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The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast - Episode 6: Bonnie Erickson Interview · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

0:00
How do you create a legend? Well, you start with a block of
0:04
foam, a saw, a pair of scissors, and preferably no idea that
0:07
that's what you're doing. In the last episode of the
0:10
podcast, I talked with designers Peter Savieri and Jamie Carroll
0:13
about what makes Miss Piggy look her best, and today I invited
0:16
Peter to come back and join me as Co host.
0:18
Because we are talking to Miss Piggy's original creator, Bonnie
0:22
Erickson, we're going to learn all about how the Miss Piggy
0:25
puppet was made, what it was like working in the Muppet
0:27
Workshop, and how very close Miss Piggy came to stealing the
0:30
Hope Diamond. I can't give you anything but
0:35
love, baby. That's the only thing I've
0:42
plenty of, baby. Kissy Kissy and welcome to
0:47
another episode of the fantastic Miss Piggy podcast.
0:51
I'm Danny Horn and this podcast chronicles my journey to learn
0:54
everything there is to know about that divine swine being
0:57
comparable Miss Piggy. Today I've got a very special
1:00
guest and a special Co host who I will introduce.
1:03
First got designer, illustrator and bon vivant, the delightful
1:06
Peter Savieri. Kissy, Kissy.
1:08
Peter, how are you? I am really good.
1:12
I'm so glad that you're joining me.
1:14
Listeners may recall Peter from the epic episode that we did
1:18
about the evolution of Miss Piggy's look and design.
1:21
And so I am very happy to have you here today.
1:24
Happy to be here. Because today we've got a very
1:27
special guest, a woman who in the early to mid 1970s helped to
1:31
design and build many of the essential Muppet Show
1:34
characters, including Statler and Waldorf, the Swedish Chef,
1:37
Zoot, the News Man and of course the one and only Miss Piggy.
1:41
Bonnie Erickson, thank you so much for being with us today.
1:45
Hi, it's my pleasure to be here. It's good to see you.
1:48
Is there anything top of mind that you wanted to talk about up
1:50
front? I don't think so.
1:51
I'm I'm much better at answering questions than I am at
1:54
initiating something, except to say, as I did just before we we
1:59
started that working with Jim and the collaborative group
2:03
because everything that we did was so collaborative was the
2:07
luckiest time for me in my life. It's also launched my business.
2:15
When Jim became one of our first clients, my husband and I
2:18
started business. That's just a witness to how
2:21
generous he was about everything in his life and how much I
2:25
appreciated working with him. Let's talk about how you got
2:30
involved with Jim Henson and The Muppets, how that first
2:32
happened. Well, it was sort of
2:35
interesting. I had been doing costuming in
2:37
New York for about 7 1/2 years. I worked with a a designer
2:41
primarily, but I was doing freelance work which I loved.
2:45
Did Broadway, Off Broadway, Lincoln Center, all kinds of
2:48
things. And sometimes I did specialty
2:51
costumes. But my background was really in.
2:55
I was a a theater major and a design and minor for college.
3:01
And when I came to New York, one of the things I did too is went
3:03
to the Art Students League briefly.
3:05
So I heard from a friend that Jim Henson, whom I only knew
3:12
this was before Sesame Street was out.
3:14
I only knew from these wonderful, abstract, crazy
3:17
things that he'd done on all these interview shows and things
3:20
like that. I just thought he was brilliant
3:23
and I heard he was looking for a costumer and I'm going really he
3:27
seems to have, you know, all the costumes he needs.
3:30
And also who me. And.
3:33
And so the second time I heard it, it was from someone who had
3:37
been connected to him and they said no really he is you should
3:42
you should give him a call. So I called and at that time I
3:46
spoke to Jim, I think when I first started Muppets, there
3:50
were seven of us including the the receptionist.
3:53
So. Amazing.
3:55
And. And so he was there.
3:56
He was actually there in the office, Yeah.
3:59
So I I spoke to him and Diana Berkenfield who was the producer
4:04
for him and set up an appointment to go and have an
4:08
interview. And at the time I was working on
4:11
these life-size muslin women that were wearing my antique
4:15
clothes collection. So I that's some of the
4:18
information I brought, plus an opera that we've been doing at
4:23
the Manhattan School of Music using a lot of clear plastic and
4:27
plastic products, which was I think appealing to Jim with new
4:31
materials, as he always has. So he looked at My Portfolio, I
4:35
talked to them both and they said give us a call tomorrow and
4:39
we'll let you know because it was for The Muppets, frog
4:42
prints. And of course then I saw as a
4:45
special there was a need for costumes for these puppets.
4:50
I gave a call from a phone booth the next day and they said, yes,
4:54
we'd like to hire for this job and I thought that was
4:58
fantastic. So that's how I got my first job
5:01
with Jim. And that was 1971. 1970. 01970.
5:07
Yeah. And I think it was fall of 70.
5:10
Fantastic. And So what were you working on
5:12
for the Frog pen? Well, I did all the costumes for
5:15
the puppets themselves, but my first encounter when I when I
5:20
came in, the first day is Jim, I think sort of is a bit of a
5:24
prank on Don Celine put me at his desk, who was very
5:28
proprietary about things. And there was a a time when I,
5:33
you know, we all said hello to each other.
5:35
Carolee Wilcox was there. John Lovelady, Danny Seagren
5:39
with someone there. A lot of people came and went as
5:42
freelance people, but those were the mainstays.
5:45
And I'm sitting at the desk starting my sketches and I
5:49
hadn't really done this before. I was not originally a puppet
5:52
person. I was a designer.
5:54
I was, you know, an artist. I was a sculptor.
5:58
But I was really excited to be part of this group.
6:01
And at the end of the table was this mound of foam rubber, and
6:06
it was, it had holes in it. It looked like it'd been burned.
6:09
It had feather sticking stuff sticking out of it.
6:12
And as I'm working away, I look corner of my eye.
6:15
I thought I saw it move and I look at Don, he's sitting there
6:19
working away. I'm sewing something and I go
6:23
back to my work. I did it like three times.
6:26
The third time I went, no, there's something going on.
6:28
I reached over and I grabbed this lump.
6:31
I lifted it up. Don Celine had put an eye hook
6:35
in the inside of this hollow mound, tied a string to it,
6:39
drilled a hole in the table, put the string through down to the
6:43
floor, another eye hook and then up to his foot so he could sit
6:47
back. And and I think that was my test
6:52
and I passed you're you're. Hazing.
6:55
And so for that time on, Don and I shared a desk, which I think
6:59
we'd be happy to do. But that was just the beginning
7:01
of the kinds of pranks and play that made life so such a great
7:07
experience and such fun. I really believe in play.
7:12
In fact, I'm on the board of the Museum of Play up in Rochester,
7:16
NY, because I believe in it so strongly as ways to learn
7:21
exploration. I think it's so important for
7:23
everyone. So that's what we did and Jim
7:26
encouraged it. And that really speaks to how
7:29
warm everybody was. Everybody we we it.
7:34
It's well and all of us sort of have stayed friends for a long
7:38
time. We're still in touch with each
7:42
other as much as we can. There's a camaraderie that
7:46
developed. There was a playfulness even,
7:49
you know, when we were in England doing the Muppet Show,
7:52
the playfulness between the performers who over those years,
7:57
I mean they became personal friends as well as puppet
8:00
friends and the kinds of of hijinks that were.
8:06
I mean, they would say, OK, we've got the shot, but it
8:08
didn't end. So it was great fun to be on the
8:13
set. I I have to say I feel very
8:17
fortunate to have had that kind of opportunity because not
8:20
everybody gets to have a job where they love going to work
8:24
every day, right? Yeah, and such a high pressure
8:27
environment as well to have that kind of flow and warmth and and
8:32
and yeah just play in a in such a high pressure environment when
8:37
the show was up and running and having to do so much, so
8:40
quickly. Well, we did have.
8:42
I mean we did work hard and I won't.
8:45
I wouldn't say we didn't work hard, but a lot of that was
8:48
leavened by the fact that we we had a sense of play and we had
8:53
this feeling that it was supported by Jim and he
8:55
participated in this kind of thing.
8:59
I mean, when my husband brought mice that he rescued from a
9:03
research project into the studio where we were working, we had
9:07
them in slinkies throughout the room and in aquariums, and Jim
9:12
knew it. He heard them boing boinging
9:15
through the day. This, this was the kind of thing
9:19
where experimentation we made houses to see how fast it would
9:23
take for them to destroy them. Don Celine in particular, he he
9:27
encouraged that kind of thing and you know, gifts and and
9:31
strange things going back and forth between people.
9:34
Never. It must have been.
9:37
It must have been. Oh sorry, I forgot my question.
9:41
It was fun, Peter. I would say it was great fun.
9:46
It must have been also very good for the camaraderie and fun fun
9:49
of it to know that Jim was on the floor under puppets, you
9:54
know, working on. He's working at every single
9:58
level and far from just to managing the creative production
10:02
of things. No, there was no way he was not
10:05
involved in all of that. I mean, he was early on, he was
10:08
in the shop building, he was working on stuff with us, the
10:11
performances and the performers coming in to do rehearsals or to
10:15
try puppets. I mean, we could actually build
10:17
a puppet to fit a person's hand because you know, such a such a
10:21
close group. Very.
10:22
Important. And I think part of that is
10:25
because Jim was so self assured that what he was doing was what
10:31
he wanted to do and then it was successful kind of thing to do.
10:34
He was. He never had doubts, which would
10:37
have made him suspect anybody else of not having as much
10:41
confidence as it gave him the freedom to allow us to do all
10:46
kinds of things, and that was really due.
10:49
To and the trust, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
10:52
His confidence in him, in himself, was enormous.
10:56
With Jim's 'cause I love Jim's design style.
10:59
I love that's that simplicity and the Geo geometries and just
11:04
the way he captured characters in such a distilled way is
11:08
always that. It's a little bit of a guiding
11:10
principle for me as a designer as well, but I absolutely adore
11:14
your design style as well and the way the the pigs created
11:20
this kind of like exciting tangent that had so many things
11:25
that sort of contradictory design design wise in the in the
11:30
cast of the Muppet characters in general.
11:31
And that's part of their appeal. But the pigs kind of brought in
11:34
this squishiness and this kind of voluptuous sort of curvaceous
11:39
design style that's very different from Jim's aesthetic
11:42
in a way. And I just wondered about that,
11:45
like what sparked that direction?
11:48
And you know who who kind of prompted that?
11:52
Picking up of a chunk of foam and carving it into carving sort
11:55
of curvy shapes into it rather than the pattern foam creation
11:59
that Jim Jim's characters were. It was sort of an evolution in a
12:03
way, because I came in as a costume designer, so I was used
12:06
to working with patterns. My first characters that Jim
12:10
asked me to do were the the bad guys from the Muppet Musicians
12:15
of Bremen. And those were built using flat
12:19
foam patterns that I would then manipulate so that they had
12:23
shapes to them. It was probably three quarter
12:26
half inch foam. That was then, you know, we
12:28
found a way to flock them. Jim discovered this person once
12:33
flapped everything site, but that was the first iteration of
12:37
working with foam a lot, which I had not done before but I really
12:41
loved because it was another form of pattern making and of
12:45
course I could add hair and eyes and all that kind of good stuff
12:48
from that. There was a bit that we did and
12:51
Jim initiated called the Glutton, which was used I think
12:55
on the Ed Sullivan Show. And I helped Jim sculpt this
13:01
iteration and he chose to because it was a big glob.
13:06
He chose to do it in foam and I loved working in foam and they
13:11
hadn't. They had used foam before, but
13:12
mostly it was covered with fleece, certainly for Sesame
13:16
Street and all those things that had been fleece covered.
13:19
So I decided that I would try to do some carving because of my
13:24
background on foam which is very different material and it.
13:30
Started out because you had sort of a sculpture background.
13:33
Yeah, yeah. And so it started out with big
13:36
blocks of foam, which we would then take to the the saw and
13:42
make a profile, you know, just the basic shape of it.
13:45
And then I'd attack it with a carving knife to take a few more
13:51
pieces of foam off and try to discover the shape inside.
13:55
So ultimately what it got down to was scissoring it with little
14:00
manicure scissors. You know, you start with.
14:03
Bigger scissors and you. Work your way down to little
14:05
ones. And then as a way of smoothing
14:08
it, I would take it to a belt Sander and I would hold it up to
14:13
the belt Sander to smooth the finish.
14:15
And it really took concentration.
14:17
I I sent one statler through the belt Sander and I was almost
14:22
done with it. Oh no.
14:24
Oh God. But you know, Donna taught me
14:28
how to deal with my frustration. I went up on the roof of the
14:31
building and I took a bunch of terracotta pots and I threw them
14:35
against the wall and felt so much better, came back down and
14:39
started all over again. But it was.
14:41
But that was the way we did it. And then once it was smooth, we
14:44
would then paint it with the adhesive that we use for the
14:49
flocking and then pick a denier or a length and a thickness of
14:54
flock to give it that surface that's so smooth.
14:58
And as it turns out, protective, because those puppets after, you
15:04
know, when I went to to look at all the puppets that were then
15:08
going to be donated by the family, many of those that were
15:12
flocked were in good shape because no light or air had
15:17
gotten to the foam to disintegrate.
15:20
Wonderful. Amazing.
15:21
Can you talk actually a little bit about about the flocking
15:24
process for folks who don't really know who what that is?
15:27
Sure. I can definitely talk about it.
15:29
I was invited to speak to the American Flock Association, so I
15:33
have great experience that. Can't be a true thing.
15:38
It is. It is.
15:41
Well, you know, it's a big industrial thing.
15:43
This is I said I must be the Comic Relief for this group
15:47
because they are an industrial group that does things like when
15:50
you look at a jewelry box, if it's not real velvet, it's
15:53
flocked. And it was used in a lot of
15:56
industrial instances to to protect surfaces and things like
16:02
that. So basically what happened is
16:04
Jim had seen some demonstrations somewhere by a fellow who lived
16:10
out in Long Island, had a studio over a stream where he could use
16:15
electrostatic blocking machine. And what he had done is he'd
16:19
taken a cylinder with the screen on part of it with a handle, and
16:24
he would fill it with this flocking material, Little tiny
16:28
pieces of flocking material, different lengths, different
16:31
colors. And then he would put this
16:34
adhesive on the surface, stick a pin or whatever he could into it
16:39
to give it a charge, an electric charge.
16:42
It was hooked up to a charge, which would then draw all of
16:45
that stuff as you shook it to a perfectly uniform height and
16:52
direction. This incredible finish.
16:54
Jim took us in. AI remember he had a he had a a
16:57
sort of Jitney bus kind of thing.
16:59
We all went out to this guy's studio, watched him do it.
17:03
We contacted a company that did a special adhesive for us to
17:08
use. We all came back and got these
17:12
little cylinders to use and like I said, flocked everything we
17:17
could find until we had. Oh, and then we realized that we
17:21
had to wear protective outfit because this also draws it to
17:27
anything that's moist like your eye.
17:31
So we ended up wearing sort of hospital gowns with goggles.
17:36
And I have a couple pictures of Carol Lee and me in our in our
17:41
hospital Barb doing the flocking of of I think it was musicians
17:46
of Brahman. Well and would and would you
17:49
batch flock? Like if you had a a a series of
17:53
of Muppets to build for for production or for a moment in
17:56
the in the Muppet Show, would you kind of build them all, glue
17:59
them all and then sort of batch flock them?
18:01
Or was it more like character by character?
18:04
Originally it was character by character, but for instance, if
18:07
we did, when we were doing Musicians of Bremen, all the
18:10
hands, we would get all the hands together if the color was
18:13
similar. But you know, we could paint
18:14
them any color. We could do a darker color, a
18:17
light color and then use one color of flock which would,
18:21
which would soften the the differences in the color.
18:24
But it would still and so we would, yeah we would do that,
18:27
we'd have them hanging up like a clothesline.
18:31
Love it. That's so interesting.
18:33
The color thing the so 'cause they there would also be
18:37
airbrushed like Miss Figgy is obviously has beautiful airbrush
18:40
on the surface afterwards, but so is some of the color
18:45
application was underneath the fog.
18:47
It was all underneath. There was nothing airbrushed.
18:49
Oh, you just blown my mind. Yeah, Peter.
18:54
In our in our previous episode, Peter confessed that it was a
18:58
fascination for you when you were a child trying to figure
19:02
out how to make a Miss Piggy puppet.
19:04
Peter was trying to build your own piggy puppets.
19:07
I had. I had such a journey and I went
19:10
through. I was going to ask you before
19:11
also about when you mentioned manicuring scissors and and
19:14
larger scissors. So picture me as a kid with a
19:17
chunk of foam and doing this sort of like a lot of it was
19:21
logical and I think I saw some images in the background of the
19:23
book Muppets and Men. So I would do the sort of
19:27
profile on each side of the chunk of foam, the top and front
19:30
and everything, and sort of work my way in similar to any
19:33
sculpture. And then I didn't really think
19:36
of manicuring scissors or anything smaller.
19:38
I didn't have an electric knife, I didn't have any polishing
19:41
things. So I'm here with larger
19:44
scissors, which obviously take larger chunks and the foam's
19:47
flexible, so you end up with these groovy grooves kind of cut
19:50
into it. And also the static electricity
19:54
that builds up from cutting the foam with the scissors.
19:57
And it gets on everything. Like I was this kid walking out
20:02
to my parents just covered in pieces of foam, looking so proud
20:06
that I'd made this. Lopsided, I could imagine it.
20:09
I can. Yeah, but yeah, I would.
20:12
I would look at particularly the The Muppets and Men book, but
20:15
also Miss Piggy's Guide to Life. I would stare at photos of her
20:20
in the detailed, really close up photos of her and look at the
20:24
surface and all I knew was the carved from foam part.
20:28
I didn't know about flocking at that point.
20:30
So I would look at that that velvety surface that had the
20:34
foam kind of surface just barely visible through it in this
20:37
really diffuse way and just be like, is this, is this material
20:41
from space? Like how?
20:43
How did they get it to look like this?
20:46
When we discovered that, we could actually paint these
20:50
characters. Yeah.
20:53
Shade them it. It was amazing.
20:55
It was it was dampened by whatever small flock you would
20:59
use. And the flock by the way covers
21:02
totally 100%. Very little space for any any
21:08
any open pores on the on the foam itself.
21:12
It was mind blowing for us too, because we realized that we
21:16
could really shape and and control colors for things.
21:21
The diffusion is also, I feel like a key part of the look of
21:25
the characters as well, where it has that kind of veil almost
21:30
over the colors, so they don't look, they don't look vivid and
21:33
cartoonish, They've got this, like beautiful subtlety to them.
21:36
Thank you. Nice to hear.
21:40
That's nice to. Hear, Yes.
21:42
I mean, look, they're well. Well, they're well loved.
21:45
Characters. I'm sorry we weren't in touch
21:47
back when you. Were struggling.
21:49
Oh, I well, that's another thing.
21:51
I don't want to bring anyone down, but that the I all I
21:54
wanted to do was work at at at Jim Henson's workshop and I just
21:59
it just kind of never happened for a few reasons.
22:01
And then obviously Jim passed and I was really, really young
22:04
when he did. But it was this moment where I
22:08
just felt like something cut off, and eventually I found my
22:11
way back to design and designing characters and all of that.
22:15
So I'm glad. I'm very glad I stuck to my
22:18
guns. But I would have loved.
22:21
I mean, I would have been a child, but I would have been
22:23
like illegally making everyone coffee just to be there.
22:26
Well, we would have welcomed you, I I can assure.
22:28
Stop. I want to go back in time.
22:32
Well, so do I. Can we talk about, Well,
22:39
actually you know what, I I as part of this walkthrough of how
22:43
Miss Piggy was made, can you talk about the ears and the
22:45
hair, kind of how those got built and attached?
22:50
Well, they were carved separately.
22:52
They were painted with the adhesive, as I said, and then
22:56
flopped and then wired into the head of the of the puppet and
23:02
all the the wigs thereafter had to be done so that they could
23:06
wrap around those ears that were attached.
23:10
But I have to tell you, I before I started carving the pigs
23:14
because I didn't make any sketches, went right into the
23:17
foam and I did three of them because Jim needed them for
23:21
return to Beneath the Planet of the Pigs.
23:24
He came to me one day and said I need 3 pigs.
23:27
I always thought it was because I was from Minnesota and he
23:30
thought some relationship with pigs.
23:33
But anyway, I spent a lot of time in research.
23:37
I think a lot of us did. But whenever I did a character,
23:41
I would research like crazy. I would look for caricatures, I
23:44
would look for animal pictures. I had an animal book that I just
23:49
would fall apart because I used it so often.
23:52
And so I really was looking at the anatomy and how I could
23:55
adapt it so that would be more anthropomorphic.
23:58
I've always thought I should have a a business card that said
24:01
I was an anthropomorphizer. That was my job.
24:05
And so the the ears just came as oh, and we and I wired them so
24:10
that you could actually tilt them, you could make them a
24:16
different shape, but they didn't happen automatically.
24:19
It would have to happen with a cut in the shot or whatever, but
24:23
that that was part of it. Just making sure they.
24:27
Oh, even for character. Expression.
24:29
During a scene that would happen sometimes where you would.
24:32
You would sometimes. Repose the years, yeah.
24:35
Not often, because they really, once they got going, this group
24:39
of puppeteers, you didn't wanna really stop them in the middle.
24:42
Yes, yes, such an energy. Two things.
24:46
One is you mentioned the wigs. Were they do they fit around the
24:53
ears or are the ears pinned kind of wired through a wig?
24:57
Is the wig cut to accommodate? No, I would cut holes in the
25:01
wigs. OK, right.
25:03
Yeah, so would I as a kid. Good.
25:05
Even a slit, even a slit would do it.
25:07
You know you if you look at the wig from underneath, they have
25:10
either spirals or they have the hairs on a long sort of string.
25:16
It's attached and they wind. It around the left.
25:19
So normally because of the way the shape of her head wigs fit
25:23
her quite well and though what I would do is just cut a slit and
25:26
then because her ears were malleable, I just slip it on
25:31
over. So she had a lot of
25:33
opportunities for for different wigs.
25:36
And initially it was, you know, the eye drawer.
25:40
What? Right.
25:41
Go to the eye drawer, go to the wig drawer.
25:44
That's was, well, her. Her early wig looks a little bit
25:47
like it came out of a drawer. It did.
25:50
It absolutely did. I mean, this was, this was
25:53
something she was gonna be beneath the planet of the pigs.
25:57
As they said, she wore a helmet. Do you know she had a high neck
26:02
uniform? She had boobs.
26:04
I don't know if you've noticed. I have a drawing which is
26:08
attributed to Mike Frith, but it's my drawing.
26:10
Is it really and illustrated whatever?
26:15
In Imagination Illustrated, Yeah, I thought that was I
26:17
thought. That was, you know, that's mine
26:19
for a bit that we did, and that's early on when she still
26:22
had hooves. Yes.
26:24
And so when she had to appear as a glamorous character, I had to
26:32
make other arms. I didn't have time to make real
26:36
arms and fingers. So that's how she got her
26:39
lavender gloves. I just made the gloves and wired
26:43
them so that they would, you know, she could hold things and
26:46
stuff. I had to put the pearls on
26:48
because how else was I gonna hide the fact that her neck went
26:52
into a body that you didn't see in the uniform, but you would
26:56
see? And there was some silk laying
26:58
around. So I just swagged her outfit and
27:03
I went to the drawer and I got the wig.
27:05
Yeah, and with the with the gloves, were they initially just
27:12
stuffed? The gloves were just stuffed but
27:15
or was there a a rough cut foam and inside the gloves?
27:19
They were stuffed and they they were stuffed and and they were
27:23
wired. They were wired.
27:24
And then had a polyethylene, no polyurethane polyester, I'm
27:30
sorry, polyester stuffing and then at the wrist they were,
27:35
they were attached so. Fascinating.
27:39
And is that the way that it continued to be?
27:42
I don't. I can't speak for now, but for a
27:46
long time, yes, that's what they were.
27:49
Well and the and the the lavender color which suits us so
27:52
well. You know this is one of those
27:54
like 70s questions where it's like how did you ever think of
27:58
that color. But it is, you know, it's a it's
28:00
a color. In the 60s and 70s it was it was
28:02
one of the a big part of the palette.
28:05
How did how did you come? What what what was the decision
28:08
making process of the color for the gloves?
28:11
Part of that comes with what's available.
28:13
I like to tell people, you know, you make use with what you have
28:16
available. We had that and we had a
28:18
matching fabric for that. It's it's like a sort of spandex
28:22
for the gloves. So we had that fabric in house
28:29
and again, because I said it, this was a really quick thing.
28:32
Jim was heading off to England to do this bit.
28:36
I really had to put things together quickly.
28:39
You very quickly had to kind of like pull something together for
28:42
for Piggy Lee. That's right, because she was
28:44
leaving beneath the planet of the Pigs to become this young,
28:49
young star. Yes, I love that.
28:52
I love that the the practical development of the character
28:56
mirrors her sort of back story so well.
28:59
You know, like the sort of humble origins and aspirations
29:02
to be a star. And then she just literally gets
29:04
cast and then glammed up in the way that a star.
29:06
Does people have asked me if I knew that she was going to be as
29:10
famous as she is? And I said, well, I really
29:12
didn't, but she did because I keep thinking, you know, I gave
29:16
her life. Frank gave her a purpose.
29:19
Mike Frith gave her exposure and Alyssa Hendrickson and and Polly
29:24
Smith also gave her class. We.
29:29
All sort of came together to create this, this being and it
29:32
was it. I I think when people have real
29:36
parameters, you probably are familiar with this, Peter.
29:40
The more parameters or the more restrictions you have, the more
29:45
creative you have to be because you have to use what you can,
29:48
what you find around you, and it really gets your brain going.
29:51
So I think that's a challenge and it's a good thing.
29:54
Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about
29:56
the eyes and sort of the selection of eyes when you were
30:01
putting this new and improved piggy together for Tonight Show?
30:04
Yes. First of all, I wanted something
30:07
she had to have make up. So of course she had the eyelids
30:12
and the lashes she's gotten. She's had work, you know, You
30:16
can tell she has. But initially, it was the
30:21
longest, fullest lashes I could find.
30:25
And one of the questions was, are we going to be able to take
30:28
these eyes and change them to, you know, are they going to be
30:31
wide open? Are they always going to be?
30:34
And what's interesting to me is with both Frank and Eric
30:39
Jacobson, who does her now. Piggy's eyes never change, or
30:44
it's not that I know of. But you believe she's crying,
30:48
she's angry, she's happy, she's seductive, she's all those
30:53
things. All because of that performance
30:56
and the purpose that these puppeteers have been able to
30:59
give her. Yeah.
31:01
Well, there's also something just special in the eye design.
31:04
I think that that really helped to help performers be able to
31:07
achieve that with like the long lashes, as you said, and and
31:11
there's something that's kind of that's dimensional and alive
31:14
about those eyes. Well, I think the iris, the iris
31:17
definitely helps the eyes. The the irises the pupils are
31:22
are felt and they have an outside color.
31:28
They have an inner black color. They have a little dot.
31:31
Normally they will have a little dot of white and then they do
31:35
sometimes have this sort of wheel indication around the edge
31:41
so that you start to see it as something as it moves, you see
31:45
that it it takes a slightly different shape and I think
31:48
those little details have helped and they were just because
31:51
that's what an eye looked like. I was always really fascinated
31:55
by how she her eyes look so much more.
31:59
There's so much more detail and and kind of not human, but you
32:03
know, there's muppet. Eyes are quite simple
32:06
classically and her eyes have this complex design that has the
32:10
iris and the the color and the you know, the lids got this rich
32:14
color and then the eyelashes are directional.
32:17
So when she looks around, it kind of gives her this feeling
32:21
that her lids are kind of active in a weird way.
32:25
Well, you know, it is my homage to Peggy Lee.
32:28
Yes. Who is very glamorous?
32:31
Yeah, Interestingly, I when I first called it Piggy Lee,
32:36
people just took that name. I think you can see from one of
32:39
the the videos that even Jim thought that was a good idea.
32:44
But then the attorney, her husband said, you know, she may
32:49
not take this as an homage and that could be a problem.
32:53
So that's when she became Miss Piggy.
32:56
Because it was Miss Piggy. Miss Peggy Lee was really how
33:00
people referred to Peggy Lee. What has changed?
33:03
I believe they are not carving the head anymore, no?
33:07
My understanding is. That it's now done as a casting
33:11
mold can. You explain that a little bit.
33:13
As far as I know what they did is they have taken a sculpt,
33:17
which they would do, and then made a mold of it with probably
33:20
a plaster mold. I'm not absolutely sure because
33:24
I'm not so sure about I'm I'm not as facile with the with you
33:29
know casting and molding process.
33:31
But what they do is they make a skin that reflects the shape
33:35
that is able to be then put on a some sort of a a surface that is
33:42
puppeteerable and inner part. But my understanding is also
33:47
that it's quite delicate and so that they probably can go
33:50
through quite a few per appearance depending upon you
33:55
know what what the situation is if you're in a film or
33:58
something. But that would be expected.
34:01
The interesting thing is the first pig that was carved with
34:04
the with the manicure scissors lasted the entire first year of
34:08
the Muppet show and probably the first couple of editions of the
34:11
second year. But these are now they they can
34:16
make changes in the mold if they wish and at over the years they
34:20
definitely have done that. But I they still have to add on
34:25
things like the eyes and you know, any of the ears are
34:28
different, little different now. Yeah, I wonder.
34:31
I wonder if these have wire in them now because they've they're
34:35
always quite upright and I I always just want to bend them
34:39
forward. Yeah, I don't know if that's
34:42
possible to do now or not, but I think it's it's an evolution
34:47
that's happened over time so that she really, she has
34:50
changed, probably Calista and Polly, the costumers have seen
34:55
most of those changes as they've worked on costumes and stuff for
34:58
her over the age. Her shape changed.
35:01
Yeah, you know, all of that has changed.
35:03
At one point I saw her as a real glam and I'm going no, no, no,
35:07
no, that's that's not my porcine pig.
35:13
So what was, what was different there when you noticed that she
35:15
was looking more glam? What kind of changes in the
35:18
shape? She had a smaller waist and you
35:21
know, it's like it's yeah and but I think she is pretty much
35:24
gone back to a more original body shape.
35:30
This is solid. I would say the love twist.
35:36
Audience is really connected with Miss Piggy very quickly.
35:40
Yes, they did. Why do you think that?
35:42
Happened What were? What were folks connecting with?
35:45
They Well, first of all, she she started out.
35:48
If you look at the opening credits for that first year, you
35:51
see her as a. She's a chorus girl.
35:53
Yeah. And she she when she was
35:56
originally done for beneath the Planet of the Pigs.
35:58
She had little button eyes. I mean amongst the and you know
36:02
the I did 3 puppets one of them became Doctor not a.
36:07
One of them was is just in a lot of general things in all kinds
36:10
of things. Every once in a while I'll see
36:11
him appear. And then there was Miss Piggy,
36:15
but she got her personality at during The Muppet Show.
36:19
Well, it started out, of course, with the Herb Alpert thing, but
36:22
who knew that would go any farther?
36:25
A number of people puppeteered her for different reasons in
36:28
different places, but at one point there was a script and and
36:32
Frank took the character. And that's why I say Frank gave
36:37
her purpose, because this is the show where she gives Kermit the
36:41
karate chop. And we in the studio were on the
36:46
floor laughing and I think everybody got up from the floor
36:51
and said that's it, that gotta be it.
36:55
And he had an attitude about her and he had this, you know, I I'm
37:01
not sure he would agree with this, but sometimes I think he
37:04
thought of her as a truck driver, a very small but and and
37:08
definitely thinking of her as the the best thing on earth.
37:13
I mean she really has a very high opinion of herself.
37:18
She does, but even in spite of all of her foibles.
37:22
So I think that's part of the the charm that Frank brought to
37:27
this, this character. And that's that's what won
37:31
everybody over. And it happened very early in
37:34
the show. You know, when we were over in
37:36
England, the 1st, I guess maybe the first month we were there.
37:39
First of all, we worked very hard.
37:40
We had no days off. Yeah, we had.
37:43
You were. You were building for an episode
37:46
a week. Yes, and we had to pack
37:48
everything in. I mean this was all new to us
37:51
plus we had a new crew to work with which and they were lovely
37:56
and and but it meant getting to know people that weren't used to
37:59
working with us, right. So we we were really no days off
38:05
and we we were stressed. So I think what happened is we
38:10
just made do with whatever we could and we would get in this
38:14
bus in the morning, our little to the studio from London and
38:18
people would see the the this little bus and it said The
38:21
Muppets and people would say what's a Muppet, what is a
38:25
Muppet? By the end of the season it had
38:29
already been out in England for some time.
38:31
I mean, they aired it very quickly and people, we were
38:35
afraid we'd have to paint it out because people were saying
38:39
that's the Muppet. So it really did become popular
38:44
very, very fast. And that slang, In sort of
38:49
British parlance, there's the, you know, when people call
38:53
someone a Muppet, it's kind of not a positive thing, but.
38:56
I know I hear it all the time. I I don't think did that.
39:00
I don't think I know whether that at all predates as just a
39:04
parallel, a random parallel with The Muppets.
39:07
It comes from The Muppets, I guess.
39:09
Yeah, yeah. I love that it's.
39:12
So yeah, it's like pub standard British pub slang.
39:15
That's right, you Muppet. I've we watch a lot of my
39:19
husband and I watch a lot of British mystery.
39:22
Uh, huh. Everybody's always calling
39:25
somebody a Muppet. And you're right.
39:28
It's not always a kind thing. I take it still as a compliment.
39:33
Of course, of course. Do you?
39:36
Want to talk about what were your What were your favorite
39:38
characters to create? I think Statler and Waldorf.
39:41
Where did they come from? I love them all, but well, Jim
39:44
was very kind. I often, because I ran the shop,
39:47
I would often be working late. I'd be the last one there or,
39:50
you know, wanting to be there when people were still there.
39:53
So if it was late, Jim would let me take a cab home, which is
39:56
very nice, 'cause I lived in Brooklyn eventually.
40:00
And I would go down Park Ave. around Grand Central and look
40:05
into the Yale Club at the second level, these portraits of these
40:11
old guys. And I had this image of.
40:15
Men sitting there drinking their Brandy and smoking their cigars
40:19
and I knew that there was sort of a a, a waiter or a Butler
40:24
that had this little room on the side.
40:26
I mean I could see him every time I was there preparing
40:29
thing. So I I just made a sketch of
40:32
these two old guys. I did these sketches.
40:36
I showed Jim and I thought Statler and Waldorf was a nice
40:42
idea because of the two old hotels and and I had just gone
40:47
around, you know, the old hotel. So for about a year I didn't
40:51
really hear. He said he liked them but they
40:53
didn't have anything for it. But evidently he and Jerry
40:55
Jewell had come up with a a way to do that in one of the shows.
41:00
You know, that was there was sex and violence as well.
41:03
Yeah, and they were. They were in kind of a
41:07
gentlemen's club, they. Were, Yeah.
41:12
They were in these upholstered armchairs.
41:15
Yes. And and initially had cigars but
41:20
I think that that went by the wayside at A at a certain point.
41:24
But yes, they they were in the environment that I had
41:26
envisioned, you know, as a club. And then you saw some of your
41:30
other characters coming to life. You worked on a lot of the the
41:35
Electric Mayhem. I did.
41:37
Well, there was, but there I did.
41:40
There were three of us that contributed drawings to animal.
41:45
Jim did one, I did one, and my Frith did one.
41:49
So I in fact, I have AI have a sheet.
41:53
I should probably just send this to you, Danny.
41:55
Oh, I would. Love to see.
41:56
It it's a drawing. I don't know if you can see
41:58
this, but this is Jim. But mine are the top 2.
42:03
I think the fuzzy one is Michael's, and I think Jim's is
42:07
maybe this one. Right.
42:08
Uh huh. But that these are the ones that
42:11
I came up with and it was because I did it sort of at the
42:14
same time as we were putting Zoot and and the characters
42:18
together. So it became a collaboration,
42:21
which then went to Don Celine and the rest is history and.
42:28
He went with the sort of the fuzziest.
42:31
Yeah, yeah. Well, that was Don.
42:33
He was, you know, very good at that.
42:36
And the most extra secondary movement that they would talk
42:41
about, like Jim and and Don would talk about this idea of
42:44
things that flowed and moved after the puppeteer had stopped
42:47
moving. So important.
42:50
And I don't know if you've ever seen the picture talking about
42:53
the mayhem of me with Jim. And I forget I have one of the
42:57
puppets in my hand. But if you look close, you see
43:00
I'm wearing this thing around my neck.
43:03
It's something we got at the warlock shop that was for doctor
43:06
Teeth to wear. I went there and I got, you
43:09
know, cat's fur. And so we did this whole thing
43:14
that when he was a finished puppet, he got to wear it and he
43:17
wore it for the first few years of the show, I think.
43:20
I don't know if he still has it. Love it.
43:23
Yeah, that that secondary movement thing, it's just just
43:27
briefly stepping stepping back to the pig that that secondary
43:32
movement thing. I've always loved her hair for
43:35
that. Obviously when she whips it
43:37
around, gets angry and all of that and the clothing being, you
43:43
know, some of the clothing's more more tailored.
43:45
But most of it has some element that moves or flows or can you
43:50
know, like it's a it's a bow or it's a suede of fabric or
43:53
something that works that way. Well, that first outfit, of
43:57
course the bow was important. I mean it's just a gestural
44:01
thing that that was very useful for the puppeteer and.
44:06
You know, and hit the arm mods. Yes.
44:09
You can't forget that the the main thing is you're making for
44:13
the puppeteer to be able to get his character around it and you
44:17
want to make it easy for them, and you try to make it as
44:20
lightweight as possible, but not all successful.
44:24
Putting the scarf on her, sort of creating extra movement,
44:27
creating extra glamour. When you first turned her into
44:30
the Picky Lee character, I'm sure really it it inspired the
44:35
puppeteers as well to think of her in a particular kind of way
44:39
and to give her kind of, at first the really hyper
44:42
femininity. I'm I'm hoping all the things
44:45
that went into that, you know, helped.
44:48
The scarf, the eyes, the wig, the just the the name, all these
44:56
things. And then of course, Jerry's
44:59
wonderful, wonderful scripts and Jim's direction for all of this.
45:07
So Bonnie, you were running the Workshop for first season, the
45:10
month of show, and then you left to start your own business where
45:14
you've been working on puppets for commercials as well as
45:17
mascots and costume characters. Right.
45:19
Well, you know what, when I left, the idea was to do
45:23
commercials, which we did do a lot of in in the US and but a
45:28
lot of them in Europe. But we decided that if anybody
45:32
asked us if we could do something, we'd just say yes.
45:37
So we designed a couple lines of toys.
45:40
We did. The mascots came as a
45:42
recommendation from Jim. The first one I had never even
45:46
thought of doing mascots. The Phillies, Philadelphia, It's
45:51
a baseball team here. They went to Jim to get a mascot
45:56
because they've seen another one that seemed to be successful,
46:00
who was independent. Not a lot of teams had them
46:02
then. And Jim said, well, I don't do
46:05
that, but what This is another Jim, is he generous?
46:08
He said, why don't you get in touch with Bonnie Erickson?
46:10
She can do this for you. So the first client.
46:15
And the interesting thing is we offered them the copyright for a
46:20
very reasonable fee. Yeah.
46:22
Did they take it? No, they thought it was like a
46:25
one year thing. Oh, really?
46:27
OK, it's now 43 years old. Yeah.
46:31
And they're still using him, the Phillies fanatic.
46:33
Oh yes, and they just bought him from us.
46:35
Oh, did they? Really.
46:37
Oh my God. That's.
46:38
Amazing. We had to sign the copyright,
46:43
yeah, but you know, after 35 years, the copyright law said if
46:48
something is still viable, you have the right to negotiate
46:52
again, which we did. And they they they settled with
46:58
us. I'm sure that they were happy to
47:00
to to have that. No.
47:02
And well, they had. They came up with their own.
47:04
They made some changes to the one that was there but very
47:08
minor. But the judge said, OK, you can
47:10
use this other one. But the but the fans, they're
47:14
they're not stupid. And they called it the faux
47:17
fanatic, The fanatic, The Walmart fanatic.
47:23
Ultimately the the fanatic belongs in Philadelphia.
47:26
The fan base is incredible. We love the people we worked
47:30
with for 40 years there. But you know, things change and
47:35
so. I used to.
47:36
I used to live in Philadelphia. I was there for about 10 years.
47:40
Really. Yeah, and the sports crowds in
47:43
Philadelphia definitely have feelings, a lot of feelings, and
47:47
they express those feelings. Particularly.
47:51
Strongly, yeah. Yes.
47:53
And you know, we would go to these meetings.
47:55
I am not a sports person. Wait, my husband knows about
47:58
sports, But he would tell me, please don't say anything about
48:01
sports. Just stick to the performance
48:04
and the entertainment value and the cost of itself because
48:07
you're gonna say something that's really pretty silly.
48:11
So I did stay away from that part of it.
48:13
But unfortunately, he knew. But we dealt with a lot of
48:16
teams. We did 16 mascots.
48:18
Wow. And we still have six of them
48:21
that we don't own any longer, but that are now.
48:23
They're still being used. Still being used?
48:25
Wow, That's amazing. In fact, two of them in the
48:28
Baseball Hall of Fame. So even as you were working in
48:33
your, you had your own business, you also stayed connected to
48:36
Henson you gave? Us One of our first jobs.
48:40
He hired me back to be the creative, a creative director
48:43
for Sesame Street product line, and I did that for 13 years.
48:49
I want your life. And also I went back and oversaw
48:53
the entire build of Fraggle Rock before it went up to Canada and
48:58
worked with people, you know, brought people in to to work on
49:00
that those. Characters.
49:02
I went back another year where I worked with the ice follies, I
49:07
worked with the Christmas toy, I worked with a number of things
49:11
on a on one season when I was there, so the.
49:16
Very Influential Christmas Toy. Yeah, who else did that?
49:22
So Jim, Jim was amazing to be so generous and to really stay in
49:28
touch as he said he would. And you know, we we remain
49:32
friends. So yeah, it was, it was
49:36
incredible association and for him to give us the job for the
49:42
Phillies too. I mean, he just no end to his
49:45
generosity. Yeah, I did not know that.
49:48
It's so wonderful. I yeah, I had AI had a misspeaky
49:52
question about across the her evolution across the Muppet
49:57
Show, the the run of the Muppet Show.
50:00
Obviously you see these these very pointed changes like change
50:03
in her eyes at the very beginning and then the flocking,
50:06
the sort of perfecting of the flocking.
50:09
I was always under the impression that there was a
50:11
level of flocking, even right from the very beginning, but she
50:13
does look a lot less velvety so and the carving is more apparent
50:21
on the on the head, as in the earliest part in the in the
50:25
first time, first year. But I was wondering about the
50:28
more contemporary way they've done, the way they've done over
50:31
the last few decades of having the sculpt, making the mold and
50:35
then and then casting her in foam latex and then doing the
50:38
flocking. I thought that happened sort of
50:41
from the late part of The Muppet Show onwards, but were all the
50:45
Muppet Show piggies carved? No, I think they started doing
50:50
the casting before it was the end of of the Muppet Show and
50:54
but I think that the molds were maybe sturdier than they are
50:59
now, 'cause now they're very detailed and you know, I I just
51:02
don't, having not been there, I don't know for sure.
51:05
But I do know that yes, they started with a sculpt because it
51:08
got to be very tedious. You know they did one copy of
51:11
what I did by doing it the time consuming.
51:15
And she's so complex like this to get right.
51:19
So, so they really I think they probably made the right decision
51:23
of finding a mold that had the shape and they could repeat it
51:27
again and again and again and that was that made sense in
51:31
many. I believe the first time that
51:33
that happened was on The Muppet Movie.
51:35
Yeah, I'm sure. Because you're doing the movie,
51:37
you can't. I mean, you're not gonna have
51:38
one make it all the way through. And many times you're gonna need
51:42
her. So yeah, I'm sure that became a
51:44
real practical decision. And she was out in the sunshine
51:48
as well. And that UV light's not great
51:50
for those materials. Well, like again, I said there
51:54
she was pretty protected because of the the flocking.
51:57
True. Yeah.
51:58
Going through all those boxes of puppets, yeah, found that every
52:03
all of them were fine. If they had, the fabric was
52:05
fine. Those that were flock were fine.
52:08
Anything that was solid, like Scott foam, you know, the very
52:12
highly reticulated foam. It was like Bag O bag O Sam.
52:19
It's unfortunate. Bag O zoot.
52:21
Oh man. So they had to be replicated in
52:25
in a different way so that they would be longer lasting.
52:28
We didn't know. And Jim loved that foam because
52:31
it lit so beautifully for television.
52:33
Yeah, yeah. Very life.
52:35
Like, yeah, Was it was interesting.
52:38
But not necessarily built to last.
52:40
Right. And we had no idea.
52:41
You know, when we started going through the warehouse, we had no
52:45
idea what was going to be viable and what wasn't.
52:49
Jim had saved things. We, they were put in a
52:51
warehouse. Rhoda Cosme, who was the
52:54
collections manager I worked with as the legacy.
52:57
From the legacy, as we were reviewing everything, we'd go
53:00
out to the warehouse for probably three years where we
53:03
was Christmas, bring the boxes in, we open them up, we
53:07
photograph the puppets, we give a review of what they're like,
53:10
we measure them. And and I had started a
53:13
database. So we put all this information
53:17
in a database so we knew exactly what was there, what condition
53:21
it was in, what kind of restoration it would need.
53:24
Yeah, and some and some of the characters were complete dust
53:27
within. Anything from the inside.
53:30
If it was Scott foam, it was dust, even the soft foam.
53:33
If air could get to it at all, it would, it would just or be
53:37
very soft. So but all very easy to replace
53:40
because the outside worked fine, except for those things that
53:44
were flocked, in which case they, the 2 old men for
53:46
instance, were still 2 old men. Yeah.
53:48
It's wonderful. They're in museums now, but.
53:52
Well, I love the I I am kind of obsessed with the museum
53:56
exhibit. Yes, I love I I have been to Jim
54:00
Hens exhibition. Which one?
54:02
The tour, Well, the tour that came here, I saw that when it
54:05
was in San Francisco. And then what you put together
54:07
from being a moving image. And so I know that you've been
54:10
involved with sort of setting up all of those exhibits.
54:13
It was such a pleasure. What happened is the we had this
54:16
whole database and we would regularly meet with Jane Henson
54:23
and Karen Faulk and Rhoda and and myself and Rhoda and I would
54:28
make recommendations on where we had three, three places really
54:32
things should go. The Smithsonian, we thought
54:35
really original pieces and you know, some of the very early
54:39
stuff. Sam and.
54:41
Friends, characters there. There was the Museum of the
54:44
Moving Image because it was in New York City where Jim had done
54:47
a lot of his work, and that seemed to be a broken place.
54:50
And it talked about television and film, both of which Jim was
54:54
really involved with. And then there was the the
54:57
Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, which he had had been
55:01
there to for the opening. And we had a very close
55:04
relationship, as did the family. So those were the three places.
55:07
And what we did is we went through and tried to be
55:10
judicious in recommending to the family where big places pieces
55:15
should go and who would be best able to take care of them.
55:20
The family, of course, had a say in all of that as the final
55:24
decision. And we tried to be equitable
55:27
with who got what. I think, you know, there's like
55:30
4 or 500 pieces went to each of those places, except for the
55:34
Smithsonian, who probably have 35 to 40 altogether.
55:41
And the Museum of the Moving Image launched this touring
55:46
exhibit from Additions 'cause. There was enough stuff given to
55:51
people so that if once it was restored and the Hanson company
55:54
restored a lot of those for the museum for it to go on tour.
55:59
So that tour was very successful.
56:01
We went to 9 cities. I would go to each one along
56:05
with the with Wendell Walker who was responsible for setting up
56:09
the show at Momi and then travelled with it as well as
56:13
Barbara Miller was the curator for the show.
56:17
I would go once they had all the work done.
56:20
I would go and pose the puppets in what I was, an engaging way
56:27
and do a couple of interviews and and then get to meet some of
56:30
the people who'd come to see this and all I would say I as
56:34
far as I know every museum that had the exhibit increased their
56:38
their, their attendance. For this so fun.
56:44
So how wonderful is that, that people found this?
56:47
The, yeah, the magnetism of those characters, yeah.
56:50
And it's always so beautiful to see everything close up and just
56:53
to see how to see the artistry of it.
56:56
Yeah, I remember giving a a speech to some of the sponsors
57:01
of a museum. I think it was in San Francisco
57:04
actually, I'm not sure. And they wanted me to just
57:06
illustrate what it was that I that I did to pose these
57:10
puppets. And I had Bunsen and Honeydew
57:13
and Beaker and I had Beaker with his mouth up like this.
57:18
And I said the whole idea is just to make them as amusing and
57:22
entertaining as possible. At which point he went and just
57:25
took the mouth and dropped it down and everybody broke into
57:28
laugh so. But I found that a lot of people
57:33
at a time when there weren't a lot of things that you could
57:35
watch on TV that a family could enjoy.
57:39
Muppet Show was one of those things that everybody did and
57:43
they remember seeing it with their families and that's a
57:46
really good feeling for a lot of people.
57:48
Yeah, well, I have a museum. A really nerdy museum question.
57:53
Oh, good. The for the Smithsonian, I
57:56
believe they have two Miss Piggies.
57:57
There was one that was donated in in 2013 with a whole bunch of
58:01
other stuff, and then there was another one that was made for
58:06
the Smithsonian 2016. When we donated the original or
58:10
the piggy that we had, that was the earliest piggy that we had.
58:14
Maybe not the earliest, but it was the earliest one we had.
58:17
Yeah, she had. She was quite old at the time,
58:22
and I remember that we had to. We did a cover for Smithsonian
58:26
Magazine that featured her wearing the Hope Diamond.
58:31
Oh, that's a story. The people from the Museum of
58:35
Natural History or not the actual history of Yeah, I guess
58:39
it was Natural History. Have the the gem collection and
58:44
the curators there allowed us and the and the museum magazine
58:49
people to show Miss Piggy with the Hope Diamond and we went in
58:54
there. There was security.
58:58
It was before the museum opened. The people who handle that
59:03
jewelry came in and very carefully took the necklace and
59:07
gave it to me to put out the key.
59:11
It fit perfectly. We had her set up.
59:14
The photographer is there with a woman with her laptop because
59:18
what they're doing is compositing everything so he
59:22
would take a picture, she has it on the computer, blah blah blah.
59:25
We kept going through the the whole thing so that he could get
59:28
everything he needed. At one point she said I I've run
59:32
out of power on my computer because I haven't been able to
59:36
plug in anywhere. We're gonna have to have to get
59:39
some power set up. So they said go go plug it in.
59:44
She plugged it in and blew the lights.
59:47
Oh. No.
59:48
And the board? Closed the police.
59:51
Oh my gosh. And this is when they were doing
59:54
the movie. Where the the.
59:57
This is where they were doing the jewelry heist.
1:00:00
It was hilarious. It was like, oh gosh, what's
1:00:03
happened here? So everybody was very concerned.
1:00:07
So we. I forgot that she was wearing
1:00:09
the necklace. I went to take her to put her
1:00:11
away and they said. Wait, oh.
1:00:16
It's like when you when you accidentally walk out of a store
1:00:19
holding something and you realize you've stolen it.
1:00:21
It's like he would have been the best jewel thief because he
1:00:24
would have been so. Unasserted.
1:00:26
They did call it to my attention.
1:00:28
So note, we did get it back, but it was like the timing couldn't
1:00:33
have been funnier actually and everybody just was amazed.
1:00:37
So it was very funny. And there were the police, yeah,
1:00:40
I think there were three police presence.
1:00:43
That is such a muppety story. That's that Muppet energy
1:00:48
getting into into the situation. That's our kind of photo shoot.
1:00:52
Yeah, and it and it really speaks to the power that Miss
1:00:56
Piggy has even, you know, still that this is an item that really
1:01:01
nobody can touch. That's the whole point of
1:01:05
putting it in this museum and the one person who actually gets
1:01:08
to wear it. I know, I know.
1:01:11
And you know, if you go online, I'm sure you can look up Miss
1:01:14
Piggy, Smithsonian hoped you that photograph.
1:01:17
It's lovely. I've seen also that that there
1:01:21
was one with with Dorothy's Ruby slippers.
1:01:24
Oh, the Ruby slippers. They are so popular.
1:01:27
I think, well, that's the biggest thing they have for the
1:01:30
Smithsonian American History Museum.
1:01:34
The the the slippers are just so popular and I think there may be
1:01:41
one or two other versions of it, but they've.
1:01:43
Obviously, I think there are three or in total.
1:01:46
Maybe. But I know the ones that the
1:01:48
Smithsonian have been. I mean they they will do
1:01:51
anything to keep them in shape so that they can be displayed,
1:01:54
because they are the most popular thing.
1:01:57
And evidently Kermit comes a close second.
1:01:59
No, it's. 2 icons. Yeah.
1:02:03
And of course they now have an exhibit that shows Salmon, some
1:02:07
of the Salmon Friends puppets, one of the first the the the Pre
1:02:12
Grover Grover, right? So this is a whole entertainment
1:02:17
section that features. Like a new wing?
1:02:21
Mm hmm. Yeah.
1:02:22
Took them a long time to get this together and it's now open
1:02:25
and I've been down there to see it.
1:02:27
It's really nice to see them. There it is, the Museum of Notes
1:02:31
for the US, so it's good. Yeah, yeah.
1:02:34
And again, it's a testament to the characters, their
1:02:36
popularity, and their the warmth people have for them.
1:02:39
Yes, thank you to every puppeteer that ever put a hand
1:02:42
in a puppet. Yes, and and every designer.
1:02:45
That made. Them so, so beautiful and so
1:02:48
usable too. Hope so.
1:02:50
Certainly hope so. So all of the old characters,
1:02:53
the old puppets, are there still any that are in like a Henson
1:02:57
archive or have they really all just been distributed to these?
1:03:00
Everything that was in the warehouse at that time was
1:03:04
distributed. You know we have oh, what is the
1:03:09
mountain that has the presidents on it?
1:03:11
Rush. Mount Rushmore.
1:03:13
Mount Rushmore. That's with one of the.
1:03:16
It will probably be displayed at some point somewhere because the
1:03:20
even that was was there and being was kept.
1:03:24
So all of those pieces then have been distributed.
1:03:28
I don't know what they've done in terms of saving things,
1:03:32
keeping things as they go through and do new things.
1:03:35
But of course it's about Disney that owns the classic Muppets.
1:03:39
It's Sesame that owns the Sesame Street Muppets.
1:03:43
And I feel very fortunate that I got them all to play together
1:03:46
and do Carnegie Hall and our almost month long homage to Jim
1:03:53
in New Zealand in Wellington, which was very special for all
1:03:58
of us. So and so this it's it's sort of
1:04:01
a different world when it's when there are so many people
1:04:05
involved. Yes, absolutely.
1:04:09
Well, you must hear, you know, when folks talk to you about
1:04:12
Miss Piggy and and you as the creator of Miss Piggy, you must
1:04:15
hear a lot about kind of what the character means to people.
1:04:19
Mm hmm. And what what do folks tell you
1:04:21
about kind of what Miss Piggy kind of meets their lives?
1:04:25
Well, women certainly see her as a spokesperson, which it to me
1:04:28
has such an irony. Right.
1:04:33
And yes, I get it. I I totally get it.
1:04:36
I think it was a breakaway for a program to have a character like
1:04:41
that that that people could identify with.
1:04:43
I have to admit I haven't had a lot of I think there are men who
1:04:46
like her, but I'm not sure what their what their immediate
1:04:51
approach is, if they like the sassiness, if they find her
1:04:53
sexy. 90% of them are gay men. I can.
1:04:57
Promise. Yeah.
1:04:59
I believe Peter and I can can fill you in on on especially
1:05:03
what gay men see in her. Yeah.
1:05:05
And also Peggy Lee, I mean, you know.
1:05:07
Yeah, of course. All of that was was part of that
1:05:11
and and Garland the the conscious that whole appeal and
1:05:17
God bless him, I'm really happy you all.
1:05:21
Look, we love our. We love our Divas.
1:05:23
Yes, yes, absolutely. And so, but we've heard from
1:05:29
people at these exhibits because we don't have them this piggy,
1:05:33
but we have the piggy baby, You know, we have the Oh yeah in in
1:05:37
this traveling show that a lot of people are familiar with her
1:05:42
through the cartoon, right. You know, which is a wholly
1:05:45
different aspect of who Piggy was as at the start.
1:05:49
So that's that. People are very fond of her from
1:05:52
that from that aspect as well. Oh that's lovely.
1:05:55
And and being able to to see the puppet version, kind of going
1:05:59
knowing her from the cartoon and then seeing them in in 3
1:06:03
dimensions, they're so beautiful.
1:06:04
Yeah, they are. The the expertise in all of this
1:06:09
is really amazing. And also, you know, not just the
1:06:12
Muppet Show, but when you look at Labyrinth or you look at Dark
1:06:14
Crystal, you look at the the hand work that went into the you
1:06:20
can see it a million times and find new things to see and
1:06:23
appreciate. Very professional people working
1:06:27
with professional materials, doing great, great.
1:06:34
These little works of art. Each one.
1:06:36
Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:39
Bonnie, thank you so much for being with us today.
1:06:42
Thank you for letting me be here.
1:06:44
This has been great fun really. It's been so special to be able
1:06:47
to talk to you. Really, really appreciate it and
1:06:49
appreciate all your time. And thank you to Peter Savieri
1:06:54
for joining me as well. And Kissy Kissy.
1:06:56
And thank you for listening to this episode of the fantastic
1:06:59
Miss Piggy podcast brought to you by my friends at
1:07:01
toughpigs.com. In the next episode, I'll be
1:07:03
talking to Ryan Rowe from Tough Pigs and the podcast Moving
1:07:06
Right Along, a Muppet Movie Podcast where we'll look at a
1:07:09
pair of Muppet specials and ask the burning question, is Miss
1:07:12
Piggy Famous? Thank you to Executive Producer
1:07:15
Johannes from Tough Pigs for connecting me with Bonnie and
1:07:18
supporting this entire lunatic endeavor.
1:07:21
And thanks as well to the editors of Muppet Wiki for
1:07:23
providing me with information that makes this show possible.
1:07:26
If you have comments or questions or you know stuff
1:07:28
about Miss Piggy that you'd like to share, you can write to me at
1:07:31
fantasticmisspiggy@gmail.com. That's fantastic, Miss Piggy at
1:07:35
Gmail and please do. It's been really nice hearing
1:07:37
from people I'm also on X at Fantastic Miss P Or come and
1:07:41
join us on The Tough Pigs Discord.
1:07:43
Thank you everybody. See you next time.
1:07:45
Gee, I'd like to see you looking swell, baby.
1:07:53
Diamond bracelets. Woolworth doesn't sell baby till
1:08:01
that lucky day. You know that.
1:08:04
Well, baby, I can't give you anything but love.