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We're Just Puppets Thrown Back into the World · Movie Meltdown

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Greg Nicotero from The Walking Dead.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: This is Movie Meltdown. It's showtime.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: The following feature has been rated R by the Motion
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: one million kilowatts of power.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: What's up and welcome to Movie.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Meltdown, I'm Brian.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: I'm Misty.
• 1:03
  Speaker 6: And we're coming to you live via digital recording from
• 1:07
  Speaker 6: out in the world.
• 1:08
  Speaker 7: The world you say?
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Misty.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: We are out in the world.
• 1:29
  Speaker 6: I know, and it's so stressful.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: There are people around us, not really right now, because
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: we try to get away from them, but all day.
• 1:36
  Speaker 6: I've missed it, and I've hated it at the same time.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We're coming to you live via digital recording from Wonderfest.
• 1:42
  Speaker 6: Not that I hate it. I mean, I love the convention.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's awesome.
• 1:44
  Speaker 6: But I seriously miss social distancing.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: As previously, that was our last episode. We recapped how
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: much we were already missing it. And now, we're getting
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to exercise it out in the real world.
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: I've been like people and they've all been locked up
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: for the past year and they don't understand how to
• 2:02
  Speaker 6: people again.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I mean geeks were never really smooth interacting with people.
• 2:07
  Speaker 6: But at least they would get into a routine of
• 2:09
  Speaker 6: like how to do things. And now that routine is gone.
• 2:12
  Speaker 6: Now it's just like fucking Armageddon out there as far as.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I need to get it.
• 2:17
  Speaker 6: I need to get it.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Don't want to run you over to get to it.
• 2:19
  Speaker 6: I need stuff. I haven't gotten stuff in a long time.
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: I have missed stuff though.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 2:24
  Speaker 6: I did get free stuff today. I don't remember the
• 2:27
  Speaker 6: people who gave it to me, so I can't, like,
• 2:29
  Speaker 6: push him in any way.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I think it was Cult TV, man. Only because he's
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: on the back of this thing here. So, he's not
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: actually official sponsor, but he did give you free.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Toys, so.
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: And I stole Brian's, so.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I gave it to you. What am I going to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: do with a Romulan Bird of Prey or whatever it was?
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: You had the Enterprise. I had the fucking, I had
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: the Klingon.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Warbird or some shit like that.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: Anyways.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Space monkey.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Something like that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 6: Now I can set them up for fight scenes.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know. We'll trade and then
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: you'll have the Enterprise. But what's the Enterprise going to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: do if it doesn't have a ship to fight? So
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: now you get both of them. I bought a rat thing.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: That was my purchase the other day. I got a reissued,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming 3D printed, slightly larger version than the old
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: ones that I used to pay like a quarter for
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: in the machine.
• 3:11
  Speaker 6: I want a 3D printer so bad. Do you know
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: how many Baby Yodas?
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: Oh my God.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: All of the Baby Yodas would be at your house.
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: Like the Clone Wars, but it would be like Baby Yodas.
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: And good.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: That really would be at your house. And then a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: few of them would break off and do their own things,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and it'd be Baby Yoda Bad Batch.
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: Oh, man.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I've been watching that.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I have not.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: It's pretty fun.
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: I still haven't watched the second season of The Mandalorian,
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: because it's going to make me cry.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, eventually, sure. But before that, you get really
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: cool things.
• 3:40
  Speaker 6: But I'm not emotionally prepared. I mean, they gave me
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: new pills, so I'm hoping that eventually, someday, I'll be
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: able to be prepared for what's going to happen. I
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: know what happens at the end.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: It's awesome.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And the things that happened before that are also pretty awesome.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It was a pretty solid show.
• 3:55
  Speaker 6: I want to watch it because it has one of
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: my very few legitimate celebrity crushes in it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Mark Hamill.
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: No. Timothy Olyphant's in an episode.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: Because usually most of my celebrity crushes are weird. People
• 4:11
  Speaker 6: don't understand them. Timothy Olyphant, I feel.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I have that with a few.
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: Timothy Olyphant, I feel, is one that I could be like, no.
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: You can't even argue this one because, first of all,
• 4:19
  Speaker 6: he's hot. And he's funny.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I won't argue that. And he is funny. He does
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: have a good sense of humor.
• 4:24
  Speaker 6: If you haven't... Santa Clarita Diet.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's all.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: He is.
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: Even Boyfriend. Jay likes that show and thinks that Timothy
• 4:33
  Speaker 6: Oliver is hilarious, but yet he will not watch Justified.
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: I cannot get him to watch Justified, and that seems
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: more boyfriend speed.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: That does seem like something he might have previously gotten
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: into in a different life. No, refuses. He's a strange bird,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: that Jay.
• 4:47
  Speaker 6: I know, I can't explain that one to you. I'm
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: just like, but Justified, it's him being funny and blowing
• 4:53
  Speaker 6: shit up at the same time and shooting people.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: That does seem like things he would be into.
• 4:57
  Speaker 6: But is he as funny as he is in Santa
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: Clarita Diet? And I'm like, but in a different way
• 5:01
  Speaker 6: he's funny than he is in Santa Clarita Diet. Because
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: his lines as Raylan Givens, he does pull off some
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: pretty good one-liners in that one. He's very smart-ass and
• 5:09
  Speaker 6: very dry, but he's so good and justified. But he
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: will not watch it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with him.
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: I don't even remember where we got here, how we
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: got to this point.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Baby otis baby otis you won't want you know baby
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: otis to justify it like always yeah like most people's
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: normal conversations this is normal right this is what people do.
• 5:29
  Speaker 6: Back to the real world when you go in the
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: real world went to a convention there were a lot
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: of people it eventually got more comfortable for me because
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: yeah for a minute for.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: A hot minute i was in shock really because i
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was freaking out it was not anymore it's okay it's
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: not a cicada it's.
• 5:43
  Speaker 6: Just a leaf A leaf. We're on the outside of
• 5:46
  Speaker 6: the inside. We're on the outside real world. And a
• 5:48
  Speaker 6: leaf just fell on me.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Looking out on the inside. Wait, what?
• 5:50
  Speaker 6: And I was terrified that it was a bird poop.
• 5:52
  Speaker 6: It is not a bird poop.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: It is a leaf. You better beware. It's not a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: giant Mothra-looking cicada.
• 5:57
  Speaker 6: Oh, I hate cicadas.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: We covered that on a recent episode, too.
• 6:00
  Speaker 6: I've not seen any of them.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Come to my neighborhood.
• 6:04
  Speaker 6: No, thank you.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: They are everywhere.
• 6:05
  Speaker 6: I have not seen a one.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I dodge them. I will take the dog for a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: walk and have to physically move out of the way
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: because I see them like... I.
• 6:11
  Speaker 6: Have not seen one during this.
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: Cicada apocalypse i've not i've heard stories more than one.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I watched some actually i heard it yesterday there was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: somebody came walking into a building and they were like
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: what's that noise what's that noise and it was a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: cicada stuck to their leg flopping around still making like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: weird buzzing noises and then they saw what it was
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: and freaked out i started full justifiable i mean.
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: She was just screaming.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: And I was just like, it's just a bug. Like,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I don't want them on me, but like, I'm not
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: going to freak out. Like I've, I was walking the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: other day and one landed on my leg and I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: kept walking. I just kind of looked down at him.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I was just like, what dude, what are you doing?
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: And it's still there. Like every step I kept waiting
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: for him to jump off or fall off. And he
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was still there. And eventually I was like, God, come on,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: you gotta get lost. And it was a guy. I'm
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: pretty sure. Cause I smacked him and he made the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: weird noise. Which I found out, those are the ones
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: making all the weird noises are the boys. Because they're
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: trying to sing songs to the ladybugs so they can
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: all make special times.
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: Apparently my stepsister used to torment my other stepsister by
• 7:14
  Speaker 6: taking their little shells.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: There are creepy shells.
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: I'm like sticking them on her.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Kids are sadistic. But if you had to guess.
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: Which sister was the one doing this?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Um... Jennifer.
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: Yes, it would be the pastor.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: See, I believe because there's just an evil streak in her,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and I've always seen it. From the first time I
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: met her, I was like, no, there's something weird and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: sadistic in that girl.
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: I think it's all the churchin'. Yep.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Church will lead the dot, if you ask me.
• 7:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, weirdos. But, yeah, I mean, I was telling boyfriend
• 7:54
  Speaker 6: not that long ago how much I miss conventions. I mean,
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: I don't miss the people, but I miss the stuff,
• 7:59
  Speaker 6: and I miss the experience of walking around looking at stuff.
• 8:03
  Speaker 6: Without the people. But that's online shopping.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that rarely happens in the real world. And if
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: it does, usually that place goes out of business immediately.
• 8:11
  Speaker 6: I do think this is a good starting point, though, because.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. This was the first thing...
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: There have been a few other ones in other cities
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: further away. But in this general area, this was the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: first one. And I was like, this is a good
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: wading back into the world thing.
• 8:27
  Speaker 6: Because it's got its own fan base. I mean, it's not...
• 8:30
  Speaker 6: But it's not like a huge, huge, huge... They did
• 8:35
  Speaker 6: really good this year.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: They sold out all the tables, and yeah, so they
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: were saying they did really well as far as, you know,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: especially in this crazy scenario this year.
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: But it's more like... It's different, yeah. It's more model,
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: so you don't end up with as many of the
• 8:49
  Speaker 6: generalized nerds, you know? So it's like you have more
• 8:52
  Speaker 6: of a pared down, like... Dedicated bunch of geeks. That's
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: not the word I was looking for.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Hardcore.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: No, hardcore.
• 9:00
  Speaker 6: It's a special... Special is.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Special? No, special is... That's how they usually describe us.
• 9:05
  Speaker 6: No, it's more of a specialized... Industry.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Convention.
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: It's more like.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It's definitely that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 6: You don't have, like, 40 billion TV stars. You don't have, like...
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: I mean, don't get me wrong. There are some, you know...
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: It does have a few... Mm-hmm.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It's got peoples. We're possibly gonna go talk to them
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in a little while.
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: I mean, we did see Greg... Nicotero. Whose name I
• 9:26
  Speaker 6: cannot say for the life of me for some reason.
• 9:28
  Speaker 6: Who I'm still... Because of my anxiety. I'm pretty sure
• 9:31
  Speaker 6: he's pissed at me for last year answering my phone
• 9:33
  Speaker 6: during the interview. Although he did like my ringtone.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, you last time said he had very nice shoes.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So if you'd like me to pass that along to him,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I'll see him this weekend. I don't remember his shoes.
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: I still have the beer cap from the beer.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Not creepy at all.
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: I know, right? I guess I didn't keep his gum
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: or anything. Who was that we thought about keeping their gum?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Wasn't it Catherine Mary Stewart?
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: It was her or her friend.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Or Kelly. Kelly Maroney.
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: I did not keep the gum. I cannot speak for
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: anybody else at this table.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: It was one of them that had gum when we
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sat down to talk to them and I may or
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: may not have. I think we only joked about Miki.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I am creepy but I'm not that creepy. It also
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: seems like a lot to keep up with at this point.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to just.
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: I do still have... I'm pretty sure I do still
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: have the gum that I chewed that Ethan Embry did
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: give me. I did chew it, but I might still
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: have it wrapped up somewhere.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Did you bronze that pecan sandy?
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: I ate that fucker.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: That was Bill Moseley that gave us a cookie. Ah,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: all these fun celebrity interactions.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 10:35
  Speaker 6: I've missed the world of weird celebrity interactions.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we do occasionally have those.
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I'm pretty sure that he... There was a
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: lot of family stuff going on at the time, so
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: I had to answer the phone to make sure that
• 10:46
  Speaker 6: nobody was killing somebody else. So it had to happen.
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I can ask him later if you'd like.
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: No, I don't even remember. I don't remind him.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Remember that time when that girl who was freaked out
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: by a plastic bag in the water also answered her phone?
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: The raft is terrifying and still the reason that I
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: will not get in water that I cannot see.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Some people, it's Jaws. For you, it's the raft.
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: Don't act like I'm the only person. Oh, no.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: It's disturbing.
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: And literally every body of water that I see, I'm
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: pretty sure that's in there.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: It might be.
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: Ponds, lakes.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: You'll only find out the hard way.
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: Because they're always so murky. Yeah, no, I don't trust that.
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: And even when I go to the... Because we're going
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: to the ocean sometime soon. I will only go as
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: far as I can see my feet. If I can't
• 11:32
  Speaker 6: see my feet, then I can see pretty far out.
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: And I can see where it's getting close enough that
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: it's going to jump up over me, then I'm okay there.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So then you can see the stingrays come up and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: attack you.
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: Dude. Our main problem out there is horseshoe crabs. And
• 11:47
  Speaker 6: those things are... I don't care.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Don't be messing with us.
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: Those things are terrifying. We went... And I almost stepped
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: on one. And I was traumatized.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Attack of the killer crabs.
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: Dude. Terrifying. I have that book, by the way. I
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: have a book called Attack of the Killer Crabs.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: That's not surprising.
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: It's part of the Spooksville series by Christopher Pike.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it is.
• 12:08
  Speaker 6: Which is his version of Goosebumps.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: For that younger? Yes.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: Because Christopher Pike.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So my reading level is what you're talking about.
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly. I don't think there were any pictures, though.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I prefer nothing but pictures.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 12:22
  Speaker 6: But yeah, I guess Christopher Pike had to compete with
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: the Goosebumps.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a cutthroat industry.
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: So yeah, there were... And yeah, I have... All of those,
• 12:31
  Speaker 6: although I am pretty upset that one of the ones
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: that I ordered off of Thrift Books ended up being
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: the UK version, which is not only a different cover,
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: but also a different size.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And you can't read it because it's all those English
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: words in it, and you're like, I don't know how
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: to speak this.
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: English-American.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: There's like U's in the middle of words that don't
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: belong there.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: It's all weird. It's the same damn book, just a
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: different cover. It's smaller. It doesn't line up on the
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: shelf properly, and It's a thing.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So is it because it's a smaller country, they have
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to make the books smaller so the place doesn't get
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: so overloaded with books?
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: You don't want to sink it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And we're like America, so we like things bigger. So
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: we have to make like giant ass books.
• 13:09
  Speaker 6: Pretty much.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Alright, this all makes sense.
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: I have no idea. I did not run any of
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: these questions by the publishing company or Christopher Pike himself.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I feel like we need to get him on the line.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Get him on the show. He probably likes horror movies.
• 13:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he, from what I've heard, is very reclusive.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of authors.
• 13:29
  Speaker 6: But especially Christopher Pike.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It seems like even more we need to track him
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: down and force him to talk about horror movies.
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: I've been listening to a Christopher Pike-centric podcast.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Of course you have.
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: Because all they do is read the books and then
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: pretty much tell you the entire book.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So you don't have to read. Wait, this is my show.
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: I know, right? But they've been trying for the entire
• 13:47
  Speaker 6: duration of their run of the podcast to get him
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: on there. And he's apparently incredibly secretive about everything.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 13:56
  Speaker 6: His name's not even Christopher Pike.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Well, that's just to throw you off.
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: It shows you how nerdy he is, though, because you
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: know where he got it from.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Buffy? What?
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: How would you even get Christopher Pike from Buffy?
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Mr.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Pointy.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Looks like a pike.
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: He got it from the captain.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Pike.
• 14:17
  Speaker 6: Captain Christopher Pike from Star Trek.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Mine's better.
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yours made no sense. He was a big Star
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: Trek fan, and Christopher Pike was the captain before Captain Kirk.
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: Christopher Pike's a nerd.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, he just attached himself to another nerd
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: part of the industry, so it seems fitting.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: It's what makes me like him more. Well, I.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: After posting those photos and everybody was like, hey, what
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: are you going to see? Because I went back to
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: the theater.
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: I'd see something I miss even less.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I usually don't have problems with theater people. I've had
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of people lately said they have issues with
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: theater people.
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: People are loud and obnoxious.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Again, I go at old man times.
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: Seriously, what movie did we go see where somebody sat
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: behind us and talked the entire time?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Entire time how recently was this that's been.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: Years it might have been it might have been one
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: of the resident evil movies.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: It's been one of the last i couldn't even think
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of the last time i went to a movie with
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: other people it's always me by myself in the middle
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: of the day on a weekend i don't think i've
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: been back to the theater since then and i think
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that's why though i think i go at old man
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: times when i can go and sit there and get
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: up in the crack of dawn and then go watch
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: a movie and a i won't fall asleep and b
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: it's not very crowded and there aren't any people talking.
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: But if I watch a movie at home, I can
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: pause it and go pee whenever I want to.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of that I've
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: enjoyed over the last year and a half.
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: Or I can pause it and go pop some popcorn
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: in the kitchen and not spend $ 48.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: It's slightly different there. I like theater popcorn.
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: I like theater popcorn.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And I really think you agree you would also like
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a butter dispenser just sitting on your counter so you
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: could just douse everything in butter.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But I went back out into the world and I saw....
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: Quiet Place 2?
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I have to decide. A Quiet Place 2.
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: Do you need to Google it? Is that what you saw?
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: As long as it was. Well, I was playing the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: game with somebody on Twitter who was already coming up
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: with better names. So it was like A Quieter Place,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: The Most Quietest Place. They just came up with a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: bunch of other alternative options. And that was like A
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Quiet Place 2 colon The Next Day. I don't know
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: if anyone else thought that was funny, but it technically is.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: So that's the weird thing, is yes, I watched A
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Quiet Place 2, and it was surprisingly, there are moments
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: where it is unnerving. It does have a score at times,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and then other times that will totally drop out, sometimes
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: for practical reasons, sometimes just for effect, to creep the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: hell out of you, and both work. And yeah, it's
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: totally suspenseful. It's basically one of those, because somebody asked
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that the other day when I sold them what I saw,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: they were like, oh, was it good? I was like,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: did you like the first one? Because I'm like, it
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is 100%. And as I said, the next day, it
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: picks up pretty much right where that last one leaves off,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: throws a minor flashback in the middle of there. But otherwise,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: it picks up pretty much story-wise exactly where that last
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: one left off and just continues on. And here's another
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: day or several days down the road. But it really
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: does not... It's not a huge story to tell. It
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: is this isolated family... And they venture out a little
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: bit further into this crazy self-destructive, from outside forces, destructive world.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we just get another little part of the story.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: And then it wraps up real quick. It is a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: tight movie. Because I was like, oh, and there are
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the credits. All right, well then, time to go home.
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: I never saw the first one.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So the first one is good. It's very cool. It's
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: very suspenseful. Points to Krasinski. Because, yeah, I like him.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't really care about that show that everybody else
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: loves him for, but as a director, I'm like, hey,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: he's a good director. Oh, is he on The Office? Yeah,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and I don't really care about The Office, and everybody
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: else loves it. You don't have to tell me. Everybody
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: loves it, whatever.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: I hate that show.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: My nephew loves it. I was making fun of him
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: yesterday for it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: Well, basically that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, that guy's a good director, but I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: don't know about that show he used to be on.
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: He was like, what?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I like that show.
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: I really don't like Steve Carell.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Eh, he's hit and miss. I don't like him. There's,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I don't, yeah, as a person he seems fine, but
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: his style of comedy is very specific. It's awkward. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you have to, yeah, you have to be into it
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: or you're not.
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: That whole show just seems like it's based on the
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: humor of awkwardness, and I've got enough awkwardness in my life.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: I don't want to be more, I don't want to
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: be made to feel more awkward at home in the.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Comfort of my own home. I was on Team Parks
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and Rec.
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: I never saw that either.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Because that kind of takes the same format and does it,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I think, funnier with better characters. Like, it just took
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: all the weirdness out of that first one, got that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: out of the way, and just focused on way more
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: fun characters and storylines. So, I don't know. I'm sticking
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: with Parks and Rec. That has nothing to do with
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: giant monsters, potentially from outer space, I guess. I don't
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: really know what's going on with these monsters. And I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: do like that even about the first one. You're just
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: thrown into the story, there's monsters, and.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: And that's pretty much it. You just kind of deal
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: with that scenario.
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: I can tell you about my exciting purchase, but nobody
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: but me is going to be excited about it. I
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: told you about it earlier.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it sort of has a horror tie-in to Jaws. Alright,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: go ahead and.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: Tell them about it. I had a favorite Kool-Aid when
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: I was little. And I haven't been able to drink
• 19:37
  Speaker 6: Kool-Aid for years because it makes my head explode. So
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: I had no idea that they had brought back my
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: favorite Kool-Aid. So I was looking online about one of
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: those lists of things from your childhood that they discussed.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And usually they're all wrong. I'm like, you've gauged this wrong.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the eras are wrong. I just like to argue
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: with them.
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: It had a lot of candies, like the garbage can candies.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I do love those.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: That was a good portion of my childhood.
• 20:05
  Speaker 6: Eating garbage. And this is a list from several years ago.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: So it was like, They had Sharkleberry Finn on there.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And you were like, oh my god.
• 20:14
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, I forgot. That was my absolute favorite
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: was Sharkleberry Finn. So I was like, I'll Google it
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: and see if I can find cool stuff about it.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: Maybe I can find some kind of old package. Holy shit.
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: Apparently within the past couple years, they brought back Sharkleberry
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: Finn Kool-Aid.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: The re-release.
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: And I mean, I know it's probably been years. This
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: list was several years old. So I don't know how
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: long it's actually been out there in the real world.
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: But good god damn. So I says to myself, Misty,
• 20:41
  Speaker 6: we need to get some Sharkleberry Finn. And now that
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: I know that it exists, like, current time, I'm like,
• 20:46
  Speaker 6: this shouldn't be that hard. So I get on, like,
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: one of those online, like, buying shit things. And they
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: want to charge me, like, $ 3 for, like.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: On envelope owed powder.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Like, the one little.
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: You can't even make, like, one whole pitcher of Kool-Aid.
• 21:02
  Speaker 6: I need at least two.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I think I used to double up and make a
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: lot more when I would do it with my Kool-Aid.
• 21:07
  Speaker 6: That's how it works. You had to have two... Up
• 21:09
  Speaker 6: the sleeves, and then two cups of sugar, because you've
• 21:11
  Speaker 6: got to have one cup per sleeve. Otherwise, it's not good.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: This does sound like how I used to make it,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: with a lot of sugar.
• 21:16
  Speaker 6: I know, right? So I'm like, oh, dude. So I'm
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: checking out, like, I'm not trying to, like, support Walmart
• 21:23
  Speaker 6: in any ways. But they're like, we have, I checked
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: their website, and they're like, oh, we have it in store.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I don't like them, but occasionally you have to, you
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: have to go there.
• 21:30
  Speaker 6: I'm like, they're like, it's here. But you can't, like, order.
• 21:32
  Speaker 6: So I went to Walmart. To look for my Sharkleberry Finn.
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: This is my adventure. I went there. I hate going
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: to Walmart. But I went there. And they had like.
• 21:42
  Speaker 6: I'm scanning the shelves. And it's a fucking disaster. Because
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: of course. Walmart. And it's just a mess. Then I
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: see one box. Sitting there on the shelf. And I'm like.
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: Snatched the whole box. I don't even care.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Package and everything.
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah. The whole. Like the whole box. The display.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: That was holding all the envelopes. You also took the
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cardboard display box. Yeah. I mean, you might as well.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Nobody else gets any.
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: I want to take all the packages out of it anyways.
• 22:08
  Speaker 6: It's just more convenient.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: You're just saving them a step of having to throw
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: that away.
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: Exactly. So, all in all, there were only 18 sleeves
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: slash envelopes of Kool-Aid. So, that's only actually nine servings. Like, nine, like,
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: not servings, like, pitchers full of Kool-Aid. It's not that
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: much in the long run. Anyway, so I walk in
• 22:27
  Speaker 6: the house, and boyfriend, who was following me on this mission, like, emotionally....
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: He supports you in all your craziness.
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: He does. He's like, did they have it? And I'm like, yes,
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: they did. And he's like, how much did you buy, girlfriend?
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: And I'm like, what?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Help me come unload the car.
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: He's like, girlfriend, how much Kool-Aid did you just buy?
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: I'm like, only all they had. Only six cases. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: he's like, girlfriend, what if somebody else wanted some Sharkleberry Fizz?
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Fuck everybody else. I'm sure you lovingly said.
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: Fuck everybody else.
• 23:05
  Speaker 7: Exactly.
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: I need it more than they do. It was, like
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: I said, it was only 18 sleeves. I left one
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: crumpled sleeve on the shelf. So I'm like, it's home.
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: I don't want that one.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Just to mess with them.
• 23:16
  Speaker 6: Well, then it's like, it would have given me an
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: odd number.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So now there's somebody out there making half a pitcher.
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: Yep.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Being like, I used to like this, but I can't
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: have any. Somebody took it all.
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: They can get on Amazon. They can pay $ 3 per sleeve.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And even out and make one pitcher.
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: Anyway, so I'm like, as soon as I walk in
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: the door, I'm like ripping that shit open. I'm like
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: ripping it open, getting the pitcher ready. I had a
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: mini panic. I'm like, do we have sugar? Holy shit.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: You really should have thought this through beforehand. I didn't.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: I was too excited. You can't control the level of
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: excitement of Sharkleberry Finn. Anyways, so I'm mixing it up.
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: I'm like already thinking. I'm like, this is not going
• 23:51
  Speaker 6: to be near as good as I'm hoping it's going
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: to be.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Preparing yourself for the depression of post-childhood hopes and dreams.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Because you know how it is.
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: When you have something as a kid, it's the most
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: amazing thing ever. Later in life, you might get it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: And it's like, oh.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: What was I thinking?
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: This isn't as good as I remember. So I'm mixing
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: it up. We don't have like ice cold water. So
• 24:10
  Speaker 6: I'm like lukewarm out of the faucet water. I'm like, oh,
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: do I wait till it's cold? Fuck no, I can't
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: wait until it's cold. I need to try it now.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: It was delightful. It was like... It was like... It
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: was my childhood.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: All came rushing back into your mouth.
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: It was so good, too. I'm like, how can this
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: possibly be as good as I remember it being? And
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: then I drank so much that my head exploded because
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: I can't have a lot of.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: You're not supposed to have that chemical. Red 40.
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: Whatever Red 40 is... It will destroy you. In fluid form,
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: it makes my head explode. I can have it in like.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: In powder, you snort that stuff all day long. Making
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: lines of Fun Dip and just nailing them. Oh man,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: she's excited about this new thought.
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: I can have like red velvet cake. But if I
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: have like Tahitian treat, which is one of my favorites too.
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: my head explodes. I got migraine for days.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: You are a crazy science experiment.
• 25:13
  Speaker 6: Which is why I haven't bought Kool-Aid for years because
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: after I realized that's what was causing my headaches, I
• 25:19
  Speaker 6: quit drinking it. But for Sharkleberry Finn, it's worth it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: I will live with the pain. But then I've also
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: realized that if I eat it, if I drank the
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: Kool-Aid with like, this is way more information than anybody
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: fucking cares about. If I eat it with a peanut
• 25:32
  Speaker 6: butter sandwich.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Oh God, this is very specific science.
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: If I drink I don't know if it's the bread.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Soaking up the red? I think so.
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: I might get a little bit of a headache, but
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: not a full-blown migraine. So I figured out.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: A way to level it out.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: You're going to have to start experimenting. Try just some
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: bread or just some spoonfuls of peanut butter and see
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: if it's the bread or maybe something in the peanut
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: butter counteracting with the red.
• 25:57
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to question this. It works just the
• 26:00
  Speaker 6: way it does.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: It's just a gift unto you.
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: I can't have a full glass. I can have like
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: three quarters of a glass.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: This is very specific.
• 26:07
  Speaker 6: I am, but you know what? It's delightful.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Sharkleberry thing.
• 26:11
  Speaker 6: I'm not even sure what actual flavor it's supposed to be.
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: I think somebody online said like strawberry and pineapple.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Sharkleberry, duh.
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah, what the.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: It's a real thing.
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: The berries of sharks?
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It is a bitch trying to pick those. Once you're
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: trying to pick them, oh man.
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: I think it's technically supposed to be like... I don't
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: know if it's strawberry and pineapple. Which, again, I wouldn't
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: think would be delicious. Or strawberry and, like, banana?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.
• 26:35
  Speaker 6: I don't question this thing. All I know is it's
• 26:38
  Speaker 6: my favorite. And it brought back so much of the
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: pleasant memories of my childhood. And it pushed out the
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: bad ones a little bit further.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: It is a bitch trying to pick those.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Just saying.
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: Charcoal berries.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Charcoal berries.
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: They're rough. I'm sure nobody cares about my charcoal berry adventure.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's the perfect way to round out this intro.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: So we'll cue the Jaws theme right now.
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: I was so excited I couldn't even put on real shoes. Like,
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: fuck tying shoes. I had to put on my slippy shoes.
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: Not like slippers, but like my slip-on shoes, like going
• 27:06
  Speaker 6: to the beach shoes. Which, from living in Indiana, is
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: really convenient.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: You're at the beach. You're having your shark drink. This
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: is all very beach-oriented.
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: And I'm terrified of sharks. I hate that thing.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: That's why Jaws is going to get you, so. We'll
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: take our break and come back with this week's guest.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Drive away your worries and cares at this drive-in theater,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: where you will see the finest motion pictures of all time,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: soon to be released. Drama, comedy, adventure, excitement, something for everyone.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Here's a brief glimpse of some of the truly fine
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: pictures we've scheduled in the near future.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Centuries ago, a legendary treasure was buried on a remote island.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And there's only one living soul daring enough to find it. Hello, everyone.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Captain Abraham Smollett is taking command. This voyage has begun.
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: To wherever the wind may take us. Hurry, Rizzo! I'm
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: going as fast as I can.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: But there's trouble afoot. Beware the one-legged man. He's the
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: one to fear. Long John Silver. At your service. One leg, Jim.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Count them one. Now, the captain is being pursued by pirates.
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: Pirates.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: We're sailing for buried treasure. We're gonna be rich. We're
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: gonna be dead. Surrounded by danger. Terrific. Catched by crazed
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: wild pigs and sacrificed hideously before a pagan altar. Are
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: we lucky or what? And haunted by his past. Bonsoir,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: mes amis. Smalley, can it.
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: Be you? Help!
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Old girlfriend presents from Jim Henson productions a classic tale
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: of ships coming in who hired this crew Old Disney
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Pictures presents, from Jim Henson Productions, a classic tale.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Of ships coming in.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: Who hired this crew?
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And luck running out. Get the treasure. Let's torture the rat.
• 29:44
  Speaker 6: No more, miss, my sky.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Cool. Muppet Treasure Island.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to worry about this bridge.
• 29:57
  Speaker 8: You can watch from.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: The map next.
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: How are we going to tell people that.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: They need to join the Meltdown.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: Horror Club? I think you just did.
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: Damn it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 8: This is a good plan.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Well, did they know that if they join the club,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: they can get exclusive episodes?
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Well, that's so cool. Who wouldn't want to join the
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: horror club?
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: That's the only way you can hear all these cool
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: horror movie episodes is if you join the Meltdown Horror Club.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: For as little as two dollars.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Two dollars. Two dollars. american dollars you know i mean
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: if you go online they can transfer that stuff and
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: yeah switch it out and i don't know wherever it
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: comes from as long as eventually it gets to american
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: dollars i'm good with wherever you can send us foreign
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: monies from the other end just as long as when
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it gets here two dollars fair enough plus you can
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: help us pick out the movies we're gonna watch we're
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: trying to decide every week we're like what the hell
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: are we gonna watch now We wouldn't have to do
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: that if you joined the club and then you can
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: just give us a movie to watch because that's how
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: we get this list of movies that we're going through.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: That's one of the perks of joining the club. You
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: get to give us a movie and then we put
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: it on the list and later we talk about it
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and you can inflict horrible movies on us or when
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: we're talking about movies that you're like, why? Why are
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: they talking about that movie? You probably have a much
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: better movie in mind that we should be talking about
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: and you could give us that one.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Get on it.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: $ 2 to, like, waste two hours of our lives.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a good deal.
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: And it's only 6.45 cents per day.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: See, I figured that out. I was trying. I'm fighting
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: really hard to not put together some sort of, like,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: starving children's tone of, like, you know. That's why. I'm
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: trying not to do that every week. But I'm like,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: it always, anytime I have to pitch it, I start
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: feeling like, for only pennies a day, you. Yeah. could
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: keep these poor idiots from watching a dumb movie. You
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: could make them watch something good. Or vice versa.
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: Yeah, or something dumb.
• 32:20
  Speaker 9: Or make them watch something really terrible.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: We're fine either way.
• 32:24
  Speaker 9: We just need to know what to watch, but we
• 32:26
  Speaker 9: need your help to make that happen.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And especially, we're trying to get a whole community going.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We've got our fan page. Nobody cares about that. So then,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: we set up the discussion group. And now, we've got
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: a decent amount of people on there, but I still
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: feel like The discussions aren't flowing as much as they
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: should be. So once you join the club, go over.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: It's on Facebook. I can't help it. They won't make
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: anything better to replace it. But then you can join
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the discussion group on Facebook and we can talk about
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: these ridiculous movies we're watching.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Do it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 9: Do it today or tomorrow, but in the relatively near future.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: That's our tagline?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yes. I don't think we got to fight Nike over that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: I hope not.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Do it today. Just do it sometime. I don't know when.
• 33:19
  Speaker 9: Look, whenever you get around to it, we understand.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Get your shit together and do it.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Nike.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Somewhere that was a pitch meeting, probably. Do you really
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: think we should curse? Yes, goddammit, George, curse! So anyway,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: go to MovieMeltdown.com, support the show, become a Meltketeer.
• 33:43
  Speaker 8: Hey, I'm Marta Kristen, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: Baby, baby, you know it's true I'm a puppet just
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: for you.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I'd do any little thing you say.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have it any other way.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Take my heart and take my soul.
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: I've given you complete control.
• 34:49
  Speaker 8: If you want to see me do my thing, baby,
• 34:51
  Speaker 8: pull my string.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: So, Phillip. Yes, Brian.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: This episode, we have a very special guest. And when
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I saw this person was coming back to Wonderfest, I
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: was like, well... I need to talk to him. But
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: in particular, if there's one other person that would also
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: be interested in potentially just meeting this person, let alone
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: sitting down and having a discussion with him, it would
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: be you. Who are we talking to? Actually, do you
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: remember what you said when I told you? Because I
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: told you that there was a writer for The Muppets Coming.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And specifically a man who directed many of the Muppets projects,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and he was going to be here, and you could
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: potentially talk with him. And I believe, paraphrasing, but you
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: said something to the effect of, I'd like to talk
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: to the guy who empties the trash at the Muppets studio.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: That sounds like something I would say, yeah.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, we can't get that guy. Surprisingly,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: he's actually kind of hard to get.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: But we can talk to Kirk Thatcher.
• 36:00
  Speaker 9: You mean the Kirk Thatcher from Star Trek 4?
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: The punk on the bus?
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, the man, the myth, the captain of some vessel.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. Oh, clearly.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: But I've seen him and he is definitely a captain. So,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: if you're an old school listener, you know I talked
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: with Kirk several years ago and we talked about him
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: growing up and we talked about his early days working
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: with David Fincher. We talked about him working with Lucasfilm,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and almost being the Rancor, which that's an awesome story,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: so go listen to that. He was right-hand man to
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Leonard Nimoy, and about how all of that led to
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: him being the punk on the bus. So all of
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: that stuff is there. So if you need to go
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: listen to it, you should, because it's awesome. But also,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: we got sidetracked on all of those amazing things that
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: happened in his life that we didn't get to, you know,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the Muppets, or puppetry in general so i feel like
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: you know we got to the end of that and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: we ran out of time and i'm like we need
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to we need to finish this we need to come
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: back at some point in the future maybe when he
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: comes back to wonderfest and uh continue the adventures of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: kirk thatcher so i thought while we're here in the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: middle of wonderfest we should go talk to absolutely i
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: say we go do that right now okie doke So
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: this is actually continued several years ago when you were here.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: I talked to you. So we got carried away and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: we were going through all these amazing stories that you
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: had and we didn't even get to like, you know,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Muppets and puppetry, which is kind of what a lot
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: of people know too. But yeah, we got sidetracked on
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Star Wars and Leonard Nimoy and all these other things.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: It's your fault for having this interesting life.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I apologize. I'll be dull.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: God.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Muppets. Muppets.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I was trying to, yeah, I was thinking we'll just
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: jump in at the puppetry end of it. Sure. A
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: good crossover, I thought, was, and this is, again, this
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: tells you a lot about us. This had nothing to
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: do with you. We went to lunch and we were
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: talking about gremlins, which is a pretty standard thing that
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: comes up with us.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: We were discussing the thing. theater scene you were talking
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: about the bar earlier but were you involved in the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: theater full of.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Not i uh didn't do that i didn't work that
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: day or those couple days no but i know they
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: had gremlin helmets they had a gremlin on each hand
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: and i ran a gremlin on basically the spring on
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: their helmets oh my god each puppeteer could do three gremlins.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: That's what we were saying you can't have them still
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: gremlins still looks insane.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah you suddenly stand out yeah they're so hyperkinetic
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: definitely they're like kids on sugar.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: So were you– which ones? You said the bar scene
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: with Phoebe. What else did you– The.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Bar scene with Phoebe was– that was like a good
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: three or four days.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Just hanging out at Phoebe's pelvis.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Just hanging out, looking at her belly button, yeah. I
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: saw her a few years ago and she pretended to
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: remember me. She was very sweet. She seems very nice.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I said, in three days, staring at your crotch. She's like, oh,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't know people know about those movies. No. She's
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: very sweet. Such a nice person. Yeah. Gosh, you know,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff in the bar. That was probably
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: a week's worth of work. And then it all blends together.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: You know, you just go to the stage and you
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: kind of go. I just remember that because it was
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: with 505. A lot of it was just Gremlin stuff.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: They're not near as attractive as Phoebe. I mean, the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: one in the wig and two.
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, you know, to be honest, I don't
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: remember a specific scene. I think the caroling scene. That's right.
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: Nice.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: We were outside singing Christmas carols in the snow because
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I remember the fake snow and all that. Um, you know,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: there was so much in there. I only puppeteered on
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: for like two weeks, just the heavy scenes, which is
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: funny that I wasn't in the theater scene.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: They need as many hands.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: They did. That was, and that's what I did. And
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: two was puppeteering in the big group scene when they
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: all gathered at the bat in the mall and there
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: were like 150 gremlins. So that's the few days I
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: worked on that as a puppeteer. Um, and then just voices.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Was two presented differently as you're coming in? Because it
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: definitely reads like a very different movie, even though it's
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: more Joe than anything.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Rick was doing it. It was still Joe, very Joe.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Probably more Joe than one, if you know Joe or
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: know his oeuvre. Yeah, they just said, Rick called me,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: he said, hey, you know, I'm doing, I knew he
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: was doing Gremlins. And he said, we have these big
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: group scenes and I know I want people who know
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: how to do Gremlins because, you know, you've done it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: And he said, would you come in? I said, yeah, absolutely.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, you get SAG minimum or SAG.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I'm in SAG. That's fine. And so, yeah, it was
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: like three, four days of those giant group scenes. And
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: he was very nice to keep me kind of near
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: a camera as opposed to in the distance. And, yeah,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: it was fun. And we just went over and over
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: and over again. And then we're miming getting electrocuted and
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: all the shtick in there. Um, so yeah. And then
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a few months later I did voices, a lot of voices,
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: probably more. I did more days doing voices than I
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: did puppeteering.
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Cause we did it in four or five languages. Well,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: English and four other languages.
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: We did gremlins in Spanish, French, German, Italian, and English.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it was five languages.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: They barely have any, you know, English, but they have
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: just enough that you have to do it in Spanish.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Like I learned how to say going up, going down. Oh,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I said German, right? German, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Well, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I learned how to say going up, going down. I
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: don't know if I said four. I think we kept
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: four score and seven years ago in English because, you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: out of the Italian, they wouldn't get it. Yeah, just,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: you know, saying yogurt, whatever yogurt was in German. It
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: was fun. We had a blast.
• 41:56
  Speaker 9: So how much did you– how much freedom did you
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: have in developing– your character for gremlins or was it
• 42:03
  Speaker 9: just them coming.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: To you and saying, this is what this went on.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. For the puppeteering, it was just, yeah, put these
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: on there where there weren't the specific ones like Daffy and, and, and, uh,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: you know, George, uh, they weren't those I was doing
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: just generic, generic. And then the voices, we kind of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: parsed them out. Like I did a lot of George and, uh,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Mark Dodson did Daffy. George was one to look like, um, uh,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Lenny was the big, dumb, buck-toothed one. I think Mark
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: did him and Daffy. I did George, who's the one
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: who looked like Edward G.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: Robinson.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And then I did Greta. And then I did the
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: electricity gremlin, because nobody else could do that.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: How much were you on? Some sort of speed.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I almost blew a blood vessel doing that.
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: Oh, wow.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Because it was a long take, and it's two different voices.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: It's what I call the buzz, which is the... Which
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: is the electric part, and then that.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: So we did them both for the full take, and
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: then they mixed them together and added some to it.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: So magic. Magic. Yeah, so I did Greta, George, the
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Electricity Gremlin. God, I'd have to watch it again. It's
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: been a long time. Those stand out because they were
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: so different. And then just tons of generic gremlins. Nudie, nudie,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: nudie was the one I did. And then I remember
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: German is not conceiving, not conceiving, not conceiving. I think
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: one of them did like a shadow puppet of a
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: woman naked or something, and that was nudie, nudie, nudie
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: in English, which was fun. Well, because they didn't have dialogue.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: They're just like, what would you say?
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: They just have a word.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: No, and they didn't even– they're mouthing something. So we're like,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: what do you say? So it was almost like an
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: improv group. Okay, go. So I was like, nudie, nudie, nudie.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, that's funny. I'll do that. That's Joe.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Joe did voices too. Joe Dante probably did a few
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Georges that he didn't like what I was doing. I
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: think singing in the bathtub, we both traded. I don't
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: know which one they used, but there was one where
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: he's like in the shower. And we both did it.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: And it was funny because I do that and Joe goes, no, no, no,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do it. So in his mind, it
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: was drastically different. It was his movie, so I was
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: never offended. But I was just happy to be there.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: I had a blast.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I like the creepy ones. I realized watching the second one,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like the spider.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The bat is the cool one. They tended to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: focus more on the comedy ones, obviously, with Toadie Reddell
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: as the braid gremlin. It was fun. That seven, eight
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: days was really fun. Mark and I were friends, but
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Howie and Frank Welker kind of were a little more
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: You know, they weren't so palsy with us. They were
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: kind of, oh, we're the professionals. We're the big money
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: voice people.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: We know.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Mark and I were the guys who, you know, drove
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: used cars. So Mark and I have been friends since
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Lucasfilm days, since Jedi. So he and I had fun.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: And then Joe was all over. You know, Joe was
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: just there, and he was part of it, doing voices
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: and having fun. And then Mark Mangini, the sound editor,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: was a friend of mine. We'd worked together on Gremlins
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: 1 and Star Trek. four so it was kind of
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: old home week for me so yeah it was weird
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: like I knew more people there except for the two
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: ringers Howie and Frank I did not know I've never.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Worked with them since well at that point yeah you're
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: coming out of like doing creature stuff definitely bigger creature
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: stuff and then doing puppetry like that but how do
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: you how does it get to the Jim Henson part of.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: It well that was just you know what they say
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: it's what you know and who you know I on
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Star Trek when we were making it in post production
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: we had interviewed The production unit of Star Trek had
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: interviewed companies to do the spaceships, maybe with CG. It
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: was early, early days. And Robert Abel and Associates had
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: been bought by a Canadian computer graphics company called Omnibus,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: and so they became Omnibus Abel, and they did a
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: pitch to us to do the enterprising with computers. And
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: it didn't work out, because Paramount had a sweetheart deal
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: with ILM. But the gal who was... part of the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Robert Abel kind of a rainmaker. You know, she went
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: out to try and get jobs. Her name was BJ
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: rack and a real funny lady. And she and I
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: hit it off, just riffing, joking. And, you know, we
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: got each other since humor. So we became friends and
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: she said, Hey, you know, I go out and try
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: and sell clients. You want to, this was after Trek
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: had ended. So she and I kind of met and
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: then we, you know, went and had coffee, whatever, and
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: became friends. So when Star Trek was in post, I
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't working every day. And she said, hey, you want
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: to come out with me and try and sell clients
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: on ideas for how many of us are able to
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: do the effects for, commercials mainly. I said, sure. So
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: I went in and I would talk about the production
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: design and art direction. Just fun and stupid and silly.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: In other words, I was taking what they were selling
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: and making it sound fantastic. It was marketing. Yeah, I'd
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: taken art history at UCLA, so I knew how to,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: you know, make a Pollock painting sound like the next
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: amazing thing in the world where, you know, the practical
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: side of my brain is like, it's freaking drips on
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: a canvas. I could sling. But no, the way he, yes,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: I could do that. But you know, the way it's
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: sold in art history is like, well, what Pollock had
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: done had taken the representational and also the dynamics of,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: you know, you just go on and on. So I
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: was doing that with them. Like what the computer can
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: do is take your Ajax and bring it a lot,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: you know? And so we would just die laughing on the,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: on the way back to wherever we were going or,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you know, have lunch afterwards. But anyway, so, BJ Rack,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: it turned out, well, I didn't know this yet. So
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: the way it happened was we're talking and I was
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: showing her this thing I wanted to do. It was
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: a puppet creature kind of show, TV comedy. And I said,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I want to use puppets and computer animation for the spaceships,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: but the characters would be puppets. And she said, you know,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: we would really like this with Jim Henson.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I mean, that's the guy.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I would get it. So Labyrinth had opened like the
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: year before, I think. And she said, well, I know him.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: You know, if you want to meet him, I said,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I would love to meet him. And I said, how
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: do you know him? She said, well, my husband, she
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: I think was separated or divorced at that point, was
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Jim Frawley who directed the first Muppet movie. So she
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: knew Jim and was friendly with him. And I think
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: she had two or three kids with Jim Frawley. So
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: she coordinated the meeting. So I met Jim. He was
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: staying at the Bel Air Hotel and he and his assistant.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: And we had lunch. And then we went back to
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: his bungalow. And I had brought a portfolio and some
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: sculpts I'd done of creature, these puppety creature things. And
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: pitched him the show and then showed him drawings and
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: just kind of got to know him. And we hit
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: it off and had a fun time. I ended up
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: sitting on the floor and he sat on the floor
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: and we just went through drawings and sketches and stuff. And,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you know, I thought it went really well. And he's
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: a super nice, very comfortable guy. There was no pretense
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: or any sort of feeling like, you know, you'll be
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: meeting a mess to treat me with respect.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: That just wasn't his.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: No, no. He's more like, no, that's neat. That's really
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: neat stuff. I like that. You know, he's just like
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: another fellow creative guy who, He was enthusiastic. So a
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: couple weeks later, I got a call from his people
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: and was like, well, he called me. He actually called me.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I was staying at my parents' because Star Trek paid
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: so poorly I had to move back home. But, you know,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: would have done it again because the experience was amazing.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: I found out why. It was Leonard paying me. The
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: studio wasn't– it was not a job that they– he
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: had an assistant who answered his phone, you know, his mail. Yeah,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: that was part of the– That was part of the deal.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: But they weren't going to pay for his, you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: right hand guy to to so he paid me out
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: of his own pocket when i found that out i
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: was like all right well you know thank you yeah
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: um particularly the breaks he gave me uh anyway i
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: got this my mom so i was working out my
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: area i had where i would draw my art room
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: she came out she said oh honey jim henson's on
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: the phone for you and i'm like really because I
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: don't know how much she knew, you know, she's had
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: her life. And I'm like, seriously? She's like, well, I
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: think it's one of your friends. But yes, someone's saying
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: he's Jim Henson's on the phone. So I pick up
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: the phone. He's like, hi, old Kirk. And I was like, hey, Jim.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: And my mom's like, so afterwards I hung up, you know,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and he said, hey, I'd like you to work on
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: the show. And, you know, we'll have our business affairs
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: people call you out and you fly out to New York.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: We'll have some meetings. Great. Awesome. Fantastic. So my mom's like,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I said, what, what happened?
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: She goes, I pick up the phone, and he was like, hi, ho,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: is Kirk there? And she goes this funny voice, and
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, I was calling. He's like, oh, it's
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Jim Henson. She's like, okay, Jim Henson. She was like,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I'll play along. So she was so mortified that she had,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously nothing inappropriate, but she had sort of
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: been like, okay, Jim Henson.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: So my mom was a lady, so she was very
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: concerned that she'd been offensive. I'm like, oh, mom, I
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: probably didn't notice.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Anyway.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: So that's how we met, and I started freelancing with
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: him for about a year and a half on a
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: couple ideas, designing characters and helping brainstorm. What was great
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: about these brainstorm sessions is Jim would fly me out
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: to New York, and Jerry Jewell, who lived in Mendocino
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: at that point, he'd fly him out there and me
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: and a couple other people, and there'd be a room.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: He had a conference room that was maybe like 40
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: feet long, and in it was like a 30-foot table,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: a mahogany table made by Thomas Moser. some famous cabinet
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: furniture maker. And it was all beautiful cherry and mahogany
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: and maybe 22 chairs around it where he'd have meetings.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: And so there was all these creative people, puppeteers and
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Jerry Jewell and Jim and Bill Prady back when he
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: was working there and a guy named Jim Lewis and
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: all the in-house creatives, including marketing, whatever. And we just brainstormed.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: So I was like, this is amazing. This guy just wants,
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: there's no bad ideas. It doesn't matter. who it comes from.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: So I was just comfortable and riffing and having fun.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, we went well. So a year later,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: beginning of 88, he said, do you want to move
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: to New York and work on the show where we sold, uh,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: called the Jim Henson hour? I said, yeah, I would
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: love that. So I moved to New York, uh, uh,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: with basically like two suitcases. I didn't have a lot.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And I got a little one bedroom apartment in the
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Upper East Side. And, and, and, Worked in New York.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I kind of lived half the time in New York
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and the other half in Toronto, Canada doing the Jim
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Henson Hour. And just doing the same thing. Gags, character ideas,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: character designs, and concept stuff. So it was great and
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: a very easy job. And just basically hang out with
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Jim Henson and come up with neat stuff. Do some
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: sketches and sell, build it.
• 52:24
  Speaker 9: Brainstorming and writing for the Muppets is their... is there
• 52:27
  Speaker 9: that sense of anarchy that carries over into the show?
• 52:30
  Speaker 9: Or is it like other shows where everybody's, well, this
• 52:33
  Speaker 9: explodes here.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: So writing, so the brainstorming is different than the writing.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: The writing was a bunch of writers and writers as you,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: basically comedy writers tend to be misanthropes. So that's, that's
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: the people stroking their chins going, hmm, that's, that's funny.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: My bit was funnier. Yeah.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I think we should go back. I actually had,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that was my favorite Bill Prady story back when he's
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: one of the writers. I was not a writer. It's
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: an idea guy that I was on. the Jim creative side,
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: not the sit down and write script side. And Bill
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: was one of the writers and I was designed, I
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: had designed and was working on Waldo C graphic, the
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: computer bug. And, uh, so the gag was at one
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: point in the sketch, he was going to be a
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: talk about being a cowboy and, and two, uh, six
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: guns would appear and you go, pow, pow, pow. And
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: I said, and what is he wearing a cowboy hat?
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: They said, yeah, great. And I said, Oh, what if
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: it's a cowboy hat with an arrow through it? You know,
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: that guy and Bill, Bill pretty said, the joke isn't that,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: he's wearing a funny hat. The joke is that he's
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: wearing a cowboy hat. And I said, what if he's
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: wearing a funny cowboy hat? And this is how it went.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: And he goes, that's a joke on a joke.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: So it's like a hat on a hat. Wait a minute.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And I'm like two hats. So that was my,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: that was my introduction to dealing with writers who were
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: not necessarily visually funny.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what I was wondering in general is because
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: you come from a very practical end of it. Visual, yeah. Yeah,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you're doing practical effects on like the special effects stuff.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: You're building creatures. You're even doing puppetry. Even from the
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: art end, you've got that. But once you move into screenwriting,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: which then you eventually end up doing, did you feel
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: comfortable becoming a writer, so to speak?
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I'd always been a writer in that I came up
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: with ideas and I'd write down, but I'd never written
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: screenplays and I didn't know. about the three-act structure and all.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of heard about it, but I
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: was not well-versed in it, let's say. So that all
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: happened because of dinosaurs. So I was working, again, visual development, gags,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: concept art, and ideas for dinosaurs when Jim passed away.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: So Disney liked the idea, and they brought in Michael
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Jacobs and Bob Young, who had done My Two Dads,
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I think it was the last show, the show they
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: had just finished working on, to develop into a sitcom.
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: So I would sit with them, and we'd talk about
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: the characters, and I'd show them the drawings, and then
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: kind of did the last set of drawings with them
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: and you know they were they were not visual so
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: like this is great like we love that that's hilarious
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: you know it was not it was very different when
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: you're with people who don't draw and think visually they're
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: kind of more easily impressed I would say yeah and
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: sometimes don't get there's a story about that uh don't
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: understand the visual language and anyway so Michael in his
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: generosity said you know you're funny you have great ideas
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: you should be a writer on the show not just
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the design guy and I said I would love to
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: do that So I learned how to write sitcoms. I
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: literally earned while you learned. I got to learn the
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: process by becoming a writer in a sitcom. So I'd
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: sit in the room with the other writers. We had
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: a writer's room and contribute ideas and gags. And what
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: I think my strong point was, and I wasn't a
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: strong writer, but I was visual. So they were all
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: good at plot and character stuff, where I was good
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: at what's a funny idea that's not a twist on
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: a social norm or something. Mine was like, you know,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: the first script I wrote or co-wrote was food goes,
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: food gone bad or food goes bad. And because the refrigerator,
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: and this was, you know, part of my concept of
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: the show was the refrigerator should be a terrarium because
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: they eat live animals. So it's not, they're not dead,
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: they're alive. And so it's like, they have this little
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: environments in the fridge. So I said, well, what if the,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: you know, the joke is the food is revolting, you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: all the jokes work. Oh, it's been in the fridge
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: too long. And so that's what it was. It was this,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: it was this free little creature that, had had his
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: right arm eaten off, and so he stuck a fork
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: in it as his prosthetic arm, and his pet cabbage
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: was his sidekick. And his name was General Chow. It's
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: just stupid, stupid jokes. But it worked. Dinosaurs, right? So
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: that's what I brought to the table, kind of the
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: visual silliness and the conceptual silliness of dinosaurs eating, drinking, sleeping,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: having cars or not. Right. And so it was a
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: good– I think the room on that, it's like animation–
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Simpsons is very much a drawn sitcom. It's really a
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: drawn radio play. But my buddy David Silverman, who turned
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: the Matt Groening cartoons into animation, brought that visual anarchy
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: and silliness to them. Because the way he drew, he
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: was an animator. We had gone to college together. And
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: he had this really fun style. And he could take
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: the Matt Groening very simple life and hell kind of
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: style of art, if you know that, where Matt came from.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and turn them into not just animatable characters like with turnarounds,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: but the way they moved and the crazy expressions when
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Homer chokes Bart and his mouth becomes this abstract shake
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: and his eyeballs are two different sizes. It was very
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: sort of Dada-esque or Dolly-esque. These extremes were not Tex
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Avery stuff. It was more two-dimensional stylized stuff, but he
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: made them funny looking. the characters are funny. The stories
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: and dialogue was funny, but it was, if you'd done
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: it straight laced, it wouldn't have been half of what
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: the Simpsons was. So I brought that to dinosaurs, which
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: is puppetry is a, again, not stating the obvious of
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: visual medium more than like, you know, friends. Uh, so
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: that was my strength. And then going right from that
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: into writing for the Muppets was the same thing. I
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: would think of things that were funny because they look funny,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't read funny. Um, and, or even things
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: were just silly. I, I, kind of to your point,
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: writers tend to be people who live in their heads.
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: And I definitely am more intellectual than I am emotional. But,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I come from sort of, as you said,
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: the visual kind of physical stuff and sort of comedic acting.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I'm silly. I did improv. I love that. So I
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: sort of jump into character and walk around and be,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: you know, more Robin Williams than, um, you know, John Williams.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, uh, As opposed to sitting and going,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: what would be funny? It's like I kind of act
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: out and sort of visualize it. So that's what I
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: think was my strength in the Muppets. As a writer,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Treasure Island is very visually silly. It was Polly Lobster
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: and all the goofiness, Gonzo's arms stretching. And Jerry Jewell,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: who was my mentor, he was very visual too because
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: he had come up as being a puppeteer. So he
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: knew how to write for puppets and their strengths was
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: in things like puppets running around in a room with
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: powder keg is funny. It doesn't sound funny. Like if
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: it was people, they'd just run around. But puppets and
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: the spark.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Puppets running is funny.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: It's funny, yeah. And, you know, Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim,
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Jim was, I remember they're going, why is he saying
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: it like that? I said, because it'll be funny. And
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: they're like, but it doesn't read funny. I said, trust me,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Billy Connolly, who I knew, not personally at that point,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: but I knew his career. I said, Billy Connolly saying Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Jim is going to be funny.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: And then when he doubles on down and says, I'm
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: not Jimmy, Jim, Jim. He's Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: And then he repeats it. Jim. Yes, Captain. Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: It's like absurd. You could only pretty much get away
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: with that with the Muppets and Monty Python, which I
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: always thought the Muppets were. To me, they were not
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: heartfelt little fuzzy creatures that learned about friendship. They were nuts.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: They were Monty Python. They were absurdist. So if you
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: look at the old coffee commercials. No, yeah. They're just insane.
• 59:52
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: And so was Muppet Show sketches.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: The Koosbanian stuff. If you read that, it's like, oh,
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: we're here on the planet Kuzmain to see the mating ritual,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: and two weird Muppets make noises and explode. You're like,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: how is that funny? And then you watch it, and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: it's hilarious. So I've always thought that was the strength
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: of the Muppets, and that's why I like the Muppet monsters,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: because they can be terrible or not kind and cute.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: So that's how it started. So it was dinosaurs, and
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: then into the Muppets, and then... writing and directing his
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Muppet shorts, um, you know, before YouTube, uh, things that
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: were for the Henson was made a deal with the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Hallmark channel to make Henson Hallmark. And so we did
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: these little Muppet shorts, kind of the early days of
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: like viral videos. Uh, the one that really, I really
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: was proud of was the Muppet frog father or Kermit is, uh,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: we put like little cotton balls in the puppets. I'm
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: like this and Steve Littman. And it was Fozzie as
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: Fozzie Berry, uh, uh, Fozzie Barzino. And he's like, I
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: come to you, Frogfather. These two men, they harassed me
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: and everything with Stalin and Waldorf. And that was very silly.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: But we shot it nice and I got to direct it.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: So that was one of the first things. And I
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: just was doing that while they were doing prepping for Muppets. Well,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: it was originally called Muppets in Space. And I had
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: written a script. So all this time, too, I was
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: writing Muppets screenplays. It was getting paid for them, but
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: they didn't get made. So I'd written Muppets in Space.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: And then they were... So Disney was going to do that.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: And Sony... They were pretty much ready to greenlight it.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: And Jerry had written a much smaller, more intimate movie
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: called Star Gonzos. And.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: When Sony took over from Disney as a distributor, they
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: wanted to do that. And so that's what they ended
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: up doing. But they kind of ruined what Jerry had written.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: And I think it was very hard for him because
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: he'd kind of been the guy. And then it was
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: overproduced and overdeveloped by the development team at Henson, who
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: were not Muppet people. These were studio people who had
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: been brought in. And to me, it was not a
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: great Muppet movie. It's fun. There's great silliness in it,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't really hold up that much.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's still fun. It's not terrible. But for me, like,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, to me, those are... And then, obviously,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Muppet Movie. Yeah, Knot and Caper. I think our weakest
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: were Manhattan. Again, story-wise, it's just all over the place
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: and really shaggy and woolly. Great stuff in it. And
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: then Space, I think, are the two weakest in terms of, like,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: what's happening.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: When you're ones that you were just writing on... how
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: much control, like once you had it on the page,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: were you on the set to be able to continue?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I was there for the first three weeks of production
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: for punch up and rewrites and just to enjoy watching what,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: you know, we write, get made. I could have stayed
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: all the way through, but I'm like, you know, it's.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: It's almost worth it if Tim Curry's going to be
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: on set.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: And Billy Connolly. I was definitely there for Billy Connolly.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: The fact that you had those two in one movie.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I couldn't have been happier. I mean, Billy was my pitch.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: I was like, Billy Connolly should play Billy Bones. He
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: was written with that voice in mind. In fact, one
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: of the jokes or stories I tell is that when
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: we're writing the script, we bring in the guys in
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: way before it's cast, and we do a read-through to
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: make sure the Muppet voices are right, and they're on board.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: And I would read Billy Bones as Billy Connolly, because
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: I loved his commentability, you know. Hey, Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: you know, Jim, beware of the black spot. And so
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: when we got Billy to do it and he came
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: and did a cast read-through, somebody came up to me.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: It was one of the performers who didn't know Billy Connell.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: And he said, he sounds just like you. I thought
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: that was funny. I was like, no, I would sound
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: like him. Yeah, no.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 9: Your impression of Jim was spot on. Like, there were
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 9: a couple times where I was like, Jim Henson's actually.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: In the room.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, Jim Henson. Well, I kind of do Jim talking
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: to you, not Kermit so much, because he has this
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: very mellow voice. He was enthusiastic, but he was not
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: hyperkinetic like I can get.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 7: He was more like, hmm, that's really neat. And he
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 7: laughed like Ernie. You know, he was very much in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 7: his head, and he had that kind of gentle, hmm.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, that was the joke. If Jim likes something,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: he'd go, hmm. And if he didn't like it, he'd go.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: It's amazing that he made it in an industry that.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: Just eats people. He didn't make it in that industry.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: He did an end run with The Muppet Show. He
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: couldn't sell it to network television. He couldn't sell a movie.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: He was on SNL for six episodes. So he found–
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: life finds a way. Jim found a patron. I've always
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: joked that I need a patron.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: Because– That's what I keep telling people.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I know. Well, that's what Patreon is and that's what
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Kickstarter is now. That's the new patrons. You just– if
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: your idea is good enough or people know you from
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: doing other things, you go on there and you say, Hey,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: you know, I want a hundred grand to do this.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: And if you can get people to kick it in,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: you found your patrons. And I think that's great. It's
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: the democratization of, of, uh, creativity.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: It's like the only hope for art at this point.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: Everything else has fallen off.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: It's all corporate owned and corporate managed. I think my
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: biggest frustration with the Muppets now is that it's just
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: so overmanaged. I mean, they cut jokes in this last
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: thing I did, uh, Muppet, uh, Haunted Mansion, uh, There's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: stuff there that's innocuous and funny and it's silly. It's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: the kind of stuff I like. And they're just like, well,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: nobody– six out of eight of us didn't like it.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. It's only– whatever.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: That's the stuff that made The Muppet Show what it was.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: I agree. And look, it's totally personal and non-objective. It's
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: completely my opinion. But there's a lot more– the thing
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: that– this is what's frustrating. It's not that they agree
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: or disagree. There's six layers now of people who have
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: to– I always use the term blandardize it and make
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: it great. Well, someone might be offended. We had to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: take– well, I shouldn't probably talk about this stuff. But
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: everyone is so woke now and everyone is so afraid
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: of offending anybody that they took out stuff that no
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: one would be offended by. And it's like in Pirates
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: of the Caribbean. They were auctioning off women because that's
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: what pirates did. Well, we got to take that out. Yeah.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Cause that, I said, yeah, but it's historically, it's historical.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: It's not like they're saying, it's not today saying, oh,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: slavery is great.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Not endorsing that now.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, I understand it's, it's, but they
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: were pirates. They're not the good guys of the Caribbean.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: They're the bad guys of the Caribbean. It's like we
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: did a bank robber movie from, you know, a prohibition
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: with mafia guys. They wouldn't be helping little old ladies
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: across the street. And you know, they shot each other
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: with guns. Um, no, we got to take that out.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: That's not, we don't want kids thinking guns are groovy. So, Wait,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: what world do they live in? And that's the problem.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: And again, the people, the layers, the executives are all
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: mean well, but they're just all worried that somebody's going
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: to be offended, particularly Disney because they're huge and people
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: like to sue them. So I get it. But as
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: a creative person, it's really frustrating. It's like not just
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: asking your mom what she thinks of your painting of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: a cow. It's asking your mom and your aunt and
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: your uncle and the neighbors and then your principal at
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: your school. And the thing you learn as a writer
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: is you ask eight people what they think, you're going
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: to get eight different opinions. I love this. I hate it. Actually,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: you kind of know you're in the right track when
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: someone loves and someone hates it.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Because, okay, so it triggers a response. My art teacher
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: in high school said, the worst thing anyone can say
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: about your work, whether it's a song or a story
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: or a movie or a painting or a sculpture, is
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: it's nice. In other words, it didn't offend me and
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: it didn't excite me. I just thought it was fine.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I never got that. With any project I worked on,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: it was all this. That's interesting. I don't know how
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to process this. So I'm just saying nice as best
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I can.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Interesting is the same as nice. Although I have– so
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: what I've learned is because people show me stuff and
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: I don't really know how to respond. And I've often
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: said this is not my milieu. I don't know how
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: to react. So I could say it's interesting, it's nice,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: but I don't want to blow smoke. But it's different.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to kind of either appreciate it
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: or even understand it. and that's not bad. Um, you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: especially art pieces. I've seen some kind of, uh, abstract
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: puppet pieces where it's just, you know, flying forks banging
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: into red circles and you're just like, you know, to
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: a weird music track and you're like, that's crazy, man.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: That's wow. Wow. Come Christopher Walken. Wow. That's crazy. I, yeah.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Um, I've learned the thumbs up because people now send
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: me stuff on Facebook. Now I'm going to get grief
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: because I thumbs up people a lot. And they'll say,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: what did you think? And I'll say, fun, thumbs up.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Because it is fun. I mean, that's the point of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of this. I mean, forks flying into red
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: circles is fun. It's kooky. I don't know what it means.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: If you're happy with it, that's all that should be important.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: Well, and then that's the trick. And then that's the
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: other thing I've learned is what do you want to do?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Are you trying to sell this as a TV series
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: or are you just making something cool and different? It
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: was cool and different, but if you want to sell
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: it to– children's television workshop, you probably should put the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: letter A in there. Or at least the color red.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Or at least it should.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Be brought to you by. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: So, again, and and that's true for all art i
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: mean some people make art for art's sake and that's
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: great there's there really can't be judged uh except how
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: you personally respond to it but then most people that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: talk to me want to either get a job as
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: a puppeteer or you know sell shows and that's the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: world i'm in so i can give more directed uh
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: input but also i'm not you know sadly i wish
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: i were the guy who made the decisions I'm just
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: like them. There's no difference from me and some kid
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: in school who has a fun idea for a movie.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: You know, the guys created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, just
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: two guys coming with a dumb, like almost a joke
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: between themselves. Like, what's the wackiest thing we could do?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: And they're multimillionaires. It's been sold.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: Making fun of other comics.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: At the time. Exactly.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You know, it's the, yeah.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: They sold the toy rights.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: Because it was, and that's the thing that's frustrating. And
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: that's not just Disney. That's Hollywood right now. It's that.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: It's all owned by corporations and they all don't want
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: to be sued and they only want to make things
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: that they already know are hits. So it's all children's
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: books or reboots or Caldecott winners, which is fine. But
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: they take things that have already been proven in the marketplace,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: which I get. It's a safe bet. But that's not
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: what filmmaking was in the 80s. Gremlins, everything I worked
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: on in the 80s was not based on– except Star
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: Trek– was not based on a previous hit. Well, okay,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Jedi and Star Trek.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: But Jedi was already– Doing stuff. Doing weird stuff.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: But Gremlins. Gremlins, you know, Poltergeist, E.T., they weren't reboots.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: They were like, let's take a risk on this crazy idea.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: Now it's like they don't really do it. They, you know,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: we're having a fourth, fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: They're doing, and here they're doing another Gremlins. You know,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: I naively go in with like, but here's an original idea.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: And they're kind of like, yeah. I mean, Disney has
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: even said, we don't want to really develop original ideas.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: We want to... What can you do with Crocodile from
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: Peter Pan or The Lost Boys? Well, they've been remaking
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: their own movies. Well, that's what I mean. That's what
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: That's like the definition of not even a reboot, but
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: just a straight up remake of your own film.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: Of your own films. Yeah. We're going to do The
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Little Mermaid live action. Isn't that great? I don't know.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: It could be. It could be awful.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: Just watch the other one, but I mean, whatever.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, and that's sad as a creative person.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: And I know, like you mentioned earlier, the fans are frustrated.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: because i go where's originality we want you know where's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: why is it not like the 80s when you had
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: adventures and babysitting and you know just crazy movies that
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: were like what a great i mean it was all
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: you know the wildness of the ideas was the draw
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: you know what's a crazy idea i want to go
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: see that now i mean i will say um cable
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: uh streaming is sort of replaced it but it's all
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: And series are great to explore characters and all that,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: but the movies were movies because it really only could
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: last 90 minutes to two hours.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: It needed to be that.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: It needed to be like, here's a crazy idea and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: here's the fun we're going to have with it. As
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: opposed to, here's a crazy idea, how can we get
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: 13 episodes out of it?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's more hope now because... Technology has
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: changed and now everybody has the equipment. Like on your phone,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: you can make whatever you want. And you can stream
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: it to the whole world essentially.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: But you just don't make money then.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: It's just for your own purpose.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: There's a lot more opportunity. I said, you know, YouTube
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: and the democratization of creativity. You can buy a 6K camera,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: which you could then, whatever you shoot, you could then
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: show in any movie theater in the world for $ 2, 500.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: That used to be the cost of the tripod, you know.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, no, for $ 8, 000 to $ 10, 000, you could have
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: your own, you know, except for lenses and maybe lighting equipment,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: depending on what you're going to do. You could have
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: your own editing pack, you know, editing suite, camera. I mean, Blackmagic,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: they give you the editing software.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: And it's great and color, you know, color correcting. So,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: you know, that's what I'm going. I'm going to go
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: into Kickstarter and the money I'm making from Haunted Mansion,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going to use to buy as long as I
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: can get another job so I can pay the mortgage.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: But I want to use some of it to buy
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: the equipment. And some of it you can rent. But
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: if you're going to use it for more than three weeks,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: then you might as well buy it. Because exactly what
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: you said, the thing I'm banking on is I've done
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: enough stuff over 40 years that people might go, oh,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: I'd like to see what this guy– because I've never
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: really gotten to do what I– the closest for Muppets
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: was Treasure Island. That had a lot of my sensibility
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: in it. And then the closest for TV would have
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: been somewhere between Dinosaurs and Christine McConnell because I helped
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: create them. And, you know, with Christy McConnell, I wrote
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: four to the six and directed all of them.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: That sounded great. I think that's with so many projects,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: especially streaming now, is you also don't hear about them. Like,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: there's no system. By the time you find out about something,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: it's already not gotten picked up.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: People have found Christy McConnell two years later and said, oh,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: I love that. And I was like, yeah, I created it.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: They're like, what? And also, my name isn't on it
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: except as executive producer for union reasons.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: what it's getting down to is the democratization is great.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: The problem is marketing. You can make a great movie,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: but you know, unless you're going to go to Sundance
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: and try and sell it and then they'll give you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: 2 million by the, you know, they'll cover your negative costs.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: So you don't make money at it. I mean, unless
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: it's a hit and that's the problem. It's, it's, so
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: I've been focusing on television because, or streaming because there's
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: a living in that. If you're going to make 13,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: you can actually make it's living. If you're making one movie,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: usually you put, try and put it on, screen and
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: then they won't make unless you get a big star
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: being a big star might be you know kevin pollack
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: or you know kind of somebody who's known but not
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: has a reputation yeah yeah and then you got to
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: give them the two million and then you're out of
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: your five million dollar budget now you're making a three
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: million dollar movie uh which is fine but it it's
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: again that's coming out of your pocket not kevin pollack's
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: um well that was.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: The one of the things i saw recently you'd done
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: in in the last few years um the episode of
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: the kids are all right That's human beings.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: You're directing people.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: How did that go?
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: Well, the guy I wrote Food Goes Bad with on dinosaurs,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: a guy named Tim Doyle, who was just out of
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: the Disney Writers Program, and this was his first series,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: and he and I are about the same age. We
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: hit it off, two big goofballs. Both grew up in
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: the Valley, kind of really similar childhood. So we weren't Jewish,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: which almost every other writer was. So we had– It
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: was funny. On a Jewish holiday, the writing staff was Tim, myself,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: and the other co-creator, Bob Young. It was Thatcher, Young,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: and Doyle. We're like, we sound like a legal law
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: firm in London or Ireland. But anyway, Tim and I
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: became really good friends. And so he's gone off to
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: create and run shows. And he created The Kids Are
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: All Right. And I've been telling him for years. And
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: he was like, you're a good director. I said, it's
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: so hard when you do Muppets. People don't think you
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: can direct people. I'm like, you know, there's people under
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: the puppets. They think it's like kids shows. I'm like, Oh,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: it's really hard. So he had done, he had sold
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: kids are all right. And he was doing it and
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: he said, I'm going to get you, you know, I'm
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: going to pitch for you to be a director. And
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: what had happened was the new Muppets series, the Muppets, uh, the,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: the director who was a producer on that, um, Randall, uh,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: what was Randall's last name? Einhorn, uh, had directed almost
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: all of the, I think he did most of the,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: the Muppets, the 13 or whatever that aired.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: And he was the producer on that and the main director.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: Like he was going to direct half the episodes on
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: The Kids Are Alright. And he went to bat for me.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: He said, look, anyone who can direct the puppets can
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: direct people. It's so much easier.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. It's got to be ten
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: times more complicated to do a scene with the Muppets.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 6: It is.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: I would say blocking with three cameras for eight actors
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: is easier than blocking for three puppets on one actor.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: It's just faster. And faster. So they started making the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: show and they were about six episodes in and I
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: met with him and the And the producer who'd done
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: most of the, actually the producer and the line producer
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: and the creator, Tim, were all Muppet alumni. They'd all
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: done the Muppet show, the Muppets, sorry, the original Muppets,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: the Muppets. And a lot of the Muppet viral videos,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: like Bohemian Rhapsody. So they all knew me. So I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: met with Tim and with the line producer and the producer,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: and they all said, we're always going over budget because
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: we're taking too much time. And the director who was
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: doing most of them and his buddy who he'd brought
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: into to do the other ones they were just taking
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: you know 14 hour days you know sometimes going into
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: a sixth day which and and they had told you
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: know the director that those guys had said you just
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: were writing scripts that are too long they we can't
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: do that in this short amount of time so they
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: both all these three these guys like we know and
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: tim said i know you're fast i know you don't
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: mess around so if you can show that this can
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: be done in the five days, you know, you're, you're golden.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I can do that. And I looked
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: at the script and, and anyway, I did it in
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: less than five days. I did it. You get 60 hours,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: essentially five, 12 hour days. I did it in 46.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: I was four hours short. And I remember on the
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: third day, like their wardrobe person was like, you know,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: we were just, I'm just meeting the crew. And I'm like, wow, you're,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: you're fast. I'm like, is that, That's good. We like it.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: We get to go home and have dinner with our families.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, that's kind of what they told
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: me is like, you got to prove that we can
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: do this in the amount of time. So I did it.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: I did the amount of time and went in for
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: my edit and spent like two hours with the editor
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: and it already, you know, it was a rough cut
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: and it was fine. And, and then the producers get
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: there at it. And so I called her, I hadn't
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: heard for two weeks. I'm like, Oh, you know what happened?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: She goes, no, it was first. We thought you didn't
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: get it. You were a little light on coverage, which means,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: you know, how many takes and how many angles you said,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: but you know, and I'll cut together. Fine. I said, okay, great.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: So kind of waited to hear, Waited to hear.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 7: It aired.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: It was fine. I promoted it, saying, hey, I did this.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: So they were looking at doing another six, because they
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: liked it. it and it was getting good critical reviews. Sadly,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: in the ratings, it was going like this. It was
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: going down.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: Again, any network sitcom. It's like flip a coin and
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: see what catches on.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: They don't give it a lot of time. It was
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: a really smart show and it wasn't helpful at the time.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: It was a really smart show and kind of cynical
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: in a smart way.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good cast.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: Amazing cast. It was more– well– So I read the
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: script and I was meeting with Tim, the creator. And
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: I said, so he's saying we don't do reaction takes.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: We don't, you know, there's no laugh track. And that
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: was good. He said, we don't do really specifically. We
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: don't do swingles, which is like, if I'm talking to
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: you too, I would, you say your line would swing
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: over and get your line. And so it gives it
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: a dynamism. No, it was like three cameras, always dirty overs.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: You always have a shoulder side of a head. So
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: you really feel like you're in there with a family,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: which I got in very, you know, mise en scene, you're,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: you're there. And they didn't want to look, you know,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: there was no dolly shots. Everything was handheld. That was
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: the other thing. So it was, you know, that was
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: their style. And they picked it, Randall Einhorn had created that.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: And it was great. It worked with it. But so
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: I did it and it aired and everything was fine.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: And so I said, hey, you know, and he said, hey,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: if we get a second seat, I said, can I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: get one back six? And I don't think so. I
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: was like, why? He said, well, the word came out
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: that you didn't get enough coverage. I'm like, what? I said,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: I shot it. And he goes, yeah, I know. But
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: the thing was, The guy who was the producer who
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: went to bat for me, well, I guess they felt
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: I was making him look bad because he'd never done one.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: But I have to say he had scripts that were
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: really complicated, like 12 characters doing Christmas presents. So there
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: were some scripts I'm like, well, I couldn't have done.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: It's not like I was some wonder kid. I just
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: kind of knew how to do it fast. But because
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: of that, I think. They had to defend themselves and say, well,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: he just didn't– he did it fast because he didn't
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: shoot enough stuff. But he cut together fine.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: But yeah, if you shot the extra stuff, you would
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: have been over in time.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: Well, exactly. How do you win? Your friends are saying,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: can you do this under time? And you do it
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: and they're like, good job. And the edit was fine.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: But then the guys who were– also went to bat
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: for you, you didn't make them look better. Of course. And,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't have corroboration that they were mad
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: and hated me or something. But it was weird when
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: I'd done what essentially the entire production team and the
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: creator had asked me to do successfully. And then it
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: didn't get picked up, so it was all moot anyway.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: But that's the last time Tim has had a show.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: And that's the last time I've directed anything for network television.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: So it's great on my reel. I'm really happy about it.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that both Tim and Randall went to
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: bat for me and let me do it.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: But it kind of fueled more of the, I'm going
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: my own way. I'm going to go try to get Patreon.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: Well, and also sitcoms are dead. They're not making them.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: So the guys are directing them are like, you know,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: Tommy Schleimer, the guys directed everything since like cheer, you know,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: huge comedy directors, which, you know, they just know it's
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: a safe bet. I don't have to worry about it.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: They're not taking a chance on, you know, I'm not young,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: but I'm kind of new to the, you know, that world.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: Cause there's not puppets in it. So my angle is
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: Kickstarter or like go for Mandalorian or Marvel. The Marvel
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: guys I'm friends with, so I've been talking to them,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: trying to get even just episodic TV stuff.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: They've got nine in the works right now. Exactly.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: I said, come on, you guys. But the thing is,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: and I've been told this to my face, you're a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: white man. We're not hiring white men. I said, but
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: I've got experience. They're like, yeah, but it's all about diversity,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: which I can't be mad about. I'm supportive. I'm very
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: left of center. But it's tough when they literally look
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: at you like, oh, so that's what it must be
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: like to be a woman or a person of color.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: Or like, oh, we can't. They would never say to them,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: at least after 1975, we can't hire you because of
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: your color or your race or your sexual orientation. But
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: they can tell a white guy that. Yep, can't hire
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: you because you're a white male. Straight white male, don't
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: need you. So, again, that's pushing me more towards Kickstarter.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: Because I think people don't care if they like the idea.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: which is how it used to be. But I understand it.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: So it's just, that sucks. But it's sucked for a
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: lot more people for a lot longer. Yeah, definitely. So
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: I can't be, you know, you can be frustrated by
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: it and also go, oh, there's karma. Why am I
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: the one who takes the road? Why can't it be
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: the jerks that nobody likes working with?
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: Can I pick who we put?
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: That guy, that guy over there.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: The guy who has five shows on the air and
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: directs all the time, but everyone says he's a total jerk.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: Why can't he be the one you want to hire? Oh,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: because he has five shows on the air and he's,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: you know, he's a hit. He's a hit maker. So
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: that's human nature, not necessarily showbiz.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: Well, we only had one more wraparound from last time.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: Sure, sure.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Because we dove into the punk on the bus quite
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: a bit last time.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: Going through, I saw the Spider-Man reoccurrence of this punk.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: Who is this punk on the street?
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: That was Kevin Feige. I said I'm friends with the
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: Marvel guys. It's through my friend Michael Giacchino. I dropped
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: a name. Kevin Feige. Oh, I dropped another one. The
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: floor is littered with names at this point, folks. You
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: can't see it because it's a podcast. So Michael Giacchino
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: has been a friend since he scored Muppet Wizard of
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: Oz for me. We became pals with very similar sensibilities.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: He introduced me because he'd been scoring a couple of Marvel.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: He'd scored the– we did Spider-Man close to– or Far
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: From Home. No. You did Spider-Man Homecoming. And they were
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: shooting it when I met Kevin Feige at Comic-Con. And
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: Kevin Feige walked up to me. Michael said, this is
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: my friend Kirk Thatcher. And Kevin Feige walked up to
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: me dead straight and said– wait, are you the Kirk Thatcher?
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: And I looked at Michael like, wait, are you punking? Like, what?
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: And I was like, started giggling, like, yeah? Like, where
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: is this going? And he said, the one in Star
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: Trek 4 that played the punk? And I said, yeah.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: And he puts down his hand and he goes, it
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: is a pleasure to meet you. You're the reason I
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: got into film business. I'm like, what? I'm laughing like
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: you're like, what? That is a statement. I keep looking
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: over my shoulder at Michael like, come on, this is
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: a put on. He said, no. I saw that when
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: I was 15 and I said, so the producer got
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: to be in this movie as a punk, got to
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: write the song, got associate producer credit. I want to
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: be a producer. You can do everything. And I'm like, seriously?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: He's like, absolutely. And I said, well, geez, I'm a
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: fan of what you guys are doing. So we became friends,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: and I was pitching. So I said, because I was
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: a little drunk at this point. It was like 12
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: o'clock at night. I said, well, if you're a big fan,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: why don't you have me direct one of your movies?
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: Because that's what I do. And he said, you're right.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: Let me get you my information so we can trade
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: in info. Over the next year, really, I was working
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: with one of the producers there to develop a Marvel
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: property that would be kind of in my wheelhouse. I
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: wanted to do Howard the Duck, but it was already
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: spoken for. So we were developing it and I was
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: having a meeting at Marvel over at Disney and Kevin
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: came in. He was supposed to be in the meeting,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: but he was busy making Spider-Man. But he came in
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: and he said, hey, I'm going to sorry, I'm late.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: My car blew a tire. Now I got to go.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: I got to get in a plane. I'm going to
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: New York. I said, I'm going to be in New
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: York on Friday, which was true. This was a Wednesday.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: He said, what are you going to New York for?
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm just seeing friends and I had something
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: I had to go for. And he said, well, we're shooting,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: you know, we're shooting Spider-Man now. You should come visit
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: the set. I'm like, oh, that'd be cool. And he goes, wait,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: oh no, you know what? We should put you in
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: the movie. You should be the punk. We should put
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: you as the punk in the movie. I'm like, Wait, what?
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, yeah. I said, well, I don't know
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: if I can get the mohawk. He goes, it doesn't matter.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: We'll figure it out. You can have the boombox. You
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: can be playing the song. And I'm like, okay, cool.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: He said, can you be there Friday? I said, well,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be there Friday. He goes, Friday at
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: 4 in the morning or 6 in the morning? I'm like, well,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: I could probably change my flight. He goes, all right.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: And he handed me off to the line producer. He said,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: they're going to call you. And so I literally got
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: a call on Thursday. And they said, okay, Kevin wants
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: you in the movie. You're going to play the punk
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: on the street. I'm like, okay. And just threw it together.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: The director looked shocked when I showed up because he
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, what are you? You knew what it was. Yeah, no,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: he didn't care.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: He did not say that.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: He didn't even use me on camera for more than
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: a couple seconds. But that's how I ended up in
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: the movie because Kevin Feige was a huge fan. That's amazing.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: So we're still pursuing.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: You never know where it will come back and pop up.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean. Half the business is what you know.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: The other half is who you know. And who you
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: know introducing to who they know. And that pays to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: be a nice person, you know?
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: Someday I'll learn how to do that. You jerks know. Yeah,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: so that was that. And hopefully something will come of
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: the Marvel connection, whether it's they're starting to do little
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: TV movies now too. Kind of ideas that maybe don't
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: need a $ 200 million feature. Uh, so, you know, something
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: might come of it.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Netflix ones were kind of successful.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: It's like they should learn from that.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: And they are.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Incorporated into Disney Plus, which is what they want to do.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: Disney is dying for content.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: And Marvel has the perfect track record. They're better than
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: Pixar now. Pixar had it for years. Now it's Marvel.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: Lucasfilm blew it years ago. So Marvel's their golden boy,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: you know, and the goose that lays golden eggs.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: So.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Every time you start expanding and making Falcon and Winter Soldier,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: maybe that's not as successful as WandaVision. You're filling the
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: airwaves with so much content, it's hard for everything to
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: be a winner, as opposed to one movie every year.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: But we'll see. Between that and Kickstarter, and I'm developing
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: an animated series with Netflix that I'm writing the pilot. Actually,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: I'm waiting to get the notes on the pilot. I
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: can't say what it is or anything, but it's an
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: adult animated series, more like what you'd see in Adult Swim.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: with an established animation company out of Canada. So that
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: could be fun. And it's not cutesy, kidsy. Again, adult
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: always sounds like it's porn or R-rated, but it's more
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: just like, again, Adult Swim is probably, that's what's nice.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: You can use that now and people go, okay, it's
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: not naked ladies, people having sex. It's just not little
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: kids per se.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: It's still horribly inappropriate. Just different.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: Horribly inappropriate. Exactly. It just doesn't do with making babies.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: No weenies or boobies. Well, never mind.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 8: I know.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: Why would I be interested in that?
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Did you have any big specific ones to get in there.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: Before we wrap it up? I did have a quick question. Yeah, sure.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 9: Were you involved with the Hollywood Bowl shows?
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple years ago.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: I remember those. I co-wrote them and directed them. I
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: directed them and co-wrote them, yeah.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 9: What's the difference between doing a live puppet show versus.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: In terms of the writing, you're really hampered by what
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: you can do on a live stage. In other words,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: you can't suddenly take every... I mean, use theater tricks
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: like now we take you to Planet Kuzma and you
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: just drop a weird looking alien planet and you're in Kuzma.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: So we weren't so limited by that. We were limited
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: by how many puppets we had and Directing it was
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: the bigger challenge. I'd done theater in high school, so
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: I kind of knew how that worked. I'd never directed
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: theater before, but it's not that different. It's just you're
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: doing a live show, so it's like doing a three-camera show.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: But the thing that we really struggled with when figuring
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: out is do we have walls up so you only
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: see the puppets? Do we have the puppeteers on black
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: with black hoods so you can't see them? And Bill Beretta,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: who was one of the main puppeteers and producer on it,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: he said– and he kept pushing like, nope, we should
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: just have him out there and the lights will see him.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, but you can't film that. That's
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: going to ruin it. And so we kind of realized
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: the best thing to do was have the cameras just
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: showing– if you watch the screen, you're going to see
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: the puppet show. If you watch the stage, you're going
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: to see how the sausage is made, as I said.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: People loved it. And Bill was right. He said people
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: are going to love that. And again, you couldn't see
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: a close-up of Dave Goels talking with Gonzo floating above him.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: You would see Gonzo. But if you were in the
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: close enough seats, you could see Dave's mouth move. But
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: if you're far enough away, you could still see Dave
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: and how they worked. So people loved that because it
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: was kind of the best of both worlds. So that
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: was the fun. The tricky part was rehearsing. It's all
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: about timing. It's like doing a big dance. Getting people
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: on and off stage and working with the venues. So yeah,
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: the Hollywood Bowl and the London O2 shows were yeah,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: there was like three writers on it and I was
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: the only director. And it was fun. And a nice experience.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 6: Awesome.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 9: Cause yeah, I wondered how that would be like if
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 9: the Muppet perform, I guess coming from a puppet background,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 9: I guess a lot of them probably do have some stage.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: Well they were, and then Bobby Moynihan, of course, that
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: was Bobby was, I take credit for that. Cause he
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: had just left SNL. I said, we should get Bobby Moynihan.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: And they're like, you know, he's a white guy. So yeah,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: I know. And he, but he was a huge, he
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: was not only a Muppet fan, he was a huge
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: Star Wars fan. So he and I become friendly or
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: friends and, And he was just– I'm just still proud
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: that I made that suggestion because he was so perfect.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: He really is a Muppet and he gets– you know
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: what I mean? There are Muppet people and not Muppet
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: people and he's a Muppet person.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: He jumped in with both feet and he was– like
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: he would tell us, I would pay you to be here.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: He loved it so much. And so that energy is
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: not– you can't fake that. So he's just out there
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: having a blast and totally– He almost cried. Gonzo, he said,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: was his favorite Muppet. And he did so much with Gonzo.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that was great. And he came with us
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: to London.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: No, I love those. And the big fun thing was
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: writing it. We wrote it like The Muppet Show. It
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't any clever pretense. It was literally putting on a
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: live show, just like The Muppet Show.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: So Scooter was there helping. And Kermit was trying not
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: to lose his mind. And Piggy was a diva. And so... and,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: and the critics and every, every time I do something,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: the critics and the fans go, this is amazing. The
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: Muppets are back. This is what they should be doing.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: And then they hire, you know, someone else to do
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: the movies or the, and it's so frustrating. And it's,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: it's that human nature is like, well, you're a Muppet guy.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: You're not really, you know, you can't, it's, you're never
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: a prophet in your own town. Is that, if you've
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: heard that phrase and it's really true, it's like, well,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: we need big, we need big, we need big TV people. Not,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: that's why I didn't work on the Muppets. I wasn't
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: a big TV guy. I only written Muppet movies and
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: TV series, you know, uh, And won an Emmy for it.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: But you weren't. You didn't work on Big Bang Theory.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. Oh, the finest of writing.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: I was like, I get it. You're not going to
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: hire me to create it or write it. But hire
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: me as the writing staff. Like, I get it. And
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: they're like, no, no, we want sitcom writers. And that's
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: what you get. So, whatever. Human nature. I don't take.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: You have to learn not to take that stuff personally. Right.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: I still have voodoo dolls with, you know. But it
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: doesn't work. Nobody's died.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: But I do like stabbing people.
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: Nobody's gone blind. One gosseter hearing, one in each ear.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for hanging out with us.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: You let us know what you've got to to put
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: out there yeah we can definitely spread the word on
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: on kickstarters.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: And anything patreon and yeah that would be great pass
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: it on i'm trying to figure out how to do
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: patreon because that i feel like you've got to produce
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: something every month.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: It's a fight because we've we've got one right now
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: so you heard him people you have to join our
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: patreon group and then we'll tell you give.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: Them the five dollars a month yeah oh no wait
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: don't give me your five dollars.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: I'll i'll uh you've got 10 bucks give us i'll have.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: I'll have i'll have naked muppet stories um Well, I
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: was talking to Bill Diamond, who's a puppet guy. He's
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: got his own studio. And his suggestion is, and it
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: was a good one, it was like, do your Kickstarter
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: for the pilot.
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: So you can show people. And then your Patreon is,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: if you give me, you know, 40 bucks, you'll get
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: six episodes a year.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: So that's it. It's like, you know, it's getting Netflix
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: for three months or four months.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: But you get six episodes. It's a whole new business plan.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, that makes sense. You know, and if
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: I get 5,000 people to give me 20 bucks, I
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: could produce, you know, a show every two months. Yeah.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: So I don't know. I got to figure it out.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: It's a brave new world. I'm not, I don't really
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: have a head for business in that way. I'm always like,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: I just want to make stuff. So, and that's what's
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: great about Bill. Besides the puppet stuff he does, Bill Diamond,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: he makes these great shows and he, he finds the money.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: He just, he doesn't go to.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: The way to keep it going. Cause I've seen him
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: here for years.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: I know. I so admire, I so admire that about him.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: He's a businessman and a creative and I'm kind of
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: more of a creative and.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: It's a hard balance.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: It's hard to be both.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: It's hard.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, Walt Disney was, that was his genius.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: And to some degree, Jim Henson, although, you.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: Know, he was more artisty and that's what.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, commercials is what kept the Muppets alive
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: for years. Sullivan show didn't pay anything. It was Wilkins
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: and Wilkins and all the stuff he did as a commercial.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: All that stuff paid really well because it was commercials
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: and there were three networks and everything. And, you know,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: it was a lot more money back then compared to
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: now where it's, they still pay really well, but, There's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: 700 outlets, not three.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's insane.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: Well, good luck with your Patreon.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: We do what we can. So, yeah, let us know
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: what you got in the works and we'll pass it on.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: Oh, I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks for being here.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: Should we put our clothes back on now?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, why?
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. All right.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: If we've made it this far, let's get this going.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: The all-nude movie meltdown.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: You're assuming we wear clothes on any episode.
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. I think I'll have to listen more closely.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: Thanks, guys.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: Sayonara.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: I'm your puppet man.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 2: Can't you see it? Puppet, puppet man.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 8: I can't do anything unless you pull the strings.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 6: I think I'm going to have to move to the
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 6: other side of the table because I'm pretty sure there's
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 6: a spider over there. Do you see him? Tarantula. Do
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 6: you see it?
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: He's right there.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: How do you not see him?
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 6: I want to move to the other side of the table.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 6: I don't like spiders.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: I see him.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: It's a spider. He's coming to eat you.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 6: I know. That's why I'm going over here. Oh, there's
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 6: spider webs over here too.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's already been there. He set up shop.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 6: I'm going to hang out right here. But then I
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 6: can't see what's coming up behind me.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: Monsters. We're back.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: From Wonderfest to tell you it was awesome. Yeah. We're
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: glad we've worked our way back into the world here
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: at Wonderfest.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 6: And I got to go to the book sale at
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 6: the library today and I found a copy of Halloween
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 6: 3 for 50 cents. The novelization.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 2: I'm jealous.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: I want you all to know.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 6: You should be.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: Because I want that and I want to pay a
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: little amount of money for it as possible. 50 cents
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: is the least amount of money you're probably going to
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: get a book for.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 6: Especially Halloween 3.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: Especially Halloween 3. Good luck. Go look at it on eBay.
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: It ain't cheap. Is it not? I would say any
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: of those novelizations of Halloween is a fortune. Friday the
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: 13th I thought they made some of. They're a fortune.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: There's some early nightmare ones I think that are a fortune.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm assuming the weird cult that Halloween 3 has
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: also the novelization is worth a fortune. So you made
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: cash today. But we want to thank Wonderfest for all
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: the fun that we've had today. So if you haven't
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: been here, you really should be. It's awesome. Go to wonderfest.com
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: and find out what's going on next time around. I
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: believe they usually go ahead and plan it for next year.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: So I think they've already got the date on this
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: thing I'm wearing right here. It says next Wonderfest, June
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: 4th and 5th, 2022. It's the weekend after Memorial Day,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: much like this one. So they've got their plans. See,
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: they know what they're doing. They've got it down. Go
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: to wonderfest.com. Come here next time.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 6: This one's even in worse shape than mine is.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: Look at that. All right. And what are they asking
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: for that Halloween 3 paperback?
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: What did I say? It's $ 109. 85. You paid 50 cents
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: for yours, and it's in better shape than that one.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: I told you. Money.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 6: I have the first one, too, which has the best
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 6: cover ever.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: That one's going for a lot, if I remember correctly.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 6: But I do want the... ya series of following too
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 6: and the freddy krueger series of following ya books i'm.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: Sure you do okay well with that i say we're
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: gonna get out of here we'll be back probably for
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: more wonderfest coverage in the very near future otherwise that
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: about does it we will return next time same geek
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: feed thanks for listening.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 8: Rub it from a string and I'll kiss your lips.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 5: On your bucket now.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 8: Shake out a line and I'll bring you pride on
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 8: your bucket now. Love.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 5: And when you've got a bad eye, you're popping out.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, you're freaking popping.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 8: Do what you gotta do I'm your poppin' pop Come
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 8: in for a.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 5: Drink And I'll do my thing I'm your poppin' pop
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 5: Come in for a drink And I'll kiss.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 8: Your lips.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 5: Well, then it's time to hang around. Let's go away.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 5: Don't waste your time.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 8: You're bummed.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: You're bummed.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: You're bummed.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, you over there.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: You over here.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 6: Where am I moving?
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: No, you're killing me. Just sit here. See, now you're
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: not looking at anyone's back. Oh, okay.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, but I'm going to turn my chair around.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's up to you. No, see, now I
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: can just look at two people and not go like this.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: That makes sense. Jesus, guys.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 9: You know, since I was a little kid, I've always
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 9: wanted to get into an argument with a Muppet.
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's the culture.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: That's a whole new meaning now.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 2: What the hell are you doing? Nope, not going to
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 7: You can go sit in a lake full of ants.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like Snoop Dogg right now. Oh, my God.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: All right. Not as high.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 6: There was a lizard. It was a skink, and they
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 6: are my least favorite of lizards. It went behind me
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 6: on the other side of the wall. You can't see
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 6: him now.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: He's probably coming after you.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 6: He probably is, too. Him and the spider are going
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 6: to gang up on him.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: They're teaming up.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 6: Inside is scary.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: This is why you've been in the house for a
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: year and a half.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 4: This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: edited by The Oddity Studios. with opening music performed by
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 4: the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 4: the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 3: Talk hard!
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.