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A Prairie Dawn Companion - Prairie Dawn and Character Development with Stephanie D'Abruzzo · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:03
  You know, on this show I've been asking a lot of questions.
• 0:09
  Now here is a question, a question for you.
• 0:13
  Remember, the answer will start with a cue.
• 0:17
  And the trouble is, the answers to my questions don't start with
• 0:22
  a cue. I'm asking why didn't Sesame
• 0:25
  Street have many prominent female characters?
• 0:28
  But I'm also asking why did some female characters work and some
• 0:32
  didn't? And that means I also have to
• 0:34
  ask, why are female characters excluded from so much of
• 0:38
  television? And I guess also, why are women
• 0:41
  and girls discriminated against in culture as a whole?
• 0:45
  It's kind of exhausting, and I wish I could just be like Grover
• 0:49
  and answer a cow and call it a day.
• 0:52
  Oh, OK, come on, cow, let's go home.
• 0:57
  But, you know, I really want to ask these questions, and I have
• 1:02
  to start somewhere. And as Sesame Street told me,
• 1:05
  asking questions is a good way to figure things out.
• 1:09
  So let's start with why did some female characters work and some
• 1:14
  didn't? Because today we're discussing
• 1:16
  Prairie Dawn, arguably the most successful female character in
• 1:21
  the early days of Sesame. Prairie is the only female
• 1:24
  character who has consistently appeared on the show for over 50
• 1:29
  years, debuting in 1971 and still appearing in new episodes
• 1:34
  today. So what made Prairie work as a
• 1:36
  female character, or more importantly, as a character at
• 1:40
  all, when her doppelganger Betty Lou feels so abstracted all the
• 1:45
  time? There was one person who I
• 1:47
  thought I should ask, and that's Stephanie de Bruzzo.
• 1:51
  Stephanie is a long time performer with The Muppets,
• 1:54
  joining Sesame Street in the early 90s.
• 1:57
  That's not to mention her work on countless other projects,
• 2:01
  including but not limited to Sesame Workshops, Helpsters,
• 2:06
  Henson's Wobulus, World of Doctor Seuss, Fred Rogers
• 2:10
  Productions, Donkey Hodie, and Broadway Darling Avenue Q.
• 2:16
  Basically, Stephanie has spent a lot of time helping develop
• 2:19
  female characters in addition to playing Prairie Dawn herself
• 2:24
  since 2015. So this week I sat down with
• 2:27
  Stephanie to discuss this question and a whole lot more.
• 2:30
  Honestly, I won't waste any more of your time getting ready.
• 2:34
  I'm Becca Petunia, and let's get some questions answered this
• 2:38
  week on A Prairie Dawn Companion.
• 2:41
  Ladies and gentlemen, the Starlight Hotel takes great
• 2:45
  pride in presenting the world's favorite 6 year old entertainer,
• 2:49
  Miss Prairie Dawn. Come on girls, girls, girls,
• 2:55
  let's go do girls stuff. Can you play a song with a
• 3:04
  beats? All right, so like I said, my
• 3:15
  guest today is Stephanie de Bruzzo.
• 3:19
  Stephanie de Bruzzo is, of course, a puppeteer who has
• 3:23
  worked with The Muppets for a long time at this point and as
• 3:29
  well as an actress and so many different things.
• 3:34
  Stephanie, do you want to introduce yourself real quick?
• 3:39
  Well, you kind of said a lot of it.
• 3:42
  Hi, I'm Stephanie Dubruzzo. I'm a I'm a multifaceted
• 3:47
  performer. I perform on stage with and
• 3:51
  without puppets and on little screens with and without puppets
• 3:56
  and on a big screen only with puppets so far and voice overs
• 4:01
  and singing and writing. And I've been a multi hyphenate
• 4:07
  since 1993. So yeah.
• 4:10
  Yeah, no, you, you were one of the people that I was most
• 4:14
  excited to talk to because, because obviously I'm a big fan
• 4:20
  of, of your work with The Muppets and without The Muppets.
• 4:25
  But you also are just someone who is so knowledgeable and and
• 4:31
  so interested in just having kind of like the the kinds of
• 4:35
  deep conversations that that I was really hoping we could have.
• 4:40
  So you were, you were very high on my list of guests I wanted to
• 4:44
  talk to. So.
• 4:45
  It's a very nice way to say opinionated.
• 4:48
  You know, I was really trying. I was really trying.
• 4:52
  It's very graceful. I appreciate that.
• 4:57
  Stephanie for for anyone in the audience who doesn't know, and I
• 5:00
  guess I'll have already introduced this beforehand.
• 5:03
  I didn't record my little pre interview introduction, but you
• 5:09
  have been with Sesame Street since the 90s if I recall
• 5:13
  correctly. Yeah, My, my, my, very, my very,
• 5:15
  very, very first day was as a, as a background puppeteer on the
• 5:20
  25th anniversary home video. We shot that in June of 1993.
• 5:24
  And my very first day on Sesame Street was was November of 1993.
• 5:29
  So it's, it's, it's been a good long time.
• 5:32
  And you know, over the years you've you've helped develop
• 5:38
  some some female characters with the show.
• 5:42
  You've introduced some characters who boy, since I'm
• 5:46
  going chronologically through things, we're not going to get
• 5:50
  to a full episode about Elizabeth or Curly Bear or Lulu
• 5:56
  until until a little later. But you introduced those
• 5:59
  characters and you've also, since 2015, if I recall
• 6:04
  correctly, you have been, you have been the the second Prairie
• 6:10
  Dawn taking over after a former guest of this podcast, Fran
• 6:15
  Brill, retired. Fran Brill, yes.
• 6:18
  Oh yes, so you have a really a really unique perspective on
• 6:24
  like what makes female characters work.
• 6:29
  And one thing that I always. Considering that I have some
• 6:33
  dead characters, I wouldn't necessarily say Lulu, Elizabeth,
• 6:38
  Curly, Bear, they're all dead. I don't know if what makes them
• 6:43
  work, but I'm sorry to interrupt you I'm.
• 6:46
  Trying to I keep trying to, to, to, to to hype you up and.
• 6:51
  No, no. Oh, I'm the first person to, you
• 6:56
  know, tell it like it is, but please continue your thought.
• 6:59
  I have I I apologize for for interrupting.
• 7:01
  Well, I was just going to say and, and, and making characters
• 7:05
  funny and and enjoyable to watch is definitely something that I
• 7:09
  that I think you're good at And what we're it's don't worry.
• 7:13
  It's not just going to be the Becca compliments Stephanie de
• 7:16
  Bruzzo podcast, although I don't know, maybe that's what you
• 7:19
  want. I.
• 7:20
  Mean I'm not complaining, but then I wonder what you're trying
• 7:23
  to sell me at the end. Is it Amway or is it supplements
• 7:27
  or? I actually have a.
• 7:29
  Or. I actually have a timeshare.
• 7:31
  Oh gosh, yeah. But, but you know, one of the
• 7:37
  things we've been looking at on the show so far is the, the many
• 7:41
  sort of like, I'd say attempts and I'm, I'm doing finger quotes
• 7:46
  that you can't see, but I'd say many attempts at sort of like
• 7:51
  making a, a female Sesame Street muppet.
• 7:55
  And you know, in in season 1, there was Betty Lou who we did a
• 8:01
  whole episode about how she isn't really a character.
• 8:05
  She's basically just a utility puppet with.
• 8:07
  Was it really Betty Lou per SE, though?
• 8:10
  Well. That's the interesting thing.
• 8:12
  She is called Betty Lou in season 1.
• 8:15
  Really. He's.
• 8:16
  Called Betty Lou in season 1, but.
• 8:18
  Who's voicing Like who? Who's puppeteering her?
• 8:21
  Who's voicing her? Is it Frank doing his?
• 8:24
  Little girl almost always Frank doing that.
• 8:27
  Little Girl pro. Yeah, it's basically piggy,
• 8:29
  right, Right. Piggy voice, Yeah, is.
• 8:31
  That this is this ATV studio? Yeah.
• 8:33
  Yes. Oh, exactly.
• 8:34
  Yeah, It is almost always that there are some distinct
• 8:39
  character traits if you want to force it and think too much
• 8:43
  about it, which is what I've been doing so.
• 8:45
  She's Betty Lou, but she has the braids.
• 8:47
  She has a little. Pink.
• 8:48
  It's the little pink with the braids and it's the same yarn
• 8:52
  braids. Right, right, right.
• 8:54
  OK, distinct from like Prairie has like realistic hair.
• 8:58
  Or right, right, right, More. Realistic hair and and so but
• 9:01
  but there's not much in the the way of a distinct character.
• 9:05
  Fran takes over as Betty Lou in season 2 and weirdly, Betty Lou
• 9:12
  is only in one street scene or excuse me, she's only in one
• 9:19
  episode where she's in more than one street scene right between
• 9:23
  1971 and 1993. So.
• 9:28
  Wow, yeah, I seem to remember her only in inserts.
• 9:31
  And it's funny because my memory of Betty Lou and you have to
• 9:34
  remember I'm born in 1971 and they weren't repeating the
• 9:40
  street scenes. So my only recollection of Betty
• 9:43
  Lou is going to be from inserts. And I always thought, and I'm
• 9:48
  sure that this is not factual, but I my thought growing up was
• 9:53
  that Betty Lou and Prairie Dawn were cousins.
• 9:57
  And it was like that city mouse, country mouse situation because
• 10:00
  the Betty Lou was more of the like had the overalls and the
• 10:06
  braids and Prairie had the dress.
• 10:09
  And so that was my interpretation of it growing up.
• 10:13
  Well, that's that's so much and again, so much of so much of
• 10:17
  what? What I'm hoping to to explore
• 10:20
  because it feels like a lot of what you're even saying there
• 10:23
  comes from books and I don't know if you had like the Sesame
• 10:27
  Street books growing up. I.
• 10:29
  Didn't have all. I had a couple but not.
• 10:31
  I mean, no one had all of them. There were thousands of them.
• 10:34
  Right. Yeah, No, I mean, I think like
• 10:37
  kids I know had some and I mostly had the records, although
• 10:42
  I didn't have all the records. Sure.
• 10:44
  I mean, there were thousands. Yeah, exactly.
• 10:47
  And I think kids I babysat eventually could.
• 10:49
  I started babysitting at 11. Like they had books.
• 10:52
  But yeah, like I'm always curious as to how much Canon
• 10:58
  there is in the books, 'cause I know that some books were
• 11:01
  written by some of the writers, but a lot of them weren't.
• 11:04
  Sure. No, absolutely.
• 11:07
  So it is this interesting thing, but certainly there isn't much
• 11:11
  in the way of a consistent character or or really with like
• 11:15
  any depth. And then there was other than
• 11:19
  that. As far as like female Muppets
• 11:22
  go, you literally only had Roosevelt, Franklin's mother.
• 11:28
  Who? Which was voiced by Loretta.
• 11:30
  And is wonderful. But it's just Roosevelt,
• 11:33
  Franklin's mother and granny. Means to an end.
• 11:37
  Yep, exactly, and Granny Fanny Nestle Rd.
• 11:40
  Who? I don't know how familiar you
• 11:41
  are with Granny Fanny Nestle. Road heard Carol talk about her
• 11:46
  but. It's not.
• 11:47
  Really anything you know the name is more.
• 11:50
  Memorable. Well known than the character.
• 11:52
  Weirdly, we really enjoyed I I had a guest on to talk about
• 11:56
  that last week actually, and we kind of enjoyed her.
• 12:01
  She's basically like if Mr. Noodle could talk, but she only
• 12:08
  lasted from 1971 to 1973. And wasn't that also Carol?
• 12:13
  It was, it was actually Jim originally and then and then
• 12:17
  Carol took over. So what you're really seeing is
• 12:21
  in in 1971, you know, and specifically the the first, the
• 12:26
  first the time we see Prairie Dawn, I actually went and
• 12:30
  checked the dates on is January 13th, 1971.
• 12:36
  Wow, I wasn't born yet. I was born in December of 71 so.
• 12:40
  There you go. I also wasn't born yet.
• 12:45
  Well, yeah, I know that. But I think there are people who
• 12:48
  think I'm older than I am, which I get, you know, embrace your
• 12:52
  youth. No, no, no, listen, I don't.
• 12:54
  I don't. I don't.
• 12:55
  I don't look at. It's no, no.
• 12:57
  I don't. I don't take it for granted at
• 12:58
  all, but. In care, you know, SPF always.
• 13:03
  You know it. I'm, I'm, I'm the one who's
• 13:06
  always telling, asking all of my friends like, hey, have you guys
• 13:09
  put on sunblock? Oh yeah, yeah.
• 13:11
  Parasols. Parasols, man.
• 13:13
  Parasols are the best. Yep.
• 13:16
  So in 71, we, we first, we first see Prairie Dawn and I, I, I
• 13:20
  talked to Fran a little bit about that.
• 13:23
  But one thing that I was really fascinated with with these early
• 13:28
  Prairie Dawn sketches is compared to so many of the other
• 13:31
  characters, it feels like you do have a strong sense of what
• 13:35
  Prairie's personality is pretty early on, which I was glad to
• 13:43
  see. Yeah, I had forgotten how
• 13:48
  erudite she was. I'd forgotten that this was a
• 13:52
  character. That and I'm sure that all must
• 13:54
  have come from the fact that this was a purposeful attempt at
• 14:00
  a character. You know, I don't think Betty
• 14:02
  Lou or whatever the Betty Lou was pre Prairie was not thought
• 14:08
  out. It was just an anything muppet
• 14:09
  that they happened to name Betty Lou and, you know, coming after
• 14:12
  someone's niece or sister or what or mother or what have you.
• 14:17
  So like in the early days, like Grover and Cookie and and and
• 14:25
  and Bert and Ernie, well, maybe not Cookie, but like Grover and
• 14:29
  Bert and Ernie and Big Bird and Oscar and and the count was, you
• 14:35
  know, predated and and I mean, sorry, the count was the season
• 14:39
  before that. And no, was the same season.
• 14:42
  I'm sorry, no. No, the count, the counts counts
• 14:44
  actually after this. Well, OK, so, but I'm sure it
• 14:47
  was being developed around the same time.
• 14:48
  Sure. Oh yeah, I know.
• 14:49
  They're all very close in time. And obviously again, like
• 14:53
  unfortunately we can't know the the like exact full history, you
• 14:57
  know, no. No, no.
• 14:58
  But but I mean I'm saying if they're both in season 2,
• 15:01
  they're doing pre production on season 2 simultaneously.
• 15:04
  Yeah, absolutely. Characters are being thought
• 15:07
  out, you know, now that Cookie Monster is called Cookie
• 15:09
  Monster, they're like, OK, we're going to create these new
• 15:12
  characters. There has to be something to
• 15:15
  them. So thought is being put into
• 15:20
  Prairie Dawn at this point, and I mean, I'm guessing again.
• 15:25
  Yeah, we can only, we can only guess.
• 15:27
  And again. But but based on the other
• 15:29
  characters that were being introduced at this time, you
• 15:32
  know, Snuffleupagus and there is there is purpose behind them.
• 15:37
  They are not just a means to an end like Roosevelt Franklin's
• 15:40
  mother or the five people in my family or, you know, any of the
• 15:45
  anything Muppets with the interchangeable pieces that are
• 15:48
  just there to play the role needed for the insert.
• 15:52
  So absolutely. Yeah.
• 15:54
  So I did. Did Fran, did Fran talk about
• 16:00
  having input on the character, or was she just at the mercy of
• 16:04
  what she was given in the script?
• 16:07
  You know what what Fran talks about and obviously part of the
• 16:11
  thing, and, and I'm sure you can understand this is I wonder
• 16:14
  obviously how much Fran remembers because there's a
• 16:17
  certain point where it's like, A, this was 50 years ago, B, it
• 16:22
  was just her job. You know what I mean?
• 16:25
  Like, yeah. And.
• 16:26
  That's what I'm saying is I'm guessing.
• 16:28
  Yeah, and one thing. Wasn't consulted.
• 16:30
  And one thing that we talked about, too, was that Fran didn't
• 16:35
  even really think of puppetry as her as her full main job.
• 16:40
  Yeah, which I mean, I know, you know, but but one thing that she
• 16:45
  she did talk about was that it very much was her her trying to
• 16:51
  figure out what this character would sound like based on what
• 16:56
  the character looked like. And it was a conversation about
• 16:59
  that. Obviously other people were
• 17:02
  writing the scripts and while there's certainly some I'm, you
• 17:07
  know, I'm sure there's some ad libbing going on because they're
• 17:09
  almost always is some this, this absolutely this stuff feels very
• 17:15
  specifically written. But yeah, it's a little tough to
• 17:20
  know how much you know. And she she takes credit,
• 17:23
  obviously, or has taken credit for the name Prairie Dawn.
• 17:26
  Because she was just little girl before.
• 17:28
  Yeah, well, it's it's actually interesting.
• 17:31
  The first sketch she appears in is the the one with Sherlock
• 17:35
  Hemlock, who had also debuted this season.
• 17:37
  Right. Yep.
• 17:39
  Sherlock Hemlock sees all. Hello.
• 17:42
  Oh, I didn't see you. What do you suppose has been
• 17:45
  happening here? Has something been happening
• 17:48
  here? Oh yes.
• 17:49
  Indeed. Look, there's all this stuff on
• 17:51
  my friend's lawn. Stuff on the lawn?
• 17:55
  That sounds like a job for Sherlock Hemlock.
• 18:01
  Let's look for clues all. Right.
• 18:04
  I sent you some clips and the Sherlock Hemlock one.
• 18:07
  The Sherlock Hemlock one I cut short because halfway through it
• 18:10
  really just becomes Sherlock Hemlock listing things.
• 18:13
  Yeah, she's Penelope in that. She's.
• 18:16
  Referred to as Penelope and then she's referred to as little girl
• 18:20
  for a while and then it's it's it's not until like April, so
• 18:26
  like four months later that that they actually start calling her
• 18:29
  Prairie. But again, there there is this
• 18:34
  consistency too. And even if that consistency
• 18:37
  isn't tied to the name, and she is little girl in some ways the
• 18:42
  same way as Betty Lou was just little girl, right.
• 18:46
  That first thing that I, I I'm, I'm so glad you pointed out is
• 18:49
  that fact that her thing at first was that she was very
• 18:53
  erudite to use the word that you used.
• 18:56
  Yeah. There was this whole thing where
• 18:58
  it was like she used these, like, $10 words.
• 19:02
  Yeah. That then the adults would
• 19:04
  basically translate. Well then, it is my lucky day.
• 19:09
  It is most advantageous that you have encountered us.
• 19:12
  What? Oh, she said.
• 19:14
  It's lucky that. You happen to be passing by and
• 19:16
  met all of us right here. Yeah, I, I found that
• 19:21
  fascinating because I don't obviously that had gone away a
• 19:24
  little bit by the time I was watching the show.
• 19:28
  Yeah, as far as the translation of the words, but I really like
• 19:32
  that and I've always tried to, I guess I haven't really.
• 19:37
  I didn't really connect the dots to that, but I just know that
• 19:40
  she is well, she's always been well spoken like always.
• 19:44
  That's that's remained, but I think the level of erudite has
• 19:50
  diminished a little bit. Certainly the translation went
• 19:52
  away. Yeah, and it's, it's, it's
• 19:54
  something we see go away. You know, again, I sent you a
• 19:57
  bunch of clips just from the 70s and it's something that I think
• 20:00
  we, we do see go away, you know, by, by the pageants.
• 20:05
  And that's what I'd really love to, to, to talk about is like
• 20:08
  that doesn't feel like an element of the, the pageant
• 20:11
  structure, but that sense that like she's, she's smart and
• 20:16
  she's very particular and. You know she's she's quiet, but
• 20:23
  not. Not meek.
• 20:25
  Yes, exactly. Exactly.
• 20:27
  She is scared of mice. That is true that that comes up
• 20:29
  twice that she's scared of mice, but I I really liked that and
• 20:37
  that felt really interesting as as I mean, again, like obviously
• 20:42
  I'm I'm I'm a fan of this character and I I mean I'm a fan
• 20:45
  of all The Muppets, but but Prairie is my favorite.
• 20:48
  And a lot of that again comes from obviously later stuff And
• 20:52
  some of the the really, really funny stuff, especially in the
• 20:56
  the 90s, like singing in the rain with Grover is the one
• 20:59
  everyone always sites. But like, it was really
• 21:03
  refreshing to to see a, a kind of character that I felt like I
• 21:08
  understood after, you know, doing 4 episodes prior to this
• 21:12
  where I was like, I don't know. And then this this time Betty
• 21:16
  Lou is this time she's performed by Jerry Nelson.
• 21:20
  And she she wants to build using a hammer.
• 21:23
  And it's like, yeah, So it was, it was really it, it, it, it
• 21:27
  was, it was definitely a relief to kind of catch up.
• 21:31
  Like after doing these 4 episodes where I didn't
• 21:34
  understand what I was talking about.
• 21:37
  It felt good to be like this is this is it here and you know.
• 21:41
  Some of that some of that's just the consistency of having a
• 21:44
  single performer performant, like you said, if you have a
• 21:48
  character that sometimes is performed by Frank and sometimes
• 21:51
  performed by Jerry and sometimes maybe even I don't know, you
• 21:55
  know, in other cases, there were characters voiced by Marilyn
• 21:57
  Sokol and puppeteered by one of the guys or, or even Carol or,
• 22:03
  or, or in the case, I mean, that happened later, but Roosevelt,
• 22:08
  Franklin's classmates, you know, being voiced by Sonia and
• 22:11
  Loretta. So to have that consistency of
• 22:16
  character and have Fran interpret this little girl, even
• 22:21
  if she didn't have a consistent name yet, but to, to, to, to
• 22:26
  take the look of Prairie because that that that was the same
• 22:29
  puppet, right? She didn't change except for,
• 22:31
  you know, the she didn't really that that that little Prairie
• 22:35
  puppet didn't change much. They.
• 22:37
  Unsewed the handkerchief which which I'm glad about.
• 22:42
  Yes, yes, well, yes, it could have been worse.
• 22:45
  It could have been gloves and. Yeah, she has a for those.
• 22:49
  I mean, again, like this is an audio medium.
• 22:51
  She has a handkerchief sewn to her her left hand in the first
• 22:57
  like 10 or so appearances. The the, the, the video quality
• 23:02
  is so like, you know, you have to remember.
• 23:05
  Yeah, I mean. Definition television on a 13
• 23:07
  inch screen. Back then, no one was even going
• 23:09
  to see that handkerchief. I never.
• 23:12
  So I'm going to say I never noticed it until when I had Fran
• 23:17
  on two weeks ago. Fran mentioned Prairie's
• 23:20
  handkerchief and I was like, I was like, there's a
• 23:24
  handkerchief. And then I then I went back and
• 23:27
  I was like, boy, there sure is a handkerchief.
• 23:30
  Yeah, I've never noticed that. That's hilarious.
• 23:33
  But but going back to the consistency of the look of the
• 23:36
  character, handkerchief notwithstanding, if if Fran is,
• 23:40
  you know, and Fran's new to puppetry and so she's
• 23:43
  establishing this character. And one thing that Fran is very,
• 23:46
  very good at, you know, she comes from theater and you are,
• 23:52
  there's a consistency required in theater, right?
• 23:56
  Because you rehearse and rehearse and rehearse to get to
• 24:00
  a point where a show is locked and then you have to maintain
• 24:03
  that show. And I know that there are
• 24:05
  different schools of thought on actors who like to shake it up
• 24:09
  every night. But if you shake it up every
• 24:11
  night, it's a House of Cards and can come tumbling down.
• 24:14
  There needs to be a certain amount of consistency.
• 24:16
  That's not to say you're doing it rote or or robotic or, you
• 24:22
  know, not mindful, not being reactive, but they're does need
• 24:26
  to be consistency of intent. And Fran made Prairie very
• 24:31
  consistent, and I think that consistency and nailing that
• 24:37
  feel and sound helped. Now you've, I mean, and that's,
• 24:43
  that's such a great point. And obviously, like, again, this
• 24:46
  this ties into to some of some of your background, like when
• 24:52
  you when you get or when you got Oh, that feels mean to phrase it
• 24:58
  that way. When you got new, new, new
• 25:01
  puppet characters like we were talking about, like how much
• 25:06
  when you you know, with, with Elizabeth and Lulu and Curly
• 25:09
  Bear and also like your characters on other shows, you
• 25:13
  know, on, on Don Quixote on Wobbulus world on, you know, on
• 25:20
  oh, helpsters, How can I forget the helpsters?
• 25:23
  How, how do you go about sort of developing like a character?
• 25:28
  Were you given sort of the, the, the freedom to design, you know,
• 25:34
  to develop the personality your way?
• 25:37
  Were you just working with a script?
• 25:38
  Like how did it feel for you? And obviously this was 20 years
• 25:42
  later, but like what was what was that experience like in that
• 25:47
  case? Well, it's different every time,
• 25:49
  you know, And in the case of Elizabeth, she started out as
• 25:52
  just a one off anything Muppet who showed up at the end of a
• 25:56
  script. It was an episode where Jerry
• 25:58
  Nelson had a little boy character named Jerome who moved
• 26:01
  to Sesame Street, and the whole street scenes were all about him
• 26:05
  meeting everybody on Sesame Street.
• 26:07
  I believe it may have been one of those shows that was the
• 26:10
  first episode of the new season where you're basically
• 26:13
  reintroducing yourself to the reintroducing the audience to
• 26:16
  this neighborhood, right? And Jerome is talking about his
• 26:20
  friend Elizabeth back home the whole time.
• 26:23
  And at the very end, Elizabeth comes to visit him.
• 26:26
  And I didn't know what the puppet was going to look like
• 26:30
  till I got on the set. All I saw was the I mean, she
• 26:33
  had two lines, right? Hey, Jerome, I'm here.
• 26:37
  We're visiting and like I love this place or something like
• 26:42
  that. So when I all it, there was a
• 26:46
  parenthetical, it said loud, right?
• 26:49
  And then I saw what the puppet look like and I knew.
• 26:52
  I knew exactly how it should sound.
• 26:54
  Hello everybody. It's me, Elizabeth, and I love
• 26:59
  numbers. I love the number four and I
• 27:02
  love the number 9. I love the number 3 and I love
• 27:06
  the number 732. Now what will happen sometimes
• 27:11
  with anything Muppets or one off characters is you'll you know
• 27:14
  when you do a read through before you block and and tape
• 27:18
  the the scene. Sometimes a producer or the
• 27:21
  director or whoever will say, can you try this or can you try
• 27:25
  this? And I'd been on the show for
• 27:29
  five seasons, but nobody really knew who I was, at least as far
• 27:33
  as the producers back then. We're concerned.
• 27:36
  I think again, I'd been there since 93.
• 27:40
  This was in 97. Yeah, this is in 97.
• 27:45
  And I think after I did that scene, Michael Loman introduced
• 27:48
  himself to me. So.
• 27:52
  So, you know, I was I, I just was like I was, I was I, I, I
• 27:59
  swing big, right. If you know anything about my
• 28:02
  characters, I take chances and and, and part of that came from,
• 28:06
  Oh gosh, this is not going to be a direct answer to your story at
• 28:09
  all. So the, the, the beauty of
• 28:12
  doing, if I hadn't gotten the webulous World of Doctor Seuss,
• 28:17
  I don't think I'd be here today at all.
• 28:20
  That, that show, I got to do 40 different characters and, you
• 28:23
  know, new characters every week and consistent characters.
• 28:26
  And I was doing what I love to do right, doing big, bold,
• 28:29
  strong characters. And we had a lot of autonomy on
• 28:33
  that show because we were so small.
• 28:35
  We were being shot at the same time Sesame Street and Muppets
• 28:39
  Tonight were being shot. That's the only reason I even
• 28:41
  got to audition is because there weren't all the, all the quote
• 28:46
  UN quote good performers were already working on other things.
• 28:50
  So like I, I never would have even gotten to audition if it
• 28:54
  had been in production at any other time in any other year.
• 29:00
  So it made me, I don't want to say it made me brave because
• 29:04
  I've always been brave on stage. I've always been brave as a
• 29:08
  performer and in real life I'm not.
• 29:12
  But if I have permission to perform, I take chances, I swing
• 29:18
  for the fences. So I had the experience on Seuss
• 29:22
  of like, hey, I loved it because I love to do it.
• 29:26
  I genuinely love it. It feeds me.
• 29:29
  It is the air that I breathe. So to do a loud character on
• 29:35
  Sesame and take that chance was just already in my bones.
• 29:42
  To a small degree. I hadn't thought about it being
• 29:46
  a risk at that time because, I mean, really, what did I have to
• 29:50
  lose? You know, you either do it or
• 29:53
  you don't. The one thing I can't stand is,
• 29:56
  is uncommitted characters like the wimpiness.
• 29:59
  It's one thing if your character is being played wimpy, that's a
• 30:02
  strong choice to be played wimpy.
• 30:04
  I'm talking about someone who's just not sure of what they're
• 30:07
  doing that, that, that that comes out.
• 30:09
  It doesn't matter how good a performer you are if you're not
• 30:12
  committed to whatever you're doing 100%.
• 30:15
  That's just weak. And then again, and that's so
• 30:17
  much like what you were, what you were saying, you felt like
• 30:20
  you could notice with the, the, the early, you know, France
• 30:23
  stuff here, you know, again, obviously we can't read her
• 30:26
  mind. But like the there was a sense
• 30:29
  of like, this is the character that we're doing.
• 30:32
  We are committed to this character.
• 30:33
  And it's we're, we're, we're not, you know, we're, we're
• 30:37
  sticking with it. And and yeah, I mean, again,
• 30:40
  like that's that's one thing, one thing that that that I can
• 30:43
  say about, you know, again about Elizabeth is Elizabeth is a, is
• 30:48
  a choice. You absolutely made a choice.
• 30:51
  You know, again, she is not, she is not a, a, a character that is
• 30:57
  unrecognizable or could be anything else.
• 31:01
  She is a choice. And, and so I was lucky that
• 31:04
  then there were other scripts with other anything Muppets, and
• 31:07
  they started plugging Elizabeth into those scripts.
• 31:10
  I think there were like 3 or 4 of them, maybe three that season
• 31:15
  and they instead of it being just another anything muppet or
• 31:18
  monster, they made it Elizabeth, which was amazing.
• 31:23
  And then the following season they started writing a couple of
• 31:29
  episodes with her specifically, which was like Dream.
• 31:35
  But there were people who, you know, I always got a sense that
• 31:40
  there were people who didn't get why she had to be so loud or why
• 31:44
  she had to be so her. And my feeling is, well, we've
• 31:51
  already done the sweet little girl.
• 31:53
  We've already done this and that and the other.
• 31:55
  We don't have anybody that sounds like this.
• 31:57
  So there are little girls who sound like this.
• 32:01
  I always feel like I hate that it becomes a fight, but my fight
• 32:05
  is always I and they have to fight so much because just to be
• 32:09
  different, right, To present a different version.
• 32:12
  I had that a little bit on. Seuss got challenging because
• 32:16
  there were a lot of little girl characters and I didn't want
• 32:19
  them to sound all the same. And Kathy and I, Kathy Mullen
• 32:24
  was the puppet captain. So, you know, she got first pick
• 32:28
  of whatever the script had that week.
• 32:31
  And I was happy to take the leftovers because I was just
• 32:34
  happy to be on the team. But when I got other little
• 32:39
  girls, I was just trying to find a way to make them a little
• 32:42
  different. And so Megan Mullally versus
• 32:47
  Heather Tidbiddle versus Sue Snoo.
• 32:50
  It's subtle, but it's, you know, yeah, it, it, it, it's it's
• 32:55
  hard. So I'm, I didn't know it takes
• 33:02
  time to learn what you have in you and also you are the, the
• 33:06
  look of the character really does dictate the voice.
• 33:08
  So I was always trying to go with, you know, I always say
• 33:10
  that a great puppet character is a, is a, is a beautiful marriage
• 33:14
  between the writer, the performer and the workshop
• 33:17
  because it's the look of the character meets what the
• 33:20
  character is saying, meets how the performer is both voicing it
• 33:23
  and physically manipulating it, how it's moving, how it's
• 33:27
  walking and how it sounds. I mean, that's so right, because
• 33:30
  again, like other if it if it that wasn't true, then it
• 33:33
  wouldn't be puppetry, right? Like right.
• 33:36
  The the, the reason the puppets exist and have designs is
• 33:40
  because that should be contributing to the performance.
• 33:43
  You know, and the and the reason that things have writers is
• 33:48
  because that should be contributing to the performance.
• 33:51
  Well, and not just that, when you have thoughtful people at
• 33:53
  the workshop who are putting together like, so for example,
• 33:57
  on Webulous World of Doctor Seuss, especially the first
• 34:00
  season, one of my favorite characters was a character named
• 34:02
  Admiral Breeze who showed up twice and her very first line
• 34:07
  was Hello Sailor. And the shop made this beautiful
• 34:13
  buxom platinum haired, full lipped, just just glorious
• 34:21
  puppet. And I knew it like my my
• 34:25
  suspicion of how she should sound absolutely was understood
• 34:29
  by the shop. The shop never heard what I was
• 34:32
  going to do. That puppet was brought to the
• 34:35
  set. I didn't know how it was going
• 34:36
  to look. And like somehow we were all on
• 34:38
  this like are we? We had all vibed.
• 34:41
  I don't even know who at the shop put her together.
• 34:43
  I don't know if it was Raleigh or or Mary Bremer or I don't
• 34:47
  know who, but I I do know that it was like one of those
• 34:51
  glorious moments where it's just like, oh, I know, I know what
• 34:55
  I'm doing here. And it just feels so good when
• 34:58
  it all comes together. And it was a choice that I
• 35:01
  hadn't done. I hadn't done a character like
• 35:03
  that before. I hadn't played a character like
• 35:06
  that before. I hadn't used that tone of voice
• 35:10
  in a character yet, so it's fun to discover those things as you
• 35:16
  go, but it always comes from the look.
• 35:20
  It always comes from the look of the character, and if you're
• 35:24
  lucky, it matches very hues very closely to what the writer has
• 35:30
  envisioned. Sometimes you're not on the same
• 35:33
  page and you have to find a way to make that work.
• 35:37
  But this So then you have to think like I played recently
• 35:41
  there. Well, I guess it was probably
• 35:43
  pre pandemic. It was maybe 2019.
• 35:46
  It was just a little couple line thing.
• 35:49
  It was a check out clerk at a supermarket on Sesame Street.
• 35:52
  And I just assumed that she would be, you know, kind of
• 35:55
  sleepy eyed and bored and, you know, OK, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:59
  And she had no eyelids, and she just looked like she'd been
• 36:02
  caffeinated. So then it turned into.
• 36:05
  OK. Yeah.
• 36:06
  What? Whatever.
• 36:08
  Thank you. You know, And it was a better
• 36:10
  choice. It was.
• 36:13
  AI didn't have many lines. It was just, how are you today,
• 36:15
  you know? Did you find everything you
• 36:16
  needed? But the look of this puppet gave
• 36:20
  me an inspiration to do something funnier and make a
• 36:24
  choice with the voice. So.
• 36:27
  Yeah. So.
• 36:28
  So. So Soos we didn't have time to
• 36:31
  sit and talk about except, well, maybe except for the main
• 36:34
  characters, but not even that much time.
• 36:36
  All those one off characters, it was, you know, just go right.
• 36:40
  And there was like a different one off character every week at.
• 36:43
  Least almost. Sometimes multiples, sometimes
• 36:46
  multiples. They were whatnots, right?
• 36:48
  So they were being put together constantly and but yeah, and and
• 36:54
  and Cody. So jumping way ahead to Cody on
• 36:57
  Helpsters. I mean, my voice may have
• 37:02
  evolved a tiny bit. I think I was trying to make her
• 37:05
  a little raspier in the very, very beginning, but it falls
• 37:11
  into whatever is comfortable, right?
• 37:14
  Because it's got to be comfortable.
• 37:15
  The, the, the one thing that I established a very long time ago
• 37:18
  is never, it can never hurt because if you, if you trash
• 37:23
  your voice, you're dead. You're gone.
• 37:26
  You have to take very good care of your voice.
• 37:28
  It is not. It is no character is worth
• 37:31
  losing your voice over. You have to find a way to do it
• 37:34
  safely. And, and, and that is something,
• 37:37
  you know, we were talking about sunblock earlier.
• 37:39
  I believe that was, I don't remember if that was on mic or
• 37:41
  not, but voice care is also something I take very seriously.
• 37:45
  So I, I'm, I'm right there with you.
• 37:47
  For folks at home, if you learn one thing from this podcast,
• 37:50
  it's to drink lots of water, do your vocal warmups.
• 37:54
  But also, it took a long time for for me to learn how to do a
• 37:57
  raspy voice placed not in the throat.
• 38:01
  I can do raspier voices now that don't hurt, but that took time
• 38:06
  to learn, so I didn't. I again, it was just a matter of
• 38:11
  time. And yes, some of that involved
• 38:13
  warming up or knowing how to yell without trashing.
• 38:18
  So yeah, you, you, you. But it has to be something that
• 38:20
  you're going to be able to do easily.
• 38:25
  It's kind of like, I remember a long time ago, I was having an
• 38:29
  issue with my hair and I had a hair stylist that I only went to
• 38:32
  once. She's like, well, you can make
• 38:33
  your hair do anything. And I said, really?
• 38:35
  Because I don't think so. My hair is going to do what it's
• 38:37
  going to do. It's like, no, no, you spend
• 38:39
  enough time on it and it'll do what you want it to do.
• 38:41
  And I'm like, yeah, it doesn't work like that.
• 38:44
  And I think it's that way with characters.
• 38:47
  If you're trying to do something forced with your voice that your
• 38:50
  voice doesn't want to do, the performance is going to sound
• 38:53
  forced. It's got to be natural.
• 38:56
  The vocals have to be natural and the performance has to be
• 38:59
  natural. And those are two different
• 39:01
  things. People always just talk about,
• 39:03
  oh, the voice, oh the voice. It's not just the voice, it's
• 39:07
  the breath, it's the cadence, it's the intent, it's the, it's
• 39:10
  the emotion, it's the drive, it's the spark, it's the
• 39:13
  intensity or lack thereof. It's the breathiness.
• 39:16
  It's the this and the that and a million other things that have
• 39:19
  nothing to do with sheer vocal quality or even placement.
• 39:24
  And boy, am I off track. But.
• 39:28
  Oh, so, yeah. And then and then Don Quixote.
• 39:31
  Oh, God bless them for giving me a long leash.
• 39:34
  They liked what I did. And they let me, you know, with
• 39:37
  Harriet Elizabeth Cow, because I grew up in Pittsburgh, I wanted,
• 39:44
  I was not sure what I was going to do with Harriet when I went
• 39:46
  on set. I, I, I had not, I don't think I
• 39:51
  had done an, a voice audition for Harriet.
• 39:53
  I had only done a voice audition for Duckduck and interestingly
• 39:56
  enough, my voice auditions for Duckduck night.
• 40:00
  I did 2 voice auditions and I wound up doing a blend of both
• 40:04
  of them. Once I saw the puppet and put on
• 40:05
  the puppet and that came pretty quickly.
• 40:09
  Harriet, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.
• 40:11
  And the very first episode I did with Harriet is not quite what
• 40:16
  it wound up being. But I did want to do a
• 40:19
  Pittsburgh dialect, and I know that in preschool, dialects are
• 40:24
  sort of frowned upon. But because it's Fred Rogers
• 40:29
  Productions, which is very tied to Pittsburgh, there's a lot of
• 40:33
  Pittsburgh pride that comes from it.
• 40:35
  They let me do it, and slowly but surely I have made it more
• 40:39
  and more. The Yinzer has been more and
• 40:42
  more intensified over the three seasons of doing the show.
• 40:47
  That's only help Donkey and 'cause I think, I think in the
• 40:52
  beginning I thought, well, I need to make her a little not
• 40:56
  prim, but I I held back a little with her.
• 41:00
  And I think that only lasted a couple of episodes.
• 41:03
  But then COVID hit, so I wasn't out there performing it as much.
• 41:08
  So it really wasn't only until the second season that I was
• 41:11
  actually really able to have a lot of fun locking in the full
• 41:21
  gregariousness of, of, of Harriet, the full Yenser
• 41:26
  package. Because I think I was still, I
• 41:29
  may have been trying to do 2 things with Harriet, trying to
• 41:34
  make her because because I didn't know what all the scripts
• 41:36
  were going to be yet. We didn't have them yet.
• 41:39
  So I the, the, the character description of Harriet early on
• 41:43
  was that she was going to be more of an advisor, right?
• 41:46
  More of an advisor to donkey, a neighbor who was and and she is
• 41:50
  that, but I think we accomplish it in a different way than it
• 41:56
  seemed spelled out in the early days.
• 41:58
  So it was less, I don't want to say motherly, but like, you
• 42:04
  know, teacherly, I suppose was the early way that, that, that I
• 42:09
  thought she would be approached. And now it's just like, no,
• 42:11
  she's just her own being who happens to give good advice,
• 42:16
  which is always a better way to do it.
• 42:18
  So again, I'm still making mistakes and learning from them
• 42:22
  decades into this career. Again, really long answer.
• 42:28
  No, no, no. I mean, listen, I'm happy you
• 42:31
  gave a really long answer because that was all super
• 42:33
  interesting. Like I also, I also knew that
• 42:38
  that's where like that again you your very opinion.
• 42:43
  Wait, what was the phrase I used at the beginning?
• 42:46
  I don't remember, I just know it was a nice way of saying
• 42:48
  opinionated. Yeah, but let's let's let's
• 42:51
  bring it back to to some of these in particular because I
• 42:56
  really do want to talk about sort of again as as this
• 43:01
  character. And again, I think we can agree
• 43:05
  this character's starts with a really strong and specific
• 43:09
  basis. But as this character sort of
• 43:11
  very quickly becomes what we, what we think of when we think
• 43:15
  of Prairie Dawn, you know, in, through, through so much.
• 43:20
  And you know, within, within three years, January 16th, 1974,
• 43:28
  weirdly almost three years exactly from her first
• 43:31
  appearance is when we first see these pageants.
• 43:35
  And Fran talked about loving doing these pageants and, and
• 43:39
  loving sort of the dynamic that it, it brought out between
• 43:43
  Prairie and the boys, as she called them, she called them the
• 43:47
  boys. And you, you see some really,
• 43:52
  really good and really funny and really specific choices being
• 43:58
  made, you know, so I'm curious, like what were, what were your
• 44:02
  thoughts watching some of these? We, we watched some of them.
• 44:06
  I don't again, but the flower is the first one.
• 44:11
  There's there's a couple others in the 70s.
• 44:14
  But I wish you'd included the the tooth one.
• 44:16
  That's my favorite because that's got the whole thing about
• 44:20
  her doing the monologue at the top about.
• 44:23
  This play was written by Bert and it was directed by Bert, and
• 44:26
  if you love the play you can thank Bert, but if you hate it,
• 44:29
  you have no one but Bert to blame.
• 44:31
  That is such AI. Don't know why I didn't include
• 44:34
  that in the clip compilation. That's one of my favorites.
• 44:38
  Not only is that just generally funny, I love, I love that that
• 44:44
  that kind of sassiness that comes along with it.
• 44:48
  Like, you almost get the sense that, like, Prairie is kind of
• 44:53
  upset that someone else is is, is is Horning in on her
• 44:58
  territory. Like I, I wouldn't call it that.
• 45:01
  I I would say that basically Bert's in charge and she's just
• 45:07
  telling it like it is, you know, it's like.
• 45:11
  OK, You want to be in charge, then it's on you and I'm going
• 45:15
  to let everybody know. Exactly, exactly.
• 45:18
  And that's such a such a funny choice.
• 45:21
  And you, you see, you see in these two again, the the choice
• 45:25
  to make Prairie bad at playing the piano is really funny.
• 45:30
  Yes, and I I mean, I didn't I never knew Johnstone, but it
• 45:36
  seems to me also like it's a Norman Styles or, you know,
• 45:39
  choice because again, you you got you got Norman Styles coming
• 45:44
  from sitcom and the you know, the best sitcom characters have
• 45:48
  flaws. Right.
• 45:50
  So you can't have. So the best thing about a
• 45:53
  perfect little girl is making her imperfect.
• 45:56
  And now it is time for our drama to start.
• 46:02
  Whoops. And and, and again you, you see
• 46:06
  that and, and again. That's why I love the the
• 46:10
  rudeness that comes in the tooth one.
• 46:12
  And again, boy, I should have sent you the tooth one, but I
• 46:14
  didn't have to because. You didn't have to.
• 46:16
  I, I Oh my goodness. I watched that all the time in
• 46:19
  college. No.
• 46:21
  I remember one of my favorite Sesame records was Bert and
• 46:25
  Ernie sing along and they're singing a song about the man who
• 46:30
  has plenty of soft peanuts has given his neighbor none.
• 46:32
  He shan't have many of my peanuts till his peanuts are
• 46:34
  gone. He shan't have any of mine.
• 46:35
  He shan't have any of mine. He shan't have any of my peanuts
• 46:37
  till his peanuts are gone. And Prairie sings a verse the.
• 46:42
  Man who has plenty of sauce sweet soda crackers has given
• 46:44
  his neighbor none. He shan't have any of my sauce
• 46:47
  sweet soda crackers. Still his sauce.
• 46:48
  These photo crackers are done. He shan't.
• 46:50
  Have any of mine? And then she's like, you guys
• 46:51
  going to sing, you know, because nobody's joining in on the
• 46:54
  chorus. And that felt very like, that's
• 46:58
  Fran. Fran imbuing Prairie with the
• 47:02
  attitude of come on, guys, we're all supposed to be singing this
• 47:05
  chorus. And I think that some of that
• 47:09
  came from being the only girl in this room full of guys, and
• 47:17
  she's got to be responsible and you're not playing along.
• 47:21
  I'm going to call you out on it. Yeah, I mean, again that that
• 47:25
  absolutely. And got it so funny because
• 47:28
  again, I was going to send you the clip from Bert and Ernie
• 47:31
  sing along as well. It's on my I have a master list
• 47:35
  that I made and and Stephanie, I I put way too much work into
• 47:39
  making this master list. But I now have a list of every
• 47:44
  single clip with Prairie Dawn and every single album and book
• 47:49
  from 1971 through 1979, which was not maybe not the most
• 47:56
  productive use of my time. It makes you happy.
• 48:01
  But but yeah, I, I love that. And one of the things that I
• 48:05
  love about the fact that she's on the the Bert and Ernie Sing
• 48:09
  Along album in particular is to me, that always felt like sort
• 48:14
  of like a a statement of purpose that like Prairie was definitely
• 48:18
  part of the main gang at this point, You know what I mean?
• 48:23
  Like, yeah. Well, and I mean you would be
• 48:26
  foolish to do these records without utilizing Fran's voice.
• 48:33
  Because it's very good. She.
• 48:36
  She. Came to New York to do musical
• 48:37
  theater. Of course it's great.
• 49:01
  And I think that, you know, some of the, there's so many reasons
• 49:07
  why and, you know, I think some reasons why Fran's not on
• 49:10
  certain albums may have to do with Fran's availability or lack
• 49:14
  thereof. Sure.
• 49:15
  I mean, she was. Doing other things.
• 49:17
  She was doing soap operas and theater and, you know, major
• 49:23
  motion pictures. We we chatted a little bit about
• 49:26
  that as well. The, the fact that Prairie, you
• 49:29
  know, sort of started mostly being an inserts from from like
• 49:36
  in 1974 through like the late 80s.
• 49:40
  And that largely was because, you know, Fran had other, you
• 49:44
  know, other priorities as well. And the, you know, I, we, we
• 49:50
  discussed it. We've discussed it plenty of
• 49:52
  times on this show, but like the inserts were filmed separately
• 49:56
  and that let that gave that gave Jim and Frank a lot more
• 49:59
  flexibility with their recording schedule.
• 50:01
  Actually when they were doing Muppet Show.
• 50:04
  And they, you know, when they were doing Muppet Show, that's
• 50:05
  in another country. Well, and.
• 50:08
  Also, you could shoot back then, you know, you could shoot 6
• 50:12
  inserts in a day. That's a lot of content that
• 50:15
  gets repeated over and over again.
• 50:18
  So you get a lot of bang for your character buck.
• 50:22
  As far as presents on the show, you get a lot more bang for your
• 50:27
  buck being an inserts than you do in the street scenes, which
• 50:30
  at that time, even when they were doing 130 episodes, 120
• 50:33
  episodes a year, would maybe air twice.
• 50:36
  Never again. And it's and but again, like,
• 50:39
  but that's why sort of like the reason that there aren't that
• 50:45
  many in terms of number Prairie appearances, but like she
• 50:50
  becomes this character who who sticks around is because these
• 50:55
  were all segments and these were all re aired.
• 50:57
  You know, the pageant stuff was re aired, you know, again, and
• 51:01
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm younger than you, but like a lot of these
• 51:06
  clips were still airing, you know, even in the 90s.
• 51:10
  Until the show went to high definition, they absolutely were
• 51:14
  still airing. Yes.
• 51:16
  And, and again, like, that's what I was watching, you know,
• 51:18
  again, was was then and a lot of this still stuck around and.
• 51:23
  Well, then Fran was available as in the in the and then in the in
• 51:27
  1993 when Zoe, you know, was created and and then she was
• 51:31
  doing Roxy Marie and Wanda like Fran had committed to the show
• 51:35
  at that point. Yes.
• 51:36
  And again, we we talked, we talked to Fran about that, that
• 51:41
  that shift. So then you had even more
• 51:44
  inserts with Prairie? Absolutely, absolutely.
• 51:47
  And that's, and that's when you get the the wonderful, wonderful
• 51:51
  Prairie and cookie dynamic. Yeah.
• 51:54
  Absolutely. Which is which is my favorite
• 51:58
  comedy duo in the The Muppets? Like the entirety of all of The
• 52:03
  Muppets. I think the Prairie and Cookie
• 52:05
  stuff is about as good as it gets.
• 52:08
  You cannot have a cookie. No, no.
• 52:11
  What can I answer that? Oh no.
• 52:13
  Oh no, no. OK, OK me no panic meal.
• 52:16
  Panic Prairie me going to ask you another question.
• 52:20
  Why? Why?
• 52:22
  Why me not cookie. Please look at that cookie.
• 52:24
  Easy easy, easy cookie. Monster.
• 52:32
  Yeah, I know. It always makes me sad that I, I
• 52:35
  missed out on that. There have been no Prairie
• 52:39
  cookie bits in my tenure as Miss Dawn.
• 52:44
  But then again, you know, I guess that was just very she
• 52:47
  did. She did plenty with David, but I
• 52:49
  think that was also very specific to her and Frank.
• 52:52
  Yeah, that that that dynamic and that friendship.
• 52:56
  But but again, like the albums is another great example because
• 53:00
  that's what we we like you, like you said, like so much of this
• 53:05
  stuff wasn't repeated, but the albums were repeated you.
• 53:08
  Know that's how I knew her name was Prairie Dawn.
• 53:11
  You saw it on the cover. I mean on the on the back of the
• 53:14
  album. Exactly.
• 53:15
  I mean, for me, for me it was books, you know, again, the,
• 53:20
  the, the old and I had a bunch of like the old picture books
• 53:24
  growing up, you know, even stuff printed long before I was born.
• 53:28
  But like that we still had that like we got from the library and
• 53:32
  stuff. And like, that was a major way
• 53:36
  that the character stuck around, you know, for for years and
• 53:41
  years until Fran returns to the show full time basically in
• 53:46
  1993. Yeah, I think at some point, you
• 53:54
  know, I suspect that the character was able to survive
• 53:59
  Fran's absence not just because of the inserts being continually
• 54:06
  repeated, but also she was starting to be on merchandise.
• 54:12
  You know, there, I don't know that there were many dolls, but
• 54:14
  the books, the records, but also like, you know, T-shirts.
• 54:19
  She was in the group calendars. She was on the calendars,
• 54:24
  greeting cards, paper goods. She had a presence there.
• 54:31
  So once you have that presence, you know, I have come, I have
• 54:37
  come to realize that in order for a character to survive, you
• 54:43
  have to have something or someone championing that
• 54:47
  character. It doesn't matter.
• 54:49
  I've had to make peace with the fact that it's not necessarily
• 54:53
  all on my own shoulders in the performance.
• 54:55
  You have to have writers who will write for that character, a
• 55:00
  head writer who will let that script be produced and not
• 55:05
  replaced that your character with another character.
• 55:08
  Just plug in another character into that script.
• 55:11
  Or you have to have, you know, popularity or licensing revenue
• 55:17
  or someone championing that character, whether it's coming
• 55:24
  from above or beyond or outside. So because Prairie really was
• 55:33
  for a very long time the only girl, especially in the 70s, you
• 55:40
  had to have that represented. I mean, it would, it would have
• 55:43
  been, it's the reason why Fran was brought on.
• 55:45
  It's the reason why the character was created.
• 55:47
  But you you had to maintain that.
• 55:49
  You couldn't just you couldn't just get rid of that character
• 55:52
  after two years and say, oh, well, we tried.
• 55:55
  You had to. And and you know, what Fran did
• 56:01
  was so great. And so I'm not saying that her
• 56:03
  greatness had nothing to do with it, but I'm saying that at that
• 56:08
  point they had Prairie. So they're like, OK, this is our
• 56:11
  little girl. This is our girl.
• 56:12
  This is our female representation as far as The
• 56:14
  Muppets are concerned. And we're going to go all the
• 56:16
  way with it. And that's it.
• 56:18
  And once you're once you're sort of in that character grouping,
• 56:25
  you're in. Yeah.
• 56:28
  Which is great, but then once you start having more and more
• 56:32
  characters added to the show, it becomes much harder to be part
• 56:36
  of that character grouping. It becomes much harder to be in
• 56:39
  that photograph that represents These are the characters of
• 56:43
  Sesame Street. Which was unfortunately so much
• 56:45
  like and, and, and again, like, I'm not, I'm not telling tales
• 56:49
  out of school. This is something that that
• 56:51
  they've commented on, you know, like the, the, the Sesame
• 56:54
  executives and, and team and everything.
• 56:56
  But like, you know, when you joined in the 90s and when Fran
• 57:00
  returned in the 90s, that was so much of the problem with the
• 57:04
  early 90s is there were like 70 characters.
• 57:10
  Yeah, well, and I think that that's there's been an ebb and
• 57:13
  flow, excuse me, of characters forever because now, you know,
• 57:23
  in in the 80s they started introducing more characters
• 57:25
  because they started having Jim and Frank and Jerry and Richard
• 57:30
  were off doing other things. They were doing Muppet Show,
• 57:32
  they were doing Fraggle Rock. So they had to bring in new
• 57:36
  performers. Well, they all weren't going to
• 57:38
  be doubling, you know, or having new voices for Bert and Ernie
• 57:41
  and the Count and all these established characters.
• 57:43
  They were still going to have those core characters exist in
• 57:47
  inserts or maybe a couple of St. scenes a year.
• 57:50
  So they had to create new characters for Marty and Pam
• 57:57
  Marciero and Camille Bonara. And you know what I mean?
• 58:01
  You're not going to bring in new people and not have characters
• 58:04
  for them to play. So you create these new
• 58:09
  characters and and you trying. And also times change.
• 58:11
  I mean, the show is an experiment.
• 58:13
  So you try new things and you and and, and with those new
• 58:17
  characters or with with Bert and Ernie not being there all the
• 58:20
  time. OK, so let's see, can we find
• 58:22
  somebody to bounce off of? Like Telly becomes a character,
• 58:28
  right, Brian? Because you have got Brian Neal,
• 58:30
  right? And so Telly becomes a character
• 58:33
  and he evolves and then he starts having this relationship
• 58:35
  with Oscar. And OK, So what other characters
• 58:39
  can interact with Telly? Because you don't just want to
• 58:41
  have characters that only interact with one character.
• 58:44
  It's a neighborhood. You you learn so much about
• 58:47
  characters by having them have different relationships with
• 58:50
  different characters. So then, yeah, you, you have
• 58:54
  telly and baby Bear's friendship and, and, and then baby Bear has
• 58:58
  a family, you know, you, you, you Kevin Clash comes onto the
• 59:01
  show. He gets Elmo.
• 59:02
  He wants characters to develop of his own.
• 59:04
  He develops hoots. He get, you know, you've got
• 59:06
  Humphrey and Natasha Humphrey and Ingrid.
• 59:08
  Natasha, you've got David Redman coming onto the show.
• 59:10
  You've got all these amazing performers coming onto the show.
• 59:13
  They've got to do something. So and we all want to work and
• 59:17
  we all want screen time. And at that time, you've got 120
• 59:21
  episodes to fill and you've got all these great performers and
• 59:25
  you don't have Jim and Frank all the time.
• 59:29
  So hey, let's populate with new characters.
• 59:33
  And then what happens is, and you have a million characters,
• 59:36
  OK, we got we got to get rid of a bunch of characters.
• 59:38
  We're going to cut it way, way down.
• 59:40
  And then the same thing happens all over again.
• 59:42
  And so then you have great performers like Carmen Osbar
• 59:46
  coming in and developing Rosita, which was so, so necessary.
• 59:51
  And you have, you know, hey, Fran's going to come back.
• 59:53
  Well, we can't just have her play Prairie.
• 59:56
  I mean, let's give, you know, also Prairie's an older
• 59:59
  character. Prairie's six.
• 1:00:01
  We want a character that's going to be Elmo's age, because Elmo
• 1:00:04
  is very popular. Elmo is young.
• 1:00:06
  We want to have somebody who's going to be Elmo's.
• 1:00:10
  You know, a contemporary, so let's create Zoe.
• 1:00:13
  You know, that's how. And again, this is a very
• 1:00:18
  simplistic way of thinking about how characters get developed,
• 1:00:21
  but it's not an out there thing, you know, it's a very realistic
• 1:00:27
  thing. It's production, right?
• 1:00:29
  You've got a cast who wants to work.
• 1:00:32
  You've got writers who want to write new things for new
• 1:00:34
  characters because then let's face it.
• 1:00:37
  But one of the reasons why one of the reasons why Snuffy was
• 1:00:42
  seen by humans was also, yes, to believe children when it came to
• 1:00:47
  their truths and and and and and and abuse and whatnot.
• 1:00:49
  But the writers also really got tired of figuring out convenient
• 1:00:53
  ways of the adults just missing Snuffleupagus.
• 1:00:57
  That story gets old it that those relations.
• 1:01:00
  It's better to have Snuffleupagus have a
• 1:01:02
  relationship with other characters on the street.
• 1:01:07
  So, yeah, so the writers have more flexibility if they have
• 1:01:12
  more characters to write for, more character combination
• 1:01:14
  possibilities. But then, you know, it's a
• 1:01:17
  cycle. And every time, every time
• 1:01:21
  there's a baby on the show, hey, OK, you're going to do a whole
• 1:01:25
  thing about a baby. We're going to have Baby Alice.
• 1:01:28
  We're going to have baby Natasha.
• 1:01:29
  And you're like, hey, we're tired of this baby.
• 1:01:32
  We're not going to see this baby anymore, OK?
• 1:01:34
  We need a new baby. Hey, Curly bear.
• 1:01:36
  OK, it's going to be a baby. And what are we going to do with
• 1:01:38
  this baby? And is she going to grow up?
• 1:01:40
  Is she going to stay a baby? I don't know.
• 1:01:42
  We're tired of this baby. We're not going to see this baby
• 1:01:44
  anymore. Hey, Gina's going to adopt A.
• 1:01:46
  Baby, you know. What they did, what they did
• 1:01:48
  with curly bear is they just stopped using curly bear.
• 1:01:53
  Yep, but you know they. You know this.
• 1:01:56
  Yeah, I do. I do.
• 1:01:58
  I do know this. But you know, now, to be fair
• 1:02:00
  with Curly, I, I, I was, it was a little frustrating because
• 1:02:04
  there were some inconsistencies with how she played, especially
• 1:02:09
  early on. In some scripts she wouldn't be
• 1:02:12
  verbal and other scripts she'd be saying sentences.
• 1:02:16
  Sometimes she, you know, it would say all saying, you know,
• 1:02:20
  she would be babbling or just saying parts of sentences.
• 1:02:23
  But then when all the Bear family was saying something,
• 1:02:26
  it'd be these, you know, this this song or something.
• 1:02:28
  I'm like, well, she can't just sing this song all of a sudden
• 1:02:32
  in unison with this family. So, yeah, you know, but you're
• 1:02:39
  at the mercy of a force that's bigger than yourself.
• 1:02:41
  You just want to work. And so you, you, you figure out
• 1:02:43
  a way to do it. I remember there was a episode
• 1:02:46
  about the, the family trying to hibernate and they were trying
• 1:02:50
  to count sheep and and they it was like the whole family was
• 1:02:55
  counting 5670 one 5672 and I'm like, well, curly can't count
• 1:03:02
  this high. So there.
• 1:03:03
  So I, I didn't really ask. I just did it and I guess they
• 1:03:07
  just let me do it. But the other bears are saying
• 1:03:10
  5671 two, 5670 two, 5673 two because I figured Curly could
• 1:03:20
  only count it too. But that's a great, that's a
• 1:03:23
  great choice. And again, to take it back to
• 1:03:25
  the conversation that you know, where we where we started,
• 1:03:29
  characters, characters are built off of choices and, and, and
• 1:03:33
  strong choices. Well, and I was also trying to
• 1:03:36
  think like a writer, even though I hadn't written for preschool
• 1:03:41
  yet. I've, you know, I've written in
• 1:03:44
  life and in my own things and things that may never see the
• 1:03:48
  light of day, but I certainly know how economical you can be
• 1:03:55
  with a character choice that you can say a lot about a character
• 1:03:59
  and it doesn't have to be a monologue, while also being very
• 1:04:03
  thoughtful about the audience and the curriculum that you're
• 1:04:06
  putting across. So nothing I ever did or ad
• 1:04:08
  libbed was ever meant to do anything more than clarify a
• 1:04:13
  character or clarify a relationship.
• 1:04:18
  I was always very lucky at helpsters that Tim McKeon gave
• 1:04:22
  me a leash to, you know, add little flourishes or or Cody as
• 1:04:31
  as originally conceived, was a very, you know, she had to put
• 1:04:34
  across a lot of curriculum and was a leader.
• 1:04:36
  And but it was there was nothing really.
• 1:04:39
  I, I, I imbued a lot of fun to it.
• 1:04:42
  I figured if there's fun, if it's being done a fun way and
• 1:04:44
  she's aware of the bad puns that she's doing and she's deadpan
• 1:04:50
  and reactive and it could, it could be a little, a little
• 1:04:54
  lighter. But I also added you're very
• 1:04:57
  welcome. Initially it was thanks for the
• 1:05:00
  help, help stirs and then right to we did it everybody.
• 1:05:02
  And I said, you know what I think Cody should say?
• 1:05:05
  You're very welcome. And I didn't ask.
• 1:05:07
  I just did it. And because what are they going
• 1:05:10
  to say? Don't say you're welcome.
• 1:05:11
  Don't, don't, don't, don't show kids that saying you're welcome.
• 1:05:16
  But it is fascinating to me because after we did it,
• 1:05:19
  everybody, I think it was only the second time we did it that I
• 1:05:22
  added, yeah, we did after and then.
• 1:05:25
  Oh that's such a good touch though.
• 1:05:27
  Like. Well, that because it was
• 1:05:29
  attitude. I'm like, I want to give her a
• 1:05:31
  little spark, you know what I mean?
• 1:05:33
  So that she's not just, I'm in charge.
• 1:05:36
  Do what I say, you know, the B word, the bossy word.
• 1:05:39
  I hate it. But it's very easily gone there
• 1:05:42
  and it's related to Prairie and we can get back to this.
• 1:05:45
  But. But, you know, I, I really
• 1:05:50
  wanted to just give her a like, she's a redhead.
• 1:05:52
  She she's got to have a little fire.
• 1:05:54
  So the yeah, we did. What was so funny is that if you
• 1:05:58
  were to watch the show Chronal, well, I don't know if it, I
• 1:06:02
  don't know if the episodes aired in the order in which we shot
• 1:06:04
  it, but. Yeah, I mean, I who?
• 1:06:06
  Knows you'll see a slow evolution in the yeah we did
• 1:06:09
  moment where some of the guys kind of say it with me weekly,
• 1:06:16
  like in the beginning they're just like, you know, we did.
• 1:06:19
  And then by the by the, by the 2nd or by the third season, the
• 1:06:25
  the, the second production year. Mr. Prim's saying it loud.
• 1:06:27
  Marty's saying it louder than I am.
• 1:06:29
  Like they're all just like, yeah, we did like they came up
• 1:06:32
  with it. I'm like, OK, I'll take it, I'll
• 1:06:35
  take it. I'm glad everyone's on board
• 1:06:37
  with this. Stephanie, I, I don't know if
• 1:06:39
  I've, if I've mentioned this, but during COVID, I was so
• 1:06:45
  anxious about COVID that for whatever reason, and you know, I
• 1:06:51
  was in my 30s at the time, but the only thing I could watch
• 1:06:56
  without panicking was the helpsters because it was just so
• 1:07:00
  rigid and predictable. Yeah, yeah, that.
• 1:07:04
  I mean, I liked that the format was fascinating to have a format
• 1:07:08
  that was sort of plug and play. Yeah, but again, like, that was
• 1:07:11
  what that was the only thing my brain could, like, do early on.
• 1:07:17
  You know what? You were not the only one who
• 1:07:19
  was anxious. Yeah, no, I.
• 1:07:21
  Sometimes I think we forget it was just five years ago, but
• 1:07:24
  it's easy to forget just how terrifying that was.
• 1:07:28
  But so that was, that was, you know, again, so like, believe
• 1:07:32
  me, I know exactly when you're like, yeah, you know.
• 1:07:34
  And then Cody says, yeah, we do. I'm like, yeah, no, of course,
• 1:07:38
  of course I know that. Well, you know, not everybody.
• 1:07:42
  Let's just say it's been made very obvious to me through my
• 1:07:45
  encounters with the world that not everybody has seen
• 1:07:48
  helpsters, and not nearly as much as you have, so it's fine.
• 1:07:54
  I I know, I know that I'm an outlier for my age bracket.
• 1:07:59
  There was a grin. I am very old that you watched
• 1:08:02
  and no, I'm very grateful that you watched and enjoyed it.
• 1:08:05
  I don't care why someone watches something that I do, I'm just
• 1:08:08
  glad that they watch it and enjoy it.
• 1:08:11
  For folks listening at home, if there's one thing you should
• 1:08:14
  seek out, it's the soundtrack to Helpsters because you guys did
• 1:08:18
  some incredible stuff on that soundtrack.
• 1:08:21
  Yeah, yeah. We had some good, good songs.
• 1:08:23
  Paul Buckley was our composer and we had some great artists
• 1:08:27
  come in and do stuff with us. We had Guam.
• 1:08:30
  We just had great guest stars, period.
• 1:08:32
  It was a great, weird show. And a lot of lot of like cool,
• 1:08:37
  cool musicians like on the indie scene and stuff like you would
• 1:08:42
  never see on Sesame Street. And again, I don't mean that in
• 1:08:45
  an insulting way to Sesame Street, but it's a different
• 1:08:48
  crowd of musicians and. Guests.
• 1:08:49
  We had cool guest stars, and we had cool guest stars who were
• 1:08:53
  sort of bubbling under in the New York comedy scene before
• 1:08:56
  they exploded afterwards. Michelle Bateau before she
• 1:09:00
  exploded. Zach Cherry before Severance.
• 1:09:02
  Holy cow, you know, like, you know, these people had done
• 1:09:07
  stuff and I was familiar ish with them, but like some of what
• 1:09:12
  these people were doing afterward and like what?
• 1:09:14
  Wait, what? You know, I can't I can't even
• 1:09:17
  begin to remember all of the people.
• 1:09:20
  But we had some very cool cats come on our show, some great.
• 1:09:23
  I mean, again, just really great comedic actors who got it, you
• 1:09:32
  know, so and, and, and and most of them had a really great time.
• 1:09:37
  I mean, yeah, we had a, we had a, we had a good time with the
• 1:09:43
  people who came on to play. But anyway, going back to that B
• 1:09:46
  word. So no, no, So what?
• 1:09:49
  You know, it's sad that there are people who see Prairie as
• 1:09:59
  bossy because I don't see that. I see her as being a
• 1:10:03
  perfectionist. I see her as being type AI, see
• 1:10:07
  her as just, we just want nice things.
• 1:10:10
  She's smart and she just wants every everyone to actually, you
• 1:10:15
  know, give a crap and pay attention, which again, goes
• 1:10:19
  back to those pageants. She's not coming right out and
• 1:10:21
  saying it. She's just like, why are we
• 1:10:26
  doing this if we're not going to do it right?
• 1:10:28
  And it and it shines through and I love, I love again that you're
• 1:10:31
  saying like it's not like she actually says it, but but the
• 1:10:35
  audience can tell. And I'd, I'd like to think even
• 1:10:38
  children can tell. You know, again, I'm, I'm trying
• 1:10:41
  to put myself in the shoes of when I saw these the first time.
• 1:10:44
  And you know, who knows? I was one year old or whatever,
• 1:10:49
  so I don't remember. But like you, you get the sense
• 1:10:53
  that like she's doing this for the genuine, genuine love of it.
• 1:10:58
  And, and she, she, she just, she just wants, she just wants her,
• 1:11:03
  her friends to be their best selves too.
• 1:11:06
  Yeah, and she cheers them on, but it's not all about her.
• 1:11:11
  And she's very happy when they, she's very happy when they get
• 1:11:14
  it right, you know, again. Good job.
• 1:11:17
  Yep. Which definitely happens in
• 1:11:19
  these as well. Yep, but when she does it's
• 1:11:21
  like. Oh, come on.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah. Do you heal?
• 1:11:25
  The snow, you know it's. It's again, and it's, it's, it's
• 1:11:29
  amazing again, speaking about things that happen early, but
• 1:11:32
  like that dynamic with the the Frank characters in particular
• 1:11:37
  starts really early. Well, that that album that that.
• 1:11:41
  Cue here is a question, any question for you.
• 1:11:43
  I love that. Isn't technically isn't
• 1:11:46
  technically credited to Prairie Dawn on the album and in the in
• 1:11:50
  the sketch they used a different anything muppet.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah, I know. So really feels like a prayer,
• 1:11:56
  right? Like.
• 1:11:56
  No, I always thought it was Prairie and that she was just
• 1:11:59
  called little girl. I had never seen the insert done
• 1:12:03
  so I was shocked when I saw the clip and it wasn't Prairie.
• 1:12:07
  But I, I still consider that important because it is that,
• 1:12:10
  that, that, you know, that Fran and Frank dynamic that that
• 1:12:16
  again, becomes such a highlight. You know, especially moving into
• 1:12:20
  the 90s, you know, starting there and you, you see the same
• 1:12:24
  thing, you know, in the she'll be coming around the mountain
• 1:12:27
  pageant where she like basically has to like take care of Cookie
• 1:12:31
  Monster and like make sure that he's doing the right thing and
• 1:12:34
  staying on track. Hey Cookie.
• 1:12:37
  What Prairie? Don't you know how to go around
• 1:12:40
  something? Oh, sure, sure, sure.
• 1:12:42
  Can you sing again and me do it right this time?
• 1:12:46
  It's sounding terrific, this is. Definitely the.
• 1:12:50
  Last time, here we go OK, which again becomes the whole dynamic.
• 1:12:56
  So there's something very archetypal about it.
• 1:12:58
  The problem is, most of the time you see it in pop culture, it's
• 1:13:02
  in buddy comedy movies, right? It's the good cop, bad cop.
• 1:13:07
  It's, it's it's Beverly Hills Cop, right?
• 1:13:10
  Yeah. You know, it's every movie where
• 1:13:12
  you've got the it's it's The Odd Couple.
• 1:13:14
  It's, I mean, it's Bert and Ernie.
• 1:13:16
  Right. But it's not respected the same
• 1:13:20
  way as Bert and Ernie are. It's Felix and Oscar, it's
• 1:13:23
  Abbott and Costello, it's Laurel and Hardy.
• 1:13:25
  You've got the the person who you know is like, I know what
• 1:13:30
  I'm doing and the other person's just messing it all up.
• 1:13:33
  Absolutely, absolutely. And and again, like obviously
• 1:13:36
  I'm not surprised that you understand and appreciate it,
• 1:13:40
  but that's exactly that's exactly how I how I feel.
• 1:13:43
  And again, whether it's whether it's, you know, we, we, you
• 1:13:46
  talked about how characters need to be able to sort of interact
• 1:13:49
  with other characters. And I like that it's this
• 1:13:51
  slightly different dynamic with Grover and with Cookie, but it
• 1:13:55
  still kind of comes from the same place of like just wanting
• 1:14:00
  them to do it right, you know, And again, like Grover and
• 1:14:03
  Cookie have different faults. Obviously they're very different
• 1:14:06
  characters, but it's that same it ends up.
• 1:14:08
  In very different ways for very different reasons, yeah.
• 1:14:13
  No. No, no.
• 1:14:16
  What was it me? Was that off key?
• 1:14:17
  No, no, Grover. No, you were fine.
• 1:14:21
  Thank you somebody else. Yes, you see, it's this white
• 1:14:23
  stuff. Yeah, this is not rain.
• 1:14:26
  What? What is it?
• 1:14:27
  No. It is white and flaky and cold.
• 1:14:30
  It is snow. So it's this what that good
• 1:14:34
  director she is, but it's that same idea of like just can we
• 1:14:40
  just can we just do this right? Because this would be so good if
• 1:14:43
  we could just do it right. This would be so good and
• 1:14:46
  everyone would be so happy. Well, and The funny thing is,
• 1:14:50
  and I've, I've remarked on this now and then, but I don't know
• 1:14:54
  if anybody's actually really, it's sunk in for anybody.
• 1:14:58
  But Prairie is so much like Bert, and I don't know that Bert
• 1:15:04
  and Prairie have ever bounced off of each other, because I
• 1:15:08
  think they're just too similar. Stephanie, you know what was
• 1:15:12
  really I just watched the the the happy birthday episode.
• 1:15:19
  Yes, that's the closest she came.
• 1:15:21
  Yes, great episode written by Liz Hara.
• 1:15:24
  And it was really funny because Bert, you know, Ernie's like, we
• 1:15:32
  need to get more of your friends here.
• 1:15:34
  And Bert goes, I don't have any other friends, suggesting that
• 1:15:39
  Bert's only friends are Ernie, Telly and Prairie Dawn.
• 1:15:43
  And I was sitting there and I was like, you know, we don't see
• 1:15:46
  Bert interacting with Prairie Dawn or Telly that much, but I
• 1:15:50
  bet he would get along great with Telly and Prairie Dawn.
• 1:15:54
  Well, and again, I've said the same thing about telly.
• 1:15:57
  Telly has similar neuroses to Prairie.
• 1:15:59
  They're just, for lack of better word, executed in a different
• 1:16:04
  way. They just come out in a
• 1:16:06
  different way. Bert, Telly and Prairie are all
• 1:16:10
  neurotic characters. Right, Which again, is what I
• 1:16:13
  absolutely realized watching that episode.
• 1:16:16
  And especially when Bert's like, I don't have any other friends.
• 1:16:18
  I'm like, oh, I bet they would get up to some some very, very
• 1:16:24
  neurotic hijinks. Well.
• 1:16:25
  Also, it would just be fascinating to see them all just
• 1:16:28
  be it an impasse because I, I mean, I don't know.
• 1:16:32
  I would love to know what that dynamic would be.
• 1:16:34
  I would love to improvise with Marty and Eric, with those
• 1:16:39
  characters and just see what would come out.
• 1:16:43
  I'm I'm fascinated and curious, but I was, I, I remember I was
• 1:16:49
  just happy to, I was happy to be there.
• 1:16:52
  I was happy to be in that episode at all.
• 1:16:54
  And then this was more of an homage to to my pal Jen
• 1:16:58
  Barnhart. But when she's at the back
• 1:17:00
  table, you know I needed a bit of business before.
• 1:17:03
  I was about to ask you about this, what I think you're about
• 1:17:06
  to say. I'm not going to be shy.
• 1:17:08
  I'm going. To.
• 1:17:10
  Dip into this oatmeal. I cracked up.
• 1:17:13
  I'm just, you know. Thank you.
• 1:17:14
  I'm glad you heard it. No, it it's just because so, you
• 1:17:18
  know, in a script you have so and so enters and asks a
• 1:17:21
  question. Well, the character, the
• 1:17:23
  character that they're entering and asking the question of needs
• 1:17:26
  to be there. But what is that character doing
• 1:17:28
  while they're there? So, so much of what a Muppet
• 1:17:30
  performer does is have to come up with bits of business.
• 1:17:34
  Either we are, you know, doing something or actively walking
• 1:17:37
  it. We have to be active.
• 1:17:38
  We can't just be standing there waiting.
• 1:17:40
  You would never block a play like that where a character is
• 1:17:43
  unless it's, you know, play where that's meant to be.
• 1:17:46
  Yeah, intention. An intentional choice.
• 1:17:47
  Intention right right so so it's easy to just say so and so
• 1:17:53
  enters Prairie is there like well what is Prairie doing while
• 1:17:56
  she's there so because we had Oh my God the set the.
• 1:18:00
  Set is so beautiful. Our art department under the
• 1:18:04
  lead of the great Katie Akana, who came to us on Helpsters, by
• 1:18:09
  the way, and then she brought her beautiful art department.
• 1:18:12
  Oh my gosh, Aerial poster and Keith Olsen and so many
• 1:18:17
  wonderful people can. That set was gorgeous.
• 1:18:20
  It was so much to look at like. And what I loved about it is it
• 1:18:25
  was a very, it was very Pinterest friendly, like I'm not
• 1:18:28
  on Pinterest, but it was very accessible.
• 1:18:30
  You could have a Bert party and you could make all of those
• 1:18:33
  things. I'm having a a BBQ for my
• 1:18:36
  birthday tomorrow and now I'm like happy.
• 1:18:38
  Birthday. Thank you.
• 1:18:40
  And now I'm like, should I be making Bert hats?
• 1:18:45
  I mean those Bert hat, the the the bunting with the little Bert
• 1:18:48
  shirts. Oh.
• 1:18:49
  So good, so good. Oh.
• 1:18:51
  My gosh, just all those little, tiny little things.
• 1:18:56
  It was we were. Yeah.
• 1:18:57
  So so you have this beautiful set to look at and things to
• 1:19:01
  like. Well, why?
• 1:19:02
  Let's interact with the set. Let's, you know, say hey,
• 1:19:06
  because there there was an oatmeal bar right at Bert's
• 1:19:09
  party. Such a such a brilliant touch
• 1:19:12
  and. Like, but nobody never talked
• 1:19:13
  about the oatmeal bar. So I figured, OK, let's mention
• 1:19:17
  the oatmeal like you know, But yeah, the I'm not going to be.
• 1:19:21
  I'm not going to be shy. I'm going to.
• 1:19:23
  Tuck into this oatmeal. Dip into this oatmeal.
• 1:19:25
  I don't crack up in this oatmeal.
• 1:19:27
  I don't. Remember exact wording.
• 1:19:28
  I don't remember, but again, it's just that came out of
• 1:19:33
  necessity and they didn't, they didn't cut it.
• 1:19:36
  They didn't make me loop it so you throw it at the wall and
• 1:19:41
  hope it sticks. Anything else that that that you
• 1:19:44
  you want to talk about with regards to either the clips we
• 1:19:47
  sent or or anything else? I don't want to.
• 1:19:49
  I don't want to cut you short, but I also don't want to keep
• 1:19:51
  you here all night. Oh gosh, no, I understand.
• 1:19:54
  No, I just, I think I would, I would love to to I would love to
• 1:19:59
  know what conclusions we're drawing.
• 1:20:01
  We're or we're supposed to draw from this and I'm I'm, I'm
• 1:20:05
  coming up empty. That's a great question.
• 1:20:08
  You know, what, what, what are we, what are we trying to say?
• 1:20:11
  And I, I, I think it's, you know, I think that this is this,
• 1:20:16
  this project. And, and again, I, I, I speak
• 1:20:19
  about the project as a whole and not just the episode that
• 1:20:22
  you're, you're here on. I'm really just trying to to to
• 1:20:27
  put everything sort of in perspective because I'm
• 1:20:31
  fascinated by the fact that it really took, you know, we can we
• 1:20:37
  can talk about Prairie Dawn being this like well developed
• 1:20:40
  character and this character who who was part of the core gang,
• 1:20:45
  you know, on like Bert and Ernie's sing along and on, you
• 1:20:49
  know, and on in books and on on the posters and the photos of
• 1:20:53
  whatever. But there there's this real
• 1:20:57
  sense and and again, like that, it really wasn't until Abby
• 1:21:03
  could dabby that there was a female character who was, as,
• 1:21:08
  you know, like who was as prominent as the other male
• 1:21:13
  characters. I don't know.
• 1:21:15
  I I would say that Zoe when she was.
• 1:21:19
  True. OK, yeah, but.
• 1:21:21
  She was definitely put at the center.
• 1:21:24
  It's your Zoe. It's your Zoe and Abby for sure.
• 1:21:27
  And I think Rosita is very important and also underutilized
• 1:21:32
  in many ways. I think that Rosita serves an
• 1:21:35
  incredible purpose of the show. On the show, she's an incredibly
• 1:21:40
  nurturing, loving character. But she's older and I think.
• 1:21:45
  I love Rosita, but I I feel like, I feel like Zoe.
• 1:21:49
  I absolutely, I absolutely like accept like was was core.
• 1:21:54
  You know, Rosita was in so many episodes, but you know what it
• 1:21:58
  was? And again, it's like you were
• 1:22:00
  saying about like the merchandise.
• 1:22:02
  There never was that much Rosita merchandise and I felt like that
• 1:22:07
  that that always made her feel less less focused on, even if
• 1:22:14
  she was in so many episodes at the time.
• 1:22:16
  And Carmen does such a wonderful job with her.
• 1:22:20
  She's brilliant, but she's brilliant.
• 1:22:22
  You know, it's, it's interesting to to think about all of this
• 1:22:25
  and put it all in context has kind of been the project of this
• 1:22:30
  and thinking about like what what does work and why, why did
• 1:22:36
  like what things were was the show doing right in terms of
• 1:22:40
  female characters as much as what was the show doing maybe
• 1:22:44
  with room for growth, as we say in the education field with
• 1:22:49
  regards to female characters. And it's nice to just focus on
• 1:22:53
  like what makes for a character that you would assume audiences
• 1:23:00
  would respond to and want to see more of versus, you know, a a
• 1:23:05
  character that whether it's audiences or writers or or the
• 1:23:09
  performers didn't want to continue.
• 1:23:12
  And there's so many of these characters that, you know,
• 1:23:15
  lasted for a season and didn't continue.
• 1:23:18
  And it's kind of like, well, what is the difference?
• 1:23:20
  And, and we we can't say for certain.
• 1:23:23
  Like you said, there's so many factors and, and I'd say only
• 1:23:27
  Fran knows for sure, but I don't even think Fran knows for sure
• 1:23:30
  because I think it involves the writers and the marketers like
• 1:23:34
  you said about like with. Research as well and I mean I
• 1:23:37
  think that there are focus groups and kids you know, I
• 1:23:41
  don't know how the show is tested I.
• 1:23:44
  Don't know how. The show was tested.
• 1:23:47
  I don't know how the show's I know that the show's testing has
• 1:23:50
  changed. I don't know how I all.
• 1:23:53
  But one thing I do know is that in my mind, you have to take
• 1:23:57
  testing with a tub of salt because and you had mentioned
• 1:24:02
  this in the e-mail. You had said we know why are
• 1:24:05
  there so few female characters when half the population is
• 1:24:10
  female. And I'll tell you exactly why
• 1:24:12
  the line that we were always told what would what I heard a
• 1:24:16
  lot of in the 90s was that girls will watch shows with characters
• 1:24:24
  that feature boys and girls, but boys will only watch characters
• 1:24:28
  shows that that that feature boy characters.
• 1:24:31
  So we need to write boy characters because we know both
• 1:24:34
  boys and girls will watch them. But my feeling is that, well,
• 1:24:38
  wait, is that something that you know for sure?
• 1:24:40
  Or is that something that a kid told you in a focus group in
• 1:24:43
  front of other kids because he was ashamed to say he liked girl
• 1:24:47
  characters in front of other boys?
• 1:24:50
  So these are, you know, this is this is something that and and
• 1:24:57
  this is not something that is unique to Sesame Street.
• 1:25:00
  It's not something that's unique to the Muppet world.
• 1:25:04
  I mean, if you look at you look at what happened with Star Wars
• 1:25:07
  and the sequels and Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega, like the
• 1:25:13
  loud voices that squashed and silenced those characters, it
• 1:25:20
  was not the way the majority of the world felt.
• 1:25:23
  I don't think it was the way the majority of the fans felt.
• 1:25:25
  And even I'm not 100% sure that the people who were railing
• 1:25:29
  against those characters actually didn't like them.
• 1:25:31
  I think that it became something that was, this is what everyone
• 1:25:34
  is saying online. And this is something that pop
• 1:25:36
  culture as a whole is saying is bad with a capital B.
• 1:25:40
  So I'm going to jump on that bandwagon even because I can't
• 1:25:43
  admit to anybody that I actually liked Rose.
• 1:25:45
  Yeah, that's that's just my opinion.
• 1:25:48
  Don't come at me, that's just my opinion.
• 1:25:51
  But I think that sometimes these things about quote UN quote what
• 1:25:56
  audiences want or what kids want is maybe only truthful maybe a
• 1:26:03
  fraction of the time, depending on what time of day and what
• 1:26:08
  that kid had for breakfast. And who else is listening to
• 1:26:11
  that kids answers. Is that kid being 100% honest
• 1:26:15
  when he's saying I don't like to watch shows with girls, you
• 1:26:19
  know, is that little boy being honest?
• 1:26:20
  Is it, you know, and I think that I, I now I do believe that,
• 1:26:24
  yeah. Girls probably, you know, have
• 1:26:27
  some flexibility there because girls don't feel threatened if a
• 1:26:29
  boy is in charge on a show or the star of a show, maybe
• 1:26:33
  because of culture with a capital C You've got boys who
• 1:26:37
  feel threatened if a girl is a star of something, which is
• 1:26:39
  fascinating because Bluey and I think one of the reasons why
• 1:26:42
  Bluey is successful is because they are not obviously gendered.
• 1:26:46
  Yeah. That is it.
• 1:26:48
  It's the kind of thing where again, like me, you know, again,
• 1:26:51
  I, I, I keep up, I keep up with the puppet stuff for kids, but I
• 1:26:55
  don't keep up with everything for kids.
• 1:26:57
  Again, I'm in my 30s, but, and there's too much and I'm in my
• 1:27:00
  30s. But like, I did not know that
• 1:27:03
  Bluey was a girl until fairly recently because again, it just
• 1:27:07
  wasn't what my brain, you know, again, like what I assumed and.
• 1:27:10
  Well, the beauty of it is, it doesn't matter.
• 1:27:12
  Right. And, and it's so interesting
• 1:27:14
  because like, so as, as a, as a transgender woman, like, I, I
• 1:27:19
  think a lot about like, what are the assumptions that go into so
• 1:27:25
  many of these decisions versus like what are sort of like
• 1:27:29
  truths? And the fact of the matter is,
• 1:27:32
  you know, the more research you do and, and reading you do into
• 1:27:36
  this stuff, and the more, more people that you meet you, you,
• 1:27:41
  you restart to realize like so much of these things are, you
• 1:27:45
  know, constructions of society and the world around us rather
• 1:27:50
  than like inalienable innate facts that like, there's no way
• 1:27:56
  that like scientifically male children don't want to see this
• 1:28:01
  on TV. Like it isn't, it's, it's a
• 1:28:04
  cultural thing, you know, like. The the toys, right and the boy
• 1:28:08
  aisles and the girl aisles and Toys-R-Us.
• 1:28:11
  And you know, there's always going to be exceptions to that.
• 1:28:14
  And, and to say something that it is empirically true or to
• 1:28:18
  paint with a broad brush about any group in society is, is
• 1:28:23
  never a wise thing to do. But I think that and, and again,
• 1:28:27
  when I say these things, I'm talking about preschool in
• 1:28:29
  general. I'm not talking specifically
• 1:28:31
  about Sesame Street saying this. I mean, I've worked on a lot of
• 1:28:34
  preschool shows and so has my husband.
• 1:28:36
  You know, Craig worked on a lot of animated shows and he would
• 1:28:39
  hear this in development, trying to develop shows that never went
• 1:28:41
  anywhere and what have you. This was just the party line.
• 1:28:45
  And there's a lot of, so it's still showbiz, right?
• 1:28:52
  I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's all still show business.
• 1:28:56
  It's expensive, it's time consuming and a lot doesn't
• 1:29:03
  succeed. So there is a fair amount of
• 1:29:07
  fear that drives decisions and a fair amount of being careful.
• 1:29:13
  And there's a responsibility when it's educational, there's
• 1:29:17
  an extra level of responsibility.
• 1:29:19
  And for whatever reason, anything that's educational is
• 1:29:24
  automatically cheap. You know, we don't have the
• 1:29:28
  money to invest in preschool educational television that we
• 1:29:33
  once did or that other countries do.
• 1:29:35
  So you have, it's still expensive.
• 1:29:38
  You have less money to work with.
• 1:29:39
  You have more eyes being very, very scrutinizing, you know,
• 1:29:43
  whatever it is, especially now with social media and bloggers,
• 1:29:48
  and you take one misstep. All it takes is for one person
• 1:29:52
  to say something and it blows up online.
• 1:29:54
  And so everybody is treading very, very carefully.
• 1:29:59
  And I get that. I understand why.
• 1:30:02
  But what happens is then you start believing these things to
• 1:30:06
  be true, that boys don't like to watch girl characters.
• 1:30:11
  And yeah, life's not that simplistic.
• 1:30:15
  And again, I think it's so interesting to mention it from
• 1:30:18
  the from the scheme of educational TV shows, because it
• 1:30:23
  feels like part of the role you would think of an educational
• 1:30:27
  show. And again, I'm, I'm speaking in
• 1:30:29
  general, I'm not just speaking to Sesame Street here, but part
• 1:30:32
  of the goal should be to teach kids about the world and, and,
• 1:30:38
  and how it works and what kind of people they might encounter
• 1:30:41
  in the world. Yes.
• 1:30:43
  However, if the kids not going to watch the show, they're not
• 1:30:46
  going to learn anything. So they have.
• 1:30:49
  It's got to be attractive to them in some way.
• 1:30:53
  You've got this balance, yeah. Got to find what is going to be
• 1:30:57
  the appealing thing. What is the secret sauce?
• 1:31:02
  How are you going to hide the vegetables and the brownie?
• 1:31:05
  And that is not as easy. And that's the other thing
• 1:31:08
  about, you know, preschool television, educational
• 1:31:10
  television, everything thinks it's so easy.
• 1:31:12
  It's so easy. It's just for kids, who cares?
• 1:31:15
  It's easy. No, no, no.
• 1:31:19
  And this is the conundrum. And and we find ourselves being
• 1:31:23
  responsible for formulating the minds of entire generations of
• 1:31:27
  children. That's a lot on your back.
• 1:31:29
  So of course everybody's scared and of course everybody's
• 1:31:32
  concerned and of course everybody's very, very, you
• 1:31:36
  know, thoughtful about these things.
• 1:31:39
  But sometimes you just want to have fun with characters.
• 1:31:43
  We just want to have a good time.
• 1:31:44
  We want to entertain as much as we want to educate because if
• 1:31:49
  they're not watching, they're not going to learn.
• 1:31:51
  So it's it's tough, it's tricky. And yes, you're absolutely
• 1:31:56
  right. You should want to show kids all
• 1:31:59
  of the possibilities that are out there and fuck the
• 1:32:03
  stereotypes and say, OK, see what it can be.
• 1:32:08
  See how good this can be, See how fun this can be.
• 1:32:11
  Hey, having this little girl in charge is not going to cause the
• 1:32:14
  sun not to rise in the morning. It's, you know, it's not the end
• 1:32:17
  of the world. Seeing, you know, seeing trans
• 1:32:21
  characters on screen, seeing female characters in Star Wars
• 1:32:24
  movies, that is not going to to end things, right?
• 1:32:30
  You'd think that that would and that I, I, I I love that notion.
• 1:32:34
  That'd be great. You just have the bad apples
• 1:32:39
  ruining it for everybody else. And so, yeah, you.
• 1:32:43
  And The thing is, there's no formula for success.
• 1:32:46
  There's no way to be able to say, well, if we do XY and Z,
• 1:32:51
  then that automatically means we'll be fine.
• 1:32:55
  So it's the taking chances and it and sesame in its infancy
• 1:32:59
  that first season again, you know, it's, it's an experiment.
• 1:33:03
  It, it, it bucked all the trends it did.
• 1:33:05
  It did everything that shows we're not doing at that time,
• 1:33:11
  which is why it's the legendary institution that it is.
• 1:33:18
  But it is not immune to criticism and it is not immune
• 1:33:23
  to, to the realities of, of, of the world.
• 1:33:26
  And it is, you know, it's not a, it's not a utopia in the sense
• 1:33:36
  that we can do whatever we want and there won't be criticism.
• 1:33:40
  Yeah. So to have Prairie Dawn in a, in
• 1:33:45
  a parallel, let's just say in a parallel world for Prairie Dawn
• 1:33:48
  to be upfront for all 56 seasons, as important as Elmo
• 1:33:55
  and Cookie and Grover and Big Bird.
• 1:33:57
  You know, I don't know what that world looks like because that's
• 1:34:02
  just not our reality. And things I, I don't know now I
• 1:34:08
  now I feel like I'm just talking circular, circular Lily.
• 1:34:11
  But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's frustrating because, and again,
• 1:34:16
  I've said this since the dawn of time, people who've heard me on
• 1:34:18
  podcasts have heard me say this a lot.
• 1:34:20
  But not everything good is successful and not everything
• 1:34:22
  successful is good. You can have a great character
• 1:34:25
  and do everything right and maybe not have it be as
• 1:34:30
  successful as you would like it to be.
• 1:34:32
  And that happens, You know, great sitcoms get cancelled.
• 1:34:36
  Great shows get cancelled, great movies flop or don't win awards.
• 1:34:41
  It happens. Great actors work in real
• 1:34:43
  estate. Yeah.
• 1:34:45
  I know way too many of them. We do what we can.
• 1:34:49
  You know, there, there, there isn't, there isn't a final
• 1:34:52
  answer here. You know, you were like, you
• 1:34:54
  were like, well, what's, what's the take away from this
• 1:34:56
  conversation? And, and I don't know that there
• 1:34:59
  is and I don't know that there's going to be a, a final take away
• 1:35:03
  from, you know, this entire bizarre podcast endeavor that I
• 1:35:08
  currently find myself on. I'm not sure there is a final
• 1:35:11
  answer besides just it's interesting to ask these
• 1:35:15
  questions and to be prompted to ask these questions.
• 1:35:19
  You know by by some silly puppet clips.
• 1:35:24
  And oh, and I just want to say like going back to Abby, because
• 1:35:28
  I never really, and that this is not to say like I think Leslie
• 1:35:31
  is doing an amazing job with Abby and she's the perfect
• 1:35:35
  person to play that character. And you know, she's what, what,
• 1:35:39
  what has been asked of her has been nothing short of Herculean
• 1:35:42
  as far as the amount of of, you know, the, the, the
• 1:35:47
  responsibility that she has with that character and the things
• 1:35:51
  that she does with that character and the way that
• 1:35:52
  character has grown far beyond, I think what the character may
• 1:35:56
  have been intended to be. So that's not to say that like,
• 1:36:03
  so it took all these years for there to be this character that
• 1:36:05
  was thought. And is that because of Leslie?
• 1:36:08
  Well, yeah, Leslie did great. But does that mean that Rosita
• 1:36:12
  is not a great character? No, it doesn't.
• 1:36:15
  It Does that mean that was not a great?
• 1:36:17
  No, of course not. But but we live in a time when,
• 1:36:21
  unfortunately, because there are so few of these female
• 1:36:25
  characters, we find that we have to either rank them or say that,
• 1:36:29
  well, one succeeded because the other one failed.
• 1:36:31
  And it's not a situation where. Oh no, of course not, No.
• 1:36:37
  No, but I think I want to make that clear.
• 1:36:39
  And what I'm saying too is that we, we get it, we fall in this
• 1:36:44
  trap when we talk about female characters in any situation, but
• 1:36:47
  especially in the Muppet world, because there are so few of
• 1:36:50
  them. There's so few well known ones.
• 1:36:52
  Now there's a lot of female presence on the show.
• 1:36:55
  You want to talk about 1 offs and anything characters you want
• 1:36:58
  to talk about moms. I mean, I played Cookie's mom
• 1:37:01
  and Elmo's mom and Grover's mom and you know, I've that's great.
• 1:37:04
  That's great fun. A lot.
• 1:37:06
  Did hundreds of 1 offs. There's Oh, no, absolutely no.
• 1:37:10
  Presence on the show, but they're just not characters that
• 1:37:12
  anybody knows. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:37:14
  So it's so it's so it's an interesting thing to to look at
• 1:37:19
  as far as are you talking about female presence or are you
• 1:37:24
  talking about female merchandising repres like that
• 1:37:29
  picture, that photograph that represents Sesame Street and who
• 1:37:34
  is on that and how many of those characters are female?
• 1:37:38
  And it, I think it's an interesting conversation to
• 1:37:40
  have. What is that differentiation?
• 1:37:44
  I always say there are a lot more female performers on Sesame
• 1:37:48
  Street than there are characters that represent that number.
• 1:37:52
  And we keep trying, you know, and, and the performers do as
• 1:37:58
  good a job as we possibly can do with them.
• 1:38:01
  But there are forces bigger than us sometimes that make it so.
• 1:38:05
  Yeah, they got to keep paring back the number.
• 1:38:07
  And then they'll add more and then they'll take away, and then
• 1:38:09
  they'll add more and then they'll take away.
• 1:38:11
  It's happened with human cast members, too.
• 1:38:13
  I mean, we're not. We didn't even scratch the
• 1:38:15
  surface of human cast members, which is, I think, just as, if
• 1:38:21
  not more important to Sesame Street.
• 1:38:24
  I think the human cast, they were to me.
• 1:38:28
  I knew when I was a kid, even when I was really little, you
• 1:38:33
  know that. Yeah, that that that that Grover
• 1:38:36
  and Cookie Monster were, were Muppets.
• 1:38:39
  But I knew. That's Bob.
• 1:38:42
  That's the one and only Bob. And.
• 1:38:44
  When I met Bob, when I met Emilio, when I met Louise, when
• 1:38:49
  I met Roscoe, you know Gordon and they called me by my name.
• 1:38:55
  They are one-of-a-kind. There's only one Loretta Long,
• 1:38:59
  there's only one Sonia Manzano. There was only one Bob McGrath.
• 1:39:02
  You got a couple of prairies. You got, you know, you got how
• 1:39:06
  many people have played Elmo at this point?
• 1:39:07
  How many people have played Ernie at this point?
• 1:39:10
  There's only one Bob, there's only one Loretta, there's
• 1:39:13
  there's only one Allison Bartlett.
• 1:39:17
  So you know that that would be an interesting and I know that
• 1:39:20
  yes, Tough Pigs is Muppet centric, but that is also a
• 1:39:24
  fascinating conversation. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:39:27
  You know, again, it's, it's, it's just you, you know, you,
• 1:39:30
  you got to start somewhere. And also, I don't know, like I
• 1:39:34
  keep saying, I don't, I don't know what the answer is or even
• 1:39:40
  even all the time. I don't know what the question
• 1:39:42
  is. I just know that having these
• 1:39:44
  conversations is the is the best way to figure things out.
• 1:39:48
  Oh absolutely. Shining a light on the stuff is
• 1:39:50
  is never a bad idea. Stephanie, thank you so much for
• 1:39:53
  talking to me. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm both
• 1:39:55
  sorry and not sorry that this this took so long, but.
• 1:40:01
  I don't. Thank you for letting me Babble.
• 1:40:04
  That's what I wanted. That is 100% what I wanted when
• 1:40:08
  I set this up. Stephanie, do you have anything
• 1:40:10
  that you'd like to plug before before I wrap up?
• 1:40:14
  Well, season 3 of Don Quixote should be airing very soon and
• 1:40:19
  I'm particularly proud of a lot of the stuff we did this season.
• 1:40:22
  I wrote 3 scripts in season 3, but of course you can still see
• 1:40:27
  seasons one and two on PBS Kids. And I wrote, I've written, I've
• 1:40:33
  gotten to write a bunch of episodes of Donkey.
• 1:40:35
  I'm very grateful and I, I love playing every character I get to
• 1:40:39
  play on that show. Yeah, if anybody wants to,
• 1:40:43
  Helpsters I think is still streaming on Apple TV Plus.
• 1:40:47
  And of course, Sesame Street's still going.
• 1:40:49
  And boy, I'm not really doing anything right now to to to plug
• 1:40:55
  per SE, but I am very proud of the stuff that's going to be
• 1:40:59
  coming up this season On on, on donkey.
• 1:41:01
  I mean, I don't know specifically what's coming up,
• 1:41:03
  but you should be proud of all three of those, all three of
• 1:41:06
  those shows I. I'm just lucky to keep working
• 1:41:08
  that that's really that's that's the basic.
• 1:41:12
  I'm just lucky to keep working. Thank you so much.
• 1:41:15
  Thank you, Becca. Man, I love talking to
• 1:41:28
  Stephanie, but now I have even more to think about.
• 1:41:32
  But like I said, maybe that's the wonderful thing about asking
• 1:41:35
  questions. Sometimes the answer is less
• 1:41:39
  important than the journey. Next week.
• 1:41:42
  Our journey takes us back to the world of minor characters,
• 1:41:46
  though, as we talk about some characters who were never really
• 1:41:50
  designed to be part of the main gang.
• 1:41:53
  See the see the little house down there?
• 1:41:55
  That's the house where the tootle bugs live.
• 1:41:57
  Isn't that cute? It's it's made out of a little
• 1:41:59
  milk carton and it's got pencils there for the roof and it's got
• 1:42:03
  a little drinking straw there. That's the chimney Next week on
• 1:42:06
  a Prairie Dawn Companion, A tale of two Tinas.
• 1:42:12
  I can't wait to ask even more questions then I really.
• 1:42:16
  Am quite. Regarded a Prairie Dawn
• 1:42:22
  Companion is a production of toughpigs.com.
• 1:42:25
  It is written, produced, edited and hosted by Becca Petunia, an
• 1:42:30
  executive produced by the Tough Pigs Muppet Fan Podcast
• 1:42:34
  executive producer Johannes. Thanks to Scott Hanson, Shane
• 1:42:39
  Keating, Tony Whitaker and the Whole Muppet Wiki team for
• 1:42:43
  helping me with research. The book St.
• 1:42:45
  Gang by Michael Davis was also indispensable.
• 1:42:49
  Thanks to Katie Lynn Miller, Michael Richardson and Eli Lee
• 1:42:54
  for help with script revisions. Follow Tough Pigs on social
• 1:42:57
  media. You can support us on Patreon or
• 1:43:01
  by buying a T-shirt on our tea public.
• 1:43:03
  Join the conversation on the Tough Pigs Discord.
• 1:43:07
  You can support a Prairie Dawn companion and lots of other
• 1:43:11
  podcasts too by giving Muppet fan podcasts with toughpigs.com
• 1:43:16
  five stars on your podcast reviewing app of choice.
• 1:43:33
  Just ask a question that starts where or when, how, what or why.
• 1:43:41
  Okay, you want to try it. Okay, I got one.
• 1:43:46
  Why do flowers bloom in springtime?
• 1:43:49
  Because the sun turns warm in May.