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The Muppets Mayhem: Backstage Pass - "Break On Through" with Peter Linz (Lips) · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:06
  Hello and welcome to the Muppets.
• 0:08
  Mayhem backstage pass the unofficial Companion podcast to
• 0:11
  The Muppets Mayhem presented by topics.com.
• 0:14
  This is the podcast where we tore through every episode of
• 0:16
  The Muppets Mayhem to uncover behind-the-scenes stories,
• 0:19
  Easter eggs and more with The Talented cast and crew help, but
• 0:22
  the series together, I'm your host dedicated may head
• 0:25
  Johannes. Today we are talking about track
• 0:28
  5 Break On Through. Through in which the band gets
• 0:31
  writer's block and goes on one, heck of a trip this week.
• 0:34
  We have a few return guests in one newbie.
• 0:36
  First up, he's co-creator and executive producer of The
• 0:39
  Muppets Mayhem. Please welcome, Jeff.
• 0:40
  York's back to the podcast. Hey Jeff, thank you for having
• 0:44
  me. Thank you, Bill.
• 0:44
  I see you like that. Peter.
• 0:46
  If you there was a video you would see that there.
• 0:48
  Everyone is applauding and possibly standing up.
• 0:50
  Thank you. I'm glad to be back.
• 0:52
  Wow, huge, huge reaction for Jeff.
• 0:55
  Next up. He's another co-creator and
• 0:56
  executive producer as well as dr.
• 0:58
  Teeths number one, pal, Please welcome Bill Beretta back to the
• 1:01
  podcast. Hey Bill, walk for myself by I
• 1:05
  built for myself. We're all clapping everyone.
• 1:08
  Everyone at home is clapping as well.
• 1:10
  Our final guest is lending, his puppet wiggling skills to the
• 1:14
  most misunderstood member of the Electric Mayhem.
• 1:17
  Please, welcome Peter. Lynn's to the podcast.
• 1:20
  Hey, Peter Where am I? Oh, thank you.
• 1:24
  Oh, wow. No guys, please come on guys.
• 1:32
  No sir. You can sit down now, guys.
• 1:34
  Come on. Look, your families are coming
• 1:36
  out to. This is such a joy to have you
• 1:43
  here. Peter can't wait to talk about
• 1:45
  lips with you. There's so much to say, but
• 1:47
  before we do, I would love to know when you first First heard
• 1:51
  about the Muppets Mayhem that the project was happening and if
• 1:54
  you had any First Reactions, just hearing the, there's going
• 1:57
  to be in the Electric Mayhem series. skepticism tell me more
• 2:04
  really No, I mean things come up all the time.
• 2:07
  Don't want to get your hopes up too high, you know, because this
• 2:10
  is, I know it. Jeff is said, many of
• 2:12
  interviews, just has been his dream to have a met him series
• 2:15
  and haven't an album ditto since I was a little kid.
• 2:19
  Huge, did I won? I could never get enough, you
• 2:21
  know, a river, a river, bottom nightmare band was close.
• 2:25
  I wanted an album from those guys to their amazing.
• 2:27
  Same guys, so yeah, for sure skepticism and then I didn't
• 2:32
  really I don't really hang my hat on this thing actually
• 2:36
  happening until we were there filming on stage day one I was
• 2:42
  just it was so huge to me that I Dyke.
• 2:46
  I didn't want to have my heart broken.
• 2:48
  You had a big tall order to handle for the first time.
• 2:51
  As the other thing about this is Bill said to me many months
• 2:54
  before he just comes up in his in his sweet Billy ways.
• 2:56
  If he what do you think I'm thinking about it?
• 2:59
  What did you think of the lips is a mumbler?
• 3:03
  And I said, what what bill is a moment what bill I can't know.
• 3:11
  It was real nobility famously quiet, ya know and so that and
• 3:19
  that was a whole a whole new thing too because, you know,
• 3:22
  this character the puppets been around for like 45 years, almost
• 3:25
  as long as the band and he has never had much of what he's has
• 3:30
  had a voice, a couple of times in the past, most notably in,
• 3:33
  Teen. But this was something totally
• 3:35
  new and different, so it was exciting.
• 3:37
  I love the idea. But then, you know, where do you
• 3:40
  go with that? There's, there's a lot of
• 3:42
  different ways to mumble. That's funny.
• 3:44
  It was, he's probably most revered lips is most
• 3:46
  representative of doing this show where, you know, these
• 3:50
  characters a little bit, but you can truly flush them out.
• 3:54
  He's the extreme, I should say of it here, where they're
• 3:56
  really, it was just, we could go anywhere with whips and we had a
• 4:00
  blast sort of talking about where To be ironically talking
• 4:05
  about where it go. And when we settled on this,
• 4:07
  there are other attributes. I think we could come up with
• 4:10
  but those may be filled by the wayside for now.
• 4:12
  But yeah, it was just so much fun and then we didn't
• 4:15
  ultimately heard you. Why I remember I was talking, I
• 4:18
  remember Peter and I were talking a little bit about how
• 4:21
  to approach this mumbler, you know?
• 4:22
  And we had, we have, you know, three gruffy, you know, ruffy
• 4:29
  voices asking RuPaul, rat, raspy and and so so we talked about
• 4:34
  maybe staying away from that, you know, should he be whispery,
• 4:37
  bruh? And then Peter did this base
• 4:39
  thing, you know? Because Peter has such an
• 4:41
  amazing bass, baritone voice. And as soon as he did the mum,
• 4:45
  as soon as he did the mumbling with that, I was like, oh my
• 4:48
  God, that's it. If you can play with that, if
• 4:51
  that feels good, I came to build with a few different options
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  and, you know, I didn't want it. I didn't I didn't want to be
• 4:57
  derivative anything, there are characters out there and pop
• 4:59
  culture who were mumblers. And I didn't want it to sound
• 5:01
  like that. It was a challenge when one of
• 5:04
  the first things early on, this is like a couple of years ago.
• 5:07
  We were just, I just the six of us were talking about the band
• 5:10
  and about what could have possibly happened with lips.
• 5:13
  And there was, when I was a teenager, my first car I bought
• 5:17
  from the sky, was the Toyota specialist like used Toyotas and
• 5:21
  this was in a course I grew up in Atlanta and wonderful
• 5:25
  wonderful man named Sonny and he Sonny had a place called Sunny
• 5:28
  service center and he would always answer the phone Richard
• 5:32
  Richard. Oh, hi.
• 5:41
  That was kind of the jumping off point for me.
• 5:44
  How often were you calling him? Well, it was, it was my first
• 5:48
  car and you're going to bring it in for oil changes.
• 5:50
  Suddenly didn't do just cars. Apparently, I would hope you
• 6:01
  would come back to the writers room.
• 6:03
  Spoke to I spoke to Peter and he's got this really great idea
• 6:06
  of what he's doing for lips and then just describe it.
• 6:09
  It's based on this guy that he knew growing up.
• 6:12
  And we're like, okay, sounds great, but I don't think Adam
• 6:17
  and I heard it until you didn't on the set.
• 6:20
  You performing on the set. Yeah yeah.
• 6:22
  Right because we we also then start talking about what we had
• 6:26
  to read through some kind and we yeah, that's true but but I
• 6:30
  think we started talking in the writers room about The idea that
• 6:33
  he knows everyone wherever that came from, that he was their
• 6:37
  connection to the world. In a sense that he was, the only
• 6:40
  guy that probably has a phone and everybody loves lips.
• 6:43
  Yeah, everybody has met him in some way.
• 6:47
  He's the he's the connection you know, and we thought that was
• 6:51
  kind of a fun way to thing to explore.
• 6:53
  Yeah, especially the irony of him being unintelligible and yet
• 6:57
  he would know and have this connection with everyone.
• 7:00
  Some might, some of my favorite this favorite humor that came
• 7:02
  out of that was How lips knew everybody else?
• 7:04
  And the ones in, it was never a musical.
• 7:06
  It was always good. That it wasn't musical, but it
• 7:08
  was like, it was my nanny. There was a joke that got lost,
• 7:11
  I took elocution lessons from him, which right?
• 7:14
  That's my personal favorite. I think anything I do or if you
• 7:18
  ever have you come up with a lie, he taught me a foreign
• 7:20
  language. He taught me Spanish, I don't
• 7:22
  think yours was Sophia Carson's nanny.
• 7:26
  Is that her Maddie, her Manny Manny said Sophia Carson's me
• 7:30
  any. Oh, your little tidbit.
• 7:31
  So when lips Talks about. Sofia Carson, he calls her a
• 7:37
  b-bow. He is it guys.
• 7:40
  But basically what he's saying, only the mumbling is, let's give
• 7:43
  Bebo and Zedd the song, right? Let's give Sophia, Carson.
• 7:48
  And I say, bi Bou, bi ba, that's what I call it.
• 7:49
  What I call my stepson and then when we watch it together the
• 7:54
  better, that's you, your Bebo. Now I do want to talk about
• 7:58
  something else, you know, because I guess one of the
• 8:01
  things guy that got a little screwy With our closed
• 8:03
  captioning was that it gave lips dialogue.
• 8:07
  Yeah now as writers we never wrote lips is dialogue, it truly
• 8:12
  just had gibberish I mean we did painstakingly right out
• 8:16
  gibberish. It was beautiful gibberish that
• 8:18
  bill came to me day one. He's like PD we wrote in, we
• 8:21
  wrote his up. You don't have to say that.
• 8:22
  You just say whatever you want, but it's just you, this is so
• 8:25
  placeholder. Yeah.
• 8:27
  And so, what was your take on how you made this dialogue your
• 8:30
  own? I mean, you knew the intention I
• 8:32
  Would assume. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:34
  I mean, you get the, the intention had to be there.
• 8:36
  And so, yeah, I just took that from, from the scene, you know,
• 8:39
  from whatever was happening. I mean, truthfully it evolved as
• 8:44
  we shot the series and I know early on Matt's own, was our
• 8:48
  wonderful director. Our first director, we were
• 8:53
  having dinner together a couple episodes in.
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  He said, you know, lips is getting like, more and more
• 8:56
  understandable. It's like, oh, gosh, and I
• 8:58
  didn't realize I was doing that. That's not good.
• 9:01
  So I started curbing And trying to be less intelligible and I
• 9:05
  actually bill. I remember bringing that up to
• 9:07
  you and you're like, no, I think it's because you were watching
• 9:09
  the edits and he's I think it's a good balance.
• 9:11
  So for me we discover that you actually ended up looping a
• 9:15
  couple things, right? We went back and actually there
• 9:17
  were a couple that we end up using that did feel a bit to
• 9:21
  understand you on the nose. Yeah.
• 9:23
  A little bit, right? And we went back to those, but
• 9:24
  for the most part, you just grew into this amazing character,
• 9:29
  definitely grew and what I hope and unintentional consequence of
• 9:32
  this This is, is that I hope that is people watch the series.
• 9:35
  Hopefully, more than once that each time they see it.
• 9:37
  They're going to glean a little bit more.
• 9:39
  A little more clarity about what it is.
• 9:40
  Exactly lips is saying because there are some very specific
• 9:44
  things, which we could share some great lips out, takes some
• 9:48
  of his interpretations of what it would take dialogue, or
• 9:51
  pretty amazing one in particular.
• 9:52
  I remember because it just made the scene blow up, it was during
• 9:58
  get back as get back to the the documentary episode.
• 10:01
  He's not talking about right now.
• 10:04
  Everyone's saying do they call me flighty and something both
• 10:07
  true. They called me, whatever it is
• 10:08
  true. And then you go to lips.
• 10:10
  And and I think what ended up is, they call me a chrysanthemum
• 10:14
  which is a suggestion that Alice Made To Me, based on a classic
• 10:17
  literature. I don't know, but anyway, but
• 10:20
  but one that I came up with and just did on the spot.
• 10:23
  They said I had a hand up his Tommy and and and, and Teeth has
• 10:33
  the next line. Well, lip sometimes a man's got
• 10:35
  it, and then lips, build and bits of Giggles, he can't say.
• 10:41
  That's amazing. Bill.
• 10:43
  Did you have tips for Peter from your experience as the Swedish
• 10:48
  Chef for how to do the right? Kind of like well you get the
• 10:51
  intention but also we don't want anyone to actually understand
• 10:53
  what he says. No, no Peter knows, you know,
• 10:58
  Peter knows exactly what to do. I don't have to start.
• 11:00
  Yeah, it's very funny that stuff we just talked about character.
• 11:02
  That was all just as far as that character, getting Tim to a
• 11:05
  comfortable place where he felt good that was and vocal quality
• 11:09
  built. I mean, you've been yell my
• 11:12
  hand, you know, 13 years ago with Walter as well.
• 11:14
  You know, you are the wind beneath my legs, my friend.
• 11:18
  You just Mina. What?
• 11:21
  What? Whoo in exchange you're like in
• 11:23
  the Marilyn Monroe dress and Bill is A gust of wind between,
• 11:27
  like, Phyllis the sewer grate to.
• 11:30
  That's right. That's right.
• 11:31
  What kind? And and just in that instance, I
• 11:35
  don't know if you wanted to just say it because when we, he was
• 11:39
  coming up with Walter, he was playing around with things and I
• 11:43
  just kept hearing Peter, as Walt der, you know?
• 11:48
  And I think that was probably a bigger challenge than coming up
• 11:51
  with another voice, right, Peter.
• 11:53
  That was that was, that was one of my biggest.
• 11:55
  It's character challenges I've ever had?
• 11:57
  Does it has a tears is performing a character with this
• 12:01
  voice as usual, right? Yeah, that was a big block to
• 12:05
  get over. Yeah, sorry about that.
• 12:08
  Let's get into the episode at hands, the cold open of this
• 12:13
  episode features. The Mayhem in the van, they're
• 12:15
  all wearing neck braces because they've been head-banging too
• 12:18
  much. Doctor says, they're not allowed
• 12:21
  to head-banging and again until they're healed.
• 12:23
  But dr. Teeth says I said no such thing.
• 12:25
  Which I thought was a funny joke.
• 12:26
  I love the way Lily plays that next line, which is the weight
• 12:30
  she goes. No, the doctor doctor, you know.
• 12:34
  I can't, I can't do it, but I just thought the way she plays
• 12:36
  that. She plays it and she like kind
• 12:38
  of does this happen, I roll. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:41
  You just like, I'm giving up try and even talk.
• 12:45
  Yeah, there's hard, rock music, playing, and everyone is
• 12:49
  shaking. Almost vibrating trying to
• 12:50
  resist the urge to head. Bang.
• 12:52
  And then you all start not just hitting hard rock.
• 12:54
  It is a Alec has Master of Puppets.
• 12:57
  Oh, is it everybody noticed? Jeff slowly out.
• 12:59
  He got everybody. Got it.
• 13:01
  Everyone totally, I bet people got it.
• 13:04
  I am, I am of the correct generation to get the reference,
• 13:07
  but I was so not a Metallica fan and I avoided Metallica growing
• 13:11
  up. It's from the soundtrack of
• 13:13
  stranger things. But yeah, Metallica had to watch
• 13:19
  this Metallica watched a cut and or Metallica's people, but I'd
• 13:24
  like to think as Metallica, They all sat around the approved, it?
• 13:27
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:28
  They thought it was great amazing.
• 13:30
  But again, that's another little Easter egg detail that Jeff and
• 13:33
  Adam they would come up with such great ideas.
• 13:35
  That of course that title of that song works perfect.
• 13:39
  You know. And if you know you know yeah if
• 13:42
  you know you know and if you don't like I didn't know then
• 13:45
  it's still funny because they're head-banging to Metallica going
• 13:49
  out which was to be honest up until like I think maybe a few
• 13:53
  weeks before we locked it was just And oh heavy metal song.
• 13:57
  Yeah. It's just a temp.
• 13:59
  Yeah. Is it hard to perform characters
• 14:00
  who can't move their necks? They can move their necks.
• 14:04
  Well in the scene they had they're all wearing neck braces.
• 14:08
  Yeah. But there's enough kids could
• 14:10
  move the fair. Yeah it's make-believe Joe.
• 14:13
  It's me. It's make-believe jelly.
• 14:15
  It's one that really? Yeah, they're not Peter.
• 14:17
  Isn't that great? They're not real, they're not in
• 14:30
  the band. Ask me if the show is animated.
• 14:35
  Before they sought. Oh, you're working on an
• 14:37
  animated show. That's a little teaser for
• 14:39
  something. Comes up later in this episode,
• 14:41
  the band has been workshopping some songs.
• 14:44
  They've got a few Beginnings, a few middles.
• 14:46
  If you endings, I can't even. I tried to like, transcribe this
• 14:50
  stuff because I wanted to relay it on the podcast and there's no
• 14:53
  way I can imitate these because they're all great.
• 14:56
  They're all terrific Beginnings, middles and ends.
• 14:58
  Who wrote These for you guys? Okay, start with me, Madam?
• 15:03
  Yeah, being sort of punch drunk in the writers room.
• 15:07
  Again, this was during production, I think at this
• 15:09
  point. Yeah, so and we were busy
• 15:11
  rewriting and yeah, I just have you know, iPhone voice.
• 15:17
  Memos of just us making up these things and then we send it to Ed
• 15:21
  and Steve to sweeten them up. Well they kind of made the tune,
• 15:26
  right? They did the yeah we have.
• 15:27
  Yeah, we had a little bits of tunes and stuff like that.
• 15:30
  Yeah. But They they definitely credit
• 15:33
  line up Melodies and stuff and you've got voice memos where
• 15:36
  you're just going like bumping up on bomb, like that kind of
• 15:39
  thing. Alright already do.
• 15:41
  Yeah, yeah they should have put that on the soundtrack.
• 15:47
  You know, I'm hoping one day, they'll release the, the
• 15:50
  basement tapes, like Bob Dylan did and we would just have
• 15:54
  digital or even just like you know an EP of just all these
• 15:59
  little track. Let's if you will a my soup.
• 16:02
  Yeah. Dude.
• 16:03
  Upma soup. I mean they're fun all these
• 16:07
  like little of jingles and stuff like that.
• 16:09
  Yeah, we want to hear them. Yeah.
• 16:11
  You cannot lemons. Do you have a real answer for
• 16:14
  who is Johnny Ragsdale? Versus arms.
• 16:18
  Really? You started writing the story of
• 16:20
  Johnny, Rexdale. I don't think.
• 16:21
  No, I don't think it got that far, but I was always fun to
• 16:25
  sing while we were writing great.
• 16:27
  Season 2, we need a, we need an origin story for Johnny Rexall.
• 16:31
  So as the band is playing, none of these songs are really going
• 16:34
  together, dr. Teeth can't commit to anything.
• 16:36
  Floyd's a perfectionist, he thinks it's all a big ol,
• 16:39
  stinking pile of stink. Janice is busy.
• 16:42
  Helping everyone else, but not helping with the songs.
• 16:45
  She starts a massage Circle. Just a cute little visual.
• 16:49
  So Nora ask them how they wrote. Can you picture that?
• 16:52
  Which as we all know is a classic, it's the best known
• 16:55
  song from Electric Mayhem and they confirmed that they did
• 16:58
  indeed write it. So my question is does Paul
• 17:00
  Williams not exist in this universe?
• 17:04
  Well they collaborated years later located a better song.
• 17:07
  That's fair. Yeah.
• 17:08
  Well me very good. All made a better song.
• 17:10
  Yeah great. So I guess he was with them when
• 17:14
  dr. Keith says he they wrote It
• 17:17
  under the stars in The Great Outdoors, many a moon ago.
• 17:19
  That's where the inspiration came from, right?
• 17:22
  But you could say that the ultimate song of eventually was
• 17:26
  a collaboration with Paul, I think.
• 17:28
  Yeah, that's fair. Alright, we're calling it.
• 17:30
  It's Cannon now. And again, there's no such thing
• 17:32
  as Muppets Cannon. So, unless Gonzo's inside of it,
• 17:35
  then there's a muppet Cannon, right?
• 17:38
  Correct, nor suggest they go camping out in Joshua Tree, do
• 17:41
  is start to grease. Those creative gears animal
• 17:45
  flips out over the concept of a road trip.
• 17:47
  And we're going on a road trip. That's exciting.
• 17:49
  Just like the Muppets do in the Muppet movie.
• 17:51
  We love her. Mum and road trip, the, by the
• 17:53
  way of going back and forth when I'm dr.
• 17:55
  Steve says, he can't commit to anything.
• 17:57
  Let's just move in and I get a little blood puppy, right?
• 17:59
  Then we could be. Oh yeah, Phillippe pop pop.
• 18:03
  That's a pure improvisation, but from The Madam minds of, though,
• 18:08
  Beretta and mr. David goals more Dave goes.
• 18:11
  He's the sick one, the girl that was something that I have an I
• 18:16
  just saw in dailies in the editing room and were like, wow,
• 18:21
  this is absolutely going in and we want to extend it and can you
• 18:26
  now ADR more great? That's why you hear in the
• 18:30
  background. That's why you guys going.
• 18:32
  You don't want to have it. Stopped and cut out want to have
• 18:34
  them. Still go again.
• 18:37
  Yeah, they've got such a kick out of that.
• 18:39
  He wanted to just do that all day long.
• 18:41
  That was his thing and he did. I love that.
• 18:44
  That is such a difficult thing. Especially because this is Zoot
• 18:48
  is so low energy and just to stand there and just name p
• 18:52
  names for dogs. This never?
• 18:55
  Yeah. Terrific.
• 18:57
  We got a great shot of the mayhem's van cruising down a
• 19:01
  desert, highway, with animal shouting out of the sunroof, my
• 19:03
  God. One of the things to this bit.
• 19:05
  Yeah, yeah. Go for it.
• 19:06
  You know, I would watch sound mixes at or listen to sound
• 19:08
  mixes at home and I did not have two little kids and I never want
• 19:12
  to show them the show until it was complete.
• 19:15
  But this one they saw. I walked in and I saw, you know,
• 19:18
  they checked it out and they see the van go by and my son is 10.
• 19:22
  Just says, I think there should be Tumbleweed there.
• 19:26
  I was like, that's a great idea and and so I guess in that
• 19:31
  moment I sort of promised him Tumbleweed and he would only ask
• 19:34
  about it and they told her she was going really well, we're
• 19:37
  working on that, but it did you get the Tumbleweed in there?
• 19:40
  So anyway, I had to call, you know, I was just like, hey, I
• 19:42
  would really love for there to be Tumbleweed in this shot, just
• 19:45
  going across the screen. And yeah, we got a cut and there
• 19:48
  was Tumbleweed, I never told him about it and then when the show
• 19:52
  came out on May 10th and we binged the show.
• 19:55
  I was like, Washed and you just looked at me with wide eyes and
• 20:00
  just such a joy that he was able to contribute to the show and
• 20:04
  some small, it's great. Was that like a 10,000 dollar
• 20:08
  Tumbleweed in the end? They digital channel priced, at
• 20:11
  some point. They did a great job, it looks
• 20:14
  real. So, yeah, this is like, you
• 20:16
  know, I have no to wait inside the van animal lips are both
• 20:24
  sleeping on moves show. Elders set up.
• 20:28
  We just try to find the most awkward just torment Taj as much
• 20:33
  as we could for that shot. And I mean, Eric got in there
• 20:36
  first with this mouth, write it right in his ear.
• 20:40
  Yeah, this was one of the shots I was on set for.
• 20:43
  So I got to watch you guys filming this bit and I just
• 20:47
  remember the two of you trying desperately to get Taj to laugh
• 20:51
  from like you say just breathing in his ear like snuggling up
• 20:54
  right in the crook of his arm. Arm is very funny and mooc is
• 20:59
  just so happy to be tagging along, and he's got a big smile
• 21:01
  on his face. And also, he can't feel his arms
• 21:05
  or body. Which I also I love that line
• 21:08
  reading that he did. I was just good is good at his
• 21:11
  job, it's great. I haven't I think it's an atom
• 21:14
  absurdity like you would say, I can't feel my arms or legs but
• 21:17
  Adam just takes it in this weird place.
• 21:19
  You know, everybody I should us a great writer.
• 21:24
  He plays it with painful, Joy, you know?
• 21:26
  Yes, is so good. This is also what it's like
• 21:30
  being being a fanatic. We're like sometimes, you know,
• 21:33
  we're in an uncomfortable position but I get to be here.
• 21:37
  Like how cool is that? He gets it.
• 21:41
  Yeah, good thing. You were there for that?
• 21:43
  One thing that was actually shot on the stage because primarily
• 21:47
  the rest of the episode is shot on the volume.
• 21:50
  We went to a different Studio entirely and shot the whole
• 21:53
  thing on. Like one of those, you know,
• 21:55
  Mandalorian like digital space a, our wall.
• 21:58
  Yeah, because it's going to be an entire night shoot, right?
• 22:01
  It's a night in the life of and you certainly don't want to be
• 22:04
  out in the middle of the desert for an all-nighter.
• 22:07
  And so, yeah, they, we talked about a couple days.
• 22:12
  Joshua Tree what? That might be like, but that
• 22:14
  didn't last very long. Yeah.
• 22:16
  I was bummed too, because I'd never been to Joshua Tree.
• 22:18
  I still haven't and virtually Joshua Tree.
• 22:21
  This will be. So I've been there virtually.
• 22:24
  It looks a lot like Santa Clarita.
• 22:28
  It's pretty cool. I mean I walked in there and
• 22:31
  it's just like I saw the back of just this digital wall and it
• 22:35
  just looks like a bunch of monitors from behind just
• 22:37
  stacked up and just plugs and blue lights and then walking
• 22:40
  around and seeing, Oh my God, they're in the desert and it's a
• 22:44
  trip, I literally no pun intended.
• 22:47
  It's a just to see it like you forget about it because you're
• 22:50
  on there and for 180 degrees, you're seeing this desert night.
• 22:55
  You know, you lose tenant time and a ceiling to like above The
• 22:58
  light matches. So all the reflections are true,
• 23:01
  you know, the actual set and I don't know, people know out
• 23:06
  there they're listening but like on we did it on Muppets Haunted
• 23:10
  Mansion. We also have used an AR wall for
• 23:14
  a lot of our sets, but they have to build a complete computer
• 23:21
  generated set, right? So first, they build an entire
• 23:26
  desert. Degrees were certain trees live
• 23:31
  in certain rocks of. And where's the shack?
• 23:33
  A metal thing going to be and so that can be rotated and moved on
• 23:39
  this volume depending on which way you're shooting, right?
• 23:42
  So you're always cameras are always facing one way, but the
• 23:44
  world can spin, which was is pretty amazing.
• 23:48
  That's really. Yeah, it's fascinating that
• 23:51
  effect. I think the van the van is in
• 23:53
  the background man, as shots is digital digital at night at
• 23:57
  night when they first arrive at the The actual event and they
• 23:59
  had the van jacked up. So, it was up high, probably.
• 24:02
  But then it, when they're camping at night, it's just,
• 24:05
  it's a virtual van in the background.
• 24:06
  Yeah, it's a virtual Lan. And, and the, the first shot,
• 24:10
  when the van pulls up is all created in the computer, that's
• 24:15
  another soapbox thing. Like that that giant why
• 24:17
  Justice? The other wild thing is when
• 24:19
  you're in that volume and the camera, you know, the camera is
• 24:22
  is point that this is this video wall and so you can imagine the
• 24:26
  amount and video wallet, see is a rectangle On the back wall.
• 24:30
  And as the camera moves, you can see this rectangle on this giant
• 24:34
  wall moving around and rendering in real time.
• 24:37
  So it's always there. So the camera points is there
• 24:41
  but it's tied into the camera so that I don't know.
• 24:44
  Max is beautiful like the set moves focal length.
• 24:48
  That's right. Yeah, exactly.
• 24:50
  So you see this rectangle moving across this giant void.
• 24:52
  That's exactly the background that the camera is seeing as it
• 24:55
  moves. Wow.
• 24:56
  And in real time, you can Move. They could move that van or the
• 25:01
  van to another thing. You take the equipment, move a
• 25:03
  boulder or they can move a tree and they can change it if we
• 25:06
  need, you know, it's the shots not going to work because we
• 25:08
  have this big tree here. Well, let's move it.
• 25:10
  Over 15 feet. Nobody would be able to tell so
• 25:13
  it's just amazing. It's such an amazing thing that
• 25:15
  I had so many notes to ask you about the trees that mood 15
• 25:19
  feet over. I really bothering me actually
• 25:22
  that these Chicken on it? I did fascinating.
• 25:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:26
  The only thing that truly exists.
• 25:28
  Front of the wall or just there are the ground is real, and
• 25:32
  there's some brush and some rocks and whatever, you know,
• 25:35
  the performers are there. The characters are sitting on
• 25:38
  and it's raised so obviously these are the performers can
• 25:41
  perform. Yeah I'm cool.
• 25:44
  That's great. Yeah technology.
• 25:47
  So yeah so the characters arrive at this Desert Oasis but it's
• 25:51
  just this tin Shack in the middle of the deserts but it's
• 25:54
  really just a wall in the door because there are no walls.
• 25:59
  Janice finds a bag of marshmallows and a shovel.
• 26:02
  It is not a grave-digging shovel.
• 26:03
  It's a shovel for do booms, poopa, Doom, booms.
• 26:09
  But booms, I can't believe you that got through the sensors.
• 26:12
  I'll take credit for that word. That what?
• 26:14
  My word, nice. These that word a lot at home.
• 26:18
  Whoops. No, it was just 44, left, great.
• 26:21
  I'm we did it. We have what?
• 26:23
  We had one note about. The shovel.
• 26:25
  Remember the no bill No, it could not be dirty or crust.
• 26:32
  Oh, that's right. I'm have anything on it?
• 26:35
  Yeah, a clean. Boom badoom boom, shovel
• 26:39
  relatively. Yeah, clean got the band, builds
• 26:44
  a campfire. I got big going to go back
• 26:47
  there. Someday vibes from this campfire
• 26:49
  at night scene. With all the, all the Muppets
• 26:50
  sitting around. I assume that was not
• 26:53
  intentional because this is part of the story.
• 26:56
  Yeah. Worth asking which is everybody
• 26:59
  I think it was it was a great way to get everybody sitting
• 27:03
  around and contemplating their, you know, struggle.
• 27:08
  Yeah. And how to create and having
• 27:10
  their problems with the music and and it was great to see them
• 27:13
  full body. I think we were looking for a
• 27:15
  nice kind of establishing Tableau of the desert where you
• 27:20
  see them sitting together and, you know, hanging out.
• 27:23
  So it was just really about that intention.
• 27:26
  I think yeah, especially the full-body thing is cool when
• 27:29
  Janice suggested everyone starts dancing and we see, you know,
• 27:33
  Floyd and lips are swaying around with arms in the air.
• 27:36
  And look it's it's such a small little puppet moment, but I
• 27:39
  appreciate that kind of stuff. You know, you've met adopt the
• 27:42
  puppeteers. You know there's obviously some
• 27:44
  choreography going on. It's not a huge gag, it's not a
• 27:47
  huge special effects thing, but it looks pretty well.
• 27:51
  I mean, at the big campfire, it was quite a big effect thing
• 27:54
  because the whole the side, The back with the characters, whose
• 27:59
  backs are to camera are coming in from underneath, right?
• 28:03
  So there you don't see the puppeteers, but all the other
• 28:06
  characters on the other side, they're facing camera.
• 28:09
  There were puppeteers and green suits behind everybody.
• 28:12
  So all of that had to be cleaned up and taken away.
• 28:16
  So it was quite a feat actually deter.
• 28:19
  Yeah, yeah we're thinking this is it looks gorgeous.
• 28:22
  Yeah. Nora thinks everyone should be
• 28:26
  opening up. So, That we can start getting
• 28:29
  creative again, get off of this writer's block.
• 28:31
  So, she starts off by listening off, some of her hopes and
• 28:35
  fears. She says, is it too much to ask
• 28:38
  just want to spread my wings and fly for?
• 28:40
  I am a falconer. Like my father before me, his
• 28:43
  name was parvesh and I am his daughter, Nora the falconer,
• 28:46
  Master of the are beasts. I loved it.
• 28:50
  I loved that. That slow and steady incline.
• 28:55
  Toward insanity is parvesh. Heard father's name?
• 29:00
  Or is this the falconer? That was an improvisation the so
• 29:03
  good in this moment and then she went with parvesh though I wish
• 29:08
  almost that we had written more where she could just go crazy
• 29:11
  like this if she just when you allow her to she goes there, you
• 29:16
  know sure I remember our auditions.
• 29:18
  You know, she was just like, not afraid to go to these places and
• 29:24
  this is one of those where she's just like how about I don't like
• 29:26
  the I mean the outtakes themselves are just amazing show
• 29:31
  us those outtakes and and she's doing it half the time with a
• 29:34
  real Falcon on her arm. No, I yeah.
• 29:40
  So it just was there like was there like a training that she
• 29:46
  had to go through to be able to have a falcon On her arm safely.
• 29:51
  During that that day that morning they spent time.
• 29:54
  You know, making sure that she understood what she needed to do
• 29:57
  and not but she's yelling. I mean, I just kept thinking
• 29:59
  she's yelling at this game. Welcome.
• 30:02
  It's got to be freaking out. It's gonna love you all her eye
• 30:05
  out or something. Yeah, but she handled it
• 30:08
  beautifully is great. Yeah, no that's terrific.
• 30:12
  Yeah, I would also be terrified having that thing on my arm but
• 30:17
  move notices these marshmallows. Almost everyone's eating expired
• 30:20
  in 1992. He tosses him into the fire
• 30:23
  burst into a big green flame. I assume that's a digital
• 30:26
  effect. Not a practical one.
• 30:28
  Yeah, we wanted to look a little otherworldly.
• 30:30
  Something's definitely strange happening.
• 30:32
  Yeah, I will point out, you know, you know, this was one of
• 30:36
  the ideas from the beginning. We wanted to do this episode
• 30:38
  where they trip in the desert, just like, you know, the Doors
• 30:41
  Break On Through, right? They go on this, you know,
• 30:45
  Dreamscape or whatever, but we never got pushed back.
• 30:49
  A bunch of people ask, like, Disney was cool with this and
• 30:50
  they totally were. I think the thing was like
• 30:53
  they're not taking these things voluntarily, you know, like this
• 30:57
  is purely an accident. Didn't ya and it was food and
• 31:01
  its food but it wasn't like, hey, let's sit down and, you
• 31:04
  know yeah, it's his team to have some of those that are going to
• 31:07
  take us on a journey right there.
• 31:09
  Just eating marshmallows but I was like ready to like argue
• 31:12
  like you know, well what about the good dinosaur?
• 31:15
  He eats berries and they know they strip.
• 31:17
  You know. It never got there.
• 31:20
  And Disney said, what's the good dinosaur exactly.
• 31:25
  Right. That's the worst evidence ever.
• 31:29
  It also, I appreciate, you know, the 2015 Muppets sitcom.
• 31:34
  You know, there's my Mayhem has a lot of references to doing
• 31:37
  drugs and of course they're all thinly veiled.
• 31:39
  But like, although there's the barest of reference to that of
• 31:44
  this series. We've never cross that line.
• 31:46
  Like we never confirmed. Yeah, fan of that.
• 31:49
  It as something. Jim.
• 31:51
  Never, they never went there. I'm yeah, I'm kind of adamant
• 31:54
  about that and I I like that, it's marshmallows.
• 31:58
  Yeah, that's it. It's all right.
• 32:00
  Marshmallows donations. Thank you.
• 32:02
  Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, thank you.
• 32:04
  Anyway. That's your word.
• 32:05
  Yet, another word, I fought for it and and so many giraffes.
• 32:09
  The characters were saying I was so proud of it but some of our
• 32:14
  writers, their tolerance for my puns is diminished over time and
• 32:21
  so as we as we got to the no, I will not.
• 32:24
  I will we because this episode is written by Julie.
• 32:28
  A truly fantastic. But she was like, I do not want
• 32:32
  that in my script. I will take mine.
• 32:36
  Yeah. So never saw the light of day.
• 32:39
  Well, it's here in this podcast now.
• 32:40
  Yes. Now, we're washable is an Asian.
• 32:42
  No one could say it. No one wanted to say it.
• 32:44
  I think, I think the Jackie knows have it as a title of the
• 32:49
  Yep. Music happening behind on the
• 32:51
  track, so grateful truck. Yeah.
• 32:53
  Yeah. It's in there.
• 32:54
  It's yeah. Do you know loves a good pun?
• 32:57
  So All his tracks on all his albums, Michael?
• 33:00
  At least are all puns. Yes.
• 33:03
  Just like the Batman movies. Most serious sounding soundtrack
• 33:07
  but then like its tracks are just all these silly puns and I
• 33:11
  think Rogue one was the only one where it came out and they're
• 33:14
  just like you can't stop or she can't do it, flip the insert of
• 33:19
  the album, you know, on the CD. So on one side it's like an
• 33:22
  array but it's your so is Quest. But on the other side it's just
• 33:26
  like, you know, from the Beginning or whatever it is.
• 33:30
  Nah anyway great we'll save that for the commentary of Rogue one.
• 33:34
  That's yeah, without they'll be next, month's podcast will do
• 33:36
  that. Well, the first one, the first
• 33:39
  met a member who really trips out here is lips and his eyes go
• 33:44
  wide. We see his eyes for the first
• 33:47
  time since great Muppet Caper and he is, he can see all of the
• 33:53
  cosmos planets and the stars and the space whale.
• 33:58
  And the swine is rice, wine truck.
• 33:59
  And this wine should track what a great Easter egg.
• 34:03
  That was a great Easter egg. My favorite moment, I think
• 34:06
  honestly, like I think about you when you look for great puppetry
• 34:10
  moments or performance moments, and when he falls back and has
• 34:15
  that he's breathing, and his stomach is going, it's so good.
• 34:20
  He's like, you know, there's a there is a panic there like you
• 34:24
  just saw, he saw what we just saw, you know, and I Just I'm so
• 34:28
  happy. We use that take and that you
• 34:30
  did it that way. You know.
• 34:31
  It's just that I know you tried different things but I just
• 34:35
  think it's so good. So great, thanks Billy.
• 34:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peter, do you want to say
• 34:40
  anything about this scene about lips, freaking out and looking
• 34:43
  into space? Like, I just, I just remember
• 34:44
  there was a lot of conversations and photos and options for what
• 34:47
  it was eyes look like, ya are a lot of the different variation
• 34:52
  of dioxide some pictures on my phone and different ones that we
• 34:55
  try it out. That did not look good.
• 34:58
  I mean, no matter what. Even this one is going to look,
• 35:01
  they're all gonna do. It's gonna look freaking a
• 35:03
  matter what it's gonna. It's gonna look freaky, but to
• 35:06
  what degree of freaky, do we want for this guy, right?
• 35:10
  Yeah, I don't have too much to say about this one except that I
• 35:15
  was I was thank you for saying that bill.
• 35:17
  I was I was also proud of the way that I got up because, you
• 35:20
  know, he's kind of slouched over a log and he has to say about
• 35:22
  what you got up, what are the what are the mechanics of
• 35:26
  getting up from a squatting position in our Hurry to see
• 35:29
  something cool or interesting whatever.
• 35:32
  Yeah. So that was it was it course I
• 35:34
  didn't have. I was actually seeing anything
• 35:36
  so bill was describing what it was but there's no doubt, he's
• 35:39
  got legs and he's got hips and he's got weight total.
• 35:42
  You know, it's all there. Yes, all great Peter when you're
• 35:46
  doing a scene like that and you have you know you're worrying
• 35:49
  about your like a big performance.
• 35:51
  You're controlling lips and you know it's two hands and you want
• 35:55
  them to breathe heavily. Do you call in a second?
• 35:58
  Puppets here to assist you for something.
• 35:59
  Absolutely, absolutely. I can't remember on the day, if
• 36:03
  Alice was doing the right hand, I'm sorry we did so much, I
• 36:08
  don't know. And I'm a dancer.
• 36:10
  I may have may have used my left hand to try to get that that
• 36:14
  breathing going with like putting my left hand up
• 36:16
  underneath his shirt to be his belly, go.
• 36:19
  Yeah, honestly, I don't, yeah, it don't even remember his arms
• 36:27
  are kind of like this. This is played out.
• 36:29
  That's right. That's right.
• 36:32
  Absolutely don't ever hesitate to, yeah.
• 36:38
  They only some of the services of our other performers.
• 36:42
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:43
  No. You have a great support team
• 36:45
  with the rest of the Muppet performance there with you lips.
• 36:50
  Also, in the Stars, see the stars spell out, the words save
• 36:53
  the world lips. So now lips has a task.
• 36:58
  He has a mission, they'll carry them through the end of the
• 37:00
  season, I can't wait to see him save the world because that will
• 37:04
  surely happen in the next five episodes.
• 37:07
  Right, right guys, right. Feel like he does.
• 37:10
  Yeah, you. Okay, it's all good.
• 37:12
  This is great. We'll check in with Janice she
• 37:16
  is looking at herself in the side mirror of the van saying
• 37:20
  that this person looks familiar and then suddenly finds herself
• 37:23
  in a white void, surrounded. By hundreds of identical
• 37:26
  Janice's who all tell her that she needs to love herself.
• 37:30
  How many Genesis how many dances over to Janice's?
• 37:34
  There are two genocide and the main one.
• 37:36
  And again, the main one was being puppeteered by Alice
• 37:38
  Dineen because David Rubin who performs Janice was unavailable,
• 37:42
  and he wasn't able to be there for that.
• 37:44
  So, David asked Alice if she would perform Janice for all of
• 37:48
  that and, and then David, of course, we'll come back and a TR
• 37:52
  and loop the voice. And for the second generation,
• 37:55
  This, that would, that would be me.
• 37:58
  Oh course, because they were full body.
• 38:01
  We hadn't. We also had a team of other
• 38:02
  puppeteers doing, you know, arms and legs and things.
• 38:06
  Yeah. So that is me and Alice to
• 38:08
  oversee. So they had to do, they had to
• 38:10
  do the conversation between the two and then they also did all
• 38:15
  of the other. You know what ones behind, we
• 38:19
  doubled, tripled them in post but you guys did like five
• 38:22
  different variations or something, for sure.
• 38:25
  Her and totally and listening different different positions
• 38:28
  listening. And you know, so it felt a
• 38:29
  little varied. We got all the way to the sound
• 38:31
  mix and we were sitting there both bill and I was just like I
• 38:34
  think I think that's Alice still here laying in there somewhere
• 38:41
  and I don't know. And so then they would silence
• 38:48
  all these other tracks and then you can hear Alice clear as a
• 38:50
  bell dishes. That's right.
• 38:53
  That was the other thing is when she when we first see her and
• 38:55
  before and after that, she's going around and I think the
• 38:58
  version that's there now it's, she's sick.
• 39:00
  Oh, she looks in the mirror on the Vans, three of your.
• 39:02
  You look so familiar and she's saying a lot of different
• 39:06
  things, but on the day it was just totally over and over
• 39:09
  again. She would totally up to lie.
• 39:12
  I think she's just walking and hopefully that's a China
• 39:14
  sequence was one that we went through a lot.
• 39:17
  Yeah, I try to keep it sort of put words in her mouth Can I
• 39:23
  just mention something? Maybe it's a little early but I
• 39:25
  may forget but there's a phrase that she keeps saying over and
• 39:30
  over, they came much later because we wanted to tie in the
• 39:36
  song Jeff and Adam were talking about how do we tie in the song
• 39:40
  that they come up with in the van on the way home, going to
• 39:44
  get there. And so for which Janice we use
• 39:47
  the chorus, right? Janice does the chorus.
• 39:50
  She comes up with the chorus and so So in those moments, when
• 39:54
  she's in her thing, there's twice where she goes down the
• 39:59
  side of the buses. As gonna get there, she falls
• 40:04
  down and out. It happens twice.
• 40:06
  So that little thing when she's dancing and the other one is
• 40:09
  when her back. Oh, is it with back when her
• 40:11
  back is to the other Janice and you said you're going to totally
• 40:14
  get there with your band? Yeah.
• 40:15
  That's in there, right. And then also, when she's dr.
• 40:19
  Teeth spit and she's kind of prancing.
• 40:22
  I the camera pans over to her and she said, the time-lapse
• 40:25
  gonna get there. Yeah, she's yeah.
• 40:29
  Look, that's one of the things I did and I noticed it, but only
• 40:31
  now on my third route, watch through, you know, right now
• 40:34
  that I'm more familiar with the song, and it's like, oh, a
• 40:39
  little pieces together. You got it.
• 40:40
  Oh, that's a building something. Yeah, show makes sense if watch
• 40:45
  through the yes, right. Yeah, once you get to like eight
• 40:48
  or nine, that's when that's when it really starts to pop.
• 40:50
  It's really good. Yeah, that's good.
• 40:54
  Next up, on our trip list is animal.
• 40:55
  He is sitting on top of a rock hallucinating that he's holding
• 40:58
  himself as a baby. This is great because the baby
• 41:02
  is speaking very improper fancy. Like, you know, like I'm quite
• 41:06
  fine my gents down in a Jiff. You know what was assumed that
• 41:10
  was in the script that he speaks nothing like the real animal in
• 41:13
  this? Yeah.
• 41:14
  Yeah. So a performance wise Peter, you
• 41:16
  know, performance-wise there. That's a big giant was, I don't
• 41:20
  fiberglass Rock. It's not actually.
• 41:22
  Not that big and giant because Eric Jacobson and myself were
• 41:25
  stuffed inside of that wrong. Eric is Eric is performing
• 41:30
  performing doing the voice and all of a pat baby animal and
• 41:33
  then I was performing animal as we know it.
• 41:35
  And then you know, Eric would give me a lion read then.
• 41:37
  Of course he went back and and dubbed it over with the proper
• 41:40
  voice. But yeah, we were we were all
• 41:44
  twisted up around each other inside, that rock to make those
• 41:48
  two characters face each other with one on the lap and not have
• 41:51
  their faces to close. And So it was very comfortable.
• 41:54
  I'm I'm picturing the two of you stuffed inside that rock hugging
• 41:58
  while you perform basically yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:01
  You're kind of recreating with our own bodies what was
• 42:04
  happening on campus for sure. Yeah.
• 42:07
  Giggling again. Something that hit The Cutting
• 42:11
  Room floor. I'm so sad was not in there.
• 42:13
  Is there's there's one point where Moog?
• 42:17
  I think calls up. Animal.
• 42:18
  You okay buddy? And and animal and baby animals
• 42:22
  Down. And then we see animals point of
• 42:24
  view and we see the Jabberwocky from the Brooke Shields Muppet
• 42:29
  Show. Episode The jabberwock is there
• 42:32
  and he moves voice coming out of it.
• 42:35
  Animal you okay buddy and it's this amazing puppet which is
• 42:39
  still functioning. After all these years has been
• 42:42
  very well pulled out of the Vault.
• 42:45
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:46
  Well deep From the Vault, yeah, especially because that episode
• 42:51
  is not on Disney Plus So profit like newer fans might not
• 42:55
  recognize it but I would have recognized do it but that was
• 42:58
  really cool. Alas that puppet did.
• 43:02
  I mean we shot the scene and it's not testing are that way?
• 43:05
  What happened fellas? I think it just got too crazy.
• 43:08
  I think it was just so such a weird non-sequitur.
• 43:12
  I mean we just people were confused what was going on.
• 43:15
  It was I guess a hallucination on top of a hallucination.
• 43:19
  That people are a little thrown and I will loot our I think the
• 43:23
  way it was shot to didn't read as well.
• 43:26
  And that Dan was also fail and I think we also rearrange the
• 43:31
  order of things. Absolutely, we did.
• 43:33
  So we're Moog was it just it felt it just bumped.
• 43:38
  And I think it was for time to like, we had to get a roux.
• 43:42
  Yeah. All of these stories, you know,
• 43:44
  but maybe be if there's some deep cut out, take that shows up
• 43:47
  one day. It was really fun because Taj
• 43:49
  was there on set and I was lip-syncing to his voice live
• 43:52
  and I think I think Leslie was doing the job.
• 43:55
  Walks Clause the hands and Alice was on the feet and we were all
• 43:58
  in green against this. Desert thing and an animal jumps
• 44:01
  off and attacks him. That's right, that's right.
• 44:04
  Yeah, yeah. Release the jabberwock cut,
• 44:08
  guys? Well, yeah, because that's
• 44:10
  right. Animal animal.
• 44:12
  Jumped onto Taj, right? That's right.
• 44:14
  Yeah, yeah. Wow.
• 44:19
  I also have to ask, you know, this is something that's come up
• 44:22
  in a lot of conversation of the darker palette of the show and
• 44:25
  we've got a whole sequence here that's taking place at night.
• 44:29
  So not only is it already darker than Muppet Show that we're kind
• 44:34
  of used to and it's like there's no sun out to give us the
• 44:37
  natural light, this scene in particular, with animal and
• 44:41
  baby. Animal was like I kind of had to
• 44:43
  turn the brightness up way up on my screen and and squint a
• 44:46
  little bit. Was that a concern for you guys
• 44:48
  in the edit? I mean, all that I couldn't see
• 44:49
  it but like I wanted to see more of it, you know?
• 44:51
  It was it was not 100%. Clear.
• 44:54
  Yeah, was that a concern for you guys?
• 44:55
  When you were editing? I don't know.
• 44:58
  Was it concerning the edit for you?
• 45:00
  We did go through the color timing and to brighten it up a
• 45:02
  bit. Yeah, I know we put a spotlight
• 45:07
  on animal and baby animal brought it out the red a little
• 45:10
  more on him when we were watching, it wasn't, you know,
• 45:14
  because I've seen like, I've seen people talk about some of
• 45:18
  that stuff for Christina will mention it to me and I'm
• 45:21
  watching it on my two TVs at home and I mean, it doesn't seem
• 45:26
  to me. Me that it's overly dark.
• 45:29
  It feels real to me feels like you're really there and I think
• 45:34
  that was the hope is that it felt real although it like Jeff
• 45:39
  said it you know there are certain things we've brightened
• 45:41
  up right and tried to help it some but I don't know.
• 45:45
  I mean I'm not sure. I don't know.
• 45:49
  Yeah. It's isn't it?
• 45:50
  This isn't a complaint. It's more.
• 45:51
  It's just a question of. Do I get it?
• 45:53
  No, I'm not. I'm not suggesting.
• 45:55
  I'm just saying because I was thinking, wow, wow.
• 45:58
  I'm looking at watching it at home and I'm thinking what am I
• 46:01
  not seeing my you know, I just seem to okay to me but I don't
• 46:06
  know. Yeah, fair enough.
• 46:09
  Next up, we have Floyd he sees a big Vortex open up in the sky
• 46:14
  and he says doesn't get any weirder than that, am I right?
• 46:16
  And it does get weirder. Because it's Weird, Al Yankovic,
• 46:21
  The Weird, Al finally, in a muppet production, the only
• 46:25
  other time he's ever with the Muppets before.
• 46:26
  This was appearing in an issue of Muppet magazine and in the
• 46:30
  80s, which barely counts. I don't know why it took this
• 46:34
  long for him in the Muppets to cross paths, but we are very
• 46:37
  grateful for it. How did this come about didn't
• 46:40
  work on anything? Adam, that's not true.
• 46:42
  I should say he should have been in my favorites, Wizard of Oz
• 46:44
  but you didn't get Adam had something to do with it.
• 46:48
  This was a crazy one. We you know, we knew we wanted
• 46:51
  someone who was iconic and prolific and so when we hit on
• 46:55
  Weird Al would like it has to be right.
• 46:57
  It has to be Weird Al and he was on tour, you know, ideally,
• 47:02
  we're going to have someone show up and be there with Floyd, but,
• 47:07
  you know, such was the problem with trying to make this show,
• 47:11
  the availability of, you know, so many of the cameos was a very
• 47:15
  difficult thing, but we really needed Weird.
• 47:17
  Al There anyway. Okay, we'll even do it.
• 47:20
  A green screen. It's either going to be a force
• 47:23
  ghost, right? Like a spirit ghost, right?
• 47:25
  Yep. Or it'll be Mufasa from The Lion
• 47:28
  King if he's down to do it so that way we can remotely set up
• 47:32
  a green screen and could do it and he was totally down.
• 47:34
  He was on tour. He was in I think Upstate New
• 47:36
  York or something. Yeah I can rap.
• 47:38
  But thank goodness. Adam knew him and had worked
• 47:41
  with him had him on the show, you know.
• 47:44
  So there was a good connection there and he was a great sport
• 47:47
  about it and yeah it was it A day of a performance and he just
• 47:49
  gave us, multiple takes. We're like, look, we want to two
• 47:52
  ways when we did Mufasa. We wanted all Mufasa.
• 47:55
  So really serious, and James, Earl Jones e, and then one is a
• 47:59
  like shit. What are you doing?
• 48:01
  You know, and I, he just gave for each of these.
• 48:04
  He gave multiple takes in multiple voices, sensually.
• 48:08
  And I just felt terrible for whoever was seeing him that
• 48:11
  night because he may not have had a voice.
• 48:13
  So, I actually saw him perform a couple days later.
• 48:17
  He was here in New York. He where I live and I was
• 48:21
  coincidentally, I was Kermit. The Frog was performing at
• 48:25
  Lincoln Center. He was doing something with
• 48:27
  choir choir choir. And, you know, I got invited to
• 48:30
  come backstage and say hello to Matt and I'm like, okay.
• 48:33
  But I gotta run because I'm literally running to Carnegie
• 48:35
  Hall to see Weird Al right now. And he was like, oh interesting
• 48:40
  because we may have done a thing that I'm allowed to tell you,
• 48:44
  and I'm going like, oh my God, you met him and he's going I
• 48:47
  didn't meet him. I'm like okay, Matt wink, wink
• 48:49
  either. You didn't meet him, he's like,
• 48:50
  no, I actually never, I've never met the man and I'm going okay,
• 48:54
  you know like I don't know if it's true or not that he was the
• 48:57
  time he was being so cagey but now I know and I know all the
• 49:00
  secrets, very cool. He we do now is not our Premier
• 49:03
  and that was a little star-struck.
• 49:06
  I think. Yeah, I would Premiere.
• 49:08
  Yeah. Meatball or I got to.
• 49:10
  Yeah, Maddie. And I met him.
• 49:12
  Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I hope that means that you all
• 49:15
  have them on speed dial now and we'll get him in.
• 49:18
  The projects to build houses and that no.
• 49:22
  Oh, no. All right.
• 49:23
  He's my phone in a series of selfies that if he wasn't going
• 49:28
  on it. Hey mr.
• 49:30
  Al mr. Weird.
• 49:34
  So anyway, Floyd has this whole Great Exchange with Weird.
• 49:37
  Al, it's wonderful. It's very Lion.
• 49:39
  King e, it's great. And then as he disappears, a
• 49:42
  muppet Cactus appears behind him and notes that they did a line.
• 49:48
  I'm King thing and Floyd gives him a big hug and this Cactus
• 49:52
  has a name, which is rare for a cactus.
• 49:54
  I think any Cactus his name is Davis.
• 49:58
  Where does the name Davis come from?
• 50:01
  That's what I call Dave goals. You calm Davis.
• 50:07
  Great. I have no follow because me
• 50:11
  Willis. Yeah, he calls me Willis Willis
• 50:15
  in Davis on Davis. That's a thing.
• 50:18
  So did you come up with that on the day, like your because you
• 50:22
  who performed the cactus? Correct bill?
• 50:24
  Yeah, yeah. So were you just like I'm going
• 50:26
  to remember. I don't think it was in the
• 50:28
  script and we put the name in The Script.
• 50:29
  I can't remember. No, no, I did it on the Disney
• 50:32
  just threw that in. Yeah, just a little devil bit
• 50:35
  great. Do you remember?
• 50:36
  A lot of discussion about what the cactus was going to be like
• 50:40
  with our production designer because it wasn't an actual
• 50:43
  Cactus found in Joshua Tree, right?
• 50:47
  And my like, it's okay. Yeah, it's in his life.
• 50:50
  You gotta love the attention to detail and the care and the
• 50:52
  fastest way I hate this episode because it's so unrealistic.
• 50:56
  Never have a talking Cactus like that God, really blue.
• 51:00
  So he is the cactus to later when we see Floyd is hugging a
• 51:03
  cactus and it looks like a real Cactus, is that?
• 51:06
  So Our doctor. What is that?
• 51:08
  That's not how in Joshua Tree that type of.
• 51:10
  That one's not know. That was a discussion, I'm
• 51:12
  sorry. What's the puppet that was going
• 51:14
  to the problem. It was the cactus he was going
• 51:16
  to be hugging, but that's not a real Cactus.
• 51:19
  And that's what of the Joshua tree, right?
• 51:21
  I see, right. But only because we only had the
• 51:23
  cactus puppet right based on the puppet.
• 51:26
  Yeah, right. So I, we had the right idea, is
• 51:29
  a cactus that fit our puppet, right?
• 51:31
  The real life Davis. Yeah.
• 51:32
  That's it. Yeah, this is all in the new
• 51:34
  book. So you want to make a Muppet
• 51:35
  Show? Okay, exactly the Davis Cactus
• 51:39
  biography. Wonderful I can't wait Cactus
• 51:42
  story any day now Floyd is covered in Needles from the
• 51:47
  cactus, I don't know anything about puppet building or Pump It
• 51:50
  maintenance. But I would imagine that
• 51:53
  sticking a puppet. Full of needles is probably not
• 51:56
  a good thing for its longevity. Is that not a thing?
• 51:59
  You just like screw it, we'll just put a bunch of needles in
• 52:01
  them and take them out and he'll be fine.
• 52:05
  Peter did you see him? Cuz I think what they did was,
• 52:09
  if I maybe I'm wrong but I think the needles that actually go
• 52:12
  into him or very thin and the thicker thing is, you know, it's
• 52:18
  an inch from, you know what I mean, it sticks in, it looks
• 52:22
  like they're bigger than they are going into the the phone
• 52:25
  part. I think they're very Pin Needle
• 52:28
  lipstick. That's an acupuncture and
• 52:29
  episode episode. The first Second two or three.
• 52:35
  Yeah, yeah function Cactus ones. Look thicker, you know, certain
• 52:50
  that makes sense to me, doesn't mess him up too much and then we
• 52:54
  check in with dr. Teeth.
• 52:56
  His trip is taking the form of a completely different medium.
• 52:59
  He is stop-motion, animated. He can like take his head off.
• 53:04
  Enroll dramas arms. He gets trapped inside of a cage
• 53:07
  of a giant piano keys which turns out to be a big gold ring
• 53:10
  because he's trapped by Penny who also shows up in
• 53:12
  stop-motion, animation picks him up and throws him down.
• 53:16
  The animation is done by stop-motion Studios, stupid
• 53:19
  buddy, I'm, which is run by a couple friends of mine.
• 53:23
  And so, when we knew we were doing an animated sequence, we
• 53:26
  thought, maybe we could go to them, I've cut their reels, I
• 53:28
  cut their Studio, real stupid, bloody stupid real to dare to be
• 53:31
  stupid, so it all comes to play right back to where now, can you
• 53:36
  imagine what can you mention, what Donna?
• 53:38
  What they've done. So people know that sure.
• 53:40
  They it's Robot Chicken. They do Robot Chicken.
• 53:45
  They do a ton of commercials. They do.
• 53:47
  Let's see. Super mansion they've done.
• 53:50
  Done the Lego movie opening title, closing sequence.
• 53:54
  Oh cool. Yeah credits.
• 53:57
  Yeah, they're the kings of stop motion.
• 53:59
  And this was just amazing. We visited the studio while they
• 54:02
  were animating it. Yeah.
• 54:03
  Literally just a trick, you know, just to see these puppets
• 54:07
  in a different puppet form you know.
• 54:09
  Yeah. These yeah 12 inch are matured
• 54:11
  puppets and just see people like laboring over them.
• 54:15
  It was amazing their work, that's cool.
• 54:17
  It's a great sequence Danger. To give notes, you know, like a
• 54:23
  note isn't an easy thing in the world to stop motion because
• 54:27
  start over. Yeah.
• 54:29
  It's like yeah. Puppeteers are impatient
• 54:32
  animators like I don't have the patience to be an animator.
• 54:35
  I wanted. I wanted to happen now you're
• 54:37
  real time. Animation real-time animators.
• 54:39
  Yeah, this is those couples. Okay.
• 54:41
  So I've also have some very dear friends who I would argue have
• 54:44
  the best stop motion. Oh, no.
• 54:47
  Los Angeles. All right, would be screen, Ava.
• 54:49
  Fight fight. I'm saying that I not us.
• 54:51
  Not us. Yeah.
• 54:52
  Yeah, very slow. Fight one.
• 54:54
  Third of a second at a time. Yeah.
• 54:56
  He doesn't have to do it speaking of which how long like
• 55:01
  so what like how long was the production process for just a
• 55:03
  few minutes of Animation because I know you probably had to give
• 55:07
  it to them, give them months. I would, I would guess I don't
• 55:10
  have any frame of reference but you know they can't just do it
• 55:13
  and they give it to you a few days later.
• 55:14
  They got to do it every second at a time, would you say it was
• 55:18
  a month or so? I say, like the first time, we
• 55:21
  started to see pieces was probably all maybe three weeks
• 55:27
  in, right? I think when we first started to
• 55:29
  see something and then it was it was probably six weeks or
• 55:33
  something. Maybe 20, got the script.
• 55:35
  We have written it all out in script form then they give us
• 55:38
  back storyboards and I think they gave it to us as an
• 55:41
  animatic. So yes the drawing version of
• 55:45
  this scene and that's their game plan on how they're going to
• 55:48
  animate it. And We had a few notes here and
• 55:51
  there, and then do that. And then they send the
• 55:53
  character. So we could see what they look
• 55:55
  like little Muppet Studios, looked at the different pieces
• 55:58
  and we will, we all looked at those.
• 55:59
  Just, you know, that get those approved, right?
• 56:02
  Like the he did, he didn't have his hunch, I remember.
• 56:06
  So we asked them if they could give teeth his hunch, you know,
• 56:08
  he's more straight up kind of thing and just little things
• 56:11
  like that, but boy, they were amazing.
• 56:14
  Yeah, and then you would get these shots done and you sort of
• 56:17
  have to view them out of context.
• 56:19
  But having fun because we did, we also did all the dialogue
• 56:23
  first. So they were animating to the
• 56:27
  voices, I look sure. Yeah, interesting.
• 56:30
  Well, when we cut back to the real world, dr.
• 56:33
  Teeth is now embedded up to his waist, in the sand.
• 56:36
  And move is move is pulling on his arms, and they stretch way
• 56:43
  out of the old dr. Teeth puppet used to do in the
• 56:46
  first season The Muppet Show and mooc is another great line
• 56:49
  reading. He's like that.
• 56:49
  They supposed to do that. Those great.
• 56:52
  This is I'll just say this is probably the moment I lost my
• 56:58
  mind. One time.
• 57:01
  Why is that? Tell me more can't believe
• 57:04
  you're gonna go there are Bill. Well, why not?
• 57:06
  I mean I won't say what I said but if the meme of it.
• 57:09
  So there is a mean that was created by the amazing year
• 57:12
  again, but I was underneath this table as we all do all the time
• 57:18
  but under the table dr. Teeth Through there, waiting
• 57:23
  there, sand dropping, I'm underneath there waiting, and
• 57:26
  there's all kinds of things going on right cameras, moving,
• 57:32
  trying to line up a shot. People crossing in front of, and
• 57:35
  I'm thinking, we're ready to go. But there's conversations, I can
• 57:39
  hear people over here, talking giggling.
• 57:41
  Happen is all kind of, and I'm waiting.
• 57:45
  I'm just thinking. Okay, this is gonna be long.
• 57:46
  I'm just, uh, I'm good. I'm good.
• 57:47
  I'm waiting there. And finally, I just snapped, I
• 57:50
  thought, Nothing is really happening.
• 57:53
  We're all just kind of, I think we're all exhausted.
• 57:57
  People are trying to breathe for a minute and I just thought I'm
• 58:00
  still here, you know, and I lost it.
• 58:02
  And I screamed at the top of my lungs and it went silent, the
• 58:06
  plays, this stage would silent Jurgen looked at me like, like I
• 58:12
  was gonna, you know, kill him. He was underneath with me.
• 58:16
  Who else was down there? I can't remember, maybe Leslie,
• 58:19
  and it just went quiet, then all of a sudden.
• 58:21
  It was like okay the cameras lined up and everybody got and a
• 58:27
  Ross Novi. Our first day D came under.
• 58:29
  Okay, okay, we're going to go now.
• 58:30
  Here we go, we're going to go everyone, is it was extra nice
• 58:34
  to Bill after that I've ever. I don't think I've lost it.
• 58:38
  Peter, have I lost it? I've never seen you lose it like
• 58:41
  that but it was deservedly. So is late at night.
• 58:43
  You couldn't hear it. Underneath there is super uncool
• 58:47
  and did you have your arm up the whole time?
• 58:49
  We were you stuck at these Is stuck inside.
• 58:52
  Yeah, I could get out. So anything that was taking a
• 58:55
  long time, was infuriating. Yeah, I was.
• 58:57
  I didn't want nobody else and come in, you know, I was trying
• 58:59
  to keep it so we could because I had already said, can we just
• 59:03
  like, let's get set and get ready?
• 59:05
  Because when I go in there, we don't want all the Sanic, like,
• 59:07
  well, you just got to go for it. I'll stay in there, we'll get
• 59:09
  through it, will do several takes and but and they were
• 59:12
  like, okay, here we go. And then it was just like,
• 59:14
  people haven't cast, everybody felt terrible.
• 59:18
  No, nobody blamed him for losing it.
• 59:22
  I'm glad to hear. It's a rare occurrence, both
• 59:23
  both for the annoyance and for the outburst.
• 59:28
  And we were able to move on and get a great shot of dr.
• 59:30
  Teeth stuck in the Sands with stretchy arms.
• 59:34
  Well done. Yes, on the ride home, the the
• 59:38
  band are also feeling tired and maybe a little frustrated and
• 59:43
  I'm accomplished here. But Floyd starts fiddling around
• 59:46
  with his guitar dr. Teeth joins in Lily when she
• 59:50
  sits With Moog, after everybody's had their
• 59:54
  experience, and she comes over, and she sits with Moog and she's
• 59:58
  supposed to be better and she sees JJ sitting there in place
• 1:00:02
  of Moog, and then she gets up and she starts to fly around and
• 1:00:08
  so good. She did those, those bird noises
• 1:00:11
  on her own chirps, he's chirps and things, you know, and also
• 1:00:16
  we had talked about like, how she's.
• 1:00:19
  Is there something? She Could do that.
• 1:00:23
  You don't recognize right away, but that you think she's still
• 1:00:27
  kind of having her hallucinations, or something's
• 1:00:30
  going on, but not too much. And so, we tried it at different
• 1:00:33
  levels, but if you notice, she kind of, like, licks, her teeth
• 1:00:38
  a little bit, like she has, like, like something's going on
• 1:00:41
  in I'll go. How did you describe it to her,
• 1:00:44
  like, Harry teeth or something? Like you have hair growing on
• 1:00:47
  your teeth or? Yes.
• 1:00:49
  I'm like, give Harry teeth. Yeah.
• 1:00:51
  That is so specific and so weird and she said, oh yeah, no, I got
• 1:00:56
  it. Yeah, she got it but when you
• 1:00:58
  use it that much but it's just a hint there.
• 1:01:00
  You'll see a little hint of her like doing a little thing, but
• 1:01:05
  she's so good. She's amazing, she is.
• 1:01:08
  Yeah, but yes, but the band back in the Vans, they, they just go
• 1:01:12
  ahead and on the Fly, Right gonna get there.
• 1:01:16
  The their new song there they've broken through to the other
• 1:01:20
  side. And they're done with their
• 1:01:24
  writer's block and then get back in the studio and record while
• 1:01:27
  they're singing. The song Zoot is going through
• 1:01:29
  all of his Polaroids of his shot on the desert.
• 1:01:32
  And we see he got shots of all this weird hallucination, loose,
• 1:01:35
  Natori stuff. You know, the multiple Janice's
• 1:01:38
  baby animal Weird. Al was a real, is it just Zoots
• 1:01:42
  reality who's to say? We can just leave that up to the
• 1:01:45
  audience. You're all nodding?
• 1:01:47
  I assume. That's the correct answer.
• 1:01:50
  Yeah. And yeah, it seems like
• 1:01:53
  everything's going pretty well for them and then the doorbell
• 1:01:56
  rings. Nora goes to answer it, and who
• 1:02:00
  is it? It's dr.
• 1:02:02
  Teeth parents, they are here to take him home.
• 1:02:04
  Oh, what's a cliffhanger Disney? Plus is going to love this?
• 1:02:09
  My kids watch this episode, they got to this point and they
• 1:02:13
  freaked out there like we have to do, we have to keep going
• 1:02:17
  back to see what they look like. And I was like, oh, that's good.
• 1:02:22
  Good good. If only this show is released
• 1:02:26
  week-to-week that would have been such a great conversation
• 1:02:29
  to have for like a full week of like what do you think we're
• 1:02:32
  looking look like like did you recognize the voice performers?
• 1:02:34
  Who is it? I want to go back for one second
• 1:02:37
  and not to toot my own horn. Horn.
• 1:02:39
  But this was just such the one of the greatest moments of
• 1:02:41
  working on the show was that I was able to co-write that going
• 1:02:45
  to get their song. Linda was like, okay I'm working
• 1:02:48
  on the song and I sort of listed what the songs were for each
• 1:02:51
  episode and sort of Road out. Here are the ideas here, sort of
• 1:02:56
  the imagery from the episodes. But for that one, I had sent
• 1:02:59
  over. I was like, I just was fussing
• 1:03:01
  around. Here are some lyrics?
• 1:03:03
  Yeah, and she came back onto a call one day and she's just
• 1:03:06
  like, okay. And then there's this song going
• 1:03:08
  to get there. Jeff I loved your lyrics.
• 1:03:10
  So I use them and I remember being on a zoom and one of our
• 1:03:14
  producers, Chris ebers just like exclamation points, you know,
• 1:03:17
  private chat message to me and it was amazing.
• 1:03:23
  It was just an amazing thing and she turned into this, you know
• 1:03:26
  my favorite song. Well and then you guys
• 1:03:28
  collaborated off of that meaning to write didn't you kind of a
• 1:03:31
  little bit of back and forth make yeah they were back and
• 1:03:33
  forth. I think one of the layers you
• 1:03:35
  know don't hit the brake a the better and okay.
• 1:03:37
  And I was like I like Hit the don't hit the brakes.
• 1:03:41
  It was just like it's road trip imagery.
• 1:03:43
  It's about being stuck, its Beginnings, middles and ends and
• 1:03:47
  writer's block so it sort of doesn't Encompass.
• 1:03:50
  Yeah. Everything that's going on in
• 1:03:51
  this episode and it sounds like an Electric Mayhem song.
• 1:03:55
  Like it's not just a severe but it does but it's write a song.
• 1:03:59
  Yeah. My wife loves country music and
• 1:04:01
  I don't I mean I do but I'm not a huge country fan like she is
• 1:04:06
  and she's like you know you wrote a country music song.
• 1:04:09
  Or I feel like a band and electric country song if that
• 1:04:15
  helps totally little bit. Since I only get to do one of
• 1:04:18
  these, you get these chuckleheads for all 10, but can
• 1:04:21
  I give you a couple more lips Easter eggs that I have not?
• 1:04:23
  I was just gonna ask you for that.
• 1:04:26
  Yes, please. Okay, well there's there's
• 1:04:31
  several with his wardrobe. The first one I give you is he
• 1:04:35
  wears one t-shirt that says Eldon Elementary and I don't
• 1:04:40
  know if you ever get to see it. I haven't actively looked for it
• 1:04:43
  but there's an elder in elementary school.
• 1:04:45
  That's a reference to. I went the street that the
• 1:04:48
  studio was on when they shot the Muppet Show.
• 1:04:49
  Is that, am I right? Oh my God.
• 1:04:51
  I just want, I don't know. No, that's a good Easter egg.
• 1:04:55
  That's true. Oh, el dinero, then the Muppet
• 1:04:58
  Show zeldin Avenue Studios. It is Eldon.
• 1:05:02
  There's one he wears, it's a circular emblem, and it says, it
• 1:05:05
  says DeKalb, I think DeKalb County brass Brass Band
• 1:05:10
  Festival, 1967. I grew up in DeKalb County,
• 1:05:13
  that's why DeKalb County and 67 was the year.
• 1:05:15
  I was born. That's a cute one and the big
• 1:05:18
  one that is definitely you can see and I think some folks have
• 1:05:20
  found it very recently, he has a t-shirt that says tutor Street
• 1:05:24
  trumpet company which is a nod to my character cutter from bear
• 1:05:27
  in the blue house and actually even on the T-shirt embedded if
• 1:05:30
  you take a freeze frame or take a picture of the screen, zoom in
• 1:05:32
  real close, you can see a little blue cutter.
• 1:05:37
  Yeah, we we spotted the the taller one, just the other day
• 1:05:39
  and we are very tempted to make some of our own in human-sized,
• 1:05:45
  not just lip sighs. The be a really deep kind Danny
• 1:05:50
  Iglesias of see if she would do something like that for us.
• 1:05:52
  She designed all of all of lips has t-shirts.
• 1:05:55
  I know we were amazing for this one and I've said it before.
• 1:05:58
  But just what he did with lips is just amazing.
• 1:06:03
  It's just such a delight and nothing.
• 1:06:05
  Really. Could have been prepared for
• 1:06:07
  what he you brought to this character.
• 1:06:11
  It's just I mean I hope we get a season 2 if only to just have
• 1:06:15
  more of lips and you know this characterization just a blast
• 1:06:19
  and I could tell already fans love him as I think I was
• 1:06:23
  promising. You like you know, Peter you
• 1:06:26
  promised me but I was I was nervous because this is a, this
• 1:06:29
  is a this is kind of Uncharted Territory, taking it home for a
• 1:06:32
  Muppet character that people kind of know.
• 1:06:35
  I mean I haven't been but Bands know, for sure.
• 1:06:38
  And how are they going to react to this kind of completely loved
• 1:06:41
  him? Yeah, it was just like a
• 1:06:42
  knee-jerk response. I remember like people like
• 1:06:44
  what? I don't know about this
• 1:06:46
  mumbling. There never have been from Deep
• 1:06:48
  from the d23, perform? Yeah, I don't know about this.
• 1:06:51
  Yeah, I will say like, coming from the fan, the fan
• 1:06:53
  perspective. You know, number one, we were
• 1:06:55
  afraid of change changes scary. Not that the Muppets don't have
• 1:07:01
  a history of that you know Janice specifically we're
• 1:07:03
  talking about Mayhem, it went through a huge change in her
• 1:07:05
  first. Year.
• 1:07:07
  But the thing I was worried about was Will mumbling get old
• 1:07:13
  like? Is it, is it the same joke over
• 1:07:15
  and over again? As Peter?
• 1:07:17
  You are a talented of performer that's you've never repeated the
• 1:07:21
  joke like every time you do it, it's because something
• 1:07:24
  completely different which makes me to just point really excited
• 1:07:27
  for potential season 2 or whatever.
• 1:07:29
  Is next for lips to see. Like where's he going to take it
• 1:07:32
  next? What else is he going to do?
• 1:07:33
  What else is he going to say? How else can we?
• 1:07:35
  Can we Play with this new toy of his mumbling.
• 1:07:40
  So so yeah, like that. I think you did a wonderful job
• 1:07:44
  and I go back to another thing with left side.
• 1:07:45
  Now judge all Muppet, Mayhem merchandise, or just Electric
• 1:07:49
  Mayhem merchandise by if they include lips are not for Jeff to
• 1:07:57
  your point. Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  Right. And he met him, merge to the
• 1:07:59
  doesn't have lips in the band. Yeah.
• 1:08:01
  I mean I there's some amazing imagery and great t-shirts but
• 1:08:05
  I'm just like Well I'm only going to buy something for the
• 1:08:07
  has lips on it or the band's. We got into the backstories for
• 1:08:12
  a couple of the characters on this season but we didn't get
• 1:08:14
  into the backstory of lips. I'm not going to ask Jeff and
• 1:08:17
  Bill. What they have in mind obviously
• 1:08:19
  if we get to season two we hope to see that.
• 1:08:21
  But for you Peter did you have a head Canon of where lips comes
• 1:08:25
  from or what he did before the band and you wanted to tell me
• 1:08:29
  about it. I'm just curious if you have
• 1:08:30
  like a back story in your mind, No.
• 1:08:35
  Okay. There is the Dreadful honest
• 1:08:39
  answer. That's okay.
• 1:08:42
  Yeah, that's all right. Lips is a cipher.
• 1:08:44
  He's he's a blank slate. Well yeah and we were, he's
• 1:08:49
  growing as I'm growing and he did like these guys said with as
• 1:08:53
  we were shooting the series, I learned more about him as we
• 1:08:57
  went along. I'm I don't have formal training
• 1:09:00
  as an actor. I mean I make my living doing It
• 1:09:04
  but I didn't I it's very natural.
• 1:09:08
  That's okay. That's all right.
• 1:09:10
  Pobody's nerfect. It's fine.
• 1:09:11
  I don't know how to do process is what the steps listed.
• 1:09:15
  Sorry. You're just pissing or takes
• 1:09:17
  just smelling lemons and stuff. Yeah.
• 1:09:21
  Basically, I walk into a room and I am lips.
• 1:09:24
  I prepare right? You're very method names.
• 1:09:27
  Peter. Thank you so much for being
• 1:09:28
  here. It was such a treat to get to
• 1:09:30
  talk about lips with you and to really dive into this episode
• 1:09:33
  with you. And thank you for all the work
• 1:09:35
  you did for Muppets Mayhem. It really everything came out.
• 1:09:37
  So wonderfully and lips is such a joy, so, great job.
• 1:09:41
  I would thank you. I had so much fun.
• 1:09:44
  I had. This is one of my most favorite
• 1:09:46
  jobs in the history of me. Having a professional career in
• 1:09:50
  puppetry 31 years, there wasn't a day.
• 1:09:53
  I wasn't super excited to go to work on this show.
• 1:09:56
  I just absolutely loved every moment of it.
• 1:09:58
  And and I'm thrilled with the with the final result and so
• 1:10:02
  grateful to Bill and Jeff and Adam, and everyone who had a
• 1:10:05
  hand in creating the series. Thank you, fantastic.
• 1:10:09
  Yes. Well and thank you Bill and Jeff
• 1:10:10
  for being here, as well. We'll see you again next week.
• 1:10:13
  I'm up. Its Mayhem backstage pass.
• 1:10:19
  The Muppets may have backstage passes brought to you by
• 1:10:21
  topics.com produced written and hosted.
• 1:10:23
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• 1:10:25
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• 1:10:27
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• 1:10:30
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• 1:10:32
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• 1:10:35
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• 1:10:37
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• 1:10:43
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