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Transcript

Fraggle Talk Episode 7: "Flight of the Flutterflies" with Puppeteers Frank Meschkuleit & Andy Hayward · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:17
  Hello and welcome to fraggle, talk.
• 0:20
  The Unofficial Fraggle, Rock podcast brought to you by
• 0:23
  suffix.com, this is the podcast where we cover Fraggle.
• 0:26
  Rock back to the Rock Episode by episode along with the Townsend
• 0:29
  producer. As performers, writers and
• 0:31
  Builders, who helped put it all together.
• 0:32
  I'm your host silly creature Johannes.
• 0:35
  Today, we are talking about episode 7, Flight of the
• 0:38
  flutterflies in which we meet the Troubadours and boober has
• 0:42
  to give a speech about lightning bugs.
• 0:45
  Today, we are chatting with two puppeteers, who are vital to
• 0:47
  bringing the fraggles to life on back to the Rock.
• 0:49
  First up, you've seen his work on Sesame, Street, waffles, and
• 0:52
  mochi. And as Charles entertainment
• 0:55
  cheese on back to the Rock, he performs wrench doozer, half of
• 0:59
  Pago. The giant talking radish and
• 1:01
  many more. We are extremely pleased to
• 1:04
  welcome, Andy, Heyward, to the podcast handy.
• 1:07
  Are you Joe? Thank you for mentioning the
• 1:09
  giant talking radish that made my whole day but that giant
• 1:12
  talking about just made my whole year it was incredible pretty
• 1:17
  pretty swell right? You really want to be that
• 1:19
  vomits anything that vomits rainbows is a good time for me.
• 1:22
  Can't agree more. Our next guest was a puppeteer
• 1:25
  on the original Fraggle. Rock having performed the body
• 1:28
  for junior gorg for the final season of the show.
• 1:30
  He has performed in movies like The Love Guru, Scary Movie, 3
• 1:33
  Harold & Kumar, Go to White Castle, and Follow That Bird,
• 1:36
  I'm back. The Rock, he performs the
• 1:38
  puppetry for boober and traveling, Matt as well as
• 1:41
  large. Marvin the man 24 and the other
• 1:43
  half of Pas gorg, we are extremely pleased to welcome
• 1:46
  Frank Mishka light to the podcast.
• 1:48
  Hello Frank. Hey, thanks for getting my name
• 1:50
  right. Joe, I appreciate it.
• 1:51
  Thank you, nice to be here. Great to have you.
• 1:54
  And there's been enough people on this podcast that have sung
• 1:57
  your Praises both of you, but that, that alone has gotten the
• 2:01
  pronunciation of mashka Lights in my brain.
• 2:03
  That was very helpful. Well, like we were we were
• 2:07
  hinting at earlier before the recording started as a pretty
• 2:10
  terrific group of people there. That was it.
• 2:12
  That was at Peak experience. I'm sure.
• 2:15
  I mean everyone just seems so kind and compared to the Love
• 2:19
  Guru Frank. I didn't know.
• 2:20
  You worked on The Love Guru, that's something that we need to
• 2:23
  talk about later. That's the new information for
• 2:25
  me. Coming up with so many stories
• 2:27
  and be in our Love Guru podcast. Think before we get into how
• 2:37
  everyone got back to the rock, you are you're back from the
• 2:41
  rock to the Rock because you are on the old show and now you're
• 2:44
  back here, how does it feel coming back to Fraggle Rock
• 2:46
  after almost 35 years? Aw Joe you know what I think I
• 2:53
  felt just about every emotion available to a human at various
• 2:56
  points but in Broad terms looking back on it.
• 2:59
  Now I came into the original series to replace the
• 3:03
  Irreplaceable. Rob Miller It's who was in
• 3:05
  junior when Richard and Richard had this tremendous relationship
• 3:09
  and Junior really came alive. And Rob got very sick from being
• 3:14
  inside the suit because you can't throw them in the washer,
• 3:16
  right? And they just start to
• 3:17
  disintegrate and it's like you're jumping around.
• 3:18
  Inside a giant old vacuum cleaner bag, right?
• 3:20
  It's just full of dust and you're in there huffing and
• 3:22
  puffing and I got in the suit within two weeks.
• 3:25
  I was at least as sick as Rob, but I was determined to finish.
• 3:28
  So I had the surgery for my ventolin and off.
• 3:33
  We went so to come back Action. And then to see the amazing job
• 3:38
  that Ben and Dan did with Junior from a distance, and to work
• 3:41
  with the the fabulous and Hayward on Paw, and he was in
• 3:46
  suit and I did the voice and the face was such a treat.
• 3:50
  If it really came full circle and and kind of kind of was a
• 3:53
  beautiful bookend for everything, I had done and
• 3:57
  everything. I hope to do as I said a premier
• 4:00
  experience. So was it important to you?
• 4:04
  Coming back to Fraggle, Rock? Rock that you not be back inside
• 4:07
  of one of the gorg suits. It sounds like, like, like
• 4:11
  breathing more dust every day. Maybe, maybe I'll pass on that
• 4:14
  one. You know, real quick, I don't
• 4:17
  want to go into any sub-stories, but there was a day where we're
• 4:20
  Dan and Ben were like, oh, it'd be great if we could get a
• 4:22
  picture of like us outside of the suit.
• 4:23
  But with like Junior standing up, not just put on a box and I
• 4:26
  was like, hey man, I'll go in the suit and you guys get your
• 4:28
  pictures, but it's like old times.
• 4:30
  Let's do it. So I either didn't suit, you
• 4:33
  know, shoes and gloves. And I'm like, oh, I remember
• 4:35
  this. Then they put the head on and
• 4:36
  they rebuilt Juniors head and weighed about 450 pounds in
• 4:40
  everything. And as they closed the last
• 4:43
  snap, I just want, let's just leave that snap open.
• 4:45
  I think I need that little snap. I need that little bit of air
• 4:48
  and it's once the soup isn't, I chilled out, but it just kept
• 4:52
  getting Tighter and Tighter on me.
• 4:54
  I think I could still go in a body suit but it would be a deep
• 4:57
  second choice for me. I've done a lot of foods over
• 5:00
  the years and it just comes to a point where you go.
• 5:02
  This is for somebody else who's not as close to death walking in
• 5:06
  the door. Well and that someone else was
• 5:10
  Andy. Who is inside the candy?
• 5:14
  Yeah. That just call it.
• 5:15
  Smells good. He's durable.
• 5:16
  Right? And now I am also close to
• 5:18
  death. Thank you.
• 5:21
  That's what happens when you inhale gourd dust.
• 5:24
  You just get a little bit closer every day.
• 5:27
  Not well, Andy, but before we talk too much about being inside
• 5:30
  a pile, let's find out. How did you get to Fraggle,
• 5:33
  Rock? What was your process?
• 5:35
  Like I don't know. I had like in the past I like
• 5:41
  I'd worked on some hints and things Moodle dribs and drabs,
• 5:45
  Frankel Rock. I just someone my name must have
• 5:48
  been on a list somewhere and I got an email.
• 5:50
  One day saying do you want to submit and the answer of course
• 5:54
  was no. Yes, so And he had a little
• 6:06
  guide video like he did choreography that we had to
• 6:09
  match, and he was even just in that video.
• 6:13
  Johnny was Johnny, just completely encouraging and
• 6:16
  delightful. And I, yeah, I just sent it in,
• 6:19
  and then, here I am. Well, yeah, that's it.
• 6:23
  So, it was all done over again. Over tape.
• 6:25
  You didn't, this was not like an in-person Thing by any means.
• 6:28
  Yeah, I'm not sure, I mean for everyone, but at least at Maya
• 6:33
  Andy was I never A puppet on in the same room as anybody it was.
• 6:38
  It was all done via private YouTube uploads and emails.
• 6:43
  Sure. And then was your your body work
• 6:48
  audition for Pas gorg. Also part of that process?
• 6:50
  Or was that later on? No, I did not.
• 6:55
  I did not know if I was going to be doing until we had a little
• 6:59
  Zoo meet and greet and Frank was there.
• 7:01
  And like, all the puppeteers were meeting for the first time
• 7:04
  and that's when Someone just said I was going to be doing
• 7:07
  this and I felt was stuck. Yeah, yeah, I think it's by me
• 7:12
  because I did do a Disney. I worked at Disneyland for about
• 7:15
  three years and did a little bit of fuzzy work there.
• 7:19
  I was friends with Pluto and e or and a few of the characters.
• 7:23
  So I'd been a bit around the Interiors of heavy costumes
• 7:27
  before sure. Chilly The Experience.
• 7:30
  Yeah, yeah, I guess let's go with that curious.
• 7:35
  Says a footnote to that. At one point, I read for junior
• 7:40
  because I'd been in the suit originally though, I'll give
• 7:42
  Frank a try and to keep my audition vital.
• 7:45
  So that, you know, because you're all, you always try to
• 7:47
  make the listener or the viewer of your audition reel or your
• 7:51
  stuff go. Oh, this guy's really into a
• 7:53
  little extra something. So I read all the voices.
• 7:55
  I read my red paw, I read Junior, and I focused on Junior
• 7:57
  and then Johnny called me says, you know what your Paul wasn't
• 8:00
  bad? You, it's actually pretty good.
• 8:02
  You would you thought I was like, yeah, I do anything, man.
• 8:05
  And and then to work with any, you know, my God, it was
• 8:08
  terrific. And I actually I helped set up
• 8:11
  the sort of rehearsal process that we had with with the three
• 8:15
  gorks. Well, the Three Gorges and the
• 8:17
  six performers and we all were in one room working together and
• 8:21
  because I split myself between trying to help as many in as
• 8:25
  many ways as I could, I almost didn't pay attention to what
• 8:29
  Andy and I were doing as much as I wanted to, but then when I
• 8:32
  step back and look and I went, oh, and he's great rich.
• 8:35
  Like we were, I felt we were simpatico almost from the word
• 8:38
  go because being in a suit, I know how hard it is.
• 8:41
  You have to be a really strong listener and you have to
• 8:44
  anticipate and, you know, you have to breathe in the same at
• 8:48
  the same rate that the guy who's doing the voice this so that
• 8:50
  you're not moving Against the Grain.
• 8:53
  And I thought Andy was terrific right away.
• 8:56
  Everyone turned out to be quite outstanding to be honest.
• 8:59
  I really love the gorgs work. So what was there?
• 9:03
  Anything that the two of you had to do?
• 9:05
  to kind of get on the same page and to bond since you're kind of
• 9:08
  embodying that same character at the same time, Well, I would
• 9:12
  say, thankfully for pranking I we worked together before.
• 9:17
  So Fraggle Rock was in our foot, just I'm doing a shoot together.
• 9:20
  So we kind of had an idea of each other's work and had been
• 9:23
  on some sets in the past, it was pretty incredible.
• 9:27
  Like the the rehearsal day, that Frank mentioned, it included
• 9:31
  like a little bit of a script and then just improv, and it was
• 9:35
  just working on, listening reacting sharing rank with
• 9:38
  playoff me. I play a Frank and we just go
• 9:40
  there. Another great thing I learned
• 9:43
  from the rehearsal day was from Ingrid.
• 9:45
  Hanson, who was the body performer for Mama.
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  And also Place hearts on help stirs.
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  She taught me to find your rest periods.
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  So, even if it's 30 seconds, you just go to yours in place.
• 9:58
  Close your eyes. That's it, don't save your
• 10:02
  energy but I'm in my happy place.
• 10:08
  It's a very clean. Vacuum cleaner bag.
• 10:11
  And it's really well. And it's a shame that we didn't
• 10:16
  actually get more of monpa Gore, because it seems like most of
• 10:20
  their appearances on the series are just like one of them sick
• 10:23
  in their head, out the window saying, something angry to
• 10:25
  Junior and then disappearing again.
• 10:28
  So, I'm hoping that, you know, because you've already kind of
• 10:31
  established this relationship. And obviously you're both very
• 10:35
  talented and as well as the poor mr.
• 10:37
  Dumont go work. And, you know, that we can get
• 10:40
  more of both, Of those characters in the near future
• 10:44
  knock on wood. Hope hope.
• 10:45
  Hope would love that. Yeah, it was pretty great.
• 10:49
  We're always trying to find little ways to get out of the
• 10:51
  window because we wanted to play a little more.
• 10:54
  So I think we did manage to get onto the porch a little bit,
• 10:57
  right? Like yeah, yeah.
• 10:59
  Kick our heels up on that ledge and like doing or maybe last
• 11:03
  minute, I don't pretend you're asleep while Juniors, doing all
• 11:07
  the work and he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, great.
• 11:10
  Yeah. It out, that's great.
• 11:13
  Because also, the first time I watched through the series, I
• 11:15
  had no idea that these were the original Mom Pop puppets, from
• 11:19
  the old show because as far as I knew, they didn't exist below
• 11:23
  the waist. We only Built a half a puppet
• 11:25
  because we never saw them, you know, full body.
• 11:27
  Like we did Junior, always out in the garden.
• 11:30
  Yeah, we were bullies suited up, even though you didn't see the
• 11:32
  lower half mostly because built into the lower half, is the kind
• 11:38
  of it's like a kind of a tutu, but it gives the body The Forum.
• 11:42
  So often times, I would skip out on the shoes because they were
• 11:45
  pretty heavy. But we were always, we were
• 11:48
  always almost fully dressed in those things and they were the
• 11:50
  originals and PAW had toast crumbs coming from somewhere
• 11:55
  that I wasn't telling ya. My wonderful dresser Terry. take
• 12:00
  every day and vacuum and try to find the source of the rotting
• 12:04
  foam, but she never quite So yeah, I was inhaling some things
• 12:11
  in there. Absolutely.
• 12:12
  Right. Very well.
• 12:13
  There you go. It's amazing.
• 12:15
  Those suits were still in the shape.
• 12:16
  They were in and without early on, when I was admiring the
• 12:20
  massive Machining that went into Juniors.
• 12:22
  New head is beautiful. I controls like the pupils
• 12:25
  moves. I think the legs move
• 12:26
  separately, they have a lower lid.
• 12:28
  I can't quite Recall now, but Dan killed it did a beautiful
• 12:30
  job working that but there was so much, there were so many
• 12:33
  mechanics inside that head and then you'd go over and look at
• 12:36
  PAW, and it's wicker. And In mind, Paul were made out
• 12:39
  of like looked like they were modified lawn furniture on the
• 12:42
  interior beautifully lashed together.
• 12:45
  You know across we've and all designed for durability and
• 12:50
  lightweight and they were still perfect, like the heads had the
• 12:54
  form. I know they did some touch-up on
• 12:56
  both the puppets if you have to after that many years but I
• 13:00
  think you got off light and because pause head was not quite
• 13:04
  as heavy as Juniors now, and then even looking over at mall
• 13:07
  with a headshot. Hi, it had hair piece on the
• 13:10
  back. Yeah, I hear ya.
• 13:15
  You want out the fabulous between takes moments, where
• 13:18
  they come running towards the soup performers with the leaf
• 13:21
  blower, and just jam it into the mouth or down, the found the
• 13:23
  front, and you just here, and he's going.
• 13:26
  Oh my God! Oh God!
• 13:27
  Oh God, yeah. And Andy, how hard is it to get
• 13:40
  used to gorg vision? And for people who don't know
• 13:44
  what that means, that's when you know there's there's a camera in
• 13:47
  gorgs in Pas, gorgs. I that you could see right in
• 13:49
  front of your, your eye to kind of get like those few extra
• 13:53
  inches up for your vision. What's tricky?
• 13:57
  And that's where Frank was really helpful.
• 14:00
  Because we, so for pot, his he has a little spy cam.
• 14:03
  It was right between his eyes. So I would see whatever was
• 14:07
  right in front of him, but it's the limited field of vision.
• 14:09
  So I can't see what my hands are doing.
• 14:12
  It's just a little, a little spy cam but um what I was looking
• 14:17
  at, didn't necessarily read as a good eye line on frame.
• 14:20
  So that's what I had Frank in my ear saying, anti-cheat a little
• 14:23
  to the left, a little to the right?
• 14:25
  So the go Dial line would look better.
• 14:28
  There was definitely a learning curve there.
• 14:30
  I think Ben did Ben not have two feeds.
• 14:33
  I think Ben had a been held one. He had like big bird Vision so
• 14:38
  like he could see what the mod the cameras were seeing, but he
• 14:41
  did not have a camera in juniors.
• 14:45
  He had the reverse of thing, didn't I?
• 14:47
  Yeah. Cheers were the kind of the
• 14:50
  frame and playing the frame and suddenly it was kind of
• 14:53
  restricted to just this little piece.
• 14:56
  People right from your camera, all the pause little stray,
• 15:04
  eyebrow hairs would start to stick up as the animated and
• 15:08
  suddenly I would have like you know half the vision becomes a
• 15:12
  quarter of the vision, here's what we want.
• 15:14
  A nanny need to run through the frame with this bucket while
• 15:16
  you're looking through a straw with one eye.
• 15:26
  In this to tan outside the streets of who knew better than
• 15:30
  most folks like what we were up against and how to help us.
• 15:33
  Yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:36
  That's super helpful, fairness and did all the hard stuff.
• 15:40
  It also has hard to me. Yeah, you are sweating.
• 15:46
  You were breathing in toast. You couldn't see anything, it's
• 15:53
  a lot. It's a lot of one.
• 15:54
  Any one of those things would be difficult and you.
• 15:56
  Did it all and there's like lines and choreography and you
• 16:00
  know, you got someone shouting in your ear.
• 16:02
  Sounds it sounds impossible. How are you still here?
• 16:08
  No, you're not. Okay, I told you he's durable,
• 16:15
  Frank. One of your biggest
• 16:18
  contributions to the show has been handling the puppetry for
• 16:21
  some of Dave goals as characters since Dave wasn't able to be
• 16:24
  there in person. Performed the puppetry for buber
• 16:27
  traveling. Matt world's oldest fraggle.
• 16:30
  How did you get chosen to be that person for that role?
• 16:36
  I don't know, but I'm gonna I'm gonna try and do it again.
• 16:38
  If it ever comes up, you know what I'm, I guess they must have
• 16:46
  heard me, Joe, you know, I like I told you earlier, I worked
• 16:49
  with the Muppets for about seven years when they used to shoot a
• 16:51
  lot in Toronto and it Follow That Bird in the last season of
• 16:53
  Fraggle and a Christmas special and an Easter special and some
• 16:57
  stuff but not enough to make me go.
• 16:59
  Oh no, I'm a puppeteer. I just sort of thought well it's
• 17:01
  just kind of cool. It's see where this goes and and
• 17:05
  then when they stopped shooting Toronto.
• 17:06
  I had a very meager skill set that I somehow fried into into a
• 17:13
  larger skill set. I ended up working a lot in
• 17:15
  Montreal. I worked a lot of Vancouver.
• 17:18
  I started doing creature effects for feature films, a lot of
• 17:20
  commercial work and eventually I guess I just you do something
• 17:24
  long enough you know the 10,000 hours we will write you get your
• 17:27
  chops and you actually become, you know, reasonably good.
• 17:30
  So they must have heard me. I think it may have had
• 17:33
  something to do with Jason hopley.
• 17:35
  Who's a - Puppeteer one of my favorite people.
• 17:38
  And I think the best Puppeteer in Canada.
• 17:41
  He might have put it. Put my name in the in the right
• 17:43
  ear. So thanks there J.
• 17:47
  And then I chatted with Johnny and we had a fantastic Zoom call
• 17:50
  and I was like oh I like this guy, he's super enthusiastic.
• 17:53
  And you know I've got a pretty big energy and we got along
• 17:56
  great and then they asked me to be puppet head co-captain as
• 17:59
  well. And I was like, okay what's
• 18:00
  that? I kind of figured out in the end
• 18:05
  of my own that Job in that regard was to help as many of
• 18:08
  the puppeteers as I could, who had less experience and to take
• 18:12
  as much of the burden off, but Jonny who was constantly being
• 18:15
  asked something. Johnny, what you think about
• 18:17
  this song which of this community, this camera, okay
• 18:18
  here, what do you think? They have color Johnny, where's
• 18:20
  your, which we have for lunch, Johnny?
• 18:21
  So everybody's asking himself all the time and I was like,
• 18:23
  I'll take the big chunks that fall off a John, and just move
• 18:26
  them around in a way that makes sense to me.
• 18:29
  But but specifically to your question, I mean, I think all
• 18:33
  how it happened is of much. Less interest and much less
• 18:37
  emotional range for me as to what happened when it happened
• 18:40
  which was first like oh great. Yeah, sure.
• 18:44
  I'd love to and then I kind of sat down and went Dave goals.
• 18:48
  Dave goals, Gonzo met the queen, a bunch of times.
• 18:54
  I hope I have the chops and, you know, here's a funny thing to
• 18:58
  Joe on as I told you earlier, on the original fraggle, I replaced
• 19:01
  somebody. And, and it's a very challenging
• 19:04
  thing to do. People have different rhythms
• 19:06
  Review the work is subjective. You're in there trying to be
• 19:10
  them. So you kind of you're pushing
• 19:11
  your instincts through someone else's prism if you will,
• 19:14
  someone else is Lands. So I did it on the original
• 19:19
  fraggle and lo and behold I came back and I watch Dave stuff over
• 19:22
  and over and I was like Dave dots that they just this thing.
• 19:25
  Okay I'll try and do that. And I'm a very technical
• 19:27
  Puppeteer, I think. I'm very good technically.
• 19:30
  So I was able to mimic some of it but you can't help but go oh
• 19:33
  I think it would be neat if like I really like hands.
• 19:37
  I like Hands-On puppets. I think each hand is like a tiny
• 19:39
  mask that has its own little story that adds to the scene.
• 19:43
  So they didn't do hand stuff, much tremendous voice actor, a
• 19:49
  great on an actor period and it is manipulation I think was
• 19:52
  Peerless, you know, and he created the characters.
• 19:55
  So it was it was always a bit slippery, you know?
• 19:58
  You think. Oh yeah.
• 19:59
  There's that. That felt like they that for the
• 20:01
  LOL that didn't feel very much like today that all but it was,
• 20:04
  you know? And then you start playing With
• 20:06
  the voice and you're trying to do a thing.
• 20:08
  That makes it makes it all more real and I hope Dave's happy.
• 20:13
  We had some tremendous Zoom chats.
• 20:15
  He's a real gentleman and he thinks very deeply about his
• 20:18
  craft. Those chats were a joy but I'll
• 20:24
  admit, I was scared. I was scared.
• 20:26
  Yeah, it sounds terrifying. We interviewed Dave for this
• 20:30
  podcast and he spoke very highly of you, so he was very pleased
• 20:34
  with your work, but he also So tell us a little bit about how
• 20:37
  he would watch the feed and if there was something that you
• 20:40
  were doing that, you know he wanted to give you a note, he be
• 20:42
  able to reach out so were you just like sometimes working and
• 20:46
  suddenly you get a phone call. It's Dave telling you that like
• 20:49
  hey man, you're doing something wrong.
• 20:51
  Fix it. Like I said, Dave's an awesome
• 20:54
  gentleman. You just you just can tell that
• 20:56
  he's got a lot of confidence and comfort with himself, and I was
• 21:01
  kind of, you know, dig and try to figure it out.
• 21:03
  First day, I was doing world's oldest fraggle and It's a whole
• 21:07
  new bit, right? Because Amy Garcia was doing
• 21:09
  henchy, they'd rebuild henchy, it's a female character.
• 21:13
  And in the original oldest would always be hitting hit you with a
• 21:16
  stick. It doesn't really fly so much
• 21:18
  these days, so we were trying to figure something out and I'm a
• 21:21
  little anxious. You know, I'm doing that
• 21:23
  character. I saw this character when you
• 21:24
  know what I was growing up and I watched the show and I worked on
• 21:27
  it and suddenly hit me. I look at my phone.
• 21:30
  I go, Dave, he says I should put the emphasis on I And I swear to
• 21:37
  God my hands started shaking a little bit.
• 21:38
  I was like I can't believe he's watching me.
• 21:41
  What's he thinking? Am I doing this?
• 21:43
  Why am I any good? And this wave of self-doubt
• 21:46
  washes over and then you go all nonsense, you know?
• 21:48
  You know how to do a puppet. Do the puppet.
• 21:49
  Try and make it funny. So certainly, there were a lot
• 21:53
  of steep hills to climb because some of the characters changed
• 21:56
  out, right? Like world's oldest no longer
• 21:58
  had this Punch and Judy Dynamic with with henchy.
• 22:01
  So we're you know I mean I would try and figure that out.
• 22:03
  I think we made a little Headway but I think there's there's
• 22:05
  there's To grow for sure. Yeah.
• 22:08
  And I'm sure it's just difficult for anyone, you know, knowing
• 22:11
  that this is a character, they feel some ownership over that
• 22:13
  they're still currently technically working on because
• 22:15
  he was coming in to, you know, do a TR for the the voices
• 22:19
  LeBron that, you know, to not have that control over every
• 22:24
  little detail of what I would do.
• 22:27
  You know that's got to be tricky for, you know, whether you're
• 22:30
  Dave goals are just starting out or anyone you were me?
• 22:36
  Yeah. I think, In fairness, I think
• 22:37
  it's one of the harder things to do in puppetry.
• 22:40
  I mean, everything is a challenge, you know, especially
• 22:42
  if you're fresher at it. And I've been around long enough
• 22:45
  to like I generally, don't think I'm afraid of puppetry things.
• 22:48
  It all just feels like something.
• 22:50
  I'll make the reach for me. I'll find a way creatively.
• 22:52
  But this was, this was a challenge from the word go.
• 22:55
  And and I think that's because I wanted it to be really good.
• 22:59
  So I continued to push myself. And then sometimes you're kind
• 23:03
  of overstep when you go. I'm going to do this thing and
• 23:05
  it did feel. Blueberry.
• 23:06
  Okay, I'm not going to do that again, but some of this stuff's
• 23:09
  great, there's a little bit. I just saw when I guess, will
• 23:12
  come to this later. But since I'm thinking about it
• 23:14
  now boobers says, something about these are these are
• 23:19
  laundry hand through these are dish, washing hands or
• 23:21
  something. And he's talking about is I
• 23:23
  won't touch that thing. It did not please.
• 23:24
  Our dish washing hands, and he holds his hands up.
• 23:26
  He turns them like this and it's a great little cheek than Ingrid
• 23:29
  was doing hands from me, where we took a second set of arms of
• 23:32
  boobers and brought them up from the bottom, a frame.
• 23:34
  So here's a arm. They went down, she brought
• 23:37
  these up and he's looking around.
• 23:39
  No, not. These, These are dish washing
• 23:40
  hands and put them down again. It's a nice little cheap and I
• 23:43
  love stuff like that. I love those little puppet
• 23:46
  tricks that go unnoticed, unless you really look closely, but
• 23:50
  they add to the, to the fullness of the performance.
• 23:54
  I like that because you could actually justify that.
• 23:57
  As all these are, his dish washing hands but the ones
• 23:59
  attached to its body are different hands at several sets
• 24:03
  those are for dishwashing. These are for soup.
• 24:05
  This is for Playing basketball laundry.
• 24:08
  These are my ironing hands. Exactly, yes.
• 24:12
  So let's jump into this episode fly to the flutterflies.
• 24:16
  The episode begins with the arrival of the Troubadours,
• 24:19
  which are very similar to the minstrels from the original
• 24:22
  series. Who of course debuted in the
• 24:25
  original series episode titled. The minstrels the group is
• 24:29
  notable for being led by cantus, who is the character performed
• 24:32
  by Jim Henson. The leader of the Troubadours is
• 24:36
  Jan, excuse me. Jam Dylan.
• 24:38
  It's a hard thing to say, out loud Jam, the Lynn Voice by
• 24:41
  daveed Diggs and puppetry by U and E.
• 24:43
  Is that right? Yeah, I got to waggle that guy.
• 24:47
  Yeah. How did you how did you get
• 24:49
  that? That gig.
• 24:51
  Um, okay. Same as before.
• 24:53
  I don't know. Great story.
• 24:55
  Great, moving on, I'm a great. I'm a great Storyteller earns.
• 25:02
  I specifically remember coming to set one day, like any other
• 25:05
  day. And we were probably a couple
• 25:08
  days away from beginning, working on that particular
• 25:11
  episode. And one of our wonderful
• 25:14
  producer is Tim O'Brien just stopped me on the way and he's
• 25:16
  like, yes, you just said, we're gonna have.
• 25:18
  You do Jam Dylan? All right said.
• 25:20
  Oh, okay. And that was it.
• 25:24
  And The Marvelous thing about the shows, how much trust folks
• 25:28
  having you they give you and this speaks highly to everybody
• 25:33
  but like number one they want everyone to shine.
• 25:36
  Fine. But number two, they if they
• 25:38
  give you something, they trust you that you're going to take
• 25:40
  care of and you're going to do it and it was just a thing that
• 25:44
  I found out a couple days before and then I do pin to that script
• 25:47
  and started working on it. A nice thing that I got was,
• 25:53
  divvied beforehand went in and did some different line readings
• 25:58
  so that I could listen to him and kind of get his Vibe.
• 26:02
  So that when I was doing the dialogue in the studio, We can
• 26:06
  kind of mesh together, so I kind of got his rhythm kind of threw
• 26:10
  it, a little bit of my own stuff too, but it was, it was pretty
• 26:15
  incredible, that's great. And kind of the opposite of what
• 26:19
  we were just talking about with with Frank performing boober,
• 26:22
  where he's doing the original track and then day was going to
• 26:25
  come in and do the audio later. You already had an audio track
• 26:28
  that you're sinking too. Is that right?
• 26:31
  No, it's so odd. He the songs were all
• 26:33
  pre-recorded so that was set in stone.
• 26:36
  Because the V did some amazing things.
• 26:38
  So, I could learn that and match his vocals on the songs for the
• 26:43
  dialogue. I, he gave me some samples, but
• 26:45
  I did that all by myself live and then he came in after like,
• 26:48
  they did with Frank and no interesting ways after the fact.
• 26:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:53
  And I think that's how it went for most of the celebrity Cameo
• 26:57
  characters. Interesting, that is only
• 27:00
  surprising because you would think that, you know, when you
• 27:03
  get a big celebrity and they're donating their time, Donating,
• 27:06
  but like they're using their time.
• 27:08
  You know, for this kind of show for small role, you're not going
• 27:11
  to ask them to come back, two, three, four times till like do
• 27:13
  the, you know, the original track and then to come back and
• 27:16
  do it all over again. So, pretty generous of daveed
• 27:19
  Diggs to be able to do that for this character.
• 27:22
  It was great. And I think, I mean, everyone
• 27:24
  understood how important it was that this work.
• 27:27
  So, and another beautiful thing about the show is, you're always
• 27:31
  given the tools to succeed. They always go above and beyond
• 27:33
  to give you what you need. So yeah, yeah, the fact that I
• 27:36
  got to kind of hear his voice before hand and feel.
• 27:39
  It feels Vibe helped tremendously and yeah, a lot of
• 27:42
  shows wouldn't do that but this one did and that was it was a
• 27:46
  huge. Help was a great and did you
• 27:49
  feel the, the added pressure of performing, a character that
• 27:54
  people were going to look at and automatically associate with Jim
• 27:57
  Henson because of the cantus connection.
• 28:00
  So I didn't eat didn't bully. Hit me until we were doing the
• 28:05
  shot where It just was leading the band out of the cave and I
• 28:09
  had this puppet on and he's huge and he's got a 7-foot tail with
• 28:12
  two rods and extra hand. He's got this huge instrument
• 28:16
  attached to his body and then suddenly I saw the frame of the
• 28:19
  shots and it just blew my mind because I saw what I was doing.
• 28:23
  I'm like this. This is the, this is a gym.
• 28:26
  Direct gym at tip to can't diss. It was the same shot and I think
• 28:31
  it was Dan Garza that leaned over and he's like to you
• 28:34
  realize what you're doing. All right.
• 28:39
  Yeah, amazing amazing. Okay, I got it.
• 28:43
  The day that Andy puts a foot jammed on and on as like, what's
• 28:49
  he gonna do with the voice? I kind of had an idea.
• 28:51
  What did he dig? Sounded like and Andy in the
• 28:56
  time I've known him seem to specialize in doing very cute,
• 29:01
  small characters like the work you did on the Doozers,
• 29:03
  fantastic and the stuff you and I have done together.
• 29:06
  There is always been kind of like little bunnies and that
• 29:08
  sort of stuff. And I thought that something and
• 29:10
  he excels at, then you came out and you were all like, Wolfman
• 29:13
  Jack, you're all characters. It's like, I think I took your
• 29:16
  side was like, Andy would come from.
• 29:19
  Look at you and what you did? It's amazing.
• 29:21
  It was, it was great on its own, but it was extra special I think
• 29:24
  because it just felt like like Andy had made the sixth
• 29:29
  extraordinary leap towards making this character his own
• 29:33
  and making it sound like it was going to sound.
• 29:36
  Italy. It was, it was great.
• 29:37
  A tour de force, that's generous break and I will, I mean,
• 29:40
  between the couple days before I found out, I was doing this, I
• 29:43
  did not sleep a lot. Like I was that audio and my
• 29:47
  scripts to my pages and working out.
• 29:50
  So that means a lot Frank that's very it's just make the check
• 29:54
  out to my name spell it right now.
• 29:55
  Well, I know payable. Okay got it.
• 29:59
  Got a terrific support team was it was been on your tail, I
• 30:02
  can't remember. It was it was almost always with
• 30:05
  me. The first in a skips ahead a
• 30:08
  bit, but the first big thing we shot with Jim villain was his
• 30:12
  song. Go with the flow.
• 30:13
  And for that, I had been on my right hand, and when you lead a
• 30:16
  character, you're given a little leeway.
• 30:18
  Like, you kind of decide who you'd like to have helped you
• 30:22
  and the night before I'm like, gosh, who's a vet who can do my
• 30:24
  tail? And I noticed red wasn't playing
• 30:28
  and I'm like, I wonder if Karen do you think?
• 30:32
  No, because Karen's producing starring and she doesn't go down
• 30:35
  like Okay. I just sent her an email, like
• 30:37
  would you mind? Would you ever?
• 30:39
  I know you're busy and within 20 minutes I got an email back and
• 30:42
  she said sure. So she was the first one to do
• 30:46
  the tail and she kind of set the tone for everyone else too.
• 30:50
  Kind of by with the tell and that was a whole other puppet,
• 30:52
  it was dull rotted, huge. Yeah, she's really here you meet
• 30:59
  you meet Karen and you go, oh. She's actually, she's quite, you
• 31:02
  know, she her and her energy presents itself is very small.
• 31:05
  And then you put her in, I see, Uh, Joe or you see what she
• 31:07
  does, with the red door on the tail and it's like the Beats
• 31:09
  happening with the tale. She was she's great her
• 31:13
  commitment to character is beyond, most any human when she
• 31:18
  gets like, I see Joe. And that was not a little
• 31:21
  puppet. That was a beastly thing with an
• 31:24
  Entourage. Her commitment is is unsurpassed
• 31:27
  and the night and then she's playing a tail and her
• 31:30
  commitment to that is equal. It's astounding, it's
• 31:33
  incredible. And she has so much experience
• 31:35
  playing. Tails because I think she was
• 31:37
  sprockets tail in the old Fraggle Rock.
• 31:41
  I know she's you know she's the right hand on the current back
• 31:44
  to the Rock, but I don't think she plays the tail anymore but
• 31:46
  even still like to have it for anyone to say oh yeah, I got a
• 31:49
  lot of experience playing Tails so yeah, I got this one.
• 31:53
  Yeah, not many people in this world can say that.
• 31:56
  Well the the Troubadours are here because it is new days day,
• 32:01
  it is a brand new holiday to us. It is the holiday when the
• 32:05
  flutterflies All hatch. The Troubadours are here with a
• 32:08
  box of flutterfly cocoons, which they're going to release, and
• 32:11
  we're going to have a big party sounds.
• 32:13
  Great boober thinks that this whole thing is absurd, but I see
• 32:18
  Joe loves it. As we said, I see Joe from, you
• 32:20
  know, Karen does such an amazing job with.
• 32:23
  I see Joe identifies with how it's all about New Beginnings.
• 32:25
  Since just in the previous episode, she got to her own New
• 32:28
  Beginning, the first event with dudes new days day is the
• 32:33
  Skinner scatter where they're Release.
• 32:36
  This big rock, it's going to fly all over the, the rock, the
• 32:39
  Fraggle Rock and whoever catches it gets to give a speech and
• 32:44
  release the butterflies and they get to wear a hat, which is also
• 32:47
  very exciting. Make a toast.
• 32:50
  Yes, there's the toast, the Box, the hats, not in that order.
• 32:54
  But all tree before the scatter scatter.
• 32:57
  We have our first check in with Doc and sprocket, doc also has
• 33:01
  to give a speech and she's going to giving a speech to all
• 33:04
  professors if it Goes well then she'll get lab space for her.
• 33:08
  Microbiology experiments. Of course.
• 33:09
  She's very nervous. I like that.
• 33:13
  Well first of all sprocket dresses up like one of her
• 33:15
  professors to help her get into the right tone and he looks like
• 33:19
  he's kind of dressed like the old dock from the original
• 33:21
  series, with the glasses and the kind of suit and tie.
• 33:25
  He also kind of looks like my dad.
• 33:27
  I don't know how they got a photo of my dad and put them on
• 33:29
  the show, but that was really weird and personal.
• 33:33
  So thank you to the Fraggle Rock.
• 33:35
  Producers for That that will touch.
• 33:37
  That was that was on purpose. That was for you explicit knew
• 33:40
  it? Yeah, her her speech begins.
• 33:46
  I've just have to read this because I thought was
• 33:48
  hysterical. Sure, speech begins with H2O.
• 33:51
  I didn't see you there. My name is spaghetti.
• 33:54
  Nope, that's not my name. My name is Doc.
• 33:56
  Actually, that's not my name either.
• 33:57
  That's a nickname that I call myself.
• 33:59
  This whole thing is going very well.
• 34:01
  So first of all did either of you work on the dock and spray
• 34:06
  cat segments. I was not there but Frank you
• 34:10
  were. Right?
• 34:11
  I was there. I did you know wherever I could
• 34:14
  help out. I jumped in but it was mainly a
• 34:16
  Johnny and Karen who gets sprocket but, you know, Lily was
• 34:19
  fantastic. Lily, Lily Cooper, right?
• 34:22
  Said yeah. She said yeah, he was awesome is
• 34:24
  dark. And you know, I remember the
• 34:26
  original Jerry Parks, you know, is quite a over-the-top
• 34:31
  fantastic performance. Easy to watch blustering and
• 34:34
  funny. And, you know, he was he was a
• 34:35
  joy and I I thought, how am I going to recast that?
• 34:39
  How are they going to? How are they going to make that
• 34:40
  Dynamic fit? Today's sort of template of, you
• 34:44
  know, what's fun and zany? She nailed it.
• 34:47
  She was easy to watch, empathetic Charming on camera,
• 34:52
  great with sprocket. And I don't think I've met
• 34:55
  anyone more off-book than her. I think, I think JJ directed
• 34:59
  those, those segments. The dock and sprocket segments,
• 35:02
  segments and he'd run in and go, keep, take that third line and
• 35:03
  put it at the front and the first line Second and a second
• 35:05
  line, third and then Like. Yeah.
• 35:07
  Okay. And we'd roll and cheap nail it.
• 35:09
  I don't think we ever stopped once for for a line flub from
• 35:12
  her. How she that's that Broadway
• 35:15
  mind, you know, like that. Yeah, I've never been one to
• 35:18
  memorize, literally, anything that specific.
• 35:21
  So that's always like a talent that I've I'm jealous of people
• 35:25
  can can just pull that out of their hat.
• 35:27
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 35:28
  I to, I sort of go. Are you like, Kreskin?
• 35:30
  How did you do that once and memorize it?
• 35:37
  Later in the episode, what we check in with dr.
• 35:39
  Sprocket again, we could just get this out of the way here,
• 35:42
  for our recap here. Doc comes back from her
• 35:44
  presentation and apparently she biffed it.
• 35:47
  Because at some point she during the presentation, she put her
• 35:49
  grandma on speakerphone. Introduced her to everybody that
• 35:52
  probably didn't go well for her, but she's really happy because
• 35:55
  the worst case scenario happened and she's still here and if she
• 35:59
  can get over that, then she can do anything, which is great.
• 36:02
  And there's a wonderful little puppetry trick there.
• 36:05
  Where Es sprocket to dance and she picks him up by his front
• 36:10
  paws and she dances them like you might with dance with a real
• 36:13
  dog because sprocket is a real dog and not a part of it.
• 36:19
  Yeah, we all know it and that is for me, one of the most
• 36:23
  beautiful moments in the show that shot is so pure and seeing
• 36:27
  sprocket that way full-bodied and the weight of sprocket is
• 36:32
  absolutely correct and the care. She's taking a And it's just
• 36:36
  beautiful. They can really is.
• 36:38
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:40
  It's the kind of thing where I could see them potentially
• 36:42
  attempting to do something like that on the old show, but not
• 36:44
  having the technology quite perfect yet.
• 36:47
  We're looking kind of see the seams.
• 36:49
  You can kind of see that weird outline when you when these new
• 36:52
  chroma keying, Berlin screen back in the day, but now you're
• 36:56
  right. It's just, it looks Flawless and
• 36:59
  really that's such a testament to not just the technology but
• 37:02
  the performers who are you having?
• 37:05
  Like you say putting that Perfect amount of weight and the
• 37:07
  perfect amount of movements and Lily Cooper with her.
• 37:11
  You know, the way that she just Dives right into what's left?
• 37:15
  The scene is requiring of her, it's just, it's a wonderful
• 37:18
  shot. So, you know, I think, I think
• 37:20
  it would be easy to leave out and would get shame to not
• 37:23
  mention it to the post team. The work that I saw on the show
• 37:26
  because course, I watched it all the way and that's why I'm here.
• 37:30
  The post-war work is so good. The film music is, is perfect
• 37:34
  right to the Go to the to the beat is, perfect to the tone is
• 37:38
  perfect. And Visually, there's a scene
• 37:40
  where it's not this episode, but the the fraggles are running in
• 37:43
  and out of the gorgs legs took my breath away.
• 37:46
  I watched that five six times in a row.
• 37:48
  It's like that is perfect. So hats off to, you know, both
• 37:53
  the production team when it was being shot.
• 37:55
  But I think I think the post team has more to do with it and
• 37:58
  we'll ever know. And then everything I saw that
• 38:00
  had been touched by post was just beautiful like, feature
• 38:04
  film level every So it actually felt to me like like a feature
• 38:07
  of many feature film is just so much detail and love and caring,
• 38:11
  and attention and concern. It's a great series.
• 38:16
  Oh man. It's pretty good Amendment.
• 38:18
  Yeah. Right.
• 38:19
  Should maybe check it out? Yeah, if you haven't yet.
• 38:22
  Maybe watch back to the Rock. I think it's, I think it's a
• 38:24
  good thing. Just play our participation.
• 38:28
  Yes, right. That's right.
• 38:31
  Well, back to Fraggle, Rock. They are playing.
• 38:34
  The skitter scatter. They jammed all inlets, this
• 38:39
  Stone run around, the The Rock everyone wants to play except
• 38:42
  for boober. This is the line that you
• 38:45
  mentioned before. He says, I couldn't catch it
• 38:47
  even if I wanted to which I don't.
• 38:49
  These are laundry hands and those were his laundry hands
• 38:52
  that he then put in a little box and put away until he's ready to
• 38:55
  go with monkey, right? Exactly mokey says, you know,
• 39:00
  the people think that the stone finds you And then we get this
• 39:07
  big action scene where the stone is bouncing all around.
• 39:10
  I assume that the stone is added in post and the fraggles are all
• 39:13
  just you're all just kind of like wiggling around and chasing
• 39:16
  nothing but I could be wrong. People wrong about these things
• 39:18
  before, is that accurate and some post.
• 39:22
  And some of the slower stuff cause practical like when it's
• 39:24
  on Wembley's head, that's certainly practical.
• 39:26
  I think the initial bounce, it's more practical.
• 39:29
  But yeah the really frantic ones that are like you know cartoon
• 39:31
  an animated looking. They're like that kind of
• 39:33
  energy. I mean for sure yesterday Post.
• 39:37
  And as you said, you know it lands on Wembley's had at one
• 39:40
  point and that great shot where I see.
• 39:42
  Joe just one jizz at him in slow motion and he has out like as
• 39:47
  arms were waving and he's screaming.
• 39:48
  I love that shot. That's a good one.
• 39:52
  And we see the stone bounce down the hall and directly into
• 39:54
  lubbers laundry, buckets and the stone has, now, officially
• 39:58
  chosen him, but, of course, boober does not want to give a
• 40:02
  speech that's terrifying. Giving?
• 40:04
  Speeches is terrifying, are either of you afraid of giving
• 40:07
  speeches as well, because that's a very common thing that none of
• 40:10
  us should be ashamed of There's a reason I like doing puppets is
• 40:15
  because I like to hide. I don't like to get up in front
• 40:17
  of anybody. Yeah, I get it.
• 40:20
  Well, I'm I'm too much time to think about it.
• 40:25
  Then I'm not a really. I'm not a natural speech.
• 40:28
  Give her at all, but I'm always happy to talk about something.
• 40:31
  So, if we give them the opportunity, but, but I could,
• 40:34
  you know, I can, I think everyone can relate to boobers
• 40:37
  boobers anxiety, and 0, and finding solace in that little
• 40:40
  thing that you do whether it's an ironing or whether it's, you
• 40:42
  know, Selecting your stamps, or whether it's a, any kind of
• 40:47
  medical meditation that takes you to, you know, happy place
• 40:51
  running a fraggle podcast. That's, that's my happy place
• 40:55
  that you're happy. Sure, why not?
• 41:00
  We interrupt this podcast for a special postcard from our uncle
• 41:04
  traveling, John's Heart A glia and A fraggle fast facts.
• 41:09
  Today's fraggle fast fact is working Doozers work, how
• 41:12
  Doozers are operated so the Doozers are operated in two
• 41:15
  different ways on Fraggle. Rock back to the Rock and they
• 41:17
  both come from the brilliant mind of physique is the genius
• 41:21
  Electro mechanical engineer that worked in the Creature Shop in
• 41:25
  the 1980s. He devised the system for the
• 41:28
  Original Series. So Uses a remote control and
• 41:31
  their hand puppets the remote control version.
• 41:33
  They have little teeny Servo Motors inside of their heads and
• 41:36
  their bodies. Kind of like the ones you find
• 41:38
  on model airplanes that are operated from across the room
• 41:42
  with this contraption called a Waldo, which is something we put
• 41:45
  our hands into to make the puppets move to make the Doozers
• 41:49
  move in kind of a puppeteered way.
• 41:51
  And that that's the kind of dues.
• 41:52
  Are you see riding inside of the construction?
• 41:55
  Vehicles are on top of the doozer, constructions, the
• 41:58
  architect. I loved.
• 42:00
  Using the radio-controlled version for him and then there's
• 42:03
  also the hand puppet versions of the Doozers which are simple Rod
• 42:06
  puppets, they're basically little trigger mouths that are
• 42:11
  operated by hand and then a little universal joints that we
• 42:15
  use to move the head around and then of course, arm rods for the
• 42:17
  hands. So those are the two ways, the
• 42:19
  Doozers are operated and that's your fraggle fast fact.
• 42:22
  And back to the podcast, Loki is hanging out with boober and
• 42:29
  explaining to him that, you know, it's okay if you're
• 42:32
  feeling this way, but you're not going to mess it up.
• 42:34
  And he we have this interesting dream sequence where Uber is
• 42:39
  imagining himself being so nervous.
• 42:41
  He'll trip and fall. Everyone will laugh at him and
• 42:44
  we see fraggles laughing at him, which is a weird thing, by the
• 42:47
  way, to see a nun Fraggle Rock of these fraggles being cruel to
• 42:50
  each other. Even if it isn't a dream
• 42:52
  sequence it's just just never see that.
• 42:54
  It's so rare. Mokey suggest, well, maybe those
• 42:59
  fraggles aren't laughing at you, but they're laughing with joy
• 43:01
  because he fell onto some quick grow flowers that left him back
• 43:04
  up and then boober counters by saying what's a terrible story
• 43:08
  because quick grow flowers, make him pitch and then Mochi
• 43:12
  counters with his counter and says that his itching will start
• 43:15
  a new dance craze and then when Billy comes out of nowhere and
• 43:18
  says and then we all get radish shakes.
• 43:21
  Yeah. Which also sounds delicious?
• 43:25
  I don't know. I don't know if I rather Shake.
• 43:26
  Would be good or not, but I'd be willing to try it.
• 43:31
  Uber does like radish shakes but he likes them too much.
• 43:33
  He would drink his too fast to get hiccups and he'll get the
• 43:36
  full body Hicks and he'll be uh nope unable to open the
• 43:39
  flutterfly box and then new day stay will be known as boobers
• 43:42
  day. The day that boober ruined
• 43:43
  everything. And I mean, I appreciate this at
• 43:49
  like, you know, for I don't know about you, but for me when I do
• 43:52
  get too far into my head about something that might go wrong,
• 43:55
  it goes way to wrong. It's not just like, oh, I might
• 43:58
  embarrass myself. It's like nope, this literally
• 44:01
  everything that could go wrong will go wrong and so I might as
• 44:04
  well not try. There's, that's a real anxiety.
• 44:09
  The whole Bob attraction thing, right?
• 44:12
  Yeah, terribly. And I'm thinking about how bad
• 44:14
  it's going to be so it's gonna be worse.
• 44:16
  Yeah, exactly of my love it. Or you think of it the worse it
• 44:21
  can get right. Boober does get his hats for
• 44:28
  this new Day celebration and I don't know about you.
• 44:31
  He was wearing it, it reminded me of a bit of the hat that side
• 44:34
  bottom layers on the original series, and It just made me sad
• 44:39
  that sidebottom didn't make an appearance in the season.
• 44:42
  So hopefully season 2 will see some of that guy.
• 44:47
  Everyone sweet. Hashtag side bottom right now.
• 44:49
  Please sit hashtags will save sidebottom or telegram season to
• 44:57
  season. See anything with them inside
• 44:59
  bottom. It will figure it out.
• 45:01
  It's hashtags, were like four of them, and then they all work,
• 45:05
  just to 12. Yes.
• 45:11
  Yes, agreed. It's 12 seasons and a movie and
• 45:17
  sidebottom. Whoo.
• 45:19
  Right. Jim dalen gives boober little
• 45:24
  bit of wisdom. He says, life's like a river.
• 45:26
  It may be full of twists and turns, but just keeps on
• 45:28
  flowing. Don't fight the flow, just go.
• 45:31
  This was kind of hoping for something that was a little bit
• 45:34
  more Canta, see with his wisdom and that was a very long
• 45:38
  sentence that he spoke to boober work, you know.
• 45:40
  This is isms used to be things like you know, what is is what
• 45:45
  was was, and you're just like, what the heck are you talking
• 45:47
  about? But hey, at least it was short.
• 45:51
  I do love the view, the vague poetry of cantus was so
• 45:56
  beautiful. You could you could apply his
• 45:59
  wisdom to almost any situation, I think.
• 46:02
  Yeah, but I loved, I loved playing that scene and it was so
• 46:05
  fun and then playing the skitter stone with us too.
• 46:08
  If that's the scene where on Ingrid Hansen was hilarious with
• 46:12
  her little quips there too. Yeah it was great.
• 46:18
  Yeah that seemed like a blast. I mean I think anything where
• 46:20
  you have Lot of fraggles who are like running around in action at
• 46:24
  the same time and almost like fighting for the spotlight a
• 46:28
  little bit, even if their way in the backgrounds.
• 46:29
  Like, that's fine, that's super fun.
• 46:31
  Yeah, yeah, the only on the original series, we used to
• 46:36
  prove we weren't when we weren't doing anything in the
• 46:38
  foreground, which was a lot of the time, we'd make it our
• 46:41
  mission to do to tell our own little stories with the
• 46:44
  background characters and I love hanging out with Rob because
• 46:48
  we'd always come up with this crazy stuff.
• 46:49
  He'd be like grabbing spot, okay?
• 46:51
  What are we doing? He said, I don't know, I said
• 46:52
  well let's take a whole. So one of them would be digging
• 46:55
  a hole in the other guy be leaning on the shovel.
• 46:56
  And right before the camera cut because I leaned on the shovel
• 46:59
  would look at his watch or look at the sky or whatever take two
• 47:01
  steps forward and fall down this hole that we just dug and it was
• 47:04
  you know maybe you never saw it but I try hoped and I think we
• 47:09
  succeeded in trying to get the background characters to have
• 47:13
  their own little story. I'd always say, this is a scene
• 47:15
  you know, what's happening with red and mokey, you know, where
• 47:17
  everybody who's in the front, what's your story in the back?
• 47:20
  What are you doing? You're walking through frame
• 47:22
  with a buy a basket of fruit, but or radishes.
• 47:25
  But you know, where you going. What's your intention?
• 47:27
  Are you, are you scared? You don't.
• 47:29
  Are you going to stop and eat a radish?
• 47:30
  Or what are you going to do? Make it yours and those little
• 47:33
  things really brighten up the background.
• 47:35
  And I love those group, seems, whether it's something frantic
• 47:38
  or something casual. Because, as often as not, you
• 47:40
  can pick a little corner frame and go.
• 47:42
  Oh, look at those guys. Oh, that's really cool.
• 47:44
  I know exactly what their what their story they're telling.
• 47:47
  You know, yes, great cast is terrific.
• 47:51
  And and, you know, for me like this is, you know, my probably
• 47:54
  my third time watching these episodes.
• 47:56
  And because I've already seen them, I've already, I already
• 47:59
  know what's happening in the foreground.
• 48:01
  This is my opportunity to start like those guys doing back
• 48:04
  there. You know what?
• 48:05
  Like, you know, maybe it's a little, it is hard to pick out
• 48:08
  like a story, even if it's as simple as dig, a hole, fall down
• 48:10
  a hole, but it's not just, you know, peas and carrots, peas and
• 48:14
  carrots, peas, and carrots, kind of nonsense dialogue, or, or
• 48:18
  just like, them standing around smiling, like they are.
• 48:22
  You know, in some sort of action or doing something that looks
• 48:27
  like life, which is a very much noticed and appreciated.
• 48:31
  And there have been a few times where I've noticed, like, some
• 48:33
  silly stuff going on in the background, which is like, it's
• 48:36
  like finding an Easter egg. Like, that's a huge Joy, you
• 48:38
  know, that's like a win. Like I got it.
• 48:40
  He's, you did something and I saw it.
• 48:42
  I see you. Well, done.
• 48:45
  And that was the thing that, as captains, Franken, Johnny, both
• 48:48
  encouraged all the time was make a bold choice.
• 48:51
  Oice your back. What do you want to do?
• 48:53
  And a great thing that we were able to do to you?
• 48:55
  If we were doing the background was we could go grab a prop, we
• 48:59
  can go find a thing and do a bit of business to have a little
• 49:02
  back and forth out the Eisner. And I one day, we were way up by
• 49:06
  the waterfall, we're playing telephone through the whole
• 49:09
  scene. So I had a little fraggle cup
• 49:11
  and she had a little fraggle cup, and we're just back there
• 49:13
  for the afternoon, but just brings so much joy to everyone.
• 49:17
  Wanted to kind of live, is up this.
• 49:19
  See the bed if you notice it, but it's The puppeteers and then
• 49:24
  it feels really feels like you're watching a village of
• 49:26
  people and not just five carat. Yeah.
• 49:29
  Yeah, it makes it a full performance, absolutely yeah,
• 49:34
  yeah. Well next up in this episode, we
• 49:37
  get our first song, it is the song.
• 49:39
  Go with the flow, we mentioned earlier, this is from the
• 49:42
  original series. The episode marooned the song
• 49:45
  was originally sung by the trash Heap with Philo and gunge on
• 49:49
  back up but this one of course is And by the Troubadours and
• 49:52
  it's got a much funkier tone which is great.
• 49:55
  Like, it sounds so good, it's so cool.
• 49:59
  And we get this great dance moment where everyone is like
• 50:02
  dancing down a line like Soul Train like they're on Soul Train
• 50:06
  so we see the fraggle, five dancing pogie large, Marvin
• 50:09
  Storyteller. I see Joe the ink spots and like
• 50:11
  everyone has their own dances. So first I have to assume that
• 50:17
  each of you have Brooke performing someone dancing down.
• 50:21
  Slime, Frank. I assume that maybe you are
• 50:24
  large, Marvin, that's accurate. What did you have in mind for?
• 50:29
  How large Marvin dances? We may we may have never seen
• 50:32
  him dance before. You know, large Marvin is.
• 50:37
  I think he's also a character who is who's who's finding
• 50:41
  finding his way the same way world's oldest is trying to
• 50:45
  figure out exactly and all that. We're he's rooted near the end.
• 50:50
  I'm not sure if it happened for this.
• 50:51
  Episode. But Marvin used to have this old
• 50:54
  kimono on and and it just didn't it didn't give the right kind of
• 50:58
  vibe these days. And so one of the great costume
• 51:02
  makers made him like a tracksuit.
• 51:04
  And so we started playing with the notion that he was like,
• 51:07
  maybe he's getting a little buff, you know, like he's big,
• 51:09
  but he can handle himself. So I wear them dancing.
• 51:13
  He was blowing kisses on the way out, which I thought was
• 51:15
  hilarious, at that past, didn't make the cut.
• 51:17
  We did a ton of ton of passes on that that that has to be one of
• 51:21
  my The days of the whole shoot that Soul Train shoot.
• 51:23
  I don't know if you noticed this job but if you looked all the
• 51:26
  way down the line where they first, where the dancers first
• 51:29
  entered all the the doozer dozers are there with their
• 51:32
  lights flashing and that's what part of the light punch part of
• 51:34
  the Disco punch and those designs are so beautiful that
• 51:39
  what's his name? Tyler, Tyler.
• 51:41
  Bishop Heron. I think did the doozer doses are
• 51:44
  gorgeous. Like I'm pretty old and I really
• 51:47
  want to play with them. I want something I want to push
• 51:49
  them around and make the booming noise, really bad.
• 51:51
  Like so. See a note in the bag and that
• 51:53
  everyone turned in the corner and come and doing their dance
• 51:56
  that was Grand and Storyteller. Oh my God.
• 52:00
  In the fun part was, everyone came up with their own bid and
• 52:02
  everyone was brilliant. But Donna.
• 52:05
  Yeah, as a Storyteller with cure Hall, with that little booty
• 52:08
  slap. So because we're all dying, it
• 52:12
  was just the most amazing. Are you staying?
• 52:16
  Yeah, that's brilliant. I mean hysterical, because
• 52:20
  because you know, we you and I Yeah we look at it and we go oh
• 52:23
  she's like hitting her butt in like back in that up, you know.
• 52:26
  But a kid would just see like oh she's doing a funny dance.
• 52:29
  Like they're not necessarily going to pick up on what the
• 52:32
  Storyteller is doing and like for a character who's basically
• 52:35
  just acting like she's drunk all the time.
• 52:37
  Like it fit pretty much fits every time so it's a
• 52:41
  Storyteller. Heddle had a piece in the
• 52:44
  episode. Everybody stopped to watch, you
• 52:46
  come up storytellers up. I kind of watch this.
• 52:49
  Yeah, don't With everybody and so constantly hilarious because
• 52:56
  that's Donna that storytellers started doing announcements, I
• 53:00
  remember toward the end. Like if we were going to have a
• 53:03
  special copy truck or something Storyteller would get up and let
• 53:06
  us know that too. New days day.
• 53:09
  Wembley is very excited. He's shaking with excitement.
• 53:11
  Wearing this great flower. Die mask.
• 53:14
  It's got these little butterflies on wires coming off
• 53:16
  the top. He's only streamers.
• 53:19
  It's very cute. And Okey wanders out loud.
• 53:22
  If the Doozers also have holidays and turns out there
• 53:25
  celebrating one right now it's helmet appreciation day and we
• 53:29
  get this great shot of the doozer Dome.
• 53:32
  There's a DJ playing like this, like monotone dance, music
• 53:35
  wearing this red fraggle helmet with little Pom-Pom pigtails.
• 53:40
  There's a conga line and balloons.
• 53:42
  There's a teacup ride where the Teacups are big helmets that the
• 53:46
  producers are sitting in. There's lots of weird helmets.
• 53:49
  Like there's one wearing a Viking helmet.
• 53:51
  There's As one with a top hat, there's one where the there's a
• 53:54
  cupcake on top of the helmet and then one doozer gets lowered
• 53:58
  from the ceiling with a chandelier helmet.
• 54:00
  It's incredible and it worked. And it's almost throw away.
• 54:05
  It had goes by, and you're like, oh, it's over.
• 54:07
  I gotta watch it again. There's so many little details.
• 54:09
  Yeah, I literally had to, like, pause it two or three times just
• 54:12
  to, like, take it in and see what is going on.
• 54:16
  All these little details that are just shoved into the
• 54:18
  background that I'm sure someone spent a ton of time.
• 54:21
  I'm on knowing this is going to be two seconds on screen, if
• 54:26
  anyone even notices it in those in those moments.
• 54:29
  So I'm here to say yes, we noticed it.
• 54:32
  Well, that's right. You know, the workshop on back
• 54:34
  to the Rock was fantastic. Scott and his merry, merry band
• 54:39
  of men and women were so terrific and coming up with
• 54:42
  ideas and doing stuff quickly. And, you know, I'd go in once in
• 54:44
  a while, because I, like, I'm a hacker Fielder.
• 54:46
  But I like building, and I go. What did you do?
• 54:48
  How did you make that hair? So amazing.
• 54:51
  And Scott would be like, oh yeah, you know, I got tired of
• 54:53
  sculpting hair, so I vacuform Michelle and then I put the hair
• 54:55
  on top. What that's genius.
• 54:59
  So, these things came up these solutions to big problems.
• 55:02
  Came up regularly and and stuff came out of that shop that was
• 55:06
  just just delightful. So great to watch it move but
• 55:10
  also to see it before it was covered you know you look at a
• 55:12
  mechanism or something to go. Oh that's really great.
• 55:15
  Some of the swinging stuff that happened you know with the one
• 55:18
  fraggle grab another by the tail and spin them around it.
• 55:21
  It's beautiful work from a mechanical standpoint and
• 55:24
  obviously, massively affected visually.
• 55:26
  That Workshop was one of my favorite places to go hang out.
• 55:29
  Well, I'm sure, yeah, for this scene in particular, with the,
• 55:34
  the doozer party were either of you involved.
• 55:36
  And if so where can we spot you with these Doozers?
• 55:42
  I don't care if you even remember.
• 55:43
  Remember, well, I remember, I only remember because when
• 55:47
  Johnny came in, with that chandelier doozer, I had to step
• 55:50
  away because I was laughing and didn't want to ruin it when he
• 55:52
  came down and said, whatever, he's yeah.
• 56:12
  We broke into like Splinter units and we'd be shooting a
• 56:14
  doozy for set and at the same time, including a great hall and
• 56:17
  at the same time, we'd be shooting the blue box.
• 56:19
  You know, some blue screen stuff all in the same Studio but we
• 56:23
  sort of like, okay, okay, and they've cut, okay and action,
• 56:27
  and because we're trying to trying to get every second of
• 56:30
  open time in for recording because there was it's a big
• 56:33
  schedule. And the show is deep episodes
• 56:35
  are not half hour and W is going on, lots of different locations.
• 56:40
  And, and I think it only It happened because so many people
• 56:43
  were willing to burn. So bright through the whole
• 56:44
  thing. I had no memory of and I'm like
• 56:49
  oh that's because I was over here on this other.
• 56:51
  Yeah, yep. Yeah.
• 56:54
  That makes sense. Well I'm sorry that you missed
• 56:56
  out on the doozer party but you were busy celebrating new days
• 56:59
  day and Jim dalen is ready to introduce boober.
• 57:03
  To give the big speech. The curtain opens boobers
• 57:07
  nowhere to be found because he took the wrong meeting from go
• 57:10
  with the flow. He is, Flowing away from new
• 57:13
  days day, I see Joe. Tries to open the box.
• 57:17
  It's not gonna open for her. It's fraggle magic apparently
• 57:21
  red tries to give a speech in boobers stead but she gets
• 57:25
  blocked and she can't think of a good story and she runs off and
• 57:29
  Gobo helps pass the time by reading a postcard from his
• 57:31
  uncle traveling Matt. And that's when we get our
• 57:33
  traveling, Matt moments, he is at the park and he spots life in
• 57:39
  its purest form. And he pushes right past that
• 57:42
  baby and head straight for this woman who has a bubble wand And
• 57:46
  she's making new ball, that's a great feat.
• 57:48
  Yeah, yeah. That's a great beat and he and
• 57:51
  also great shot where Matt is looking up with these big
• 57:53
  puppy-dog eyes and yeah, the irises are real big but you
• 57:58
  know, we don't, we don't mess with puppet irises or pupils
• 58:03
  rather very often. So it's when it's done, it's
• 58:07
  done. Very deliberately and it's very
• 58:09
  effective here. It's, it's like that shot from
• 58:13
  from the Shrek movie with Puss and Boots that yeah.
• 58:16
  It was another crochet. We all remember that and there's
• 58:20
  also this great shot. We're like he's looking at the
• 58:23
  bubbles and he's equating it with this image of a cluster of
• 58:27
  stars and blooming flowers, a handful of strawberries, a
• 58:30
  Skateboarding, Dog. And then we see him and we see
• 58:37
  him holding the bubble wand and blowing bubbles, which if you
• 58:40
  stop to think about it, sounds like a difficult thing to
• 58:42
  accomplish Frank, were you playing?
• 58:46
  Young Matt for this the segment. No, Kevin Clash did an amazing
• 58:50
  job with all of the remote mats. I think I did want to come on a
• 58:54
  ski hill and then when Matt was on set when he came to the Rock,
• 58:57
  I did. Matt for those but as you as you
• 59:00
  know, Kevin's work is peerless and I thought he nailed he
• 59:03
  nailed all the stuff with Matt is all very funny, very clean.
• 59:07
  Yeah, it absolutely is. I mean he's just such an
• 59:09
  incredible performer. That would expect nothing less
• 59:13
  but well, it was it. What?
• 59:16
  Let's talk about that for a second.
• 59:17
  Was there any kind of difficulty for you?
• 59:19
  Knowing that not only are you performing the character that
• 59:23
  will be dubbed by Dave goals later and it has all this
• 59:26
  history. But also for most of the Season,
• 59:28
  we've been seeing him performed by another Puppeteer.
• 59:32
  So like when he would show up, you know, in the last couple of
• 59:35
  episodes back on the rock or like you said, for the Postcard
• 59:38
  where he's skiing, were you like trying to match Kevin style or
• 59:43
  was it just like nope, everyone just knows how to do.
• 59:46
  Ooh, traveling Matt and we're just moving forward.
• 59:50
  Well obviously Kevin's been doing this for a very long time
• 59:54
  and they of course as well and me to some extent.
• 59:57
  Also I think we I'm going to guess I can really only speak
• 1:00:00
  for myself but I looked at mad as almost a slapstick character
• 1:00:05
  and his sort of like his optimistic, Charmed bumbling,
• 1:00:10
  that he would just move forward. Walk?
• 1:00:12
  Right through a plate glass window and then wonder why
• 1:00:15
  someone had. All that glass garbage on the
• 1:00:17
  floor. Oh, well, it must be for a sound
• 1:00:18
  effect. The need crunkle around on it,
• 1:00:20
  make a little dance and move on. It's just one of those guys who
• 1:00:23
  could go through life and never be seriously hurt.
• 1:00:27
  So the, the sort of slapstick sense plays really well into my
• 1:00:31
  my sensibility for manipulation. Quite honestly, Matt was always
• 1:00:36
  one of my favorite characters on the original fraggle.
• 1:00:39
  It's you'd watch that and everyone in Walker Buehler
• 1:00:41
  great. Everyone was doing that all the
• 1:00:43
  time and to get a you gotta sense for it.
• 1:00:46
  But they also write really well, I think for the mat stuff
• 1:00:49
  because it's this kind of its gobos reading a letter from a
• 1:00:55
  guy who thinks he's an outer space and we know as a viewer
• 1:01:01
  that he's with people and what they're doing is thing a.
• 1:01:04
  But he sees this thing be and relays it back where it might
• 1:01:06
  even be seen as things. See and also at the same time as
• 1:01:09
  he's giving this confident report on how well he's doing,
• 1:01:12
  it's falling apart around him. So it's like these abstract From
• 1:01:16
  what's really happening our Delight, I think for the viewer
• 1:01:21
  and and I love doing that when he was in, when he was on set,
• 1:01:25
  you know? Because every TC the smallest
• 1:01:26
  thing in 2010 and everything upset and he turned around and
• 1:01:29
  there was another frankly but oh well, pardon me Madam.
• 1:01:32
  You know, there was always, there was always something that
• 1:01:36
  surprised him about the every day.
• 1:01:38
  He'd see the universe in a grain of sand and then you send them
• 1:01:40
  out into the universe and its billions of grains of stand.
• 1:01:42
  He was just constantly amazed With his Discovery.
• 1:01:47
  So I don't know if I answered your question Joe.
• 1:01:49
  But I love doing that. And that was it, an easier one
• 1:01:53
  for me to kind of really hang onto boober was more nuanced.
• 1:01:57
  I think, you know, because he drives plot points, he's less of
• 1:02:00
  a foil and more of a character, you know.
• 1:02:03
  So there's more depth I felt to him so that was that was that's
• 1:02:08
  a place. I'd still like to work more on
• 1:02:10
  seeing his contrast but Matt steamed Imminently joyful to do
• 1:02:17
  as soon as I put them on. And I saw the mustache and
• 1:02:19
  stuff, I was like, oh, this is, this is great.
• 1:02:22
  The first day that I got into Matt.
• 1:02:23
  I think it was the first day I did anything and it was in in
• 1:02:27
  Doc's workshop and he just kind of snuck in that you walked in
• 1:02:32
  the door as dog was walking out. And she's got, harmful arms.
• 1:02:34
  Full of stuff, she doesn't noticed and he meets sprocket
• 1:02:36
  and sprockets. Like, you know, I got you
• 1:02:38
  cornered, weird rodent thing, and he's like, did I ever tell
• 1:02:41
  you about the time? I invented pudding.
• 1:02:43
  He's leaning on the Shelf so cash.
• 1:02:45
  And that's the first time I met Donna and so we were, you know,
• 1:02:48
  I was saying for this, can you do the hand?
• 1:02:49
  Can she said yeah okay do this with that.
• 1:02:51
  She's like yeah and then all of a sudden I'm like oh no do
• 1:02:54
  you're doing is way better than what I'm telling you to do.
• 1:02:57
  Huge fan of dawn us and I should probably mention this here.
• 1:03:02
  There there is always a dynamic onset between the puppeteers
• 1:03:06
  that happens to bleed into the, into the work, right?
• 1:03:09
  That informs the work and I know that when I'm the original
• 1:03:13
  Fraggle, And Steve were super close.
• 1:03:15
  They were quite unquote, good terms.
• 1:03:20
  And when they did a scene together as a, as their two
• 1:03:24
  characters, that was always really Dynamic and full of life
• 1:03:26
  and fun and spirit and there's those were great scenes and
• 1:03:29
  Johnny and Jordan had that kind of rep Rapport between each
• 1:03:33
  other and those scenes where they were both in it sparked
• 1:03:36
  that a little bit and I was a remain such a huge fan of Donna
• 1:03:41
  Kimble's and we were Pals on and off.
• 1:03:43
  Offset and I love the opportunities for boober to have
• 1:03:48
  a chat with Mochi like that near the end of this episode.
• 1:03:51
  And and and I think that our, our personal relationship bled
• 1:03:55
  into that performance in a really delightful way, I think
• 1:03:59
  so. I mean, you could really see not
• 1:04:01
  just between boober and Smoky but all the character
• 1:04:04
  relationships. I mean, we've talked many times
• 1:04:08
  today as well as on the other episodes of this podcast about
• 1:04:11
  what a joy, it was to work on the set of back to the Talk.
• 1:04:14
  And it is so apparent by what we're seeing on screen that like
• 1:04:19
  these character late like you're not just reading the lines and
• 1:04:21
  go through the motions like there's a genuine love in the
• 1:04:24
  air that can't be can't be faked.
• 1:04:28
  And yes you know you really see that those performer
• 1:04:32
  relationships that you're talking about, it's come through
• 1:04:34
  on the characters and to piggyback on that before we knew
• 1:04:39
  Ingrid bed, and I knew that we were going to be playing the
• 1:04:42
  chord family. We all made arrangements to
• 1:04:44
  share her house together, who's moving in and our Frontier Hall
• 1:04:49
  was there. And then we found out.
• 1:04:52
  Oh, we are actually going to be playing a family, and we're
• 1:04:54
  going to go home and we're going to share this house.
• 1:04:57
  That's how we call their place. The gorgs castle plus cure-all.
• 1:05:04
  It was pretty great. Well every Council needs.
• 1:05:06
  All right. Absolutely.
• 1:05:09
  But yeah. All right.
• 1:05:12
  Yeah. Of wedded to the show vice
• 1:05:15
  versa. It was pretty amazing.
• 1:05:16
  Actually, I love it. That's so much fun.
• 1:05:19
  Well, back to the episode of uber, is enjoying his alone
• 1:05:22
  time, but these scatter scatter Stone finds him once again.
• 1:05:27
  But we're tries to disguising himself, then he puts on a
• 1:05:30
  cowboy hat and a mustache, which is adorable and hysterical.
• 1:05:35
  And there's a cool puppetry trick here.
• 1:05:38
  That I don't, I didn't notice until this viewing now, boober
• 1:05:41
  rips the mustache off. There's took me a second to go.
• 1:05:46
  I don't even have real fingers. How did he, how did he do that?
• 1:05:50
  How did he do that? That that works.
• 1:05:53
  So so much by luck, I was thrilled.
• 1:05:55
  I think that the mustache was held on with a piece of toupee
• 1:05:57
  tape. And I had the finger state in
• 1:05:59
  such a way that if I caught the inside lip of the, the mustache,
• 1:06:02
  the piece sticking out, and I just gave it a good shot twinkle
• 1:06:05
  across slip. It would just pop off, and fly
• 1:06:08
  out of frame. And, yeah, that delighted me.
• 1:06:10
  Ugh, amazing. I'm so glad that you got that on
• 1:06:13
  tape. Because I can see doing that and
• 1:06:15
  them every once a great rehearsal.
• 1:06:17
  Now do it again. That was a million.
• 1:06:20
  Sorry. Yeah, boober explains to jammed
• 1:06:24
  Allen who's also in the scene did mention that he showed up
• 1:06:27
  that he likes to think about everything that could possibly
• 1:06:31
  go wrong. So that he's ready for anything
• 1:06:33
  and that's how he feels safe. And it's interesting here
• 1:06:36
  because, you know, we're in a lot of Pop Culture.
• 1:06:40
  Will we see stories about, you know, anxiety or fear?
• 1:06:43
  So the lesson is always, okay, so how do you get over your fear
• 1:06:46
  or how do you get rid of your fear and gentle and tells him,
• 1:06:50
  like there's nothing wrong with who you are.
• 1:06:52
  How you feel that way and it's true.
• 1:06:54
  Like that's actually not the worst way to think.
• 1:06:59
  And also, like, you're not going to change the way.
• 1:07:01
  Your brain is structured. Like, if it helps you to think
• 1:07:04
  about how bad things can be and to make that have that, be the
• 1:07:08
  thing that makes you feel safe. Well, it's more important that
• 1:07:10
  you feel safe, but of course, One also has to remind him.
• 1:07:14
  That that also means that you can think about all the good
• 1:07:16
  things that can happen to and be prepared for the fact that
• 1:07:19
  anything could happen. Good bad, make sure something in
• 1:07:22
  the middle, anything. So that's when the scatter
• 1:07:28
  scatter Stone speaks up as well. I had no idea that that was
• 1:07:33
  going to. That was going to sprout a mouth
• 1:07:35
  and begin to speak. I was a little surprised and she
• 1:07:41
  tells boober that, he's the only one who's gonna be able to open
• 1:07:43
  the flutterfly box and he better do it because it's about to
• 1:07:46
  explode. So there's actually something
• 1:07:47
  that they should be, that should be afraid of in this scene and a
• 1:07:51
  reason to panic who was performing the scatter scatter
• 1:07:55
  Stone here. That was in great hands soon.
• 1:07:58
  Yeah, I had jumped ahead before but she played that role and was
• 1:08:02
  hilarious. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:08:04
  Yeah. What a weird thing to be
• 1:08:07
  assigned, like, okay, so you're going to play this talking Rock
• 1:08:10
  and go and then you're like, I don't know, like there's
• 1:08:12
  nothing, there's no precedent for this, I don't know where to
• 1:08:15
  start. But no, she did a great job and
• 1:08:19
  it was the tricky little puppet too.
• 1:08:21
  As I recall, it was just a little died or painted, Scott.
• 1:08:24
  Boom, rock with With two little rods that she just had to
• 1:08:28
  manipulate in a way to make up a little mouth.
• 1:08:30
  Go. So, interesting.
• 1:08:31
  So it's not, it's not like a, like a hand puppet that opens
• 1:08:35
  with your, with your hand and thumb.
• 1:08:37
  Now, as I recall they made a little mouth and they were two
• 1:08:40
  rods, kind of coming out the back and see mum were gentle and
• 1:08:43
  kind of Scoops this good or stone up and we were just trying
• 1:08:46
  to block those little rods coming out the back with the
• 1:08:48
  hand but incurred but not stunning amount of life to a
• 1:08:52
  puppet that was very limited like it was not an easy.
• 1:08:56
  Puppets of perform, this great. I mean you love hearing about
• 1:09:00
  these one-off characters and puppets and you know how they're
• 1:09:05
  not just redressed from something else.
• 1:09:06
  Like something was built, something had to be figured out
• 1:09:09
  how to be manipulated. And, you know, it's as far as I
• 1:09:13
  know, we're never gonna see that stone again.
• 1:09:15
  It's just unique to these scenes.
• 1:09:18
  That really says, a lot about the dedication of the the puppet
• 1:09:20
  building team for back to the Rock.
• 1:09:25
  Back at the Great Hall. They're trying to get things to
• 1:09:27
  move forward and everyone's giving taking turns giving
• 1:09:31
  toasts and I just like mokey's a lot where she says, I saw bird
• 1:09:36
  once and it's me. And I was like, do I control the
• 1:09:38
  birds now? Perfect mobile.
• 1:09:44
  It really is. And it's hysterical and like, so
• 1:09:47
  well read by. Yeah, just really good Mochi
• 1:09:51
  moments. Uber does show up and he gives
• 1:09:55
  his toast about how unexpected things can happen, you know?
• 1:09:58
  Because life is unpredictable but it's also amazing.
• 1:10:01
  And you know I like this a lot because it's not just about how
• 1:10:06
  everything's going to be okay. We're going to experience both
• 1:10:09
  good things and bad things and I am really glad for all these new
• 1:10:14
  experiences and just as I think we're all glad for this
• 1:10:18
  experience of doing this Fraggle Rock podcast, what a lovely new
• 1:10:22
  thing that we could have been terrified.
• 1:10:23
  About I know you could have been scared.
• 1:10:25
  I have no idea beforehand. Who says, we're not Joe.
• 1:10:29
  I'm still you. You both have such good
• 1:10:32
  composure on camera here. I would have never known this
• 1:10:37
  but I'm ducking under the table, right?
• 1:10:42
  I mean you are also your puppets.
• 1:10:43
  Here is you're going to be most comfortable under the table so I
• 1:10:45
  get it. There you go.
• 1:10:47
  I'm thinking about this, this termite and I didn't get the
• 1:10:50
  chance to say it in the right moment.
• 1:10:51
  But I was thinking about Uber in terms How he sees the world?
• 1:10:55
  And I came up with this thought that was analog, Doom scrolling
• 1:10:59
  where he just would like this could happen on this command.
• 1:11:02
  And this thing could fall in and we'd all be, you know, it's just
• 1:11:04
  always just is growing amount of Terror.
• 1:11:07
  And I mean, I'm in this day and age with what's happening in the
• 1:11:10
  world right now. I can't be the only one who
• 1:11:13
  can't stop looking at the train wreck that is internet
• 1:11:15
  information. And at the same time, be so
• 1:11:19
  horrified by what's happening that, you know, there's this,
• 1:11:22
  I'm shaking in the core all the Time.
• 1:11:23
  Now, I'm vibrating, there's just so much going on.
• 1:11:26
  That seems wrong for everyone right now.
• 1:11:30
  And yeah. And it kind of puts you in mind
• 1:11:32
  of what every day must be like for boober, as he does his own
• 1:11:37
  sort of non digital analog binary, Doom scrolling through
• 1:11:40
  all the list of things that probably happened before that
• 1:11:43
  we're terrible and will likely happen again but with more
• 1:11:45
  Force, right? Well, and this goes back to the
• 1:11:50
  original concept of the the main characters for Fraggle Rock
• 1:11:53
  Michael first came up with where they each have you know a
• 1:11:57
  character flaw that both makes them a better character and the
• 1:12:02
  word like a you know gives them something good and something bad
• 1:12:05
  to their personality. In this case boobers constantly
• 1:12:08
  think about everything that could go wrong and which is
• 1:12:10
  seems like it would be a bad thing but at the same time it
• 1:12:13
  makes him, you know, much more open to different possibilities.
• 1:12:16
  He's much more educated about what could happen and like we
• 1:12:21
  said in this episode, it makes them feel safer because Because
• 1:12:23
  of all of it because he is collecting this information
• 1:12:26
  about about all the horrible things that could happen.
• 1:12:29
  And, you know, as much as Doom scrolling is probably more
• 1:12:33
  destructive than helpful. It does help us to know what's
• 1:12:37
  happening in the world. You know?
• 1:12:38
  Because my, I think for a lot of us weren't specifically thinking
• 1:12:41
  about doing scrolling through social media and seeing all the
• 1:12:42
  horrible things that are happening in the world.
• 1:12:45
  We want to be able to say it's too much.
• 1:12:48
  I can't process this. I need to unplug a need to go do
• 1:12:50
  something else, which very often is the healthy thing to do.
• 1:12:53
  But at the same And when you do that then you don't know what's
• 1:12:55
  happening in the world. Like there are these are
• 1:12:56
  important things that we do need to know both so that we can get
• 1:13:00
  educated about the world outside as well as like.
• 1:13:03
  So we know how to help. We know what we can do to what
• 1:13:07
  helps you this not be as horrible as it as it is and I
• 1:13:11
  think this is a really good. This episode is a great example
• 1:13:14
  of buber embodying that concept. Well, he's thinking globally and
• 1:13:19
  is terrified, but he's acting locally.
• 1:13:21
  When his friends are in trouble, he's still He has it in him to
• 1:13:24
  say now, I'm going to help. Now I'm going to be a man of
• 1:13:27
  action, which is, which is pretty cool.
• 1:13:29
  And he does take action right here in this moment.
• 1:13:32
  When he opens the flutterfly box, it does not explode, but
• 1:13:36
  these cute little chubby fireflies, all kind of come out
• 1:13:41
  of the, of the, of the Box. They reminded me a bit of the
• 1:13:44
  did cease from the original Fraggle Rock, which were the,
• 1:13:47
  these glowing creatures that were even smaller than the
• 1:13:49
  Doozers. But but these look like they're
• 1:13:53
  actually It's as opposed to just a little light.
• 1:13:55
  Purse, were they real puppets? And if so how big were, they?
• 1:13:59
  How are they? They performed.
• 1:14:01
  All right, I did one for, you know, black room to do some 2nd.
• 1:14:08
  I don't remember Donna, and I spent a couple hours doing so
• 1:14:12
  much. But I think a lot of folks, when
• 1:14:13
  there was time, they'd bullying and work on that, my
• 1:14:16
  recollection was there were two variants, there was a did see
• 1:14:21
  that had automated wings that would flap and then That was an
• 1:14:24
  annual. So we kind of did both.
• 1:14:26
  I've been ended up using whatever is that your
• 1:14:28
  recollection to Frank that you had to cook.
• 1:14:30
  Like, I only got my hands on the one and it was, it had a
• 1:14:34
  flapping mechanical flapping map.
• 1:14:36
  That was gorgeous. And so we just we played it in
• 1:14:38
  towards camera and going across frame left frame, right up down
• 1:14:41
  from the bottom of the frame, and then post was pulling that
• 1:14:44
  apart and multiplying it, where, you know, in every way that they
• 1:14:47
  needed, and the other were gorgeous little guys.
• 1:14:49
  I think the last, I think they were glass They looked so
• 1:14:54
  delicate that would not surprise me.
• 1:14:56
  They were they were just beautiful little works of art.
• 1:14:59
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:15:00
  So they were actually glowing that low.
• 1:15:02
  It's not coming from. Wow, that's cool.
• 1:15:07
  And a hard puppets. You leave.
• 1:15:09
  It is made out of glass like that's seen that seems I don't
• 1:15:13
  think I've ever seen anything like that on Fraggle Rock before
• 1:15:15
  and it maybe it was a plastic resin.
• 1:15:17
  I'm sorry, I can't be more specific.
• 1:15:18
  I remembered that that's losing quality, they have accurate.
• 1:15:22
  It wasn't Bowman fleece like we're used to like it was right,
• 1:15:25
  something hard and translucent because, you know, they're so
• 1:15:29
  small on the screen and there's so many of them.
• 1:15:31
  We really don't get a good idea of what this puppet really looks
• 1:15:34
  like or how its performed or anything like that.
• 1:15:36
  So, that's fascinating. I mean, what a, what a great
• 1:15:39
  idea. Yeah.
• 1:15:41
  They were tiny to do like my recollection.
• 1:15:43
  Is there maybe a couple of inches?
• 1:15:45
  That's not really? Yeah, that's Molly.
• 1:15:47
  Were married. Yeah.
• 1:15:48
  So, moving them about it, careful, especially.
• 1:15:52
  That to go close to camera because just the tiniest little
• 1:15:55
  movement would reading. Yeah, well, that's great.
• 1:16:02
  And yeah, there's this scene with the flutterflies popping
• 1:16:06
  out, it's played over the new song for this episode which is
• 1:16:10
  called new days day the flutterflies are all over the
• 1:16:14
  sky. The band is playing.
• 1:16:16
  There's a few sit-ins with the bands including a bird who's
• 1:16:19
  playing his beak like a trumpet which is a cool little Puppetry
• 1:16:23
  moment. I think his name is flute.
• 1:16:25
  Bird. Just little bird on one more.
• 1:16:27
  Yep, I believe you. I mean he that that tells you
• 1:16:29
  exactly what you need to know. One of the original puppets from
• 1:16:32
  the show that bathes its local Richmond and came back to great.
• 1:16:36
  I mean you love to see you'll have to see these old puppets
• 1:16:38
  come back. It's great.
• 1:16:41
  But yeah, the fraggles are all dancing.
• 1:16:43
  There's even for fraggles who danced by ear to ear to ear to
• 1:16:46
  ear, you know, all next to each other which I would assume took
• 1:16:49
  a little bit of coordination for at least two puppeteers.
• 1:16:53
  You see boober riding on, I see Joe's shoulder at one point.
• 1:16:56
  Hump and Uber does get tossed in the air.
• 1:16:59
  Which another is another cool puppetry moment.
• 1:17:01
  Because of course we have to figure out how to map out the
• 1:17:03
  Puppeteer. And yeah, it's just a fun song
• 1:17:08
  and nice to see the Troubadours. Plan something new, you know, I
• 1:17:12
  would buy a whole album of troubadour music.
• 1:17:16
  It's funky. Yeah.
• 1:17:20
  Mokey and boober how he got over his fear.
• 1:17:22
  And boober says, I didn't, my fear was with me the whole time.
• 1:17:25
  It's a part of me. I just didn't let it be
• 1:17:27
  everything, which I think is that is the whole point of the
• 1:17:30
  episode. We brought it all home and it is
• 1:17:34
  nice because, you know, a lot of people just innately have a lot
• 1:17:38
  of fear and anxiety. I I suffer from a lot of
• 1:17:40
  anxiety. I think most people do nowadays,
• 1:17:43
  and it does not mean that you're broken.
• 1:17:46
  It does not mean that you need to change.
• 1:17:48
  It just means that you need to make more room for feelings and
• 1:17:53
  different types of feelings in your normal life.
• 1:17:56
  And that's what we was doing here.
• 1:17:58
  It's also a great way to keep boober in his own status quo.
• 1:18:01
  I think that's a challenge with any kind of show that has
• 1:18:05
  characters that are supposed to kind of be the same from episode
• 1:18:08
  to episode but also Exist in dozens of hours of Television
• 1:18:13
  where we want to see him grow, but we also want to see him
• 1:18:16
  reset back to his normal status. So boober here can still learn
• 1:18:22
  his lesson but also say but also I'm still a worrywart at heart.
• 1:18:25
  You know, next week, it'll still be more of the same boober.
• 1:18:30
  Yeah, that's I think that's also the point where when Mochi has
• 1:18:34
  his arm around him and says oh you did great, you do it, you
• 1:18:36
  go. Sorry.
• 1:18:37
  I just you know, I just don't let it be all on me and he and
• 1:18:40
  we played it so he put his hand on hers just for a second and I
• 1:18:44
  love when puppets touch. I think it's a greatly underused
• 1:18:46
  and it has a tremendous symbolic value and I just think it has a
• 1:18:50
  warmth to the characters when they have just the just the
• 1:18:52
  smallest little physical interactions and that's when
• 1:18:56
  Jacqueline sneaks in and goes out.
• 1:18:58
  Oh, you're having a moment. Sorry band.
• 1:19:00
  And it was great. I can't remember, Andy, was that
• 1:19:03
  in the script that you came in and said, are you guys having a
• 1:19:06
  moment? I'm sorry, man, I'm cutting in,
• 1:19:08
  or was that in my mind that was just an improved added in a
• 1:19:14
  Michael Jordan someone. But I remember we played it a
• 1:19:22
  few different ways like we did a few different versions of that.
• 1:19:25
  Yeah, I don't remember for sure, but I It might have been a
• 1:19:29
  little tact on moment, someone thought of.
• 1:19:32
  Yeah, I really like that goes to your guys back into what I was
• 1:19:35
  saying earlier. You know where I'm such a fan of
• 1:19:38
  Donna as a performer and as a person and I thought it was
• 1:19:41
  great that boober and she had this little moment and then they
• 1:19:46
  didn't even recognize it, right? It's just the thing and then,
• 1:19:48
  you know, gentleman comes in and says, oh, you guys are having a
• 1:19:50
  thing and boobers like, no, I'm not either words, it's not, he
• 1:19:53
  leaves. He's just done it there and then
• 1:19:54
  he's all over Wembley. Wembley, I can talk to you.
• 1:19:56
  That's okay. I get this the, his shape.
• 1:19:58
  This thing off, I thought that was a nice little because I was
• 1:20:02
  very happy that that made the cut.
• 1:20:04
  And by the way, Jordan canning was AAA amazing.
• 1:20:09
  Great. We had, we had great directors
• 1:20:11
  across the board but man, Jordan was at the like, it's like she
• 1:20:14
  was born for this job and we were lucky.
• 1:20:16
  Yeah. Like you said, Frank Folks who
• 1:20:19
  directed, the show, each block all came man with such love for
• 1:20:23
  the characters, and it comes across the episodes.
• 1:20:27
  You can tell they are Stand exactly who these characters
• 1:20:30
  dark. It's, it's amazing.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, she had a great way with the crew and the cast.
• 1:20:35
  Yet. You never never felt like you
• 1:20:37
  were being told to do something. You know?
• 1:20:39
  If he planted a really good idea in your mind and made you go, I
• 1:20:42
  think I'll do this. Your work fraggle.
• 1:20:47
  Inception sounds like exactly. Well, the episode ends with the
• 1:20:53
  flutterflies all floating over Fraggle Rock, they're flying
• 1:20:57
  over the desert dome. Home.
• 1:20:59
  They're over the gorgs garden, which I think is maybe one of my
• 1:21:01
  favorite shots of the of the season of junior in the garden
• 1:21:05
  at night, with all these these you know, flutterflies above
• 1:21:08
  him. And of course outside of Doc's
• 1:21:11
  Workshop. While she's dancing with
• 1:21:12
  sprocket. As we mentioned before, it's a
• 1:21:15
  beautiful and to an episode, may be one of the most beautiful of
• 1:21:20
  this whole season, just really great bow on top of this one.
• 1:21:26
  And that's it. That's where this one ends.
• 1:21:29
  So, do either of you have any other memories from this episode
• 1:21:34
  that we didn't get to or even from another episode of the
• 1:21:36
  series that you wanted to bring up that, you know, to highlight
• 1:21:42
  some of the work that you've done or something.
• 1:21:44
  Fun that really happened on set. I'll tell you a quick thing that
• 1:21:47
  comes to mind when the Troubadours were playing with
• 1:21:52
  javelin, we were shooting shooting the band out and and I
• 1:21:55
  wasn't part of it. I was helping out and I had
• 1:21:57
  nothing to do for whatever. A reason and I wanted to shoot a
• 1:22:01
  little video to show the guys what it looked like because it
• 1:22:03
  was really impressive. Beautiful.
• 1:22:04
  And everyone had, you know, the drums were hitting the drum at.
• 1:22:06
  The right point in the hands are moving on the guitar.
• 1:22:08
  The way I love. When that happens when you go,
• 1:22:10
  hey, he said, is he playing that thing with the, you know, twine
• 1:22:13
  for a string, of course not. But the idea is sold quite
• 1:22:17
  vigorously and intelligently and always makes me happy, but I
• 1:22:19
  happened to drift down with my little iPhone plug for Apple.
• 1:22:23
  No charge and I saw just the performers feet underneath and
• 1:22:26
  everybody's in the groove there. You're doing this little Stomp
• 1:22:29
  and toes are tapping. It was glorious to see, I don't
• 1:22:34
  was like 15 people, Andy underneath there by the time
• 1:22:37
  everyone hand or two, it was just great.
• 1:22:40
  So the whole video is mainly shot under the set just to see
• 1:22:44
  all these great performers legs in sync with each other, you
• 1:22:47
  know, sinking to the song. It was beautiful.
• 1:22:51
  I have one memory that for me, kind of encapsulated the
• 1:22:53
  experience capsule eights, The Experience, rather it was a
• 1:22:57
  lunch in Calgary has brutal Winters.
• 1:23:01
  They were pretty rough, but the last few weeks it just turned
• 1:23:05
  into beautiful Springtime. And we have a lunch where I
• 1:23:11
  remember I didn't realize this was happening when outside and
• 1:23:14
  the entire cast is out spending lunch together with musical
• 1:23:19
  instruments instruments. Share folks that was Ellis Titus
• 1:23:24
  accordion and we spent an hour singing together, just having
• 1:23:29
  lunch. We saying, 50 songs you named
• 1:23:32
  me. And, and that's the kind of love
• 1:23:35
  that went into this, like the relationships on screen, all
• 1:23:38
  translated into how we felt about each other.
• 1:23:41
  After five months, we all wanted to still spend time together and
• 1:23:45
  that's, that's incredible. It speaks high as the team
• 1:23:49
  that's rare. That's really Rare like every
• 1:23:51
  part of that is rare and I love that you all recognize that too.
• 1:23:56
  Because, you know, I think that seems like the kind of story
• 1:24:01
  that people would tell and say and we didn't know how good it
• 1:24:04
  was until it was over, but it's like for know, y'all knew you
• 1:24:07
  knew exactly how great it was and you appreciate it in the
• 1:24:09
  moment and what a gift that everything about that is we are
• 1:24:14
  very lucky. And again, it speaks highly to
• 1:24:20
  Johnny Really done all the folks to assemble this team put us
• 1:24:24
  together. It was definitely a family feel,
• 1:24:28
  it was and you you couldn't have had that happen without the
• 1:24:32
  initial pushed from from Jim you know.
• 1:24:35
  So even though he's gone he's there you feel it every day.
• 1:24:40
  Yeah absolutely. Yeah that was that was actually
• 1:24:43
  really like I met him. A handful of times you know I
• 1:24:46
  was just a kid trying to figure out what to do when I was on
• 1:24:50
  set. Set and but you got the vibe,
• 1:24:54
  you know, like he's like very piece was very peaceful and very
• 1:24:57
  positive and great delegator getting need to show off.
• 1:25:00
  Great chops. He could have done it everything
• 1:25:02
  but he hired people who were really good at stuff and just
• 1:25:05
  let him go and you know, there's days like Andy was talking
• 1:25:08
  about, we're just there and Like, I like to think he was
• 1:25:13
  watching and what a testament to his legacy that he can create
• 1:25:17
  something that decades later is running strong.
• 1:25:22
  And, you know, without him and with this dedicated group of
• 1:25:26
  people some from the old show, some were brand new to Fraggle
• 1:25:29
  Rock and not just to have a great time on set which is, of
• 1:25:33
  course, very important. But the final product, the
• 1:25:37
  season note we got through Apple TV history.
• 1:25:41
  Just fantastic. It's so good.
• 1:25:44
  I know Jim would be pleased with it, but like, honestly, the fact
• 1:25:47
  that he just kind of lift that spark, and it is just continuing
• 1:25:53
  to today, really is a testament to how great he was and how
• 1:25:57
  great of an ideal Fraggle Rock was there here?
• 1:26:01
  Well, Andy, Hayward, Frank magical.
• 1:26:03
  I think you both so much for being here.
• 1:26:06
  It was a blast talking to you and to get to share these
• 1:26:09
  memories of back to the Rock. Hopefully we'll get to do this
• 1:26:12
  again. Soon if it gets picked up for a
• 1:26:14
  second season will definitely love to have you back and thank
• 1:26:18
  you for keeping the fraggles alive.
• 1:26:20
  And and doing such an amazing job at bringing us the quality
• 1:26:24
  that we all hope for from the world of Fraggle Rock.
• 1:26:27
  That's very kind of you to say. Thanks, Joe, always a pleasure
• 1:26:30
  to see you. Andy.
• 1:26:31
  Oh, you do Frank. Hopefully, I'll get to see you
• 1:26:34
  again in a fragglish, environment, fingers crossed,
• 1:26:37
  fingers crossed everything. Strongly we still hurts, I know
• 1:26:41
  it does. Yeah, well that brings us to the
• 1:26:49
  end of another episode of Freckle talk, but stay tuned as
• 1:26:52
  tough pigs own. Beth cook talks more about the
• 1:26:54
  themes of this episode in our dive deeper segment coming up
• 1:26:58
  right now. Welcome to dig deeper.
• 1:27:11
  This is Beth cook and I am joined once again by executive
• 1:27:14
  producer and president television, at the Jim Henson
• 1:27:16
  company Hallie Stanford. Well, fly to the flutterflies is
• 1:27:20
  very special to me because I have a lot of anxiety and always
• 1:27:25
  did as a child. And I certainly know that there
• 1:27:29
  are a lot of children. Children and parents out there
• 1:27:31
  that it, you know, are dealing with anxiety.
• 1:27:33
  And I just read a research study that basically one out of four
• 1:27:37
  children in the pandemic is suffering from anxiety.
• 1:27:40
  Wow. So, you know, this is a real
• 1:27:43
  Global topic, its own type of pandemic.
• 1:27:46
  So anything, you know, every you know episode, we do Infuse a
• 1:27:49
  little bit of right. You know, characters feeling
• 1:27:52
  worried and you know, overcoming fears but in this particular
• 1:27:55
  one, what we have is a kind of social Anxiety, that we are
• 1:28:02
  showcasing which is very I think familiar to kids particularly in
• 1:28:07
  school or performance activities, whether it's, you
• 1:28:11
  know, band or Sports having to get up in front of a crowd, it
• 1:28:17
  can be debilitating. So we wanted to have our most
• 1:28:22
  anxious of all characters, boob or demonstrate that even heat
• 1:28:25
  can get up and go with the flow and And in doing so feel great
• 1:28:35
  rewards. He's not, you know, the thing
• 1:28:36
  that I love about the shows, these characters are still who
• 1:28:38
  they are, they're still going to have to meet these challenges
• 1:28:41
  just like I do, you know every day I have to deal with my
• 1:28:44
  anxiety, didn't go away magically, we're not doing it,
• 1:28:47
  we're not doing a ribbon bow, tying type of ending on these
• 1:28:50
  episodes in the issues were just highlighting them and giving
• 1:28:55
  kids and parents tools that we give our characters to overcome
• 1:29:01
  That's what I always loved about, Fraggle Rock.
• 1:29:03
  Yeah, is the sophistication of message?
• 1:29:07
  Never talking down to kids, you know, bringing in these
• 1:29:10
  sometimes hard realities of life in ways that are relatable and
• 1:29:15
  magical and always somehow work out, okay?
• 1:29:19
  In the end. And yeah, but also you know with
• 1:29:22
  mental help. I think it's also like we have
• 1:29:25
  to, you know, what we're modeling is support, right?
• 1:29:28
  Kind of support. And that is important to you
• 1:29:32
  don't have to be alone in all, you know, sometimes, I've talked
• 1:29:36
  in these segments about like the individual Journey that you have
• 1:29:38
  to go on in this case, not necessarily, right?
• 1:29:42
  Like in this case actually, you do need support a child and an
• 1:29:48
  adult. Does he support not only in the
• 1:29:50
  people that they talked to and give them Council but also from
• 1:29:54
  friends and family that empathy, you know Mochi you know things
• 1:29:58
  that should go one way Like just, you know, this should be
• 1:30:01
  no big deal but um, I did it, but it is a big deal and he ends
• 1:30:06
  up doing it. He's so cute in that little hat
• 1:30:09
  to come up with such a crap. I love that.
• 1:30:13
  The, the new old Troubadours and the new old Jam Dylan were
• 1:30:21
  really able to bring back that same kind of spirit of cantus
• 1:30:26
  and that that Groovy Kind of ethereal person who Anders in it
• 1:30:30
  out of town and just dispenses this mythical advice.
• 1:30:34
  Yeah you know if your mind is spinning in all these worst-case
• 1:30:37
  scenarios, yes, those bad things might happen but they might not
• 1:30:41
  good. Things can happen to and good
• 1:30:43
  things do happen and I love God. What was boobers line?
• 1:30:48
  Maybe Hope just means being okay, not knowing what will
• 1:30:51
  happen. Exactly.
• 1:30:54
  Yeah, it is my blind and it is the greatest information because
• 1:30:59
  the unknown Tone is the only thing that is known to all of
• 1:31:04
  us, right? And so you have to be you know
• 1:31:07
  you have to get into that place where you're you're okay with it
• 1:31:10
  and even if you're not OK with to come back to that place
• 1:31:13
  right? Like keep coming back.
• 1:31:15
  That's why I you know, I love how much you love handling
• 1:31:19
  because you know the go with the flow starting out with that song
• 1:31:23
  it you know that is, you know, hard to do.
• 1:31:27
  It's hard to do. It's hard to go with the flow
• 1:31:29
  meaning Like, you know, just finding the joy and yourself.
• 1:31:32
  You see how each fraggle dances down the runway and their own
• 1:31:35
  way. And Uber doesn't want to at
• 1:31:38
  first, right to shy. But then by the end, he is and
• 1:31:43
  so coming back to that Joy. Like, let's just keep trying to
• 1:31:46
  come back to that. Keep trying to come back to the
• 1:31:48
  go with the flow. I absolutely love that episode.
• 1:31:51
  It's my favorite favorite one again.
• 1:31:54
  Not because just whole, so I really relate to it personally,
• 1:31:58
  but I just think it has so many important.
• 1:32:00
  Messages in it for kids who are experiencing anxiety.
• 1:32:05
  Absolutely, not even to the point of like just get them of
• 1:32:08
  your body. That's it just get up and move
• 1:32:11
  your body. It's as simple as that.
• 1:32:14
  You were speaking about the support system to boober halves
• 1:32:17
  and how important that is. And I love that moment at the
• 1:32:20
  end with Mochi, where she asks, you know, how did you get past
• 1:32:23
  your fear? And he says, I didn't I just
• 1:32:26
  accepted it as a part of me and I just didn't let it be all of
• 1:32:28
  me and And she gives them this wonderful compliment that, you
• 1:32:32
  know, that was, you know, the best new day, stay speech ever.
• 1:32:35
  And he says, something like, what remind me of that?
• 1:32:38
  Remind me that I did that, you know, next time I forget, right?
• 1:32:43
  There's great Community. Mind me like, like remind me.
• 1:32:46
  Let me know about those moments those winds that I had and that
• 1:32:49
  those good feelings I had and bring me back there.
• 1:32:52
  But again like you know, we work we actually you know you asked
• 1:32:55
  if you know we've ever worked on specific episodes was specific
• 1:32:59
  and visors on. This one we did on this one, we
• 1:33:02
  worked with Kelly or ER and her specialty as a therapist is
• 1:33:07
  anxiety for younger children. So we really took this episode
• 1:33:14
  very seriously and help all of those, you know, amazing lines
• 1:33:20
  that you're quoting back of buber having to sit with the
• 1:33:24
  unknown and be okay with it. And not let it Define him.
• 1:33:28
  That all came from her. And then Charlie Feldman, who
• 1:33:32
  wrote the episode who's a genius.
• 1:33:35
  She also experiences anxiety. So I'm sure that she channeled a
• 1:33:39
  lot of herself and boober and could articulate those real
• 1:33:43
  feelings that kids feel when they feel overwhelmed by their
• 1:33:46
  own anxiety, I love that in the docket.
• 1:33:49
  Sprocket. Segments, Doc is also
• 1:33:51
  experiencing anxiety. Be about a big important
• 1:33:55
  presentation. She has to make and she comes
• 1:33:57
  back. Just so relieved that it went
• 1:34:00
  terribly, her worst case scenario happened and she
• 1:34:03
  survived it and she survived. That is the most important
• 1:34:07
  lesson that is one of my favorite lessons, which is kids
• 1:34:10
  and parents need to understand your worst case scenario you
• 1:34:14
  will survive. One of the things that you can
• 1:34:16
  always you know parents and kids can always ask themselves.
• 1:34:18
  What's the worst that can happen?
• 1:34:20
  Usually, you'll eat you think it's going to end up?
• 1:34:23
  I'm going to be homeless and alone, living under a bridge.
• 1:34:26
  Like and then what you can say, yourself and two kids are, is
• 1:34:31
  that really going to happen, right?
• 1:34:33
  Like and then of course the answer is no, but, you know,
• 1:34:37
  with her, what was the worst that could happen?
• 1:34:39
  She didn't get, the didn't get the ground and it happened.
• 1:34:44
  She's a lot. And then out of that moment,
• 1:34:49
  actually she gets a great idea to take it on herself and she is
• 1:34:54
  going to, you know, she's going to step up and the worst that
• 1:34:58
  could happen. Actually ended up being the best
• 1:34:59
  thing that could happen. So there you go, we get to, we
• 1:35:02
  get to turn it around to that you never know, out of the
• 1:35:05
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