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The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast - Episode 5: The Look of Love · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:01
  I've got a Miss Piggy screensaver on my computer that
• 0:04
  I look at all the time. It's got all the pictures of
• 0:06
  Miss Piggy that I've collected over the years, which is way
• 0:09
  more than the same person should have.
• 0:11
  I was looking at it the other day and thinking, you know, when
• 0:14
  I hear that there's a new museum exhibit that somebody suggests I
• 0:16
  go and see, I usually say, oh, that sounds interesting.
• 0:19
  And then I don't actually go. But if there was an exhibit that
• 0:23
  was entirely pictures of Miss Piggy, I would be there
• 0:26
  immediately, like first in line. So I realized I like looking at
• 0:31
  Miss Piggy more than literally anything in the history of art.
• 0:36
  How does that happen to a person?
• 0:39
  I can't give you anything but love, baby.
• 0:47
  That's the only thing I have plenty of.
• 0:54
  Kissy, kissy and welcome to another episode of Fantastic
• 0:57
  Miss Piggy Podcast. I'm Danny Horn and this podcast
• 1:00
  chronicles my journey to learn everything there is to know
• 1:02
  about that divine swine, the incomparable Miss Piggy.
• 1:05
  We are talking today about Miss Piggy as a visual idea and I am
• 1:09
  joined by two charming and gifted people.
• 1:12
  I've got product designer and art genius Jamie Carroll and
• 1:16
  filmmaker, designer, illustrator and bon vivant Peter Savieri.
• 1:21
  All right. Let's let's start with Peter.
• 1:24
  Kissy, Kissy. Welcome to the show, Peter.
• 1:26
  Thanks for having me. So happy to have you here.
• 1:28
  Why don't you tell the nice people about yourself?
• 1:31
  OK, so I'm a I'm a person who's done many things in my life,
• 1:36
  both to survive and to express myself creatively.
• 1:39
  But I do have a long history with Piggy obsession that that
• 1:43
  parallels Slash possibly rivals your own.
• 1:47
  My Muppet fandom started when I was very little, as a lot of it
• 1:52
  did for a lot of us. But I got particularly obsessed
• 1:56
  with Miss Piggy as the kind of stand alone focus of glamour and
• 2:01
  extraness within a very extra crowd of characters.
• 2:06
  And yeah, I don't know, I just, I think I was, I got into her
• 2:10
  when at that that sort of like boom time of the early 80s when
• 2:15
  I was small enough and she was big enough that it just captured
• 2:19
  my imagination. There were books coming out,
• 2:21
  calendars coming out, you know, misbehaves back to life, all of
• 2:24
  those things. And she just yeah it was at that
• 2:26
  time when sort of variety TV and and that kind of design that was
• 2:31
  just an extreme stimulus to the gay imagination like everything
• 2:36
  glittered everyone everything was pink or gold or mauve or you
• 2:41
  know like everything was sort of fantasy.
• 2:44
  So yeah it's just the whole aesthetic of Miss Piggy and and
• 2:49
  particular kind of diluted brand of glamour just really captured
• 2:53
  my imagination. But yeah, so I've I've worked as
• 2:56
  a film designer for many years, and as a kind of auxiliary brain
• 3:01
  to directors, doing design and storyboards and things for the
• 3:05
  film and ads and stuff. But I've also built puppets
• 3:09
  since I was a kid. Do that less these days, and
• 3:14
  even even I might have consulted on a few little products here
• 3:18
  and there. I've also designed characters
• 3:20
  for advertising for years. I guess my my way into it was
• 3:26
  really not even a way into understanding and and
• 3:28
  appreciating Miss Piggy. It's more like I can't find a
• 3:30
  way out. And and we we should also
• 3:33
  mention here at the top that that you actually have one of
• 3:37
  your artworks is in a Muppet movie.
• 3:40
  Yes, yeah, I sort of forgot to mention that.
• 3:42
  Yeah. So I painted a prop portrait for
• 3:46
  the pictures in my head sequence in The Muppets, the Jason Segel
• 3:50
  Muppet movie, and I consulted on the build of the Miss Piggy
• 3:54
  puppet and gave a lot of feedback and pointers and things
• 3:58
  to the director, James Boban, through the production designer
• 4:01
  on that. So yeah, and on Gonzo to a
• 4:04
  degree as well. But then Miss Piggy was really
• 4:07
  the the main focus of trying to address some things.
• 4:11
  Making sure that we still have a a quality piggy exactly once,
• 4:16
  once she's getting into a a big movie.
• 4:18
  Again, we needed to make sure we rein in some of the problems.
• 4:21
  So we'll we'll talk about that in a little bit.
• 4:24
  For sure, yeah. Jamie, kissy kissy to you.
• 4:27
  How about why don't you let's bring you in?
• 4:30
  Why don't you introduce yourself?
• 4:32
  Oh, that's that's hard. Oof, a Jack of many trades and
• 4:36
  and an expert at not much. Except that if I were an expert
• 4:40
  at something, or even close to that, it would be probably.
• 4:43
  Product design for The Muppets is such a niche.
• 4:45
  It really is. I fell into Palisades Toys in
• 4:49
  the early aughts. The product designer, developer
• 4:53
  and vice president Ken Lilly that everybody knows just gave
• 4:56
  me a shot and it was hard work. It was a lot let along days and
• 5:01
  I just learned trial by fire and it was a lot.
• 5:04
  A lot of the stuff they were doing with figures would still
• 5:07
  be considered experimental. They really pushed the envelope
• 5:11
  and sometimes it works better than others, but they they were.
• 5:15
  It's the collectors market, they weren't for children.
• 5:18
  And that was back in the.com before it went bust, when a lot
• 5:22
  of younger people had a large, large disposable income.
• 5:27
  But. You know, there wasn't the
• 5:29
  Internet wasn't great. The you know the the packages
• 5:33
  that the Jim Henson company would send out for product
• 5:35
  design was not great and it would took a long time to get to
• 5:39
  them. They're they were small company
• 5:40
  they still are a very small company and they just it's it's
• 5:45
  harder to get all that and we helped make the book for invent
• 5:48
  the legs for like characters and stuff that were never you know
• 5:52
  that we we figured out the tale on Uncle Deadly and of course I
• 5:56
  never got to touch the pig back then I tried I tried to get on
• 6:00
  Miss Piggy I tried and. And I wish you had.
• 6:03
  Yeah, there was. There.
• 6:06
  Were some issues. Yeah, but well, the Hinson
• 6:08
  Company wanted her. Their book, their licensing art.
• 6:12
  They just went by that until they saw what Palisades could
• 6:14
  do. Once they saw she never no
• 6:17
  longer had to have yellow hair and whatever.
• 6:20
  But Miss Piggy, I hate to say this when she's pegged with the
• 6:23
  rest of The Muppets. This is an open secret.
• 6:25
  When she's pegged on cards with the rest of The Muppets and the
• 6:28
  Hinson Company tells or told people this back then, she sells
• 6:32
  fewer units than the rest of them.
• 6:34
  But when you make a signature product for her about her, she
• 6:39
  sells well, it's it's a weird you know, juxtaposition of how
• 6:43
  she how she markets, but you know that's that's the toy
• 6:47
  design. Female figures, at least
• 6:49
  traditionally, do not sell as well, unless it's Barbie and
• 6:52
  it's made specifically in a in a certain category and that's
• 6:58
  that. That's kind of the paradox that
• 7:00
  is Miss Piggy. And I'm glad when they get her
• 7:04
  right. And Peter and I worked on
• 7:05
  something. I had him help me when I worked
• 7:08
  for Diamond Select toys for the Miss Piggy figure and down to
• 7:12
  the Shoes, which we can talk about later, he he knows her.
• 7:16
  And if there were any person I would nominate to just have
• 7:19
  everything go through for Miss Piggy for products, it would be
• 7:22
  Peter. He doesn't need anybody else.
• 7:24
  He doesn't need help. He doesn't need anybody else.
• 7:27
  He knows exactly what she should look like, and that is a rare, a
• 7:31
  rare find, I think. I think there's no one else that
• 7:34
  can do that. It's a sickness all.
• 7:40
  Right. Well, thank you so much for
• 7:41
  being here. All right.
• 7:43
  And really, especially since you've both endorsed each other
• 7:47
  during your interest, this is a very good thing.
• 7:50
  I I I like this. It's a very sort of welcoming
• 7:54
  relationship that we're having right now, which is fantastic.
• 7:57
  As we get into this, this is going to be a fascinating
• 7:58
  conversation about the look of Miss Piggy, which is obviously
• 8:01
  very important to the three of us into the world.
• 8:04
  We're going to get into this on kind of a granular level.
• 8:06
  So I'd like to remind everybody that when it comes to Miss
• 8:08
  Piggy, too Far is actually the appropriate amount of far.
• 8:13
  So we are not going to worry about like a normal human
• 8:17
  perspective on this topic. We're just going to be massive
• 8:19
  Piggy fans and that's the end of it.
• 8:21
  Also, before we start, this is an audio podcast as you may have
• 8:24
  noticed, and we're going to be talking about visual things.
• 8:27
  If you would like visual aids, a lot of what we're going to be
• 8:29
  talking about can be found on muppet.wiki@muppet.fandom.com.
• 8:34
  So go to Muppet Wiki. There's a couple pages straight
• 8:36
  up that I can specifically recommend.
• 8:38
  There's a Miss Piggy through the Years page which shows the
• 8:40
  development of the puppet over time, and there's a page called
• 8:43
  Piggy X Fashion for the later fashion collaborations.
• 8:48
  I wonder who put that page together and sort of and and as
• 8:52
  we go through I may like cue you a little bit on like where to
• 8:56
  find some of this stuff on Muppet wiki as well.
• 8:59
  So to get started one thing I think is amazing about Miss
• 9:02
  Piggy is how durable her image is.
• 9:05
  And I want to ask you guys about this like Piggy's face has
• 9:08
  changed. We're going to get into this
• 9:09
  changed many, many times. Like the eyes change, the shape
• 9:11
  of the head changes, obviously the the hair and and the outfit
• 9:15
  changes. On the Muppet Show, for the
• 9:17
  first Four Seasons, they redesigned Piggy's face like
• 9:20
  completely. Every season it looks real
• 9:22
  different. But what's amazing to me is
• 9:24
  she's always recognizable as Miss Piggy no matter what.
• 9:28
  The She's a Hollywood actress, so of course your face shakes.
• 9:33
  So I'll ask you like what, What do you think is that essence
• 9:36
  that that shines through kind of no matter what she looks like at
• 9:39
  the time? She's a pig.
• 9:41
  She's a pig and a she's a pig and a wait for me, I think, I
• 9:48
  mean aside from a person has has sort of like you know one of the
• 9:53
  the appropriate animal bull in the China shop personality.
• 9:56
  She is visually, I think. I think she just like there are
• 10:03
  other sort of lady pig characters that have gone
• 10:06
  through The Muppets. But there's something about Miss
• 10:09
  Piggy's essential kind of it's hard because it's like very
• 10:15
  confirmation bias because she's such an.
• 10:16
  She's such the the sort of template character for
• 10:19
  understanding what a pig in a week should look like.
• 10:22
  But I think, yeah, there's there's just a few design
• 10:25
  elements that stay constant as the the as much as they might be
• 10:29
  designed designed or built inconsistently.
• 10:32
  There's there's always the kind of the hair that's hopefully
• 10:37
  glamorous not always there's the there's the eyes with the with,
• 10:41
  you know, the the lush, the lush lashes and the and the the sort
• 10:46
  of, yeah, the sparkle and the the deep blue.
• 10:48
  There's that sense of kind of yeah, like a lush, A lush
• 10:53
  voluptuous beauty to her that's that's pretty consistent.
• 10:58
  I feel like she does vary between being a a womanly
• 11:03
  character to being more of a kind of a bit more.
• 11:07
  She's gone a bit more cutesy at times.
• 11:09
  She's kind of currently more that way.
• 11:11
  She's more. I feel like she's sort of like
• 11:14
  coded younger in the way that her face looks, even though
• 11:18
  she's older, only only a surgeon's note for sure.
• 11:24
  But yeah, and it has definitely been material changes that have
• 11:27
  been, you know, either the the approach has changed or the
• 11:31
  expertise has changed or the the actual materials have gotten
• 11:35
  cheaper at times. But yeah, in general, I feel
• 11:39
  like it's about the sort of silhouette and proportions.
• 11:42
  The years and this now kind. Of yeah, the ears the I mean
• 11:46
  it's it's hard because you're talking about granular things.
• 11:48
  It's like I want to say there are these broad stroke things
• 11:52
  that are same and there there are definitely things that
• 11:55
  haven't changed. But at the same time, when I
• 11:58
  think of the years like 15 varieties of the way they've
• 12:02
  ever looked through my head. Yeah.
• 12:05
  I think of the consistence performance except for season
• 12:08
  one when she was tossed around a little bit.
• 12:10
  The consistent having her having a consistent performer helped a
• 12:14
  lot and and the the the power with Miss Piggy particularly
• 12:19
  back then people try to retcon their modern ideas on classic
• 12:25
  media and now they're saying well she was abusive and all
• 12:29
  these other things. She was a woman trapped in in
• 12:32
  you know the the 70s world of what a woman was supposed to be.
• 12:36
  And that was chaotic and she got out of it, you know, being
• 12:40
  herself and she was a champion more than she was you know more
• 12:44
  of an oppressor of hermit. She was it was you know there
• 12:49
  was a there's a special thing that she was at a certain time
• 12:52
  that was very important and and media to see.
• 12:55
  Particularly. Just two interrupts for for one
• 12:59
  little second, she said. She was also a flip of the Punch
• 13:02
  and Judy trope, so I think people missed that as well.
• 13:06
  Oh, yes. And I I just.
• 13:07
  I think everything that they did with her was just, you know,
• 13:10
  back then was genius. I I loved it.
• 13:12
  I really did love it. But you know, and as as you
• 13:15
  said, I think she's now coded younger.
• 13:16
  And I think maybe that's important because I think The
• 13:19
  Muppets, some, they're still Evergreen and she reflects some
• 13:21
  of the times. But yeah, she's still old.
• 13:24
  I remember for the classic for the classic character that she
• 13:29
  is. No, I actually met a guy who was
• 13:32
  one of the puppet wranglers when puppet up came here.
• 13:35
  His name was Jurgen. I forget his last name.
• 13:37
  But after puppet Up, I had a connection with, with a person
• 13:40
  who knew him. So he went for drinks afterward,
• 13:43
  and he talked to about how Eric, how Eric apologizes to him every
• 13:48
  time he performs this piggy in her hair and everything.
• 13:51
  It's a mess. And he's like, here, fix this.
• 13:53
  I'm sorry, but that's what it is.
• 13:56
  I mean, you can't, Yeah. It's probably easier to detangle
• 14:02
  now that it's a cheap synthetic wig.
• 14:04
  Oh, wow. But yeah.
• 14:07
  Like that, so that those gorgeous real hair wigs would
• 14:10
  have been a nightmare to do jangle after they've been thrown
• 14:13
  around. Oh, but yeah.
• 14:15
  But I you know, I went on to detail how her ears were pinned
• 14:19
  and so many things, and I'm sure I bored into that.
• 14:24
  I always think there's gonna be like.
• 14:26
  You know you have to. Yes, absolutely.
• 14:29
  Thank God. Thank thanks Stanley for this
• 14:31
  opportunity. At least it's a safe space.
• 14:33
  But yeah, I I always have this feeling like I like when I was
• 14:37
  in the meeting for the for the Jason Segel movie for for
• 14:41
  designing. So the way it sort of went down
• 14:43
  with the consultation is I was hired to do the painting
• 14:47
  initially to do all the paintings and they decided to do
• 14:49
  the others digitally because they had to come to life.
• 14:52
  And then the misty one was the last one that didn't have to do
• 14:54
  that. And I was obviously very glad
• 14:56
  that was my favorite character that was going to be the one
• 14:58
  that I painted for real. But during the meeting I just,
• 15:02
  which sort of just came up about their designs and about how they
• 15:05
  wanted to make bring sort of bring them back closer to their
• 15:08
  kind of classic form. And then I just started talking.
• 15:12
  And initially their production designer was kind of just
• 15:16
  sitting there listening, and I wasn't sure if he was pushing a
• 15:20
  button under the desk for security because I was just
• 15:22
  like, I'm just getting silenced, but I'm just going to keep
• 15:25
  talking because this is a wild opportunity to get this message
• 15:28
  through. What was the kind of thing that
• 15:30
  you were that you were talking about?
• 15:31
  Give me an example. I just, when they talked about
• 15:34
  the classic thing, I said, well, on that, you know, I feel like
• 15:38
  there are two characters that are particularly getting a lot
• 15:41
  of feedback that you know, from fans and everything where
• 15:44
  they're kind of like questioning the way they look.
• 15:47
  And those are Gonzo and and Miss Piggy.
• 15:50
  And I talked to a little bit about Gonzo just to try to
• 15:52
  pretend I wasn't only really just obsessed with Piggy.
• 15:56
  Yeah, yeah. And then I, yeah, started
• 15:59
  talking about the mainly about the wig and and the eyes.
• 16:05
  The eye placement and the the whole entire build of the eyes
• 16:08
  had had altered so much. But then he started he he got
• 16:12
  out kind of a a notepad and started writing down at what I
• 16:15
  was saying. And I was like, OK, good, good.
• 16:18
  I'm not like blowing my chances at both these jobs to to to to
• 16:22
  sort of fight the way she looks. But yeah, there were a few
• 16:25
  different things, things I talked about.
• 16:28
  I also tried to sort of been quiet about what kind of
• 16:33
  existing sort of archival molds they might have for head molds.
• 16:37
  Because another issue, aside from the shape of the head, the
• 16:40
  length of the snout, and all of these things that kind of alter
• 16:43
  the height of the forehead, but also the way she looks, I feel
• 16:46
  like the other one of the other problems is that this is maybe
• 16:50
  this is the time to bring it up. Maybe we could circle back to it
• 16:53
  that she doesn't fit on Eric Jacobson's hand.
• 16:57
  And that's something that I once you notice it, you can't Unsee
• 17:01
  it. She has a sort of a goiter on
• 17:04
  one side of her chin that's the heel of his thumb.
• 17:08
  And it was never an issue obviously with with Frank Oz
• 17:13
  because she was designed for his hand and I feel like there's
• 17:16
  been this slow movement. I don't know if Eric Jacobson is
• 17:20
  is has larger hands than Frank Oz or how it how it works.
• 17:24
  But because I I feel like there's been this slow scaling
• 17:29
  down of her. She's been coded younger and
• 17:31
  also reduced in size in relation to Kermit.
• 17:35
  Like the real Miss Piggy puppet in person is kind of startlingly
• 17:39
  small. So I feel like that's a sort of
• 17:43
  side effect of that has been that she doesn't know it's sort
• 17:46
  of, yeah, she's she's you can, you can see the hand through it
• 17:51
  and obviously Kermit's the whole face is made so the hand is is
• 17:54
  his face. But with Piggy, she's all about
• 17:57
  this sort of like layers of voluptuous kind of chubbiness.
• 18:01
  And when you can see that, it's sort of really distorts the view
• 18:05
  and takes you out of it a bit, at least once once you've seen
• 18:08
  it. Yeah, didn't.
• 18:09
  The head get bigger and Muppets take Manhattan.
• 18:11
  Didn't they just not just change the hair in that fright wig that
• 18:14
  I hate, but what? But they changed the head.
• 18:17
  I think that. I think the head.
• 18:18
  I think the entire puppet got a little.
• 18:21
  Bigger than that? Bigger for that one.
• 18:22
  Yeah, maybe it did. I mean, I know.
• 18:24
  I. Know there's a.
• 18:25
  Period. There's also the One of the
• 18:27
  piggies I like the most in Its design is a little bit big for
• 18:32
  for for Frank Oz's hands, which is the Season 5 Piggy.
• 18:35
  That's the one I like. The look of that piggy is just
• 18:39
  gorgeous to me. Do you wanna, like, actually let
• 18:42
  let's get into talking about this kind of chronologically?
• 18:45
  OK, so that folks, yeah, this is no, this is perfect.
• 18:47
  But like, yeah, let's help folks kind of follow along.
• 18:50
  Starting out with just her first appearances on The Tonight Show
• 18:56
  and on Herb Alpert and Tier One rest, the pig puppet was created
• 19:00
  for the Muppet Show sex and violence pilot where she was
• 19:03
  going to be in return to Beneath the Planet of the Pigs.
• 19:05
  And she just has these like little beady eyes and they
• 19:07
  needed a gal singer because they were going to do old black magic
• 19:11
  on The Tonight Show. And so they needed a guy singer
• 19:13
  and A and a woman singer. And so they had to make her
• 19:16
  glamorous in a hurry. They took the beady eyes off and
• 19:18
  they put Bonnie Erickson goes to the eyes drawer and pulls out
• 19:22
  these beautiful blue eyes. But she looks she looks funny in
• 19:27
  those especially. Close together.
• 19:29
  Yeah, the Herb Alpert. They're real close together and
• 19:32
  real low on her head. Folks want to look on Muppet
• 19:34
  Wiki at Herb Alpert and the T1 dress.
• 19:36
  I feel like that was also maybe a character choice for the way
• 19:42
  she is in that performance, like the way she's the the role she's
• 19:47
  playing is more of the kind of hapless ingenue.
• 19:51
  So that was probably the choice. The instinct was to to make her
• 19:54
  look a bit. Kind of.
• 19:55
  Like. Yeah, yeah, a little younger and
• 19:58
  a little a little naive. Something she's never been
• 20:02
  since. So then, what is the difference
• 20:06
  when we get to temptation in 1976?
• 20:09
  Well, one of them is that she is her eyes are further apart.
• 20:14
  They've got that sort of slightly predatory look of, you
• 20:18
  know, like there's that that theory around eye placement or
• 20:21
  it's not really a theory. It's the the thing of like prey
• 20:24
  having its eyes closer to the sides of its head so that they
• 20:28
  can see sort of behind them because they're going to be
• 20:30
  chased. And predators having this kind
• 20:32
  of like wider spaced but front facing eyes, so they've got
• 20:38
  binocular vision for tracking prey.
• 20:39
  I feel like she's got that now. So now she's like when she knows
• 20:44
  what she wants, that's amazing. Yeah, literally jump on.
• 20:47
  It you can just go right at it. Also, she has, she famously has
• 20:51
  a a torn hole at the back of the mouth that was just colored in.
• 20:55
  And in that sequence you can see, wait, it's not Frank Ellis
• 20:58
  playing it in that sequence, is. It is.
• 21:00
  It Richard Hunt. Well, it's Oz.
• 21:02
  It's when Oz when she's speaking.
• 21:04
  And then the singing voice is Hunt.
• 21:06
  So. My, my.
• 21:07
  Interpretation of that is, is that it was it's Oz on the day
• 21:11
  because he's doing the the dialogue and then once it it
• 21:15
  becomes a a musical number and they're piping it in then that's
• 21:17
  Hunt's voice. Cool.
• 21:19
  All right, so it's so it's Frank Oz's hand.
• 21:21
  Yeah, you can actually pause it and see Frank Oz's hand through
• 21:25
  the torn hole, like the flesh of his hand inside her mouth.
• 21:28
  Did not notice that. Yeah, and in temptation they
• 21:32
  give her this dress that she very quickly gets into.
• 21:35
  Is it satin? The the silver satin dress.
• 21:37
  Yes. All right.
• 21:38
  Yeah. When when she had one dress and
• 21:41
  that was all she had. Yeah.
• 21:42
  That's sort of all first season. Yeah.
• 21:45
  I mean, I love that. I feel like we still think of
• 21:49
  Piggy and the. I mean, I've always perceived it
• 21:51
  as kind of, I guess it is silver.
• 21:52
  I I think it's just because the surrounding, the surrounding
• 21:56
  vibe of it is so lavender. I've always thought it yeah,
• 22:00
  like a lavender tinge to it, but maybe it.
• 22:01
  Doesn't, yeah. The products, I think a lot of
• 22:03
  the products did, I think so. Yes.
• 22:06
  Yeah. Interesting.
• 22:07
  Oh my God, it's blowing my mind. Her gloves are silver too.
• 22:10
  What? Yeah, she doesn't get lavender
• 22:12
  gloves until second season. Yeah, I never noticed that.
• 22:17
  Oh, really? This is I was today, years old.
• 22:20
  Oh, wow. Wow.
• 22:22
  That's that's. I love that there's always
• 22:24
  something new to. Find Yeah, I have been.
• 22:26
  I've been obsessed with her costuming.
• 22:27
  You will. You will find that out very
• 22:29
  quickly. Wow.
• 22:30
  Yes. Was there anything else to say
• 22:33
  about kind of first season piggy?
• 22:35
  I mean, there's probably a lot I like.
• 22:37
  I mean I always found it a find it a little bit disturbing how
• 22:41
  visible her neck is. But she's, I mean the the
• 22:45
  character itself is played much more chaotically with a lot less
• 22:49
  she's she's sort of primarily violent in a way in this in this
• 22:54
  telling she's like she's a very aggressive character and the way
• 22:58
  she moves around she's already, I mean her hair's already a
• 23:01
  mess. That week is being shipped in, I
• 23:05
  don't know in like hessian bag. She's also kind of the the
• 23:11
  violence of the way she moves around sort of exposes more
• 23:14
  aspects of the build. Also her snout shape is is very
• 23:20
  kind of in keeping with the like Julie Strange book and Link
• 23:26
  hogthrob. It has that like early kind of
• 23:30
  very shaped sort of swoops to the to the front of it.
• 23:34
  And it's funny because when I look at it, it's that's the
• 23:37
  snout I used to draw on her when I was like tiny because I feel
• 23:42
  like I just had it in my head that it was that that was the
• 23:45
  shape of this Biggie's snout. But it but it changes so much
• 23:49
  very quickly changes to something much more subtle than
• 23:52
  this. Again I'm it's it's sort of
• 23:55
  bringing back that sort of analogy of what I used to draw
• 23:59
  how I used to draw her as a kid. It's the differences that were
• 24:04
  were quickly kind of discarded are also her ears always these
• 24:10
  these early years always remind me of like kind of shriveled
• 24:14
  like corn chips or something like they've got this, yeah.
• 24:17
  Yeah, they're sad, yeah. Yeah, and her eye build is very
• 24:23
  different. The irises have multiple kind of
• 24:27
  starry lines coming out from them rather than just the five
• 24:31
  that it becomes. Her eyelashes human sized and
• 24:36
  they're a little bit sad looking.
• 24:38
  And her eyelids also a fabric rather than rather than foam,
• 24:43
  like sort of lush thick foam, which, yeah, makes them look a
• 24:48
  lot flatter. And even though they are the
• 24:50
  sort of Miss Piggy predatory seductress kind of eyes, the
• 24:53
  blue's still a rich blue. This they still look more closer
• 24:57
  to sort of pig eyes than they do human.
• 25:00
  Yeah, eyes, yeah. And the lids don't really stand
• 25:04
  out as much. No.
• 25:06
  As they're going to. Yeah.
• 25:09
  You saying that about her eyes? This is now officially like my
• 25:11
  favorite conversation that I've ever had.
• 25:15
  And then second season, second season 1977, they they just went
• 25:19
  and redesigned the whole head. Yeah, I mean on this one I would
• 25:23
  say that they've gotten, they've improved the week, they've
• 25:27
  embraced the sort of voluptuous look more.
• 25:32
  She's more sort of chubby and her cheeks are more full and the
• 25:36
  neck is now made of foam and not I guess fabric as it was before
• 25:40
  it had a fleece look before where it would kind of wrinkle.
• 25:43
  So the foam, the foam neck really helps.
• 25:46
  Yeah. I was actually going to comment
• 25:47
  on the season one. It's it's a much cheaper Pearl
• 25:49
  necklace. You can see string between the
• 25:51
  pearls. They had money.
• 25:54
  They they got money. Yeah, they got.
• 25:56
  Money. It was a twice.
• 25:58
  Twice of the plastic pearls. Well, second season is where she
• 26:02
  starts to get out of that silver dress.
• 26:05
  She's now wearing the the lavender gloves.
• 26:08
  She still has the silver dress a lot of the time.
• 26:10
  But like the first real significant costume change is
• 26:15
  what is this episode 209, the Madeleine Kahn episode where
• 26:19
  they're in Piggy's dressing room.
• 26:20
  Gonzo was telling her about how much he loves Madeleine Kahn and
• 26:24
  she's got like a green robe on Yes in her dressing room, which
• 26:29
  is really the first kind of like casual piggy costume change.
• 26:33
  That's not, you know, she's also obviously in in second season.
• 26:36
  She's also got the the Pigs in space outfit.
• 26:39
  Yes. And it's also, yeah, I feel like
• 26:42
  because it's a, it's a, you know, the show is focused
• 26:45
  primarily on behind the scenes, even though everyone loves the
• 26:48
  routines. It's like when you think of The
• 26:50
  Muppet Show, you think of the chaos of making it, not the
• 26:53
  chaos on on the stage. I feel like that that leap of
• 26:59
  having I mean I guess all the characters at some point have a
• 27:04
  sort of a dressing room moment. All the main characters.
• 27:09
  Piggy's dressing room is probably the most featured and
• 27:13
  it's. I feel like that's also it's not
• 27:16
  just piggy in the way she looks. It's piggy with options all
• 27:19
  around her that really triggers anyone's brain who's into like a
• 27:24
  various feet kind of brain to just kind of go Oh my God
• 27:28
  there's a whole world. I can dress her.
• 27:29
  I can like you know like it just your brain just spirals into
• 27:32
  like toy play dolls fantasy you know all of those things and
• 27:38
  just being surrounded I think by all of those textures because
• 27:42
  The Muppets are already so textured.
• 27:46
  And then the contrasting textures of piggy's dressing
• 27:49
  room where it's all fabrics, it's all feathers, it's all
• 27:52
  glitter things. It's just such it's so
• 27:55
  stimulating to you to the fantasy part of your brain.
• 27:59
  Yeah I'm trying to think 01 thing that always.
• 28:01
  She's definitely got the evidence of the of the sort of
• 28:05
  blade and and scissors and you know Turkey knife kind of
• 28:11
  mattress foam sculpting process. She's got particularly around
• 28:15
  her jaw, jaw kind of under her, under her chin in second season.
• 28:20
  And she's also got a thing that's always bothered me which
• 28:22
  is the sort of I feel like it was an accident maybe they're
• 28:26
  out of time and then she just became the puppet.
• 28:28
  But the this sort of line groove across between her nostrils.
• 28:34
  Annie Sue has that, Yeah. Yeah, like, is it do, do I've.
• 28:39
  I've always wondered whether that's deliberate or whether
• 28:41
  it's a like a slip of the scissors that they just kind of
• 28:46
  went with. Oh, and so that's just in Season
• 28:48
  2 that by Season 3 doesn't have that anymore.
• 28:51
  No, yeah, it's it's just a strange kind of crinkle in the
• 28:55
  sculpt. Don't they go through like a
• 28:58
  head every few days of filming like that?
• 29:00
  Those heads don't last. They don't, Yeah, I think, I
• 29:05
  think now it's it's about every several months depending how
• 29:09
  busy they are. I think it's, I think, I think
• 29:11
  they replaced them about every half year but they also have
• 29:15
  like a West Coast one and an East Coast one, so.
• 29:18
  It feels to me like first season, second season, that was
• 29:21
  the, that was the pig they had. Because you can see when she's
• 29:25
  like when she's really like squeezing her her snout down,
• 29:29
  when she's like when she's angry or upset about something, like
• 29:32
  you can see kind of like wrinkles in the in the foam.
• 29:34
  Yes, you can see sort of. Evidence that that it's the
• 29:37
  foam. Yeah, when they and when she's
• 29:39
  performed more aggressively, as she still was here, not so much
• 29:42
  as as season one, but she was still the express.
• 29:46
  She didn't have the kind of catalogue or like vocabulary of
• 29:49
  expressions that became the key ones.
• 29:52
  She was sort of like a like when you have an actor or an actress
• 29:56
  before, they're kind of media trained and they're they're
• 29:58
  still kind of pulling odd faces on camera and stuff.
• 30:01
  Later on, she became more she knew her best angles and she
• 30:05
  knew, you know, the key things she could do that still wouldn't
• 30:10
  either break or or distort the puppet in a way that was not
• 30:13
  slightly. Right.
• 30:15
  When you get to 1978 the third season this is this is the one
• 30:20
  that actually makes me upset. I have I have feelings about
• 30:24
  third season Miss Piggy because they well redesigned her again
• 30:28
  and and my issue is with kind of the the length and the the
• 30:33
  orientation of this. Now this swoop, this swoop down,
• 30:36
  I have AI have a kind of a AA double reaction to this also
• 30:41
  because the third season, that's the one where there's there's
• 30:44
  also the classic, a more, much more classic Miss Piggy this,
• 30:48
  like halfway through the season though there's the image from
• 30:52
  Not Celebrate to China. What is she singing?
• 30:54
  Mad about the problem. Mad about the problem?
• 30:55
  The piano. That's a completely different
• 30:57
  piggy to the one that is the swoop nose one.
• 31:02
  And they're both in the same season, which is extra.
• 31:04
  It's kind of like the two Darrens, from which it's like
• 31:07
  that real gaslighty feeling as a kid.
• 31:11
  But yeah, she's also a lot more petite.
• 31:13
  The swoop nose one, I have some affection for the for the that
• 31:19
  build because it's the one they used in the tests for the Muppet
• 31:22
  movie where she where they're out in the in the you know
• 31:27
  countryside in England which you know that test where they did
• 31:30
  the it's like super eight or something that's shot on and
• 31:32
  it's seeing how they look in daylight.
• 31:35
  It's so beautiful. But I I think there was a period
• 31:40
  where there were a lot of drawings with Miss Piggy.
• 31:43
  I don't know if the drawings were based on this or if the
• 31:46
  drawings influenced the direction of this particular
• 31:49
  build, but they sort of developed.
• 31:53
  You know, when you're doing sort of cartoon characters you you
• 31:56
  kind of find the most often the best way to to find the
• 32:00
  characters, find the most economical way to draw them.
• 32:04
  And it feels like that rather than having the nose, the
• 32:06
  forehead kind of curve into the nose and then kick up at the
• 32:10
  end. They developed this way of kind
• 32:13
  of, yeah, sliding straight down to the forehead and the nose,
• 32:16
  the same contour and then it does the kick up at the end and
• 32:20
  it it's sort of an interesting look but it means that she it's
• 32:25
  sort of all, there's something always mean about it in a
• 32:28
  different yeah, like a bit meager like she's just she looks
• 32:33
  closed like she's always think it's the best way.
• 32:36
  Yeah, like she's always. Frowning, doing her angry.
• 32:38
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So third season.
• 32:42
  Third season is when they finally got her out of the the
• 32:45
  silver dress permanently. Calista Hendrickson joined the
• 32:49
  show in 1977. She was.
• 32:51
  She's the the designer who is gonna become specifically Miss
• 32:55
  Piggy's costume designer forever.
• 32:58
  Mm hmm. Love her.
• 32:59
  And the last known appearance of that silver dress, I believe, is
• 33:05
  episode 308, the Loretta Lynn episode when they're at the
• 33:08
  train station. After that, I've seen this that
• 33:10
  disappears. Yeah, but she starts getting all
• 33:13
  kinds of nice outfits. There's an outfit that she wears
• 33:16
  backstage in a few episodes that has it's like a it's black with
• 33:20
  a flower pattern and then the lavender boa.
• 33:23
  That one, as far as I know, that comes from the Royal Variety
• 33:28
  Performance that they did in 1970s.
• 33:29
  They they gave all the all the male characters, which was all
• 33:32
  of them. They all had nice little tuxedos
• 33:34
  for that. And then?
• 33:35
  They. Gave Piggy this really nice
• 33:37
  dress. And so you then see that several
• 33:39
  times that comes back, they don't waste that dress.
• 33:43
  And she and look she they don't waste it.
• 33:45
  Neither does she. She.
• 33:47
  She'd be economical yet glamorous.
• 33:52
  Yes, she like. She definitely steals costumes
• 33:56
  from the rack of like. Auditions and oh, absolutely.
• 34:01
  Oh yeah, no, once she's got something on.
• 34:03
  Yeah, yeah, it has. Yeah, exactly.
• 34:07
  Yeah. That is an interesting, very
• 34:09
  interesting season for how it has that shift between the two
• 34:14
  piggies. Like it sort of shows both the
• 34:17
  lack of durability and the advancements in the way that
• 34:20
  they're building a were kind of coming thick and fast that that
• 34:23
  idea of like maybe this maybe that maybe that that very kind
• 34:27
  of like finding the characters thing for for all the characters
• 34:31
  really. But she it's very visible on
• 34:33
  her. And it's funny that they're
• 34:35
  they're doing I love the evolution because I think it it
• 34:38
  leads to very very soon just more and more beautiful piggies.
• 34:41
  But it's funny that it took them like this is 3 years now of
• 34:45
  piggies going to four years. So another thing that happens in
• 34:48
  1978. The other there was another guy
• 34:52
  who really noticed what was going on with Musiki and that
• 34:54
  was Michael K Frith. So he did a lot of these designs
• 34:58
  for the Sigma Ceramics that started coming out in 1978.
• 35:02
  And the classic one that I just think is so amazing is the Coin
• 35:05
  Bank. That.
• 35:06
  Has a little point slot in her cleavage.
• 35:09
  Michael Frith says that he designed that.
• 35:12
  He. Did not expect them to pick them
• 35:15
  up. He was very surprised when that
• 35:18
  got all the way through to production and out on the
• 35:20
  market. Wow.
• 35:22
  That would probably not happen today.
• 35:24
  No, I don't think so. I I actually went, went so far
• 35:29
  as when I I saw one when I was younger I thought it was a knock
• 35:32
  off because I was like surely and you look at the bottom and
• 35:35
  you're like, no. No, this is for real, Yeah.
• 35:38
  Yeah. And these ceramic piggies, this
• 35:41
  is now I think kind of especially with with Mike Frith
• 35:45
  designing them, it's more of an idealized look.
• 35:49
  It's now like it's something that we don't have to, we don't
• 35:52
  have to represent this in foam anymore.
• 35:55
  This doesn't have to be like a puppet that's on somebody's
• 35:57
  hand. And she's very pretty.
• 35:59
  And I think that this is kind of the point where she becomes a
• 36:03
  concept in addition to just being a puppet.
• 36:09
  Yeah, I feel. I feel like there's a, there's
• 36:10
  there's something that he's doing with also attaching her to
• 36:15
  history in a way like that that became a thing with the
• 36:18
  calendars and everything later as well.
• 36:20
  Whereas this sort of strategy for romanticizing a character
• 36:25
  and making them into sort of an eternal beauty by having you
• 36:29
  know, she's she's represented in this kind of like romantic.
• 36:33
  So like in the the teapot. Like, yeah.
• 36:36
  Yeah, she's got this old fashioned outfit on and A and an
• 36:39
  old fashioned hat. And even just being a ceramic
• 36:43
  figure is very kind of, you know, early 20th, it's late late
• 36:46
  19th century. There was a quality to to a lot
• 36:52
  of those classic products that that could only come because
• 36:55
  everything was so in house. The accent, that's why.
• 36:59
  That's why it didn't work so much with The Muppets, worked
• 37:03
  with Jim Henson. That stopped working so much
• 37:05
  without him because he kept such I kind of mom and pop tight
• 37:09
  control over everything. Right, but.
• 37:11
  Sure, because he was the magic in the sauce.
• 37:14
  He there, that was the thing. And down to, you know, getting,
• 37:19
  you know George Lucas clips and Muppet babies without actor
• 37:22
  actually get legal permission. There was just a magic to what
• 37:25
  he got done. And that's of course of course
• 37:28
  in the the other days like after that they need other people like
• 37:31
  Peter or me to help help smooth out 'cause they got.
• 37:36
  Yeah, absolutely. From like years ago.
• 37:38
  So yeah, I miss these heavier lids on her though I really do.
• 37:43
  They yeah, they fixed a lot. Her lids are not as heavy as
• 37:46
  they should be. There's a glamorous look and
• 37:50
  they make her look more cartoony.
• 37:52
  It's they keep reverting back to this kind of cartoonish look
• 37:55
  that just bothers me. Yeah, cartoonish and and dull
• 37:59
  like as well. With the shorter lashes.
• 38:03
  Well, it's not even that they're shorter, but they're.
• 38:05
  Flat. Yeah, they they're back like
• 38:08
  this instead of forward like this.
• 38:09
  And I understand the hair will get caught in them.
• 38:11
  That's part of the fun, you know, You know you.
• 38:15
  Really think they're thinking about that?
• 38:17
  I think so. I think.
• 38:19
  I think they're thinking of all of the whatever makes your
• 38:21
  travel easier in the box and whatever.
• 38:24
  They don't want any parts sticking out that don't have to
• 38:26
  be. I think that's, which is.
• 38:28
  Why she starts, I think that's why.
• 38:31
  She starts looking like a product and not a person, you
• 38:33
  know? She starts looking like
• 38:35
  something. Yeah, flat like a doll.
• 38:38
  What was it that that she was on?
• 38:39
  She went to the Oscars one year and they pinned her eyes, just
• 38:42
  so weirdly. And I was just like, and it's
• 38:45
  she's wearing like a designer gown, all these things.
• 38:49
  This was like she was interviewed at the she was
• 38:51
  outside on the red carpet, like Joan Rivers or something she was
• 38:54
  doing. Some from when was the?
• 38:56
  Oh God, this was probably about maybe 10 years ago.
• 38:59
  Maybe. I don't know.
• 39:01
  OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:03
  And she looked great, but I Her outfit looks great, but how her
• 39:07
  eyes and her hair were pinned made me sad because they got all
• 39:13
  the way there and they missed the most important thing.
• 39:16
  Yeah. I I wonder if that's like 2012,
• 39:19
  the BAFTA awards sounds like that might be the thing you're
• 39:23
  talking about. Let me see.
• 39:26
  Oh God, yes. Oh God, yes.
• 39:28
  Was that it 2012? Jeez, yes.
• 39:31
  Yeah. No, I I googled it really quick.
• 39:33
  Yeah, they were. They were advertising orange,
• 39:35
  which was part of the Seagull movies.
• 39:37
  Yeah. Yes.
• 39:38
  There you go. That was, yeah, it was the
• 39:39
  Baptist. That's so funny that you could
• 39:41
  that you can say this is the joy of like the three of us talking
• 39:45
  that you could say like, yeah, like 10 years ago there's an
• 39:47
  award show and I'm like, Oh yeah, no, I totally.
• 39:49
  Yes. And it was 11, but yes.
• 39:53
  The one where she looks terrible?
• 39:54
  Yeah, I know that one. But I think it's the placement
• 39:57
  of her eyes is that sort of she looks dumb like she's not dumb
• 40:02
  like why do they make her look dumb and she looks naive?
• 40:06
  I'm all for giving her more forehead, but no, no, it just
• 40:10
  looks like she did her makeup in the car.
• 40:14
  Yes, totally. I mean, for me, the problem is
• 40:18
  not the forehead, it's the tiny face under it.
• 40:22
  It's like the snub little it's it's that sculpt that has the
• 40:26
  really shorts now that folds up and almost hits the eyes when it
• 40:30
  opens. And the rest of the face is just
• 40:33
  the proportions, just not there. It's like it's like a like a
• 40:36
  little girl version of her almost.
• 40:38
  I hope people are following along on on Muppet wiki you can
• 40:41
  go to BAFTA awards. That eye placement was, I mean,
• 40:45
  there are better. There's the one with her mouth
• 40:47
  open, which is absolutely terrible, but then there's she
• 40:50
  looks a little better with her mouth closed.
• 40:53
  You can definitely see the huge bulge from the heel of his thumb
• 40:57
  in on the left side, yeah. Now you'll never, really.
• 41:03
  See it? I know that's.
• 41:04
  The magic of Miss Piggy Danny. I'm so sorry.
• 41:07
  I was just worrying about that, yeah.
• 41:09
  I was just very quietly worrying about that.
• 41:11
  Yeah, and when you see it moving, you really you really?
• 41:14
  Yeah. But it's like an inner front on
• 41:16
  shot. It's like his boys are on one
• 41:18
  side. You know what I wanted?
• 41:20
  I wanted to know everything about Miss Piggy and I, you
• 41:23
  know, be careful, be careful what you wish for.
• 41:26
  But without Powers combined, you know it only took one me to to
• 41:30
  risk being institutionalized in a meeting with a production
• 41:33
  designer and not got her eyes fixed for a minute.
• 41:36
  So like to that powers combined, maybe we can get a better sculpt
• 41:39
  that could stand that's a. Good call.
• 41:40
  Maybe all. Right.
• 41:42
  Let's go back to, let's go back to 1979.
• 41:44
  We're, we're off. We're off the Baptist.
• 41:46
  I like that era better than now, so yes. 19 Yeah.
• 41:50
  So 1979 for The Muppet Movie, I think is the first time that
• 41:55
  we've actually got a pretty miss piggy.
• 41:58
  There's like, you know, the sort of the downward snout of 1978,
• 42:00
  which I don't like. And then 79 when you look at
• 42:04
  like kind of her and the beauty queen.
• 42:06
  Pageant and this Miss Piggy is also the one that is in is on
• 42:11
  the piano in Mad About the Frog. So I guess they did, they did
• 42:15
  the Muppet movie, they did the Muppet movie like mid third
• 42:18
  season. So I guess they came back and
• 42:19
  did more third season with with this new puppet.
• 42:22
  So what is what's different about her?
• 42:24
  She's made for close-ups. This is this one is made for the
• 42:28
  flocking every It's not even flock only flocked.
• 42:30
  It is flocked. Florida State.
• 42:32
  It is such. It's so beautiful.
• 42:35
  They must have had dozens of heads that they have switching
• 42:38
  or whatever because they're out in the real world filming with
• 42:41
  this puppet, with these, this very high quality.
• 42:44
  I don't understand. That's must have gotten very
• 42:47
  expensive. There's something that happens
• 42:51
  with the flocking, that's just, I mean it happens with fleece as
• 42:54
  well, but it's not just the tactility, it's the way it
• 42:57
  catches light on the edges of contours.
• 42:59
  Yes. So this like ethereal softness,
• 43:05
  like all around her snout on the edges of her cheeks, like little
• 43:08
  highlights here and there. They're always the key when I'm
• 43:10
  drawing or painting her. They're always the key to to
• 43:13
  like adding that touch, more lighting that just make her
• 43:17
  really feel like the character, yeah.
• 43:20
  I and all The Muppets textures, I think they peak.
• 43:24
  They peak in the early 80s and by Manhattan.
• 43:28
  They just kind of went for the most durable puppets.
• 43:32
  Yes, yeah. One thing that can be definitely
• 43:36
  spoken about here is eyelid color.
• 43:39
  The fact that that not only the material changed, but eyelid
• 43:44
  color from the first one, it's kind of lavender, the season.
• 43:49
  And then it slowly progresses, which is interesting because
• 43:53
  their outfit wasn't lavender yet.
• 43:54
  So the eyelids, the the outfit, the lavender gloves followed the
• 44:00
  eyelids. But this in this film, it's in
• 44:04
  the the Muppet movie, it's kind of this dusky kind of pink color
• 44:09
  and then later on it becomes this very sort of deep almost
• 44:14
  Marone magentry kind of color that's it's very vivid.
• 44:19
  Yeah, mine too. I like it.
• 44:21
  Also it's it's that softens in the 80s.
• 44:23
  I also like that look, but that that deep one I think really
• 44:26
  works well. And I always notice in this
• 44:27
  scene at the beauty pageant because she's under an awning
• 44:31
  that's changing her lighting a bit.
• 44:35
  You kind of, when she first comes out, it looks like she's
• 44:37
  got no eyelids, like instead of they blend in a lot more with
• 44:41
  her own skin. And I think maybe that is that
• 44:45
  that sort of punch of the darker color later on was what sort of
• 44:48
  brought it all together As for the eye design.
• 44:51
  It's so funny. There is, there is a little
• 44:52
  element right now of like we've got, we've got a picture that
• 44:55
  we're looking at of her at the the beauty pageant.
• 44:58
  When that light catches her eye just as she sees Kermit and the
• 45:02
  three of us, a little bit like we're talking, but a little bit.
• 45:04
  The three of us are just like, oh wow.
• 45:06
  We're just dreaming. We're just oh.
• 45:09
  I I was five years old. Seeing this in the theater in
• 45:12
  1979. It changed my life.
• 45:15
  I don't dress Swedish people as much as I used to because they
• 45:18
  break film projectors. But the other thing I always
• 45:22
  noticed about this era is I think until the calendars
• 45:27
  definitely reflect this as well. Maybe it is just up until the
• 45:31
  Muppet movie and then after this, this model of piggy
• 45:34
  change. But her legs, as much as I love
• 45:38
  the glimpses of her legs we see here and there, her legs were
• 45:41
  mangy like they were, they just, they had kind of like these.
• 45:47
  They had really no shape to them and they had, they had like
• 45:50
  these sort of, I don't know if they did them with a stitch or
• 45:54
  not, but the knees are kind of just pulled in so that it gives
• 45:58
  a point to bend on. They don't have that.
• 46:00
  So when is that the the, the legs that you're complaining
• 46:02
  about? When?
• 46:03
  It's the Muppet movie, legs like where she where she's sitting on
• 46:05
  the thing. You can see they're kind of just
• 46:07
  sort of falling down and no particular shade.
• 46:10
  Stuff some, stockings with some some.
• 46:14
  It it really sort of feels like. That and there's also.
• 46:16
  Calendars that there's one particular calendar and I don't
• 46:19
  know why because it seems to be later, but there's it's sailor
• 46:24
  themed and she's she's kind of like she's in she's in showboat
• 46:28
  or something. The Life magazine.
• 46:31
  Yeah, like. World World War 2.
• 46:33
  And she's coming down from a parachute.
• 46:36
  No, no, it's not that one. It's where she she's she's
• 46:40
  standing in a sort of set that has.
• 46:43
  Oh, she's like a little sailor. Yeah.
• 46:45
  So she's Yeah, yeah. And that's that's.
• 46:47
  Like a little rogue. Yeah, the first calendar, the
• 46:50
  1st calendar. Yeah, and her legs in that are
• 46:53
  terrible. They're like, they're like they
• 46:55
  have no contour. They're just kind of like these
• 46:58
  tubes with a sort of weird little knee wrinkle and they're
• 47:04
  totally disproportionate for the with the rest of her body.
• 47:06
  And I feel like what happened with the legs was related to
• 47:12
  Michael Fritz drawings because he always drew her in such a
• 47:16
  kind of like voluptuous pin up model style and he always gave
• 47:22
  her these very shaky legs that are just one of my favorite.
• 47:26
  Like, I like like Kermit saying she had sturdy legs in in, you
• 47:31
  know, Great Muppet Caper is one of my favorite Muppet lines ever
• 47:35
  because it just says so much about Amanda.
• 47:39
  But yeah, her legs just became this.
• 47:41
  I mean, when I draw her, I think, I think probably people
• 47:43
  have noticed if they've seen my drawings of Miss Piggy that that
• 47:46
  it's all about this like hourglass and the the very sexy
• 47:50
  legs. Yeah, she's not.
• 47:52
  I know they make a lot of pig fat jokes, or they used to, but
• 47:55
  when designing the figure when I actually got the chance to help
• 47:59
  to help art. Director.
• 48:00
  Help design the figure. She's not fat, she's curvy.
• 48:04
  She has. These were ruptuous curves and I
• 48:07
  love that. And that was the that was the
• 48:09
  secret to making her body look right.
• 48:12
  As you lean into that, you lean into the curves.
• 48:15
  You know you lean into the idea of what she's supposed to.
• 48:18
  You just lean into what that actually there And they were
• 48:20
  just it is just standard really curves of a woman and that's
• 48:26
  really what it. Is yeah, like if you take, if
• 48:30
  you remove the torso, 'cause she's just her upper body is
• 48:33
  just all bust. Yeah.
• 48:35
  Oh, yes. Then.
• 48:36
  Some people like that better. Yeah, exactly.
• 48:39
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:40
  Yeah. One thing I wanna I I would like
• 48:43
  to point out for the the nice people at home is is we are
• 48:45
  using some pictures as as references.
• 48:48
  Oh yeah. But when Peter was just
• 48:51
  describing the sailor suit, Miss Piggy and what is wrong with her
• 48:55
  legs, we're not looking at that right now.
• 48:57
  That just came right out of Peterson.
• 49:00
  Right out of Peter's mind, he knows exactly.
• 49:03
  What it looks like, exactly? What's wrong with it?
• 49:05
  You're you'd not just have an opinion about it.
• 49:06
  You're angry about it. I have.
• 49:09
  Yeah, I have. This is my favorite.
• 49:10
  This is my favorite conversation I've ever had.
• 49:13
  Yeah, I have the advantage of like aside and like, I like, I
• 49:17
  don't know exactly what a photographic memory is because
• 49:21
  like in my mind, it's this thing where, you know, you know, some
• 49:24
  people have that memory. Where they the freaky memory
• 49:29
  where they remember every day and every moment.
• 49:30
  Every, every, every. Yeah, the visual.
• 49:34
  And I think it's, it's partly sort of natural to me from you
• 49:38
  know being a kid that was just very visual woman like I got
• 49:42
  that from my mom's side. But it's also just being
• 49:45
  developed from doing storyboards, drawing like a
• 49:49
  thousands and thousands and thousands literally of drawings
• 49:52
  in my life. So I think it's that kind of
• 49:55
  memory helps, but it is also just straight up obsession with
• 49:58
  this one character and everything she's ever done.
• 50:03
  So 1979 going into 1980, I think, Peter, I think you said
• 50:09
  that fifth season Piggy, is this correct?
• 50:12
  5th season Piggy was the was Piggy at her best.
• 50:16
  Oh, ultimate sweet spot. Yeah, I mean there are others I
• 50:19
  really, really like. But I think season even though
• 50:21
  season 5 piggy appears to be a little large for both the
• 50:26
  proportion and relation to permit but also for Frank Oz's
• 50:30
  hand like he he's sometimes it looks almost like his hand is
• 50:35
  losing a little control in some scenes.
• 50:38
  But in terms of the proportions of the within her face and her
• 50:45
  proportions of the head in relation to her body.
• 50:48
  In terms of the just squish factor of her face which is so
• 50:51
  beautiful. And the clocking was so finely
• 50:55
  done and the airbrushing was so subtle and perfect.
• 51:00
  Whereas to compare to the Muppet movie Piggy, the airbrushing is
• 51:05
  beautiful but it's still that kind of like a a nostrils of
• 51:09
  very dark and the you can sort of see the delineation a little
• 51:14
  bit more. Whereas season five is where
• 51:17
  everything became much more subtle, with the eyes became a
• 51:20
  lot deeper looking. The eye placements in four.
• 51:23
  It looks a little bit more straight.
• 51:25
  She almost looks bored. Yeah, it gives the reference to
• 51:29
  this, this kind of, yeah, like sultry sullenness that I feel
• 51:35
  like is it's like this, this combination of that absurdity of
• 51:40
  the pig in a wig. That's sort of the base level
• 51:43
  joke of Miss Piggy suddenly becomes this heightened thing
• 51:47
  where it's like you genuinely are looking at her and having
• 51:51
  like the best kind of uncanny valley moment where you kind of
• 51:54
  like like like she's like she's a pig in a wig, like your your.
• 52:01
  Ratificational. Brain just wants to say this is
• 52:03
  a ridiculous thing I'm looking at, but you can't help but think
• 52:07
  of her as this great beauty. Like she really is living it in
• 52:12
  season 5 and her hair is gorgeous and so long and full.
• 52:16
  And it's also that I feel like before that she also had this
• 52:20
  kind of like wheatish honey blonde kind of hair that was
• 52:24
  very 70s almost, not not quite as open, but almost a little bit
• 52:28
  Sissy space I guess. Like in the The Muppet movie,
• 52:33
  especially the the scene we were just talking about at the beauty
• 52:36
  pageant. It's it's very seven.
• 52:38
  It's kind of smooth and subtle swerves of hair.
• 52:42
  Whereas suddenly in season five it becomes this more ash blonde,
• 52:47
  kind of more bombshell Y and contrast Y with her and just
• 52:53
  curls and length and just like everything is extra.
• 52:56
  Yeah, there's these waves, kind of, And this is when they just
• 52:59
  start giving her new outfits. Like Calista's just working all
• 53:02
  the time. Yes.
• 53:03
  She gets new outfits whether she needs them or not, like whether
• 53:06
  it's for a number or not. Every episode, she's just got
• 53:10
  something else on. Absolutely absolutely.
• 53:13
  And she she works hard so she probably, she probably sweats
• 53:16
  sorry perspires just as hard. Just I just quickly sort of
• 53:22
  circling back to the eye design thing.
• 53:24
  I also feel like this is the point where the color they kind
• 53:27
  of locked down the color a little bit more like the the
• 53:30
  deep blue is is right and kind of is consistently that from
• 53:35
  then on the depth of color even the color changed a bit but this
• 53:39
  sort of the depth of the color of the eyelids for that extra
• 53:42
  contrast is there. And I think it might be I might
• 53:45
  be wrong but I think it's the first time they used sort of a
• 53:49
  thicker foam finish as the eyelids to give them a bit more
• 53:55
  of a three-dimensional structure.
• 53:57
  So that the lids because there's the eyes are so fascinating to
• 54:01
  me because as a kid I used to make the puppets in general, but
• 54:06
  I and then I sort of brought that into adulthood because of
• 54:10
  that. I because of trying to build
• 54:13
  Miss Piggy puppets and I tried sculpting from foam.
• 54:15
  I tried. I never did the flocking because
• 54:17
  I didn't have the money or resources, but I did that.
• 54:20
  I did try to pat a few times with patent making a patent to
• 54:25
  glue together as her and then covered that in fabric.
• 54:28
  Like I tried all these different things.
• 54:30
  The thing that I always got, I didn't realize at the time.
• 54:33
  The thing I was always getting wrong was the eyes because I
• 54:36
  gave them sort of a higher profile than they have.
• 54:40
  Like I kind of made them on quite a kind of high Dome
• 54:44
  because her eyes look very dimensional.
• 54:47
  And it was years later, it was actually as an adult looking at
• 54:51
  looking at the character that I realized what they've done is
• 54:57
  it's like a few elements that give it, give it that look.
• 55:00
  One of them is the thickness of the lid, the actual fabric or
• 55:04
  foam that's that's over the as the lid.
• 55:07
  It's the placement of the eyelashes, the depth of the
• 55:10
  black felt, that's the base of the eyelashes as well.
• 55:13
  That kind of thickens up that whole area.
• 55:16
  It's the black line underneath, it's the it's the way the blue
• 55:20
  eyes are shaded and everything about that.
• 55:23
  But one of the really massive key things is the curve of the
• 55:27
  lash line. Like it when you look at her, it
• 55:31
  looks like it's curving over the curved shape of the eye, but
• 55:36
  it's actually exaggerated quite a lot on a much flatter base eye
• 55:43
  base. So that when you look at it
• 55:45
  front on it really looks like the eye is kind of projected
• 55:50
  further up as a as a kind of what would you call that like a
• 55:54
  Dome shape, but it's actually quite flat.
• 55:57
  It's it's it's the actual white plastic that that that's the
• 56:01
  base of the eye is actually quite flat.
• 56:03
  But that extra curve on the lash line makes it appear like it's
• 56:07
  like it's almost like a drawing like like a like a force
• 56:11
  perspective. Yeah, force perspective joke.
• 56:14
  Yeah. Anyway, if anyone out there is
• 56:17
  about to build a miss big EI, that's my advice.
• 56:19
  All right, that's fantastic. Well, let's talk.
• 56:22
  Let's talk for a second about the Now the Pig Dreams calendar,
• 56:25
  the 1980 Piggy calendars, the first calendar.
• 56:29
  They never, they never made in the 70s and 80s.
• 56:32
  They didn't make Muppet calendars.
• 56:33
  They just made Miss Piggy calendars.
• 56:35
  And this is this is the moment for me, I think 1980.
• 56:40
  I was nine years old. Beginning in 98.
• 56:43
  And I think this must be when I really clocked like Miss Piggy,
• 56:49
  specifically like, I was a huge Muppet fan, obviously.
• 56:51
  And I loved them. I loved all of them.
• 56:54
  I don't remember like when Miss Piggy became my actual favorite.
• 56:58
  It might have been this calendar, because looking at the
• 57:02
  pictures of like the Cleopatra picture and picture of of her on
• 57:07
  the heart-shaped bed and on. The bed.
• 57:10
  The July 4th with the little, with the little, and she's got
• 57:13
  flags and little frogs. Yeah.
• 57:16
  They were like literally the most beautiful things I had ever
• 57:20
  seen. Yeah.
• 57:22
  And I think I really imprinted on those pictures and on Piggy
• 57:27
  Forever, I think as like, yes, this is just a gorgeous thing to
• 57:31
  look at. And I had that on my wall all
• 57:34
  year long and and I have never stopped.
• 57:38
  I've never stopped wanting to look at that.
• 57:40
  We're in boom town now. Boom boom time.
• 57:42
  Now we're in Miss Piggy's like. Yeah, 19 stardom, 1981 is is
• 57:48
  sort of peak. Peak piggy, yeah.
• 57:52
  Best version of her ever? 1981.
• 57:54
  That's what I say, yes. So you got like the there's. 81
• 57:58
  is the Cover Girl calendar, which is so, again, so
• 58:01
  beautiful. And then Miss Peggy's Guide to
• 58:03
  Life, which was absolutely extraordinary, just in terms of
• 58:08
  how many pictures there are, how lush and extravagant they are,
• 58:12
  They're clearly, they were just having so much fun because they
• 58:16
  could have done less, they could have done a lot less and people
• 58:19
  would have bought the book. It would have been turned.
• 58:21
  For sure, they just went. It's as many costumes as
• 58:25
  possible, as many shots, as many like crazy setups, really
• 58:32
  luxurious and extravagant. And even the soft cover feels so
• 58:38
  extra. But when you have the hard
• 58:39
  cover, it feels like it feels like like an art object.
• 58:44
  It's so it's such a keepsake. Do you have thoughts on on SO
• 58:48
  was this 1981 Piggy I guess before we get to the Great
• 58:52
  Muppet Caper, like just the like the calendar and the and Guide
• 58:55
  to Life, was there anything special about Piggy here?
• 59:00
  One thing I would say is that there are two different piggies
• 59:03
  in Miss Piggy's Guide to Life. There's one with a square snout
• 59:09
  that's much that has much less kind of contouring to the face
• 59:14
  sculpt and there's one with a much more curvaceous snout that
• 59:18
  and and lower lip that has much more delineation between her
• 59:22
  cheeks and the sort of broader, the broader shape of the head.
• 59:26
  I like them both a lot. I'm not even sure which one I
• 59:30
  like the most. I I really like the very
• 59:35
  contoury face because it just has it's a bit more Michael
• 59:39
  Fritz looking like it's it's more it's more of a complex the
• 59:43
  contour is just more complex and kind of have been kind of
• 59:47
  elegant illustrious sort of look.
• 59:51
  But the other one is the one that's speech is more it's the
• 59:55
  one that's on the cover where it's now it's kind of a bit
• 59:59
  less. It also I think has longer flock
• 1:00:02
  on it. This was also the 1st when I was
• 1:00:06
  trying to build them as a kid. This was the first time I really
• 1:00:09
  noticed that her. Skin quote UN quote Skin texture
• 1:00:14
  was impossible for me to make because I had no idea what
• 1:00:19
  flocking was. I mean, even though I had a few
• 1:00:21
  toys, in retrospect, I had a few toys that had a bit the very
• 1:00:24
  fine velvety flock that they have unplastic toys.
• 1:00:27
  At times. I didn't realize they were the
• 1:00:29
  same thing. I didn't know what the process
• 1:00:30
  was, so I wouldn't look at that front cover image till my eyes
• 1:00:34
  bled trying to figure out how it was both foam and fabric at the
• 1:00:40
  same time. Like, you can see the holes
• 1:00:43
  because it's so high res, you can see the foamy holes through
• 1:00:46
  the flock, but then you've got this fur texture coming towards
• 1:00:49
  you and you're just like like, is this made with magic?
• 1:00:53
  Like what is the? Stuff.
• 1:00:55
  But yeah, so the two different piggies in it, both of which
• 1:01:01
  very much kind of I'm happy with either of them this beautiful
• 1:01:04
  looking. I think they're unified by the
• 1:01:07
  eye design, which is this basically exactly the same for
• 1:01:10
  both the positioning slightly different but the the very sort
• 1:01:14
  of thick lid that's very heavy and then the the eye placement
• 1:01:21
  and the the really lush lashes. Yeah, I guess this is.
• 1:01:24
  This is really like what you were describing before of the of
• 1:01:27
  the very like dimensional. Eyelid, Yeah.
• 1:01:31
  And you really can explore it in these because you see there's
• 1:01:35
  like, there's that the one with the jeans on.
• 1:01:39
  It's kind of like book Shields me.
• 1:01:42
  That one's a really good example of the directional life thing
• 1:01:45
  because she's looking kind of away from us and her eyes look
• 1:01:50
  like it's almost feels like they might be animatronic if you
• 1:01:53
  didn't know the whole dimension of the characters.
• 1:01:56
  It looks like her eyelids are in a completely different position
• 1:02:00
  than they are front on because of that kind of directional
• 1:02:04
  build, yeah. There's also, this is the era, I
• 1:02:08
  think, for her ears that you seem to draw the most.
• 1:02:12
  It's the last time they literally have that subtle curve
• 1:02:16
  in the front. Yeah, I.
• 1:02:17
  Love that they lose it in paper, even though that's almost a
• 1:02:20
  perfect puppet. They lose that and it starts to
• 1:02:23
  become more rabbit like, yeah, I know, like with product design
• 1:02:26
  we tried to get from in them. Yeah, yeah, tell me.
• 1:02:30
  I know, Peter, you you sent me the sketch that you made for The
• 1:02:34
  Muppets and and a lot of that sketch was about like the curve
• 1:02:38
  of the ears. Yeah, I mean, I I I I was sort
• 1:02:42
  of with that consultation on the the puppet build I was, I was
• 1:02:46
  working against this. I asked them whether they could
• 1:02:51
  find an archival mold and make a ahead from a from a previous
• 1:02:55
  mold and they the impression I got was that they had the
• 1:03:00
  current mold and maybe they had like a like a slightly older
• 1:03:04
  one. I actually don't know what they
• 1:03:06
  chose to do in terms of getting the mold, but I realized I was
• 1:03:10
  everything I could do had to be on a mold that they were already
• 1:03:15
  using. So then it became more about
• 1:03:18
  focusing on the eye build and position and how that influenced
• 1:03:24
  the width of the sorry height of the forehead.
• 1:03:28
  And then that would also be the wig position that would give her
• 1:03:31
  more forehead, and then the ears, which had slowly crept
• 1:03:35
  forward, giving her way more of a rabbitty look.
• 1:03:38
  Not just because they stick up, but because they're right above
• 1:03:41
  the hairline. I was I I got them to put them
• 1:03:46
  back so that they they could get the wig back a little bit
• 1:03:50
  further and they could the the years could be more like you
• 1:03:55
  know longer further back like the PGS are, but also just give
• 1:03:59
  her more sort of a length from the sides.
• 1:04:01
  She shouldn't have this sort of snub nosed, flat faced kind of
• 1:04:04
  look. But yeah it was also trying to
• 1:04:07
  draw them so that the years were curved forward.
• 1:04:09
  I I don't think they really did that, but but they did, I think,
• 1:04:14
  get that position a little bit better so that she had a little
• 1:04:17
  bit of forehead and she had more of that.
• 1:04:19
  Like when she pulls her angry expression or where when she
• 1:04:24
  talks, there's a lot more room for a snout to kind of make
• 1:04:29
  those expressions because the eyes are slightly higher up and
• 1:04:32
  then the hairs slightly further back and the ears are slightly
• 1:04:35
  further back. So there's just more space for
• 1:04:38
  expression, I guess, and more more of a sense of a profile.
• 1:04:42
  Yeah, and you can really see here.
• 1:04:44
  I'll give you guys the Muppet Wiki page for Miss Piggy's
• 1:04:47
  guide's life. If you if you Scroll down to the
• 1:04:48
  gallery, there's a bunch of photos and and you can really
• 1:04:52
  see in these the curve of the ears.
• 1:04:56
  Yeah, I hadn't noticed that until you're bringing up, but.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah, they sort of, they sort of cut forward in this really like
• 1:05:03
  both are, both are piggy way 'cause, I mean obviously pig's
• 1:05:07
  ears look very different, but they're they still kind of
• 1:05:10
  close, always over themselves in a way that isn't this rabbit
• 1:05:14
  like straight up thing. It's just another curve, like, I
• 1:05:19
  mean she's made it, She's like all curves and the idea that she
• 1:05:22
  has these ears that are just very direct and up, it just
• 1:05:26
  doesn't really fit her. She's all circles.
• 1:05:29
  Yes. When was this, this additional
• 1:05:33
  one with the with the hat? When was that published the
• 1:05:37
  cover? When they replaced the cover
• 1:05:39
  with this more modern. Oh, that's that's a very crappy
• 1:05:44
  later. I think it's maybe late 80s.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, that looks like a Miss Piggy's Hollywood Kind of.
• 1:05:49
  Yeah, yeah. Whenever I bully anyone into
• 1:05:52
  buying an old copy of Guide to Life is it'll make their life
• 1:05:55
  better. I I always tell them do not be
• 1:05:59
  fooled. Do not get this one.
• 1:06:01
  That's because also that one features a lot of photo.
• 1:06:04
  I think it's on lesser quality paper from memory as well.
• 1:06:08
  Or maybe it has some good quality pages and others not.
• 1:06:11
  It also has the black and white photos kind of.
• 1:06:15
  They're not as grayscale, they're sort of more contrasty.
• 1:06:18
  It's just it's just bad. Yeah, all right.
• 1:06:21
  If you're gonna get a copy of Miss Piggy's Guide to Life, and
• 1:06:23
  you should. Yeah, that's the original.
• 1:06:25
  Insist, insist on the original. Yeah, soft cover is fine.
• 1:06:32
  So it's gotta be, it's gotta be that original.
• 1:06:34
  Yeah. So great Muppet caper.
• 1:06:38
  Yes. She's beautiful, but I can see,
• 1:06:41
  like like you say that, that the ears start to stick more up.
• 1:06:45
  That's the one that I base, I helped base the revisions for
• 1:06:50
  Diamond Select on was mostly that, because that is, well,
• 1:06:55
  that's still, you know, the same time as Season 5 when they were
• 1:06:58
  filming. It's the same era right there.
• 1:07:00
  It's the same time of course, probably different different
• 1:07:04
  puppet, but that I don't feel. I feel like the wheels start to
• 1:07:08
  slightly fall off the wagon from after that film on.
• 1:07:13
  I would say, well, I say Muppets take Manhattan.
• 1:07:16
  I do not. I like some pictures of that
• 1:07:21
  puppet that I'll tell you. I do not like that build.
• 1:07:22
  I don't like the hair. I don't like anything about.
• 1:07:26
  It I really don't. I feel like after that she
• 1:07:29
  became more cartoony as how they made her build her and made her
• 1:07:34
  look. And I feel like a lot of the
• 1:07:35
  characters became more durable about the after that because it
• 1:07:38
  was a time thing that Jim Henson was focusing on other things and
• 1:07:42
  he needed puppets that he didn't have to keep, you know,
• 1:07:45
  refurbished and maybe that's it, yeah.
• 1:07:48
  So that's starting around around 1984 with Muppets Take
• 1:07:51
  Manhattan. Yeah, I would say that.
• 1:07:53
  And for me, it was, for me it was.
• 1:07:55
  I'm not sure about what Peter will think, but yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Well, I mean, I think Muppets take Manhattan.
• 1:08:00
  I hated that hair when I was a kid.
• 1:08:03
  I just needed her to have, you know, this sort of like,
• 1:08:06
  tortured perm that just is like, it's just like wig.
• 1:08:11
  Yeah, it's just, it's just froth.
• 1:08:14
  That doesn't really do much. It moves a little bit, but it's
• 1:08:17
  not like this whip around here that is so much extra.
• 1:08:20
  That is part of the idea I I heard there's a talk with Polly
• 1:08:24
  Smith and Kalista Hendrickson. Oh yes, I remember talking about
• 1:08:28
  that. Yeah.
• 1:08:28
  And they said, like the perm just made life easy.
• 1:08:31
  Because for all of the previous versions of the character, she
• 1:08:35
  said you had to have somebody standing right there ready to
• 1:08:38
  grab her as Because when when Frank is done with the take and
• 1:08:42
  puts his head, his hand down, she's upside down and it ruins
• 1:08:46
  the hairstyle. And so they have to like catch
• 1:08:47
  her. And so once she had, when she
• 1:08:49
  had the perm, they didn't have to worry about that.
• 1:08:51
  So they loved the perm. Well, his, His and she.
• 1:08:54
  Kept it for the for the tall 80s.
• 1:08:57
  Fashion and pain. Look for me, yeah.
• 1:09:01
  No, look, I wish they'd I wish they'd stuck with the hair that
• 1:09:04
  I love and I think that he should be should be the Davis
• 1:09:08
  years and made that much help. But with the perm,
• 1:09:13
  retrospectively I've I've kind of come to love it in the sense
• 1:09:17
  of like I think. I don't think she looks optimal
• 1:09:20
  in that film, but I do think she looks pretty good.
• 1:09:23
  And the film itself as a kid was never my favorite favorite, but
• 1:09:28
  I did really enjoy it. So I for me that film has become
• 1:09:32
  kind of like. Maybe also in contrast to the to
• 1:09:35
  later hairstyles where it was just like a plastic bulb that
• 1:09:39
  was just like literally looks like it came from a dime store.
• 1:09:43
  The fact that it is like you know fright wig, it might be,
• 1:09:48
  but it's it's sort of it's doing what it's aiming to do which is
• 1:09:52
  to look at this like this, yeah, from the 80s perm.
• 1:09:56
  So yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't offend me as much as
• 1:09:58
  later things. So we're talking a little bit
• 1:10:00
  about Miss Piggy being a diva and being camp, and that's
• 1:10:04
  something that we haven't really.
• 1:10:06
  That is important, I think, for this discussion that we haven't
• 1:10:09
  really talked about yet of Camp kind of as a sensibility.
• 1:10:14
  Yeah. Being an appreciation of of the
• 1:10:17
  artificial, of the falls, of the like heightened regionality.
• 1:10:22
  Some might say the deluded. But all the methods are deluded.
• 1:10:28
  That's the thing that's. True.
• 1:10:29
  Yeah, that's. True.
• 1:10:31
  What does? What does camp mean for you,
• 1:10:33
  especially in terms of kind of how Miss Piggy fits in I'll?
• 1:10:37
  I'll jump in. I had a an interesting
• 1:10:39
  conversation years ago with a a guy who runs festival here that
• 1:10:45
  I was referencing. I was talking to an ex who's a
• 1:10:48
  filmmaker at A that would work together and made things
• 1:10:51
  together and he'd forgotten about it.
• 1:10:52
  But I was, I was telling him about this moment where we were
• 1:10:57
  all out drinking after a screening and we got, we started
• 1:11:00
  talking about I was probably talking about Day of the Locust
• 1:11:03
  or some very very camp very widely regarded as a mess by
• 1:11:09
  essentially you know like Empire magazine, reading Film Bros.
• 1:11:13
  So we were having this conversation and we couldn't get
• 1:11:18
  across to this guy the meaning of not the meaning of camp.
• 1:11:21
  He could sort of technically understand it but the feel of
• 1:11:26
  camp like the the need for it and the and the and the
• 1:11:30
  substance of it I guess like the value of it because he couldn't
• 1:11:35
  really understand what it is to approach to life as a series of
• 1:11:42
  codes. Because I feel like when people
• 1:11:45
  have, when people are kind of aligned with their their nature
• 1:11:51
  and nobody's policing them for their nature.
• 1:11:54
  They and they're not feeling like an outsider and any in any
• 1:11:58
  sort of severe way. They're not looking at the world
• 1:12:02
  as a series of tricks. They need to learn.
• 1:12:07
  They're just fitting with those tricks.
• 1:12:08
  It just seems like truth to them.
• 1:12:10
  So they don't really get in their head this very early idea
• 1:12:13
  that everything is a fantasy, even the most dull things, or
• 1:12:18
  dull to me at least, things like someone playing golf, like
• 1:12:20
  you're in drag playing golf drag, you're in golf drag, you
• 1:12:23
  know? So I think when you've had that
• 1:12:27
  outsider perspective and you come, you know, like as a kid,
• 1:12:31
  you have that instinct about yourself that like things are
• 1:12:34
  not, you don't quite fit the codes that you're being given
• 1:12:37
  and therefore they look like codes to you.
• 1:12:40
  Here here I am at age 9 and I just love looking at Miss Piggy
• 1:12:43
  S Cleopatra. This is not.
• 1:12:45
  Yes, yeah. This is not a normal boyhood.
• 1:12:48
  Yes, exactly. And and when when you have that
• 1:12:51
  experience and you have that need for looking for things that
• 1:12:55
  not only you want to look at, but also those things that are
• 1:12:59
  steeped in a similar fantasy facade that has like a bit to
• 1:13:07
  other people has this just looks like sort of.
• 1:13:09
  Through through. You know, distraction, and to
• 1:13:12
  you looks like truth. You know, like you look at it
• 1:13:14
  and go. I need to gaze at those lavender
• 1:13:17
  gloves because they make some kind of weird sense to me, like
• 1:13:22
  they meet my soul where it needs to be met.
• 1:13:25
  Why does she always wear opera gloves?
• 1:13:26
  Yes. Yeah, I know.
• 1:13:29
  I mean, but yeah it's that thing I think where all the all the
• 1:13:37
  Muppet characters have their sort of delusions their their
• 1:13:41
  aspirations because it's inherently about sort of failing
• 1:13:45
  up characters failing upwards or or characters that are that are
• 1:13:49
  chaos that's found out the chaos.
• 1:13:52
  So they find some warmth in family.
• 1:13:54
  But I feel like with Piggy in particular, she's not only an
• 1:14:00
  expression of that that usual aspiration that The Muppets
• 1:14:04
  have, she also kind of resents the context of The Muppets
• 1:14:09
  themselves and feels like an outsider in that context.
• 1:14:14
  And all of her, yeah, even in this group.
• 1:14:17
  And she's never like because she's a narcissist, she's she
• 1:14:20
  thinks it's their fault. Even if she's being a complete
• 1:14:24
  jerk, she still thinks it's their fault.
• 1:14:27
  So like she's easily hurt but only in her own feelings.
• 1:14:31
  She's she can come back to a sense of family but it's like
• 1:14:34
  very brittle and and kind of only when the stakes get really
• 1:14:38
  high. But she projects this fantasy
• 1:14:43
  that's even beyond the escapism of The Muppets themselves.
• 1:14:48
  She's trying to escape the escapism.
• 1:14:51
  So it's like she's so many levels of of fantasy that she's
• 1:14:56
  she just and aside from, you know, obviously just being this
• 1:14:59
  super femme kind of super glamorous presentation, just the
• 1:15:03
  fact that she's this outsider that's working so hard to have
• 1:15:09
  almost a defensive force field of glamour around her.
• 1:15:13
  It's very relatable, I think to a lot of young queer people and
• 1:15:19
  a lot of just misfit people. Like, I think a lot of just SIS
• 1:15:24
  girls who who are kind of maybe they don't fit the beauty ideal
• 1:15:28
  or maybe they don't fit the someone's program, what they're
• 1:15:32
  supposed to be. And they suddenly look at this
• 1:15:35
  very glamorous, very empowered, very violent at times, very just
• 1:15:40
  energetically herself kind of character.
• 1:15:44
  And they see the possibility of that.
• 1:15:46
  They see the the fact that you could actually move through
• 1:15:48
  life. Maybe it doesn't take like
• 1:15:49
  delusion and narcissism, but you can move through life with being
• 1:15:55
  as grand as you want to be while feeling safe.
• 1:16:00
  I I just, I, you know, I always felt like camp is a safe area
• 1:16:04
  where you can always say the things that you're not allowed
• 1:16:07
  to say in your normal voice. And that's that's the thing and
• 1:16:11
  that's what The Muppets represents to me particularly,
• 1:16:14
  you know, Miss Piggy is she says whatever she wants to say.
• 1:16:18
  She's in Piggy drag. She can you know, Frank Oz can
• 1:16:20
  say that. The thing with Frank Oz in the
• 1:16:23
  interviews is you see the real guy come out and he's frustrated
• 1:16:27
  because most people bore him, because most people are stupid
• 1:16:29
  and boring and you can. See it?
• 1:16:31
  I love his interviews for that because he's honest.
• 1:16:35
  I don't always agree with what he has to say, but I like that
• 1:16:38
  he says it and it's like he just says what's on his mind, that as
• 1:16:44
  Miss Piggy, he can say that and still be like, yes, yes, you can
• 1:16:51
  tell he makes the host uncomfortable, particularly when
• 1:16:54
  they don't do their homework, 'cause he gets angry.
• 1:16:56
  He's just like, I'm wasting my time for the he doesn't like.
• 1:17:01
  I don't feel like he likes any of that stuff.
• 1:17:03
  If he liked it, he'll do a lot more of them.
• 1:17:06
  So that's the he's he's had his time in front of the camera.
• 1:17:08
  He likes to be behind the camera.
• 1:17:11
  But as far as that it's it's a camp for me is if that is you're
• 1:17:15
  allowed, it's like going to a drag show.
• 1:17:17
  That's why when someone puts on you know, drag makeup and a wig,
• 1:17:22
  they can say whatever they want to say when they take it off.
• 1:17:25
  Most of these people become the most shy people and observed
• 1:17:30
  people the most boring people in the world.
• 1:17:34
  It is. It is strange and but I love
• 1:17:38
  that it gives you permission. Well, and so there's there's
• 1:17:43
  something else about camp that I think is interesting, which is
• 1:17:45
  the the element of kind of making a conscious choice to
• 1:17:48
  enjoy something. So when you're talking about
• 1:17:51
  like Day of the Locusts, for example, like taking something
• 1:17:54
  that is artificial, that is potentially in bad taste and you
• 1:18:00
  have to kind of make that for something to be camp, you're
• 1:18:05
  kind of making this conscious choice.
• 1:18:07
  I am like, I'm going to love this thing.
• 1:18:10
  Yeah. And when that lick happens in
• 1:18:13
  your head, it it creates a, it creates a, a deeper love.
• 1:18:18
  Somehow, because you've, you've made that choice to love this
• 1:18:22
  thing. Because you've created like a,
• 1:18:25
  it's become a like code that becomes analogous for yourself
• 1:18:31
  in a way. Like you've you've you feel it.
• 1:18:34
  In a deeper way. Yeah.
• 1:18:36
  And I I I feel like there's a stage before that where you
• 1:18:40
  you're drawn to these things that they can't because of that
• 1:18:43
  outsider perspective and that your your brains kind of
• 1:18:46
  tenderize towards it because you already see, you see the
• 1:18:53
  falseness in boring things and yes, you see someones watching a
• 1:18:58
  war movie going, it's so truthful and blah blah, blah.
• 1:19:01
  Or it's so like serious or dramatic or whatever and you're
• 1:19:05
  like, yeah, it's fine, whatever. But there's like musical goes,
• 1:19:07
  what are we? No, exactly.
• 1:19:09
  I'm gonna go watch this thing that's just was a flop and was
• 1:19:13
  was like, you know, like lambasted by critics.
• 1:19:16
  But it has its own fucking magic and and I have my own magic and
• 1:19:22
  my own magic hasn't been understood since childhood, you
• 1:19:24
  know what I mean? Like it gets to that thing where
• 1:19:26
  you're seeing this mirrored outsider status in camp objects
• 1:19:30
  a lot of the time. Right.
• 1:19:33
  So where should we go back from, Mr. We've kind of we talked
• 1:19:36
  about the perm. We talked about Manhattan.
• 1:19:38
  We. Talked about Manhattan.
• 1:19:40
  Wait, did we talk about Manhattan enough?
• 1:19:43
  No, we we have not. Obviously, we have not.
• 1:19:46
  Obviously there's not one thing. One thing that I think we we
• 1:19:50
  alluded to earlier I think is is just picky size in the Muppet
• 1:19:54
  Sigma. It's bigger, she is bigger and
• 1:19:58
  the face is heavier. Yes, the the pear shape is more
• 1:20:03
  pronounced for Muppet Sigma Manhattan than than it was
• 1:20:06
  before. Yeah.
• 1:20:08
  And her eyes are also a little bit sort of dopier.
• 1:20:11
  Like they're a little bit more tilt tilted.
• 1:20:13
  Yeah. In a more plaintive kind of way,
• 1:20:16
  yeah. But one of the things about Miss
• 1:20:19
  Piggy from this era, particularly back going back to
• 1:20:21
  Vegas, it wasn't just the movie. She was stuck in that wig for
• 1:20:24
  the rest. Of the Yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:26
  I just. I just was bored with it.
• 1:20:30
  I just, I I couldn't believe that she wasn't.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, but of course, Frank Oz loved.
• 1:20:36
  The fact that it gave him freedom, you know, from having
• 1:20:39
  to have someone fuss over her all the time.
• 1:20:41
  But yeah, I don't know, it was just, it was so boring.
• 1:20:45
  You can just tie it back in a ponytail, do something.
• 1:20:49
  Yeah, late 80s. I've got a couple pictures here
• 1:20:52
  for folks who are playing along on Muppet Wiki 1989 Emmy Awards,
• 1:20:57
  Piggy and the Disney Christmas Special, also from 1989.
• 1:21:00
  Is this the sat on Piggy that you're Thank you for?
• 1:21:03
  Talking about. Yeah, so the award, the awards
• 1:21:08
  ones, and, yeah, both of them, actually.
• 1:21:10
  That's because honestly, that doesn't even look like a
• 1:21:13
  decision to me. That literally looks like it's
• 1:21:16
  been in too small of a suitcase with too many other things.
• 1:21:19
  Yeah, like that is a flattened head, and it's flattened like
• 1:21:24
  lengthwise, which is so surreal. Yeah, there's something where
• 1:21:28
  it's it might actually be like a smaller head.
• 1:21:32
  It looks like it's shrunk. Chemically, something like it's
• 1:21:36
  being exposed to something like It just looks really wrong, yes.
• 1:21:42
  See, this is what I don't like since since Disney brought them
• 1:21:45
  up, you know, they happened this that they they had that puppet.
• 1:21:48
  Sometimes back then people forget, but they always say
• 1:21:52
  they. Majorly dropped the I mean also
• 1:21:54
  I. Mean let's.
• 1:21:55
  Let's just talk about like either of those weeks is
• 1:21:58
  appalling. But Friggin Awards?
• 1:22:01
  The Emmy Awards won, yeah. OK, so here are the.
• 1:22:05
  Things. Here are the things that right
• 1:22:10
  with this puppet. That'll take.
• 1:22:13
  That'll take. She's wearing lavender gloves.
• 1:22:18
  There are some feathers near her and she and her eyelids.
• 1:22:23
  Her eyelids are all right. Her eyelids.
• 1:22:25
  I'll give her her eyelids. Her eyes, unfortunately, are
• 1:22:28
  looking in two complete different directions.
• 1:22:30
  They're too pale and she they kind of look like like, I don't
• 1:22:35
  know, like like albino goat eyes or something like there's just
• 1:22:40
  something really off putting and slightly satanic about them.
• 1:22:43
  Yeah, well, they're too small, right?
• 1:22:46
  It feels like they're too small for too small for body, yeah.
• 1:22:50
  She had a moment when she cut her own hair.
• 1:22:52
  What happened before? That I wanna know.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah, she. Has.
• 1:22:56
  Argument bangs she. Has bangs.
• 1:22:58
  That's a cry for help, she. Got stuck in a Thresher machine?
• 1:23:05
  Yeah, that wig is just not for a start.
• 1:23:07
  It's not her personality, but it's also it.
• 1:23:10
  It really looks like it like it was found like in a alley and.
• 1:23:17
  Or actually worse, like a a Halloween costume shop.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah, it's totally, totally her ears.
• 1:23:24
  Yeah, very party City vibes her. Her ears are kind of in OK
• 1:23:30
  shape, actually, but they are growing out of her eyebrows.
• 1:23:35
  No, she has to have eyebrows, but her ears are so close to her
• 1:23:40
  hairline and her face is tall. And narrow from the front angle,
• 1:23:48
  like sort of fish. Like a fish.
• 1:23:50
  Yeah. Yes, it's appalling.
• 1:23:54
  It's like it's. It's real, real bad.
• 1:23:58
  But then the Disney Channel special looks even worse.
• 1:24:01
  Because they're oh God, I don't know how.
• 1:24:03
  The eyes are, the eyes are just, the ears are.
• 1:24:07
  Almost like human ears growing out the sight of yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:10
  It's just like how how? Did a straight man put this
• 1:24:15
  thing together? Like, yeah, nobody with an eye
• 1:24:20
  got near that puppet? No, no that.
• 1:24:24
  Looks pretty. I love.
• 1:24:25
  I love this part of the conversation just because it's
• 1:24:26
  it's, you know, obviously like the mirror image of how much we
• 1:24:31
  were like just gazing at at you know the the piggy calendar
• 1:24:35
  pictures just going, oh, so beautiful.
• 1:24:36
  Yes. And and now I've got, you know,
• 1:24:39
  we've got these two pictures in front of us and the three of us
• 1:24:41
  are just angry. Yes.
• 1:24:45
  Like bubbling over with it that when when you get Piggy wrong.
• 1:24:48
  When you really. And and the 1989 Emmy Awards
• 1:24:51
  when you get Piggy wrong. Yeah.
• 1:24:54
  Yeah. It's like there's nothing right
• 1:24:55
  in the world for us. And you realize the level of
• 1:24:58
  investment you have. It's like, it's like when you
• 1:25:00
  have like a favorite Actress or diva.
• 1:25:04
  Has a little too much surgery, a little like get some done.
• 1:25:07
  That's not right. Yeah.
• 1:25:09
  And it just throws your whole like world compass off for it
• 1:25:13
  when you when you're looking at it.
• 1:25:16
  Yeah. I won't mention names, but yes,
• 1:25:18
  there's several. That's the kind of few things
• 1:25:20
  done. And you're just like, oh, I love
• 1:25:22
  you and I wish you. Hadn't done, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:25
  Can you. You need a friend with you to
• 1:25:27
  tell you no, honey. Yeah.
• 1:25:29
  Can you can you throw a few millions towards getting a few
• 1:25:32
  things undone? Yeah.
• 1:25:33
  Oh Lord. We love you for you.
• 1:25:36
  You're fine. Yeah, no, but.
• 1:25:38
  Yeah. It controls the on that surgery
• 1:25:41
  if you could. Let's get to the next one so I
• 1:25:44
  don't cry 1919. 921992 so much. Better in these pictures and
• 1:25:50
  the. Muppet Christmas Carol.
• 1:25:52
  Yeah, she's back. She does have these Rabbitty
• 1:25:54
  ears in Christmas Carol. I can.
• 1:25:56
  She does. I am now recognizing that.
• 1:25:59
  And she's definitely this is. I feel like this is the first
• 1:26:02
  time, even though it's not necessarily my preference.
• 1:26:05
  This is the first time the like, cutesy Miss Piggy head looked.
• 1:26:10
  Really, right. Like they got it's a it's a
• 1:26:12
  choice they got they did correctly even if it's not my
• 1:26:16
  favorite version of her so. Why is this a?
• 1:26:19
  Why is this a cutie piggy? I think just because it's got
• 1:26:23
  this sort of thicker like the curves are less cornery than
• 1:26:27
  they they were when she was like 1980 like 78 to to 80 like
• 1:26:34
  they're they're everything has this very beveled edge and.
• 1:26:39
  She's just a bit she's still got this.
• 1:26:41
  It's not short in the mutant way.
• 1:26:43
  It was the year, the year, three years before this.
• 1:26:46
  But it is like still that short stubby snout that is also a
• 1:26:52
  little more juvenile looking less less of like Barbra
• 1:26:56
  Streisand elegant knows that I'm never changing and more and more
• 1:27:01
  like, yeah, juvenile. I guess this way I could
• 1:27:04
  describe the and. Her.
• 1:27:06
  Her cheeks and her chin. Yeah, Rounder.
• 1:27:09
  Without as much, Yeah, without as much kind of like detail.
• 1:27:12
  Yes, she looks prettier here. She does look pretty.
• 1:27:15
  Yes, and she has less gullet. She has less unless less volume
• 1:27:24
  underneath her mouth. She's.
• 1:27:27
  Supposed to play. She's playing someone who's poor
• 1:27:29
  so. She's method acting, starving
• 1:27:34
  herself for for months. Unlikely.
• 1:27:38
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:27:41
  I mean, I like, I think this is such a beautiful film.
• 1:27:44
  I know it's period in terms of the wig, but I still wish she
• 1:27:48
  had a little more hair. And the little, the little
• 1:27:52
  again, it's period that the little sort of curled bangs that
• 1:27:56
  are. Kind of those are bothering you.
• 1:27:58
  Yeah, if I was, if I was choosing airstyle for this
• 1:28:02
  wouldn't be it, but it's very cute for the character.
• 1:28:07
  Going into Muppet Treasure Island in 1996, it's I feel like
• 1:28:12
  this is the point where Miss Piggy becomes scenery.
• 1:28:17
  Partly just because because of this, because of like, the
• 1:28:21
  enormous outfits that she has and the way that she's kind of,
• 1:28:24
  like carried in with this insane like feather headdresses and
• 1:28:28
  just feathers everywhere this is.
• 1:28:31
  And her entrance is delayed as well.
• 1:28:33
  Like, she's not. She's not really a big part of
• 1:28:35
  it too, for a. Really long time this.
• 1:28:37
  Is like her biggest drag queen number ever with this interest.
• 1:28:40
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:28:43
  Well, just it kind of it feels to me like it goes beyond sort
• 1:28:45
  of costume and and becomes like kind of a special effect.
• 1:28:49
  Yes, it becomes a a kind of live action version of the calendars
• 1:28:54
  in a way. Like her, she's sort of an
• 1:28:58
  installation more than a character, yeah.
• 1:29:03
  I mean, I do kind of love it. I I I think, I think facially
• 1:29:07
  the eyes have started slipping down into that sort of dopey
• 1:29:11
  look again. I just want to straighten them.
• 1:29:14
  It's it's like when our eyes, because it's kind of an OK eye
• 1:29:18
  build that when they're on those kind of angles, I just want to
• 1:29:22
  reach through the screen and fix them.
• 1:29:25
  It's so frustrating. And you also see in that one be
• 1:29:29
  even stubbier snout like it's it's called another another
• 1:29:33
  state. It's just gonna keep going
• 1:29:35
  snubby. It's gonna just keep going
• 1:29:37
  snubby and snubby. Yeah, she's getting those nose
• 1:29:40
  jobs. Do you think that there is some
• 1:29:44
  snout self hatred on the part of?
• 1:29:47
  Like, yeah, a little bit. Of, of of the puppet builders.
• 1:29:49
  Like, yeah, they're a little they're a little worried about.
• 1:29:52
  Oh, I thought you meant. It I thought you meant of her
• 1:29:54
  having like her own. I think you get so close to
• 1:29:58
  something, you know, as artists, as an artist, I will tell you
• 1:30:03
  there's just a point where you just keep reworking something
• 1:30:07
  and reworking something till it stops making sense.
• 1:30:09
  And I can understand this. People that keep rebuilding,
• 1:30:12
  building and rebuilding these characters, 'cause they don't
• 1:30:14
  always get rebuilt, they get refurbished and then some parts
• 1:30:18
  get rebuilt. And I can tell ya, you know,
• 1:30:20
  there's a certain point in in my own compositions where I just, I
• 1:30:24
  I have three last things that I wanna do.
• 1:30:27
  And then I pick one of them and then I let the rest go, 'cause
• 1:30:30
  if it's ever truly finished, it's beyond finished and it's
• 1:30:32
  ruined and you just kind of stop.
• 1:30:35
  But I feel like when they keep doing these, it just becomes a
• 1:30:38
  facsimile of a facsimile of a facsimile, and it loses its
• 1:30:42
  spark. And I feel like that's what
• 1:30:45
  happened with some of the Muppet bills, particularly Miss Piggy
• 1:30:48
  during this time during the late 90s and early odds.
• 1:30:50
  It just was right. One thing about the The Muppets
• 1:30:54
  builds that I I I haven't mentioned yet is is I remember
• 1:30:58
  going to Caroll Spinney's book reading many many years ago in
• 1:31:02
  The early Odds and he was talking about doing a right hand
• 1:31:05
  for I believe Ernie and then he he at the end of the the scene
• 1:31:13
  when they're breaking they Jim Henson kicks over Ernie.
• 1:31:20
  To get around him. And then Carol Spinney
• 1:31:23
  apologizes to the character and then Jim looks like at him like
• 1:31:27
  he's insane. And he explained to me how he
• 1:31:31
  did. They were never precious because
• 1:31:33
  they looked at them as props to get through a scene.
• 1:31:36
  So particularly when you're talking to performers about.
• 1:31:40
  The different things that change with the puppets and the
• 1:31:43
  characters over time, they don't notice it or care as much.
• 1:31:46
  They're thinking about the performance, they're thinking
• 1:31:48
  about so many other things and they see the work that goes into
• 1:31:52
  them, 'cause even the the most, you know, disappointing looking
• 1:31:56
  puppet to us is still amazing. And and how it's put together.
• 1:32:01
  I mean, these things cost 10s of thousands of.
• 1:32:04
  Dollars. A lot of man hours.
• 1:32:06
  It's a lot of things and a lot. Of people but.
• 1:32:10
  But that's The thing is like they see them as we fans, you
• 1:32:14
  know, and then the Wiki page that say you know, like zoo
• 1:32:17
  through the ears or whatever, I'm addicted to that I will look
• 1:32:20
  at. I will go back and look at that
• 1:32:22
  all of the time, 'cause I'm just like that's my no, that's my
• 1:32:26
  favorite zoo. And but I swear it's like when
• 1:32:30
  did his nose get so yellow? But it's it's, it's the it's
• 1:32:35
  that sort of thing. But the performers don't see
• 1:32:38
  them from that. Perspective.
• 1:32:41
  I think it's also just a factor that comes from the team.
• 1:32:47
  Like it's that outsourcing thing, but it's also not having
• 1:32:49
  people like Michael Fritz or Bonnie or Callista who have eyes
• 1:32:55
  on the character, who really know it and they know it from a
• 1:32:59
  like a pure design point of view.
• 1:33:00
  But also they know the character themselves and how the visuals,
• 1:33:06
  what the visuals contribute, because Frank Oz.
• 1:33:09
  Obviously he's he's a visionary in a lot of ways, but he's not a
• 1:33:12
  designer, he's a performer, so he's not going to be obsessing
• 1:33:17
  over those those aspects the way someone it's the same thing like
• 1:33:20
  if you're on set with on a film and you have the camera
• 1:33:24
  department, the art department, and everyone's got to wait while
• 1:33:28
  the camera gets right. But also everyone's got to wait
• 1:33:30
  while somebody sets the curls of the actress or make sure that a
• 1:33:33
  dress is aligned correctly or whatever when you don't have
• 1:33:37
  that team. The camera, what's the camera
• 1:33:39
  looking at? So yeah, yeah, I feel like they
• 1:33:43
  just need a tighter team around them that is a hyper focused on
• 1:33:48
  one particular aspect, like the design or the build or the
• 1:33:52
  specifics. So, like, what are the what are
• 1:33:55
  the main things that go wrong that determine whether
• 1:33:57
  something's a good or a bad? Miss Piggy puppet?
• 1:34:00
  I would say for me the main two elements.
• 1:34:05
  I mean as long as the sculpt is. Somewhat right.
• 1:34:09
  I feel like the the two elements that really affect the way she
• 1:34:14
  look looks are her hair and her eyes.
• 1:34:19
  I think even even if you have like a like a sort of average
• 1:34:22
  sculpt, like if you take for example the season three weird
• 1:34:28
  snout Miss Piggy, the the eyes are beautiful, the hair's
• 1:34:32
  beautiful, even though that that sculpt is the most unlike.
• 1:34:36
  Her whole cannon of how she looks, you still kind of go, you
• 1:34:40
  connect 'cause they 'cause she's swinging around this gorgeous
• 1:34:43
  hair and she's got these really lush eyes.
• 1:34:45
  But when you have, you know, a pretty well shaped face, but the
• 1:34:51
  eyes are kind of wool eyed or dull like or flat looking or
• 1:34:56
  the. Wig is, you know, an ugly Bob,
• 1:34:59
  perhaps, or a weird froth froth of cheap hair.
• 1:35:03
  Then you definitely kind of. It throws you, even if the the
• 1:35:06
  overall face shape looks OK, you're kind of like.
• 1:35:09
  So the Wig's gotta look. The wig's gotta look kind of
• 1:35:11
  lush. Yeah, and it's gotta move as
• 1:35:14
  well, I feel like. I feel like there's been a lot
• 1:35:16
  of Miss Piggies where the secondary movement thing hasn't
• 1:35:19
  been sufficient to give her. Her violence and her kind of
• 1:35:25
  languidness and all of it's not really played out by what she's
• 1:35:28
  wearing and by her hair. So it kind of just looks like
• 1:35:31
  sort of she just looks sort of like a a block without all that
• 1:35:37
  stuff seeing. That movie, Yeah.
• 1:35:40
  Well, it seems like both of us hate the Flatiron Bob wig.
• 1:35:44
  Brought it up couple times. Either I hate that thing I that
• 1:35:47
  made a very the the silicone silicone wigs just made a huge
• 1:35:51
  difference. Yeah.
• 1:35:53
  That was look more like a puppet.
• 1:35:54
  Unless I don't know, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:35:58
  When did that come in? Was that is that like mid 90s?
• 1:36:02
  I think they got. Synthetic in the late 80s
• 1:36:05
  perhaps, but I think they might have been a blend.
• 1:36:07
  And then they just got like mid 90s.
• 1:36:09
  They started getting very plasticky, looking like really
• 1:36:13
  ugly under the under the studio lights and just not just the
• 1:36:16
  hair. All kind of like almost looks
• 1:36:18
  like it's it's like. Melted together.
• 1:36:22
  The way it sits just doesn't. It doesn't have air in, it,
• 1:36:24
  doesn't have flow or movement. Did it get better after that?
• 1:36:28
  Like was this an era of kind of the the flat Bob hair or?
• 1:36:33
  The quality improved in like it sort of fits and starts.
• 1:36:37
  The quality improved but they even had long versions that I I
• 1:36:42
  prefer but didn't still didn't really like where where it got
• 1:36:46
  into that. Sort of equally flat island
• 1:36:49
  ironed long look like long, but not long enough and not and
• 1:36:55
  without any bounce to it. Still sort of flat to her head.
• 1:36:59
  But I think, dare I say the moment it improved was The
• 1:37:04
  Muppets. The the Jason Segel Muppets.
• 1:37:07
  They spent some real well. I don't know if they spent real
• 1:37:10
  money on it, but they definitely spent some taste on it.
• 1:37:12
  Like it's their hair. You know when she, you think of
• 1:37:15
  her coming in with that sort of. 70s flick, bleach blonde, kind
• 1:37:19
  of 70s flick. When she's wearing, I think
• 1:37:21
  she's wearing tweed, tweed, sort of suit and a hat.
• 1:37:24
  She comes into the studio and she has a big arrival and she's
• 1:37:27
  got her bags and everything and the hair's just bouncing so
• 1:37:31
  crazy and it's like it's so it just nails it.
• 1:37:34
  It's just like that's her, like she's too much.
• 1:37:38
  She kind of this, you kind of have adjusted just an upper.
• 1:37:41
  Almost enough. Miss Figgy, she's got to be.
• 1:37:43
  The curls, the accessories, the eyes that you has to you know.
• 1:37:48
  The eyelashes. Oh, yes.
• 1:37:50
  Yeah. There's this great, great line
• 1:37:53
  from a great, like sort of phrase that I remember when I
• 1:37:58
  was a kid. I was a big Michael Jackson fan
• 1:38:00
  and he was talking about producing songs and they were
• 1:38:04
  talking about all of the hooks in Billie Jean, The fact that
• 1:38:08
  you can pull out multiple layers of that song and find.
• 1:38:12
  A new pop song from every single one.
• 1:38:15
  And a lot of his songs are like that.
• 1:38:16
  And he would have this phrase he'd use in the studio with
• 1:38:20
  Quincy Jones, where he'd say. Put the Jelly on the Jelly.
• 1:38:26
  And is the idea was you can't have enough good things like
• 1:38:30
  just just more is more layer layer on as long as every
• 1:38:35
  element is strong like it's. I feel like it's when when
• 1:38:39
  things get when extra things get too much it's because.
• 1:38:43
  You're putting too many crappy things together but or you're
• 1:38:48
  trying to compensate for one thing with another.
• 1:38:50
  But there's a there's also I'm going a little bit of tangent
• 1:38:53
  here but there's also a interior designer named I think his
• 1:38:57
  name's Tony Duquette from memory and he has a book called More is
• 1:39:02
  More. I think these things might be
• 1:39:05
  slightly off in the way that I think it is More is more but
• 1:39:08
  it's this amazing. He was a celebrity.
• 1:39:10
  Or a interior designer to celebrities throughout the late
• 1:39:14
  50s all the way into the 70s, maybe the 80s too.
• 1:39:19
  And his style is just it's like highly curated antique store,
• 1:39:26
  like it's so layered, there's so many things in there, but your
• 1:39:31
  brain just explodes with how well put together it all is and
• 1:39:35
  how it is somehow a Harmon harmonious.
• 1:39:40
  But also that there's always things to find, like you kind of
• 1:39:45
  never bored looking at it and I feel like Miss Piggy's like
• 1:39:48
  ultra luxe look like especially in the calendars, is the best
• 1:39:54
  example of her looking extra. But like so designed, there's
• 1:40:00
  nothing, there's nothing extraneous, but there's still a
• 1:40:03
  lot and I feel like that's the sweet.
• 1:40:06
  Spot for her. Jamie Carroll Peter Savieri,
• 1:40:12
  thank you so much for spending people.
• 1:40:17
  People won't necessarily know 'cause I'm going to edit these
• 1:40:19
  to like a normal human length thank.
• 1:40:21
  You. Thank you both for spending 100
• 1:40:25
  hours with me. Yeah.
• 1:40:27
  Talking about talking about this piggy.
• 1:40:30
  I have loved this so much. This is like my favorite.
• 1:40:32
  It's my favorite conversation. Both of them my favorite
• 1:40:36
  conversation ever. Exorcism.
• 1:40:37
  I've gotten it out of me now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:40:40
  But it'll. Just it'll just come back.
• 1:40:42
  We'll just get some more. Yeah, we'll we'll refill.
• 1:40:45
  But this has been, this has been so special for me.
• 1:40:47
  Thank you guys very much. You're very very.
• 1:40:49
  Welcome. And kissy, kissy.
• 1:40:51
  And thank you for listening to this episode of the fantastic
• 1:40:54
  Miss Piggy podcast, brought to you by my friends at
• 1:40:56
  toughfigs.com. In the next episode, there's a
• 1:40:59
  very special interview with Miss Piggy's original creator, Bonnie
• 1:41:02
  Erickson, so do not miss that. Thank you to Johannes and Tough
• 1:41:06
  Pigs for giving me space to do this absolutely crazy thing.
• 1:41:09
  And I also want to give special thanks to the editors of Muppet
• 1:41:12
  Wiki. This podcast would not be
• 1:41:14
  possible without Muppet Wiki, so thank you.
• 1:41:17
  If you have comments or questions or you know stuff
• 1:41:19
  about Miss Piggy that you'd like to share, you can write to me at
• 1:41:22
  fantasticmisspiggy@gmail.com. That's fantastic, Miss Piggy at
• 1:41:26
  Gmail, and please do. It's been really nice hearing
• 1:41:29
  from people. I'm also on X at Fantastic Miss
• 1:41:32
  Pete Or come and join us on the Tough Pigs Discord.
• 1:41:35
  Thank you everyone. I'll see you next time.
• 1:41:37
  Gee, I'd like to see you looking swell, baby.
• 1:41:44
  Diamond bracelets. Woolworth doesn't sell Baby till
• 1:41:52
  that lucky day.