Labels: news

Did you miss the first part of our chat with Sesame Street puppeteer and head writer Joey Mazzarino? Well it misses you too. You should call it more often.

Let's dispense with the preliminaries! On to part two!

ToughPigs: I wanted to ask you about Horatio the Elephant. How did he get his name?

Joey Mazzarino: Belinda [Ward] named him. He’s had a few different performers. I think Dave Goelz did him for "Elephant Elevator Operator", and Marty Robinson did him for Monster’s Clubhouse, and I don’t even remember when I started doing him. I just remember when I started doing him, I thought, “You know what would be great? If I could do this upright. And it would be even greater if he had legs!” And they started to build him that way. He doesn’t have the greatest eyes, he was made by Ed Christie to be a big jungle animal. It’s the most freeing thing in the world to be a full-bodied puppet.

TP: So how does he work…?

JM: It’s just like Big Bird, but I give him this weird curve in his spine (sticks arm in the air, but tilted forward, not straight up like Big Bird).

TP: Is it like Big Bird where you’ve got a monitor strapped to your chest, with the camera pointed at the character?

JM: Yeah, it’s looking straight on. I do have some little slits in the front, because it does get dangerous. I mean, that trunk really hurts if you hit somebody with it.

TP: How did you come up with that hyperactive personality?

JM: It was a one-shot thing, and I was just stealing Bobcat Goldthwait’s voice. Most of my characters, even Murray, have been developed in any way. Even Stinky the Stinkweed was a one-off in an Oscar parody. I know some people hate the voice, but I never cared about it. I love that most of my characters are hyperactive.

TP: Is that a part of you coming out?

JM: Yeah, I’m very hyper. Murray’s interviews are about as close to me as you’re going to get. I tend to be big and annoying.

TP: You were one of the writers on Muppets From Space. What was that like?

JM: It was a miserable experience. We were working with a director, Randal Kleiser, who had directed Grease, one of my favorite movies. We got the green light, it was Jerry Juhl’s script, and they asked me to do a pass, and I wrote a very parody-heavy script. We parodied Men in Black, Contact, Alien, and we were very close to shooting. Then I got a panicked call from Henson saying that they were firing Randal. They said, “We don’t feel like he’s bringing enough vision.” I said, “But we got the green light! We’re going!” So they flew me out to LA to pick a new director, and we picked a director who was a very nice guy, and he did a decent job, but he wanted to get rid of all the parody stuff. He wanted it to be more real, and the ending, I hate the ending. In my draft, the aliens were getting the signal of old Muppet Shows, and they made themselves look like Gonzo because he was the ultimate being to him. And then they peel back to reveal themselves to be these hideous creatures. And it’s not about family being those guys, his family is the Muppets. So he’s still a whatever, he’s not an alien in the end. So the fact that they made him an alien bugs the crap out of me. Anyway, they hired him, he wanted to make all these changes, and I just left.

TP: So you weren’t on set for the filming?

JM: No, I left before they started. And it was probably a mistake because I never worked on a feature again.

TP: That might not just be you, the Muppets haven’t worked on a feature since then either.

JM: I know, but I was doing really well with Columbia at the time.

TP: I recently rented Ghost Town. I knew you were in it, but I forgot at the time. When I saw your name in the credits, I had to go back and find your blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene. How did that happen?

JM: We were doing auditions for the character who would become Leela, and I had Murray on the auditions, and I was improving with all of the actresses, and at the end of the day, [casting director] Pat McCorkle said to me, “We’re looking for funny character actors to come in and do Ricky Gervais’ new movie. Are you interested?” And I was like, yeah sure, why not. And about three weeks later, I got a call to come in and meet David Koepp, the director, and he asked me, “Can you sneeze?” So I did some sneezes and he says, “Those are really good sneezes.” The next thing I know, I’m called to the set and I did my sneeze and that was it. And at the end of the day, I said to Ricky, “I work on Sesame Street, we’d love to have you,” and all of the sudden he was like, “Oh yes! I’d love to do that! What do I do?” And we’re having him on the show this season.

TP: Do celebrities often come to you to ask to be on the show?

JM: Yeah, sometimes. We have a talent booker who keeps an eye out on who’s in New York that we can grab for a few hours. But some people are just big Muppet fans, like Neil Patrick Harris.

TP: Yeah, we’ve heard in a few interviews, he loves talking about how much of a Muppet fan he is.

JM: It was great, he came in and did a whole episode, which is rare.

TP: That was a great episode, he was fantastic.

JM: You liked it? I wrote it and directed it! Neil was great. He was totally committed to it. And coming up this year, we have Judah Friedlander. He plays “Inspector Four” and he’s hilarious.

TP: Well, if you ever want more celebrities, we’re available.

JM: (Laughs) I’ll keep you on the list.

TP: We heard at the event in New Jersey that Frank Oz had performed earlier that day. Was he on set?

JM: He was, he came in. He did Grover for a bit, and then he did a parody, I think he did Mad Men. He hadn’t been on in a couple years, he’s just so busy.

TP: How often does Jerry Nelson come in?

JM: Jerry’s been on quite a bit this year. He’s been in maybe four or five days. I’ll tell you this: keep an eye out this season for Marshall Grover and Fred the Wonder Horse with Frank as Grover.

TP: We’ve noticed that you’ve done a lot of the Muppet and kid moments on the show.

JM: That’s how Murray came about. I happened to be in Egypt working with the puppeteers there, and they have this character named Filfil, who’s this purple monster with a jaw line like Murray, and I fell in love with this character. And just by chance, that year new A.M.s came in and one of them was that puppet design, so I said, “Please put this puppet away, don’t let anyone take him, I don’t know what I want to do with him yet but I want to use him.” That was when they had me interviewing kids as Papa Bear and a broccoli.

TP: Yeah, I remember you had the broccoli doing pushups in one sketch.

JM: Well it was all improv, right? So I said they should let me use this guy, and they let me change it up and use Murray. We were trying to figure out a name and I think a crew guy or a producer said he looks furry, how about Furry Murray? My grandpa’s name was Murray, and I was always naming characters Murray, like Little Murray Sparkles, there’s a Murray in the Halloween video. And I was like great, it’s my grandpa’s name, so I’m going to use it. And then the Word on the Street thing came about, and there was a marketing campaign behind it as a promo for the show, and we were trying to figure out who to use, and they said they really liked those Murray and kid videos, and we took a chance. People saw it and recognized it as Sesame Street right away, so it turned out to be really great. And then we did those Murray Has a Little Lamb pieces, and those were the greatest shoots ever.

TP: Are those coming back?

JM: We’re going to re-air them if we don’t have the budget to shoot new ones, but if not then we’ll do new ones for season 41. I loved the stuff in the schools. Because we’d go into a place, like a karate school, and we’d watch a class for a little bit, and then we’d say, “Okay, we have a puppet, we have wild legs, Ovejita, and a throwing Ovejita, what can we do?” And in a couple hours, we’d figure out what physical stuff we can do. My favorite thing is throwing Muppets.

TP: Wild feet are what you call the disembodied feet?

JM: Right, they’re the legs that are not attached. They’re rodded. For the karate one we had them kick, and in the gymnastic one we had Murray on the rings, and in the pottery one we had the legs working the pottery wheel.

TP: Should we expect any surprises in season 40?

JM: We’re trying to do what we call a gem in every episode. That’s for you guys, the fans. Little things like Biff and Sully in a scene, or some other stuff that I won’t tell you about that will be hidden in the scene. There’s one, the writing on the sandwich board outside of Hooper’s Store reads, “Loaf of bread / Container of milk / Stick of butter”. We’ll try to get one of those in most of the episodes this season.
Special thanks to Joey Mazzarino for taking the time to chat with us! We can't wait to see what you've got in store for season 40!

Click here to show your fake sneeze on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: interview, Sesame Street

You may know him as Stinky the Stinkweed. You may know him as Murray, the Word on the Street monster. You may know him as one of the writers of Elmo in Grouchland, Muppets From Space, and Kermit's Swamp Years, not to mention being the head writer on Sesame Street. Well, we know him as Joey Mazzarino. And, y'know, all those other things we mentioned in this paragraph.

Besides being a veritable Muppet Rennaisance man, Joey Mazzarino is a supercool guy, because he took the time to sit down with us for an interview all about what it's like to be the head writer on Sesame Street.

So what are you waiting for? Look down about half an inch and start reading!

ToughPigs: First of all, congratulations on winning the WGA award [for Elmo's Christmas Countdown] last week.

Joey Mazzarino: Thank you.

TP: Were you actually at the ceremony?

JM: I was. The great part about that was that they were honoring Norman Stiles. Norman was my first head writer, and he taught me a lot about comedy writing. He was being honored for the Herb Sargent Award that night.

TP: Wow, that’s awesome. So, you are the head writer on Sesame Street this year. How did you get that job?

JM: Belinda Ward was head writer last year and she was having a hard time balancing work and her family, she didn’t want to do it, they asked me to do it, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give up my free time, because Belinda had to be there a lot. So I thought I’d give it a try. And it’s actually pretty fun. It’s hard though. 26 episodes doesn’t sound like a lot, especially when we used to do 130, but 26 stories that are 12-15 minutes long, it’s been tough.

TP: How do you break up the writing duties?

JM: There are about nine other writers beside myself, and they’re all given an assignment, and you’ll get assigned characters. So you might get Elmo, Snuffy, Big Bird, whatever. You can also trade, like “I really want Telly for this one, can I have Telly?” Then they’ll come and meet with me, and they’ll have their curriculum laid out with the letter and number and pitch me a story based on the characters in their cast list and we’ll work on it from there.

TP: So, you started as a puppeteer, but some of your writing is pretty early on in your career. Did you set out to be a performer or a writer?

JM: I set out to be a performer. I didn’t even know about puppetry until college. I didn’t know that was a job. Camille Bonora came to teach improv at my college. At the time I was working for a nursery school and we’d watch a lot of Sesame with the kids in school. She said that she worked on Sesame Street as a puppeteer, and I asked “What a great job! What do you do?” and she said, “Oh, I do this character Meryl Sheep…” and I said, “Meryl Sheep! You did the Sophie’s Choice accent, that’s really great!” She said, “You watch it? You really know the stuff?” I said yeah, and she said I could come and meet Jim one day. I said that’d be great, and then a year and a half went by and I never saw her again.

Then I was lighting a show at Fordham and she came and she said, “Oh, I told you you could come and visit the set. Jim’s going to be here next week, why don’t you come?” And I went and visited and I got to meet Jim, and I was very tongue-tied and didn’t know what to say. But he was very gracious, and we talked about Fordham because he’d gotten an honorary degree from there. So I was watching those guys work, especially Richard Hunt. I think Richard was doing a butler, and he had the puppet’s hands behind his back and he was really very funny, but the stuff he was saying off camera was even funnier, he was cracking the crew up. And I just said, “I want to be that guy!” So I put on a puppet, and Camille said, “You know, this is really hard, some guys have been doing this since they were little kids, it’s really tough.” I said I don’t care. I said, “Give me a tip,” and she said, “Just drop the thumb.” So I’d practice while talking on the telephone, and I went back to the costume shop at Fordham and I asked the professor if I could borrow some fabric and wigs and stuff, I started building Frankenstein’s puppet.

TP: I hope you still have that puppet somewhere.

JM: I do, it’s at my parents’ house, I think. It was awful, it was terrible. I had my "Of Muppets and Men" book I got from my brother-in-law, and I put a camera up in my bedroom. During the day when I wasn’t at school, I’d practice and rehearse in front of the camera. I was obsessed with building my puppets, and my parents thought I was insane, they really thought I went nuts. Then I sent in a tape and Kevin Clash invited me to a workshop. And that’s how I got into puppetry.

I didn’t know I could write, I was a terrible writer. I was literally the worst grammarian in school. At the end of the year, after 120 episodes, they needed characters, so they said we could go to the Workshop and look at any characters we wanted to do. I saw this little black lamb and I came up with this little commercial for “Colambo”, I put it up for the writers, and they thought it was funny. Lisa Simon, God bless her, she said to me, “Do you want to try writing?” I said no, I’m a terrible writer, I can’t do it. She said, “Well, we pay for the audition,” and I said, oh yeah!

TP: And this was after your first season?

JM: This was probably 1991, so probably my second season.

TP: Can you describe the writing process for an episode of Sesame Street?

JM: Yeah, so I’m a writer and I get my assignment for, say, episode 4210. It’s science and nature, I’ve got Big Bird in my cast, so I’m going to write a show about migration. I’d go to the head writer, I’d pitch my story about Big Bird, he wants to migrate, this real estate worker sells him on a new home and at the end Big Bird decides he wants to leave, and what’s that going to do to everybody? Everyone’s like, “You can’t leave, this is your home, this is your habitat,” and I’d pitch that to the head writer and he’d say, “Yes this is great,” or “No, let’s work on it some more.” So you’d work it out and look at the curriculum and figure out what each scene is going to be, you’d go off and write it, hand it in, the head writer will look at it and give you some notes, you’d take a second pass at it then you’d do a polish on it based on research and producer’s notes. It’s pretty autonomous, it’s the most autonomous writing job I’ve ever heard about, especially in television because there’s not a lot of network involvement, PBS is pretty hands-off. You might hand that all off at once and do your inserts later, when you’d pitch your parodies and you’d pitch your letter films.

TP: So the writers just pitch whatever they come up with?

JM: Sometimes we go, “Hey we need things about near and far” or something, but normally we say we need some parodies, like we’ll have a Mad Men parody this year and Jon and Kate Plus 8.

TP: The recent ones have been really great.

JM: Oh yeah? Which ones did you like?

TP: Like Pre-School Musical…

JM: That was me!!

TP: Are there certain characters you really like writing for?

JM: Telly Monster is my favorite. I don’t understand why kids don’t love Telly more. I love all the characters, I honestly do, but it took me the most time to write Big Bird. For some reason, I couldn’t nail Big Bird’s voice as quickly as everything else. But Telly I just fell in love with right off the bat. I love writing Grover, Grover is awesome. I love writing for Elmo, Elmo’s really fun to write for too. My favorite thing is when we came up with Rocco, Zoe’s pet rock. I love it because it shows this darkness to Elmo, like Elmo gets mad. “It’s not a pet, it’s a rock!” I wrote Rocco first, and when I found that little dynamic, Elmo suddenly got a whole other side to him, it’s not all super sweet.

TP: Do you have any favorite scripts that you wrote?

JM: The first time I got to write and direct my own show, it was the opening air show last year with the Indiana Jones parody. It’s got Telly, who I love. It’s got Chris, who I love.

TP: Murray is in that one too, right?

JM: It’s got Murray. I actually didn’t love that Murray was in it. I kinda keep Murray like, who’s the guy on Fraggle Rock? Uncle Traveling Matt. Because I feel like he goes out into the real world, and when we put him on the Street, there’s just a million characters who can service this. We wanted to try it, and I didn’t think it was that great. Plus, it’s really hard to direct when you’re in it. But I loved coming up with big ideas, like the giant 8-foot boulder. And to parody my favorite film in the world, it was great. The new sequel had just come out, and I’m like, “I can finally parody Indiana Jones!”

TP: That was a pretty ambitious episode.

JM: It was a little ambitious. We actually took a day and a half to shoot it instead of just one day. But just because it was my maiden episode for writing and directing, it’s probably my favorite one.

TP: Do you have any least favorite scripts?

JM: Maybe if I go back and look at the first scripts I wrote, because I didn’t know anything about writing. My first Street scene that I wrote, I just remember there were a lot of stupid, obvious, punny things like the Count with a bat, but it was a baseball bat. I remember being in the control room, and Jon Stone was there and he didn’t know I was there, and someone said, “Should we do it again?” and he said, “It’s not worth it.” At the time, I was so crushed, but looking back, he was right. I didn’t know what I was doing. It wasn’t until maybe my third season when I wrote one that I loved. It was called “Cindertelly”. Flo Bear, who was an awful character, was writing this story called Cindertelly, and there were these little mice getting him ready for a bowling ball.

TP: We heard that the target audience is younger than it used to be. Has that influenced the way you write?

JM: We’ve made a conscious decision that we’re aiming for three, because that’s our target, but I’m still pushing to get that comedy in there for adults. But is it tougher? No, but if I feel like there’s pressure to start taking jokes out, then I get mad. And in my first year as head writer, I’m trying to keep a really consistent comedic voice in the show. Right now, I don’t feel it as much. I’m trying to push a lot of the physical stuff and I want to stay away from the talking-to-the-camera stuff. I don’t mind talking to the camera like we’ve always done on Sesame, but trying to elicit answers from kids really bugs me out.
Click here for part two of our interview, where you'll hear Joey talk about Horatio the Elephant, Muppets From Space, and some super special surprises coming up in season 40!

Click here to drop your thumb on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: interview, Sesame Street

On Wednesday I showed you some strange and wonderful Sesame Street toys from Japan, made by the Chara Hiroba company. Today I'm going to show you some more, starting with these:

Labels: merchandise, Sesame Street, weird stuff

You gotta see this stuff. There's a Japanese toy company called Chara Hiroba that makes a lot of Sesame Street toys, and Tough Pigs founder Danny Horn recently told me about their website, where new Sesame toys are displayed every single month. These toys are... different than our Sesame Street playthings in the U.S. of A.

I mean, a lot of them are cute. Like these Muppets wearing sombreros:


Yay, they're forming a mariachi band! Except they all showed up with maracas and nobody knows how to play guitar. Oh well.

And then there's these guys:


Look how adorable they are! And they're best friends, 'cause they're holding hands! Except Rubber Duckie, who doesn't have any friends. These toys are also very small. You probably shouldn't leave those lying around anywhere near a small child, because that's the kind of thing kids love putting in their mouth. Oh, but you think those are small? Check these out:


One of those could fit in your nostril with no effort at all. Oscar seems to have traded his trash can for a cotton ball.

So those are all very nice, but then you come across something like this:


And two questions come to mind: 1. What? and 2. Huuuh? Are these bricks? Could you build a house out of Cookie Monsters and Elmos and Big Birds? If so, that's the most compelling reason to move to Japan I've ever heard. By the way, these three Muppets seem to be the most popular characters in Japan, at least if you judge by toys like these similarly rectangular products:


Elmo, you're a blockhead. Ha!


Now these are interesting. The only thing distinguishing Elmo from Cookie Monster here is the presence of a nose, and slightly more focused eyes. I guess that's two things. Oh, and the color, so that's three things. Nevermind.

Hey, how about Muppets in animal costumes?


This is from the time Cookie, Elmo, and Big Bird tried to crash Kermit's family reunion, I guess. But where are Cookie's froggy eyes? And more importantly, would they be googly too?


Man, I don't remember Elmo being so leggy. Or so... army?


These aren't actually that weird... but look at their faces. They seem to be expressing pure terror, don't they? "NOOO! NOOO, PLEASE DON'T PUT ME ON YOUR HEAD! ANYTHING BUT THAT! AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHMMMF!!!" Something like that.


Hmm. Are they cheerleaders, or boxers? Or did they get melons stuck on their hands?


Yikes! What kid in any country of the world wants this thing? I think it would be a little less shocking if his nose were in color. Then it would just be like, Oh, okay, it's Elderly Elmo! Tickle him and he laughs and then has a coughing fit! But this is something else altogether. I don't really know what it is.

Have you seen enough? Well, I haven't. Click here for part two!

Click here to discuss crazy toys on the Tough Pigs forum!

Labels: merchandise, Sesame Street, weird stuff

Greetings, art lovers! We at ToughPigs hope that you had a splendid Valentine's Day weekend. If you did, then I hope it was either spent cuddling up to a loved one or with your favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor (the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive). And if you didn't, then perhaps some new art from ToughPigs' own Smig will tickle your fancy!

First up is a strip referencing the new Tiny Zoe (tm), which debuted at the Sesame Street panel in Wayne, New Jersey (click here and here for our recap of the event).
And next is another sick and twisted scene from the sick and twisted mind of one Mr. Smig.
Click here to question which came first, the chicken or Gonzo? on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: fan art, Sesame Street, Smig

Back in November, Hyperion Publishing released Pepe the King Prawn's first book, It's Hard Out Here For a Shrimp. As you may or may not remember, I gave the book a not-so-pleasant review. Oh, why mince words? I thought the book stunk. Literally. It actually smelled like Pepe.

Pepe's book was only the second Muppet book of a series (preceded by Kermit's Before You Leap, published by Meredith Books) that will someday fill a bookshelf of book spines that will be looked at, but rarely removed. The latest in the series is Miss Piggy's The Diva Code: Miss Piggy on Life, Love, and the 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do. To be honest, it was difficult to read this book with the prior knowledge of what came before, but if anyone knows how to bounce back from failure, it's the Muppets.

The first thing I did when I received the book is flip through and look for pictures. The image on the cover is pretty, and thankfully not recycled from another production (as far as I know). However, the images inside the book are black-and-white reproductions of old poser photos. And not even the good kind of old (read: frizzy-haired Piggy, giant hat Piggy, etc.), but recent pictures that hold exactly zero nostalgic feelings. At least the Pepe book had some new cartoony illustrations. But I digress, this is a book containing words, and nowhere does it advertise that there will be photos at all. Let's see how the wordy part measures up.

Miss Piggy provides her own introduction (for who else would be able to give her a proper fanfare?), followed by "A Note About the Typeface". These are the only portions of the book written in conversational paragraphs, which makes them the most enjoyable parts of the book. Especially the typeface portion, because let's face it, nobody cares about typeface, especially a Diva.

The next section delivers on Miss Piggy's list of 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do. Aside from the overuse of striking through the word Men, this part was actually, dare I say, funny. It's not hilarious, but I admit, I squeaked out a titter or two. Naturally, Piggy only makes it through 42 of her promise of 10,000 tips, which elicits a complaint from Kermit the Frog (who has apparently been transcribing this whole time), at which point the Frog quits and leaves Piggy to her own machinations. Unfortunately, when Kermit leaves, so does the quality.

The remainder of the book reads just like Pepe's. Every page has between one and four one-liner jokes (leaving a lot of white space), and though some are clever, few of them are funny. The main difference between the two books is that Pepe's book is all about how men can be deceiving, manipulative, and selfish in a relationship, while Piggy's book is all about how women can be deceiving, manipulative, and selfish. The content gives me little faith that anyone, myself included, has any idea how to coexist with the opposite sex (whatever the species).

The most unfortunate part is that there is a perfectly good book "written" by Miss Piggy, all about life, love, celebrity, and dealing with your frog. The book is called Miss Piggy's Guide to Life, written by National Lampoon founder Henry Beard. Guide to Life takes advantage of the brilliant mind of Beard, the inspiration of Frank Oz, and the amazing photography of John E. Barrett to create a genuinely funny, yet practical book that captures Piggy's voice as well as your full attention. As much as it pains me to even hint at not supporting new Muppet merchandise, I suggest you search online for a used copy of Guide to Life and purchase it in lieu of The Diva Code. Sorry, Jim. Sorry, Mom.

But don't take LeVar Burton's word for it; here's ToughPigs' own Brad with some thoughts of his own: The Diva Code should have just been called "101 Miss Piggy Jokes" (and, aside from a 3rd grader, who sits down to read a joke book?)... I feel the writing is perfectly in-character and that Pepe and Piggy’s voices are spot-on, but I see these books and ask “what’s the point?” and “who’s the audience?”. Maybe you can get more enjoyment out of the content of these books if you tear out each page, fold them up, and bake them into Chinese cookies; or take the various one-liners and Photoshop yourself some creative Muppet posters or T-shirts around the funny slogans. I don’t expect to see anyone sitting down with a nice glass of wine to read through the pages of The Diva Code and there’s never going to be a book club (or even a book report) that covers It’s Hard Out Here For A Shrimp. They just aren’t that kind of book. It's a shame.

Well said, Brad. And that begs the question: Who is the audience for these books? Joke book enthusiasts? Desperate self-help seekers? Or are we, the die-hard Muppet fans, this book's core audience, and I just told you not to bother buying it? Sorry Hyperion, but you've got to do better than this.
Click here to discuss the 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, review

Here at the ToughPigs lab, we're constantly discovering new portions of our own Periodic Table of Muppet Fandom. We've got the noble gases of Chris Smigliano, the alkali metals of Peter Savieri, the metalloids of Ryan Roe, and me, the neodymuim of the group. And now we're adding the next piece of the puzzle: Jay Fosgitt.

Jay is an incredibly talented cartoonist in Michigan, and he's got a cadre of Muppet toons under his belt. Thankfully for us, he's a bit of a Muppet fanatic, which resulted in some slightly obscure references in his work, including Sam and Friends, Emmet Otter, and The Christmas Toy. His new online comic, Dead Duck, just premiered online, which you can view here.

Keep an eye on this space for more Jay Fosgitt soon, when we'll unveil his latest Land of Gorch comic strips. And no, I'm not kidding.













Click here to do some etchings on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: fan art, Jay Fosgitt

This is part two of a two-part write-up of last Friday's Sesame Street panel discussion in New Jersey. Part One is here.

I also want to point out the latest edition of the MuppetCast, in which host Steve Swanson gives a detailed account of the other panel that happened before the panel on Friday night -- it was a session just for teachers. You can listen to that podcast by clicking here, or by subscribing to the MuppetCast via iTunes.

Now, let's see, where was I? Ah, yes. Michael Davis asked Fran Brill about Zoe, and moments later Zoe herself appeared onstage. I could tell right away something was different about her... From the balcony, she looked like more like a Zoe doll than the usual puppet. Sure enough, the puppeteers revealed that after a smaller Zoe was built for her role as the Dormouse in the Abby in Wonderland video special, they liked it so much they decided to use it for season 40 as the actual, real, official Zoe.

Fran Brill said it felt right to her for Zoe to be smaller, but I gotta say, I'm not convinced. What's she going to look like standing next to Elmo now that she's suddenly two-thirds of Elmo's size? But Fran said they've had kids visit the set and they don't seem to notice... which prompted Bob to point out that "We had three Gordons, and they never noticed!" That got a big laugh. Go, Bob.

Do you think he'd mind if I call him Bob? I feel like I know all these people well enough to call them by their first names in this article, with the possible exception of Tony Geiss. Somehow he seems like a last name guy.


Pretty soon Davis asked about Telly, and he too emerged from his duffel bag. As it turns out, Marty Robinson is incredibly funny, and Telly was very loud, nervous, and hilarious. After doing a bit about the fact that he had been stuffed inside a plastic bag, Telly insisted (loudly and frantically) that he's not neurotic, and that Marty is the one who's not normal -- there's a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on there.

Telly was completely freaked out by li'l Zoe. "She's a SHADOW OF HER FORMER SELF! Look at little homunculus Zoe! We used to be married! Now she's TOO YOUNG! Life on Sesame Street is REALLY WEIRD!" It's just too bad they'd never let Telly do the same rant on the show.

Davis asked Kevin Clash about Elmo, and Kevin briefly told the story of Richard throwing him the Elmo puppet with a command to give it a voice, a story we've heard many times before. Or anyway, I've heard it many times before. I had to remind myself a few times during the panel that not everyone in the audience was a Muppet fan, and in fact some of them were Normal People hearing these time-worn anecdotes for the first time. It was a good thing, though, that Kevin soon brought out Elmo for some improvised banter with Davis. Except I was so mesmerized I forgot to write down anything they said.

Next came perhaps the most inspired part of the whole evening: Michael Davis presented the Inside the Actors' Studio questionnaire to Oscar and Elmo. As expected, they answered very differently. Here's how it went:

What is your favorite word? Elmo: "Happy." Oscar: [Pause, mug to the audience.] "It's not happy!"

What is your least favorite word? Elmo: "Sick." Oscar: "Six? Did he say six? I was gonna say seven."


What turns you on? Elmo: "A great big hug." [The audience went "Awwww," and Elmo replied cynically, "Oh, come on! What did you expect from Elmo?"] Oscar: "You really wanna ask me that question? She's sitting right next to me." [Maria! Oscar totally lusts after Maria! After years of sexual tension, the truth comes out!]

What turns you off? Elmo: "People being unhappy." [Again with the "awww," and Elmo's resulting exasperation was wonderful. He can't help being sweet! He's trapped in a world of cuteness!] Oscar: "Happiness."

What is your favorite naughty word? Elmo: "Poopy." [You could sort of sense that the wheels in Kevin's head were turning as he tried to come up with something funny that wouldn't be too unacceptable for Sesame Workshop standards, and "poopy" falls somewhere within those boundaries.] Oscar said, "You better not ask me that." Which doesn't indicate anything specific, but it just sounds funny, doesn't it?

What sound or noise do you love? Elmo: "A baby laughing." [More "Awwws" from the audience, and Elmo threatened to leave.] Oscar: "You don't really want to know." Which was the same answer as the last question, but somehow it was funny again.

If Heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Elmo: "He would say He wants a big hug." Oscar: "How did YOU get here?!"

Then it was time for questions from the audience. It's always a crapshoot when you let people from the audience come up and ask unrehearsed questions at events like this, because you never know what kind of weirdos you have in the audience. Way too many of the question-askers felt the need to preface their questions with lots of details about their lives and their careers and their interest in puppetry. I mean, it's great that you want Maria to know your name, but she's already forgotten it 10 seconds after you ask your question. The questions, more or less:

Q: Is Linda Bove still on the show? Bob answered: No, she hasn't been for a few years. He's not sure why she left, but it might be because of the smaller episode count per season these days. She's lives on the west coast, where she's still involved with the Theater of the Deaf, so that keeps her busy.

Q: Has there ever been a study to determine what the world would be like without Sesame Street? [This one wins the prize for Most Impossible to Answer Question of the Evening.] Everyone on the panel kind of stared at each other silently until Marty spoke up: They tried, but there was no control group.

Q: For Frank - How do you come up with character voices? Before he answered, Frank said he wanted to talk about Richard, which he had not done earlier. He said Richard had a greater sense of "childlike abandon" than any other performer, and he always rooted for the underdog. Frank told a story from The Muppet Show days when the performers were all in a car, and the guy ahead of them threw a pack of cigarettes out the window, and Richard got out and yelled at him. Anyway, to answer the question, Frank said he's not a voice person, but rather the voice comes from the character instead of the other way around.

Speaking of voices, here Kevin talked about the time when he was working on Dinosaurs in Los Angeles and he would talk on the phone to his daughter on the east coast. She would often ask to speak to Elmo, and with the time difference he sometimes found himself at 5:00 in the morning trying to get his Elmo voice warmed up. (He demonstrated the result, which somewhat resembled Elmo after smoking his own pack of cigarettes.)

Q: For Frank - Is there a major shift required going between producing work for adults to working for children? Frank said, "This might surprise you, but I've never directed or performed for children." So basically, that's two questions in a row that Frank answered by negating the question, which is awesome. He said Jim's philosophy was not about separating children from adult sensibilities... He never talked down to the kids in the audience, which is what happens when you try to write "for children."


Q: For Frank - a question about Cookie Monster's healthy eating habits. Frank pointed out that they've been doing that with the character occasionally for years, but he said he doesn't buy it (and here the audience applauded). He thinks "kids are smarter than that," and seeing one character who only eats cookies isn't going to inspire them to only eat cookies for their entire life. Similarly, he thinks it's silly when people complain about Cookie Monster saying "Me" rather than "I," because no kid is going to grow up to be a lawyer and say, "Me want to represent you."

At the time, I had this thought: Ooh, what if Tony Geiss was the one who wrote "Healthy Food" or "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food"? And Frank basically just dissed those songs with Geiss sitting right there! But I just looked them up on the Muppet Wiki, and Geiss wrote neither of those. Oh well.

Q: (From Tough Pigs forum member Chris Stultz!) For Frank - Does he miss performing? Frank said that more than anything, he misses working with the other performers, his "brothers and sisters." He did remark that that morning he had performed for the first time in two years, which is intriguing. Was he taping material for the new season of Sesame Street?

Q: Could Frank say something as Miss Piggy? I wouldn't have blamed Frank for just growling at that guy, but he answered simply: "I'm not going to do that," explaining that the characters are too important to him, and he does not use them like party favors. It would have been fun to hear Frank do some of his character voices, but I was just as happy to see that he was exactly as Frank Oz-y as I hoped he would be. But what if somebody had asked him to say something as, say, Prince Charming from the "Sesame Street Newsflash" sketches? Is that character important to him?

Q: For Caroll - Oscar started out orange. Why did he become green? I'm not 100% sure I wrote this down correctly, but I think Caroll said it was Jim's idea to make him green. The first green Oscar was seen on The Flip Wilson Show. Caroll arrived at the studio, opened the box containing the puppet, and was shocked to see this green thing sitting there. When one of the producers (Dave Connell maybe?) saw it, he said, "We have to change him back!" but by then the Flip Wilson stuff was ready to air and it was too late.

Q: For Frank - Has he ever thought about writing his autobiography? (The guy asking started by saying something like, "I'm begging you," and it sounded for a second like he was going to plead with Frank to do the Miss Piggy voice, which would have been pretty awkward.) Frank said, "I've thought about not writing it." He's a private guy, and he'd rather do new work than talk about work.

That's understandable, but man, it sure would be great if he would just dictate everything he remembers from his Muppet career. He also said that while he realized most of the questions during the Q&A session were coming to him, he wanted everyone to realize that Jim Henson was "the guy," and everything the Muppets did came from him. You can't argue with that.


Q: From nine-year-old Tough Piglet Emileigh: She started by explaining that she's nine years old, almost ten, and she's been watching Sesame Street for about 10 years now. That is adorable and brilliant. She's seen some of the newer characters like Abby, but what happened the older characters like Betty Lou?

Fran answered: Betty Lou has an interesting history... In the early days, they had two very similar little girl puppets, Prairie Dawn and Betty Lou, and they were occasionally mistaken for each other. Eventually, aspects of Betty Lou's character "morphed" into Fran's Roxy Marie character, and later, elements of Roxy Marie "morphed" into Zoe. They now have about 10 main characters that they focus on in most episodes, which means they can't devote screen time to every minor character.

At this, Marty chimed in to say that they have a "Dead Muppet Wall" in the green room, featuring all the failed characters. I'd like to see that for myself, and pay my respects to Elizabeth.

Q: How heavy do the puppets get? Marty answered: Snuffy's the heaviest, Slimey's the lightest.

Then they got onto the subject of Jon Stone, whom Frank referred to as "the Father of Sesame Street." He recalled when they were doing a scene, just messing around and having fun, and Frank asked, "What are we teaching?" to which Jon replied, "It doesn't matter!" Kevin said Jon was great with children. Manzano noted that Christmas Eve on Sesame Street was one of the purest expressions of Stone's spirit.

Q: For Caroll - What happened to Bruno the trashman? Caroll first explained that Bruno was inspired by something he saw on The Gong Show: a large, walking clown puppet pushing a baby carriage, with the puppeteer inside the carriage. The puppet builders wanted a way to get Oscar out onstage for live appearances, so Caroll came up with the idea of Bruno as a way of making Oscar mobile. Bruno was a man of few words, as it was hard to manipulate his mouth while also puppeteering Oscar.

A few years ago, Caroll asked the producers why they never use Bruno anymore, so they took him out of storage, but he had dissolved, and it would cost 20 grand to build a new one, so that's it for Bruno. $20,000 for one Bruno? Dang, that's a lot of money. It seems to me all you'd really need was a puppet head, puppet hands, and a uniform with a big hole in the middle, but I'll go ahead and assume that Caroll Spinney knows more about his job than I do.

Q: For Frank - Is it true that you were originally supposed to be Big Bird? Frank said no. The guy asking the question was like, "Are you sure? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you were." Frank said it was possible that Jim had the idea that Frank would play Big Bird early on... Frank hated playing large characters, and Jim liked torturing him by making him play those characters, but he never was going to be the bird. So there you go.

Q: How did they get Elmo to ride Snuffy? Kevin described how they actually had him inside the puppet with Marty and Bryant Young, who performs Snuffy's back end, and the camera avoided showing Snuffy's bottom half. Zoe's done it too, and Kevin and Fran agreed that the inside of that puppet between Marty and Bryant is not a fun place to be.

Then time was up. Michael Davis thanked all the guests, and we gave them a standing ovation. I want to point out here that normally I hardly ever participate in standing ovations, as I think they've become too commonly used for performances that are merely good but not great. Often I'll find myself the only person in my row not standing at the conclusion of a show, because I'm that curmudgeonly... but this time, I was one of the first people to rise, because if anyone deserves me standing up, it's the Sesame Street people. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to know they have my approval.

I don't suppose Sesame Street will last forever. But for one television show to be so important, and so beloved, and still so great, inspiring a concert hall full of people of all ages to stand up and applaud so whole-heartedly, even after 40 years? Well, I think that's pretty good.

I'm sure there's a ton of little bits and pieces that I left out, so you should really
click here to drop by the Tough Pigs forum to read the memories of other audience members, and to give Sesame Street a standing ovation of your own.

Labels: books, events, Muppet performers, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Last Friday night, an event took place which I'm pretty sure was the coolest thing that's ever happened in New Jersey.

They called it "Sesame Street at 40: A Night of Celebration and Discovery with the Legendary Cast," and it all went down at William Paterson University. A ton of grown-up Sesame fans were there, including a large handful of Tough Pigs forum members. This was lovely, because as terrific as the panel discussion was, it was a special bonus feature to get to spend time with so many fine Muppet fans, some of whom I've known in "real life" for a while now, some of whom I was meeting for the first time.

I'm going to tell you all about it now, and hopefully I'll get this posted before someone inevitably posts a video of the entire thing somewhere, thus rendering this written account completely moot. I hate being moot. I will, however, sprinkle in a few stealthily recorded video clips posted by a member of the audience.

The first person onstage was Tommy Shi. Tommy Shi! I couldn't believe it was really him! After all my years of watching Sesame Street, I never thought I'd get to see Tommy-- wait, who? I don't know. Some kind of guy from Mercedes Benz, apparently. I'm not really sure why he was there, but it's a good thing he was, because he introduced Street Gang author Michael Davis, who in turn introduced the eight people we paid 45 bucks to see: writer Tony Geiss, Bob McGrath, Fran Brill, Marty Robinson, Kevin Clash, Sonia Manzano, Caroll Spinney, and Frank Oz.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that, while I was excited about seeing all these guys and hearing their stories, it felt extra-special to have Frank Oz on the panel. He tends to be a pretty reserved with his Muppety memories -- as is his right, of course -- so I was particularly psyched to see his bald head. He was also rocking a fairly magnificent scarf. David Rudman was originally advertised as being on the panel too, but for some reason he didn't appear and wasn't even listed in the program.

Michael Davis kicked things off by asking everyone about their early days on the show. He asked Frank about the genesis of Bert and Ernie (prefacing the question by asking whether it's more correct to say "Bert and Ernie" or "Ernie and Bert" -- the consensus was "Bert and Ernie"; personally I've always used them interchangeably), and Frank talked about how, during the workshopping process, they initially tried Jim as Bert and Frank as Ernie until they realized it was more natural the other way around.

Next, Caroll Spinney talked about evolving Big Bird from the dumb, goofy fellow from the first season to the lovable, giant kid he is today. He said when he sees the first episode now he finds it "embarrassing."

Sonia Manzano said Maria was created as a response to complaints from the Hispanic community that there were strong African-American characters on the show, but no Hispanics. She talked one the earliest scenes she did -- It was with Grover, and she was watching Frank instead of the puppet, until finally Grover said, "Stop staring at that man!" She also mentioned an early scene with Big Bird -- She was feeling nervous, and Big Bird said: [and here Caroll jumped in and did the voice to finish her sentence] "Don't worry, Maria, just remember that behind that camera there are millions of people watching you."

Manzano recalled that Maria initially ran a library on the street, and over the years the character went from being a teenager to a bit of a hippie to a feminist, and eventually became a wife and mother. It's a pretty impressive fictional biography... Not many other TV characters have gone through so many phases of life in "real time" like that.

Kevin Clash talked about watching Sesame Street as a kid for two reasons: Because he liked the show, and so he could study the puppets to try to figure out how they were built. (When I was a kid, I watched the show for half of the same reasons.) Kevin's favorite character is Grover, and when he said this, Michael Davis launched into his "Grover as middle child" theory. If you've seen any of the publicity Davis has done for his book, you've heard the theory, in which he claims that Grover is a middle child because he tries so hard at everything he does in a desperate attempt to be noticed. It's an interesting thought, but it doesn't explain why Grover was my favorite back when I was first an only child, then an oldest child. In those days, Grover, as far as I was concerned, lived under my bed. What does that say about me?

Marty Robinson said he's been on Sesame Street since he was 28. Instead of starting out performing right hands for years and years, as is the tradition for newcomers, he was given Snuffy quickly. He now believes his first eight years as Snuffy were pretty terrible, which, if my math is correct, means he started getting good around 1988. He said there was a hazing process on the show, and that puppet builder Kermit Love in particular loved torturing newbies. He didn't elaborate on that thought, which is unfortunate, or possibly fortunate.

Fran Brill explained how she became an Muppeteer: She was doing work as a voice actor when she saw an ad stating that Jim Henson was training new puppeteers for a Christmas special (The Great Santa Claus Switch), so she called the company and talked to Jim on the phone himself. (Can you imagine? As Davis suggested, that's like calling Disney and talking to Walt. Heck, it's like calling Kellogg's and talking to Tony the Tiger.) She said she'd like to record voices for the special, but he told her they didn't really do it that way -- puppeteers do their own voices. She went to the puppet training workshop, got cast in the special, and ended up on Sesame Street. It was striking for her to work with Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) on the show, because he had been her acting teacher. I never knew that, and it's a great story, but having read Street Gang, it's amazing at how many little coincidences like that there were among the cast and crew of the show in the early days.

Bob McGrath talked about how being on Sing Along With Mitch led him to superstardom in Japan (Thousands of teenage girls screaming, "Bobu! Bobu!"), and how he decided he'd rather pursue a singing career in the States, which eventually led to his being cast on Sesame Street. He also had some funny stories about working with Ralph Nader doing "The People in Your Neighborhood" for The Sesame Street Special. Nader had trouble memorizing his lines, Nader insisted on singing "the people whom you meet" instead of "the people that you meet," etc. It's a good thing Nader didn't audition for the role of Bob.

Next, Michael Davis asked Tony Geiss about writing for kids, and Geiss replied that it's "impossible," so instead they write for people. He went on to describe how the writers are given a list of curriculum needs every season and they choose items they want to write about. For the environmentally themed season 40, he picked the word "hibernation" from the list and wrote a script about Baby Bear's family attempting to hibernate.

So all that stuff was fascinating and informative, but the audience really perked up when Caroll unzipped his duffel bag and pulled out Oscar. Oscar brought the house down every time he was on, leering at Sonia Manzano and doing his usual "I hate being happy because it makes me miserable, but being miserable makes me happy, but being happy makes me miserable" shtick, which is somehow still entertaining even after the millionth time. There was some discussion about how Maria and Oscar have a unique dynamic on the show, and Caroll took advantage of the opportunity of a grown-up audience to make it clear exactly what's at the root of that dynamic: "Maria, I just have one question," Oscar said. "So why'd you marry Luis?!"

The whole event was dedicated to the memory of Richard Hunt, and it was around this time that the discussion turned to Richard and his amazing talent. Manzano pointed to Gladys the Cow's song "Proud to Be a Cow" as one of his best performances, and Tony Geiss said the character of Sully proves that Richard was a great actor. They ran a video of the Forgetful Jones "Oklahoma" sketch and the Don Music "Mary Had a Bicycle" sketch. The audience absolutely loved them, and it was fantastic to watch them with an auditorium full of people cracking up. In fact, I would pay to attend an event consisting of nothing but screenings of Richard Hunt sketches. I can imagine that the "Cookie Monster tried to get cookies from a library" sketch with Richard as the librarian would get a huge response. If you're reading this website, you probably agree that Sesame Street is one of the greatest comedy shows in the history of television, and Richard was one of its funniest performers.

Geez, I still have pages and pages of notes left on this thing. This seems like as good a time as any to take a break. Come back tomorrow (or simply click right here) for Telly in a plastic bag, Michael Davis as James Lipton, questions from the audience, and the astonishing debut of Tiny Zoe.

Click here to comment on Richard Hunt's greatness, or anything else in this article, on the Tough Pigs forum!

Labels: books, events, Muppet performers, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop