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Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock - Ep. 208 "Colder Boulders" · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:09
  Hello and welcome to Fraggle Talk Back to the Rock, the
• 0:13
  unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by toughpix.com.
• 0:17
  This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle Rock Back to the
• 0:19
  Rock episode by episode, along with the talented producers,
• 0:23
  performers, writers and builders who helped put it all together.
• 0:26
  I'm your host, silly creature Johannes.
• 0:29
  Today we are talking about Season 2 Episode 8, Colder
• 0:34
  Boulders, in which Red Fraggle single handedly creates a domino
• 0:38
  effect of ecological disasters. This week, we're excited to
• 0:42
  welcome back to fabulous Fraggle Performers.
• 0:45
  First up, they are the puppets here who brings characters like
• 0:49
  Turbo Dooser, Balsam and the inexplicable fan favorite Coupe
• 0:53
  to life. It's Allie Eisner.
• 0:56
  Hello, Allie. Hello Joe, nice to see you
• 0:59
  again. Thanks for having me.
• 1:01
  Of course, what a thrill to have you here.
• 1:04
  And our 2nd guest needs no introduction, but she's going to
• 1:08
  get one anyway. The originator of Red Fraggle,
• 1:12
  the performer behind Icy Joe, and the keeper of the
• 1:16
  Encyclopedia Fraglia. It's Karen Prell.
• 1:19
  Hello, Karen. Hello.
• 1:22
  Hello, Joe Elliott, 2nd to see you.
• 1:26
  Miss you, Karen. I miss you.
• 1:28
  Oh. We had so many amazing
• 1:30
  adventures on this specific episode, I can't wait to talk
• 1:33
  about it. Oh, it's going to be great.
• 1:35
  So excited. And I was just telling you both
• 1:37
  before we got started recording, how important it was to me to
• 1:40
  have the two of you here together.
• 1:43
  I feel like when we recorded season 1 of this podcast, each
• 1:47
  of you were singing such high praises of the other.
• 1:51
  It was just so important to get you here to get to geek out
• 1:54
  together. So thank you both for being here
• 1:55
  for this episode. Oh, yeah.
• 1:57
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 2:00
  How long first of all, how long has it been since you 2 have
• 2:02
  literally seen each other in person?
• 2:04
  Like I don't, I don't actually have an idea of when you
• 2:06
  wrapped. So has it been a while?
• 2:09
  Was it February? Of last is that when we
• 2:13
  finished? Is that when we finished?
• 2:16
  We text every once in a while but.
• 2:18
  Yeah. In person, I think that was the
• 2:21
  last time we've tried to get some group stuff happening
• 2:24
  together to place. Oh no, Kieran, we played some
• 2:28
  Fraggle games online, didn't we? At some. .0 yeah, we had kind of
• 2:33
  a online reunion thing at some at some points and we're doing
• 2:40
  quizzes or playing some games or or something.
• 2:43
  That's right. Gosh, I can't even remember when
• 2:45
  that was, I think. That was last game or and it was
• 2:48
  kind of pun Joe. It was the questions were like
• 2:51
  kind of more tailored to say like out of the people you've
• 2:55
  worked with here or which Fraggle, like who would do this
• 2:57
  or that. And it was kind of fun because
• 2:59
  it was like a little family trying to, you know, call each
• 3:02
  other out for the weird injury. Oh, that's nice.
• 3:05
  Who, who, who set up the game? Like who wrote the questions?
• 3:08
  You did, didn't you? It's actually, it's this company
• 3:13
  called Steam, I guess, and they have this game called You Don't
• 3:17
  Know Jack or I guess. Oh yeah.
• 3:19
  Oh, the Jackbox games. I love them.
• 3:21
  It's Jackbox games, so it's kind of tailored to help you get, you
• 3:26
  know, layered personality questions about the people
• 3:29
  you're playing with, so. I know exactly what games you're
• 3:31
  talking about. Yeah, those, yeah, those
• 3:33
  personality games, I love them. They're so much fun.
• 3:35
  And and it's so fun to get a group of people together.
• 3:37
  I've, I've played them with groups of people in person, but
• 3:41
  also online now that they've, they've got, you know, doing,
• 3:44
  working like, like that. So you could be all over the
• 3:47
  planet and and laughing and having a good time together.
• 3:50
  It's it's really great. And I'm just glad that the
• 3:53
  Fraggle folks are all that that that relationship is so
• 3:56
  important to all of you that you're like, well, we still need
• 3:58
  some of this when we can't all be in Calgary together.
• 4:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was definitely a a, a quite a
• 4:05
  a family bond. Speaking of bombs, the two of
• 4:11
  you essentially teamed up to perform Red Fraggle.
• 4:15
  I know Karen Red is mostly your character, but Ali, correct me
• 4:18
  if I'm wrong, you were helping with like the right hands or
• 4:21
  performing Red when Karen is busy with Icy Joe or anything
• 4:24
  like that. Can you talk a little bit about
• 4:27
  how that partnership has evolved since the end of Season 1 and
• 4:31
  into Season 2 of Back to the Rock?
• 4:34
  Me. Either one of you if this is.
• 4:39
  I, I think, I think we've, we really expanded on on what what
• 4:47
  we were doing is as a team. This this time around, it's like
• 4:52
  we, we took it to the to the next level with, with, with Ali
• 4:59
  doing a a lot of pretty, pretty featured red red stand in work
• 5:05
  and some crazy, crazy assisting on the seal it up song.
• 5:12
  Oh my gosh, that was so insane. We were it was we were shooting
• 5:16
  late at night. We were running up and down the
• 5:19
  studio working up a sweat for, for all those gymnastics and,
• 5:24
  and all that choreography you were doing with the hands and
• 5:28
  the pointing and, and everything.
• 5:30
  It was just that was that was so, so much fun.
• 5:33
  And so you know what we, we kind of built on kind of our, our
• 5:40
  shorthand from the first season and we're able to just kind of,
• 5:43
  you know, do a few check in notes, do this, do that, OK, go
• 5:48
  and then just just run with it and, and see what happens.
• 5:52
  And it was. It was so much fun and it came
• 5:53
  together so well. Yeah, forget, forget
• 5:58
  intermittent fasting. All you have to do is record
• 6:01
  Steal it up with Karen. Yes.
• 6:04
  And then I think I lost about 15 lbs during the that was Karen
• 6:09
  was such a rock star. There was so much we did it in
• 6:12
  such a short period of time. And Karen was just so on her
• 6:16
  game, as she always is, and was just so precise.
• 6:20
  And there was a million fast moves just constantly.
• 6:24
  I remember telling Joe Karen how hard you were making me laugh
• 6:27
  because like every once in a while you'd look at me and you'd
• 6:30
  go woof like or whatever, and then you would take red off and
• 6:35
  there was like legit steam coming out of her butt sleeve
• 6:39
  like. I was I was, I was holding her
• 6:42
  by her puppet's sleeve and fanning the top as like smoke is
• 6:47
  coming out like after these tastes she was getting so so she
• 6:53
  she I was sweating on the outside and red was sweating on
• 6:56
  the inside. Joe, like I'm sure you know
• 7:00
  that, like with with puppets, hey, like especially too, and
• 7:04
  you have your own character that you're using a lot of times.
• 7:06
  And I can't say this because like my Manny guy is a dozer,
• 7:09
  but those those sucker get those suckers get real sweaty and hot
• 7:12
  in there. Is do they have a way of like
• 7:15
  cleaning them from the inside and there must be they?
• 7:18
  They have, they have ways of, of refreshing them.
• 7:21
  And we and we do have several different versions of the, the,
• 7:27
  the characters. So if, if one just needs to kind
• 7:32
  of, you know, cool down and get refreshed, we got another one.
• 7:35
  And, and we also use those if we have like a big rigging changes
• 7:39
  or costume changes, then it's then it's easy to, to pick up
• 7:43
  another one and, and, and keep going.
• 7:46
  But yeah, that, that's on. We, we were shooting.
• 7:49
  It was one of those things. It was a very special camera set
• 7:53
  up and environment set up and lighting set up.
• 7:57
  And it was, it was one of those things that once it was all all
• 8:01
  together, it, it, it took a while and then, then we, we went
• 8:07
  a bit late shooting this and it was just just like, just go,
• 8:11
  just shoot it. Just get, get it, get it going,
• 8:13
  get it going. And Johnny came up with this
• 8:15
  amazing choreography for, for the song, all the head banging.
• 8:21
  And so he, he, he walked us through it and, and Ellie and I
• 8:27
  were basically, we, we were just kind of running up and down this
• 8:30
  runway and in the background, Fraggles were, were doing, doing
• 8:35
  their head banging. And we just did that over and
• 8:38
  over and over for probably a couple hours.
• 8:41
  I was. Yeah, that would do it.
• 8:42
  Yeah, that would, that would. Yeah, 'cause we, we had to
• 8:44
  finish it once, like, oh, we'll finish it tomorrow.
• 8:46
  I was like, you know, we gotta finish it tonight, OK?
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  And oh what what a blast. What a blast.
• 8:53
  Ended up looking so rad. It was so funny and.
• 8:56
  Oh, yeah, all, all that, all that energy.
• 8:59
  It was, it was just kind of perfect it, it matched our
• 9:02
  energy performing. It matched the energy of what
• 9:05
  the fractals were doing, pretty much.
• 9:08
  Sure. Ali, as someone who performs
• 9:12
  sometimes performs someone else's character, how often do
• 9:15
  you, like put your hand in that red puppet and it's just damp
• 9:20
  and you're like, well, I have to, I got, I got to keep moving.
• 9:24
  There's no stopping. Karen is like, I mean you, I
• 9:27
  mean Karen, you know those too. This is like sometimes you work
• 9:29
  with puppeteers who don't wear deodorant and sometimes you wear
• 9:32
  with puppeteers too. Only shower once a week.
• 9:35
  I. Not naming names.
• 9:37
  Karen is an extremely hygienic person and she smells great.
• 9:45
  And I never put red in where I was like, oh God, you know, I
• 9:50
  thought you were going to say I thought you were you were going
• 9:52
  with that, that you put on red Fraggle and you're like, holy,
• 9:56
  Oh my God, I have red Fraggle on my hand like it or I don't care
• 10:01
  if there if it was sopping wet. I just couldn't believe red
• 10:03
  fraggle was on my hand. No, but Karen, Karen, it wasn't
• 10:07
  too sweaty at all. And they also have it's such
• 10:11
  there's, it's a caring set, you know, like physically in terms
• 10:15
  of everything from how they took care of things COVID wise, but
• 10:18
  also there was hand sanitizer everywhere too.
• 10:20
  So when you cause a lot of these puppets, especially the gaggles
• 10:23
  you share, right? So people were all sanitizing
• 10:26
  beforehand and stuff like that. And Karen is very, very
• 10:30
  thoughtful, always very thoughtful.
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  So. Puppeteering is a contact sport,
• 10:36
  so and you're and you're you're working on armpit to armpit.
• 10:40
  So yeah, you try to try to be think, think about the team, but
• 10:47
  usually like for for seal it up. That was just all me
• 10:52
  puppeteering the the puppet, but other other scenes where you've
• 10:56
  you stepped in to to do red, it hasn't been in in the middle of
• 10:59
  a, you know, all out workout. So so then you know the the the
• 11:04
  puppet is in in pretty pretty good shape.
• 11:06
  Oh yeah, always, always kind of cooled down.
• 11:09
  And even when she, you know, there's a couple of times here
• 11:11
  and there Karen will go. She's really hot inside right
• 11:14
  now. I'm like, I'll pre warn you, but
• 11:16
  no, she was never hot and gross. We call Red Red the Cadillac
• 11:21
  man. That is a beautiful puppet.
• 11:23
  She's built so beautifully. It's almost like they're a
• 11:26
  growling system. And is there a internal fan like
• 11:29
  a so beautiful? She's so beautiful.
• 11:33
  I can't she she's like she's I, I keep saying she's a, a
• 11:36
  Stradivari. She's a beautifully made musical
• 11:39
  instrument made by Raleigh Cruson, who made the original
• 11:43
  red Fraggle and then then made these the, the current red
• 11:48
  Fraggles that that we're using. And, you know, I just don't have
• 11:53
  to think about how to make the puppet do what I, what I do it
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  just, I, I think about it and it just happens.
• 12:00
  It just really just fits well and, and moves well.
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  And of course, beautiful, beautiful design by by Michael
• 12:08
  Frith with the, the colors and, and the, the, the hair.
• 12:12
  It's just an amazing toy, toy and musical instrument to keep,
• 12:17
  keep having fun with. And I'm just, I'm thrilled to be
• 12:21
  able to share that with, with, with Allie and, and have them
• 12:25
  have, have the fun of, of being Red And Ally, you do such a
• 12:28
  great job with, with doing this the stand in stuff for, for Red.
• 12:33
  When we start talking about the, that, that long scene with the
• 12:36
  icy Joe in Red, that was Ally doing a lot of the, a lot of,
• 12:43
  you know, in the in the Y2 shots, that was Ally doing a lot
• 12:46
  of the featured red stuff. And then later on in, in
• 12:50
  dubbing, you know, I was adding in Red's Red's voice afterwards
• 12:55
  and it's just really, really seamless.
• 12:57
  So thank you, Allie, so much for doing such a great.
• 12:59
  Job Karen, thank you for letting me put her on my hand.
• 13:04
  That day was that day was I know it sounds really silly to people
• 13:09
  listening or to even Karen, but that was a pretty special day
• 13:12
  and moment for me to be able to do that scene And, and I just I
• 13:17
  love, I love red so much that she feels like a friend and, and
• 13:23
  and she, she feels like Karen and when she's when she's moving
• 13:27
  around and, and it was really meaningful to me.
• 13:30
  And so those compliments mean the world to me.
• 13:32
  So thank you very much and Karen being like next to you around
• 13:37
  you. I just, I'm learning so much
• 13:39
  constantly. We all are from you.
• 13:41
  You're from Johnny's experience and it's, it's, it's, it's quite
• 13:45
  a gift. It's quite a gift.
• 13:48
  Yeah, it's, it's so, so exciting just to have this, this really
• 13:54
  inspiring next generation of, of puppeteers working, working with
• 14:00
  us and inspiring us. And, and, and, you know, just
• 14:07
  just just seeing what, what new things they, they bring to, to
• 14:11
  what we've been, you know, developing and nurturing for,
• 14:14
  for decades. And just to know that it's all
• 14:18
  the, all the characters and all, all the concepts are in, in
• 14:21
  such, such good, good hands. So it's a really, really joyful
• 14:26
  sharing experience. You rock Joe.
• 14:29
  Can I tell you just one thing too that was making me love
• 14:32
  rewatching this episode? Karen about Karen's typically I
• 14:37
  mean red is red is the meat of this show, right?
• 14:41
  So she's heavy in every episode, but like does the episodes with
• 14:45
  Icy are such Karen episodes? Cuz it's so much I see and so
• 14:51
  much Karen and I just like I just start laughing when I see
• 14:56
  Red and I see talking to each other because they're both these
• 15:00
  just like weird parts of Karen. Like these extra parts of Karen
• 15:05
  that are like having a conversation with each other.
• 15:08
  And the part that made me laugh, I think the hardest in that
• 15:12
  episode where the two of them are connecting, is in that long
• 15:15
  scene when Red jumps into Icy's arms and gives her a hug at the
• 15:21
  end. And she's like, oh, thank you.
• 15:23
  You know, Icy. And Icy's just, like, oh, God,
• 15:26
  would get up. Like, yeah, Icy doesn't.
• 15:28
  Like doesn't know what? To do with the hugs.
• 15:30
  Yeah. What's going on?
• 15:32
  Oh, what is this thing? I think I like it.
• 15:34
  Maybe, but I'm not sure. Yeah, it's.
• 15:37
  Just it's really, it's awesome watching Karen's characters play
• 15:41
  off each other there. It is so good.
• 15:43
  Very, very, very silly. This is exactly why I needed to
• 15:47
  have the two of you on this episode.
• 15:49
  Like it just OK. We'll talk more about that scene
• 15:51
  in a moment. Let's get into this view of this
• 15:53
  episode. We open on Fraggle Rock where
• 15:57
  the show takes place. The Gusty's are back.
• 15:59
  They're blowing people's hats off their heads.
• 16:02
  They're blow drying boobers socks, which he's at first
• 16:06
  excited about, but then the sock flies out of his hands and he
• 16:08
  says, well, serves me right for celebrating classic Boober.
• 16:13
  And Red is getting ready for a big dive off a Little Rock
• 16:17
  that's hanging over the the Fraggle pond.
• 16:19
  And each time she tries to jump off the Gusty's push her right
• 16:22
  back on. And my favorite part about this
• 16:26
  is when Red goes, Oh, well, I guess I'll stop for today.
• 16:30
  And like, she's trying to trick the wind and then jump and it
• 16:33
  doesn't work again. So I have to assume that this
• 16:37
  whole thing is done on the green screen or the blue screen in the
• 16:41
  cube, as people have been calling it.
• 16:43
  Was there anything special about the choreography of of having
• 16:47
  red jump not jump get blown around?
• 16:49
  It it was, it was tricky. It was tricky.
• 16:53
  Well, first of all, we had a, in addition to everybody wearing
• 16:56
  blue and a blue screen behind us, we had a version of her
• 17:03
  jumping rock that was painted blue.
• 17:06
  And, and then they, they lined that up with the position of
• 17:10
  where, where you would see the, the, the visible rock on on
• 17:15
  screen. So that gave us kind of a, a, a
• 17:19
  good idea of the, the geography that the Reds feet would be
• 17:22
  planting on and how far she could run before she was off the
• 17:24
  edge of it and where all the edges were.
• 17:27
  And, but that meant everybody had to kind of reach around this
• 17:32
  rock to perform everything. And this, you know, we, we, and
• 17:37
  we tried to prepare in advance and, and figure out what, what,
• 17:42
  as, as that scene escalates, how her, her movements and, and
• 17:46
  reactions escalate. And you rehearse as much as you
• 17:49
  can. And we even had that blue rock
• 17:51
  kind of set aside while they were shooting other stuff.
• 17:54
  I, I called together team team red on the, on the, the, the
• 18:00
  rock and I can't, I can't remember what, what did you do
• 18:04
  on that? Ellie on Oh goodness, There was.
• 18:07
  I think we had Ingi on feet and then maybe I was on hands, but I
• 18:14
  kind of remember maybe Kira in there too.
• 18:17
  Let's see, 'cause there was at one point and it and certain
• 18:21
  times we might shoot different angles and it's like a whole
• 18:24
  other set of whoever's available.
• 18:27
  I think at one point Ben Ben was doing the hands like he was out
• 18:32
  in front for one, one part of it with super long rods.
• 18:36
  So all of her gesturing is is been in blue reaching up around
• 18:41
  he's got the long arms reaching up around the rock and doing
• 18:44
  her, her arm gestures. And maybe it's either you or
• 18:49
  Kira on the the tail and back. So we just, we had all this
• 18:53
  stuff And so we rehearsed and figured out the beats And I
• 18:57
  think most of the for most of the takes, we tried to do it all
• 19:01
  the way through. And then a few times we had to
• 19:03
  kind of stop and reset per beat just to get things a little bit
• 19:06
  more clean. And then there'd just be a lot
• 19:08
  of choices in, in editing and, and it, it, it was kind of
• 19:12
  tricky because just trying to get the weight of the wind
• 19:16
  looking right with what we were doing with Red's body.
• 19:19
  But also in post, they would take her image and they would be
• 19:23
  able to manipulate that and kind of push her farther than we
• 19:28
  would be able to reach with, with the, the puppet.
• 19:33
  So it was like this, this, this whole juggling act of, of what
• 19:37
  was in camera, what was done in post and all the, all the, the
• 19:41
  puppeteers. But it, it, it came, it came
• 19:43
  together well, but it was, you know, one of those challenging
• 19:47
  old school things that I'm, I'm glad that we are, that we're
• 19:50
  still doing on, on this show. And just the, the, the nice
• 19:54
  thing about digital enhancements is is it can just that can help
• 19:58
  so much more with removing shadows and faces of of the the
• 20:02
  people wearing blue and removing all the, the, the rods and and
• 20:07
  arm wires. So you just have the the pure
• 20:10
  the pure puppet performance there.
• 20:13
  It's it's great cuz like another show would have just CGI D it
• 20:15
  like he would have just just animate the character.
• 20:18
  We gotta move on. We'll we'll we'll do it after
• 20:20
  the shoots over. But the fact that you all take
• 20:22
  the time to just like not not only think of OK, how do we make
• 20:26
  sure that that red's on the rock correctly and let's get I'm
• 20:30
  picturing like 10 foot arm rods. I don't know what Ben was
• 20:33
  actually holding, but that's what's in my head.
• 20:35
  They. Were pretty, they were pretty.
• 20:36
  They were pretty long. So if you think a lot of for,
• 20:39
  for, for, for some of her arm gestures, like when you see her
• 20:42
  full figure and the camera was way back, there's like long arm
• 20:45
  rods. And he was, he was doing that
• 20:48
  for, for like closer shots. Then there would be different,
• 20:51
  different armor odds and, and maybe different people.
• 20:53
  So, yeah. But yeah, it, it, it, you know,
• 20:58
  it's, it's, it's just fun having those, those problems to solve
• 21:02
  and having an awesome group of people to, to work together to,
• 21:05
  to solve them. Yeah.
• 21:07
  And how would you have done something like this, the
• 21:09
  original Fraggle Rock like when you know you don't have the same
• 21:13
  technological capabilities? Well, we did similar, similar
• 21:18
  things on frag Rock. So the characters just cause
• 21:20
  what we shot, the composite image was composited live on the
• 21:26
  original frag rock 40 years ago. So you know, still shooting
• 21:30
  against blue, but the characters would be more restricted.
• 21:35
  There was no post of oh, grabbing the image and
• 21:37
  manipulating it and also any shadows, any arm rods.
• 21:44
  You couldn't, you couldn't have someone with their face
• 21:49
  uncovered off to the side and get that cleaned up in post.
• 21:52
  Like everybody had their full masks on.
• 21:55
  And if you're doing something and saw like a really bad shadow
• 21:58
  or or someone's mask slipped and you saw a bit of skin floating
• 22:02
  in the air, then you'd have to stop and and do it again.
• 22:04
  So we did, we did what we could four years ago and, and we were
• 22:09
  still able to do some pretty, pretty amazing things.
• 22:13
  But but now we're, we're able to just take that idea and, and
• 22:17
  push it, push it even even more. And it's, it's quite, quite a
• 22:21
  relief to kind of take away some of the things that that we used
• 22:24
  to, to, to worry about and concentrate more on the still
• 22:28
  complicated, you know, full, full body performance part of
• 22:34
  part of the, the a fun problem. Yeah, right.
• 22:38
  Yes, It's very much a fun problem.
• 22:40
  Ali, were you going to say something earlier?
• 22:41
  Did I interrupt? You.
• 22:42
  Oh, yeah, the the team read that Karen is talking about like Ben
• 22:46
  that day. Yeah, I think he was on the
• 22:48
  Super long rods and he did such a great job.
• 22:51
  And Ben is such a great puppeteer.
• 22:53
  And he as you know, like the longer the rods, though the
• 22:57
  squirrelier it is to kind of very precise, you know, and the
• 23:02
  shorter the rods, the either are in control.
• 23:04
  But yeah, kind of a rotating cast of fun people helping Red,
• 23:09
  always doing her diving and and all her all her amazing fun
• 23:13
  dance and exercise stuff. But the great thing is that
• 23:16
  we're all learning all of Karen and Red's favorite moves and
• 23:20
  favorite dances. So when we get in there, we're
• 23:22
  more familiar every time with what Red's taste, you know, what
• 23:28
  her what her likes and dislikes are in terms of if she wants to
• 23:32
  to make. And and Karen's really great at
• 23:34
  directing us and practicing and, you know, enough time to kind of
• 23:38
  try to get it as as beautiful looking together as possible as
• 23:43
  a as a unit. So yeah, those moments are
• 23:46
  always really fun and. And that's you make a good point
• 23:48
  too, where the, the characters, I, I'm saying this as someone
• 23:51
  who is not, I'm not a performer, I'm not a puppeteer, but the
• 23:54
  characters do have a certain way that they move.
• 23:58
  And you know, like red does not move the same way as Wembley or
• 24:02
  Moki or Buber. And to learn like, it's one of
• 24:07
  those, like, what do I do with my hands?
• 24:08
  What do I do with my hips? And like, Karen, you know this
• 24:11
  innately because you are red, You, you, you created this
• 24:13
  character. But for someone like Ali, you
• 24:16
  would need to like try to figure out not just how do I see they
• 24:22
  move and replicate with my own arms, but how do I think the way
• 24:26
  you think so that I can do that without just imitating you.
• 24:30
  That's got to be difficult. It's like, for me anyway, it's
• 24:36
  it's I like to have it more a less of a thinking thing and
• 24:41
  more of a feeling thing. Like how does Red feel when she
• 24:46
  says this? Would she just put her hands on
• 24:48
  her hips at this moment when she's really proud or confident
• 24:51
  or a little bit pissed off, you know, at Lobo or whoever, or
• 24:56
  just getting super confident. But yeah, the more time that I
• 25:00
  spend with Karen and Red and the more I feel them throughout all
• 25:05
  the time working together, the more it the more it comes
• 25:08
  together for sure. But Karen, Karen is Karen is Red
• 25:14
  Fraggle through and through. And it's, you know, it's it's
• 25:20
  always really great to Karen's really great at, you know, after
• 25:23
  I've had her honor or whatever to come up and go.
• 25:25
  That was really awesome. You know, I love it.
• 25:28
  Do that just like that again or comes up and says, OK, when you
• 25:32
  walk in this time. How about, you know, so she's
• 25:34
  she's really she's a great communicator.
• 25:36
  And so she'll tell me what she wants and what she needs if she
• 25:39
  feels like it can grow slightly in a different direction because
• 25:42
  it's her and her character. So very, very supportive.
• 25:45
  So, yeah, that's, I guess that and that's, that's the that's
• 25:48
  like the dream scenario scenario when you're doing somebody
• 25:51
  else's character because otherwise, you know, without,
• 25:55
  without any feedback or guidance, you want to make sure
• 25:59
  you're doing, you're doing justice like to to Karen.
• 26:03
  So it's, yeah, it's, it's it's it's always great getting that
• 26:06
  feedback. Well, and, and, you know, just
• 26:10
  just working together and giving that that feedback is just a way
• 26:14
  to do do justice to and and show respect for everybody's
• 26:20
  contribution, everybody's work to this, this whole magical
• 26:24
  experience that we're that we're creating together and just
• 26:27
  trying to to to get it the best it can be under sometimes, you
• 26:30
  know, you know, challenging circumstances and, and to to
• 26:37
  celebrate when it when it really comes together and really works.
• 26:42
  Because sometimes you don't have control like, you know, over
• 26:44
  when you're spraying a bunch of but in one scene, I remember
• 26:48
  once we had to spray a bunch of what was it?
• 26:51
  It was like shaving cream or something.
• 26:54
  Oh, you never know. That was, you know, I.
• 26:58
  Think it was season 1. Uncle Matt brought back whipped
• 27:01
  cream and they had this rig to spray it and Oh my God.
• 27:09
  We kept trying a few things and then we realized, OK, that is
• 27:12
  just not going to work and we tried.
• 27:14
  We finally got something, but it was it was one of those fun.
• 27:19
  It's like, I don't have any idea how this is going to work.
• 27:21
  Let's figure out something and. But the outtakes are great.
• 27:25
  The outtakes are great and then you just you just have you just
• 27:29
  have fun, fun with it. And they they got enough to, you
• 27:32
  know, to to tell the story. But you know, in in between
• 27:35
  there's just whipped cream spraying everywhere and we're
• 27:37
  all just laughing ourselves silly.
• 27:39
  It's like this is so ridiculous. What are we doing?
• 27:41
  Are you? Sure, you know working and not
• 27:43
  just playing everyday. Yo, it's like we're the
• 27:48
  opposite. It's like red's really.
• 27:51
  And then just like out of the whipped cream fingers, it goes
• 27:56
  like hardly anything. This like dribbles a spit like
• 28:00
  nothing. I can't remember if they enhance
• 28:03
  it and this is something where it's good to fix it in post.
• 28:06
  I can't remember if they added something in post just to be a
• 28:09
  bit of a stronger spray or or. I feel like they had to because
• 28:14
  like the whole I mean I'm going off my now my fuzzy memory of
• 28:16
  season 1 because the characters are just being like doused with
• 28:20
  whipped cream. Like I remember like Gobo ends
• 28:22
  up with like the mustache and the goatee.
• 28:24
  He. He had, he had, yeah.
• 28:26
  He had the full, full mustache and everything, Yeah.
• 28:29
  Like no, no regular whipped cream can is gonna spray enough.
• 28:32
  To and and of course that was not actually whipped cream.
• 28:35
  It was it was a, you know, Fraggle.
• 28:37
  Fraggle safe something that they sure Fraggle we'll call it yes,
• 28:41
  yes, I. Don't know if that's what they
• 28:42
  call it. I just made that up.
• 28:44
  But it's alliterative, so it must be, right?
• 28:47
  Sure, right. Let's let's go on with this
• 28:51
  episode. We check in with the Doozers.
• 28:53
  The architect is saying that a Doozer who shall not be named
• 28:57
  accidentally released the wind that they were storing.
• 28:59
  And immediately Wrench was like, it's me and Turbo's like, and I
• 29:02
  helped. OK, so let's talk for a second
• 29:06
  about Wrench and Turbo. I love them.
• 29:09
  I've been saying to some of the other equally important people
• 29:14
  on these on this podcast, Can we get a wrench in Turbo episode in
• 29:19
  season 3? I want that so bad.
• 29:22
  Really cool Andy and a joke that they're like we make jokes about
• 29:29
  like spin off episodes that they're like Laverne and Shirley
• 29:34
  living it together in some basement environment.
• 29:37
  Just odd couple and he just he just cries at everything all the
• 29:43
  time. That's OK.
• 29:46
  I would actually love that if you got a spin off episode with
• 29:49
  these characters, but the genre of the episode was completely
• 29:53
  different from Fraggle Rock or like you go into a three camera
• 29:56
  sitcom or or something just completely bonkers and off the
• 30:01
  wall. I would like that.
• 30:03
  I'm just, I'm just putting that on to the universe.
• 30:06
  Turbo can be the Fonz. Oh, turbo's the Fonz.
• 30:09
  Yeah. Turbo's like the new, like OK,
• 30:13
  this is the spin off. Like we're telling the audience
• 30:15
  this is the spin off character that you will all love and if
• 30:18
  you don't then something is obviously.
• 30:20
  Wrong with everybody involved. Thanks for saying that about
• 30:22
  them. Andy and I have a really great
• 30:24
  time doing those two characters but the cool thing about season
• 30:27
  2 is that so many new Doozer characters were created and you
• 30:33
  know like Amy and Dan got to do these two super nerdy funny.
• 30:39
  What were they called again, Karen?
• 30:40
  It was like. Was that was that research?
• 30:42
  Research and development. Research and development.
• 30:45
  It was. It was Jordan.
• 30:46
  It was Jordan and Amy. Jordan and Amy, I'm so sorry.
• 30:49
  Jordan Rockford and Amy super funny.
• 30:52
  And then Kira did measure Doozer.
• 30:55
  Like there were so many funny like Doozers written into the
• 30:59
  second season. And so yeah, the Doozers are
• 31:01
  just. Hilarious.
• 31:03
  I I I love Wrench and and Turbo. They they they take the the dumb
• 31:09
  and Dumber thing to to joyful heights.
• 31:13
  I love Turbo's joy at, at whatever is happening and you
• 31:20
  know, all the joyful misunderstanding and, and just
• 31:24
  the, the, the Glee with, with, with, with, with what they're
• 31:29
  doing. It's, it's just, it's just, it's
• 31:32
  so, so entertaining. And I have to say it's not in
• 31:34
  this episode. I can't remember which it is
• 31:36
  season 2, but I can't remember. I think it's after a few
• 31:39
  episodes after this one. Well, I guess not just one of
• 31:42
  anything. There's kind of a Doozer
• 31:43
  industrial accident and Turbo gets splashed with something and
• 31:52
  lets out this incredible scream. I, I, I can't remember if I
• 31:58
  watched you shooting it. You know, it's a comic accent,
• 32:02
  of course comic accent. And it is like one of the most
• 32:08
  most incredibly silly, entertaining screams, I think,
• 32:13
  in the history of old and new Fraggle Rock.
• 32:16
  It is just so, so fun that that that scream you, you, you let
• 32:22
  out when all this stuff splashes on you.
• 32:25
  It was just amazing. And every, every time those
• 32:30
  those two show up, you know things are going to go wrong and
• 32:33
  you know it's going to be so funny and entertaining.
• 32:36
  And I love just how you and Andy grab it and and and run run with
• 32:41
  it and just, you know, just just make these these.
• 32:46
  Little these little. Snippets.
• 32:48
  Just so entertaining. And that's why we need they need
• 32:51
  to have their own episode. They're like this Morgan Stern
• 32:54
  and Gildenkrantz type of like, what are they doing in the
• 32:57
  background to like completely ruin whatever's happening in
• 33:00
  like the quote UN quote main story?
• 33:02
  And it's just like just follow them.
• 33:04
  Let them knock down some Domino's, let the chaos happen
• 33:07
  and then they they could just be gleeful about the whole thing.
• 33:10
  Because I that's, I think that's really what makes the characters
• 33:12
  for me is like, they're so happy to be complete mess ups, you
• 33:16
  know? They're, they're just through
• 33:20
  and through just two dingleberries.
• 33:22
  They are just total dorks. Total dorks.
• 33:25
  I remember that day. That was so fun.
• 33:27
  And kudos again, like to the, they're so on point always the,
• 33:31
  the props, the props team, you know, and all the special
• 33:35
  effects folks. The we had, I think we had, it
• 33:38
  was like down to the wire for shooting.
• 33:40
  We seriously had like 4 minutes or something, 5 minutes to get
• 33:43
  that one take where they were in these white outfits and wearing
• 33:47
  the face mask. They were wearing little face
• 33:49
  masks and then this, the red goo poured all over them and it
• 33:53
  just, it worked perfectly because.
• 33:56
  Oh yeah. And it was like it because it
• 33:57
  was such a major reset. It's like they pretty much there
• 34:02
  was limited time for, for, for. So maybe they did 22 takes and
• 34:07
  then that that was, that was kind of it 'cause they just had
• 34:09
  to kind of shut down the whole set and replace everything.
• 34:13
  But you got it. It was awesome.
• 34:15
  You got it. It's all that matters.
• 34:17
  You get the shot it. Was.
• 34:19
  Cool. The architect Doozer tells the
• 34:22
  rest of the Doozers that the strawberries have taken over the
• 34:25
  Gorg's garden. There are no more radishes.
• 34:28
  But before the Fraggles find out, let's help them get more
• 34:33
  radishes down here. And let's build a delivery
• 34:34
  system. It's going to be a whole lot of
• 34:37
  work. And of course, all the Doozers
• 34:39
  celebrate. It's great there's I have no
• 34:43
  notes about this, I just love the users loving work.
• 34:47
  Can we just say how awesome Architect is please?
• 34:50
  Oh again, of course. Architect and Cotter pen.
• 34:53
  Awesome, awesome double act, especially between between
• 34:57
  takes. You've probably heard that, that
• 34:59
  Johnny and Donna, they just go off on the Oh my gosh.
• 35:04
  They're improv. Donna Kimball and Johnny
• 35:07
  Tartaglia's improv in between takes as those two characters
• 35:11
  are bonkers. Like I cry, I cry, I'm crying.
• 35:18
  And then and then, you know, the in between stuff, they kind of
• 35:21
  build up this energy. And by the time that they
• 35:23
  they're shoot, it's so loose and it feels so good that their
• 35:26
  moments, they're such a good duo.
• 35:28
  They're such a great duo. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:31
  Yeah, again, like spin off, right?
• 35:34
  Like can we just get more of that?
• 35:35
  Also, I would love to see these these outtakes.
• 35:37
  I know that they're completely anachronistic.
• 35:41
  Oh, movie stars and stuff. But Johnny, full thing, he does
• 35:46
  this thing with Donna, he does this thing in between.
• 35:48
  It's always architect, architect saying, did cutter pin, cutter
• 35:54
  pin. Did I ever tell you about the
• 35:55
  time? It always starts with did I ever
• 35:57
  tell you about the time? And then it's just like I was on
• 36:01
  a yacht with Tina Yahders. And then it just goes like he'll
• 36:05
  just spout nonsense for 15 minutes.
• 36:09
  Or, or one, one time he was, he was Eric Estrada's pool boy,
• 36:16
  just like so when whenever Johnny starts seeing that
• 36:19
  everybody's like, OK, buckle up. Like we're gonna have, we're
• 36:21
  gonna have a good one. And then and then, then Donna's
• 36:25
  the, the, the, the straight one and just goes, goes with it.
• 36:29
  Yeah. And, and Johnny just let's,
• 36:31
  let's loose and it just, it's just so, so wonderful for, for
• 36:36
  everybody's spirit, especially when we're in the middle of just
• 36:39
  a long 'cause shooting the Doozers is, is challenging the,
• 36:42
  the shop and, and everybody works really hard to get them
• 36:46
  doing amazing things. But the Doozers are challenging.
• 36:50
  So we got Architect and Donna, or if we have wrench and Turbo,
• 36:55
  we know we're gonna we're gonna have fun to to keep us, keep us
• 36:58
  going through all that. Yeah, for sure.
• 37:02
  I don't want to add to John Tartaglia's workload because
• 37:06
  he's already such a busy guy, but I would love it if you wrote
• 37:08
  the autobiography of architect Doozer and just, like, get it
• 37:12
  all down in one place. Just the insanity of the life
• 37:17
  that he must have led. I.
• 37:20
  Just like in my in my hearts and hearts in my minds and minds, my
• 37:25
  dream come true is the is the back.
• 37:28
  Like I just hope that he is gayer than Christmas, that that
• 37:32
  Dozer, like architect Dozer, he is just so fabulous to me.
• 37:39
  I just yeah, I hope he's queer. But anyway.
• 37:42
  The episode where he talks about like his haircut and then he
• 37:46
  gets a wig. Like that's where it's starting
• 37:48
  to come out. He's just he's so like vain in a
• 37:52
  very specific way that not to say that that straight people
• 37:56
  don't get vain about those things as well, but it might
• 37:59
  explain a couple things anyway. Red Fraggle, remember her?
• 38:05
  She she's trying to ignore the Gusty's.
• 38:08
  It blows her right off of her hammock into Moki's bed.
• 38:12
  Moki asks if they're swapping beds, and if so, are they
• 38:16
  swapping personalities too, and she does a little impression of
• 38:20
  of Red. She goes, I love winning, but
• 38:24
  that was very cute. I I would love to see more of
• 38:27
  the Fraggles doing impressions of each other.
• 38:30
  I think that would be fun for me to see.
• 38:33
  Yeah, yeah, it's just all these, all these, these, these little,
• 38:37
  you know, and, and shows it that don't heavily focus on, on Moki.
• 38:42
  Just Donna finds these, these beautiful little, little moments
• 38:45
  just to have, have have fun and, and she's like a precision
• 38:51
  surgeon. She just kind of finds the, the,
• 38:54
  the right vocal and physical way to, to address things and just
• 38:59
  just make them shine and, and, and and sparkle.
• 39:02
  I'm just so, so impressed with with what she's doing with Moki.
• 39:08
  Moki Moki is such a star. She's like, she has just
• 39:12
  elevated everything. And I think I remember you guys
• 39:15
  just writing in a bunch of articles how she's such a like,
• 39:18
  Moki's such an MVP and she's just, she's so realized.
• 39:23
  Moki is such a realized character.
• 39:25
  She's, she's really amazing. It's especially impressive
• 39:29
  because Moki was such a realized character on the original show
• 39:33
  when she was performed by. Oh yeah, beautifully,
• 39:36
  beautifully. Beautifully, yeah.
• 39:38
  I mean, I love Moki from the original series, and it's hard
• 39:42
  for any of the performers to be picking up someone else's
• 39:45
  character. But Moki had, for understandable
• 39:48
  reasons, had to go through so many important changes to kind
• 39:51
  of update her for season for for Back to the Rock.
• 39:54
  And Donna Kimball not only handles that so well, but.
• 40:01
  She embodies that character with so much real life that what
• 40:05
  we're talking about right now about her being so fully
• 40:07
  realized is she's not a carbon copy.
• 40:09
  She's not a, well, we had to try to change a few things.
• 40:12
  And so she's a little like a little false to who she really
• 40:16
  is. It's no, absolutely not like she
• 40:18
  is a fully formed character. And I love, love, love watching
• 40:21
  her in a different way than I did.
• 40:23
  Kathy Mullins, Smokey. It's really cool because it's
• 40:27
  like, you know, yes, definitely both Moki's were are fully
• 40:33
  realized, but it's it's really cool.
• 40:35
  It's more that Moki just like people, they grow and they
• 40:39
  change and they blossom and they they become more of who they
• 40:44
  are. And, and so that's the way that
• 40:47
  I see Moki now, you know, Yes, yes, yeah.
• 40:52
  I love that. So Red is deciding to to solve
• 40:58
  this problem with these Gusty's, she's going to seal off the
• 41:01
  Great Hall. And so this is where we get the
• 41:03
  song that we mentioned before seal it up.
• 41:05
  It's like this head bangy pop song kind of rock song.
• 41:10
  My favorite part about it is there's this Fraggle like way at
• 41:14
  the top that's playing the drums and it's just, it's adding so
• 41:19
  much energy. And also, I'm sure you guys feel
• 41:21
  this a lot when there's a lot of Fraggles on the screen, but
• 41:24
  they're all on the same level. There's all this empty space at
• 41:27
  the top 2/3 of the screen and to give us something to focus on
• 41:31
  that's up there really kind of fills it in.
• 41:34
  Who is performing that drumming Fraggle do?
• 41:37
  You. Is that Andy and Amy?
• 41:39
  There is, there's a couple of different, they've changed it up
• 41:42
  a couple of times, but thankfully we had some, We have
• 41:46
  a couple of drummers in the Calgary crew.
• 41:50
  So I know that there was a few combinations.
• 41:53
  I know once there was Amy and oh goodness, it was, I think it was
• 41:58
  Amy. Could it have been Dean or Dean
• 42:02
  or Derek? Oh.
• 42:05
  And then and I think Andy did another drumming guy in another
• 42:08
  scene when we were walking. Oh yes.
• 42:11
  Yeah, that was a different thing.
• 42:12
  But yeah, the drum, that drumming guy up above, Oh my
• 42:15
  gosh, it's now slipping my mind. But we all, we all loved it so
• 42:19
  much that we were all like clapped after.
• 42:21
  Oh yeah, yeah. That's great, Yeah.
• 42:24
  It's like a real rock show, I mean.
• 42:26
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and of course, this this
• 42:30
  whole this whole song comes about from Red's go to response
• 42:35
  to something is there's a problem.
• 42:41
  I have to control it and I will not consult with anyone else and
• 42:47
  go into it 150% and and talk everybody.
• 42:53
  You know that you know, she, she gets people to to do what she
• 42:57
  wants. Jump in, do the song.
• 43:00
  Let's see what the, the, the, the Great Hall.
• 43:02
  But as as far as like consulting, Hey, would it, would
• 43:05
  it be a gonna? Should we?
• 43:07
  You know, it's like, no, that, that that's not Red's go to.
• 43:10
  She gets there eventually. It's it's always fun when when
• 43:14
  she has this first hugely entertaining flawed response.
• 43:18
  And of course, in this, this show, it's all about her flawed
• 43:21
  responses, building and building and building and things getting
• 43:24
  worse and worse and worse. And then finally realizing that
• 43:31
  she's got to approach things very, very differently and take
• 43:34
  others and the environment into, into account.
• 43:38
  And, and you know, as as usual that her, her, her first
• 43:41
  response is to, to, you know, go, go beg or go home.
• 43:46
  And of course, we, we got to demonstrate that with this, with
• 43:49
  this awesome, awesome song. Yeah.
• 43:52
  And, and, and, and all the again, and another very tricky
• 43:55
  technical thing getting, you know, visually communicating
• 43:59
  that they're that they're blocking up all the, the tunnels
• 44:02
  in into the Great Hall. So yeah, there was, there was a
• 44:05
  lot to to juggle to get get all that to, to work and and be be
• 44:09
  clear to the audience. Yeah, and it looks great.
• 44:12
  I mean, I've been trying to kind of note as I'm going through
• 44:17
  this series for the podcast, when there's these big musical
• 44:20
  numbers, how much behind the scenes work do I feel like
• 44:25
  there's there there is. And some have new sets or, you
• 44:30
  know, the CG enhancements or new props are built or things flying
• 44:33
  around or whatever it is. And some of them feel like all
• 44:36
  the work is being done by the puppeteers because like in this
• 44:39
  one, for example, it's just, you know, a couple of prop pieces
• 44:44
  and a lot of choreography and some flashing lights and that's
• 44:47
  it. And you have to convey not only
• 44:50
  the song and the message of the song is, is is trying to put it
• 44:53
  across, but the sense of energy. And like, this is a big deal.
• 44:57
  We're doing a big song for you with all this choreography, with
• 45:00
  all this like, you know, like all the movement that's
• 45:02
  happening on the screen. And I don't know, I'm, I'm just,
• 45:06
  I'm impressed by it. You know, I'm impressed by how
• 45:08
  you probably were given very little to work with, you know,
• 45:12
  in terms of props and and direction.
• 45:14
  And you're just like, we got to make it look good.
• 45:16
  Here we go. Yeah.
• 45:18
  And and this this is a situation once, once it was together in
• 45:21
  the edit, we realized could use because it it's such such kind
• 45:27
  of a hard cut into right into the song and all this stuff
• 45:29
  happening that could could use for for the audience, especially
• 45:34
  younger members, to be honest, a little bit more clarification of
• 45:37
  of Reds and intentions and and what she's doing.
• 45:41
  So there are a few times in in post where I added a little bit
• 45:46
  more of red, like when she finishes talking to Moki and
• 45:49
  she's running out to the Great Hall as as her like back is to
• 45:52
  Cameron and she's running out. I can't remember if she
• 45:56
  originally said anything or was just running up, but we added
• 45:59
  some dialogue to kind of explain things a little more.
• 46:02
  And even in the middle of the song, again, when read up and
• 46:04
  down the runway, which she's when her back is to camera,
• 46:07
  there's just a little bit more explanation added to remind
• 46:12
  people what what this was, was all about.
• 46:14
  So that that's kind of a typical thing usually happens once you,
• 46:17
  you get it all together and you've done all, all you can
• 46:20
  shooting, but you realize sometimes you just need a little
• 46:23
  bit more clarifying. Just find, find ways to to
• 46:27
  smoothly fit it in with, with, with what you've shot.
• 46:30
  And so that, that helped, that helped to pull it all all
• 46:34
  together and, and make it into a big, the, the big crazy
• 46:37
  experience that it is. Yeah, for sure.
• 46:40
  Yeah. So yes, Red successfully seals
• 46:44
  up the entire cave and the whole problem is fixed.
• 46:47
  The end. We did it.
• 46:48
  Congratulations everybody. And and she keeps saying that.
• 46:50
  She keeps saying problem solved every time.
• 46:53
  And of course it's not. And then she only makes it
• 46:56
  worse. But yeah, throughout the whole.
• 46:59
  So problem solved. Oh, no.
• 47:02
  Oh no. But.
• 47:03
  But but then it's not an Oh no inside, it's an Oh no.
• 47:07
  What else can I do to make it worse Again?
• 47:11
  Jumping, jumping to her default. Got to take control and do
• 47:16
  something even even bigger to to try to to force force things to
• 47:23
  her will. Yeah.
• 47:25
  She keeps going going in that direction.
• 47:27
  Yep. Because things immediately start
• 47:30
  to get warm, like right away, it's starting to get a little
• 47:33
  toasty. As a chef, Buber confirms things
• 47:36
  are officially fully toasty, bordering on.
• 47:43
  Yes, and, and, and all of us as we were chatting about the, the,
• 47:48
  the, the weather as of this, this July, we were all this,
• 47:52
  it's been fully toasty weather in all of our time zones these,
• 47:55
  these this last few, few weeks. So we, yeah, we really feel, we
• 48:00
  we're, we're feeling what red was, was feeling.
• 48:03
  And then, hey, if we could go grab some colder boulders, we
• 48:06
  would. Absolutely.
• 48:08
  And but the truth is that we are because we all have our air
• 48:11
  conditioners running non-stop and that is not great for the
• 48:13
  environment. But what can you do?
• 48:16
  I mean, we gotta, we gotta do something, but that's a another
• 48:20
  metaphor for another day. That's when I get out on my bike
• 48:23
  and I I get the the natural air conditioning when I'm out doing
• 48:26
  long, long bike rides, yes. I'm glad that works for you,
• 48:30
  that sounds like it would just get hotter.
• 48:35
  You know this joke, but like Karen, when we're there, Karen
• 48:39
  is like like kind of just like, hey, everybody, like we're going
• 48:44
  biking. This is the real Karen, not Red.
• 48:46
  Like in real life, Karen has gotten everybody to go biking,
• 48:50
  like get get outside, you know, like quite, you know, an
• 48:54
  outdoor, an outdoor guy. So yeah, this.
• 48:57
  Is how cold was it outside in Calgary in the winter?
• 49:01
  At times crazy, crazy freezing. Like, you know, go get a coffee
• 49:06
  and get frostbite. Yeah, but but in in the times
• 49:10
  where where it warmed up enough where you could safely bicycle,
• 49:13
  there was an E bike rental place near where most of us were
• 49:18
  staying in in Calgary, near the Bow River, which goes, goes
• 49:21
  through the city. And so I'd get a bunch of people
• 49:25
  to together and we'd, we'd rent E bikes and ride along the Bow
• 49:30
  River down South, South of the city and there's a, a park and
• 49:36
  at a coffee shop and we'd stop there and then turn around and
• 49:39
  ride back to the city and a few times and we had time on the
• 49:42
  weekend. We'd again, it was better,
• 49:45
  better weather. We a bunch of us would get into
• 49:47
  cars and drive out to, to Banff and rent E bikes there.
• 49:52
  And then there's awesome bike bike paths up into into the
• 49:57
  mountains and, and with the E bike you, you're just biking
• 50:02
  along and just seeing the beautiful scenery and
• 50:06
  occasional, occasional creatures, deer and and bear and
• 50:12
  goats kind of off in the in the distance and things.
• 50:14
  But it's it's a a beautiful, beautiful place to to work.
• 50:19
  So whenever it wasn't deathly cold outside, I was always, you
• 50:24
  know, getting out. It was a wonderful place to, to
• 50:26
  walk around when, when it wasn't crazy cold and to, to explore on
• 50:31
  bikes and, and just see all the, the, the, the beautiful scenery.
• 50:35
  So I, I, it's one of my favorite places to, to, to work,
• 50:41
  definitely. I mean, that sounds very much
• 50:43
  like Fraggle Rock, where you just kind of, you go for a
• 50:46
  little jog and it's like, oh, there's an ink spot and there's
• 50:50
  Aretha and some sort of weird crave creature and yeah.
• 50:57
  I think like Speaking of ink spots and when it got so hot in
• 51:01
  that episode, one of my favorite things in re watching this
• 51:04
  episode was just seeing all the stupid and gong stuff that was.
• 51:09
  Playing in the background. From all the other puppeteers
• 51:12
  with the Oh yeah, yeah, there's and each other.
• 51:17
  We'll get to this because there's I, I noted a few of them
• 51:19
  and I'm curious if you noted some that I may have missed.
• 51:22
  But there's a couple of really, really funny ones.
• 51:24
  I've been really trying hard to in this rewatch to pay attention
• 51:27
  to the ink spots and and the fraggle gaggle and like what is
• 51:31
  everyone doing back there when they think that no ones
• 51:34
  watching? It's it's, you know, it carry it
• 51:37
  carries on the tradition of way back in The Muppet Show, where
• 51:41
  if you were in the background of the Muppet Theater and you're up
• 51:44
  on the balcony, it was just like, you know, have have fun
• 51:47
  upstage to a point, you know, if it takes attention away from
• 51:52
  this piggy, then you've gone too far.
• 51:55
  But but you know, have fun, have their own lives and their own
• 51:58
  their own experiences happening there.
• 52:01
  And I'm so glad we were able to continue that that tradition
• 52:03
  here. Oh.
• 52:04
  Me too 'cause that fun really does it it, we could feel it.
• 52:08
  It's like going from you to the camera to the screen to us.
• 52:13
  Like it. Even if you don't notice exactly
• 52:15
  what all those background characters are doing, like that
• 52:18
  feeling, we still get it, that feeling of fun and inclusion.
• 52:22
  So I'm very grateful for for that tradition.
• 52:26
  Well, like, usually too, we'd block stuff out and whatever's
• 52:29
  happening is the main action, the front.
• 52:31
  They'll have to go through it, you know, a bunch of times and
• 52:34
  hang out with the director and work things out.
• 52:36
  And so people in the background, as they're replaced, they have
• 52:40
  this extra time. And, you know, some people would
• 52:43
  just kind of, you know, do the same beautiful thing that they
• 52:45
  were doing and to each other. And then some people would use
• 52:49
  that to work out some ridiculous bit.
• 52:54
  Yeah. Like, and actually one of my
• 52:57
  favorite things is this is totally left turn.
• 53:00
  But making Karen laugh, I think, is some of our favorite things
• 53:04
  to do. And if you give Jordan Lockhart
• 53:07
  a gaggle fraggle, Karen Prell is on the floor.
• 53:13
  He is so funny with those things, 'cause he's like, Oh my
• 53:17
  God, all the pressure's off. And he, he, he's so funny with
• 53:22
  those things. And Karen, I don't know when it
• 53:24
  happens there, but Karen is on the floor with him.
• 53:28
  So yeah, there was a lot of goofiness in in this episode for
• 53:30
  sure back there. No, it's the best.
• 53:33
  I love it so because things are getting so warm in Freckle Rock,
• 53:39
  everyone is sweating, including Large Marvin.
• 53:41
  He says even my sweat has sweat. And the camera zooms in on a
• 53:45
  bead of sweat and the bead of sweat speaks and tell us it
• 53:50
  talks about how odd it is. OK, So what?
• 53:54
  How big is this thing in real life?
• 53:56
  I ran the wiki. It was Frank Mescalite who was
• 53:58
  performing it, I believe. If that's if that's accurate.
• 54:02
  I. Actually, Karen, I wanted to ask
• 54:04
  you that I when I I talked, I was like, whose voice is that?
• 54:08
  Because if. Frank Frank Frank is Large
• 54:10
  Marvin, but I thought the actual sweat was was Dan Garza.
• 54:14
  Was it that Dan? I think so.
• 54:16
  I think so yeah. And and of course they they made
• 54:19
  it like this giant maybe tennis ball size sweat, sweat glob out
• 54:28
  of silicone or something that had had maybe some monofil that
• 54:31
  you could pull to make the mouse move.
• 54:33
  So this small one when you saw all of large Marvin's face and
• 54:36
  then they did you know this, this crash zoom and then cut to
• 54:39
  the the the bigger one on a on a giant field of pink fleece.
• 54:48
  A very large. Marvin.
• 54:50
  Yes, a very large Marvin. It's one of those bizarre things
• 54:55
  in the script. It's like, what?
• 54:56
  Really? And then they did it.
• 54:57
  It's like, Oh my God, it's perfect.
• 55:00
  I love it. I love it when you all like,
• 55:02
  take the time to build an entire character and it's like, this
• 55:07
  will be on screen for four seconds and we will never use it
• 55:10
  again and it's a bead of sweat or like a vomiting rainbow or
• 55:15
  whatever that was. Wasn't.
• 55:18
  Wasn't. Ice.
• 55:18
  No, no, it was a it was a Sorry, it was a it was a a radish.
• 55:22
  It was vomiting radish that vomited.
• 55:24
  The dream radish, yes. Yes, Excuse me.
• 55:28
  I need to clarify that before I got an angry letter, yeah.
• 55:32
  I think that I see Joe called Large Marvin Marge Larvin or
• 55:39
  something. No large, large, large larva,
• 55:43
  large larva. It was one of the, I think it
• 55:48
  was last the first season and, and so I said Joe became one of
• 55:54
  the people on the, on the, the council and and not not during
• 56:00
  doing an actual take, but in between takes.
• 56:02
  Of course people are are doing OK and for some, some reason
• 56:06
  it's like a large larva. And so everybody enjoyed that.
• 56:11
  She's still learning everybody's names.
• 56:13
  That makes sense. That's that's uncorrect to me,
• 56:16
  you know? Yeah.
• 56:20
  We check in with the Gorgs. The Gorga Max has been working
• 56:24
  perfectly. There's no more radishes, only
• 56:26
  strawberries, and they're growing like crazy.
• 56:29
  But Pennsylvania is so lazy, he doesn't even want to sit up to
• 56:32
  grab a strawberry. He's telling Junior Gorg to
• 56:35
  build a machine that will feed the radishes directly to him.
• 56:39
  We will catch up with that in a little bit, but we're setting
• 56:43
  that up here. And we also got to check in with
• 56:46
  Doc and Sprocket. Sprocket gets a package from a
• 56:50
  company called Woof Woof Yum. It's a subscription service
• 56:53
  that's delivers dog treats from around the world.
• 56:56
  But you know, it's a whole lot of packaging for one little
• 56:59
  biscuits. And later on Doc is going to
• 57:02
  tell them all about how it went from different locations all
• 57:05
  over the planet with the planes and the trucks and the trains
• 57:08
  and etcetera, etcetera. So it's actually really bad for
• 57:11
  the environment that he signed up for it.
• 57:13
  And it seems like this is a message against a certain
• 57:17
  worldwide delivery service that, I don't know, maybe it's named
• 57:22
  after a river somewhere. I'll let everyone kind of figure
• 57:26
  that one out themselves. Well, you know.
• 57:28
  It, it also applies kind of in, in general to, you know, the,
• 57:32
  the, the price of everything we, we, we desire and just having,
• 57:39
  having some awareness of of what, what it really means to to
• 57:45
  get these, these things that that you like, but almost almost
• 57:48
  take for, for for granted. So I, I really love it at the
• 57:53
  end. Doc's little little lesson that
• 57:56
  she that she presents to to Sprocket about that.
• 57:59
  And Boris Sprocket, he's so he's so sad, but so.
• 58:02
  Sad little. Guy, it's just, it's just good,
• 58:05
  you know, to have have awareness as far as what the final answer
• 58:08
  is. That's that's kind of a bigger,
• 58:10
  bigger question, but just it's similar to red just just
• 58:14
  thinking kind of of the bigger, the bigger picture of of the
• 58:19
  consequences of your desires on on others and and on the the
• 58:25
  environment that's. Right.
• 58:27
  I mean, and it's true, you know, we can't control woof woof Yum.
• 58:30
  They're still going to make their product and ship it around
• 58:32
  the world, but we can still have control over our own, you know,
• 58:37
  our our own footprint. And I think, I think Doc and
• 58:40
  sprocket in, in these moments, they, they, they, that that
• 58:44
  comes across really well because it's not quite as big as the
• 58:49
  colder boulders problem or excuse me, the, the, the Gusty's
• 58:51
  problem here. Because like this is a real
• 58:54
  thing that the fraggles are dealing with for an entire
• 58:56
  season. And they got to make, figure out
• 58:58
  how to control these Gusty's And now the heat and all the other
• 59:01
  problems that, that, that are going on.
• 59:03
  This is just a, a dog biscuit. It's not a big deal.
• 59:06
  But you know, we can still have control over it and make good
• 59:10
  decisions based on what we what we know.
• 59:13
  It was such a excellent writing too, you know, just with such
• 59:17
  humor, but making such a point, you know, like how giant the box
• 59:21
  was and when he opened it, giant box and the bone was tiny, tiny,
• 59:28
  just excess, excess and not thinking and wanting and it just
• 59:33
  it was such excellent writing. It's true.
• 59:35
  Yeah. So the Great Hall is starting to
• 59:38
  get very steamy. The Grizzard is there.
• 59:42
  They love it. They're in the pond like it's a
• 59:45
  sauna. This is where we see that ink
• 59:47
  spot with the fan, with the leaf with the fan.
• 59:50
  And there's another one that seems to be serving the Grizzard
• 59:52
  like some sort of milkshake or or some fancy drink with a whip
• 59:57
  on top. Adorable.
• 59:59
  Radish smoothies or something? Yep.
• 1:00:01
  Yeah. Also, I have to wonder, like, is
• 1:00:03
  this something that it was in the scripts of the props people
• 1:00:07
  knew to make it, or is it something like on the day they
• 1:00:09
  would go like, oh, you don't be funny.
• 1:00:11
  We whip this thing together really quick.
• 1:00:12
  Just go, go, go. I can't I can't remember.
• 1:00:14
  Sometimes the people in in props are on like the the the Doozer
• 1:00:19
  team. Something may just just a very
• 1:00:21
  general scenario is in the descriptive and if they have the
• 1:00:25
  time and if they have like an exciting idea that's that's,
• 1:00:29
  that's doable within the time, that might just whip up
• 1:00:32
  something like that and bring it out.
• 1:00:33
  And we're like, yes. So yeah, I can't, I can't
• 1:00:37
  remember if that was that was in the the script, but I'm, I'm
• 1:00:40
  really glad they were able to do that.
• 1:00:42
  What a fun job that you all have.
• 1:00:45
  And it's just like someone would just say, hey, you know, it'll
• 1:00:47
  be funny. Let's make a, a Fraggle
• 1:00:50
  milkshake. And then someone goes, I'd love
• 1:00:52
  to do that. I'll just do that in my spare
• 1:00:54
  time because I, I, it's either that or I could play Candy Crush
• 1:00:58
  on my phone and I'd rather work because Fraggle Rock is such a
• 1:01:01
  fun show to work on. It's really wonderful.
• 1:01:04
  It they really, you know, they, it's, they just become so much
• 1:01:08
  of the humor and comedy of the, of the team.
• 1:01:11
  You know, these, these folks that just will think of
• 1:01:13
  something last minute that is so absolutely hilarious.
• 1:01:18
  Also, Tonya kills it as Gizzard, a Grizzard.
• 1:01:21
  I love silly. So just like just that attitude
• 1:01:28
  of like, it's kind of like Pat from the from like old SNL that
• 1:01:33
  like I'm just gonna, I don't know how to, I can't do
• 1:01:37
  impressions. I don't know.
• 1:01:39
  There's just something like so like like, are they disgusted?
• 1:01:42
  Are they happy to be here? I can't tell but OK.
• 1:01:44
  Who knows? Who knows?
• 1:01:48
  So Red vows she's going to find a way to cool the the rock down.
• 1:01:52
  So she stumbles on Icy Joe's cave.
• 1:01:56
  Icy Joe's in there trying to make her walking stick move with
• 1:01:59
  her mind. Nothing's happening.
• 1:02:02
  She's still working on it. And her cave is cold because she
• 1:02:07
  has a colder boulder, which is this glowing rock that keeps
• 1:02:11
  everything cold and it's such a cool looking visual because it
• 1:02:15
  really is glowing. I I mean again, props to the
• 1:02:19
  props people for. Yeah, and I and I think most,
• 1:02:23
  most of the time the, the, the frosty, not steam, but you know,
• 1:02:29
  the, the, the, the, the clouds of, of cool, cool moisture
• 1:02:35
  coming off of it were practical. They, they had a tube going up
• 1:02:39
  and so they had lights and they had a tube like going up through
• 1:02:44
  through the bottom and all, all that was practical.
• 1:02:47
  It's just a few, a few times if they really needed to emphasize
• 1:02:50
  something, they might add a little bit in in post.
• 1:02:54
  But yeah, that was that was the the the real thing there.
• 1:02:58
  That's cool. That's cool.
• 1:02:59
  I I didn't it didn't even occur to me that it could have been
• 1:03:02
  real. That's that's Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  Well done. She I see.
• 1:03:09
  Joe says that she learned about the colder bowlers when she was
• 1:03:11
  frozen for hundreds of years. She says, you know, I was awake
• 1:03:14
  the whole time. That does something to a
• 1:03:16
  fraggle. Is this?
• 1:03:19
  I know that's so. That's terrifying and I
• 1:03:23
  terrifying. I've asked myself what, what
• 1:03:26
  would she have been thinking about then?
• 1:03:28
  And I don't even, I don't even want to go there.
• 1:03:30
  Only I see Joe knows what she was thinking about.
• 1:03:35
  I mean, when we met, I see Joe in Season 1, it was not clear.
• 1:03:43
  It seemed deliberately like, is she, does she act like this
• 1:03:46
  because she's been frozen for hundreds of years?
• 1:03:48
  Or does she act like this because she was a curmudgeon
• 1:03:51
  back then and she's a curmudgeon now and getting this
• 1:03:54
  confirmation of being like being awake that whole time.
• 1:03:57
  It's like, oh, so she was tortured.
• 1:03:59
  OK, got it. She's been driven insane.
• 1:04:03
  And that's fun. It is very funny.
• 1:04:05
  Like, don't get me wrong, there's.
• 1:04:06
  Like there's, there's, there's, you know, they they hinted at
• 1:04:10
  it, it's they just dropped a hint for the audience to do
• 1:04:14
  with, do with it what they will and with without, you know,
• 1:04:18
  anything specific be being, you know, part part of the the
• 1:04:22
  story. But definitely it's it's fun
• 1:04:25
  having the curmudgeonly side. But but also, I love kind of
• 1:04:30
  her, her joyful innocence, like the fact that she thinks she can
• 1:04:34
  make her her walking stick walk. And even though when she was
• 1:04:38
  first introduced, it was it was about her being angry, it wasn't
• 1:04:43
  it was just kind of something that that felt like it.
• 1:04:45
  It just wouldn't be fun to sustain.
• 1:04:47
  So, so start to hint at the things that that she could, you
• 1:04:51
  know, take take wonder in. And although I, I think her, her
• 1:04:55
  she was getting really fed up during her introduction song
• 1:04:59
  back in season 1. And I think that was just
• 1:05:01
  because she was hangry. Yeah, right.
• 1:05:03
  Because, you know, she, she hadn't eaten in 400 years.
• 1:05:07
  And she said she wasn't hungry, but, you know, she just wasn't
• 1:05:10
  thinking straight because she was, she was like, really
• 1:05:13
  hangry. And when she finally got the
• 1:05:15
  radishes she wanted and then she kind of, she kind of calmed
• 1:05:17
  down, calm down a bit. But I, I definitely like
• 1:05:23
  continuing with her when she's in, in these different
• 1:05:27
  situations and, and she'll be in with the crowd.
• 1:05:30
  She has no idea what's going on. It's all, it's all new to her
• 1:05:34
  just paying attention and being, being confused and, and, and,
• 1:05:38
  and soaking it all in. It's like she's just trying to
• 1:05:40
  to make up for for lost time and and and not not understanding
• 1:05:48
  things doesn't doesn't, doesn't, doesn't stop her.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah, I, I just, I just like having fun.
• 1:05:55
  When when she she finds things to to be passionate about or, or
• 1:06:00
  excited about. And, and her her speech that
• 1:06:05
  that she, she gives to to read about the, the ecosystem.
• 1:06:09
  It's, it's like because she, she is, you know, a, a fraggle in
• 1:06:13
  ancient, ancient Fraggle and, and generally, you know, they,
• 1:06:20
  they do try to do what's, what's right for the ecosystem.
• 1:06:23
  But that part of her brain hadn't quite was just finishing
• 1:06:25
  thawing out while she was doing that speech.
• 1:06:27
  So, so she finally got the old ecosystem.
• 1:06:30
  Oh yes, that's what it was. And she's so excited about it.
• 1:06:34
  Oh, where'd you go? So.
• 1:06:36
  I, I did love that moment because so much of Fraggle Rock
• 1:06:40
  as a whole, like the old Fraggle, the new Fraggle Rock
• 1:06:42
  that the Fraggle franchise is a whole is about ecosystems.
• 1:06:47
  So when she starts to kind of explain to red, like, you know,
• 1:06:51
  everything in the environment is in the harmony, everything's
• 1:06:54
  connected. There's the icy and there's the
• 1:06:56
  Joe and it's like, yes, we, we, we get that.
• 1:06:59
  Like you're, you're so close to like, it's almost like she's,
• 1:07:02
  she's trying to remember the, the words to the Fraggle Rock
• 1:07:06
  theme song. We're like, yes, it's like
• 1:07:07
  Fraggle Rock is all about you're so close to it.
• 1:07:10
  And then yes, like you said, she goes ecosystem and Red's already
• 1:07:12
  gone. Yes, yeah.
• 1:07:15
  So, so, you know, just just to just to make her her speech
• 1:07:19
  rather than just a, you know, Doc's speech is pretty, pretty
• 1:07:22
  straight straightforward lesson. But I see Joe being I see Joe
• 1:07:27
  she you know, she would do it in in a roundabout way with the the
• 1:07:30
  way her, her, her, her, her brain works.
• 1:07:34
  It's like, I knew there's this important thing.
• 1:07:36
  Just hang on a minute, let me, let me dig, dig through and see
• 1:07:39
  if I can figure it out. You know, so that's, it's just
• 1:07:43
  just fun to, you know, go through that journey with her.
• 1:07:47
  She's she's trying to to access the the frozen memories.
• 1:07:53
  Yeah I just love that I see Joe's continued as a character
• 1:07:56
  on the show cuz she easily could have been a one off character
• 1:07:59
  for that one episode. We never see her again, but she
• 1:08:02
  adds something to the dynamic of Fraggle Rock that no one else
• 1:08:07
  does. Especially because, you know,
• 1:08:09
  there's only so many, like, you know, adult characters, You
• 1:08:12
  know, it's like Matt Storyteller, world's oldest
• 1:08:17
  Fraggle. You know, it's like, and they're
• 1:08:19
  all completely aloof in some way, like with the exception of
• 1:08:24
  maybe Jandalen, like they all like, it's like you can't trust
• 1:08:29
  any of their, their knowledge, no matter how old they are.
• 1:08:32
  And so for her to be someone who like, she could easily have been
• 1:08:35
  a character to say like, well, I've been around for 400 years.
• 1:08:38
  Like I could tell you everything.
• 1:08:40
  And it's like, well, no, because maybe you don't remember things,
• 1:08:43
  or maybe things work different back then, or maybe your brain
• 1:08:46
  is half frozen. And all these things kind of
• 1:08:49
  make it so that not only are they unreliable, but they're
• 1:08:54
  adding this level of fun to any kind of Fraggle rock problem,
• 1:08:59
  which I just adore. I see Joe is incredibly funny.
• 1:09:04
  She's so really that they made I see Joe female.
• 1:09:09
  Personally, I think it was a really big deal.
• 1:09:12
  Maybe other people haven't thought of it, but usually, you
• 1:09:15
  know, when you see a character that kind of big and like
• 1:09:18
  they're, they're usually male characters.
• 1:09:21
  So I thought it was fantastic that I see Joe is a woman.
• 1:09:27
  And, and I think we talked about this in the first season of
• 1:09:31
  podcasts that we did Karen, but the, the fact that I see Joe
• 1:09:35
  looks so different from the rest of the Fraggles that she really
• 1:09:38
  towers over everyone else. It's just visually so great and
• 1:09:42
  and again, to Ali's point that having that be a female
• 1:09:45
  character, because again, usually it's it's the behemoth
• 1:09:49
  guy, it's or it's large Marvin. It's like it's this big dude.
• 1:09:54
  And instead giving it, you know, making a female character makes
• 1:09:59
  it makes I see Joe feel so unique, not just in Fraggle
• 1:10:04
  Rock, but in, you know, kids media all together.
• 1:10:08
  Yeah, yeah, I've just enjoyed exploring that kind of of
• 1:10:13
  character, which you you don't usually see and finding
• 1:10:18
  something in in myself that identifies with her, her bizarre
• 1:10:25
  physicality and and world worldview and being able to do
• 1:10:30
  more with her this this season has been fun.
• 1:10:33
  But I, I have to give a shout out to Ben du Rocher, who of
• 1:10:39
  course, I, I see Joe is a, is another example of it takes a
• 1:10:43
  village. And so whenever I'm performing
• 1:10:47
  her, I've got, I've got my like, you know, 6 inch Frankenstein
• 1:10:50
  shoes on and the body is it's, it's, it's, it's heavier than a
• 1:10:56
  regular Fraggle and, and also very, very just cumbersome and
• 1:11:03
  and stiff. So I usually have someone,
• 1:11:07
  someone behind me usually, usually Andrew Cooper, holding
• 1:11:10
  there's like a handle under her cloak, holding up her body so I
• 1:11:14
  can be free to move her head without her body weight pulling
• 1:11:17
  on not only her neck and her face, but pulling on my arm.
• 1:11:22
  And that leaves my other hand free so I can perform her eyes
• 1:11:25
  myself, which I enjoy doing. And then usually Ingrid doing
• 1:11:30
  both hands or sometimes if she needs her hands really spread
• 1:11:35
  out, Ingrid and and Ben doing doing her, her hands.
• 1:11:39
  But we, we had a lot more happening in this episode,
• 1:11:44
  especially when we had red and, and I see Joe together, where
• 1:11:47
  where I see Joe had to be a lot more mobile or extended acting
• 1:11:54
  scenes where if, if the, if there was more emphasis on red
• 1:12:00
  having someone else do I, I see Joe.
• 1:12:03
  So I, I looked for for someone who was tall enough, especially
• 1:12:09
  for being like mobile and running around, which happens
• 1:12:11
  like later after, after this episode, someone who didn't have
• 1:12:14
  to wear tall shoes and who could, if they, if they really
• 1:12:18
  have to hold up the whole body just with their hand.
• 1:12:21
  And so auditioned to a few people and Ben became I see
• 1:12:26
  Joe's stunt stand in and performance stand in like Ali
• 1:12:31
  for for Red. And so there, there are are
• 1:12:35
  scenes where I'm, I'm in red and Ben is in in IC Joe for, for
• 1:12:41
  some of the talking. And then I, I dub it afterwards.
• 1:12:44
  So there's a little just depending on what the the
• 1:12:47
  emphasis was on, on the performing.
• 1:12:49
  I'd be jumping back and forth, jumping in out, out of my tall
• 1:12:52
  shoes. And and of course, Ben could
• 1:12:54
  just walk up and put his hand up and he's, his hand is, is taller
• 1:12:59
  than me wearing my Frankenstein shoes and, and having my my hand
• 1:13:03
  up. What must it be like to be tall?
• 1:13:06
  I always wonder. I would love to be tall.
• 1:13:09
  Beats me, but he's he, he does such a great job with, with Icy
• 1:13:15
  Joe's performance. And sometimes if there's like
• 1:13:19
  group scenes and Red is doing some foreground stuff and Icy
• 1:13:23
  Joe is, is back there and maybe has a few lines just to keep
• 1:13:27
  things going rather than stop and change and change my shoes
• 1:13:31
  and blah, blah, blah. It's like Ben, just keep going,
• 1:13:33
  do the lines. I'll, I'll do a bit afterwards
• 1:13:35
  'cause I, I know he'll, he'll be able to, you know, do a, do a
• 1:13:38
  great job. And then I'll just stay stay in
• 1:13:40
  Red so we can kind of keep keep shooting, shooting, moving.
• 1:13:43
  And just just like with with Ali doing doing red.
• 1:13:48
  I know I see Joes in in good hands with with Ben.
• 1:13:51
  And that definitely came in handy with later, later episode
• 1:13:55
  where I see Joe is literally running across the length of the
• 1:14:00
  Great Hall at speed. And I knew even attempting to do
• 1:14:04
  that with my village around me wearing my Frankenstein shoes,
• 1:14:08
  that that would be that would be an industrial accident.
• 1:14:11
  And that's. A that's a broken ankle right
• 1:14:13
  there, yeah. Yeah, so so Ben was able to to
• 1:14:17
  take over doing doing that and and doing a a brilliant, a
• 1:14:22
  brilliant job. So yeah, so there's these these
• 1:14:24
  scenes with with red and iced Joe.
• 1:14:26
  There's just a lot of swapping, swapping back and forth, but it
• 1:14:30
  all, it all looks, looks seamless.
• 1:14:33
  And I'm I'm stuck with how it turned out.
• 1:14:35
  Yeah. It really does.
• 1:14:38
  So back in the Great Hall, Buber is trying to deliver soup to the
• 1:14:42
  Fraggles. It started out as gazpacho, but
• 1:14:45
  now it's a hot tomato bisque. I thought that was very funny.
• 1:14:49
  Moki says she's going to go back to our cave to do an ice
• 1:14:52
  meditation, a thing that she really hopes is real.
• 1:14:56
  And Red is there with a colder boulder, and she's dressed in
• 1:14:59
  her cute little winter clothes. And that's it.
• 1:15:02
  They did it. Problem solved Problem.
• 1:15:05
  Solved. Problem solved.
• 1:15:07
  So Red and Moki and Lanford are not all now nice and cool, but
• 1:15:10
  what about everyone else? And Red says Oh well, everyone
• 1:15:13
  can just come in here when they want to cool down.
• 1:15:15
  Problem solved again. And then we get this great shot
• 1:15:18
  of like dozens of Fraggles all crammed into their cave.
• 1:15:22
  I feel like we get a lot of group shots like this in this
• 1:15:25
  season. I feel like it's happened a few
• 1:15:27
  times already. How many performers do you think
• 1:15:29
  are stuffed in this one shot? Everybody bonkers.
• 1:15:34
  It was bonkers. Funny it was.
• 1:15:36
  We were no jokes smashed up against each other last year and
• 1:15:42
  there was a lot of people double fisting.
• 1:15:44
  So a few, a few people, a few people, yeah.
• 1:15:46
  And yeah. And of course, you know, the
• 1:15:48
  Fraggles are all tied together. But when you attach a human
• 1:15:51
  being a much bigger body underneath each of those, then
• 1:15:56
  yeah, we were even more smashed under.
• 1:15:59
  Yeah, did anyone get a photo of everyone just on top of each
• 1:16:03
  other down there? Sometimes someone grabs a photo
• 1:16:06
  underneath of stuff, but if everybody's busy, because
• 1:16:10
  usually when there's something like that, everybody's busy, the
• 1:16:12
  shop people making sure all the the smashed together puppets are
• 1:16:16
  looking good. Then the monitor people are in
• 1:16:18
  there making sure everybody's got a monitor they can see.
• 1:16:20
  So it's it's it's pretty, pretty chaotic.
• 1:16:23
  So I can't remember. I know we we got because the
• 1:16:25
  doser setups, like if it's in their doser thing, it's kind of
• 1:16:30
  a long time in between those setups where our doozers are
• 1:16:33
  just on poles in the set. So we're we're underneath, you
• 1:16:36
  know, hanging out and we got a lot of video and pictures
• 1:16:38
  underneath the, the doozer stuff.
• 1:16:40
  But maybe if we do more, we need to get more video when we're
• 1:16:44
  smashed together like that, what it looks like underneath.
• 1:16:46
  Cause yeah, contact sport just. Yeah, and, and like a game of
• 1:16:52
  Twister, I'm sure also of like, well, I have to put my arm here
• 1:16:55
  and put your leg in there and let me just turn around sideways
• 1:16:57
  and however you can fit, you know, dozens of performers.
• 1:17:01
  I liked how that scene started with Gobo going out.
• 1:17:05
  You're on my, you know, just like how something.
• 1:17:07
  Yeah. Oh, his tail.
• 1:17:08
  Kind of. It moves.
• 1:17:10
  It's still going in monkey's mouth and Donna just went with
• 1:17:13
  it. Of course they kept it because
• 1:17:14
  it's just so funny. Oh, I was wondering if that was
• 1:17:16
  real or not. Oh, that's funny.
• 1:17:18
  Oh yeah, yeah. It's just like, it just, it just
• 1:17:20
  happened. It's like cool, you know?
• 1:17:22
  Yep, and if if it works well. And again, I was trying to look
• 1:17:26
  at the fraggles in the background to see what was
• 1:17:28
  happening and everyone's definitely doing something.
• 1:17:30
  It was hard to pay attention to everyone at once, but there was
• 1:17:33
  two fraggles that seemed to be kind of just like caressing each
• 1:17:36
  other's faces, like they're each reaching out and holding the
• 1:17:40
  face of the one next to them and staring into each other's eyes.
• 1:17:44
  It was there was. There was definitely some story
• 1:17:48
  going on that we are not Privy to with these two.
• 1:17:50
  Fragments. No idea it was.
• 1:17:52
  Great. Intimacy, Intimacy.
• 1:17:55
  That's right, yes. Everyone got very close very
• 1:17:57
  quickly. So Red has a new idea.
• 1:18:02
  Moki says, oh, you're gonna obviously go unseal the Great
• 1:18:06
  Hall and read. It's what a great performance
• 1:18:08
  that says, oh, Moki, moki, Moki, moki, moki, moki, moki.
• 1:18:12
  No. Something better?
• 1:18:14
  Yeah. Great, great riding.
• 1:18:16
  Great, awesome, awesome riding. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:19
  It is, but you sold it. It's it got a good laugh out of
• 1:18:22
  me. You played it so well.
• 1:18:24
  I think that there were more monkeys than that even as well.
• 1:18:26
  There were like, it was like about 9 monkeys maybe.
• 1:18:30
  Like, yeah. Red is going to bring in more
• 1:18:36
  colder boulders. She's going to fill Frackle Rock
• 1:18:38
  with colder boulders. What a great idea.
• 1:18:41
  Problem solved again. Problem problem solved again.
• 1:18:45
  Doesn't tell anybody what she's going to do.
• 1:18:46
  It's like I got this boom and she's out.
• 1:18:49
  Yep. But Boober knows.
• 1:18:52
  Ever the meteor meteorologist Boober, he points out that we
• 1:18:56
  all know what happens when cold air meets warm air over a body
• 1:18:59
  of water and the rock fills with fog.
• 1:19:05
  Buber obviously knew, because one of his hobbies besides
• 1:19:08
  cooking and laundry is thermodynamics.
• 1:19:13
  There's so much to unpack there in Fraggle lore of how he even
• 1:19:17
  knows what that word is. Let's not dwell too much on it.
• 1:19:21
  What was wait? What was his line?
• 1:19:23
  He was just like what a fraggle can't have other.
• 1:19:26
  Can't have hobbies besides cooking and laundry.
• 1:19:32
  It's so good. I just love it.
• 1:19:35
  It makes me laugh and nobody can see anything through the fog.
• 1:19:39
  It's exactly what happens when Karen you you are also a glasses
• 1:19:44
  wearer. When you are in air conditioning
• 1:19:47
  and you walk outside and then boom your glasses fog up
• 1:19:50
  immediately. Yep, I can't.
• 1:19:52
  Remember, I don't, I don't know if they actually had much on set
• 1:19:56
  cause the continuity would have been a nightmare.
• 1:19:59
  So I think most of that they had, they had to do in post just
• 1:20:03
  just for consistency 'cause otherwise they'd, they'd be just
• 1:20:08
  chasing, you know how foggy it was and, and it would just be,
• 1:20:11
  it'd be so, so tough. It's the kind of thing if we
• 1:20:13
  were doing it 40 years ago, we would have to do it for real
• 1:20:17
  with some smoke and try to keep it consistent.
• 1:20:19
  It would be really tough, but well, especially because.
• 1:20:24
  If you fill up a room, you know, with fake fog, you know, like
• 1:20:28
  I'll use a smoke machine or something like that, that it's
• 1:20:31
  all going to sink to the ground. So when you're filming, you
• 1:20:34
  know, 6 feet in the air, then you have to really fill like a
• 1:20:39
  big room with a lot of fog for a really long time.
• 1:20:43
  That just doesn't seem possible. Yes.
• 1:20:46
  And that was that was at at some production meetings, Yeah.
• 1:20:48
  That was mentioned too, that if you even tried to do it
• 1:20:50
  practically, yeah, it would all be, you know, at our feet and
• 1:20:54
  the puppets would not not have smoke around them.
• 1:20:57
  So yes. Yeah.
• 1:20:57
  So actually, you know what? It makes me think of, And Karen,
• 1:21:02
  you may have been present for this is the scene in Muppet
• 1:21:05
  Christmas Carol when the ghost of Christmas Future takes
• 1:21:10
  Scrooge off and there's a wall of smoke that I believe Brian
• 1:21:16
  Henson's talked about how like they basically filled a room
• 1:21:19
  with smoke and like, covered it with a curtain.
• 1:21:21
  And then for the shot, they just opened the curtain and it kind
• 1:21:23
  of comes in like a like a wall of smoke against Scrooge and,
• 1:21:28
  and goes to Christmas Future. And it's a great visual, but
• 1:21:32
  it's also the kind of thing where like, you got one shot to
• 1:21:34
  do this because you are filling a room with smoke.
• 1:21:38
  That's a lot, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:21:40
  And it's the kind of thing that it would be these days doing it
• 1:21:45
  practically would just be kind of crazy budget and schedule
• 1:21:49
  wise. So it's like, Oh my gosh,
• 1:21:50
  please, please, please take care of it and post.
• 1:21:53
  Yeah. But you know, yeah, at that the
• 1:21:56
  time back, back for for that movie so much still still there
• 1:22:00
  were there was there was there was some computer options, but
• 1:22:03
  there was still a lot that had had to be practical.
• 1:22:07
  But these days, yeah, I'm so glad that we we did not have to
• 1:22:11
  to worry about that. And, and the effect, it just
• 1:22:13
  works so well the way they have it rolling in and, and, and
• 1:22:16
  reacting and then just kind of the glow with, with everything.
• 1:22:20
  They, they did a really good job making it look like fog and not
• 1:22:25
  smoke. Oh, sure, yeah.
• 1:22:27
  But like moist, moist fog, just having, having that glow in
• 1:22:31
  there just just made it look just just right.
• 1:22:35
  Yeah, you're absolutely right. I really like how the the
• 1:22:39
  Fraggle 5 also kind of did a very similar thing as they're
• 1:22:42
  looking around they played it puppetry wise with all their
• 1:22:44
  hands up for in front of them. Kind of just feel to not bump
• 1:22:47
  into anybody else. Yep, as they're looking and such
• 1:22:51
  a funny gag where Pogey pops up and just calls his own name.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah. Everyone's calling everyone else
• 1:22:56
  like Moki, Wesley and he's and they're like Pogey love it.
• 1:23:02
  Any chance for Pogey to say their own name?
• 1:23:04
  I'm. Gonna take it.
• 1:23:05
  Yep, Yep. Love it.
• 1:23:08
  So Red goes to Icy Joe for help, and Icy Joe tells her that she
• 1:23:14
  didn't move the the colder boulders.
• 1:23:16
  This is where the colder boulder was.
• 1:23:18
  That's where she found it. And she picked this cave because
• 1:23:21
  the boulder was always here. And Red assumed that she picked
• 1:23:24
  this cave because it was far away from all the fraggles that
• 1:23:26
  annoy her. But it turns out that was just a
• 1:23:28
  perk. Yes.
• 1:23:32
  And so, yeah. So she knows that you can't just
• 1:23:35
  mess with a delicate ecosystem. So now Red knows what she has to
• 1:23:38
  do, and she runs off again. Like he said, she is not telling
• 1:23:43
  anyone what her plan is. She's just yes.
• 1:23:47
  But Joe goes back to making, trying to make her walking stick
• 1:23:50
  move with her mind and she tries just asking nicely.
• 1:23:53
  She goes please. Yes, please, yes.
• 1:23:57
  And it starts to. Move.
• 1:23:59
  It works to move to with my mind, yes.
• 1:24:02
  And, and that was supposed to originally, so the, the gag was
• 1:24:07
  always at the ink spots would, would, would move it, but it,
• 1:24:11
  but it initially was intended that, oh, she would see the, the
• 1:24:14
  ink spots and, and get disappointed.
• 1:24:16
  And, and I, I didn't want to do that.
• 1:24:18
  I wanted to keep her in that joyful state and, and just just
• 1:24:25
  be so, so thrilled and, and, and full of excitement and, and, you
• 1:24:31
  know, satisfaction and excited about this, this new power she
• 1:24:37
  bound with her brain and just leave her leave her there.
• 1:24:42
  And rather than not seeing them and reacting and being being
• 1:24:45
  disappointed, I just wanted to end on a, on a up note and a, a
• 1:24:50
  silly deluded note for, for IC Joe.
• 1:24:53
  Because after 400 years in solitary, she needs, you know,
• 1:24:56
  little, little something to lift her spirit.
• 1:24:59
  So I'm, I'm glad. I'm glad we're able to end it
• 1:25:03
  like that. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:25:04
  And and it's so much funnier this way to have a character who
• 1:25:09
  is like, well, we know as the audience, like it's so stupid.
• 1:25:13
  You obviously didn't make it move with your mind, but she is
• 1:25:16
  in, she is sold on it. She did it.
• 1:25:19
  Now she's got telekinetic powers.
• 1:25:21
  She's. Going to be a.
• 1:25:22
  Superhero. She's going to save the world.
• 1:25:26
  Big things coming for Icy Joe. Oh, yes, yes.
• 1:25:32
  This is where we get our second song of the episode.
• 1:25:35
  It's the song Lost and Found. Karen, I'm gonna test your
• 1:25:39
  encyclopedic knowledge of Fraggle Rock here.
• 1:25:42
  Do you remember what episode in the original series this is
• 1:25:44
  from? Oh my gosh, let's see, it was
• 1:25:50
  the boober's hat. Yes, well done.
• 1:25:54
  Yes, it's the episode is called You Can't Do That Without a Hat.
• 1:25:59
  That's right. And, and I, I don't know if
• 1:26:02
  we've ever talked about this, but it was, it is a huge Fraggle
• 1:26:08
  blooper, original Fraggle blooper.
• 1:26:11
  Oh, tell me more. The the original lost, lost and
• 1:26:14
  found song. So the whole episode, the whole
• 1:26:17
  episode is about Boober not having his hat.
• 1:26:19
  He's going around with just his hair, no hat.
• 1:26:22
  And and so we, we shot this, this song, you know, long
• 1:26:29
  complicated song. It was in another late night
• 1:26:32
  shoot where, you know, shooting, shooting, shooting.
• 1:26:34
  Oh good, we got that in the edit.
• 1:26:36
  And every once in a while I'd, I'd, I'd come in and sit in on,
• 1:26:40
  on edits and just, you know, see, see how it worked?
• 1:26:44
  Not not as a Co producer but just, but just as as a as a fan
• 1:26:49
  of the production. And in the edit they realized
• 1:26:55
  this whole song about Boober not having his hat.
• 1:26:59
  Boober was wearing his hat. Oh God.
• 1:27:03
  Oh no. Oh.
• 1:27:05
  God, because you know, we shoot. It we shoot it out of order and
• 1:27:08
  it was chaos. And everybody's used to sing
• 1:27:10
  Boober with his hat on and we shot the song and it's Boober
• 1:27:15
  looking the way everybody knows Boober looks and who knows what
• 1:27:18
  order we shot and whatever. Didn't discover it until the
• 1:27:21
  edits. Like no way, no way.
• 1:27:25
  You know, the, the, the, we, we'd moved on to the next, next
• 1:27:28
  show. That was, that was back when we
• 1:27:30
  shot it one week. We edited it the next week, you
• 1:27:32
  know, in two weeks the show is done.
• 1:27:34
  It's locked. And it's like can't do it.
• 1:27:38
  And, and just the last shot of the song when they finish the
• 1:27:42
  song and again, kind of shot out of order.
• 1:27:45
  Blooper does not have his hat on.
• 1:27:46
  And it's like here, Boober, here's your hat.
• 1:27:49
  Oh no. Is that, is that how it is in
• 1:27:52
  the in the final episode? Is that, is that the like the
• 1:27:55
  one that was released? Well, I have to go back and
• 1:27:57
  look. You see and, and there you go.
• 1:27:59
  Nobody, nobody caught it because the The Fraggles are are
• 1:28:04
  believing it and selling it and the song is selling it.
• 1:28:08
  And every time I tell someone that story, people are like, I
• 1:28:12
  never noticed. Now, what's funny about this
• 1:28:16
  too, is earlier in this season, there was, I don't know, I'm
• 1:28:20
  trying to remember which episode it was one of the episodes.
• 1:28:23
  Boobers wearing a different hat because he's, oh, it's, it's,
• 1:28:26
  it's the one where he's, he's got a chef's hat.
• 1:28:31
  He's, he's doing a whole like radish festival for everybody.
• 1:28:35
  And later in the episode he's wearing like a party hat.
• 1:28:39
  And then there's some, a couple scenes where he's not wearing
• 1:28:41
  his hat. And so I asked the question, is
• 1:28:43
  this the first episode in which Boober never wears his trademark
• 1:28:49
  brown hat? And, you know, of course, we
• 1:28:51
  don't remember off the tops of our heads, but we kind of
• 1:28:53
  realized, like, I think it is the first time.
• 1:28:55
  And, you know, Jurgen checked his notes and he's like, yeah,
• 1:28:58
  it says here in the notes, no hat like that.
• 1:29:00
  We deliberately did not have him wearing his hat.
• 1:29:02
  And that was something that I noticed in that in that episode,
• 1:29:08
  I noticed oh, interesting, he's not wearing his hat, but in the
• 1:29:11
  original Fraggle Rock didn't occur to me and the song's up
• 1:29:14
  about his hat. The.
• 1:29:16
  Episodes and but you know, the, the, the shop, the shop people
• 1:29:19
  were were amazing on on the original and they were working
• 1:29:22
  so hard and everybody was, you know, on on top of things.
• 1:29:26
  But shooting late and again, shooting practically and it's
• 1:29:30
  all gonna work in camera and crowds of people and shooting
• 1:29:34
  out of order. It's just, it just happened.
• 1:29:38
  It's it's like it's not anybody's fault.
• 1:29:40
  And the awesome thing is nobody caught it and it didn't affect
• 1:29:45
  people's enjoyment of the show or, or the song.
• 1:29:49
  And now, you know, 40 years have passed.
• 1:29:50
  We can kind of, we can kind of let people in on, you know, in
• 1:29:54
  on that. But yeah, you're, you're getting
• 1:29:57
  he's, he's the, the man with the plan.
• 1:29:59
  He's got his, his lists with the props and the state of hair
• 1:30:05
  costumes, everything. And as, as, as, as well as our,
• 1:30:12
  as our props. We, we got a lot of people just
• 1:30:14
  on top of that because we are shooting the way we're shooting
• 1:30:19
  in blocks now. We're shooting what, 2234
• 1:30:23
  episodes at a time out of out of order, like everything in the
• 1:30:27
  Great Hall for, you know, 3-4 episodes.
• 1:30:30
  And so they got to stay on on top of that.
• 1:30:35
  So I'm I'm not aware of anything in this in this season.
• 1:30:41
  Nothing I've noticed so far. So we're all doing good.
• 1:30:44
  Yeah, yeah. But that's, you know.
• 1:30:46
  And it doesn't matter. So and of course, this, this,
• 1:30:49
  this version of this song was was not about that at all, But
• 1:30:52
  that's just kind of my, my, that's that's why I remember
• 1:30:55
  that song because it was a big. There's nothing.
• 1:30:58
  We can do it's. Too late.
• 1:31:03
  Oh man, the. Ship move on.
• 1:31:07
  So talk. Talk about letting go, Yeah.
• 1:31:10
  Yeah, well, none of us say none of us.
• 1:31:13
  See, see it, it worked. The, the, the we, we sold the
• 1:31:17
  idea. It's like just just hope the the
• 1:31:19
  idea works and everybody goes with it.
• 1:31:22
  And they did. So there you go.
• 1:31:24
  Incredible. So in this version of You Can't
• 1:31:28
  Excuse Me of the Lost and found song, everyone's working
• 1:31:32
  together to clean up the colder boulders.
• 1:31:34
  There's they're doing like a, like a fireman drill, like
• 1:31:36
  everyone's passing them one person to the next.
• 1:31:39
  They're reopening The Cave. The, the Gusties are coming back
• 1:31:41
  in my the, the best visual to me about this is that Buber and
• 1:31:47
  some of the other fraggles are using their tail glows to help
• 1:31:51
  them see. And it's just such a cool visual
• 1:31:54
  just to see those little spots of color tails and a great
• 1:31:57
  reminder about a great episode from the first season.
• 1:32:00
  And a great reminder that we as the audience now know that you
• 1:32:04
  all as the producers didn't forget that this is a part of
• 1:32:07
  Boober's character and a part of Fraggle lore.
• 1:32:10
  That's they're these these glowing tales.
• 1:32:14
  And Red admits that's that she might just have to be a little
• 1:32:21
  bit uncomfortable with these Gusty's to avoid messing with
• 1:32:24
  the ecosystem. Like, that's a fair trade off.
• 1:32:28
  They worked up quite a sweat moving all these boulders.
• 1:32:30
  So they're going to go cool off in the pond.
• 1:32:32
  But who's in the pond? It's Grizzard and Grizzard.
• 1:32:35
  Has been in the. Pond the entire time and they
• 1:32:39
  are all wrinkly. How did you pull off this
• 1:32:44
  wrinkled grizzard? I think they made because the
• 1:32:50
  original Grizzard was from 40 years ago.
• 1:32:54
  So I think they made, I think they made two new ones, one that
• 1:32:59
  could go in the water and then one with the wrinkled body just
• 1:33:07
  just for that gag, just like that one, that one time gag of
• 1:33:12
  being being in in the water cars.
• 1:33:14
  Now, now that we have a a water Grizzard, then, then, then they
• 1:33:17
  can go on the water every once in a while.
• 1:33:19
  But but yeah, the, the wrinkly, the wrinkly 1 was just so, so
• 1:33:27
  hilarious again. And that was, that was one
• 1:33:29
  thing. It's just like a gag in the
• 1:33:30
  script. It's like, really, how's that
• 1:33:32
  going to? Oh my God, it's awesome.
• 1:33:33
  You know, they, when they, when they showed up with the, the,
• 1:33:36
  the final, the final thing, it's just, you know, that's, that's
• 1:33:39
  how much people are just, you know, excited about these, these
• 1:33:43
  fun ideas and, and these like creatively challenging concepts.
• 1:33:47
  And we got time to do this. Let's go for it, you know, boom.
• 1:33:50
  And they just jump in there. Yeah, Ali, did you notice the
• 1:33:54
  ink spots in the background of this this scene?
• 1:33:57
  Oh yeah, actually the re watching this, the what kind of
• 1:34:02
  blew my mind most because I remembered on set was the
• 1:34:04
  awesome choreography of that of all those moments of the of the
• 1:34:09
  passing of the colder boulders. It was really cool choreography.
• 1:34:13
  We had, you know, the puppeteers on each puppet moving from side
• 1:34:17
  to side, but also other puppeteers holding the boulders
• 1:34:21
  on rods to help pass it from hand to hand.
• 1:34:24
  So it was just it was a lot of choreography going on.
• 1:34:27
  And I mean, any song where I get to see Gobo play the guitar, I'm
• 1:34:32
  a happy guy. I just like, I don't care what
• 1:34:35
  it is. I love watching Gobo play his
• 1:34:38
  guitar. It just makes me so happy.
• 1:34:39
  And he's so cute and funny at the beginning of it how he just
• 1:34:42
  swoops in with his guitar. Yes.
• 1:34:45
  Yeah, there was a lot of pornography in that tune.
• 1:34:48
  And, and, and so those, those boulders had, they had their
• 1:34:52
  lights, they had tubes with, with the, with the, the smoke.
• 1:34:56
  So there was a yeah, there was a, a line of several people with
• 1:35:02
  all the, the wired up boulders. They were just going down the
• 1:35:04
  road and we were just standing there with, and we had
• 1:35:07
  assistants that were operating both, both hands.
• 1:35:12
  So that, you know, as, as, as someone passed on a boulder,
• 1:35:16
  you'd wrap your hands around it, pass it on.
• 1:35:18
  And so the main puppeteers, we were just doing the, the heads,
• 1:35:22
  our assistants were doing the, the, the boulders and then the
• 1:35:26
  boulder people. So it was, it was like this,
• 1:35:28
  this big, big line of choreography trying to get all
• 1:35:31
  the, the passing to, to, to work again, really tricky to do
• 1:35:36
  practically, but but I'm so glad we did.
• 1:35:39
  Yeah, no, it looks great. And yeah, again, like it's the
• 1:35:42
  kind of thing where we as the audience do not think about how
• 1:35:44
  much work it takes to pull off something that looks so simple.
• 1:35:49
  But when you need two people on each Fraggle, one person on each
• 1:35:54
  boulder, going to the beats, the choreography, not stepping on
• 1:35:58
  feet, you know, not knocking into people, all looking at
• 1:36:02
  monitors. I I can't, I can't wrap my brain
• 1:36:04
  around it. I don't know how you guys do it.
• 1:36:07
  When it works, it feels so good. No, I bet.
• 1:36:11
  I bet it does, yeah. How does it feel when it doesn't
• 1:36:14
  work? It's mostly funny, you know,
• 1:36:17
  when you see just like, you know, it passes really well and
• 1:36:20
  it passes really well. And then one is just floating. 1
• 1:36:22
  boulder is just floating in the air.
• 1:36:24
  Yeah, yeah. There it goes.
• 1:36:25
  That was the weightless, colder boulder.
• 1:36:27
  That was you. Didn't know that one of them.
• 1:36:29
  Is actually filled with helium. That was the.
• 1:36:31
  Yes. Being it was being not
• 1:36:34
  controlled by IC Joe's mind that boulder.
• 1:36:36
  That's right. Yes, Yes.
• 1:36:38
  I love it. Controlling it with my mind.
• 1:36:41
  Oh. Yeah, it's continuity now.
• 1:36:43
  Yeah, we're calling it that. She really does have TK powers.
• 1:36:46
  It's done. So did you notice the ink spots
• 1:36:52
  that were behind the Grizzard in the Grizzard scene?
• 1:36:56
  Oh my God, were they just being ridiculous again?
• 1:36:58
  They were, and I'm, I was hoping, I was hoping that you
• 1:37:02
  might have actually known what they were doing.
• 1:37:03
  OK, so there's 2 Ink spots back there.
• 1:37:06
  OK. And I'm sure there's like story
• 1:37:07
  that we didn't get on screen because they're the puppeteers.
• 1:37:10
  Whoever it is, it's just having a good time.
• 1:37:11
  So the first shot is they're both holding little cups and
• 1:37:14
  they kind of clink them together like they're going cheers.
• 1:37:17
  And then the camera cuts away and then the camera comes back
• 1:37:20
  and one of them is lying on his back and I can't tell if he's
• 1:37:26
  like on the rock or he's supposed to be floating in the
• 1:37:29
  water. If that's if the water line even
• 1:37:31
  goes up that high. I'm going to leave it up to
• 1:37:34
  everyone else to decide what was in that beverage or what they
• 1:37:37
  were doing. But it's like there's, there's
• 1:37:39
  a, there's a whole story going on back there with those ink
• 1:37:42
  spots. I miss, I miss that I have to go
• 1:37:45
  back and and look to see what's going on back there.
• 1:37:49
  Oh my gosh. I just love it.
• 1:37:52
  I would pay to watch the them do dishes like I don't care what
• 1:37:55
  they do. Yes, absolutely being spots are
• 1:37:58
  my favorites and and this is the gift to me of now on my like
• 1:38:03
  third rewatch of the of the season and it's like, OK, I know
• 1:38:07
  what the Fraggle 5 are doing. I know what's happening in the
• 1:38:10
  foreground. I don't need to stare at that.
• 1:38:12
  I can look what's happening up there, what's in there, what's
• 1:38:15
  in the corner, What's that guy doing?
• 1:38:16
  Who's who's that weird looking Fraggle?
• 1:38:19
  And I can kind of start to put things together or at least like
• 1:38:22
  put myself in the in the, in the shoes of the puppeteers who are
• 1:38:26
  back there being like, no one's ever going to see this, but
• 1:38:28
  let's have a little bit of fun. I love it.
• 1:38:32
  I love it. Yep, one.
• 1:38:34
  Actually, there's one. I mean, I think you would find
• 1:38:37
  this fascinating as a puppet nerd, but out of they're the
• 1:38:41
  original puppets, the Ink Spots and there's one ink spot that
• 1:38:46
  inside the pallet, there's actually like a break.
• 1:38:48
  It's broken inside the top pallet.
• 1:38:51
  But in in any other world, you'd be like, Oh my God, it's broken.
• 1:38:55
  Whatever you got to get it fixed.
• 1:38:57
  But what's really cool is because it's broken on top, you
• 1:39:00
  can bend it in this weird way to get this very goofy expression.
• 1:39:06
  I'm special this one broken. I guess Ink Spot is kind of can
• 1:39:12
  do something that the others can't.
• 1:39:15
  Well, to look for that one. Yeah, we would always stand to
• 1:39:19
  try to get that one. Because yeah, they, they, they,
• 1:39:22
  they refurbished them and, but they tried to retain as much of
• 1:39:25
  the original as as possible. But we're just using them more
• 1:39:30
  and more. They're just so, so fun and so
• 1:39:33
  handy. And so they just get a lot, a
• 1:39:36
  lot of views. So just even, even even, you
• 1:39:41
  know, having, having newer, newer, newer parts, just the,
• 1:39:46
  the fact that they're used so much and people are having so
• 1:39:48
  much fun with them. Things like that can happen.
• 1:39:50
  But but hey, if it adds, if it adds to it, you know great have
• 1:39:54
  have have fun with it. Yeah, really.
• 1:39:57
  Who built the Ink Spots? Oh.
• 1:40:01
  Gosh, that's a good question, 'cause they were built for the
• 1:40:03
  Bagooni show and and they, they, they performed a Ink Spots style
• 1:40:14
  song. That's where they got their kind
• 1:40:17
  of their production name. And I cannot remember they they
• 1:40:23
  were the kind of thing that was, that might have been such a last
• 1:40:26
  minute idea that they might have been built in Toronto rather
• 1:40:30
  than built in New York and then sent sent to Toronto.
• 1:40:33
  So it might have been just a little bit of everybody.
• 1:40:36
  I do I do remember seeing the awesome Michael Frith's drawings
• 1:40:40
  of what they what they look like as as far as like 1 main puppet
• 1:40:45
  builder in in charge of that I don't know.
• 1:40:49
  I don't know. Be good to find out.
• 1:40:52
  Check a wiki. To see if it had any
• 1:40:53
  information. And no, just just what you said.
• 1:40:55
  Michael Frith's design, but but no builder listed.
• 1:41:00
  All right, well, that's a mystery.
• 1:41:03
  We'll get to the bottom of it. Yeah, it's a yeah.
• 1:41:05
  And that being built by a whole bunch of people, that's kind of
• 1:41:07
  cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:41:11
  We will end this episode pretty much with Junior Gorg and and
• 1:41:16
  Ma. They've built this elaborate
• 1:41:17
  machine for Paw Gorg, and it's like sending the strawberries
• 1:41:22
  down from the top of the tower and through this whole mechanism
• 1:41:25
  and then shooting them at PAW so that he doesn't have to sit up
• 1:41:29
  to pick up strawberry. And of course, everything goes
• 1:41:32
  to pot. It does not work at all.
• 1:41:33
  And it would just be easier to not have to deal with all that.
• 1:41:37
  And what's interesting to me about this, first of all, a
• 1:41:41
  great set piece that's that the, I don't know if it's the props
• 1:41:45
  people or, or who that built this like windmill looking thing
• 1:41:49
  for, for the strawberries. But earlier in the episode we
• 1:41:53
  see the Doozers with something kind of similar where it will
• 1:41:56
  help them, you know, they pick the strawberries and then it, it
• 1:41:59
  packages them and sets it up for distribution and all that other
• 1:42:02
  stuff. And it seems like we've got 2
• 1:42:07
  examples in this episode of elaborate machines that are in a
• 1:42:11
  way making life easier, one of which is a great idea, and one
• 1:42:17
  of them is an absolutely terrible idea.
• 1:42:21
  I don't know if that was deliberate or not, or if I'm
• 1:42:23
  just looking too far into it, because that's everything that
• 1:42:26
  the Doozers do is an elaborate machine that makes life easier.
• 1:42:30
  Yeah. Any any thoughts on that?
• 1:42:32
  Well, certainly the the the gorg version was was like a Gorg
• 1:42:37
  sized representation of what Red was doing is is, you know,
• 1:42:44
  building building upon supposedly solving a a problem
• 1:42:49
  and taking control of the the situation.
• 1:42:51
  Although the pause solution is to have have Law and Junior do
• 1:42:58
  the actual work, at least at least read when she has an idea,
• 1:43:01
  she gets out and does it herself.
• 1:43:04
  And her problem being that she didn't tell anybody else about
• 1:43:07
  it. And until she gets everybody to
• 1:43:10
  help her. Yeah.
• 1:43:12
  The, the, the, the gorge, just the, the IT was so amazing.
• 1:43:15
  It was this giant practical thing with the, the the wheel
• 1:43:21
  and the, the, the pulleys and and and everything.
• 1:43:25
  It's just just amazing another another example of just how
• 1:43:28
  excited the prop and the set and and the Doozer people are just
• 1:43:32
  about bringing these things to to life.
• 1:43:35
  Make making them practical 'cause they it with with with so
• 1:43:41
  many of these these folks. They they really get to, you
• 1:43:45
  know, do do things that they they may not normally do in
• 1:43:49
  their in their work. So they just get to get to have
• 1:43:53
  fun and it and it's a challenge and it's sometimes it's tricky
• 1:43:56
  making it all work, but they just take great, great joy and
• 1:43:59
  and satisfaction and doing a beautiful job building it to to
• 1:44:06
  work well, but represent something that is, in the the
• 1:44:11
  context of the the story of the show, a bad idea that does not
• 1:44:14
  work well. Sure.
• 1:44:18
  Yeah, yeah. Yep.
• 1:44:20
  Yeah, well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Back
• 1:44:24
  to the Rock. Before we go, I have an
• 1:44:27
  important question to ask each of you.
• 1:44:30
  How do you, Ally and Karen, plan to make this world a little
• 1:44:35
  fragglier? First things that come to mind
• 1:44:38
  for me are just keeping grounded inside of the idea of kindness
• 1:44:44
  and respect towards everybody around me.
• 1:44:48
  And I think staying inclusive and trying to be positive and
• 1:44:55
  shining your light and trying to instill that in whatever work
• 1:45:00
  comes my way in future and what the things that I'm putting
• 1:45:03
  myself into now. And those were the themes of Jim
• 1:45:09
  Henson's creations growing up that got me through a lot of
• 1:45:15
  hard things in my life. And I'm so grateful for that
• 1:45:19
  space growing up. So I think it's to carry all
• 1:45:22
  those all those ideas with me that brought me through and to
• 1:45:29
  keep putting them into things that I make for kids.
• 1:45:34
  And I guess keep playing, keep playing.
• 1:45:37
  Yes, very important. Yeah.
• 1:45:40
  Oh, Ellie, that's that's just beautifully, beautifully said.
• 1:45:43
  Thank you so, so much for that. Thank.
• 1:45:45
  You, Karen. Oh, Karen, Oh gosh.
• 1:45:49
  Well, there, there are definitely big, big needs, but
• 1:45:56
  trying to listen and understand where the people are coming
• 1:46:00
  from, what their needs are, are making them, them think and, and
• 1:46:05
  feel and this understanding that that we're, we're all connected,
• 1:46:11
  we're all in this together. So, so just trying to to keep
• 1:46:16
  that in mind with interactions with people and, and trying
• 1:46:23
  through through things like like working on Fraggle rock, just to
• 1:46:27
  to keep, keep reminding people of, of that and inspiring that
• 1:46:35
  the next, the next generation to, to realize it's, it's an
• 1:46:40
  important message to sing and shouting and singing from from
• 1:46:45
  the rooftops and be be willing to to deal deal with with tough
• 1:46:50
  challenges. Trying, trying to be, be open
• 1:46:55
  and, and understanding and respectful and, and just being,
• 1:47:02
  being aware of that precious, precious connection we, we all
• 1:47:07
  have to each other. It's, it's hard work.
• 1:47:09
  It could be scary, but it's it's worth doing.
• 1:47:15
  Beautiful. Karen, you're the best.
• 1:47:18
  You're you're a, you are a hero, my friend.
• 1:47:24
  Thank you both, Ali Eisner, Karen Prell for being here.
• 1:47:29
  It was such a joy to get to spend this time with you.
• 1:47:33
  Such a joy to really delve into all things Fraggle Rock with
• 1:47:37
  you. And thank you for all that you
• 1:47:40
  put into this really remarkable, beautiful show.
• 1:47:44
  It's so important for so many different reasons, and I think
• 1:47:48
  we're all feeling it right now that everyone needs to see it,
• 1:47:54
  everyone needs to feel it, everyone needs to learn from it,
• 1:47:57
  and you're both bringing something really special and
• 1:48:00
  unique to it. That Fraggle Rock would not be
• 1:48:04
  Fraggle Rock without each of you.
• 1:48:06
  So thank you so much for everything and thank you for
• 1:48:08
  being here. Thank you.
• 1:48:10
  Thank you, Joe. Thank you for this, this awesome
• 1:48:12
  opportunity to, to, to share this, to talk about this with,
• 1:48:17
  with, with Ally, just this shared, shared experience and,
• 1:48:20
  and to, to relive it and celebrate it all all over again.
• 1:48:25
  So I really, really appreciate it so much.
• 1:48:27
  Of course, Thank. You tough pigs.
• 1:48:29
  Thank you tough pigs, for. Creating to.
• 1:48:32
  Get to know puppet tours better and celebrate all the the work
• 1:48:37
  of Jim Henson and all the people following in his footsteps.
• 1:48:42
  That's what we do. That's what we're here for.
• 1:48:56
  Fraggle Talk, The unofficial Fraggle Rock Podcast is brought
• 1:48:59
  to you by toughpigs.com. Produced, written and hosted by
• 1:49:03
  Joe Hennis, Fraggle Talk art by Dave Holtz Junior Fraggle Rock
• 1:49:07
  mark and logo characters and elements are trademarks of Jim
• 1:49:09
  Henson Company. All rights reserved.
• 1:49:11
  Transcripts provided by Caitlin Miller.
• 1:49:14
  Fraggle Rock theme song written by Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee
• 1:49:17
  is used with permission. Special thanks to the Jim Henson
• 1:49:20
  Company, Apple TV Plus and the entire Fraggle rock back to the
• 1:49:23
  Rock family. Be sure to follow Tough Pigs at
• 1:49:26
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• 1:49:30
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• 1:49:33
  us on Patreon or by buying merchandise on T public.
• 1:49:36
  For more Fraggle podcast fun, listen to Fraggle Talk Classic
• 1:49:40
  on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening and we'll
• 1:49:43
  see you next time down at Fraggle Talk.