When you put the DVD in the player, it automatically plays two trailers for other releases by Lionsgate: The Spy Next Door, with Jackie Chan, which looks pretty stupid, and an animated movie about wolves called Alpha and Omega, which looks extraordinarily terrible. This trailer alone includes two pee jokes and two butt jokes. My first thought was, Do they really think this is going to get me the slightest bit interested in these movies? But then I realized what they’re really doing: Putting these crappy new trailers on this DVD is the perfect way to make Jim Henson seem like even more of an amazing genius of all-ages entertainment in comparison. That must have been their plan.

One of the first things we see in the documentary is Big Bird climbing up the stairs of the Henson Associates townhouse to visit Jim in his office and offer him some nachos. Man, I wish Big Bird would offer me nachos. I vaguely recall seeing this documentary on PBS many years ago, and I thought there were more of these Bird and Jim Moments interspersed throughout, but I was sadly mistaken. It’s too bad… I would happily watch an entire hour of Big Bird shooting the breeze with Jim Henson, and I can only assume that most of the Tough Pigs readership feels the same way.

But Henson’s Place is good anyway, and a worthy addition to a Muppet fan’s DVD pile.  It would be mostly boring for kids, depsite the presence of Cookie Monster and Kermit and Elmo (DISCLAIMER: Elmo does not appear in this program) on the cover, but for grown-ups it’s a pleasant and informative viewing experience.  It’s a really concise overview of the history of the Muppets, at least during Jim’s lifetime, featuring everything you would put in a PowerPoint presentation for your school report on Jim. It touches on all the important productions: Sam & Friends, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, the Muppet movies, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth (which was currently in production at the time). And it covers all the standard narrative points of Jim’s story, from breaking into local TV to creating some of the most popular entertainment in the world. The only “major” projects that Jim did after this documentary was made were The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour, but those weren’t exactly big boffo blockbusters.

So this DVD would be a great place to start for a newbie, someone with a passing familiarity with the characters and a desire to know more about how they came to be. You should probably carry the DVD around with you in case anyone ever asks you, “Hey, could give me an account of the Muppets’ rise to international fame in one hour or less?” Oh, and make sure you also carry a DVD player, so you can show it. Oh, and a TV. Also a really long extension cord.

There’s only one special feature on the disc, but it’s a good one: A half-hour trip through “The Amphibian,” the 1985-86 Henson company yearbook, with an audio introduction by Michael Frith. It’s full of photos of folks whose names you see in the credits of classic Henson productions, with lots of funny captions and a few incomprehensible inside jokes. And to my surprise and delight, the DVD extra includes every page of the book, although sometimes the text is too small to read, and you can’t control the speed so you have to pause it if you want to linger on a page. I wonder if they considered making it a remote-controllable gallery instead of a video featurette. But I have no reason to complain, because this thing is really nifty.  Although while watching the smiling faces and behind-the-scenes photos roll by, I found myself getting a little depressed – and I realize this is kind of  pathetic, but it’s true – I got a little depressed with the realization that I’ll never be able to travel back in time and work for Henson Associates in 1986.

Other things about Henson’s Place:

-Early on, the interviewer asks Jim if he’s surprised he’s made such a huge career out of puppetry, and he says, “It’s certainly not a career one would plan. You wouldn’t plan to become a puppeteer, I don’t think.”

Maybe that was true when he was first starting out, but in recent decades there have been thousands of people who deliberately strive for a career as a puppeteer… completely because of their admiration for Jim Henson. It’s like Stan Lee saying nobody would ever plan to become a comic book writer, or Mr. Potato Head saying nobody would ever plan to become a potato.

-Hey, guess who Lord Lew Grade’s favorite Muppet was. Answer below!

-Words that are used to describe Jim in this special: Genius, brilliant, idealist, genius, shrewd businessman, entertainment genius, visionary, remarkable, talented, genius, genius, genius. What do you suppose it’s like to have people rave about how much of a genius you are while you’re still alive? Jim seems to have accepted it with humility, but if he weren’t such a nice guy I imagine he could have become a real jerk.

-There’s a lot of talk about Big Bird during the Sesame Street parts, but Caroll Spinney never shows up. Come to think of it, none of the performers besides Frank Oz are interviewed.  I guess they had to keep the documentary short… If they had gotten everyone who worked for Jim at the time to talk about him, this DVD release would have to be a 12-disc set.

-David Lazer boasts that The Muppet Show was seen in 106 countries and had 235 million viewers a week. That immediately reminded me of this classic Tough Pigs article,  in which Danny Horn investigated the ever-changing claims of Muppet Show viewership.

-In one of Frank Oz’s interview clips, he breaks down Animal’s motivations to five simple words: Sex, sleep, food, drums, and pain.

-There’s a section of the film about merchandising, in which Jim rationalizes licensing. “We’re living in the real world here,” he says, and it’s true.  It takes money to make awesome stuff, and merchandise brings in money.  But I wonder, what’s the most unnecessary Muppet product ever made?  Has there ever been a piece of merchandise that made no sense, or that was a completely blatant grab for cash?

And then there’s a look at the Muppet Stuff store that used to be in New York City. Can you even imagine that there was once such a demand for Muppet merchandise that they could devote an entire store to it?

-Toward the end of the film, Jim speculates on the future of the Muppets: “I think this is something we’re waiting to see from the audience. I think if the audience wants the characters to continue to live, then they will. And if the audience gets tired of them, they’ll probably go away.”

I’m always fascinated to hear quotes like that years after they were spoken. It’s now 26 years after Jim said that, and 20 years after his passing, and to this day the Muppets have never really gone away. We’ve had some pretty precarious moments in the last 20 years, but so far the characters have continued to live, without ever ceasing… and these days, the audience demand for them even seems to be growing.  So those must be some pretty great characters.  Thanks for the Muppets, Jim!

Answer from above: Lew Grade’s favorite Muppet was Miss Piggy. To find out why, buy the DVD!  And click here to be called a genius on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Of course, not just any human would do for the honored job of representing the entire race.  No, a special human must be chosen.  A human whose abilities and resourcefulness would make every human being proud to be related to him on a cellular level.  That human is none other than Dave Goelz.

It’s worth noting that Dave the Human is not actually performed by Dave the Human.  Bill Barretta lost the coin toss there and had to do an imitation of his friend and coworker right in front of the real Dave (who is performing Stinky).  The non-puppet version of Dave the Human is also performed by Bill Barretta, who probably had a difficult time fitting into a full-bodied Dave suit.

That last part isn’t true.  That’s actually Dave’s real family in the episode.  Can you spot all the Muppet goodies they forgot to hide away in their house?

While it’s pretty amazing to see a puppetized Dave Goelz, this is far from the first time when a Henson employee was given the felt treatment.  From bigwigs like Bernie Brillstein and David Lazer to not-as-bigwigs like Jim Frawley and Frank Biondo.  Jerry Nelson has the distinct honor of being caricaturized twice!

And on that note, I leave you with three of Dave the Human’s not-quite-human coworkers singing a classic song from The Muppet Show.  Play us out, boys.

Click here to talk to the animals on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

Well, we’re pleased to announce that Truro Daydreams is waiting on CDBaby.com for you to purchase!  For just a few dollars more, you can receive your very own copy of the album, hold it in your hands, play catch with your dog, buy a bunch and build a chandelier, or whatever you’d prefer.  Hey, it’s your dime.

Click here to buy Truro Daydreams from CDBaby.com, where you can also buy it in MP3 format (also available at Digstation.com).  And if you don’t, then don’t come crying to me when you’re expelled from Muppet Fandom University.  Yeah, it’s a real thing now.

Click here to break out your CD player on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

It would be cool, and now it is cool, because now you can buy and download Truro Daydreams, featuring 10 tracks written by Jerry and played and sung by Jerry and friends (including a handful of his Sesame Street colleagues).  It’s now available in tangible CD form from CDBaby or as a digtal download from DigStation.

Things get off to a rousing start with “Alligators,” in which Jerry sings of being pursued by the titular reptiles everywhere he goes, which is immediately followed by the jazzy “Little Red,” a song featuring Kevin Clash and Fran Brill that tells us a little bit more about Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.  Actually, “Little Red” and “Noah’s Ark” are the only songs that don’t seem to be written from Jerry’s own point of view. Most of them are quite personal, and in the liner notes PDF that comes with the album, he explains when and where he was when “the muse” led him to compose each one.

Track 3 is “Lazy Day, Bumble Bees,” a song that contains the line “Life is good and I’m feelin’ fine.”  And that seems to be the general philosophy of the whole album — life is pretty good, so let’s live it.  “Tides” is contemplative, “Be Positive” is inspirational, “Zanzibar” makes you want to run to your travel agent… and they’re all instantly memorable and uplifting.  Meanwhile, “Hoboken Honey,” inspired by Jerry’s wife Jan, is surely one of the most adorable love songs ever written, while “Eye of the Storm” is a striking, passionate tribute to some of the important people in Mr. Nelson’s life who have passed on.  And the aforementioned “Noah’s Ark” sounds like it was lots of fun to record, with Tyler Bunch, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph providing background vocals and animal noises.

Speaking of the recording, the whole album was apparently recorded “live” in the studio, with no overdubs or ProTools trickery, giving it a really organic, inviting sound.  The songs are great, the arrangements sound great, and the whole thing is just very, very listenable.

Truro Daydreams has been in heavy rotation on my iPod in the weeks since its release.  I don’t know if Jerry has any more songs up his sleeve, but I’d love to hear a follow-up album, even if it were all covers… I’m sure he could do a great job with country standards, or maybe even Muppet songs originally sung by other performers.  In the meantime, I’ll be watching out for those alligators.

Click here to buy Truro Daydreams right this very minute!  And click here to groove on Noah’s Ark on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Jerry also added that he’s still looking for a retail outlet for the album, so stay tuned for more info in that department.

From the audio samples, you can tell that “Truro Daydreams” is a fantastic piece of work.  The songs have strong roots in bluegrass, with a hint of big band, soul, and children’s fare.  And best of all, they’re sung by Jerry Nelson.  Not Floyd, not Gobo, not The Count, but Jerry’s natural singing voice.  That alone is worth the price of admission and then some.

Click here to listen to the audio samples and order Jerry Nelson’s “Truro Daydreams”.

BONUS VIDEOS: Click here to watch Jerry sing “The Carioca” and click here to watch Jerry sing “All My Life” on UkuleleDisco.com!  I know, those songs aren’t on the album.  But who can say no to more Jerry Nelson music??

Click here to jam with Jerry on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

ToughPigs’ own Smig was inspired by this newsbit and drew a new comic strip commemorating it.  Give it a click to see it in its full glory.

For more details about the event, click here for the Center of Puppetry Arts’ website.

Click here to do your homework on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

The following interview contains excerpts from the interview.  To read the full version of the interview, visit her website at JessicaMaxStein.com.

Jessica Max Stein: What was Richard like as a kid? It sounds like he was a born performer.

Jane Hunt: When he was about four, he’d managed to fall and knock out one or both of his front teeth, so he had a hard time talking for a while. His godmother brought him this little outfit: little corduroy pants, a little corduroy jacket, sort of like an Eisenhower jacket, and a newsboy cap, like a man on the golf range. And he came out, and he stood there leaning on his umbrella, and he said, “I’m wearing my golfing outfit.” Out of nowhere. That was adorable.

He and his brother and sisters put on performances on the landing, and they loved doing that.

When he was growing up he did all kinds of things as a Boy Scout. He took his puppets to the Boy Scouts. For many years, every year we’d have a Memorial Day picnic out in the backyard here, with people from all over [at which Richard performed].

When Richard was about 5 or 6, we were at Howdy Doody. [Richard’s sister] Kate had been chosen from the crowd of children to sit up in the peanut gallery. Richard was sitting in that audience as well, and all us parents were taken back into a little viewing studio, to watch this live show go on. It was live then, nobody had taped shows. The host, Bob Smith, was getting up and guiding them to the end of the show. Richard came down to center, tugged on Bob Smith’s coat and said, “I’m a magician, and I want to do a ’rick.” He had no teeth in the front, from his fall. “I want to do a magic ‘rick.’” And Bob Smith said, “Well, I don’t think we have time.” But Richard took it right out of his pocket, and he started doing the trick. I was sitting there with all these parents, like, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ He’s doing this trick, something with balls, and he says – he didn’t say voila, what else do they say? Something very cute. And he completed the trick just as it went to black.

Arthur Miller: He had no fear. That is very true about him.

JH: Yup, no self-consciousness about asking if he can do something or another, which I think is so great.

JMS: What were things like for Richard as a teenager? You told a story about the kids teasing Richard when he was in middle school, following him on his paper route and dropping his papers in the mud.

JH: Yeah. They tortured him. He’d never told me. I never knew anything about it until the principal told me. His office was in a corner room in the school building right across the street, which was part of Richard’s paper route, and he saw it, day after day after day. I never heard a word from Richard about it. He just shrugged it off. “They’re jerks.” He certainly didn’t let it stop him from anything.

JMS: Richard not only was a born performer, he was a born upstager.

AM: Richard had a secondary lead in a high school production of “How to Succeed in Business [Without Really Trying]“. The main character sings a song in the men’s room, with the chorus.

JH: [Singing] “I believe in you, I believe in you.” They’re all in front of the mirrors and they’re doing their hair, straightening their ties and stuff. All of a sudden we see Richard has pulled out of his pocket a razor, and a spray can of shaving cream. He’s singing right along. He shaved himself. He then put cologne all over himself, and the place was falling apart. The other kids were washing their hands, not knowing what the hell was going on.

AM: One gets the feeling this was not something the director had encouraged him to do.

JMS: He did that a lot.

AM: Yes, he did that a lot, and he got away with it. Most guys cannot get away with that stuff, because it’s a real no-no, it’s arrogant. Upstaging, you know?

JMS: They loved it at the Muppets. There’s some footage from the Fraggle Rock wrap party, where Karen Prell is giving a comic speech about what it’s like to be a Muppeteer, and she says, “The first rule of Muppeteering: If it moves, upstage it!”

AM: But the fact that he got away with it – almost always.

JMS: Because it’s funny!

AM: That’s a big part of it, but there’s something beyond that, I think.

JH: It’s as though everybody felt he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to do.

AM: Exactly. You give it to him. You say, “What the hell, it’s so wild to watch.”

JH: He would have spent hours with anybody in the cast, anywhere, helping them get through and do their parts and making suggestions to them. They’re not supposed to do that, but in high school I know he did.

JMS: He did it later; Kevin Clash talks about that, David Rudman talks about that.

AM: All of that stuff was in place way before he even heard of the Muppets.

JH: Yes, definitely.

AM: I can tell from these stories that – like you say, he was funny, and it was done in a generous spirit. Even though it was upstaging, there was a generosity to it.

JH: I think he would have loved it if they’d all started to shave, or something.

AM: You told me he took out Q-Tips.

JH: Oh yes. Cleaning his ears. [group laughter] Oh God, isn’t that too much.

JMS: Tell me about Richard cold-calling the Muppets.

JH: Yeah, from a pay phone. Right there on 10th and 57th. “Hello, I’m a puppeteer, can you use me?” “Well, we happen to be having a little thing going on right now. Why don’t you come on over and audition?”

JMS: That takes guts.

JH: It takes a kind of unselfconscious feeling about how you’re worth doing that. That you’re worth it.

JMS: He’s like Scooter on The Muppet Show. They couldn’t do it without him. He meets the guest star, he’s everywhere, but he’s still always this little tagalong. Scooter in the Muppet Movie, he’s the road manager because he’s the one with the van. You get the feeling that he’s a little younger, a little “Hey, wait for me.” But at the same time, he’s in. He’s part of it, he’s it! Although I don’t know how much I’m extrapolating from the plot of the show to what happened behind the scenes.

AM: Scooter was to some degree based on Richard. I think they did that with a lot of the characters, just from what I see and what I’ve heard and what Jerry [Nelson]’s talked about, that they would take the essence of the puppeteer. I think they did it unconsciously, so that there was a lot of Richard in Scooter.

JMS: Richard seemed to have a wonderful camaraderie with Jerry Nelson.

AM: Jerry was almost like a father figure. Certainly like a big brother that Richard never had. Jerry was as gifted as Richard, as soulful as Richard. I remember I once said to him, “You guys were like the Abbott and Costello for this age.”

JMS: So many of their characters. The Two-Headed Monster. Biff and Sully.

AM: They ad-libbed their asses off on that show.

JH: They really intuited all that stuff.

JMS: Another great one is Placido Flamingo.

JH: “Oh, Ree-chard!” One day I was walking home, past the Met, and going into the Met was Placido Domingo. I thought, “Richard would do this,” and I just walked right up, and I said, “Mr. Domingo, I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted you to know that I’m Richard Hunt’s mother.” And he said, “Oh, Ree-chard! Hello! I am so sorry.”

JMS: One thing I like about what I’ve learned about Richard is his sense of abundance. It’s really easy to think that things are scarce, that love is scarce, money is scarce, and the stories that I see about Richard show that he really lived with abundance.

JH: That’s a very good word.

AM: Everyone tells these stories about Richard’s, what I call pathological generosity, almost crazy generosity. Once he hit it big, he wasn’t married, he didn’t have any children, he was never big with clothes and stuff, he just bestowed it.

He would take the family on these big junkets, these Hunt junkets. He took us all to Hawaii. The Hunt family was not just the brothers and sisters. There was a second ring of people who are as good as brothers and sisters. So he took between 15 and 20 of us to Maui, for a week, at one of the fancy-schmanciest, goyishe places. All white belt, white shoes, and into this milieu comes the Hunts, who change into their bathing suits in the parking lot, you know.

I would watch Richard working the planes when we would travel. He’d find any kids on the plane and he would approach them. Of course, at first the parents would have no idea who he was, he wouldn’t be working a Muppet or anything. And I would watch. You know the way people first are, “Who is this?” And then they do that turn, that shift, without even realizing it, they’re drawn right in. And then they’re watching their child dig Richard.

One of the things I always heard him say that would knock people out, to a little kid, is he would look at him and say, “You’re sick.” The kid would laugh at some joke or say something that a kid would say, some disgusting little thing, and Richard would look at him and say, “You’re sick.” And the kid would just love it.

I think he must have given something to more people than you could possibly imagine. Especially kids, who are so used to being condescended to or dismissed or pushed around or “Say thank you to the nice man,” all that stuff, and he would have none of that.

JMS: When did Richard come out to the family?

JH: Well, the first thing I knew anything about it was after that thing that you described of the time when [Kate and Richard] went waterplaning and crashed on the parkway, when Richard told Kate [that he was HIV-positive, around 1987]. She didn’t come running around telling everybody.

AM: He never really came out.

JH: No, he didn’t really come out.

AM: It was obvious, it was made clear, but he didn’t announce it.

JH: He kept things very separated, and in their places, where they belonged. Once he brought a group of guys to my house one night, I knew all these guys were gay. Did I know that Richard was at the time? I’m not really sure.

AM: I have a feeling there was a period in your family when everybody sort of knew. He would start to show up with guys, right?

JH: Yup.

AM: And nobody really said anything, you used to say to me.

JH: No, no. We welcomed them all the same, whoever it was, come on in. There was one boy who used to come over – he must have gotten out early from school, or he cut class or something, and he would come over here, and he’d sit on the floor with his back against the couch, and just wait for Richard to come home. And sometimes Richard wouldn’t come home, and so he would get up and say, “Well, I’m gonna go now.” That was all that was ever said.

JMS: You tell a story of a lover who predeceased him, who died in his arms. Do you remember who he was?

AM: The guy that Richard was with at the end, I forget his name, and I’m embarrassed. They lived together. And when he died – this was a guy who sat in a room, he was gorgeous, but he barely spoke. Richard threw a memorial for this guy, it predated the Henson memorial, in St. John the Divine.

JH: In one of those off to the side chapels.

AM: He threw this memorial with a gospel choir, and a string quartet. This guy was very quiet. Most of them were very quiet, sat quietly. Richard ran the show. Richard drew everybody around, and most of the guys he was with, from the time I knew him, were quiet, not overt. The last one hardly spoke at all. I never really saw him with a guy who was – like Richard, for example. Expansive.

JH: Richard was so unabashed, everybody knew, that I think lots of his partners weren’t used to the kind of openness they found in our family and in our family’s crowd. Certainly the guys in the Muppets, the guys at Sesame Street, were not in any way concerned about any of this.

JMS: I love the story that you tell about Frank Oz being at his bedside in his dying days. People ask me if he was out at the Muppets, if they were okay with it, and I just say, “Frank Oz was at his bedside when he was dying, and if that doesn’t tell you that they were okay with it, nothing will.”

I was curious about what Richard was like spiritually. I know he grew up going to the Episcopal Church.

JH: Yeah.

JMS: And then I know that Richard and David Rudman went to Macchu Picchu, and Rudman says that was like a spiritual pilgrimage. I know it’s a fine line. Maybe his art and his work and his life, living in the moment and all that, that is a kind of spirituality, but I was curious if he was ever more explicit about it.

JH: No, not in the sense of going to church every Sunday or anything of that nature. But I think he was spiritual. We’re the kinds of people who would be driving along in the car and say, “Look at that!” That kind of thing, that’s what we were all about. Everything new. When we were on Maui it was simply gorgeous. We appreciated every single bit of it. The whole family is like that.

AM: You know, I was just thinking, we were talking about Richard coming out. I think that was his spirituality. I think he kept that sort of to himself.

JH: Very private.

AM: You’d have to extrapolate it.

JH: I think many of these little deeds I love to talk about [exemplify his spirituality]. He was on Central Park West, and there were two old ladies with suitcases out on the curb, waiting, trying to get a cab and the cabs wouldn’t stop. So he had to walk over and say to them, “What is happening here?” “We need to get to the airport and the cabs won’t stop.” So up went Richard’s hand, he stopped a cab, said “Get in,” opened the door for them, got them in, “Tell them where you’re going,” and in the meantime he put the bags in the trunk of the car, gave the guy probably forty dollars or something, and sent them on their way. Now to me that’s spiritual.

The woman who was crying her eyes out because she wanted to kill herself, down there by the pond in Demarest. He noticed this woman crying, in the car, when he drove by. He stopped his car, got out, went back and said, “What’s the matter?” “I want to die, I want to die.” He said, “Just a moment,” and with that he hailed another car, said, “Please call the police right now, we need this woman to be taken care of,” and he stayed there with her and talked with her until the police came and took her off to the hospital. I think he thought, “That’s what I’m here for.”

This is a story you’ll love. There was a hurricane coming, up on Cape Cod. Everybody was asked to leave their cottages and go to the high school.

AM: Higher ground, to get away from the water. The cottages, the dunes, were right on the water.

JH: Richard had not been feeling well. Our friends Mary and Sonny were up there. They were seeing to it that he was fed and his sheets were clean and stuff like that. This is just before he died. I don’t think he even went back to the Cape after that time.

Anyway, Richard did not want to evacuate. He said to Mary and Sonny, “Go on. You just go ahead and go about your business. I’ll be fine.” Well, didn’t he go and climb out his bedroom window, and sit on the porch roof, looking out over Cape Cod Bay, with the pilgrim monument down there in P-Town, and he sat up there during that storm hugging his knees, watching the storm come in.

There’s the spirituality for you. To be sure.

JMS: What was Richard’s memorial like?

JH: Richard had a funeral at St. John the Divine. It was just unbelievable. There were just as many people at his who were at Jim Henson’s. The place was jammed. It was amazing. Fred Newman got up and told the story of the time that he and Richard went to the Plaza for lunch. Fred said, “I had it in my head all along that he was not going to pay.” So he called for the check, and the guy puts it down, and he reaches to grab it, and Richard grabs him back. They’re struggling, fighting over this check. They absolutely got out of their chairs, and were on the floor! The maitre d’ came over and said, “Gentlemen, is there a problem?” That just brought the house down at St. John the Divine.

[The family home in New Jersey] is where the peonies bloomed every year. He grew up with the peonies. And so when he was in the Muppets, and doing The Muppet Show in England, he’d know that it was about time for them to bloom, so he called Kate every day. Kate was living in this house at the time.

He’d say, “Are they blooming yet?” “No, not yet.” “Okay.” So he kept calling, and finally one day she said, “All right, now they’re out, they’re coming out.” So he went right into Jim, and he said, “I gotta leave now; I gotta go see the peonies.”

And so he wanted his ashes spread on the peonies. We did that.

Many thanks to Jane Hunt, Arthur Miller, and Jessica Max Stein for this enlightening interview!  For more on Jessica Max Stein and her Richard Hunt zine, visit her website.

Click here to help us celebrate Richard Hunt’s life and legacy on the ToughPigs forum!

by Jessica Max Stein

We’re now two-thirds through our interview with the great Jerry Nelson, but sadly the end is nigh.  If you haven’t seen the stuff that came before, click here for part one and click here for part two.  But don’t click anywhere for part three, because that’s right here!  Ya silly goose…

The remainder of our interview will continue in a “Lightning Round” style, where we’ll shout out Jerry’s best-known characters and productions, because asking real questions is so passe.  Now let’s get this part-three-party started!

ToughPigs: Do you have any favorite moments from Sesame Street?

Jerry Nelson: One that stands out in my mind, and I’m not sure who wrote it, was with Herry Monster. I think it was “I Can’t Help It”, where he demolishes the whole Fix-It Shop. I love that one. Jon Stone shot it, and he did a great job.

Biff

JN: To me, it was always Burns and Schreiber. Sully wasn’t so much Schreiber, but Biff was the Jack Burns character.

The Count

JN: Probably of all the Sesame Street characters, the Count is my favorite to do because of all they’ve written for him. He’s a lot of fun, and probably the most consistently written-for character. Although I love Sherlock Hemlock an awful lot. He’s always been a favorite. And I love Herbert Birdsfoot too, he was very pedantic and teacherly in his way, and he was the straight man for Jim and Frank’s characters. But that’s okay, that was my delegation in the early days. Announcer and straight man.

Herbert Birdsfoot

TP: Why do you think Herbert Birdsfoot didn’t stick around?

JN: I don’t know, maybe he was too pedantic (laughs).

Frazzle

TP: Where did Frazzle come from?

JN: I’m not even sure. I think they just wanted a monster who made unintelligible noises, and that’s what I came up with.

Little Jerry

JN: Little Jerry was Jeff Moss’ thing. I think deep in his heart he wrote that because he loves to sing bass. They were wonderful pieces. They were so much fun to do.

Mr. Johnson

JN: I think Grover just needed a foil, just a guy that was impatient and never got what he wanted. It obviously was a good one.

TP: Why do you think he kept going back to Charlie’s restaurant if the service was so bad?

JN: Maybe deep down he’s an optimist?

Mr. Snuffleupagus

JN: That was fun, it was interesting. I was not loathed to give that character up. But the reasons for giving it up were because at that time we were doing The Muppet Show and he was a real part of the show, and they needed his presence. So they asked if I’d mind giving it up. So for a while other people did it and I continued to do the voice, but eventually they let somebody else do it.

Sam the Robot

JN: I love Sam the Robot. I always thought they missed out on a good thing with Sam, and I thought a better way to do Sam was to let the little screen he had help segue into animation. I brought that up, but nobody seemed to think it was a good idea. I always thought that would’ve been a good way to use him, other than just going haywire. But that was probably me wanting my character to not be totally bogus.

Sherlock Hemlock

JN: I love Sherlock Hemlock. I think the most clever pieces were later when Kevin Clash did Watson the dog. Sherlock would come in and get it all wrong, but Watson knew what was happening and would be trying to get his attention. I thought it was a funny way to use the character.

The Two-Headed Monster

JN: That was interesting. Richard and I were just goofing about a monster that talks gibberish, and there happened to be a couple of writers on the set going, “Wh-wh-what’s that?” We said that’s a monster who speaks gibberish and wants to go both ways, one wants to go to the left while the other wants to go to the right. And they said that’s a perfect way to teach cooperation. I always loved the idea of a character that nobody could understand.

TP: Did that happen a lot where you’d accidentally create characters?

JN: I think it did. Because we’d do a take, and then we’d have to wait for them to reset the lights and the props, so we’d goof around. Play time. And I think that’s often the way that happens, the writers see us play and say “Oh, that’s funny”.

The Amazing Mumford

JN: I don’t know where the character came from. I think somebody just thought of a magician who always got it wrong. And they said, “He needs something to say,” so I said “A la peanut butter sandwiches.”

TP: So you came up with that?

JN: Yeah. Because what does every kid love but peanut butter sandwiches? And the character was funny, and he worked for quite a while.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

JN: Saturday Night Live was an interesting experience. It was a three-hat-trick for Bernie Brillstein, because he got to use all of his people in one production that became a smash hit. I think we did twelve or thirteen shows, and they were the first shows of Saturday Night Live. Different writers wrote the scripts. We never found a happy marriage. I think the best three shows were one that Chevy Chase wrote, and he never wrote another, one that Jim wrote, and one that I wrote with Lily Tomlin where we sing “I Got You Babe”. Usually what would happen is that they would write a script and they would bring it to the Muppets. We would read the script, and then Jim and Frank would give notes. Then we would do it again on Friday, and we would go in, of course, on Saturday for tech and dress and the show. So we would tweak it until the last minute, that’s just the way the show worked. It was continually fluxing and flowing and ebbing and doing all the things to get it in the shape it would finally be in. Chevy’s script was very funny, where they were coming out of boxes, and Jim’s was similar to that one. The reason mine was different was because Jim and Frank were away, and I went every day to NBC through the week to work out some things, and Lily and I worked it out just like any other sketch. That’s also one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, that piece with Lily. At the time, I was studying Tai Chi, and I’d gone out to dinner with Richard and my daughter Christine, and we passed by a flower shop and I bought a rose. I kept it hidden when we went out on stage, so when I presented it to Lily, we had never rehearsed it, and you can tell by the look of surprise on her face. And it worked. It was one of my favorite things because of the performance. I worked with Lily on Sesame Street, and she’s such a joy to work with as a performer and a person. So that’s always been one of the heavenly performances to me.

EMMET OTTER’S JUG BAND CHRISTMAS

JN: That’s one of my favorites. With Paul Williams, which was a marriage made in heaven. I just got the sad news that Bill Beeton, who designed the set, just died. He was a wonderful designer and a gentleman. He contributed a lot to a few of the things we did over the years. Faz Fazakas built some beautiful remote control things that we’d never seen or worked with before. We had the whole river rowboat scene, it was a fantastic thing. Jerry and Sue Juhl brought the book to life in a wonderful way, staying very true to the original work. I thought it was just a beautiful thing.

DARK CRYSTAL

JN: I only did two voices in that, and some other little skittering noises too. But I didn’t work on any of the fantasy films, and I’m not quite sure why, but I think Jim knew that I wouldn’t have liked working on those films. Plus, they were mostly heavy costumes, they were hard puppets to work. They did that during the summer of 1980, so I spent the summer off in Cape Cod. Richard had a house up there, and I rented a house for the summer and fell in love with it, so I kept going back. And in 1996 I bought a house up there and I’ve been living there ever since.

THE CHRISTMAS TOY/SECRET LIFE OF TOYS

JN: Christmas Toy was a wonderful story. And someone in Germany wanted to do a co-production for a 15-minute show. It was sweet, but it was rushed and it was difficult because a lot of the German crew didn’t speak English. There were generally two songs in every show and we would go in every day, and it was intense. I think we tried to do two shows a day. It was doable, but sometimes it was a little rough. We had to trust the directors because we didn’t have the luxury of going back and looking at everything like we normally would. He would say “We have what we need” or “Do it again.”

THE JIM HENSON HOUR

JN: There’s one that I’m surprised didn’t get better ratings. I don’t know why. Maybe it would have done better as two separate shows. But both elements to that show were wonderful. Some of the story stuff with trying to be a TV station was a little thin, but all in all there were lots of good pieces in there. The Storyteller things were real good, and the ones we did were real good too. I just watched “Dog City” again not too long ago, and it’s full of wonderful stuff. That show and Muppets Tonight, I’m surprised they haven’t shown up more. Though thanks to YouTube, you can see a lot of this stuff. I’m not sure how Jim Henson and Disney feel about it, but it’s a boon to everyone else.

MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL

JN: I was never really happy with my Tiny Tim. I feel like I could’ve done so much better than that. I loved Statler and Waldorf, Marley and Marley. And Christmas Present, working with Don [Austen], that was another costumed thing. I loved working with Brian [Henson] on films. There was a chance to play with things a little more. With Jim and Frank, you had to stay exactly where the script was, so this sense of play was not playful. But with Brian, that was always there, so I enjoyed working on that and Muppet Treasure Island. Although Mad Monty was another character I never felt highly comfortable with. I don’t know why. Some things I liked about him, but other things never came together as a character. And that was totally my fault. And I realize too that nobody else might’ve noticed that.

TP: I never noticed. I thought your Tiny Tim was great. And I also loved Blind Pew. I was disappointed that that was his one and only appearance.

JN: That was so much fun to play. And to work with Billy Connolly, he’s so funny. He just gives you everything you need to play.

MUPPETS FROM SPACE

JN: I did the Ubergonzo. And that was kind of weird. We did that down in North Carolina. I liked Wilmington, the town. It was a whole different feel to that because Brian didn’t direct it. Somehow it felt weird, and I can’t really pinpoint it.

TP: When was the last time you actually performed with the Muppets, other than voice work for Sesame Street?

JN: Something in California, but I can’t remember what it was. It may have been the last movie.

TP: Do you miss performing?

JN: I miss seeing all my friends, but I couldn’t physically do the work now. I still love vocal performing and doing characters and the Count. I just did a takeoff on True Blood called “True Mud,” so I still get to create new things.

TP: Is there a message you want to pass along to the fans?

JN: Watch for my CD! I’m hoping to have it out before Christmas.

TP: Let us know when it’s available, we’ll promote the heck out of it for you!

Many thanks to Jerry Nelson for agreeing to sit down with us for this interview.  It has been an absolute honor.

Click here to stick your arm in the air on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Did you see the first part of our interview with Muppeteer Jerry Nelson?  Click here to bask in its glory!  Or, y’know, just read it.

Because Jerry has performed so many characters on so many different programs, the next two parts of our interview will be in “lightning round” style.  For the most part, we’ll shout out characters and production names, and we’ll see if we get a “Polo” to our “Marco”.

ToughPigs: Let’s start with The Muppet Show.  When you started filming, did you have any idea that The Muppet Show was going to be as big as it was?

Jerry Nelson: No. We hoped it would be. I think we did in a way after the first few, because the first season was a smash in England. It wasn’t in the states, I don’t know why. I think the second season was when the people in the US started zeroing in on it. By that time, Lew Grade was happy and Jim was happy, so it went from there.

TP: You were the go-to guy for the ancillary characters. Did you prefer that to having more signature characters of your own?

JN: There was a lot going on in my life at that time, and I wasn’t always a happy camper. So I’m not sure. I think at the time, I thought they weren’t giving me enough to do. But when I go back and look at it, aside from a few early episodes that I wasn’t in at all, I can see that I did a fair amount of work. And there’s something nice about being the utility batter.

TP: Thankfully you’ve got such a great range of voices, no two characters sound the same.

JN: I’ll give you a little secret. All of the characters I did were just bad impressions of my favorite character actors from movies and radio. They’re just bad imitations, so bad that nobody noticed what I was doing (laughs).

Emily Bear

TP: Fozzie’s mom seemed like she was being built up to be a more visible character in the late 80s, early 90s. Do you think she was meant to stick around?

JN: I don’t know. I think because [Muppet Family Christmas] was a family thing, and Fozzie was kind of unconnected. Kermit had his nephew Robin, and Fozzie as a character didn’t really have that connection.

Fleet Scribbler

JN: Another one who didn’t last too long. I guess that was a tip of the hat to British journalists. I’m not sure why he didn’t work. That’s not the way I am, so that’s not coming from anywhere inside me, and I don’t know if that’s a reason for it not to work. Maybe I just didn’t have a good take on that kind of aggressive behavior.

Floyd Pepper

JN: I felt very close with Floyd. Mostly because of the music. I liked the idea of this hip commentator about Miss Piggy or the music. But that part was not me, I loved the music on the show, all of it was really great. I could just relate to that, and it’s how I’d like to see myself.

J.P. Grosse

JN: I think when they needed to put pressure on doing the show in the theater, they added that device to create tension.

TP: What we’ve heard from most people is that he became a much less interesting character once we actually saw him.

JN: I don’t know, I liked the grossness of him. I appreciated that.

Jerry

TP: You played the puppet version of yourself in the Country Trio.

JN: That was from before The Muppet Show, that was when we were on The Dick Cavett Show. Jim loved to sing, as did we all. Frank has hesitations about that, but he really brought something to the songs that were totally his own and comedic in a way that only Frank can do. But those were fun characters for us to do, the whole idea of us appearing with those characters.

Lew Zealand

JN: I think Lew was my tribute to Frankie Fontaine. He had that dopey voice, but he could sing beautifully. We never did that part of it on the show, but just the idea of this guy who had a boomerang fish act. There were some really ridiculous acts on the show, and that was one of the all-time dopey ones.

TP: What was it about Lew Zealand that kept him around, as opposed to any of the other one-shot characters?

JN: I think they just loved the voice. And the fact that he was just so into throwing these fish. It was pretty silly, and it was fun to do. He didn’t feel like a one-joke character to me, so I just played it for all it was worth.

Louis Kazagger

JN: Ah, The Wild World of Muppet Sports. The Muppet Show was a stage show, but there were TV takeoffs like Veterinarian’s Hospital and Pigs in Space and the Newsman. Louis Kazagger was a part of that, and a way to do some really silly sports bits. He was kind of a nod to Howard Cosell.

Miss Mousey

JN: “Don’t Sugar Me” was, I think, the first thing we did with her. I don’t remember if she was ever meant to be a principal character.

TP: You don’t think she was built to be a rival to Miss Piggy?

JN: No, I don’t think so. That would’ve been later when Annie Sue came along. But Miss Mousey was just.. a mouse who would sing funny little songs. Jim loved those types of songs.

Pops

JN: Pops was fun. Jim liked to change things around on the show to keep it new. And he liked to change the look of the show, slightly. So Scooter got other duties and they wanted someone else to introduce the guest stars. I don’t know where the idea for the character came from, but he was a wonderful character, and I always had fun playing him. He was kind of cantankerous and hard of hearing. Some type casting going on maybe (laughs).

Robin

JN: Robin, Kermit’s nephew, was a young frog who just always felt that he wasn’t big enough or wasn’t doing enough, and he wanted to break it big time, and he had ideas that were kind of grandiose for a young frog. That’s pretty much who he was. If you listen really carefully, you’ll find that between Robin the Frog, Emmet Otter, and Gobo, there’s not a whole lot of difference. Gobo’s a little older and a little more Canadian, which is my tip of the hat to our Canadian brothers. Robin was typically more in the front of the mouth, while Gobo was more in the whole mouth, and Emmet Otter was more in the back. That’s sort of the fun of doing voices too, where you place the voice. For something small, you make it small and put it in a small place. If it’s big, you put it in a bigger place.

When people ask me how to study characters, I say study everything. Study nature, study the way birds are and look and walk and feed, study the way people act and laugh, everything in life is what you’re portraying as a puppeteer, as a performer, as someone who does characters. You’re looking at all the variables in life, all the things that make people what they are. And you make selections and choices based on what the characters thinks about himself and who the character is and the spine of what the characters are doing. It all fits together, but you have to study everything. Nothing can be left out.

Dr. Strangepork

JN: He was so much fun, he was such a character. I loved doing that silly accent. It was fun because he could be in cahoots with anybody or against anybody. He could be working with Piggy against Link or with Link against Piggy, it didn’t matter. It was all interesting and science to him.

Thog

JN: The most enjoyable Thog experience I had was when we were in Las Vegas doing the Nancy Sinatra show. Working with Nancy with Thog singing a song, and working with Mia Farrow in the Valentine’s special, those are the times that stand out in my mind. When I think of Thog in terms of The Great Santa Claus Switch, I only think misery, because we were stuck in those things for so long. At that time, there was nothing except a rubber rainboot with no real shoe inside, so there was no support. I think Frank got flat-footed after doing that character, and he never did another large character after that. It was hard, and we were in there for long periods of time. In The Frog Prince, I was in the Sweetums costume. Richard wasn’t with us when we did that.

TP: And that wasn’t you performing the voice, right?

JN: Right, that was [Canadian actor Carl Banas'] voice. The series of shows we did up there, those were all shows we did with CBC, and they needed to have a certain percentage of Canadian content, so they used Canadian actors. Normally we’d prefer to do the puppets and the voices at the same time, and we did do a few of the characters, but we had to have a certain percentage of Canadian actors.

Uncle Deadly

JN: Ah, the Phantom of the Muppet Show. I loved the puppet, that lizardy creature. The voice I used for that was my take on John Carradine. That kind of Shakespearian dramatic actor. He was the Phantom of the Muppet Show, so I figured he had an acting background. I always loved John, I always loved his voice. Years ago, I used to go to a bar in the theater district, and I’d sometimes stop by and have a beer. And I found myself sitting next to John Carradine one afternoon, and he regaled me with stories. I always loved him anyway, and after that I just thought he was the best. It always surprises me, occasionally something of his will come on Turner Classic Movies, and I’ll see him in a role I’ve never seen before. It’s always like a bright sunshiny day when that happens.

TP: Let’s change gears and talk about Fraggle Rock.  What was it like taking a more front-and-center role than you have in previous productions?

JN: I didn’t think of it as a front-and-center role. Gobo was the coherent one that kept things a little focused, because Wembley wembled, Boober was fixated on things going bad, Mokey was very airy, and the real competition was Red who was very competitive with Gobo and tried to be sort of a scout leader. But obviously, he had his own ghosts and foibles to deal with, as do we all. And I think that even though he was a strong leader, he was also vulnerable. That’s something that’s very telling about the human condition, even the strongest people have moments of weakness.

TP: And that’s what I think makes Fraggle Rock the most interesting, that the characters all have flaws that coincide with their strengths.

JN: And the other thing is that they do not see the larger world that they live in, and how it’s all interdependent until the very end. But throughout the rest of us, they’re either adversaries like the Gorgs or they’re inexplicable and just there like the Doozers. In the new Sesame book, there’s a picture of “Around the Corner” with all the puppeteers, and there’s a quote by Fran Brill that I’ll paraphrase. We were there, all jumbled on the floor with the puppets, and she looked around and saw people of all races and all ilk and creed and beliefs, both the puppeteers and the people working, and she thought, “All of these people getting along joyously, this is what the world should be like. This is what’s missing in the world.” Such a beautiful thing. It is what’s missing.

Marjory the Trash Heap

JN: Marjory started out as my salute to Maria Ouspenskaya. I always loved her in films. I was sort of doing that, and it occasionally slipped into the Jewish grandmother. In fact, they got letters about that saying, “How could you do this? My grandson thinks the Trash Heap talks like his grandmother.” It is kind of funny, but it was certainly never meant to offend anyone. And it was not relegating Jewish grandmothers to trash, that was never the intention. She was a personality that people looked up to, that’s the aspect I would have preferred they focus on, that she’s wise and knowledegable, even though the things she says doesn’t make a lot of sense.

TP: How exactly did she work?

JN: She was a big foam rubber thing with stuff pasted all over her. I would raise up this two-by-four to lift the head and slip it into place, and then the mouth would speak and the eyes worked, and there were two puppeteers doing the hands. So it took three people to perform her. She was great fun, and I loved singing with her.

Pa Gorg

JN: Pa was very blustery and full of himself. I guess the most telling thing was, “I’m not scared of anything. Woah, what was that?!?”

TP: What was it like performing a character while someone else is controlling the action?

JN: It took some work on both [Gordon Robertson's] part and my part. I had very definite ideas on who the character was and how he should behave. Gordy is a very talented performer, puppeteer, mime. He would interpret what I told him and turn it into a movement that worked. It didn’t take long. Rob [Mills] and Richard [Hunt] clicked like that [when performing Junior Gorg]. And once we had it, it just grew from there.

Click here for part three of our chat with Jerry Nelson, in which Jerry talks Sesame Street, Saturday Night Live, Muppet Christmas Carol, and more!

Click here to compare Jewish grandmothers to trash on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

I don’t think I have to tell you who Jerry Nelson is.  If puppetry was music, Jerry would be a Beatle.  He’s performed countless roles (and one Count role) on Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and just about every Muppet production from 1970 to today.  Jerry was kind enough to meet with us for an interview, which we’ll be posting here on ToughPigs throughout in the week in three parts.

But you didn’t come here to listen to me talk about Jerry Nelson; you came here to listen to the man himself.  Take it away Jerry!

ToughPigs: How did you get your start in puppetry?

Jerry Nelson: It’s kind of a long story. When I was a kid, about twelve years old, I was visiting my grandparents in Oklahoma and I saw a little marionette, maybe about twelve inches high, a policeman. I was fascinated by it, so I asked for it for Christmas and I got it. I figured out what strings to pull to make him walk and run and jump and pick up his billy club. I got another one the following year, it was a clown. He had a barbell, he could kick it up on his nose and balance it, or throw it into one hand or the other. I played with those for a year or so and then they were kind of forgotten. When I was about 15, we got our first television set, and one of the things on television was a lot of puppet shows. Burr Tillstrom, Bil Baird, the Bunin Brothers from Pinhead and Foodini. I watched that because that’s what was on, but I didn’t think much about it.

I had been in the service, came back from the service, and worked as a page at WRC, the NBC affiliate in Washington DC. That’s where Jim and Jane first started with Sam and Friends. I’d never met them, but I’d see them rehearsing in the studio. I watched their commercials, and then life went on. In 1963, I came back from a stock job in Lake George, acting. A friend of mine told me about a news article saying that Bil Baird was looking for a puppeteer. He said, “You do voices, you oughtta call them up.” I said I should probably do that. Usually when people ask me how I got started in puppets, I say “I lied, and I wore cowboy boots,” because when I went to that audition I wore cowboy boots, and when he asked me if I’d done puppets, I said, “Oh sure, I used to do shows for the kids in the neighborhood.” Not exactly a lie, an embellishment perhaps. Any good actor knows how to do that. Surprisingly, I got the job. And that was the beginning of work.

Bobby Payne, who was one of the puppeteers I worked with at the World’s Fair, asked me if I knew who the Muppets were. I said of course, since I used to work at WRC. He said, “Did you know they moved to New York? You should give Jim a call, I think you’d get along.” So I did. I had a meeting, and that was at the time when they were doing The Jimmy Dean Show and Frank was drafted. Frank was Rowlf’s right hand and prop-passer on the show. I guess they wanted a replacement for Frank, and I had an audition with Jim. He asked me to make a tape so he could hear some voices. I went right home and made a recording, took it back in the next day, and I got the job. As it turned out, Frank was not drafted, but he had some other things he wanted to do, so I took over. It was right toward the end of The Jimmy Dean Show, and I finished doing the show with Jim. And then Jimmy Dean took his show on the road, and it was a nice long tour, mostly arena stages. I kept working for Jim for about a year. Eventually, the work settled down and there wasn’t enough. At the time there was only Jim, Frank, Don Sahlin, and Jerry Juhl, and since I was the last person in, I was the first one out. I went back to work for Bil for a while, and I’d gone out to San Fransisco and LA for a while, and in 1969, Jim started Sesame Street. I came back around the end of November of 1969 and I was at an afternoon Christmas party and someone had a TV on. I saw these monsters being ridiculous and doing the alphabet and great animation, and I was blown away by the show. It was so outré, it was like nothing I’d ever seen, and I knew it was a good show. So I called Jim and made an appointment. He said, “We’re not doing much right now, but we’re having a workshop in June, we’re doing a show and we need a lot of puppeteers.” So I gave my other job two months notice, and that turned out to be The Great Santa Claus Switch. We did that show up in Toronto, the puppeteers were mostly from that workshop. Fran Brill, Richard Hunt, Danny Seagren, Marilyn Sokol, a whole lot of people, many of whom continued to work for Jim for a while. At the end of that show, Jim asked me if I’d like to work on Sesame Street. So I started working and never stopped.

TP: When you started on Sesame Street, do you remember the first characters or first sketches you worked on?

JN: At that time, the first things I did were right hands and some background characters. People in Your Neighborhood, those kinds of things. My first main character may have been Herbert Birdsfoot. I’m not sure about that, but that’s how it sits in my head. And S.A.M., the Super Automated Machine. Eventually they said, “You don’t have a monster yet!”, so Herry Monster became my monster. I think around the second or third year I was there, the Count became a character. Norman Stiles, who was a young writer on Sesame Street at the time, told me he was writing this character who was like a vampire, but he wasn’t interested in bloody things, he’s interested in numbers. I went right to Jim and said, “Norman’s writing this character, can I do it?” So he said let’s hear it, and I probably did a bad Bela Lugosi kind of thing, “Bleh bleh!” And the character’s changed over the years. He was kind of scary the first year, with the music and the cape.

TP: You’ve sung a lot of the songs on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. Do any of them stand out as your favorites?

JN: The things that really stand out are the ones that I did with the guests. Many of the guests were people who, as a child, I’d go to see in the movies like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. And all of the sudden, here I am, working with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I would have never believed it if you had told me that as a kid. “One day son, you will work with these people!” But it happened, and those are stand-out moments to me. Singing scat with Dizzie Gilespie, that’s gotta be a major stand-out in my head. Goofing with Pearl Bailey in “Good Old Summertime”. I’ve always loved singing. I’m still learning songs.

TP: Do you ever go back and watch the old videos?

JN: Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, originally we’d all go up to the office and watch the show after it was editing. I did a lot of cringing. Afterward, down the road when I’d go back and visit the same things, I’d say, “Wow, we did some really good work!” We really put together a fantastic body of work.

TP: In the past few years, some of your characters have been performed by new puppeteers. Is it strange to see your characters performed by someone else?

JN: Originally, when Disney took the characters, they were kind of haphazard about that. A few years ago, we had a dialog, and they asked me if I would be interested in working toward addressing keeping those characters with some kind of consistency. So I recommended Matt Vogel, because I’ve worked with Matt and he has a sense of who I am. And when I tried things out, he had a pretty good take on who the characters are. And I think they’ve pretty much gone with that, and that’s nice. Because those characters should really have a consistency to them, and the fans notice when they don’t, and it hurts us when they don’t. Anything else would be a disrespect to the characters and to the people who created them. And Matt is incredibly talented. He does the manipulation of the Count while I do the voice. We do that live in the studio, because it has more of an immediacy and more consistency.

TP: We heard that you did a few scenes with Frank Oz in the latest season. How was it working with Frank again?

JN: It’s been a while since we’ve worked together, and it was great. We did some Grover and Mr. Johnson and Marshall Grover and Fred the Wonder Horse.

TP: Have you seen the more recent Muppet productions like The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz and Letters to Santa?

JN: I’ve seen a few of them, but I haven’t seen them all because nobody tells me anything. I’ve seen Sid the Science Kid. The animation is so cute and clever. They really took it to the next level. The Jim Henson Company has always been innovative in that way. Last year, my wife and I went to see the stage adaptation of Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas, and it just blew me away. The new material that Paul Williams wrote was fantastic. He got to revive an old favorite song, “Born in a Trunk,” which is a wonderful song.

Click here for part two of our chat with Jerry Nelson when we talk about his memorable Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock characters!

Click here to do your Bela Lugosi impersonation on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – joe.toughpigs@gmail.com