lot or just like at one
• 53:01
  point no one was there and it was just parked next to our
• 53:03
  building. And I'm like, I can't believe
• 53:05
  I'm standing here and there's the bus.
• 53:09
  This is unreal. And sorry, I mean.
• 53:12
  Well, I don't know. I won't jump it.
• 53:14
  It didn't run so well. We'll start, we'll start there,
• 53:18
  but when we get to the end, I'll tell.
• 53:20
  You All right. Well, I mean, I, I, I agree with
• 53:23
  you. You know, it's one thing to to
• 53:25
  come into the series even as a casual Muppet Fans fan and
• 53:28
  saying like, wow, all my friends are back and all the Mayhem
• 53:30
  characters are here. But the bus is is kind of a
• 53:35
  member of the band as well. And to get that emotional like,
• 53:38
  Oh my God, that guy is back too. I don't know if any of you
• 53:42
  watched the last season of Picard, the Star Trek show, but
• 53:47
  they brought back everyone from Star Trek The Next Generation.
• 53:49
  It was very exciting. And then at the very end, they
• 53:52
  bring back the original Enterprise and like it didn't
• 53:54
  even occur to me that they would, you know, have that like
• 53:58
  the set as a recurring, a returning character.
• 54:02
  But now that it's here, I recognize how important that is
• 54:04
  to me and the I felt very much the same way about the buzz.
• 54:08
  Yeah, yeah. So you're watching other
• 54:10
  franchises? Yeah, what's up?
• 54:12
  What's up with that? Oh Dave, I am a fan of so many
• 54:15
  stupid things. The Muppets is the only one I
• 54:17
  care enough about to to do a whole bunch Where the stupidest,
• 54:20
  right where the stupidest. You and Jeff should You and Jeff
• 54:24
  should have dinner. I know I can see Jeff in the
• 54:27
  background. All your fun toys and it's like
• 54:29
  we should compare notes. I got some snouts.
• 54:34
  Mahnamana, you. Got.
• 54:35
  Snouts now, by the way, everybody mismanounces it.
• 54:39
  No, no, no. I have different ones.
• 54:40
  I have snouts. The audience can't see Jeff's
• 54:42
  office, but every time we do a Zoom with Jeff, he's got every
• 54:46
  piece of pop culture merchandise that you can get.
• 54:50
  I think, yeah, crammed into his office.
• 54:52
  It's just everything is there. And if you look carefully here,
• 54:55
  there's Waldo. But if you can see what's in
• 55:00
  front of him and it's even. More major Waldo Is it Waldo?
• 55:02
  Where's Waldo or Waldo? The Muppet.
• 55:04
  I can't see. Where's Waldo?
• 55:05
  It just became a game. Oh, you're talking about my
• 55:08
  desk? Yes, I I'm a Lego Maniac so my
• 55:13
  desk is like 2. Show us, Show them.
• 55:16
  Show them this works real well for us Audio, it's from above.
• 55:22
  Oh my God, so these are all Lego mini pickers?
• 55:25
  Where do you put your? Papers through your phone.
• 55:28
  There's like 2 tiers, but there's me basically.
• 55:34
  But they're all mini figures that Legos would Lego would
• 55:36
  never make or hasn't made, like Bill and Ted or the Beastie Boys
• 55:40
  or Omar from The Wire or Weird Al or Prince or you know, Tyler
• 55:47
  Durden. That's what I collect.
• 55:49
  Jeff, if this is what makes you happy, I'm.
• 55:51
  I'm so glad for you. Thank you so much.
• 55:54
  You tell my wife that. That's right.
• 55:59
  It's great radio, totally. And look at this giant hat I
• 56:04
  have with all this neon and the bubbles that you come out and
• 56:08
  really. Wow.
• 56:10
  And you're levitating. Amazing.
• 56:11
  It's amazing. Yeah, we knew it was.
• 56:15
  Naked Bill. Look at Bill's.
• 56:16
  He's naked Now. Put your shirt back and look up.
• 56:18
  I'll make my belly button say hello.
• 56:20
  Hi everybody. Can you make it say goodbye?
• 56:25
  Yeah. I can make my ear talk.
• 56:29
  What? Hi there.
• 56:32
  Hey, it's Jimmy Ear. I, you know, I keep meaning to
• 56:35
  make a mechanism so that I can have a thing in my pocket and
• 56:38
  make my ear. Talk.
• 56:42
  That would be insane. But also, you would be the
• 56:45
  greatest puppeteer I've ever seen.
• 56:47
  If you pull that off. He is the greatest puppet.
• 56:49
  Become my own puppet. It was Adam's idea to do the
• 56:53
  arrival of the bus a la Mad Max Fury Rd.
• 56:56
  I was going to ask if that was a deliberate reference, cuz you
• 56:59
  know, we got the big speakers and animal on the roof with the
• 57:02
  drums. Yeah, that's good stuff, Playing
• 57:05
  that song loud, that just when we hit that song, Yeah, we
• 57:10
  played a bunch of different options, but that was the one
• 57:12
  right away we just knew. That was quite a ride, wasn't
• 57:16
  it, Dave? What?
• 57:16
  We broke down. We were out in the desert
• 57:21
  somewhere. Where were we?
• 57:22
  There was a snake too, right? There was a.
• 57:24
  Rattlesnake That was great. I think it was a sidewinder,
• 57:28
  actually, that rattlesnake it was, yeah, yeah, we're all
• 57:31
  shooting and all of us were on little low chairs and facing
• 57:34
  Nora and shooting this scene. And somebody said Snake.
• 57:40
  And we looked at our left and about 15 feet away was a rattler
• 57:45
  heading for us. Just coming in.
• 57:47
  Who's coming our way? Like, they don't do that.
• 57:48
  They go away from people. Yeah, but I guess we were in the
• 57:52
  way. You know, he's going somewhere.
• 57:54
  He's probably going down and our snake get out for groceries and.
• 57:58
  And thank goodness we have a handler out, you know, these
• 58:01
  locations. But he was just coming.
• 58:03
  He was like, excuse me, pardon me coming through.
• 58:07
  And like the one place you don't want to be is to be like on the
• 58:10
  ground with a puppet. You know you like.
• 58:12
  You're literally on the floor. Your hands are occupied.
• 58:16
  You know. Yeah, we got up quick.
• 58:17
  We got up. We got up very quick.
• 58:19
  Yeah, we all got up fast. This, this is true.
• 58:23
  Something just popped up in my head, which is just incredible
• 58:25
  luck. But the fact that Lips is doing
• 58:27
  his Ted talk, we had him in all black then, like we have him on
• 58:30
  the side of the road and he's wearing black.
• 58:32
  And then we do the gag that he thought Nora died and he's
• 58:34
  wearing black. And yeah, yeah, we looked, yeah.
• 58:38
  Yeah, we told him. What do you think it means it
• 58:40
  all? Sort of?
• 58:41
  What's up? Yeah, I said.
• 58:42
  What do you think it means? Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 58:43
  It's just as a cloud of death that hangs over.
• 58:46
  Yeah, that's Lips's journey through Season 2.
• 58:49
  Is. Is is.
• 58:50
  Even our mistake worked, it was just meant to be.
• 58:53
  Yes. So, yeah, So the band finds
• 58:57
  Nora. She's broken down on the side of
• 58:59
  the road, as you say. They're playing a song as they
• 59:02
  as they drive up the road. It's joined together by The Who.
• 59:06
  I want to give a quick shout out.
• 59:09
  It's a great choice. We had an amazing music
• 59:12
  supervisor, Kier Layman on this, but this one was recommended by
• 59:16
  my friend Bobby Gum, who's a music supervisor in the world of
• 59:19
  trailers and award-winning. And I was like, Bobby, we need a
• 59:23
  song for this moment. And he gave quite a few of them.
• 59:28
  But this one, as I said before, just was absolutely right.
• 59:33
  And then the idea. Just that.
• 59:34
  Put it together, Ed and Steve. Put together the song, Which was
• 59:38
  Oh yeah, the instrumentation of it, oh.
• 59:40
  Yeah, it's so great. I mean just.
• 59:42
  Ed Mitchell and Steve Morell. Yep, you can hear it coming from
• 59:46
  the Canyon away. It's just like, the song is just
• 59:49
  so perfect for this moment, you know?
• 59:50
  And it's weird sounding like, so she can look over Nora and just
• 59:55
  like, hawk an eyebrow and just be like, what is that?
• 59:57
  And the audience too is like, what is that?
• 1:00:00
  Very, very. Great choice, yeah.
• 1:00:04
  And is it a deliberate reference to the Muppet Movie that the
• 1:00:07
  Mayhem bus is coming to save someone Who is their cars broken
• 1:00:11
  down on the side of a desert highway?
• 1:00:14
  No, I wouldn't say it was a. Deliberate reference?
• 1:00:17
  Well, that it's a great coincidence that that happens in
• 1:00:20
  both Muppet movie and in here. It's like Star Wars.
• 1:00:22
  It's a tone poem, and it all like parallels and must have
• 1:00:25
  been in there somewhere, right? Remember at one point I I
• 1:00:29
  pitched the like a tow truck that was going to come.
• 1:00:27
  Sure. It was like a.
• 1:00:33
  Deus Ex Mechanics. That's what it was.
• 1:00:37
  That's funny. I I I had the sense when I
• 1:00:43
  watched the series that Lips was more understandable than it had
• 1:00:47
  been on set. Did he do a lot of rerecording?
• 1:00:51
  We did, rerecording to certain instances to make him less
• 1:00:55
  understandable. Oh.
• 1:00:56
  Really. Yeah, because some were too on
• 1:00:59
  the news. There are a couple that are in
• 1:01:02
  there that still, yeah, I guess we were locked at that point of
• 1:01:05
  those with those episodes. So, but if I was, if I could and
• 1:01:10
  I'm sure, Bill, you agree, Yeah, you'd go back and make him a
• 1:01:13
  little less intelligible, which is, which is interesting because
• 1:01:16
  you know, I mean Peter's for the first time doing this character,
• 1:01:19
  so he's trying to find the balance of it all.
• 1:01:23
  So, but I know what you're saying, Dave.
• 1:01:25
  I mean, I think on said it probably felt like it was more
• 1:01:28
  unintelligible, but they're just.
• 1:01:31
  Yeah, but I think when it comes when you're in the right finally
• 1:01:35
  you've got this edit and it's now you're really focused on the
• 1:01:39
  moments instead of what he was doing over and over for us.
• 1:01:42
  I think like Chrysanthemum is very clear to me, right when he
• 1:01:46
  when when Keith calls him a. Chrysanthemum.
• 1:01:51
  So there still are some that are very clear, but but definitely,
• 1:01:55
  yeah, like Jeff, sorry not to just reiterate, but yeah, we did
• 1:01:59
  have Peter loosen it up on a few things that were too clear.
• 1:02:03
  Well, this, this line here is a good example because you can
• 1:02:06
  kind of hear the first half of the sentiment where he says you
• 1:02:08
  change itself for the better and then it kind of drifts off into
• 1:02:11
  Mumbles. But it it also seems important
• 1:02:13
  because Nora can understand lips for the first time, and they say
• 1:02:17
  it, Zoot says. That's because you're one of us,
• 1:02:19
  your family now, Dorothy, which is a key line.
• 1:02:22
  And but I feel like we also as the audience are starting to
• 1:02:27
  hear a little bit kind of bringing us like a like a
• 1:02:29
  Toehold into the fold of being a member of the Electric Mayhem.
• 1:02:35
  That's good. That's.
• 1:02:36
  Nice. Is that a nice?
• 1:02:37
  Is that a nice fan theory that you didn't intend at all?
• 1:02:39
  It's great. No, we didn't intend at all.
• 1:02:42
  And actually I think that's really sweet.
• 1:02:45
  And and I Love, Actually, my favorite thing that Lips says is
• 1:02:48
  that he calls Nora Nobu. I just love that.
• 1:02:52
  That's cute. So funny to me.
• 1:02:54
  That feels like a very Pepe thing.
• 1:02:56
  Or you just you pick you pick the wrong name and you stick to
• 1:02:59
  it. So I made.
• 1:03:01
  So in my mind my my theory behind it is and I have never
• 1:03:04
  asked Peter, but Lips knows everybody, right?
• 1:03:07
  So to me Lips is a is the hippest guy in this band.
• 1:03:12
  He knows celebrities. He hangs out in different great
• 1:03:15
  places, cool places. I think his favorite restaurant
• 1:03:17
  is Nobu. This very trendy, chic kind of
• 1:03:21
  plays and he calls Nora Nobu. I don't know.
• 1:03:24
  It's just my own little thing, but I just love that.
• 1:03:29
  Dave, did you ad Lib the your family now Dorothy that sounded
• 1:03:33
  that sounded like an ad Lib, the Dorothy one.
• 1:03:35
  It was written and it was just perfect.
• 1:03:36
  It was so beautiful because it's it's the last word in the
• 1:03:40
  sentence and you and everything's going fine.
• 1:03:43
  And then you realize he's completely out of touch.
• 1:03:47
  Yeah. Yeah, and and I love it.
• 1:03:49
  Yeah, it's a perfect line. And he, you know, Zoom messes up
• 1:03:53
  some other names as well. At times he calls move different
• 1:03:56
  things and. But I love the Dorothy
• 1:03:59
  references because to me it feels like the Wizard of Oz
• 1:04:02
  here, where everybody's come back to her and it just feels
• 1:04:05
  appropriate. Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:09
  I mean, that's again, that's one of those layers.
• 1:04:11
  It's just so lovely about this. So next we cut straight to the
• 1:04:18
  Hollywood Bowl. The Mayhem made it.
• 1:04:20
  They are finishing the song Joined Together.
• 1:04:23
  And this is actually not the first time The Muppets have been
• 1:04:26
  at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1977, Big Bird conducted the
• 1:04:31
  LA Philharmonic Orchestra there. That was the first time.
• 1:04:34
  In 2006, Kermit, Piggy, Stalin and Waldorf appeared at an
• 1:04:38
  honoring of a conductor, the conductor and founding director
• 1:04:42
  of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. They saying fever and being
• 1:04:46
  green and I got you babe. Dave, I assume you were there as
• 1:04:49
  Waldorf. I don't know if.
• 1:04:50
  That's true. Or not?
• 1:04:51
  I was, yeah. And I was also helping out.
• 1:04:54
  I think I was helping with Piggy's arms and legs on the
• 1:04:56
  piano. Yeah, great.
• 1:05:00
  And then the big one was in 2017, The Muppets Did The
• 1:05:04
  Muppets take the bowl in which it was basically like a live
• 1:05:08
  epic episode of The Muppet Show. And the mayhem did a mini set
• 1:05:12
  there. They saying can you picture that
• 1:05:14
  And home and suffrage at City. I was there.
• 1:05:18
  It was epic. I loved it.
• 1:05:19
  Jeff, were you there as well? Yeah, I bought tickets on
• 1:05:24
  StubHub and I was seeing him on Sunday night and then I think I
• 1:05:28
  saw Matt Tweed. He's like getting ready to go
• 1:05:30
  on. I'm like, it's like 615, what's
• 1:05:32
  going on? And I look and the person from
• 1:05:34
  StubHub sent me the wrong tickets.
• 1:05:36
  They sent me the. Tickets for Saturday night.
• 1:05:39
  And I was thought I bought first Sunday night and I called
• 1:05:43
  StubHub and I'm like, what and what's going on?
• 1:05:46
  What do I do? And they're like you can come,
• 1:05:47
  we're not going to get you. We don't have the seats that you
• 1:05:50
  bought because I bought as close as possible just because I
• 1:05:53
  wanted to watch these guys perform, you know, as
• 1:05:57
  puppeteers. And I just feel like, so you're
• 1:05:59
  going to have to sit a little further back.
• 1:06:01
  And I was like, okay, but okay. And so we rush over because now
• 1:06:07
  it's in 45 minutes, go to the Hollywood Bowl to get over.
• 1:06:10
  As we're walking to our box, we're still boxy.
• 1:06:13
  You know, further back, I turn to my wife.
• 1:06:15
  I'm like, that's John Singleton. We're sitting in a box with two
• 1:06:19
  other people. It's John Singleton, director
• 1:06:21
  John Singleton and his daughter. Wow.
• 1:06:25
  We talked for a little bit because I came.
• 1:06:27
  I come from the world of trailers.
• 1:06:28
  I've worked on a trailer of his years ago, talked about that,
• 1:06:32
  and then it turns out he is the biggest Muppet fan of the world.
• 1:06:36
  So all of a sudden, like, we'd be sitting there and Fozzy would
• 1:06:39
  come out on stage and he'd go loved it and it was great.
• 1:06:46
  It was still terrific. I mean, like it was an amazing
• 1:06:49
  show. And then yes, to see the band
• 1:06:52
  and then now we're here, amazing.
• 1:06:55
  This time, it was almost as difficult for me to see them at
• 1:06:58
  the Hollywood Bowl. We have a lot of things that had
• 1:07:00
  to happen to make this work. Tell me about that.
• 1:07:03
  Were there any? What were some of the challenges
• 1:07:04
  to get to shoot at the bowl? We couldn't.
• 1:07:06
  Shoot at the ball. We couldn't shoot at the ball.
• 1:07:09
  You didn't actually shoot at the bowl?
• 1:07:11
  Nope. Oh, pretty great.
• 1:07:14
  I like that. Wow.
• 1:07:15
  Special boxes. Ladies and gentlemen, Zoobox.
• 1:07:18
  Zoobox Yeah, So what? So what we did was we shot.
• 1:07:22
  We shot all the performance on our stage all as wide as we
• 1:07:26
  could get and then shrinking it down when we needed to to make
• 1:07:29
  it fit the stage it. Was on the last day.
• 1:07:32
  Yeah, last day. But the the the concert where
• 1:07:37
  you see all the people that was for, Yeah, that was their
• 1:07:43
  concert. So our team was able to go.
• 1:07:46
  They allowed us to go film their audience and we married in well,
• 1:07:51
  so boxed. An amazing job putting us there,
• 1:07:55
  making it feel like we're really there.
• 1:07:57
  We were desperate to let you know, some act, let us shoot
• 1:08:00
  their audience, you know, and even their stage elements.
• 1:08:03
  But it also had to fit the mayhem.
• 1:08:06
  So like when we were going through the calendar, well,
• 1:08:09
  maybe this could work. Maybe this, Well, Disney is
• 1:08:12
  actually doing something on this night, but it was just like a
• 1:08:15
  pianist. So what is the audience for
• 1:08:17
  that? You know, ideally you want a
• 1:08:20
  rock crowd. And and then I think, Bill, you
• 1:08:23
  had a connection to Fogarty and it was the day before we
• 1:08:27
  realized that, like we would been able to shoot.
• 1:08:30
  Like we just missed him. And so, yeah, they shot all
• 1:08:34
  these plates, they plates, they shot the concert, they shot the
• 1:08:37
  crowd. You know, I guess there were
• 1:08:39
  signs there. I hope there were signs there
• 1:08:41
  that said you were going to be part of this audience.
• 1:08:45
  There's and then amazing visual effects work, but you're
• 1:08:49
  cutting, you know, while we're editing, it's just these
• 1:08:53
  terrible comps of the band shrunk down over like, which is
• 1:08:58
  these hard edges in front of Karen Owen.
• 1:09:00
  The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah is performing.
• 1:09:02
  Wow. I mean, that explains why
• 1:09:04
  there's no Mayhem tshirts in the crowd.
• 1:09:07
  You would expect a few. Oh no, there are there are
• 1:09:09
  people were wearing them that at.
• 1:09:11
  The Yeah, Yeah, Yes concert. Yeah, that makes.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah, I'll tell you. Actually, this is a funny thing.
• 1:09:15
  By now, people have seen the show, so they know that we have
• 1:09:17
  Kevin Smith on the show and they know we have Peter Jackson, two
• 1:09:20
  incredible directors. But in the audience of the.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Is Spike Jones.
• 1:09:26
  Really. Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Because he dated Karen O for a while and they collaborated on
• 1:09:31
  the song from her. And so he was there and he was
• 1:09:36
  wearing this bright red like, you know, James Dean.
• 1:09:39
  Rebel without a crew. Rebel without a clue Jacket.
• 1:09:42
  And it was in the final, like, color mix we went through.
• 1:09:45
  And I'm like, you got to take it down because all I see is Spike
• 1:09:48
  Jones. And so now he's wearing a brown
• 1:09:50
  jacket in the middle of that shot.
• 1:09:54
  But he's still in the shot. Like, he's still on the show,
• 1:09:56
  Yeah. Great.
• 1:09:57
  All right, we're going to look up for it.
• 1:10:00
  We get before we get off of the Hollywood Bowl, we have to
• 1:10:02
  mention Doctor Keith's performance in that scene.
• 1:10:07
  It's amazing. Talking about Nora and
• 1:10:09
  introducing a song. And it I I will say that it is
• 1:10:12
  one of the finest moments of puppetry I've ever seen.
• 1:10:16
  The acting, I mean, seriously, the acting was when Teeth starts
• 1:10:20
  to lose it. That's just unbelievably good.
• 1:10:25
  It's so real. We.
• 1:10:28
  Still, just in any DID, he had to do many takes and he killed
• 1:10:32
  it every time. It was just so good.
• 1:10:34
  Well, you encouraged me. I I was, I was worried it was
• 1:10:38
  too much and Dave kept saying no, no, no, no, no, don't,
• 1:10:42
  don't, don't think, don't worry about.
• 1:10:44
  It I feel really bad because you know we in the editing room, we
• 1:10:48
  have to do a lot of self editing.
• 1:10:50
  We're constantly worried about the length of the show, if this
• 1:10:54
  works, if this doesn't work and and I think that early on we're
• 1:11:00
  like okay, well this is one of the pieces we're going to cut
• 1:11:03
  down because we just have to get moving.
• 1:11:04
  We have to get to this next song.
• 1:11:07
  We were again, we had a lot of trouble with this episode and
• 1:11:12
  and Bill like in the nicest Bill way possible was just like and
• 1:11:16
  not ego at all. Just like can you just can you
• 1:11:20
  just take a look at this performance?
• 1:11:23
  Well I don't and if I just interrupt but yeah I think I
• 1:11:26
  even cuz cuz the guy Jeff and Adam and Kevin are our editors
• 1:11:31
  and they would edit and then they were.
• 1:11:33
  I would get to see what they did and then I would try and do the
• 1:11:37
  best I could, some notes and things on that.
• 1:11:39
  But David said this to me. This was a while, you know after
• 1:11:44
  now that David said this to me and I I couldn't believe that.
• 1:11:49
  So in my notes I tried to say, if Dave is feeling this, can we
• 1:11:57
  look at it again? Can we see if this is something
• 1:12:00
  we should keep in there? And so I tried to send a little
• 1:12:03
  cut of it to try it, and then we got to this place.
• 1:12:07
  But yeah, I I I'm glad it's in there because I think we needed
• 1:12:12
  that for Nora, you know, and for to sell that and for.
• 1:12:16
  To be so powerful and it's it's the hardest thing to do as a
• 1:12:19
  performer to simulate that moment when you lose your
• 1:12:23
  breath, you're you, you're so emotional that you start to
• 1:12:26
  break down and you try to recover instantly.
• 1:12:30
  I don't know how Bill did it, honestly.
• 1:12:32
  I mean, well, I do know how he did it because he told me, but.
• 1:12:35
  But I don't know how he pulled it off because it it's just
• 1:12:38
  really hard to do. And yet it happens to all of us.
• 1:12:41
  You know, they're overcome by emotion.
• 1:12:43
  You, these things happen to you. And I've never seen that done
• 1:12:48
  with it, you know, in the world of puppetry before.
• 1:12:51
  And it was just profoundly meaningful, you know, just
• 1:12:53
  really, it just really pays off that show.
• 1:12:58
  When Bill sent that e-mail and he was just you know Dave
• 1:13:01
  thought this you know, so consider it.
• 1:13:03
  We just didn't know who Dave was.
• 1:13:05
  You were gonna do. I just OK some guy, Dave.
• 1:13:12
  All right, Dave. You know, I I mean I completely
• 1:13:16
  agree. I, I had a lot of comments about
• 1:13:18
  this as well in my notes about the power of this of this
• 1:13:22
  moment. You know, I think it's
• 1:13:24
  especially difficult for a character that we.
• 1:13:27
  Generally know as being someone who's just he's just loud and
• 1:13:32
  and a little bit chaotic and a little bit 2 dimensional.
• 1:13:36
  I know we got a lot of three third dimension in the show, but
• 1:13:39
  you know we like we have, we're not used to that and to see them
• 1:13:43
  have that kind of reaction, not only is it doubly powerful
• 1:13:47
  because of that, but I think it makes it doubly hard to pull
• 1:13:50
  off. And I think he did that
• 1:13:51
  incredibly well, Bill. I'm going to say one more thing,
• 1:13:54
  though, and it sounds try, because I've said it before.
• 1:13:56
  So Bill's heard it before, but you know, again, it is his hand
• 1:14:00
  and it's his voice, but it is his heart.
• 1:14:04
  So much of this show is Bill's heart.
• 1:14:10
  All the difference in the world. I, you know, and I made him do
• 1:14:14
  it, but it's just well. Do that thing where you where
• 1:14:17
  you start to say something and you break.
• 1:14:19
  Up. You know, like I shy away from
• 1:14:24
  things. I I'm a cynic and but Bill was
• 1:14:28
  always like I think we should go there and I think it makes a
• 1:14:31
  difference to do this and it's important to me and and then he
• 1:14:36
  does it or we try it and it's just it's there.
• 1:14:39
  I mean it and it totally, it absolutely makes a difference in
• 1:14:43
  our scenes, in our performances, in our believability and I think
• 1:14:46
  in our audiences react and that's proof of it, you you
• 1:14:48
  know. The people you know?
• 1:14:50
  Yes, The Muppets. They made me laugh.
• 1:14:51
  I enjoy their songs, but I didn't expect to feel as much.
• 1:14:55
  Yeah, but you think about the history of The Muppets and you
• 1:14:58
  think about Gonzo doing. Absolutely.
• 1:15:01
  You think about, you think about Kermit, singing Rainbow Connect.
• 1:15:05
  You know all these songs. There's heart in The Muppets
• 1:15:08
  from the from the very beginning, and that's always.
• 1:15:10
  But what I've all, I think been drawn to the most is when.
• 1:15:14
  Because you can, of course, zaniness and fun and jokes and
• 1:15:18
  the comedy is there. You write classic, amazing
• 1:15:21
  stuff. But then the heart to see these
• 1:15:24
  inanimate objects think and feel.
• 1:15:28
  That's when it That's what I wanna believe in.
• 1:15:30
  Yeah. And it's tougher with this
• 1:15:32
  group, you know, because they're not necessarily known.
• 1:15:37
  I I wanna also kind of point out like it's, I agree with you
• 1:15:40
  Bill. It's incredibly important and
• 1:15:41
  it's such a part of the the backbone of The Muppets.
• 1:15:44
  But it that that doesn't mean it's always done incredibly
• 1:15:47
  well. It's or or so effectively
• 1:15:50
  because sometimes it comes across as schmaltzy or I don't
• 1:15:54
  know it just in some way ineffective of like like well,
• 1:15:58
  Muppets have to have heart. So we put heart into it and you
• 1:16:00
  can't just put heart into a thing and have it be effective
• 1:16:03
  but just felt earned. You know he's talking about
• 1:16:07
  Nora. He's also we we we just saw his
• 1:16:09
  parents again, we and we're reminded of the whole storyline.
• 1:16:13
  Of like him reconnecting with his parents and his parents are
• 1:16:15
  here at their first Mayhem show and they're decked out in Mayhem
• 1:16:19
  shirts and buttons and you know his mom's got the microphone
• 1:16:23
  earrings and all that. Like they're they're all in for
• 1:16:26
  their son and that's really touching as well.
• 1:16:29
  So yeah, it's it's not just, I don't know, like boy, we sure do
• 1:16:34
  like Christmas and there's heart in that.
• 1:16:36
  It's this is, this is earned. This is Doctor T's story and.
• 1:16:42
  Put your performance on top of that.
• 1:16:44
  That's a. That's Chef's kiss right there.
• 1:16:48
  You know, I did an interview with Frank Oz about Emmet
• 1:16:52
  Otter's Jug Band Christmas a couple years ago, and one of the
• 1:16:55
  things that Frank said was that with that piece, Jim had the
• 1:17:00
  courage to be sweet, to do something really sweet and
• 1:17:05
  heartfelt. And it remains certainly one one
• 1:17:09
  of my top favorites of all time. Because of that.
• 1:17:12
  But it's a good thing to to make note of that.
• 1:17:14
  You know you have. You have to have courage to try
• 1:17:16
  to, to try to pull real emotion off.
• 1:17:20
  When it works, it's just incredible.
• 1:17:23
  And I think that's it too, Dave. Maybe it's just that it is, you
• 1:17:26
  know, it's real, you know, and and that's what that's what came
• 1:17:30
  out of for me, at least in that moment.
• 1:17:32
  It's a real feeling based on real feelings that I have about
• 1:17:35
  that type of situation. So maybe it's just about things
• 1:17:39
  coming together. You know, at the right time,
• 1:17:43
  maybe, I don't know. That's nice.
• 1:17:46
  Well, also there, in addition to Doctor T's parents, it's Statler
• 1:17:50
  and Waldorf. Our our only other real,
• 1:17:52
  established Muppet characters outside of the mayhem are are in
• 1:17:57
  the audience of the Hollywood Bowl.
• 1:17:59
  And they're of course booing the Mayhem, but it's not their
• 1:18:03
  seats. They are led away because they
• 1:18:07
  don't belong in this show and that that Statler Waldorf joke
• 1:18:11
  couplet is written by Jim Lewis. Oh really?
• 1:18:16
  Yeah, that's great. I asked Jim if he had some
• 1:18:19
  Statler Waldorf jokes he could throw at us.
• 1:18:22
  Here's the situation. Here's, you know what we're
• 1:18:25
  looking for. And he gave us like four
• 1:18:27
  options, and that was the one. Terrific, It's.
• 1:18:31
  Great. Why are Statler Waldorf are the
• 1:18:34
  only ones to be given this honor of of being?
• 1:18:37
  We only named Muppets in a mayhem show.
• 1:18:43
  Who else would Heckle? Well, I mean, you could have
• 1:18:47
  thrown Kermit in there. You could have given Gonzo A
• 1:18:49
  cameo. You you had options, but you
• 1:18:51
  chose Salmar Waldorf. We did have a version.
• 1:18:53
  We did have that thought we we talked about having Kermit and
• 1:18:57
  Piggy in another box, but. Don't give the audience what
• 1:19:02
  they want. Give the audience, but they
• 1:19:03
  didn't know they wanted. It felt too convenient and we
• 1:19:08
  talked many other points of Muppets showing up, but we
• 1:19:11
  wanted this to be about the band.
• 1:19:13
  They certainly weren't going to The Muppets.
• 1:19:15
  Kermit the gang weren't going to save the band.
• 1:19:17
  That just seemed the band had to do it.
• 1:19:19
  This is their. Story that That's a good point
• 1:19:23
  that I hadn't thought of that If Kermit was there and the band
• 1:19:26
  were going through something, where where was he this whole
• 1:19:28
  time? And we don't, we don't ask that
• 1:19:29
  question because we don't see him.
• 1:19:33
  No, that works. We had, we had, we had talked
• 1:19:35
  about versions of where he shows up backstage with everybody and
• 1:19:39
  the bus and congratulating all kinds of stuff like that, but it
• 1:19:43
  was just just ultimately didn't feel right.
• 1:19:46
  It felt like a different story and maybe it's a second season
• 1:19:50
  thing, you know? Honestly, I love.
• 1:19:53
  I love the fact that you didn't put him in there.
• 1:19:55
  I think, I think it would be cheap to put him even in the
• 1:19:58
  second season, just because the mayhem deserves the spotlight.
• 1:20:02
  And Kermit is a magnet for a spotlight.
• 1:20:05
  You know, it would be ashamed to take that attention away from
• 1:20:09
  the bands just because we all love.
• 1:20:11
  Kermit some I think if it's motivated, yeah, I think if it's
• 1:20:15
  motivated or it's organic to what's happening in the scene or
• 1:20:19
  the story, it doesn't bother me that way when it's kind of just
• 1:20:22
  voluntarily or randomly tossed in for the sake of saying we
• 1:20:27
  have more Muppets in this thing. That to me.
• 1:20:29
  You know, yeah, that that to me feels false.
• 1:20:32
  But I think in a second season, if something's motivated and
• 1:20:35
  you're stumbling upon a character here or there, you
• 1:20:38
  know, I think that can be fun. Sure.
• 1:20:41
  Yeah, I would love that. I would.
• 1:20:43
  I mean, not maybe Kermit, but like any and many people just
• 1:20:47
  completely show up. I mean, what just anyone.
• 1:20:49
  I mean like like you did with settler Waldorf year.
• 1:20:51
  Like if Rolf the dog was, you know, did had a little walk by
• 1:20:55
  Loose Zealand. Happens to be near, you know,
• 1:20:57
  something like that. It doesn't have to be full of
• 1:20:59
  Muppets, it doesn't have to be even top tier Muppets, but just
• 1:21:02
  a little. A little taste for the fans.
• 1:21:04
  Yep, sure. So back at the record store, we
• 1:21:08
  got our first glimpse at the Electric Mayhem album cover, and
• 1:21:12
  it's the real album art, which is pretty cool.
• 1:21:14
  Like this is like the debut of the album which I.
• 1:21:18
  Love it was. The band was looking at a green
• 1:21:22
  square. I wondered.
• 1:21:27
  It was dropped in. I wondered how far in advance
• 1:21:25
  this was. This was set.
• 1:21:28
  It's a VFX shot and we were doing VFX until March, maybe
• 1:21:31
  even early April. We're done by April.
• 1:21:35
  But you know, the art for the album was happening obviously
• 1:21:39
  late in the game, just, you know, months ago at this point.
• 1:21:43
  And we dropped it in for a while.
• 1:21:45
  It was just some terrible mock up that I made.
• 1:21:47
  It was in a cut. Yeah, well, I want to see that
• 1:21:50
  now. Via effects, they put kind of a
• 1:21:53
  plastic code on it and made it look like it was in a sleeve.
• 1:21:56
  You know, that's cool. I also just have to mention how
• 1:21:59
  much I love that album art. I think it looks so good.
• 1:22:02
  It looks like a real album. It's not just like a shot like a
• 1:22:05
  picture from the show. It's not just The Muppets.
• 1:22:06
  Make him logo. Like, it's a great old shot,
• 1:22:09
  Taylor, yeah. Matt.
• 1:22:11
  Taylor is the artist. Yeah, he is fantastic.
• 1:22:14
  There's a lot of stuff with Mondo.
• 1:22:15
  He does a lot of Marvel art. He does a lot of Disney art.
• 1:22:18
  But we sent over a list of artists that we would love to,
• 1:22:21
  you know, for them to consider to do this album, to feel like
• 1:22:25
  it's album art, you know, and not Muppet clip art or
• 1:22:28
  photographs that, you know, seeing it, whatever.
• 1:22:32
  Yeah, it's pretty cool. That's something that we notice.
• 1:22:34
  Yeah, I appreciate that. So Nora says now that there's an
• 1:22:39
  album to promote, they have an actual reason to go on tour and
• 1:22:43
  they're heading out the door. It was.
• 1:22:45
  Was your original intention that this season would end with a
• 1:22:49
  tour, or is this just kind of a nod toward what we might be
• 1:22:52
  seeing in Season 2? Or are you not able to comment
• 1:22:56
  on that? That we would see them go on
• 1:22:59
  tour in this season. I'm saying would would, the two
• 1:23:04
  things I'm asking are, is this leading to the Season 2 where
• 1:23:07
  we're going to be seeing them on tour, or is this was the season
• 1:23:10
  supposed to come out and then like go to Fandango real life?
• 1:23:14
  It's might be coming to your town, yeah.
• 1:23:17
  I don't think we considered that they would for real be going on
• 1:23:20
  tour and that's outside of our as writers jurisdiction say, oh
• 1:23:25
  by the way, puppet studios, this is what you guys are doing this
• 1:23:28
  summer. Hey, look, other writers have
• 1:23:30
  attempted stuff like that, so you could have.
• 1:23:33
  Tried. It's a great idea.
• 1:23:34
  I mean, look, honestly, sure, absolutely.
• 1:23:36
  We would have loved for there to be a tour and I wanted them to
• 1:23:39
  build it to the show. Just to have like a bunch of
• 1:23:41
  gigs, you know, and show a couple of episodes leading up.
• 1:23:45
  I thought that would been amazing.
• 1:23:48
  And I think if if they're go on tour in a second season, I think
• 1:23:51
  we left it because the bus breaks down that we have the
• 1:23:54
  option of deciding depending on what we have to, you know what,
• 1:23:59
  what realistically may need to play out.
• 1:24:03
  So we just don't know yet, yeah. And we're not allowed to think
• 1:24:07
  about it. You're not allowed to think
• 1:24:09
  about strike. OK, we're allowed to think about
• 1:24:12
  Season 2. My brain is not.
• 1:24:15
  I will not ask you any questions about things you've not written
• 1:24:17
  yet. On the bus, Moog is pointing out
• 1:24:22
  all the photographs that are all the ceiling.
• 1:24:24
  As we mentioned, there's this whole treasure hunt thing of,
• 1:24:27
  you know, following the clues. But Zoot is looking at, you
• 1:24:33
  know, the birthday cake that he got once.
• 1:24:35
  And remember that grilled cheese sandwich?
• 1:24:37
  Here's the band taking Manhattan.
• 1:24:38
  That's a great little little reference.
• 1:24:40
  Some upsick Manhattan. And here's Penny giving us our
• 1:24:44
  cash advance. Yeah, that's not.
• 1:24:46
  That's not Zeut's birthday cake. Whose birthday cake was that?
• 1:24:51
  You. You're gonna have to look and
• 1:24:52
  see his name is on the cake. Oh, do you need me to go back
• 1:24:55
  and zoom in and enhance? Almost on the cake.
• 1:24:59
  Almost on the cake. Are you gonna make me look or
• 1:25:01
  are you gonna Are you gonna reveal it for our listeners?
• 1:25:03
  You don't have to scroll through now, but listeners and enjoy the
• 1:25:06
  the look. OK, fair enough.
• 1:25:09
  Can't wait to find out whose cake that is.
• 1:25:13
  This is the stuff you have right?
• 1:25:14
  You want a little. All right, Yeah.
• 1:25:16
  I mean, I wanted to reveal all the Easter eggs, but we're going
• 1:25:20
  to leave some for for people to find on their own and that's.
• 1:25:22
  All these Polaroids, you know this was again, this was post
• 1:25:25
  Polaroids, this was Bill and I just sort of going through our
• 1:25:29
  pictures. We did a shoot where Zoot Dave,
• 1:25:34
  you could tell us about the shoot.
• 1:25:36
  Remember doing that Shoot where it was?
• 1:25:38
  You with the teller getting the check, the money bags.
• 1:25:42
  We shot it in our office. Yeah, it was actually in the
• 1:25:46
  entrance to the building. Yeah.
• 1:25:47
  Which is the Gunder Mifflin elevator area.
• 1:25:50
  Yeah. But yeah, we got that and we
• 1:25:55
  sort of changed it around. And then I think I wound up
• 1:25:57
  making it in Photoshop. So like, it's actually Penny,
• 1:26:00
  because he says this one Penny gave me the money.
• 1:26:02
  So it's taking a picture of Penny and then adding and you
• 1:26:05
  know. And then making it a zoot
• 1:26:07
  picture somehow, even though he's in it.
• 1:26:08
  But Zoot's surreal zoot invented the selfie, as we all know.
• 1:26:13
  Yeah, that's great. Yeah.
• 1:26:17
  And also, it makes sense that there's multiple pictures to
• 1:26:21
  tell that story, because in episode one they talk about
• 1:26:23
  cutting a check to Mr. Zootowski, and here he's
• 1:26:27
  accepting cash. So we got to figure out how that
• 1:26:32
  came. Cash.
• 1:26:33
  That mean? Like, we kind of figured that
• 1:26:35
  sounds boring for a Muppet show, so we can just fill in those
• 1:26:39
  blanks ourselves. So yeah, Doctor Teeth, he looks
• 1:26:42
  directly down the barrel of the camera.
• 1:26:44
  He says we're taking the show on the road.
• 1:26:47
  I hope that means that that's what we're going to be seeing in
• 1:26:50
  Season 2. I hope that means we're getting
• 1:26:51
  in Season 2. And as they attempt to drive off
• 1:26:55
  before they break down, we hear the song on our way, which is
• 1:26:59
  another original song for the show, appears on the soundtrack.
• 1:27:02
  You can listen to the whole thing there, and that's pretty
• 1:27:05
  much where the episode ends, with the exception of the Zoot
• 1:27:07
  tag at the end, in which Zoot takes a picture of the audience,
• 1:27:11
  says this one's for Kermit. That is our only mention of
• 1:27:14
  Kermit the Frog and this entire show right there.
• 1:27:18
  And that's the end of Muppets Mayhem.
• 1:27:20
  We did it. We made it to the end of this
• 1:27:21
  show and the end of this podcast.
• 1:27:24
  That mentioned was I think Lee or David Lightbody from up the
• 1:27:28
  studios suggested that we mentioned Kermit there.
• 1:27:31
  If we could, can we find a way of getting that in there?
• 1:27:35
  Right. So Dave, you adrd that right?
• 1:27:37
  I think. So yeah.
• 1:27:39
  We went back and asked him to redo the ADR.
• 1:27:42
  The zoo tags, those are all from Was that the last day of
• 1:27:46
  shooting? No, no.
• 1:27:50
  Yeah, he was shooting while we were doing the concert.
• 1:27:53
  Stuff. Yeah, that was happening over
• 1:27:54
  there. Then it was like the VCR, VHS
• 1:27:57
  inserts and zoo tags. That was on the reshoot day,
• 1:28:01
  right? No, no, no, no.
• 1:28:03
  It wasn't a reshoot day. It was our concert.
• 1:28:05
  It was while we were doing the bowl stuff.
• 1:28:10
  On the we. Were shooting over there.
• 1:28:12
  You were shooting your stuff before you had to come and do
• 1:28:15
  your Hollywood Bowl stuff. How many of those did you film,
• 1:28:19
  do you think of those zoo tags? I mean are are we talking like
• 1:28:26
  we did 12 and cut them down or we did fifty of them and cut it
• 1:28:30
  down to 10? Yeah, I think we scripted 10 of
• 1:28:32
  them. I think we got 12 to 15 back,
• 1:28:37
  five of which were better than ours.
• 1:28:40
  And yeah, we used them. I mean, they're great.
• 1:28:43
  They're just, I see Sparklys. I feel like this this felt like
• 1:28:49
  those old Muppet Show teasers that they used to, that you guys
• 1:28:53
  used to do where you would you know do a little 5 second bit
• 1:28:57
  before you know. That's the magic of Dave goals.
• 1:28:58
  So here's what's coming up on the next episode of the Muppet
• 1:29:00
  Show thing in that like they felt ad libs.
• 1:29:05
  It felt like David was just you in front of the camera going, I
• 1:29:07
  don't know I'll just get out there and say something funny
• 1:29:09
  and obviously it's not true. You just said you you scripted.
• 1:29:13
  I think Bill and I were doing that together.
• 1:29:15
  He was suggesting things too, but I can't remember really
• 1:29:17
  well. I think you were winging them,
• 1:29:20
  you were just coming up with stuff.
• 1:29:23
  Well, what you know to to go back to something that you said
• 1:29:28
  earlier about soliciting ideas from everybody and and also when
• 1:29:34
  we were at Descanso Gardens shooting the Zoot Gallery and
• 1:29:37
  the for sure Lands Bill was saying that that was wondering
• 1:29:40
  where you were. You had to go to that, to the
• 1:29:43
  harbor to go to the Queen Mary that day.
• 1:29:45
  And I had to go record our song that we were shooting the next
• 1:29:49
  morning. Yeah, So I came back.
• 1:29:52
  Later we were. That day we were.
• 1:29:53
  We didn't really have a lot of people around to help us with
• 1:29:58
  writing and stuff. And for some reason, when Zoot
• 1:30:01
  left the gallery, I can't remember how it was written.
• 1:30:05
  But Rob Cohen, who's a very sweet soul, was one of our
• 1:30:10
  directors. He he sort of brought up the
• 1:30:15
  idea. I think he brought up the idea
• 1:30:16
  of getting Jimmy in there and and so we just kind of worked
• 1:30:20
  out this little bit and there was nobody to ask.
• 1:30:23
  So we did whatever was scripted and then we just made this other
• 1:30:26
  ending where Jimmy says look what are you waiting for?
• 1:30:29
  Let's go. And it was really nice because
• 1:30:32
  it sort of wraps out the season with the shoe.
• 1:30:35
  And also just. You know, but it's a.
• 1:30:38
  It's a case in point where. The business is a lot less
• 1:30:42
  flexible now than it used to be. There are, there are layers and
• 1:30:46
  layers of approvals that you have to get when you're working
• 1:30:49
  for these big companies. Used to be we would just wing
• 1:30:52
  things, we would just make it up and do it.
• 1:30:54
  We would do what was scripted, but we would add other extra
• 1:30:57
  things and it just gave you know some choices in the end and this
• 1:31:00
  was a nice little example that day.
• 1:31:02
  There was nobody around to ask. So we just did it, you know, and
• 1:31:07
  worked out. But that's, you know, one one
• 1:31:11
  last little addendum then I want to hear what Jeff said.
• 1:31:13
  But like this, it's like jazz. It's like improvisational jazz.
• 1:31:17
  You know, when everything is working and all the characters
• 1:31:19
  are there and everybody around is making suggestions.
• 1:31:23
  When we can work loose like that, we get really great stuff.
• 1:31:27
  And that was an example of that. No, I just love that he Yanks
• 1:31:31
  you off screen. It's just like, I mean, that's
• 1:31:34
  what you want on television. You want movement, you know?
• 1:31:36
  And it's also going to take you to the next moment.
• 1:31:39
  I guess. We do hold on animal for a bit.
• 1:31:41
  But just like, yeah, you want to be pulled in a direction.
• 1:31:43
  We're moving the story along physically.
• 1:31:46
  You want to see that you know. And I'm really glad because Rob
• 1:31:49
  suggested that the suggested doing something and we just kind
• 1:31:53
  of worked out something to do that would give it some
• 1:31:55
  animation at the end. It was for Adam and myself.
• 1:31:59
  You know, because we weren't there as much because we were
• 1:32:02
  writing half the time like to get into the editing room and
• 1:32:04
  see these things, see these moments that we, you know, these
• 1:32:08
  choices, these things that you guys ad Lib that you know some.
• 1:32:11
  It's just it was the best. It was such a gift for us more
• 1:32:15
  often than not. But like, you know, we're
• 1:32:16
  sitting there like that was better and we.
• 1:32:18
  Should say something. We should say something about
• 1:32:20
  the directors too, because we had three directors.
• 1:32:24
  And they were just really, each one was strong in a different
• 1:32:27
  way. It was really, really fun to
• 1:32:28
  work with all of them. We had Matt Sohn, We had Rob
• 1:32:31
  Cohn, who you mentioned, and Kimmy Gatewood.
• 1:32:34
  Yeah. You know Matt Sohn we've worked
• 1:32:36
  with before, He's he's totally committed.
• 1:32:39
  He's just there 100% and really fun to work with.
• 1:32:42
  And then Kimmy came in and she was new.
• 1:32:44
  I hadn't worked with her before, but.
• 1:32:47
  She and her first ad had never worked with each other before,
• 1:32:52
  but they they came in, they were like a laugh machine.
• 1:32:55
  Yeah, they. Were great and so you wanted as
• 1:32:56
  an audience. They were an audience and they
• 1:32:59
  were they were having so much fun doing the work that it kind
• 1:33:02
  of gave us a boost of energy. You know one more example of how
• 1:33:08
  the feeling in the room gets on the screen?
• 1:33:10
  Yeah, yeah. Hey, I wanted to say one thing
• 1:33:14
  just about the last. When the bus breaks down, we
• 1:33:19
  couldn't do any more takes because the bus broke down.
• 1:33:23
  So it we actually, it actually broke down in real life.
• 1:33:27
  We actually broke down. We could only as far as we could
• 1:33:30
  go. We got, we got what we could
• 1:33:32
  get. It's perfect and so you use it.
• 1:33:34
  Yeah, we used it. It's the truth.
• 1:33:36
  Yeah. What's funnier than the truth?
• 1:33:39
  Truth is everything that is true.
• 1:33:43
  Well, gentlemen, this has been an absolute pleasure to talk to
• 1:33:46
  each of you. Thank you so much for joining
• 1:33:48
  me. Thank you, Villa and Jeff for
• 1:33:51
  joining me for so much of this podcast.
• 1:33:52
  It was such a treat to have you here.
• 1:33:54
  Dave, it's always a pleasure to talk to you and talk about soap
• 1:33:58
  bottles anytime. I mentioned the soap bottle this
• 1:34:02
  time I forgot. Tell me, tell me about this.
• 1:34:05
  It was really good. It was really great.
• 1:34:07
  I'm still thinking about it. Well, and thank you guys again
• 1:34:11
  for putting together such a great season of television.
• 1:34:15
  I really love The Muppets mayhem.
• 1:34:16
  I am keeping my fingers crossed that there's a Season 2 coming
• 1:34:20
  or at the very least more from this creative team with The
• 1:34:24
  Muppets because I think you guys really nailed it and I think you
• 1:34:27
  made something really special. So thank you for that and
• 1:34:32
  everyone else. We will see you next time here
• 1:34:34
  on the Tough Picks Podcast Channel.
• 1:34:38
  The Muppets Mayhem Backstage Pass is brought to you by
• 1:34:40
  toughpicks.com. Produced, written and hosted by
• 1:34:42
  Joe Henness, Logo art by Dave Haltine Junior.
• 1:34:45
  The Muppets Mayhem, Mark and Logo Characters and elements are
• 1:34:47
  trademarks of The Muppets Studio.
• 1:34:49
  Always reserved transcriptions provided by Katie Lynn Miller.
• 1:34:52
  The Muppets Mayhem and credits written by Mick G Aquino is used
• 1:34:54
  with permission. Special thanks to The Muppets
• 1:34:56
  Studio, Disney Plus and the entire Muppets Mayhem family.
• 1:34:58
  For more from Tough Picks, find us at Tough Picks on Twitter,
• 1:35:01
  Facebook, Instagram, and Patreon.
• 1:35:03
  Thanks for listening and until next time, rock on.
• 1:35:08
  Sorry I lost my place. Now cuz we're talking about
• 1:35:11
  Jimmy Choo. Now, you're not very good at
• 1:35:12
  this, man. That's like a number.
• 1:35:15
  Or in episode 10, you feel like you would have learned this?
• 1:35:17
  Yeah, really. Jeez, you'll.
• 1:35:19
  Leave all of our stupid stuff in, but you'll save yourself.
• 1:35:22
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have no idea.
• 1:35:25
  You'll get the scissors and you'll chop it out.
• 1:35:27
  You'll chop out all your mistakes.
• 1:35:28
  But we are idiots. And here we are.
• 1:35:30
  We have to sound stupid and we're not asking this anyway.
• 1:35:33
  It's. Fine.
• 1:35:34
  Why was that part of the show where, yeah, just me for four
• 1:35:36
  minutes.