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The Fantastic Miss Piggy Podcast - Episode 7: The Hollywood Years · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

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  She was the star of a television show beloved all around the
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  world. She's featured in eight motion
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  pictures. She's been a guest on the Today
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  Show, The Tonight Show and everything in between.
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  She's performed in front of royalty and at the Hollywood
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  Bowl. She's read Christmas stories
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  with Michelle Obama at the White House.
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  Her book was on the New York Times bestseller list for more
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  than seven months. And she's had outfits designed
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  especially for her by Prada, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan and
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  Vivienne Westwood. And on the podcast today, we
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  asked the question Is Miss Picky Famous?
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  I can't give you anything but love, baby.
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  That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby.
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  Kissy, kissy and welcome to another episode of the fantastic
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  Miss Piggy Podcast. I'm Danny Horn and this podcast
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  chronicles my journey to learn everything there is to know
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  about that divine swine, the incomparable Miss Piggy.
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  Today on the show we are talking about the Hollywood years and my
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  guest from the Muppet fan site, Tough Pigs, and the podcast
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  Moving Right Along, A Muppet Movie Podcast.
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  It's Ryan Rowe. Kissy Ryan.
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  Kissy kissy back at you. Thank you for having MOA I'm.
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  So glad that you're here. Has anyone said that yet?
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  No, I think you were the first. Yeah, well done.
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  I appreciate it. Now on your podcast, you've been
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  looking very carefully at the 1st 4 Muppet movies as well as
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  all the specials and the record albums.
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  And I have to ask how? How you feeling buddy?
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  Yeah, you know, it's that's a lot.
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  It is a lot because we are going through the movies 2 minutes at
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  a time. Every episode of the podcast
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  covers just two minutes of each movie.
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  But overall, I think I've I've come to appreciate all of these
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  things more because of of taking them apart and analyzing them
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  like this. We are preparing to go into
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  Muppet Treasure Island, which should be interesting because
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  it's the first time where one of us is less enthusiastic than the
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  other. My Co host, Anthony Strand is
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  not he he he doesn't really like Muppet Treasure Island, so we'll
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  see. And and when Anthony, when
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  Anthony doesn't like something, yeah, yeah, you find out about
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  it. Yes, he's good at articulating
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  wine. He does not.
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  He does not go to the grave with that secret.
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  Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see how that
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  goes. And yeah, Piggy's role in that
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  is pretty interesting, so. Yeah, it absolutely is.
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  I think I will be. I will be there to talk about.
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  That yes, we have episodes set aside for you already.
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  Specific scenes. Well, today on the show we are
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  talking about the Hollywood years, specifically 1979 and the
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  TV special The Muppets Go Hollywood in 1989 and the Jim
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  Hensenauer, Miss Piggy's Hollywood.
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  And we are asking, is Miss Piggy supposed to be famous or not?
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  It's a very complicated semantic and philosophical question.
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  Yeah, I wanna say I don't know that there will be a yes or no
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  answer. And that comes down to the fact
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  that despite how much some fans really want there to be like a
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  single unified theory of the Muppet Universe, there's really
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  not. So it varies.
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  Yeah, and I think Miss Piggy especially is her entire job is
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  to complicate that, yeah. Yeah, maybe more than any of the
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  other characters. And to to live in kind of a a
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  more complex world. Yeah.
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  And so here we we are seeing her kind of basically at the top of
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  her career and kind of at the bottom.
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  But even then it gets, it gets very complicated in between.
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  So first up we're gonna talk about The Muppets go Hollywood.
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  It's a a special that appeared on May 16th, 1979, about two
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  weeks before The Muppet Movie. Ladies and gentlemen, this is
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  Hollywood, CA and this is the historic Coconut Grove.
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  No place on earth more completely symbolizes the
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  glitter and glamour of the entertainment world.
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  And here tonight, history will be made again for A party is
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  being held to celebrate the meteoric rise of one small frog.
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  A frog who started life in a common swamp and went on to
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  become the world's only green superstar in his first motion
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  picture, The Muppet Movie. The celebrities of the world are
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  gathering here, drawn as if by magnets, to the stupendous
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  event. For tonight we will see the
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  unimaginable. Ladies and gentlemen, The
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  Muppets Go Hollywood. The idea was they we've got a
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  movie coming out so we're gonna make an hour long TV special to
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  promote it. Making movies was was still a
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  big deal in the 70s. Oh yeah, this they they do make
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  a big deal of like, oh, The Muppets are making Movies Now.
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  Yeah, this is a big new thing for them.
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  And they do this special that feels kind of like it's it's not
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  as polished as your usual Muppet Show or Muppet Movie.
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  No. It feels kind of like a
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  throwaway in this strange way. Yeah, it it's a strange one
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  because there are parts of it that seem very scripted and and
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  some parts of it are funny. But also there are parts of it
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  where it seems like they just got a bunch of celebrity.
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  Like, like really just invited a bunch of celebrities to a party
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  and pointed cameras at celebrities and Muppets and
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  hoped something amusing would happen.
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  And which sometimes it does. Often it does, yeah, Yeah,
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  Special. It was filmed in the Coconut
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  Grove, which is a nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire
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  Blvd. The special was hosted by Dick
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  Van Dyke and Rita Moreno basically has no plot.
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  It's The Muppets and then real celebrities who they bring
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  together. So what?
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  What are the kinds of people that they've got there?
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  I remember like Mel Brooks and Raquel Welch and Cheryl.
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  Wow, yeah. Liberace pops up a couple times.
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  Peter Falk is is briefly interviewed by Dick Van Dyke.
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  A very confused Peter Falk. He's very confused, Dick Van
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  Dyke says. Can you imagine what kinds of
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  parties used to go on here in the 30s?
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  And Peter Fox says no, no, I can't imagine, Which is not a
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  very helpful answer. Yeah, he's not doing.
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  Yes, and. Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah. So a lot of this.
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  Is, you know, The Muppets do some musical numbers and Rita
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  Marino and Dick Van Dyke do some musical numbers, and they show
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  some clips of the movie. And then a lot of it is just
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  celebrities, like real people hanging out at this party.
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  Yeah, really. I think the most interesting
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  thing in this special is Miss Piggy as she she kind of like
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  brushes up against true stardom, which is the thing that she's
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  been dreaming of for the past like 2 1/2 years.
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  Right. Watching this with an eye toward
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  what we were gonna be talking about, the question of is Miss
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  Piggy famous? I sort of kept coming back to.
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  There's really you could question whether all The Muppets
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  are famous or not, right? But within the story, within the
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  Muppet Reality, such as it is, Piggy is the one who wants it
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  the most. So in the intro to this special,
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  all The Muppets arrive Like to walk the red carpet to the
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  Coconut Grove. Yes, and there's a big crowd,
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  which I assume are real people. I mean, or, I don't know, maybe
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  they're extras. But I think there's at least one
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  one guy who's there who who is there to do like a funny line.
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  OK, yeah, so he like, he's an actor.
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  But yeah, I think it's possible that the rest of them are just
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  like extras that are hanging around.
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  Cheering for The Muppets and the celebrities.
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  Just, you know, as if The Muppets are celebrities
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  themselves, though they're very happy and very excited to see
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  all these stars. Yeah, so just as much.
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  So they're just as excited to see Fozzie as they are to see
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  Miss Piggy. And if you think about other
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  famous puppets like Charlie McCarthy or Lamb Chop or Kukla,
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  Fran and Olli, like, the idea of them hosting a big Hollywood
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  party like this is just like the silliest thing in the world.
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  Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe Charlie McCarthy at at peak popularity
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  of the radio show. But yeah, I can't imagine this
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  happening with any of those others.
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  I think like Mickey Mouse could do it, Bugs Bunny could do it.
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  Like, right. But that's the thing.
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  Those. That's the peak of their fame,
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  but right, but. As.
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  Cartoons. They don't exist in physical
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  space. It's a lot harder.
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  And so The Muppets kind of get to do that.
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  And one thing that I think is hard for us to really get today
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  is how fast this happened. Like, this was a syndicated
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  little puppet show in September 1976, and Miss Piggy didn't
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  really start to get attention until the end of the season,
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  Like, let's say spring 1977. Yeah, she's still being
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  alternated between 2 puppeteers. Up until, yeah, almost the end
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  of the season. Less than two years later, she's
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  the star of a major motion picture, and essentially every
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  celebrity in Hollywood stands up and cheers for her.
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  Yeah, that is fast an. Insanely short amount of time
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  for her to work her magic in the world.
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  Yeah, as much as people are excited to see all The Muppets,
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  I think, I guess Piggy is the star.
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  And we know that because at least, especially in those first
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  three Muppet movies, she's the one who kind of gets these
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  featured moments and these spotlight moments and gets to
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  sing solos. Yeah.
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  And and is specifically called out as the superstar.
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  Like during this special, people keep saying that.
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  Right. Well, Rita Moreno's very excited
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  to talk to her. Yeah.
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  And yeah. Oh, well, in her entrance, we
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  should mention Piggy's entrance, where she's carried in on.
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  Is this is this called a litter? Yeah, one of these.
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  Yeah, or a a shaze. This is Babyface.
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  Yeah, but she's carried in on this, this thing that's carried
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  by these four shirtless men. Four muscle men like Hollywood
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  Muscle. Men.
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  Yeah, these. These strapping Muscle Mountain
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  shirtless men. And she's all dressed up.
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  And you do wonder, looking at that thing, where is Frank Oz?
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  I guess he's just like, lying. He's inside that thing.
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  Yeah, he's just lying down, holding with the, with the, his
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  hand up, operating that puppet, yeah.
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  It's very glamorous. It is extreme and she is dressed
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  up like crazy with silk and gold Lemay Cape and huge feathers on
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  her hat and then like gold all over her front.
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  All this jewelry it's sort of an art deco extravaganza.
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  It's very luxurious and and when she comes in and and people are
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  throwing flower petals during. Her.
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  Oh, and Gary Owens introduces her as something like the newest
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  Hollywood sex symbol. Ladies and gentlemen, never in
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  the history of the Coconut Grove has there ever been an event
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  like this. The newest of Hollywood sex
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  symbols is here with us tonight. May I present the most beautiful
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  pig in the world, Miss Piggy. And she comes in and there's
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  Then they all sing The most beautiful girl in the world.
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  And there's Hollywood stars throwing.
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  It's basically, it's the gayest thing that that ever happened in
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  the world. They're in like faux Egyptian
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  headdresses. It's just amazing.
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  It is just it's extraordinarily gay.
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  Yeah, and I guess, yeah. So to everyone in that at that
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  party who's participating in this special, it is very
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  exciting to see Piggy. So she is a star, but also in
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  real life they know that she's a fictional character and and and
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  it's a joke. Like it's a joke that she's that
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  she could ever be, that a pig could ever be a glamorous movie
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  star, That everybody just loves the joke so much.
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  Yes, I'm just trying to to to wrap my, I know.
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  Yeah, they're sort of like different layers of fiction
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  going on. And both like for her and then
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  for the celebrities who are there and for us.
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  Yeah, pretending. And in Hollywood, it is possible
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  that pretending that someone is famous is actually what makes
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  them famous. Like, part of it.
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  This is kind of a critique of Hollywood glamour right?
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  And how like self involved people are and how you know
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  everybody. You build somebody up as a
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  superstar and and put them on a kind of a pedestal or put them
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  on a litter and carry them around like this.
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  Yeah, I wonder if there's a real life like this, a star with a
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  comparable arc around this time to Miss Piggy.
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  Someone who came up on TV and became famous in movies.
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  I don't know who that would be. I should have thought of that
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  before. Yeah, well, it's sort of like
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  the the people who are idolized at this point are Raquel Welch,
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  Farrah Fawcett, Majors, and Raquel's very much.
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  She's in this special and is very much involved with The
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  Muppets. Right, yeah.
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  She's on a great episode of The Muppet Show singing with Piggy.
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  So yeah. So basically, this is camp.
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  This is like the camp sensibility of a love of
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  artifice and style, stylization of extravagance and
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  exaggeration. It's kind of converting the
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  serious into the frivolous. It is essentially making this
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  very strange, exaggerated thing, pretending that that this is
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  this is the most important thing.
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  Oh yeah, yeah, that has ever happened.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So in that way, I guess it is
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  kind of taking the wind out of out of even the concept of
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  celebrity or movie stars. That everything is sort of
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  artificial and exaggerated and then she sings a song about
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  herself, which is amazing. Babyface.
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  I've got the cutest little babyface.
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  There's not another one could take in my place.
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  Babyface, your poor heart is jumping.
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  I guess I started something. Yeah, I've got the cutest little
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  babyface, yeah. Yeah, there's not.
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  Another one could take my place. Right, 'cause the song is
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  usually in the second person, it's, it's.
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  Singing to somebody. Yeah.
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  And. And she sings the line.
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  Your poor heart is jumping. I guess I started something
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  which is sort of a nod to this insane, like, fad that she's
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  created in the last two years. Yeah, yeah.
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  There is. I noticed a laugh track in this
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  song, which sounds like it is a laugh track, not not the actual
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  audience reacting. So it is.
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  I mean, maybe that's just because they're still kind of
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  stuck in Muppet Show mode where they're adding a laugh track to
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  everything. But yeah, then that's kind of
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  like you don't know. So does the audience think this
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  is genuinely a good performance of the song, or are they
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  laughing at Piggy, you know? Well, it ends with this very,
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  very long, exaggerated note that she cannot sustain that.
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  That is, that is part of the joke, yes.
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  Is that she is not the great singer that she believes that
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  she is. That whatever, you know,
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  whatever she's saying about herself here, she can't actually
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  sustain that, right? Because you just found.
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  Me in love with my friend. And then she says, all right,
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  meet, let's move it. And they carry her away.
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  And then people throw bouquets of roses.
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  Yeah, onto her. Onto her chair as she goes by.
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  It is an amazing moment that I love more than practically
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  anything else in the entire world.
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  It is just exactly like it really just hits my sweet spot
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  of of crazy piggy worship. Right, right.
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  This is, yeah, kind of the peak of her stardom.
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  And then there's sort of these other places in the special
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  where it it then kind of makes a turn.
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  Yeah, even within the same special.
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  Yeah, kind of puts her back on like a more human level or or
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  you know, a pig level. So there's the the poolside
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  interview which you mentioned. With the off camera.
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  With the off camera, yeah, she's we're pretending that Ray Moreno
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  went out and interviewed. Miss Piggy finds her poolside at
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  the hotel and when they get there and she looks fabulous
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  when she's there. Yeah, it's very like Photoplay
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  movie magazine. She's kind of catching up on her
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  correspondence with her secretary and the.
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  And she's writing a letter that is to Jimmy Carter, that's to
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  the president saying, oh, let's have lunch sometime That's to
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  Rosalind and Amy. And then someone yells.
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  Call for Miss Piggy Call. For Miss Piggy Medley, I should
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  just take the important calls. I must chat with Rita.
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  Yes, Miss Piggy. That's really awfully nice of
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  you, Miss Piggy. I know how busy you must be.
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  It's Frank Sinatra. Oh.
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  Oh, no. Well, tell him I'm busy.
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  Oh, yes, miss. He wants to do an album with me
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  and I just do not have the time. Wow.
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  Do you know what I would do to make an album with Sinatra?
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  I think so. Which is a terrific like read, I
• 17:21
  understand. That's very funny.
• 17:23
  Yeah, and and then Scooter comes up and he says he needs more
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  Dimes for the phone. Yeah 'cause he still has to do
• 17:30
  Robert Redford and Paul Newman. From your list.
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  So that's the term. Is that like she is?
• 17:36
  Even though she is as famous as, as we are seeing her in the baby
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  face number, she's still pretending.
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  She's still sort of fantasizing. Yeah, she's still not where she
• 17:46
  wants to be. Yeah, but she really wants to be
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  there. She really.
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  She wants so much for Frank Sinatra to be calling her that
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  she'll do anything, including just fake it, to convince
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  everyone else. She is.
• 17:58
  She's always on the cusp. I think that's like an important
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  thing that Frank Oz always sort of brought to the character that
• 18:05
  like because he always said like the the the humor of the
• 18:08
  character is in pain. It is in like she feels pain of
• 18:13
  rejection or she's not loved in in the way that she should be.
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  And so there's always these turns.
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  It's they do similar things, like she comes to the Emmy
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  Awards like she and Kermit go to the Emmy Awards and and she
• 18:25
  thinks she's going to host the whole thing and currently says
• 18:27
  no, we like we're here just to read the rules.
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  No, they they they just want us to read the rules.
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  You are putting me on. That's it.
• 18:44
  Are you out of your mind? Well, what's wrong?
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  Excuse. Me, I did not spend 6 hours with
• 18:54
  Monsieur Jacques of Encino to read Lazi rules.
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  You see? You see how?
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  Can you do that awards and let people know how they were
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  nominated in the 1st place? Who cares, Piggy?
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  I just want to know how embarrassed I am.
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  But they just invited us out here to reach the rules.
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  Now come on now you're making it.
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  You're embarrassing. It's out in front of the most
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  important people in show business.
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  They do the same thing, like on the Comedy Hall of Fame.
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  She's very upset. Yeah, she gets real upset.
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  She thinks that that she's there, the fantastic Piggy show
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  where she's saying like, oh, you know, I have a whole series and
• 19:36
  and it turns out, no, you just have this special.
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  She's always. Yeah.
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  And that's another, yeah, They're acknowledging her
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  stardom enough to give her a variety special where she's the
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  star, her name is in the title, she's in every act.
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  But then yeah, but then they still take it away from her at
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  the end by Yeah, no, this is not a series.
• 19:57
  You're just getting this one special.
• 19:59
  Right. Yeah, I wonder if they if if
• 20:02
  modern Muppet productions have drifted away from this aspect of
• 20:06
  what makes Piggy Yeah so funny. Like I'm trying to think.
• 20:11
  I mean the premise of The Muppets is that she is famous
• 20:14
  and has a late night talk show, the the ABC sitcom, which maybe,
• 20:18
  I don't know, maybe it would be better if like they told us that
• 20:22
  the show was always struggling in the ratings or something.
• 20:25
  Yeah, that's true. They don't really do that.
• 20:27
  Yeah, she she gets big stars on the show.
• 20:30
  Yeah. The thing that she's sort of
• 20:32
  struggling with on the show, I think, is that, like none of the
• 20:37
  other characters like her. Right.
• 20:38
  She's a bad boss, and she's sort of oblivious to that for most of
• 20:42
  the series. And she's kind of above
• 20:43
  everybody else. Yeah.
• 20:45
  But that leaves her kind of lonely.
• 20:48
  Yeah, which is a different kind of thing.
• 20:50
  Yeah. Yeah, it is.
• 20:51
  It is funny when when Piggy considers herself to be above
• 20:54
  everyone else. But yeah, I think it is.
• 20:56
  It's not quite what we're seeing in this peak Piggy stuff.
• 21:00
  Yeah, so there's a a moment in this in the special to get back
• 21:04
  to special. Mm hmm.
• 21:06
  Where Dick Van Dyke is interviewing Kermit and Piggy
• 21:08
  and Piggy. Sort of like blowing kisses at
• 21:10
  passing celebrities. Yeah.
• 21:12
  And he asks, like, where are you staying while you're in
• 21:15
  Hollywood? And Piggy gets very nervous.
• 21:18
  It's good. To see you too, Miss Piggy.
• 21:23
  Where are you staying in Hollywood?
• 21:24
  Here at the Ambassador, Bellaire, Beverly Wilshire.
• 21:30
  We're we're all at the by the We Motor Court.
• 21:32
  Dick, come it the bide. A wee motor court.
• 21:36
  Yeah. It's in downtown San Pedro.
• 21:38
  It's it's trade. This thing gave Ricardo an
• 21:42
  emerging chic, if you know what I mean.
• 21:45
  I am in the presidential suite. Oh, Big Piggy.
• 21:48
  You are not, no. You see, we stay there because
• 21:51
  they give us a good rate and besides, we have to be somewhere
• 21:53
  that allows livestock. And that is a tension.
• 22:06
  I think that that The Muppets kind of are, are always in that,
• 22:10
  especially Kermit in this special is trying to kind of
• 22:13
  like undersell them at the beginning, he says.
• 22:16
  Like it's, you know, maybe we went too big.
• 22:20
  Right, Yeah, and he at the end. It turns out that they all have
• 22:23
  to clean up the menu after the party, and Kermit's fine with
• 22:26
  that. They got a better, but she
• 22:27
  prefers it. Yeah, they got a better price
• 22:29
  that way. And Piggy is just yeah, she
• 22:32
  can't believe it. She's yeah, it seems beneath her
• 22:35
  right. It's like she doesn't want
• 22:36
  anybody to know that they're staying at the Bite of We Motor
• 22:38
  Corp. And so it's just, it's lovely
• 22:42
  sort of seeing her, like there, she's rubbing against Kermit,
• 22:45
  where he's like constantly trying to undersell how famous
• 22:49
  and important they are, and she's trying to oversell.
• 22:51
  Yeah, yeah. And there's another number which
• 22:54
  is amazing. Piggy and Dick Van Dyke they he
• 22:59
  sings you ought to be in pictures with her and really
• 23:03
  pumps her up and says you're my kind of woman, you really belong
• 23:05
  in this town. You're a wonderful dancer and
• 23:09
  it's they actually do like kind of a lovely considering how like
• 23:12
  weird the whole special is with sort of just random like
• 23:16
  celebrities dancing and all this weird footage that they do.
• 23:19
  Kind of a lovely puppet effect of her dancing.
• 23:23
  Dancing must be like kind of lying down on something with
• 23:27
  wheels, because because we only ever wheels her around.
• 23:30
  From the waist up, like usual, right?
• 23:32
  They never, they didn't have another piggy puppet with full
• 23:35
  body movement, yeah. And so she he kind of like
• 23:38
  sweeps her along through through this dance.
• 23:41
  Yeah, it works. It's really lovely.
• 23:44
  And then that's that's set to at one point they they go to a
• 23:48
  montage of all these very glamorous photos of Piggy and
• 23:53
  all these costumes, which I assume are from.
• 23:56
  They're all from the calendar. Yeah, the calendars had happened
• 23:58
  by that point. Or one of them at least.
• 24:00
  Yeah, this is. It's all stuff from the 1980
• 24:03
  pig. Dreams Calendar.
• 24:04
  Yeah, I looked it up there. There were 1980 through 83 Piggy
• 24:09
  calendars. Just Piggy not Muppet Show
• 24:11
  calendars. Miss Piggy calendars.
• 24:13
  Yeah, Which is another, like in our reality, in the real world,
• 24:16
  Piggy was massively popular. She was one of the most famous
• 24:20
  characters. And those and those calendars
• 24:23
  really sold too. Like that was like the hugest
• 24:26
  personality calendar that they had.
• 24:28
  Right. Whereas if if there had been an
• 24:31
  episode of The Muppet Show where Piggy had been trying to sell
• 24:33
  calendars of herself. They she would have bought them
• 24:37
  all herself. Probably.
• 24:39
  Exactly, yeah. She'd have Scooter go out and,
• 24:41
  like, buy free copies. Yeah.
• 24:44
  So it is this weird, kind of like sort of tension this
• 24:46
  rubbing against. Yeah, I want to use the word
• 24:49
  dichotomy, but I don't know if that would be an accurate use of
• 24:52
  that word, so I don't want to sound dumb.
• 24:54
  I agree with you. Let's use the word dichotomy.
• 24:56
  I believe it is. I also believe it's a dichotomy.
• 24:58
  Fascinating. Dichotomy.
• 25:02
  We're gonna live and die on that word.
• 25:05
  Yes, I love that. Oh, she also dances with
• 25:09
  Charles, darning for a while, and Christopher Reeve, the most
• 25:12
  blossomed man in Hollywood, shows up to try to cut in.
• 25:15
  She rejects Christopher Reeve and keeps dancing with Charles,
• 25:18
  darning, although then later we see her dancing with.
• 25:21
  Christopher Reeve as well. She gets everybody.
• 25:23
  Yep, it is a beautiful thing. Yes.
• 25:27
  And and just a weird thing. And and as you say that at the
• 25:29
  end of the special they're, you know, then they're required to
• 25:32
  clean up. Yeah.
• 25:34
  And so that is the weird the weirdness of Miss Piggy at the
• 25:37
  top and then ten years later, Miss.
• 25:44
  Piggy Presents a Miss Piggy production of a Miss Piggy
• 25:54
  concept, Miss Piggy's Hollywood. Starring.
• 26:02
  Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy's Hollywood, This is
• 26:07
  1989. It's kind of 1/2 hour special
• 26:10
  that they aired as half of an episode of The Jim Henson Hour
• 26:13
  and which nobody watched. Correct.
• 26:16
  I mean I did, and this is one of my I had two.
• 26:21
  There were two episodes that my parents taped for me when the
• 26:24
  Giants now are aired on TV. Originally it was this one and
• 26:28
  then one that was the the KD. So this was with Bobby McFerrin
• 26:32
  as as the guest star in the first half and the other one was
• 26:35
  KD Lang with the second-half being an episode of the
• 26:37
  storyteller. Yeah.
• 26:38
  But that meant that this was one of the this was one of the
• 26:41
  Muppet things that I watched over and over and over again.
• 26:44
  And to me it's it's like one of the main it's piggy things, even
• 26:50
  though most people have never seen it.
• 26:51
  But in your life, yeah, it's been the piggy that you saw.
• 26:54
  I still. Think it's it's great.
• 26:56
  It's it's such a they pack so much into half an hour.
• 27:00
  All focused on her, or at least for for the most part, focused
• 27:03
  on her in a way that, like the fantastic Miss Piggy show, gets
• 27:06
  weird and dark and doesn't quite work.
• 27:10
  I'm thinking specifically of the the Andy Kaufman sections.
• 27:15
  Tony Clifton Yeah, If listeners want to hear us talk more about
• 27:18
  that, you were a guest on the Move and Right Along episode
• 27:22
  where we talked for quite a while forever I believe.
• 27:27
  In some ways, we are still there.
• 27:29
  I think it's one of our maybe top five longest episodes, so.
• 27:32
  I I I was so hoping that you were you were going for like our
• 27:36
  top five most listened to. Episodes that I thought.
• 27:38
  You were that was it's it's up there it is actually that was
• 27:41
  that was for me that was that was my Little Miss Piggy turn of
• 27:43
  like oh he's about to say oh sorry I should have priced.
• 27:46
  That definitely, but it's one of my favorite episodes.
• 27:51
  Right. Me too.
• 27:52
  And it is one of the best. So one thing that's funny is
• 27:54
  that this episode is almost exactly 10 years to the day
• 27:59
  after The Muppet School Hollywood.
• 28:01
  That Muppet School Hollywood was May 16th, 1979 and then Miss
• 28:04
  Piggy's Hollywood May 14th, 1989.
• 28:07
  It is 2 days shy of the 10th anniversary, which of course
• 28:12
  they did not. They did not intend.
• 28:14
  No, I'm sure they didn't even know.
• 28:16
  But this is metaphorically like this is Piggy on the other end
• 28:21
  of the fame. Seesaw Fortuna's wheel has
• 28:24
  turned, and now Miss Piggy is not the most famous person in
• 28:28
  the world anymore, right? And this was the piggy, as you
• 28:31
  say, that you saw. Yeah, well, you're right.
• 28:34
  Things are. I think you this is what you
• 28:35
  mean, that things are different within the story, but things are
• 28:38
  also different in real life. Yeah, The Muppet Show's been
• 28:40
  over for a few years, and I mean even the, like, Jim Henson and
• 28:46
  Frank Oz have tried different things.
• 28:48
  They've they've kind of gone back and revisited The Muppets
• 28:52
  over the years. But they did.
• 28:54
  Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and Fraggle Rock and Frank Oz is
• 28:57
  directing movies so. And the Jim Henson hour is them
• 29:01
  coming back and and trying to say, hey once again.
• 29:04
  A weekly show on Saturday night, Was it Saturday night?
• 29:07
  Sunday night. I think it.
• 29:09
  Once again, Wednesday. Started on Friday and then moved
• 29:11
  to Sunday. Something like that.
• 29:13
  Into that like Walt Disney World of Disney kind of time slot.
• 29:17
  Yeah. Trying to say like Jim Henson is
• 29:19
  the new Walt Disney. Oh yeah, and that this is the
• 29:21
  new Muppet Show. And then nobody watched it.
• 29:24
  Yeah. And it's it.
• 29:26
  It's amazing. Kind of comparing it to that
• 29:29
  Muppets Go Hollywood time where it they rose so fast, yeah, they
• 29:34
  got to like mega superstar level after a year, after two years
• 29:40
  and then it's not that much like compared to the distance that we
• 29:44
  are from it now. Yeah.
• 29:47
  Lightning. Fast The Muppets 10 years
• 29:49
  doesn't seem like that long, yeah?
• 29:53
  And they were kind of sort of squeaking by at that point,
• 29:55
  yeah. And now they couldn't get
• 29:56
  anybody to watch a TV show. Yeah, so talk about what's What
• 30:00
  are things that you that you love about the Piggy's
• 30:03
  Hollywood? Yeah, it's well, so the you've
• 30:07
  mentioned fantastic Miss Piggy Show.
• 30:09
  Another thing about that is it's the whole Muppet Show gang is in
• 30:12
  the control room. They keep cutting back to see
• 30:15
  all your friends from the Muppet Show that you remember on that
• 30:18
  show that just recently ended, I guess at the time of that
• 30:21
  special. Yeah, that was.
• 30:22
  They'd just been about a year out.
• 30:23
  Yeah, and this time a lot of The Muppet Show characters were on
• 30:26
  the Jim Henson Hour. But for Miss Piggy's Hollywood,
• 30:30
  it's just Piggy and Gonzo, yeah? Gonzo as her associate producer.
• 30:35
  Yes, he's just kind of tagging along and causing her
• 30:40
  frustration and. Saying that everything is cool.
• 30:43
  This is the yeah, this is the era of Gonzo saying, wow, cool.
• 30:48
  Good evening dear fans, and welcome to Moz Hollywood Old VU
• 30:54
  Hop on board this train, lovely automobile with my chauffeur and
• 30:59
  bodyguard and personal trainer Lars.
• 31:02
  Is he not cute? Join us now as we visit such
• 31:06
  exciting Hollywood sites as the LA Brilliant Tar Pits, Man's
• 31:11
  Chinese Laundry, the Hollywood Airwax Museum.
• 31:14
  Excuse me, Gonzo. Let me see those cards.
• 31:18
  Again, she really wants to be a celebrity.
• 31:20
  She's telling us she's a celebrity.
• 31:23
  She's gonna introduce us to all her celebrity friends.
• 31:26
  She's gonna show us the places where celebrities hang out.
• 31:29
  And then over the course of the special, we see that it's not
• 31:32
  actually true. She's not one of them.
• 31:35
  And when she encounters famous people, they don't really want
• 31:39
  to have anything to do. They're not super into her.
• 31:42
  Yeah. And.
• 31:44
  And so the joke is like, here's we're gonna do Miss Piggy's
• 31:47
  Hollywood, Laura's drive. We're gonna go and he, like,
• 31:50
  lurches forward and she falls back and then just falls onto
• 31:53
  the onto the street. Yeah.
• 31:56
  Early on, things aren't going so well for her.
• 31:58
  No. You know, another thing that
• 32:00
  makes this kind of an interesting special is that it
• 32:02
  is being made on the cheap, I think.
• 32:05
  I don't think there are sets. Some of it is is definitely shot
• 32:09
  on these real locations, yeah. No, that's what I'm saying is
• 32:12
  there's a lot of like these location shoots that are like a
• 32:16
  street. Yeah.
• 32:17
  Oh, no. Yeah, you're.
• 32:18
  Right, a street in Hollywood. It's like 3 characters.
• 32:21
  Oh, we forgot. Actually, the fuzzy bear is in
• 32:23
  it as well. Oh yeah, duh.
• 32:24
  Of course. Yeah.
• 32:26
  But he never interacts with the with Gonzo and Piggy, They just
• 32:28
  cut to him a few times. Yeah, he's because he's supposed
• 32:31
  to be doing a report from the Comedy Store, and it takes him a
• 32:33
  few times to actually get to the Comedy Store.
• 32:36
  And so Piggy is driving around. Yes, this is Hollywood where the
• 32:44
  dreams you dare to dream really do come true.
• 32:47
  Here We Stars Never is 1 big happy, fabulous family.
• 32:52
  In our town it is very common for a member of the family of
• 32:55
  stars such as myself to drop in on another * to chat or perhaps
• 33:00
  to borrow a cup of sugar. They get up to a house and she's
• 33:05
  ringing the bell. I I doubt whether that's true.
• 33:08
  Anyway, I don't know. Maybe.
• 33:09
  Oh, that's absolutely not true. Maybe some of the celebrities
• 33:13
  just ring each other's doorbells and say hi, but yeah, yeah.
• 33:17
  I think that is, that's another kind of like Photoplay fiction,
• 33:21
  you know, right? It's that thing is where we just
• 33:23
  assume that every famous person is friends with every other
• 33:25
  famous person. Yes.
• 33:27
  And and they're, they live in this incredibly glamorous place
• 33:29
  where you just, everywhere you go, yeah, there's just the most
• 33:32
  famous people in the world who are there.
• 33:34
  Right. They're just all socializing
• 33:35
  together all the time. Going to these fabulous parties,
• 33:38
  Yeah. And so that is what Piggy's
• 33:40
  trying to kind of lock into and is running up against the
• 33:45
  reality of that not being true, and especially that not being
• 33:48
  true for her. Can you see anybody, Gonzo?
• 34:00
  I thought you were going to call ahead.
• 34:02
  I was, But you said we could just drop in.
• 34:05
  You know, the family of the stars thing.
• 34:09
  It seems we have a slight technical problem.
• 34:12
  Come along, Gonzo. Who lives here anywhere?
• 34:14
  I don't know. Right, right.
• 34:18
  Piggy was so convincing, trying to convince us that she managed
• 34:21
  to convince Gonzo in the process.
• 34:23
  Which messes up her the fantasy that she's trying to create.
• 34:26
  Yeah, he had one job and he didn't even do it because he
• 34:28
  bought into fantasy. And then basically, and then the
• 34:33
  rest of the special is basically that same joke over and over.
• 34:37
  She also goes to Rodeo Dr., which she calls Rodeo Dr. Yes,
• 34:41
  of course. Where she goes shopping.
• 34:44
  There's a a lovely moment where Lars needs to go park the car
• 34:50
  and she yells as she's as she's going into this fancy dress
• 34:53
  shop. Go find a parking meter with
• 34:55
  some time on it already. Yeah, she must know that the
• 34:58
  cameras are on, that we're watching her.
• 35:01
  Yeah, she just sort of all of these little breaks are are
• 35:03
  bleeding through. Yeah.
• 35:05
  And kind of exposing the the fantasy as being a sham.
• 35:10
  So she's very overconfident walking into a clothing store on
• 35:14
  Rodeo Dr. and asking how much a dress costs.
• 35:18
  Oh, I love it. Oh, miss.
• 35:19
  Miss. yo-yo, miss. May I help you?
• 35:21
  Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 35:23
  I wish to purchase this dress. How much is it?
• 35:26
  23,000, Madam, 22 Three. Oh, gosh.
• 35:32
  And I wanted it in blue too. You don't have.
• 35:34
  Well, you have blue up. You're just.
• 35:35
  You do. Oh, actually, you know, I was
• 35:36
  looking for more of a petite size.
• 35:38
  We have all sizes, Madam. You just.
• 35:40
  Oh, you know. Actually, do you have it in
• 35:41
  polyester? No, Madam.
• 35:44
  I'm so sorry. Darn.
• 35:48
  Which once again sort of she's trying to name drop and then she
• 35:52
  goes to to Universal Studios theme park.
• 35:55
  Yeah. Which is a part of the of the
• 35:58
  special that I I absolutely adore.
• 36:00
  Yeah, I love the joke when she says we're gonna get a behind
• 36:03
  the scenes look at Hollywood and Gonzo says I got her tickets
• 36:07
  right here and she says oh we don't need tickets and he says
• 36:10
  oh that's right, we had our hands stamped.
• 36:13
  So and so here she is like showing us behind the scenes in
• 36:15
  Hollywood, which is just the Universal Studios Hollywood
• 36:18
  tour, yeah, where they show off all the special effects.
• 36:22
  Yeah, the same summer this, or I guess the summer after this
• 36:26
  aired on TV, my family went on vacation to California and we
• 36:31
  went to Universal Studios and took the tram tour.
• 36:33
  So that is just so like this version of it is just so
• 36:37
  embedded in my memory cuz I had seen it on the Miss Piggy
• 36:41
  special and then I saw it in person and then I proceeded to
• 36:44
  watch that special over and over again.
• 36:46
  So. And was that really like, was
• 36:49
  that an accurate depiction? Yeah, I think pretty much
• 36:52
  everything. Everything that's on it.
• 36:53
  See, I mean, like the the car, the tram does not stop.
• 36:57
  So you can get a better look at King Kong or so he can sing,
• 37:02
  right. Like he does in this.
• 37:04
  But yeah. And yeah, so this is actually
• 37:08
  now that I think of it. This is similar to her singing.
• 37:10
  I've got the cutest little baby face because she's singing.
• 37:13
  That's entertainment. But what she sings is I'm
• 37:16
  entertainment. Yeah, it's another bespoke
• 37:19
  classic song for Piggy. Yeah, it's me.
• 37:25
  That you've come here to see this back lot.
• 37:29
  Where I give all I've got is where tricks make for big buffer
• 37:34
  pigs. That's entertainment.
• 37:38
  But it's a little less convincing this time, I guess,
• 37:40
  than in the other special, because we've seen more evidence
• 37:45
  that she is not quite the star she wants us to think she is.
• 37:50
  And the song that she's singing is is partly about like special
• 37:55
  effects don't matter, right. Because she's the she's the
• 37:58
  star. Yeah, you need you need a the
• 38:01
  star in front of the camera. Yeah, she says.
• 38:03
  Without me, it's a flop. What would what would there be
• 38:06
  to see, Sir, if it's not starring me?
• 38:08
  Sir, she's what really matters. A screen without me just cannot
• 38:13
  be. I'm entertainment.
• 38:15
  And kind of, you know, and then part of the joke here is just
• 38:17
  that everything behind her actually is so interesting and
• 38:20
  exciting to look at, Yes. And all she can do is like lean
• 38:24
  over, which historically is something that she seems to
• 38:27
  think makes her fascinating. Yeah, she does it a lot.
• 38:31
  She. Does that?
• 38:31
  Is that puss? It's a thing I've never.
• 38:33
  Entirely understood, I guess. I don't understand it, but it's
• 38:38
  funny, yeah. That that she thinks this is
• 38:41
  modeling for Miss Piggy as she kind of leans over and I.
• 38:45
  Bet everyone who's listening knows what pose were.
• 38:47
  Exactly that, yeah. But they even then they can't
• 38:50
  let her just have this moment because at the end of this song
• 38:54
  she gets blown up by the Miami Vice stunt show which has since
• 38:58
  been replaced by the long running Waterworld stunt show.
• 39:01
  They still? Have oh, that.
• 39:02
  Waterworld is still running. I was just back there.
• 39:05
  That's ago. That's a real diss on Miami
• 39:08
  Vice. Then and then we go back to the
• 39:12
  family of stars bit where she goes to another house and they
• 39:17
  get chased away by dogs. Yeah, no celebrity wants to give
• 39:20
  Peggy the time of day. And so where is she?
• 39:23
  Like? So there is this question of
• 39:25
  like, is she famous at all here? Yeah, it's just most, most
• 39:31
  people either are just ignoring her or just wanna shake her off
• 39:35
  as soon as possible. But yeah, it is like, the
• 39:37
  question is, what version of Piggy is this?
• 39:39
  Is this is this the Piggy who was just the star of the Muppet
• 39:43
  movie 10 years ago? Like if you asked George went,
• 39:47
  mm hmm, why is Miss Piggy's? Would he tell you that?
• 39:50
  Or is this some some version of reality?
• 39:53
  Yeah, it's it's, it's always, that's always the thing with The
• 39:57
  Muppets, like. Yeah, it's that weird push and
• 39:59
  pull. Yeah, The Muppet Show is a hit
• 40:01
  TV show. We know that.
• 40:03
  But in on the show, it has to be kind of like not a very
• 40:07
  successful show, right? It'd be funny.
• 40:10
  Yeah, and so here kind of even like going out in the world
• 40:13
  having this, what used to be a superstar pig now kind of
• 40:16
  flailing around trying to trying to show some glamour.
• 40:19
  Although honestly, like, I'm not sure anything looks that curious
• 40:22
  in this. Everything looks a little tired.
• 40:26
  Yeah, this was a different era of Hollywood, maybe a
• 40:28
  transitional era. I do wanna mention though too.
• 40:31
  I just remembered earlier in the in this Jim Henson hour episode,
• 40:35
  in the half of it, the first half it with with Bobby McFerrin
• 40:38
  as the guest star on Muppet Television.
• 40:40
  This is the one where they're tracking the ratings, right?
• 40:46
  Actually, it was probably not a great idea to do for such an
• 40:49
  early episode of the show, considering what happened to it.
• 40:51
  That nobody watched it, but very prescient.
• 40:54
  They have, yeah. They have these monitors where
• 40:56
  they can see the ratings going up and down like in real time,
• 41:01
  and Piggy calls Kermit on the phone and as soon as the
• 41:05
  audience hears that Piggy's on the phone, the ratings.
• 41:08
  Shoot up? Oh yeah.
• 41:10
  Like, everybody is excited that Piggy is on the show.
• 41:13
  Like people are switching their TV's over to NBC.
• 41:15
  Just 'cause I don't know. Their friend called them and
• 41:17
  said, oh, Piggy's on something like that.
• 41:20
  And then, as soon as he's done with that phone call, the
• 41:22
  ratings drop again. Yeah, and so he then he has to
• 41:25
  promise that, oh, but misspeaky. Like later on, Misspeaky's
• 41:27
  coming back. Yeah, exactly.
• 41:29
  She's gonna be back for the next half of the show.
• 41:31
  But so that implies that the audience, at least, really is
• 41:35
  still excited to see. Yeah, but in reality, we know
• 41:39
  that that's not true. Or at least that they it wasn't
• 41:42
  enough for anybody to tune in to this.
• 41:44
  Right. Television program?
• 41:46
  Yeah, I guess not. Yeah.
• 41:49
  So she has some more fun with Justine Bateman.
• 41:53
  They go to the the Beverly Hills Hotel where she's gonna talk to
• 41:58
  Justine Bateman. She believes that she is there
• 42:00
  to be interviewed by Barbara Walters.
• 42:02
  Right. And Piggy is playing it like I
• 42:06
  think she wants us to believe that she's just oh, there's my
• 42:08
  friend Jessie. B Yeah, we're gonna.
• 42:10
  Talk at the pool. But Gonzo has called the head
• 42:13
  and he's had to improvise, he says, and tell them that Barbara
• 42:17
  Walters wants to interview Justine Bateman.
• 42:19
  Yeah, and and so and Piggy didn't even know that that he
• 42:22
  was doing that right, that that was the only way that he could
• 42:25
  actually get her to come out. Super superstar Justine Bateman.
• 42:30
  What? That's us.
• 42:32
  What's us? Well, when I gave your name, her
• 42:35
  agent wouldn't come to the phone.
• 42:36
  I improvised the Barbara Walters stuff.
• 42:38
  It's pretty clever, huh? Well, Justine seems to have been
• 42:47
  one of those in CTNC Hollywood mix UPS.
• 42:51
  What do you mean? What happened to Barbara
• 42:53
  Walters? Oh, a lovely woman, isn't she?
• 42:56
  And if she were here, I'm certain she'd want to begin by
• 42:59
  asking. You mean?
• 43:00
  Barbara Walters isn't coming. No, and Justine Bateman gets
• 43:07
  very angry with her. Yeah, he Well, Piggy's question
• 43:11
  is about what is her greatest challenge as a star.
• 43:15
  And Justine Bateman goes into this thing about a difficult
• 43:19
  acting task. Like for example if her
• 43:20
  character has been betrayed, if somebody has lied to her and
• 43:23
  then just builds up to her pushing Piggy into the pool.
• 43:26
  Yep, it's another another fall. Yeah, yeah, it's.
• 43:30
  True. Wow.
• 43:30
  She's she's, she gets. She gets.
• 43:33
  Pushed around a lot. Yeah, she's she's humbled the
• 43:35
  the star is is so humbled in front of us in this.
• 43:40
  And then there is just one final crash for her that ends up with
• 43:44
  her getting lifted up again is that she goes to another house.
• 43:50
  She says it's Rodger Moore's house and she rings the bell and
• 43:55
  she just cracks. Let us knock, shall we?
• 44:01
  And dear, dear, sweet personal friend of mine, Roger Moore will
• 44:05
  come right out here and talk to you.
• 44:08
  My Audie, stop. That's it.
• 44:12
  Stop. I've had it.
• 44:13
  I can't do it anymore. I I I'm an honest woman.
• 44:15
  I cannot lie to my public anymore.
• 44:18
  Look, I promise to show you my celebrity friends and and you
• 44:22
  see what's happened. I mean, it's a sham.
• 44:25
  It's not the show I envisioned that I've tried so hard to give
• 44:28
  you what you wanted. It's it's hard being a pig in
• 44:31
  Hollywood. You know it.
• 44:32
  I've been like this. Yeah.
• 44:35
  Would they have had the piggy of 1979 say the words?
• 44:41
  It's a sham? Would she have denied both to
• 44:43
  add that? That's.
• 44:44
  Really. In 1979.
• 44:46
  That's a really good question. I think she would have refused.
• 44:49
  I think so, yeah. Because she does get caught out
• 44:53
  with the scooter thing in my school, Hollywood.
• 44:56
  That's true. Yeah.
• 44:56
  Where it's it's it's a very similar scene actually, the the
• 44:59
  two poolside scenes. That's right.
• 45:01
  Yeah. Yeah, are very simple but.
• 45:03
  She's able to shrug it off in that case and just keep going.
• 45:05
  She just, yeah, she just just speeds along.
• 45:09
  And the way that that in the Hollywood, the way that that
• 45:12
  ends is like that gets that gets exposed and then she kind of
• 45:16
  just looks at the camera and goes ha ha ha ha.
• 45:19
  And then and then mercifully piggy trademark.
• 45:22
  Yeah, mercifully, it just fades out and so we don't have to see,
• 45:26
  yeah, her embarrassment or what happens then.
• 45:29
  Yeah, that one has other Muppets to spend time with.
• 45:32
  We we don't have to. She doesn't have to have an arc
• 45:35
  in that special like she does on this one.
• 45:38
  And it's it's very beautiful. I think it's it's just it's
• 45:40
  really nice. I think it's nice writing.
• 45:43
  It's it's it's going back to, you know, that Frank Oz idea,
• 45:46
  that Piggy is all about pain, that she starts to cry.
• 45:49
  She doesn't have tried so hard. It's hard being a pig in
• 45:52
  Hollywood. Yeah.
• 45:54
  And and it really is. And you really feel for her in
• 45:58
  this moment. I think it's beautiful.
• 46:00
  Yeah, This is why classic era Piggy is so good.
• 46:04
  There's so, yeah, she has layers.
• 46:06
  Yeah, there's so much to the character.
• 46:09
  And so funny that, you know, for us, the thing that that she's
• 46:14
  rubbing up against is herself. It's it's her own kind of
• 46:18
  self-image and what we're supposed to think about her.
• 46:21
  Yeah. And then there's what I consider
• 46:25
  to be a fantasy sequence, because Dudley Moore comes out.
• 46:29
  Miss Piggy, It is you, Dudley. Dudley Moore.
• 46:35
  I wouldn't like to see you, Miss Piggy.
• 46:36
  At my house. I.
• 46:39
  Where are my manners? Please come in.
• 46:41
  Oh, thank you, Miss Piggy. I can't.
• 46:45
  I can't believe you're here. This is like a dream come true.
• 46:47
  I mean, you don't know how often I've I've I've imagined.
• 46:49
  Hope you'd be in here with me. And the reason why I think that
• 46:54
  this is a fantasy is his house looks the way that I would like
• 46:57
  my house to look, which is open plan decorated entirely with
• 47:03
  Miss Piggy merchandise. All Miss Piggy stuff.
• 47:06
  Yeah, so he's, I guess, bought all this Miss Piggy merchandise.
• 47:10
  He is appearing in a special where it's been made clear to us
• 47:15
  that people in Hollywood are not really interested in Piggy.
• 47:21
  But the reason all this merchandise exists is that Piggy
• 47:25
  is very popular and The Muppet Show was huge and she was the
• 47:31
  the most popular character from it, which is why.
• 47:35
  They made all this stuff even exists, although some of it he
• 47:38
  implies that he had some of it commissioned.
• 47:40
  And they showed, you know, the phone, the telephone that you
• 47:43
  see in there. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:45
  I kind of glimpse of it. It's was not actually produced.
• 47:48
  That was a prototype that they made.
• 47:51
  It's called the Spirit of the Telephone.
• 47:53
  Michael Frith. In his absolute adoration of
• 47:56
  Miss Piggy, he designed this really like beautiful Art Deco
• 48:01
  phone that never actually got produced.
• 48:04
  And so the prototype. But the prototype of it is
• 48:06
  sitting in in Dudley Moore's house along with all these 8 by
• 48:10
  10s and Sigma ceramics. The infamous Piggy Bank is there
• 48:15
  people have seen pictures of online.
• 48:17
  Where where T has a a coin slot in her cleavage.
• 48:21
  Correct. And they are.
• 48:23
  They kind of have a love scene. Yeah, yeah.
• 48:26
  He just can't believe that Piggy.
• 48:27
  Miss Piggy is in his house. And there is something that he
• 48:31
  has always wanted to do with her.
• 48:33
  He kind of like leans her back. I don't think I understood this
• 48:38
  joke. Oh, when you were.
• 48:39
  When I was, I was 7 or 8 when this was on, yeah.
• 48:43
  There, there is one thing. Something I I've always wanted
• 48:47
  to share with you. Something that I think could be
• 48:48
  very, very beautiful for for both of us.
• 48:52
  Dudley, we're we're on television.
• 48:56
  Make it even better, don't you think?
• 48:59
  Dudley, dear? What?
• 49:01
  What do you have in what? What do you have in mind?
• 49:09
  Sing with me. Sing.
• 49:12
  Oh, I knew that. And so they have a really lovely
• 49:16
  little duet where they sing Our Love Is Here to Stay.
• 49:20
  Yeah, that is a nice moment and it's a nice way to end the
• 49:23
  special because it kind of the conclusion is that it doesn't
• 49:27
  matter that she she is not part of the Hollywood and crowd, at
• 49:34
  least at large, because she found at least one person who.
• 49:40
  Who believes in her? Yeah, who really values her and
• 49:42
  yeah, believes in her and appreciates her and just wants
• 49:47
  to sing a song with her and that makes her feel better.
• 49:50
  And if what she wants is to be loved, you know, if she can't be
• 49:54
  loved by that security guard over at Danny Devito's house,
• 49:58
  she's not loved by sitcom stars. Right?
• 50:02
  And George, When and and Justine Bateman.
• 50:04
  I know how painful that can be. At least she is.
• 50:07
  She is truly loved by Dudley Moore and me and her her most
• 50:14
  devoted fans who who continue to love her long after everybody
• 50:19
  else moved on. Yeah.
• 50:21
  So whether she's famous in the story or not, and whether she's
• 50:27
  famous in real life or not, at least yeah, I think there
• 50:31
  there's always gonna be some of us fans who appreciate her and
• 50:35
  adore her. And that is kind of like that's
• 50:38
  where that special comes to rest.
• 50:40
  And and then that is, that's the story of you and me kind of now
• 50:45
  here all the way 3030 years after that and after they're
• 50:50
  even. Yeah, like, you know, they they
• 50:52
  went through, they went through, you know, real ups and downs
• 50:54
  over the next 30 years. Right.
• 50:56
  There were times when people at like the the audience, the
• 50:59
  general audience started caring about Miss Piggy again.
• 51:02
  And there were times when they kind of forgot about her.
• 51:05
  Yeah, the fortune wheel has spun.
• 51:08
  Yeah, several times, Right. But some of us have been there
• 51:11
  the whole time. Yeah.
• 51:12
  But still, when they have a project to promote, I think this
• 51:15
  is consistent. Anytime Miss Piggy appears on a
• 51:18
  talk show, the audience loves it.
• 51:20
  Yeah. Everyone is so happy to see Miss
• 51:23
  Piggy. Yeah.
• 51:25
  Even if it's like, wow, I forgot that Miss Piggy existed.
• 51:29
  But now that I'm reminded and I see her and I hear her being
• 51:32
  funny, it's. Yeah.
• 51:34
  So there there was this funny moment where when it was
• 51:36
  announced that that she and Kermit had broken up, sort of as
• 51:39
  as part of the promotion for the sitcom, it made a huge splash.
• 51:44
  Like everyone was talking about, Oh my God, you're so.
• 51:46
  Invested in. Yeah, and then they didn't watch
• 51:48
  the show, which is so annoying. I know.
• 51:51
  Where were they? I mean, it was partly that was
• 51:53
  the show's fault. Not, you know, not necessarily
• 51:55
  the audiences in many ways, but but for, you know, for that
• 51:59
  moment, like Peggy was an enormous sensation.
• 52:04
  Right. These were.
• 52:05
  There were, there were millions of comments on the Internet from
• 52:08
  people who did not buy a ticket to go see Muppets.
• 52:11
  Most wanted. They, they didn't go out of
• 52:14
  their way to go see that movie starring Miss Piggy.
• 52:17
  But when they heard the news that Miss Piggy and Carmen were
• 52:20
  breaking up, they were. They had feelings.
• 52:22
  Yeah, they did. They felt so strongly about it.
• 52:25
  Yeah. So yeah, even even to this day,
• 52:28
  Piggy. Piggy can be a huge deal.
• 52:31
  Sometimes she's still famous. Ryan, thank you so much for
• 52:35
  joining me today. Thank you.
• 52:36
  For having me, this has been fun.
• 52:38
  What would you like to plug? I will mention again the Moving
• 52:42
  Right Along Muppet Movie Podcast.
• 52:44
  I don't know when this will be. This episode will be premiering,
• 52:48
  but we are preparing to start on Muppet Treasure Island 2 minutes
• 52:53
  at a time. I haven't started recording yet,
• 52:55
  but that will be coming soon. And and you also have had some
• 52:59
  special shows recently. Yes.
• 53:02
  We as as we record this, we recently posted our bonus
• 53:06
  episode about John Denver and The Muppets at Christmas
• 53:09
  together. I think Anthony and I and our
• 53:13
  guest Beth Cook probably liked that special more than you do, I
• 53:17
  remember right. And then before that, we did a
• 53:21
  bonus episode on Muppet Classic Theater, which occupies a really
• 53:25
  strange space, I think in the history of Muppet production
• 53:29
  'cause it's just this. Whether they are, whether they
• 53:31
  are famous or not, yeah 'cause they do.
• 53:33
  Yes, it's a nice production, but yeah, they do it direct to video
• 53:36
  and not on television. Yeah, it's a direct to VHS
• 53:38
  special. I don't think has ever really
• 53:40
  been released anywhere else. Yeah, but we discovered when we
• 53:43
  did that episode that a lot of people had that tape and and
• 53:47
  watched it, and that was one of the formative Muppet texts of
• 53:50
  their childhoods, so. As as Miss Piggy's Hollywood was
• 53:53
  for you. Yes, exactly.
• 53:55
  You just never know. Yeah, exactly.
• 53:59
  So thank you Ryan and Kissy Kissy.
• 54:02
  And thank you for listening to this episode of the fantastic
• 54:04
  Miss Piggy podcast brought to you by my friends at
• 54:07
  toughpigs.com. In the next episode, there's
• 54:09
  another interview. I've got several more interviews
• 54:11
  coming up with very exciting people next week, Jim Henson
• 54:14
  biographer Brian J Jones talking to me about how awesome Miss
• 54:17
  Piggy is. A big thank you to Johannes for
• 54:20
  being my Dudley Moore and inviting me in to sing my song.
• 54:24
  I also want to give special thanks to the editors of Muppet
• 54:26
  Wiki. Life itself would not be
• 54:28
  possible without Muppet Wiki, so I love y'all.
• 54:31
  If you have comments or questions or you know stuff
• 54:33
  about Miss Piggy that you'd like to share, you can write to me at
• 54:36
  fantasticmisspiggy@gmail.com. That's fantastic.
• 54:38
  Miss Piggy at Gmail and please do.
• 54:41
  It's been really nice hearing from people.
• 54:42
  I'm also on X at Fantastic Miss P Or come and join us on the
• 54:46
  Tough Figs Discord. Thank you everyone.
• 54:47
  I'll see you next time. G.