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Transcript

The Muppets Mayhem: Backstage Pass - "Exile on Main Street" with Eric Jacobson (Animal) · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

• 0:06
  Hello, and welcome to the Muppets.
• 0:08
  Mayhem backstage, pass, the unofficial Companion podcast to
• 0:11
  The Muppets Mayhem presented by tough pics.com.
• 0:14
  This is the podcast where we tore through every episode of
• 0:17
  The Muppets Mayhem to uncover behind-the-scenes stories,
• 0:19
  Easter eggs and more with The Talented cast and crew helped
• 0:22
  put the series together. I'm your host dedicated may head
• 0:26
  Johannes today. We are talking about track 3.
• 0:30
  Exile on Main Street in which animal quits the band and he
• 0:33
  gives baby Yoda a run for his money.
• 0:36
  This week, we've got to return guest in one first-timer first
• 0:39
  up. He's the co-creator and
• 0:40
  executive producer of The Muppets Mayhem.
• 0:42
  Please welcome Jeff, your expect to the podcast.
• 0:44
  Hey Jeff, thank you Joe. Thank you.
• 0:47
  Boo bravo, bravo bravo Roberts, huge bill, sit down and place
• 0:51
  its I can't wait. I will carry Bravo stand up
• 0:55
  next. Stand up for your introduction.
• 0:58
  He is another Co-creator and executive producer as well as
• 1:02
  dr. Teeths number one, pal, please
• 1:04
  welcome, Bill Beretta back to the podcast.
• 1:05
  A bill bravo! Bravo bravo for me Bravo to you,
• 1:11
  our final guest is the Muppet performer responsible for
• 1:14
  taming, the wild beast known as animal.
• 1:16
  Please welcome, Eric Jacobson to the podcast.
• 1:19
  Hi, Eric. Hello to have you here?
• 1:23
  Yeah, yeah it's good to be here. So, wait, so I'm kind of
• 1:27
  representing animal. In this.
• 1:30
  Is that what I'm doing? I'm going to talk about animal
• 1:32
  normally does Janice but if he's doing the animal stuff I guess.
• 1:36
  Today we normally, when I go on podcasts, I like to talk about
• 1:40
  Janice even though talk about Janice, I'm fine with that.
• 1:43
  All right, every animal might come up in passing next week as
• 1:47
  we continue, we'll see. We'll see.
• 1:48
  We'll see how the flow goes before we get started though.
• 1:50
  I really have a question. Okay, so it's Johannes but Jeff
• 1:56
  York's you talk about the eat Yeah, I do I think you guys
• 2:00
  should get together and kind of decide on Jeff York but
• 2:04
  pronunciation. I like it York is all the time.
• 2:07
  Yeah. And I get I get hens all the
• 2:09
  time. Well, that's him.
• 2:11
  Correct pronunciation. According to people, talk to my
• 2:14
  dad about it. Anyways I mean you know talk it
• 2:18
  over you can. This might be a separate
• 2:20
  podcast. Yeah yeah.
• 2:22
  Maybe it's a whole offshoot. Yeah we yeah we can't all be
• 2:26
  Jacobson Jacobson is the easy one.
• 2:28
  I feel like So, Eric Jacobson, what was your first reaction
• 2:34
  when you heard that there was going to be an Electric Mayhem
• 2:35
  series. Oh, um, wow, did you make that
• 2:40
  noise? Been.
• 2:41
  Did you do that? Hearing about the possibility?
• 2:45
  I did you come ask you? Did you go did you go?
• 2:47
  Oh yeah. That's exactly what I did.
• 2:50
  All right. But it's it was a long time
• 2:56
  coming. I mean, I know.
• 2:57
  Bill you been Thinking about this for a long time and, and,
• 3:02
  and Jeff you keep on hounding me at like, comic-con's, yeah.
• 3:08
  Yeah, I got this idea for I met him.
• 3:10
  I'm like, I'm not the guy to talk to you.
• 3:14
  Right now before the storm was Booth.
• 3:18
  I wish you all the luck in the world, but so, so I had always
• 3:23
  thought it was a great idea. If you're gonna do a kind of an
• 3:29
  offshoot of the brand, right? That you could do, you could do
• 3:35
  a show, you could do something with this subset of characters.
• 3:39
  It makes sense because they all have this really tight, you
• 3:43
  know, all these tight relationships with each other
• 3:48
  you know outside of apart from the rest of the Muppets.
• 3:52
  So I thought it was a great idea. 2019 at Comic-Con but I
• 3:58
  did run into you and math. I knew you, I didn't know Matt.
• 4:02
  But I was talking, you know, we were chatting it up and we were
• 4:06
  supposed to come back from that. I was going to be that and we
• 4:09
  were supposed to pitch it. The next day come up.
• 4:11
  And oh my God, ever reason that was.
• 4:13
  Can't I couldn't bring it up to you guys.
• 4:15
  No, no, it's wild. That's so cool.
• 4:19
  Yeah, and it's random and I'm on the train back.
• 4:21
  Brian Henson was on the train. Well, that's right.
• 4:24
  Is that memory tell me? That and I introduced myself to
• 4:27
  him or reintroduce myself out. Sure.
• 4:29
  He remembered me as an intern from you know, 25 years
• 4:31
  previously but I couldn't say anything to him.
• 4:35
  You know. So how hard is it to keep an a
• 4:41
  character like animal who was pretty much designed to be more
• 4:44
  or less OneNote interesting throughout an entire season of a
• 4:49
  television show? I'm from for me.
• 4:53
  I'll just as performer. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:54
  I'll just say that. I was, I was truly scared going
• 4:58
  into this because I thought I'm gonna have to do this one
• 5:04
  character all day long. Every day.
• 5:08
  I'm gonna shoot out my voice really fast, like like when I go
• 5:14
  in and do audio records. Yeah, I'm pretty much tapped out
• 5:20
  after Like half an hour of screaming and then my voice is
• 5:26
  blown. So I was really scared going
• 5:29
  into it as far as you know performing but it turned out to
• 5:36
  be fine. Like like because animal is very
• 5:43
  terse. He doesn't say a lot and it's
• 5:46
  not just him, you know, I'm not going into a studio.
• 5:50
  By myself trying to do, you know, you know all the all the
• 5:56
  dialogue is for me, it's not I have very little and that was
• 6:01
  that wound up being you know a Saving Grace.
• 6:06
  Obviously to my voice also a lot of fun for me in that I could
• 6:12
  just be kind of in the background, a lot of times and
• 6:15
  just just making stuff up and in Trying to get into a lot of
• 6:22
  trouble Hagar, do you remember? Sorry, I just yours a so Eric
• 6:27
  would come up with like different ideas things to do.
• 6:29
  Like you just said in the background, you know, playing
• 6:31
  around. I'm to remember, was the record
• 6:33
  album in The Zed episode, was that something we made in the
• 6:38
  moment because you want, right? We didn't write that, right?
• 6:41
  That was something you like to remember that myself, that was
• 6:43
  never my questions for you guys. I'm sure that some of it, you
• 6:49
  know, where it wound up. It was.
• 6:51
  Yeah, was very made up in the moment.
• 6:53
  I think I couldn't remember. If there was something in the
• 6:56
  script that said, oh he's about to eat a record that he got off
• 7:00
  the wall. No, I think you wanted to and we
• 7:03
  like made the the frame crooked and then they quickly went off
• 7:08
  and took the thing that was in there.
• 7:10
  Oh yeah. Teeth marks in it.
• 7:11
  Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:13
  You know, props to the prop Department.
• 7:15
  Yeah. You know, they took they had to
• 7:19
  thankfully, they had Listen to gold records.
• 7:22
  And so, and they were okay with with with, you know, eating one
• 7:29
  figuratively and literally and sawing it and putting in those
• 7:34
  teeth marks it was, but it was that kind of stuff.
• 7:36
  So, Eric, Eric would have different things and be like,
• 7:38
  I'm just gonna be like doing this thing like, okay with you
• 7:42
  guys, don't worry, I'll be eating tissue.
• 7:47
  Okay, great. I feel like that.
• 7:50
  We're hearing a lot from you guys throughout this entire
• 7:52
  podcast is the amount of play and the amount of like
• 7:56
  everyone's got good ideas, especially you guys that the
• 7:59
  main performers who you've been working with them for so long.
• 8:02
  These characters for so long it's like of course, that's what
• 8:05
  animal would be 2 and of course it'll be eating tissues or take
• 8:07
  a bite out of that gold record and and you can just do it.
• 8:11
  You could just make that decision go for, it is a
• 8:14
  different episode. But yeah, the eating the the box
• 8:17
  of tissues was like probably My my my favorite moment in the
• 8:25
  some of it still in most of its cut out, I know Eric you know
• 8:29
  what happened? You know why?
• 8:30
  No, no, we've never talked about it was the timing of the dialog.
• 8:35
  I know was always just off from your side when you were chewing
• 8:40
  or grabbing one. It just like it was awful other
• 8:43
  scene, I guess that would have to take place, right?
• 8:47
  So it was like if there if we had thought about it, It and
• 8:50
  said, just grab it. When we're on Nora's side,
• 8:53
  right? I was doing it.
• 8:55
  I did it like 20. I don't know.
• 8:58
  I probably ate animal. Probably ate 25 to 30 tissues.
• 9:05
  Just one after your mother about it, but you had to bounce
• 9:08
  around. You have to tell the story.
• 9:10
  It was just so, just, we were so much fun.
• 9:13
  Damn, this was really funny, but it's there.
• 9:17
  It's the best, though. Just looking at the side to the
• 9:19
  frames when The scene happening the foreground, and they
• 9:22
  something else happening in the background again.
• 9:24
  It's like, you know, Nora comes in and, you know, after settling
• 9:28
  teeths problem with his parents walks in and it's just the wall
• 9:32
  of lips. Janan some Floyd, but you have
• 9:35
  an animal and mugur in the background and he's eating
• 9:37
  popcorn, just head. Following it like a laser
• 9:41
  pointer, you know, like a puppy. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
• 9:46
  I mean a lot of that stuff you know ultimately had to get cut.
• 9:50
  Cut out, you know, for time or you know it's just too
• 9:54
  distracting or I don't know but but we had so much fun doing it.
• 9:59
  W was made up in the moment. That's right.
• 10:02
  It that made it in. That was amazing.
• 10:04
  It was like a little anti Sesame Street moment.
• 10:09
  Was that what was that like Authority for you?
• 10:11
  You're like IMA get this letter wrong, it's could feel so good.
• 10:14
  I've been doing letters because I guess that's all wrong all the
• 10:16
  time on Sesame Street. It empowers the kids because Can
• 10:20
  correct him. Oh that's good.
• 10:22
  That's good point. Yeah, yeah, I mean, does Grover
• 10:24
  ever get it right? No knows that.
• 10:28
  You know, somebody else has to correct him drawing a Line in
• 10:31
  the Sand. This is not Sesame Street.
• 10:33
  That's right. Well, yeah, one of our first
• 10:36
  pitch meetings, you know. Someone asked like, okay, how is
• 10:38
  this going to appeal to the little kids Todd?
• 10:41
  Let the hammer like this is, it's not those Muppets.
• 10:46
  Yeah, we could just say in the merchandising Make some virgins.
• 10:52
  Well, they're gonna like it because it's funny and it's
• 10:55
  popping colors feathers and shapes.
• 10:58
  And that's what they. But you know, one thing that I
• 11:01
  love about this show is that it it's it it it welcomes everybody
• 11:07
  that it is like there's no reason why you can't watch this
• 11:11
  with your family that and that makes me truly happy because I
• 11:15
  have a family and I and you know I've got two young girls and We
• 11:20
  had a blast watching the whole thing together.
• 11:23
  It was so wonderful to just pile up on the couch and watch the
• 11:26
  show together. There's that is relatable for
• 11:30
  each segment of the audience, you know?
• 11:32
  Yeah. Just do is that, you know,
• 11:34
  appeal to adults that don't make kids feel like they're missing
• 11:37
  something, right, you know? Right, right.
• 11:40
  I'm just laughing all time. Speaking of ideally laughing,
• 11:44
  let's get into this episode. It begins with our cold open,
• 11:47
  back in the Electric Mayhem van. Animal is playing, Simon, the
• 11:52
  old game, the handheld game and he's showcasing some of his
• 11:56
  perfect Rhythm. Reminding us that he is a
• 11:59
  drummer, he's a professional and the band starts rocking to the
• 12:03
  Beats Floyd starts blowing into an empty soda.
• 12:05
  Bottle lips is rustling. A mylar balloon Janice is
• 12:09
  playing the beaded curtain in the back of the van.
• 12:11
  And y'all are making this like really fun song and lips his
• 12:16
  chips. Lips has a bag of chips, got ya.
• 12:20
  I thought was a balloon. Yeah, that makes more sense.
• 12:23
  Yeah, I don't know why there would be a balloon in the van
• 12:26
  but I didn't question it. Exactly.
• 12:29
  And yeah, this reminds me very much of like some stuff that
• 12:33
  that the Muppet Show did in the early years, I think there even
• 12:36
  is a sketch. Some of this, where they're all
• 12:38
  in a library and someone sneezing and Stones being
• 12:41
  shushed and it kind of turns into a like an orchestra of
• 12:45
  noises. And then animal gets a note.
• 12:49
  Wrong on the Simon, he throws it out the window, the song Silver.
• 12:51
  There was a moment in the 2015 series that we really liked
• 12:54
  where I think in one of the episodes, they're all sort of
• 12:57
  jamming to The Muppet Show theme song, isn't that what it was?
• 13:02
  Yeah, yeah, you're right there, sitting around the table and
• 13:05
  they're like tap and pencils and it was confident that was sort
• 13:10
  of an inspiration. I say, is it too late?
• 13:12
  Is it too late to to give a note for the The edit.
• 13:17
  Yes. No no to it because okay because
• 13:19
  I feel like the fail sound, right?
• 13:24
  Just the sound effect is a little late so I think if we
• 13:28
  just can we just like move that up just a little boat and legs.
• 13:34
  I think well we should make a note for viewers at that moment
• 13:38
  to just do like the sort of like your little fast forward just
• 13:40
  like once you know just like yeah, okay a pit or or they can
• 13:45
  go anywhere. At the right time.
• 13:49
  Hey, everybody record yourself, making the noise.
• 13:52
  Yes, and on social media put on Instagram, but on Tick Tock,
• 13:57
  will do just wil. So you're saying, Eric just come
• 13:59
  like, what a beat earlier? Not, not even, it's like having
• 14:03
  be like a half a beat. So a half a beat while you're
• 14:05
  watching a, half a beat before buzzes people just go.
• 14:09
  Yeah. Or go to the website
• 14:11
  www.graebert.com. I'm vixx's backslash only that's
• 14:19
  all for this episode. That's great.
• 14:24
  Otherwise, it's perfect. It's like a Persian, rug a
• 14:29
  single flaw, you know. Right.
• 14:31
  Yeah. We pick up from previous episode
• 14:34
  in which the band has gotten Zed to produce their album, and now
• 14:39
  we're at zedd's, recording studio, where, where was this?
• 14:42
  Was this a setup. Sorry, slight, slight, slight
• 14:44
  correction, sorry, Joe, but yeah.
• 14:46
  Laura has gotten fair. I was thinking of Nora as a
• 14:50
  member of the band, which I guess she is wise, quite yet.
• 14:53
  Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's fair be right.
• 14:57
  Nora got said to took me to it. So what was this a set or was a
• 15:01
  surreal studio? So beautiful, right?
• 15:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 15:04
  It looks, it looks very real luck.
• 15:06
  I love the inside the studio. When they're recording that that
• 15:11
  back round is just was a great psyche there.
• 15:16
  And yeah, Eric, as you said, animal tries to eat one of those
• 15:18
  Ed's gold albums because he has expensive tastes.
• 15:23
  That is also, that is, as EDS Grammy.
• 15:27
  Was that a real Grammy Grammy? Yeah, it was nice of them, very
• 15:32
  trusting. Awesome.
• 15:33
  Yeah, that was another souvenir. I thought of taking from the
• 15:37
  said I love too that when, when Nora takes the Record from from
• 15:49
  animal that I couldn't. I couldn't grab it back, so, so
• 15:55
  Bill you had teeth, grab it back.
• 15:58
  And then I was like, I don't know.
• 16:00
  We decided to then he'll back them teeth.
• 16:05
  Gives it back to Anna. And then later, you see, the big
• 16:11
  teeth marks, the Big Bite taken out of it and it's just all
• 16:14
  happening. That's all happens.
• 16:16
  In the background us. Secondary secondary.
• 16:19
  Yeah, DEC, you know, Q story, whatever, it is?
• 16:24
  Yeah, it was great, but the the, the the thing in that impressed
• 16:31
  me when I watched this was lips is handshake.
• 16:37
  Oh, right. It's amazing.
• 16:39
  I would swear that his hands are actually.
• 16:41
  Clasping Zed's. And his fingers are wiggling.
• 16:44
  Yeah, yeah. Are his fingers actually
• 16:47
  wiggling? No, I'm saying it looked.
• 16:48
  You would think just looks like that.
• 16:50
  Yeah, just yeah, like it. He's, it's so good.
• 16:52
  It's so good. And then and then Lily's
• 16:57
  handshake that she does is so funny and awkward so funny.
• 17:03
  Yeah. Because he came in here and
• 17:07
  just, it was like three days. Four days?
• 17:10
  Yeah shooting. Yeah.
• 17:12
  Never acted. Right?
• 17:13
  No. All new to him, never acted
• 17:15
  before. Like just came in natural.
• 17:18
  Yeah it seemed like he was having a good time.
• 17:20
  I appreciate that. He's a sweet guy so sweet.
• 17:23
  I couldn't have been nicer just there to play, you know, and so
• 17:27
  patient. You know.
• 17:28
  Yeah, right now. That's nice.
• 17:30
  Yeah. You like to hear that very open
• 17:32
  like open to end like he wasn't like no I would rather we
• 17:35
  anything was you know open for him.
• 17:38
  He would have you guys been in experiences where like, oh we
• 17:41
  have this idea that you spring on the guest star and they're
• 17:44
  just like, oh, um, Washer. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:48
  Well, it's just like do you really think that would happen
• 17:50
  here? And you know, of course will you
• 17:52
  would debate that thing that some people are just very open.
• 17:54
  Like let's try it. What's the worst thing that
• 17:56
  could happen? You know, like Danny Trejo,
• 17:59
  Danny Trejo with Jo will do it? Yes.
• 18:01
  You'll go from any time for anything so that is recording
• 18:05
  everyone in the band separately. And he only records like a
• 18:09
  little bit of music or a little bit of dialogue from each one.
• 18:13
  My favorite is Zoot who just says, I left my side.
• 18:16
  Acts at home, which is hysterical and said, mixes it
• 18:20
  into like this techno wish song who actually edited that
• 18:25
  together? Was it said, or was it someone
• 18:27
  on your team and Mitchell? And Steve morale did said, have
• 18:31
  to, like, approve its be like. Yeah, that sounds like a sad
• 18:34
  song that sounds like. Mice are, did he just?
• 18:36
  He rolled out. Know, ya know.
• 18:38
  These cool like that? No, it was G.
• 18:40
  I don't think he knew what it was going to end up.
• 18:42
  Being he just knew the idea behind in the intention of it.
• 18:46
  Right? So that was left to our
• 18:48
  brilliant people to create. And we see animal with the drum
• 18:53
  machine and he kind of hits one button with the drum machine
• 18:57
  with his drum stick and he looks very confused.
• 19:00
  This made it into the trailers and people loved this moment.
• 19:02
  I feel like this turned into a meme for a hot second to.
• 19:06
  Yeah, animal perplexed, but not being able to do his job, right?
• 19:11
  Yeah. Or it could turn into a meme
• 19:13
  like 20 years from now. Like rock of the Rock right?
• 19:17
  That's true. That's all means work.
• 19:19
  They're unpredictable. Ville and Timeless B.
• 19:21
  I don't know. Jeff.
• 19:22
  Remember like when we were talking about this episode in
• 19:25
  there, you know, the idea of them always recording together
• 19:29
  like, this was a new thing for them, you know, to bring them
• 19:32
  separate. Yeah.
• 19:33
  Into the future and that being but having them separate and
• 19:36
  seeing how they, all, you know, would deal with that and what
• 19:38
  would come out of that situation.
• 19:40
  So that was fun too. Yeah, think about and figure out
• 19:43
  who's going to do what and I'm assignment assignment thing came
• 19:48
  a little bit later like we knew he was The drum machine but I
• 19:52
  remember somehow we made the connection to Simon later or
• 19:55
  something. I'm obsessed with Simon and I
• 19:58
  just, it seemed like the to have this sort of rhythmic thing that
• 20:02
  had, you know, lights to it. That sort of made sense, right?
• 20:08
  That yeah, it would be perplexed by and then we wrote it then
• 20:11
  backwards of actively the cold open.
• 20:14
  Right? Yeah.
• 20:15
  Fitting in this idea that they're jamming together like
• 20:17
  that's what they do. So you can even see the
• 20:20
  Harassed, you know, it's one of the cold opens one of the few
• 20:23
  cold opens that truly works with the show stayed with it.
• 20:26
  Yeah, I mean I like the fact that the two devices at animals
• 20:30
  playing in those two scenes are one is very retro.
• 20:34
  One is very almost futuristic kind of cementing the fact that
• 20:39
  the the Mayhem are all pretty Timeless, you know, they do
• 20:42
  exist in all eras and will continue to moving forward or
• 20:47
  the they are having trouble coming to trying to get interest
• 20:49
  coming to grips. This.
• 20:51
  Yeah and I hope it comes across but like the drum machine is
• 20:54
  multicolored. That was a VFX thing to make it
• 20:57
  look like the sign meant. You know, it has the four colors
• 21:00
  of Simon on their also, those colors weren't weren't live yet.
• 21:04
  White to fix. Doesn't post.
• 21:05
  Wow. Okay great.
• 21:06
  Yeah. Yeah, but it was created.
• 21:08
  They did make it. Yeah, it's amazing thing from
• 21:11
  Mission. They invented the drum machine
• 21:13
  just for this show. Oh, wow.
• 21:16
  But then they also invented a time machine then It went back
• 21:21
  and plant, you guys had quite a budget.
• 21:23
  I had no idea seven years ago. A lot of money.
• 21:26
  Yeah, so while animal is recording voices, talking about
• 21:30
  how, you know says call these high-tech gizmos so they don't
• 21:33
  actually need any of their instruments anymore.
• 21:35
  And lips puts his feet up on the dash, accidentally hits the
• 21:38
  TalkBack button and animal, here's Floyd say that they don't
• 21:42
  need animal or his drum set, and animal flips out.
• 21:45
  He takes that futuristic drum machine, and he Chuck's it at
• 21:48
  the booth window, one of the Most difficult things to edit
• 21:51
  this whole sequence. Why was that?
• 21:54
  Why was that? It was just, what were they
• 21:56
  saying? When do they say it?
• 21:59
  When do they say? And what could animal just here
• 22:02
  to get it, you know, to under to be upset by it?
• 22:06
  I was going to say if if I had known how it was going to be
• 22:10
  edited. Yeah.
• 22:11
  Ultimately, I probably would have performed it a little
• 22:13
  differently. I would have adjusted something.
• 22:16
  Yeah, and I would and I'm still, I still feel like it wasn't.
• 22:20
  Quite right? Because I think animals reaction
• 22:25
  to hear. It's the shot from the booth to
• 22:28
  animal the wide shot. Last animal perks up as if he's
• 22:32
  hearing them already say. Yep.
• 22:34
  Yeah, that's the drum is the problem that animals the problem
• 22:37
  but we can't remember what? I don't know why it happened but
• 22:42
  there was it was the dialogue that we needed Floyd to start
• 22:45
  with. I don't know.
• 22:47
  It just wasn't. I I hear you right.
• 22:50
  I agree with all you guys I'd yeah it's something's a little
• 22:54
  off there. I think you still get you still
• 22:57
  get the story, you still get it. But yeah.
• 23:00
  You know I think they probably needed like Floyd or the band
• 23:05
  needed to say, one more thing. After I said we don't want one
• 23:09
  more like so he can like react to him saying we don't need
• 23:14
  animal. That's when his eyes kind of
• 23:15
  like a what? Yeah.
• 23:17
  Then like one more thing, follow.
• 23:20
  And it's just not good. Haha.
• 23:22
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And every animal just like gets
• 23:26
  really steamed up and then Chuck's the again.
• 23:29
  We have the edit thing. You can you can write tourist
• 23:31
  and go to. Yeah, I'm fixed.
• 23:32
  Www.gov.uk/transformation to it. Was it and I get it, I get it.
• 23:44
  Sorry sorry I couldn't help. I couldn't it's okay because if
• 23:49
  anyone At home was going like, wait a minute that that was not
• 23:53
  perfect or that didn't make any sense.
• 23:55
  It's immediately forgotten because we get this amazing shot
• 23:58
  of animal. Very casually walking through a
• 24:01
  glass door, which oh my gosh, I was fun.
• 24:05
  Looks so good. You would have never guessed how
• 24:07
  we shot it, either? The tell me, I won't even guess
• 24:11
  all nude performers. You're right.
• 24:14
  I wouldn't guess that three different doors.
• 24:18
  So there was an empty door with no glass in it, which is the one
• 24:22
  that Eric goes through. Not only wanted to know what do
• 24:25
  we do when I walked through? Okay, so, so there was the glass
• 24:31
  and they and they broke the glass.
• 24:35
  Oh, that's right. We left the shards up top.
• 24:37
  Yeah, broke the glass and that was one layer.
• 24:42
  Right? You know, the glass breaking and
• 24:45
  then I I think we were going to maybe do a layer where I walked
• 24:52
  through an open door without anything, but, but we just said,
• 24:57
  well, let's try it. Let's see if I can actually go
• 25:00
  through it and I like, I have no idea how I did this.
• 25:08
  But I actually, I actually took animal through the broken glass,
• 25:16
  like, Three or four times without with, without getting
• 25:21
  caught on it at all. I don't know how that happened
• 25:24
  because I'm like, I'm looking down at monitors.
• 25:27
  I'm like, you know, I don't have a really good view looking up.
• 25:30
  It's what we also. We also added glass in post.
• 25:34
  We haven't shards to in posts that also dropped after he
• 25:39
  leaves, right? And then also a few that weren't
• 25:42
  there. So I think you might have snuck
• 25:44
  by a couple of a little bit wider opening than Maybe.
• 25:47
  That they're always find that. It's so intimidating, though.
• 25:51
  They're like, we have one chance to do this.
• 25:53
  Guy's, I think it took so long to set up the breaking of the
• 25:56
  glass and then, but I forgot it. What we didn't?
• 25:59
  We never use. That's right, we never used the
• 26:01
  completely open door. That's right.
• 26:02
  Eric, we use the one that had shards on it.
• 26:05
  Yeah, it just looks so good, like you would expect an animal
• 26:12
  to smash through it, but just the fact that the walk is so
• 26:16
  casual. Well, I did that.
• 26:18
  I kind of slowed my walk down a little bit because I was going
• 26:22
  through the sharded pane of glass.
• 26:27
  I was like, okay, because I was intending to like book it a
• 26:31
  little bit at a faster clip and I and and I kind of okay.
• 26:37
  I'm gonna I got a new take on this.
• 26:40
  Just it works. Those just starting line myself
• 26:42
  up and get through it without ya lacerating.
• 26:46
  My arm Yeah. And accidentally made it much
• 26:49
  funnier. I think.
• 26:50
  Yeah. What do you think?
• 26:52
  You go through the glass animals fire, but you take off animals
• 26:55
  else in your hand is all Coast larious.
• 26:59
  Yeah, hilarious. Yeah.
• 27:02
  Like like you don't have an arm anymore like there's just a
• 27:06
  bloody knob. Yeah, that'd be great.
• 27:13
  So animal does not go back to the shack with the rest of the
• 27:16
  band and Said he goes to an employment office and we meet
• 27:20
  Gus Devore played by Ben Schwartz, who I am a huge.
• 27:24
  Huge fan of people probably know him best from Parks and
• 27:27
  Recreation but everything he's ever been in, I think he's
• 27:30
  absolutely hysterical and like what a get for this show because
• 27:34
  these scenes with him are just absolute gold.
• 27:37
  They could have gone all day long, by the way they could have
• 27:40
  just gone and they went on for a while, there's so much stuff
• 27:42
  that is what if I've Marik and hell yeah, how long did we
• 27:45
  actually shoot for? I want to talk to you.
• 27:48
  Yeah. It's like 45 or an hour,
• 27:50
  something like that of, like a footage.
• 27:53
  There's like you guys. Yeah footage.
• 27:55
  Yeah, because because I remember being there with him, for a
• 27:58
  couple hours or something. And yeah, and we just kept you
• 28:03
  two. Stop it.
• 28:05
  So much fun. You got such a good time
• 28:08
  together, he's in the hall, just giggling I couldn't stop looking
• 28:14
  at me, angrily. A holding area.
• 28:19
  It's it was amazing. He was so funny.
• 28:22
  I don't remember what was written for those scenes at a
• 28:28
  lot of all anymore because we were shapeless there.
• 28:31
  Yeah. You guys just played around the
• 28:33
  shape of it and it was just got better.
• 28:35
  And better actually had information, he had to get
• 28:38
  across and he did does and then it just built around it.
• 28:42
  You know, the toughest part was remembering All the improved
• 28:48
  stuff that we had done in the previous six week.
• 28:52
  When we were changing angles, right?
• 28:55
  Change camera angles, it's like, okay.
• 28:57
  Now let's do all that again. Yeah.
• 28:59
  What would women what did we do? Yeah.
• 29:03
  Well and then to so who did Kevin edit that one Jeff?
• 29:07
  There's no that's the edits really really well done.
• 29:12
  Like he he just he captured both sides of that conversation.
• 29:17
  Totally well, and our first cut of it was very long and great, I
• 29:20
  mean, it's amazing, but we have a show to get to and one of our
• 29:25
  notes was we have to get to this sooner, you know, not that.
• 29:29
  But the next part, the story, we want to see him, you know, in
• 29:33
  his jobs that is just that was another one.
• 29:35
  My happiest days, though. Doing those scenes with been
• 29:39
  here? Yeah, it is terrific.
• 29:41
  Yes, I imagine it truly is, I love the counting 5.
• 29:45
  Top five, six. X7, it just starts counting.
• 29:49
  I'm not counting. I meant you're not teaching me
• 29:51
  how to count here. I mean all this stuff like
• 29:54
  playing with the fact that animal only can only say so
• 29:57
  much. Yeah.
• 29:58
  Like the bit were animals saying his name over again, is that
• 30:01
  where he just saying? Yeah, it's everything that Ben
• 30:04
  is saying, yeah, the counting like, it's all like it's just
• 30:08
  it's such a good use of animal and someone who is so talented
• 30:12
  improvising, like Ben Schwartz. Well, I'm like Eric.
• 30:15
  I mean, to improvise with attire.
• 30:17
  You're like that, that is that has such a limited kind of
• 30:21
  vocabulary, but, you know, all the stuff is there.
• 30:25
  It's just so thank an animal and I have a lot in common in that
• 30:28
  well, that's true. Yeah, yeah, I think we do
• 30:31
  mentioned before that, we shot, where they shot the office, and
• 30:35
  I believe that office was certainly one of the ones that
• 30:37
  they would do the interviews. You know, like that the Cutaway
• 30:40
  interviews the Talking Heads. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 30:42
  So from the fat from the off the window, which is shifted the
• 30:45
  show, grease to the wall. Another Steve Carell connection
• 30:50
  though. We kind of I think before this
• 30:54
  first thing with Ben there's a we go to the shack and there's
• 30:59
  an exterior. Oh my God.
• 31:01
  Yeah. Have you guys already talked
• 31:03
  about this? We have not officially but I
• 31:05
  guess so. So after we shot our show and
• 31:10
  came home and in and I had you know, a week or two to kill.
• 31:15
  I I put Some TV. And, and I saw this Steve Carell
• 31:21
  show the patient. Very dark, very dark, but
• 31:27
  wonderful show about a psychiatrist who gets kidnapped
• 31:34
  by a serial killer rides, him and domhnall Gleeson.
• 31:36
  Is that Otis? Yeah.
• 31:38
  Yes, yes, comedy. Right.
• 31:41
  It sounds hysterical. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 31:44
  Well, The serial killer kidnaps, Steve Carell and puts them in
• 31:51
  his basement and it's the same house.
• 31:57
  The shot exteriors for the shack.
• 32:02
  I immediately recognized it shared Universe.
• 32:05
  Yes. Yes.
• 32:06
  Can you imagine nothing like this, the the Electric Mayhem
• 32:10
  lives in the same house as this serial killer.
• 32:13
  It's like why didn't why didn't the Mayhem come to see?
• 32:17
  Corrales rescue. Yeah it's easy to Tom and Steve
• 32:21
  Carell ivoncita yet because we did dress it.
• 32:28
  We certainly dressed we dressed it and most people probably
• 32:31
  wouldn't recognize it. Well we add I did because we
• 32:35
  added the tower and there's a lot of stuff that wasn't their
• 32:38
  brutal place but it's unmistakably the same.
• 32:40
  Yeah, right. Where does the name Gustav or
• 32:46
  come from? Because That sounds to randoms
• 32:48
  beam to be just nothing. I believe it is.
• 32:52
  I believe it is from an early Ben Schwartz video where he's a
• 32:58
  basketball coach. Hmm.
• 33:02
  All right. Thank Adam big.
• 33:04
  It like this all-encompassing knowledge of the most like an
• 33:07
  atom media and so he'd like, have you not seen this?
• 33:10
  I'm like what an awesome bike before I'm even done.
• 33:12
  Answering. He's pulled it up on YouTube.
• 33:14
  It's great time-waster. This guy great.
• 33:17
  I just want to mention something about Adam, and it was around
• 33:20
  this time that we were writing this episode that Adam, does
• 33:24
  this fascinating astonishing thing in a writers room, they
• 33:30
  call it a tumble. It's something he's been doing
• 33:32
  for years, but I've never witnessed anything like it in my
• 33:35
  life. We sit, let's imagine, there are
• 33:38
  six writers write and we're talking about a scene and
• 33:42
  everybody has ideas and they're throwing out ideas and joke.
• 33:47
  And a relationship moment and where it's set and you know
• 33:51
  there's three beats and there's a certain amount of time you
• 33:53
  need to get through. So all this information is now
• 33:55
  been thrown out. It's for an entire episodes.
• 33:58
  Well do I know but I'm just I mean I'm just I remember it
• 34:01
  being my first time. Experiencing was a scene.
• 34:03
  I'll cut it to length but it was a lengthy.
• 34:06
  You know what I mean? It wasn't like a quick little
• 34:07
  snippet and and so certain information has to be made clear
• 34:12
  because you have to get to the next beat.
• 34:14
  And that also means you need that because it comes Later.
• 34:17
  Anyway, he takes all this information and then he just
• 34:20
  sits there and he begins to do what they call a tumble.
• 34:24
  And it's like this, it's like Like Rain Man, almost, you know,
• 34:31
  that he starts to talk through this scene and hits Every Beat
• 34:37
  and creates this structure with the comedy beats and the folks,
• 34:42
  it's like an all-encompassing summary.
• 34:45
  Yeah. He's like a sardine, a savant
• 34:47
  And you know it's like a writing Savant and you go and then you
• 34:50
  go well that sounds like a good thing.
• 34:53
  We should write that and we don't have an assistant like
• 34:55
  nearly, you know stenographer you know, just taking it all
• 34:59
  down because yeah. All just made sense, he took
• 35:02
  every one of these disparate ideas and put them together and
• 35:06
  it just all makes sense. And in be like, okay now go.
• 35:09
  Well, someone could go off and write it and then I'd like you
• 35:12
  said he could do an episode or he could do that for an episode
• 35:15
  that's when I found it. Like Ah, inspiring is
• 35:18
  unbelievable episode, you know? Okay, so okay, we got all this
• 35:21
  stuff, we've got this far. We got to figure out if you know
• 35:25
  where we go from here and he would just do it.
• 35:27
  And yeah, nearly vomit. All the entire story.
• 35:31
  He just, you know, and Floyd says that other than hey, man JJ
• 35:36
  reacts to him because he's not sure about it.
• 35:38
  But then nor is goes, well, you know, we and it's somebody.
• 35:40
  Some line that somebody mentioned that Nora should say
• 35:43
  it's unbeliev, it was unbelievable.
• 35:45
  I never seen anything like it. Remember, it was around this
• 35:48
  time and then we have to get onto like these zooms where we
• 35:50
  pitched to the studios. Okay, here's what we're thinking
• 35:52
  for, right? Was so you had a problem with
• 35:54
  this. Well this is how we're going to
• 35:55
  do it and he would just go through and do it.
• 35:57
  Boom. The people are just stunned and
• 35:59
  they're just like, that sounds great.
• 36:01
  Yeah. Yeah, well it sounds like you
• 36:03
  guys figured it out so well and I just sitting there nodding?
• 36:09
  Yeah as anyway, sorry I had to mention because it was around
• 36:11
  this time. It's all right.
• 36:13
  Yes. Notice this or at least
• 36:15
  experienced this thing. I mean he's Very good at his
• 36:17
  job. Obviously.
• 36:18
  Oh my God, job is no idea. Look at what he's created.
• 36:21
  What he co-created with the with the to I'll say another thing.
• 36:23
  I just very quickly just to toot Adams horn and not mine because
• 36:27
  early on, you know, I came in, you know, I had all these ideas
• 36:31
  and we'd be in the room and something we got a little
• 36:34
  sideways and I would start to get a little upset.
• 36:38
  I'm like, but but but what about what they're supposed to
• 36:41
  marshmallows and like, I just and so I think during a lunch
• 36:45
  Adam called me, you know, And we're past and he's just like,
• 36:48
  hey, just so you know, like it's Jazz, like good ideas.
• 36:52
  Let's just figure it out, like, it has to everyone contributes.
• 36:56
  We'll figure it out. Have faith in me, have faith in
• 36:58
  the system. It's going to find its way.
• 37:00
  Good ideas will make it through. Bad ideas will not but we got
• 37:04
  here a mall, you know, and it'll get there.
• 37:06
  So don't need your, you know, that's the best thing you could
• 37:09
  do. Is just like, encourage
• 37:11
  someone's idea and it will like your idea will get better, you
• 37:14
  know, and a bad idea will follow.
• 37:17
  But let's just see where it goes and it was such great advice to
• 37:20
  get so early on the room. And it totally changed my
• 37:24
  outlook. Yeah.
• 37:26
  Because I called him every day I was like, what's with this guy?
• 37:28
  Yeah it's huh. I don't know about bills idea.
• 37:32
  I just I just again I don't know about it.
• 37:40
  Good advice for anyone who wants to work in a writers room you
• 37:43
  know it's a hard thing to got to be open.
• 37:47
  Totally and collaborative, and just open to the collaboration.
• 37:49
  It just because you have an idea, doesn't mean it's the only
• 37:52
  one, you know, and everybody. And that's true for most of us
• 37:56
  for most of our careers of anyone listening out there.
• 37:59
  Like, if you're in a room with other people, if you're
• 38:01
  brainstorming, literally anything.
• 38:03
  Like, that's, that's how it works.
• 38:04
  You got to throw a lot of stuff against the wall and figure out.
• 38:07
  What's a good idea. Once in a bad idea, I was coming
• 38:09
  from 10 years of editing, in my office, their own, you make the
• 38:14
  decisions, right? Exactly.
• 38:15
  Just me, you know, And the best idea is mine because, right?
• 38:19
  So, when I was dealing with yeah and so it did take acclimating
• 38:23
  to get back into a collaboration, you know.
• 38:25
  And that's what's so cool about the Muppets, right?
• 38:28
  I mean Eric, you know, I mean, it's always collaborative you,
• 38:30
  we can't do Muppets without other people, right?
• 38:33
  We're always, we always need somebody to assist the
• 38:35
  characters or be a part of, you know, I mean sometimes we're on
• 38:39
  our own obviously, but this kind of thing, it's so collaborative.
• 38:43
  We just, we're constantly turning to each other to and And
• 38:47
  saying, what do you think of this?
• 38:49
  Yeah, I'm almost there can. Can you top this for me?
• 38:55
  Like I got it. Almost there.
• 38:58
  Wow. What do you think?
• 39:00
  And like everybody just kind of, you know, it's just this free
• 39:04
  flow of ideas and and it's all about, you know, which said it
• 39:08
  so many times before about the best idea winning.
• 39:12
  Yeah. And yeah, you know, because
• 39:13
  there's no ego down below frame, Like what's the point and that
• 39:19
  goes back to Jim? Like, that's what Jim said.
• 39:22
  You know, he took ideas from everyone.
• 39:24
  Best idea makes it. That's it.
• 39:26
  Yeah, that's how you make good stuff.
• 39:28
  Yeah. If somebody else has a better
• 39:30
  idea it's going to make my work look better.
• 39:35
  I'm all for it, it's true. Well speaking, speaking of work
• 39:40
  Ben, Schwartz places, animal and his first job, it is flat, his
• 39:44
  waxing floors and we see an animal holding onto a floor,
• 39:48
  waxer for dear life as its spinning around.
• 39:50
  As a great shot of animal, looking down the barrel of the
• 39:52
  camera is spinning. Yeah, like Craig's, I did Craig
• 39:57
  keeps idea on the day. I think he's like I do like the
• 40:02
  go put the camera right here and you know can we make it look
• 40:07
  like animals? Not Armature.
• 40:11
  You has to be are matured and we're like yeah, we can open his
• 40:15
  mouth and, you know, Just bug his eyes out and I'll scream and
• 40:19
  yeah work great and I appreciate that it's not like a green
• 40:24
  screen thing which you easily could have done to like it's
• 40:26
  practical. Yeah, yeah, love it back at
• 40:30
  Hannah's House. Janice is aligning nor his
• 40:33
  chakras after a stressful session was dead and she's upset
• 40:38
  that Nora didn't introduce her to said, as she promised and
• 40:41
  Genesis trying to mediate between the two sisters as
• 40:45
  they're getting more and more. Heated and arguing more.
• 40:48
  It just completely explodes. I had a couple little fun facts,
• 40:52
  though bleats. Yeah, go for it.
• 40:55
  VFX the candles and stuff in the foreground of the shot.
• 41:00
  Those are all CG added post. We wanted it to feel like we
• 41:05
  just didn't have the, I think the most ideal framing for
• 41:09
  showing what was going on. And so we sort of crowded the
• 41:12
  frame a little more. And then, even when you see, you
• 41:15
  know, Janice by the couch at the, Of the, you know, at the
• 41:18
  arm we added those candles and then a shout-out to make G
• 41:22
  Aquino our composure, it's all throughout the show, it's one of
• 41:27
  my favorite things but he just twist the the Mayhem theme.
• 41:31
  Don't don't don't don't don't, don't don't don't don't, don't
• 41:33
  don't and just makes it turn into whatever the music is for
• 41:38
  that theme for that scene rather.
• 41:40
  So in this one, it's this sort of ethereal new agey kind of
• 41:43
  thing and if you listen you could just hear it sort of woven
• 41:46
  through and It's all throughout the show and it's a really fun.
• 41:49
  It's an Easter egg in itself, you know, making the decision
• 41:52
  Easter egg. Yeah, if you said that, there's
• 41:54
  VFX in that scene throughout did, VFX do anything with
• 42:01
  Janice's fingers? Because I go would swear that
• 42:03
  her fingers move to, ya know you.
• 42:07
  But that's Alice. Look at that Alice doing this.
• 42:10
  But like when they're on well, the rubbing her head.
• 42:16
  Yeah. There's no, there's no movement
• 42:18
  there. It's just, it's just arm Rod,
• 42:20
  hands. Wow.
• 42:21
  Yeah. You look again, it's moving.
• 42:23
  It is moving. It's just yeah.
• 42:26
  And and I love Lily's Eyes the way they kind of roll up a
• 42:30
  little bit. Oh yeah.
• 42:31
  She's loving. Yeah and she spends her.
• 42:35
  She Twirls her finger at one point.
• 42:36
  Right? Right.
• 42:37
  Yeah. It's good stuff back with Ben
• 42:41
  Schwartz. Animal is now trying to eat his
• 42:43
  phone and Ben. Schwartz suggest maybe animal
• 42:50
  would want a job answering phones and you do a little
• 42:52
  roleplay and is another one of those scenes were like, I could
• 42:54
  watch an hour of this, it's so yeah, yeah, we did.
• 42:58
  So we did so many takes of those like it was something different.
• 43:01
  Every time, I think, for a while, he was instead of picking
• 43:07
  up the phone, he was just trying to eat the phone, right?
• 43:11
  Yeah. Classic animal and eat stuff.
• 43:13
  Yeah. Another shout-out for editor who
• 43:15
  just like, who poured through All this stuff and came to us
• 43:19
  with just like the best version of it, you know, right.
• 43:22
  It's just it's it was there. That's right because because it
• 43:26
  didn't start off with the phone in his mouth that grew into
• 43:29
  something that came after them playing for a while.
• 43:32
  Yeah, the fact that the scene starts with it is really fun.
• 43:35
  Yeah, it works. It's great.
• 43:36
  It's like you, yeah, you get the sense that.
• 43:40
  Yeah, we are kind of in the middle of something.
• 43:43
  Going on Haley badly. Yeah.
• 43:46
  And like we know animal well enough, that like we start a
• 43:49
  scene with the phone in his mouth, we know how it got there,
• 43:51
  you know. There's no like we didn't need
• 43:53
  the story to figure out. Like, why is there a phone in
• 43:55
  his mouth? No, no.
• 43:55
  It's animal has no explanation needed.
• 43:58
  Yeah, moving on. So, yeah.
• 44:01
  So he gets animal job as a receptionist and animal.
• 44:05
  Can't keep up with the calls. He's hanging up on everybody.
• 44:07
  It's, it's chaos. Is anyone who like myself who
• 44:10
  has worked front desk reception or an admin job can?
• 44:14
  No can get very hectic and very Alice very quickly.
• 44:18
  That is also, that's the elevator from Dunder, Mifflin.
• 44:22
  Those two doors would be the elevator on fact.
• 44:28
  And animal is immediately fired by Delia Gertz played by
• 44:34
  Jennifer Irwin. She is an actor who appeared in
• 44:37
  57 episodes of The Goldbergs. Yes.
• 44:40
  Which we have a small connection to through Adam Goldberg.
• 44:43
  Yeah. Little one that's Hansel.
• 44:45
  Just a moment and yes it guy. Yeah, huh.
• 44:48
  Yeah, I didn't either. No.
• 44:50
  That's funny though. I know I thought it was the guy
• 44:52
  who played the Hebrew hammer. I thought was yeah, who is the
• 44:55
  actor guy? The right.
• 44:56
  There's the actor. Um, days ago, hmm.
• 45:02
  Well, have to talk to Adam and figure out, has he been?
• 45:05
  Has he been stealing other people's credits?
• 45:08
  Claiming them as his own all the Goldbergs?
• 45:13
  Back at the shack, the band is back from a long day of
• 45:18
  searching for animal. And the now roasting
• 45:19
  marshmallows in the fireplace, it's a little foreshadowing.
• 45:22
  We exactly nice little seed. One of your favorite foods.
• 45:27
  You just knock on marshmallows all day Stephen nice.
• 45:30
  I do like the remember exactly how that happened but the build
• 45:35
  of where you been where you been, where you been?
• 45:39
  It's another voice another. Yeah, yeah.
• 45:43
  No, you're right, there's a good pattern to it to kind of your
• 45:46
  item builds, and I like that Zoo.
• 45:49
  Des, if they knew that the Blockbuster in Van Nuys close
• 45:52
  because he still has Bambi. Yeah, I hear a lot of people
• 45:55
  quote, that line deal. Yeah, I love a good Blockbuster
• 46:00
  joke. Yeah, Mook comes back.
• 46:05
  He tried looking for animal at the zoo, but he fell into a lion
• 46:08
  cage. Poor mooc, but to thank him for
• 46:12
  his efforts. The band has offered to let him
• 46:15
  watch them record when they're back in the studio which again
• 46:18
  like as speaking as a super fan myself.
• 46:20
  Like that's a big that's a big get like, you get.
• 46:22
  I get to watch you work. Like that's awesome.
• 46:25
  Yes, I'm in. Yeah.
• 46:28
  Oh, he lit. And there is, what kind of
• 46:29
  setting up? Also, a run of teeth feeling
• 46:36
  teeth, telling everyone, it's all going to be okay that he's
• 46:39
  coming back and everybody's starting to question, you know?
• 46:43
  No, no. This feels different.
• 46:44
  Something's not, right. Are you sure?
• 46:46
  He's like, no, no. It's okay.
• 46:48
  You know, which takes us somewhere eventually.
• 46:50
  But there's a little bit of a run there, which is fun.
• 46:53
  Yeah, it's interesting because I know we establish will talk
• 46:57
  about Another episode about how teeth really isn't the leader of
• 47:01
  the band, you know, those names in the title.
• 47:02
  But this is one of those moves that makes you think like, is
• 47:05
  he, is he kind of doing like a like, don't worry everybody.
• 47:08
  I got this. Like, I know best thing.
• 47:11
  Yeah, he's trying to, yeah, he's trying to convince them that
• 47:14
  everything's going to be fine. But ultimately cries like a big
• 47:17
  baby, right? But what we wanted to, you know,
• 47:21
  set that up. It was really fun to go there.
• 47:24
  Oh absolutely, yeah, that's that's too.
• 47:27
  Feel the band is still recording, but now they're
• 47:29
  recording very sadly because they miss their buddy.
• 47:33
  And it's like the songs is sounding like kind of like
• 47:36
  nonsense, not bad, just nonsense.
• 47:38
  But Sofia, Carson is there and she's visiting her friends said,
• 47:42
  which wants to see the band record.
• 47:45
  I'm sure that you got Sofia Carson because you wanted to
• 47:47
  make a reference to the fact that she appeared in an episode
• 47:49
  of the not too late show with Elmo.
• 47:52
  Everyone got that. She's a b, a big Muppet
• 47:55
  connection. No, no, that's a no.
• 47:57
  Okay, I'm the only one who noticed that fair.
• 48:00
  I worked on that show. I don't even remember, you don't
• 48:03
  remember, did Sophia no one there the whole time.
• 48:07
  She's super kind and I really like is great.
• 48:10
  She was actress. Yeah, she's very well.
• 48:12
  That's nice to hear my kids. Love The Descendants and so I
• 48:16
  just like that. Thank you for doing this.
• 48:18
  My kids love The Descendants just like, I let me shoot a
• 48:21
  video. Oh, nice out this video for them
• 48:24
  and I say, you know, showed it to them and they're like what is
• 48:26
  happening? How they loved it?
• 48:29
  You got, you got a good dad points for that one.
• 48:32
  Yep. Yeah, nice.
• 48:33
  My fate, one of my favorite Moog lines is here when Zane ask him.
• 48:37
  If he'll hit the record button. Yeah.
• 48:39
  Oh God that he's Sophie is so great.
• 48:42
  Yep. Just the word.
• 48:43
  Yes. It's all you needed.
• 48:44
  It was amazing, pause so good. So good that Moog is good at his
• 48:49
  job Tha just couldn't stop so good.
• 48:53
  Sophia Carlson takes the mic and she tries singing, the mayhem's
• 48:58
  new song and it sounds real good coming out of her, you know,
• 49:02
  like that actually like legitimately does, it doesn't
• 49:04
  sound like a joke anymore. So the band realizes the song is
• 49:08
  not for them and so they relinquish it to zed and Sophia
• 49:12
  they give all rights away is very, very kind, very generous
• 49:16
  of them. That's not right without their
• 49:18
  heartbeat. That's right.
• 49:20
  Yeah, you said it. They'll come back to bite them
• 49:24
  though. Our next team is back with Ben
• 49:27
  Schwartz. He has a great idea.
• 49:30
  Has animal ever considered a job as a drummer, for a rock band
• 49:35
  and animal flips out a little bit.
• 49:36
  The wrong thing to the wrong thing.
• 49:38
  Been, what were you thinking was that scripted, that's felt that
• 49:40
  felt like a like an ad. Lib to me.
• 49:43
  It was corrected. It was probably the think we had
• 49:49
  it was it was very hard getting his getting animal too.
• 49:52
  Trash the desk, though. I remember that big very, very
• 49:57
  hard because because, you know, animal can't reach across a
• 50:03
  table very easily because he's he has rotted arms coming out of
• 50:09
  his wrist so he can't extend that far to like knock stuff
• 50:14
  off. So we had to do that a few
• 50:17
  times. I don't the rod removal was a
• 50:20
  little tricky. For that one.
• 50:24
  Yeah. Yeah because you were right.
• 50:25
  You're like you're saying you were limited.
• 50:27
  How far you could go? Yeah.
• 50:29
  It was a lot of horizontal moves and you move in your body.
• 50:32
  Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah.
• 50:35
  So wait. So did you did you have like
• 50:36
  animal was like moving around and someone else or something
• 50:40
  else was knocking, stuff off the table, or you were able to
• 50:43
  actually do is try to actually do it.
• 50:45
  It's trying to do it. Yeah, we just moved as much, you
• 50:49
  know, cheated as much stuff. Towards the edge of the desk so
• 50:55
  that I could have a chance at sliding it off, knocking at all
• 51:01
  front of the day. Sure.
• 51:03
  Yeah. Yeah, you did.
• 51:04
  Yeah. Look realistic.
• 51:07
  So Ben Schwartz, suggest how about career in the food service
• 51:10
  industry and we cut to animal working at Teppanyaki Terrace as
• 51:15
  a Hibachi chef, and it turns out he's really good at it like
• 51:20
  animals, like, flipping stuff in the air.
• 51:21
  And, you know, again, like better than I imagined, I I was
• 51:26
  really scared going into these scenes at the restaurant because
• 51:29
  we hadn't choreographed anything.
• 51:31
  A lot of times we'll we'll rehearse.
• 51:34
  We'll choreographed and rehearse something like this.
• 51:37
  This you know in I just we hadn't done that for this scene,
• 51:42
  you know, to really show off animals culinary prowess at the
• 51:46
  grill because after all James Hong calls him the chosen one.
• 51:50
  Yeah. But we managed and special
• 51:55
  effects was amazing at getting all that food to dance and they
• 52:00
  can hear the way they did. It's it looks it really does
• 52:04
  look. I've Another thing was, you
• 52:08
  know, that this was a purely selfish.
• 52:11
  I my friends did the Harold and Kumar movie and they now have,
• 52:17
  you know, they now have White Castle for life.
• 52:19
  That's one of the restaurants but Benihana is my absolute
• 52:22
  favorite restaurant. So from the beginning, like it's
• 52:25
  got to be a Benihana. That'd be the temperature kept
• 52:27
  in hockey Chef. It's got to be Benihana know
• 52:29
  like we don't know if we can get that and I'm like, it has to be
• 52:32
  Benihana. I just want to go home at the
• 52:34
  end of the day with a card that allows me Benihana for free, for
• 52:38
  the rest of my life. And so, as you know, the process
• 52:41
  keeps going like. Yeah, it's looking like it's not
• 52:44
  going to be Benihana and I would just get upset, Adam would have
• 52:47
  to call me it. Look, it's Jazzman, it just like
• 52:49
  just the best as well. And finally, just the saddest
• 52:53
  day was when we had to come up with names for this alternate
• 52:56
  restaurant and I would. But now you can eat a Teppanyaki
• 53:00
  Terrace for free. That's right.
• 53:04
  I think the only thing with the food Eric was aside from you
• 53:08
  guys doing The Chopping which is a feat in itself making all that
• 53:12
  look good. But there was a thing where we
• 53:14
  said, okay? And I think we said it was maybe
• 53:16
  going to be an egg. Yeah, we did write that there
• 53:19
  was an egg on the spatula and you were going to do some trick
• 53:24
  with it and catch it and then do it as whatever been on the edge
• 53:27
  of the yeah. Spatula.
• 53:29
  What about the shrimp? Yeah I mean we wound up you know
• 53:32
  choreographing something kind of simple and And yeah, they said
• 53:38
  that that, you know, probably wouldn't have the budget to do
• 53:41
  any more than an egg. I was like cuz I was really
• 53:44
  disappointed to hear that. But after seeing, what was in
• 53:49
  the final at it. Yeah, it looks great.
• 53:52
  Like, you know, the little moves, we came up with really
• 53:57
  work seamlessly work with the VFX, and if he really does look
• 54:03
  like a Master Chef, it really does.
• 54:05
  I love when he flips. It's shrimp into the people's
• 54:08
  mouths and all of that stuff is really, really great.
• 54:11
  We could not believe we got James Hong, it was another thing
• 54:14
  we wrote our first Chef Dan and we're just you know, they're
• 54:17
  casting is like who do you want? I'm like, I mean, who do we
• 54:21
  want? I can we, can we go to James,
• 54:23
  Hahn? I mean, that would be amazing.
• 54:27
  And then they came back then like, yeah, he's in, that's so
• 54:29
  cool. James Hannah was one of those.
• 54:31
  Like, when looking at the list when it was revealed to us, of
• 54:35
  all the, almost all of the celebrities who are going to
• 54:37
  Cami owing in the show, and like, there's a few in there
• 54:39
  were like, obviously, it's like, yes, we're all freaking out
• 54:41
  over, Weird Al, but for me seeing James Hong, who is such a
• 54:46
  Hollywood Legend, and he's in so many movies and especially in
• 54:51
  the past few years, people have really been rallying around like
• 54:53
  yeah, he's like, give him a Hollywood star, you know, like
• 54:56
  pay attention when he's, you know, in an oscar-winning movie
• 54:59
  like everything everywhere all at once and to see him get to
• 55:03
  play with the Muppets. Even just very briefly.
• 55:05
  Like this is like such a joy to get I'm in there, we were super
• 55:08
  excited to to to meet him but he was just excited as excited to
• 55:13
  be there and to be doing this with us, it was really, it was
• 55:16
  really special, that's great. We see the the mayhem's van
• 55:22
  driving down driving through Hollywood, it drives right past
• 55:25
  the El Capitan Theater, which has lots of Muppet connections,
• 55:29
  most notably its stand-in for the Muppet Theater in the 2011
• 55:32
  Muppet movie, and the muppets muppets star on the Hollywood
• 55:35
  Walk of Fame, this is red. True it's right in front of
• 55:37
  their from yeah everyone should go to Hollywood.
• 55:39
  Go look for it. The here Sofia Carson's version
• 55:44
  of the song, Make and Mayhem and I like that the lyrics of the
• 55:49
  song are making Mayhem they wanted to hit song.
• 55:52
  So I came in, make no mistake the songs about the Mayhem.
• 55:56
  Electric Mayhem is very spot on this.
• 56:00
  One is literally about them, but they but the band feels like it
• 56:04
  doesn't feel like us. nope, only five out of six of them, maybe
• 56:11
  And I love Janice is line two about how you can't own a song,
• 56:16
  right? Yeah.
• 56:17
  Like, it's like land or books or Poncho's came up with that.
• 56:22
  That's great. Probably Jeff.
• 56:25
  I don't know, it's really funny. All right, of maybe.
• 56:31
  And of course, this version of the song is on The Muppets, made
• 56:32
  him some track which you can listen to if you want to hear
• 56:35
  the whole thing. Everyone should go buy it if you
• 56:37
  haven't already or stream it. Where do you stream music?
• 56:40
  I don't know. It was for sure.
• 56:41
  What is it? This is the yeah, there's a
• 56:43
  whole album Lionel. It's beautiful.
• 56:46
  No kidding. Yeah.
• 56:47
  They should make a TV show to promote it.
• 56:50
  I think. Can you buy a digitally as well?
• 56:52
  Or is it just an album? You can buy it digitally.
• 56:55
  You could Shimon if you have where a fire or the Apple music
• 57:00
  or the iTunes it on final two I have an old record player.
• 57:04
  What? Perfect play it on that.
• 57:06
  At you. Sure can Once animal comes home,
• 57:10
  the Mayhem will be able to make their music again and dr.
• 57:13
  Teeth starts to cry and you're just this crime scene is
• 57:17
  hysterical. It's like it's unintelligible.
• 57:20
  You could barely you can basically see like tears from
• 57:22
  his eyes, even though there's obviously nothing.
• 57:24
  He's not looking at the road now.
• 57:27
  Everyone is crying and freaking out, just screaming.
• 57:30
  Basically, I like how Floyd repeats back what he said.
• 57:33
  It would take four. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:42
  And again, lips thinks that he's dead.
• 57:44
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:47
  And we learn here. There's a, I mean it's you know,
• 57:50
  it's not it's not that early but it's a there's a little bit of a
• 57:56
  seed here where we learn that Floyd is always been
• 58:00
  responsible. Well, friends.
• 58:01
  That's right. Yeah.
• 58:05
  Which you know, we follow up on But later in the yeah, we'll
• 58:09
  definitely be seeing more of that.
• 58:10
  Yeah, that's a little bit of an eyebrow raised.
• 58:12
  So it's like this. Yeah, Rowan one little detail
• 58:16
  that we have in this scene because of reflection comes up
• 58:18
  at the end of this scene. But when we were shooting the
• 58:21
  van stuff, you know, there's no windshield.
• 58:25
  We're shooting through the just open space and it's mostly just
• 58:29
  grips sort of jostling the van and, you know, outside the van
• 58:35
  are couple screens, a few screens of LEDs that have Views
• 58:39
  of, you know what they're driving past.
• 58:41
  So I asked our post guys like look, that's like a package you
• 58:44
  bought from like a VFX house. Is there another view that's
• 58:48
  above? That's a camera pointing like
• 58:50
  what the sky would be above and he said, yes, I said let me try
• 58:53
  something. So I took it home and made this
• 58:57
  like sort of proof of concept. That is the reflection that
• 59:00
  would be on this windshield and it just starts.
• 59:04
  Every I think just about every scene that there's this wide
• 59:08
  shot Starts the wide shot of them driving has this sort of
• 59:11
  reflection that's placed on there and over the first two
• 59:14
  seconds of these scenes. It fades away.
• 59:17
  So cool, freshen that there's an emotion and then we're in the
• 59:21
  scene. That's cool.
• 59:23
  I did not notice that here. There's like it plays a little
• 59:27
  bit more of an important example because it actually, we see the
• 59:30
  reflection of the billboard, before we see the billboard.
• 59:33
  Yeah, we mentioned Almost Famous was one of the influences of the
• 59:36
  show. Like, I'm a Each one of that one
• 59:39
  and that there's a shot specifically in Almost Famous
• 59:40
  when he's driving, his first going with Penny Lane to go see
• 59:44
  the band there at the Hyatt House, right house.
• 59:47
  A pass. Just very subtly, Dark Side of
• 59:50
  the Moon billboard and it just has.
• 59:52
  So the windshield. And so I kept pointing that out
• 59:55
  as like that's sort of what this moment should be.
• 59:57
  That's cool. Yeah, I like that.
• 1:00:00
  And then Zoot pokes his head out, right?
• 1:00:03
  He sees he's basically the Lord and Zoot.
• 1:00:08
  Comes out. Take a picture and he says, hey,
• 1:00:10
  it's animal. And he grew.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah. Is that a reference to the
• 1:00:16
  Muppet movie? I don't know.
• 1:00:18
  I think intentional. I think I just lost the he's big
• 1:00:20
  on a billboard. I think I remember writing that
• 1:00:23
  bit that he was just big on the billboard.
• 1:00:24
  That he grew. Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  But I know wasn't a didn't know. I was wondering.
• 1:00:29
  Yeah. I was wondering I heard a number
• 1:00:31
  of people kind of make that connection, you know, that of
• 1:00:35
  course, rhino animal. You know, in the Muppet movie he
• 1:00:42
  grows this was another thrilling day.
• 1:00:44
  We were, I think we shot that day.
• 1:00:47
  That was teeth in the hot tub. Oh yeah.
• 1:00:50
  And then we went from there to the van on the street and then
• 1:00:53
  just like to go from location location, pulling up.
• 1:00:55
  And then just seeing Electric Mayhem van, it's just parked in
• 1:00:59
  the real world, you know, just just a trip surreal.
• 1:01:03
  And then those in the van as Dr. Teeth because you do see him?
• 1:01:10
  Yeah. Or just in case.
• 1:01:11
  And I just remember pedestrians would come by and like a parent
• 1:01:14
  came by with like a little kid and just sort of walked over and
• 1:01:19
  I have to build. Probably was just like as dr.
• 1:01:21
  Teeth. Come on over.
• 1:01:22
  Oh yeah. Oh great.
• 1:01:24
  Well, we were hanging out, it's just the sweetest thing, just
• 1:01:27
  watching this go down, you know, it did AA.
• 1:01:31
  And yeah, I can't imagine I can't imagine just walking down
• 1:01:34
  the street. There's Your teeth driving the
• 1:01:37
  van was my mind basically. We're like if anybody knows
• 1:01:42
  where this is, but on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, like I
• 1:01:47
  don't know. Chloe between Laurel Canyon and
• 1:01:50
  whitsitt kind of thing. But just right there, right at
• 1:01:52
  the corner of enter another side street, people are just going to
• 1:01:56
  get their ice cream and stuff. You know, it's fun.
• 1:02:00
  Nice. Yeah, so the band now knows
• 1:02:03
  where animal is they go to the restaurant and they see Good, he
• 1:02:06
  is at his new job, Floyd tries to talk to animal, but he
• 1:02:10
  doesn't know what to say. You know, dr.
• 1:02:13
  Teeth is the one who's good with words, not Floyd.
• 1:02:17
  And so he just starts singing. He starts singing Bridge Over
• 1:02:19
  Troubled Water, the Simon and Garfunkel Song, I think Matt was
• 1:02:22
  a little unsure, whether he wanted to do this, but I think I
• 1:02:25
  convinced him to sing it live there.
• 1:02:28
  So interesting. Yeah.
• 1:02:30
  And and it's beautiful. Like, that's his voice live.
• 1:02:34
  That's him. Sing and he didn't.
• 1:02:36
  Seemed to attract at that point because he did the little lines
• 1:02:40
  in between, you know, that he's doing and it was just sounded so
• 1:02:44
  good. I was like, man, I'm glad he's
• 1:02:46
  doing that live and his Tempo was right on like you can't tell
• 1:02:50
  that it didn't Bridge because we already have the song recorded,
• 1:02:53
  you know, he how did he have like a click track or something
• 1:02:56
  in his ear? I can't remember.
• 1:02:58
  I don't know if he may have listened to, it ahead just to
• 1:03:00
  get the tempo, you know, in his own kind of thing.
• 1:03:03
  But boy, he just nailed that it was so Great.
• 1:03:07
  The next thing I was going to say was Matt sounds so good
• 1:03:09
  singing this. Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Like really good. He sounds that good and he's
• 1:03:13
  he's also like leading into the song to exacting is really
• 1:03:17
  great. Yeah tongue-tied and just you
• 1:03:22
  know not being able to get the words out and and then shifting
• 1:03:25
  gears to singing. Yeah animals baby song and
• 1:03:29
  there's a great old baby baby stuff and there's a great line
• 1:03:35
  that When, before they come into the room and Janice says, what
• 1:03:41
  is it Benihana? The famous quote.
• 1:03:43
  Is he free? Yeah, that's a good line.
• 1:03:49
  Oh, that's right. No, it's kids, eat free, right?
• 1:03:54
  And so nice turn for Nora, you know who's just like finally
• 1:03:57
  finding her place with this band and can help guide them more
• 1:04:01
  than just recording an album, but just in their interpersonal
• 1:04:04
  relations which is really sweet. You know.
• 1:04:07
  Yeah. Which is especially important
• 1:04:09
  here because if you don't, then people could chip off from the
• 1:04:13
  band and go do their own thing. We'll see what that looks like
• 1:04:16
  later in the season but she's not following her own advice
• 1:04:20
  exactly. What happened Hannah?
• 1:04:22
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:04:25
  But yeah. So bridge over troubled, water
• 1:04:27
  turns out. This is a song that Floyd saying
• 1:04:28
  to animal is a baby at the end of the scene in the restaurant.
• 1:04:34
  So when animal takes off his hat and then runs to go hug the rest
• 1:04:41
  of the band. I mean it's so sweet and
• 1:04:44
  everything but there's actually there's a couple alternate shots
• 1:04:51
  that might have ended the scene so that that didn't didn't make
• 1:04:58
  it into the final and probably it's best as for the best eyes.
• 1:05:02
  I still vote for, I will, I tried hard and animal.
• 1:05:07
  Animal takes out, you know, I think some of us were thinking,
• 1:05:11
  is this going to be too mushy? Can we really end here on this
• 1:05:15
  machine? Note and so animal takes off his
• 1:05:17
  hat and I and he just lays it straight down on the grill.
• 1:05:23
  If you notice, they toss is it onto the grill?
• 1:05:26
  Yeah, yeah yeah. So so the idea was that he goes
• 1:05:32
  and runs and Everybody and then they all go off together.
• 1:05:35
  They leave the restaurant, but then you see the Hat on the
• 1:05:39
  grill, Catch Fire bursts in the Glen, bursts into flame.
• 1:05:45
  And then, and then, and then, you know, somebody at another
• 1:05:49
  table, notices it and then, and then somebody else, and somebody
• 1:05:53
  else. And soon, the whole restaurant
• 1:05:55
  is standing up and making a Mad Dash for the door.
• 1:05:59
  I think ass conceived. It's like it supposed to be this
• 1:06:02
  real. Oh sweet moment and then you
• 1:06:04
  like it would be set up. You'd see him toss it on the
• 1:06:06
  table and then they'd be hugging and behind them.
• 1:06:09
  I sort of out of focus. A little bit would be people
• 1:06:13
  running and Chaos, wouldn't I? I loved it because I still was
• 1:06:17
  hoping. I felt like we still need a
• 1:06:19
  little time as I'm going to send to the the Mayhem that I wish
• 1:06:27
  there was just a little more time before seeing Nora and
• 1:06:30
  teeth hugging to her. In the car.
• 1:06:33
  And I know in my mind I always felt like we needed that little
• 1:06:36
  bit of Comedy. Beat of the fire.
• 1:06:38
  The people freaking out, you know, that and then cut to her
• 1:06:41
  in the car. Yeah, you know, that was just my
• 1:06:44
  in my brain, I felt, but I thought that was a really funny
• 1:06:46
  idea to shampoo, but it works still still works.
• 1:06:49
  It's just very busy, the end of a scene.
• 1:06:51
  Like it was this is this those the button?
• 1:06:54
  I feel like that would have been hysterical.
• 1:06:55
  I would work so well, but we still had to lead into the next
• 1:06:58
  thing you'll want. Floyd opens up.
• 1:07:00
  His trunk fine silver. A piece of paper that says, keep
• 1:07:04
  and we get a flashback voice. He has a knock on the door and
• 1:07:10
  he looks down. And he sees a cage with the word
• 1:07:13
  keep on it that same keep and inside is baby animal.
• 1:07:18
  And he looks scruffy and angry and not at all like the Muppet
• 1:07:22
  Babies version of animal with like bright pink in the Bonnet
• 1:07:25
  and all that. All right so we got talk about
• 1:07:28
  baby animal because first of all this is the cutest thing in the
• 1:07:30
  world and I'm so glad that you guys did.
• 1:07:35
  Why design a new animal when we already have this point to other
• 1:07:40
  baby animals from the original Muppet Babies and the 2018
• 1:07:43
  Muppet Babies, that you could have pulled from, I always refer
• 1:07:46
  to this, as a baby. You're an animal baby around my
• 1:07:49
  babies animals, a little toddler, you know, closer in age
• 1:07:52
  to being a toddler. This is truly a baby, you know?
• 1:07:56
  So there is a distinction there. You have to remember.
• 1:07:58
  Also, there's no, there's no real.
• 1:08:01
  I mean, there's very Very little that is Cannon with the Muppets
• 1:08:05
  is that, of course. Yes.
• 1:08:06
  And because you know, Muppet Babies is a concoction of Miss
• 1:08:11
  Piggy's imagination of how that's met they didn't actually
• 1:08:16
  meet like that. This is all is all imagination.
• 1:08:19
  And then so, I mean theoretically, the whole, the
• 1:08:24
  whole series Muppet Babies series is Miss Piggy's
• 1:08:28
  imagination and within that. So it's like double imagine It's
• 1:08:33
  sort of like Inception too much. I know, I know, so it's
• 1:08:37
  perfectly reasonable to come up with something for this
• 1:08:42
  production, which is also not canon because it's a TV show
• 1:08:47
  with actors playing the roles of, you know, Nora and mood, and
• 1:08:55
  JJ, and all, you know, all the rest, you know, quite literally
• 1:09:01
  the only only thing that That you can.
• 1:09:03
  I think colcannon is the Muppet Show because all the guest stars
• 1:09:08
  have come on, they're playing themselves.
• 1:09:10
  Sure. Yeah.
• 1:09:12
  Yeah. But it's great.
• 1:09:14
  I love that. I love the, I love the design of
• 1:09:18
  the character. You know?
• 1:09:20
  Like you said, Joe that he's. There's like a there's there's
• 1:09:25
  some bite to him. Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  He's it looks funeral a little bit.
• 1:09:29
  Yes, yes, which I really like that.
• 1:09:33
  I think there was talk at one time that he was just going to
• 1:09:36
  be in a bassinet at the door and I suggested, oh, he should be in
• 1:09:44
  a cage. Yeah, I wasn't thinking a
• 1:09:46
  Birdcage. I think Birdcage is even
• 1:09:48
  weirder. Yeah, and I love it, but yeah,
• 1:09:52
  but but he needed to be in a cage like this he-he's not being
• 1:09:58
  dropped off by a stork. He's being dropped off by
• 1:10:01
  somebody. Who, Could not handle this
• 1:10:04
  creature, you know, they got them on the black market.
• 1:10:07
  Yeah. And and they could not handle
• 1:10:12
  him in there, like pushing him off on somebody else.
• 1:10:16
  And yeah, I mentioned one day, we're speaking of can and I'm
• 1:10:20
  like, hey, I know guys that, you know, it's about Patrol
• 1:10:22
  loosey-goosey with the can I just want you to be aware?
• 1:10:25
  There is a story book where Adam old and his grandmother or
• 1:10:30
  something like that and everyone's like shut up Jack.
• 1:10:33
  You're talking about the case of the missing mother in which they
• 1:10:36
  find animals mom, of course you are.
• 1:10:39
  I just like the idea that he was more.
• 1:10:41
  It just felt like it was more reality more.
• 1:10:45
  They just, it just felt more like an animal.
• 1:10:47
  So, yeah, you know, this design in this, they'll get fit with
• 1:10:50
  the show and the reality of the show and the load.
• 1:10:53
  The look of the show. I just, I love the design when
• 1:10:57
  Paul created, it was just perfect and super the kicker for
• 1:11:01
  the design for me. Is the lowbrow of like he's got
• 1:11:05
  like the low eyebrow that he just kind of scowls the one
• 1:11:08
  little snaggletooth. Hmm.
• 1:11:10
  It's so cute. I love it.
• 1:11:12
  Eric, how did you approach? Performing, baby animal.
• 1:11:17
  You're obviously so familiar with with adult animal but like
• 1:11:21
  obviously, you gotta change your performance somehow to the tier
• 1:11:24
  one option on him. Yeah, I didn't want them to be
• 1:11:26
  cute like, you know, he's inherently by the design.
• 1:11:30
  There's a cuteness to him. Even while at the same time, an
• 1:11:37
  element of danger but you know. So yeah.
• 1:11:43
  So like when he gets the chance, he's like he's gonna bite Floyd.
• 1:11:52
  He doesn't know this guy yet. Yeah, that's that's so that's So
• 1:12:00
  yeah. He's he's a wild animal.
• 1:12:05
  And even at that young age, especially at that young age,
• 1:12:08
  he's not been domesticated. He should never be.
• 1:12:12
  And I don't, I don't think he ever does.
• 1:12:14
  Yeah, that's what we're doing and names him, basically right
• 1:12:18
  there too. Once he snaps out of it is just
• 1:12:21
  great. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:23
  But but, but I didn't have a lot of time to think about it.
• 1:12:28
  The Voice. Like, I don't know why I hadn't.
• 1:12:31
  I just wanted like come up with it in the moment.
• 1:12:35
  Like let's see what this is like when I actually put them on.
• 1:12:38
  I didn't and we do the same and and I don't know, it's I didn't
• 1:12:45
  want it to be, you know, Howie Mandel, right?
• 1:12:50
  The Muppet Babies and in, but I also wanted to sound a little
• 1:12:55
  bit different from, you know, the grown One of animal that we
• 1:12:59
  all know. So there's not much there but
• 1:13:03
  you just got laughs right. When when he kind of copies
• 1:13:07
  Floyd, it's kind of I got, he Echoes, Floyd's laughter and
• 1:13:11
  feel like that shows, oh there's you know he's showing a were
• 1:13:14
  showing a connection there because collection that they
• 1:13:16
  will they will build off of. Yeah.
• 1:13:19
  Yeah. And you all raised so many
• 1:13:22
  questions now about, who put him in that cage.
• 1:13:26
  Who left them on Floyd's doorstep?
• 1:13:28
  Why Why Floyd, what does fly due to raise baby animal into adult
• 1:13:33
  animal. And I appreciate that.
• 1:13:35
  You didn't try to cram too much into this season of Muppets
• 1:13:37
  Mayhem, but, you know, on the assumption that we're getting a
• 1:13:41
  season 2. I think we're all looking
• 1:13:42
  forward to getting a little more detail there.
• 1:13:46
  You know, I'm going to wave the flag for a little bit of
• 1:13:49
  Mystique, you know, of of all the characters I think he's one
• 1:13:56
  of them that I personally don't want to, you know, too much
• 1:14:01
  spill the beans and you know, know too much about the beets.
• 1:14:08
  Oh you you are so fun. This is what I was like in the
• 1:14:15
  writers room, the sound of one man laughing but you're not
• 1:14:20
  alone. Eric, I think we all agree with
• 1:14:22
  you more. Even though even though again,
• 1:14:29
  this isn't Cannon. This is just a version.
• 1:14:31
  Yeah. What could have happened
• 1:14:34
  shorting? This story.
• 1:14:36
  I liked it, I liked that. There's some yeah I like that
• 1:14:38
  there's just this this Intrigue. This is a Mystique an air of
• 1:14:44
  Mystique around him. I will say though like just to
• 1:14:47
  counter that a little bit that was my argument for months
• 1:14:51
  leading up to actually seeing Muppets Mayhem was.
• 1:14:54
  I don't want to know their backstories, I don't want to
• 1:14:56
  know more about them. There's such.
• 1:14:57
  He's Actors work so well, being, you know, more mysterious and
• 1:15:04
  multi-use. And now that we are starting to
• 1:15:06
  get those pieces, you know, dr. Teeth and Floyd's backgrounds,
• 1:15:09
  especially and seeing how well, they're working in the context
• 1:15:12
  of the show. It's like, well now, I kind of
• 1:15:14
  have a lot of faith in you all to be able to do it and to do
• 1:15:17
  it. Right?
• 1:15:18
  So, although I Eric, I completely agree with you, like,
• 1:15:22
  animal of any of the characters should be a mystery maybe second
• 1:15:26
  to Zoot. I don't know if I really want.
• 1:15:28
  So much of the suits back story, but if you decided that
• 1:15:31
  something you wanted to do then I would be all on board.
• 1:15:33
  I go years and I totally get what you're saying, I really
• 1:15:36
  appreciate it that, you know, you're enjoying getting some
• 1:15:41
  peat like Flavor some new things but I think also what's really
• 1:15:46
  important is that we all want to imagine what could be right.
• 1:15:51
  And so I think there's fun and teasing that and maybe we do a
• 1:15:54
  second season, maybe you don't find out any more about dr.
• 1:15:57
  T You learn a little more about Floyd or maybe you learn a
• 1:16:00
  little more about Janice, but you don't learn any more about
• 1:16:03
  animal, we save that for another's, you know.
• 1:16:05
  Like it feels like you should just be letting people imagine
• 1:16:10
  what could be, you know, and that's I think the fun of it.
• 1:16:14
  You got to be careful with doing a beards night out, right?
• 1:16:18
  A what beards night out. Oh, you're talking about from my
• 1:16:22
  to lasso from Ted lasso, I go, buddy.
• 1:16:25
  You know that that character, you know, any fans of the show,
• 1:16:31
  you know who watch the show, there were a lot of people who
• 1:16:34
  didn't care for that particular episode, because it, it followed
• 1:16:37
  him, you know, as he left work one night and we finally see
• 1:16:43
  why, you know why he comes in the way he does.
• 1:16:48
  Everybody had their own version, right?
• 1:16:50
  Yeah, I think it's like an existential Journey, isn't it?
• 1:16:55
  A little bit. Yeah I mean I think what it is
• 1:16:58
  is taking them as a character that is designed specifically to
• 1:17:00
  be mysterious and then breaking the mystery.
• 1:17:03
  Like now you finally get to see it as like I was better when we
• 1:17:05
  didn't. Yeah.
• 1:17:07
  Yeah well I think there's a lot of there's a lot of fun that we
• 1:17:10
  can have in the margins and you know and and you know you learn
• 1:17:15
  a little something but still maintain the Mystique.
• 1:17:20
  Yeah, absolutely. So back in, modern-day Nora
• 1:17:25
  shows up at the shack, she has been kicked out of Hannah's
• 1:17:27
  house. And she has nowhere to stay a
• 1:17:29
  lot of good acting from from Lily here of just kind of
• 1:17:33
  choking back her words and animal pokes his head out.
• 1:17:37
  And he just says keep and like what a nice little sentiment
• 1:17:40
  that we just learned about. I love the parallel that scene
• 1:17:44
  between the two sisters earlier. Yeah, is really great.
• 1:17:48
  Yeah, they really play that really well.
• 1:17:51
  I thought it could have been Very broad, you know and you
• 1:17:54
  talk about the argument in the yeah with Jasmine.
• 1:17:57
  Yeah. Do we talk about that or even
• 1:17:59
  really? Yeah.
• 1:18:01
  Yeah I just wanted to mention that it's really nice also is it
• 1:18:04
  is a for real argument, you know, and it does it just feels
• 1:18:08
  real and then you just countered with a muppet in the middle.
• 1:18:12
  Yeah try to keep up. Who's adding?
• 1:18:13
  That sort the the counter of humor?
• 1:18:16
  Yeah, I think makes it, you know a little more palpable.
• 1:18:20
  It's a painful scene, maybe you could edit this.
• 1:18:22
  Take that and put it back there. June was that scene originally?
• 1:18:25
  Did that scene originally have Janice in it?
• 1:18:28
  Yes. Yeah we did.
• 1:18:30
  Oh yes. I know as we went on we kind of
• 1:18:33
  checked ourselves and made sure. Oh, let's make sure we get a
• 1:18:37
  muppet involved in. In some of these heavier, the
• 1:18:41
  scenes with the humans, you know, anything till trickier,
• 1:18:44
  when, you know, you get 2 episode, 8 or 9 when they're
• 1:18:47
  breaking up. But I guess it's 9:00 when
• 1:18:49
  they're breaking up and there can't be a muppet in those seen.
• 1:18:51
  Yeah, you know. But that was definitely one of
• 1:18:53
  our rules that we tried to adhere to is like if you're
• 1:18:55
  gonna have these human scenes at least try, you know, your best
• 1:18:59
  to have a muppet in there. Yeah, the feels organic, you
• 1:19:02
  know, the exact it helps helps Drive warning in some way and if
• 1:19:05
  it's going to be a cereal box with crunchy Stars, I guess
• 1:19:07
  that'll have to do something for the Nerds.
• 1:19:13
  Yeah, it's still a muffy's us. Still a muppet.
• 1:19:15
  He's still there. Yeah, the next morning.
• 1:19:18
  Animal is making breakfast for everyone on the grill and he's
• 1:19:20
  doing at Benihana style. Get another Seen of him flipping
• 1:19:23
  veggies no CG at all. As a matter of fact, I was
• 1:19:26
  actually really well rehearsed Adam on Peter flipping, I
• 1:19:30
  rather, I reckon that and Peter really flipping the eggs onto
• 1:19:34
  those plates. Amazing.
• 1:19:36
  I believe you 100%. You actually Moog assures, Nora
• 1:19:42
  that pretty soon, the band will have something awesome to drop
• 1:19:44
  to worry about it. And of course, as he says, drop
• 1:19:47
  he drops right through the floorboards.
• 1:19:50
  He says, you guys are never gonna believe.
• 1:19:52
  What's down here and we don't find out.
• 1:19:55
  We end on the Cliffhanger is it plus is gonna bust this gonna
• 1:19:58
  love this? Yeah.
• 1:20:02
  And that's it. That's where episode ends.
• 1:20:04
  We'll find out next week. What's down that hole?
• 1:20:06
  Could be anything. I don't know what's down there.
• 1:20:08
  I haven't watched the show before, right rats.
• 1:20:11
  Probably rats. Gateway to Hell or Steve Carell.
• 1:20:14
  This Steve Carell, Steve Carell. And this couldn't happen.
• 1:20:19
  Why aren't they helping him? That's cool.
• 1:20:22
  They have an album to make. What do you mean?
• 1:20:24
  That's very good television show.
• 1:20:25
  What Steve Carell down here. Hey man, look at Steve, It's
• 1:20:33
  fine. So Eric so now that we've
• 1:20:36
  reached the end of this episode, you have any other memories and
• 1:20:39
  other scenes that you particularly had a good time
• 1:20:42
  filming throughout the season. Since you're not to be for the
• 1:20:44
  other episodes. I really like doing baby animal
• 1:20:49
  when he is, when animals hallucinating.
• 1:20:52
  Sure. Yeah, the desert episode.
• 1:20:54
  Yeah. In the, in the desert.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah, that's right. Had I love trying to you know,
• 1:21:04
  do Impressions and stuff. And so that was that was my take
• 1:21:07
  on Rowan Atkinson. Doesn't sound exactly like him
• 1:21:12
  but it's me doing this. By the way, is something that
• 1:21:15
  Jerry Nelson taught me is. I asked him about some of the
• 1:21:18
  voices of his old characters and he said he's doing impressions
• 1:21:23
  of celebrities but he wasn't a good impressionist.
• 1:21:25
  So you can never really tell who he's doing a breath.
• 1:21:27
  Sounds like an original character.
• 1:21:29
  Yeah. No, it's a great way to do it.
• 1:21:32
  I like when you restructured a few things Eric, they're like at
• 1:21:35
  young age, you know, like, you know, how some of the ACT, you
• 1:21:40
  know, that character would actually speak, you know, versus
• 1:21:43
  what we wrote, but still still using what's there?
• 1:21:46
  But you just did those things at felt very English you know right
• 1:21:50
  right right. Eric was the most uncomfortable
• 1:21:52
  position you gotten into 0 on this show?
• 1:21:57
  Yeah. I mean you know what I mentioned
• 1:22:00
  you know Loving doing baby animal.
• 1:22:03
  But being inside that Boulder was no Cakewalk.
• 1:22:08
  That was really hard. Peter said.
• 1:22:11
  Yeah, that was really hard. You guys like nose-to-nose
• 1:22:16
  performance. Not exactly but but super hyper
• 1:22:23
  extended just to try and only get my arm in the right position
• 1:22:27
  going. You know, any time we're working
• 1:22:29
  through a hole In something, whether it's a piece of
• 1:22:32
  furniture or a boulder, it can be really, really hard but um
• 1:22:41
  that I mean that just comes to mind most of the time we were
• 1:22:46
  standing and really in an ideal you know, we're standing.
• 1:22:54
  And working on an elevated set. And so that's the ideal way for
• 1:23:01
  us to work. And so it was really freeing the
• 1:23:05
  whole experience in. General is really great.
• 1:23:12
  Nice. I was just remembering inside
• 1:23:14
  that folder. There was a lot of structural
• 1:23:16
  beams and things that we had to ask them to cut away and it was
• 1:23:19
  still hard. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:22
  Does that mean you know it's the It's in the shape of a boulder.
• 1:23:26
  Yeah, there's no like nobody actually thought let's, let's,
• 1:23:31
  let's kind of make it jet out, you know, over over this way and
• 1:23:37
  that'll be a good place for erick's.
• 1:23:39
  Head to occupy in some place like head shaped lump on the
• 1:23:43
  back. Yeah, unexpected Boulder would
• 1:23:47
  have been there but I know it is.
• 1:23:51
  It's okay. It was It just added to the
• 1:23:58
  performance, you're going to be comfortable the whole time.
• 1:24:01
  I mean you've got to have a little something that, you know
• 1:24:05
  have difficulty with but that was a doing the desert scenes
• 1:24:12
  was really fun just because I'd never worked on a volumetric
• 1:24:19
  stage before like this, you know, and I'm sure you'll talk.
• 1:24:24
  Loads about that, but that was really fun.
• 1:24:28
  And what there was also a. There's also a scene, I had a
• 1:24:31
  lot of fun with Taj that day because when they arrived to the
• 1:24:39
  desert animal, you don't see it. It doesn't really, it doesn't
• 1:24:47
  really make it into the final, but animal sees a snake.
• 1:24:52
  And he starts chasing a snake all over the place.
• 1:24:55
  This is just my own little back story that I had for animal and
• 1:25:00
  he finds the snake and props actually had a snake little
• 1:25:04
  rubber snake for me. And he brings it over to Taj in
• 1:25:07
  his mouth and offers it to him and then Taj freaks out in like,
• 1:25:13
  you know, he holds it up and he freaks out and he throws it
• 1:25:16
  away. And then animal runs off again,
• 1:25:19
  like he's playing Fetch with him.
• 1:25:22
  None of that makes it in but we had such a, we had such a fun
• 1:25:26
  time just playing in the background while people were
• 1:25:30
  talking and having a real scene it's a it's amazing that the
• 1:25:34
  props had there a snake, I know in the moment and then it is
• 1:25:40
  going. Hey what are you listening to
• 1:25:50
  this? Like, you know, the bus
• 1:25:54
  barreling down the highway and animals on top playing the
• 1:25:57
  drums. Oh well you you put them in a
• 1:26:01
  harness here but Eric, Eric and a harness up top, it's tethered
• 1:26:06
  safely. Yes.
• 1:26:06
  Standing standing inside of the Bus, kids on boxes, that we
• 1:26:13
  built. That are also then held down.
• 1:26:17
  But yeah, Eric is standing up through the, the, the sunroof,
• 1:26:23
  the front of the sunroof, he's like, right up against it with
• 1:26:26
  Misha in front me, she's playing the drums.
• 1:26:29
  It's crazy. Eric's behind him.
• 1:26:31
  And Misha is not tethered you she is also.
• 1:26:33
  Yeah. Yeah, but yeah.
• 1:26:36
  No. He's standing up in there.
• 1:26:38
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:26:40
  We know as much as we could do practically.
• 1:26:42
  We did, and I'm so glad for it. So you said early on that, you
• 1:26:49
  know, animal sort of OneNote and it's just, it truly is a
• 1:26:52
  testament to Eric because he is more than one noise, sort of
• 1:26:56
  five notes, but what Eric brings to it, you could just write On
• 1:26:59
  the page, Nora Nora Nora all caps Nora and you'll get, you
• 1:27:05
  know, 45 different takes of that with all different inflections
• 1:27:09
  with all different, feelings and emotions and it's just
• 1:27:13
  fantastic. Yeah.
• 1:27:14
  How many times do you think you had to say, Nora on the show?
• 1:27:18
  Eric, I have no idea, but someone's gonna count it.
• 1:27:22
  I'm sure somebody will. It won't be me.
• 1:27:26
  It was, it was, it was daunting, though.
• 1:27:29
  Though, I mean like that, what Jeff was saying?
• 1:27:34
  Just a lot of times I'd go up to Jeffrey, go up to someone and
• 1:27:39
  say what is he supposed to be like, what what's his intention
• 1:27:45
  here? Like, what, what is he thinking
• 1:27:47
  right now? Like what do you think he's
• 1:27:49
  thinking, I want to make sure that I'm addressing, you know,
• 1:27:53
  your take on the scene before I make something up.
• 1:27:59
  Completely on my own, his intention is Nora.
• 1:28:04
  It's right there in the script. My always thoughts that we just
• 1:28:07
  don't know what his intentions are until he's in that moment,
• 1:28:11
  but that's a hard thing for somebody to play and Eric would
• 1:28:13
  figure it out, you know? But but I think that's that
• 1:28:16
  idea. That animal is so Random in a
• 1:28:19
  sense, at least in my mind is that he's You just don't know
• 1:28:26
  what's going to happen in a sense from moment to moment.
• 1:28:29
  And so Eric would have to find that balance of using that.
• 1:28:32
  But then also still having some intention to help us do the
• 1:28:36
  scenes, you know, it's not easy what?
• 1:28:38
  And you're not saying it, you never say it in a way that Frank
• 1:28:43
  Oz would say, woman when he would play Animal, you know,
• 1:28:47
  back in the, in the 70s and 80s. No, no, more like it's not a
• 1:28:50
  little bit different. A lust thing, it's not just
• 1:28:52
  missing. Yeah, we're like That's we are
• 1:28:55
  very happy to let that characteristic go.
• 1:28:58
  There's is more infatuation. Yeah.
• 1:29:02
  What was the word sealer to the script smitten?
• 1:29:04
  That's right. I always put the word smitten.
• 1:29:06
  Yeah, kind of. Yeah.
• 1:29:08
  Is it off a little bit? I just thought it meant that he
• 1:29:09
  was wearing mittens, but I, right, it's not true to mittens
• 1:29:14
  as yeah. Yeah.
• 1:29:15
  So smitten set of smitten. Well, that's educational notes.
• 1:29:23
  Eric. Thank you.
• 1:29:24
  Much for being here on the podcast.
• 1:29:25
  Thank you for everything. You brought to animal on Muppets
• 1:29:27
  Mayhem. He was such a delight and this
• 1:29:30
  episode is such an amazing spot light of that character.
• 1:29:33
  Both the baby version and the seeking a job version.
• 1:29:37
  It's some of my favorite moments in the entire Series.
• 1:29:40
  So thank you for all you've done.
• 1:29:42
  Wonderful, thank you for saying that.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah, well, we had a blast, making it as, as well as the
• 1:29:46
  whole show and I hope nobody's listening to this and hasn't
• 1:29:50
  watched the entire series yet. Go out.
• 1:29:54
  And watch it. Come on, guys.
• 1:29:55
  It's very good. Podcast will be waiting for you
• 1:29:57
  when you're done. Yeah.
• 1:29:58
  So will the website www.fixez.com fixes dot-gov?
• 1:30:03
  And apparently there's an album who knew?
• 1:30:07
  And I knew Steve Carell TV show. Yeah, yeah, I'll so much for you
• 1:30:11
  to watch and listen to and enjoy Bill and Jeff.
• 1:30:15
  Thank you again for being here. We hope to see you again next
• 1:30:17
  week. Thank you.
• 1:30:19
  And everyone else. Thank you for listening to my
• 1:30:21
  boss made him backstage pass. We will see you all again soon.
• 1:30:24
  Ew. The Muppets may have backstage
• 1:30:28
  passes brought to you by tough pics.com produced written and
• 1:30:30
  hosted by Johannes logo art by Dave whole team Junior.
• 1:30:33
  The Muppets make a mark in local characters and elements are
• 1:30:35
  trademarks of the Muppet studio, All Rights Reserved
• 1:30:38
  transcriptions, provided by Katie Lynn Miller.
• 1:30:40
  The Muppets Mayhem and credits, written by Makino is used with
• 1:30:43
  permission special. Thanks to the Muppet studio
• 1:30:45
  Disney plus the entire month is Mayhem family.
• 1:30:47
  For more from topics, find us at tough pigs on Twitter, Facebook,
• 1:30:50
  Instagram and patreon. Thanks for listening and until
• 1:30:52
  next time, rock Dom. The Muppets may have backstage
• 1:30:28
  passes brought to you by tough pics.com produced written and
• 1:30:30
  hosted by Johannes logo art by Dave whole team Junior.
• 1:30:33
  The Muppets make a mark in local characters and elements are
• 1:30:35
  trademarks of the Muppet studio, All Rights Reserved
• 1:30:38
  transcriptions, provided by Katie Lynn Miller.
• 1:30:40
  The Muppets Mayhem and credits, written by Makino is used with
• 1:30:43
  permission special. Thanks to the Muppet studio
• 1:30:45
  Disney plus the entire month is Mayhem family.
• 1:30:47
  For more from topics, find us at tough pigs on Twitter, Facebook,
• 1:30:50
  Instagram and patreon. Thanks for listening and until
• 1:30:52
  next time, rock Dom.