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To Introduce Our Guest Star - Episode Nineteen: Frank Oz · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:11
  Hello. My name is Johannes and I'm
• 0:14
  Cherokee Clough. And welcome to, to introduce our
• 0:17
  guest star on Muppet fan podcast presented by tough pics.com in
• 0:21
  this show. Jared and I are taking it in
• 0:23
  turns to surprise each other with this week's guest and this
• 0:26
  week for our season finale. It's my turn.
• 0:30
  It is so Jared, I assume you have no clue who I'm bringing on
• 0:35
  today. Now, I know I've already been
• 0:36
  talking to this person that's not to have been talk to us, but
• 0:39
  little, I have no idea and it's funny, like, I've been, we said
• 0:43
  it a thousand times. I'll say it again, I've just sat
• 0:45
  here and in the last 10 seconds, I've just gotten all nervous
• 0:48
  again. It doesn't happen because I
• 0:50
  guess I have no idea who's coming and you know oh yeah.
• 0:53
  These season finale. So I'm excited.
• 0:57
  Now. Last time I was in the finale,
• 0:58
  you surprised with two people. So if you've done that again, to
• 1:01
  me, I'll you can't see me folks. I'm pointing my brain.
• 1:04
  I'll be like, I'll be watching you Hennis.
• 1:07
  Is that what you watch with you watch with your brain?
• 1:09
  That's the thing. That's the thing they do
• 1:10
  actually Leah. Yes.
• 1:11
  I think really kind of your eyes you'd think so, yeah, but yeah,
• 1:15
  all right, all right, shut up, you things weirdly down there.
• 1:18
  All right, so let's do this thing.
• 1:20
  Ask me some questions. Let's see if you can guess this
• 1:22
  thing. All right, Muppet Sesame or
• 1:24
  Henson. So, technically all three.
• 1:29
  Okay. Yeah.
• 1:31
  That that helps but also doesn't help.
• 1:34
  Yeah, it's this right. That's accurate.
• 1:36
  Is this person about performer? Yes.
• 1:41
  Okay. Is this person currently Muppet
• 1:43
  performing, say would they've worked on say Muppets Mayhem
• 1:46
  this coming out. No.
• 1:49
  Okay. Have they worked on something.
• 1:51
  The last 10 years. Ten years, I don't believe.
• 1:59
  So I'm gonna say no, hey, interesting rice and other
• 2:02
  current lack of performer. All right, I've Got a Theory
• 2:08
  based on what you said at the start.
• 2:10
  When you said technically all three, Is this person a Henson?
• 2:18
  No. Okay, interesting.
• 2:20
  I thought maybe. All right.
• 2:21
  Oh, all right. Um, Technically, all three
• 2:27
  haven't worked on anything in the last 10 years.
• 2:32
  Did they work on The Muppet Show?
• 2:35
  Yes. Okay.
• 2:39
  Surely not but my guess look, you could have pulled it off.
• 2:44
  Maybe you've gone for the Hail Mary.
• 2:47
  Joe is at Franco's. Jared, Our Guest today is a man
• 2:54
  who needs no introduction, so I'll keep it brief actor.
• 2:57
  Writer director, Jedi, Master, original performer behind
• 3:02
  Fozzie, Bear Grover Cookie Monster and the one and only ha
• 3:06
  ha, ha frankly, frankly ha ha. He's a living legend.
• 3:12
  Yes, just I am extremely pleased to introduce our guest stars.
• 3:20
  Mr. Frank Oz. Jaysus, do you?
• 3:23
  And I have been running. Our feel like a race to get
• 3:26
  Frank on. Don't think.
• 3:27
  I haven't tried. Hey, Frank can you hear us?
• 3:31
  I can go. There you are.
• 3:34
  Hey, Frank. Hi Frank.
• 3:35
  How are you? I'm gonna I'm not feeling well
• 3:38
  and I might be talking in front of you, so I'm going to just go
• 3:42
  to camera dead here. Okay.
• 3:45
  No, I actually find cool. It's good to see you.
• 3:49
  So I'm Joe that's Jared. We've all been at home or but
• 3:55
  Jared, yeah, right? Roger.
• 3:58
  Yeah, I'm sorry. Wow, try not to cough much.
• 4:01
  Okay, that's right, I'll edit add as many of the costs as I
• 4:04
  can, so you probably should have a coffee filter there.
• 4:08
  No. But I love the coffee filters.
• 4:09
  Just me edit. Okay, we call that A Drop In The
• 4:14
  Biz. Yeah, yeah, right now.
• 4:17
  It's a good point. Okay, beautiful.
• 4:21
  We've actually met before Frank. I know you will say we
• 4:26
  interviewed when we had mapper guys, talking we spent About, we
• 4:31
  spent about an hour on the phone with each other and it was a
• 4:37
  good hours of boring. Our it was amazing.
• 4:39
  And I actually need to thank. I should thank you because the
• 4:42
  way this like this podcast works is, I didn't know you were
• 4:45
  coming until ten minutes ago, which means I'm unprepared,
• 4:49
  which is good, which is the point.
• 4:52
  But what happened is, when I interviewed you, I was told I
• 4:55
  had 15 minutes. So I did my 15 minutes and I
• 4:57
  finished and you went. No, let's keep going.
• 5:00
  And so, I interviewed you for another half an hour flying by
• 5:03
  the seat of my pants and no idea what to do and I was like that's
• 5:08
  a really good interview because I have no idea what to do and to
• 5:11
  just go grab your rights so much better when it's spontaneous.
• 5:15
  Yes and so because of that I was like I should do a whole podcast
• 5:19
  like that. So hence welcome to the show but
• 5:23
  I must say you were doing a tremendous job of pretending.
• 5:27
  It's all together. Oh yeah.
• 5:30
  Yeah. Yeah, that's my whole life.
• 5:31
  Yeah, we're just pretending to have it all together.
• 5:32
  Our minds on the other side of this.
• 5:34
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 5:36
  Oh yeah, it's great. That you're looking at.
• 5:39
  You're looking so together here, when I know it's not true II
• 5:43
  just compare. I mean, that's like the life of
• 5:44
  a puppeteer where, you know, it seems so professional, you know,
• 5:48
  above the above, the screen line.
• 5:51
  You can probably hear my. You can probably hear my
• 5:53
  Washington in my mouth too. Sure about that.
• 5:56
  That's alright, you'll Frank Hollis.
• 5:58
  You can do whatever you like. So we just say it's like how
• 6:02
  character toys, how can I contribute here?
• 6:06
  Oh, we're just going to have it. Have a good old chat again
• 6:08
  flying by the seat of my pants. Well, I I don't I'd rather have
• 6:13
  your pants no part of this. Okay, that's that, that's that.
• 6:18
  Alright, well, firstly, how I Franc aise has things.
• 6:23
  I have a cold but besides the cold, but otherwise, I mean, I'm
• 6:28
  fine. Actually, you know, I trusted
• 6:30
  myself twice about Corbett's yesterday, so thank God.
• 6:33
  It's not cold. It's just your basic cold.
• 6:36
  Unfortunately, I don't think I haven't been to Australia for 40
• 6:41
  years. I think I was there for
• 6:44
  publicizing my bumpers, Take Manhattan.
• 6:48
  I think it was in Sydney and Perth.
• 6:51
  I think years ago and I hadn't even seen the city, I was only
• 6:55
  able to come out a little bit before between interviews, you
• 6:58
  know, but it was look beautiful there.
• 7:01
  Yeah, it's a beautiful contrary while I'm down in Melbourne.
• 7:04
  So sir I feel free that's a futon.
• 7:07
  You built for a sleep on it anytime.
• 7:09
  Okay. Very nice of you.
• 7:11
  You're welcome room service, and if you ever want to come to
• 7:14
  Berlin, I don't know the last time you've been to Brooklyn,
• 7:16
  I'm sorry. I can go to Melbourne, but I
• 7:19
  can't live with them. I know that bridge that Brooklyn
• 7:21
  Bridge. I'm waving to you, by the way,
• 7:23
  across the water from here. I assume I assume your New York
• 7:26
  at least I am a Manhattan Manhattan.
• 7:28
  Yeah, great. I will Jared.
• 7:33
  I mean this is your surprise. I was I think you should start
• 7:35
  with the questioning please wall.
• 7:37
  Start questioning. Oh you have questions for IT?
• 7:40
  Why? The he'll mod, you're not doing
• 7:41
  a good job of it. Again, I'm losing, I'm losing my
• 7:46
  shit down here below the law of, right?
• 7:49
  That's fine. I actually don't want to see
• 7:51
  blow up the frame or his pants. Either.
• 7:52
  One at a fast that's fair. We're talking.
• 7:56
  Hopefully continue to be below the frame.
• 7:59
  Yeah. Had a saying.
• 8:01
  Yeah. Let's go tell you how this tough
• 8:07
  pigs is extraordinary because you've been so supportive of Of
• 8:11
  the Muppets. And and and somehow somehow The
• 8:15
  Muppets of strict your heart and your instincts.
• 8:19
  How did that happen a long time ago?
• 8:20
  How to stop pigs begin. That's a better big question.
• 8:26
  I mean, you know, it really comes from a place of pure love
• 8:31
  of the stuff that you and Jim in the rest of those.
• 8:33
  Folks. All created, you know, tough.
• 8:36
  Big started in 2001 and I think a part of it came about because
• 8:42
  there was such a love of everything that came before that
• 8:46
  point, and for those years kind of leading up to that, there
• 8:50
  wasn't a whole lot going on. And People were starting to
• 8:53
  forget and we were not about to have any of that.
• 8:56
  We wanted people to remember like the Muppet Show was great.
• 8:59
  Classic Sesame Street is great, Fraggle Rock is great like all
• 9:02
  these things are just you know should be loved by a larger
• 9:05
  audience and I think ever since then it's kind of been a
• 9:08
  struggle to keep it in the Forefront of everyone's mind as
• 9:13
  much as we can as a little website, but I think that's kind
• 9:17
  of how my fandom started at least my professional Phantom.
• 9:22
  I'm Jared. I'm a few.
• 9:23
  You felt the same way with the Muppet mindset?
• 9:27
  Yes. Well, I don't think I have a
• 9:29
  Frank, a guy named Brian Dozier. Had them up at mindset, started
• 9:33
  it back in 2009. And had it for until 2015, where
• 9:39
  he, he actually got a job. He now works for Disney in the
• 9:43
  Muppet studio and so he handed it off to me and all of a sudden
• 9:48
  I had this pressure and this buildup and I was like, well I
• 9:53
  don't know what to do now. And so I just I that's when I
• 9:55
  really threw myself into the Muppets fandom and really taking
• 10:01
  a lot more interest in everything, you guys are done
• 10:04
  both, you know, early days and the newest stuff and everything
• 10:08
  like that. And once it's sort of changed my
• 10:12
  relationship with it because I was a fan.
• 10:14
  And now, I'm a fan, but in a lot more of different way, I'm sort
• 10:17
  of this figurehead of a fandom as well, and I have a lot more
• 10:21
  of these. These relationships with the,
• 10:27
  with Disney and sesame, and with you guys and, you know, the
• 10:31
  puppeteers. And so it's sort of gone from
• 10:34
  being just a little part of my life to actually enveloping a
• 10:37
  lot more of my life and a lot more of what I want to be doing
• 10:40
  with my life and it's changed my life.
• 10:44
  So yeah that's that's sort of my journey would, I guess the
• 10:48
  fandom. But again like I've been a fan
• 10:51
  since I was Bone. There's a, there's a thing of me
• 10:54
  when I'm 6 months old holding at my first Christmas, a Sesame
• 10:58
  Street projector, that will project Sesame story on the
• 11:01
  ceiling. Yeah.
• 11:02
  And so I would have, you know, Grover and big burden, all these
• 11:06
  people dancing on the roof and it hundred percent has
• 11:09
  brainwashed to me. And so, yeah, that's where my
• 11:12
  sort of fandom stems. Well, it's wonderful that you
• 11:15
  guys have been doing this mean, you know, the there's tremendous
• 11:20
  such affection towards the The Muppets release the classic
• 11:23
  Muppets, you know, the and it's, it's, you know, it just really
• 11:28
  wonderful, you're doing this. You only question I have is, why
• 11:30
  did you call Tough pigs? Like, why don't you call?
• 11:34
  What you called, tough goals because we like you more than me
• 11:40
  like Dave, not that's understandable.
• 11:45
  Yeah, we are. So the name came about, was
• 11:48
  started by my good friend, Danny horn.
• 11:50
  And at the time, you know, One, we didn't know anything about,
• 11:54
  you know what, the internet was going to be, and what legal
• 11:57
  stuff we had to avoid. And he was afraid that if you
• 12:00
  put the word muppet in the URL name, then Henson at the time
• 12:05
  would have said, oh, we actually own that so you have to shut
• 12:07
  down. So he came up with something
• 12:09
  that wasn't owned by anyone else, and, and he was planning
• 12:11
  on writing a book at the time, called tough pigs and gentle
• 12:15
  frogs kind of an everything I ever wanted to know about life.
• 12:18
  I learned from the Muppets, so we thought, oh, I'll do this
• 12:20
  website. And then when I write the book,
• 12:22
  The website will promote the book then he never wrote the
• 12:27
  book but the website lives on great I love, tell ya.
• 12:32
  Well thank you, that really means a lot coming from.
• 12:35
  You really has, I don't know what the hell.
• 12:36
  It means I love it. Would you consider yourself a
• 12:40
  muppet fan as well? I, it's very hard to be a fan of
• 12:45
  my own work, as I'm a fan of Jim's work and Jerry's work.
• 12:50
  And, you know, and Ajay Jewels work and Davey, and Richie, and
• 12:55
  all that stuff, you know, another, I can't really be a
• 13:00
  fan. I they mean you know, they're
• 13:02
  all my heart. All my characters are in my
• 13:04
  heart and even though I'm not doing them there there are deep
• 13:08
  part of me. So I guess that's the closest
• 13:11
  thing I could say to be in fan. Sure.
• 13:14
  Yeah, do you ever revisit the old stuff?
• 13:16
  Do you ever watch it nowadays? I don't, you know, I don't watch
• 13:22
  my wife, never grew up with the Muppets.
• 13:24
  So she occasionally is watch new things with me because she
• 13:28
  requested it. She actually didn't have a
• 13:30
  television or a home that she came from an academic home and
• 13:36
  and it's not that I don't watch The Muppets.
• 13:40
  It's just that it watch my movies either.
• 13:42
  I mean, I Want to make something my movies.
• 13:45
  Or if I do a TV appearance, just kind of, I'm, I'm kind of on to
• 13:49
  the next thing. I occasionally, I'll see
• 13:51
  something by accident, and I'll enjoy it.
• 13:54
  But, I don't really revisit my, the movies I direct, or the
• 13:59
  performances I do. I just kind of don't do it.
• 14:01
  Well, I can recommend all of your navies, if you haven't seen
• 14:03
  them. Really good.
• 14:06
  Really. So, I, I should probably see it
• 14:09
  one or two. Yeah, start with Bowfinger.
• 14:11
  That's one of the all-time greats.
• 14:14
  Okay, that was how do you spell that?
• 14:17
  Bow finger. Yells Steve was Steve,
• 14:22
  originally called both fingers, big thing and I convinced him to
• 14:25
  make it Bowfinger. I just felt it was just, you
• 14:29
  know, the sexual innuendo wasn't necessary there.
• 14:31
  But you know, when you have a script like when you have
• 14:34
  somebody like Steve writing a script like Bowfinger, you can't
• 14:37
  really lose very much. It is any is amazed at just the
• 14:41
  same. If Eddie Murphy running across
• 14:42
  the highway is one of the best scenes in any film that was that
• 14:48
  was quite something out. I actually have a question about
• 14:51
  Steve Martin. I've noticed that a lot of
• 14:54
  directors will reuse actors but you never really did that except
• 14:59
  for Steve Martin was there something specific or something
• 15:03
  special by Steve Martin that made you want to work with them
• 15:05
  over and over again? It's something, you know, I
• 15:09
  don't reuse people. It's like reusing underwear or
• 15:12
  something. No, I don't reuse people.
• 15:15
  But I mean, you know, Steve Steve and I we trust each other.
• 15:20
  And I'm very blessed that Steve trust me, but I think it's just
• 15:23
  happenstance. I mean when I I think you know
• 15:26
  my experiences Steve was first before I think on The Muppet
• 15:31
  Show and then on The Muppet Movie we did a scene when he was
• 15:34
  a waiter and then and then When I did Little Shop of Horrors
• 15:40
  Geffen suggested Steve. And I said great you know, and
• 15:44
  then after that I think he trusted me as a director and
• 15:51
  felt I knew what I was doing enough, a little shop to when I
• 15:56
  asked him, when I was offered to Rotten Scoundrels, I asked Steve
• 16:00
  and then what happened at then I think there's a movie Steve
• 16:04
  asked me to do, he asked me to do golf ball finger GE and I
• 16:08
  asked him to do another movie and I think, you know, when you
• 16:10
  have somebody you your fortune enough who trusts you and who's
• 16:16
  sober latest Eve it just kind of happened but I don't do it
• 16:20
  intellectually. I'm just blessed that it
• 16:23
  happened, you know. For sure.
• 16:25
  Yeah. I assume that's a similar
• 16:28
  relationship to you and some of the directors that have hired
• 16:30
  you as an actor or performer over and over again, like John
• 16:33
  Landis know that answer range. Now, Ryan Johnson is used to
• 16:37
  funerals. Those were always, those are
• 16:39
  always mistakes and they all regret it.
• 16:44
  Well, that's why you weren't in knives out too.
• 16:47
  That's true. They it was actually a mistake
• 16:49
  in the knives at one. The I overheard them offering
• 16:56
  the part to somebody else and I kind of jumped in and then it
• 16:58
  was they were embarrassed to say, no.
• 17:00
  I think it was supposed to get a dive goals, wasn't it?
• 17:03
  I think it was, and I think I, but fortunately, I was in the
• 17:07
  movie because obviously, I carried the picture.
• 17:09
  You need as he did. He did, you know when they were
• 17:11
  done? It was, we had people like, who
• 17:13
  really aren't cows and don't know their business.
• 17:16
  I had to step in and take care of it.
• 17:17
  It's funny. I saw that film not knowing you
• 17:20
  were in it. And when I was in the cinema,
• 17:22
  you've popped up and I've just gone, that's Frank Oz.
• 17:26
  And I'm with like a bunch of my friends who know the Muppets,
• 17:29
  but don't know Frank Oz and they couldn't understand why I was so
• 17:33
  excited. I'm like that that's Frank,
• 17:35
  cause like, that's that's a legend and they're like, can you
• 17:38
  shut up and try to watch the film?
• 17:40
  Like, all right, sorry. And yeah.
• 17:41
  Forget the forget, the bald guy. Just let me watch the film.
• 17:44
  Okay, please. No, it was actually Ryan and
• 17:52
  ROM. The producer became great
• 17:54
  friends with me and Victoria my wife during the shooting of Star
• 17:58
  Wars. And so we just had such a good
• 18:00
  time and also Leo who's now a producer to he was more of an
• 18:05
  assistant, they're great people. And so Ryan asked me to do it,
• 18:10
  you know? And just and I said you're out
• 18:13
  of your freaking mind. No.
• 18:15
  And And I said, I'm not going to ruin your film.
• 18:19
  And eventually I said, yes, as long as you have cutaways
• 18:22
  enough. So if I screw up, you have
• 18:23
  enough to cut away to and then I but I did it.
• 18:27
  Mainly just because I wanted to play with the guys, you know,
• 18:32
  It's a good reason. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:35
  It was such a joy to see you pop up there.
• 18:37
  What a, what a gift. And I hope maybe he'll put you
• 18:39
  in the new Pokerface TV search show that sort of.
• 18:42
  And you know, what I haven't cared about how is it?
• 18:45
  I haven't seen it. I love it.
• 18:47
  I'm, I've been watching it very slowly because I don't want to
• 18:51
  overdo it and then not have anymore.
• 18:52
  So I still have a couple of episodes left to go, but I'm
• 18:56
  obsessed with, I think Ryan Johnson is a, is a genius of a
• 18:59
  filmmaker. So, I'll from from here on, I'll
• 19:01
  see anything he does. Got a see it.
• 19:03
  Yeah, it's been cool though. Watching you pop up in things
• 19:07
  like you've got like again, knives out.
• 19:11
  And then we like Dave and inside out just a little Cameo and then
• 19:16
  that was, that was a mistake to and Pete director, Pete,
• 19:20
  starting regretted, Dave's spot on that.
• 19:22
  I know that he told me, but then there was just a couple of
• 19:26
  months ago, story box with you and Dave playing these little
• 19:30
  fisherman and stuff. That was, that was like a treat
• 19:34
  for all Muppet fans. We were all so excited.
• 19:36
  I think I watched that thing about 10 times that day because
• 19:38
  it's yes, we had we each time we did, it was Ezra, who was the
• 19:42
  director? Wonderful guy, great friend now
• 19:46
  azra, would be in California, they would be in California,
• 19:50
  different location. I'd be in New York and read
• 19:52
  record the 30-second spots. And each took us three hours to
• 19:56
  do because we were so ridiculously stupid lie,
• 20:00
  laughing all the time. They said, right?
• 20:03
  They said right, he's at feels muffled e and it feels and that
• 20:07
  chemistry just between you guys after, you know, 45, 50 years,
• 20:11
  you haven't lost any of it. No, Dave, Dave and I were, we're
• 20:17
  very, very good at being extremely stupid.
• 20:22
  All the best people are, I would pay, I would pay so much money
• 20:26
  to get just like that. Raw footage of the two of you
• 20:31
  talking about your hat inside outs or whatever.
• 20:34
  Just like to hear you just going on and on and on, like make a
• 20:38
  whole podcast series about that. I had, you know, we had so much
• 20:43
  fun. Fun.
• 20:44
  Yeah. Eventually you know we're just
• 20:47
  laughing hysterically, you know, we have a great time in Turkey
• 20:50
  and that kind of that kind of relationship with all based on
• 20:56
  Jim's attitude and life and work.
• 21:00
  Good. Yeah.
• 21:01
  I mean that's a great lesson to take from it.
• 21:03
  That I feel like not a lot of filmmakers get and maybe, maybe
• 21:06
  the Studios have gotten too big or I don't know why but it's we
• 21:10
  definitely recognize it when we see it.
• 21:12
  You know, that there's there's a fun atmosphere behind the
• 21:15
  camera. It's a your it's it's been
• 21:20
  corporations now, own the the movies, the corporations are
• 21:25
  more in interested, in bottom line and that kind of permeates.
• 21:30
  All the movie makers to sadly, you know, as opposed to, you
• 21:35
  know, I was doing when I did, what I did Death at a Funeral in
• 21:38
  London and we had such a great time and and it's the only move
• 21:43
  we have made. Well, it's the only movie I
• 21:45
  made. It was not a studio at.
• 21:47
  I've Done big, you know, Paramount, Disney Columbia, etc,
• 21:51
  etc movies. This was a tiny little studio
• 21:54
  and so as a result, no one was really saying a Frank.
• 21:58
  We got to move. Although that I'm always told as
• 22:02
  the Director, but we had so much fun and that's the kind of thing
• 22:05
  that I learned in Dave learned from Jim and it's the kind of
• 22:09
  thing that that people some people not all people.
• 22:12
  But some people in the business have forgotten that, you know,
• 22:16
  this business were privileged were privileged to be here and
• 22:19
  we can have fun. Absolutely.
• 22:23
  I'm not saying I'm not saying you, the three of us are having
• 22:26
  fun. Now, I'm not going that far.
• 22:27
  I mean, yeah, that's just move on.
• 22:32
  He's getting me. This is one of the greatest
• 22:33
  moments of my life, what you do, as long as it's your pants, I'm
• 22:39
  happy. I've got pants on, don't worry,
• 22:42
  I don't care. I don't really care, I just
• 22:45
  don't want to see him whether you have them or not.
• 22:46
  I can't. All right, well then could I am
• 22:48
  lying so I won't stand up fine. It's none of my concern is kind
• 22:51
  of between you and your Your own your inner integrity and I think
• 22:55
  between the chair at this point to the if your daughter has done
• 22:59
  to our chair, it's leather. Yeah.
• 23:01
  I'm just thinking you have a very sticky ass there.
• 23:05
  I don't know if I want to continue with this in this vein
• 23:08
  because I thought I had this visual image and it's kind of.
• 23:11
  Can we go on another? Can we just take that visual
• 23:14
  imagery from me? Yeah, let's go.
• 23:16
  I will jump into another topic and we'll forget all about it
• 23:21
  over the years. It's not your it.
• 23:23
  Now you're pretending like you actually have a question when
• 23:26
  you know you're under pressure because you don't have two
• 23:28
  questions. So your we're like pretending.
• 23:30
  Oh, okay, let's go this way. And you have no freaking idea
• 23:34
  what where you're going? It start.
• 23:35
  And it's absolutely true but I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with it.
• 23:39
  Anyway Frank we're gonna get of red, hot guy, makes it makes
• 23:41
  segues impossible. Really dog of absolutely
• 23:45
  nothing. We're gonna one of the other
• 23:47
  thing. It just popped into my mind.
• 23:48
  One of the funniest moments Frank in this show has been, we
• 23:51
  had it. Mary Robinson on earlier in the
• 23:54
  season, and he told this really sad story about when he was
• 23:58
  working over. I think the Afghanistan version,
• 24:02
  that's obviously not the funny part and yeah, ganna stand.
• 24:07
  Versions are always Aster safely comedy gold.
• 24:10
  But anyway, he's telling this really sad story and then it
• 24:13
  finishes. And then Joe goes, yeah, anyway,
• 24:16
  moving on to the next and just completely and I just Marlene I
• 24:20
  lost it because it's like I do I'm so glad Joe just barreled
• 24:24
  through because I had no way to get us off that top or I must
• 24:28
  say there was a, there was a moment during the Egyptian
• 24:32
  uprisings when people were dying in the square and there are
• 24:35
  Taking Chances calling journalists in the United
• 24:38
  States, I wrote the CNN about. There's nobody cared and welcome
• 24:41
  back but I was absolutely appalled, it was Wolf Blitzer on
• 24:45
  the air and someone was calling from a balcony.
• 24:52
  They were looking down upon the people being killed and they
• 24:56
  were they were trying to keep quiet.
• 25:00
  So nobody knows that knew they were there and as they were
• 25:03
  talking and then they said after about 45 minutes Wolf Blitzer
• 25:07
  interrupt to say I'm sorry we have to go to commercial now and
• 25:10
  I said, what? That's awful.
• 25:14
  No bad form. CNN.
• 25:17
  Yeah, that's just it just drove me insane.
• 25:19
  Anyway, that's that's, that's That's your that we don't yet,
• 25:23
  but we don't have the Scruples of CNN.
• 25:26
  Well, we'll segue to anything we want.
• 25:29
  Yes with no, no warning. Speaking of Muppets Take
• 25:31
  Manhattan as we're talking about bombings and nice Egypt.
• 25:37
  So, I, every time I watch the movie, which I do often, because
• 25:42
  I absolutely adore that movie, the beginning, it's during the
• 25:46
  opening credits, it says that the script is written by Jay
• 25:49
  Tarsus and Tom Patchett and then your legs below.
• 25:52
  I That means that you you had a draft from them and rewrote it,
• 25:56
  right? Do you recall what the original
• 25:59
  draft had and what you changed about it?
• 26:02
  Yeah, I you know college are very experienced Riders, I felt
• 26:09
  it was too jokey and not character enough Riven.
• 26:13
  I tend to work through character.
• 26:16
  Jim did kind of both. He'd made it very jokey like the
• 26:19
  fork in the road with the Jack Burns and Jerry.
• 26:22
  Writing the first one, but I tend to be more
• 26:24
  character-driven. And I, and I wanted to be more
• 26:27
  about relationships, may be to the detriment of the movie.
• 26:30
  I don't know, because I didn't make a jokey.
• 26:32
  I made it more too much. Maybe about character, people
• 26:36
  might say, but that's kind of what I do.
• 26:38
  So I said the gym, you know, I just feel, this is too jokey, I
• 26:42
  just feel it needs to have more heart to it and more from the
• 26:48
  actual characters. Not just jokes to put upon them.
• 26:52
  And so Jim said, you know, for me to rewrite it and then I
• 26:55
  rewrote it, and then you asked me to direct it.
• 26:57
  So that's what happened. That's not that the script was
• 27:01
  bad. I just felt that it needed more
• 27:06
  from the characters heart. And for instance, getting Kermit
• 27:11
  in a situation where the Amnesia were gave Jim more of an
• 27:14
  opportunity than just do jokes, you know, right?
• 27:17
  Yeah so saying I'm like, dang that's what I do.
• 27:21
  What I did. You know, but what they, what
• 27:24
  they put in there dressed, like it was still the skeleton of the
• 27:27
  story was still similar. Yes, like trying to sell the
• 27:29
  show, and everyone splitting up. Gotta get back together.
• 27:31
  Etcetera, etcetera, gotcha, he go.
• 27:34
  But it was, but there are many things like the Muppet babies
• 27:37
  were not in there, and I thought about that.
• 27:40
  And then the think there's the name was not the same, and other
• 27:47
  other scenes were not the same. So so I So I rewrote it with a
• 27:55
  skeleton there, but I put a lot of meat on the skeleton but of
• 28:01
  that way. You know.
• 28:01
  But not the tech wizard. What they did a different
• 28:04
  interpretation. Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:06
  Yeah, I think it's one of the reasons it stands out is such a
• 28:08
  good movie to me. It's you're right.
• 28:11
  It's not a joke as the previous two movies, or any of the Muppet
• 28:13
  movies that came after it. But I think because it stands
• 28:17
  out in that way, it like it, because it feels like I feel
• 28:20
  that movie in my heart and And, you know, I'm glad that there's
• 28:23
  not eight other Muppet movies identical to that.
• 28:26
  It's the only movie Muppets Take Manhattan is the only Muppets
• 28:29
  Take Manhattan. And it works for me, it's on.
• 28:34
  It's always in my time to of, Muppet movies, all thank you.
• 28:37
  I mean II, certainly, you know, I, you know, you all one can do
• 28:42
  as follows one instincts, it doesn't mean that I'm right all
• 28:45
  the wrong and more joking movie, The Script of they had before,
• 28:49
  must might have been much better made much more money.
• 28:52
  Money but I felt in then Jim agreed.
• 28:56
  So right or wrong. That was my instinct to go in
• 29:01
  that direction but you know, it is also what wasn't there before
• 29:08
  were the songs by Jeff Moss and that was new and Jeff.
• 29:11
  Did a fabulous job on songs to, you know?
• 29:14
  Yeah, that's exactly songs. What is it?
• 29:18
  I'm gonna Always Love You by Baby Piggy.
• 29:21
  What a bang out? What a great song.
• 29:23
  Oh, The Jeff did a great job as did you?
• 29:27
  Well, thank you. He's but, you know, I'm, I was
• 29:31
  just very blessed to have the support of Jim and Dave lizard.
• 29:34
  A not many people know Dave, laser Davis was Jim's almost
• 29:40
  partner, not economically or creatively but But in
• 29:45
  organization on business, he's the one who really made things
• 29:48
  happen behind the scenes. Yeah, cause yeah.
• 29:53
  I hope people who are listening to.
• 29:55
  This will go and read David lasers, Wicked, excuse me,
• 29:58
  Muppet wiki page because he was so important to so many Jim Jim.
• 30:04
  Couldn't they? Jim could not have made that.
• 30:08
  I mean, Jim is one. A David is only got the money
• 30:10
  for Dark Crystal Jay Davis. One who would meet the in the
• 30:14
  first year he would go to the airport in in London and
• 30:19
  actually meet the stars and take them to the hotel.
• 30:23
  Producers don't do that. But he know and he was a
• 30:27
  wonderful human being. He still maybe he's ill, he's
• 30:31
  been very ill and I don't know if he's survived or not, like I
• 30:35
  haven't been able to get old them for about two or three
• 30:37
  months now, Well, I hope he's doing okay, he's just making
• 30:45
  him. Nobody does and he's been so
• 30:46
  valuable, you know, that suppose, one of those unsung
• 30:50
  heroes of the Muppet of Muppet history of yeah, as opposed to
• 30:53
  did walls is totally worthless. I wasn't going to say it.
• 30:56
  I mean we thought it. Well you've got I mean, it's not
• 31:01
  as maybe jokey but there's some great hilarious scenes in
• 31:05
  weapons to Manhattan. I think one of my favorites is
• 31:08
  The Joan Rivers scene where I mean, you basically is
• 31:11
  destroyed. A PD puppet.
• 31:13
  What? Tell you what happened there
• 31:15
  was. It's very hard to laugh and it
• 31:18
  was not working. And we're in Bergdorf Goodman's,
• 31:21
  which is in New York City right across from The Plaza Hotel, who
• 31:26
  at that time, it was owned by. It was very, it was a public
• 31:31
  Hotel, it was not private, and I, and it just wasn't working.
• 31:36
  The scene was not working. I said to my first day Dil Ke
• 31:42
  get Joan, and I had both two gin and tonics and he went over the
• 31:46
  Plaza Hotel, got two gin and tonics, and Joan, drank him, and
• 31:50
  I drank em, and then we shot. And that's what happened.
• 31:55
  And I don't know what the, you know, I was out of it.
• 31:57
  So I just kind of said, print and move on.
• 32:02
  I'm not kidding. That's what happened.
• 32:03
  Well, it worked. Did you did you only have like
• 32:06
  one shot once you pass? It's like a point of no return
• 32:10
  where like the piggy puppet is ruined and we only have so many.
• 32:13
  So we have to no no we haven't. The workshop is so brilliant
• 32:17
  that they have to have an opportunity to have to have.
• 32:21
  This is the case in any movie if you have twins, you have doubles
• 32:24
  of twins. If you have a car to important
• 32:27
  you have to have doubles or triples of that car.
• 32:29
  God forbid of turn, it goes on the car so there's always a
• 32:31
  backup otherwise you'd be dead in the water and you'd be losing
• 32:35
  a great deal of money per day. Yeah cost.
• 32:39
  But yeah, that's that's because one of my favorite sayings.
• 32:42
  I know when when Joan Rivers passed away the Australian, use
• 32:47
  played that scene and I was like out of everything they could
• 32:49
  have. Picked they picked that and I
• 32:51
  loved it. I was, I was quite touched.
• 32:54
  It was the best. Yeah, it was.
• 32:56
  Yeah. It's, you know, I've been very
• 32:58
  blessed to first of all. Jim, I live so much to Jim.
• 33:03
  I think my parents and Jim and then they Blazer to you.
• 33:08
  I've been very blessed to have that this support and, and to
• 33:11
  work with these amazing Muppet performers, you know, the people
• 33:15
  have no idea how talented they are and how professional they
• 33:17
  are. They, that's the thing about
• 33:19
  people with puppets, they think, oh, we'll just, you know, this
• 33:21
  would be fun. That's just do some puppets and
• 33:23
  they have no idea that it takes 15, 20 years to know what you're
• 33:26
  doing, you know. And so I've been very blessed to
• 33:29
  work with people who I love outside of Dave goals and and
• 33:35
  who early on this date Davis broke Alliant too, by the way,
• 33:40
  he's all right, he does. All right, he does right for
• 33:42
  himself. Okay.
• 33:44
  He's been on the heat gun on the program, right?
• 33:46
  Yes. Yeah, we had him well then you
• 33:49
  know what I'm talking about? Yes.
• 33:54
  Yeah. I would love to ask about some
• 33:55
  things that didn't happen. One of which was we've read news
• 34:01
  articles from early 1990 that there was going to be a big
• 34:05
  marketing push called Pig of the 90s.
• 34:08
  It's Miss Piggy was going to do a whole bunch of things and then
• 34:10
  of course that got derailed by Jim's passing.
• 34:14
  But, you know, looking at your history of what you were doing
• 34:18
  at the time, it seems obvious to me that you were already
• 34:20
  transitioning into more of like an independent, you know,
• 34:24
  directorial phase of your career.
• 34:27
  Some Curious, number one. Would you have actually had time
• 34:30
  to do big of the 90s. And number two.
• 34:32
  What was it going to be? Well, the pig is an Eis is a, as
• 34:37
  I recall. All was a marketing thing that
• 34:42
  probably Henson people brought brought up, but I don't recall
• 34:46
  it being that important that time, you know, prior to that
• 34:50
  time there were as, you know, probably calendars and perfume
• 34:54
  and all these things that piggy in books from Piggy.
• 34:58
  And this is, I think it continuation of that kind of
• 35:01
  exposure. I don't know if Jim's death
• 35:06
  really had much to do with that. Probably saw a little bit but it
• 35:09
  wasn't significant. The, the pig or 90s wasn't a
• 35:14
  very significant thing. I didn't feel any way.
• 35:17
  Okay. What was, what was the first
• 35:19
  part of that question? Well, I was going to be, would
• 35:22
  you have had time for it but it sounds like, oh, you know, I
• 35:25
  weren't really needed that much. Yeah, you know, I mean, I Jim
• 35:28
  was such an amazing person that he was always supportive of me
• 35:31
  even though he was losing me and to directing and but I would
• 35:37
  there was a time mirror That I was both directing and
• 35:39
  Performing and then as as I did more movies I didn't screw up
• 35:44
  and they kept on asking me because I didn't screw up.
• 35:47
  I did more than and that's the reason why I couldn't do Sesame
• 35:52
  Street as much because partly because I've had four kids
• 35:57
  growing up but also after that I was directing and I had no
• 36:02
  choice but to give up my pic characters, it wasn't fair to
• 36:05
  say. Nope, I'm holding on to them.
• 36:07
  That's it, it wasn't right. Not that I you know I mean I
• 36:11
  haven't quit I haven't retired from performing.
• 36:13
  I just haven't been asked, but you know, Eric and those guys
• 36:18
  have been doing really yeoman's job and I always say over and
• 36:22
  over that Eric is so talented. He really should have characters
• 36:27
  of his own. It's not fair to him, you know,
• 36:29
  because he's so it's true that every level Nevertheless.
• 36:33
  Yeah, I would not have had as much time because you commit to
• 36:38
  a movie for a long time and you pretty much worked incessantly.
• 36:42
  Yeah. That's that's exactly what I was
• 36:44
  wondering. You know.
• 36:45
  It, we also we look at Jim's career and like how Jim must
• 36:49
  have had 48 hours in his day because he did so much in so
• 36:53
  little time. Yeah, Jim.
• 36:55
  And that's the reason why we worked hard because I Jim, I
• 36:57
  mean Jim Jim would constantly work and it wasn't he loved
• 37:03
  working and he taught us how to love working and he would be
• 37:10
  before he got before he became famous, he was, you know, he
• 37:16
  was, I mean, I, I joined in 1963 and he was already 8 years
• 37:22
  working in Washington, d.c. prior to me.
• 37:26
  And but when I joined, and I, he would be out there be two rooms
• 37:30
  and the back, he'd be doing animation tool. 4:00 in the
• 37:32
  morning. He just loved the opportunity to
• 37:36
  express himself and the more successful he got the more the
• 37:41
  more cars he could play with on his electric train set, you
• 37:45
  know, sure. And yeah, he was, he was one who
• 37:51
  never really? Never did small talk.
• 37:54
  It was always about projects or people.
• 37:56
  He loved things like that. But it was, you know, he'd
• 38:00
  always talk about projects for people because he always had
• 38:03
  ideas. That's what that was really
• 38:07
  awkward. Pause.
• 38:08
  That means nobody. That was that was me waiting to
• 38:11
  see Jared. Did you have a question or
• 38:13
  should that what I hate thinking?
• 38:14
  How do I segue into the next thing?
• 38:16
  But you know, I'm not you don't disagree at all you can you can
• 38:20
  just jump into into non sequitur Elaine Chao bring non sequitur
• 38:25
  land. Yeah you know obviously haven't
• 38:28
  performed for a while. You said you haven't been asked?
• 38:34
  Is it something? If you know, if you got a phone
• 38:35
  call from Sesame tomorrow saying, hey, you're free for a
• 38:37
  week. Yeah.
• 38:38
  You can all jump at all. What?
• 38:39
  You have to think about it. No, no.
• 38:41
  I would like that very much because, you know, I used, as I
• 38:43
  stopped, I was doing two days a year on Sesame Street and I
• 38:47
  couldn't do a lot more than that to 34 days tops because I was
• 38:51
  doing many other things and also because I'd done it for so many
• 38:54
  years. But but I think what the reason
• 38:58
  I'd go back is is 222. Let people know what I learned
• 39:03
  from Jim, which was the sense of controlled lunacy, which I don't
• 39:08
  sense any more and I sent it not being hip or adult, I sense, it
• 39:13
  being little kitty and the reason I'd like to go back is
• 39:17
  just to show people. Hey, this was how Jim did it.
• 39:21
  This is how we did it and it's okay to do it for yourself
• 39:24
  because you're an adult and just to have fun and screw around as
• 39:28
  opposed to make it one note for children.
• 39:32
  And that's the reason I love to go back is to is to bring back a
• 39:37
  bit of that lunacy that Jim taught us that needs to be some
• 39:42
  sort of black false narrative, almost out there that, you know,
• 39:46
  occasionally new store at the season.
• 39:47
  Oh, Frank Collins thinks, you know, the Muppets suck now or
• 39:50
  something like that and you go well no, that's not what he said
• 39:53
  and then you've read through what you actually said in.
• 39:56
  Like it's a quick quote side of something taken out of context
• 39:59
  or whatever it is. So you know let's just I guess
• 40:04
  set the record straight. You don't take them up as suck.
• 40:06
  No, I think what suck or the writing for the Muppets and and
• 40:11
  as a result the performers have no choice but to do what's
• 40:13
  written as it will add the between.
• 40:15
  Now that was years ago, now, the Muppet studio these days are as
• 40:20
  much much better, and they're much more supportive.
• 40:23
  And, you know, I know Billy, I talked to Billy and the guys,
• 40:26
  and they had a great time, doing a Doctor Teeth, Mayhem thing.
• 40:30
  And so, for to seeing that That's what I'm talking about.
• 40:33
  It was years before Muppet studio, where?
• 40:38
  And at that time, the guys I felt were not treated properly
• 40:44
  with respect, and I felt the as they did the writing was, was
• 40:51
  there trying to be adult hip? When all he had to do was to, to
• 40:55
  be pure and people, it's very difficult for people to write
• 40:59
  cure when supposedly they have to be funny.
• 41:02
  An adult and people don't understand that.
• 41:06
  The best way to be adult in the hip is to be pure.
• 41:09
  Yeah. Yeah, that was then that was
• 41:13
  then, yes. I felt it was it was very bad
• 41:16
  that but the Muppets themselves no and the performers know it is
• 41:19
  always the the, the the orders given that they had to do it
• 41:27
  this way. That's what about me.
• 41:29
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:30
  Yeah. I think the lately Slaughter,
• 41:32
  who runs the Muppets now she really has an idea of what Ali
• 41:36
  yeah leave, please virtue is terrific and so as I forgot the
• 41:39
  other fellows name I met him. And and so there's there's
• 41:46
  people who actually care in the beginning earlier on, they
• 41:49
  didn't care. It was just a franchise.
• 41:51
  Yep. So, that upset me because I love
• 41:55
  the Muppets are my heart and these guys are such amazing
• 41:57
  performers and they're so fucking brilliant and they were
• 42:01
  not restricted treated with that respect.
• 42:03
  Yeah. How different is this something
• 42:07
  that you didn't work on sign the last 20 years or so that you
• 42:09
  feel got? Those.
• 42:11
  So what they should have been doing.
• 42:17
  I don't know. I remember early on.
• 42:21
  There's some videos that they did.
• 42:22
  I remember the was very popular video on the, the who, what was
• 42:27
  the name Rhapsody? Yeah, that was fun.
• 42:31
  That was fun. Yeah, but honestly I don't
• 42:37
  follow the Muppets it much anymore.
• 42:39
  I'm just not a part of it. I know all the guys and I keep
• 42:44
  in touch with my guys, they're my brother's there and I you
• 42:47
  know and some of the women are my sister's there who are Do
• 42:50
  with mainly the guys. I know the whole, they're all
• 42:53
  Blood Brothers to me and I am close to them but I don't watch
• 42:56
  The Muppets that much in part because I don't watch anything
• 43:00
  that much. I'm pretty busy.
• 43:02
  And if I watch stuff, that's why I don't watch TV that much
• 43:05
  because I'll I'll just get hooked.
• 43:07
  I just got hooked on slow horses had been used on slow horses.
• 43:10
  Yeah, the night is so brilliant, and if I do that, I'll I won't
• 43:14
  work. But the other reason is, it's,
• 43:17
  you know, there's so much part of my heart and it's it's
• 43:20
  difficult. For me to see them without me
• 43:21
  being there and doing them with, with the guys, I want to be with
• 43:25
  you, I want to be there with the guys and it hurts me when I'm
• 43:27
  not. And so if I don't watch him at
• 43:29
  all, her to me as much. I get that, you know, I have a
• 43:35
  question that I feel like I've always wanted to ask someone who
• 43:37
  is involved with this production and you would probably know
• 43:39
  better than anyone. The Fantastic Miss Piggy show is
• 43:44
  a very fun and weird special. Yes, I'm also a big fan of Andy
• 43:50
  Kaufman's work and yeah, I've always wondered if Tony
• 43:55
  Clifton's appearance in that special was Andy Kaufman or if
• 43:58
  it was his writing partner, Bob Zmuda.
• 44:01
  I don't think it was a, you know, that's been asked of me.
• 44:03
  I don't the truth is, I don't know, because Andy would between
• 44:07
  takes, he would stay as the biggest player as the biggest
• 44:11
  guy, and even when you wrap up wrapped his dress, you want me
• 44:14
  to be, it wouldn't be Andy but I mean but I think Eddie had a
• 44:18
  enough of respect for the Muppets.
• 44:20
  I remember the first time I say Andy Kaufman was the first
• 44:23
  appearance on Saturday Night Live the first show and he was
• 44:27
  absolutely brilliant. I went up to him.
• 44:28
  I said after it said you're really not going to Amber.
• 44:30
  I'm looking at me saying, thank you very much.
• 44:32
  You know, is amazing. So and I think he's new us and I
• 44:36
  don't, I don't think he would disrespect us after having work
• 44:41
  with us and knowing his talent, his Purity and especially his
• 44:46
  background with puppets on his own TV shows.
• 44:49
  Early on, I don't think he would respect disrespect us.
• 44:52
  I have somebody else there. I just don't believe it.
• 44:55
  So I can't tell you. For sure it was Andy because he
• 44:59
  was, he always In character, but that's my instinct.
• 45:05
  Great. I mean that's a good enough
• 45:07
  answer is that it was the real Tony Clifton.
• 45:10
  You know? Like he there is no Andy in that
• 45:12
  moment. Yeah.
• 45:14
  And I was pretty close to him all the time.
• 45:16
  I was doing bits for them and working with Tony Clifton and I,
• 45:21
  you know, I pretty much felt it was 2nd.
• 45:23
  I when you're when you're six inches away from a guy working
• 45:28
  all the time you kind of tell who it is you know.
• 45:30
  Sure yeah absolutely yeah. I know we're running short on
• 45:35
  time Jarrod is anything that you had pressing before we, here we
• 45:38
  go. Let's go.
• 45:39
  Let's go Bo longer. I'm in the hopes that gets
• 45:42
  better, how's that? That's do it.
• 45:44
  Yeah sure. Just give us a give us a wave
• 45:47
  and and I know Jarrod has a hard time.
• 45:48
  Paying half paralyzed, I'm actually getting surgery today.
• 45:51
  Frightful going to be a very weird day for me.
• 45:55
  The way, what's urgent? What surgery you getting?
• 45:58
  I have a kidney stone and it's kind of like what?
• 46:01
  Yeah. Pat it six months.
• 46:03
  What you must insane right now? I'm doing okay.
• 46:08
  I'm doing okay. It's also helps the adrenaline
• 46:11
  of speaking to you is like, well I can I can put it out of my
• 46:13
  head and I know it literally I get admitted in two hours.
• 46:16
  So. Oh my god.
• 46:17
  Well no wonder. I don't want to see your pants.
• 46:19
  That's fantastic. We've taken care of it.
• 46:22
  Yeah. That I understand is the most
• 46:24
  pain. For pain one, going to have
• 46:26
  outside of childbirth, is that it's not, it's not, it's not
• 46:30
  idea. I'm not suggesting that when you
• 46:31
  have a child, it won't be painful yourself.
• 46:34
  But I'm telling you that it, I'm told that it's really, really,
• 46:38
  really painful. I'm lucky in that I haven't had
• 46:41
  too much pain at the moment, so I'm doing all right.
• 46:44
  It's had a couple of times, it's been not great, but but I've
• 46:47
  just been trying to Barrel through because it was meant to
• 46:49
  come out two weeks ago and they couldn't tell I'm sorry to hear
• 46:53
  that in about three hours it. I'll be long gone.
• 46:55
  I'll be in a weed anesthesia during will be like, Oh, I'm
• 46:58
  wow! What a what, two extremes of the
• 47:00
  day. I'm very, I'm very glad you're
• 47:02
  taking care of it. I'm very stories, you've been in
• 47:04
  pain. That's that's, that's a
• 47:06
  difficult thing to take. I'm sure.
• 47:08
  But that's alright. But hey, I reckon if we can
• 47:12
  probably get another 15 minutes before the doctors going to be
• 47:14
  like yeah, we got it. We got it.
• 47:16
  We got to do this, we got to go uphill now because it's been
• 47:19
  pretty bad so far. Great not call it uphill.
• 47:22
  Oh we're talking were talking about going to be the interview.
• 47:24
  Yes. Go ahead.
• 47:28
  Well, I know you had written but cheap, it must chili.
• 47:34
  Let me try again. I'll try it.
• 47:36
  Speak English. This time cheapest Muppet baby
• 47:38
  ever made. You guys did a table, right?
• 47:42
  I mean, so, obviously they there was, there was talk of it
• 47:45
  happening. Could it be something that you
• 47:47
  could maybe go and suggest or deck now?
• 47:50
  Completely gone. Oh, I think, I don't want to
• 47:51
  suggest anything essentially, you know, if they if they're
• 47:54
  interested. They'll come to me but what
• 47:56
  happened was the when I did my first tech Manhattan it was a
• 48:01
  third Muppet movie and it did fine.
• 48:04
  You know, it made his money back.
• 48:05
  It wasn't like a huge hit like the Muppet movie was and then,
• 48:09
  secondly, the Caper, made good money, decent money.
• 48:12
  But then, the third movie, there wasn't as much cheese as much as
• 48:15
  a novelty. And I think the Muppet Show was
• 48:19
  over then. So we knew that if we want to do
• 48:22
  a fourth movie was gonna be difficult to get Budget.
• 48:26
  So my suggestion was, will it just lets do fourth movie and
• 48:29
  not, and just admit it that it's going to be a cheap movie.
• 48:32
  Just say it, you know. And so I told Jim and Jerry that
• 48:36
  I said, let's just call the cheapest Muppet movie ever made
• 48:39
  and the idea was that we would start in, you know, maybe like
• 48:44
  anamorphic or the equivalent of cinemascope, the old days.
• 48:48
  And then when you lose lost money, with gonna gotta go to
• 48:50
  35, mm, basic normal. Ratio.
• 48:55
  And then when Gonzo blew the budget, it would go down to
• 48:58
  black and white and then go down to 8.
• 49:01
  Mm, and then when we got more money to build up again, the
• 49:03
  back to anamorphic at the end and then there is no there's all
• 49:07
  these all these ideas that we had and Geri Jewell, wrote a
• 49:10
  script and it was great and I still have it but it's also
• 49:14
  expensive. The first and then and I think
• 49:21
  Jim past and I and I then rewrote it.
• 49:24
  It and I don't think I did a very good job.
• 49:27
  We did the table read. I don't think it worked very
• 49:29
  well. I was missing things, I reread
• 49:32
  it and I realized I didn't have enough.
• 49:34
  So I didn't have songs in love like I should have and there's
• 49:38
  some I think things that really worked in some things that
• 49:40
  didn't work. And so I asked Jim Lewis to help
• 49:42
  me and we did that we write and everything but then what
• 49:47
  happened as we were going and it was it was unfortunately that
• 49:54
  Disney really was kind of using me in the background.
• 49:58
  They were asking Jason Segel to do a script.
• 50:02
  While I was doing this grip they didn't told me they didn't tell
• 50:04
  me that and so that was not a pleasant experience but the
• 50:10
  intent of it was to work in an economic way to degree that part
• 50:17
  of it was that the the rats CI I couldn't shoot.
• 50:24
  Shoot the movie with beautiful lighting and beautiful
• 50:29
  production design because that's where the money cost.
• 50:32
  But couldn't you couldn't afford that with the Muppets,
• 50:35
  especially in the, especially to rig them up.
• 50:38
  And so, he used to do. So I was trying to figure out
• 50:39
  how to practically shoot it in a way where we could do it on the
• 50:43
  floor as opposed to dig trenches and things like that.
• 50:45
  And we're wouldn't have to be beautifully lit.
• 50:47
  So I decided that Bunsen was creating these small cameras for
• 50:53
  them for the rats. Now, there are two inches big
• 50:57
  for the rats and so all the rats had cameras and they were the
• 51:02
  camera operators, and they were crap.
• 51:05
  And what they did, and they didn't like, bubbly and they,
• 51:09
  and they framed lousy. So that was an opportunity to
• 51:13
  use character to shoot economically because it would be
• 51:18
  very clever. I'd have to shoot if I'd seen if
• 51:22
  I see the Curve. When piggy, probably in the
• 51:25
  background, I'd see a rat with a camera by mistake and he died,
• 51:29
  and another rat was so I'd have all the rats because Pam
• 51:32
  operators, which I thought would be funny, but also would say,
• 51:36
  hey, the rats can't afford costumes, that can't afford
• 51:39
  lighting, the can't afford. And that allowed me to shoot it
• 51:41
  in the way those economic that was the idea.
• 51:44
  Brilliant, how I love that think it's fingers crossed some vision
• 51:46
  sees the light of day at some point I just get it right that
• 51:50
  someone. Yeah, someone wanted to email us
• 51:52
  that script just so we could see it.
• 51:54
  I mean, I'm not there to the universe.
• 51:57
  Wink wink, nudge nudge. No, because the script the
• 52:00
  script is the old script were I years later I realized where the
• 52:03
  mistakes were made like basically or not enough songs.
• 52:07
  That's one thing. It's so strong about the Muppets
• 52:09
  is the songs and they're not doing songs as much anymore and
• 52:12
  I fell in that trap. I was more involved in character
• 52:14
  so I don't think it's ready for for sure did but it's ready for
• 52:17
  a rewrite to make it right again in June for now, great deal Joe
• 52:22
  and I can give you some notes about to be loved.
• 52:24
  It sure will do less Magic City, the authenticity of you be
• 52:31
  giving notes to Frank Oz. I can't get over that I can't
• 52:33
  even joke about when you're actually in recovery say again,
• 52:39
  sorry, don't give me wrote notes when you're me covering a few
• 52:41
  hours. Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 52:43
  Now really I do, I'll do my best to be completely fine.
• 52:46
  That's when the best notes come. I think.
• 52:48
  Yeah. The morphine.
• 52:49
  And then script notes? Yeah, yeah.
• 52:51
  I've been sent. Well, I can't believe your
• 52:54
  surgery. Yeah, go ahead.
• 52:58
  We could we could continue this discussion in the OR I'm on the
• 53:04
  I'm a board. If you are right part, it's
• 53:05
  getting real weird. I kind of don't want to do that
• 53:10
  real. We'd bring your microphone to
• 53:12
  the hospital where your bike a little, you know, and during the
• 53:17
  War I mean I'll probably have to lead you when they put you out,
• 53:21
  unless they need some help and I'd be happy to help.
• 53:24
  Just give some tips up. Just what?
• 53:26
  We'll get one of them to like film it black on Zoom that you
• 53:29
  can direct. Yeah.
• 53:30
  Okay. Well do this.
• 53:31
  Do that. Great.
• 53:32
  All right, I'm on board. I'll put, I'll tell them to hold
• 53:34
  them. There we go.
• 53:35
  You played a doctor in Superman 3, and they'll let you die to
• 53:39
  the old. Are you again?
• 53:40
  I was from with Chris Reeve. God bless him and I he got very
• 53:46
  friendly doing my Patron. He brought me in to do a part
• 53:49
  and I did and they cut me out. So terrible, how dare you?
• 53:54
  It's been it's been a sore point for my entire life, of course,
• 53:59
  but no rightfully. So they cut me out.
• 54:01
  I'm sure that Is this is the trouble that director, you have
• 54:04
  to cut people out and I hate it. When I do it myself, I hate it.
• 54:07
  And I said, yeah, that's right. Is there anything you've had to
• 54:12
  say from Muppets? Take Manhattan or something?
• 54:15
  You can remember that that you have to cut that.
• 54:17
  You really wish you could have kept.
• 54:19
  I have the worst, the worst awful to this day.
• 54:24
  I die inside a little bit. When I remember this, it's,
• 54:27
  it's, it's still sorry to remind you of it.
• 54:30
  Well, there's a scene. And I just feel so awful.
• 54:33
  It's a scene still after all these years where the Muppets
• 54:37
  arrived in Manhattan and they have no place to stay.
• 54:41
  And so I created this locker room for them where they stayed
• 54:45
  in the lockers, the train station or plain station.
• 54:49
  Wherever was saying I forgot I own this break while I grab
• 54:54
  something. Are you having surgery right
• 54:55
  now? I have not.
• 54:57
  All right so this is a this is a podcast and now we can say this
• 55:01
  except for the three of us This is actually an original Lobby
• 55:03
  card. Alright, from Muppets, Take
• 55:06
  Manhattan, and they're in the lockers for those of you who
• 55:10
  can't see with this, which is all of you.
• 55:15
  There was a scene where the Muppets had no place to stay in
• 55:20
  Manhattan and they saw the Walkers there where you could
• 55:23
  rent a locker and put your belongings in.
• 55:26
  And so, that became where they stayed, that's going to hurt me
• 55:30
  to even say this again, it's just awful.
• 55:33
  And I wanted to have not just Muppets in there.
• 55:36
  I want to have a couple of human beings and that's why I asked a
• 55:39
  couple little people. And again, I don't care.
• 55:42
  I don't like calling a little people, but many little people
• 55:45
  like, being called Little People bothers me, but nevertheless, so
• 55:48
  I asked a couple to found a couple and they were in there
• 55:53
  and in the scene and then I was fine and I edited it and they
• 55:59
  had no dialogue, the two of them.
• 56:01
  But one of them was a little low in the frame.
• 56:04
  I think. Anyway, I because of the pacing
• 56:07
  of the The scene I had to cut him out and it was, you know, I
• 56:15
  was a first-time director and so I cut them out and I didn't
• 56:20
  think much of it. And then the time the premier
• 56:24
  came in Lincoln Center, small room of Lincoln Center screen
• 56:27
  room and I didn't tell the person he was cut out and all of
• 56:33
  a sudden down the hall, I see him coming with his wife and two
• 56:37
  kids, And he comes down the stairs to see himself, even if
• 56:42
  it's just he had no dialogue. He was on screen for about four
• 56:45
  seconds. He was so proud to be part of
• 56:47
  the movie and I was sick over it.
• 56:50
  And to this day from that moment on this day.
• 56:53
  If I ever cut anybody off movie, I always write a note to him at
• 56:57
  a time. It was just to this day, I feel
• 57:00
  sick about it, you know. Yeah.
• 57:03
  Now that I wanted to get you in a very depressive mood so you
• 57:06
  wouldn't need medication. Yeah, cool.
• 57:08
  Oh yeah I'll just write not only are you numb yet Jared to this
• 57:13
  day. I yeah I'm it still makes me
• 57:14
  sick when I think of it. Yeah well well I'm sure used to
• 57:19
  giving you by this point. Well, years later, it was awful
• 57:22
  any case I am. I speaking else think I'm
• 57:26
  curious about something else that might make you sick.
• 57:29
  This was, this question came from Ryan row, who is hosting
• 57:35
  another podcast for us right now, along with Anthony, Ends
• 57:39
  where they're watching the Muppet movies, 2 minutes at a
• 57:41
  time. They've been doing this for a
• 57:42
  few years. So, they're already.
• 57:43
  Most of the way through Muppet Christmas Carol, at this point,
• 57:46
  and they're starting to prepare to.
• 57:48
  Wow. Does that like, Pat?
• 57:51
  Is it punishment? Not yet.
• 57:53
  Wait till they get to my purse, from space will see God won't
• 57:56
  mention that. That, that, that is the worst.
• 58:03
  Well, I've now, I have to. But before we talk about mothers
• 58:06
  from space, I want to ask they I had to ask because they're
• 58:10
  starting to prepare for a Treasure Island.
• 58:13
  What did you really think of Fozzie Bear and mr.
• 58:18
  Bimbo I don't know. I just kind of, you know, what I
• 58:24
  do Fozzie when I'm asked to do a roll.
• 58:26
  I don't think, unless I really, unless I really have problems,
• 58:29
  and I talked to the director, I talked to Jim about it with her,
• 58:33
  but I don't, I didn't really think much about I just kind of
• 58:36
  did that try to do the best job I could, you know, All right.
• 58:40
  Yeah because again I think there's that there's maybe
• 58:43
  there's a story out there that like you hated it at the start
• 58:45
  but by the end, you're pitching gags.
• 58:48
  I don't remember that but then I don't I won't remember this
• 58:51
  interview tomorrow either. Almeida.
• 58:54
  But that's good. Bobby, whack down meds.
• 58:56
  No, I don't remember. Unfortunately, I just, I just
• 58:58
  don't, but I that's going on track and give unless it's time.
• 59:02
  Yeah, yeah. If there's things that I truly,
• 59:05
  don't believe a right for the character or anything.
• 59:07
  It's good. I'll bring it up, but I don't
• 59:09
  remember disliking it and then liking it after.
• 59:11
  Don't recall that? Yeah.
• 59:13
  Cuz so, what do you remember about?
• 59:15
  Muppets from space? I'm sorry.
• 59:19
  Muppets from space. It was this movie you did in 99.
• 59:22
  I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you say it
• 59:23
  again, please. I think my microphone cut out of
• 59:25
  the best. Most weapons from space.
• 59:27
  I'm not going to stop when he passed.
• 59:28
  I'm sorry. I just got something on your
• 59:30
  mind. Like what a shame?
• 59:33
  It was awful. You do you think sir the script
• 59:37
  was awful? I told Brian that ahead of time.
• 59:41
  The, the director didn't know what he's doing.
• 59:44
  I'm sorry, but it was just awful.
• 59:45
  It was just Dreadful and the idea that that Gonzo was an
• 59:50
  alien was just repulsive and ridiculous.
• 59:53
  I do like the fact that everyone's just forgotten that
• 59:57
  he was an alien, like but everyone has just gone, let's
• 59:59
  just forget that happen. That's not Canada.
• 1:00:01
  It's good on it. It it was just a blip on for I
• 1:00:06
  know I'm not I'm supposed to be very Nice to fellow directors
• 1:00:09
  and I don't really know the fellow that much hardly at all,
• 1:00:12
  but it but you know that Brian went ahead with it is shocking
• 1:00:16
  to me, I just couldn't believe it.
• 1:00:19
  Well, especially there was a earlier script by Jerry juhl of
• 1:00:23
  this Muppets in Space, which I know very little about that
• 1:00:27
  sighs. It was passed on.
• 1:00:29
  I don't recall that all I know is that it was going to be more
• 1:00:33
  probably more pigs in space, Star Wars Star Trek references,
• 1:00:36
  things like that. And they made, apparently,
• 1:00:39
  Welch's grape jelly made a series of of like jelly glass
• 1:00:45
  cups with gorillas in space, branding.
• 1:00:48
  And that's the only piece of merchandise that exist from this
• 1:00:50
  movie that never never got made album John.
• 1:00:52
  Well, of course knowing Jerry wrote a Jerry was so incredible
• 1:00:55
  and you know he knew the characters and relationships
• 1:00:58
  inside out better than anybody else at all.
• 1:01:00
  And I'm sure that would have been wonderful you know?
• 1:01:03
  Yeah, that that and that's one of the reasons I think why when
• 1:01:06
  Jared and I were asking, you know, jokingly asking you for
• 1:01:08
  the the cheapest Muppet movie ever made script, you know
• 1:01:11
  beforehand. It's not just so that we can see
• 1:01:14
  something that no one else gets to see.
• 1:01:15
  It's knowing that there's stuff that people like you and Jerry
• 1:01:18
  juhl worked on that the world doesn't get to see.
• 1:01:21
  It's like, I just want to absorb that.
• 1:01:23
  All of this is just trouble learning.
• 1:01:25
  What I did was, I changed it so much and the reason I changed so
• 1:01:30
  much only economic not deserved. Heard that a great script.
• 1:01:34
  She is a brilliant but I knew we couldn't directly couldn't shoot
• 1:01:39
  it. Just it was just too expensive.
• 1:01:41
  So what I did is, I changed it to the gree that you wouldn't
• 1:01:45
  really see a lot of Jerry stuff and I change it to either.
• 1:01:49
  It was still in process and it's really not good enough to show
• 1:01:53
  yet. That's the trouble, you know.
• 1:01:54
  But I do I still love the ideas, you know, the idea of I think,
• 1:01:59
  you know, art to great deal is based on How much economy limits
• 1:02:04
  you? I think our troops through
• 1:02:06
  limitations and not through freedom, and the idea of having
• 1:02:10
  only limited amount of money to do the, a movie forces, you into
• 1:02:17
  creative answers, for instance, like the rats not having enough
• 1:02:22
  money to light, which allows me not to light, right?
• 1:02:27
  But I didn't carry it. I carried that part that.
• 1:02:30
  I felt so successful, but I didn't.
• 1:02:33
  But the rest of it was wasn't successful zoos to talk eat or D
• 1:02:36
  too much dialogue, not music. And I that's what I was missing
• 1:02:41
  if I can just add quickly ask Frank.
• 1:02:43
  And I read that we need a start to wrap up shortly.
• 1:02:46
  Just one question. What if I think you have like,
• 1:02:48
  maybe what you have to go like the hospital something.
• 1:02:51
  Oh yeah, something like that. Something something relatively
• 1:02:53
  important. But one question, that I'd kick
• 1:02:57
  myself if I didn't ask and I'm sure muppetsaway timing at me,
• 1:03:00
  though. I would you, I would really
• 1:03:02
  after your surgery, Jury and after you're all healed, love to
• 1:03:06
  actually see someone kicking themselves because I find that
• 1:03:08
  very difficult to imagine. I'll give it a red hot guy.
• 1:03:12
  Look, while I'm whacked out on meds later on this afternoon,
• 1:03:15
  I'll give it a go while Phil maybe you could do it.
• 1:03:17
  Then that'd be good. Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Cool. What is the chemical?
• 1:03:21
  Your goals is a significant. I would say that I would I said
• 1:03:24
  the Dave's years and years ago I said Dave I was making fun of my
• 1:03:29
  said, say I said Dave, look at yourself.
• 1:03:31
  He said, I can't. I'm in here.
• 1:03:33
  No, that's strange docket, okay? That's like yourself, yeah.
• 1:03:38
  Yes. But yes.
• 1:03:40
  The question is, what is the camel?
• 1:03:43
  I'm sorry. What is the camel again?
• 1:03:46
  Talk about it in the that microphone just does not working
• 1:03:49
  properly. Damn it worth a shot.
• 1:03:51
  No, not gonna happen. That means this tribe Jared that
• 1:03:56
  was Dave. Twitter of me and I'm not going
• 1:03:59
  to allow that to happen, even even now damn, Because there's
• 1:04:03
  was there. Something you wanna is there
• 1:04:05
  something that you want to drop in this interview to make it to
• 1:04:08
  it out of Dave in just as visible as a bit of petty
• 1:04:11
  Revenge? No, no Dave knows how much I
• 1:04:14
  love him and I and he loves me and I think our relationship you
• 1:04:19
  know after 40 45 years or so close that.
• 1:04:24
  If I don't think it's my place to really say anything about
• 1:04:28
  him, that's pretty obvious about his witness.
• 1:04:31
  There's no reason to It's not that it's bad but it had on an
• 1:04:35
  app. You don't have to actually talk
• 1:04:37
  about a person's twiddles. Let's try Speaking of talking to
• 1:04:44
  Muppet performers, first of all, and we said that's really nice.
• 1:04:47
  Thank you way. I was like, wait, how about
• 1:04:50
  that? The thank you for making the
• 1:04:52
  documentary Muppet guys, talking that still is such a gift to
• 1:04:55
  Muppet fans and especially to be able to do that before Jerry
• 1:04:59
  Nelson past. Like, what a great thing to
• 1:05:03
  exist in this world. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:05
  And as my wife who took, who did it.
• 1:05:07
  I mean, I'll thank you to her. Yeah, she that's really special.
• 1:05:11
  Mitchell. She saw one night.
• 1:05:14
  She saw me. No, actually, she was at the
• 1:05:17
  airport and she called me and dinner and I was screwing around
• 1:05:20
  with Dave and Billy and I forgot who else to judge it was there
• 1:05:24
  with the guys and and she and she heard I was going on.
• 1:05:28
  She thought geez you know I didn't grow up in the Muppets
• 1:05:31
  but people would love to hear what they're doing on their.
• 1:05:34
  So she tried to convince me for a year and I said, no, I said
• 1:05:38
  no. I said no one's going to be
• 1:05:40
  interested because the Right? Because you understand when I
• 1:05:44
  was 19, I came to the Muppets and that was the basically job.
• 1:05:47
  I've had. So, for me, doing the, Muppets
• 1:05:50
  is, like, going to the office for an insurance salesman.
• 1:05:53
  I just for me, it was life. So for a year, she waited, and
• 1:05:57
  finally, she convinced me and then she and then we did it.
• 1:06:01
  So, it really got to thank Victoria for that.
• 1:06:04
  That she saw the value it, you know?
• 1:06:07
  Yeah. Well, thank you to Victoria
• 1:06:08
  because I'm so grateful to have that in our lives.
• 1:06:11
  Soooo, do you give any Victoria wanted?
• 1:06:15
  Honey, I'm sorry. Just want to say Victoria wanted
• 1:06:18
  to do it because she's a public speaker with and besides our
• 1:06:22
  performer but she wanted to do to show other entities and
• 1:06:28
  corporations how one can have a corporation that's Humane like
• 1:06:32
  gin with the leader like Jim. So that was her eye reason for
• 1:06:36
  it. For me, I wanted to show the
• 1:06:38
  original Muppet performers before it's too late.
• 1:06:41
  And thank Victoria had us do it before Jerry left as he said, I
• 1:06:44
  apologize it. Interrupt you.
• 1:06:46
  No, no, it's alright. That was a good Interruption.
• 1:06:50
  Do you have any plans to release more of the footage that you
• 1:06:53
  shot? It's not that I don't have
• 1:06:56
  planet. Is there so much?
• 1:06:58
  There's about 10 hours. And the problem is that I don't
• 1:07:02
  have time. I just takes a lot of volunteer.
• 1:07:07
  Ha ha ha. I sent.
• 1:07:07
  You want to send it to her. I'll get it done this afternoon
• 1:07:10
  while I walked out. I have it on a hard.
• 1:07:11
  Drive somewhere but I just don't I'm just so, damn busy, I or
• 1:07:16
  least. I'm pretending to be busy.
• 1:07:17
  I'm not sure which but I know there's a lot going on with my
• 1:07:21
  life and I just don't have the time.
• 1:07:23
  I just did, that's the trouble. Yeah.
• 1:07:26
  Well that leads to my next question, which is with all the
• 1:07:29
  stuff that you're busy with is one of them working on another
• 1:07:32
  documentary because I know you've talked before about,
• 1:07:34
  possibly doing something similar about your directorial work.
• 1:07:38
  Yeah. No, I'm not working on
• 1:07:39
  documentary. I'm There's a book I'm writing
• 1:07:43
  about prepping, how to prep, how I prep movies and there's yeah,
• 1:07:49
  there's because I think people don't quite prep movies, is as
• 1:07:54
  deep as I believe is necessary. Whenever I've gone to talks,
• 1:08:00
  like I was, you know, for New York University and Chapman and
• 1:08:04
  other places. I was surprised how little
• 1:08:06
  people talk about prep people talk about the theory of film,
• 1:08:11
  they About performance and working with actors and editing.
• 1:08:14
  But not many people talk about prep.
• 1:08:16
  So that's one thing I'm doing and there's a couple of, you
• 1:08:20
  know, small movies. I don't want to do big ones
• 1:08:22
  anymore, small movies that I love to shoot.
• 1:08:25
  And then there's other stuff going on, you know.
• 1:08:28
  Great. We will be Frozen and read all
• 1:08:31
  of it. Well, thank you.
• 1:08:34
  Thank you. Just because I know Joe is going
• 1:08:38
  to ask you to find a questions and just above a nice.
• 1:08:40
  Have one last question, but it's the Jo Jo.
• 1:08:45
  How are you going? And the reason I asked Frank is
• 1:08:47
  because we've spoken multiple times on this podcast, about
• 1:08:50
  Joe, getting Starstruck. And he said, The only person in
• 1:08:53
  the world who makes him, like, tense up because he's so
• 1:08:55
  Starstruck is Frank Oz. So I just need to check in with
• 1:08:58
  Joe. How are you going?
• 1:09:00
  We will be on the spot there Jared my egos involved here so
• 1:09:05
  if he says no, Can distract you totally screwed me over.
• 1:09:09
  Okay yeah well now that's him. Sisyphus is what Frank asked
• 1:09:13
  know, I don't know, I don't know, big deal.
• 1:09:15
  Then you think I feel? Okay.
• 1:09:18
  No, I'll tell you Frank. I'll I'll give you an answer
• 1:09:21
  that will hopefully make you feel good is I was I was
• 1:09:24
  terrified at the beginning of this thing terrified is not the
• 1:09:26
  right word. I was very nervous and
• 1:09:28
  apprehensive at the beginning of this thing, but you have been so
• 1:09:32
  kind and so welcoming and your voice is very soothing to listen
• 1:09:35
  to do. Hilarious voice.
• 1:09:37
  You've put me at ease saying. Are you saying it's soothing or
• 1:09:41
  they're more sensual aspect to it?
• 1:09:44
  Yeah, I wasn't going to say, I'm not, I'm not showing you.
• 1:09:46
  What's going on below the frame here, Frank?
• 1:09:47
  So yes. That's what I talked about in
• 1:09:53
  the beginning, right? I didn't want to go there.
• 1:09:55
  No, we're not going there at the end.
• 1:09:57
  No, sir about that. All roads lead.
• 1:10:00
  How would that was funny? I mean I mean I and by the way I
• 1:10:04
  know you have surgery but you can doctor can wait out of a
• 1:10:07
  cent. Yes.
• 1:10:08
  A lot of people to cut up those day.
• 1:10:10
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:12
  But it's so funny about that because my wife will say, oh
• 1:10:16
  look, they know who you are and saying, what are you talking
• 1:10:17
  about? I never, I never even think of
• 1:10:20
  myself as a celebrity, not in the slightest, and I take great
• 1:10:25
  pride in in knowing and sense. And feeling and totally
• 1:10:30
  believing that I'm a worker. That's all.
• 1:10:32
  I am. I'm a worker and I love my work,
• 1:10:35
  but this celebrity and fame thing I have.
• 1:10:38
  I never had any idea about that, never.
• 1:10:41
  So that's other people, that's not me.
• 1:10:44
  I mean, I'll always remember for the rest of my life the first
• 1:10:47
  time you and I ever met which was we ran into each other on
• 1:10:50
  the street in Manhattan. Really?
• 1:10:54
  Yeah we it was it was over it was on Broadway and like 66
• 1:10:58
  somewhere on Or where we were, it was like in front of the
• 1:11:00
  Apple Store and I had one of those moments of, oh my gosh,
• 1:11:04
  that's Frank Oz and you were there with your wife and I
• 1:11:08
  stopped you and said, hello. And the look on your face of
• 1:11:13
  just pure shocked. That not only likes, not lie to
• 1:11:16
  someone recognized me. But this guy also happens to run
• 1:11:20
  a muppet fans, like, what are the odds?
• 1:11:22
  And you were very kind that day. We took a photo, it was very
• 1:11:26
  much a highlight for me to get. So that's nice.
• 1:11:29
  II. It's so funny.
• 1:11:31
  I just I have no time for fame or celebrities so nonsense, it's
• 1:11:35
  just all I all I all I care about is the craft and the work.
• 1:11:39
  That's really all I care about, you know.
• 1:11:41
  It's just it's all the matters to me and I guess I have I have
• 1:11:45
  no, I know, it sounds odd but I have never once done a job for
• 1:11:49
  money in my life ever except for when it when I sold for 15
• 1:11:53
  minutes to try to sell rug shampooer on 14th Street.
• 1:11:56
  That's the only time I try to get money and I don't Saskia.
• 1:12:00
  Huh. That was last year.
• 1:12:02
  Yeah. Well, as about two years ago
• 1:12:03
  because I was fine last, but no, I it's very nice of you to say
• 1:12:09
  that, but it's true. I guess I am always surprised.
• 1:12:12
  It's true. I think the best way Frank for
• 1:12:15
  us to describe, what it's like to speak to you, because I used
• 1:12:19
  to like, in this to you after I need to do these them up at
• 1:12:21
  guys, talking my brother was like, oh what was it?
• 1:12:23
  Like and now my brother's a massive Beatles fan and I said
• 1:12:27
  David, imagine that. The phone rings and it's Paul
• 1:12:31
  McCartney and you get 45 minutes an hour to talk to Paul
• 1:12:35
  McCartney and my brothers like, oh, okay.
• 1:12:37
  So that was that, this is a big moment for you.
• 1:12:39
  I'm like it. This is, this is the Pinnacle.
• 1:12:43
  So it's been a genuine Delight. I mean this is like I said, this
• 1:12:48
  is a weird day for me, but a great way to start it.
• 1:12:52
  Well, the good thing is, thank you very much.
• 1:12:54
  That's very kind of you to say. I mean, I again, I Me, I'm just
• 1:12:58
  talking to you guys. I don't know.
• 1:13:00
  I never think of myself of my butt, but the good thing about
• 1:13:03
  all this is that once you're in recovery, you'll totally forget
• 1:13:06
  this ever happened 100%, which is good, because then when I
• 1:13:09
  edit it in a few days, I'll be like brand-new for the first
• 1:13:12
  time, your brand-new for you. Yeah, 100%.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah. And you're gonna go, there were
• 1:13:17
  so many things. I should have asked.
• 1:13:19
  Yeah, I thought it was that. Well, Frank at the end of every
• 1:13:25
  episode of this podcast Jared and I each have Have a list of
• 1:13:28
  questions that we like to ask our guests.
• 1:13:30
  Okay. As you were my guest this week I
• 1:13:33
  get to ask you my list of questions.
• 1:13:34
  I answer my answer before you ask them.
• 1:13:38
  Oh let's try it. Give it a go for money, okay?
• 1:13:43
  And how many questions are there?
• 1:13:45
  There's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven questions,
• 1:13:50
  okay, yes, no orange yes, no possibly, huh?
• 1:13:56
  Don't? That's pretty much the man.
• 1:13:57
  Answer. So there's no reason to thank
• 1:13:59
  you for your time. I'll just drop them in if we go
• 1:14:04
  ahead and let it legitimately no sense.
• 1:14:06
  All right, first question, what is your favorite dessert?
• 1:14:11
  Oh it's so hard to choose between key lime, pie and ice
• 1:14:16
  cream. What flavor ice cream cones.
• 1:14:19
  Has multiple chip detail. Okay, look, I know it's so hard
• 1:14:26
  to stay away from that. It's true.
• 1:14:29
  It's one of my favorites as well.
• 1:14:31
  Greaters mocha chip. I grew up on that.
• 1:14:34
  Who is your favorite superhero? You know, when I talk about
• 1:14:39
  superhero you talk about superheroes and this is not
• 1:14:42
  really the answer you want because you just want a quick
• 1:14:44
  answer and insert however you want go get done, you want to go
• 1:14:47
  have dinner? But superheroes to my mind are
• 1:14:51
  when I was 12 years old, 10 years old, my brother, and I are
• 1:14:55
  stealing comic books from each other and the comic books he
• 1:14:58
  stole were of Superman and Batman and him, there's
• 1:15:04
  Blackhawk. There was a man There's a
• 1:15:08
  Plastic Man. There was, you know, all the old
• 1:15:12
  guys, so those. So, when I think of superheroes
• 1:15:15
  I think of those superheroes from plastic, man to Superboy to
• 1:15:21
  supergroups, it's Superman to Batman to, you know.
• 1:15:25
  All those are the kinds of bears are my mind.
• 1:15:27
  Not not the once a day. I don't know why those are
• 1:15:29
  nobody. Those are my favorites as well.
• 1:15:31
  I lost hasn't been anybody the movie but Plastic Man, it just
• 1:15:34
  doesn't seem right, I know, right.
• 1:15:37
  It sounds like will be easy right now.
• 1:15:39
  There's a couple of actors who I love who have been very vocal on
• 1:15:42
  social media about. Like it's time to cast me.
• 1:15:45
  I'm ready to go for plastic man. Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  You would make a great woozy Winx, if they make that movie.
• 1:15:53
  Remember we had wings, I don't see, sidekick, I don't feel like
• 1:15:58
  I've, I feel like I've gone under anaesthetic because I
• 1:16:01
  don't understand any of this, we'll get back to you, okay?
• 1:16:04
  Lucy was is very human psychic. He just kind of ran around with
• 1:16:08
  pants, man, it doesn't matter. All I remember is that I
• 1:16:12
  remember also, wonder woman, I love the Mad Magazine.
• 1:16:15
  Take off when she slammed the door and crash the whole plane
• 1:16:18
  Great. So this next question is a bit
• 1:16:23
  of a cheat because there's a real real life answer but we'll
• 1:16:26
  see. We'll see how you go with it.
• 1:16:28
  If there was a muppet based on yourself Who besides you would
• 1:16:32
  you want to perform it? That's interesting.
• 1:16:35
  Probably probably Dave goals are Bill Beretta.
• 1:16:39
  Yeah, great choices. Both of those guys.
• 1:16:42
  Yeah. Frank, please pick a number
• 1:16:45
  between 1 and 100. Okay.
• 1:16:51
  Do I have to tell it to you? Can you?
• 1:16:52
  Yeah. Could you tell me that's not a
• 1:16:55
  trick. If I tell you, you say you're
• 1:16:57
  right, I will tell you right but that's not.
• 1:17:01
  That's not we're doing. I'm not getting 999 great.
• 1:17:05
  Great number. Was it is it nine?
• 1:17:06
  You remember those very proud of it.
• 1:17:09
  So on the AFI top, 100 movies list, the number nine movie is
• 1:17:14
  vertigo. Have you seen it?
• 1:17:17
  And if so, what did you think of it?
• 1:17:20
  Yes, all years ago, I was very confused.
• 1:17:22
  The first time I saw it and I still actually have to see it
• 1:17:25
  again to as an adult. Now, to really make sense of
• 1:17:28
  because I haven't seen since I was a kid, you know.
• 1:17:31
  Yeah, I've been watching some some classic Hitchcock slightly
• 1:17:35
  myself and like just amazed that these were movies that that
• 1:17:39
  weren't made recently like these were decades ago and they still
• 1:17:43
  resonate so well, yeah, that's very good at the shop.
• 1:17:46
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 1:17:49
  I mean, it's a no. understatement for sure in our
• 1:17:52
  previous episode of this podcast, Our Guest Bobby
• 1:17:55
  Moynihan asked this question, not knowing, who our next guest
• 1:17:59
  was going to be If you could recast any movie with the
• 1:18:03
  Muppets, what would it be? Well, first of all, I don't
• 1:18:08
  think it's any of his business. Okay.
• 1:18:10
  I agree. That's that's something that's
• 1:18:14
  kind of Private. But you would you repeat that
• 1:18:19
  question? That's bizarre question.
• 1:18:20
  Absolutely. It is a very bizarre question.
• 1:18:22
  And, and I'll elaborate, if you, if you would like, but he, his
• 1:18:26
  verbatim, he asked, if you could recast any movie with the
• 1:18:31
  Muppets, what would it be? So I believe he means, if you
• 1:18:35
  could take an existing movie and then get rid of all the humans
• 1:18:38
  replace them with Muppets what movie will I see?
• 1:18:40
  Well, the usual movie would probably because of Lanka but
• 1:18:43
  Piggy and Kermit ever imagine, you know, that's the natural
• 1:18:47
  natural one. Although I think maybe my
• 1:18:51
  favorite would be Eraserhead with bigger doesn't exist.
• 1:19:01
  I would love to see what David Lynch.
• 1:19:03
  As with a Muppet movie Bonkers, would that be be?
• 1:19:07
  Could be Prix. Racer had.
• 1:19:09
  Come on now. Yeah.
• 1:19:11
  It writes itself. It's perfect.
• 1:19:13
  Our final question. Now, this is our season finale.
• 1:19:17
  So this, this question will only really come up.
• 1:19:19
  Hold basically, I'm throwing you off season here.
• 1:19:22
  This is it, you throw me way off?
• 1:19:23
  This is it. Yeah, I mean, just when you guys
• 1:19:26
  off here, this is, this is your last.
• 1:19:29
  You're getting us canceled for a while.
• 1:19:31
  Okay. Without knowing who our next
• 1:19:34
  guest is. What question would you like to
• 1:19:37
  ask them? I'd like to know and they're
• 1:19:42
  gonna be they're gonna be really thrown off by being asked a
• 1:19:45
  question by Frank Oz there. I'd like to know What's
• 1:19:50
  Herculaneum more affected by Vesuvius than Pompeii?
• 1:19:56
  Oh yeah. It's a it's a thinker.
• 1:19:59
  Yeah, yeah, I just I know Mom. I went to both but I couldn't
• 1:20:03
  figure out if Herculaneum had written really been affected as
• 1:20:06
  badly and just didn't get the press or did Pompeii really get
• 1:20:11
  it, get it badly. That's, that's the question I
• 1:20:13
  have for them. It's topics which I like.
• 1:20:16
  I like that. It's a topic.
• 1:20:17
  I didn't know the answer to yeah, yeah, I love it.
• 1:20:20
  Yeah, well, have them show their work on a separate sheet.
• 1:20:23
  Yeah. What Frank Oz?
• 1:20:26
  Thank you Holly so much for taking the time to chat with us
• 1:20:29
  today. This was such a treat for both
• 1:20:31
  Jared and I my pleasure and Jared II wish you the best of
• 1:20:37
  the surgery just take care of it just because do me a favor after
• 1:20:40
  you come out just be gentle with yourself.
• 1:20:42
  Okay of course. Oh ice okay that's it's always
• 1:20:48
  it's wacky after surgery so just don't think he can do more than
• 1:20:51
  you can because it's not. Sighs.
• 1:20:54
  All right. I'll uh I'll while I'm sitting
• 1:20:57
  there. I'll give you like Frank Oz told
• 1:20:58
  me not to move your stick. Now have to agree.
• 1:21:01
  Just be nice to yourself, Apple. Thank you very much.
• 1:21:05
  You're not nice to do good Frank.
• 1:21:08
  What you say, might be nice to. Yeah, not quite know why start
• 1:21:12
  down? Dave goals are really aggressive
• 1:21:13
  email.