Latest / Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com / Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock - Ep. 206 "Mezzo: Live in Concert"

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Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock - Ep. 206 "Mezzo: Live in Concert" · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:09
  Hello and welcome to Fraggle Talk Back to the Rock, the
• 0:12
  unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by toughbigs.com.
• 0:16
  This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle Rock Back to the
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  Rock episode by episode, along with the talented producers,
• 0:22
  performers and writers and builders who helped put it all
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  together. I'm your host, silly creature
• 0:27
  Joe Hennes. Today we are talking about
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  Season 2 Episode 6, Mezzo Live in Concert, in which mezzo mania
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  strikes Fraggle Rock as Gobo takes a new job as an
• 0:40
  exterminator. Today we've got two fabulous
• 0:43
  guests, which means we've got enough people on this podcast to
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  start a band on drums. He's the puppeteer inside POG
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  Org under Jandalin and a round wrench Doozer.
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  Give it up for Andy Hayward. Hello, Andy.
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  Hi Joe, Thanks for inviting me back.
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  Of course, it's so nice to have you here and on lead guitar.
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  She is an executive producer. She's Icy Joe, she's Red
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  Fraggle, and she's an absolute rock star.
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  Get on your feet for Karen Prell.
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  Hello, Karen. Hello, hello.
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  Thanks for having me back. Oh, it's so fun chatting about
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  all these these things and spreading these stories for
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  everybody. So glad to have you both here.
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  What a joy to have you back, back on the podcast and talking
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  about this wonderful show. First of all, so this this
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  episode, this mezzo episode we're about to talk about
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  doesn't actually feature any more music than any other
• 1:39
  episode of Fraggle Rock, but it's all music related.
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  So first of all, do either of you play any instruments or have
• 1:46
  you ever been in a band? Because like, I know as
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  performers you're obviously very musical, but I don't think we
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  know much about like what else? What other music stuff do you
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  guys do? Well, I was a percussionist from
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  7th grade grade all the way through my last year of high
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  school. So I did drums, I did a little
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  timpani, I did a little xylophone.
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  So all that rhythm stuff is was part of my growing up years and
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  I dabble with piano. So when I said on drums I was I
• 2:20
  was accurately predicting that you were a drummer.
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  It's like you're psychic. I know, it's crazy.
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  I just, I just really do my homework, you know, for these
• 2:29
  podcasts, I did a lot of research.
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  You called up Mr. Brayford back in East Grand Forks, MN and
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  said, what did you teach Andy when he was a music student?
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  Very impressed. That's actually the name of of
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  my band history, Mr. Brayford. Of course, Of course.
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  I know. Mr. Brayford.
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  Yes. Yeah.
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  No, we're we're good friends now.
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  We're on, we're Facebook friends.
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  Yeah, of course. Karen, what about you?
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  For me, well, I, for me, my musical instrument is is
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  puppets. I, I tell people it's, it's like
• 3:03
  performing musical instrument and especially red, beautifully
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  built by Raleigh Crewson then and, and now, and I say red is a
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  Stradivarius. Then using just, you know, so
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  many of the same skills that you use for, for playing musical
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  instrument. You've, you've got the
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  creativity, you've got the technical part and, and all the,
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  the, the muscle memory and, and get to the point where you just,
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  you think about the result you want and it just happens.
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  So to, to, to me, I have tried actually learning a bit of
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  piano, a bit of guitar and just that it was just like, you know,
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  a few, a few bits of plunking on keys or strings.
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  And it's that, you know, didn't really connect the puppets.
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  Yeah, that's, that's pretty much my musical instrument, except
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  for I see Joe is more of an orchestra.
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  She's she's like a mountain of people travelling around all
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  over. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  That's that's, that's that's where that's how I play my
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  music. So I think I've always assumed
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  that if you're going to be a puppeteer, especially in the in
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  the Muppet style Muppet world, that you do have to have some
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  sort of musical background, if only because they're so musical.
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  So did you, I mean, back before your Muppet Show days, Karen,
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  did you have any sort of training or were you just like,
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  I can carry a tune well enough and I the more important thing
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  is being able to actually perform the puppet?
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  I, I always loved music as, as a, as a kid growing up, I loved
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  the, well, the, the earliest thing I I loved was the music of
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  The Beatles. They, they got going when I was
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  about 5 years old. And so that was, that was some
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  of the music of my, of my childhood.
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  But also I love the music of the Disney movies and and then once
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  The Muppets were doing Sesame Street and and the Muppet show.
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  So I, I loved, I loved listening to it.
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  And then when I decided, oh, I wanted to be a puppeteer, that
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  was kind of the first thing I would practice to is I would
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  just put it on some music or just put it on the radio and
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  stand in front of the bathroom mirror with, with whatever
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  puppet I managed to hack together and, and just have have
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  fun with with the music. Definitely I was, I was
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  absorbing all that. I, I never, never had formal
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  formal training, but just kind of absorbed a lot that that that
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  was all around me while I was growing up.
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  Talking about some of your musical influences, as he just
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  mentioned, for both of you are there.
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  OK, so like pie in the sky, like I know that Fraggle Rock has
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  original songs as well as, you know, I guess we'll call them
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  covers of original series songs beyond the Fraggle songs.
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  If you were to say like, let's have the Fraggles perform
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  whatever, you know, it's like a Beatles song, a Disney song, a
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  song from your favorite artist, what would you love to see the
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  Fraggle Rock characters perform? And that's a big, that's a big
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  question because it's like, of all everything in musical
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  history, big. Something yeah.
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  Oh my gosh, wow. They've already hit so many
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  different, different types of music and they've, they've all
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  been been so, so fun. You know, the, the quiet little
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  solo songs, the, the, the big group songs.
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  Yeah, and, and like every single genre you can think of, it's
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  like the there's nothing the freckles can't do.
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  Yeah, yeah. I've done country, country
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  music. That'd be kind of fun to me, you
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  know? A few, a few of the Fraggle
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  songs have, have have touched on a, a little bit of a, a country,
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  but you know, going more into that 'cause that's always like,
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  you know, a big, big fun group, group stuff.
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  I don't know, just any, anything that's, that's rousing and, and
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  fun and just just brings out a lot of energy and, and, and joy.
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  I mean, there isn't a specific thing that I can think of right
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  now, but the Fraggles will be up for anything really, yeah.
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  Right, Yeah, You could literally say anything and then it would
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  you can't be wrong. It's you can't.
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  I don't, I think it would be a better question to ask.
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  Like what would the Fraggles not be able to cover?
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  That's a that's a struggle to think of.
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  I don't know like well. You don't think in in the in the
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  original series they had the the dirge with junior gore.
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  Yeah, funeral dirge. You know, it's like it ended
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  happily it it ended well, but. It is literally, literally one
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  of my favorite Fraggle songs of all time.
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  Is that is that funeral dirge? So, so Speaking of, of all this
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  music stuff, so can you both walk me through a little bit of
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  the process of so, so we know that Harvey Mason Junior and his
• 8:17
  team will go and write a song. So at what point do you receive
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  a song? And then what's your process for
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  getting prepared to perform it? Well, well, for for me as one of
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  the Co exec producers, I'm kind of on the early end of it before
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  we're on location. When we're in pre production,
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  there will be demos of songs or or written demos of of of lyrics
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  that are are presented to the producers.
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  And it's kind of we'll hear, we'll hear the pitch for
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  episodes and then a little while later than demos will be
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  created. And then we'll look at those and
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  give, give feedback on, on what the song's saying and how it
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  fits with the show and with the character's arcs during, during
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  the show. So I, I get kind of a, a, a
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  foreign advance sneak preview more, more than than Andy would.
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  So we're able to kind of kind of help guide, guide things, but
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  usually just, you know, right out of the gate, they're just,
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  they're just brilliant and fun. And it's like, Oh my gosh, can't
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  wait, can't wait till we we get to to do that.
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  And, you know, just needs a little, a little tweaking to, to
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  get it headed in the in the final direction.
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  So, so you guys and these that must be a lot, lot closer to
• 9:42
  shooting that you guys get it right.
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  Yeah, it's, it's, I want to say that they try to roll it out.
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  We shoot the show in blocks of episodes.
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  I want to say they try to get us, we have a, there's a file
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  sharing website that they use. They try to get us those tracks
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  as soon as they can within the block of shooting.
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  Especially for Jamdelin, I, I always like to get it as soon as
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  I can because he always has a lot of riffs and a lot of a lot
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  of added bits that maybe aren't originally planned.
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  So I like to get that in my head.
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  But yeah, you know, usually some, I mean, there were times
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  where I want to say it was as late as maybe a couple days
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  before we were going to do the episode.
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  But I they they do try to roll that out as soon as they can,
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  which is helpful. For for Jandalen, and we can
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  talk about this a little bit later when we get to the music
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  for this episode, but for Jandalen, do you already have
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  Daveed Diggs voice in your ear when you're performing or is it
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  the other way around? For the first season, they did a
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  bunch of tracks with him just doing reads on the line so I
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  could kind of get a feel for his tempo and rhythm.
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  And then as we've gone on, I want to say starting with the
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  holiday episode from season one and then going forward, they
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  they didn't feel they needed to do that anymore because I kind
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  of had his, his rhythm in my head.
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  So yeah. So I do when he's talking, I do
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  that just myself with my own voice.
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  And he he'll come in and then put his vocals on top.
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  But for the music, he'll he'll record the songs beforehand.
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  Which is cool. That's got to be cool to have
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  him literally singing in your earpiece.
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  I love it and what just what a pleasure to, I mean #1 the
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  Fraggle songs are incredible. So like it's a pleasure to hear
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  them, but then to hear him singing is like, it's great.
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  Like I play it in my car, I listen to it all the time.
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  It's wonderful. I always tell people like this
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  is the show to watch if you have kids that has the best music.
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  You're going to love it. Yeah.
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  Yeah, it's. True.
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  And then the vocals. And the music for this, this
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  season, I mean the music for last season was great, but I am
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  really struggling to like even find a thing to complain about
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  with the music for the season. Like it's so the soundtrack to
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  the season has been so good and I'm so grateful that it's
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  available on streaming platforms to be able to, to listen to
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  outside of the show, 'cause that was always a problem with the
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  old show was it was so hard to find the songs.
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  It was a couple of albums, the few.
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  But not not all the, you know, they were like 90, well, let's
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  see, 96 episodes and they each had like one, one or two songs.
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  There's so many songs from the from the original.
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  They're not all all out there. I know it's frustrating and, and
• 12:31
  folks like us, we, the fan base, we had to try to find ways to
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  rip the audio off of the, the DVD's or before that off of
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  YouTube. And, you know, just so that we
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  could listen to, I mean, we're talking about the funeral dirge
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  song, which is great, but it's never been on the soundtrack.
• 12:47
  So like, if you want to listen to it, you got to get real
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  creative. And you know, my hope is that at
• 12:53
  some point someone at the, you know, the Henson archives will
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  like find the master tapes so that we can get them in good
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  quality. Cause from what I hear, that's
• 13:03
  the reason we don't, we only have the, the album versions
• 13:06
  right now. But I don't know, I'll put that
• 13:10
  that wish out into the universe that will get official album
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  releases of all the old songs at some point.
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  And, and I wanted to mention when, when Andy's, when he's on
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  set and he's, he's speaking the, the temp boys for Jamblin.
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  First of all, it's not temp. He is Jamblin.
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  And it's just so fun to be in the middle of that energy and
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  'cause you, you do your own riffing when you're speaking for
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  Jamblin and Daveed, you know, he gets to, to go in there and, and
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  do his part following what what you do.
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  And you guys just you, you really work well well together.
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  Just just capturing that that character.
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  So it's just, it's just really, really fun.
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  And just to see where you go when you're performing, jam that
• 13:59
  well. Yeah, I, I love that character.
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  And I'm not that in my real life, not that loud.
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  So just kind of break free and get to be this like cool guy,
• 14:12
  you know, every once in a while. And yeah, it's fun.
• 14:15
  I mean, first of all, Andy, you're very cool.
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  Don't get me wrong. You're very, you're very cool.
• 14:21
  I appreciate that. I thank you.
• 14:23
  I'm in my real life, I'm kind of the opposite of of red, like
• 14:26
  pretty, pretty quiet and everything.
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  And then red is just like this. So it's probably similar,
• 14:32
  similar to that. You just get to kind of kind of,
• 14:35
  you know, open up and let this this big, big shining light out
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  and it's just full of full of fun and energy.
• 14:42
  Yeah, I love it. So dare I ask, and feel free to
• 14:48
  say no, can you do the your, your, your voice that you use
• 14:53
  for Jandalin for us? Oh, sure.
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  So. OK, I'll just.
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  So for me, Jandalin talks like this, It's kind of like a gruff,
• 15:03
  you know, clap your hands. Everybody in the stands, it's
• 15:06
  the one, the only. It's just kind of the Andy voice
• 15:10
  that I would do if it were going to be me.
• 15:12
  Yeah. And it kind of, I think it kind
• 15:15
  of fits the same, you know, style that when TV comes in and
• 15:19
  does his magic. Yeah.
• 15:20
  Totally. Yeah.
• 15:22
  That's awesome. That's great.
• 15:25
  This, you know, Yeah. So cool.
• 15:28
  He's so cool. Cool.
• 15:30
  All right, let's talk about this episode as a live in concert.
• 15:33
  We open in Fraggle Rock and everyone's just sort of hanging
• 15:36
  out. Wembley's asking if anyone needs
• 15:39
  anything. A blanket, a doozer stick, a a
• 15:42
  rare worm, and bluebird's like how rare are we talking?
• 15:48
  What a weird line that is that I don't know if I should dwell on
• 15:51
  it or not that he's offering a rare worm.
• 15:56
  I don't know where that came from, but that was that was
• 15:59
  always there. And it just seemed it, it fit it
• 16:04
  it worked, yeah. It did.
• 16:07
  And I don't know if I would call a rare worm uncool, but
• 16:10
  definitely the opposite of of a rare worm happens in a moment
• 16:13
  because we hear a funky bass line and suddenly everything
• 16:17
  gets a lot cooler because Jandalen shows up and there he
• 16:23
  is. There's you, Andy, that's you.
• 16:25
  There's Jandalen. As we just, we just established
• 16:29
  One thing I meant to ask, have you, have you spoken with Daveed
• 16:32
  Diggs like personally about, about, you know, performing the
• 16:37
  character or anything like that or you just kind of living in
• 16:40
  your both, both of you and your own professional lives?
• 16:42
  Yeah. I mean, I, I, no, we never had
• 16:46
  the chance and I still hope someday that will happen also,
• 16:50
  not only because of our our shared character, but also I'm a
• 16:53
  huge Broadway nerd. Yeah.
• 16:55
  So if I could just get all of the stories about Hamilton, I
• 16:59
  would be so happy, Yeah. So fingers crossed, someday,
• 17:02
  someday that will happen. I got to see Daveed in one of
• 17:05
  his last Hamilton performances. It was amazing.
• 17:10
  Oh my God, when he came when when he came out as, as
• 17:12
  Jefferson, he was just milking the audience and just having
• 17:16
  fun. And Oh my gosh, it was, it was a
• 17:20
  treasure to to see that. That's very cool.
• 17:25
  Yeah. Now I kind of want to see Jamdel
• 17:28
  in in Hamilton, OK? Put that out into the universe
• 17:37
  and make that happen. That would be that'd be amazing.
• 17:40
  Jam Jam Dalton, is that a thing? Do do do some fraggle string,
• 17:45
  some speed wrapping with David now there that would be a thing.
• 17:49
  They almost get there with some of the songs this this season,
• 17:52
  but they can go farther with it. I think all.
• 17:55
  Right. We're going to plant.
• 17:56
  We're planting the seed season three.
• 17:58
  We're going to have a Lin Manuel style rap as one of the new
• 18:02
  songs featuring Jamal Jandalyn. I can't even say it now because
• 18:07
  I got Hamilton in my head. Jam Dalton in it.
• 18:10
  It's short. Andy, Andy, start to exercising
• 18:13
  your your hand muscles. Get one of those hand
• 18:15
  exercisers. Yeah, keep it up.
• 18:17
  Yeah. Puppetry challenge accepted.
• 18:19
  We'll see. Yeah.
• 18:19
  Wow. Speaking of Broadway and a bit
• 18:22
  of a sidebar, but I just saw Amy Garcia in Wicked.
• 18:26
  Except it was wonderful. She's she's amazing.
• 18:30
  Oh that's right, she's on we did get the whole bunch of us got to
• 18:33
  see her in LA and into the woods yes and that's right.
• 18:39
  She's trying with wicked. Now I I need to see if she's
• 18:42
  coming anywhere near where I can see her in that Yeah so
• 18:45
  talented. Oh, she got to shine so much
• 18:48
  this this season with her, her songs with, with, with mom, the
• 18:54
  trash heap and just oh, and and with, with Sherry.
• 18:59
  Oh my gosh, just. Cherry contrary Yeah.
• 19:02
  Yeah, it's yes. Actually it's cherry contrary.
• 19:09
  It's so amazing that we're surrounded by all this talent,
• 19:12
  including this Broadway tower, like Broadway caliber singers.
• 19:16
  It's it's really incredible. Yeah.
• 19:18
  And. Johnny, of course.
• 19:19
  Mommy, of course. Yeah, Yeah.
• 19:22
  And you, you both realize like this is, this is how we like
• 19:25
  Muppet fans. We all see you, you know, like
• 19:27
  the like I, I get like Broadway is a huge caliber, like movie
• 19:31
  stars, a big caliber. But you know, Fraggle Rock
• 19:35
  puppeteers is like, Oh my God, you're a puppeteer on Fraggle
• 19:39
  Rock. And it's the coolest thing.
• 19:41
  So I guess even though you're, I want to, I just want to make
• 19:43
  sure you know that like you're geeking out about, you know,
• 19:45
  Broadway stars. A lot of people, a lot of people
• 19:49
  feel exactly that way about you. That's crazy.
• 19:54
  But I, you know what I am. I am that guy too, though.
• 19:58
  I, when I meet puppeteers that I've been watching for years, I,
• 20:02
  I turn into a fan. I mean, I am a fan.
• 20:04
  You are a fan. Yeah, Yeah, you turn into
• 20:07
  yourself. And, and, and when I started out
• 20:12
  on on Sesame Street and the Muppet Show working, working
• 20:15
  with, with all the, the, you know, Jim and Frank and Jerry
• 20:18
  and and and Richard, all, all the original puppeteers.
• 20:21
  Yeah, yeah, I was, I was just totally, totally there, you
• 20:25
  know, in in the background and, and just just in in awe to to
• 20:34
  watch them making that magic. Oh my gosh.
• 20:36
  I can only imagine. So Jandalyn has come to Fraggle
• 20:41
  Rock bearing great news, and this is where we got our first
• 20:44
  song of the episode. It's called Are you ready?
• 20:47
  And it's another funky song, surprise, surprise from Jam
• 20:49
  Dylan. And he's like leading the
• 20:52
  Fraggles through The Cave. And the whole song is about Are
• 20:54
  you ready? Are you're not ready?
• 20:55
  OK, let's get ready. I don't want to say that this is
• 20:59
  a song that adds nothing to the plot, but it kind of doesn't.
• 21:04
  And I kind of love the fact that it leans into that.
• 21:07
  I it's great. Yeah, it's a fun build up.
• 21:11
  It's it's very fraggly to make a big deal out of out of.
• 21:17
  Hey, I have something to tell. You.
• 21:19
  You're right, but that that's where the Fraggles, you know,
• 21:22
  they, they celebrate that, that kind of stuff.
• 21:24
  And then that was remember Andy shooting all that?
• 21:26
  So we had a few, you know, we have these movable tunnel
• 21:31
  pieces. We kind of went One Direction
• 21:33
  and then reset the other direction.
• 21:35
  And, and, and remember, you're seeing all those Fraggles and
• 21:38
  underneath them are human humans, human bodies all
• 21:44
  squeezing together in that, in that space and, and, and making
• 21:49
  it making it work. So there's another one of those
• 21:52
  fun, fun jumbles below, below the frame.
• 21:56
  I don't know if we got any behind the scenes video of just
• 21:59
  all, all that stuff. It's one thing when we're all in
• 22:02
  a static audience, as happens later in, in this episode, but
• 22:06
  when it's a whole pack and they're moving and they're
• 22:09
  singing and there's camera moves, it's just crazy.
• 22:14
  Cuz then, yeah, the crew and anybody moving pieces and moving
• 22:17
  the crane and the can, they're, they're part of the parade as as
• 22:21
  well. Think of the Macy's parade in
• 22:23
  your kitchen. That's, that's kind of what it
• 22:25
  is. But it's fun.
• 22:28
  It's just it's really fun. And you'll notice too that Jam
• 22:32
  Dylan does not have his tail present for that because it was
• 22:35
  so complicated and there were so many bodies, it was deemed, you
• 22:39
  know, this 6 foot tail is just going to put this over the edge.
• 22:43
  Literally over the edge, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 22:47
  Although I would have been cool to have him like leading a
• 22:48
  procession and then like all the fraggles behind him and then his
• 22:52
  tail, like a little close enough.
• 22:55
  Yes. Yeah, Yeah.
• 22:57
  Oh. My gosh.
• 22:59
  When the song finishes, we all end up in that the the final
• 23:03
  position and that last bit of the song where it's all the, all
• 23:07
  the, the talking and, and, and he was there with, with
• 23:11
  listening to it and he was just, you know, even had the Jandalin
• 23:15
  puppet and, and, and he sees where's his, his total shoes
• 23:19
  for, for James Lynn. And he's, he's just like
• 23:21
  concentrating. He's got his eyes closed and
• 23:23
  he's got his, his listening to his recording, just double
• 23:26
  checking all the stuff before before the take happens.
• 23:30
  I can hit all those moments working so hard and it worked.
• 23:33
  It's just, oh, it's just so awesome.
• 23:34
  I will say that was the that was the hardest song for me.
• 23:38
  Normally like it, like in the beginning, Jemdlin would be with
• 23:40
  the band. It was kind of a parking bark
• 23:42
  where he's singing, but he's, you know, in one spot.
• 23:45
  This one to do that while moving while trying not to trip over my
• 23:49
  own tall shoes. And then and then Daveed had so
• 23:52
  many line riffs, but they were so fast, like he was just
• 23:56
  throwing out all these little asides.
• 23:58
  It was it was a challenge, but. Were those ad libs from Daveed
• 24:03
  of just like the little the little like I I'm sorry I didn't
• 24:07
  write down the the lines, the little like the, you know, the.
• 24:11
  For the most part, it's his own flavor that he adds to the
• 24:13
  music, so it it bumps it up to a whole new level.
• 24:17
  But it's also I'm. I'm trying to if I could quickly
• 24:19
  call up if I still got something where I could look up the the
• 24:24
  the lyric went 206. Let me see it's there.
• 24:27
  There might be a few things that are kind of written and but then
• 24:31
  Daveed would just, you know, take it, take it in and and run,
• 24:36
  run with it. No, I don't think I'll be able
• 24:39
  to. That's OK.
• 24:40
  It's it's, it's, it's a little, little bit of planting seeds and
• 24:44
  then Daveed grows the whole forest from it, that kind of
• 24:46
  thing. It's.
• 24:47
  Incredible. Yeah.
• 24:48
  One that no detail that I noticed as you're all walking
• 24:52
  through this tunnel is that there are these blooming flowers
• 24:55
  coming out of the rocks, which is, Yeah, seems like it's a
• 24:59
  reference to to Cantus when he would play in the original
• 25:04
  series, the the flowers would bloom, which I very much
• 25:07
  appreciate. Nice little, Yeah, it's nice,
• 25:11
  nice having that little call back there.
• 25:12
  Yeah, And Speaking of details, so I I don't think I really
• 25:16
  noticed this because there was so much going on when we met
• 25:19
  Jambolyn in the first season, but I was really looking at his
• 25:22
  guitar in in this scene, I think because he gets so close to the
• 25:26
  camera while holding the guitar. Is there anything that like
• 25:30
  notable about the guitar or interesting about the design
• 25:33
  that you've noticed, or is it just a really cool prop?
• 25:37
  It's really incredible, I want to say.
• 25:40
  And it's usually it's attached to his chest for most or, or
• 25:43
  sometimes attached to his back. So I never really get to see it
• 25:46
  apart from there. But I think it's made out of
• 25:49
  some kind of husk like it, it or it, I don't know.
• 25:54
  It feels like, or it's wooden or something carved, but it's it's
• 25:58
  really earthy, which is completely generally
• 26:00
  appropriate. And it's adorned with all these
• 26:03
  little, little extras, you know, little tassels and things.
• 26:08
  Yeah, it's. Now, in your opinion, as as the
• 26:13
  Jamendalin performer and knowing what we know about Cantus, is
• 26:18
  the guitar magical like Cantus's flute is magical?
• 26:22
  Or is it just it's a guitar and the magic magic is in you all
• 26:25
  along? I hadn't thought of that.
• 26:30
  Always has it with him. Even if he's not playing it,
• 26:33
  it's, you know, it's on his back.
• 26:34
  So I'm going to go with yes. All right.
• 26:38
  It's Canon. It's Canon.
• 26:40
  Canon. That's something to explore.
• 26:44
  OK, OK. I also have to mention because
• 26:48
  I've mentioned every single one on that I spot, there is an ink
• 26:51
  spot dancing during the song and it's wearing like this like
• 26:55
  frilly purple dress and it's kind of spinning and the frills
• 26:58
  are spinning. Just a great design and and I
• 27:01
  just love the ink spots. They're great.
• 27:04
  Oh, they're they're just they're just so, so fun to to drop drop
• 27:09
  in there and any, anytime, any chance.
• 27:14
  And man, they have their own wardrobe now and just so, so
• 27:19
  fun. We we never thought, you know,
• 27:22
  40 years ago. They were they were made for the
• 27:24
  Bagooni episode and and they were called the ink spots kind
• 27:29
  of non non can Canon. Just that's how they were
• 27:32
  referred to because the song they sang with Bagooni started
• 27:35
  out as kind of like the Ink Spots singers.
• 27:38
  It was in that style. So we started calling them the
• 27:41
  the Ink Spots and they were just so, so fun looking.
• 27:45
  We started doing little extra bits with them in in the
• 27:47
  original, but then it's just exploded now and everybody has
• 27:52
  has fun, you know, grabbing them and jumping in and and doing
• 27:55
  stuff. I think every show should have
• 27:57
  Ink Spots just hanging out, wearing costumes, holding weird
• 28:01
  props. I I don't know why.
• 28:03
  Like, yeah, like get it in the bare and Game of Thrones and
• 28:09
  Breaking Bad. I don't know.
• 28:12
  So yeah, at the at the end of the song, the jam, Dylan, as you
• 28:17
  said, he's standing in front of the the rest of the bands, all
• 28:19
  the troubadours are there. It's always great to see them.
• 28:22
  I love the the little tweaks of the design updates from the
• 28:28
  original mintuals from the original series.
• 28:33
  And yeah, the song ends in like like I said, we didn't like
• 28:36
  nothing changed from 2 minutes ago.
• 28:38
  Like it wasn't like like the plot is now moved forward.
• 28:41
  We still don't know the news that jam Dylan is here to, but
• 28:48
  Dang, is it fun. It's just, it's a Oh yeah, it's
• 28:50
  great. Yeah.
• 28:53
  So the the news is that performing in Fraggle Rock one
• 28:56
  night only it's Mezzo and Boober who's normally really cautious
• 29:00
  about any sort of excitement is like, oh, the build up was
• 29:03
  really was worth it, which is big for him.
• 29:06
  But Gobo loses his mind. Gobo screams like like a like a
• 29:11
  fan. So all right, so here's the
• 29:14
  question that I think everyone's asking themselves that there's
• 29:17
  probably no answer to. How does Gobo know who Mezzo is?
• 29:21
  Like how has Mezzo's music made it to Fraggle Rock if Mezzo has
• 29:25
  never physically been to Fraggle Rock?
• 29:30
  We, we, we, we talked, you know, kind of in development that that
• 29:36
  question came up and we, we, we decided not to spell out
• 29:41
  anything exact, but it's, it's, there's just a way that they're,
• 29:47
  they're able to, to know and pass on the music with, without
• 29:51
  somehow having seen the actual creature making, making the
• 29:54
  music. Just like, however, you know,
• 29:56
  music gets transmitted in, in Fraggle Rock.
• 30:00
  It's just part of the, the atmosphere or something that we
• 30:04
  have yet to learn about how things work in, in Fraggle Rock.
• 30:08
  You know, kind of in the way, you know, you know, back back in
• 30:11
  the 60s, you'd hear The Beatles on the radio.
• 30:14
  I've never met The Beatles. So, you know, but you, you know
• 30:17
  of them, there's, there's some some weird and wonderful fraggly
• 30:21
  way that they, that they know about it and you know, it's
• 30:25
  enough to get them excited and, and we, we all identify with,
• 30:32
  with being excited about people like that.
• 30:35
  Yes, absolutely. It just, it sounds like my
• 30:39
  answer here is don't think too hard about it Joe.
• 30:42
  Just let it go. But it's obviously it's fine.
• 30:46
  I mean, and, and for anything to be mysteriously transported
• 30:50
  through Fraggle rock without explanation, music seems to be
• 30:54
  the thing that like, yes, it makes sense.
• 30:56
  That's somehow music magically makes its way through Fraggle
• 30:59
  Rock, and Gobo is a big fan of this thing, even if they don't
• 31:03
  have records or cassettes or or, you know, C DS or whatever.
• 31:09
  I don't know if you can see it in the episode, but on set in
• 31:12
  the the concert area, there was actually a, a merch table.
• 31:15
  Yeah. For her, there's stacks.
• 31:17
  There's little stacks of folded T-shirts.
• 31:19
  They had pins. And it was.
• 31:21
  It was great. That's cool.
• 31:22
  Yeah. Which by the way, I mean, we'll
• 31:24
  get to it. We should actually have mezzo
• 31:26
  merch. Like, why not?
• 31:27
  Why don't we have a mezzo concert T on the the Henson
• 31:31
  online store? Someone get on that.
• 31:35
  So yeah. So Gobo loses his mind.
• 31:37
  He he grabs Wembley and shakes him by the collar.
• 31:40
  And I love, I love cause Gobo works so well as a voice of
• 31:45
  reason in so many episodes where, you know, everybody else
• 31:51
  is that is kind of the cut to the chase character Gobo.
• 31:56
  His, his tool in that tool chest is we needed, you know, voice,
• 32:00
  voice of reason. And I love the shows where he's
• 32:03
  not the voice of reason. And Johnny has so much fun with
• 32:08
  that. In this episode.
• 32:10
  It was Oh my gosh. And he would just just every
• 32:13
  take, he would just go farther and farther and farther and and
• 32:17
  farther. It was so fun to to see that.
• 32:20
  And I'm sure it's kind of a nice break for Johnny as as well.
• 32:23
  Just just to go nuts. Yeah.
• 32:25
  With Gobo. Well, I think for all five of
• 32:28
  the Fraggles, and it's probably true for pretty much any
• 32:30
  character in any show or or movie, but seeing them push to
• 32:35
  their extremes, you know, seeing Gobo lose his mind, seeing red,
• 32:39
  absolutely, you know, fall down a pit, you know, of of her own
• 32:43
  making or or Moki just get completely distracted by
• 32:47
  something and you know, like etcetera, etcetera.
• 32:50
  I mean, I think when people talk about Buber specifically and how
• 32:53
  his best moments are when he's at his bottom like he is, he has
• 32:58
  just fallen into a pit of depression.
• 33:00
  And that's great for him. But yes, but to see Gobo, who is
• 33:04
  normally so in charge to a fault, so capable to a fault,
• 33:10
  just kind of throw caution to the wind and say like, no, no,
• 33:13
  I'm actually fangirling a lot and and not listening to what
• 33:17
  anyone has to say here because I love Mezzo so much.
• 33:21
  It's great, super fun. So I don't, I don't know if you
• 33:23
  were going to get to this, but when he runs off to get his
• 33:25
  merge. Yeah.
• 33:27
  There's that was a nice, nice little they they had there.
• 33:32
  There were two gobos there. So so someone was standing there
• 33:36
  with the merched out gobo. So 'cause it's all on one take
• 33:39
  and and goes I can't remember it.
• 33:40
  She runs off and someone's standing right there, swap gobos
• 33:44
  puts the other one on, comes in with all his his merch.
• 33:47
  I love, I love when when puppets do that.
• 33:50
  A little, Little Texas switch. Is that what that's called?
• 33:52
  Yep, Yep, no, it's so good. He's he's got his mezzo T-shirt
• 33:59
  and he's got a rolled up poster and a lunch box and he's got
• 34:02
  this like star thing over his eye, which we later we'll see.
• 34:05
  That's that's something that mezzo has.
• 34:07
  He says whenever I feel small, her songs make me feel big.
• 34:11
  And then Moki says her music is so uplifting.
• 34:14
  It makes me feel 10 feet tall. And boy, is that some
• 34:18
  foreshadowing with each of them has to say.
• 34:22
  And something I did not notice the first time I watched this
• 34:24
  episode. It's it's sprinkled all all
• 34:27
  throughout this, this show was written by and Lisa Turin, who
• 34:33
  in the our first season was a a writing assistant, but this
• 34:37
  season she's actually full, full writer on on this and on the the
• 34:42
  letting go episode. And I just love how it's all
• 34:45
  throughout the show. There's all these things
• 34:48
  sprinkled and I, I love, I love how all that when you get to the
• 34:54
  end, it's like, oh. And.
• 34:57
  You know, it doesn't give anything away, but it touches on
• 35:00
  it, yeah. And it definitely rewards
• 35:02
  rewatching. Yeah.
• 35:04
  Like, for me, especially where, like, I didn't, I didn't know.
• 35:07
  I didn't know that Mezzo was going to have a reveal later on
• 35:10
  that we'll talk about the first time I watched it.
• 35:12
  And so now it's like, I see what you're doing, and it kind of
• 35:15
  makes me want to watch it a third time.
• 35:17
  What else did I miss? So Gobo runs off to get Concert
• 35:22
  Cave prepared for the show. And as they're kind of like all
• 35:26
  the Fraggles are setting up decorations and stuff.
• 35:28
  I love the shot of the like where the audience will be
• 35:31
  sitting and Gobo is popping up in the different seats to make
• 35:34
  sure that they're all good view. And he's going like, this one's
• 35:37
  good, this one's great, this one's also great, this one's
• 35:40
  bad. Just kidding.
• 35:41
  It's great, it's fun. I love, I love Gobo's seat
• 35:45
  obsession. I don't know if you've you've
• 35:47
  caught that. That's kind of a little mini
• 35:48
  thread. No, I haven't.
• 35:50
  With the the season one Mergel show where while they were
• 35:55
  journeying to see the the Mergel migration, Gobble was obsessing
• 35:59
  about getting good seats. Oh.
• 36:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Red was like enough with the
• 36:03
  seats. And so every once in a while, if
• 36:06
  there's anything, it's sometimes it's just one little throwaway
• 36:10
  line. Oh, I hope Goebo says, I hope we
• 36:11
  get good seats. And Red makes a face at him.
• 36:14
  And so so this was like Goebo's seat obsession, just that this
• 36:18
  part of his explosion is, is, is fangirling out and and you know,
• 36:25
  seat obsession to, to the Mac. So just I think that's going to
• 36:29
  be continuing. If if we if we do more, there's
• 36:31
  going to be continuing little, little comments of Goebo just
• 36:35
  wanting to make sure he's got good seats for the events.
• 36:38
  I love that it's so true to life that people have these like
• 36:42
  minor things of like, it's just a thing.
• 36:45
  I just always want to have a good seat.
• 36:47
  I just, you know, don't question it.
• 36:50
  I did not notice that. I love that about him.
• 36:56
  There's also a swarm of bugs that are kind of flying around
• 37:00
  the stage and Gobo asked them to kind of scooch somewhere else
• 37:05
  and he kind of swats him away a little bit.
• 37:07
  He does the same thing with Cotterpin and the architects,
• 37:09
  who are kind of just passing through.
• 37:10
  And he's like, you know, this isn't an active work scene.
• 37:13
  You guys can be somewhere else. And, you know, they they move
• 37:16
  along. And so OK, we're going to get
• 37:21
  into spoilers here, but I assume that everyone's watched the
• 37:23
  episode, but we will later learn that the bugs are someone very
• 37:26
  important. But So what is actually
• 37:29
  happening on the screen here? Where it's not just little dots
• 37:33
  of lights, it's not, you know, there's definitely something of
• 37:37
  substance there that's flying around.
• 37:39
  So are these CGI creations, are these something that you guys
• 37:43
  filmed on the on the blue screen cube that we've talked about on
• 37:46
  this podcast before? What are the What is actually
• 37:49
  happening with these little things that are flying?
• 37:52
  I can't for that specifically. It might might be little CG
• 38:00
  ones. I don't know if they shot
• 38:01
  because they they of course shot a lot of blue screen for for
• 38:04
  these these characters. And I don't know if they shot
• 38:10
  and and for some they they were, you know, in addition to
• 38:12
  standing. I don't know if they did any
• 38:14
  flying with those guys. But I think for that it probably
• 38:18
  I I can't remember for sure. I wasn't in involved with that
• 38:20
  part of it, but it might have been CG.
• 38:22
  And they, they did a they did a great, great job just adding
• 38:26
  like a little bit of motion blur and it really looks like, you
• 38:29
  know, very colorful little insects flying, flying around.
• 38:35
  But yeah, so, so that was all added in post.
• 38:37
  There wasn't anything temporary on set.
• 38:41
  You know, Gobo's just thrashing his arms and, and it was all in,
• 38:45
  in, in post. They kind of added them
• 38:47
  wherever, you know, reacting to Gobo's thrashing.
• 38:50
  And that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:53
  And like, and we didn't need, I mean, look, we we talk about how
• 38:56
  the CG on the show is used so sparingly.
• 38:59
  And this is one of those examples were like, you didn't
• 39:01
  need to go above and beyond to actually put tiny little puppets
• 39:03
  in there. Like we can barely see them as
• 39:05
  it is. And the fact that I I didn't
• 39:08
  know, I couldn't tell if it was CG or not is also a testament to
• 39:12
  then it was a good use of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:16
  It's a, it's a it's good enhancement rather than like a
• 39:20
  full, a full replacement of of puppets, which which is ideal
• 39:24
  for for this production. Yeah.
• 39:25
  Yeah, exactly. We get our check in with Doc and
• 39:29
  Sprocket at this point they're about to go for a walk, but
• 39:32
  Sprocket gets spooked by a bee and I I guess the same question
• 39:37
  as before, but I think it's going to be the same answer.
• 39:38
  Is this also just CGIB that has been added in the post?
• 39:41
  Yeah. Yeah, there there was, there
• 39:43
  wasn't anybody there with a little bee on on a stick and
• 39:46
  that would just make it again be able to to better react to to
• 39:51
  sprockets and and with with insect type things.
• 39:55
  It's if you're trying to do something on on the end of a
• 39:59
  thin, thin rod because insects are just so fast and flitty
• 40:03
  trying to do that on the end of a long, wobbly rod.
• 40:06
  It's one thing if it's a butterfly, the Muppet
• 40:07
  butterflies are always beautiful and amazing.
• 40:09
  But butterflies are kind of taking it easy.
• 40:11
  They're very chill. But anything fast and zipping
• 40:14
  around trying to do that on the end of a long wire is just it's
• 40:17
  tricky. So that that's where, you know,
• 40:19
  CG, it's your turn to shine. That's right.
• 40:21
  Take care of it. So good.
• 40:23
  Yeah. Yes, another good choice for CG
• 40:25
  for the for the post production team.
• 40:28
  We'll we'll just skip through this Doc and Sprocket plot.
• 40:31
  But essentially later in the episode Doc is teaching Sprocket
• 40:36
  about like the big impact that bees have on the environment.
• 40:39
  This feels very like educational moment to me, which is fine.
• 40:44
  That's not a complaint. It's just like, OK, we're going
• 40:46
  to learn a little bit about bees and and how fruit and flowers
• 40:49
  and etcetera, etcetera are all rely on bees.
• 40:52
  But what I really appreciate about this is that she kind of
• 40:55
  ends the whole thing by recognizing that because we
• 41:00
  can't minimize the importance of bees, she can't minimize the
• 41:05
  sprockets fear of bees. And she learned something about
• 41:09
  like, oh, I don't need to like kind of explain this thing to
• 41:13
  you and tell you to get over it. I could kind of meet you
• 41:15
  halfway. And then later in the episode
• 41:18
  she dresses Sprocket up in a beekeepers outfit and just says
• 41:22
  I'm going to be that crazy lady who's walking her dog in a full
• 41:25
  beekeeper's outfit, which I love.
• 41:27
  I love Doc is a is a crazy dog lady.
• 41:31
  Do either of you have pets? And if so, do you ever dress
• 41:35
  them in costumes? I I don't have any any pets at
• 41:43
  at the moment. How about you, Andy?
• 41:45
  I do, I have a 14 year old Shiba Inu who's pacing around the
• 41:49
  living room right now. I tried to dress him up for
• 41:52
  Halloween once and he was very upset with me so that stopped.
• 41:57
  What did you try to dress him as He.
• 41:59
  Was a skunk. He was the cutest little skunk
• 42:02
  you've ever seen. Get one picture.
• 42:05
  And. Then he was.
• 42:07
  He protested. So I heard him loud and clear.
• 42:10
  Yeah, OK, Yeah, Good that you're listening.
• 42:12
  Good that you're you're meeting your Shiba Inu halfway like Doc
• 42:16
  is with Sprocket. Yes.
• 42:20
  I had cats and some little dogs as, as, as a kid and I think as
• 42:23
  a kid maybe we briefly, briefly tried putting hats on cats.
• 42:29
  And that was not a happy ending. So that was, that's as far as we
• 42:35
  got with that, Yeah. Yeah, don't imagine cats.
• 42:37
  You can't put hats on cats, can't put mittens on kittens.
• 42:40
  Just you just can't do it at the mezzo concert.
• 42:46
  Everyone is there. There's Fraggles, there's
• 42:48
  Merkels, there's Crackles, there's Pogi the Storyteller,
• 42:51
  Icy Joe the Mantevore, the Grizzard.
• 42:54
  There's a gluey Rudy fan favorite.
• 42:57
  Coop is there? Everyone loves Coop.
• 43:00
  And I know again, Karen, you were talking about how there's
• 43:05
  all these little references to the the size stuff that's going
• 43:08
  to come up in a few minutes. But the fact that the room has
• 43:12
  been filled with characters of every size, from the Manta vore
• 43:16
  all the way down to Gluey Rudy feels very deliberate.
• 43:19
  For that reason, I I have to assume it's true, yeah.
• 43:22
  Yeah, yeah. Great.
• 43:24
  And just a great example of like, look at all the the
• 43:28
  diversity of characters that have been created for this show.
• 43:31
  I really love seeing that, you know, it's not just Fraggles.
• 43:36
  I feel like if this was another episode or, or the old series,
• 43:40
  it would just be Fraggles and the Fraggle gaggle in the
• 43:42
  backgrounds. But the fact that, like, we
• 43:45
  really get to see so many different types of species, I
• 43:47
  think it's really cool. Yeah, yeah, I, I and I love that
• 43:50
  there was a chance to, to revisit and bring, you know,
• 43:54
  bring back Manty and just just revisit to anybody who, who was,
• 44:01
  who, who is available. And I love, I love that they
• 44:04
  brought in Barry Blueberry, but he's off the clock and he's just
• 44:07
  kind of low key saving his voice.
• 44:10
  That's so funny. He's wearing like a tracksuit,
• 44:13
  kind of like a very casual thing.
• 44:16
  He's like, not tonight, just here.
• 44:17
  He's a fan and he's singing like this, this like very cool voice.
• 44:20
  Like it's not his regular announcer voice, which there's
• 44:24
  so much to know about. Like the behind the scenes life
• 44:27
  of Barry Blueberry. There's also Andy, as you, you
• 44:34
  said, there's a merch table with there's T-shirts and sunglasses
• 44:38
  and stuff there. It really makes me wonder like
• 44:41
  how much other merchandise there could be.
• 44:43
  And again, like someone had to create all this stuff.
• 44:45
  Someone had to make all these little T-shirts that wouldn't
• 44:48
  fit a regular human being. So I guess they go into a drawer
• 44:50
  at the end of the day. They they, you know, the, the
• 44:55
  Fraggle props and and the costumes depending on on who
• 45:02
  makes them and who has room to store stuff.
• 45:04
  They, they, they, they get stored stored away and you never
• 45:11
  know when you might need them again.
• 45:12
  That's true, yeah. Mezzo's tour might take her back
• 45:15
  through Fraggle Rock next year. So.
• 45:17
  Yeah, you know, Yeah. Who knows?
• 45:18
  Who knows? Yeah.
• 45:20
  And it's incredible. Like the the creature shop, I
• 45:23
  remember during season one just geeking out because they, the
• 45:26
  archives had shipped everything they had over and they were
• 45:29
  perfectly preserved original series costumes, like just one
• 45:33
  off it saved. They'd saved everything.
• 45:35
  It was, it was cool. That's cool.
• 45:37
  So, so maybe if there's like another Fraggle Rock reboot in,
• 45:41
  you know, in 40 years, then they'll be like, Oh my God, we
• 45:44
  have all these Mezzo T-shirts. We got to use them.
• 45:50
  I'm also, and this is, I don't expect that you would know this
• 45:53
  if it's true, but I'm hoping that the back of the Mezzo
• 45:57
  T-shirts have a list of like a tour list of all the places that
• 46:00
  she visits on the tour. And like, what could possibly be
• 46:04
  like in the world of Fraggle Rock or beyond Fraggle Rock?
• 46:07
  Where is she going? That's when we we get out the
• 46:10
  Encyclopedia Fraglia and every every Fraggle Cave location that
• 46:17
  has been visited or discussed in the entire history of the show.
• 46:20
  We have to put that list on the crystal cabins.
• 46:24
  The uncle. Uncle Travelling met, yeah.
• 46:28
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 46:31
  That would be so good. I I'm just imagining that that's
• 46:33
  what's there if it, even if it's not, because that's too good.
• 46:37
  Gobo asks. He's like, what do you think
• 46:40
  Mezzo is going to play first? Is it clap, clap, shimmy, snap
• 46:43
  or wiggle, wiggle bolubius Drop, which Wembley says is a very
• 46:47
  serious song. And I really want to hear what
• 46:50
  wiggle wiggle Bolubius Drop sounds like now, even if it
• 46:54
  makes me cry. Jam Dylan introduces Mezzo and
• 47:01
  no one's there. Where is she?
• 47:05
  Well, we'll find out in a moment after we check in with the
• 47:07
  Gorgs. Pennsylvania tells Junior that
• 47:11
  he's doing a great job at growing strawberries, but he
• 47:14
  wants them to be bigger. He wants to be as big as his
• 47:16
  grand papa's head, who had the biggest head in Gorg history,
• 47:19
  and he had to hold it with his hands while he walked.
• 47:21
  And Andy as as paw Gorg, you're doing some great pantomime here.
• 47:25
  The whole like you're, you're telling the story and emoting in
• 47:28
  the right way like you always do, but also like doing this
• 47:31
  thing where you're holding your own head and pretending to walk.
• 47:33
  It's great. Yeah.
• 47:35
  Oh, cool. Yeah.
• 47:36
  It's it's a lot of fun. And we with with Frank
• 47:41
  puppeteering and voicing because they updated Paw for season 2
• 47:45
  and they gave him more facial on him mission so his eyes now go
• 47:49
  side to side. We were really playing with he
• 47:52
  doesn't need to turn so profile to look at someone because Frank
• 47:55
  will just clock the eyes left. Oh, interesting.
• 47:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were we were playing with
• 47:59
  movement this season to trying to finesse that a little bit.
• 48:01
  So I'm glad it, I'm glad it came off.
• 48:04
  It did. That's funny because I don't
• 48:06
  think I really clocked that that was a new thing for this season.
• 48:10
  Just because it's so natural. Like I don't think about Gorg
• 48:14
  eyes as much as I should, apparently.
• 48:17
  I mean, obviously we noticed it with a lot of it with Junior
• 48:19
  because Junior is an entirely new build.
• 48:21
  But yeah, with Pennsylvania and MA to see that kind of subtlety.
• 48:25
  So. So that's a good question then.
• 48:27
  So for you, because you're so used to from season one, like
• 48:32
  doing bigger gestures to make sure that Pennsylvania is
• 48:35
  looking the right way and doing things like that, Like, is it a
• 48:37
  challenge, especially for such a big puppet, to like, make that a
• 48:40
  little bit more subtle? Yeah, I would I would say so,
• 48:46
  yeah, just with because the the original head, his eyes would
• 48:50
  squint and widen and that was it for eyes.
• 48:53
  And then his mouth would flap up and down.
• 48:55
  This season, Frank has he can actually articulate the mouth.
• 48:59
  It can open left, it can open right, it can open center.
• 49:02
  Yeah. So we, we did like actively try
• 49:05
  to bring some of that the, the physical performance down a
• 49:08
  little bit so that he could really utilize the face and and
• 49:12
  emote that way. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:15
  That's cool, yeah. Absolutely.
• 49:17
  Are there any updates to like paw below the neck to the
• 49:21
  season? No, that that is the original
• 49:25
  body that gourd wore. They did make new hands and new
• 49:30
  shoes. I think the hands were really
• 49:32
  beat up originally in the shoes. So yeah.
• 49:34
  But when I get into that suit, it is the real season or
• 49:38
  original series suit, which is crazy to think.
• 49:42
  And it beautiful like it's, it's like couture work, almost the
• 49:48
  whole threaded one thread at a time.
• 49:52
  It's all on mash. It's beyond.
• 49:55
  Yeah, incredible. And, and I, I, I haven't been
• 50:00
  been in the, the suit, but just the way they make it to be with
• 50:06
  open with, with hoops and very, very breathable fabric.
• 50:12
  So you can get air in there and it can give when you need it to,
• 50:15
  to give and, and allow you to, to move and not not be weighed,
• 50:19
  weighed down. Just the, the engineering from
• 50:21
  40 years ago is still still working right?
• 50:25
  Right now. It's like, you know, look at
• 50:27
  that. And it's like, no notes keep
• 50:29
  going. Yeah, but but having the extra
• 50:33
  enhancements for Paul and Ma's face this this season, it was
• 50:37
  really, really nice to have that.
• 50:39
  Oh, I'm sure, yeah. Karen, have you have you ever
• 50:42
  done full body puppet work? In the original Fraggle show,
• 50:48
  well, I was inside the giant souffle, if you remember, but
• 50:52
  the Gorgs build a giant souffle and it mixes up until it's
• 50:57
  really tall and the big person I'm inside the big one there.
• 51:02
  And and of course the junk woman on Labyrinth.
• 51:05
  Oh yeah, of course. Yes, yeah, yeah.
• 51:07
  Which was which was very, very, very tricky and and top heavy,
• 51:12
  you know, still, still a fun, a fun character to to do.
• 51:16
  I tried to do a riding goblin, but that was just it was it was
• 51:19
  very, very top heavy and hard to to run in balance.
• 51:23
  It's like if you imagine running with your ankles tied together
• 51:26
  holding a bowling ball out in front of you.
• 51:30
  That's kind of how the weight distribution of the riding
• 51:32
  goblins work. So I actually tried and just
• 51:35
  fell over. So it's like, OK, someone else
• 51:38
  gets to do that. So great.
• 51:40
  So, so not that much. There was in the original
• 51:42
  series, they needed to do a shot of Mogorg's hand and they, they,
• 51:48
  they didn't have like the, the, the full group of people there.
• 51:51
  So I, I put on the, the Mogorg just hurt her top just to get
• 51:56
  cuz her, her hands. You know, they had to see enough
• 52:00
  of her arm, so, and it was all connected with her body.
• 52:03
  So I just put on the Mog Borg top and stood on her box and it
• 52:07
  was just a shot of like her arm and hand doing doing something.
• 52:11
  So someone, there's a picture of me in mom in Mog, no head, just
• 52:14
  her at the top of her body. But that's that's, that's pretty
• 52:18
  pretty much the the extent of it.
• 52:21
  It's mainly been just hand puppets.
• 52:24
  Yeah, cool. Yeah.
• 52:25
  Yeah, I got, I got it. It's not for everybody.
• 52:27
  You know, Frank Oz famously. Like I think he did La Troy
• 52:31
  Dragon or something like that. Yeah, he's.
• 52:34
  Like, I'm done, you can get someone else to do this.
• 52:38
  Call up that Carol Spinney guy. He'll do it.
• 52:41
  So Ma suggests to pawn Junior that there might be something in
• 52:46
  the gardening shed that could help, And Pennsylvania
• 52:48
  immediately dismisses her and says, like, I'll just leave the
• 52:50
  gardening work to the menfolk. And she is not happy about it.
• 52:54
  She's got us like a big scowl on her face, her eyes squint.
• 52:58
  Big mistake there, Pennsylvania, and later in the episode,
• 53:01
  Pennsylvania. Good God, Pennsylvania and
• 53:04
  Junior, we're renaming him. His real name is Gah,
• 53:08
  Pennsylvania Junior. They go into the shed, they find
• 53:11
  a bag of Gorgamacs and it has a huge warning label, but
• 53:15
  Pennsylvania says they don't have time to read it.
• 53:17
  Which is funny because the warning label is literally just
• 53:20
  a picture of a radish with an X through it.
• 53:22
  Yeah. I thought that was hysterical.
• 53:25
  Our, our classic style from, from the original series was
• 53:29
  important signs were, were pictures with, you know, arrows
• 53:33
  or crosses and, or if they are reading a book, then any writing
• 53:40
  is just like little scribbles, you know, written in, in, in
• 53:43
  Fraglis. But just just for the, the
• 53:47
  international audience of, of the show, just having and, and
• 53:50
  for kids watching, watching the show, just have a big sign
• 53:53
  that's just a picture that indicates what's what's going
• 53:56
  on. Is is kind of the best way to to
• 53:58
  communicate to what what you need to say?
• 54:01
  That's right, yeah. We get it right away.
• 54:03
  And it's funny. Like that's also important, that
• 54:05
  it's very funny that like we don't have time for this.
• 54:07
  Just just pour it on the card. Ma, of course, being the smart
• 54:13
  one in the family, says this doesn't sound like such a good
• 54:15
  idea. But Pa's like you're right, it
• 54:17
  does sound like a good idea. And he sprinkles it on the
• 54:20
  garden and immediately it kills the sunflower, which is a nice,
• 54:24
  nice little puppetry trick. It just kind of droops down.
• 54:27
  I love it. And yeah, nice, nice
• 54:30
  foreshadowing for the plants and nice foreshadowing for for Ma.
• 54:33
  I just I love her arc this this season where she just comes into
• 54:38
  her her own so so literally planting some seeds.
• 54:45
  I see what you did there. Back at the Rock, the Fraggles
• 54:51
  are trying to figure out where Mezzo is.
• 54:54
  Moki asks if maybe she's just fashionably late because aren't
• 54:57
  musicians famously on their own schedules?
• 54:59
  And I love that both Jamblin and Gobo are immediately like,
• 55:03
  actually, we're very punctual. We're always on time.
• 55:05
  Like they just like they're both professional musicians, don't
• 55:09
  stereotype us as being late now we're we, we are working
• 55:13
  artists. We show up at our call time,
• 55:14
  thank you very much. And apparently wherever mezzo
• 55:20
  is, it's a mystery. And when someone says mystery,
• 55:23
  you know what that means? It's a case for Inspector Red
• 55:27
  and Red pops down, pops right back up in her detective outfit,
• 55:33
  and then. Another Texas switch.
• 55:34
  Now that was. That was not, that was not me.
• 55:37
  There was in this show. We shot like all the big
• 55:42
  audience scenes. We shot them all together.
• 55:44
  So like for for the first concert that doesn't happen, for
• 55:47
  the the weird poetry readings and all that.
• 55:49
  And then for the final song, we shot those all together over a
• 55:53
  few days. Oh, sure, yeah.
• 55:55
  So we were in the middle of of shooting sashay song in in the
• 56:00
  the audience. I started out when it when red
• 56:02
  wasn't there. I started out doing icy Joe in
• 56:04
  the audience and we were so that was, you know, very active.
• 56:10
  And I just, I started getting a bit tired and generally for
• 56:14
  season 2, Ben Deroche was kind of my icy Joe stand in for like
• 56:18
  all the crazy running around and, and the great reddish ball
• 56:22
  and and stuff like that. So Ben was assisting me and I
• 56:25
  asked, could we swap? Can you hold up Icy Joe?
• 56:27
  And I'll, I'll do the hands, you know.
• 56:29
  And, and then later that day, I was just feeling really tired in
• 56:36
  the, in the morning. I was not, not feeling good.
• 56:39
  And, and it, it turns out I, I had COVID, which was at that
• 56:44
  time we had vaccines. So it wasn't as, as serious, but
• 56:50
  it was like 3 weeks of bad flu. So of course I'll let everybody
• 56:54
  know that I was, you know, standing next to and, and at
• 56:57
  that, at that time when we shot that we were still, when we
• 57:00
  weren't talking, we were wearing masks.
• 57:03
  The whole crew was required to just for, for, for safety.
• 57:07
  And so, so for that, that scene of of Inspector Red and doing
• 57:14
  the Texas, which that was all Allie Eisner.
• 57:17
  They they're my, my, my, my red Fraggle assistant and and stand
• 57:25
  in. So they did for that that whole
• 57:27
  scene with Red and Inspector Red in in that that cave.
• 57:31
  That was all Allie. They did.
• 57:33
  They did a great job. Now I just I just dubbed it
• 57:36
  dubbed it afterwards. But yeah, any, any chance to,
• 57:42
  to, you know, bring just a quick Inspector Red thing is, is is so
• 57:47
  fun. And for the later scenes with
• 57:48
  Gobo that was shot earlier and I was, I was doing Inspector Red
• 57:53
  for, for, for that. But yeah, I'm I'm glad Ali was
• 57:57
  able to to jump in and and have have fun with her.
• 58:01
  Absolutely, yeah. And it's, it's, it's seamless.
• 58:03
  I would have, we would have never known.
• 58:05
  Ali is very good at their job, so that's no surprise there.
• 58:09
  And I love that we're we're talking about this Texas switch
• 58:12
  and that, you know, Red pops down and pops back up in the
• 58:15
  outfit, but then Red has to pop down a second time because on
• 58:18
  the 1st pop up, she forgot her magnifying glass, which I think
• 58:21
  is spot on. Hysterical.
• 58:25
  Now Gobo has a reaction to this. Like he does not seem happy to
• 58:28
  see Inspector Red. Does he have like a historical
• 58:33
  distaste for Inspector Red like kind of like Red does for Matt's
• 58:37
  postcards? I don't, I don't think that's
• 58:42
  that was the the idea of it. I think any anything at all that
• 58:48
  interferes with Gobo's idea that there's no problem, there's no
• 58:55
  problem here. But when someone Inspector Red
• 58:58
  showing up is kind of a hint that there's a problem.
• 59:02
  Sure. It's, it's it's just kind of on
• 59:05
  on, you know, it's it's Gobo's, Gobo's denial to no, sure, sure.
• 59:10
  Show up. There's no, there's no problem.
• 59:12
  Oh, why are you doing Inspector Red?
• 59:13
  There's no problem. Yeah.
• 59:14
  I think that's more of what that was.
• 59:16
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
• 59:18
  Yeah, you're right, 'cause as the number one mezzo head Gobo
• 59:21
  is, he's determined to lead the hunt to find mezzo.
• 59:25
  He says that maybe she got lost in confusing Turn Cave, which is
• 59:29
  not just a silly name. And at this point we we do get
• 59:35
  like another pan like through the impatient audience.
• 59:38
  And there's one shot that I I wanted to point out, which is I
• 59:42
  see Joe like leaning down like like at eye level almost with
• 59:47
  gluey Rudy. And to see the two of them, that
• 59:50
  juxtaposition is like, it's a great shot and it's a great
• 59:54
  moment of just like this huge fraggle and the tiny little
• 59:58
  thing that I don't even know how you can perform something that's
• 1:00:01
  like the size of a finger. Yeah, it's it's that's and, and
• 1:00:06
  Frank performs Gluey Gluey Rudy. So it's a yeah, little little
• 1:00:10
  rod puppet. I would love if if we do some
• 1:00:12
  more to have Icy Joe and Gluey Rudy get up to some high jinx I
• 1:00:17
  think. It would be a good, oh, a
• 1:00:19
  little, a little back door spin off.
• 1:00:21
  We'll get them going on a little adventure away from Fraggle
• 1:00:24
  Rock. Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  See what shenanigans get into. Are they best friends?
• 1:00:29
  Do you think they can hang out like we'll see I guess, but do
• 1:00:33
  you think they hang out with like other like the other
• 1:00:35
  fraggles are doing stuff? I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:00:38
  I mean, I can imagine because I see Joe's got her her cave to
• 1:00:42
  get away from things and and Glee Rudy might seems like he
• 1:00:50
  might be, you know, kind of kind of a a similar kind of kind of
• 1:00:55
  character. So I don't know.
• 1:00:57
  Yeah, they're both. They're both a little, just like
• 1:00:58
  a little bit ornery, a little bit rude, a little bit too
• 1:01:02
  forward. Yeah.
• 1:01:05
  OK, all right, we're planning that seat as well.
• 1:01:07
  Season three, we'll see. Jandalen tries to appease the
• 1:01:13
  crowd by saying Oh no, no, no, mezzo's coming.
• 1:01:16
  We just have an opening act. And 1st World's oldest Fraggle
• 1:01:21
  says I can grow a beard. And then Pokey says me too,
• 1:01:25
  which oh God no see Pokey grow a beard.
• 1:01:30
  What a great visual. I can't Unsee it.
• 1:01:33
  Barry Blueberry declines. He says not tonight, saving the
• 1:01:37
  gift. And he kind of gestures to his
• 1:01:38
  voice box. Hysterical.
• 1:01:40
  That feels like such a Johnny Tartaglia line of like just ad
• 1:01:46
  libbing. Not that I think that was it.
• 1:01:47
  I think I was in the script. Yeah.
• 1:01:49
  But you know, Johnny. Johnny, just.
• 1:01:51
  Yeah. He sells it so good.
• 1:01:55
  Jam Dylan calls on the storyteller.
• 1:01:56
  This is like her job. Like, please come and tell us a
• 1:01:59
  story or something. And so instead of telling a
• 1:02:01
  story, she does some spoken word poetry.
• 1:02:04
  OK, So I, I have to know. OK, first of all, I'm going to
• 1:02:07
  read the poem. And then so it's Fraggle Rock
• 1:02:13
  lost Sock, which Buber likes, and she says I see who I see.
• 1:02:20
  No, I see Joe, I see sock. Is any of this scripted or is it
• 1:02:26
  just Donna being Donna? That that was that was in in the
• 1:02:31
  in the script, yeah. Incredible.
• 1:02:33
  What a weird thing whose brain came up with I see who I see no,
• 1:02:39
  I see Joe, I see Sock. That's it's that's unhinged.
• 1:02:43
  I, I, I assume it's Emily's. I don't, I don't know the, the
• 1:02:48
  details, but yeah, that was, that was in the, the script.
• 1:02:50
  And man, whenever there's a storyteller bit like this,
• 1:02:58
  everybody is like, oh, get out your popcorn.
• 1:03:00
  Donna's gonna kill it. And she did.
• 1:03:02
  It was just so fun and and you know, just trying to keep quiet
• 1:03:07
  and not laugh during the take while she's doing doing and then
• 1:03:10
  the take ends and everybody's burst out laughing.
• 1:03:13
  Storyteller might be my favorite character.
• 1:03:18
  What Donna does, it just it cracks me.
• 1:03:21
  It cracks everybody up and and Karen's right, like everybody
• 1:03:24
  wants to be there when Storyteller is good.
• 1:03:26
  Oh yeah. You got it.
• 1:03:28
  You got it. Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  Yeah. And then even too, I remember
• 1:03:31
  somewhere on the depths of my phone they did a playback.
• 1:03:33
  And I want to say Donna, I'm sure she did some improv, too,
• 1:03:38
  like she had a million ideas. And I remember filming playback
• 1:03:41
  on my phone just so I'd always have that, just so I could.
• 1:03:44
  Good. I'm glad.
• 1:03:45
  Please share that with me if you still have that.
• 1:03:47
  I'd love to see that. Yeah, no.
• 1:03:49
  And it's funny, 'cause like even her, her delivery, her line
• 1:03:54
  deliveries for lines that are not supposed to be like as
• 1:03:58
  unhinged as something like this. Like when, when Jamdelin's like
• 1:04:01
  storyteller, you come on up here and she kind of does this like,
• 1:04:04
  all right, like like here we go. It's just like she's like ready
• 1:04:07
  to go. But in a way where it's like,
• 1:04:08
  that's my job on it. That's what she says on it.
• 1:04:11
  And it's, it's so like perfect. It's perfect.
• 1:04:16
  Again, all of you, you puppeteers on the show, so good
• 1:04:19
  at your jobs. I love it.
• 1:04:22
  And then she gets to turn around with Moki and also kill it with
• 1:04:27
  Moki getting getting big, big and and weird, you know, in a
• 1:04:31
  totally different way. Yeah, and the Cotter pin against
• 1:04:37
  the the architect, like Donna could be such a good straight
• 1:04:40
  man. I mean, good God, so good at her
• 1:04:46
  job. Amazing.
• 1:04:49
  So Gobo is searching through the caves and he's shouting mezzo,
• 1:04:52
  mezzo, and there's a little green creature pops up and it's
• 1:04:56
  like a column for me. And this is the debut of Little
• 1:05:00
  Rag O Who thought that when Gobo said mezzo, he was saying Little
• 1:05:04
  Rag O, which kind of sounds the same, but not really.
• 1:05:09
  It's such a great non sequitur. It's so like, oh, OK, well call
• 1:05:13
  me if you need me. Whatever it is, it's just like
• 1:05:15
  like who is this Little Rag O who?
• 1:05:17
  We'll see you again in a few minutes.
• 1:05:20
  And that's. That's that's Ingrid.
• 1:05:23
  Yeah, that's Ingrid Hansen. Yeah.
• 1:05:25
  Just just have having fun with this, this little little little
• 1:05:29
  quick gag character, but just but just eating it out.
• 1:05:33
  Yeah. And again, like we're, we're
• 1:05:35
  talking earlier about like Gobo as a thing for like seats.
• 1:05:39
  It's like such a little thing. And like, yeah, Lil Razzo,
• 1:05:42
  excuse me, Lil Raggo thinks that, you know, people are
• 1:05:46
  calling their name like that's it's such a little thing.
• 1:05:48
  And yet it's so true and it's so funny.
• 1:05:53
  And Speaking of someone whose name is Joe, like I, there's a
• 1:05:55
  lot of words that sound like my name.
• 1:05:57
  So I always feel like in the distance, someone's calling my
• 1:06:00
  name. And I got it.
• 1:06:01
  It's like you talking to me. No, you said something that
• 1:06:03
  doesn't sound anything like my name.
• 1:06:04
  OK, well, just checking and moving on.
• 1:06:09
  Also. Oh, there's also signs all over
• 1:06:12
  this cave that he's in with like arrows pointing in different
• 1:06:15
  directions and curled arrows and things like that.
• 1:06:17
  Because of course he's in The Cave of he's in confusing turn
• 1:06:20
  cave, which I don't think I picked up on that the first time
• 1:06:24
  I watched this, that like, oh, it is confusing and they put up
• 1:06:27
  signs to make it more confusing. Great, why not?
• 1:06:30
  That, you know, and that that makes me think at, at some, at
• 1:06:32
  some point it, it, it would have been a lot to do just for one
• 1:06:36
  gag in the show. But we need like the Fraggle
• 1:06:39
  equivalent of the Escher maze, which is just like, you know,
• 1:06:42
  all the, all the gravity and everything all over the place.
• 1:06:46
  And that would be, yeah. I I like the idea that maybe
• 1:06:50
  that was what someone had in mind when they put in the script
• 1:06:53
  and they're like, we don't have the budget.
• 1:06:55
  It's like fine, just get some cardboard and a sharpie.
• 1:06:58
  Moving on. Cost us all $12.00.
• 1:07:02
  Like if you can't, if you can't do it expensive, do it cheap.
• 1:07:05
  No middle ground. And, and I, I don't know if you
• 1:07:09
  cat with with when Inspector Red shows up in that scene, tried to
• 1:07:14
  do a repeat of a gag from the original, original series
• 1:07:19
  Inspector Red show where she is in someone, someone's cave.
• 1:07:26
  I don't know if it's Buber's or Gobo and Wembley's cave.
• 1:07:28
  And she is looking around and she's looking through her glass
• 1:07:32
  and she turns and that she gets scared by Gobo and Wembley are
• 1:07:35
  in the window. And so I, I wanted to do a
• 1:07:39
  repeat of that gag. But we have it now with with
• 1:07:42
  with with with Gobo. But it does come out beforehand.
• 1:07:49
  So it's not, it's not pure, pure surprise, but he he turns around
• 1:07:53
  and then Inspector Red is there looking at him.
• 1:07:55
  So she gets she get if 40 years later, she gets back at him.
• 1:07:58
  That's great to do a little, little jump scare.
• 1:08:00
  Yes, Yeah. Only took her 40 years but yes.
• 1:08:04
  Revenge. So yeah, so as you said,
• 1:08:11
  Inspector Red shows up and Red says, OK, I'll leave you alone
• 1:08:14
  if you can win a game of rock radish pond, which I guess is
• 1:08:19
  like rock, paper, scissors. But what I love about this is
• 1:08:23
  they both seem to throw out a fist.
• 1:08:25
  Like I think Red throws out a rock and Gobo throws out a
• 1:08:29
  radish but like they look exactly the same with their
• 1:08:32
  little rod hands. With the yeah, with the little
• 1:08:35
  little bitty fingers, I think the radish was.
• 1:08:39
  Do you have a pinky up? Is it?
• 1:08:40
  11 pinky one pinky out was was the radish.
• 1:08:44
  But just trying to get that and, and plus trying us trying to,
• 1:08:48
  you know, hit, hit the marks with our puppets and get the
• 1:08:51
  hands to to read and, and and all that kind of stuff and get
• 1:08:57
  the hand pose to read with a little bitty finger.
• 1:09:00
  And if it's twisted the wrong way, you can't see it.
• 1:09:02
  So we, we were trying that several times to, to, to, to get
• 1:09:07
  it to, to read So, and finally you could see Gobo's got his,
• 1:09:11
  his pinky ads. It's.
• 1:09:12
  Oh, I'll have to look for that. It's different enough.
• 1:09:14
  Yeah, OK. I'll take your word.
• 1:09:15
  For it, but it's because their hands are just kind of, you
• 1:09:18
  know, they have these these big fat palms with, with the little
• 1:09:21
  things. So they're just trying to come
• 1:09:22
  up with something that would read for the different, the
• 1:09:25
  different things. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:29
  So they hear a mysterious voice and they look over and they see
• 1:09:34
  the big shadow of Mezzo. And Red uses her magnifying
• 1:09:39
  glass to look down and see that it's actually a very tiny mezzo
• 1:09:43
  is like the size of a bug, like the size of a twiddle bug.
• 1:09:47
  I think specifically, I wonder, I wonder if that's something
• 1:09:51
  that was maybe planned out, like way smaller than a Doozer even.
• 1:09:56
  So like I I love that, you know, we're we're not just building
• 1:10:01
  like a little Doozer size Fraggle like you, like you guys
• 1:10:03
  used on the old show and sometimes on this one.
• 1:10:06
  But like, it's just like, no, we need to go smaller.
• 1:10:08
  It needs to be the size of a bug.
• 1:10:09
  It needs to be really, really tiny.
• 1:10:11
  And she's standing in front of Gobo's Lantern, which is how
• 1:10:13
  she's casting that big shadow. And yeah, we meet Mezzo for the
• 1:10:18
  first time. She is voiced by Ariana Dubose,
• 1:10:21
  Oscar winner Ariana Dubose, I should say.
• 1:10:24
  And I believe Donna Kimball is doing the puppetry.
• 1:10:26
  Is that right? Oh yes.
• 1:10:29
  Oh, and that's again, Donna killing it with the beautiful
• 1:10:33
  performance. And then when they get into the
• 1:10:36
  the dancing, Donna is so good just figuring out full, full
• 1:10:39
  body choreography with with dancing or, or just just simple
• 1:10:43
  physical movement. And she's got people that always
• 1:10:46
  jump into to a sister. So when when they get into the
• 1:10:49
  the dancing later on, it's just it's just amazing.
• 1:10:53
  So yeah, that's that's Donna doing a a beautiful, beautiful
• 1:10:57
  job with that character. That's great.
• 1:10:59
  Yeah. And the design is great too.
• 1:11:01
  And we could talk about all all four of the the band members,
• 1:11:04
  but like, she's got these thigh high boots and she's bright pink
• 1:11:08
  and she's got a big stripe across her, her, her torso and
• 1:11:11
  she's got these beautiful wings. Just a great designs.
• 1:11:16
  The other band members, which according to the Muppet Wiki,
• 1:11:20
  I'm sure you you you all know this, but their names are 12
• 1:11:24
  Toes, Dusty, and Munchies if I got that right.
• 1:11:29
  I don't remember that. I don't know if they had
• 1:11:34
  different names for. That's not that's not what I I
• 1:11:37
  remember, so I'm not I'm not sure.
• 1:11:39
  What do you What do you remember?
• 1:11:40
  Gosh, I I don't know that that was around.
• 1:11:42
  I was supposed to the one that plays the keyboard.
• 1:11:45
  I was supposed to play her and I think I did a few shots of her.
• 1:11:47
  But when it came time to do the song, I was, I was home.
• 1:11:52
  So and, and the Kumar jumped in and did the performing the leg
• 1:11:55
  up on the keyboard. Yeah, that was cool.
• 1:11:57
  Cool shot. So, yeah.
• 1:11:58
  So I, I was just around for a few bits of their stuff and
• 1:12:03
  yeah, I can't, I can't remember, but I, I, I was trying to
• 1:12:07
  remember, you know, we, we first see her shadow and I think I, I
• 1:12:12
  don't think I was here for shooting that, but I think they
• 1:12:15
  actually had the big puppet in, in the set to cast a nice clean
• 1:12:22
  shadow on, on. I, I think it was an actual
• 1:12:25
  shadow and not making a, a silhouette in post and sticking
• 1:12:29
  around. I think they actually, I'm not
• 1:12:31
  sure about that, but I think that's, that's what they did.
• 1:12:34
  And the interesting thing about her design when we were
• 1:12:36
  discussing her design, because we do see in advance some
• 1:12:41
  posters of Mezzo and there were, there were all kinds of
• 1:12:49
  different design thing ideas explored, some that were truly
• 1:12:53
  very insect looking. And, and then the, the thought
• 1:12:58
  was with those posters in advance and it looks like an
• 1:13:01
  insect, it might give away what's happening.
• 1:13:05
  So the idea was we'll make them look, have the face and the
• 1:13:10
  proportions look fraggly. So just between the the fraggles
• 1:13:15
  acting like they're familiar with this character and seeing
• 1:13:18
  posters, the audience is just going to assume, oh, it's, it's
• 1:13:21
  a Fraggle or Fraggle sized creature.
• 1:13:24
  So that that's just a little, a little thing that kind of helps
• 1:13:28
  with the with the, the the misdirection is having an
• 1:13:31
  almost, almost fraggily design for them.
• 1:13:37
  Yeah, I appreciate that, especially because, you know,
• 1:13:40
  it's the same with the craggles and the mergels where it's like
• 1:13:43
  the the differences between these species are so subtle.
• 1:13:46
  You know, like the eyes are a little bit different or the
• 1:13:48
  coloring's a little bit different.
• 1:13:49
  And here we've got, obviously they've got wings, but they've
• 1:13:51
  also got these torsos that are like very furry with a big
• 1:13:55
  stripe across, across the midsection.
• 1:13:59
  But but Speaking of that, do they have a name for the
• 1:14:03
  species? Did you decide something behind
• 1:14:06
  the scenes? Not not that I I know of.
• 1:14:10
  And those, those puppets were, they were custom made like for
• 1:14:15
  the, for the murgles and the, and the, the craggles and, and
• 1:14:19
  the lost fraggles. It's they used the, the same
• 1:14:21
  bodies and heads for that. They're used for a background
• 1:14:24
  fraggles. But these, these guys were, they
• 1:14:26
  were all custom made because they're just different,
• 1:14:28
  different enough. The shapes were just different
• 1:14:30
  and the colors just different enough that they are their,
• 1:14:33
  their own thing. But yes, I am not aware of any
• 1:14:40
  name. It was.
• 1:14:41
  It was just Mezzo's. Mezzo's band.
• 1:14:44
  OK, as far as I know for now, yeah.
• 1:14:46
  For now. For now, that's, that's the
• 1:14:49
  important thing. We'll, we'll decide something.
• 1:14:51
  Maybe when Mezzo's tour comes back through, we'll see.
• 1:14:56
  Gobo recognizes them as the bugs that he shooed away at the
• 1:15:00
  concert hall. And so he's like, Oh, well, if I
• 1:15:02
  knew you were an important band, I would never would have done
• 1:15:04
  that. And it's like Mezzo kind of
• 1:15:06
  calls him out on it, saying likely you shouldn't be treating
• 1:15:08
  anybody like that, you know, important or not.
• 1:15:12
  I, I love how he, he states that he is so oblivious, yes, when he
• 1:15:18
  states that whereas the audience, anybody else is like,
• 1:15:22
  oh, no, he never comes. Well, of course.
• 1:15:26
  And it's like, and then for, for for her to call in.
• 1:15:30
  And I was like, Oh yeah, that's like that.
• 1:15:33
  It's so, so big, but it's just handled so, so well.
• 1:15:37
  It's true, yeah. And that definitely has like
• 1:15:39
  larger implications in Society of people who are treated
• 1:15:42
  differently because they, you know, are perceived as like a
• 1:15:48
  higher or lower cast. And you know that obviously
• 1:15:53
  that's that's a big topic that we don't really have time to get
• 1:15:56
  into and in this wonderful children's show, but.
• 1:16:00
  But even even even something that doesn't register to as as
• 1:16:08
  as being in a specific hierarchy, but almost being
• 1:16:10
  inconsequential, yeah. And so to just a just a hit gobo
• 1:16:16
  with that really, you know, really, really hard.
• 1:16:21
  But just in a, in a very, you know, strong and respectful way
• 1:16:27
  is just, you know, the, the, the the writing and the performing.
• 1:16:31
  It just handles it so well. Yeah, after he reads travelling
• 1:16:37
  Mat's postcard, which is a a story about him, you know,
• 1:16:40
  playing pick up basketball with with some some youths, he's Gobo
• 1:16:46
  says, well, there's something I need to do.
• 1:16:48
  And then little Raggo shows up again and says somebody say
• 1:16:50
  little Raggo Gobo's like, no, I said there's something I need to
• 1:16:55
  do. Which again, I guess it doesn't
• 1:16:56
  not sound like Lil Rag O, but it really doesn't sound like Lil
• 1:16:59
  Rag O. What a great running gag.
• 1:17:01
  I love it. I I wish it happened 12 times in
• 1:17:04
  this episode. Thank you for the gift of Lil
• 1:17:10
  Rag O Love them. Oh, Rag O kind of showed every
• 1:17:14
  once in a while there's a little bit of Rag O, you know, so.
• 1:17:16
  That's, that's good, yeah. There are more chances to to
• 1:17:19
  revisit Rag O. Yeah, good, good.
• 1:17:22
  I need, I need to see more of them back at the concerts.
• 1:17:26
  OK, so now there's like, obviously they've been going
• 1:17:28
  through all these different acts, opening acts, we should
• 1:17:30
  say. Moki's doing like this weird
• 1:17:32
  ribbon dance. And Wembley is dressed in the in
• 1:17:35
  black with a beret and he's playing the bongos and it's very
• 1:17:39
  artsy. I think they literally say art
• 1:17:41
  at the end. Oh, yeah.
• 1:17:43
  Yep. Great, great stuff.
• 1:17:45
  I love seeing how it's like on the old Fraggle Rock.
• 1:17:50
  Moki's art was always very passive.
• 1:17:52
  Very, like meditative and I love that this new version of Moki is
• 1:17:58
  like, no art can also be in your face.
• 1:18:01
  And it could, it could be anything, which is absolutely
• 1:18:04
  true. And for her and Wembley to, they
• 1:18:06
  say they just made it up on the spot and it feels that way.
• 1:18:09
  But it's like, yeah, sure, do anything.
• 1:18:11
  It's art, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:14
  I love they just they just kind of, you know, bring bring the
• 1:18:17
  weird with with the, you know, pushing what what they do with
• 1:18:21
  with with both, both the the the characters.
• 1:18:24
  But yeah, just, and again, it's just a little little brief
• 1:18:28
  thing, but it's just such a gem. It really is, Yeah.
• 1:18:33
  Gobo takes the stage. He admits that he messed up by
• 1:18:37
  dismissing Mezzo for being so small.
• 1:18:39
  He goes to this big apology. He also apologizes to the
• 1:18:42
  doosers 'cause he did the same thing to them.
• 1:18:45
  And then Mezzo pops up. I guess it's like a is it like a
• 1:18:49
  rock is rising from the ground and she's on it.
• 1:18:52
  Yeah, yeah. Which is cool, I I didn't know
• 1:18:55
  that rocks could do that, but here we are, hey?
• 1:18:58
  It's, you know, it's the, the magical world of, of fragile
• 1:19:02
  rock. So.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, and maybe that's concert cave, you know, maybe that's
• 1:19:06
  like there's, there's stages there.
• 1:19:09
  Sure. And and you know, and how the
• 1:19:11
  images reflect on the big screens up top.
• 1:19:13
  It's all part of that's why concert Cave is used for for
• 1:19:16
  concerts. It's got all those neat things,
• 1:19:18
  I. Didn't even think about that.
• 1:19:20
  I'm so used to seeing. It's like the screens on the
• 1:19:23
  ceiling, so you could see up close, like a like a, you know,
• 1:19:25
  if you've got the Nosebleed seats, you can still see what's
• 1:19:28
  happening on stage. And I'm so used to seeing that
• 1:19:31
  in concerts. It didn't even occur to me like
• 1:19:33
  they're in a cave. Like, how did they?
• 1:19:36
  Yeah, concert cave. It's like some kind of magical
• 1:19:40
  more, more of the the reflection magnification magic just just
• 1:19:45
  makes it makes it work, yeah. Yeah, magic on magic.
• 1:19:49
  So Mezzo agrees to play the concert, and this is where we
• 1:19:52
  get our second song of the episode.
• 1:19:54
  It is Do the Sashay, which is from the original series episode
• 1:19:58
  Wonder Mountain, where some singing cacti sing it to Red and
• 1:20:04
  hypnotize her. Yeah, great.
• 1:20:08
  That's good stuff. Beautiful.
• 1:20:09
  Beautiful update of, of the, of the song and my, my, my gosh,
• 1:20:14
  all the, the choreography that Donna did with, with her team,
• 1:20:18
  with the, the, the stepping with the boots.
• 1:20:20
  It's like sometimes with with a puppet, you get the finished
• 1:20:24
  puppet and realize, oh, we could do this with the boots and we
• 1:20:27
  can control her knees. So sometimes you don't realize
• 1:20:30
  till you get the puppet on and it's like, oh, we can do this,
• 1:20:32
  we can do this. So because I think the puppets
• 1:20:35
  came together pretty, pretty quick, close, close to the end.
• 1:20:38
  So it would have been a case of like, you know, seeing the
• 1:20:41
  puppet and, and realizing, oh, we could do all these things.
• 1:20:45
  And then Donna and her team just jumping on that and coming up
• 1:20:48
  with that, that choreography pretty, pretty close to, to to
• 1:20:52
  shooting and just knocking it out of the park.
• 1:20:55
  Absolutely. I would have never known that
• 1:20:57
  they didn't have a ton of time to prepare, you know, all that
• 1:21:00
  choreography because it looks great and it feels very poppy,
• 1:21:03
  very concert Y in a way that, like, other stuff on Fraggle
• 1:21:07
  Rock doesn't, which is good. Like, it shouldn't feel like,
• 1:21:09
  just more of the same. And of course, like Ariana
• 1:21:13
  Dubose nailing this song, like, not a shock.
• 1:21:17
  Yeah, that she's just does an amazing job singing this Fraggle
• 1:21:20
  song. And it makes me want to have a
• 1:21:22
  whole, a whole album of like, these Broadway stars singing
• 1:21:25
  Fraggle Rock songs. Like, why not, right between her
• 1:21:30
  and David, Good God. And we also get some fun
• 1:21:35
  choreography from the band, the rest of the bands and the folks
• 1:21:37
  in the audience. Everyone's having a great time.
• 1:21:39
  Andy, I assume you're just, you're on Jandalen duty for this
• 1:21:42
  entire number. Yeah, excuse me, They shots like
• 1:21:47
  Mezzo was all done in the cube and I wasn't a part of it
• 1:21:50
  because I was busy with Jandalen most of the shoe.
• 1:21:54
  But I remember watching, just dropping by and looking and just
• 1:21:56
  thinking, wow, this is this is going to be great.
• 1:21:59
  Yeah, y'all made a whole rock concert there.
• 1:22:02
  Yeah, it's great. Yeah, Andy's.
• 1:22:05
  Andy's one of our amazing choreography people.
• 1:22:09
  Usually when there's like fancy footwork like for on the same
• 1:22:12
  page. I, I think when, when it was red
• 1:22:15
  and Wembley and and Boober, I think you're, you're in there
• 1:22:18
  doing, doing a lot of that stuff.
• 1:22:20
  So whenever Andy's available, it's like we try to get him in
• 1:22:24
  helping out with the the choreography and, and it's, it's
• 1:22:28
  really good just to kind of briefly say something like this
• 1:22:31
  and then just trust that you'll, you'll, you'll do it and it'll,
• 1:22:35
  it'll be just so, so, so fun. So, so thank you for that, Andy,
• 1:22:40
  you, you help you help make the choreography awesome.
• 1:22:44
  It's one of my favorite things to do especially well, one of my
• 1:22:47
  favorites was from the first season was the Ink Spots with
• 1:22:51
  Red when she did her her song. Absolutely love doing that.
• 1:22:56
  Yeah. That's awesome.
• 1:22:59
  I I can't even walk in time, let alone like remember choreography
• 1:23:04
  that all has to happen like above your elbow, by the way,
• 1:23:08
  like that's insane. You guys are very good at your
• 1:23:12
  jobs. I know I said that a lot, but
• 1:23:14
  it's so true. I need to say it over and over
• 1:23:16
  again. Well done.
• 1:23:18
  And this is pretty much where our episode ends.
• 1:23:20
  We end on on mezzo singing this great song.
• 1:23:23
  There's a great camera shots, by the way, There's a great, my
• 1:23:25
  favorite is there's an overhead shot of her with I guess it's
• 1:23:28
  her dress kind of like shoots out like a sun and she spins and
• 1:23:32
  like, oh, it's so good. Great stuff and flying.
• 1:23:36
  She's got her beautiful wings that that unfold another kind of
• 1:23:41
  misdirection with the costumes. You see they have capes, then
• 1:23:43
  realize, oh, that's part of them being insects.
• 1:23:46
  It's their. It's their wings and.
• 1:23:48
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so they, they, they really
• 1:23:53
  went to town with, with just all the the beautiful designs and
• 1:23:56
  the the costumes for for these characters plus plus the
• 1:24:00
  performances and the and the the choreography is just a, a, a
• 1:24:06
  beautiful, beautiful recipe of creativity coming together.
• 1:24:10
  Absolutely. That's been everything in my
• 1:24:12
  experience watching this new Fraggle rock.
• 1:24:15
  The scripts, the direction, the the puppet building, the props,
• 1:24:20
  the performances, the music. Like what a perfect storm of a,
• 1:24:24
  of a series. I honestly like the fact that no
• 1:24:28
  one is like slacking. Like there's not one department
• 1:24:31
  that's like, but only if they did a little bit, but no,
• 1:24:34
  everyone's going above and beyond and it really comes
• 1:24:36
  across on the screen. I really love it.
• 1:24:40
  Yeah, yeah. It's wonderful to be a part of
• 1:24:42
  it, wonderful to watch other other people doing, doing, doing
• 1:24:47
  amazing things because we'll just kind of bounce off each
• 1:24:50
  other and and inspire each other.
• 1:24:53
  Yeah. So with that end of this
• 1:24:56
  episode, do you have any other memories from the mezzo episode
• 1:25:02
  or anything else that you want to bring up that we we didn't
• 1:25:05
  get to or that we skimmed over? Just got we, we just, we just
• 1:25:09
  hit so many epic moments in, in this, this season and some, you
• 1:25:15
  know, pushing what we, we did with some with, with, with some,
• 1:25:21
  some characters. I just love, love how we're,
• 1:25:25
  we're, we're exploring and going deeper with some existing
• 1:25:29
  characters and then finding special things to do with, with
• 1:25:33
  new characters. I just hope we get a chance to
• 1:25:35
  do more and continue that journey.
• 1:25:38
  Me too. What a crime it will be if you
• 1:25:42
  guys don't get that chance to just continue this this
• 1:25:45
  wonderful series. Cross fingers crossed.
• 1:25:48
  Blubious. On it my blubious is in knots.
• 1:25:54
  Andy, Karen, one last question for each of you.
• 1:25:58
  How do you plan to make the world a little fragglier?
• 1:26:03
  I've been on a a wonderful journey doing a, a six day bike
• 1:26:07
  tour with a, a, a group of of people and it was a very fraggly
• 1:26:12
  experience. Just people that really clicked
• 1:26:15
  and seeing beautiful things and and doing a lot of a lot of
• 1:26:20
  physical challenges, but just come together as as a as a team
• 1:26:25
  and looking out for each each other.
• 1:26:27
  And I just want to continue doing that for myself, but also
• 1:26:35
  think if I can inspire other people to do that.
• 1:26:38
  Just get together, get out in the world, share, share
• 1:26:41
  experiences and, you know, just just find, just find ways to, to
• 1:26:47
  connect with, with activities, 'cause, you know, the Fraggles
• 1:26:51
  are just so active and doing all these amazing things.
• 1:26:55
  And I'm not gonna be jumping off cliffs into swimming pools or
• 1:27:00
  some of the things the Fraggles do, but just getting out and,
• 1:27:05
  and sharing physical experiences with, with people.
• 1:27:09
  Definitely gonna gonna continue doing that.
• 1:27:12
  I love that, Andy. You know, I've been thinking
• 1:27:16
  about this question too because you asked it before the past
• 1:27:20
  like week. I've been doing a lot of doom
• 1:27:23
  scrolling just with all the the political climate and all the
• 1:27:27
  news and it, which is very boobery.
• 1:27:31
  Yeah, Uber would be a doom scroller.
• 1:27:33
  Yeah, absolutely. Fraggles had phones.
• 1:27:36
  Yeah, but but I was, I started to become aware of how much I
• 1:27:40
  was doing that. And I'm like, you know what, I
• 1:27:42
  need more silliness, which is also very fragility.
• 1:27:46
  So that's kind of my goal. I I want to inject a little more
• 1:27:51
  whimsy and silliness into the world, especially now easy, you
• 1:27:55
  know, very serious and worried. So that's that's my plan.
• 1:27:59
  I think that's great, all right? We're going to be more active,
• 1:28:01
  we're going to get more silliness in our lives.
• 1:28:03
  We're not going to doom scroll. All these are all great things.
• 1:28:07
  Yeah, yeah. Sounds good.
• 1:28:09
  Keep our Bulubias crossed for a third season of Fraggle Rock.
• 1:28:13
  Yes, yes. All good things.
• 1:28:16
  Andy Hayward, Karen Prell, thank you both so much for being here.
• 1:28:20
  Such a joy to get to talk to you both.
• 1:28:22
  I hope that we get more and more chances to do this because you
• 1:28:26
  guys will be doing more and more Fraggle Rock work.
• 1:28:29
  So looking forward to having you back.
• 1:28:31
  I'm just going to manifest it. It's going to happen.
• 1:28:32
  We'll have you back on the podcast.
• 1:28:33
  It's done. It'll happen.
• 1:28:35
  Great. Good, good.
• 1:28:38
  Thank you so much. It's it's always, always fun and
• 1:28:41
  I appreciate you helping spread the the world about the the word
• 1:28:45
  about Fraggles to the wide world out there.
• 1:28:48
  Doing what we can, doing our best.
• 1:29:02
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• 1:29:05
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• 1:29:08
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• 1:29:11
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• 1:29:17
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