Latest / Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com / Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock - Ep. 209 "The Great Radish Ball"

Transcript

Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock - Ep. 209 "The Great Radish Ball" · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:09
  Hello and welcome to Fraggle Talk Back to the Rock, the
• 0:13
  unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by toughpigs.com.
• 0:17
  This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle Rock Back to the
• 0:20
  Rock episode by episode, along with the talented producers,
• 0:23
  performers, writers and builders who helped put it all together.
• 0:26
  I'm your host, silly creature Joe Hennes.
• 0:30
  Today we are talking about Season 2 Episode 9, The Great
• 0:34
  Radish Ball, in which the Fraggles attend a party and then
• 0:37
  the Fraggles attend a party and then the Fraggles attend a
• 0:40
  party. This week we've got 2 special
• 0:42
  guests who I wouldn't mind being caught in a time loop with.
• 0:45
  Our first guest is a puppeteer who worked on the original
• 0:48
  Fraggle Rock and made the leap to back to the rock as the head
• 0:52
  of PAH Gorg, the body of Buber Fraggle, and the glue of Gluey
• 0:56
  Rudy. It's Frank Meshgolite.
• 0:58
  Hello, Frank. Hey, Joe, how's it going?
• 1:01
  So great, so great to have you here.
• 1:04
  Thank you, glad to be here. Our 2nd guest is the producer,
• 1:08
  writer, director and performer whose credits on Back to the
• 1:10
  Rock are so long we would need a time machine to make time to
• 1:13
  read them all. It's John Tartaglia.
• 1:15
  Hello, John. I expected you to, Joe, but it's
• 1:19
  fine. I'll let it go.
• 1:20
  No. Hi, somebody here.
• 1:22
  Hello. So, so glad to have you both
• 1:26
  here. Thank you for making the time
• 1:28
  that that was a little time reference.
• 1:30
  There's going to be a lot of those coming up because this is
• 1:34
  a time loop story, which I did not expect Fraggle Rock to go
• 1:39
  there. Can you tell me, Johnny, how did
• 1:43
  this come up in the writers room as something that you guys
• 1:46
  wanted to tackle well? You know, we always beginning
• 1:49
  season by talking about, you know, general topics we want to
• 1:53
  cover or, you know, world situations that we want to, you
• 2:00
  know, tip our hat to or, or just, you know, big feelings
• 2:04
  that kids and parents might be going through.
• 2:05
  And, you know, anxiety is something that is such a real
• 2:09
  thing that we all have. I think, you know, even those of
• 2:14
  us don't realize we're anxious. I think we're all anxious right
• 2:16
  now because of the pandemic, because of the state of the
• 2:19
  world, because of a million different things.
• 2:20
  And so, you know, we talked a lot in the room about anxiety
• 2:24
  and how we wanted to tackle that.
• 2:26
  And then I don't remember exactly where the idea of a time
• 2:30
  loop came from, but I know we thought it was really, really a
• 2:33
  cool way to to show it. And and it really came out of
• 2:38
  finding those the in episode 2 and the twisty turn a thon when
• 2:43
  red when we find that tube that spits them out into the Great
• 2:47
  Hall again. And we thought, how cool is it
• 2:49
  if there's a system of tubes throughout Fraggle Rock and we
• 2:52
  actually want to take that even further.
• 2:53
  We can get a chance this season, but that idea then kind of came
• 2:57
  back up for this episode and we're like, wait a minute.
• 2:59
  What if one of these tubes not only can take you anywhere in
• 3:01
  Fraggle Rock, but can also take you back in time?
• 3:04
  And it's some sort of, you know, we realized that that's the
• 3:07
  magic of Fraggle Rock because you don't have to explain a
• 3:11
  whole lot of why something exists.
• 3:12
  It just does. And so that's really kind of I
• 3:15
  think how we got there and and it just it kind of snowballed
• 3:18
  from there. Yeah, that, that is very
• 3:21
  Groundhog Day, not just in the theme of of the time loop, but
• 3:26
  we don't need to know why Bill Murray is repeating the day over
• 3:28
  and over again. We just need to know that he's
• 3:30
  doing it. Yeah.
• 3:32
  Do do either of you have any favorite time loop stories?
• 3:35
  Aside from this episode, of course.
• 3:38
  Definitely Groundhog Day. I love everything I.
• 3:40
  Mean that I feel like that's the apex, yeah.
• 3:43
  Yeah, for sure. Groundhog Day.
• 3:44
  And it's interesting. It's interesting to take sort of
• 3:46
  that as a as a template and then see how it affects each of the
• 3:49
  characters. Because I think, I mean, in my
• 3:53
  opinion anyway, this is this is a Boober episode.
• 3:55
  I think I'm right there. Definitely one of the more
• 3:59
  anxious characters on set is, you know, how, how does Boober
• 4:02
  react if he has the opportunity to live the same day over and
• 4:05
  over? You know, I'm sure there's the
• 4:07
  usual. It begins with his panic, of
• 4:09
  course, but eventually it fits him like a suit because he can
• 4:11
  control that span of time. And for once in his life, there
• 4:16
  is no variable. Nothing's going to fall on his
• 4:18
  head. The world isn't going to
• 4:20
  collapse. The sky isn't falling.
• 4:22
  It's it. He knows exactly what's
• 4:23
  happening from A-Z. And if something should come up
• 4:26
  like he runs out a cake and he needs a little more pops back,
• 4:29
  comes back is a Buber town man. Why would you ever leave?
• 4:34
  Yeah, and that's interesting. And it's the control too, right?
• 4:37
  Like he's such a control freak. And and I think also to build on
• 4:43
  Frank just said, we, we also really wanted to stress like we
• 4:47
  needed a Waverly show the impact of what was about to come up,
• 4:50
  the radish shortage and and the person who would it would affect
• 4:54
  the most and make the most anxious.
• 4:55
  To Frank's point is Buber, who's had like some some anxiety
• 4:59
  growth because of Season 1 with the flight of the butterflies,
• 5:02
  but he's still he still struggles with that.
• 5:05
  And it certainly seems like Buber is not really allowed to
• 5:09
  have nice things. You know, we can't, we can't
• 5:12
  actually give Buber a perfect day because his perfect day is,
• 5:16
  is always going to have something that kind of rains on
• 5:20
  his parade or even here like he's he's has the ability to
• 5:25
  create a perfect day. He could do it over and over
• 5:27
  again until it's perfect and then have that perfection over
• 5:29
  and over again. But that is, for any of us, but
• 5:34
  especially Boober, a terrible, terrible idea.
• 5:37
  Yeah. It's, it's, it's really telling
• 5:39
  earlier on when they just when they have the first, the first
• 5:43
  great radish ball, like the real 1 and they're talking about it
• 5:45
  the next day and, and I see Joe comes in and says I looked high.
• 5:49
  I look lower out of radishes and Buber's like, is this happening
• 5:53
  because I had a good night? Am I being punished?
• 5:55
  Yeah. Buber.
• 5:56
  Buber can't accept a moment of quality in his life without
• 6:00
  questioning it, or at least placing it in a context where it
• 6:03
  becomes a, a, a variable that is ultimately going to punish him
• 6:07
  somehow. So he's anxious even when he's
• 6:09
  not anxious, he's preparing for anxiety.
• 6:12
  That's kind of Buber needs therapy I think.
• 6:17
  I, I, I love it too, because, you know, it's, it's funny
• 6:19
  because we, we talked in the writers room about Gooper's
• 6:22
  quiet day from the original series and just, and you know,
• 6:25
  that, that feeling that we all think that like off we could
• 6:27
  just spend, you know, if I could just not go to work and stay at
• 6:31
  home all day by myself, do the things I want to do, I'd be so
• 6:34
  much happier. Or if I could do AB and CI would
• 6:36
  be so much happier. And then if you get that
• 6:38
  opportunity, you actually realize, like, you're bored, you
• 6:42
  miss your friends. It's scary without them.
• 6:44
  It's not as fun as you thought it would be.
• 6:45
  So it's it's kind of a little, you know, it.
• 6:48
  I think Buber learns that lesson a lot throughout the.
• 6:50
  Yeah, that's true Rock, You know.
• 6:53
  Yeah, I. Can I can bear single that
• 6:56
  that's a that's a lesson that that even me as an adult, you
• 7:00
  know, I, I learned that over and over.
• 7:01
  I'm my mother's son. I worry about everything and I
• 7:05
  spend a good deal of my present day worrying about things that
• 7:08
  in high school, which is, you know, I mean, as an adult, I I
• 7:12
  process that a little more effectively.
• 7:14
  But the fact that I still spend a portion of each day thinking
• 7:18
  about what I should have done. You know, I should watch this
• 7:22
  episode every day just to try and help me.
• 7:24
  Nevermind, Boober. Yeah, Buber needs therapy and
• 7:28
  you get you get therapy from Buber.
• 7:29
  Yeah, that's right. Passes through the arm.
• 7:32
  Excellent. I do want to talk Frank with you
• 7:35
  a little bit about Buber. So as as people are most likely
• 7:39
  aware, you handle the puppetry for him, while Dave goals will
• 7:44
  handles the the voice, which I assume comes later.
• 7:47
  You're not you're not dubbing to his voice live.
• 7:49
  He's he's dubbing over your your performance.
• 7:51
  Is that right? That's.
• 7:52
  Correct. Yes.
• 7:54
  Has the whole process of basically having two performers
• 8:00
  share the the the duties for one puppet?
• 8:04
  Has the whole process been streamlined or has it changed at
• 8:07
  all between seasons 1 and 2? I, I think it's fair to say that
• 8:13
  it's a challenge in either season because of just what it
• 8:17
  is. You know, I'm earlier, it's one
• 8:20
  of my favorite stories. I think it's from season 1.
• 8:23
  I was doing, I think I was doing world's oldest Fraggle and and I
• 8:26
  was working with with Amy, who was we were working side by
• 8:30
  side. You know, I'm trying to figure
• 8:32
  it out. It's my first time in the
• 8:33
  character really. And you know, camera's going and
• 8:36
  your, your brain's buzzing and I'm trying to figure out a read
• 8:40
  on a line and we're trying to figure out how the characters
• 8:42
  interact. And my phone buzzes, you know,
• 8:44
  and I've got it set that don't buzz me except for certain
• 8:46
  people. And I look at my phone, it's
• 8:49
  Dave Gold. And he sent me a text.
• 8:52
  He's like, you know, try putting the emphasis on this word.
• 8:55
  And suddenly this overwhelming wave hit me where I was like, oh
• 8:59
  gosh, he's watching. And he was, he was and, and you
• 9:03
  know, of course. We have a live feed for for
• 9:06
  producers and Dave and whoever he needs to watch to watch if
• 9:08
  they want to. Yes.
• 9:10
  So the, the, the sudden awareness that Dave was looking
• 9:14
  at what I was doing was on that day in particular, it just
• 9:18
  gobsmacked me. I was like, because I'm, I'm
• 9:22
  trying to make like a, I'm a very good technician as a
• 9:25
  puppeteer. I'm trying to make good
• 9:26
  technical choices through the lens of what I think Dave would
• 9:31
  do with his character. So there's like a triple
• 9:33
  abstraction. Plus, you know, when they did
• 9:35
  the original Fraggle Buber evolved over those seasons as
• 9:38
  well. So there was a, there was a, a
• 9:42
  challenge I didn't anticipate that came up in that moment.
• 9:45
  And it, it's, it has tapered. But I'm always aware of the fact
• 9:49
  that I want to do the character justice, principally for all of
• 9:53
  the viewers. And, you know, book is one of my
• 9:55
  faves for sure. And, and also the, the, the,
• 10:01
  the, the honour to extend the legacy.
• 10:03
  You know, I wanted, I want to bring the character into the
• 10:05
  present, which is a challenge because although I'm doing the
• 10:08
  vocalization, Dave's, Dave's dubbing it.
• 10:10
  And I know sometimes we have, we have challenges getting our
• 10:13
  rhythms to match, but Dave's such a gentleman.
• 10:15
  He's been so patient with me and so kind.
• 10:17
  We spend a lot of time on Zoom chats the week before to talk
• 10:21
  about the script upcoming and, and that, and that helped a lot.
• 10:25
  And I think the writers have found a, a, a stronger tone with
• 10:28
  Buber in season 2. But you know, I think one of the
• 10:34
  biggest thrills for me, Joe, is when we talked last time and or
• 10:37
  no, you were interviewing Dave, excuse me?
• 10:40
  And I think you asked Dave, what what was it like to be back on
• 10:43
  set doing Boober? And I was like, oh, Oh my
• 10:46
  goodness, that means I did it. That's right.
• 10:48
  Yeah. Yeah, you fooled us all.
• 10:50
  Yeah. So somebody close to the
• 10:52
  property has has went OK. The performance was, you know,
• 10:56
  was booberry enough that that that it was working And and as
• 11:02
  as a footnote to that, I watched great radish ball and all I
• 11:06
  could think of was the things I should have done different, like
• 11:08
  just slight differences, you know, lean leans in and fingers
• 11:11
  up and and things that I that I would like to have done
• 11:13
  differently. Going back to my earlier, you
• 11:16
  know, regrets. I'm hoping for the next couple
• 11:20
  of seasons. I, I have a lot of ideas I want
• 11:22
  to bring to the table and A and A and a, a stronger separation
• 11:25
  between what, what, what I think Uber should be and, and that
• 11:32
  sort of that little jump I have to do between, OK, what do I
• 11:36
  think? What would Dave do?
• 11:37
  What would Dave have done? Then what do people want Buber
• 11:39
  to do? I think I can, I can clear some
• 11:42
  of that clutter away and make choices faster.
• 11:44
  And that's that's going to be my focus when we come back.
• 11:50
  And do you feel like you have more of an opportunity now that
• 11:53
  you've been working with the character for now, you know,
• 11:56
  over at that, at the point of Season 2 / a year that to be
• 12:01
  able to insert more of yourself into the character?
• 12:05
  Or do you still feel like I'm here as an extension of Dave and
• 12:09
  that's it? I think you can't help but
• 12:12
  invest yourself in it, you know? If you don't, you're, you're
• 12:15
  leaving something on the table. I, I happen to love props.
• 12:19
  Give me something I can pick up and I'll find some business with
• 12:22
  it. I like pushing a broom, you
• 12:23
  know, like leaning on the broom. All the stuff that you can do
• 12:25
  with a prop is of great interest to me.
• 12:28
  And so if there's, you know, if there's a props table and
• 12:30
  they're like, take anything, I'm going to grab something that I
• 12:31
  think I can get some mileage out of.
• 12:36
  To your point, yeah, I think I I, I think Buber is different
• 12:42
  now. Here he is.
• 12:43
  He's written at a different time, as is the series by
• 12:47
  different writers. You know, it's, it's, it's not
• 12:49
  Jerry Jewel obviously. And anymore, I mean, because
• 12:53
  he's passed away. Rest in peace.
• 12:55
  And and there's a different group of performers and there's
• 12:57
  a different tone in the world. So there will be changes with,
• 13:02
  with all the characters. So, yeah, I, I think, I think
• 13:07
  you can't help but invest yourself and at the same time
• 13:10
  pay the appropriate respect to the, the, the lineage of the
• 13:14
  character and the history of the character, you know, both story
• 13:17
  wise and performance wise. So like there's a different,
• 13:20
  like when I on the days when travelling, Matt comes to set
• 13:22
  and, and I do travelling Matt when he's in the rock.
• 13:25
  There is, is a big gear change between, between Buber and, and
• 13:28
  Matt, of course. So, you know, I, I want them, I
• 13:31
  want the Buber to become more nuanced and that'll, the only
• 13:34
  way it'll happen is through my process.
• 13:37
  And my process is, is different than Dave's.
• 13:40
  So it'll, we'll, we'll evolve together.
• 13:44
  Is is what I think. I think that's what's happened
• 13:46
  and we'll continue. I agree with Frank, just to give
• 13:49
  him props on his props. Hey, look, look at that.
• 13:53
  You know, Frank is a genius when it comes to, you know, figuring
• 13:56
  out a gesture that a character would make in a moment.
• 13:59
  How to plus it. You know, I think you always
• 14:01
  plus seem so beautifully when it comes to do what if I just pick
• 14:04
  up this thing? Or what if I do this point like
• 14:06
  you're saying? Or what if I have a rig where we
• 14:08
  can put his hands down, like he's grabbing something and have
• 14:10
  a second Uber hand that has the sponge and he lifted up, you
• 14:12
  know, and it adds up this great texture to the character.
• 14:16
  And, and I and I know Dave loves that stuff love too, because it
• 14:18
  just it's stuff that he would want to do if he was on set.
• 14:22
  And, and I think to to Frank's point about the character
• 14:25
  evolving, you know, that's one of the things I love about the
• 14:27
  original series too, is that over those 4545 seasons,
• 14:31
  depending on how you watched it, you know, they really those
• 14:33
  characters change and everyone remembers Buber to be this like,
• 14:37
  you know, world fearing, depressing, you know, downer
• 14:42
  character. Like I think that's the first
• 14:44
  thing people think of for him. And there's certainly parts of
• 14:46
  that, you know, especially in the first season of Frogger
• 14:49
  Rock, the original series, he is very kind of like, and I think
• 14:53
  it just kind of became limited, right?
• 14:54
  Like we found it to be limiting the first season of Back to the
• 14:57
  Rock. Like you can only write a
• 14:59
  character that's kind of like got the negative point of view
• 15:02
  or got the down or got the anxious point of view so much.
• 15:05
  And then you have to find the joy in that character too.
• 15:07
  And I love in the original series how by the end of it, Boo
• 15:10
  Boo was actually pretty. You still had his moments of
• 15:13
  fear and so his moments of anxiety, of course, but he had
• 15:16
  like he celebrated his, you know, like the cooking and the
• 15:19
  joys of laundry and teaching laundry class to everybody.
• 15:22
  And so with that, you know, he just had this this fun, like
• 15:27
  living in his nerdness, I guess you could say.
• 15:29
  And I think that that's something we had fun with this
• 15:31
  season that Frank really exalted with, especially with the radish
• 15:34
  fall and with with episode 4. Oh my God, I'm blanking on it.
• 15:39
  The radish razzle and the repeating birds.
• 15:41
  You know, where Buber has this like, you know, amazing, like
• 15:45
  like a cooking moment that he has where he's flipping the
• 15:47
  radish and smoking. He's got his little outfit and
• 15:49
  stuff like that. So, you know, it's it's finding
• 15:51
  that joy. And I think that Frank brought a
• 15:53
  lot of those little details to the character on set.
• 15:57
  And and so, you know, just to support what he was saying,
• 16:00
  Frank, I think, I think you guys, you and Dave add so much
• 16:03
  texture together from afar and, and make it a full character.
• 16:06
  And it's it's he's just, I don't know.
• 16:08
  I think he he had so many shiny moments this season.
• 16:10
  It was really nice to see that. It's nice to hear Johnny.
• 16:14
  I, I hope, I hope Dave feels the same way.
• 16:16
  You know that, you know, in, in, in my mind too, I, I have a very
• 16:20
  minor legacy bridge to the original series because I, I was
• 16:24
  in the last season, I was in the junior gorge suit.
• 16:27
  And for me, having this come full circle has just been an
• 16:29
  extraordinary, extraordinary bit of luck and an honour.
• 16:33
  And, and, and as challenging as it is to do a character with two
• 16:38
  people, with Dave dubbing the voice, I think that that bridge
• 16:41
  that Dave builds or connects, you know, series, I think that
• 16:45
  gives our series here. It grounds it and it grounds it
• 16:50
  in history and it grounds it in a, in a, in a reality.
• 16:54
  Because as challenging as it is, and it is challenging to do
• 16:57
  someone else's character and they're going to dub the voice
• 17:00
  afterwards, it's also challenging to inherit a legacy
• 17:03
  character Johnny like. Like.
• 17:05
  With Gobo, you know you it, it takes time to settle in your
• 17:09
  mind and in your your spirit that you are doing justice to
• 17:13
  the original character and also infusing it with enough presence
• 17:16
  that it doesn't feel like a an echo, but it feels like a real
• 17:21
  thing. So, you know, that's up to you
• 17:24
  there, Johnny, I think. I think you're.
• 17:25
  Doing. And to Donna, too.
• 17:28
  And. And Jordan, I mean, we're, we're
• 17:30
  all facing a different sort of challenge with a project that
• 17:33
  has such enormity and such value.
• 17:35
  And, you know, watching, watching radish ball again, I'm
• 17:38
  reminded how, how, how current the, the this series is.
• 17:43
  It really has to do with now and how quickly the, the half hour
• 17:46
  goes by because it's so well cut, strongly performed and it's
• 17:50
  so energetic and and you know, the sets are so epic and there's
• 17:54
  so much to move through. It's it's a pretty darn terrific
• 17:59
  series. Yeah, if we do, say, say
• 18:02
  ourselves. Yeah.
• 18:04
  Well, I as someone who did not work on the series, I can
• 18:07
  confirm it's a great series. Yeah, you guys could toot your
• 18:12
  own horn. That's perfectly fine.
• 18:13
  But I will also toot your horn that all the things you said are
• 18:16
  are are absolutely correct. And, and Frank, I think you're
• 18:20
  100% right that having the connection between you and Dave
• 18:25
  and Karen and Jocelyn Stevenson, all, you know, back from the
• 18:30
  original series, working on the new one keeps things from
• 18:34
  feeling like, you know, we're trying to do a carbon copy or
• 18:37
  we're trying to do like a sequel that takes place twenty, 30-40
• 18:41
  years later. And it's like, no, no, no, this
• 18:43
  is just this more of the same. Certain things are updated and
• 18:48
  you all keep the the integrity of that alive.
• 18:52
  And so if there was going to be, you know, more, I'm thinking way
• 18:57
  in the future where, you know, we don't have that connection to
• 19:00
  the original series anymore. Now we've got all these folks
• 19:02
  who worked on back to the Rock who really know what it's like
• 19:06
  to be, you know, part of what Fraggle Rock represents and what
• 19:09
  it should be. And I think any Fraggle project
• 19:12
  moving forward is going to have an element of that, you know,
• 19:15
  lucky for us and really keep that that of the of the
• 19:19
  franchise alive. Well, thank you.
• 19:21
  You know, and I just want to say, Joe, to your point, like, I
• 19:23
  think maybe this is like a broken record because I probably
• 19:26
  have said this a million times before, but it's very, very,
• 19:28
  very true, which is that there is no one on that set on Back to
• 19:32
  the Rock who had the hubris or the arrogance to say, you know,
• 19:39
  we're going to make this better than the original or, you know,
• 19:43
  we know more or, you know, I think that everyone and I'm
• 19:48
  literally just cycling through every person I could pick up who
• 19:50
  worked on the show. Every single person either
• 19:52
  watched the original series growing up and had an incredible
• 19:55
  awe and respect for it, or and or.
• 20:01
  Understood the the legacy that came before and understood the
• 20:05
  quality that was expected. And I think everyone felt this
• 20:07
  incredible responsibility to honor that.
• 20:11
  And so I think that's I'd like to think that's why it works so
• 20:14
  well is because unlike a lot of reboots that are out there,
• 20:17
  there was no Hollywood attitude of we don't need to do what they
• 20:21
  did before. We don't need to respect those
• 20:22
  those choices. We don't, you know, like the
• 20:24
  Canon of the show was so beautifully respected.
• 20:28
  And if we made a change that can and which happened, we had to
• 20:31
  and wanted to. It was done with a lot of
• 20:34
  thoughts and weight. And I think that that I wish in
• 20:37
  the entertainment world we live in now, where there are so many
• 20:40
  reboots and there are so many re imaginings of things, I wish
• 20:44
  that happened more often. Because nothing upsets me more
• 20:46
  as a fan of someone else's property than to go in and be
• 20:49
  like they didn't care at all about what what we all loved
• 20:53
  about it for the first time. But but here's the thing about
• 20:56
  any franchise that's going to do, you know, this kind of jump
• 21:01
  to a new series is you're either trying to do what the original
• 21:06
  did best and and and maybe trying to one up it, or you're
• 21:10
  just going to be chasing your tail and you're just going to
• 21:13
  be, you know, like there was something that like the reason
• 21:15
  that we still talk about it is because it was it was great back
• 21:18
  then. It was, you know, it was so
• 21:19
  good. We want to do it again.
• 21:21
  And you can't just recapture magic.
• 21:24
  That's impossible. I think that's why like when
• 21:26
  we're we're looking at Disney and they have all these great
• 21:28
  animated movies that they're now remaking as live action.
• 21:31
  Like the animated movie was so good because the stars aligned.
• 21:36
  You can't just force that again for for a straight remake.
• 21:39
  And there's something about Back to the Rock that I think this is
• 21:43
  going to take a lot more thought and we could definitely talk
• 21:45
  about this for another hour, but that you're you're not doing
• 21:49
  either. You're not trying to be better
• 21:51
  obviously than the original, but you're not trying to be the
• 21:55
  original and to try to match the quality.
• 21:58
  You're doing your own thing while keeping true to what the
• 22:02
  original series was. And I honestly can't think of
• 22:05
  any other rebooted franchise that's done it in the way that
• 22:09
  you you all are handling it here.
• 22:12
  Thank you. I'll just say one last thing
• 22:13
  because I know I know you want to move, but I'll just say, you
• 22:15
  know, the other thing too is I think, you know, we we also when
• 22:21
  we recast the characters, myself included, as Gobo, you know, I
• 22:24
  got to take that on 11 years ago with with the first thing I did.
• 22:27
  But it it's never been about matching a voice and it's never
• 22:32
  just been about being a sound alike.
• 22:35
  It's really about who has the heart of that character.
• 22:38
  Jordan Lockhart has the heart of Wembley and understands who that
• 22:42
  character is from the inside out and happens to be a very close
• 22:45
  voice match. Donna Kimball is Moki happens to
• 22:48
  have us, you know, and and we all, you know, Dan Garza is
• 22:51
  Junior, Amy is Marjorie, you know, which is probably the
• 22:54
  biggest change we made. If you think about it, you know,
• 22:57
  it was about who has that heart and who starts about.
• 22:59
  And I think heart is what carries this show and the
• 23:02
  original through is coming from a place of heart.
• 23:06
  I couldn't agree more. Well, all that said, we're
• 23:10
  talking a lot about, you know, bringing the series full circle
• 23:15
  and. Like a time loop.
• 23:17
  Like a time loop. See, when we did that, we
• 23:19
  brought it back. We brought.
• 23:20
  It back, it was a bit of a forced segue, but we we got
• 23:23
  there. So let's talk about this
• 23:25
  episode. We opened in Gobo and Wembley's
• 23:28
  cave. They are preparing for the
• 23:29
  radish ball and they're wearing some incredible outfits.
• 23:34
  We have to talk about these costumes.
• 23:35
  Gobo's got this like sparkly red vest.
• 23:37
  He's got a bow tie that looks like it's made out of Moss.
• 23:40
  Love that he's wearing a hat that it's like kind of looks
• 23:44
  like a radish like or a, or a pot, something like that.
• 23:47
  Is this a hat that we saw in it's, it's like a top hat?
• 23:50
  Yeah, yeah. Is it a hat that we saw in the
• 23:52
  radishes versus strawberries number or is this like a No,
• 23:55
  this is Gobo's hat actually. All these outfits were made just
• 23:59
  for this episode. Cool.
• 24:01
  And actually, that outfit we're talking about with Gobo is what
• 24:03
  he wore, except for the top hat he wore to the Emmys because we
• 24:07
  the Emmys last season happened to be the same time as we were
• 24:10
  shooting this this episode. So we got to go.
• 24:12
  That's great. Yeah.
• 24:14
  And he already had the bow tie. I love that for him.
• 24:17
  Yeah, Wembley is. He's got his hair in the side
• 24:22
  ponytail like in the I'm Pogey episode.
• 24:24
  I'm really glad to see that continued through here.
• 24:27
  That's something that's gonna that he's gonna choose to to do
• 24:30
  every so often. That was very important to us
• 24:31
  that it, it becomes a part of his character and that we don't,
• 24:35
  we don't ever make it a gimmick that it's literally just now
• 24:39
  it's a part of his texture. You know, we felt like that was
• 24:42
  really important to that episode.
• 24:43
  But it, it, it that wearing the, you know, wearing the outfit
• 24:47
  he's wearing, wearing the side pony, that it's just, it's just
• 24:50
  a part of who he is now. And we don't, we don't point it
• 24:52
  out. We don't make a big thing about
• 24:53
  it. We just that's when leaving.
• 24:55
  Yeah, I love that. I love this for him.
• 24:58
  He's also wearing like, is it a kimono?
• 25:02
  Is it a robe? I don't know.
• 25:03
  But it's I mean, it's great. It's it's not quite the banana
• 25:05
  tree pattern, but it's also not like like Moki's old grade robe
• 25:11
  that we saw in I'm Pogy. It's definitely something new
• 25:14
  with like a red frilly skirt. Yeah, it's it's a mishmash of
• 25:18
  things and that's perfect for Wembley.
• 25:21
  It's our amazing, our amazing, amazing, amazing puppet builders
• 25:24
  and designers who came up with all these outfits.
• 25:26
  And I just, I'm, I love watching this episode because of that.
• 25:29
  You know, they all just look spectacular.
• 25:32
  They're absolutely killing it in this episode.
• 25:33
  Like, I really do want to talk about every single costume we
• 25:35
  see, and we don't have time for that.
• 25:37
  But like, every one of these outfits is great.
• 25:39
  Like, I highly recommend anyone who's watching this one again,
• 25:41
  like, pause it a lot and just look.
• 25:44
  Yeah. We said that this episode had to
• 25:46
  be frackal prom. That's kind of how we looked at
• 25:48
  it. It was like it was like it was,
• 25:50
  it was it was Harry Potter, you know, the the Yule log ball.
• 25:53
  And it was like in our case, it was like the frackles if they
• 25:56
  had a prom like thing. That's what, that's what the,
• 25:58
  you know, the radish ball is. I want to go to fraggle prom.
• 26:02
  Right. Who does?
• 26:03
  This boomer comes in and he's also dressed amazing.
• 26:09
  He's got like a sparkly purple jacket.
• 26:11
  He's wearing like a like a reddish brooch.
• 26:14
  And he's feeling really positive about the ball, which seems to
• 26:18
  give him anxiety. So he comments on the fact that
• 26:20
  The Cave could collapse on them at any moment and that seems
• 26:22
  like bring him back down to earth.
• 26:25
  And I can't tell if this is Uber practicing like self-care or if
• 26:31
  this is like a cyclical like boober.
• 26:34
  No, you can't. Don't do this to yourself,
• 26:36
  buddy. Because he seems happier
• 26:39
  afterward, but also like that seems destructive somehow.
• 26:43
  I, I, I always got the feeling that that boober can't have a
• 26:46
  good moment with a without acknowledging that it's, it's
• 26:49
  temporal. It could go at any second.
• 26:50
  This could all fall apart. So, you know, I'm willing to
• 26:54
  accept this, this quality moment with the understanding that I'm
• 26:58
  going to take a step backwards and fall through a hole and
• 27:01
  it'll all be over. Yeah, totally.
• 27:03
  Perfect. Perfect for this episode.
• 27:04
  You know where he can get to, a place where he can control the
• 27:07
  entire evening. I'll betray.
• 27:09
  Realism. Oh, and then also Gobo, he kind
• 27:16
  of pops out and back in and he's wearing a bright red Cape that
• 27:19
  was that's the last part of his outfit.
• 27:21
  And OK, so there's a thing that you do here, Johnny, where you
• 27:24
  spin and you're and you say that the the Cape spins real nice.
• 27:30
  Are are you referring to the fact that the Cape flows when
• 27:33
  you spin, or the Cape is making gobo spin?
• 27:37
  Oh, I think I was referring to the fact that the Cape like he'd
• 27:40
  like loves the fact that when he turns, the Cape has this like
• 27:43
  twirl to it. So I think he was, he was like,
• 27:46
  you know, acknowledging it's, it's, it's, it's gift.
• 27:51
  For some reason the first time I watched it I was like, is it
• 27:53
  like giving him like slick shoes?
• 27:55
  Is it because your spin is so smooth?
• 27:58
  That makes so much more sense than whatever was.
• 28:01
  Going on it's like look at it, look how it look, how it catches
• 28:03
  the wind, like makes it looks amazing.
• 28:06
  I love that we get our first check in with Doc and Sprocket
• 28:10
  here. They have built a pillow Fort
• 28:13
  and Doc says that it feels like a vacation.
• 28:17
  Or should she say vacation? A little bit of word play from
• 28:22
  Doc and she's got a lot going on between work and school and she
• 28:27
  wishes that she could just stay in the Fort forever.
• 28:29
  Or should she say Fort ever? They're getting worse.
• 28:34
  We need like a rimshot like drummer at this episode for.
• 28:37
  Sure, maybe Sprocket needs to learn the drums so that he can
• 28:40
  do a little rimshot. He probably could.
• 28:42
  He could do it. He's got a puzzle thumbs.
• 28:45
  Exactly. I think Lily Cooper is so good
• 28:48
  in this episode. She's so funny and so charming
• 28:50
  in this episode. She really is.
• 28:53
  And like, there's something, maybe it's the fact that she's
• 28:56
  like, all cozy in her pyjamas, but there's something like, so,
• 29:00
  like, cuddly about her in this episode.
• 29:02
  Yeah. It's just like, maybe I just
• 29:04
  want to be in the pillow Fort with her.
• 29:07
  Yeah, I think. I think she she's the perfect to
• 29:10
  me, Lily is the perfect blend of like, you know, you totally buy
• 29:14
  that she's this like, you know, scientific PhD person who's a
• 29:19
  super smart but has this like wonderful, lovable geeky energy
• 29:25
  where it's like exactly, you just want to like, you want to
• 29:27
  watch like like a nerd movie with her and just like nerd out
• 29:31
  with her all afternoon. She's the best.
• 29:34
  Totally. She's also one of the one of the
• 29:36
  fastest actors I've seen. We've been on set, you know, and
• 29:40
  entire entire scenes get rewritten on the floor
• 29:43
  sometimes. Sometimes it's a very nuanced
• 29:45
  change. Sometimes it's an out and out
• 29:48
  change. Like they said.
• 29:48
  Now we liked our first version better.
• 29:50
  We haven't showed it to you. Here it is.
• 29:52
  Lily, can you do it? And she'll read it and we'll
• 29:55
  shoot it and she'll nail it every time.
• 29:59
  So also, I just want to comment on this because I want to watch
• 30:01
  the radish ball the second time. There's there's a scene where
• 30:05
  where when doc decides to stay in the pillow Ford for the day
• 30:08
  and she winds up with a run and jumps in the air to fall into
• 30:11
  the she literally does a tuck. She she pulls her legs, her
• 30:15
  knees up and she's in the air with her heels on her butt and
• 30:19
  her knees in front of her and falls into the and I just
• 30:21
  thought that's commitment. That's, you know, I would have
• 30:25
  just kind of went and fallen into it like a giant stick
• 30:28
  insect, right? But she's like, this is what Doc
• 30:31
  does. I'm excited.
• 30:32
  I'm going to jump in the air. I'm going to tuck, tuck my knees
• 30:34
  in. It was beautiful.
• 30:36
  And and Lily did that all the time.
• 30:38
  I was going to ask about that because I was wondering if if
• 30:41
  there's like extra padding underneath, like she knew that
• 30:43
  she was safe to to jump in or if she was just like, screw it,
• 30:47
  like it's Fraggle rock, you got to commit.
• 30:50
  If I get hurt, I get hurt. I think it was both.
• 30:53
  I mean, I think, I think, I think to Frank's point, she
• 30:55
  commits so strongly to everything.
• 30:57
  I mean, I, I, you know, we did, you know, 26, no, 27 episodes
• 31:01
  together. And I can't, I can literally
• 31:03
  think of one time, and I'm not kidding, one time she went up on
• 31:06
  a lot. She's just so good and such a
• 31:10
  like Frank said, such a quick memorizer, by the way.
• 31:12
  Also while navigating open pits next to her or where the public
• 31:15
  tears are, she could fall for it be and, and props and
• 31:18
  everything, you know, no teleprompter, nothing, all just
• 31:21
  in her mind. But yeah, I think there was
• 31:23
  probably like a crash cushion underneath those pillow pieces
• 31:25
  would be my guess. But also wouldn't surprise me if
• 31:28
  she just went for it because that is her.
• 31:30
  Amazing. And then also I have to mention
• 31:33
  that immediately after she does her cannonball, Sprocket also
• 31:36
  does a cannonball, yes. And like, OK, so obviously he's
• 31:42
  a puppet. I'm sorry, everybody, we have to
• 31:45
  admit this, this truth that Sprocket is a puppet that like
• 31:48
  you just you just needed him and just tossed him.
• 31:51
  But he's like folded in a way. Like he's also kind of doing the
• 31:55
  whole like knee tuck, you know, whatever.
• 31:57
  So how do you take a puppet that you know normally has like a
• 32:02
  hole for your arm or whatever and then not armatured because
• 32:07
  he's got to be performable and and get him to be in that
• 32:10
  position for such a quick shot. Well, we we have multiple
• 32:14
  versions of all the characters. So I think now we have that
• 32:20
  might be making this up, but I think we have like two hero
• 32:24
  versions of each character. One this at least for the
• 32:27
  crackles 1 stunt version that is usually stays armatured.
• 32:32
  So they usually have, you know, armature wire inside all their
• 32:35
  limbs and inside their body and head.
• 32:36
  So we compose them for, for when we throw them or when we need
• 32:39
  like, you know, switch them out pretty quickly or they fall into
• 32:43
  a shot and they just stand back up.
• 32:44
  And then, and then there's a swimming version for the
• 32:46
  freckles. But, but for Sprocket, we have
• 32:48
  two hero versions and then we have a stunt version.
• 32:51
  And so to answer your question, he had armature wire put
• 32:55
  throughout his entire body that our amazing puppet rank was put
• 32:58
  in. And so we could pose them.
• 33:00
  So we basically just posed his legs and they're kind of similar
• 33:03
  to what Lily did. So we could match that.
• 33:05
  And then my two favorite things in the world are when I get to
• 33:07
  throw a puppet or I get to put a puppet in water.
• 33:09
  I just love it so, so much. So I was so happy to be able to
• 33:12
  throw him and I just, that was so much fun.
• 33:15
  That's great. It actually makes me think of
• 33:19
  there's not a lot of puppets in the water in this season.
• 33:22
  I guess, you know, last season there was so much about the
• 33:24
  water. But do you do you miss that?
• 33:26
  Do you miss like? Kind of getting.
• 33:28
  Up into the tank. I really do.
• 33:30
  And I, you know, because when I was a kid, but the thing I was
• 33:32
  always most fascinated by and would try to replicate in my
• 33:35
  home with my like kiddie pool disastrous effects or in my
• 33:39
  bathtub was the fraggles in water.
• 33:41
  I was fascinated, how do they do it?
• 33:43
  How did the water not leak out? Why don't I see the puppeteer?
• 33:47
  How do they do the switch out of the puppet?
• 33:49
  You know, the throw puppet going to the air and then the puppet
• 33:51
  coming up and splashing. Now I know it was all camera
• 33:53
  tricks, but I didn't know that. So, so I've always been obsessed
• 33:56
  with this. So yes, I was obsessed.
• 33:58
  They only had like 2 episodes where they were in the water.
• 34:00
  And you know, I, as Frank will tell you, I love those days.
• 34:05
  I love water days even though they were very hard to do.
• 34:07
  They're really hard to do because it's hard on the
• 34:09
  puppeteers through the thing through the pond, but also for
• 34:13
  the crew and for our our our puppet, right, because they have
• 34:17
  to puppets get heavy. Their foam, their foam in 3rd
• 34:20
  fleece. So when you take them out of the
• 34:21
  water, they weigh like 80 lbs or so heavy.
• 34:23
  So it's it's a hard day for everybody else, but it's but
• 34:26
  little Johnny's under there. Like like, I love it.
• 34:29
  Well, it should be. It should've pointed out as
• 34:30
  well, Johnny, while we all had our opportunity to go under the
• 34:33
  pond and stick our hand into a soaking wet puppet and take it
• 34:37
  on and off a few times, only one of us donned a wet suit and got
• 34:41
  in the water multiple times. And that'd be you, Johnny.
• 34:44
  I think Karen Prell went in once for a red shot.
• 34:47
  But that water, it like it leave water on its own.
• 34:50
  It never really gets warm. You know, the lights are off.
• 34:53
  They don't heat the place at night generally too, too well.
• 34:56
  But Johnny was in, man. And you know, I put my finger in
• 34:58
  there a few times. I was like, yeah, I can put my
• 35:00
  soda pop in there and chill that for lunch.
• 35:03
  Yeah, just throw John in, let him warm up the water a bit.
• 35:06
  So I loved it. You were that guy.
• 35:08
  I was that guy. I might have almost gotten the
• 35:10
  hypothermia the first season because of it, But that's that's
• 35:12
  not the story we're talking about.
• 35:13
  We're talking about season 2. But it was really, really, it
• 35:16
  was fun to do that. So more water in the future.
• 35:18
  Great, Great, if only for you, if not for the season.
• 35:23
  Three story blah blah blah personal pond in my apartment at
• 35:26
  home. I'll just, I'll just.
• 35:28
  Play continue the legacy of discomfort.
• 35:30
  John Tartaglia will now dawn his wet suit once again.
• 35:34
  Let's throw another bucket of ice in there for him.
• 35:37
  Yes. Go.
• 35:38
  I imagine, John, that you, you like go home and you're like, I
• 35:41
  just really miss doing this. Let me just fill up the bathtub.
• 35:44
  Grab a puppet. Where's my puppet?
• 35:48
  Just so I can exactly have that experience one more time.
• 35:51
  Take me back to Calgary. Please.
• 35:56
  In the Great Hall, the Fraggles are all decorating for the big
• 35:59
  radish ball. There are streamers and there's
• 36:01
  all these towers of pastries. And again, we were talking about
• 36:05
  the costumers, but the sets and props people also, huge, huge
• 36:09
  kudos to them. They're really out doing
• 36:11
  themselves. It really does.
• 36:12
  As you said, it feels like Fraggle prom and I especially
• 36:17
  got to point out the all these pastries and cakes and stuff
• 36:20
  because I, I know there's a couple of pictures online the
• 36:25
  people have uploaded to social media that are now on the Muppet
• 36:27
  wiki. And just to see the detail on
• 36:29
  them, like you guys could have done anything.
• 36:30
  You could have been a could have been just like whipped cream on
• 36:32
  a plate. We wouldn't have asked any
• 36:34
  questions, but they really. Did I want to give?
• 36:38
  I'm so glad to know that you've mentioned this because I, I, you
• 36:41
  know, they don't always get the praise of the puppeteers to get
• 36:44
  the attention. So that the case or the Corey
• 36:46
  and her her team who developed the props this season, they
• 36:49
  spent so many hours making detailed, gorgeous food that
• 36:54
  really did look like it was real.
• 36:55
  And I mean, up close, you know, I like up close, you'd be like,
• 36:58
  my God, that looks like an actual like jello radish or
• 37:02
  like, you know, I mean, it was, it was so well done and so
• 37:04
  beautiful and they cared so deeply.
• 37:06
  And it kills me. But because of the pace of the
• 37:08
  show, you don't really get a chance to ever like you're
• 37:11
  saying like sit and look at it. And there's stuff that's in the
• 37:13
  background that they spent 8 hours, you know, to make one
• 37:16
  little radish souffle that you see for half a second, you know?
• 37:20
  But if it's just that that level of detail, that want of the
• 37:24
  world to feel real, you know, and, and it's yeah.
• 37:28
  And the art direction, you know, you would be surprised how many
• 37:31
  meetings happened about streamers and about what the,
• 37:34
  what the, what the, what a, what a radish ball Lantern would look
• 37:36
  like. And you know, the radish disco
• 37:39
  ball and you know, why is it there's actually this shape or
• 37:41
  this color? You know, there's just so much
• 37:43
  stock that goes into it. All of them are geniuses.
• 37:45
  They really are. I'm glad you mentioned the
• 37:47
  Radish disco ball. That is easily the best prop in
• 37:51
  this episode. Good God, that is gorgeous.
• 37:54
  And you see it for a whole half a second, but it's amazing.
• 37:59
  I know. I wonder who where it ended up.
• 38:00
  I feel like Frank might know, but I feel like Tyler Herron,
• 38:03
  our production desire, took it home or something like that
• 38:06
  because that thing was heavily sought after.
• 38:07
  Everyone wanted that thing. Yeah, Yeah.
• 38:09
  We could have raffled that off and, you know, doubled our
• 38:11
  budget right there, I think. For season 3 right there.
• 38:14
  Yeah, you. Know so Uber tells Moki that he
• 38:20
  needs one more radish to finish his cake Topper, which is
• 38:22
  kitchen lingo for the thing you put on a cake I love that little
• 38:26
  that little bit in case you didn't know what a cake Topper
• 38:28
  was Bluber's here to explain it to you and then I'm here to
• 38:31
  explain the joke to you so that you understand it makes it
• 38:33
  funnier when I could to explain jokes always exactly we should
• 38:37
  so most of this new. Term Muppets Plain instead of
• 38:40
  mansplain. Yes, we're Muppets plaining you
• 38:42
  right. Actually I.
• 38:43
  Explain. Yeah.
• 38:46
  Moki is now short one radish, so I see Joe volunteers to go on a
• 38:50
  radish run for her. She doesn't mind missing part of
• 38:53
  the ball because she's a terrible dancer anyway.
• 38:54
  And we see her dance and you know, I, I don't think when you
• 39:01
  all are performing as puppeteers, we have I, there's
• 39:04
  ever a moment where I think, God, that looks like a puppet.
• 39:07
  But this is the one shot where it truly looks like there's four
• 39:10
  different people who are all performing.
• 39:12
  I see Joe and they have not spoken to each other about what
• 39:15
  these movements are going to be. Every limb is doing something
• 39:18
  else. Her eyes are doing this weird
• 39:19
  thing up and down. It's I, I think it's hysterical,
• 39:23
  but very much. Like you want a fun fact about
• 39:25
  this moment. I want so many fun facts about
• 39:27
  this, but yes. So I was sitting in my trailer
• 39:31
  watching the feed and I was, I think it was getting changed or
• 39:33
  something like that anyway and and I was watching it and it was
• 39:37
  actually. Too good.
• 39:39
  It looks too good because they're all such incredible
• 39:41
  puppeteers on I See Joe. I want to think it was vendor
• 39:45
  Shay Ellis Lalonde, Ingrid Hansen, Keira Hall.
• 39:49
  I'm trying to get Andrew Cooper who was on it, Karen, of course.
• 39:52
  And and anyway, they are all so good that it looked too
• 39:56
  coordinated and I got to give the greatest note I've ever
• 39:58
  gotten to give as public customers.
• 40:00
  I got to run out on set be like, you know what?
• 40:02
  It needs to look horrible. Can you do that?
• 40:04
  Like it was so fun to be like do your work basically to your do
• 40:08
  the most uncoordinated thing you can do because they're such a
• 40:11
  good team and they make AC Joe look so good for this giant.
• 40:15
  Rimmed puppet that that was, that was all.
• 40:17
  My favorite memories of that moment was to be like, can you
• 40:19
  make it look horrible? It's just not using the note you
• 40:22
  get. It reminds me of a story I read
• 40:24
  in a book by Jeff Emmerich, who was the engineer for a bunch of
• 40:30
  The Beatles songs. And I can't remember which song
• 40:33
  it was, but there's one of The Beatles songs were like, it's
• 40:35
  just sounds like an orchestral, like cacophony.
• 40:37
  And so they got the, the orchestra for Abbey Road to come
• 40:42
  in and like they said, just play anything, just make it sound
• 40:45
  bad, whatever. And they start playing and it's
• 40:48
  beautiful. And they had to say, no, we
• 40:50
  actually really need you to play poorly.
• 40:52
  And they all said we don't know how cuz they're these
• 40:55
  classically trained musicians. And you know, Abbey Road was
• 40:59
  not, I mean, that wasn't a rock'n'roll studio.
• 41:01
  It was like they played classical music there.
• 41:04
  And so they, The Beatles had to come in and like teach them, OK,
• 41:07
  here's what we want you to do. Like random notes and like
• 41:09
  scratch it and this and that and whatever.
• 41:11
  And it's that's the same with the Fraggle puppeteers of like
• 41:15
  you're classically trained puppeteers.
• 41:17
  Like how do you make it Well? It works against every, every
• 41:19
  instinct you have, right? Like you're you, you, you get
• 41:22
  your hand slapped when you're, when you're learning how to
• 41:24
  puppeteer, when you aren't coordinating, you're not
• 41:25
  together and it just gets in your body.
• 41:28
  So I think it was really fun for everyone to be like, we really
• 41:30
  can be that uncoordinated and that bad.
• 41:33
  It's like, yes, go for it, yes. Go nuts, be bad.
• 41:38
  I wish someone paid me to be bad at my job.
• 41:40
  Right. I thrive at that.
• 41:43
  Which, you know, then I'd lose my job because I'm too good at.
• 41:46
  Yeah. So I see Joe just needs to
• 41:51
  change out of her formal clothes and get into her radish
• 41:53
  gathering clothes. And this is also one of my
• 41:55
  favorite jokes where she just pops off her bow tie and she's
• 41:57
  ready to go hysterical. She's ready to get her hands
• 42:00
  dirty. Just had to take that bow tie
• 42:02
  off. Exactly.
• 42:05
  Speaking of getting dirty, this is where we check in with the
• 42:07
  Gorg's garden. The strawberries all seem to be
• 42:10
  rotting. The Gorgon Max is absorbing all
• 42:13
  the water or something like that and just poisoning all these
• 42:15
  strawberries. So Pog Gorg has some sage advice
• 42:18
  for us. Keep doing the same thing over
• 42:21
  and over. Never change.
• 42:23
  Double down. Double down.
• 42:24
  Yeah, yeah. Good advice.
• 42:28
  So Frank, this is our our one real shot of Paw Gork here, who
• 42:32
  you performed the the face and voice for.
• 42:36
  How do you feel about Paws evolution through this season
• 42:41
  where he kind of starts being friends with the Fraggles and
• 42:44
  then he goes back and he doesn't like the Fraggles and you know
• 42:48
  where it goes from there. But how did you feel about all
• 42:50
  this? You know, I think as much as as
• 42:53
  as Boober could use some therapy, I think PAW should
• 42:56
  never leave. You should sit down on that
• 42:59
  couch and just like bring a sandwich because it's going to
• 43:02
  be there a while. You know, Pennsylvania is pause
• 43:08
  all about end result and process is is just a consequence of
• 43:12
  getting to the thing for him. And and I love that about
• 43:16
  Pennsylvania because in in my own life, this earlier,
• 43:19
  especially process was something that I I also had a challenge
• 43:23
  with. I did.
• 43:23
  I wasn't interested in the path. I just wanted to get to the
• 43:26
  destination and, and over time and a lot of introspection, you
• 43:30
  know, I, I, I found a way to realize that the, the, you know,
• 43:34
  the path was it the destination was just to start with the next
• 43:37
  path. So to see Pennsylvania, you
• 43:39
  know, just screaming out, you know, double down, never change.
• 43:42
  I just like, oh, man, I know where you're at.
• 43:44
  Yeah. Poor guy.
• 43:47
  And junior is his willing accomplice.
• 43:49
  And I just, I, I enjoy doing Pennsylvania a lot.
• 43:54
  I think. I think it was really exciting
• 43:57
  to see it all fall apart in Season 2.
• 43:59
  There's a we can give it. There's no spoiler damage.
• 44:01
  Here, no, no, I just assume everyone has seen the whole
• 44:04
  thing. But yeah, feel.
• 44:05
  Free. Better have.
• 44:06
  Yeah, to see it not 'cause go watch the whole season, come
• 44:10
  back. We'll be here when you're ready.
• 44:12
  That's right, You guys know there are other episodes than
• 44:14
  there's one, right. OK, good.
• 44:17
  So you know, to see to see it begin to unravel for paw and
• 44:20
  he's still fighting it. He's oblivious to the, you know,
• 44:24
  until there's no other way. I I I can relate.
• 44:28
  So I enjoyed paws transition and in season 2 particularly, I I
• 44:34
  think I think he caught, you know, he really caught traction
• 44:38
  all the Gorgs did in in season 2 and that cliffhanger, man, I
• 44:41
  mean, that's pretty exciting stuff for me.
• 44:43
  And I'm already visualized, you know, what we could do?
• 44:45
  We could have Ma could be holding the baby, but it would
• 44:48
  be Ingrid's hand inside and we could ways to make to make that
• 44:52
  work when we come back to to shoot that.
• 44:55
  And I'm dying to see what the writers do with paws arc after
• 44:59
  that because he's banana for the first time in his life.
• 45:03
  Maybe when his his, you know, his paw paw was alive.
• 45:06
  He was second banana. But he's how long has he been
• 45:09
  alive? 600 years or something?
• 45:10
  He's he's more probably yeah, it's juniors around six.
• 45:14
  So let's call it 1000. I don't know off the top of my
• 45:16
  head. Someone will know and let us
• 45:18
  know. But Paws used to being on top
• 45:23
  and having the bottom drop out on him.
• 45:26
  I'm I'm dying to see what he does with that.
• 45:29
  Well, and you know, talking about both what he says in this
• 45:32
  episode and again looking at his arc through the season, which is
• 45:36
  hardly an arc because he is everything about him is don't
• 45:40
  change and even when there is change rust upon him after this,
• 45:46
  at the end of season 1, he goes right back to his status quo.
• 45:49
  And that's another reason why we need a season 3 is because once
• 45:54
  again, change will be thrust upon him by the big revelation,
• 45:58
  by Magor's big revelation. And I am so curious to see what
• 46:03
  that will look like for him and to see what I mean.
• 46:06
  He's he's the immovable object and he's got to move.
• 46:10
  So what happens to Pennsylvania? What, what else is interesting
• 46:14
  is with that, with that transition of the of the power
• 46:17
  hierarchy, AI think it's very topical.
• 46:20
  You know, I'd love to put women in charge of everything, like at
• 46:23
  my house. So.
• 46:26
  So, you know, how, how is that going to play out?
• 46:28
  And what, what, how will the dynamic between Paul and junior
• 46:32
  change? Because junior is, is his own
• 46:35
  soul, right? But he's Paul's minion in a way
• 46:37
  as well. So what's going to happen?
• 46:41
  You know, is junior going to find more independence of
• 46:43
  thought? I, I, I suspect he will.
• 46:46
  What's Paul going to do in isolation?
• 46:48
  Is he going to get so lonely that he befriends the loneliest
• 46:51
  Fraggle? I'm, I'm writing it in my head
• 46:53
  right now, John. Don't worry.
• 46:56
  It would be, it'd be really interesting to see PA do a full
• 46:58
  180 and come around to realizing that I'm nothing without
• 47:02
  somebody, you know? So we're well.
• 47:05
  And I think. I think the Frank's point it it
• 47:08
  the the Gorgs all had some sort of, you know, growth this season
• 47:12
  and that was purposeful because, you know, one of the things we
• 47:14
  walked away from Season 1 in the writers room with was that, you
• 47:17
  know, Paw kind of, you know, existed on one level for most of
• 47:21
  the first season. And part of that was because he
• 47:23
  had to and part of it was just the time to address.
• 47:26
  You know, it's hard to carry all those different stories at once,
• 47:29
  right, and make sure everyone has a full arc the whole season.
• 47:31
  But but also, you know, fire rock doesn't have a villain.
• 47:34
  You know, there's no, there's no, you know, they tried that in
• 47:37
  the original series with like Wander Mcmooch and those
• 47:39
  characters. And it's it's really, really
• 47:41
  hard to write a villain for fire Rock that that you want to spend
• 47:44
  time with. And, you know, pot is
• 47:47
  representational of there are people out there in this very
• 47:52
  polarized society we live in today that are very scared of
• 47:56
  change and very scared of what they know.
• 47:59
  And to your point, Joe, you know, they might get a little,
• 48:02
  they might take a step forward, but then the minute that like
• 48:05
  that fear sits and they take three steps back and and that's
• 48:08
  kind of who Pennsylvania is, right.
• 48:09
  And and and we've really discussed this is actually what
• 48:12
  Frank played so beautifully for the whole season.
• 48:14
  We discussed very heavily in the room about generational trauma
• 48:18
  and how we tend to carry on the things that our parents taught
• 48:23
  us that they may not even be aware of they that they are,
• 48:26
  they processed or didn't process that just gets passed on.
• 48:30
  And and you know that there's this awakening happening in in
• 48:33
  culture, which I think is wonderful of we don't have to
• 48:36
  keep those things going. We can be much more aware, much
• 48:39
  more responsible of the trauma that we're carrying on or not
• 48:42
  carrying on. And I think pop represents that
• 48:46
  so beautifully. And I think, you know, there's
• 48:47
  there's little, you know, even the moment I know there was some
• 48:50
  criticism. I read some criticism Joe on
• 48:53
  topics about the. Moment from who?
• 48:56
  From who? From me.
• 48:57
  Now I hope it couldn't. Be it wasn't from you, it wasn't
• 48:59
  from you that Jared Fairclot nothing no, but but someone
• 49:04
  mentioned I understand it that like even his his change.
• 49:07
  I think it's in the next episode of the episode after when he
• 49:09
  gives up the book to help with the windmill.
• 49:11
  I think it's 2 episodes later. You know, it felt so out of
• 49:17
  nowhere. And part of that's just again,
• 49:19
  time, it's just time in making things move.
• 49:22
  But also that is how things happen sometimes.
• 49:24
  Sometimes people have they just the light bulb goes on and
• 49:27
  you've got to catch it in that moment.
• 49:28
  So, so you know, he's, he's a very, he's an, he's a, a
• 49:34
  suspiciously complicated character who is fun to write
• 49:37
  for and hard to write for because he, he, he has to have
• 49:41
  some redeeming qualities that you want to spend time with him
• 49:43
  and you, and you don't want it to feel like he's only mentally
• 49:46
  abusing Junior and you don't want it to feel like he's only
• 49:50
  dismissive of his wife. And I think what I, I love where
• 49:52
  it gets to by the end of the season that Ma's like, oh hell
• 49:55
  no, I'm in charge. I love that.
• 49:57
  And like Frank said, it would be a better world if that was the
• 50:00
  case, I think. Well, and I think, you know,
• 50:03
  talking about, you know, Pop basically exists in this point
• 50:07
  in time to sort of antagonize both junior and Ma and and to
• 50:12
  another extent to the the fraggles.
• 50:16
  And if there's a a new baby frag, excuse me, new baby Gorg
• 50:20
  coming up in season 3, I can't imagine you guys are going to
• 50:24
  have him antagonize a baby like that just seems kind of a little
• 50:28
  bit too far for even for him. And so I think by default we're
• 50:31
  going to have to see a softer side of him that were compared
• 50:35
  compared to. And the family structure
• 50:37
  changes, right? Like, like, that's what I'm
• 50:38
  excited about is it's like, like, like Frank was saying, who
• 50:41
  does Junior become now, You know, when you're not the baby
• 50:43
  anymore? I had that experience in my, in
• 50:45
  my life. When you're not the baby
• 50:46
  anymore, it changes, you know, when that attention that always
• 50:49
  gets put on you is not put on you anymore.
• 50:52
  You know, you know, when Pennsylvania, you know,
• 50:54
  depending on if it's a boy baby or a girl baby, you know how
• 50:56
  Pennsylvania relates to either his new son or a daughter for
• 50:59
  the first time and and Ma with all the responsibility of taking
• 51:02
  care of that baby. So it just it's really
• 51:04
  interesting. Like if we knew it was a massive
• 51:07
  change in the Canon, we were frankly really like, I was
• 51:10
  petrified, to be honest with you.
• 51:11
  When that episode dropped was like, Oh my God, how are people
• 51:13
  going to react? This is probably the biggest
• 51:14
  change we have ever made. And and you know what?
• 51:17
  I love how many people were excited about it because I think
• 51:19
  it's going to open up a whole world of of new story and make
• 51:22
  this family tighter ultimately. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:26
  And and again, like we've talked a lot about the status quo and
• 51:30
  maybe it's good that we don't have such a strict status quo.
• 51:33
  We've seen it, we've done that. Let's let's play with it and see
• 51:37
  what else. These.
• 51:38
  Characters can do in a new environment, with new
• 51:41
  characters, new new interactions.
• 51:44
  That might be one of the themes of this episode, too.
• 51:47
  What as the Gorgs are doing, whatever it is that they're
• 51:53
  doing in the the garden, we see like kind of a laser cut out
• 51:56
  around a one of the these rotten strawberries and it drops down
• 52:01
  into the soil. It's the Doozers they're
• 52:04
  manufacturing these, these rotten strawberries and Cotter
• 52:09
  pin and the architecture there Cotter pin really misses like
• 52:13
  making things, constructing things.
• 52:15
  And the architect says, let me be Frank with you.
• 52:18
  And I don't mean the silly character.
• 52:19
  I sometimes do called Frank hysterical and that and I know
• 52:25
  like I've been saying this a lot when you're not on this podcast,
• 52:28
  Johnny, but like there's all these lines for the architect or
• 52:32
  for Barry Blueberry that I'm like, that must have been an ad
• 52:34
  lab And they're like, Nope, that was in the script.
• 52:36
  And like this one, like it seems like, OK, they obviously wrote
• 52:40
  something that's so in your voice.
• 52:44
  And I mean, the writers are just killing it with your characters,
• 52:48
  you. Know because yeah, they it's
• 52:50
  great. They really that was also Frank
• 52:52
  was in the script. Ironic that we're talking with
• 52:55
  Frank and and it was just a character that they came up with
• 52:58
  them. And I think I think season 2,
• 53:01
  they were so on to Donna and I and our Adams in between takes
• 53:05
  that kind of really influenced who are conducting become that
• 53:09
  they just had so much fun in the room.
• 53:11
  We had so much specialty in the room writing for them.
• 53:14
  And and to Frank's point, most things get rewritten on set.
• 53:18
  And so, you know, some of those some of those moments, even
• 53:20
  though they may have been, I thought of on the set were still
• 53:25
  written by the writers, you know, because they're not.
• 53:27
  And Alex especially are so on top of it.
• 53:28
  But yeah, I I love this. I think it's such a random thing
• 53:31
  that I just love core complicates like Jesus Christ,
• 53:33
  like I got to put up with this. Guy all the time.
• 53:36
  You know that when the first time I saw contemporary
• 53:40
  animation like like let's say Aladdin or something, where the
• 53:44
  the the the illustrators would go into the sound recording to
• 53:48
  watch the voice performers do the thing.
• 53:49
  I'm thinking about Robin Williams because because he's
• 53:52
  particularly animated and that kind of performance informs the
• 53:57
  writers and the and the illustrators how to make the
• 54:00
  character work. And Johnny and Donna have a
• 54:04
  lovely habit of of before we shoot any big Doozer scene, it's
• 54:10
  always caught her pin and architect talking, mainly
• 54:15
  architect. And he's like, you know, you
• 54:17
  know, caught her pin. Of course, that's my perfect
• 54:20
  impersonation of you, Johnny. You know, that was working and
• 54:23
  you just go on a tear about nothing or something.
• 54:25
  It would be something ridiculous.
• 54:27
  And Donna all deadpan. Yeah.
• 54:29
  Oh, yeah. I remember that tell.
• 54:30
  Me more about that. We all look forward to that
• 54:33
  because it was so silly and there was a consistency to it to
• 54:36
  the point where that became the defining characteristics of
• 54:39
  their relationship. And of course the writers picked
• 54:42
  up on that and it was, it was a lovely moment that we always
• 54:44
  look forward to at the top of a dozer scene.
• 54:47
  Well, we, I think what we just enjoyed giving architect like
• 54:50
  non sequiturs like, like, and just like he's had a lot of jobs
• 54:53
  that we don't know how he had these jobs or not.
• 54:55
  I loved, I loved like Donna, I think Donna Campbell said like
• 54:58
  it was like we had like 2 wheels that would spin like like in my
• 55:01
  brain or her brain where it was like a celebrity and a former
• 55:04
  job and it was something the architect was connected to.
• 55:07
  So it'd be like, did I even tell you a kind of bit about the time
• 55:09
  I was Joe Pesci's back KO Waxer? And she'd always be like, no,
• 55:13
  Sir, you didn't. And then Donna would do the most
• 55:16
  brilliant improv thing. She'd say, tell me more about
• 55:18
  that, Sir, And then put me back in the hot seat.
• 55:20
  I was like, crap. But it was it was just it was
• 55:23
  fun to, you know, I think, I think those user scenes are
• 55:27
  really hard to shoot. They're really hard to shoot.
• 55:30
  It's hard on the crew. It's hard on the camera
• 55:32
  department. It's hard on the puppeteers
• 55:33
  because they're stuck under the user Dome, which is low and hot.
• 55:37
  And, you know, everyone just needs those moments of of
• 55:41
  laughter. Try to keep the energy up.
• 55:42
  So yeah, it was never a problem to ask me and Donna to to play.
• 55:48
  My favorite thing on this podcast, at any time we bring up
• 55:53
  Cotter Pin and the architects, whoever I'm interviewing, it
• 55:57
  says the same exact thing that you guys were just talking about
• 55:59
  about like, oh, this is great improv thing that that they do.
• 56:02
  And everyone always gives an example.
• 56:05
  And every single time it's been something completely different.
• 56:09
  They did ever tell you about the time I was.
• 56:10
  And then it's something like no one's repeated.
• 56:13
  It's incredible. I, I think, I think we need to
• 56:17
  fit that into, into an episode at some point.
• 56:19
  I don't know how the you know. Or just make it but giant like
• 56:22
  wheel of fortune wheels with like pies of like, you know,
• 56:25
  charos makeup advisor, like just whatever.
• 56:27
  They just line up and you just go for it.
• 56:29
  Perfect did. You watch that.
• 56:32
  Yeah, the architect tells Cotter Pin that they've got to change
• 56:37
  with the times. They can't just keep
• 56:38
  constructing. They've got to be making things
• 56:40
  too, which is the opposite of what Pennsylvania was just
• 56:43
  saying, which I love that these two scenes come so close to each
• 56:46
  other that Pennsylvania says don't change.
• 56:49
  And architect is you have to change.
• 56:51
  And of course by the end of this season, we're going to see.
• 56:54
  Well, there's there's both, you know, there's obviously you have
• 56:56
  to change, but you can't just get rid of all the things that
• 57:00
  you need or the things that make us great.
• 57:03
  We'll get we'll get back to all that stuff soon enough.
• 57:05
  But as they're having this conversation, we cut back to the
• 57:09
  architect and he's wearing glasses and a second mustache
• 57:13
  over his mustache. Yeah.
• 57:15
  He's Frank now, and I got to say Frank.
• 57:19
  He looks just like you. I can help him with your glasses
• 57:22
  and your mustache. Obviously that's supposed to.
• 57:24
  Be you. I'm talking to.
• 57:25
  I'm talking to lawyers right now, Joe.
• 57:26
  I can't really. Listen, Frank, you signed.
• 57:32
  You signed the contract that says we could use your image to
• 57:35
  likeness at any moment. It's a funny bit.
• 57:40
  It's a funny bit. A double mustache.
• 57:42
  It's so good. I love it and I love that it's
• 57:44
  not commented on. Yeah, it's not kind of.
• 57:47
  And it comes out of nowhere. It's just on the cut.
• 57:49
  All of a sudden he has it for no reason whatsoever.
• 57:51
  Yeah. Yep.
• 57:52
  Yeah, he's just Frank. I want to point out as well how,
• 57:55
  how, how well it works that the two of them, they do a car scene
• 58:00
  and really all that moves on them is their heads and their
• 58:03
  mouths and to carry it off as two actors and then have the
• 58:07
  vehicle move. It's, it's, that's pretty
• 58:10
  terrific. And we just sort of do it and
• 58:12
  go, oh, such a pain. The focus is so tricky between
• 58:14
  those tiny heads and, you know, make those treads move and
• 58:17
  whatever. There's lots of issues making it
• 58:19
  work technically, but the fact that these puppets are, what are
• 58:21
  they, John, like 6 inches tall and we're doing two of them
• 58:26
  locked in a car. We're doing a car scene and it
• 58:29
  works great. And then the car drives away.
• 58:31
  I will never tire of that. That's that's the best of
• 58:34
  Thunderbirds and the best of every puppet show I've ever seen
• 58:38
  right there. I love that.
• 58:39
  I love. That.
• 58:41
  Raggle Rock, The best of Thunderbirds.
• 58:45
  That's our spin off series. That's the one.
• 58:48
  When when I saw all the monorails and the and the
• 58:51
  Doozer, the Doozer tractors and stuff.
• 58:53
  You could have just just everybody leave.
• 58:56
  I just want to be here alone for about 3 weeks and play with this
• 58:58
  stuff. It was beautiful.
• 59:00
  I mean, I have to assume that it it's been something that you
• 59:03
  guys have wanted to do and you probably would have done if you
• 59:05
  got 20 some episodes per season of doing a, an all dozer
• 59:09
  episode. I know the old Fraggle Rock had
• 59:12
  done at least one of those and you know it it would be a huge,
• 59:16
  huge challenge for you to make it visually exciting, visually
• 59:19
  interesting. But I mean, I have all all the
• 59:22
  faith in the world that you could pull it off and I would
• 59:24
  love to see it. Yeah, yeah, especially with the
• 59:27
  technology and it's, you know, it's the same RC, essentially
• 59:30
  the same RC components that the 80s show was made with.
• 59:33
  Just just it's better. They're better, you know, the,
• 59:36
  the, the machinery is better. But also just the evolution of
• 59:39
  like the fact that they have a monorail now and the fact that
• 59:42
  they have little iPads and they can do holograms and they could,
• 59:44
  you know, it's it was important to make them always be like a
• 59:47
  step ahead. Yeah, absolutely.
• 59:50
  Yeah, let's see what else they could do.
• 59:52
  Let's have them invent something.
• 59:53
  I don't know, do a whole episode about it.
• 59:56
  Anyway, back at the Great Hall, Boomers radish cakes are on
• 59:59
  display. They look delicious.
• 1:00:01
  As we said, Barry Blueberry and Sherry Contrary are there.
• 1:00:05
  They are introducing everyone to the great radish ball.
• 1:00:10
  Barry Blueberry get so much good stuff to do here and.
• 1:00:13
  Having him up against a new character with Sherry Contrary
• 1:00:17
  adds so much more to him. Especially my favorite thing is
• 1:00:22
  like that utter disdain he sometimes seems to.
• 1:00:26
  Have. Think Cher.
• 1:00:28
  You know, that sort of thing. Hysterical every time.
• 1:00:32
  So much, but we decided that Barry and Sherry definitely are
• 1:00:35
  like, you know, that like they're, they're frenemies that
• 1:00:38
  like go on vacation together and like they, they, you know, they
• 1:00:41
  definitely respect each other professionally and, and, and
• 1:00:46
  again, they go out because everyone expects them to
• 1:00:48
  together. But like, you know, but there's
• 1:00:50
  definitely history there. That's an interesting history
• 1:00:52
  there. Yeah, and yet, like you say,
• 1:00:55
  they they're probably going on vacation together.
• 1:00:56
  They're choosing to be together even though they're driving each
• 1:01:00
  other bananas. Even though they're rivals when
• 1:01:02
  it comes to the professionals. By the way, something I've also
• 1:01:04
  seen people comment on, and it's like real quick about Sherry is
• 1:01:07
  that they're like, oh, her tail is white.
• 1:01:09
  And there's two reasons for that.
• 1:01:10
  That is a modified background puppet that I mean, the puppet
• 1:01:15
  itself is new. I should say the puppet is new,
• 1:01:16
  but the the design and that background puppet had white
• 1:01:19
  hair. If you remember her from the
• 1:01:20
  first season. And what's really fun is that we
• 1:01:24
  were like, Oh no, Sherry totally just dies her her top head hair.
• 1:01:28
  She doesn't dye hair And so that's why it's white.
• 1:01:32
  So we thought that was kind of a funny little thing.
• 1:01:34
  Oh, I like that, yeah. Especially because she has like
• 1:01:37
  such AI don't have a picture of her in front of me, but she does
• 1:01:40
  have like a kind of a like a molded very straight hairstyle
• 1:01:44
  like it's. Sculpted.
• 1:01:45
  That's what I meant to say sculpted.
• 1:01:47
  So that makes sense that like yes, she would dye her hair.
• 1:01:50
  She would make sure it's in the perfect like she's she's going
• 1:01:52
  on TV or whatever the Fraggle equivalent of that is.
• 1:01:54
  So like she's going to look perfect and part of that is she
• 1:01:57
  can't have white hair. That's insane.
• 1:01:59
  It's. Business in the front and
• 1:02:01
  Fraggle in the back. That's right, Mary and Sherry
• 1:02:06
  also introduced Jandalyn and the Troubadours.
• 1:02:08
  They're back and we got our first song and It's Fun is Here
• 1:02:12
  to Stay, which is from the original series episode side
• 1:02:15
  Bottom Blues. I love this song, it's so good
• 1:02:18
  one. Of the best.
• 1:02:20
  It really is I and the fact that spoilers will hear it over and
• 1:02:24
  over and over again. It is the kind of song you
• 1:02:26
  really do want to hear over and over and over again.
• 1:02:31
  And I mean, this is just another one of those big like, you know,
• 1:02:35
  there's a lot going on the on the screen and everyone's
• 1:02:37
  dancing, everyone's singing. But there's one thing that I
• 1:02:40
  wanted to point out, which is I've been trying really hard to
• 1:02:43
  look in the background and see what everyone's doing.
• 1:02:45
  Cuz I know that the puppeteers are just having fun back there.
• 1:02:48
  And there's one ink spot who's handing out cake and he goes up
• 1:02:52
  to a fraggle, like a grey fraggle.
• 1:02:55
  And like offering him cake, the grey fraggle reaches out as if
• 1:02:58
  he's taking it. But you know, Fraggles don't
• 1:02:59
  have real hands, so he doesn't actually grab anything.
• 1:03:02
  And so because he doesn't grab anything, the ink spot like has
• 1:03:05
  this look of like, oh, like we didn't take it.
• 1:03:07
  And he looks all disappointed and like walks away.
• 1:03:12
  That was probably, probably Dan Garza because Dan Garza loves
• 1:03:16
  doing an ink spot and he loves business with an ink spot.
• 1:03:18
  And I'm 90% sure that was probably Dan Garza back there
• 1:03:21
  doing that for sure. I love it by the way.
• 1:03:24
  There's this also. I had to give Frank, Frank much
• 1:03:26
  like it's such a genius when it like I said earlier, when it
• 1:03:28
  comes to props and and bits, he get you, Frank, you get this
• 1:03:31
  movement with the tray that you do with Uber.
• 1:03:34
  I don't know how you did that, but you do this like as if Uber
• 1:03:37
  is like doing this dance with the tray during the song.
• 1:03:39
  I I can't even describe what it is, but.
• 1:03:42
  It's like it's like that rolling coin coin on the table.
• 1:03:45
  Yes, it is so. Good.
• 1:03:46
  And I watched that clip a million times.
• 1:03:48
  I'm still like, and I saw you do it live and I'm like, that looks
• 1:03:51
  so good. Thanks, John.
• 1:03:54
  That was fun. You know, that was a mini
• 1:03:55
  celebration because to get through that, to get through
• 1:03:58
  that, I mean, we cut back and forth between Buber handing out
• 1:04:01
  cake and that song and, and, and the band playing, right.
• 1:04:06
  But in order to get the master, I had to run through an ocean of
• 1:04:11
  CD stands, which is like, you know, 25 puppeteers and and
• 1:04:16
  these seven each get a slice of cake.
• 1:04:18
  And the tray has to be at just such an angle so that that
• 1:04:21
  person can get their slice and it's all on magnets and wires.
• 1:04:25
  And if anything goes wrong, it falls apart, which I, you know,
• 1:04:28
  I managed to do in numerous times.
• 1:04:30
  So I think part of the reason that that excited little tray
• 1:04:32
  move came out is because I got it.
• 1:04:35
  I finally got it because I'm moving backwards.
• 1:04:36
  Right. And then it's forwards and then
• 1:04:38
  I got to look at the floor and then I got to remember Karen C
• 1:04:40
  stand has the long leg there. Step over that.
• 1:04:43
  Then there's 17 cables for the monitors.
• 1:04:45
  And when it finally it and I got a lip sync while I'm doing all
• 1:04:48
  this right when it when it happened, it was like, this is
• 1:04:52
  great. I do a little tray thing.
• 1:04:53
  It turned out pretty cool. Yeah, and every piece of cake
• 1:04:56
  has a rod on it, and it's hanging off the tray so that the
• 1:04:59
  other puppeteer can grab that rod as if the puppet, the
• 1:05:02
  Fraggle, is taking it. So Frank's point, if he even
• 1:05:06
  just tilted that tray slightly, one of the pieces would fall off
• 1:05:09
  at the rod and the whole tray could be busted.
• 1:05:11
  So I don't know how you did it. You were a master in that.
• 1:05:13
  It was amazing. I, I recall that you were the
• 1:05:16
  choreographer, John. I didn't want to disappoint you.
• 1:05:19
  And it did. It did take a few tries, but
• 1:05:21
  it's, it's pretty cool. It's almost a disappointment
• 1:05:24
  when you see the final show as one of the puppeteers and you
• 1:05:26
  go, I worked so hard for that master.
• 1:05:28
  We got the whole thing and they're only using 4 seconds.
• 1:05:30
  They cut away. You know, it got away back too.
• 1:05:33
  But but yeah, that was that was a fun day for me.
• 1:05:36
  I actually really, I celebrated that day.
• 1:05:38
  That was a terrific day. And it really does look so good.
• 1:05:41
  Like especially as you said, of the Fraggles taking the cake.
• 1:05:44
  It looks so natural. And and I I'm glad you guys were
• 1:05:47
  just explained it because I I couldn't wrap my brain around
• 1:05:50
  exactly what was happening. Yeah, it's hard.
• 1:05:55
  It's it looks hard, but also so simple, like they're just on
• 1:05:57
  rods, like, I mean, that shouldn't.
• 1:05:59
  Yeah, you guys make it look so good.
• 1:06:02
  That's why everybody does it, because it's so easy.
• 1:06:04
  Yeah, of course. And Speaking of things looking
• 1:06:08
  so good, the ball was like a blast.
• 1:06:10
  Boober had such a good time. He said wow, three times.
• 1:06:13
  That's big for Boober. And he says as long as there's
• 1:06:16
  radishes, there will always be a radish ball.
• 1:06:19
  And Qi see Joe, who runs in in a panic because there are no
• 1:06:23
  radishes left. She looked high, she looked low,
• 1:06:26
  she looked 2, and you better believe she looked fro.
• 1:06:29
  And as we said at the top of this episode, Buber absolutely
• 1:06:32
  thinks that he's being punished for having a good time.
• 1:06:34
  That is such classic Buber. Yep.
• 1:06:38
  How dare he have a good leave? Yeah, really.
• 1:06:41
  I mean, he, he should know better than to have a good time.
• 1:06:44
  It's his own fault. It's like when you leave the
• 1:06:45
  house with your umbrella and it doesn't rain, or vice versa.
• 1:06:51
  You're. Like it's my fault you leave
• 1:06:52
  without. It Yeah, right.
• 1:06:54
  That's what it is, is you leave without the umbrella and you're
• 1:06:56
  like, it's my fault for not bringing my umbrella.
• 1:06:57
  That's why it's raining today. So Buber goes searching for
• 1:07:02
  radishes. He looks under a rock, which
• 1:07:04
  falls onto his toe. It which kind of looked a little
• 1:07:08
  bit like an ad Lib, like it was supposed to go on the thing, but
• 1:07:11
  it fell and then you kind of did a oof.
• 1:07:13
  Is that is that accurate, Frank? I, I recall that that was
• 1:07:16
  another one of those long masters.
• 1:07:18
  And I had, I had a wiggy day that day and I was, I was trying
• 1:07:22
  to, Dave did this beautiful thing somewhere in the original
• 1:07:24
  series where Buber would run into a corner and he'd lean into
• 1:07:28
  it the way, you know, the way a motorcycle would lean into a
• 1:07:30
  corner. And I, I, I started thinking
• 1:07:33
  about it way too much and it, it just clouded what I was doing
• 1:07:37
  And all I had to do was come in and I could probably remember
• 1:07:40
  the line to someone must have stashed some radishes somewhere.
• 1:07:44
  So I've got a double SH in there and I'm trying to do the voice
• 1:07:47
  and I got to run around the corner and it's like a
• 1:07:49
  three-part run. I think there was like a, a hole
• 1:07:52
  in the rock that I ran behind. And then I came across the
• 1:07:54
  foreground and then again to where the stuff was and I wanted
• 1:07:58
  to pick up that rock. Joe I, I it was all planned, but
• 1:08:02
  there was something about the, the Moss on the rock.
• 1:08:05
  I couldn't let it go. And because it was a tight alley
• 1:08:09
  and I had to, you know, Ingrid came in to help me out, but it
• 1:08:12
  kept sticking to my hand. And at one point I picked it up
• 1:08:15
  and when I went to set it down, it fell and I went ow my toe and
• 1:08:18
  I took a few steps away and then I went, oh, I threw that take in
• 1:08:22
  the garbage because I dropped the rock on my toe.
• 1:08:25
  And now we broke in continuity with rock placement, right?
• 1:08:28
  So if you watch the final take, they used the bit where I
• 1:08:31
  dropped the rock on my toe and then the rock mysteriously
• 1:08:34
  reappears. Oh, I didn't notice that.
• 1:08:37
  It was so good. I was there for that filming and
• 1:08:39
  it was it was so good. It could look so real.
• 1:08:42
  The way Frank made him react and, you know, say that oh, my
• 1:08:44
  toe. And he just felt so right for
• 1:08:46
  Reuben that moment. Of course, he would drop a rock
• 1:08:48
  on his toe because he's so like, like all of us do, right?
• 1:08:50
  When we drop things, we're frustrated.
• 1:08:51
  We're in a hurry. So that I think, I think that
• 1:08:53
  Paul the director was like, we have to keep that so good.
• 1:08:56
  Yeah, that that worked. That's a perfect example of
• 1:08:59
  effective editing because on the day I remember thinking I got to
• 1:09:03
  go faster, it feels too long, I got to go faster.
• 1:09:05
  And it was so much ground to cover that going faster
• 1:09:08
  literally became an impediment to me doing anything else.
• 1:09:11
  Right. What an.
• 1:09:12
  Uber lesson. Another Uber lesson exactly.
• 1:09:16
  Yeah, I like, I love the way that looks.
• 1:09:19
  Yeah, no, looked, looked fantastic And, and, and I did
• 1:09:21
  not. I was so entertained by it, I
• 1:09:22
  didn't notice that the rock magically reappeared.
• 1:09:24
  Which again, it's Fraggle rock. There's magic here, you know.
• 1:09:27
  That's OK. What's happening?
• 1:09:31
  So unfortunately, Johnny, I know that you have to run.
• 1:09:36
  There's a fraggle hole right next to you that you've got to
• 1:09:38
  jump in. It's going to teleport you
• 1:09:39
  somewhere else. But if we if we were able to do
• 1:09:43
  this all over again, I'm sure we would have loved to have had you
• 1:09:46
  for the entire episode. Yes, I'm sorry, I have to go
• 1:09:51
  make more Fraggle magic. I'm, I'm, you know, I'm there's,
• 1:09:54
  there's, there's wonderful Fraggle things happen, so I have
• 1:09:56
  to go. But I I, you know, I couldn't
• 1:09:59
  think of a better way to spend this time with you guys And and
• 1:10:02
  I don't know, it makes me happy to be with with both of you.
• 1:10:04
  Oh. Thank you so much, and we'll
• 1:10:07
  definitely have you back here on the podcast.
• 1:10:09
  This is not the end for us, Johnny.
• 1:10:11
  That's right. That's right.
• 1:10:13
  There's more. Yes, there's much more.
• 1:10:15
  There's always more. Thank you for for for heading
• 1:10:17
  off to make more fragile magic for us all.
• 1:10:20
  Right. I'll see you guys soon.
• 1:10:21
  Bye bye. Love you, Frank.
• 1:10:24
  Bye. I can't hear my friend.
• 1:10:26
  So Frank, you're sticking around.
• 1:10:28
  Thank you for being here. Yeah, if you want.
• 1:10:30
  If you want, Joe, I do. Yeah.
• 1:10:33
  I'm, I'm, I'm the poor man's John Tartaglia now.
• 1:10:35
  OK, I'll do my best. I just, I don't want to, I don't
• 1:10:38
  think anyone wants to listen to me talk to myself.
• 1:10:40
  So I'm glad that I there's someone here to, to shut me up
• 1:10:43
  once in a while. OK, let's get back into this
• 1:10:46
  episode. So you've looked under the rock.
• 1:10:49
  It's not there. You're checking.
• 1:10:50
  Boober is checking under a sheet of Moss and discovers a glowing
• 1:10:54
  hole as we established Red and Wembley saw the similar hole in
• 1:11:01
  Twisty Turnathon. And so, OK, so there's like,
• 1:11:04
  light coming up, but it's kind of flickering and there's like,
• 1:11:08
  dust that's passing through the light.
• 1:11:10
  Do you recall exactly what this effect was that that made it
• 1:11:13
  look that way? Literally a lot of light and
• 1:11:16
  then some atmosphere, some smoke.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's any post on that.
• 1:11:21
  I mean, you can't quote me on that because I'm not there for
• 1:11:23
  the post process. But it's a, it's a classic film
• 1:11:27
  moment, you know, where you have a darker set and then through
• 1:11:30
  this window or through this, this tunnel, there's this shaft
• 1:11:33
  of light. And when you add some
• 1:11:34
  atmosphere, which is just literally a smoke machine that
• 1:11:37
  creates a, a dense sort of foggy smoke.
• 1:11:40
  It's it shows where the light is and where the light ain't and
• 1:11:43
  where the light is just becomes this like channel of light.
• 1:11:47
  It's, it's it's quite effective. It's quite a nice piece of
• 1:11:49
  magic. Yeah, it looks real cool and it
• 1:11:52
  definitely makes it seem special as compared to like all of the
• 1:11:57
  other types of caves and and holes that we see all through
• 1:12:00
  Fraggle Rock. Definitely the kind of thing
• 1:12:02
  that like you would want to jump into without knowing where it
• 1:12:05
  leads. You know that You know that
• 1:12:08
  Buber was desperate for a radish when he was willing to be the
• 1:12:11
  first man down, right? Yeah, really.
• 1:12:13
  The first guy in. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:15
  No joke. It's kind of, it's kind of a
• 1:12:17
  counterpoint to his character that he would not be totally
• 1:12:20
  afraid of this, but he was more afraid, I think, of life without
• 1:12:23
  radish. So he's like, I might be here,
• 1:12:26
  let's go. That's right, yeah.
• 1:12:29
  That is one thing about Buber and and danger is like he may be
• 1:12:33
  afraid of it or he may, you know, shy away from it as much
• 1:12:35
  as possible, but he can deal with it be if it if it comes
• 1:12:38
  across, you know, like if, if, if he knows that whatever's on
• 1:12:42
  the other side of this tunnel, like, yeah, it's not going to be
• 1:12:44
  good. But he's used to things not
• 1:12:46
  being good, so. Yeah, I think, I think Buber's
• 1:12:49
  got his own coping mechanisms right.
• 1:12:51
  He knows that he's anxious and he knows that there's trouble
• 1:12:53
  around every corner. And yet who's the guy who goes
• 1:12:56
  around the corner? It's almost always Buber because
• 1:12:58
  he's like, that's right, do it. And he's, he has to, he's
• 1:13:01
  compelled to just get it over with so that he can go back to
• 1:13:07
  ironing around the button holes and stuff, all the good stuff.
• 1:13:10
  That's right. So yeah, so Boober jumps in and
• 1:13:13
  all the other frackles jump in right after him and we get this
• 1:13:16
  great shot of them falling through this like glowing
• 1:13:20
  wormhole. Did you ever see the TV show
• 1:13:22
  Sliders from the 90s? No, I'm too old for that one.
• 1:13:26
  But but I I was trying to think this morning, what does this
• 1:13:29
  evocative of? Because it was.
• 1:13:30
  It's a great effect, Yeah, Tunnel curving and them all
• 1:13:34
  doing their way. Yeah, shot in.
• 1:13:36
  There was ATV show, I don't know if this is deliberate, but there
• 1:13:40
  was ATV show in the late 90s called Sliders with Jerry
• 1:13:43
  O'Connell. And it was, you know, basically
• 1:13:45
  they would jump through these portals and they would go to
• 1:13:47
  alternate Earths, this multiverse thing that now
• 1:13:50
  everyone is in every movie, every every franchise.
• 1:13:53
  But the effect of them traveling was very similar to this.
• 1:13:57
  We didn't see them like floating on the green screen like we see
• 1:14:00
  the fraggles here. But they it's the same kind of
• 1:14:04
  like long tunnel that kind of curves with the effects.
• 1:14:09
  It definitely feels this is very slider Z.
• 1:14:13
  So they could have they could have fucked out of that Fraggle
• 1:14:15
  hole and it would have been that's true it.
• 1:14:18
  Would have been nice to like see them cross paths maybe.
• 1:14:22
  Yeah, sure. That guy looks familiar.
• 1:14:23
  I think he was on. He was on the Fraggles all pop
• 1:14:29
  out of the hole. And I love this shot.
• 1:14:30
  So we talked a few minutes ago about sprockets, you know, being
• 1:14:34
  balled up and kind of thrown. And it seems like it's a similar
• 1:14:37
  effect with the Fraggles being tossed, but the the rate in
• 1:14:41
  which all five of them pop out of that hole.
• 1:14:43
  It's like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
• 1:14:45
  Yeah. Is it actually happening that
• 1:14:47
  fast in on the day? I'm I'm going to say yeah,
• 1:14:51
  because the way they fall, Joe looks, the scale of it looks
• 1:14:54
  right to me. You know, they don't fall
• 1:14:55
  quickly. They fall appropriate to their
• 1:14:57
  weight. And and as I recall, we were we
• 1:15:00
  were already in our final position with our puppets and
• 1:15:03
  there were five throwers who just went 12345.
• 1:15:06
  Speaking of which, I love that little that they do on that
• 1:15:09
  sound is beautiful when they pop out.
• 1:15:11
  I just thought that was. Perfect.
• 1:15:12
  Had a bit of glass sound to it, you know, I just thought it was
• 1:15:15
  gorgeous, yeah. Yeah, it's exactly what you
• 1:15:18
  would expect from a Fraggle popping out of a hole.
• 1:15:20
  And to, like, make it feel fun. Not like it's not scary.
• 1:15:24
  It's not dangerous. No one's gonna hurt.
• 1:15:25
  Yeah, you know they're saying we.
• 1:15:28
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think I think that's
• 1:15:30
  important. Yeah.
• 1:15:31
  So I thought that was very effective.
• 1:15:33
  Then then popping in and out of that hole was, you know, one of
• 1:15:35
  one of the favorite moments for me of the of the episode.
• 1:15:39
  Yeah, yeah, it looks great. And, and of course we'll get to
• 1:15:41
  see it a whole bunch more times because they have now travelled
• 1:15:44
  back in time. It's the beginning of the nights
• 1:15:47
  of the Great Radish Ball. They could hear the music
• 1:15:49
  playing, they could hear Barry Blueberry and Cherry Contrary
• 1:15:52
  doing their intro. And Boober is so excited because
• 1:15:56
  not only it's like a double whammy for him, not only does
• 1:15:58
  this great night never have to end, you could just have fun.
• 1:16:02
  But they don't have to face tomorrow.
• 1:16:05
  There's no radishes tomorrow. We don't to deal with that at
• 1:16:07
  all. And this is the beginning of
• 1:16:12
  this great montage where they're just doing the whole thing all
• 1:16:15
  over again, again and again and again.
• 1:16:17
  And every time they come across something that they want to
• 1:16:20
  redo, they just shout tube and they all go back to the tube and
• 1:16:23
  they start the night over. So Gobo restarts so that he can
• 1:16:27
  have his guitar, so he can jam with the troubadours.
• 1:16:32
  Uber restarts the day so that he can make sure that everyone gets
• 1:16:35
  cake. Wembley restarts because he's
• 1:16:37
  doing this. Think of a number, any number
• 1:16:38
  trick with one of the other fraggles.
• 1:16:41
  Moki restarts to save an ink spot from getting hit by that
• 1:16:44
  fraggle, and Red restarts to nail this spinning dance move
• 1:16:50
  that she keeps falling at the end of.
• 1:16:52
  And this is the one that I have a question about.
• 1:16:54
  So what Red is is basically just spinning as if like she's on the
• 1:16:59
  end of a drill. What is what literally is they
• 1:17:03
  they they're great guys in the shop built and as I recall, Joe,
• 1:17:07
  it's a wearable rig that Karen puts on with a, with a a like a
• 1:17:12
  breastplate and a motor on it. And the motor had a, a vertical
• 1:17:15
  shaft that went to a pre rigged red in the, in the pirouette
• 1:17:20
  position. And then there was a so that
• 1:17:23
  meant that Karen could walk straight while red was spinning
• 1:17:26
  at about, you know, 90 RPM. It was, it was a pretty
• 1:17:28
  aggressive spin. And I remember that they had to
• 1:17:31
  change the position of red because if once it's like an
• 1:17:34
  uneven load in your, in your dryer, right?
• 1:17:36
  If you've got all the, the bathrobe on one side, the
• 1:17:39
  thing's going to go. And then red was doing this more
• 1:17:42
  of a vortex as opposed to a nice spiral.
• 1:17:45
  So she wore that a couple of times and, and used it to great
• 1:17:48
  effect. Oh.
• 1:17:49
  That's fun. I like that.
• 1:17:51
  Yeah. And also like, we don't have to
• 1:17:53
  tell Karen Prell, OK, so we need you to spin and like not.
• 1:17:57
  Getting sick? Yeah.
• 1:17:59
  Right. We need to do 15 takes.
• 1:18:01
  I think she tried it. I think she was pretty game.
• 1:18:04
  And at one point I think there was a a rotating Dolly that
• 1:18:07
  Karen could sit on and a couple of grips were spinning it.
• 1:18:10
  But as soon as you go a little bit off center, you just go
• 1:18:13
  shooting off that thing like a carnival ride.
• 1:18:15
  So sure, yeah, this solution was was appropriate and and safe and
• 1:18:20
  extremely effective. Looked looked brilliant.
• 1:18:22
  Great. I'm sure it's impossible to
• 1:18:24
  watch a monitor when you're spinning.
• 1:18:27
  I mean, just just to know that you're in the frame.
• 1:18:29
  Yeah, but Karen walking through frame with, you know, she was,
• 1:18:32
  she was just facing One Direction.
• 1:18:33
  It was, it was. And then there was either that,
• 1:18:36
  you know, the cutaway 2 or a second red waiting in the wings
• 1:18:39
  so that when she spun through and we came back and she was in
• 1:18:41
  somebody's arms with the eyes slightly crossed, which is a
• 1:18:44
  nice effect. You know, do that, do that as a
• 1:18:47
  one or just make sure that the spinny guy gets out of frame.
• 1:18:51
  Yep. Was that that was of the of the
• 1:18:53
  sequences that they all employed the tube for.
• 1:18:56
  I think that was my favorite. Yeah, that's pretty fun.
• 1:18:59
  Yeah. So Boober wants to keep
• 1:19:03
  repeating the day, but everyone is just exhausted.
• 1:19:06
  They want to end the day, let tomorrow happen.
• 1:19:08
  It's fine. And I like that Boober is just
• 1:19:11
  going like one more tube, half more tube, which I don't know
• 1:19:15
  what a half more tube would be, but I love that Boober's trying.
• 1:19:20
  And they say, no, no, we're, it's, we have to end this thing.
• 1:19:24
  We're going to seal up the tube with a giant boulder.
• 1:19:27
  And so as the Fraggles go and get this big boulder and they
• 1:19:29
  put it on the tube, they don't notice Boober's already gone
• 1:19:31
  through by himself. And he pops out of the tube, he
• 1:19:35
  turns around and the hole is missing and we now have like 2
• 1:19:41
  separate timelines. The the logic of the time travel
• 1:19:45
  here is out the window. Trying so hard as a sci-fi fan
• 1:19:49
  not to think too hard about it because it's like, are there two
• 1:19:53
  different universes now or is Boober going to catch up to the
• 1:19:56
  like? None of that makes any sense.
• 1:19:58
  That's fine, don't think about it.
• 1:19:59
  It's just fun. It's Fraggle rock.
• 1:20:02
  It's Fraggle rock. That's right.
• 1:20:03
  Yes. It's a magical deal with it.
• 1:20:06
  This is where we get our second song of the episode.
• 1:20:09
  It's called Over and Over and this is Buber singing while he's
• 1:20:15
  in the the Radish Ball day. And we see that he is now being
• 1:20:18
  forced to live this day over and over and over again.
• 1:20:22
  And it's a great effect because Buber is is clear in the frame
• 1:20:26
  but everything else behind him, all the other Fraggles had this
• 1:20:29
  like blurry look to them. Yeah, there's a surreal element
• 1:20:33
  to it for sure. Yeah, yeah, and definitely like
• 1:20:37
  we're getting some good like Boober freak out moments here
• 1:20:40
  and you know, talking about your you trying to kind of mimic some
• 1:20:46
  of those Dave Goles isms of his puppetry style.
• 1:20:50
  There's something that he does. I don't know if I'll be able to
• 1:20:51
  explain this well, but when in this song, when Boober kind of
• 1:20:55
  freaks out to the camera, there's something that he does
• 1:20:58
  where he kind of like sticks his lower jaw out a little bit and
• 1:21:01
  kind of a little bit of an angle.
• 1:21:03
  And it's something that I swear I've seen Dave do 1000 times
• 1:21:07
  with all of his characters. And it just feels like you
• 1:21:09
  really just channelled him so well in those moments.
• 1:21:12
  You know what, Joe, what's interesting about that is I
• 1:21:15
  think we were at that point, we were blocked shooting.
• 1:21:19
  We had three studios going and it was a, it was a Gorg day.
• 1:21:22
  So that's actually Johnny. Most of that clip is, is Johnny.
• 1:21:26
  It's too bad he's gone. We'll give him his kudos here,
• 1:21:28
  though. And he did a terrific job with
• 1:21:30
  that. And you know, Dave really
• 1:21:33
  cranked that song too, man. It was not a low energy song
• 1:21:36
  and, and, and Johnny was terrific.
• 1:21:38
  He was all over it. I mean, I think I did a part of
• 1:21:40
  it, but I honestly the the lion's share of that song was
• 1:21:44
  was John. Wow.
• 1:21:47
  Well, good for you for giving him credit.
• 1:21:49
  You could have taken all the credit and nobody would have
• 1:21:50
  ever, ever questioned it. But.
• 1:21:54
  This is this is the beauty of of puppets is that you can say, you
• 1:21:58
  know what, in this scene, I've got to be in, in three places at
• 1:22:00
  once. Can you do this, this character?
• 1:22:03
  And when you have someone as versatile and as, as steeped in
• 1:22:06
  the lore of Fraggle as Johnny, I, I think, I think he could
• 1:22:10
  step into just about any character and, and, and at least
• 1:22:13
  give it a, you know, give it a good throw.
• 1:22:15
  If not, do it better than me, which makes me sad right now.
• 1:22:19
  Oh, no, no. Well, but if you're going to
• 1:22:23
  have anyone step in for you, like what a joy that it's John
• 1:22:26
  Sartaglia. You know, it's not some some
• 1:22:28
  schmo off the street and you're like, you're making me look bad,
• 1:22:30
  kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:32
  No, but John. But John, he really hit that one
• 1:22:35
  over the park. It's a terrific song.
• 1:22:37
  Looks great. Yeah.
• 1:22:38
  Everybody pleased with that for sure.
• 1:22:41
  Yeah, Super fun song. Yeah, I, I very much enjoyed it.
• 1:22:44
  And also like, it just feels like you're inside of Buber's
• 1:22:47
  head and like part of that panic.
• 1:22:49
  And that's so delightfully Buber and really, truly like building
• 1:22:55
  that tension for this episode in in a really delightful way.
• 1:22:58
  You know, and it interestingly, Joe, just to comment on that,
• 1:23:01
  the fact that Buber was was quite content to have lived that
• 1:23:04
  night over and over earlier in the episode when he was with his
• 1:23:07
  friends, but without his friends, it's, it's a horror for
• 1:23:11
  him, an absolute horror and he can't wait to get out.
• 1:23:14
  He just doesn't know how. So I, I would like to think he
• 1:23:18
  had every opportunity to enjoy the evening alone the way he did
• 1:23:23
  earlier when they were all exploring the the joys of the
• 1:23:25
  tube. But it wore on him very quickly
• 1:23:29
  because he was he was so isolated, which curiously is the
• 1:23:33
  thing he's looking for and and so often.
• 1:23:35
  But when he finally has it, it's like, this isn't what I want at
• 1:23:38
  all. I want to be with my friends.
• 1:23:40
  Yeah, yeah. In your imagination, in your, in
• 1:23:45
  your own head cannon, how many times, or rather how long do you
• 1:23:50
  think Buber was stuck in these time loops?
• 1:23:54
  During that last song or for the whole episode you mean?
• 1:23:56
  For the whole episode, like do you think it was just like, oh,
• 1:23:59
  it's like an hour or two of his of his time or do you think he
• 1:24:02
  was like, was he in there for years?
• 1:24:05
  It's an interesting thought, I think.
• 1:24:07
  I think that all the fraggles are pretty high energy, so if
• 1:24:10
  you've tired out Red and Moki and and Gobo, you know you've
• 1:24:15
  done something. So I'm going to say 60.
• 1:24:17
  They went through 60 times and and the only one who's who's
• 1:24:21
  gained for more is is Buber again, because it's like, it's
• 1:24:24
  like heaven. I can be here and know what's
• 1:24:27
  going to happen and none of it's bad and I win.
• 1:24:31
  I win over and over again. Love to see Buber get a win once
• 1:24:35
  in a while, even if it turns into not such a win by the ends,
• 1:24:38
  but makes us seem happy for a little bit.
• 1:24:41
  Yeah, it's nice to see. Using.
• 1:24:43
  Hydroponics to grow radishes. And this is something that I
• 1:24:47
  also love about the growth of Buber in season 2 is we've seen
• 1:24:53
  him really show interest in different types of science.
• 1:24:56
  Like he's got hobbies beyond laundry and cooking.
• 1:25:00
  He's also interested in here it's hydroponics in another
• 1:25:03
  episode, it's meteorology and another one it's seismology.
• 1:25:06
  And like I, I love this little, this tiny little detail that you
• 1:25:10
  guys have added to his, to his his character.
• 1:25:14
  Yeah, I think, I think that's pretty cool where he becomes.
• 1:25:16
  You can imagine him becoming sort of a MacGyver when they're
• 1:25:19
  really stuck somewhere that he's got some piece of information.
• 1:25:21
  He goes, you know? Yeah, I know how to make a
• 1:25:23
  cannon. And he's professor from
• 1:25:26
  Gilligan's Island, you know? Yeah.
• 1:25:28
  Give him a couple coconuts. Yeah.
• 1:25:30
  He'll get you out. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:25:31
  That'll make. Your radio.
• 1:25:32
  So it's it's. It's pretty cool that he just
• 1:25:34
  offhandedly goes, yeah, I know about fog and I know about this
• 1:25:37
  and I know about, you know, botany.
• 1:25:39
  So yeah, it's that's a pretty neat element.
• 1:25:41
  It'd be interesting to see if there's there's more that that
• 1:25:43
  we can juice out of that later on.
• 1:25:46
  Yeah, I hope so for sure. So Katapan has figured out how
• 1:25:52
  to grow radishes without needing soil, because that's the the
• 1:25:56
  soil's all filled with Gorgon acts up above Kotter pins.
• 1:26:00
  Optimism for the future of these radish sprouts has has inspired
• 1:26:04
  Buber to want to see tomorrow again.
• 1:26:06
  That's this is this is hope for the future.
• 1:26:08
  You can't have radishes unless you make it to tomorrow.
• 1:26:12
  Meanwhile, while he's having this revelation, the fraggles,
• 1:26:15
  the rest of the fraggles are trying to pry the boulder off of
• 1:26:17
  the tube. It's apparently not too heavy
• 1:26:20
  for them to lift, but too heavy for them to lift a second time.
• 1:26:23
  Or maybe there's like a suction thing happening, I think.
• 1:26:26
  I think you got wedged, Joe. That's my theory.
• 1:26:28
  OK, yeah, wedged. I'll take that.
• 1:26:31
  They need a. Fraggle with super fraggle
• 1:26:33
  strength and an old timey strong build to help.
• 1:26:36
  And of course it's like what a unique descriptor for someone
• 1:26:40
  who do we know with an old? Timey build we need a taller
• 1:26:45
  than average. Fraggle with baby blue colored
• 1:26:48
  skin wears like a potato sack. Oh it's icy Joe, I should have
• 1:26:55
  known. Icy Joe shows up and she helps
• 1:26:59
  them lift this big boulder and as they lift it in Boober's
• 1:27:03
  timeline, the tube magically reappears.
• 1:27:06
  And I love this shot too, where Gobo's little hand kind of pops
• 1:27:09
  up through the through the hole and in we see inside the
• 1:27:14
  wormhole all the fraggles are doing we called a muppet ladder
• 1:27:17
  where they're all kind of holding on to each other's
• 1:27:19
  ankles. And they're up through the
• 1:27:22
  through the the tunnel here. And they pull Boo Boo back
• 1:27:27
  through and they all pop out of the hole one more time, But this
• 1:27:31
  time they're all attached to each other, which is another
• 1:27:34
  great visual. I mean, I assume is there
• 1:27:37
  anything different to how you throw a fraggle when there's
• 1:27:40
  like 5 five of them attached? I I think they did the the
• 1:27:44
  Wranglers went. Into hyperdrive to get all of
• 1:27:47
  the puppets wrangled in a believable position and then
• 1:27:49
  attached them firmly enough so that because I think they were
• 1:27:52
  pulled out of the hole as opposed to throne.
• 1:27:55
  So there was a monophilic spider wire or something attached to
• 1:27:57
  the lead puppet. I don't know if it was Wembley,
• 1:27:59
  I can't remember right now. And they probably had it on a
• 1:28:01
  long stick. And then, you know, 321 go and
• 1:28:03
  they just yanked on that stick and they just went and flew out
• 1:28:07
  in a chain. That's a tough thing to do, you
• 1:28:10
  know, without destroying the puppets.
• 1:28:11
  So like the wrangling department on set was top notch.
• 1:28:15
  Seems like fraggle fishing. Like you have it on the end of a
• 1:28:17
  frishing rod and you just I'd. Be a big one, mom.
• 1:28:23
  Buber has learned his lesson that tomorrow is where hope
• 1:28:27
  lives, which is a great line. And that's a great moral to the
• 1:28:29
  story. They're all exhausted, so they
• 1:28:32
  all decide to go to bed. They're going to have a slumber
• 1:28:34
  party and sleep in Gobo and Wembley's cave.
• 1:28:37
  And in the morning they're woken up by that same fanfare and that
• 1:28:41
  same announcement by Barry Blueberry and Sherry Contrary.
• 1:28:45
  It's like they're back in the time loop.
• 1:28:46
  But they're not here to welcome you to the greatest Radish Ball.
• 1:28:49
  They're here to welcome you to the great Radish Ball cleanup
• 1:28:52
  party with a healthy pause just before cleanup party.
• 1:28:58
  And I love this visual too, because Barry and Sherry are
• 1:29:01
  wearing these cute little robes and they've got little coffee
• 1:29:04
  mugs with their own faces on them.
• 1:29:06
  It's great. You know, there's a, there's a
• 1:29:08
  neat moment in there, Joe, that. I just, I have to acknowledge
• 1:29:11
  because it's it's natural when you're on set with people for a
• 1:29:15
  long time that you just you gravitate towards, you love
• 1:29:18
  everybody, but you just, there's some that are just become so
• 1:29:20
  special to you. You can't imagine your life
• 1:29:23
  after the show without them. And for me, it'd be Donna
• 1:29:25
  Kimball. I adored Donna and I like to
• 1:29:27
  think she thinks I'm all right too.
• 1:29:29
  There's a where they're all looking through The Cave hole at
• 1:29:33
  at Sherry and Barry and when they when they finally say great
• 1:29:37
  radish ball cleanup party, Mulkey's head leans on to
• 1:29:40
  boober. And I didn't notice it when we
• 1:29:42
  were shooting, but I noticed it when I watched it back and I was
• 1:29:44
  like, oh, I love that. I love that.
• 1:29:47
  And it isn't it isn't a thing. You know, it's not like a, a
• 1:29:50
  plot point that they're that they have a relationship, but I
• 1:29:53
  love that they have a comfort between each other, which which,
• 1:29:57
  which slid off of our friendship, Donna and my
• 1:30:01
  friendship. And, and there's a few moments
• 1:30:03
  where, you know, where Buber just kind of leans into Moki or
• 1:30:07
  Moki will touch Buber. I love puppets touching each
• 1:30:09
  other. I think that it tells entire
• 1:30:11
  stories, you know, so when there's a moment where Buber was
• 1:30:14
  pretty reticent about touch, when he does it, it means
• 1:30:17
  something. And when someone touches Buber
• 1:30:19
  and he doesn't react to it, you know, it's it's something it's
• 1:30:22
  very nuanced. It's very small.
• 1:30:24
  It's probably just for me, but there it is.
• 1:30:26
  I thought it was lovely. Thanks, Donna.
• 1:30:28
  Oh, yeah. That's a really.
• 1:30:29
  That's a really great observation.
• 1:30:31
  And you know, on the old Fraggle Rock that this happened more
• 1:30:33
  often than on back to the Rock. But I think because Moki being
• 1:30:37
  who she is and being a very, you know, little bit more of the
• 1:30:40
  spiritual character and being the live hand puppet as supposed
• 1:30:45
  to a rabbit hand puppet, I feel like she was always like
• 1:30:49
  touching the other Fraggles, always grabbing them, holding
• 1:30:51
  them close. There's a lot of shots of her
• 1:30:54
  kind of off in her own world, but she's grabbed Boober or
• 1:30:57
  Wembley or Gobo or someone and just like holding them close,
• 1:30:59
  like almost like they're a like a stuffed animal.
• 1:31:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that feels very much in
• 1:31:05
  Moki's. Character, but do you?
• 1:31:06
  Think that she was kind of showing that affection to Buber
• 1:31:11
  because she's like, oh, isn't it nice that we've made it through
• 1:31:13
  this adventure and you know, we've made it to tomorrow?
• 1:31:16
  Or do you think she was like, isn't it great you get to clean
• 1:31:20
  your favorite thing? You love cleaning.
• 1:31:23
  I I, I kind of think she senses the harmony coming back.
• 1:31:27
  To the rock, you know, and that the the nearest person to her
• 1:31:31
  happens to be Buber at that moment, you know, I mean, I know
• 1:31:33
  that Buber, pardon me. Red and and Moki have their own
• 1:31:37
  their own dynamic too, you know, as roommates.
• 1:31:39
  But I I, I think I noticed it because it was a parallel to
• 1:31:45
  what was happening on set, you know, between shoot days and
• 1:31:48
  stuff where I was like, Hey, there's Donna.
• 1:31:50
  I just want to be near Donna. I like being near Donna.
• 1:31:52
  I like being near everybody. But if everybody is in a row,
• 1:31:54
  I'll go see Donna first. So it was just a nice little
• 1:31:57
  beat for me. Probably means nothing, Joe, but
• 1:32:00
  but I'm going to read lots into it.
• 1:32:01
  How about that? Yes, please do.
• 1:32:03
  That's that's what this podcast is all about.
• 1:32:04
  We're just reading far too much. Out of every little every little
• 1:32:07
  detail, yeah. Frank, do you have any other
• 1:32:11
  memories from this episode or or other episodes that you wanted
• 1:32:13
  to share that maybe we didn't get to while while talking about
• 1:32:17
  it in detail? You know, I think that.
• 1:32:24
  When they were in the when they were using the tube, everyone
• 1:32:26
  got to do the thing they wanted to do until they were tired of
• 1:32:29
  doing it. And Buber would have never tired
• 1:32:32
  of it with his, with his gang if he could.
• 1:32:34
  Because not only see, here's the thing.
• 1:32:35
  Not only could Buber control what was happening to him when
• 1:32:39
  he had the tube at his power, but he could, he could make sure
• 1:32:42
  his friends were OK too, because they were all there.
• 1:32:44
  And when, when Goble forgot his guitar, it's like tube time,
• 1:32:47
  baby. And let's go.
• 1:32:48
  And they come back and, you know, they just fixed stuff with
• 1:32:50
  the tube and ostensibly Buber had discovered it.
• 1:32:54
  So it was like in, in his own way, he was a leader without
• 1:32:58
  having to be a leader. And he was a, a, a, a bold front
• 1:33:02
  man without having to be a bold front man because everyone was
• 1:33:05
  into it. And it just gave Buber a chance
• 1:33:07
  to like land in the in the comfy chair and enjoy it, knowing that
• 1:33:12
  he could get up and fix something and get right back in
• 1:33:14
  that chair again. Everyone else got tired of it
• 1:33:16
  physically. So, you know, I thought it was a
• 1:33:19
  nice exploration of Buber, and I love that he came to rely on his
• 1:33:24
  friends more than his comfort. I think that's I think that's a
• 1:33:28
  neat boober point. Yeah, I completely agree with
• 1:33:32
  all that. That's.
• 1:33:33
  And really well said. So Frank, there's a question
• 1:33:36
  that we ask everybody at the end of these these Fraggle talk
• 1:33:39
  podcasts. I'd love to know, how do you
• 1:33:42
  plan to make the world a little fragglier?
• 1:33:47
  A little fragglier. How do I plan to?
• 1:33:50
  Make the world a little fragglier.
• 1:33:52
  I might do a a a top bun. What do you think?
• 1:33:56
  Oh yeah, yeah, I like it. Yeah, like kind of kind of
• 1:34:00
  pulling a little a little bit out of Wembley's book of just
• 1:34:03
  like that. Let's just try a different
• 1:34:04
  hairstyle, random looks. Yeah, Joe, to answer your
• 1:34:08
  question. Seriously, I'm, you know, I'm a
• 1:34:09
  father. I don't know if I if I can
• 1:34:11
  mention this, but I'm going to You can cut it out, Joe, You're
• 1:34:13
  smart. My wife and I have have one
• 1:34:15
  child, no spares, and she just won a silver medal at the Paris
• 1:34:18
  Olympics. I'm going to try not Yeah, it's
• 1:34:21
  it's it's outstanding. So you know the.
• 1:34:24
  Process of becoming a father and watching this tiny helpless
• 1:34:28
  person become this powerful Wolverine and, and going to it,
• 1:34:32
  it's not just an international event.
• 1:34:34
  This is the best athletes on the planet Earth.
• 1:34:37
  And she walked away with a silver medal in her sport.
• 1:34:40
  It's it's astounding and it, it gives me hope for the future
• 1:34:46
  because I find as I get older, I get a little more pessimistic
• 1:34:49
  because there's just too much news and it's coming at me too
• 1:34:51
  fast. So when I watch a show like
• 1:34:54
  Fraggle Rock, of course the, you know, you can look at it a
• 1:34:57
  million ways and pick it apart and say what you want, but it's
• 1:35:00
  a hopeful show. It's a show about hope.
• 1:35:03
  It's a show about the future and it's a show about effort.
• 1:35:06
  It's a show about examining where you are critically and
• 1:35:09
  saying something's really wrong here.
• 1:35:11
  I got to fix it. I can't live like this.
• 1:35:14
  I can't be in this paradise where everything is everywhere I
• 1:35:17
  want, but I'm without my friends.
• 1:35:18
  It's no good to me. So I would say that the, the,
• 1:35:23
  the journey the characters take on Fragile Rock is similar in a
• 1:35:27
  way to the journey that that a parent takes with their child.
• 1:35:30
  You know, you invest and you and you hope and you, you optimize
• 1:35:36
  and you pray and with a little luck, you know the world is a
• 1:35:40
  better place because you put something good into it.
• 1:35:44
  And that, I think is the Fraggle ethos and the ethos of the whole
• 1:35:47
  cast and crew of Back to the Rock.
• 1:35:51
  Wow, beautifully said. Thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:35:53
  That and congratulations to your daughter.
• 1:35:55
  What a gift. What a what a cool thing that
• 1:35:58
  she got to do. And to come home with the medal
• 1:36:01
  it is, it's incredible. Yeah.
• 1:36:03
  Thank you. Thank you very much.
• 1:36:04
  Always a pleasure to talk with you.
• 1:36:06
  Such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for being
• 1:36:08
  here. Thank you for.
• 1:36:09
  Everything that you brought to back to the Rock, thanks to John
• 1:36:12
  Sartaglia, who unfortunately had to leave early, but you know,
• 1:36:15
  it's great to have him here as well.
• 1:36:17
  And Frank, we're hoping that we're going to do this again for
• 1:36:20
  season 3. Let's bring let's get the renew
• 1:36:23
  just so we can have another podcast.
• 1:36:24
  I'd love nothing more. Joe, thanks for your time today.
• 1:36:37
  Fraggle Talk, the unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast, is brought
• 1:36:40
  to you by toughpigs.com. Produced, written and hosted by
• 1:36:43
  Joe Hennis, Fraggle Talk art by Dave Holtzine Junior.
• 1:36:47
  Fraggle Rock mark and logo, characters and elements are
• 1:36:49
  trademarks of The Jim Henson Company.
• 1:36:50
  All rights reserved. Transcripts provided by Caitlin
• 1:36:53
  Miller. Fraggle Rock theme song written
• 1:36:56
  by Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee is used with permission.
• 1:36:59
  Special thanks to the Jim Henson Company, Apple TV Plus and the
• 1:37:02
  entire Fraggle Rock. Back to the Rock family.
• 1:37:05
  Be sure to follow tough pigs at tough pigs on all social media
• 1:37:08
  platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
• 1:37:12
  And please consider supporting us on Patreon or by buying
• 1:37:15
  merchandise on T public. For more Fraggle podcast fun,
• 1:37:18
  listen to Fraggle talk classic on your favorite podcast app.
• 1:37:23
  Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time down at
• 1:37:25
  Fraggle Talk.