Latest / Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com / Fraggle Talk Episode 8: "Craggle Lagoon" with Puppeteers Dan Garza & Ben Durocher ("Junior Gorg")

Transcript

Fraggle Talk Episode 8: "Craggle Lagoon" with Puppeteers Dan Garza & Ben Durocher ("Junior Gorg") · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:17
  Hello and welcome to fraggle, talk.
• 0:20
  The Unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by
• 0:22
  toughest.com. This is the podcast where we
• 0:25
  cover Fraggle. Rock back to the Rock Episode by
• 0:27
  episode along with the talented. Sirs performers, writers and
• 0:31
  Builders who helped put it all together.
• 0:33
  I'm your host silly creature Johannes.
• 0:36
  Today we are talking about episode 8 Kragle Lagoon in which
• 0:40
  the fraggles take a much-needed vacation and there's a mystery
• 0:43
  afoot that only inspector Redken solve.
• 0:46
  We're joined today by two towns and puppeteers from the series.
• 0:49
  First up is a performer, whose work can be seen on splashing
• 0:53
  bubbles Happy Time murderers. And on kidding, with Jim Carrey
• 0:57
  on back to the Rock, he is half of Junior gorg.
• 1:00
  Welcome Dan, Garza to the podcast.
• 1:02
  Hey Dan, hey, glad to be here. Thanks, Joe course, thanks for
• 1:06
  being here. Our second guest is a puppeteer
• 1:09
  Builder and Wrangler. Whose work can be seen on Sesame
• 1:12
  Street and helps teachers. And here on back to the Rock,
• 1:14
  he's the other half of Junior gorg.
• 1:17
  Please welcome Ben durocher to the podcast.
• 1:21
  Hello Beth, thank you. Hi.
• 1:22
  So excited to be here today. Pronounce my exam reader of
• 1:26
  durocher. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:28
  Awesome. I'm a longtime reader.
• 1:29
  ER, of the of the tough Pig. So longtime listener, first-time
• 1:33
  caller. Thanks for having me.
• 1:35
  Awesome, always good to have a fam, especially when we are a
• 1:39
  fan of them as well. And return here on the podcast,
• 1:42
  I'm a huge fan. I just didn't, I just didn't
• 1:44
  feel compelled to like, I'm just saying you're not going in and
• 1:50
  saying it, so, you know, you're gonna have to prove it over the
• 1:53
  next hour, alright? So, for both of you guys, your I
• 1:58
  mean, first of all, I mean you're Fantastic work on the new
• 2:01
  Fraggle Rock Series. So congratulations, and thanks
• 2:04
  for bringing that magic to the show.
• 2:06
  How did you get started with back to the Rock, Dan, we could
• 2:10
  start with you? Sure.
• 2:12
  Sure, I did a horrible audition for Wembley, they Henson
• 2:20
  thought. Oh yeah.
• 2:22
  Well, well, we'll check it out. And they sent me a thing and
• 2:26
  then, and then I didn't audition which Which I was very under the
• 2:32
  gun and I feel felt very pressured because it's such a
• 2:36
  huge thing and I did a terrible job and I sent it to a to a
• 2:41
  legacy Puppeteer who I trust very much and he promptly said
• 2:47
  that's really good, but I don't know who that is.
• 2:48
  That's not Wembley. Like, I know, I know.
• 2:52
  And so all of my dreams of contributing to something that I
• 2:56
  loved so much. We're promptly flushed down.
• 3:00
  A toilet and and then a couple of months later, I get a, I got
• 3:06
  a message from from Johnny and Company saying, hey, would you
• 3:11
  be interested in auditioning for junior gorg?
• 3:14
  I said, how am I supposed to Puppeteer such a such an odd
• 3:17
  addition? It said, no, no, justjust do
• 3:19
  voice. So, I did voice.
• 3:22
  But me being the overachiever. I did a, they sent me a scene
• 3:28
  and I did an audition. Russian voicing all five
• 3:31
  characters in in the, in the scene I and I layered it, I did
• 3:37
  Junior Pas Ma and then the to the to shrubs that are in this
• 3:42
  episode. Sure as well.
• 3:45
  And and then I got a message back saying can we just have
• 3:49
  Junior so much for not even thinking that I was a A good
• 4:00
  match for junior because, you know, I just, I don't know.
• 4:04
  I yeah, I just didn't think that was my focus at the time.
• 4:08
  So I went back and started watching more and more and more
• 4:10
  and watching all kinds of interviews with Richard.
• 4:12
  And one thing led to another and they and then I got a call about
• 4:17
  about two or three weeks later. Know about three weeks later.
• 4:21
  Johnny called me and said, hey, so what are you doing in January
• 4:28
  and I, of course, It was just a I wasn't a ball of fire, I was
• 4:36
  just a mess of tears and that is how I got pulled in and
• 4:42
  subsequently on set. They asked us to do bunch of
• 4:45
  different Critters and characters and you know,
• 4:48
  wherever my arm fits is where I'm at, man.
• 4:51
  So yeah, whatever I can do to help.
• 4:55
  That's such a puppeteers motto wherever my arm fits There.
• 4:59
  And these are these things are huge.
• 5:00
  Oh my gosh. So I'm working on it.
• 5:03
  I'm doing I'm doing for arm sit-ups to tone to tone and
• 5:09
  leaves. You're just gonna get more
• 5:11
  ripped in your bicep and forearm there.
• 5:14
  Dan? Yeah, pure Popeyes style, right?
• 5:17
  Yeah, that's a challenge. Then, how about you how did you
• 5:22
  get on the Fraggle? Rock.
• 5:24
  Well, I actually started working on.
• 5:28
  The show as a builder, I live in New York and work with the the
• 5:32
  Creature Shop here. And when the pandemic happened,
• 5:37
  you know, they send us home and production halted on Sesame
• 5:40
  Street, which is what we're working on at the time.
• 5:42
  And then a couple months and they're like, hey, we've got
• 5:46
  some old puppets, we're going to start refurbishing, so they sent
• 5:50
  me like a couple of, you know, old boober bodies and I rebuilt
• 5:54
  them in my living room and And that's when like, you know, the
• 5:59
  the show hadn't been greenlit at the time yet.
• 6:02
  I don't think, but but it was sort of starting to catch wind
• 6:05
  and it's like really kind of surreal time, you know, not only
• 6:09
  being in quarantine, but then figuring out how to like, build
• 6:12
  puppets from home when it's not something we've been doing and
• 6:18
  and then, you know, of course, as time went on and and
• 6:21
  production ramped up, I started hearing murmurings that the show
• 6:25
  might go to Canada to shoot and I'm Canadian.
• 6:28
  I was born in Ottawa and I don't want.
• 6:31
  Oh, yeah, thanks. Thank you, thank you.
• 6:35
  But I, you know, I've lived in the states for like the past,
• 6:40
  you know, 11, 12 years. And when I heard like the show
• 6:44
  might go to Canada. I was like, okay, I this is
• 6:47
  maybe my ticket, I've got my passport, I'm gonna yeah, pushed
• 6:51
  again an audition and I was lucky enough to get cast and and
• 6:56
  you know, because I worked At the Henson company already as a
• 6:59
  Wrangler. I was kind of hard to do both.
• 7:02
  So I got to do a bunch of wrangling on the show, some some
• 7:04
  building and also perform it was like a dream come true is
• 7:08
  everything I love it's amazing. Like you're just involved with
• 7:11
  everything with the production that points yellow.
• 7:13
  Like a lot of a lot of different hats.
• 7:16
  Yeah. We're very, very fortunate to
• 7:19
  have that. Honestly, he just amazing not
• 7:22
  just not just as a just as the Builder in a Wrangler and a
• 7:25
  performer. But just as like a regular
• 7:28
  Aguilar human being. I can't I can't.
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  I can think of other people that I could be paired up with, but
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  not so perfectly. Yeah, he's fantastic.
• 7:40
  Yeah, I feel free. So same way about Dan.
• 7:42
  It was like the perfect partnership pairing us together.
• 7:47
  We're both very lucky. I love that.
• 7:51
  We're going to talk more about Junior gorg a little bit but
• 7:53
  then I do want to know a little bit about how you got basically
• 7:57
  a Got into Junior gorg because you were you know obviously
• 8:01
  hired to be a puppeteer but that's a very specific role of
• 8:03
  the very specific set of needs and talents for sure.
• 8:09
  Yeah. I mean I come from a theater
• 8:12
  background, you know, dancer movement-based kind of theater
• 8:16
  stuff, so that, that side of the sort of natural.
• 8:20
  And then it said, he puppetry and I did some work in like
• 8:26
  character, you know, walk around Science.
• 8:29
  So I'll just kind of made sense Johnny and I had worked together
• 8:32
  on Avenue Q. I played Princeton and Rod in
• 8:37
  the Off-Broadway production for like two and a half years.
• 8:40
  And Donnie was the resident director.
• 8:43
  So, he had hired me there and yeah, kind of knew my work, I
• 8:46
  guess. And trusted me enough to throw
• 8:50
  me in there. That's great.
• 8:53
  Yeah, and I assume that you guys before cameras even started
• 8:56
  rolling, you had to find some way.
• 8:58
  To connect, just because the, the synchronicity between the
• 9:02
  face, the voice, and the eyes, that Dan, I assume you're doing
• 9:05
  all those things and then you're in the costume, you know, kind
• 9:10
  of sink trying to sync everything, to, to the lines of
• 9:13
  the choreography to the music, etc.
• 9:15
  Etc. How did you guys find a way to
• 9:17
  bond together? So play the same character.
• 9:21
  Well, we did. And this is, this is team Gordon
• 9:27
  has so, so team, gourd is mapa and Junior, we wanted a cohesive
• 9:33
  family. So all of the all of the, the,
• 9:37
  the head, puppeteers. And meaning had meeting the head
• 9:41
  of the character, and all of the student performers, we all got
• 9:46
  together and we had this little workshop and We're fortunate
• 9:52
  enough to have Frank mesh collider as being one of our Co
• 9:56
  public captains and, and he was POG org.
• 10:01
  And, and by the way, season 5, he's originally Juniors sued
• 10:07
  performers. Well, he had he had been pulled
• 10:12
  in after after Rob, had to had to go take care of himself.
• 10:16
  And so, so we had Frank there and and That was, that was
• 10:23
  wonderful insight. And then as were as we're
• 10:27
  performing and, and we're reading lions, and and I think
• 10:30
  the first thing y'all did was put on your shoes, wasn't it?
• 10:32
  Then I think so. Like to actually get in
• 10:35
  physical. Yeah, well, no, no, I'm like,
• 10:38
  during those rehearsals when we were meshing.
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  First thing we did was get you guys comfortable with your giant
• 10:44
  shoes. I think you're right.
• 10:45
  The three of us. We we had like a little mock-up
• 10:48
  seen that wasn't from any script that maybe Frank wrote just as
• 10:51
  soon. Little you wrote it.
• 10:54
  There you go. My friend.
• 10:55
  It was it was I think Amy had written her part.
• 10:59
  Frank had written his and I had written mine and we just kind of
• 11:02
  mash them all together into this incredible.
• 11:04
  It was just sort of like a little a little script we could
• 11:06
  run through and play around with and yeah we you guys didn't have
• 11:10
  your rigs at all. You just kind of read the lines
• 11:13
  and we physically embodied them. Yeah.
• 11:15
  Well which, which would kind of inform how we would shoot,
• 11:18
  right? Because we always run through
• 11:20
  it. I'd be either.
• 11:21
  Like just in, in my sneakers or in like the lower half, just
• 11:25
  like the legs, the pants and, and we can kind of walk through
• 11:29
  on the set, like what each beat of the scene would be, and I
• 11:31
  would kind of get Dan's vocal choices in my ear.
• 11:36
  And and then, yeah, then from there, we just kind of builds
• 11:39
  into the, we had it, you know, in what a full gourd.
• 11:44
  One of the, one of the important things that we studied early on,
• 11:49
  we wanted to make sure that silhouettes I come, I come from
• 11:52
  a from an animation background and so for me Silhouettes were
• 11:56
  very important for readability. So wherever that camera was and
• 12:01
  then have the one camera that he had camera view in his in his
• 12:06
  eye, whereas the other gorgeous had traditional gorg vision and
• 12:11
  so Ben could see his Silhouettes.
• 12:14
  And for me that was extremely important to make sure that that
• 12:19
  all poses were. Were readable and legible,
• 12:25
  especially with the suit, which adds another layer of stuff
• 12:31
  matching up, you know, your, your arm meeting up with your
• 12:33
  chest or your, you know, if you put your feet too close
• 12:36
  together. There is no negative space
• 12:38
  between the feet. So being able to predict each
• 12:42
  other was very important. And so early on I I had I was I
• 12:48
  was on a on a daredevil mission to make sure It that Ben was Ben
• 12:53
  was my best friend because I had experienced that on splashing
• 12:57
  bubbles. You know between Raymond car and
• 13:01
  myself, I could predict being his body.
• 13:03
  In that particular instance with the character dunk, I could
• 13:07
  predict with 96.3% accuracy, what Ray was going to choose to
• 13:15
  do in a scene that might be a little improvised and so I
• 13:19
  wanted the same relationship with with Ben and it was just
• 13:23
  getting to know, him getting Noah Spence abilities.
• 13:27
  And what you see on the screen is is a danced between someone
• 13:34
  who who has lines to say, has a tone that they've chosen and
• 13:41
  someone who rhythmically and physically has an opinion of the
• 13:48
  character as well. And so it's this, it's this I'm
• 13:52
  following him. He's following me, we're
• 13:55
  following each other and so it wasn't like a traditional dance
• 14:00
  where somebody leads and somebody follows.
• 14:03
  We were leaving and following simultaneously and and there
• 14:08
  were choices that have been made, that that I said, yes,
• 14:12
  let's do this. And there were there were times
• 14:15
  when Ben was like, ah, okay, yeah, I think I can do that and
• 14:20
  he just Pulled it off like, like nobody's business.
• 14:24
  So, yeah, if that answers your question, it does.
• 14:27
  Yeah, but I need to go back a second, you mentioned something
• 14:29
  about how the mama gorg still have the old gourd Vision, to be
• 14:35
  able to see what they're doing, which you know, people don't
• 14:37
  recall. There was little cameras in the
• 14:38
  eyes of the puppets and the Puppeteer had the screens right
• 14:42
  in front of their eyes. So they could see what the
• 14:43
  courts were seeing was that different than what jr.
• 14:47
  Had for you been. Yeah so the as you said, the
• 14:52
  original gorgs had sort of like a spy cam which would set the
• 14:56
  the characters I line or set the rather the puppeteers.
• 15:00
  I line up the height of the characters.
• 15:01
  So like the the screen gave them basically a view like a
• 15:04
  periscope out of the gorgs. I but they were finding it hard
• 15:09
  in the Creature Shop with with Juniors designed to to hide the
• 15:13
  camera in a place where it would actually see out.
• 15:15
  But we wouldn't see it on camera and And I was lucky enough to
• 15:21
  also be working in the Creature Shop.
• 15:22
  So I can kind of give input and and I really pushed to get what
• 15:27
  sort of like big bird uses, which is a direct monitor from
• 15:30
  the camera feed, which is traditional, for the like hand
• 15:34
  puppetry in the the Muppet Henson style but it would
• 15:40
  involve some re rigging and they had to install a whole bit of
• 15:44
  Hardware in the head that could receive the signal from the
• 15:46
  camera and feed it to me. But I ended up with like a Like
• 15:49
  3 inch monitor right in front of my eyes and it worked great.
• 15:54
  It. Did you know, it's disorienting
• 15:55
  right? It's reversed so your brain has
• 15:59
  to kind of flip the image and it's even more disorienting when
• 16:02
  the you have no visual reference outside of, you know, the head
• 16:05
  is completely covering your vision and your surrounded with
• 16:09
  its return as soon as it starts moving.
• 16:16
  Its yeah, it takes a lot of focus and But I think I got
• 16:20
  pretty good by the end and Dan, and I could really just like
• 16:23
  kind of rely on each other's little physical signals and an
• 16:28
  especially with his audio because I had, you know, in
• 16:31
  years that I could hear what he was saying, so and he could hear
• 16:34
  me. So we could talk to each other,
• 16:36
  literally was head literally really glamorous glamorous life,
• 16:45
  that's that sounds so much harder than having gorgeous.
• 16:50
  I forgot my reasons. It's the the court Vision has
• 16:55
  its perks for sure but but like Dan was explaining, I could
• 16:58
  really use the the frame and use what the camera was showing to
• 17:04
  enhance the performance because I could really see an immediate
• 17:07
  feedback of how my posture and stance looked.
• 17:11
  So I think it was actually a big advantage to our performance.
• 17:16
  Great. We'll get back to the gorgs in a
• 17:19
  few minutes. But before we start with this
• 17:22
  episode Dan, I do need to ask you just because he does not
• 17:24
  show up in this episode. But you are the performer of
• 17:27
  phyllo half of the duo of Philo and gunge with the with the
• 17:32
  trash Heap. How did that role come about for
• 17:35
  you? And is it just like the most fun
• 17:37
  thing ever to just mess around with John tartaglia?
• 17:41
  So Johnny and I have a history of Medicine.
• 17:46
  Around and just being being goofballs together.
• 17:51
  I love the man, I trust him, it just implicitly and if he were
• 17:57
  to tell me to walk blindly into something, I certainly would, I
• 18:02
  just trust him that much he's that he's, that kind of human
• 18:06
  being that just won't let you down.
• 18:08
  And so I had done a character on Splash that was similar in tone
• 18:15
  to To Philo and he thought it was a good fit and Dave not
• 18:21
  being there. He said he said is this
• 18:27
  something that you want to do? And I in a heartbeat.
• 18:29
  Yes. Yes, absolutely yes.
• 18:31
  So so I jumped into the trenches with with him and I prayed to
• 18:38
  the public gods that Richard had had or that the Dave had
• 18:43
  loosened up the opening enough so that my So my giant telephone
• 18:49
  pole arms could fit in it. And fortunately, they did
• 18:53
  because it's the same puppet from the old Series, right.
• 18:55
  But it's actually the same budget and, and referred by
• 18:59
  Lara, MacLean. Just to shout out.
• 19:02
  Laura, thank you so much and yeah, beautifully beautifully
• 19:08
  refurbished. And and yeah, there's no
• 19:12
  pressure, of course, no pressure and doing surgery Legacy here.
• 19:16
  Actor. But there I am watching and I'm
• 19:19
  walking around our home going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:25
  Trying to like, find where he lives and and so then I said,
• 19:31
  hey can I can I just talk to Dave?
• 19:34
  And I couldn't talk to Richard because of for for junior but I
• 19:39
  could talk to Dave and I said, can I talk to Dave to pick his
• 19:43
  brain and and so I Graciously made time in his schedule and
• 19:48
  said said, yeah of course, and soon as he gets on the phone, he
• 19:52
  starts I love what you do it but you would have been there doing
• 19:54
  with Juniors. It's such a so great about the
• 19:56
  one I said, I think what I really want to know.
• 19:59
  Thank you, thank you, but what I really wanted and I'm cried
• 20:03
  what, I, what I truly need to know is, is where where did this
• 20:08
  come from? Where did Philo and gunge come
• 20:10
  from? And he said, he said, you're
• 20:13
  studying me, but what you should be doing.
• 20:16
  Is studying Richard because I was copying Richard the whole
• 20:20
  time and these two New Jersey shill teenagers that love
• 20:27
  Marjorie and are like her hype guides.
• 20:30
  And and so that's that's where that's where he lives.
• 20:36
  That's where he comes from. And every director that we
• 20:41
  encountered on this, we had we had four different directors and
• 20:45
  they all It us with with the amazing trash Heap, Amy Garcia
• 20:50
  Kira Hall and and Ingrid. Anza my God.
• 20:53
  I love Angie so much but but performing in front of them and
• 20:59
  then letting us do a as scripted, take followed by.
• 21:05
  All right so guys go ahead and have some fun and so Johnny and
• 21:09
  I just throwing just throwing accolades back and forth really,
• 21:15
  really Kids out there. If you're listening, a thesaurus
• 21:19
  is your friend. So make sure that you do plenty
• 21:22
  of reading. Especially if you have any any
• 21:27
  inkling to work with John tartaglia because it's a cotton,
• 21:31
  it's a common thing to try to one-up each other in a comedic
• 21:36
  fashion. So, yeah, that's, that's kind of
• 21:38
  where that came from one last question.
• 21:40
  Then we'll move on, is there a difference between Philo and
• 21:43
  gunge? Like personality-wise.
• 21:46
  What is it? Course, there is other.
• 21:48
  Okay. Look in my mind, Philo loves
• 21:52
  Marjorie more than gunga does. Phyllo is completely enamored
• 21:58
  with her and and it's, it's through and, you know this
• 22:04
  because you're you're a tough big push, you know, this.
• 22:08
  They are birthed out of marjorie's garbage and so I have
• 22:14
  Feeling that being the little Trash rat that he is that the
• 22:20
  guns just ate a little bit more of that than R then Philo did
• 22:25
  than gunch. So, yeah, I think that's the
• 22:28
  major difference. It's good to know.
• 22:31
  We're gonna look out for that stuff.
• 22:32
  Next time we see Philo and gunge that in the teeth and the teeth
• 22:35
  and the color. And yeah, of course, yes.
• 22:38
  Oh yeah. Yeah, told you before she's
• 22:40
  amazing. All right, let's let's talk
• 22:42
  about this episode. Let's talk about Craig Lagoon.
• 22:45
  We're going to start out here with Doc and sprocket.
• 22:47
  That's our first scene Doc is talking about how she needs a
• 22:50
  vacation like most of us. First of all, like most of us
• 22:54
  need a vacation for sure. But we also can't afford a big
• 22:58
  fancy vacation and you know she's a grad student so of
• 23:01
  course you can't. So she and sprocket are taken a
• 23:03
  staycation we do check in with them several times throughout
• 23:06
  the episode where she's got like a projector and she's showing
• 23:10
  off, you know, like a beach scene, you know, Jap Japan scene
• 23:14
  Farm a Starlit Night. There is one bit where there the
• 23:19
  night scene where they're roasting marshmallows over a
• 23:21
  fake fire and I had to Google it just to make sure if dogs could
• 23:26
  eat marshmallows and in case anyone's wondering they are not
• 23:31
  toxic to dogs but they're not recommended to not good for
• 23:33
  dogs. So okay I'm sure someone at
• 23:36
  Hanson made that distinction before allowing sprockets.
• 23:39
  Have that marshmallow we're either of you guys involved with
• 23:42
  a dock and sprocket scenes. Okay, so when we first got
• 23:47
  there, Canadian rules were one thing about covid and then they
• 23:51
  changed. But my first day on set I was
• 23:55
  involved with. Did you see the Texas which
• 23:59
  sprocket is in this basket? That's coming down.
• 24:01
  This isn't in this episode though sprockets in this basket
• 24:04
  that comes down and then he jumps out of the basket tail
• 24:07
  wags and then he comes onto the table that's for puppeteers.
• 24:11
  So that's that's, that's me. Are seeing Sprocket, as he's
• 24:15
  coming in down in the basket and then, Jordan Lockhart is the
• 24:18
  tail that comes out Roku Roku. And then when he pops up on the
• 24:23
  table, that's that's Johnny and Karen still early on that was
• 24:27
  that was the first shot of the entire series.
• 24:30
  That was the very first day one sha-1 and a sprocket to make it
• 24:36
  isn't as soon as I walked in Johnny says, Hey so you're going
• 24:42
  to be doing a Medtronic sprocket.
• 24:45
  And I literally, I just walked in and had like, it kind of gets
• 24:50
  sometimes like, yeah, you know, the shots that they always take
• 24:53
  time to set up. So I had about 10, 15 minutes to
• 24:56
  get used to playing with him and making him feel natural and all
• 25:00
  of that. Yeah, it's just, you know,
• 25:02
  Decades of Legacy boiled down to 10 minutes.
• 25:05
  Sure, I'll go ahead and jump on that.
• 25:06
  No, no, I'm a professional for Pete's sake.
• 25:12
  And so so that was great. And then the rules changed and
• 25:17
  we had, we had to sit, like, two weeks out, 10 days out until we
• 25:23
  could come back in after we were all cleared, and I'm great.
• 25:27
  Yeah, kudos to to everyone in production for being so willing
• 25:34
  to protect us, all of us on set. There were there were no moments
• 25:40
  that. That I personally, I don't know
• 25:42
  anyone else felt Pletely safe and and like I was going to
• 25:48
  catch anything or any of that because it what was happening
• 25:51
  was very real and very new to a lot of us.
• 25:54
  So they really took care of us and made sure that that safety
• 25:58
  was first. So yeah, that's great.
• 26:00
  So little involved I would have been involved more with the
• 26:03
  sprocket had I not been isolated quarantined in a snow-covered
• 26:09
  condo well, and actually play to my advantage.
• 26:15
  Sorry to say, but I was, I was there to Wrangle during the dock
• 26:20
  and sprocket. You know, we shot all that at
• 26:23
  the first, I think was two weeks, and I was there, Wrangle,
• 26:27
  but because a lot of the puppeteers were thrown back into
• 26:29
  quarantine. I got to jump in as the
• 26:31
  Puppeteer, a little sooner than planned and there's like one
• 26:35
  shower. I got to do sprocket, there was
• 26:38
  another Cowboy switch out. And then actually in this
• 26:40
  episode, The the sequence where the package Kind of comes
• 26:44
  through the dog door and then Gobo sneaks with it back into
• 26:47
  the fraggle. Whole they I don't know how I
• 26:51
  can remember exactly how it's cut but we shot it with three
• 26:53
  different gobos like one popping up by the door like on the wide
• 26:57
  shot and then the second public coming around the corner and
• 27:00
  then the third puppet, which I rigged was an Armature Gobo with
• 27:05
  a rod going through the box, so he could be puppeteered from the
• 27:09
  front going into the hole, and then I got to do it on the day
• 27:13
  because there were just not Hands.
• 27:15
  So I was like, shoved in that little Nook in the fraggle.
• 27:20
  Hold dragon, go buy a box. Wow, not many people can say
• 27:24
  that quick quick Easter egg about this, this episode, if I'm
• 27:30
  not mistaken. The when, when, when when doc,
• 27:34
  when Lily looks at her phone and there's a guy with a surfboard,
• 27:37
  that's Tim O'Brien, I do, I thought it was Tim O'Brien, but
• 27:42
  I wasn't sure when I remember what.
• 27:46
  Yeah, that's pretty neat. And actually I have some
• 27:50
  questions about that, I'll get to in about 20 seconds, let's
• 27:53
  time it because our next scene Gobo gets traveling Matt's
• 27:57
  latest package and postcard. And we get a quick peek in on
• 28:02
  what truly Matt's been up to, which is that he's taking a
• 28:04
  vacation, which basically means he's in some random office and
• 28:11
  he thinks it all the the workers who look, you know, board.
• 28:14
  Jobs are actually just relaxing. He discovers a the relaxing
• 28:19
  water features which are in the bathroom.
• 28:21
  The Light massage Cavern which is a xerox machine and he drinks
• 28:26
  from a mega cup which is just a garbage can, which is what he's
• 28:29
  sending back to Fraggle Rock, very sanitary.
• 28:33
  Now there's a lot of extras in the scene and we don't see a lot
• 28:35
  of humans on the show as a whole.
• 28:38
  And that's true for almost all of these traveling, Matt
• 28:41
  segments and I believe her. Me if I'm wrong, all if maybe
• 28:46
  almost all of the puppeteers have shown up on these as extras
• 28:50
  of these scenes. I mean, 10 has Dan has one of
• 28:54
  the best cameos possibly in in Jim Henson company history.
• 29:00
  I mean, the the wig alone. But in that wig, I grew that
• 29:05
  hair. That's why you had a hat on a
• 29:09
  consummate professional. I can grow a method of you.
• 29:13
  Yes, do that. I want to say I'm sorry, I don't
• 29:16
  have it fresh in my mind, but that one, that was in the
• 29:19
  commercial that stock is watching, ya know, it's placed
• 29:24
  on the, the, in the pharmacy, or the grocery store, where Uncle
• 29:28
  Matt's shopping and he gets the can of whipped cream.
• 29:31
  Yes, thinking it's like that miracle hair, grow product?
• 29:36
  Yes. Yes, I think.
• 29:36
  Yeah, I to back to this episode, The the location where we shot
• 29:43
  the Office was actually the production office for the show
• 29:48
  and I think there's, there's at least one Cameo of a crew member
• 29:52
  in that scene. I forget exactly who it is but
• 29:57
  I'm pretty sure that someone from the production was used in
• 30:00
  that segment. Yeah, the rest of them are, I
• 30:02
  believe are capable Canadian performers.
• 30:07
  I'm sure they're all capable. I actually yes, another amazing
• 30:13
  opportunity I Because I was both a Wrangler and a performer.
• 30:16
  I got sent out into outer space as it were to work with the
• 30:21
  second unit on all the Uncle. Matt postcards that were shot in
• 30:25
  Calgary, was almost, I think we, they did three out in La, which
• 30:29
  it's pretty obvious, which ones those are Mysteries.
• 30:33
  But the rest are, we're all shot on location in Calgary.
• 30:37
  We got to go to like the Olympic there.
• 30:39
  The 1988 Winter Olympic like stadium and skating, rink and
• 30:44
  ski. A hill.
• 30:44
  And yeah, some some like it was really fun to just go out and
• 30:50
  it's always so much fun to take like a puppet in out into the
• 30:54
  world. People are just so curious.
• 30:55
  I remember on the day, when we were shooting the recycling bin
• 31:01
  episode where you know people are putting the recycling on the
• 31:05
  street and Matt's getting hit by it gets dumped into a recycling
• 31:07
  truck. The the like locals on the hat
• 31:10
  on the street. Kept poking their heads out of
• 31:12
  the house, really curious what was going on.
• 31:14
  And the Pas had to keeping, like, please go back inside.
• 31:17
  You can't, you're in the shot. We just, but everyone was so,
• 31:22
  you know really wonder what was done as the, why aren't they
• 31:24
  picking up everyone's recycling today, what why, and why do they
• 31:29
  have so much in the, in the office postcard?
• 31:37
  There's a great moment of puppetry that I wanted to point
• 31:40
  out the, the Xerox machine, when Uncle Matt gets kind of
• 31:44
  Photocopied when there's a there's a shot where it's kind
• 31:49
  of wide and it's actually an animatronic Uncle, Matt and
• 31:53
  Kevin Clash. She was puppeteering that day
• 31:55
  did the most brilliant thing. He couldn't get the puppet to
• 31:58
  look all the way towards the human.
• 32:00
  So he moved the pupils just ever.
• 32:02
  So slightly to the side, so it gives us all and that Matt's
• 32:05
  like eyes have rolled all the way to the side to look at this
• 32:08
  person. It's so subtle but it just made
• 32:10
  the moment. So, so perfect.
• 32:12
  And that seems so Habbo. Like we're not supposed to move
• 32:15
  those bills, precious pupils don't ruin that hint that Henson
• 32:20
  Triangle. Well in the right moment.
• 32:23
  It's it's just, it works so well.
• 32:25
  I wanted to shout. Absolutely then.
• 32:27
  Yeah, of course, the the scene ends with Matt dumping an entire
• 32:31
  trash can of water on himself, which is always a little
• 32:35
  stressful, as a puppet Wrangler with a wet puff of it.
• 32:38
  But and of course it was the last shot of the day and we had
• 32:41
  one girl at it and I was the assistant so it was my job.
• 32:44
  A job to like dump the bucket of water and there's maybe one of
• 32:50
  the most nerve-racking shots one.
• 32:51
  Go at it. But, it went okay.
• 32:53
  Certainly what? It's on this show.
• 32:55
  So many white puppets, true. So many what puppeteers I would
• 32:58
  assume as well. Oh yeah.
• 33:02
  Well we'll definitely be talking more about water throughout this
• 33:06
  episode, but one thing I did like when gobos readings
• 33:09
  postcard to his friends, Wembley says we're like relaxation.
• 33:14
  In water. That sounds like what we do all
• 33:16
  the time and read says, yes, but this is about doing those things
• 33:20
  in a different place which made me feel like she is talking
• 33:24
  about this pandemic. She is talking about, like I've
• 33:26
  been stuck at home, doing nothing but sitting on the couch
• 33:30
  and watching movies from last two years.
• 33:32
  And it's like, man, I need a vacation from all the sitting
• 33:34
  around doing nothing. I just got do the same thing in
• 33:37
  my place. So do you guys just move?
• 33:41
  I've also fraggles for the last two years.
• 33:44
  I've only for those for those not not seeing us because you
• 33:50
  can't see us. I did bring my mega Cup.
• 33:53
  This is 52 ounces of Texas, fun. Wow.
• 33:57
  Yeah. What are you drinking there?
• 33:58
  Dan. Did they tell us?
• 34:00
  It's just it's just water. Just water wink.
• 34:04
  Okay. So we get a glimpse of the
• 34:08
  Doozers in this next bit because the previous episode, they found
• 34:12
  this new pink goo, Turbo and wrench doozer.
• 34:15
  Want to start using it right away, but cotter pin knows what
• 34:17
  we got to do. More tests for this is gonna be
• 34:20
  another Runner through the episode where Turbo and rents
• 34:23
  are just going for it in there. Put this thing into production
• 34:25
  without without proper testing. And there's probably going to be
• 34:30
  some unexpected repercussions will talk more about that next
• 34:33
  week, but I do want to talk with you guys about the Doozers and
• 34:37
  were you involved in property during these guys as well?
• 34:42
  Shout out to to Ali and E and Donna is, especially in this
• 34:47
  particular sequence. Fantastic work.
• 34:51
  Just overall fantastic work. Specifically with Doozers
• 34:55
  Doozers are our lovely little creatures that that when
• 35:02
  puppeteered that means there's a lot of spooning happening.
• 35:06
  That means you're you're really as a puppeteer It's your
• 35:11
  responsibility to invest in in solid hygiene because you were
• 35:21
  besides your family. There's no one closer than
• 35:25
  snuggling puppeteers. And everyone's got a little, you
• 35:29
  know, they either have mints or mouthwash, or very strong
• 35:33
  deodorant and we rolled together in these in these.
• 35:38
  If you were to see, I'm sure you've seen some of the The
• 35:40
  behind-the-scenes stuff. Basically, we're all huddled
• 35:43
  under these these risers, these tables, these Ray's sets and and
• 35:50
  there is no, because there's so much there, these characters, so
• 35:53
  small, so, I mean, you're literally beside each other,
• 35:56
  you're rubbing shoulders, your, you know, and thank goodness,
• 36:00
  for covid tests because, you know, for someone for someone
• 36:04
  who embodies a lot of bloopers qualities of just getting
• 36:09
  getting some, Yeah, it was, it's a thing.
• 36:13
  But Doozers are great to Puppeteer.
• 36:15
  They're fantastic and there, but they're finicky their delegate.
• 36:20
  They're squishy and, and props, to our, to our Creature Shop,
• 36:26
  for keeping them running. Oh yeah, that's gonna shout out.
• 36:29
  Nick Bellmore Jason Ward, Leo, Leo.
• 36:35
  Last time. I'm going on.
• 36:36
  Yes, and I mean, Scott Johnson who His ran, the, the Creature
• 36:42
  Shop. North, as I like to call it, did
• 36:46
  did such amazing work and the genius rigs that they came up
• 36:50
  with to make those two others. Go blew my mind.
• 36:53
  Constantly. Yes, sadly.
• 36:54
  Sadly. We Puppeteer all of our
• 36:57
  characters Full Throttle. And and so it's part of our job,
• 37:01
  you know, it's part of leaving it all on onset and every single
• 37:07
  one of these beautiful Crafts People in technicians.
• 37:11
  Were there to make sure that we could make that happen.
• 37:14
  So huge, huge debt of gratitude to all of them for for just
• 37:21
  letting it happen and yes things break and directors know that
• 37:27
  and producers know that and crafty sure knows that because
• 37:31
  when something breaks we're going to, we're going to move on
• 37:33
  to something else. Everyone runs to The Crafty for
• 37:36
  a quick bite and then they come back.
• 37:38
  So so yeah, everyone involved. I'll just amazing.
• 37:42
  Amazing, amazing stuff, great. And and have you both I assume
• 37:47
  you've both been able to partake in performing Doozers throughout
• 37:51
  the series. Yes.
• 37:53
  Yes, to the point that, you know, I got to be a doozer in
• 38:00
  therapy, which, which I guess art is imitating life and doozer
• 38:10
  in doozer. In in the monorail digit arose,
• 38:12
  a doozer, it was a juice tender because there is no, is a juice
• 38:17
  tender and which also are imitate our life imitating art.
• 38:23
  Yeah. That particular one looks just
• 38:26
  like me, right? Yeah.
• 38:29
  And I spent, I spent a number of Summers as a Cabana bar tender
• 38:33
  as Cabana, Dan and sadly. A lot of the photos that I took
• 38:37
  on set corrupted in my phone. No, no.
• 38:42
  Yeah, at some point. I'm going to send my phone to
• 38:45
  get revived and see if they can see, they can pull that because
• 38:51
  all of those files, I switched over to a new phone, I
• 38:53
  transferred everything over and then all of a sudden, my
• 38:56
  computer was like, oh guess what?
• 38:58
  All of those photos were corrupted food.
• 39:00
  And so my old phone is still in my possession and hopefully,
• 39:05
  they can extract all of that data.
• 39:07
  That be nice. But anyway, Doozers are
• 39:09
  fantastic. I had I had a as you were
• 39:12
  talking about Good Puppeteer hygiene.
• 39:15
  I had this flash to I can't I can't remember what episode it
• 39:18
  was probably around now because we're dealing with the pink
• 39:22
  goop, but I have this memory of being in the doozerdom set and
• 39:26
  you know you did they kind of especially on the big day.
• 39:28
  So there's a lot of Doozers, they kind of like slowly layer
• 39:31
  people in there to see you end up kind of sitting under the set
• 39:33
  for you know a little bit and there was just this like smell
• 39:38
  that was not it was not. And, you know, we all wore
• 39:42
  masks. Of course, they're covid safety.
• 39:44
  But there was, you know, so permeate and we're like tits on
• 39:46
  not put deodorant on today, like, what is that?
• 39:49
  But the more we smelled it, the more it was it was like hot
• 39:52
  garbage. It was like really potent, as it
• 39:55
  turns out there's this old like movie trick to put milk into
• 40:00
  water, to give it like a paste consistency.
• 40:03
  So when even the dues are, don't set their these pumps to kind of
• 40:07
  pump water through these tubes, the because it's the Ugh station
• 40:11
  or whatever. And so the the special effects
• 40:13
  guys use strawberry milk to make it Pink on the on the day when
• 40:17
  they needed to see that and I think they thought they cleaned
• 40:20
  it out. But somewhere in the pump there
• 40:21
  was milk. That was not good anymore.
• 40:24
  I'm glad it wasn't any other puppy.
• 40:26
  I don't gonna say that's usually like we're I'm saying she's
• 40:28
  completely panicked of like, is it me?
• 40:31
  Is it be can't be? It's not me.
• 40:32
  Oh no, I showered, I'm fine. But what is it was me and it
• 40:35
  would ruin my entire day. Oh man next season cheesy
• 40:43
  strawberry cheese it'll be great.
• 40:47
  Hmm we did you leave it there? Is it still?
• 40:50
  Is it just fermenting on set right now?
• 40:52
  It's just know. They cleaned it out and thank
• 40:54
  goodness enough enough people said so
• 41:18
  Perfume out there with one of the licensing Partners.
• 41:22
  I think so, you know, those fraggles and like, Labyrinth and
• 41:25
  Dark Crystal sense. I think there's gotta be one
• 41:27
  producers. I don't know whether smell
• 41:30
  should be a gorger. There probably is, I don't feel
• 41:32
  like radishes. We're going to look this up
• 41:34
  afterward, they would all smell like radishes, right?
• 41:37
  They all love radish. All right.
• 41:38
  Like, we're getting completely off-topic, this is a podcast,
• 41:41
  you can't smell anything anyway. We interrupt this podcast for a
• 41:45
  special postcard from our uncle traveling, John's Heart, A glia
• 41:49
  and A fraggle fast fact, today's fraggle fast.
• 41:53
  Fact is Fraggle Rock, does use CGI.
• 41:57
  So one of the things, a lot of fans wanted to know when Fraggle
• 42:00
  Rock back to, The Rock was announced was where we gonna,
• 42:03
  you know, not use puppetry where we going to use, CG to bring the
• 42:06
  fraggles and Doozers and gorgs to life and Of course, we
• 42:09
  performed the fraggles in the Doozers and the gorgs very much
• 42:12
  like they were in the original series besides special effects
• 42:16
  and some set extensions we used, CG to enhance certain things.
• 42:20
  So Junior gorgs face has a little bit of CG enhancement.
• 42:23
  Although most of that is animatronic work but we mostly
• 42:28
  use it for was for the fraggle, five.
• 42:30
  When they sometimes appeared in the gorgs garden, they were CG
• 42:34
  characters. So if you look at the first
• 42:36
  episode, when the five fraggles are And around Juniors feet.
• 42:40
  Those are CG model versions of the fraggle, puppets Gobo in
• 42:45
  episode 13 when he comes out in the final episode of the first
• 42:49
  season, when he comes out of the fraggle whole and climbs down
• 42:52
  and goes to speak to jr. That's a CG version of Gobo and
• 42:56
  in episode 2, when red jumps up the rocks and does all of her
• 43:00
  flips and turns during hip hip hooray, that was a CG version of
• 43:03
  red. So basically, the rule was at
• 43:05
  fraggle puppet, couldn't really do it, we would use CG for it.
• 43:08
  And the CGI modelers took so much time.
• 43:11
  Making sure that the they really modeled the fleece and the fur
• 43:14
  on the costume, pieces of the fraggles to get them as close as
• 43:16
  possible. So there's your fraggle
• 43:18
  Fastback, okay? Back to the podcast.
• 43:24
  The fraggles are actually in the about to start their 30-minute
• 43:27
  work week. This is a reference to the
• 43:29
  episode from the original series 30 minute Work.
• 43:31
  Week red, is a lifeguard Mochi, collects radishes Gobo in this
• 43:37
  universe, is job is to clean traveling Matt's Museum.
• 43:40
  Apparently, Wembley is the fire siren.
• 43:44
  Boober was making soup, which I feel like he doesn't weigh more
• 43:47
  than 30 minutes a week Wembley thought that his soup was on.
• 43:51
  Fire. So he tried to extinguish it but
• 43:54
  not only was it, not on fire but it was a cold soup and that's
• 43:58
  pretty hysterical that boober keeps calling him out for that
• 44:00
  throughout this episode. Now that the third Let It Go.
• 44:05
  I know, right? That guy course, you won't let
• 44:06
  it go. If boober is good at one thing,
• 44:09
  it's not letting things go. Now that the 30-minute we work
• 44:13
  week is over, the fraggles are exhausted and they deserve a
• 44:17
  vacation and I get it, I feel the same way I work for like an
• 44:21
  hour and then I'm like, oh man, I need a break.
• 44:26
  This is where we get our first song.
• 44:27
  This is the song Kragle Lagoon. This is original for this this
• 44:31
  episode. It's this cool Caribbean
• 44:33
  inspired song. It's just a fun pop, I have
• 44:38
  nothing else to say about unless you guys have a story or two but
• 44:42
  it's just a fun New fraggle. So I want to shout out the I
• 44:45
  want to shout out the Ink Spot puppeteers and that number,
• 44:48
  which do some really funny amazing work.
• 44:51
  That the ink spots were a seminal.
• 44:54
  Favorite of the crew and the puppeteers across the board.
• 44:57
  They were worked in whenever possible Eagles and a favorite
• 44:59
  of the fan. But I believe I love these big
• 45:01
  spots and there's some really good Ink Spot stuff is episode.
• 45:08
  I will I will toot my own horn because the The Ink Spot that
• 45:15
  gets thrown out of the horn and the Texas, which that happens.
• 45:18
  There is mine. I got to be that one which one
• 45:21
  here so we had you're pulling the string or your the I'm the
• 45:26
  second one, but I don't remember.
• 45:30
  I think it was effects that pulled the spirits of it, just
• 45:33
  the fishing line of the yes to stuff, but I think, but I think
• 45:35
  affects did it. And it wasn't, it wasn't one of
• 45:38
  us. But yeah, the horn goes off, he
• 45:41
  gets thrown and then the The Ink Spot which has become a spirit
• 45:47
  animal. And a lot of us got to be in
• 45:50
  spots over the course of the show of the show.
• 45:55
  My I had one in particular. That was that was mine.
• 45:58
  He. Yeah, I always gravitated toward
• 46:01
  that because he looked a lot, like, and kind of grumpy and he
• 46:06
  had this, he had the ability to do this, this underbite we're
• 46:11
  healing. And there were a couple of
• 46:15
  occasions where I got to be the guy that got thrown across the
• 46:19
  room. And I'm, okay, thanks for asking
• 46:22
  sort of a thing and then move away, but yeah.
• 46:26
  Ink Spots are are absolutely amazing, amazing public.
• 46:30
  There's about a bit, I love them.
• 46:32
  And and in the, in the number, in the crack of the Lagoon
• 46:34
  number, I think it was Amy Garcia and Hayward and Ingrid,
• 46:37
  Hanson 3x spots feed the featuring spots.
• 46:41
  Yeah, featured Ink Spot, that's a t-shirt I would, I would wear
• 46:46
  that featured expand. So, next up, we're going to take
• 46:49
  a quick jaunt over to the gorgs Garden.
• 46:52
  We've already talked about Junior bit, but we sure there's
• 46:54
  so much more to say First of all, that set of the garden
• 46:59
  looks incredible with the castle.
• 47:01
  The, and the real grass and I mean, it's got to be such a joy
• 47:07
  to get to play up there. Yeah.
• 47:12
  And we would hang out there, too.
• 47:13
  Because I'm again, a very method but, but tear and and so I'd
• 47:22
  hang out there and check all of my vegetables.
• 47:26
  I would go through the Garden in my off time.
• 47:29
  I did, I did radish recipes? Mmm, because I needed to get
• 47:33
  into Juniors, head made up my own backstory about the shed and
• 47:38
  everything that was out there like in.
• 47:40
  And I handed it to To the writers.
• 47:42
  So they have, it's none of its Cannon but it's all for me to
• 47:46
  understand why jr. Is Junior, but it was, it was a
• 47:51
  wonderful wonderful set to hang out in to explore.
• 47:55
  There were days when when we were shooting adjacent to the,
• 47:59
  the gourd Castle either, you know, boobers place or other
• 48:05
  locations Bridge was there as well, and are holding area was
• 48:10
  basically hanging out and Lying down on the boards, Lon just a
• 48:14
  bunch of puppeteers, hanging out on the gorgeous lawn, which is
• 48:16
  amazed, it's the coolest. I mean, this is, this is like
• 48:19
  I've been, you know, pretty well.
• 48:21
  It's like when you're working on Sesame Street and you're like,
• 48:23
  well, I need to sit somewhere, I guess I'll just hang out at on
• 48:25
  the stoop. I'll go.
• 48:27
  Like, I got a drink at Hooper's store, like, no big deal.
• 48:30
  Yeah, I guess it is a till they're ready for exactly, for
• 48:33
  sure. Yeah.
• 48:35
  And and yeah we got to do that and and that long was so, it's
• 48:39
  so expansive and kind of cozy, right?
• 48:41
  It was You know, AstroTurf that we could go and yeah, kind of
• 48:46
  chill out on, but don't sit on the rocks, are rocks, the Rocks
• 48:50
  aren't gonna be real or not and it's kind of like it's it's true
• 48:58
  like barely anything on that set was was done in post-production
• 49:02
  like that thing was there and those dinner to get up to the
• 49:05
  tower, all the trees on the side.
• 49:07
  Sometimes I noticed that there's like clouds that are added in
• 49:10
  but that the psyche there was a Blue stuff like that.
• 49:12
  Damn was talking about that that goes all the way around and and
• 49:17
  then Marjorie was actually around the side.
• 49:19
  So so literally you could, you could walk around the side of
• 49:22
  the set and then, you know, you're suddenly in the trash
• 49:24
  Heap area, which geographically in my mind.
• 49:28
  Watching the original show you. You knew that she was in the
• 49:30
  gorg area, but it was sort of not clear, where exactly she
• 49:35
  was. But it's so I love Malik
• 49:36
  strikes, and it makes so much sense.
• 49:41
  And he just throws it over the fence.
• 49:43
  Don't care? Just, surf course.
• 49:45
  Yeah. World.
• 49:47
  That's mine crazy. So I like so much could ask you
• 49:52
  guys about about Junior, and I'll try to keep it brief
• 49:54
  because this is hardly going on so long.
• 49:57
  Ben, is there a secret to making jr.
• 50:01
  Look, so light on his feet because when he moves, I mean,
• 50:05
  he's a, he's a big guy, and there's always, this flow have
• 50:09
  these that had been. I think that the construction of
• 50:14
  this suit does a lot. There's because his His body and
• 50:18
  legs and arms to are all done with black boning so it's
• 50:24
  compresses and and stretches really well.
• 50:27
  And so as you as you kind of move, it, moves sympathetically
• 50:31
  around you and that I think helps a lot gives him.
• 50:34
  That kind of like buoyancy. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's also
• 50:37
  installing oh yes, yeah, yes, yes, yes.
• 50:40
  They added a kind of connection from my waist to the outer waste
• 50:45
  of the Like a 22 to the outer waste of the costume, so that I
• 50:49
  could, when I would move my hips, the hips of the costume
• 50:53
  would real sure. Yeah.
• 50:54
  I get that right? It kind of adds like an extra
• 50:56
  joint to the to the whole puppet.
• 50:58
  Almost it kind of. Yeah.
• 50:59
  And the connection from the performer to the suit is is
• 51:03
  greater so that helped a lot too.
• 51:05
  That's cool. That head is known as no joke,
• 51:07
  man. That's that's that's a heavy
• 51:10
  piece of Machinery, there. Oh yeah.
• 51:13
  The head is had, I don't know what the actual weight is I
• 51:16
  should. But it was so heavy so
• 51:17
  front-heavy that they had a bungee cord it to my back had
• 51:20
  sort of a back brace with a clip that the the head we would
• 51:24
  connect by a cord and that helps sort of counterbalance the
• 51:28
  weight of a little bit. I turned into Ben's mother on
• 51:32
  set anytime there was going to be a stunt or, you know, the Oak
• 51:38
  and what have you put a like? Yeah, yeah.
• 51:40
  Oh, oh, I'll dive headfirst Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben Ben, even.
• 51:44
  Come to me. Come here, me, what happened?
• 51:46
  Sure. You're okay.
• 51:48
  And it was that was me all the time we would yell cut and I'd
• 51:54
  run up and this body does not run but I could run up toward
• 51:59
  the, the guard Castle to make sure that he was that he was
• 52:02
  comfortable and okay. Because oh gosh, I and again,
• 52:07
  Henson and all of production, safety was what's like first in
• 52:13
  everything. So we would do runs with with
• 52:16
  Out without the head in order to to make sure that the band was
• 52:22
  going to be safe, that it was doable and then we would do one
• 52:25
  with with with the head on but assisted to make sure that he's
• 52:31
  easing into it. And another case is like the
• 52:34
  like the the well scene where you were on your backpack, you
• 52:39
  know, the despacho scene that was first assisted.
• 52:45
  And then Ben was like, yeah. Could do this.
• 52:48
  Thank God for his abs man. That's got some killer abs
• 52:53
  because that's a lot of weight knots, it's official.
• 52:55
  Now it's we set it on the podcast.
• 52:57
  Everyone knows that you have great abs bacon, gotta hips,
• 53:01
  wait for the calendar. And like, it's got to be, I'm
• 53:03
  imagining wearing all that weight on top of my head and
• 53:06
  like by the end of the day, you must have had a horrible, like
• 53:08
  neck shoulder pain. I mean, that's gotta take us
• 53:12
  home. I had to take care.
• 53:14
  I had to take care of myself for sure.
• 53:16
  Luckily We would shoot like two days, probably of gorg stuff and
• 53:21
  then have like a week or two before which job chords again.
• 53:25
  So my body got a break, it's like we were doing those
• 53:27
  back-to-back which would have been killer.
• 53:29
  But, you know, everyone was so like took such good care of me
• 53:34
  on set. And really, I was, I was always
• 53:36
  the one like, no, let's do it again.
• 53:38
  They're like, got him out, but the, the want to store, which
• 53:43
  ban you want a sandwich. Shout out my Wranglers Kim and
• 53:51
  Yvonne and also Christy and Terry, from the Creature Shop,
• 53:55
  who would like bring me peanut butter sandwiches and between
• 54:00
  breaks they actually got like the leaf blowers and would stick
• 54:04
  them in the armpits of my costume to like circularly we're
• 54:08
  through and nothing. Nothing like saying I bring in
• 54:12
  the leaf blower that's hysterical and I'm sure
• 54:15
  much-needed. I bet you again sir.
• 54:16
  Still in there and you're the only one who could smell it.
• 54:19
  Exactly. You're not bringing in
• 54:21
  strawberry milk inside. Jay.
• 54:24
  Yes, so Mom, pot gorg have gone on vacation.
• 54:29
  They're off to kissing Canyon yuck, and he wants to move jr.
• 54:34
  Jr. To a new Sunny Spot which
• 54:36
  happens to be blocking to other plants.
• 54:39
  Who did you say performance? Those two plants.
• 54:41
  Because they're terrific. So, the round shrub is Ingrid,
• 54:47
  Hanson. And then the, the conical shaped
• 54:52
  which classic shapes by the way, you know, as sort of an Easter
• 54:56
  egg sort of a thing. Those are very classic shapes
• 54:59
  is, is Kara Hull. So they did their, their work
• 55:04
  impact lie and had us, had us in stitches, on onset.
• 55:08
  Seems like he'll thing where, like they were just and living
• 55:10
  all over the place and, and just got to be so much left on the On
• 55:14
  The Cutting Room floor of just like gold these, these sassy
• 55:17
  plants. They could they could have gone
• 55:20
  on for hours and and it was it was absolutely fantastic there
• 55:25
  there. You know what was on the what
• 55:27
  was on the page was was, was beautifully written Matt and
• 55:31
  Alex and, and all of our writers to just absolutely knocked this
• 55:36
  entire series out of the park. But but yeah, they also gave us
• 55:42
  some room to play around. For example, when when jr.
• 55:47
  Is talking to Junior, Junior and the puppeteers are making the
• 55:54
  puppet talk, so he puppeteers. Junior junior to say.
• 56:00
  He says, would you like, would you like to go Bubba?
• 56:02
  Bubba, blah. And, and then Junior out of the
• 56:06
  side of his mouth and says, I'd like that very much.
• 56:09
  It's it's a nod to all of our all of our puppeteers around the
• 56:14
  world. And I wanted to make sure that
• 56:16
  they knew that the junior like the puppet.
• 56:18
  Tears. That's right.
• 56:20
  Yeah meta. Puppets puppets, puppeteering
• 56:22
  puppets. I love it.
• 56:25
  Let's get back to the plot here. The fraggles make their way to
• 56:28
  their vacation spot and Kragle Lagoon.
• 56:30
  But the Lagoon seems to be all dried up.
• 56:34
  There is obviously a mystery afoot of what happens to the
• 56:37
  water and Q inspector read from the episode inspector red.
• 56:43
  It's red basically wearing a trench coat with a magnifying
• 56:46
  glass and she's wearing a hat that seems to be going.
• 56:48
  Over her pigtails. I don't think anyone thought
• 56:52
  about this until I just happen to watch the episode for like
• 56:55
  the third time that she got that hat over those big pigtails
• 56:58
  really quickly. And she also, she does say that
• 57:03
  she is the only fraggle with access to a magnifying glass,
• 57:05
  which I thought was pretty pretty funny.
• 57:08
  She finds immediately, she find some Footprints and declares
• 57:12
  that whoever's Footprints. These are, they must have stolen
• 57:14
  the water and subsequently stolen their vacation and go
• 57:17
  points out that these are there. Footprints, which I'm guessing
• 57:21
  is a subtle clue about the end of this episode, who the real
• 57:24
  water feeds are. Hmm, let's think about that.
• 57:28
  One for a while. Mmm.
• 57:30
  Can I just can I just say the the Kragle the Goon set is one
• 57:34
  of the most impressive sets that they built for this production.
• 57:38
  Like the Great Hall is pretty amazing as is the gorg garden,
• 57:41
  but the day of that we walked in and saw that that that is all
• 57:45
  practical. There's no there's no point
• 57:47
  where this the practical And there's like a blue screen that
• 57:50
  that the entire cave was real and gigantic for this one
• 57:55
  episode. It blew my mind, I the the
• 57:58
  production designer and the scenic team on back to the Rock
• 58:02
  are the best arrive at. Yeah, worked with so good.
• 58:05
  They were puppeteers and I was one of them all the way up at
• 58:09
  the top that we're talking three flights up.
• 58:13
  I and where Amy and I are we were cave.
• 58:18
  Neighbors. And we're sitting up there and
• 58:21
  and I you know, between takes you gotta look and I'm looking
• 58:26
  down and it's, it looks so far down, man.
• 58:31
  It was it was absolutely just astonishing and everyone
• 58:36
  involved gave it so much. Love it felt like a real lived
• 58:40
  in place. It was Beauty.
• 58:42
  Its kind of be surreal as well because usually as puppeteers,
• 58:44
  your hidden below things and now you're looking down All the
• 58:49
  action. Yeah just interesting.
• 58:51
  But yes it's a phenomenal set and really impressive.
• 58:54
  What's those set designers come up with every episode?
• 58:58
  We're Raven about what we're seeing in the background like
• 59:01
  they're just nailing it. I love it.
• 59:04
  Yeah. And here we have our first
• 59:07
  Kragle shows up its Lyle Kragle voiced by the great, Ed Helms
• 59:11
  from the office, and The Daily Show, and who is doing the
• 59:15
  puppetry for a while, because I assume it's not Ed Helms.
• 59:19
  Johnny T90 was Lyle crying. Great yeah he did a great job
• 59:25
  and a fun fact all the all the Kragle puppets are redressed
• 59:31
  background fraggles so there was like I think 25 total kind of
• 59:35
  all-purpose Gaggle fraggles and then they would get redressed as
• 59:42
  merkel's or crackles as needed. I was wondering that if there
• 59:46
  was a difference between a fraggle and the Kragle build Oh
• 59:50
  yeah. Yeah, there are plenty of
• 59:52
  differences. The head that the Hat on on the
• 59:57
  one that I get to, but I get to Puppeteer.
• 59:59
  I Kyle, he's the gray one, his, his hat is made of two gloves.
• 1:00:07
  If you look closely at his hat, their gloves, on top of what?
• 1:00:11
  Should be the hand? It's awww.
• 1:00:12
  That's it. All right.
• 1:00:14
  Time for us to look out for our next time you watch this
• 1:00:16
  episode. That's good stuff.
• 1:00:17
  Yeah. Is there a difference in
• 1:00:20
  performing a fraggle versus a Kragle or a goal?
• 1:00:23
  Or is it just what's on page? It's all about that.
• 1:00:27
  Yes, so so fraggles are very for the most part, extremely active
• 1:00:35
  folk. Whereas, whereas crackles, have
• 1:00:38
  more of a, not only a walk, but a sympathetic movement to them
• 1:00:43
  where their head is, is Loosely attached to their bodies, almost
• 1:00:48
  like a Like a, like a feather, like a, like, a long ostrich
• 1:00:53
  feather wood, or a, or a dog's tail would have that sympathetic
• 1:00:57
  movement. And then margles are very are
• 1:01:01
  very flowy side to side, as opposed to the, to the front
• 1:01:06
  movements. So, yeah, for at least that's
• 1:01:09
  the way that I've adhered them. Other people may have different
• 1:01:13
  approaches, Bells me, my next question, like if you guys are
• 1:01:17
  kind of sharing your tips about these things to make sure that
• 1:01:20
  it's kind of consistent across across breeds.
• 1:01:23
  But breeds is that what I don't know if that's the right word
• 1:01:26
  for it. Across the different species
• 1:01:28
  she's afraid. Yeah.
• 1:01:29
  Subspecies or actually maybe races I think they're races of
• 1:01:34
  fraggles versus different species.
• 1:01:36
  That's what I remember. One of the scripts, maybe said,
• 1:01:41
  I don't know. Maybe I'm making that.
• 1:01:42
  Yeah interesting. No.
• 1:01:45
  I mean I love that stuff that you know there's it's not just
• 1:01:47
  the way they look, not just the way they talk.
• 1:01:49
  It's that mean there's so much that goes into your Artistry as
• 1:01:51
  puppeteers that you want to add to these guys.
• 1:01:55
  So that's pretty neat. Yeah, Lyle tells read that, that
• 1:02:00
  he was going to take her to the Kragle leader, and basic just
• 1:02:02
  walks around in a circle and reintroduce himself because
• 1:02:05
  while I was the only guy we need to know, He tells her though
• 1:02:09
  that just keep your voice down because you don't want to wait
• 1:02:11
  them. Wake the man Tavor.
• 1:02:14
  He is a big scary creature that lives in the big spout over by
• 1:02:18
  the Lagoon. He says we can't go talk to it
• 1:02:21
  because it might eat us or Worse yell at us and we will see he
• 1:02:25
  has quite the yell when we eventually do meet the man to
• 1:02:28
  board. But red does deduce.
• 1:02:30
  That the Manticore must have taken the water, which I guess
• 1:02:33
  makes sense. I don't know.
• 1:02:34
  She didn't really have much proof there other than he sounds
• 1:02:36
  scary. This is where we get our next
• 1:02:40
  song, this is the song There's a lot.
• 1:02:42
  I want to know that comes from the original series episode
• 1:02:45
  inspector read. But the difference between that
• 1:02:49
  version this one is a duet between red and Lyle and again
• 1:02:53
  we get those Ink Spots and they're all dressed like little
• 1:02:56
  detectives with their little trench coats in the magnifying
• 1:02:57
  glass which is which is adorable.
• 1:02:59
  I love it, the Precision on that puppetry just overall whenever
• 1:03:05
  there's the magnifying glass, there is this.
• 1:03:08
  This there is this just dedication to getting this
• 1:03:13
  right? Like what are you getting that a
• 1:03:15
  podcast? Yeah, yeah that's me.
• 1:03:21
  Getting the the The magnifying glass right over the eye takes
• 1:03:28
  such just focus and precision and kudos to all Bubba.
• 1:03:35
  Tears, who who have the ability to do that threading?
• 1:03:39
  That needle is is no joke. I believe the puppeteers on a
• 1:03:45
  lot. I want to know our Donna,
• 1:03:47
  Kimball Andy, Hayward, and Amy Garcia, Vigo memory.
• 1:03:51
  And, and I and I believe. Well, I I actually asked Andy
• 1:03:55
  last night to confirm because I didn't want to get it wrong but
• 1:03:57
  a memory candy. Thanks Andy shouted and Hayward
• 1:04:03
  the magnify, glad the little, the little hats and and capes
• 1:04:06
  that they all have on were built by Jürgen Ferguson.
• 1:04:09
  Who is our head Wrangler, and he stayed up all night.
• 1:04:12
  I'm pretty sure making those that I before, he like, oh my
• 1:04:14
  God, they need, they need little hats and caves.
• 1:04:16
  We got to do it. It was right?
• 1:04:18
  And it was worth it also made us hats.
• 1:04:22
  I'm wearing one You're against your organs hats, he made us
• 1:04:27
  these Christmas stocking, hats, beautifully, detailed, yeah,
• 1:04:32
  great great person. I don't think I worked with with
• 1:04:35
  you're going to he's generous he's apparently it's just given
• 1:04:38
  out hats to everybody Ink Spots. I love with tears.
• 1:04:42
  Yeah, such a actually to eat, he gave up a, he gave the hat off
• 1:04:47
  his own head for the scene where I forget what episode, where
• 1:04:51
  Wembley's practicing magic. And there's like, an Ink Spot
• 1:04:54
  with bunny ears on his head. Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  That was like an idea that someone had right before lunch
• 1:04:59
  and over lunch, the organ took off his hat.
• 1:05:01
  Cut a hole in the bottom of it. Decorated it to look like
• 1:05:04
  fraggle e and we shot it after lunch.
• 1:05:07
  That's amazing. Oh, I love that.
• 1:05:11
  So while takes read to the man Tavor so she could confront him,
• 1:05:16
  I guess. And she's looking at him through
• 1:05:18
  the magnifying glass and says, well, he only looks big because
• 1:05:21
  of the magnifying glass and then she takes magnifying glass away
• 1:05:23
  and he Huge. This has got to be the biggest
• 1:05:27
  puppet aside from the gorg's in this entire series.
• 1:05:31
  Like he's just humongous. He's bigger than jr.
• 1:05:34
  I'd say I guess exception. Yeah.
• 1:05:37
  Well he's big, he's big, he's big.
• 1:05:42
  It's what is it? Five is it five puppeteers on on
• 1:05:46
  him to make him walk? Thanks to talk.
• 1:05:48
  I think so. I think so at one point I was I
• 1:05:52
  was one of the legs but Not at all scenes because I would
• 1:05:56
  Scurry away to go practice on Junior whenever that they didn't
• 1:06:00
  need me, but but Frank, Frank mystical 800 Heart of My Heart.
• 1:06:08
  What an amazing, what an amazing take on.
• 1:06:12
  What could have been a very scary character.
• 1:06:17
  You feel Frank's heart. You feel just?
• 1:06:20
  Yeah. It's what a great.
• 1:06:22
  The Manticore is amazing, man. Is is so wonderful built by Jim
• 1:06:27
  Krupa with help from Heather Ash.
• 1:06:29
  I believe also worked on it with Jim and like a really just
• 1:06:33
  gorgeous puppet the way it moved, and all the little
• 1:06:37
  details on it. Jim Krupa.
• 1:06:40
  I do want to add about that, you know, I know, I know that Henson
• 1:06:44
  and apple were pretty careful about spoilers, and thing's
• 1:06:47
  leaking before things were initially announced for the
• 1:06:50
  series, but a few pictures. Of Jim Krupa building.
• 1:06:55
  This Puppet. Got out there on the internet a
• 1:06:58
  while ago and the fans. First of all, were like freaking
• 1:07:01
  out because we didn't expect anything beyond just, you know,
• 1:07:04
  fraggles Doozers, gorgs on the show, but second of all that
• 1:07:08
  like this is easily a character that in any other show would
• 1:07:11
  have been CG. It would have been cheaper and
• 1:07:13
  easier just to CG and now here's Krupa and he's building this
• 1:07:17
  thing. That's not only like a
• 1:07:19
  cool-looking puppet but it's humongous.
• 1:07:21
  It looks fraggle e. Its original It like you said,
• 1:07:24
  it takes five puppeteers to perform like, that's incredible.
• 1:07:27
  So that gave us as fans so much. Hope in what this series was
• 1:07:32
  going to deliver on it. Did the thing that a lot of the
• 1:07:37
  original series episodes had the kind of like creature of the
• 1:07:41
  week kind of story lines where this this new creature would
• 1:07:45
  come to Fraggle Rock. We'd have to deal with it in
• 1:07:47
  some way and I feel like manty kind of felt that that rolls.
• 1:07:52
  And you know, he's used in only a couple.
• 1:07:54
  Lepus Odes, but they built this entire beautiful puppet to serve
• 1:07:58
  that purpose and it makes my little nerdy heart.
• 1:08:02
  It's so very happy. I'm right there with you.
• 1:08:04
  Same big, same. So the man toward has, like you
• 1:08:09
  said his, it seems very scary and as a very big scary voice,
• 1:08:14
  but really, he's just welcoming red and Lyle to his cave and
• 1:08:20
  they kind of call them out on like, oh, do you have that big
• 1:08:22
  scary voice? And he says, is that The
• 1:08:24
  crackles are scared of me like, which is kind of sad.
• 1:08:27
  He could have had all these friends the whole time and yet
• 1:08:29
  he's in an inadvertently scaring everybody way the man support
• 1:08:34
  did not take the water, but he does know who took it.
• 1:08:38
  And he has some proof, because he pulls out one of Reds hair
• 1:08:41
  ties. And she thinks back to the last
• 1:08:45
  time she lost a hair tie, which was way back in the pilot
• 1:08:48
  episode of this season. When the Fed was first
• 1:08:51
  discovered the new water, and I know Even notice I don't think
• 1:08:55
  anyone noticed in that scene, isn't that great, red is missing
• 1:08:58
  that hair tie. Like how cool is this?
• 1:09:00
  Isn't that great? Because also I went back and
• 1:09:03
  looked at it and it's like, yes. And that scene, you know, water
• 1:09:05
  shoots in, she loses her hair tie.
• 1:09:07
  It looks like she's just disheveled, but then immediately
• 1:09:10
  afterward, all the fraggles are Swept Away by the water and now
• 1:09:12
  they have wet hair. So really is just maybe 20 or 30
• 1:09:16
  seconds where you could potentially catch, the fact that
• 1:09:19
  she lost this thing and then you're never going to notice
• 1:09:23
  after that. So, that was a cool.
• 1:09:25
  That was a really cool, Joe. Yes, Joe Joe, Joe.
• 1:09:29
  Yes, that's how much everybody cares about this show.
• 1:09:34
  That's how much thought and planning and heart went into
• 1:09:39
  this. Those, those little things that
• 1:09:43
  we take for granted as viewers, right?
• 1:09:45
  Oh, yeah, of course she is. She's the shovel.
• 1:09:48
  And you don't notice that the thing is gone until the thing is
• 1:09:51
  gone. And then when we, when we read
• 1:09:53
  in the Table read. I want to oh my God.
• 1:09:57
  Yeah it was it was this like that but that oh you know who
• 1:10:01
  you guys are smart. It was that sort of and it's
• 1:10:05
  just the heart, it's the heart to make something good.
• 1:10:09
  But let me ask you this, if they put so much thought into it, did
• 1:10:14
  they have an explanation for how the hair ties somehow made it
• 1:10:18
  Upstream back to the source of the water.
• 1:10:24
  Of course, I'm sure they did the hair tie fell just to the side
• 1:10:28
  of the stream of water, which is where man, who lives in the
• 1:10:31
  spout and he found it. He's, of course, I'll explain it
• 1:10:35
  to you and, and this is the one thing that I will never repeat
• 1:10:39
  again. Okay, I'm going to explain this
• 1:10:41
  big group girl. Oh, no, we're losing you.
• 1:10:44
  Damn, we're losing you. We're freezing.
• 1:10:46
  And that's exactly how it happened.
• 1:10:49
  Wow, all right. Well food for thought Well, in
• 1:10:55
  any case, red has. Now discovered that the copra
• 1:10:59
  that she's been looking for the whole time was actually herself
• 1:11:02
  and the other fraggles because they're there for the last seven
• 1:11:07
  episodes. They've been celebrating all
• 1:11:09
  this new water coming into Fraggle Rock, but never once,
• 1:11:12
  did they ask where the water came from, this is going to be
• 1:11:16
  basically the big through line through the rest of this this
• 1:11:20
  season about the after effects. Of this new new water and what
• 1:11:26
  do you do? What do you do now?
• 1:11:29
  Red returns to Fraggle, Rock with the crackles in tow because
• 1:11:34
  they obviously can't just read avert that water back uphill,
• 1:11:39
  and back to the Kragle Lagoon. So, another crackles are like
• 1:11:42
  refugees, which is also a nice. A nice little moment of how we
• 1:11:46
  are, you know, really supposed to take care of our neighbors
• 1:11:50
  here. And again, another bit of the
• 1:11:53
  storyline that really is setting us up for that back half of this
• 1:11:56
  season because those crackles. Now live for now at least at
• 1:12:00
  Fraggle Rock, we have a great shot of the Great Hall with all
• 1:12:07
  the fraggles and crackles coexisting, some of the crackles
• 1:12:09
  are napping. That's something else that's
• 1:12:11
  going to be coming up in a few episodes there fraggles and
• 1:12:14
  crackles both playing in the pond there's one shot one
• 1:12:17
  fraggle I or maybe it's a cradle that I hadn't noticed until this
• 1:12:22
  viewing Way off to the right side of the fraggle, pond with a
• 1:12:26
  straw and he's drinking the water, which has fraggles
• 1:12:31
  bathing in it. And that's got to be the
• 1:12:34
  grossest thing I've ever seen on this show.
• 1:12:37
  That's disgusting. I've been considered that.
• 1:12:40
  Wow, they were really thirsty. I think this is what happens.
• 1:12:44
  They were just really parched. You know what you take you take,
• 1:12:49
  you take nutrition where you suppose.
• 1:12:51
  That's true. And you know, they do things
• 1:12:55
  differently in Kragle Lagoon. I can't, I can't fault them for
• 1:12:58
  that, you know. I'm not going to iook there.
• 1:13:00
  Yum purest your Waters. Exactly.
• 1:13:04
  Well, now as Reza to read, it says the the crackles, get their
• 1:13:08
  well-deserved Vacation by coming to Fraggle Rock and has not
• 1:13:13
  thought through things like where they going to stay.
• 1:13:16
  What are they going to do about the water who's going to do
• 1:13:19
  their laundry? There's a lot of big question
• 1:13:21
  marks here and thank goodness. This is a Lies TV show because
• 1:13:25
  we're not just ending it here, we have more episodes where we
• 1:13:27
  can explain these things. One thing that I really want to
• 1:13:30
  win a touch on the second horn, blow that happens in this
• 1:13:35
  episode Kanya. Chen is playing pogi and is
• 1:13:41
  standing right in front of that horn, the leaf blower effect.
• 1:13:47
  That happens is absolutely fantastic but Completely sold by
• 1:13:55
  canas reaction. As pogie is absolutely
• 1:13:59
  brilliant. It makes me giggle every time I
• 1:14:01
  see it. Yes, I agree.
• 1:14:03
  So much luck. Yeah, probably the same leaf
• 1:14:05
  blower that was cooling me off on the other stage absolutely
• 1:14:08
  repurposed right there. We have to be removed, have to
• 1:14:11
  be responsible. That's right.
• 1:14:13
  Although I do imagine maybe season two you guys going to
• 1:14:16
  have like 15 leaf blowers, it's gonna be great.
• 1:14:18
  You're gonna be leaf blower rich.
• 1:14:23
  We can do leaf, blower races on chairs or Rollies.
• 1:14:27
  Yeah. Wow, Mine wouldn't put money on
• 1:14:31
  me, but once you get that momentum, you know, then you'll
• 1:14:35
  be unbeatable well that pretty much brings us to the end of
• 1:14:39
  this episode. Do you guys have any other
• 1:14:40
  memories from this one that you want to share anything
• 1:14:43
  interesting? I don't know.
• 1:14:47
  I mean the, the fraggle Pond was I for whatever reason, when I
• 1:14:52
  was wrangling I often the job of wrangling, the fraggles in the
• 1:14:58
  water felt to me which was treacherous and exhilarating all
• 1:15:05
  at once because you know, basically the pond is, is like a
• 1:15:09
  imagine a hot tub with a bunch of like, heavy-duty gloves, kind
• 1:15:14
  of welded into the Love it. So that the puppeteers could go
• 1:15:18
  underneath the hot tub and put their hands up into those
• 1:15:21
  gloves. And then from above in the
• 1:15:23
  water, we can put the puppets on to the gloves, so they could be
• 1:15:27
  performed. But that involves, you know,
• 1:15:29
  kind of like tiptoeing around the edge of the pond and like,
• 1:15:34
  finagling puppets on two puppeteers, without being able
• 1:15:37
  to really hear what they're saying.
• 1:15:39
  So you're kind of yelling down. It was always very exciting and
• 1:15:43
  I'm glad they use so much of it in the show.
• 1:15:45
  Because it's really kind of Glorious, right to see these
• 1:15:48
  characters in real water. It just brings them so much.
• 1:15:51
  Brings them to life in a way that, you know, if we weren't
• 1:15:56
  seeing the water, you might not Yeah, here's okay.
• 1:16:00
  I'm a left-handed Puppeteer for starters to finish it off.
• 1:16:05
  I've got these giant arms which we've already touched upon
• 1:16:07
  numerous times and I already have a book deal for these arms,
• 1:16:11
  but, but moving. Moving on, I never got to
• 1:16:17
  Puppeteer in the pond and my respect and utmost like just
• 1:16:28
  Yeah. Total respect for any Puppeteer
• 1:16:31
  who puppeteered in that in that pond because it's a hard gig.
• 1:16:37
  Your arm is up, your arm is in there from the time that they
• 1:16:44
  put that that puppet on. There's this its entire process
• 1:16:48
  to get in and out of those gloves.
• 1:16:50
  And again, everyone looked out for everyone and if and if
• 1:16:55
  anyone was having any issues they would take care of it.
• 1:16:58
  But but yeah, I could not have done that, it was that position
• 1:17:04
  and the water pressure that's around.
• 1:17:06
  Your arms like a scuba suit and then a wet puppet on top of it
• 1:17:12
  is just beyond my capacity of understanding and pension, if
• 1:17:18
  you're listening, which I'm sure you are.
• 1:17:20
  I'm more than willing to do it. I'm more than willing to do
• 1:17:22
  anything that you guys want me to do.
• 1:17:24
  However, maybe keep me out of the box.
• 1:17:28
  Well, it's little things where like whenever a puppeteer does
• 1:17:31
  you know, Workshop of or at least explaining to people, you
• 1:17:35
  know what, it takes to be a puppeteer.
• 1:17:37
  A lot of times they'll start with saying, okay, everyone in
• 1:17:40
  the audience, put your hand up in the air and then just leave
• 1:17:43
  it there and then they continue to talk and they say don't look,
• 1:17:44
  don't lower your hand and then they keep talking talking
• 1:17:46
  talking. So you've only had your hand up
• 1:17:48
  there for, like, 45 seconds and already your shoulder starting
• 1:17:51
  to give your, you don't even have the weight of a puppet on
• 1:17:53
  there and like, it's hard work. I think a lot of people don't
• 1:17:57
  realize that. Puppetry isn't just like, you
• 1:17:59
  know, wiggling a doll. It's you know, there's so many
• 1:18:02
  more things that go into it and only one of which in the very,
• 1:18:05
  keeping your arm in the air, very confined spaces, awkward
• 1:18:08
  positions, extended periods of time, Darkness, people all that
• 1:18:13
  other stuff. So yeah, it's, it's not for the
• 1:18:16
  faint of heart and yeah, it did at the end of the day, whatever.
• 1:18:22
  Gets the shot done is, Is What It Takes.
• 1:18:26
  And we are sir. Surrounded, we were surrounded
• 1:18:30
  by some of the most all in people I have ever worked with
• 1:18:37
  just beautiful, beautiful hearts all around.
• 1:18:40
  And I've I've, I've I've worked on a bunch of different sets but
• 1:18:47
  none of them felt like home. And this felt like a giant
• 1:18:52
  family. Everyone loved each other looked
• 1:18:55
  out for each other. And to quote, the quote a very
• 1:19:01
  famous moppet. I hope to go back there someday.
• 1:19:05
  Yeah, yeah me too. We yeah.
• 1:19:08
  We hope that you guys get to go back there as well.
• 1:19:10
  Because this show needs to second season.
• 1:19:11
  We need more of this. And really, you know, these this
• 1:19:16
  very this all too short season that we did get really is just
• 1:19:21
  phenomenal. The amount of work, the amount
• 1:19:23
  of passion and love that you guys put into it.
• 1:19:25
  It's all showing up on the screen.
• 1:19:28
  So thank you so much for all you've done for all you continue
• 1:19:31
  to do for being here on this podcast.
• 1:19:35
  We look forward to seeing what you guys come up with next,
• 1:19:37
  especially if it is fraggle related.
• 1:19:41
  But for now, I think that's going to bring us to the end of
• 1:19:43
  another episode of Fraggle talk, but stay tuned.
• 1:19:46
  All you find listeners as tough pigs own Beth cook talks more
• 1:19:50
  about the themes of this episode in our dive deeper segment
• 1:19:54
  coming up right now. Welcome to dig deeper.
• 1:20:07
  This is Beth cook and I am joined once again by executive
• 1:20:09
  producer and president television at the Jim Henson
• 1:20:12
  company. Holly Stanford.
• 1:20:14
  Hello? I wish there was a Kragle Aloha
• 1:20:18
  but there isn't I love the return of Inspector red.
• 1:20:25
  Yes. Absolutely.
• 1:20:26
  So fun that was Karen Pearl. Advocated for for a spectre red
• 1:20:31
  to come back and we heard her loud and clear.
• 1:20:35
  I love that. There's a continuation of her
• 1:20:38
  character learning these lessons of she wants to push a little
• 1:20:42
  too hard and then realize that she needs to take other people
• 1:20:46
  into consideration this time not just another individual who she
• 1:20:50
  already cares about. But an entire Society oh yeah,
• 1:20:53
  needs to learn to prioritize their needs over her wants.
• 1:20:57
  Yeah. And she also is going to learn,
• 1:21:00
  you know, she's going to discover a lesson that all of
• 1:21:03
  her friends need to learn because All were the cause of
• 1:21:07
  the water going going away from Kragle Tim.
• 1:21:11
  I like to call this the White Lotus episode of Fraggle Rock
• 1:21:16
  because it's a lot about privilege at first, right?
• 1:21:19
  Like let's go on a vacation, let's go to this place that we
• 1:21:22
  always go and like, you know, and and and in some ways like
• 1:21:26
  but not, you know, not interact, you know?
• 1:21:29
  And and we've had an impact on it and we've had a negative
• 1:21:32
  impact and we've had a negative impact.
• 1:21:35
  Act on their culture. And so, you see this all happen
• 1:21:38
  in this episode. I also think it's funny that
• 1:21:41
  they're going on a vacation since they barely work.
• 1:21:43
  But anyway, I think that we just really wanted to Showcase
• 1:21:47
  privilege and, as well as the lessons of, you know,
• 1:21:53
  understanding how we have an impact on other cultures,
• 1:21:56
  environments. And and and and I think it's
• 1:22:00
  that sort of carbon footprint impact.
• 1:22:02
  It's not, it wasn't knowingly, they didn't go in. - steal
• 1:22:05
  resources, right? As versus the gorgs and and yet
• 1:22:12
  they're going to have to figure out what to do.
• 1:22:14
  I think this is a message, you know, the whole idea of like,
• 1:22:18
  you know, being a climate activists and green skills for
• 1:22:26
  this generation. I think this is something kids
• 1:22:28
  are completely aware of and engaged in.
• 1:22:31
  We're just reflecting it back in the story because we want it to
• 1:22:34
  show. Show, we have this theme of
• 1:22:36
  water through our whole episodes and so this is you know how the
• 1:22:40
  fraggles actually impacted 11 group that their culture did
• 1:22:45
  Thrive with the water. Now, we have to help them, help
• 1:22:47
  them and then help figure out a way to make the water come back
• 1:22:51
  to their, to their area. So, but I do want to say like II
• 1:22:55
  do feel, the kids are really getting this messaging.
• 1:22:58
  We're just, we're just amplifying it.
• 1:22:59
  We're just we're just continuing it.
• 1:23:01
  Whereas some of these messaging I don't think kids are getting
• 1:23:05
  And Fraggle Rock. I don't think they're getting
• 1:23:06
  enough information on how to manage anxiety or have a moral
• 1:23:10
  imagination beyond their families and politics and
• 1:23:14
  Country, you know, like so these are things that we are hoping
• 1:23:16
  that we can help Foster in them but this one I think the kids do
• 1:23:20
  care about if they actually have a negative effect on a culture
• 1:23:24
  or the looping or land. Yeah, I love that parallel with
• 1:23:28
  the gorgs because in the same episode you see Junior repeating
• 1:23:33
  gorgs deserve the best. That you can tell that his
• 1:23:36
  father has been saying to him and indoctrinating him, and so
• 1:23:39
  he tries to give this this plant, but he loves junior,
• 1:23:43
  junior tries to give him the best and then realizes.
• 1:23:46
  Oh, that's actually impacting these the needs of these other
• 1:23:49
  plants. Yeah.
• 1:23:50
  So whether that harm is done by accident like with the fraggles
• 1:23:55
  or on purpose with Paw gorg saying we need to hoard our
• 1:23:59
  water. The impact can be the same, the
• 1:24:02
  impacts the same and with Her. I think the journey is harder,
• 1:24:07
  you know, I just talked about that term, moral imagination,
• 1:24:11
  meaning that you have to be able to imagine a morality outside of
• 1:24:14
  what you've been taught. It's really hard and why he's
• 1:24:18
  able to do it is because he's caring for something else
• 1:24:21
  besides himself, of course, but that's not so obvious to, you
• 1:24:25
  know, kids, when when they're watching that, once I start to
• 1:24:28
  care for something, oh wait, then I want it to be healthy and
• 1:24:32
  I want it to thrive. So, So, once I start caring for
• 1:24:36
  a person of another color, once I start caring for a person from
• 1:24:40
  another country, I'm going to want them to thrive and you know
• 1:24:45
  that comes with connection and education.
• 1:24:49
  And so anyway, I think that just he has a harder Journey junior.
• 1:24:53
  He kind of breaks my heart but absolutely it really breaks my
• 1:24:57
  heart but he comes out good in the end.
• 1:25:06
  Fraggle, talk The Unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast is brought
• 1:25:09
  to you by tough pics.com produced written and hosted by
• 1:25:12
  Johannes fraggle fast facts, segment presented by special
• 1:25:15
  guest. John tartaglia dig deeper
• 1:25:17
  segment hosted by Beth cook with special.
• 1:25:19
  Guest Hayley Stanford fraggle, talk art by Dave whole team,
• 1:25:22
  Junior. The Fraggle Rock Mark and Logo
• 1:25:24
  characters and elements are trademarks of Jim Henson
• 1:25:26
  company, All Rights. Reserved Fraggle Rock theme song
• 1:25:29
  written by Milla balls. Ominously is used with
• 1:25:31
  permission special, thanks to the Jim Henson company, Apple
• 1:25:33
  TV. Plus in the entire Fraggle, Rock
• 1:25:35
  back to the Rock Family. For more from topics, please
• 1:25:38
  find us at tough pigs on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and
• 1:25:41
  patreon. Thanks for listening and we'll
• 1:25:43
  see you next time down at fraggle talk.