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To Introduce Our Guest Star - Episode Sixteen: Ken Kwapis · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:11
  Hello, my name is jarek their class and my name is Johannes
• 0:15
  and welcome to to introduce our guest star Muppet fan podcast
• 0:18
  for topics.com in this show. Joe and I were taken in turns to
• 0:21
  surprise each other with each week's guests this week.
• 0:24
  It's my turn Joe because you were last week.
• 0:26
  That's how it works. That is how it works.
• 0:28
  We have up, we have a whole system.
• 0:30
  Um, here we have a whole system, so Joe you get to ask a few
• 0:33
  questions as you know, all right, let the fire try to
• 0:37
  figure out who it is doing and let's, let's jump in feet first.
• 0:40
  All right, Henson Muppets or Sesame, Sesame, Sesame person.
• 0:46
  Is this person. A puppeteer know that could be.
• 0:53
  Anybody has this person never worked at Hooper's store.
• 0:57
  No, okay, are you sure? Yes, it's Natalie.
• 1:01
  Portman dress, doesn't know. They have not Melvin.
• 1:07
  Alrighty, that's neat. Um, as this person ever, sung a
• 1:12
  song on Sesame Street? No.
• 1:15
  Wow. All right, I'm gonna guess it's
• 1:18
  not a performer. Is this person a writer?
• 1:23
  What? A nose here?
• 1:25
  No boy. Yeah, I'm coming up blank.
• 1:28
  Okay. It's personal puppet Builder.
• 1:31
  No, wow. Well else.
• 1:35
  What else is there scenario? It's actually someone who's not
• 1:39
  connected to anything. It's actually just my dad.
• 1:42
  It's your dick. Yeah, not gonna lie.
• 1:44
  I really thought of bringing your dad as a guest.
• 1:47
  I thought there would be no quarrel, okay?
• 1:50
  Okay, all right. I'm gonna make a wild guests.
• 1:53
  I really do it. I could, I could get them all,
• 1:55
  but I'm not going to get this one.
• 1:58
  Okay. So someone is not a property,
• 1:59
  are probably not a performer, not a writer.
• 2:04
  I'm going to guess that it's Sesame Workshop CEO.
• 2:12
  Steve Young would incorrect. Joe.
• 2:15
  My guest today is an Emmy nominated director, who has
• 2:17
  worked with some of the biggest names in show business.
• 2:20
  I'm Rockin Robin Williams, Robert Redford Bryan, Cranston
• 2:23
  Garry Shandling. Steve Carell.
• 2:25
  Scarlett Johansson. You named him.
• 2:26
  He's directed them. He also directed shows like free
• 2:29
  to Geeks Malcolm in the middle' Santa Clarita diet parks and
• 2:32
  recs space force and he helped create the Larry Sanders show,
• 2:35
  The Bernie Mac Show and The American adaptation of a little
• 2:38
  show, you may have heard of called the office.
• 2:40
  You're looking super confused. Could you still haven't figured
• 2:42
  it out but long Joe long before he did any of that, he directed
• 2:47
  Big Bird. Oscar Cookie Monster and daddy
• 2:49
  do do in the T5 film, Follow That Bird Joe would you please
• 2:52
  welcome to to introduce our guest star Follow That Bird
• 2:55
  director Ken Cuates hello Ken Hey!
• 3:01
  Hey! Can I meet you?
• 3:05
  I'm Joe. Hey, Joe.
• 3:08
  I'm Jared and Jared great to meet both of you.
• 3:11
  Can you see anything? Can you hear me?
• 3:13
  Okay, we can see. And hear you perfectly
• 3:16
  fantastic. Thank you, the.
• 3:20
  So the concept of the show is Joe, didn't know you were coming
• 3:23
  in till literally about 90 seconds ago and I we've done 15.
• 3:29
  Two days now. And that is the most excited.
• 3:31
  I've seen Joe. Yeah.
• 3:34
  Genuinely Jazz to talk to you, because I was telling Jarrod
• 3:39
  just before you came on, you know, fall that bird to me.
• 3:42
  Is it mean it's a perfect movie? I adore that film.
• 3:47
  It's a huge part of Sesame, Street history, obviously.
• 3:50
  And you know, we've been doing tough pigs for many, many years,
• 3:54
  you know, arm up the fan site. And we've always had like, one
• 3:57
  of these days, we really got to get in touch with with Ken Co-op
• 3:59
  has you know really got to talk to about this move me and like
• 4:01
  we've just never really gone through the motions.
• 4:04
  So it's actually reach out to you.
• 4:06
  So like I'm just tickled that we finally get it.
• 4:08
  This chance to talk to you about this fantastic film.
• 4:11
  I'm psyched. I will say in advance that I may
• 4:14
  be interrupted by a dog that's going to walk into this room and
• 4:18
  curl up on the couch that's even better.
• 4:22
  All the best assume conversations involve a dog.
• 4:25
  Making making a surprise appearance, you are welcome to
• 4:29
  exercise any of that. You would like So any any any
• 4:36
  ground rules that I need to know about?
• 4:39
  No. All right, whatever you want to
• 4:41
  talk about let's talk about. Yes, we're your head off if you
• 4:45
  want. Who cares, y'all bleep it fun?
• 4:50
  Well I can I'm happy to go back to the beginning.
• 4:53
  I mean, I don't know if you've done a lot of if you focused
• 4:56
  much on Sesame Street or have you been we yeah we focus a lot
• 5:00
  on Sesame Street, you know equally with with moppets and
• 5:03
  all the hens And different projects and all that, you know
• 5:06
  it's still a very big part of us anything.
• 5:08
  We always say like anything that Jim Henson touched or influenced
• 5:11
  is is in our wheelhouse. So yeah.
• 5:15
  Well let me sort of set the same little bit I you know, so the
• 5:18
  show premiered in 69 and and it was 15 years later that Warner
• 5:25
  Brothers in conjunction with Jim's company and children's
• 5:29
  television Workshop decided that it was time to make a film I'm
• 5:34
  starting to Sesame Street characters, and and this may be
• 5:38
  something that you and your listeners know.
• 5:40
  But, you know, the initial velocity of the show Sesame
• 5:44
  Street was that the young viewers really lack the
• 5:47
  attention span to follow a long story.
• 5:50
  And so the show obviously, I mean, such a brilliant show, you
• 5:54
  know, but but the the cold format was, you know, in fact,
• 5:57
  it was a fast-paced sketch show. And, you know, obviously with
• 6:01
  educational segments Designed to resemble commercial.
• 6:06
  So, you know, Follow That Bird in contrast is a full-fledged
• 6:10
  narrative. And and, and on top of that,
• 6:14
  it's a very emotional honesty. You know, than we, the the main
• 6:17
  character really undergoes a kind of Journey of
• 6:21
  self-discovery. So and I trust that your your
• 6:25
  listeners know the story of followed a but I'm happy too.
• 6:30
  Tee It Up in case any of them happen.
• 6:32
  I mean I mean if you want to go through, I mean at if everyone
• 6:35
  on this chat you definitely the one most qualified to tell the
• 6:37
  story. Ha ha ha.
• 6:40
  Well I think it well it's worth, it's worth, reminding your
• 6:43
  listeners. What set up is?
• 6:44
  I mean it's a beginning of the film, we meet a an avian social
• 6:50
  worker Miss Finch. Who, who has decided that big
• 6:55
  bird would be happier living with their own kind.
• 6:59
  And, and ships Big Bird off to Ocean View, Illinois to live
• 7:03
  with a family of dodo birds. It's, that's all I think.
• 7:09
  I think that's enough to remind everyone.
• 7:12
  What you get. A delightful story.
• 7:13
  It is and yes, and the general plot, right?
• 7:16
  Yeah. So here's, here's my background.
• 7:20
  So I in the early 1980s, I was just come out of film school.
• 7:26
  I went to USC and got a, I didn't quite finish, but I got,
• 7:30
  I was studying to get an MFA in filmmaking, but I left school to
• 7:35
  direct a couple of after-school specials and those after-school
• 7:40
  specials came to the attention of someone at Warner Brothers.
• 7:43
  A producer, who was developing Follow?
• 7:45
  That Bird the producer. Was Amy.
• 7:48
  Pascal, who has since gone on to become a major fixture in
• 7:53
  entertainment space. In the, in the feature film
• 7:55
  world. She was a studio Chief and a
• 7:58
  significant producer. She recommended me to Warner's.
• 8:03
  And the next thing I knew I was, when I was living in LA.
• 8:06
  But the next thing I knew I was flying to New York to meet Jim.
• 8:10
  I mean, Jim Henson who had approval over, who would direct
• 8:13
  this film and I'm Going to tell you when some detail about that
• 8:19
  meeting because it was one of the most memorable job
• 8:21
  interviews I've ever had, well, I'm good.
• 8:24
  Lucky in that your, are your publicist sent me a copy of your
• 8:28
  book so I've read, they are so, Joe hasn't read this yet.
• 8:31
  But I've read the chapter on Follow That Bird and I mean, you
• 8:35
  know, we'll get you to tell the story about you know all the
• 8:36
  meetings you had and that meeting with Jim well, here's
• 8:39
  here's well, Jared, forgive me, you've read this but I'm going
• 8:42
  to repeat some of what you already go for it but be so I
• 8:47
  You know, I met Jim at his office Henson Associates, huh?
• 8:53
  As it was called on the Upper East Side.
• 8:56
  And I, and I have no, I have no memory of what I warned the job
• 9:01
  interview. But I distinctly remember, the
• 9:04
  he had a T-shirt and blue jeans on.
• 9:06
  And he looked, you know, he is very low-key, very hippyish.
• 9:09
  We sat across from each other. We sat across a coffee table,
• 9:13
  from each other and the coffee table.
• 9:15
  Had, you know, lots of Rip's and coffee mugs and they mysterious
• 9:20
  green rag that I didn't make too much note of.
• 9:25
  I thought maybe the Bragg was there to clean up a coffee
• 9:27
  spill. But anyways, so pretty quickly
• 9:30
  very quickly into the interview. I made a choice that in
• 9:35
  retrospect, I'm going to Pat myself on the back.
• 9:38
  It was a rather bold choice of because I admitted the gym that
• 9:41
  I had never directed a puppet and really didn't know anything
• 9:45
  about directing pump. It's and you know, basically I
• 9:50
  was advertising my lack of qualifications for the job in
• 9:54
  the interview and and you know who knows, you know the meeting
• 9:57
  could have gone South at that point but in fact Jim loved that
• 10:01
  I was being upfront and at that point he picked up the green Rag
• 10:05
  and put his hand in it and it was not a rank.
• 10:08
  It was Carmen and permit introduced himself to me.
• 10:13
  Can I have a massive coffee spill on him that Jimmy?
• 10:19
  I literally I think that's what I honestly thought.
• 10:22
  Well you know whoever cleans up in this office left a piece of
• 10:32
  advice, he said it just talked to the puppeteers, like you
• 10:38
  would an actor. And so our meeting continued And
• 10:44
  toward the end of the meeting. Jim said, something that pretty
• 10:48
  much made it clear to me, that I had won the job and he said that
• 10:54
  he made a request of me. He said on the first day of
• 10:57
  shooting And say, what I want you to do is gather all the crew
• 11:02
  members especially the camera people, especially the camera
• 11:07
  department, and and bring everyone together and ask
• 11:10
  everyone to raise one hand in the air and hold it there for a
• 11:14
  solid minute. And as you probably know like
• 11:20
  holding your hand, it's actually kind of fatiguing to keep your
• 11:23
  hand in the air for a long time. But he wanted the crew members
• 11:25
  again, particularly camera people to know how taxing it was
• 11:28
  for the puppeteers. To keep their characters on
• 11:33
  their marks or suspended, you know, for long periods while all
• 11:36
  sorts of lighting and Camera adjustments were being made.
• 11:39
  That was his actually, that was the one and only demand he made
• 11:42
  of me. So, and after that meeting, I
• 11:48
  had my first feature film job Wow.
• 11:51
  So that's the background and but I should say that there was a
• 11:57
  couple couple more meetings, I had to have, I did have to meet
• 12:00
  a couple people from the children's television Workshop,
• 12:04
  but most importantly I had to meet Caroll spinney and so Carol
• 12:13
  was 51 years old in 1984 that's when we made the film.
• 12:19
  Came out the following year in 85 3 is 51 but he was, you know,
• 12:25
  big surprise, like so spry. So athletic and and and so
• 12:31
  sweet. Oh my gosh.
• 12:32
  So and I mentioned this in my book and my chapter about Follow
• 12:36
  That Bird. But, you know, now with about
• 12:38
  three and a half Decades of directing under my belt, I mean
• 12:44
  having endured more than a few like really difficult actors.
• 12:49
  I realized how spoiled I was to have someone as gentle as Carol,
• 12:56
  collaborating with me on my my first movie.
• 12:59
  So what a gift. So, I have so many.
• 13:04
  So many questions about the production of this film.
• 13:07
  I'm almost like, flabbergasted as to where to start.
• 13:10
  I some of the other day, That I've talked to who've worked
• 13:14
  with Muppets or Sesame characters, you know, they talk
• 13:17
  a lot about the challenges of just physically, like, how
• 13:21
  puppets work, where they were there hidden, you know, cutting
• 13:24
  holes in the Senate, things like that, but you probably don't
• 13:28
  have to deal with that a ton because it's, you were dealing
• 13:29
  with, with big bird who's a full body character, who can walk
• 13:33
  down the street, doesn't have to hide behind a brick wall or or
• 13:36
  be stuck in, you know, in a floorboard or something like
• 13:39
  that, but did you have some experiences where you're like?
• 13:42
  Oh yeah, what? Have characteristic sitting on
• 13:43
  Sesame Street and someone said to you, well, hang on.
• 13:46
  You have to, you know, stop and think about all these little
• 13:49
  details that people can't do or people can do and parts can't do
• 13:53
  quite so easily. Well, big bird of course, I
• 13:56
  think among the many challenges with big bird was just how to
• 14:01
  was more like a pictorial thing, how to frame him with other
• 14:04
  characters, so that the compositions were attractive?
• 14:07
  I mean, that was one of the tricky things, with big bird,
• 14:09
  but we also had to, we had to adjust, Set pieces to to
• 14:15
  accommodate Big, Bird's height. And I think that my favorite is
• 14:18
  that for that wonderful duet between Waylon Jennings and big
• 14:22
  bird in that the farmers track. We retrofitted the truck so that
• 14:29
  big bird can sit in the passenger seat.
• 14:31
  Now, there's absolutely no logical reason.
• 14:33
  Why Waylon Jennings should be driving a truck with this
• 14:36
  ridiculously tall cab. We literally the transportation,
• 14:42
  Department on the film, like we did the cab.
• 14:45
  So it I mean it's it looks perfect, but it looks perfectly
• 14:49
  absurd. So I would say that for me, What
• 14:56
  I found is that his thing was just the puppeteers and their
• 14:59
  ability to crawl into tight spaces to work for him.
• 15:03
  And, and I mentioned this in the chapter, but they're, you know,
• 15:08
  one of my favorite moments on the set was watching Frank Oz
• 15:12
  and Jim Henson debate how to crawl into and Puppeteer from a
• 15:17
  tiny, by plane, for Bert and Ernie.
• 15:19
  When they're scouring the countryside, looking for The
• 15:22
  Runaway big bird. And I'm literally, I just I
• 15:26
  didn't say anything. I just was like a fly on the
• 15:28
  wall listening to them. Talk about him.
• 15:30
  Will help you put your elbow here and I put my knee here.
• 15:33
  They literally, it was like trying to, it was like talking
• 15:36
  about how two people could turn themselves into a pretzel.
• 15:40
  And we're enough for there used to be, but I think, but I think
• 15:48
  it was also the tricky ones. Part of the, you know, the group
• 15:58
  that goes to rescue big burn. Your cookie is Cookie Monster's
• 16:03
  with Gordon and Olympia, in a Volkswagen Beetle.
• 16:07
  So Frank Oz needed to Puppeteer cookie from the backseat
• 16:11
  floorboards of a Volkswagen Beetle.
• 16:13
  And I drank cocoa to this day, how we did it?
• 16:18
  I don't know. I don't know how he didn't get
• 16:20
  incredibly motion, sick, all I well here, speaking of motion
• 16:24
  sickness and, and And for the scenes with Super Grover Frank
• 16:31
  and I sat with a camera operator on top of moving crane.
• 16:36
  So this is this was a very low-tech movie and I'm very low
• 16:40
  fi movie. I should say varied analog era
• 16:43
  movie and that one of the many things I love about it and four
• 16:47
  scenes of Grover. Flying there was no green
• 16:50
  screen. We literally like hoist we but
• 16:52
  we got up high on a crane and rolled down the street.
• 16:55
  Eat and Frank puppeteered like strapped into the you know, the
• 16:59
  the seat on the topic rain. That's one of the reasons why
• 17:04
  this movie holds up as well as it does because of all these
• 17:07
  practical effects when you see Super Grover flying in the trees
• 17:10
  or above them and Cookie Monster's in the backseat while
• 17:13
  they're driving down the street or whatever it is, if that was
• 17:15
  done with green screen or any kind of CGI or any kind of
• 17:19
  computer enhancement, it would be like whatever.
• 17:21
  But like those characters get to live in the real world and Movie
• 17:26
  really highlights that everything feels very very real,
• 17:29
  even the decision of what the locations are.
• 17:32
  You know, being you know in Illinois, being in Toadstool
• 17:36
  with the parade and driving down the street, flying over the
• 17:40
  cornfield, all that stuff is some very specific references
• 17:45
  that make us feel like all they're not like flying over New
• 17:47
  York City. They're not, you know, the
• 17:50
  bottom of the ocean there in, they could be in your backyard
• 17:53
  basically, right? Well, we're Oddly enough.
• 17:55
  It's almost like they characters are Fantastical, but they abide
• 18:00
  by natural laws in the movie. Yes.
• 18:03
  Exactly. For the most part, but they but
• 18:19
  I love the Ingenuity of the people who came up with things
• 18:23
  like the count mobile. There are a few Lots of the
• 18:25
  chemical build driving on its own.
• 18:29
  But that well, that's what surprise that's actually had
• 18:32
  that written down because in the book you describe it, it's built
• 18:35
  to built to scale automobile that had room for one Puppeteer
• 18:38
  lying on his back. Performing The Count while free
• 18:41
  driving with the aid of a video monitor.
• 18:43
  Does that mean that the property was actually driving that car?
• 18:47
  Yes. Now, by the way, when I say
• 18:49
  driving there was not, there was not a lot of there was not a lot
• 18:55
  of driving. There's only like a huge.
• 18:57
  There's a couple of shots. Like I said, there's only one I
• 18:59
  can think of, when you can read the telephone poles.
• 19:02
  Yeah, there's definitely. Now, by the way, the side, I'll
• 19:05
  be very specific and your listeners will appreciate this
• 19:08
  Level side, angle shots where we're sort of looking at the
• 19:12
  count in a in profile. Now, those were not free driving
• 19:16
  at all. Those were, you know, we
• 19:18
  attached the count mobile to a camera car but there are a
• 19:22
  couple of frontal shots where are we?
• 19:25
  wanted to make sure that you head to toe, but we saw the
• 19:30
  whole Camp will be land and the count singing and no, but I have
• 19:35
  to be honest, I'll go on a little more about the Lo-Fi
• 19:38
  quality of things, which I'm super proud of what L major
• 19:42
  things for instance, there's a there's a wonderful tilt down
• 19:48
  from Bert and Ernie's by plane, back to Waylon Jennings and big
• 19:52
  bird in the truck which sort of you know, kind of Starts the
• 19:56
  beginning of the final verse of the, or the final chorus, I
• 19:58
  guess in the song, and there was again, they were not married by
• 20:03
  visual effects that, you know, that was me on the back of a
• 20:06
  camera car. And and as soon as I sense the
• 20:10
  biplane was about to, you know, fly over us, I took signaled to
• 20:14
  the camera operator to tilt quickly and also gave a hand Q
• 20:18
  to the sound person who then hit the button.
• 20:22
  So that big bird and Waylon could Come right in on the core
• 20:27
  Top Line of the chorus. So it was all it was all like it
• 20:31
  was very like five. And I always assumed that that
• 20:34
  shot was matted, like I was just nobles were two different shots
• 20:38
  that you just blurt it really quickly.
• 20:39
  I had no idea that that was done in camera.
• 20:43
  I wasn't in favor of fact and the other really wonderful in
• 20:46
  camera effect. And again, this may be a less a
• 20:51
  function of budget more, just a product.
• 20:55
  Of me being like a silent movie nerd.
• 20:57
  Hopefully when we first arrived at the dodo house there's a
• 21:02
  wonderful wide shot of the neighborhood with the dodo house
• 21:06
  on a pole in the background. Well the way we did that shot
• 21:10
  was with a foreground miniature. So in fact there's a pole that's
• 21:15
  real and there's a neighborhood that's real and there's a car
• 21:19
  with big bird's head sticking out of it.
• 21:20
  That's real, it's all driving torque, but the actual house
• 21:23
  itself was suspended in the Background of the shot.
• 21:26
  And the house is no bigger than, you know, a loaf of bread.
• 21:30
  Wow. So now they don't make movies
• 21:33
  like that anymore. Not at all, they.
• 21:37
  And I will, I will be very happy to share with you a photo of me,
• 21:41
  like framing up. The foreground miniature of the
• 21:43
  dodo house. It's a super cool photo.
• 21:45
  Yes, please do. I don't really see that in the
• 21:48
  show notes for this episode. Yeah, I can see.
• 21:53
  Yeah, I think that there's a lot of Again, there are certainly
• 21:58
  things that were done in post-production.
• 22:00
  For instance, the climactic triptych of the song.
• 22:04
  One Little Star, where you see Snuffleupagus Olivia and big
• 22:08
  bird singing, but it was still very much in camera.
• 22:11
  I just sort of framed each of them in a way that I knew that
• 22:15
  in post, we can marry the shots. It wasn't manipulated.
• 22:19
  In it in it n. He's sophisticated way.
• 22:23
  And so again, that's one of the one of the joys of the film.
• 22:27
  I'm glad I'm glad you're pretty shredded.
• 22:29
  My name is amazing. Oh my God.
• 22:31
  Yes, well absolutely. You talk about these things.
• 22:33
  So this purely by chance even before I had thought to ask.
• 22:38
  If we could interview you a few weeks ago, Follow That Bird was
• 22:42
  on TV here in Australia and my mother had never seen it and I
• 22:47
  just happened to be like it was quite late.
• 22:49
  And I was like, oh yeah, I'll watch the last half an hour of
• 22:51
  this and my mum sitting there. Put her iPad down and was
• 22:58
  mesmerised after seeing where big bird has to jump from the
• 23:01
  back of the truck onto the hood of the other car.
• 23:04
  And she's like that was that real?
• 23:07
  I was like, I would assume so it was 1984.
• 23:12
  Yes, it is very real. Obviously, we weren't that way.
• 23:15
  We weren't going very fast and a lot of the humor of the scene is
• 23:18
  that we're not going fast either, but it was Caroll
• 23:21
  spinney on the back of that truck, you know, standing with
• 23:24
  that cage door open. And now, I don't, I'll be honest
• 23:29
  with you, it's possible. It's probable that we had for
• 23:34
  our wide shots, a stunt, double for Gordon.
• 23:38
  I can't imagine that we did any of the wide shots.
• 23:41
  With the actor. But certainly all of the clothes
• 23:43
  coverage. He was sort of standing there on
• 23:45
  the on the, on the hood or what was left of the hood after
• 23:50
  cookie. Chewed it up, Focus wagon.
• 23:54
  But yeah, no, that was again all practical and again, the fact
• 23:59
  that I mean if in in a different era A different filmmaker might
• 24:06
  have, you know, using visual effects might have made the
• 24:09
  action go faster. Meaning they driving could go
• 24:13
  faster but I actually love die for me.
• 24:15
  The charm of it is that they're not moving that quickly, you can
• 24:18
  still get hurt if you fall off a moving vehicle, whatever speed
• 24:22
  but but I kind of love the fact that they're having this
• 24:24
  dialogue about whether or not bird should jump and Golden's
• 24:28
  like giving permission like it's okay jump.
• 24:30
  I'm really not supposed to Big Bird you can do.
• 24:33
  It now it's okay, just this one, just this once I have to I've
• 24:38
  always been curious. Like, what ctw said about that
• 24:42
  scene because, you know, nowadays Sesame Workshop has so
• 24:46
  many different rules that are much more strict than they were
• 24:48
  when we were young about what the characters can and can't do.
• 24:52
  And that's the one thing where it's like, not in a million
• 24:54
  years, would they have allowed a shot of big bird jumping from a
• 24:58
  moving vehicle? And obviously, you know, it may
• 25:01
  have even been No, go back then, but it's the climax of the
• 25:07
  movie. Like something big has to
• 25:08
  happen. So, I do remember getting any
• 25:10
  pushback about that decision. No, not at all.
• 25:13
  And, and now, the writers of the screenplay were Sesame Street
• 25:18
  veterans, Tony, guys, Judy, Freud bird.
• 25:21
  Both neither of whom are with us and and they were just
• 25:24
  fantastic, such smart Riders, so they everything, you know was
• 25:30
  approved by the children's television Workshop.
• 25:33
  Shop, as well as Henson and Warner.
• 25:35
  So there were three, you know, I was serving three different
• 25:38
  entities but that, you know, you know that.
• 25:41
  But that no-nobody nobody raised any alarm.
• 25:44
  There were no red flags about that.
• 25:46
  Norther was there any red flags simply about the, you know, the
• 25:49
  idea that the slaves, Brothers, Joe Flaherty and Dave, Thomas
• 25:53
  kidnap Big Bird and die him blue which, which is traumatizing.
• 26:00
  It's probably thing and I can we Stuff per second.
• 26:05
  It is child abuse. Can we, can we talk about that
• 26:07
  for a second? Because I feel like, well, first
• 26:08
  of all, any time someone finds out that you directed fall, that
• 26:12
  bird is their first reaction. Oh my God, this scene, where big
• 26:15
  bird is blue makes me cry. Every time, like you traumatized
• 26:18
  me with that scene because whenever I hear it come up in
• 26:21
  conversation. That's the first thing.
• 26:22
  People tell me now, how many people told me it was
• 26:28
  traumatizing I was sent a hey, some somebody, Posted a list of
• 26:35
  favorite childhood films. The traumatize them in this was
• 26:38
  like, on the top of the whole minutes.
• 26:41
  That's got to feel good, right? Exactly.
• 26:46
  Well, first of all, it's it is, it's like abusive to die, a
• 26:51
  child blue. But it's also the most
• 26:53
  heartbreaking scene in the film where he's like, singing surely.
• 26:56
  You know, it's incredibly sad song and they you know, I would
• 27:03
  say that. For me, that the real takeaway
• 27:07
  though is that for putting aside, quote, people being
• 27:10
  dramatized, the real thing is that people were involved.
• 27:13
  People were emotionally invested in Big Bird, people were so
• 27:16
  emotionally invested in him. That they you know that I mean
• 27:20
  it. That's that to me is the beauty
• 27:22
  of the film. Ultimately is that you know, you
• 27:25
  don't particular don't usually cry at you know, Big Bird
• 27:28
  sketches on the show you don't, you know, but this story
• 27:32
  actually is very Really. I think it's quite depth full
• 27:36
  and and, and it sort of reaches a, you know, kind of a either
• 27:40
  low point or High Point depending on your point of view
• 27:43
  with that scene where he's dyed blue and of course, as you know,
• 27:47
  and he jumps from the truck to the Volkswagen dyed blue.
• 27:51
  And then, of course, he shows up on Sesame Street, again, all
• 27:54
  yellow. And I have no clue why he took
• 27:58
  up fast. He's fine.
• 28:02
  So, I have a cup. Of very hyper specific questions
• 28:06
  about about the bluebird of happiness.
• 28:09
  Sequence will see if you remember any of these things.
• 28:12
  So, first of all the kids, who are watching, big bird, sing the
• 28:15
  song, it's a series of twins throughout the whole room.
• 28:20
  It's been kind of speculated in the fan community of like, was
• 28:23
  it just a cool thing like cool visual or was there an actual
• 28:27
  deeper meeting to the fact that there's all these different
• 28:30
  twins watching this show? If you have no memory of this,
• 28:35
  that's fine too. No, but I have this funny.
• 28:38
  I don't remember. I, I'd have to I doubt
• 28:42
  seriously, that it was in the script.
• 28:44
  I have a hunch that it was an idea that probably came up in a
• 28:48
  meeting with the extras, casting director.
• 28:51
  And, and I probably thought that's cool idea.
• 28:54
  But I think I also like the idea that the villains are siblings.
• 29:00
  And then we just basically cut to a lot of cut away.
• 29:03
  We have several cutaways and your twins or siblings in the
• 29:06
  audience and but I don't think there was much more thought
• 29:12
  given the than that, but I think it's a delicious little detail.
• 29:16
  So it really is. Yeah.
• 29:17
  And I actually like that description especially because
• 29:20
  the movie really is all about family and learning who your
• 29:23
  family is and families can be good or bad as shown by the
• 29:27
  sleeves brothers, or they could just be You know, audiences who
• 29:31
  are get very sad watching their favorite characters, sing a sad
• 29:34
  song in a cage. I mean, you know, the mission of
• 29:39
  the, you know, the show the whole mission of the show is to
• 29:43
  to, you know, make audiences feel that you can be comfortable
• 29:48
  with all kinds of things. You know with monsters rooms
• 29:51
  with humans and and so for me, you know that you know
• 29:56
  underneath everything with Follow That Bird is the idea
• 29:59
  that you Not only is it about leaving home to find a home, but
• 30:03
  it's really about discovering that you don't need to be with
• 30:06
  your own kind to be happy. Yeah.
• 30:08
  Yeah. Like in the same sequence, while
• 30:12
  Big Bird a singing. When we see him in the cage,
• 30:15
  he's wearing like a giant pair of trousers.
• 30:19
  Like, like, I think they're plaid pants.
• 30:22
  Why? Like, because it's likes weren't
• 30:24
  like it didn't matter if his legs were orange, or blue, or
• 30:27
  whatever. It was, just the feathers that
• 30:29
  were died, you know? That's a bad decision was made
• 30:33
  by The Henson people. That was part of the head and
• 30:37
  they're hence, and people, you know, came up with that costume
• 30:40
  to tail. And I think it makes sense
• 30:42
  though, because the bluebird of happiness, is a character that
• 30:46
  bird is forced to play. So, He's not only blue, but he's
• 30:50
  sort of costumed, it's sort of a human.
• 30:52
  It adds it for me and added an extra layer of humiliation.
• 30:58
  Not that being dyed blue isn't enough, right?
• 31:02
  Yeah. But but and, and it's sort of
• 31:06
  adds to the pathos of the scene, but I don't remember a lot of
• 31:13
  discussion about it. It's actually as you were, as
• 31:18
  you were. Saying that I had forgotten
• 31:20
  injured. You just saw the movie more
• 31:21
  recently than I have that he's wearing like a white ruffled.
• 31:24
  Yeah. He's got the call.
• 31:25
  Alright. Yeah.
• 31:27
  Alright. So yeah, it's a whole costume.
• 31:29
  Shakespearean rough. It's it.
• 31:33
  Also I think there's a little bit of a, you know, you can find
• 31:37
  a, an antecedent in something like, you know, Pinocchio where
• 31:40
  I think the Pinocchio is wearing a costume when he's forced to
• 31:44
  perform. Yeah, but yeah.
• 31:48
  It's a remarkable scene if I may.
• 31:51
  And, and, you know, I, you know, I feel like it's amazing that
• 31:57
  people still single it out, not always, as traumatizing.
• 32:00
  But just as powerful I'm sure you've probably it's absolutely
• 32:03
  perfect show. You probably heard about this,
• 32:05
  but I've just looked it up Gluck.
• 32:07
  Remember, where it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 32:10
  large? Kia, had an installation on the
• 32:12
  roof of a blue Big Bird. Yeah, don't like it.
• 32:18
  Joe, I think. I'm looking for the booklet.
• 32:21
  Hang on, I have, it's okay. Wow, I didn't know.
• 32:27
  Yeah, we'll see if we can find you the photo here we go.
• 32:29
  Alright, so judge got the photo coming out.
• 32:32
  It was on the roof. So I was on the roof of the
• 32:34
  Metropolitan Museum of Art of art here in New York City here.
• 32:37
  That's the back of the booklet. You can see it.
• 32:40
  Well, that's will put the show in the show notes.
• 32:44
  Yeah, because the channel side. And so which, so the artists
• 32:48
  List, whose name is Alex De Court.
• 32:51
  He did this because I mean a blue specific in part because of
• 32:56
  Paul that bird but also he grew up watching Sesame Strasse.
• 33:02
  We're one of the one of the international Sesame Street's,
• 33:06
  which has Pinot, instead of Big Bird, who was, who was a blue
• 33:11
  bird. So he kind of gave an homage to
• 33:13
  both things. But, you know, pinot and you
• 33:15
  know, But the rest of their caste,
• 33:29
  they have unique characters and they all have one big walked
• 33:32
  round character. Sometimes it's a bird, sometimes
• 33:34
  it's something else but it's always kind of interesting to
• 33:36
  see, you know, their extended families, they all have their
• 33:39
  own Grouch character. That's part of thing.
• 33:42
  It's pretty neat. All right.
• 33:43
  I was When I got the job to direct the film, I realized that
• 33:49
  there was a ton of Sesame Street characters.
• 33:52
  I didn't know who were all in the film and and I mentioned
• 33:57
  this in my book, but I found I unearth the original cast list.
• 34:02
  I have it right in front of me, actually people and and these
• 34:06
  are the characters that are in the film.
• 34:09
  That I didn't know. Great ready.
• 34:13
  Got Gladys the Gladys theatrical cow Telly.
• 34:18
  Monster of course, Buster the horse.
• 34:21
  I didn't know Prairie Dawn. I think one of the few female
• 34:27
  buffets at the time yet, right? It's can't for the time, I'm
• 34:29
  sure. Yep and another one run Jetta
• 34:34
  forgetful Jones, Berkeley an astonishing character, hairy
• 34:42
  monster hairy Monsters Pretty popular.
• 34:45
  Captain Vegetable at me, know by our Captain Vegetable.
• 34:51
  I mean, he made his heels in one sketch so I'm surprised that
• 34:53
  it's a very famous sketch. We show up, it smells.
• 34:56
  It's a very famous sketch, but like, he's never, I mean, at
• 34:58
  that time he had never been on the streets.
• 35:00
  You know, it's not like he had hung out with the rest of the
• 35:03
  characters. Yeah, we in The Ensemble scenes
• 35:06
  in Follow That Bird. Sully Nobel price That I think
• 35:15
  was fairly popular to a two-headed monster Mumford the
• 35:21
  magician and, of course, many hunkers.
• 35:25
  And and this is, you know, this is an important thing.
• 35:29
  We shot the film in Toronto, which I have 1984.
• 35:33
  There are a lot of puppet characters and and we were able
• 35:36
  to tap into the wonderful group of puppeteers that Jim groomed
• 35:43
  for the show. Fraggle, Rock.
• 35:44
  That was a You know, a toronto-based production.
• 35:47
  So a lot of our characters most of all I would say all of them
• 35:51
  except for like the the major characters were puppeteered by
• 35:55
  the Fraggle Rock Puppeteer puppeteers and and they were
• 36:00
  such a fantastic group so good. Well that's great mention as
• 36:03
  well since you sorry you mention as well that there's in your
• 36:08
  book. That there's a there's one shot
• 36:11
  of a tiny little red puppet. Absolutely.
• 36:16
  Well, you know what? It says significant seen
• 36:18
  actually is the climax. It's really the climax in the
• 36:21
  film. A big bird has returned and Miss
• 36:25
  Finch shows up, determined to find another foster bird family
• 36:31
  for him. And at this point Maria, you
• 36:35
  know, basically gives the gives them the mission statement of
• 36:38
  the film and the show and lists all of the different creatures
• 36:42
  and people that live together in harmony Many on Sesame Street
• 36:45
  and it gave me a chance to do a shot.
• 36:48
  I'm very proud of him. A 360 degree pan of the entire
• 36:54
  Sesame Street set, and all the characters and deep in the
• 36:59
  background. Poking its head out of a window
• 37:03
  is is Elmo who Elmo was at the bottom of the puppet cast list
• 37:11
  Elmo was listed and Elmo monster.
• 37:13
  Yeah, And so Elmo has a has a cameo in Follow That Bird before
• 37:19
  being plucked from obscurity funding to be plant or they
• 37:24
  wouldn't release the film. I'm going to say on DVD.
• 37:27
  This is probably Joe any idea 2000.
• 37:30
  Yeah it was definitely if the maybe even earlier than that.
• 37:35
  Yeah, sometime in they had 2000 shot of Big Bird.
• 37:37
  Then all the characters in the film and Elmo's on it.
• 37:41
  And fans are going what Elmo has not ended like elbows in this
• 37:45
  film for a genuinely. Maybe 13 frames.
• 37:49
  That's about it. Yeah, whoever it was who
• 37:52
  approved that that's DVD cover art was probably like thank God
• 37:57
  Elmo's in it for two seconds because we can hold a yeah.
• 38:00
  Like yeah exactly not false as well.
• 38:03
  Although oh no. I have to say I I was very
• 38:13
  delighted when a few years later, when Elmo sort of came
• 38:16
  into prominence. And that somebody needed to
• 38:19
  point it out to me. I didn't, I didn't know, I
• 38:23
  didn't know. There was a star waiting in the
• 38:25
  wings, they're like in the background of what you
• 38:29
  mentioned, amazing. Um, you know, right through the
• 38:32
  list of characters, you didn't know and all but one of them in
• 38:38
  the film besides maybe a Honker Sort of are only in that for
• 38:43
  either a line or just a cameo, whatever it is, but you mention
• 38:46
  Telly monster and telling is a very big part of that film.
• 38:49
  That was also the first time Marty Robinson was, I was
• 38:53
  playing him so what was it like then having to this character,
• 38:57
  you didn't know and especially as Marty's finding it as well.
• 39:01
  What was it like for you? Making, you know, having this
• 39:03
  character be such a big part of the film if you didn't know a
• 39:06
  ton about them, Well, it's funny because it's possible that Marty
• 39:13
  finding that character really was kind of fed into who that
• 39:19
  character is in a way because Telly is all about not having a
• 39:22
  point of view or not are not being sure, or being ambivalent,
• 39:26
  or always seeing two sides of things.
• 39:28
  So maybe the fact that Marty was sort of searching for the
• 39:30
  character related really, really supported them and B.
• 39:34
  I love telling monster and I would say that You know, very
• 39:38
  quickly into shooting the picture, I really gravitated
• 39:42
  towards Telly and and loved Marty and of course Marty was
• 39:45
  doing double duty because he was also the front half of Snapple
• 39:51
  up Snuffleupagus. And and yeah and I think that
• 39:55
  and the back half of Snuffleupagus on the film was
• 39:59
  Bryant Bryant Young Who if I'm not mistaken, you please,
• 40:04
  correct me if I'm wrong. Did Brian Young, create and
• 40:07
  perform. Our big bear or Bear in the Big
• 40:09
  Blue House? No, you're thinking of no McNeil
• 40:13
  who don't know, Liz Big Bird when Carol is not in big word.
• 40:19
  I know he's told the story about Noah was I believe was in the
• 40:23
  Big Bird outfits during the North by Northwest seen, you
• 40:27
  know, having the the plane kind of clip them because, you know,
• 40:32
  like we're gonna use a puppeteer like, let it not be Caroll
• 40:35
  spinney. I guess it's Oh no.
• 40:37
  You know what? I thank you for reminding me.
• 40:40
  Know was fantastic and I happen to think Bear in the Big Blue
• 40:44
  House is one of the great unsung shows.
• 40:46
  It's just reminded characters. We are a couple.
• 40:49
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 40:51
  I'll mention one thing about North by Northwest and that is,
• 40:55
  you know, I had a fairly free hand, you know, especially
• 40:59
  considering it was the first film I directed.
• 41:00
  I had a pretty free hand. You know, coming up with gags
• 41:03
  and different things, things that weren't in the script and,
• 41:07
  and the North by Northwest omage was completely my idea.
• 41:10
  I literally, I thought, well we've got big bird in a
• 41:13
  cornfield and we've got a biplane swooping down.
• 41:15
  Why don't we go for it and Carol loved the idea.
• 41:19
  So great. So we just gotta think we'd
• 41:21
  probably found a VHS of North by Northwest and pulled up the
• 41:25
  scene and pretty much copy to chamfer shaft and the, you know,
• 41:30
  and I feel like very blessed in the sense that, you know, you
• 41:34
  know, in a way even though this was a film for Warner Brothers.
• 41:37
  Others. Jim Henson's company and
• 41:39
  children's television Workshop. In a funny way.
• 41:42
  It was nobody was over. Nobody was looking over my
• 41:46
  shoulder or rather nobody was. I kind of was able to do a lot
• 41:50
  of things that with a lot of freedom and know.
• 41:55
  And I guess for me, one of the things I'd love to mention is I
• 41:59
  had a free hand and like, choosing the crew and, you know,
• 42:03
  in the end, the Cameo cast. Oh, yeah.
• 42:05
  And yeah. yeah, and the, the Thank you know the the
• 42:11
  cinematographer Follow That Bird was Curtis Clark who had gained
• 42:18
  Renown a couple years earlier. Photographing this incredibly
• 42:23
  visually elegant film directed by Peter.
• 42:26
  Greenaway, the draftsman is contract, not the person you'd
• 42:29
  say, okay? Got to get that guy to direct,
• 42:31
  Follow That Bird. And our production designer
• 42:34
  Carol spear in 1984 the most prominent.
• 42:39
  And things on her resume where she had done basically every
• 42:42
  David Cronenberg film art directed directed scanners.
• 42:48
  And oh my gosh, see, what were the other ones?
• 42:52
  She did The Brood videodrome and of course, what do you, what do
• 42:56
  you, how do you follow that? Will Follow That Bird?
• 42:58
  Of course. And and and I feel like our
• 43:03
  Cameo cast is in a way. It's kind of a little funky and
• 43:07
  edgy. I mean Bernhardt at, you know,
• 43:11
  just starred in the king of comedy and I invited her to be
• 43:15
  the waitress in the garage Cafe. And and one of my favorite
• 43:18
  cameos that wonderful late director and actor.
• 43:23
  Paul Bartel, who directed such wonderful.
• 43:26
  You know, cult films like eating Raoul and he invited me there,
• 43:31
  the chef, and the grand Café, and he has one of my favorite
• 43:35
  bids, when he serves the tossed salad by loading it
• 43:38
  unaccountable. And it's funny because I've been
• 43:41
  really watching or watching for the first time a lot of Joe
• 43:45
  Dante movies and like look like so from that, you know, the
• 43:49
  low-budget be movie era and Pub or tells him all those things
• 43:52
  like he's, you know, like it's just like the first you'd think
• 43:57
  I was watching piranhas and on my God, that guy looks so
• 44:00
  familiar. Who is he?
• 44:02
  And I've seen him in the last few things, I've so it's the
• 44:04
  Grouch cook. Of course, I did.
• 44:08
  He's in a lot of those. A lot of those B movies and I
• 44:11
  think he and Joe Dante actually co-directed one called Hollywood
• 44:15
  Boulevard. And I watch that, yeah, Paul was
• 44:19
  such a sweetheart and and he had I think the film he directed
• 44:24
  right before coming to Toronto to play the Grouch Camp, they
• 44:27
  Chef was lust in the dust. And but also I'm just, you know,
• 44:33
  the fact that I was, I was a longtime Second City TV, super
• 44:39
  Fan. So you know just to ask Dave
• 44:41
  Thomas and Joe Flaherty to play the slaves Brothers to get you
• 44:44
  know John Candy to come aboard plays a ricer shot where he
• 44:49
  gets, pick the kid up, the kick is points that but that is a
• 44:58
  great bit and I do actually remember like you know, blow
• 45:01
  frame a couple of Pas their live-in help.
• 45:07
  Actually that boy whoo-hoo points at the sleeves, Brothers.
• 45:12
  He's in one of my favorite scenes in the whole film.
• 45:15
  He's the boy who was stuck at the top of the ferris wheel at
• 45:19
  the sleeves Brothers Carnival and they won't let him down
• 45:21
  until he gives them another nickel.
• 45:23
  And and though I remember saying to Curtis cargo cinematographer
• 45:29
  what's like the what's the most dynamic shot we can do of this
• 45:33
  young boy and his Ferris wheel. And so we managed its Solely on
• 45:37
  the screen for a few seconds but there is a shot where we somehow
• 45:42
  got the camera above, the ferris wheel looking straight down.
• 45:45
  And this boy is he preaches for a nickel in his pocket and drops
• 45:49
  it down to the Joe Flaherty's hands.
• 45:51
  It's really, it's a remarkable Shack.
• 45:54
  And it's a bitch cut to where the nickel falls into jail
• 45:58
  thirties hand and then he just slaps it on the bar all in one
• 46:02
  movement bam, you know, well it was a I guess I just feel like
• 46:06
  that you know People like Carol spear Curtis Clark and even in
• 46:10
  post-production, having them, you know, legendary Van Dyke
• 46:12
  Parks aboard to do our underscore.
• 46:16
  Just everybody kind of just kind of raise the level of the
• 46:20
  picture. It's a great group definitely.
• 46:22
  And and then, last but not least Waylon Jennings.
• 46:26
  We thought we talked about in my, I didn't.
• 46:29
  I wasn't really as big a, I wasn't a fan of Waylon Jennings.
• 46:33
  I grew to be afterwards but just the idea that We have the outlaw
• 46:41
  music Pioneer, you know, singing, a duet with paper to
• 46:44
  just the combination of their voices, his Gravelly hard-edged
• 46:49
  sound and I don't know how you describe big birds, singing
• 46:52
  voice, but there are two completely opposing, you know,
• 47:00
  characters, I guess, and then Caroll spinney talked a lot in
• 47:05
  his life about how close he and Weyland.
• 47:07
  Innings became like they spent Christmases together.
• 47:09
  Oh yeah, they became extremely close friends.
• 47:15
  And yeah that's that's the beginning of a beautiful
• 47:16
  friendship in that film. Oh you know what?
• 47:19
  I want to know more about that. I went to I'll seek out some
• 47:23
  Carol interviews to find out. I don't think, I don't remember
• 47:26
  him mentioning that in his autobiographical document.
• 47:31
  Let's put it on the book or the documentary.
• 47:33
  Yeah. But I remember asking about it,
• 47:36
  I think I may have just asked him who's the your favorite
• 47:38
  celebrity that you worked with and he told me about how he was
• 47:43
  such a huge fan of Waylon Jennings before the film and
• 47:48
  then getting To share that scene and the song is so good.
• 47:52
  I really my wife and I sing that song on every road trip and like
• 47:57
  it's almost a crime that there's not like a good clean version
• 48:00
  out there, you know, like on Spotify that we can just like,
• 48:02
  put on early something that no one's ever covered been to any
• 48:05
  of the songs from this movie's far, as I know, Erica music,
• 48:07
  smooth, it's great. The music is good and the music
• 48:11
  was written, all the songs were written by Warner Brothers
• 48:16
  music. Staff, writers.
• 48:18
  All housed in Nashville. So in during pre-production, I
• 48:23
  had the pleasure of going to Music Row in Nashville where it
• 48:28
  the Warner Brothers music house, I guess you'd call it a high was
• 48:32
  basically like it just took, you know a fraternity house where
• 48:35
  once a day all these songwriters would show up and hang around
• 48:37
  and come up with songs. It was it was you know it's the
• 48:41
  Nashville equivalent of Tin Pan Alley or the Nashville
• 48:43
  equivalent of what the brill building, you know, and but it
• 48:47
  was a but those songwriters did is they did a wonderful job.
• 48:52
  I mean one Star I want to like it's favorable songs and I
• 48:57
  actually listen to this a couple of times when Caroll spinney
• 49:00
  passed away because it was just and I just meant a lot to me.
• 49:04
  It was to graduate them which opens the film, which is such a
• 49:08
  great song and I also love the idea of.
• 49:11
  All right, we're going to start the Sesame Street movie with
• 49:13
  nothing to do with the rest of the film.
• 49:15
  We're just going to sing a funny song for two and a half minutes
• 49:17
  and then get into it. You know, I believe that.
• 49:22
  And I'm not sure I should take credit for it, but I believe the
• 49:26
  omage to patent was my idea. I'll have to dig up a copy of
• 49:29
  the script to see if it was in an early draft but I remember, I
• 49:34
  don't know why, but I just love the idea of a giant American
• 49:37
  flag at the big picture and their colorful.
• 49:41
  It's a beautiful shot. Yeah.
• 49:43
  And by the way, speaking of Carol and Oscar, I'm forgetting
• 49:50
  about one care. Sort of astonishing.
• 49:53
  And that's Bruno the Oscars. Yeah.
• 49:59
  And, and I don't know how often that character was in use, but
• 50:04
  and you obviously, you know, the characters.
• 50:06
  So, Bruno is Carol in a full body suit, carrying a trash can
• 50:11
  with Oscar in it. So, one hand is a dummy hand.
• 50:15
  That's holding the trash can handle so that Carol can
• 50:19
  Puppeteer Oscar and when Little walked on the set.
• 50:25
  Adults did a double take because it seemed to be just uncanny
• 50:32
  that there was no floor. There was nothing.
• 50:34
  There was no mask. There was nothing masking, the
• 50:37
  Puppeteer. There was a man holding a trash
• 50:40
  can there was nothing under the trans-canada.
• 50:42
  There was a live character inside.
• 50:44
  Ask her, it was astonishing to see grown and grown people just
• 50:50
  like flabbergasted by this simple and genius.
• 50:55
  Vitamin Caroll spinney like in a nutshell.
• 51:00
  I mean you I mean you talk a little bit in your book as well
• 51:02
  about the opening when you're intrigued Big Bird, he's on
• 51:06
  roller skates and that was Caroll spinney and he did
• 51:10
  episodes of Sesame Street on a unicycle as Big Bird.
• 51:13
  Yeah it baffles me that 16 man like what a what a man it is
• 51:18
  baffling it also that you know that when he's on skates he's
• 51:23
  not just skating a straight line here.
• 51:25
  The ill kind of pirouette, he'll do some moves, so here he is.
• 51:28
  He's got, you know, his right hand straight up in the air,
• 51:32
  operating the beak and his, and he's looking straight down at
• 51:36
  this little one inch monitor strapped to his chest and roller
• 51:41
  skating. And That Knocking anything over
• 51:44
  and I was like, I'm just oh my gosh and it was just out every
• 51:50
  level I do. Remember Carol may have talked
• 51:53
  about this in some interviewer. Or another, but Carol has spent
• 51:56
  a Carol, spent so much of his professional life with his right
• 52:00
  hand, I'm almost sure it was his right hand right hand in the air
• 52:03
  that he said, he had us, you know, he had a kind of an
• 52:06
  overdeveloped right shoulder muscle.
• 52:09
  That he actually used to work at Napa is worked out with the he
• 52:13
  worked with hand weights to kind of make sure his left hand and
• 52:18
  left arm and shoulder muscle matches, right?
• 52:22
  But I want to go back to talk about some of the celebrities
• 52:27
  that you that you had. This may be the one that we
• 52:29
  didn't mention and you may not have worked with them because it
• 52:31
  could have been a be crew was Chevy Chase as over the news.
• 52:39
  First of all, I noticed that all these assume that Sandra
• 52:42
  Bernhard is also Canadian by know the rest of them are, which
• 52:46
  is interesting just that you filmed in Canada, where you kind
• 52:49
  of locked into using Canadian town when it came to the celebs?
• 52:54
  No, not at all. I in fact, well, let's say well,
• 52:56
  Whelan is not Canadian Sandra. I don't know.
• 52:59
  Sure. Can a and and Paul Bartels not
• 53:03
  Canadian Champion, you're absolutely correct.
• 53:06
  We shot Chevy's segment while I Was in Canada.
• 53:10
  So he was in Los Angeles at the time and and a friend of mine,
• 53:15
  taped his new segment. But now there was no there was
• 53:20
  no Financial pressure to do that.
• 53:23
  In fact, from that mistaken like in 1984, both Joe flirting,
• 53:28
  Dave, Thomas lived in near Toronto, but I believe both Joe
• 53:33
  and John Candy were living in Los Angeles.
• 53:35
  So there was a obviously Canadian, but There was no
• 53:40
  particular pressure to hire Canadian, celebrities for the
• 53:45
  film and we missing anyone. I think that's all of them.
• 53:48
  I think, I think that's everybody.
• 53:50
  But I have to say I again, I was, I didn't get to know, John
• 53:54
  Candy came aboard only for the one day, but he was a total
• 53:57
  sweetheart. But Joe and Dave, you know, I
• 54:00
  just really enjoyed getting to kind of watch them in action and
• 54:04
  I was, you know, at times, I would just forget to call cut
• 54:08
  because, you know, They would, they would just start
• 54:10
  improvising and I would just feel like I had the best seat in
• 54:13
  the house watching it to Matt just kind of Riff Off each other
• 54:18
  and and I had the pleasure. I'm not sure how many years
• 54:24
  later it was but I get the pleasure of directing Joe
• 54:26
  Flaherty again when he played in the carlini's dad in the show.
• 54:30
  Sure. Yeah.
• 54:36
  So since you were the one to choose The celebrity cast was
• 54:40
  there anyone that you remember wanting for the film that you
• 54:43
  weren't able to get? All right.
• 54:45
  Absolutely. I wanted the Grouch Diner to
• 54:49
  have a Pianist like someone playing piano and we asked Randy
• 54:54
  Newman if he would Tom Waits of dive like in a
• 55:15
  diner is just chefs gues, perfect.
• 55:19
  But anyways, you also, I'm sorry.
• 55:22
  Oh, I was gonna say there wasn't any dialogue, there wasn't
• 55:27
  really a song so it was really just to see if Randy Newman
• 55:30
  would be game and he was not available, but that was my that
• 55:34
  was the one that got away. I would have been my dream and
• 55:38
  were you all still in? Twist using some of the
• 55:40
  celebrity voice cast like Sally. Kellerman is Miss Finch toward
• 55:44
  laraine Newman and Eddie Deezen is some of the dodos.
• 55:47
  So, Sally Kellerman and Eddie Deezen and Lorraine were
• 55:52
  definitely my choices. I mean, I worked with casting
• 55:55
  director, obviously, and, and playing daddy.
• 56:01
  Do do is one of my oldest friends, and oldest and best
• 56:05
  friends, Brian. Hope failed, and then playing NG
• 56:10
  marido do. Oh, my gosh.
• 56:13
  I'm a Catholic. So Bernie must have an open
• 56:17
  front of us. Yeah, she did a wonderful job
• 56:21
  and of course, I've been a fan ever since 1941, and I want to
• 56:28
  hold your hand. And, I mean, can you imagine a
• 56:31
  better voice for Donnie gonna win?
• 56:39
  And it was during the early days of hell,
• 57:03
  yeah. The best, I love it.
• 57:07
  You know, before you joined us as I sort of did the
• 57:10
  introduction. I went through some of your
• 57:11
  credits and it's funny like I asked for the interview and then
• 57:16
  I went I'll look up just a little cuz I know you've done
• 57:18
  the office and stuff like that but I was like a full cup, the a
• 57:20
  little time stuff and then the more I read the more I got
• 57:23
  intimidated as I realized Freaks and Geeks Malcolm in the Middle
• 57:27
  Parks and Rec Space force, all that sort of stuff, you know,
• 57:31
  with such a like a massive creepy had over, you know, yet
• 57:34
  nearly 40 years. Since you've done Follow That
• 57:36
  Bird. How often are you getting to
• 57:37
  talk about Follow That Bird anymore?
• 57:40
  Well, that now if I mean I love the film, it's funny because I
• 57:44
  feel like there's for some reason, there's been renewed
• 57:50
  interest in the film. I can't explain why maybe it's
• 57:53
  that people who saw when they were young when they were the
• 57:57
  target audience or now of an age that they're looking back at it
• 58:00
  and so many people sort of point to it is either like the first
• 58:04
  thing they All the first movie they saw or just a real pivotal
• 58:08
  Movie experience and but I will say that the thing I love to
• 58:13
  talk about when people ask about the film was it again?
• 58:18
  I'm kind of repeating what I said earlier but I was
• 58:20
  unprepared when I directed the film to, I was unprepared for
• 58:24
  how emotional the story is. And and I think I was, you know,
• 58:28
  let's see. I was 25 or 26 when I directed
• 58:31
  the film. I was very young.
• 58:33
  I was just out of film School. And I think I was more to be
• 58:36
  honest, I think I was more of a film fan than a Storyteller that
• 58:40
  point in my life, I could I could talk a lot about favorite
• 58:44
  films and favorite images from films, but I hadn't really
• 58:49
  thought of myself as a Storyteller.
• 58:51
  And I think that, you know, it wasn't until I was well into
• 58:55
  shooting the film that. I that it hit me, how
• 58:59
  emotionally strong the story is, you know, the story of leaving
• 59:02
  home to find home or the story of finding Your people are and
• 59:06
  things like that. And that was, that was kind of a
• 59:08
  big Discovery for me as a director.
• 59:10
  And, and I've often said that, you know, it took a an 8-foot
• 59:14
  bird to, you know, teach me that one of my jobs as a director,
• 59:18
  was to become a good student of human nature.
• 59:20
  So I'm I feel like I'm glad that.
• 59:24
  That's where I started with that story.
• 59:27
  And I mean I literally I mentioned earlier about the
• 59:30
  challenges of photographing Big Bird, but I think there was a
• 59:33
  moment. During shooting where Big Bird
• 59:37
  ceased to be an object for me and became the subject of the
• 59:41
  story. So that was a big.
• 59:43
  It was kind of a major turning point for me as a as a
• 59:46
  filmmaker. Well, I mean, that's the great
• 59:49
  thing about Big Bird, he's just still teaching, oh, no matter
• 59:52
  what your age. She's still teaching us
• 59:54
  everything. So what you're saying is that we
• 59:56
  all have to thank Big Bird. Forgiving Us, Michael Scott.
• 1:00:01
  It all just came together really.
• 1:00:02
  Well, are you like side Jared? You have anything else before
• 1:00:12
  we? Yeah how.
• 1:00:14
  Okay, so again in the blue bird of Happiness scene there's a
• 1:00:18
  moment where a single tear comes down big birds beak and I'm
• 1:00:23
  curious. It looks it equal x like the
• 1:00:26
  real drop of water like a something like a puppet.
• 1:00:30
  Something being dragged with a string or like a drop of
• 1:00:34
  mercury, even because it's got this like beautiful shine to it.
• 1:00:37
  Do you recall how you do that one shot again?
• 1:00:40
  I think totally Lo-Fi. I think that it's a practical
• 1:00:44
  tear. Meaning it's a piece of
• 1:00:47
  material. I don't remember what the term
• 1:00:49
  was made of that. We pulled along Big Bird's face
• 1:00:55
  for it, you know? And, and I don't recall exactly
• 1:00:59
  how we did it. Meaning and I don't remember.
• 1:01:03
  I don't remember much discussion about it with the puppet
• 1:01:07
  workshop with a muppet Workshop. People again, one of the, one of
• 1:01:11
  the great things. I mean, again, I was I was, I
• 1:01:14
  was the new kid on the team in a way and, and far be it from me
• 1:01:19
  to tell the handsome Specialists how to, you know, create puppet
• 1:01:24
  effects. So they were, I think they were
• 1:01:26
  on top of that from the get-go like they knew the tear was
• 1:01:29
  important, so they Came up with a good way to do it so the movie
• 1:01:33
  M. So the movie came out in 1985
• 1:01:36
  and I believe it was right before this, that mr.
• 1:01:39
  Snuffleupagus became, you know, quote unquote, real or basically
• 1:01:42
  revealed to the world that he's not just Big Bird's imaginary
• 1:01:47
  friend and the movie really balances that line.
• 1:01:50
  Very cleverly where you know, nobody addresses you know, Big
• 1:01:54
  Bear doesn't say well, I sent a letter to my friend, mr.
• 1:01:55
  Snuffleupagus in all the adults say who but also Snuffy is
• 1:01:59
  definitely kept Apart from everyone else.
• 1:02:01
  It's always kind of either in Big Bird's Nest area or in the
• 1:02:05
  park or we see him later. Was this something that you were
• 1:02:10
  kind of encouraged to keep nebulous so that people could
• 1:02:13
  kind of see Snuffy and either way or was that even like a
• 1:02:17
  conscious thing while you were filming this.
• 1:02:19
  It was, it was not something I ever spoke about with the
• 1:02:22
  writers, or with Marty or anyone.
• 1:02:25
  Now my hunches and you may know this Better than I certainly
• 1:02:31
  know. We'll know better than I we shot
• 1:02:33
  the film in the in the early summer of 84 it came out in
• 1:02:39
  August of 85. Now it's entirely possible that
• 1:02:42
  that shift in how Snuffy is represented on the show happened
• 1:02:48
  after we shot the film but before it came out, so that's
• 1:02:52
  it. Mike because I don't remember
• 1:02:54
  any discussions about keeping it bag or I mean I only God himself
• 1:03:00
  is Birds imaginary friend so it's entirely possible that the
• 1:03:05
  powers that be at Sesame Street made that decision after the
• 1:03:09
  film was shot. So again, that's I'm not I'm
• 1:03:13
  not, I don't know enough about the show to answer that I can
• 1:03:19
  tell you, that's alright, the week I can tell you that the
• 1:03:21
  week before the film came out Rambo First Blood part 2 was
• 1:03:27
  released Real competition for fall leopard because they
• 1:03:34
  probably not our target audience know.
• 1:03:37
  Well, right, you've talked a little bit about in your book as
• 1:03:40
  well about the preview screening and just and just that it maybe
• 1:03:45
  didn't go as well as you might have kind of hoped.
• 1:03:49
  Well, it was, it was one of the, it was one of the strangest
• 1:03:53
  preview screenings ever. First of all, I'm not sure we
• 1:03:56
  needed. A preview screening, but, but I
• 1:04:02
  actually asked for one and the studio kind of begrudgingly
• 1:04:06
  agreed because they didn't, they didn't really, I mean, I'm going
• 1:04:10
  to put it really bluntly that, you know, that Follow That Bird
• 1:04:13
  was kind of the runt of the litter at Warner Brothers.
• 1:04:16
  There were, they had a lot of big pictures coming out.
• 1:04:18
  And, and, and Follow That Bird was, you know, something they
• 1:04:21
  loved, they loved the film, but it was not, you know, one of
• 1:04:25
  their Temple pictures. So, we have this preview,
• 1:04:28
  Screening in which the entire audience was children, young
• 1:04:33
  children and it was held at a screening room.
• 1:04:36
  It was actually held at the screening room in Toronto,
• 1:04:40
  that's part of the film lab. I think it was called Medallion
• 1:04:43
  lab and healthy size, screening room, a lot of seats.
• 1:04:49
  And when I arrived for the screening, I entered the back of
• 1:04:52
  the theater, and it was well, at least for the moment, I thought
• 1:04:56
  the room was empty. I saw no one.
• 1:04:58
  And I even said to someone wears the nobody's here and they said,
• 1:05:03
  no, no place is packed. And I started to walk down the
• 1:05:06
  aisle and noticed that actually, every seat was filled but the
• 1:05:09
  seat backs were so high. That no, I couldn't see anyone.
• 1:05:12
  There were so little and also the seat back.
• 1:05:16
  So high that the children in the audience, couldn't see the
• 1:05:18
  screen. So, no.
• 1:05:23
  So I basically got in front of the whole group and instructed
• 1:05:26
  all the children or however many.
• 1:05:28
  To do to stand up and their seeds to watch the film.
• 1:05:32
  So the premiere screening, or they're the first of the first,
• 1:05:36
  the unveiling of Follow That Bird was seen by a group of
• 1:05:40
  children standing up bouncing, a lot of bouncing in their seeds.
• 1:05:45
  Some of the content is good. Yeah, I think is good.
• 1:05:47
  Some lean against the seat back in front of them, some leaned
• 1:05:51
  against the seat back behind them.
• 1:05:53
  Some of them fell off their seats, climb back up and and I
• 1:05:58
  would say that it was needless to say, it was not possible to
• 1:06:03
  gauge anything from the from how they reacted because they were,
• 1:06:08
  they were having a blast bouncing while they were
• 1:06:10
  watching the film. Okay.
• 1:06:14
  Awesome. So how often do you find
• 1:06:19
  yourself revisiting this film? Because it like for people like
• 1:06:22
  me and Jared like we want, I mean you could tell like I we've
• 1:06:24
  memorized the whole thing, you know shot-for-shot?
• 1:06:26
  I watched it three weeks ago. We watch it all the time.
• 1:06:29
  Yeah, right. But do you watch your old work a
• 1:06:32
  lot? Well I don't but and Jared knows
• 1:06:37
  this but I about a year ago I published a book about directing
• 1:06:43
  and it's part Partly about, you know, how to direct and it's
• 1:06:47
  partly a memoir. And so I and I'm a bit of a
• 1:06:51
  background. I have kept everything
• 1:06:54
  everything every call sheet. I have, every, every, I have
• 1:06:58
  every piece of paper associated with anything, I've directed.
• 1:07:02
  And so I had the pleasure of going through all the Follow
• 1:07:06
  That Bird notes, and papers, and storyboards.
• 1:07:09
  And and in fact, we're going through it reminded me about
• 1:07:12
  Randy Newman being on the way. Which lists for the ground
• 1:07:15
  Steiner. And but so I was able to really
• 1:07:20
  relive it and there's nothing like looking at a call sheet and
• 1:07:23
  if your listeners, don't know what that is, is basically the
• 1:07:26
  daily schedule shooting. So on any given day, you know
• 1:07:30
  it'd be like you know how many, how long did we spend on any
• 1:07:35
  given scene? Etc, it really brought the whole
• 1:07:39
  experience bank. To me just looking at, you know,
• 1:07:41
  the first thing up on a Wednesday morning was you know,
• 1:07:44
  shoot Go shot of Super Grover flying into the the top of the
• 1:07:50
  Volkswagen Beetle, you know, things like that.
• 1:07:52
  So and it was the first experience I had as a feature
• 1:07:55
  director. So naturally it remains very
• 1:07:59
  Vivid for me but I guess what? I'm when I've looked at it, I
• 1:08:05
  haven't really watched the whole film top to bottom in a long
• 1:08:07
  time. But when I look at scenes, I
• 1:08:10
  mean, you always kind of like, think about choices you made
• 1:08:13
  that maybe you would have Done differently.
• 1:08:15
  But mostly I'm just, again, forgive me.
• 1:08:18
  If I'm sound like, I'm bragging, but mostly, I'm sort of
• 1:08:21
  impressed by the kind of Elegance of the film.
• 1:08:23
  It has, there's a certain kind of Simplicity.
• 1:08:27
  And again, it goes back to that, kind of analog, era, Lo-Fi
• 1:08:30
  quality. But there's something kind of
• 1:08:32
  like, I don't know, very elegant about a lot of the, a lot of the
• 1:08:37
  staging, a lot of the visual ideas, there's nothing gimmicky,
• 1:08:41
  there's nothing, you know, we didn't under crank so that
• 1:08:44
  people Running fast. You know, like everything's sort
• 1:08:46
  of has it kind of nice Elegance to it.
• 1:08:51
  That's great. Well, first of all, I think you
• 1:08:53
  should watch it again because it's a really good movie.
• 1:08:55
  Yeah. But also like I'm so grateful
• 1:08:58
  that you kept so many things because I mean again, I mean,
• 1:09:01
  you mentioned a photo earlier but like whatever if you've got
• 1:09:04
  pictures or something, that looks interesting like this
• 1:09:06
  stuff is like candy to us. Like we would love to see more
• 1:09:09
  of whatever you've got. If only for the arc, I archival
• 1:09:13
  reasons, you know. I all I have a couple of key
• 1:09:17
  photos that I would love to share with you and one of which,
• 1:09:23
  I included a couple of which I included in my book, but I'll
• 1:09:28
  send you them. So that you'll have them in
• 1:09:30
  bigger form and if you have if you if your listeners you don't
• 1:09:35
  have a website they can go to to see them.
• 1:09:37
  That'd be great. We do it's called tough pigs fat
• 1:09:40
  calm and people hopefully I looking at the the The show
• 1:09:45
  notes. Anyways I'll check it up on the
• 1:09:47
  social will be good and they are kind of cool photos to so I'd
• 1:09:54
  love to share them with you but I particularly want.
• 1:09:57
  You see this shot of like the dodo house and the in miniature,
• 1:10:01
  despite kind of just know it's such a cool thing.
• 1:10:05
  Yeah, and again no one's doing that stuff anymore.
• 1:10:07
  Everything's computers. Everything's like, you know,
• 1:10:10
  done in post-production and to see the care of that.
• 1:10:13
  It took to Makes you know, that kind of shot and honestly the
• 1:10:17
  whole movie to look as great as the does and the work that went
• 1:10:22
  behind it. It's impressive.
• 1:10:24
  It's just everything about it, is impressive arms again.
• 1:10:28
  So grateful that people continue to enjoy it and I'm thrilled
• 1:10:33
  that you both invited me to be part of this.
• 1:10:37
  It I love I love. I mean it's so exciting to talk
• 1:10:40
  to both of you about it and I could keep going.
• 1:10:45
  I know us to yeah but we have taken up a lot of your time.
• 1:10:50
  So can what we do is we wrap up every episode with a set of
• 1:10:54
  questions. I have my own Joe has his own
• 1:10:58
  being my week. I'll be reading mine out rapid.
• 1:11:02
  Fire is quickly as you want, expand.
• 1:11:04
  If you like, don't feel, you have to question 1.
• 1:11:08
  What is the food that you hate? Oh my gosh.
• 1:11:13
  Well I'm I'm a pescetarian so I certainly don't like hamburgers
• 1:11:19
  anymore. Fair enough what is your go-to
• 1:11:22
  karaoke song? Oh my gosh.
• 1:11:26
  Well, the last time I was forced to go to a karaoke bar.
• 1:11:31
  I was also, I was forced, I didn't have a choice, but they
• 1:11:35
  are my friends. Insisted that I sang, the AHA
• 1:11:39
  song. Take On Me.
• 1:11:41
  I mean, it's a banger. It's a banger.
• 1:11:43
  What the hell? Halfway through the course that
• 1:12:03
  you're not going to eat it and you're like, I'm going to go for
• 1:12:06
  it. Anyway.
• 1:12:08
  What is the sound of one hand clapping?
• 1:12:12
  Oh my gosh. I was just thinking about that
• 1:12:14
  the other day, I think. I think that the sound goes
• 1:12:19
  something like this. I'm sure you get that response
• 1:12:25
  from others. Possibly what?
• 1:12:27
  Great podcast father. Everyone you want to hear
• 1:12:31
  something Island this pick a number between one and two
• 1:12:35
  hundred fifty. Oh 16:16 Ike.
• 1:12:39
  I have a list of 250 questions. He let me get a number 16.
• 1:12:44
  What is your go-to guilty? Pleasure.
• 1:12:48
  Oh my gosh. Guilty pleasure.
• 1:12:50
  Well I have to say among many guilty pleasures.
• 1:12:55
  As I mentioned it's a particularly guilty pleasure but
• 1:13:00
  I do love watching films with the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
• 1:13:04
  and mm-hmm right kill. He's not sure that it's just a
• 1:13:12
  pleasure to play. Yeah.
• 1:13:14
  In our last episode. Bob McGrath also in Follow That
• 1:13:17
  Bird, not knowing who Our Guest was going to be wanted us to ask
• 1:13:21
  you what are you doing in your life that you had?
• 1:13:24
  No intention of doing? Oh my gosh.
• 1:13:28
  Well, I mean the answer is and I'm not sure I'm answering the
• 1:13:32
  right question, but I never in a bazillion years imagined that I
• 1:13:36
  would be directing The Muppets ever.
• 1:13:38
  So I, you know, I coming out of film school.
• 1:13:41
  I certainly fancied myself, a different sort of FileMaker
• 1:13:45
  entirely, and I think it was sitting meeting Jim Henson for
• 1:13:51
  the first time and the moment that Kermit introduced himself
• 1:13:55
  to me, That I realized that the oh, I need to be part of this.
• 1:14:00
  I need to be part of this really magic thing.
• 1:14:02
  You not wrongs and that Joe, and I have both have experiences
• 1:14:06
  getting to hang out with Muppets in real life.
• 1:14:09
  And it's something that you can't explain to people who
• 1:14:12
  haven't who haven't experienced it themselves.
• 1:14:17
  Yeah, I again I it wasn't like I was in Jim's office by accident.
• 1:14:22
  I was there to interview for a job.
• 1:14:24
  I knew what I was going in for, but I think I imagined myself as
• 1:14:28
  a director of different kinds of things and somebody said you're
• 1:14:33
  going to drink a Sesame Street film, I would have laughed but
• 1:14:38
  meeting Jim being awed by him as a person and then being sort of
• 1:14:44
  gobsmacked when Herman started talking to me.
• 1:14:49
  I said, okay, I'm in please. Please, let me do this finally,
• 1:14:56
  without knowing who it is. What question would you like our
• 1:14:58
  next guest to answer? Oh my gosh, without knowing who
• 1:15:03
  it is. Well, if it's a puppeteer.
• 1:15:06
  Wow, that's a great question. I would love to, I would love to
• 1:15:14
  ask your next guest. What Muppet film?
• 1:15:18
  They would love to see he made, oh, good ones.
• 1:15:24
  There, a muppet film. That hasn't been made yet.
• 1:15:27
  That they would, they would love to see.
• 1:15:30
  It's a very question is a fantastic question.
• 1:15:32
  I want to ask everybody that question.
• 1:15:37
  And what about that film? Would you want us to be made?
• 1:15:40
  You know, I have to, he jumped the gun next week, but I haven't
• 1:15:45
  really thought about it, but I do like the idea of focusing on
• 1:15:52
  one of the secondary characters in this, in the, in the group,
• 1:15:56
  you know, I love the. I mean, I love the idea of a
• 1:15:58
  whole film about Oscar, the Grouch?
• 1:16:01
  I mean, I think that audiences would, I don't want a really
• 1:16:07
  shitty character, a real Ebony's.
• 1:16:10
  Scrooge character who you know, who doesn't like kind people but
• 1:16:15
  loves broken toasters. All right, let's pitch it.
• 1:16:21
  Let's make it happen. I can thank you for coming.
• 1:16:25
  Thank you. And we've had an amazing career,
• 1:16:27
  thank you for all the other stuff you've worked on but thank
• 1:16:29
  you for Follow That Bird. What a film, one of the few
• 1:16:33
  10/10 movies in my in my books. Thank you for coming on.
• 1:16:38
  Thank you for talking to us. Your book, by the way, you
• 1:16:42
  mentioned it before is called. But what I really want to do is
• 1:16:44
  direct lessons from a life behind the camera.
• 1:16:48
  Like I said, they've been nice enough to send me a copy.
• 1:16:50
  So I've been going through it and it's fantastic.
• 1:16:52
  Not just to Follow That Bird stuff or everything's fantastic.
• 1:16:56
  So thank you very much. Well, again, I will, I'm going
• 1:17:00
  to send you a few photos and please feel free to use them in
• 1:17:07
  any way you like. I think we're gonna find
• 1:17:09
  amazing.