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All About Wowsabout! · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:00
  Hey there Henson fans, this is JD Hansel for toughpigs.com.
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  Today we're shining a spotlight on a new puppet special from the
• 0:07
  Jim Henson Company for PBS. We're very fond of each of those
• 0:12
  things. The show is called Wows About,
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  and it's designed to teach kids about wonder and awe.
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  Shot on location at Sequoia National Park, home of the
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  largest trees in the world, the special follows a hedgehog named
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  Roxy performed by Dorian Davies, and a pig named Ronald,
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  performed by John Tartaglia, as they explore different ways of
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  connecting with nature and culture.
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  You can watch the show online right now for free on the PBS
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  Kids YouTube channel. I can't say I've ever seen a
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  puppet project use the natural environment this way.
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  It's a unique production, and I got the opportunity to interview
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  the show's creators about it. You're going to hear that
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  interview now. I am now joined by Wows About's
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  creators. Hallie Stanford is the founder
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  of the production company 7 Crow Stories, which has a first look
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  producing deal with the Jim Henson Company.
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  Previously, she served as president of television for the
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  Henson Company, where her executive producer credits
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  include The Dark Crystal, Age of Resistance and Frankel Rock Back
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  to the Rock, among several others.
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  Hallie, welcome back to Tough Pigs.
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  Thank you. I'm happy to be back.
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  That was fun hearing that introduction.
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  I felt, I felt like I was on like a 70s dating show.
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  Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Who's behind the curtain?
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  Oh well here comes another one because this wouldn't be the
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  same without talking to the show's Co creator Dorian Davies,
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  who likewise has many credits as an executive producer and writer
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  for Henson Projects. Dorian is a puppeteer who has
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  performed in projects ranging from Puppet Up to Word Party to
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  Julie's Green Room and is the principal puppeteer in Wows.
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  About. Hi, Dorian.
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  Thanks for talking with us today.
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  Hi, thanks for making us sound so fancy.
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  I know I love it. You are.
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  Fancy you are. What are you talking about?
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  You are fancy. You're.
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  Fancy. OK.
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  OK, I'll take it. Yeah, So Wows about.
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  Where did the idea for this show come from?
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  What's the genesis of Wows about?
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  Well, the genesis of Wiles about comes from, you know, whenever
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  we create a show at the Jim Henson Company, we always think
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  like it needs to have like a meaning for putting kids in
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  front of that TV, right? Like what do we want to say to
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  this generation and future generations?
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  And so we thought a lot about, you know, really wanting kids to
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  care for the planet and one another, and how are we going to
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  create a show that inspires them to do that.
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  So just kept noodling on and thinking about it.
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  And on a drive, as I get most of my good ideas, when I'm driving
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  through Topanka Canyon, suddenly came to me a little hedgehog out
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  to see the wows of the world with little hiking boots and a
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  guitar on her back like Dolly Parton, and thought that's the
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  basis, that's where we need to start.
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  And I was very lucky that within a couple days I saw an article
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  in the New York Times about Dacher Keltner's research on awe
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  and all its benefits. And one of the big benefits was
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  inspiring us to care for the planet and one another and all
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  about climate hope, which I knew that parents needed and wanted
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  to give tools to this generation as they grow up caretaking our
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  planet. And so it seemed the perfect
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  combo. So I'm like, yes, that's it.
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  She's out to see the wows of the world and experience awe.
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  And so then needed to find a hedgehog and knew the perfect
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  person to call to help create this character because it's so
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  important, as you know, in the Jim Henson tradition, to create
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  that character and build the show around that character.
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  And who better to do that with than the Amy Poehler puppeteers?
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  Doreen Davies It's. Me.
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  I'm the hedgehog. She calls me hedgehog.
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  I do. Well, let's let's talk about the
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  characters then, who are Roxy and Ronald?
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  Oh Roxy and Ronald. Roxy is like a an incredibly
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  free spirited, musical creative little hedgehog who has like
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  wanderlust in her heart and she goes off and everything she
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  touches she turns into art. I always like to imagine her
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  being the little a little hedgehog version of Andy
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  Goldsworthy, making art out of nature and in any way she
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  possibly can. Writing songs, doing dances.
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  She's stressed Crochets. Yeah, she's stressed, stressed,
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  stressed crochets. And then Ronald is our sweet
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  Angel pig, who is fastidious and persnickety and very kind of.
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  He's our eco warrior. He loves nature, but he is from
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  the city, so he's like one of the he like he has he's a card
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  carrying member of the Audubon Society.
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  He. Organized he he understands
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  things in concept, but not necessarily in practice, whereas
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  Roxy understands things in practice, but really doesn't get
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  the concept. And so that's where they that's
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  where they meet and fall in love.
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  No, no friendship. What do you think each of their
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  different perspectives brings to the story?
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  What can kids learn from Roxy and what can they learn from
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  Ronald? Oh my gosh, I love that
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  question. Well, they learn from each other
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  and you'll see it in the special.
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  But you know, they each start out with the same like
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  excitement, which is I'm here to see the great outdoors, right?
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  And Ronald is very, very excited to explore nature and to become
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  a junior Ranger. And he is somebody that like
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  does a tremendous amount of research before he goes on a
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  trip. I think that there are things
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  that like these are tools that we say could be could be
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  something to help you experience awe and have a wonderful wows
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  about. We're not saying you have to
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  only be a Ronald, but I think that that's what Ronald brings
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  to and also he has a real eco mindset.
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  He's all about leave no of print behind, take care of nature and
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  be very respectful. So I think those are the things
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  that he brings to the table. Not that Roxy doesn't love
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  nature, just she approaches it a completely different way.
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  Yeah. Yeah, her perspective on nature
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  is her is. It's something to be explored
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  and met, an adventure. It's part of her adventure.
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  It's part of her life experience.
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  I think she wants to make friends.
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  I think she meets Pecan and she's like, this is cool, let's
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  party Pecan, I like you. Weird moves are fun.
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  And then she kind of dives in deeper only to, you know,
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  because Ronald exposes her to things she wouldn't have
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  normally seen or done or. I love what you're saying,
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  though, Like, yeah, Roxy's definitely somebody in nature
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  that is going to like, reach out, talk to the Rangers, you
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  know, get get in it, get messy with it and wrong.
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  As you can see, the first thing he does is sit quietly and
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  listen to to the quail and listen to the trees.
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  And he is more of a solitary creature.
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  So I think we're saying a little bit of both is good, but put it
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  together and you'll have a really well.
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  Really good time. Yeah.
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  Yeah, One of the things that struck me when I was watching it
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  is that this didn't take the, I think, easier or more cynical
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  approach to writing a show about this topic where you have these
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  kids who, you know, are apathetic about everything on,
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  you know, on their phones all the time, just watching screens
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  and have to learn to get excited about nature.
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  They start excited about nature. And yet still you managed to
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  expand their emotional palates to another place by finding
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  wonder and awe. I don't know if I have a
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  question there, but if if you have anything I feel like you.
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  Experienced. What we were trying to write so
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  it like makes us happy. Wonderful.
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  You know, I think this age group, yes, I think that the
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  preschool age group that this is written for, but obviously what
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  we're finding out is that families, older kids, like
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  everyone's loving it so that that feels really good.
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  But preschoolers do love nature. You know, they're excited about
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  they I call it like they have their like birthday cake happy
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  everyday. They're like yay, a Roly Poly.
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  How many times you do a child's laundry and there's there's
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  rocks and she's CD show and sticks and.
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  Weird. Feathers and just weird stuff
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  you found in nature. And it's like, I don't
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  necessarily think this snail belongs in our laundry, but I'm
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  going to I'm going to put it out in nature.
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  Thank you for bringing this to me.
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  I think inherently kids are they're wondrous.
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  Yeah, they are. And so that was that.
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  That always felt like we had to deliver that.
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  It's just that now that they're in a place like Sequoia National
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  Park that is filled with some extraordinary awe and diversity
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  in the awe in nature. I think exposing that to
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  children, I hope what we're demonstrating is wow, they can
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  have a deeper and more meaningful connection with
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  nature. I know I do after filming Wows
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  about in Sequoia National Park. Like literally those trees are
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  they are giant Tolkien ants. They are absolutely
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  extraordinary, beautiful, motivated us to get up every
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  morning and honor them. And I'll just say so you know,
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  even you know, this 56 year old, like I've suddenly had a more
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  deeper and meaningful relationship with nature after
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  filming while I was about. So anyway, I don't know if that
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  answered your question either, but we love talking about this.
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  Talk about the trees for hours, man.
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  Well, can you share a little bit more about the production
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  experience then and how adapting puppetry production that's
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  usually in a studio to a National Park worked?
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  What were the challenges that came with that?
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  Lots of challenges I will say that one of the other reasons I
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  got into conceiving of Wiles about is that working on Fraggle
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  Rock back to the rock and the uncle traveling Matt pieces and
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  being able to put Matt out in the world in a kind of really
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  extraordinary way. You know, I went and filmed
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  uncle traveling Matt in Korea in Mexico City.
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  We just were like these look beautiful, these puppets out in
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  the real world. What would happen if we put them
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  out in like awe inspiring, you know, Ken Burns style nature?
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  What what would that look like? So I think that we'd already
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  done it in a short like like in like short pieces, but we'd
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  never done it in 1/2 hour special.
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  So it. Wasn't easy.
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  No, it was. Not we got a lot of like, can't
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  you just do this on a green screen?
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  Like there was a lot of like, how are we going to do this with
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  the budget? How are we going to do?
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  And we really lucked out with Jamie Burke, who is our amazing
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  producer who made it a reality. She made a read all the
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  logistics and then John Tartaglia, who directed it and
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  certainly knew exactly how to have these characters to be
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  directed and live in this natural and deliver comedy.
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  We wrote a lot of setups, we wrote a lot of different.
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  Setups. Yeah, they.
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  Told us we now nobody, nobody remembers.
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  They gave us that, yeah. But so it's a lot of prep,
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  right? We had to do a lot of prep.
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  We had to do multiple scoutings to see like to make sure we were
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  close enough that we weren't losing time transporting from
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  one area to the next. There was a lot of prep.
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  You know, we're at altitude, we're an hour away from the
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  hotels, there's no reception, no Wi-Fi.
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  There's a lot of a lot of consideration to be made when
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  you're shooting in cases like that.
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  And then also we're shooting in a National Park, which has a
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  certain amount of you, you, you can't just shoot like you would
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  normally shoot, but there are some sensitive areas where you
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  have to have a, a skeleton crew and there and you have to go in
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  earlier before the tourists come.
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  And there was a lot of consideration to make sure that
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  we left no trace as a crew and a production in that place, like
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  we're trying to honor it, not deplete it.
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  And on top of all of that, we had no idea what would happen
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  with the weather or the light or whatever.
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  Like I once got on my walkie-talkie, there's a bear
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  coming down 5 miles away towards your your set.
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  And I was like, I'm not telling anyone yet.
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  I didn't know about this, yeah. So, you know, it's sort of like
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  the natural world and particularly the weather was
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  always, you know, we just didn't know until until that minute.
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  Wow, this may be a silly question because I, as a Muppet
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  fan, should know the answer to it.
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  How does Roxy drive? That's a.
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  Really good question. And we're not gonna tell you
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  we'll. Tell you, we'll tell you.
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  So you know those remote control Power Wheels cars?
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  Yeah, sure. That's the inside frame of
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  Roxy's campervan. So Ian Opnagle is our art
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  director and Giles August was our engineer and prop master and
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  together they. Wrote this.
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  Wonderful van and so it actually works it's remote control it
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  works it can be operated and then Roxy was put in there.
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  We learned here was a learning little behind the scenes that
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  that they taped her hands to the wheels.
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  And so while the remote control operators were trying to drive
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  it, Roxy was driving it the other way we should.
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  So lesson learned. We won't.
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  The wheel would turn when, when the remote control car would
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  turn and her arms are really short too, so, so it would turn
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  her arms and then her face would lunge forward.
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  We had to, they had to like we were all kind of Frankensteining
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  and they pulled the wheel out and they put in a separate
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  wheel. It didn't turn.
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  And it was absolutely masterful. Like their their skill set is
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  beyond. And then I'll just tell you this
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  too. And then Dorian is sitting
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  there, puppeteering Roxy's mouth remotely.
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  With the RC, yeah. Off off camera.
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  So, you know, a lot of different elements had to be put together
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  to make that. That we call it the Kermit
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  riding the bike moment of Roxy driving that van.
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  Yeah. And then through the power of
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  editing, then you'd go to close-ups of her singing that
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  we. We filmed that.
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  We filmed and we created and this was Johnny's idea.
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  Johnny was very ambitious. Yes, we created, they created
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  this whole process trailer and then took the shell that was on
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  the outside of the Pow pow power wheel and put it on top of the
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  process trailer. And then Johnny and I sat
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  underneath it and puppeteered all the close-ups and, you know,
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  like that, all the cool stuff from the end and from the very
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  beginning. And it was a lot of crew like
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  pushing them back and forth like 8 times.
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  And there was like this slight incline and they were like
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  pushing and pushing, like turning around and doing.
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  And every time they'd be OK, another take and I go.
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  I'm so. Sorry I'm so.
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  Sorry, because they're pushing mine and Johnny's full weight on
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  our way. Oh.
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  Gosh, how? How many days was the shoot?
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  We were there 5 days. But it was like 1/2 day on
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  either side so we could travel. Yeah.
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  And then we also did a little bit of green screen shooting on
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  one day too. You'll see you've seen in the
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  end when they sing the song Let's Go on a while.
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  It's about you see all the possible places they can go.
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  So yeah, we actually filmed that on location.
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  We had to find a place to shoot and set up a green screen, which
• 15:02
  happened to be a church that lent us some space so.
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  Amazing. Three Rivers, Yeah, that has
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  great coffee. There's a good coffee shop.
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  So if anyone goes to Sequoia National Park, you gotta stop at
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  that. Amazing.
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  You gotta. Stop at Three Rivers.
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  That's like the Shire. Awesome, Dorian, a question for
• 15:20
  you as a writer and a puppeteer. By the time you've written a
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  script starring a character, you probably know that character
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  pretty darn well. Do you find that there's still
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  more to discover about a character you've written once
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  you're working with the puppet? Great question.
• 15:33
  Yes, absolutely. We were just up in Visalia for
• 15:38
  the premiere of Wow's About and Johnny and I got to improvise
• 15:43
  the whole time on stage and it was so fun.
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  And I was like, we're figuring out who these characters are all
• 15:50
  the time. Yeah, all the, all the, all the
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  time. And if it doesn't feel true in
• 15:54
  that moment, it won't make it to screen.
• 15:56
  But it's always, it's always a process to go deeper into.
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  It, I think it's a gift that Dorian had from idea to special
• 16:06
  airing 3 years. So Dorian had this wonderful
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  opportunity and Johnny as well, to just really play with these
• 16:11
  characters for a long time. And so by the time we got on
• 16:15
  set, they knew Roxy and Ronald. And yes, they'll keep evolving.
• 16:19
  I mean, they'll keep you in, but their essence that like that was
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  Roxy and Reynolds. So that's kind of a gift that we
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  got in working with Dorian and Johnny from the very beginning.
• 16:28
  Awesome. As we start to move towards the
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  end of our time, I wanted to ask each of you, do you have a
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  favorite memory of a time you experienced awe?
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  Awe in. Life or on the shoot?
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  In life, just any example of awe.
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  Well, I think tough pigs would like this experience.
• 16:47
  When I was a little girl, I, I grew up in San Diego and at the
• 16:52
  Museum of Man, they had the traveling exhibit of The Muppets
• 16:57
  when I was a little girl. And I remember walking and by
• 17:01
  the way, the news was there that day for some reason.
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  So I was on camera like stalking Kermit the Frog.
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  But to see Kermit in person as a little girl in the museum was
• 17:13
  that was definitely awe inspiring and definitely
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  inspired me to, you know, one of the reasons, many reasons that I
• 17:20
  also wanted to come and one day work for Kermit the Frog.
• 17:23
  Oh. My gosh, that's a really good
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  answer, Hallie. Awe in my life.
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  There are so many amazing examples of experiencing awe and
• 17:32
  I'm going to tell you one that just because I I am a crazy
• 17:39
  James Taylor fan, that's cool fact about me.
• 17:44
  When I was a little girl, my mom gave me a Walkman and we went on
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  a vacation and I only had one tape and it was a bootleg of
• 17:52
  James Taylor sweet baby James. And I listened to it for a month
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  non-stop, non-stop. And my godfather got me tickets
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  when I and I was young. I must have been like 14 and
• 18:07
  tickets to go see James Taylor at the Santa Barbara County
• 18:10
  Bowl. And it was my first concert of
• 18:15
  it was my second concert, but it was like the first, the one I
• 18:19
  remember the most profoundly. And it was like he was a friend
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  and I knew all the songs by heart.
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  And I felt like I was witnessing something really, really special
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  and sacred to me. And then last night, the reason
• 18:32
  I'm telling you this is because I guess it's his last tour ever.
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  I saw him at the Santa Barbara County Bowl last night.
• 18:38
  No way. Yeah.
• 18:40
  And it was just like, it felt like a real beautiful.
• 18:45
  Yeah. Yeah.
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  It comes in all forms, but music is one of them.
• 18:50
  Wow, my final question, will we see more adventures with Roxy
• 18:56
  and Ronald? Yes, yes.
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  We're just gonna say yes. We're just gonna say it.
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  Yes, we're making it so great. We are.
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  We're out there raising funding for the series, but we also have
• 19:08
  lots of appearances of Roxy and Ronald coming up at museums and
• 19:12
  hopefully more music videos that you'll see.
• 19:15
  So we feel like we're just getting started.
• 19:17
  Yeah. Dorian Davies and Hallie
• 19:19
  Stanford, thank you so much for talking with Tough Pigs today.
• 19:22
  Yay, thanks for having us. Hey, come on, let's go.
• 19:25
  Yeah.