Puppets Week: Muppets & Jim Henson Saga Ranked (with JJ Bruno, Mike Ensing & Guest Judge "Yoda"!)

[00:00:06] It's a JackedUpReviewShow It's a JackedUpReviewShow Oh, JackedUpReviewShow It's a JackedUpReviewShow It's a JackedUpReviewShow Oh, JackedUpReviewShow Okay, welcome to the show. We got guest judge Jota once again filling in. And he's going to give myself Cam, James and Mike his two cents after we rank every installment

[00:01:03] of Jim Henson's various productions that we've seen. It's interesting how this has been a decades long thing that just about everybody has encountered in some capacity. Yeah. And Mike was saying off air like you saw it back initially when the original show got syndicated. Yeah.

[00:01:27] And they had a special before that. I remember that and I'll get to that later on favorite part of that was but I think it was a one hour special, maybe half hour. But then that I think led to the series, the syndicated series.

[00:01:44] It was on Friday nights where I lived. Yeah, I kind of remember that. 730 Friday nights is always a pre network stuff. The syndicated stuff is always a fun time back when I was 60s and 70s. I remember watching Truth or Consequences at seven o'clock

[00:02:04] Monday through Friday with Bob Barker and we talked about the game show. Wow. Yeah, I like that show and I was nine or 10. So anyway, back to the topic. Very cool. And yeah, my moments were always kind of in my life even in the 90s.

[00:02:20] Like there's just always ways to access the different shows and everything. James I take it you also are saying deal kind of just whatever channel locally showed it you. Well, we had CBS that you're doing the Muppet show. Channel two. And then. PBS was.

[00:02:42] My, my first remembrance of them, of the Muppets and Jim Hanson because. Sesame Street, you know, that was the first thing I can remember watching as a kid. You know on television, you know. Um. Sesame Street and then.

[00:02:59] You know, my mom having me watch, you know, the Muppet show because they loved watching the Muppets. And then, you know, go and see the Muppet movie with my grandmother and. You know, the great Muppet caper and then the Muppets take Manhattan.

[00:03:14] And I think after that it kind of took a little bit of a hiatus. You know, because I think he wanted to, I think Hanson wanted to go a little more to experimental direction. So he did like the storyteller. Um.

[00:03:30] I don't think I think he, you know, he did. He did dinosaurs. Yeah, no, he didn't. I'm still coughing. I apologize. Um, no, no, no. Dinosaurs was a Jim Hanson production. Yeah. You know, he, he was going into different versions and he died. You know. Yeah. He did.

[00:03:49] All I remember. He could have done a cancer treatment, but I think he just didn't thank you. It was going to be. We had a, no, he had a bacterial infection. Right. But it could have been solved. And I think he just didn't want

[00:04:00] to go through with it. He just didn't want to do it. And, uh, you know. I think it was a good question. I think, you know, I don't know if it was, but I think that's a good question for you. Yeah. Yeah. It's okay. So the, the, the,

[00:04:16] the, the friend of the show, uh, Mark, a Gershawich on sky walking from Neverland. Uh, they had a full fund special just showing various Jim, Henson interviews, even naughty. Stuff of the various puppets. And different late night shows being asked. Risqué questions by everyone from Conan to Joe.

[00:04:31] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all the cities been for was it? That's what religious reasons he wouldn't get treatment like a Christian. Yeah, I think I think you know, he was I was going to be painful or something.

[00:04:46] Yeah, he just didn't want to go through it and his wife, Jane, his ex-wife, James, you have to go, you got to go. And he just went into a coma and died, I think. And the sad thing was for us, I was a freshman in high school

[00:04:59] and he died like I think 24 hours before or after Sammy Davis Jr. died. And so it was like, you know, he's got a team of icons. He died a month before I was born. But yeah, I I just always I've never heard anything bad about him.

[00:05:17] No, he was very very patient, very understanding, very imaginative. Oh, co-worker saying the Muppet Man died. I think that's the first time. Yeah. Well, with us, it was Jim Henson died. And I was like, I was like, no, you're you're effing kidding me.

[00:05:34] You know, Jim Henson died and my buddy's like, yeah, he died. And I'm like, shit, you know, I'm sitting there like, what are we going to do? You know, it's kind of like, you know, when John Lennon died,

[00:05:44] you know, I just say it's like, you know, this is the first time like, you know, people from your childhood pass away and you're like, you know, the Muppets, you know, Sesame Street, that was that was our little you know, our block of perfect little ways.

[00:05:59] Yeah. And the thing I said about what Jim Henson was, he was always imagining things and going like five years beyond what was going to be done, you know? And the thing was when he came along.

[00:06:15] Puppets were kind of like, you know, you had Kukla Fran and Ali, you know, the Bill Barrett puppets, you had all, you know, you know, Cinemarie Croft, Oops, the Parry and all that. He brought he brought these creatures to life.

[00:06:29] And the thing was, was that, you know, a six, a seven foot talking bird. Who the hell thought that up? Yeah. You know, a little green frog who was basically how to operate it. How to make this make sense.

[00:06:45] Oh, and there's going to be actual humans interacting with them. What? This was a guy who was doing stuff on the Jimmy Dean show back in the sixties. Or he was doing these ads for Coosby's coffee, which is like

[00:06:56] some of the best stuff I've seen, you know, commercialized, or he do it. You know, he was on the Ed Sullivan show or something like that. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That's what made him so good.

[00:07:06] Is that he was getting to the kids, but he was getting to the adults and with the Sesame Street, that was for the kids. And if you were, if your parents were really hip,

[00:07:18] they'd let you watch them up at show and, you know, you got the if you would just laugh because of something funny. But then you later you'd watch it, you're like, oh, I get the humor in that, you know. Right. What was that all about?

[00:07:29] And whatnot, you know, a little bit like MST 3K, the kids are attracted to the robots, but there's this all this sophisticated adult humor going. Yeah. Yeah. Dead, you know, same kind of thing. Yeah. So both yeah, all age levels kind of thing. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:07:47] And I think that's why it's again, it's even if it's a musical number or plot you don't care for, there is something about it that just. You can take your eyes off it and the creativity is just still something to be admired. I do remember like.

[00:08:10] Being a kid and watching like I always say that the best thing he ever did was Sesame Street. I'm sorry, that stops in my list. Sesame Street is always going to be tops on my list. Fine. Yeah. Because to me, that was what you learned about things.

[00:08:23] I think the first time I really cried about somebody dying was when Mr. Hooper died. Oh, damn. Yeah. Will will Lee had died in real life. The guy who played Mr. Hooper and they had they were they were kind of one, you know, I remember big person.

[00:08:42] Why is Mr. Hooper? You know, she's a big bird. Mr. Hooper died. He's not coming back, you know, he and that was the first time I could remember me crying because I love Mr. Hooper. You know, my dad was like, like, you know, my dad was like Mr.

[00:08:58] Hooper, you know, and he was an older man. But you know, it's like, you know, and she's telling me, you know, he may be gone, but the memories are there. Excuse me. When you're laying down, you cough a lot more.

[00:09:10] Excuse me. So that's what that's what it was, you know, he taught us about life, birth, death, you know, you know, I remember Maria having her baby, you know, I remember, you know, who was it? Linda, who was deaf, communicate through sign language.

[00:09:28] Yeah, this is what we learned in life. You know, you see kids stuff today, you know, it's kind of like it's just go to the restroom and do other nasty stuff and bullies having redemption, but you're just like, yeah, but that's not to me anything.

[00:09:45] You know, they sugarcoat it now. You know, it's either sugarcoated like barn or those pieces. Shit. Yeah. I hated Barney. Barney to me was not says he's wearing was like, OK, kids, what are we going to do? Let's clean up the house, Barney.

[00:09:58] You know, it was like when we were when I was watching Sesame Street, Mike, you did you watch Sesame Street when you were little or? Yeah, well, I got three younger brothers. So we had the album and rubber duckie was a big hit that summer of 70,

[00:10:15] I think, with Ernie and I remember watching it. Mom and dad's room, you know, in the morning, sometimes we all yeah, watch it on a little TV. We had the first color TV was about the size of this laptop, you know? Yeah.

[00:10:31] Yeah, I have members of watching in color. It came out 69. Yeah. OK, I do remember seeing in color. I don't think I remember seeing black and white. So nice. And I remember like watching, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12.

[00:10:50] And you don't realize later that's the pointer sisters doing the soundtrack to that. I didn't know that. Wow. Or or the one I loved was who is it? It's me, the plumber. I'm here to fix the sink. Who is it?

[00:11:04] It's, you know, that's the great thing about the joke, you know, that that joke that running gag was, you know, the whole thing. So that's a mystery to me is just his top achievement. He wanted to make a show that was funny and informative for kids

[00:11:17] like he makes burden Ernie. You know, the the odd couple, that's what they're based on. They're based on Oscar feelings. Let's not, you know, that's that's what it is, you know, Bert is the uptight one.

[00:11:30] And it took us a while to find out they're also closet in couple. But yeah, no, I don't think that's that's a bunch of bullshit that I heard when I was a kid, you know, there was a big room

[00:11:40] going around there and have like one of them died of AIDS. My friend is, you know, my friend, one of my friends was like, you know, they typical North Jersey stupidity. You know, you know their fags, right? I'm like, no, they're not their puppets.

[00:11:54] OK, wait, first off, they're made of felt. And they're OK. So come on, according to Sesame Workshop, the organization says it's official that they are not straight, but they are simply best friends. Yeah, you know, they're either again, they're made of felt. Come on. You know, they're puppets.

[00:12:15] Yeah. I mean, who doesn't like to hear, you know, them arguing in arguing in the middle of the night, you know, Bert. Yeah, Ernie. Bert, I want to go to water. OK, I better get it. Better what to get it. Why?

[00:12:31] It's too far. I mean, it's just it's just it's just so silly to hear these things. But the thing was I just thought it was funny either way that this came up. I'm like because I just thought of it.

[00:12:41] I just I always thought they were just angry brothers that lived together. I was I thought I thought they were just two like two guys that just live together like the odd couple. You know, yeah, I was just saying I wanted a couple

[00:12:53] influence that a little bit, you know. Yeah. And yeah, the intolerant one and Ernie, which is a happy go lucky one, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's a different way. Yeah, personality clash. And, you know, do you remember the doodle bugs? But do it. Oh, wow.

[00:13:11] We're going away into a little. They were the little bugs that lived in the in a good. That's like a 70 free one. They're going to the zoo. Yeah, I never knew what they were called, but I recognize it instantly now because I think they use the similar puppet

[00:13:26] for some of the underwater snows and other stuff. Yeah, the doodle bugs with these little bugs that lived in a window box that I think Ernie had. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like pets. I remember a game you could get. Was it where you had a wand

[00:13:43] and you could move the bugs around in a maze? Does that ring a bell? I thought it does a little bit. I did. Anyway, maybe think of that when you said that. They did have some very interesting merchandise. A lot of stuff that I must applaud them

[00:13:57] for being very interactive and. Great. Our Mars merchandise, sure. Well, there was that too. I mean, it was weird when Darth Vader, like, was on there and Skywalker, Neverland did get a chance to interview some of the other guys who operate.

[00:14:16] As I even a young filmmaker, Mick Garris, you might know him from his different Stephen King adaptations, he was the R2D2 operator. Yeah, yeah. And he operated on my think a few times, but it was difficult because sometimes that would interfere

[00:14:30] with the various taxi cab and other radio signals. So sometimes they'd have to stall an hour like R2 is not responding to our signal. But yeah, Lucas allowed them on there as long as it was in character, not derogatory.

[00:14:42] But I think then when they did a Darth Vader like singing and dancing, then that's when they just like, OK, stop, stop that shit, stop bringing my guys under your show. Well, well, they did. They did a crossover with on that on the Muppet show

[00:14:57] with Mark Hamill on there and like, yes, he did. Miss Piggy was dressed up as Miss Piggy was dressed up as Princess Leia. And I think it was the guy who was pigs in space was dressed up like Han Solo and Gonzo was dressed like Darth Vader.

[00:15:11] And I was just like, I was just like, OK, how could this get worse? And also I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, oh, wait, yeah, the 78 holiday special shit, you know. But the Muppet show. Got us turned on to a lot of stuff we never saw before

[00:15:29] because the Muppet, the Muppet, I'm sorry if I'm going on here and I don't mean to any of you are top five. You are. Continue to do most. All right, go to the Muppet show introduced me to a lot of people

[00:15:41] I've never seen or heard before like Spike. I remember he had Spike Milligan on. That's one of the funniest episodes they ever did. The Spike Milligan was his comedian and he wanted to have Spike Milligan on.

[00:15:55] He wanted to have some good because he loved he loved the Goon show and he loved the humor and all that stuff. So they had. And I think Lou Gray did the Muppet show because it was I.T.V. Yeah, those credits wasn't it? The thing. Yeah.

[00:16:08] I remember that. Yeah. Don. Yeah. He had I think if they'd gone one more season, he would have had Harry C come on. So that would have been all three of the Goons. Well, he had sellers on. He had sellers was the one I'm like kind of like

[00:16:24] I'm kind of like watching and I kind of like get the feeling like what Peter Sout was a lady was because he says. I don't know who I am. I had him surgically removed. So. No, but Milligan was no.

[00:16:37] Milligan does this thing where he's doing the he's doing a broadcast with the guy who's the Muppet news anchor. And he's doing like all this like site gags on the side. My mom says I told my mom about it. I said, you remember me watching the Muppet show

[00:16:52] of Spike Milligan? She's like, yeah, I remember you were like literally convulsing with laughter the whole time he's doing the news thing because it was like it was just so silly. And then they brought on like Jonathan Winchers. One time they brought on a Juliet Prouse, Rita Moreno,

[00:17:10] woman, Sean's Joel Gray. They had Alice Cooper on one, which was great. Alice Cooper was great because he did welcome to my nightmare. That was the first time I was scared of Alice Cooper as a little kid. Really?

[00:17:27] He was on the yeah, I was scared of Alice Cooper, just here's this guy. He's got long hair that he sings about stuff that I'm like, I'm like, oh God, you know, this guy's just here. I watched him on the Muppet show and then I watched him

[00:17:39] on the Supey sales show when Supey did his his his new show. Oh, wow. And I never realized he said later, he says I loved I loved watching Supey sales as a teenager.

[00:17:51] And he says when he did the Muppet show, he said he did that as a favor because he wanted to show that he wasn't scary at all. That's true. He was just a guy who was just a singer. That's all.

[00:18:02] Well, I'm listening off a few other awesome ones for you. Cloris Leachman, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Rita Marino, Christopher Reeve and Diana. Read them all Superman. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So I can't. I don't think he was in uniform, but they definitely referred to him on that episode.

[00:18:21] Yeah, yeah, pretty superman. They did the one with Rita Marino. I love when she's singing Fever and Animals on the Drums. And when you put your arms around me, and she goes, she goes, just at Chico. And he just goes,

[00:18:40] you know, it's just so funny to watch that because it's like Buddy Rich, I remember Buddy Rich, my dad loved it because Buddy Rich was on that show with. Animal and he did a drum off and my dad said now you're going to see a drummer in action.

[00:18:58] I just kept thinking the back of my head later and left. I'm like, I wonder if he swore at the Muppets. Yeah, I was just going to say that. Well, like, good question. Stuff if they got along. Yeah. So Alan, they had Marty Feldman on.

[00:19:11] They had Feldman, Harry Bellafonte, my wife, he did a great, great song on there. Some just inspired casting and some of them, like you say, like we're just on the rise. But that gave him a career boost.

[00:19:25] It was just as good as going on Johnny Carson back in the day. There's one they pulled. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because there was this infamous comedian we mentioned last time who was part of the Python. Yeah.

[00:19:39] Due to his category free crime, which I'm not going to go into. Yeah, yeah. They had to pull that episode off. Even like the people that did his name, the people that had something that were like, yeah, we're not putting that.

[00:19:49] I think the episode itself is fine, but he's in just too much of it to for them to even justify it down. They're just like, just let's not upload that. They had Crystal Gale. I think they had a whole bunch of people. John Denver, George Denver.

[00:20:06] I always wondered the George. I know Milton Berle did one. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think so. You know, he goes off, like you said, Johnny Cash. I know. He was okay. They had over. Oh my God, that's right. James. What? I saw Crystal Gale was on it.

[00:20:28] Shooting Collins. Rita Coolidge. Yeah. That was like one of those. I saw Crystal Gale at the A.O. and your Free Fair, which is near here back in the 80s, I think. And Ray Stevens was the opening act. So. Oh, wow. Yeah. God help you. I'm just kidding.

[00:20:50] We'll see. Now, you know, we have a lot to go. There wasn't a lot of good concerts around here for a while, but it was all right. I just remember. I just remember Crystal Gale being on that show and doing this one song

[00:21:03] where it was like ghosts were around her. And it was like this really cool song. And I was like, I was mesmerized by it because they they ran them up at show on CBS. Yeah. They took it off and then they put it on.

[00:21:20] TNT for a while like to run the rerun. Yeah, because I think Turner got the licensing for a while. And I meant to tell you guys the story a couple of weeks ago. My mom, my aunt was working with. Was working for Jim Henson.

[00:21:36] Like she was she was doing commercial work, right? Holy moly. So it was my grandmother's, I think 80th birthday or 85th birthday or something. Like I think it was her 80th birthday.

[00:21:47] So my mom, my aunt got a call from my mom and said, or my mom got a call from my aunt saying, you want to come in the city? She's like, yeah, sure. So I got a surprise for you. She's like, OK, so first off we got it.

[00:22:00] She got my grandmother had a tape made for now. My grandmother was like eight years old. She had a stroke. She could it was Grover saying happy birthday, Betty. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And he was saying happy birthday.

[00:22:12] But my mom went into Henson's studios. And saw everything there. Man, she looked up. It was the Muppets in a balloon. You know, she saw stuff. She told me I can't I can't tell you what was in there because at that time it was so closely guarded

[00:22:35] when he was developing at that time. And the thing was my mom and my dad, God bless them. They were always telling me that that's what imagination does. You know, that's what it is. That's and then you got to think too, in between the Muppets show

[00:22:57] and Sesame Street, he does a show on HBO called Fragile Rock. Yep. Very mind blowing. And it always is blue. And I am like, oh, it's on the movie channel. Because that was a show on HBO. It was a half an hour show. It was for kids.

[00:23:14] It opened our horizons to everything. It was very easy to see various compilations on VHS that were for rental. But by the 2000s, I definitely can. Site the main Muppet show was definitely being reared on the Hallmark channel for a while. Yeah. But when they did Muppets Tonight,

[00:23:36] which I thought was also just a wonderful continuation because it didn't change too much of the style and it had shown more of what goes on behind the scenes. I I missed the first run when it was on ABC, but they reared it constantly on Disney Channel. Yeah.

[00:23:51] And that was a good way for me to start my evening because it was like, hey, I'm so I always had a good idea kind of the show business when it was emulated or parodied on TV because I just had seen so many stuff like this

[00:24:06] showing behind the scenes and cameras. Is Disney Plus showing Muppet stuff at all right now? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. OK, as we were saying, all of them are on there except the one episode with the one van person. But everything else, yeah, pretty fair game,

[00:24:23] pretty easy to come down. And even though I know the Disney Takeover really divided a lot of people and people, including the Rizzo and Gonzo guys got unfairly fired or left over creative differences. I think that I mean, I don't think they own it completely.

[00:24:48] I think the rights keep reverting back to the hints and they just often do the distribution part. But yeah. Yeah. And you know, Brian Henson has something to do with. You know, his father's estate and. There's been a lot of like, you know, BS going on with that.

[00:25:06] I don't know what the hell happened. You know, he fired the guy who's current with the frog and then he hired somebody else. You know, this guy got, you know, the guy who was Elmo got fired

[00:25:15] because of a false claim that he was like a pedophile or some. Yeah. But you know, but the damage is done. So I think they silently rehired him back, I think. Yeah, I remember they did that on family guys. Don't touch me there, Elmo. Oh, my God.

[00:25:34] And then, you know, so there's been a lot of like stuff in that family where I'm like, kind of like, oh, come on, you know, your dad wouldn't have pulled this shit and put the dirty laundry out for everybody to look at.

[00:25:45] But, you know, the thing that gets me the most is like he did those three shows. And then, you know, he put himself out into movies, you know, the movies, the first three are great. I don't like Muppets Take Man Atten, though. I'm kind of like...

[00:26:00] Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I always thought it was a little over one. The Muppet movie was great, the original. We have a great soundtrack by Paul Williams. Oh, yeah. Muppet Caper. Muppet Caper was great. I loved Muppet Treasure Island.

[00:26:18] I loved Christmas, you know, Muppets Christmas Carol. You should see the outtakes from that because they're really funny to watch. Oh, yeah, there's one part where Ratso and the guns are trying to get into the house. Like when someone throws a hook and it gets caught on...

[00:26:39] He's got those hat and he goes, man down, medic, medic, medic. You know? I mean, just so... The one I loved was Muppets From Outer Space. Yes. I thought that was just so off the wall. There's so many other franchises near the end of the millennium.

[00:26:59] You can tell they were dying down, you know, pre-Internet. There just wasn't as big a market. But that one still, despite them doing covers of different kinds of Motown and recent pop songs, it still had a solid kind of energy, I think.

[00:27:14] Because you see other kids' movies or family fair and it just hasn't dated well because it's just catering to only the kids. And there's still plenty of great gags in that. Did you ever see the DVD add-on where they have a Mystery and Science Theater type

[00:27:32] silhouette commentary that pops up? No, I haven't. And most normally during the opening tractor segment. But yeah, when we're getting the chores done and mowing the lawn. And to your earlier point, I do like... I think these films all flow

[00:27:49] because like you say, they kind of build their world. And they show them doing everyday functions instead of just, yeah, hey, we're the Muppets. You should know who the hell we are. It's like, well, they always have a moment to breathe

[00:28:00] before they get to all the various gags that people love. Well, the thing I like about Muppets from Outer Spaces, it wasn't Kermit and Piggy. Yeah, it was Gonzo. The Gonzo was Gonzo and Ratso and Peppy or like in the, you know, Gonzo is like the most

[00:28:19] unlikely character to have a movie centered around them. And the thing I loved about that was that they got like big bears in that. He was security, big Strygarden Hulk Hogan's in it. And, you know, I mean, there's so many, you know, definitely Tambor, they had Dawson's Creek.

[00:28:38] You know, the people from Dawson's Creek in it. I forgot about that. It's a blink and a miss kind of moment where they're watching. Dawson's going to hate missing this. Nah, he's going to like it no matter, you know,

[00:28:49] I keep thinking the X files were in it for some strange reason. I think they I think they just referenced it just by having like men in black guys in suits. But it went over my head because I saw this before that.

[00:29:01] Did you guys see the two new ones that came out? Yes, yes, I did. And I'll get to it in my ranking. But I can see why they divide people. But I can see why some people were like, hey, you know,

[00:29:12] the second one at least needs a nom for best song because there is an interesting Kermit music section. But yeah, I mean, there is something for everybody. I'm just glad that it's still going because you see so many other movies and shows that.

[00:29:28] It's not that they're divisive so much as it just doesn't seem like people are they're so. I'm really struggling to find the words today. But I think the main issue is that you find so many people who are kind of asleep at the wheel.

[00:29:43] They're trying so hard to get something in the can that they're not they're rushing the process and it kind of shows sometimes. But they're going through the motions. Yeah, they're dead men walking kind of. And it's like, well, just yeah, if you're not ready to film,

[00:29:59] let's film another day and get some B roll on some other stuff. You know, and I think the thing that gets me the most is with with Henson. Something tells me he left some things behind. Like there are certain parts in the muppet show.

[00:30:14] I remember the one that goes, my mom. Yes, oh man, every that's in your head. Always. And it doesn't matter if you're just like a casual person, like people bring it up like just in public. Everybody will start breaking into dance or just going into chorus.

[00:30:31] It is one of those kinds of gaps. It's kind of universal. All right. And that whole sketch, my father and me would watch my father would be laughing and I would start laughing because it's just so funny.

[00:30:42] The guys in the back when they're going like, the two puppets are down their head and they go up front. He goes in the back. He goes up front there in the back. You know, it's a lot of sight gags and stuff. Yes.

[00:30:53] Oh, it's so much sites that is definitely the best way to put it because it and kudos to anyone, all those assistant directors, all those guys figuring out how to stage that. You know, we're all the puppeteers are going to be interacting with each other

[00:31:10] and where the main performer or human talents are going to be in proportion to the camera singing. We forgot something here that he did that a lot of people kind of like, I think have looked over and said, you know, hey, that's a great movie.

[00:31:29] It's the dark crystal. There is dark crystal. There's also Dreamchild around that same time. Yeah, well, I've been. Labyrinth, the interesting how he does all these back to back. And there was one in the 90s.

[00:31:45] He also or late 80s that I always got mixed up with Hocus Pocus. Witches. That's the one. Yes. Yes. The witches scared the shit out of me as a kid. It did for many people. My wife just said me too. Because that's seen where they all like.

[00:32:03] No, not when they turn to mice. When they become like giant rats. Oh, this is my this is my wife Kathleen. Good. Hi, Mrs. Bruno. Bobby Kathleen. Hi, Kathleen. Yeah, we're we're Muppet lovers in this house.

[00:32:20] So, you know, the the witch's was like a really screwed up movie. They just redid it a couple of years ago. And but yeah, the original like with until he's morphed into this like rat. Like creature.

[00:32:39] And you know, I remember as the kids are being chased around and you know, you know, I don't remember a lot about the script. I remember my niece being it and they got freaked out by it too.

[00:32:51] It sounds like the equivalent of the wing monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. That would absolutely nightmare fuel, even though it's not like graphic or anything. It's still that kind of dark fantasy that. Yeah, you don't really see what's going on.

[00:33:03] But yeah, just the music and just bizarre characters are enough to kind of, you know, shindist shiver. Labyrinth was a great movie because that kind of made me a hip fan of Bowie. You know, I think it was the thing I saw him in too.

[00:33:20] It was just I knew who he was. I'd heard enough of his songs, but I didn't. It was like the first time I saw, you know what? He could actually carry a movie. And he's not. He does that song.

[00:33:33] You remind me of the man, man, the power, the power of who do you do? You know, he does that whole bit and he's not, you know, he's good as the Goblin King. I love them as the Goblin King. It was great.

[00:33:42] And that introduced me to Jennifer Connelly and introduced me to all just. And that was produced by George Lucas, I think. Yeah. No, that was, I think, yeah, I think he did that. Yeah. I think he just gave money kind of like he did to Curacao.

[00:33:58] He wasn't on set. Yeah, yeah. But the one that gets me is the dark crystal because I remember if you guys had ever seen that. Yes, I had. That was a movie that kind of was this whole like Lord of the Rings-ish. Oh, it absolutely was. Yeah.

[00:34:20] You know, a very dark movie to watch because it's about, you know, a bunch of, you know, people getting wiped out and there's two races. There's one called the Skezies and one called the Elders. And the Elders, you know, there's these things called gelflings which are like,

[00:34:40] you know, hobbits but they're not, they don't look like hobbits, you know. And you know, there's this crystal that'll like, you know, unite everything together, you know, once they get it. You know, it was just a really fun movie to watch.

[00:34:54] I can't watch it because I don't know. I got very like, I don't know. It kind of turned me off to them up. It's for like a couple months and I was like, all right, let me watch it again once on cable. I watched it again on cable.

[00:35:05] It was a good story. You know, I just think it lost a lot of people who were expecting, you know, cute little things. And do you ever see the follow-up mini series that they put on Netflix? No, I didn't get a chance to. I heard of a solid.

[00:35:19] It just wasn't seen by many. Yeah, Netflix did it, I think. Yeah. And it was a prequel or a sequel. I don't know what it was. A sequel and it had. So it's after the movie, right? Yeah, it was just a follow-up in that universe.

[00:35:33] I think they made some comic book follow-ups as well that I got to check out. Dude, do you consider Yoda a muppet? So he's totally. Well, one too much. Isn't the Jim Hansen's creation? I suppose. Stuart Freeborn. Okay. Stuart Freeborn created and Frank Oz gave him the voice.

[00:36:02] Oh, Frank. Okay, I knew there was. Yeah. Frank Oz. Okay. And the thing is, is that I always say, I always say Yoda is an offshoot of what Yoda gave, I think, Hansen the idea. About what you could do besides making the muppets.

[00:36:23] Because if you look at the Dark Crystal, that was years before. I mean, that was early animatronics, early people in suits. You know, I mean, the giant. Mostly the Snuffle Luffacus. Yeah, Snuffle Luffacus was a, oh, okay, big bird. I'll do it.

[00:36:42] I used to do Snuffle Luffacus when I got pissed off. I'd be like, okay, mom, I'll go do it. Who are you doing Snuffle Luffacus? Don't do that ever again.

[00:36:54] You know, I'd be the lone kid at school who'll be like, I know I did bad on the test. Don't worry. No, you did great. I did. Yeah. Yeah, you did. I wasn't the thing only big bird could see him. Yeah. Okay. Only big bird could see him.

[00:37:15] He was a very underrated. I found creation him and Harry Monster didn't get enough. Then everybody could see him later. And I think it was Telly as well. Telly could see him. And I always thought they underused him. Did you guys ever hear the story of a

[00:37:37] Margaret Hamilton being on that show, the Sesame Street? Absolutely not. I got to hear this. Okay. So I think it's 1975, 76. Educator guy? Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch of the West. That's right. Right. She was a teacher, I think before she got into acting.

[00:37:55] No, no, no, no. This is she was in the Wizard of Oz. Right. And she was a school teacher. Yeah. She was a school teacher, right? That's what I mean. So what happened was that they said, Hey, why don't you come on Sesame Street?

[00:38:09] Because all the kids know you as the Wicked Witch of the West. Why don't you come on and say you lost your broom? And she came on with the green makeup and everything. And kids got scared because they thought it was something and they pulled the episode.

[00:38:25] There's only like somebody said that there's they're going to try to rerun it again and see, you know, because she's just and then she went on Mr. Rogers later to show

[00:38:35] everybody knows just a cape and a hat I put on and I do the voice and all that stuff. It's like with new Ferrigna with the Hulk. Yes. She's trying to be nice as the Wicked Witch. And no, she wasn't trying to be nice.

[00:38:49] She was she hung out with Oscar because Oscar was a grouch and supposedly her character is a grouch too. She's she can't find her broom. And so that's that's what you know, that's what the episode was about.

[00:39:04] And it turns out I think Oscar had the broom or something like that. And, you know, the show because she flies away and everything like that at the end. But the thing was I just love that she was on it.

[00:39:16] You know, I remember seeing that episode too, I think they ran it one more time. And I think they just they pulled it. But yeah, they were really bad about I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that stuff is lost to time.

[00:39:28] There were so many actors, including Kim Ray, Reggie and Carlos Bacito where that was like their first recurring role. I know that one favorite of mine in my household for my folks, they really dug the Queen Latifa episode that there was always just someone or just like that.

[00:39:47] And it wasn't uncommon for them to, you know, take portions of earlier shows and mix it in with new footage. So I think yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if half the time everyone has seen many

[00:39:58] of the same episodes, but they might not have seen the exact same one. They might have seen, you know, 70s ones inserted with 80s, 90s and 2000s ones. The one I was the I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mike. I got a weird offshoot thing about Martin Hamilton.

[00:40:16] I've listened to every episode of you ever heard of the CBS radio mystery theater? Yeah. Yes. Was that the Lux? That was the Lux Radio Mystery Theater, right? No, it was CBS. It was 74 till about 83. E.G. Marcia, who plays the president and Superman to hosted it.

[00:40:37] Oh, holy crap. Had a great place for it. But I didn't realize that was the same. I've heard every episode I collected. I got somebody sent me MP3s of it and you can find them on YouTube. Holy shit. You can find all 1399 episodes on the archive.

[00:40:53] I'm going to share that. You knew there was 1400 episodes. That's cool. And they did one live episode watching over her. But anyway, Margaret Hamilton was in an episode or two and she played a witch in one. Not the wicking witch, but her character was away.

[00:41:07] That's a wild throwback. And I actually do like it when people do that. I mean, you would see sometimes people do that when they're in like a Roger Corbin thing, where they're doing kind of a role that's kind of hinting at their famous. Yeah. Well, yeah.

[00:41:22] Just I'll get away from this talk about there's a lot of serges like a Parker about 14 years old is on an episode. John Lithgow was on several episodes. Oh gosh, who's that actor that was in the movie The Doctor with William Hurt?

[00:41:43] You know who I mean, he's got kind of a funny name, but he's No, no, I'm not thinking. Maddie, but yeah, he's in a few. Okay. Yeah, right. And one more if you ever saw a squirm on Mystery Science Theater. Yes.

[00:42:01] The lead character that kind of a wimpy kid, the lead character. He's in several episodes and he has the creepiest boys. Oh my every episode he's in it's like something's not right here. You know, Well, it's so cool though. Yeah, very. Radio radio is really fun radio.

[00:42:20] But isn't it cool that people have copies of this shit and have uploaded everywhere instead of just waiting for streaming or someone else to come around to it and remind everyone it existed. Yeah. And I got an MP3's over a few years.

[00:42:35] I redubbed them all so I could put chapter breaks in them. It's all. Oh yeah, where do you find a bookmark? Yeah. And what's fun is they have the old commercials and news stories of the day.

[00:42:47] So I heard the whole Patty, her saga evolve over like five or six over a year. So Patty has Patty has who's now named as Tanya was dropping a bag with the SLA. She's now wanted by the police.

[00:43:03] Patty has was brought in today and she said my name is Tanya and somebody said no, your name is Patty. Wow. We got off on a tangent there but then I'm fine. I do think that's a good segue in that much like, I mean, again, we're talking about

[00:43:22] decades old radio show. I do think it's an interesting thing. It's termed so many people it's found a way to be syndicated and re-shown numerous times because the ratings were always there. Well, the thing I loved about the Muppets show is one time they had Edgar Bergen on,

[00:43:37] right? With Charlie McCarthy. Oh sweet. Right. Man. So my mother and my father are watching this. I turn around, I'm like about 14, 15 years old. I turn around to my mom goes, yeah, that's that's Gators Bergen's father.

[00:43:53] I'm like, yeah, I know that, you know, because I went down that out. Yeah, you're a big reader and stuff like that. And then I go, what the fuck is the big deal about this guy? You can see his mouth moving. Yes, because he was on radio.

[00:44:06] He could get away with it then. I'm like holding the puppet. You can see his mouth move. My father's going, no, you guys, dad, look. Mouth moving puppet. You can't lie on this. Yeah. I'm like, what the fuck? Well, my mom said, well, he was funny on radio.

[00:44:25] Like, yeah, he didn't even have to dummy on radio. Just like do the voice and like walk off. You know, so I guess those radio shows were in front of live audiences.

[00:44:35] You think the audience would pick up on the fact too that you can see his mouth move. I guess it was like a regular studio audience where they probably had the equivalent of an NDA back in the day where they're like, hey, we can't

[00:44:49] talk about what goes on behind here. You're just supposed to laugh on Q. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was some miscommunication and not everyone knew that. Yeah. And then press would not talk about FDR's condition either.

[00:45:00] Back when they had f-dicks and they were like, we don't want to show, want anyone to worry or get in legal trouble for showing someone's deteriorating state. Yeah. Yeah. Why is FDR sitting down a lot? Well, he's got a bad back. Oh, okay. He cares about us.

[00:45:16] I think my sports term, he finally, it was well known by them. But you know. Yeah. I think there was a picture of him, circularly that he did have, he had his braces on and they were, he did admit, yeah,

[00:45:34] I got polio when I was a child and you know, I was swimming in a cold lake and I'm like, no, you know, we don't. And there's an awful moment in the Pearl Harbor movie and John Boyd says, you don't think we can do this? He stands up.

[00:45:50] Remember that? Oh my God. Yeah. I don't think that was factual. Definitely not factual. You don't think we could do this? John Midnight Cowboy was a long time ago. Don't help me now. Don't help me now. And he said, yeah. Oh man. I want Spitz Jerry Seinfeld. Why?

[00:46:15] Why is he at a wheelchair? I love the family guy. That excuses about his lame FDR legs and they all go, I said what too soon? God. But what gets me the most is like, you know, Henson's way of thinking was so far beyond.

[00:46:42] I mean, you gotta think. You did. Children's television changed. You know, the children's television workshop Sesame Street. You know, and what team went on? What was on after Sesame Street? I don't remember anything on after Sesame Street. I just remember they had a Spanish version of Sesame Street.

[00:47:00] And I learned how to say Guiardo and Aqua, you know. The electric company. The electric company was on afterwards. Yeah, there you go. There was also some bizarre, trying to recreate Sesame. Remember the new zoo review? Yeah. Yeah. I'm friends with Doug and Amy Lou.

[00:47:23] They're married in real life. And you will not believe the, there is an outtake of that show. So many outtakes of that show. There's one of Freddie the Frog and Orson. And it's just the dirtiest thing. I couldn't believe they got away with it.

[00:47:46] You can hear them laughing in the background when they're doing the voices and stuff. And I am literally, I was howling when they did it. There's stuff like, you know, Jesse White shows up. If you remember Jesse White, he was the, he was the Maytag or Paramount.

[00:48:00] He goes, Oh shit. I forgot the line. You know, I mean, all the air, you know, oh yeah, it wasn't aired. It was cut. Okay. Okay. You have to look it up. It's the outtake and I'm on the news. You review Facebook page.

[00:48:19] No one has said a word about it. You should bring it up. I will bring it up. I'll be like, Hey, what do you, what do you, you know, I know we love this, but to watch the outtakes is some of the best stuff

[00:48:30] ever because it's like, you know, you see, you see like, you know, some of it is like, you know, you know, they jokingly bring two guys to rough up, rough up Orson, you know, Chicago, you know, it's just silly.

[00:48:44] And I watched it and I was like, I was howling. I think what they did was, it was always there to just, you know, break the tension, everything like that. But yeah, news and review. I kind of remember being on there. And you know, when you're

[00:48:58] Joel used it as a rip on a team from outer space with Yeah, one of the characters reminded him of somebody in the show. Grandpa, the grandpa. Yeah. What other kind of ripped off not ripped, well, you know,

[00:49:17] we're trying to or was in the same kind of thing. I mean, cross some of the later productions, you could definitely get a Jim Henson kind of feel. Cross were a little bit different cross were you know, they were just doing stories.

[00:49:32] You know, with their stuff, it was, it was always a singular season or two season series. And then that was it. I think the longest that ran was land of the lost, which is three seasons. But everything was kind of like, you know, psychedelic colors and all that.

[00:49:45] And I think that kind of was spreading into children's television because you ever children's television before the electric company was hello kids. Today we're going to learn about dinosaurs. You know, this is old farts that were, you know, I think Fran and Ali,

[00:50:00] who could frame an ally, which were great, you know. And the purple chocolate. Who was that? Damn, I know that one. Yeah, the puppeteer. Mortimer's Snir. Oh, that was that was a bird. Was it like the Libby's theme? Eddie Burden did Mortimer's table.

[00:50:26] No, no, it wasn't Eddie Burden. It was, oh, what, Dana Gould. Paul Winshell. Paul Winshell, there you go. Paul Winshell. Wow. Well, I think actually he was very smart. I think he worked on heart surgery or something like that. Yeah, he worked on the artificial heart. Yeah.

[00:50:41] His daughter. There's a lot of things his daughter said about him that I was like, oh my God. That, you know, I remember him. Yeah, he had no knucklehead Smith. It was knucklehead Smith. Yeah. Knucklehead Smith and Jerry Mahoney, that was his puppets. Mortimer's Snir was Edgar Bergen.

[00:51:02] Mortimer's Snir was like, nope, nope, nope, nope, like that. And knucklehead Smith and Jerry Mahoney were Paul Winshell's puppets because my dad again, that's, hey, he had those two characters. I never got to see Jerry Mahoney though. You know, you're getting close.

[00:51:20] You know, I never got to see Paul Winshell. But we had, you know, if you remember. And Sherlock was a bit, oh, I had puppeteering kind of go hand in hand though. We'll return after these messages. Most delightful 30 minutes of your week. So dig in.

[00:51:56] It's Brent this time. Listen at Brent this dot com apple podcast or wherever fine podcasts are found. Do you ever find yourself thinking about who would win a fight between Goku and Superman? Hi, I'm James Cavsian on the who would win show me and my co-host Ray ignore

[00:52:11] anything important happening in the outside world and debate fictional battles between characters from comics movies and video games. We got a new show every week and almost always am I the winner? Yeah, not true. In the past, we've discussed such matches as Captain America versus Darth Vader,

[00:52:26] Solid Snake versus the Iron Giant, classic matchups like Robocop versus Terminator and even the Muppets versus Sesame Street. That one was crazy. So if you're a fan of geek culture and love a spirited debate, check out the who would win show wherever you get your podcast

[00:52:43] or check us out at who would win show dot com. You know what? Yeah. I think I had a horse like character called Charlie horse. I had a puppet of it when I was a kid. Charlie. Charlie horse, I think was the one who did land shop. Land.

[00:52:59] Okay. Which was a land shop is definitely a good contrast and just post. I couldn't forgive me for saying that was no, yeah, but it was Sherry Lewis. Sherry Lewis. There you go. There you go. Yep. I couldn't stand fucking Sherry Lewis. I'll take her over.

[00:53:17] There's a thing. Opie and Anthony did this thing where when she died, they interviewed land shop and she's like, they're like, lamp shop. How do you feel? She's somebody was doing the lamp shop was going, I'm happy the bitch is dead.

[00:53:30] Try going all these years to your hand up somebody's having their hand up your ass. Jesus, A. Christ. I used to love Mr. Moose on Captain Kangaroo. Oh my God, Captain Kangaroo. He rocked. I liked him when I, you know, man, we're going way back.

[00:53:48] What's the secret word on the ping pong balls coming down? Yes. Yeah. I gotta show you a picture of my dad in that like he was older and the picture of Captain

[00:53:59] Kangaroo and they used to tell my dad when I was little, hey dad, what are you doing on TV? He's like, what? So he comes out one day, he's got his pajamas on. He's like, well, that's you, right dad?

[00:54:09] And my dad goes, no, no, I'm not Captain Kangaroo Jai because my dad looked like Bob Keeshan, you know, when he got older. So I used to tell kids, this goes like, watch Captain Kangaroo. I think that's my dad and the kids would come back.

[00:54:27] Your dad's Captain Kangaroo. And I was like, no, no, no, he looks like Captain Kangaroo. And you know, the one thing I loved about like Captain Kangaroo and you remember the Patchwork family? It's not back. No, the patchwork fact is the patchwork fact. It's another puppet show. Okay.

[00:54:47] Yeah, that was another puppet show that kind of like was there but not there. You know, I remember watching it. One season 72 to 73. Okay. Yeah, that was one of the things CBS used to do on early or in the morning, right before like, you know, Saturday service.

[00:55:03] What about the magic garden? Oh, God, yeah. Paula and Carol. I think so. Same. I think it was the same people. No, I always go ahead and like beanie and Cecil. Cecil. Yeah. Cecil. That was animated but I think wasn't there a puppet version of it as well?

[00:55:27] Yes, there was. And that was Bob. That was Bob Clampett. Okay. Well, he did the character. But you also did a because I remember my cousins had the puppet of Cecil. Yeah. I watched a lot of similar stuff. Obviously, I did Thomas the Tank Engine.

[00:55:43] I had no issues with Karlin or Ringo Starr as the voiceovers. I did plenty of but the leading up to that was Shining Time Station. Okay. Yeah, I just remember like, you know, in the 80s,

[00:56:00] excuse me, in the 80s and the 90s it was just kind of like, you know, free for all. Free for all. Yeah, Pee Wee's plan. Yeah, I was just about to say that was a good. And we can thank Tim Burton for that. Yeah. And Rob Zombie.

[00:56:19] Yes, he worked on it. He worked on that show. Yeah. You know, he's but you know the thing with Henson is that he kind of laid the groundwork for a lot of things. Some things were great like, you know, the electric company 321 Contact.

[00:56:36] Some things were bad like, I don't know, fucking that purple dinosaur Barney. I hate that. God, I know how there's a cheat code on the Doom games where you can make the demons look like. Yeah. Yeah. Tell him. It was. Oh yeah. I watched so much of that.

[00:56:57] I didn't know what it was. I just watched it because it was on. Oh, who remembers Tinky Winky being an accused of being gay? By Jerry Falwell. Yeah, I remember that. I didn't hear about that, but that's. Oh God. Jerry Falwell is infinite. I know about it.

[00:57:14] Oh, Jerry. Well, he's dead and you're not. So that's okay. Yeah. You know, Tim and Pat Roberts are a kissing. Oh yeah, they're totally cuddling. Going way, way back there was a show called Winky Dink. But yes.

[00:57:34] Where you would get a plastic piece of piece of plastic put on the TV and you would draw like a bridge and in the cartoon they had to escape across from the bad guys and going up and you draw a bridge on

[00:57:48] the TV and kids would just scribble on the TV without getting the. That's an interesting precursor. Now you do it digitally now. Yeah, I got. I got one that nobody remembers that was on Channel 11. When I was a kid, this woman called Fun with Joya.

[00:58:07] She was a black lady. Joya. She was a jazz singer, right? And she had this guy called Professor and she would always sing songs and do all this real cool stuff and all I remember is watching that show and being really, I thought she was really, really cool.

[00:58:23] She was on Channel 11. Channel 11 would get a lot of stuff that was like, okay, it was on first run now we're going to put on syndication and now it's here now. So Fun with Joya was on. The Magic Garden. Time for Joya then called Joya's Fun School.

[00:58:35] Okay, cool. Yeah. I didn't know about this joke. Romper Room. Yeah, I remember. You know, the Romper Room lady had the magic mirror where she could see you through the TV and the name to come up. Okay. Okay. So that was I know one. But it was.

[00:58:52] I got it. I got it. I got it. I got this one between the between the lions. What? Did you ever see that one? That was an interesting and Ernie and Bert actually appeared on. What's it called?

[00:59:08] Between the lions and you might have mistaken it for the puzzle place. Okay. The lions just spelled the name. It was just one of many other. I think it was off these both of these were often on after Wishbone on PBS,

[00:59:22] but these were interesting in that they they had an interesting kind of after school kind of bunch of characters all getting together and solving games and everything. But it was very much same kind of deal.

[00:59:33] Like I would call either of these kind of a mixture of Bill and I meets Sesame Street. It was just an interesting way to learn some science technology and then have some amusing characters as well as bring up social topics.

[00:59:46] Remember John Candy would do a takeoff on Mr. Wizard on SET. Oh, God. Yes. He was smoking a cigarette did not want to be there. And he because it's not kid, you know, it just.

[00:59:59] That was that was a great piece of the sulfur gas that on the kids arm. Is it also though, while though how the same formula got successfully kind of duplicated in all of these kinds of shows just for again still so is to some extent.

[01:00:15] I mean, you kind of got this kind of interactivity with activity centers that were on like PC CD ROM games kind of two. Yeah. And now I feel like that's lost because now everything is so technology.

[01:00:29] But you see so many parents often shouting at their kid to just play video games in the corner and leave them alone. And it's like, well, the interactivity in the learning captivating part is kind of gone.

[01:00:41] I'm happy that my our generation, you know, you know, our generation got to see Sesame Street. My nieces are more like my cousins than my nieces because we're practically almost like the same age. My nieces got to see Sesame Street and then my grandnephews are watching Sesame Street

[01:01:00] because, you know, I look at I look at kids today. They don't have, you know, that parental guidance now that they had we had, you know, parents are now parents are too busy, you know, go on your iPad and watch something. Okay.

[01:01:16] They wanted you to get off your laptop or PC. You're melting your brain. Now it's kind of just. It's like. Do anything as long as it's not too violent and there's no sex. It's like I watch with my nephew.

[01:01:27] I watch with my little nephew watches and I'm like, there's the thumbs. I'm kind of looking at you. What is this about? He goes, Oh, just that. I'm like, did you ever watch Sesame Street? And I don't know if he has or not.

[01:01:39] I know my other Matthew, I think did. And I don't remember, you know, it's just the kids that I don't. The thing was, was that when we were growing up. And I always say this Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers neighborhood,

[01:01:54] the electric company, you know, you know, all the other. What was it? Schoolhouse Rock Cartoon Schoolhouse Rock. Yeah. It was all kind of like, you know, this big ball that we got to be in, you know, because it's big. Yeah.

[01:02:10] It's like we were, we were just like going with like learning. And like Mike said, yeah, schoolhouse rock was definitely kind of a precursor to. You can have a catchy song and teach some history to people. I'm just a bill and it wasn't shoved down our throat.

[01:02:25] It just learned it, you know, that is true. I do think half the time, half these family films or shows will stop too much for exposition and the humor will distract too much from the learning process.

[01:02:39] And it's like, well, it's not exactly how this all works, but okay. Okay. Well, and then not only that, but the writing back then it was, you know, kids coming out of college, it was still, you know, there was still humor in the writing. People are writing.

[01:02:53] They, but I kind of get where it is kind of lost because I mean, when you are just kind of melting your brain in front of screens, it's easy to just kind of just be out there kind of.

[01:03:07] I mean, I remember watching the, there's one episode, if anybody remembers, I think it's who was it? The Cookie Monster was with this little kid, right? This little, this little black kid and they were counting to like 15, right? Yeah. And the Cookie Monster, Cookie Monster is with them.

[01:03:25] And then it fast forwarded that kid now the kid was like in, the kid was like in the army and stuff like that. So, okay, David, you ready? You ready? You ready to uh, yeah. Okay. So they counted all the way to 20 says, thank you for doing that.

[01:03:38] Yeah, Grover, you're my friend. You're my friend too. And they helped each other. I mean, that was something I loved watching, you know, I loved when Robin Williams was on. Yeah, and we'll be Goldberg.

[01:03:48] They would be called Robin Williams was on and he was doing something with Elmo and there's outtakes where he's with Elmo. And it was just so funny to watch, you know, Robin Williams work with a Merc with one of the Muppets, you know. Absolutely.

[01:04:05] You know, and I can remember like, you know, seeing people on that show going, you know, like James Gia Dolfini was on the show one time. Yeah, he was. Yeah, that's right. William Neeson was in one. Oh, people break up sometimes. But you'll love this.

[01:04:22] There's this one Indian actress. I've been watching, finishing up the show suits. Have you heard of Nitya Sajjar? Yeah. All right. Yeah. So for those who don't know, she played Lila from 96 to 2015 at there she is. I see her pop up on suits and it was so funny.

[01:04:40] I did not expect to because I'm looking at her the entire time. Like, I know this person. I don't know where I look her up. I'm like, of course that's who it is. Somebody somebody else was on that show.

[01:04:54] Not not the not the kid who played short round. But another kid. Oh, is your other? Yeah. He was on them. He was on the show. He took over Mr. Hooper's store, I think. And oh, yeah. He was on the ER. Okay, that narrows it down a bit.

[01:05:23] I'm looking at it. I keep thinking it's a guy who played long duck thong and sweet 16 candles. Or was it BD Wong? I don't remember. I think you're close. But I remember seeing a couple of famous people on that show.

[01:05:44] And being like Ethel Merman was on that show. You know, after her marriage to Ernest Borghine, to which I would have been like, for any Borghine shows up, I'm going to shit my pants. There's a took over Mr. Hooper's store.

[01:06:06] But I remember all the cast people on that show. I remember Alan Marocca. Who Alan Marocca is the Japanese actor who played Alan, the current owner of Hooper's store. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember him. Picture doing a book reading at the. Wow. Okay. Holy shit. Yeah.

[01:06:24] I have seen him in so many other things. I didn't. He was in volunteer. I think he was in volunteers. Oh, then that he must be in like one of the first scenes that if that's If you know he's in the movie. Right. Right. No, I get it.

[01:06:36] I'm just saying, but he's probably in one of the opening scenes with that. Yeah. But I remember like they had Gordon. I would always light up anytime I saw Gordon on a Dick Wolf show. I think he was on an episode of the wire as a patrolman,

[01:06:50] but I would always light up. I'm like, that's freaking Gordon from. He played a pimp. He played this really. I was he played a pimp in a movie, like a black exploitation movie. I'm like thinking myself. Okay. I'm like, I'm going through these like old, old movies and

[01:07:05] I'm like, holy fuck. He was in a black exploitation movie. Holy shit. I think he was in the candy candy. The candy tantrum man or something like that. But I remember, yeah, I remember Roscoe Roscoe. What's his name? It was it was Gordon, his wife. Yeah, Roscoe Orman.

[01:07:27] Yeah. Okay. Roscoe Orman, his and his wife who was on the show. Oh, was it Willie Dynamide? Yeah, Willie Dynamide. That's what it was. Oh my God. Then there was Maria and her husband, Louise. Then there was Bob who we all loved. Yeah.

[01:07:46] Bob, Bob when he passed away, I was like, dude, that sucks, bro. He was like the one guy we all love. We all love that. We all love that original crew, you know, and then Dave, there was David and he left

[01:07:57] because he had mental problems from what I understand. Oh, sorry. Yeah. He was on the show for like four or five seasons and he left and he passed away. I always wondered. There was Mr. Hooper. And then, you know, they would have people come in

[01:08:11] and out of the show. You know, Linda, I remember the most because Linda was the first time I ever saw a deaf person. Like I said, you know, I know people couldn't hear. You know, she was neat. Was this other, was it Maria? Maria and Louise.

[01:08:31] That's what it was. Yes. Yeah. And look, they got let go and a lot of people were pissed they got let go. They were like, why'd they let him go? Yeah. No, no, why? Budget cuts or something like that. And I'm like thinking to myself, dude,

[01:08:47] that's like that's like the fucking cast right there. That's like, that's like, you know, getting rid of like Ringo Starr from the Beatles or something like that, you know. Was this in 2015 because it says she retired? Yeah. She retired. She retired my ass, you know.

[01:09:01] She did not retire. She was asked to leave, you know. Bob is asking me why would they do that? Just a passing turnover, you know, how many years are you going to be on that show? I will admit who is some of those OE segments

[01:09:17] with Elmo got pretty annoying in the 2000s. I was just like, OK, this is making us learn, but it's also kind of it feels like they're just trying to just take up space. Because if you look at it real closely, you're really not learning much during Elmo's segments.

[01:09:36] So let's ask you what I hear. What do you think of this? A tourist who is OK, settle down. What's your take on him, Mike? Elmo? Yeah. Is he a bad guy or is he just a narcissist? He's pretty much he's hyper.

[01:10:00] Gonson now are probably the two most hyper. But Gonson, you love because you said he was all you'd always come up with these strange ideas, you know. He and Grover, too, would just come out of nowhere. Did Gonson play drums in the band? No, no. That was animal.

[01:10:23] Animal. OK. Animal played the drums, played the sax. The guitar player was Dr. Teeth. Next to the electric mayhem, was it? Yeah, Dr. Teeth and the electric. And they're doing a movie. They did a movie about them. Yeah, within the Janus with the yarn hair, remember? Yeah.

[01:10:48] The Janus, man. Yeah. Yeah. Born to add Sesame Street album, which is musical parodies. Born to add obviously tick off on Born to Runs. Bruce Spring's Bruce Stringbean in the S Street van. I might have that one. Really? Hold up. No.

[01:11:15] OK, OK, no, I don't have that one. There was another, but yeah, it's a total, even the cover alone is a Springsteen hit. Shit, there was this other one I think we used to have on cassette when playing the car on loop.

[01:11:31] And they had Aerosmith singing a rendition of I Love Trash. OK, so that's probably. It's probably way down the line like a lady. And then the letter B, let it be. Beatles spelled correctly. Oh my God. They did so many albums.

[01:11:53] They probably have more albums than National Lampoon. It's like that around the clock. The honkers. And the Cookie Master was doing a very white takeoff. Me going to munch you, munch you, munch you. Cookie Master and the Crumbs Unlimited Orchestra. Oh my God.

[01:12:11] OK, so it was Emma Polozo from 98 and that one had Gloria Estefan, the Mighty Boss Tones with the Count Fiji's and Celine Dion and Kenny Loggins. Wow. OK, this is all in house stuff though with the. And I can't get no cooperation. Mick Swagger and the Sesame Street.

[01:12:35] Jesus. Mick Swagger. Wow. And hey, food instead of hate you cooking. Yeah. And then we're counted and some are just songs from the show. Like I wish they had a friend to play with me, Bert. That's you know, that's the one.

[01:12:53] The one I love is I had them up. I have them up at show record and it has it's not easy being green, which I think is one of the best songs to talk about, you know. So they crossed over a lot of Sesame Street stuff on that.

[01:13:08] They imported it. No, not really. No. Was it green? Was that from the Muppet Show? Or yeah, because that was from the Muppet Show. That was from the Muppet Show. The one that got the Oscar. Log was the Rainbow Connection by Paul Williams.

[01:13:27] And so Kermit's saying it's not easy being green. Yeah. Oh, OK. Being the color of the leaves, you know. And I remember that they played them on the Cosby Show and Rudy was like they were telling Rudy she was too small or too little and they played that.

[01:13:47] And you know, you cry a little bit. I mean, there's some your songs. Van Morrison covered it too. Yeah. I still cry a little bit. I'm sorry. It is beautiful music and all fair does. I still cry. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

[01:14:05] I cry when I hear the Rainbow Connection because it's just like. It's just mystical kind of. Yeah. The introduction of them on the big screen. Yeah, doesn't it open the movie? Yeah. Then you get to close the movie. Spoiling it. Yeah. Thing I love is my senior year.

[01:14:25] We had to pick we had to pick songs and these girls picked a song called A Place in This World by some, you know, Christian Rock. It was a piece of shit. It's a piece of shit from the get go. Right.

[01:14:43] I said I was thinking, okay, what would be good to play? I thought in my rival. Yeah. In my life, you know, the Beatles. Yeah, sure. That's good. And that just something popular. He says how about the Rainbow Connection? Right.

[01:14:57] So I wrote it down the Rainbow Connection and like everybody was going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, so you know, everybody went with this song and I was just like, you know,

[01:15:08] I would sing like bad lyrics, like, you know, looking for roaming for a night to find a place in this girl. You know, just just terrible lyrics. And I would have been great if we'd done the Rainbow Connection because,

[01:15:22] you know, I would have loved to have done it because it's like, you know, Same message about us growing up, you know. And, you know, it's a great song. And you hear nowadays, you know, when you get older, you hear the Rainbow Connection,

[01:15:35] you're like, it makes more sense now, you know, you know. And it's written by adults for everyone, but yeah, it's a good way of just kind of evolving in a way, just seeing stuff that I think that's why it has all this whole

[01:15:54] franchise as less as long as it has. It's meant for all kind of consumption, as opposed to one kind of audience or you had to be there to get it. I'm surprised they never had George Gessel on the Muppet show. George Gessel, I worked with Carmichael in 1943.

[01:16:16] I worked with Fawzi. I worked with him once. You worked with the Toastmaster. George, yeah. Elbor Brooks, a Star is Bought album at the last track is a, the Carmichael. I played the Carmichael or they give you a script and you play the record

[01:16:37] in say your part and I did it on the radio when I DJed. So, George Gessel shows up about halfway through it. Oh my God. Yeah. The real George Gessel? The actual George Gessel, so it would

[01:16:50] have been 73-ish. Comedy minus one. Comedy minus one, yep. Yeah. Yep. I remember one point he goes, George Gessel goes, who are you talking to? I'm talking to you. That's why it's scripted.

[01:17:06] My dad was hearing us. How the heck are you, if you didn't know what was going on, you think Elbor Brooks and George Gessel were in the studio. So, it was good.

[01:17:15] Well, the thing is with that, with that. That's how it was. With that record, there was a famous thing like drums minus one. Like you had to play the drums to the record or something like that.

[01:17:26] Yeah. Yep. And Brooks was like, Elbor Brooks, he's like, Comedy minus one. Okay, you have to be this character in this sketch. And the funny thing was his father did a character called Park Your Carcass. Yeah. And this is the truth. His father was at a fryer's roast.

[01:17:47] Yeah. I know where you're going. And his father does. He knows. You know about this, but his father had done his bit. He sat down and slumped over the table and died. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He was there

[01:18:03] a doctor in the house and everybody thought it was a joke. Yeah. Joke. And it wasn't. Wow. But I wish they had like, I wish they'd had a super late

[01:18:17] how I want to go. Yeah. But it's, I'd rather it be by elevator, but we'll see. I'll let death decide for me. Okay, this guy is dark. It did. Well, speaking of which, what is your favorite kind of,

[01:18:34] we've mentioned some off color moments on here. Are there any other like recurring gags that made you just kind of going on the Wicca alone? I am actually surprised at how many references

[01:18:45] there are to the bees and the trees in different songs on either Muppet show format. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, I'm sure parents must have been refined or like, hey,

[01:19:00] at least my kid found out how stuff works. The bits I always loved was like Grover being a waiter at a restaurant. And the guy keeps, he keeps screwing up the order for the guy.

[01:19:18] You know, I can't do the voice, my voice is sort of, you know, and the guy says, I just want a peanut butter and jelly and he keeps screwing up the order like over and over again.

[01:19:32] And then there was one I loved with the Sam Eagle. You guys remember Sam Eagle from the Muppet show? Yeah. So you are all a bunch of weirdos. That's Frank Oz doing that voice, right?

[01:19:46] So he's supposed to be like this like really uptight, you know? So the thing was was that I always tell this story when I was in middle school we had a principal,

[01:20:00] Mr. I Raji, right? And I was like, he was telling us kids one day something about, you know, how strict this, you know, I don't tolerate anything else only. And I just turned to one of my friends

[01:20:11] and said, Jesus Christ, we're getting lectured by Sam the Eagle. And if you looked at him, he looked like Sam the Eagle. He was bald, we called them bald eagle. And it was like,

[01:20:23] it was like, you know, you're all a bunch of weirdos. And then he used to do the, I used to love like some of the gags were great, like, you know, a Muppet news flash,

[01:20:31] you know, with with Kermit the Frog, you know, interviewing somebody, pigs in space. I loved. You know, there's certain things. The narrator come in and they'd all start looking around looking for the narrator. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:20:52] Did you see the narrator? No, I've never seen him. You know, they just did a couple years ago, they did a Muppets Takeover, the 02. And David Tennant came out as Doctor Who

[01:21:07] when they did pigs in space. And he came out and he says, the guy goes, is that a lightsaber? He says, no, that's a sonic screwdriver. That's it. I was like, okay, shots fired, you know, but yeah, there's so many gags and so many things you see.

[01:21:28] You know, I got to watch him over again so I can just get the jokes again, you know, because at some point, you know, with Sesame Street, you know, there's some great things to

[01:21:37] watch, you know, like there's when they do songs, like they did one time they did, it's a bunch of animals in the forest, right? And you hear, you hear something happening here, there's a man with a gun over there and it's a hunter coming in

[01:21:57] telling me, I say stop children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going on. And he shoots up and you just hear like, you see a plane crashing the background or something like that. And that was that was a really good thing to do, you know.

[01:22:12] So that was, you know, that was something I always loved, you know, I mean, there's so much to go on and there's so much to know that I've got to watch.

[01:22:20] I just got to watch it over again, get it through my head again. What was funny, you know, stat, of course, that we're in Waldorf. Are you waiting for the end? Are you waiting for the

[01:22:29] world end? Before the end of this show? I mean, where they associate that with Mr. Science Theater because they're riffing them up at show. They really are. Yeah, the time. Yeah. Right. Yes, I mean, there's a great memory saying infinity and it's statler and statler

[01:22:50] and war dog statler and world are looking at mystery science theater than mystery science theater is looking statler and war dwarf. Yeah, I've seen that with the loop. Yeah, I have seen mashups of that. Yeah. So speaking of the critics, it's time to critique the ones

[01:23:05] you're seeing. Who'd like to go first? I can go first because I'm just, at random, just five of my favorite things about the Muppet Show. Okay. Bird, associated. We talked about a really snuffalopagus. I just thought there was a

[01:23:19] neat character. Hello bird. Just and he's probably the biggest Muppet and the concept that nobody can see him but bird and then like James said, later everybody could see him. Right. And I guess bottom leap through that with Dean Stockwell's character too,

[01:23:39] all the kids could see him. I think he wanted to say where Sam, Sam left into a mom's body and the door only the daughter could see Al. Okay. Yeah. I also I don't remember the Muppets. It was on Sesame Street. I don't know what the

[01:24:01] characters were but near far. I love the count because the concept is so simple. He counts. One, two, three bodies. He's just a cool character. Yeah. He had to be a little scary. There was a skit with Ernie and Bert turning in for the night

[01:24:37] and hey, bird, he hasn't dropped the other shoe yet. Apparently the upstairs apartment Ernie couldn't get to sleep until the guy dropped his other shoe. He's waiting for the shoe to

[01:24:48] drop. Oh, God. I remember that. Get a whole extended bid on that. I can't hear the shoe drop. Ernie got a sweet. Yeah. That was a fun skit. That was one of those ones you just keep

[01:25:01] you don't get the joke and you don't get the meaning of the other shoe to drop. Yeah. Right. You're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah. Yeah. They did a whole play on that and then the Muppet precursor of the Muppets show

[01:25:14] was the special and they had a seven deadly sin contest in that. And I particularly remember lust, this phallic symbol like Muppet comes out. It is an interesting precursor to the actual

[01:25:31] Muppet theme where they're saying the end of sex and violence. Yeah. It was a little more adult than the way the Muppets show turned out. And one quick sign out. You guys also think Fossey

[01:25:44] Bear was just a hack. Yeah. I think that was the joke. Yeah. That was the joke. Yeah. I mean, because literally Kermit is doing his job for him while he's micromanaging him and he's always blowing

[01:25:54] him off or distracted doing something or laughing at his own jokes. So those are my five takes. All right. What picks those are? Do you want my five or? You can rank whatever you want. I was going to go from the whole cow one.

[01:26:18] We're just crazy. Okay. My five are the Muppet news with Spike Milligan where he does the news with the Muppet newscaster. And it's basically like he literally does it, he's side by side with him. And they say a mad man was seen today wearing a suit and it's

[01:26:45] Spike Milligan says really? We must get after him and he runs off. The one I was there's one on Sesame Street I always loved which was the one where this is a little heartbreaking when I said when Mr. Hooper died because

[01:27:12] that kind of taught us when we were kids, even though people are gone, they're always, the memories are always going to be around with them. That was something that hit me pretty hard as a kid and prepares you for what's going to happen when you're an adult and

[01:27:27] stuff like that. I always loved whenever Miss Piggy would get pissed off. Oh yeah and she knows kung fu for whatever reason. She'd always do that because she always liked this prim and proper starlet and then someone would say something like really? Boom, she'd like knock somebody out.

[01:27:49] I loved whenever the other one was Phenomena. My mom used to say that to me when I was a little kid and I would be laughing hysterically. I loved in the great Muppet Caper. We got to catch them with their red-handed. What color are their hands now?

[01:28:21] And then the one I always loved in the end of the Muppet movie was there's a part where they start seeing the brainboat connection and I think the camera pulled back and all the

[01:28:39] Muppets were there. And then there's a special mention I always say when they did the memorial service for Jim Henson. No, it was the memorial service for Jim Henson. They had Kermit sitting there, the new puppet. They were going to introduce Kermit's new voice. Oh really? And

[01:29:02] they had him singing the rainbow connection and all the Muppet tears came out of his mouth. You know, Carol Spinley was in the Big Bird outfit and Snuffle Luffacus was there. And I think everybody from the cast was singing it. And the way he did his memorial service,

[01:29:21] nobody was allowed to wear black. Everybody had to dress up brightly with bright colors and stuff like that. It was so beautiful to remember a man like that. I mean, that's something I always remember. It's not the shows, it's just the human condition

[01:29:37] of what he made us be as children. It's kind of poetic. Yeah. And hearing that song in the beginning, you know, sunny day chasing a cloud, you know, you always want to live on Sesame Street.

[01:29:52] And it would always change it up. I recall sometime in the 90s, there would be times where they'd be following Big Bird kind of walking out of state and he hit his nose once

[01:30:01] in a while on like a telephone pole and then keep walking. And it was just kind of an irony that they added in addition to the iconic theme. And it would never be the same opening too.

[01:30:14] I think that's why people were drawn into it also. It's like, what's going to happen on this episode even though it's ultimately the same learning formula. I just love at the end

[01:30:25] where today's show is brought to you by the letters Y, K and J and the numbers three, seven and 12. Oh man. Good stuff. Oh, you guys want to know something? You guys want to know something really funny?

[01:30:48] It is. Paul Benedict. Do you remember the Jefferson's? Paul Benedict? Mr. Yeah, that he played the neighbor. The greatest neighbor. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Turns out he was on early episodes of Sesame Street as the painter. Remember he would paint like one,

[01:31:10] two, three, four. That was him? Yeah, that was him with a beard. And then one of his assistants was stalker Channing. Oh, wow. From Greece. Yeah, I'm watching. I'm like, holy shit, the stalker Channing. And that's Mr. Blu's name. Paul Benedict's character forgotten that show.

[01:31:32] And I was like, what? There's one where he scuba diving and he paints a two on the guy's head. You know, it was just funny to watch, you know. So I just thought I might bring that

[01:31:42] to your attention, you know, and we'll keep an eye out the people who did the animation for one, two, three, four, five, nine, 10, 11, 12. That supposedly is some of the animators from yellow submarine. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah. Had a similar kind of a lot of

[01:32:01] little animated short sunset, Sesame Street. Yeah. Wow. That is that is wild. I had no idea it was interconnected that same way. But there's a rocket launch in the tipping over. Yeah, yeah, there was a rocket launch and it would often be showing some space info,

[01:32:24] I think. Yeah. Yeah. The rocket was tipping over and the guy doing the kind of just pointed like, oh, look, you know, strange, I think out of I would piggyback on that. Those are

[01:32:37] definitely two animations that kind of stand out to me a lot as well as just running kind of learning formulas. But if I had to think who are the first like faces I remember, it would definitely

[01:32:48] be Maria Gordon, but it also probably be Bob Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. Just those were kind of the free guys who I always just kind of thought we're kind of holding down the fort.

[01:33:00] Okay, so I'm going to do a quick ranking here just so we can get this underway. Yeah. So it's on a five star scale. I'm going to probably rank the original Muppet show Muppets Tonight, the 2015 mockumentary show, the original Muppet movie, Treasure Island,

[01:33:16] the Christmas specials from both 87 in 2002 and from space of four out of five. I feel like those are like the peak. Like you really want to check those out just because they aren't

[01:33:28] reliant on being there at the time. They're also got numerous gags and feature all the characters probably at their best moments. Yeah, three and a half out of five definitely would give to the Christmas Carol Sesame Street, Emmett Otters jump in Christmas dinosaurs. Oh God, I forgot

[01:33:46] about that. No, good. The first look at the birds in the trees. It's a great one. I was talking to Ricky Morgan and he talked about how he plays that. He has that on every Christmas. I'm

[01:33:59] like, good on you. Labyrinth dinosaurs and first two seasons of Farscape. I definitely think those are all very intriguing to check out. Three out of five definitely give to Elmo and Grouchland, Dark Crystal, Muppets Haunted Mansion, which is a recent thing, Dream Child,

[01:34:23] Dark Crystal. You guys might also want to check out this very obscure TV movie from like 2015 called Turkey Hollow. This was a... I've never heard of that. Yeah, it was made on Lifetime as

[01:34:36] Mary Steinburgen, but it was based on a on May Jim Henson script that later became a comic book and it's just a really it's a monster family film that takes place during Thanksgiving.

[01:34:48] Oh, really? It had a fun cast. It's very easy going. I would show it to kids and a two and a half out of five. I would probably give to the Muppet Mayhem. I didn't feel like this

[01:34:59] was a good use. Muppet Babies also didn't really... I'm glad Howie Mandel has got some work, but this did not hold up as well. And then part, like I said, there's funny parts and parts of the

[01:35:15] Muppet Caper, but I feel like there's some other stuff that could be better done. And then a two out of five, I would give to Alph and Baron the Big Blue House. I just always felt like those were

[01:35:27] not the best use of the formula and had in and the Muppets Wizard of Oz. Oh, if you ever saw that one, that is a painfully annoying cameo by Tarantino. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where I thought Disney was trying to encourage them to do force,

[01:35:47] turn out a special now and again. And it was just like, there's no need guys. And the recent two Disney films, I'm going to give those a one out of five, that those aren't going to appeal to your kid and they're not going to appeal to today's

[01:36:02] crowd. That's just kind of a cash crab. Yeah, they kind of, they're kind of pushing them out, you know, I love Jack Black to death, but even he's kind of wasted. Yeah. I'll say this, the Muppet movie is probably, you know, it's like, to me, it's the Muppet

[01:36:18] movies, Muppets from Outer Space, Treasure Island. Yes. Treasure Island. I like a Christmas Carol. And I liked, what was the M and Otters, Jumping and Christmas? Because I thought that was,

[01:36:33] that's something we all grew up on. You know, that was on HBO a lot when we were kids. Just a pinch perfect. And much like Fragile Rock. I mean, probably without that, you probably

[01:36:44] don't get Fragile Rock because that was on HBO before they were really a thing. Yeah. I flunked your weight on the happy time murders. I'm ashamed to say I saw that in theaters, but

[01:36:57] depending on the day, I kind of rain, there's parts of it that I would give a free out of five and there's other parts I'd give a two. There's, I didn't like that. I just, I'm the same way

[01:37:08] as just there are some using gags and bloopers, but you got to get through a lot of very poorly done transitions to get to any kind of amusement. To me, that was like shitting on Jim Hanson,

[01:37:19] you know, you know, I just think that's like they want, they always had kind of some risque naughty stuff, but it just went on way too long. Yeah, it probably would have worked better as an

[01:37:31] SNL short and cut out some serious stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's ultimately not a very good movie because despite, which is a real shame because there's a lot of great comedians in it. It's

[01:37:44] just like you say it, it's not really, it would have been better probably as a South Park parody because it doesn't really deserve to be called a Henson production. Well, well here's what get, here's what got me was when they were doing SNL and if any of

[01:37:57] you remember seeing it, they did one the last time I think they did it. It was the Muppets aren't here, but we got some stand-ins. So it was two socks and cuts over and Chevy chase

[01:38:09] doing the two socks. Yeah. And I think that's when Henson kind of was like, all right, I'm not fucking do, I'm not doing this. This is ridiculous because Bellucci said I'm not playing

[01:38:22] to pieces of fucking felt or something like that. That probably also on the Elborbrook short films on there taking up time too, which they resented. Yeah. So that probably explains why Chevy's didn't follow that bird. Yeah. Yeah, I got, yeah. You know, hey, money, yeah, beat them up

[01:38:42] the movie. Something on your list reminded me of a mystery science, Cedar recurring riff. Jim Henson's Jack Palin's babies. Oh yeah. It looked like a younger Jack Palin's they would do that several times. Oh, the one that

[01:39:01] Jim Henson's Edgar Winter babies. Yeah. Yes, the Edgar obviously is about to say the Edgar Winter babies. Yeah, it was definitely the one that stuck with me the most because I just saw it with Ringo a couple weeks ago. That's cool. Oh, he's still in conflict? Yeah.

[01:39:17] Was that your winner? Yeah. How was that? Awesome. Yeah, it was like, we're gonna go see Ringo. And oh, you got the guy from Total, we got guy from Men at Work. Oh my God. Yeah. Where is

[01:39:30] this in Michigan? This is Oh, he's touring. But Grand Rapids played the boss hall. Wow. What a pairing. Here in Dallas, there was some other kind of independent music jam festival. They got Steve Miller and a few other 70s 80s rock bands. Nice. Probably Toto.

[01:39:56] The guy from Total, Edgar Winter and there's one other band I can't remember who it was now. Steve is the person to ban. Is Animal Playing? Who was it? Is Animal Playing? No. He had an extra drummer though.

[01:40:16] By the way, two things. Animal is based on the late great Keith Moon. If you look at the way Animal's drum kit is set up and the way he acts, it's based on Keith Moon. I think somebody knew somebody in the who

[01:40:33] and they just designed this Muppet to be like, look carefully at Keith Moon and look carefully at Animal. And it's almost like if you put one on top of the other,

[01:40:41] they almost look alike. You know, wow. I just made the ring goes out. It was the guy from the average white band. Now, I don't know all the names. Oh, it's too Hamish. But they would

[01:40:49] also do their own songs. They do like two songs from average white. You know, so it was. Yeah, I think they do some average white band covers in from space. But that's interesting because like you say, they have all these connections from England from where the original

[01:41:04] show is filmed. So that might be where they might have met Keith Moon at one of those performing halls or back rooms. So yeah, they were talking about and then not only that, but you want something

[01:41:16] really, really good about that weird zero mustel film the show. I think six weeks before he died. Oh, wow. The Muppet show his Muppet show ups and it aired after he passed away. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah.

[01:41:38] He did a really good job on it too, you know. But unfortunately he passed away. So they didn't see anything like, you know, in tribute to or anything like that. I think it was probably

[01:41:49] already in the can, but yeah. That's crazy. And that's been fun guys. Yoda should be include your rankings in their next time. If you was right, I guess we'll include them in the next ranking

[01:42:07] somehow somewhere. Yeah. So next week, we're going to try and do paid tribute to Marty Croft. Yeah. Yeah. And talk about his partner Sid and just there, we've talked about a bit of them tonight,

[01:42:24] but you know, James and I were talking off air and he was like, oh, we just lost another beloved icon. It's like, you know, it's sad. It's like, it's like everybody we know is dying

[01:42:35] off like Norman Lear passed away. We were trying to do a Norman Lear, especially earlier. We haven't done it yet, but yeah, then he just passed away at 101. We're like, damn it. You know, I have I have something really weird. We were talking about

[01:42:52] a couple, a couple of shows ago, we were talking about Gary Marshall. Yeah. And I was watching I was watching these grindhouse trailers, right? And there's a movie with Jacqueline Bissette called The Grasshopper from 1970. The Grasshopper, right? She plays

[01:43:13] a young woman who gets like involved in like, you know, drugs and showbiz and all this shit. Oh my God, Joseph Codden, Jim Brown. Yeah. Gary Marshall and Jerry Paris directed it.

[01:43:30] And I went, are you fucking kidding me? You know, and then Gary Marshall did a movie called Doctors in Love. Yeah. Oh my God. Young Doctors in Love. Yeah, he's making fun of soap operas. Yeah.

[01:43:45] You have to watch that movie. There's a scene in there where they're they're disgusting and you see this like midget, midget. He's trying to reach the pay phone in the back. And their whole

[01:43:59] time they're talking to each other. And you see like the midget, he's like jumping up trying to grab the pay phone. He falls off the stool. I mean, I was I was in hysterics watching that.

[01:44:11] Yeah, that's that's the movie he did. And you know, the thing that the thing gets me is like, now, you know, we lost Norman Lear. You know, I said, somebody said this on the Gilbert

[01:44:21] Goffrey pictures of somebody check on Dick Van Dyke and Mel Brooks, please. Yeah. Because when Dick Van Dyke and when Mel Brooks goes game over, that's it. I'm done. You know, he lost Andre. He also does a great bit in Elbert Brooks Lost in America,

[01:44:41] where he plays the casino owner or the manager. That's him. Oh yeah. And he's and people thought he was an actual, you know, he wasn't a well known actor. He's behind the scenes guy, but

[01:44:52] people bought that he was an actual casino owner. He watched the movie where Albert tries to get their money back. Yeah, it is one of the funny ones. We lost our money. We wanted back. Yeah, I can't give you

[01:45:05] your money back. No, in that movie, Santa Claus saves the day. So then we get it. Yeah. It's like, I can't do it justice. You got to see the movie. You can see it on YouTube, I believe. So much like as we're talking.

[01:45:22] That's wild. We also lost Andre Braga also. Yeah. Wow. What did you pass away from? As I said, but like some other kind of, I think chest pains or just some other kind of long term.

[01:45:37] They said short illness. So it could have been something. The thing that gets me the most is when we talk about Norman Lear, there was, I was looking at some of the shows he did that were,

[01:45:49] that weren't really that popular. Like, you know, he would have them out and they'd be gone within like 13 weeks. So there's two, there's two that he did. I think he did Hotel Baltimore. Yeah. And I think he did one called where the roles were reversed. So the men

[01:46:08] were like the women and the women were like the men. Yep. All the glitters, all that glitters. Yes. And there's another one. There were a couple that he did that kind of like felt, you know,

[01:46:18] they kind of felt short like to it, you know, 281 house or street. Remember that? Where John Amos, John Amos owned the house. Archie Bunker was in, which was great because it was kind of like, you know, they patched up things. That's good in real life. Yeah.

[01:46:38] But I was, I was, you know, Norman Lear and since yeah, those are the two, you know, those are the two biggies and Norman Lear was the big one, you know, Norman Lear is the one where

[01:46:46] I'm like, I'm kind of sitting there going, you know, it's all there, but the guy was a god damn genius, you know? Yeah. So the movie with Bob Newhart when the whole town tried to quit smoking.

[01:47:05] Cold turkey. Cold turkey. That was Norman Lear. I think it was and I keep thinking he had a hand that start the revolution without me. Okay. I gotta lift that up. Hey, Ken, hey, Ken, Gary Marshall. Gary Marshall was in a show called Hey, Leon Lord.

[01:47:25] And then and then there was an episode of the odd couple where Myrna Turner who was a Peggy Marshall's character left the show and they come, oh you're leaving, you know, the show. I want you to see my sister,

[01:47:43] my brother, my sister. This is Myrna. This is Myrna Turner and Myrna Turner and they'll go, hello. And it's actually Penny Marshall's sister and Tony and Gary Marshall. So that was the big joke, you know, the in-joke with them, you know?

[01:48:05] Am I the only one? I liked Happy Days the first two seasons before they had the live audience. It seemed like when they got to live audience, it got broader. Everyone was louder. It was more

[01:48:19] down home. You could go back and watch. Maybe they're on age well, I don't know. I watched the whole run, you know? The single camera shoot was good. Yeah. When they did it

[01:48:31] on the odd couple, but when they got to be more, when they did the three-camera shoot, which is like kind of like what I love Lucy did, I think the thing is that

[01:48:44] it stretched out more. It wasn't as claustrophobic because I always feel one of those first two seasons at Happy Days. I feel claustrophobic with the characters. I mean, there are some funny situations, but it's just, it feels too small. What's fascinating is why

[01:48:58] the lines develop too, you know? Yeah. It actually takes over the series. So. Yeah. So. All right. Very cool guys. This was a lot of fun. I wonder, can we just say, Tom, we wonder where you are tonight.

[01:49:18] I'm not, we're not that angry at you, Tom. We want you to come home. Please. Your mother and your I miss you. She made noodle kugel for you. Come home. Please, Tom, please come up now.

[01:49:32] Now, Tom, we missed you tonight, Tom. So when he joins us next week, we'll see him. Can you do a solo one of them and splice them in, Tom? I mean, we could try that, but. He'll be around again. He'll be around.

[01:49:58] Why was he not around? Around he was not. I'm sure he was. So this was a delight, guys, and probably the best public special we've done in a while. All right. Good. All right. See you guys around. Okay.

[01:50:17] Hot off for now. Can you tell me how to get? And whoever listens, next week, we got to do our big Merry Christmas for everybody. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Oh, it's next week already. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next weekend. I got to get some shopping done.

[01:50:37] Can you tell me how to get? Can you tell me how to get some sales? No. No. Get get this. That's a question. Yeah. Oh. Tell me how to get some. Yeah. I would like to know how to get some good sales.

[01:50:52] I like the Captain Kangaroo theme too. You know what's weird? I heard that on another show. I'm like, why are they playing the Captain Kangaroo? Someone was doing a homage. Was either that or try and the insult common dog do something, some gross parody of it.

[01:51:22] We didn't mention him. There's another puppet. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know what you're gonna want. And you have to watch Saturdays TV Fun House, TV Fun House on Comedy Central when that was on with the puppets. Holy shit.

[01:51:36] I left. I never laughed my ass off because that's the weird thing about Smigal. He just takes things and blows them out of blows them out of the water. You know. So. All right guys. All right. Always a delight, my dude. Take care. See you later. Good night.

[01:51:54] See you later. Be safe. All right. Always fun, my dude. Always fun. All right. Thanks. Take care. Bye. A million for listening.