We're Just Puppets Thrown Back into the World

Hey guys, it's Greg Nicotero from The Walking Dead. This is Movie Meltdown. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie. Meltdown, I'm Brian. I'm Misty. And we're coming to you live via digital recording from out in the world.

The world you say? Misty. We are out in the world. I know, and it's so stressful. There are people around us, not really right now, because we try to get away from them, but all day.

I've missed it, and I've hated it at the same time. We're coming to you live via digital recording from Wonderfest. Not that I hate it. I mean, I love the convention. Oh, it's awesome.

But I seriously miss social distancing. As previously, that was our last episode. We recapped how much we were already missing it. And now, we're getting to exercise it out in the real world. I've been like people and they've all been locked up for the past year and they don't understand how to people again.

I mean geeks were never really smooth interacting with people. But at least they would get into a routine of like how to do things. And now that routine is gone. Now it's just like fucking Armageddon out there as far as. I need to get it.

I need to get it. Don't want to run you over to get to it. I need stuff. I haven't gotten stuff in a long time. I have missed stuff though.

That's true. I did get free stuff today. I don't remember the people who gave it to me, so I can't, like, push him in any way. I think it was Cult TV, man. Only because he's on the back of this thing here.

So, he's not actually official sponsor, but he did give you free. Toys, so. And I stole Brian's, so. I gave it to you. What am I going to do with a Romulan Bird of Prey or whatever it was?

You had the Enterprise. I had the fucking, I had the Klingon. Warbird or some shit like that. I don't know. Anyways.

Space monkey. I don't know. Something like that. Now I can set them up for fight scenes. I was like, I don't know.

We'll trade and then you'll have the Enterprise. But what's the Enterprise going to do if it doesn't have a ship to fight? So now you get both of them. I bought a rat thing. That was my purchase the other day.

I got a reissued, I'm assuming 3D printed, slightly larger version than the old ones that I used to pay like a quarter for in the machine. I want a 3D printer so bad. Do you know how many Baby Yodas? Oh my God. All of the Baby Yodas would be at your house.

Like the Clone Wars, but it would be like Baby Yodas. And good. That really would be at your house. And then a few of them would break off and do their own things, and it'd be Baby Yoda Bad Batch. Oh, man.

I've been watching that. I have not. It's pretty fun. I still haven't watched the second season of The Mandalorian, because it's going to make me cry. I mean, eventually, sure.

But before that, you get really cool things. But I'm not emotionally prepared. I mean, they gave me new pills, so I'm hoping that eventually, someday, I'll be able to be prepared for what's going to happen. I know what happens at the end. It's awesome.

And the things that happened before that are also pretty awesome. It was a pretty solid show. I want to watch it because it has one of my very few legitimate celebrity crushes in it. Mark Hamill. No.

Timothy Olyphant's in an episode. That's true. Because usually most of my celebrity crushes are weird. People don't understand them. Timothy Olyphant, I feel.

I have that with a few. Timothy Olyphant, I feel, is one that I could be like, no. You can't even argue this one because, first of all, he's hot. And he's funny. I won't argue that.

And he is funny. He does have a good sense of humor. If you haven't... Santa Clarita Diet. It's all.

He is. Even Boyfriend. Jay likes that show and thinks that Timothy Oliver is hilarious, but yet he will not watch Justified. I cannot get him to watch Justified, and that seems more boyfriend speed. That does seem like something he might have previously gotten into in a different life.

No, refuses. He's a strange bird, that Jay. I know, I can't explain that one to you. I'm just like, but Justified, it's him being funny and blowing shit up at the same time and shooting people. That does seem like things he would be into.

But is he as funny as he is in Santa Clarita Diet? And I'm like, but in a different way he's funny than he is in Santa Clarita Diet. Because his lines as Raylan Givens, he does pull off some pretty good one-liners in that one. He's very smart-ass and very dry, but he's so good and justified. But he will not watch it.

I don't know what to do with him. I don't even remember where we got here, how we got to this point. Baby otis baby otis you won't want you know baby otis to justify it like always yeah like most people's normal conversations this is normal right this is what people do. Back to the real world when you go in the real world went to a convention there were a lot of people it eventually got more comfortable for me because yeah for a minute for. A hot minute i was in shock really because i was freaking out it was not anymore it's okay it's not a cicada it's.

Just a leaf A leaf. We're on the outside of the inside. We're on the outside real world. And a leaf just fell on me. Looking out on the inside.

Wait, what? And I was terrified that it was a bird poop. It is not a bird poop. It is a leaf. You better beware.

It's not a giant Mothra-looking cicada. Oh, I hate cicadas. We covered that on a recent episode, too. I've not seen any of them. Come to my neighborhood.

No, thank you. They are everywhere. I have not seen a one. I dodge them. I will take the dog for a walk and have to physically move out of the way because I see them like...

I. Have not seen one during this. Cicada apocalypse i've not i've heard stories more than one. I watched some actually i heard it yesterday there was somebody came walking into a building and they were like what's that noise what's that noise and it was a cicada stuck to their leg flopping around still making like weird buzzing noises and then they saw what it was and freaked out i started full justifiable i mean. She was just screaming.

And I was just like, it's just a bug. Like, I don't want them on me, but like, I'm not going to freak out. Like I've, I was walking the other day and one landed on my leg and I kept walking. I just kind of looked down at him. I was just like, what dude, what are you doing?

And it's still there. Like every step I kept waiting for him to jump off or fall off. And he was still there. And eventually I was like, God, come on, you gotta get lost. And it was a guy.

I'm pretty sure. Cause I smacked him and he made the weird noise. Which I found out, those are the ones making all the weird noises are the boys. Because they're trying to sing songs to the ladybugs so they can all make special times. Apparently my stepsister used to torment my other stepsister by taking their little shells.

There are creepy shells. I'm like sticking them on her. Kids are sadistic. But if you had to guess. Which sister was the one doing this?

Um... Jennifer. Yes, it would be the pastor. See, I believe because there's just an evil streak in her, and I've always seen it. From the first time I met her, I was like, no, there's something weird and sadistic in that girl.

I think it's all the churchin'. Yep. Church will lead the dot, if you ask me. Yeah, weirdos. But, yeah, I mean, I was telling boyfriend not that long ago how much I miss conventions.

I mean, I don't miss the people, but I miss the stuff, and I miss the experience of walking around looking at stuff. Without the people. But that's online shopping. Yeah, that rarely happens in the real world. And if it does, usually that place goes out of business immediately.

I do think this is a good starting point, though, because. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. This was the first thing... There have been a few other ones in other cities further away.

But in this general area, this was the first one. And I was like, this is a good wading back into the world thing. Because it's got its own fan base. I mean, it's not... But it's not like a huge, huge, huge...

They did really good this year. They sold out all the tables, and yeah, so they were saying they did really well as far as, you know, especially in this crazy scenario this year. But it's more like... It's different, yeah. It's more model, so you don't end up with as many of the generalized nerds, you know?

So it's like you have more of a pared down, like... Dedicated bunch of geeks. That's not the word I was looking for. Hardcore. No, hardcore.

It's a special... Special is. Special? No, special is... That's how they usually describe us.

No, it's more of a specialized... Industry. Convention. It's more like. It's definitely that.

You don't have, like, 40 billion TV stars. You don't have, like... I mean, don't get me wrong. There are some, you know... It does have a few...

Mm-hmm. It's got peoples. We're possibly gonna go talk to them in a little while. I mean, we did see Greg... Nicotero.

Whose name I cannot say for the life of me for some reason. Who I'm still... Because of my anxiety. I'm pretty sure he's pissed at me for last year answering my phone during the interview. Although he did like my ringtone.

I mean, you last time said he had very nice shoes. So if you'd like me to pass that along to him, I'll see him this weekend. I don't remember his shoes. I still have the beer cap from the beer. Not creepy at all.

I know, right? I guess I didn't keep his gum or anything. Who was that we thought about keeping their gum? Wasn't it Catherine Mary Stewart? It was her or her friend.

Or Kelly. Kelly Maroney. I did not keep the gum. I cannot speak for anybody else at this table. It was one of them that had gum when we sat down to talk to them and I may or may not have.

I think we only joked about Miki. I am creepy but I'm not that creepy. It also seems like a lot to keep up with at this point. Yeah. I'm trying to just.

I do still have... I'm pretty sure I do still have the gum that I chewed that Ethan Embry did give me. I did chew it, but I might still have it wrapped up somewhere. Did you bronze that pecan sandy? I ate that fucker.

That was Bill Moseley that gave us a cookie. Ah, all these fun celebrity interactions. I know. I've missed the world of weird celebrity interactions. Yeah, we do occasionally have those.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure that he... There was a lot of family stuff going on at the time, so I had to answer the phone to make sure that nobody was killing somebody else. So it had to happen. I'm sorry. I can ask him later if you'd like.

No, I don't even remember. I don't remind him. Remember that time when that girl who was freaked out by a plastic bag in the water also answered her phone? The raft is terrifying and still the reason that I will not get in water that I cannot see. Some people, it's Jaws.

For you, it's the raft. Don't act like I'm the only person. Oh, no. It's disturbing. And literally every body of water that I see, I'm pretty sure that's in there.

It might be. Ponds, lakes. You'll only find out the hard way. Because they're always so murky. Yeah, no, I don't trust that.

And even when I go to the... Because we're going to the ocean sometime soon. I will only go as far as I can see my feet. If I can't see my feet, then I can see pretty far out. And I can see where it's getting close enough that it's going to jump up over me, then I'm okay there.

So then you can see the stingrays come up and attack you. Dude. Our main problem out there is horseshoe crabs. And those things are... I don't care.

Don't be messing with us. Those things are terrifying. We went... And I almost stepped on one. And I was traumatized.

Attack of the killer crabs. Dude. Terrifying. I have that book, by the way. I have a book called Attack of the Killer Crabs.

That's not surprising. It's part of the Spooksville series by Christopher Pike. I'm sure it is. Which is his version of Goosebumps. For that younger?

Yes. Okay. Because Christopher Pike. So my reading level is what you're talking about. Yeah, exactly.

I don't think there were any pictures, though. I prefer nothing but pictures. I know. But yeah, I guess Christopher Pike had to compete with the Goosebumps. I mean, it's a cutthroat industry.

So yeah, there were... And yeah, I have... All of those, although I am pretty upset that one of the ones that I ordered off of Thrift Books ended up being the UK version, which is not only a different cover, but also a different size. And you can't read it because it's all those English words in it, and you're like, I don't know how to speak this. English-American.

There's like U's in the middle of words that don't belong there. I know. It's all weird. It's the same damn book, just a different cover. It's smaller.

It doesn't line up on the shelf properly, and It's a thing. So is it because it's a smaller country, they have to make the books smaller so the place doesn't get so overloaded with books? You don't want to sink it. And we're like America, so we like things bigger. So we have to make like giant ass books.

Pretty much. Alright, this all makes sense. I have no idea. I did not run any of these questions by the publishing company or Christopher Pike himself. I feel like we need to get him on the line.

Get him on the show. He probably likes horror movies. Yeah, he, from what I've heard, is very reclusive. It's a lot of authors. But especially Christopher Pike.

It seems like even more we need to track him down and force him to talk about horror movies. I've been listening to a Christopher Pike-centric podcast. Of course you have. Because all they do is read the books and then pretty much tell you the entire book. So you don't have to read.

Wait, this is my show. I know, right? But they've been trying for the entire duration of their run of the podcast to get him on there. And he's apparently incredibly secretive about everything. Hmm.

His name's not even Christopher Pike. Well, that's just to throw you off. It shows you how nerdy he is, though, because you know where he got it from. Yep. Buffy?

What? How would you even get Christopher Pike from Buffy? Mr. Pointy. Looks like a pike.

He got it from the captain. Pike. Captain Christopher Pike from Star Trek. Mine's better. Yeah, yours made no sense.

He was a big Star Trek fan, and Christopher Pike was the captain before Captain Kirk. Christopher Pike's a nerd. Well, I mean, he just attached himself to another nerd part of the industry, so it seems fitting. It's what makes me like him more. Well, I.

After posting those photos and everybody was like, hey, what are you going to see? Because I went back to the theater. I'd see something I miss even less. I usually don't have problems with theater people. I've had a couple of people lately said they have issues with theater people.

People are loud and obnoxious. Again, I go at old man times. Seriously, what movie did we go see where somebody sat behind us and talked the entire time? Entire time how recently was this that's been. Years it might have been it might have been one of the resident evil movies.

It's been one of the last i couldn't even think of the last time i went to a movie with other people it's always me by myself in the middle of the day on a weekend i don't think i've been back to the theater since then and i think that's why though i think i go at old man times when i can go and sit there and get up in the crack of dawn and then go watch a movie and a i won't fall asleep and b it's not very crowded and there aren't any people talking. But if I watch a movie at home, I can pause it and go pee whenever I want to. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot of that I've enjoyed over the last year and a half. Or I can pause it and go pop some popcorn in the kitchen and not spend $ 48.

It's slightly different there. I like theater popcorn. I like theater popcorn. And I really think you agree you would also like a butter dispenser just sitting on your counter so you could just douse everything in butter. Yeah.

But I went back out into the world and I saw.... Quiet Place 2? I have to decide. A Quiet Place 2. Do you need to Google it?

Is that what you saw? As long as it was. Well, I was playing the game with somebody on Twitter who was already coming up with better names. So it was like A Quieter Place, The Most Quietest Place. They just came up with a bunch of other alternative options.

And that was like A Quiet Place 2 colon The Next Day. I don't know if anyone else thought that was funny, but it technically is. So that's the weird thing, is yes, I watched A Quiet Place 2, and it was surprisingly, there are moments where it is unnerving. It does have a score at times, and then other times that will totally drop out, sometimes for practical reasons, sometimes just for effect, to creep the hell out of you, and both work. And yeah, it's totally suspenseful.

It's basically one of those, because somebody asked that the other day when I sold them what I saw, they were like, oh, was it good? I was like, did you like the first one? Because I'm like, it is 100%. And as I said, the next day, it picks up pretty much right where that last one leaves off, throws a minor flashback in the middle of there. But otherwise, it picks up pretty much story-wise exactly where that last one left off and just continues on.

And here's another day or several days down the road. But it really does not... It's not a huge story to tell. It is this isolated family... And they venture out a little bit further into this crazy self-destructive, from outside forces, destructive world.

And yeah, we just get another little part of the story. And then it wraps up real quick. It is a tight movie. Because I was like, oh, and there are the credits. All right, well then, time to go home.

I never saw the first one. So the first one is good. It's very cool. It's very suspenseful. Points to Krasinski.

Because, yeah, I like him. I didn't really care about that show that everybody else loves him for, but as a director, I'm like, hey, he's a good director. Oh, is he on The Office? Yeah, and I don't really care about The Office, and everybody else loves it. You don't have to tell me.

Everybody loves it, whatever. I hate that show. My nephew loves it. I was making fun of him yesterday for it. Well, basically that.

I was like, that guy's a good director, but I don't know about that show he used to be on. He was like, what? I like that show. I really don't like Steve Carell. Eh, he's hit and miss.

I don't like him. There's, I don't, yeah, as a person he seems fine, but his style of comedy is very specific. It's awkward. And you have to, yeah, you have to be into it or you're not. That whole show just seems like it's based on the humor of awkwardness, and I've got enough awkwardness in my life.

I don't want to be more, I don't want to be made to feel more awkward at home in the. Comfort of my own home. I was on Team Parks and Rec. I never saw that either. Because that kind of takes the same format and does it, I think, funnier with better characters.

Like, it just took all the weirdness out of that first one, got that out of the way, and just focused on way more fun characters and storylines. So, I don't know. I'm sticking with Parks and Rec. That has nothing to do with giant monsters, potentially from outer space, I guess. I don't really know what's going on with these monsters.

And I do like that even about the first one. You're just thrown into the story, there's monsters, and. And that's pretty much it. You just kind of deal with that scenario. I can tell you about my exciting purchase, but nobody but me is going to be excited about it.

I told you about it earlier. I mean, it sort of has a horror tie-in to Jaws. Alright, go ahead and. Tell them about it. I had a favorite Kool-Aid when I was little.

And I haven't been able to drink Kool-Aid for years because it makes my head explode. So I had no idea that they had brought back my favorite Kool-Aid. So I was looking online about one of those lists of things from your childhood that they discussed. And usually they're all wrong. I'm like, you've gauged this wrong.

Sometimes the eras are wrong. I just like to argue with them. It had a lot of candies, like the garbage can candies. I do love those. I know.

That was a good portion of my childhood. Eating garbage. And this is a list from several years ago. So it was like, They had Sharkleberry Finn on there. And you were like, oh my god.

Oh my god, I forgot. That was my absolute favorite was Sharkleberry Finn. So I was like, I'll Google it and see if I can find cool stuff about it. Maybe I can find some kind of old package. Holy shit.

Apparently within the past couple years, they brought back Sharkleberry Finn Kool-Aid. The re-release. And I mean, I know it's probably been years. This list was several years old. So I don't know how long it's actually been out there in the real world.

But good god damn. So I says to myself, Misty, we need to get some Sharkleberry Finn. And now that I know that it exists, like, current time, I'm like, this shouldn't be that hard. So I get on, like, one of those online, like, buying shit things. And they want to charge me, like, $ 3 for, like.

On envelope owed powder. Like, the one little. You can't even make, like, one whole pitcher of Kool-Aid. I need at least two. Yeah.

I think I used to double up and make a lot more when I would do it with my Kool-Aid. That's how it works. You had to have two... Up the sleeves, and then two cups of sugar, because you've got to have one cup per sleeve. Otherwise, it's not good.

This does sound like how I used to make it, with a lot of sugar. I know, right? So I'm like, oh, dude. So I'm checking out, like, I'm not trying to, like, support Walmart in any ways. But they're like, we have, I checked their website, and they're like, oh, we have it in store.

I don't like them, but occasionally you have to, you have to go there. I'm like, they're like, it's here. But you can't, like, order. So I went to Walmart. To look for my Sharkleberry Finn.

This is my adventure. I went there. I hate going to Walmart. But I went there. And they had like.

I'm scanning the shelves. And it's a fucking disaster. Because of course. Walmart. And it's just a mess.

Then I see one box. Sitting there on the shelf. And I'm like. Snatched the whole box. I don't even care.

Package and everything. Yeah. The whole. Like the whole box. The display.

That was holding all the envelopes. You also took the cardboard display box. Yeah. I mean, you might as well. Nobody else gets any.

I want to take all the packages out of it anyways. It's just more convenient. You're just saving them a step of having to throw that away. Exactly. So, all in all, there were only 18 sleeves slash envelopes of Kool-Aid.

So, that's only actually nine servings. Like, nine, like, not servings, like, pitchers full of Kool-Aid. It's not that much in the long run. Anyway, so I walk in the house, and boyfriend, who was following me on this mission, like, emotionally.... He supports you in all your craziness.

He does. He's like, did they have it? And I'm like, yes, they did. And he's like, how much did you buy, girlfriend? And I'm like, what?

Help me come unload the car. He's like, girlfriend, how much Kool-Aid did you just buy? I'm like, only all they had. Only six cases. And he's like, girlfriend, what if somebody else wanted some Sharkleberry Fizz?

Fuck everybody else. I'm sure you lovingly said. Fuck everybody else. Exactly. I need it more than they do.

It was, like I said, it was only 18 sleeves. I left one crumpled sleeve on the shelf. So I'm like, it's home. I don't want that one. Just to mess with them.

Well, then it's like, it would have given me an odd number. So now there's somebody out there making half a pitcher. Yep. Being like, I used to like this, but I can't have any. Somebody took it all.

They can get on Amazon. They can pay $ 3 per sleeve. And even out and make one pitcher. Anyway, so I'm like, as soon as I walk in the door, I'm like ripping that shit open. I'm like ripping it open, getting the pitcher ready.

I had a mini panic. I'm like, do we have sugar? Holy shit. You really should have thought this through beforehand. I didn't.

I was too excited. You can't control the level of excitement of Sharkleberry Finn. Anyways, so I'm mixing it up. I'm like already thinking. I'm like, this is not going to be near as good as I'm hoping it's going to be.

Preparing yourself for the depression of post-childhood hopes and dreams. Because you know how it is. When you have something as a kid, it's the most amazing thing ever. Later in life, you might get it. And it's like, oh.

What was I thinking? This isn't as good as I remember. So I'm mixing it up. We don't have like ice cold water. So I'm like lukewarm out of the faucet water.

I'm like, oh, do I wait till it's cold? Fuck no, I can't wait until it's cold. I need to try it now. It was delightful. It was like...

It was like... It was my childhood. All came rushing back into your mouth. It was so good, too. I'm like, how can this possibly be as good as I remember it being?

And then I drank so much that my head exploded because I can't have a lot of. You're not supposed to have that chemical. Red 40. Whatever Red 40 is... It will destroy you.

In fluid form, it makes my head explode. I can have it in like. In powder, you snort that stuff all day long. Making lines of Fun Dip and just nailing them. Oh man, she's excited about this new thought.

I can have like red velvet cake. But if I have like Tahitian treat, which is one of my favorites too. my head explodes. I got migraine for days. You are a crazy science experiment. Which is why I haven't bought Kool-Aid for years because after I realized that's what was causing my headaches, I quit drinking it.

But for Sharkleberry Finn, it's worth it. I will live with the pain. But then I've also realized that if I eat it, if I drank the Kool-Aid with like, this is way more information than anybody fucking cares about. If I eat it with a peanut butter sandwich. Oh God, this is very specific science.

If I drink I don't know if it's the bread. Soaking up the red? I think so. I might get a little bit of a headache, but not a full-blown migraine. So I figured out.

A way to level it out. You're going to have to start experimenting. Try just some bread or just some spoonfuls of peanut butter and see if it's the bread or maybe something in the peanut butter counteracting with the red. I'm not going to question this. It works just the way it does.

It's just a gift unto you. I can't have a full glass. I can have like three quarters of a glass. This is very specific. I am, but you know what?

It's delightful. Sharkleberry thing. I'm not even sure what actual flavor it's supposed to be. I think somebody online said like strawberry and pineapple. Sharkleberry, duh.

Yeah, what the. It's a real thing. The berries of sharks? I know. Yeah.

It is a bitch trying to pick those. Once you're trying to pick them, oh man. I think it's technically supposed to be like... I don't know if it's strawberry and pineapple. Which, again, I wouldn't think would be delicious.

Or strawberry and, like, banana? I don't know. I don't know. I don't question this thing. All I know is it's my favorite.

And it brought back so much of the pleasant memories of my childhood. And it pushed out the bad ones a little bit further. It is a bitch trying to pick those. Just saying. Charcoal berries.

Charcoal berries. They're rough. I'm sure nobody cares about my charcoal berry adventure. I think it's the perfect way to round out this intro. So we'll cue the Jaws theme right now.

I was so excited I couldn't even put on real shoes. Like, fuck tying shoes. I had to put on my slippy shoes. Not like slippers, but like my slip-on shoes, like going to the beach shoes. Which, from living in Indiana, is really convenient.

You're at the beach. You're having your shark drink. This is all very beach-oriented. And I'm terrified of sharks. I hate that thing.

That's why Jaws is going to get you, so. We'll take our break and come back with this week's guest. Drive away your worries and cares at this drive-in theater, where you will see the finest motion pictures of all time, soon to be released. Drama, comedy, adventure, excitement, something for everyone. Here's a brief glimpse of some of the truly fine pictures we've scheduled in the near future.

Centuries ago, a legendary treasure was buried on a remote island. And there's only one living soul daring enough to find it. Hello, everyone. Captain Abraham Smollett is taking command. This voyage has begun.

To wherever the wind may take us. Hurry, Rizzo! I'm going as fast as I can. But there's trouble afoot. Beware the one-legged man.

He's the one to fear. Long John Silver. At your service. One leg, Jim. Count them one.

Now, the captain is being pursued by pirates. Pirates. We're sailing for buried treasure. We're gonna be rich. We're gonna be dead.

Surrounded by danger. Terrific. Catched by crazed wild pigs and sacrificed hideously before a pagan altar. Are we lucky or what? And haunted by his past.

Bonsoir, mes amis. Smalley, can it. Be you? Help! Old girlfriend presents from Jim Henson productions a classic tale of ships coming in who hired this crew Old Disney Pictures presents, from Jim Henson Productions, a classic tale.

Of ships coming in. Who hired this crew? And luck running out. Get the treasure. Let's torture the rat.

No more, miss, my sky. Cool. Muppet Treasure Island. I'm starting to worry about this bridge. You can watch from.

The map next. How are we going to tell people that. They need to join the Meltdown. Horror Club? I think you just did.

Damn it. This is a good plan. Well, did they know that if they join the club, they can get exclusive episodes? Well, that's so cool. Who wouldn't want to join the horror club?

That's the only way you can hear all these cool horror movie episodes is if you join the Meltdown Horror Club. For as little as two dollars. Two dollars. Two dollars. american dollars you know i mean if you go online they can transfer that stuff and yeah switch it out and i don't know wherever it comes from as long as eventually it gets to american dollars i'm good with wherever you can send us foreign monies from the other end just as long as when it gets here two dollars fair enough plus you can help us pick out the movies we're gonna watch we're trying to decide every week we're like what the hell are we gonna watch now We wouldn't have to do that if you joined the club and then you can just give us a movie to watch because that's how we get this list of movies that we're going through.

That's one of the perks of joining the club. You get to give us a movie and then we put it on the list and later we talk about it and you can inflict horrible movies on us or when we're talking about movies that you're like, why? Why are they talking about that movie? You probably have a much better movie in mind that we should be talking about and you could give us that one. Get on it. $ 2 to, like, waste two hours of our lives.

I mean, that's a good deal. And it's only 6.45 cents per day. See, I figured that out. I was trying. I'm fighting really hard to not put together some sort of, like, starving children's tone of, like, you know.

That's why. I'm trying not to do that every week. But I'm like, it always, anytime I have to pitch it, I start feeling like, for only pennies a day, you. Yeah. could keep these poor idiots from watching a dumb movie. You could make them watch something good.

Or vice versa. Yeah, or something dumb. Or make them watch something really terrible. We're fine either way. We just need to know what to watch, but we need your help to make that happen.

And especially, we're trying to get a whole community going. We've got our fan page. Nobody cares about that. So then, we set up the discussion group. And now, we've got a decent amount of people on there, but I still feel like The discussions aren't flowing as much as they should be.

So once you join the club, go over. It's on Facebook. I can't help it. They won't make anything better to replace it. But then you can join the discussion group on Facebook and we can talk about these ridiculous movies we're watching.

Do it. Do it today or tomorrow, but in the relatively near future. That's our tagline? Yes. I don't think we got to fight Nike over that.

I hope not. Do it today. Just do it sometime. I don't know when. Look, whenever you get around to it, we understand.

Get your shit together and do it. Nike. Somewhere that was a pitch meeting, probably. Do you really think we should curse? Yes, goddammit, George, curse!

So anyway, go to MovieMeltdown.com, support the show, become a Meltketeer. Hey, I'm Marta Kristen, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Baby, baby, you know it's true I'm a puppet just for you. I'd do any little thing you say. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Take my heart and take my soul. I've given you complete control. If you want to see me do my thing, baby, pull my string. So, Phillip. Yes, Brian.

This episode, we have a very special guest. And when I saw this person was coming back to Wonderfest, I was like, well... I need to talk to him. But in particular, if there's one other person that would also be interested in potentially just meeting this person, let alone sitting down and having a discussion with him, it would be you. Who are we talking to?

Actually, do you remember what you said when I told you? Because I told you that there was a writer for The Muppets Coming. And specifically a man who directed many of the Muppets projects, and he was going to be here, and you could potentially talk with him. And I believe, paraphrasing, but you said something to the effect of, I'd like to talk to the guy who empties the trash at the Muppets studio. That sounds like something I would say, yeah.

And I was like, well, we can't get that guy. Surprisingly, he's actually kind of hard to get. Probably. But we can talk to Kirk Thatcher. You mean the Kirk Thatcher from Star Trek 4?

The punk on the bus? Yes. I mean, the man, the myth, the captain of some vessel. I'm pretty sure. I don't know what it is.

Oh, clearly. But I've seen him and he is definitely a captain. So, if you're an old school listener, you know I talked with Kirk several years ago and we talked about him growing up and we talked about his early days working with David Fincher. We talked about him working with Lucasfilm, and almost being the Rancor, which that's an awesome story, so go listen to that. He was right-hand man to Leonard Nimoy, and about how all of that led to him being the punk on the bus.

So all of that stuff is there. So if you need to go listen to it, you should, because it's awesome. But also, we got sidetracked on all of those amazing things that happened in his life that we didn't get to, you know, the Muppets, or puppetry in general so i feel like you know we got to the end of that and we ran out of time and i'm like we need to we need to finish this we need to come back at some point in the future maybe when he comes back to wonderfest and uh continue the adventures of kirk thatcher so i thought while we're here in the middle of wonderfest we should go talk to absolutely i say we go do that right now okie doke So this is actually continued several years ago when you were here.

I talked to you. So we got carried away and we were going through all these amazing stories that you had and we didn't even get to like, you know, Muppets and puppetry, which is kind of what a lot of people know too. But yeah, we got sidetracked on Star Wars and Leonard Nimoy and all these other things. It's your fault for having this interesting life. I'm sorry.

I apologize. I'll be dull. God. Muppets. Muppets.

I was trying to, yeah, I was thinking we'll just jump in at the puppetry end of it. Sure. A good crossover, I thought, was, and this is, again, this tells you a lot about us. This had nothing to do with you. We went to lunch and we were talking about gremlins, which is a pretty standard thing that comes up with us.

Yeah. We were discussing the thing. theater scene you were talking about the bar earlier but were you involved in the theater full of. Not i uh didn't do that i didn't work that day or those couple days no but i know they had gremlin helmets they had a gremlin on each hand and i ran a gremlin on basically the spring on their helmets oh my god each puppeteer could do three gremlins. That's what we were saying you can't have them still gremlins still looks insane. Oh yeah you suddenly stand out yeah they're so hyperkinetic definitely they're like kids on sugar.

So were you– which ones? You said the bar scene with Phoebe. What else did you– The. Bar scene with Phoebe was– that was like a good three or four days. Just hanging out at Phoebe's pelvis.

Just hanging out, looking at her belly button, yeah. I saw her a few years ago and she pretended to remember me. She was very sweet. She seems very nice. I said, in three days, staring at your crotch.

She's like, oh, I didn't know people know about those movies. No. She's very sweet. Such a nice person. Yeah.

Gosh, you know, a lot of stuff in the bar. That was probably a week's worth of work. And then it all blends together. You know, you just go to the stage and you kind of go. I just remember that because it was with 505.

A lot of it was just Gremlin stuff. They're not near as attractive as Phoebe. I mean, the one in the wig and two. Sure. Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, to be honest, I don't remember a specific scene. I think the caroling scene. That's right. Nice. We were outside singing Christmas carols in the snow because I remember the fake snow and all that.

Um, you know, there was so much in there. I only puppeteered on for like two weeks, just the heavy scenes, which is funny that I wasn't in the theater scene. They need as many hands. They did. That was, and that's what I did.

And two was puppeteering in the big group scene when they all gathered at the bat in the mall and there were like 150 gremlins. So that's the few days I worked on that as a puppeteer. Um, and then just voices. Was two presented differently as you're coming in? Because it definitely reads like a very different movie, even though it's more Joe than anything.

Yeah, Rick was doing it. It was still Joe, very Joe. Probably more Joe than one, if you know Joe or know his oeuvre. Yeah, they just said, Rick called me, he said, hey, you know, I'm doing, I knew he was doing Gremlins. And he said, we have these big group scenes and I know I want people who know how to do Gremlins because, you know, you've done it.

And he said, would you come in? I said, yeah, absolutely. He said, you know, you get SAG minimum or SAG. I'm in SAG. That's fine.

And so, yeah, it was like three, four days of those giant group scenes. And he was very nice to keep me kind of near a camera as opposed to in the distance. And, yeah, it was fun. And we just went over and over and over again. And then we're miming getting electrocuted and all the shtick in there.

Um, so yeah. And then a few months later I did voices, a lot of voices, probably more. I did more days doing voices than I did puppeteering. Wow. Cause we did it in four or five languages.

Well, English and four other languages. Yeah. We did gremlins in Spanish, French, German, Italian, and English. So yeah, it was five languages. They barely have any, you know, English, but they have just enough that you have to do it in Spanish.

Like I learned how to say going up, going down. Oh, I said German, right? German, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Well, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, yeah. I learned how to say going up, going down. I don't know if I said four.

I think we kept four score and seven years ago in English because, you know, out of the Italian, they wouldn't get it. Yeah, just, you know, saying yogurt, whatever yogurt was in German. It was fun. We had a blast. So how much did you– how much freedom did you have in developing– your character for gremlins or was it just them coming.

To you and saying, this is what this went on. Yeah. For the puppeteering, it was just, yeah, put these on there where there weren't the specific ones like Daffy and, and, and, uh, you know, George, uh, they weren't those I was doing just generic, generic. And then the voices, we kind of parsed them out. Like I did a lot of George and, uh, Mark Dodson did Daffy.

George was one to look like, um, uh, Lenny was the big, dumb, buck-toothed one. I think Mark did him and Daffy. I did George, who's the one who looked like Edward G. Robinson. And then I did Greta.

And then I did the electricity gremlin, because nobody else could do that. How much were you on? Some sort of speed. I almost blew a blood vessel doing that. Oh, wow.

Because it was a long take, and it's two different voices. It's what I call the buzz, which is the... Which is the electric part, and then that. So we did them both for the full take, and then they mixed them together and added some to it. So magic.

Magic. Yeah, so I did Greta, George, the Electricity Gremlin. God, I'd have to watch it again. It's been a long time. Those stand out because they were so different.

And then just tons of generic gremlins. Nudie, nudie, nudie was the one I did. And then I remember German is not conceiving, not conceiving, not conceiving. I think one of them did like a shadow puppet of a woman naked or something, and that was nudie, nudie, nudie in English, which was fun. Well, because they didn't have dialogue.

They're just like, what would you say? They just have a word. Yeah. No, and they didn't even– they're mouthing something. So we're like, what do you say?

So it was almost like an improv group. Okay, go. So I was like, nudie, nudie, nudie. They're like, yeah, that's funny. I'll do that.

That's Joe. Joe did voices too. Joe Dante probably did a few Georges that he didn't like what I was doing. I think singing in the bathtub, we both traded. I don't know which one they used, but there was one where he's like in the shower.

And we both did it. And it was funny because I do that and Joe goes, no, no, no, I'm going to do it. So in his mind, it was drastically different. It was his movie, so I was never offended. But I was just happy to be there.

I had a blast. I like the creepy ones. I realized watching the second one, I'm like the spider. Yeah. The bat is the cool one.

They tended to focus more on the comedy ones, obviously, with Toadie Reddell as the braid gremlin. It was fun. That seven, eight days was really fun. Mark and I were friends, but Howie and Frank Welker kind of were a little more You know, they weren't so palsy with us. They were kind of, oh, we're the professionals.

We're the big money voice people. We know. Mark and I were the guys who, you know, drove used cars. So Mark and I have been friends since Lucasfilm days, since Jedi. So he and I had fun.

And then Joe was all over. You know, Joe was just there, and he was part of it, doing voices and having fun. And then Mark Mangini, the sound editor, was a friend of mine. We'd worked together on Gremlins 1 and Star Trek. four so it was kind of old home week for me so yeah it was weird like I knew more people there except for the two ringers Howie and Frank I did not know I've never. Worked with them since well at that point yeah you're coming out of like doing creature stuff definitely bigger creature stuff and then doing puppetry like that but how do you how does it get to the Jim Henson part of.

It well that was just you know what they say it's what you know and who you know I on Star Trek when we were making it in post production we had interviewed The production unit of Star Trek had interviewed companies to do the spaceships, maybe with CG. It was early, early days. And Robert Abel and Associates had been bought by a Canadian computer graphics company called Omnibus, and so they became Omnibus Abel, and they did a pitch to us to do the enterprising with computers. And it didn't work out, because Paramount had a sweetheart deal with ILM. But the gal who was... part of the Robert Abel kind of a rainmaker.

You know, she went out to try and get jobs. Her name was BJ rack and a real funny lady. And she and I hit it off, just riffing, joking. And, you know, we got each other since humor. So we became friends and she said, Hey, you know, I go out and try and sell clients.

You want to, this was after Trek had ended. So she and I kind of met and then we, you know, went and had coffee, whatever, and became friends. So when Star Trek was in post, I wasn't working every day. And she said, hey, you want to come out with me and try and sell clients on ideas for how many of us are able to do the effects for, commercials mainly. I said, sure.

So I went in and I would talk about the production design and art direction. Just fun and stupid and silly. In other words, I was taking what they were selling and making it sound fantastic. It was marketing. Yeah, I'd taken art history at UCLA, so I knew how to, you know, make a Pollock painting sound like the next amazing thing in the world where, you know, the practical side of my brain is like, it's freaking drips on a canvas.

I could sling. But no, the way he, yes, I could do that. But you know, the way it's sold in art history is like, well, what Pollock had done had taken the representational and also the dynamics of, you know, you just go on and on. So I was doing that with them. Like what the computer can do is take your Ajax and bring it a lot, you know?

And so we would just die laughing on the, on the way back to wherever we were going or, you know, have lunch afterwards. But anyway, so, BJ Rack, it turned out, well, I didn't know this yet. So the way it happened was we're talking and I was showing her this thing I wanted to do. It was a puppet creature kind of show, TV comedy. And I said, I want to use puppets and computer animation for the spaceships, but the characters would be puppets.

And she said, you know, we would really like this with Jim Henson. I said, yeah, I mean, that's the guy. I would get it. So Labyrinth had opened like the year before, I think. And she said, well, I know him.

You know, if you want to meet him, I said, I would love to meet him. And I said, how do you know him? She said, well, my husband, she I think was separated or divorced at that point, was Jim Frawley who directed the first Muppet movie. So she knew Jim and was friendly with him. And I think she had two or three kids with Jim Frawley.

So she coordinated the meeting. So I met Jim. He was staying at the Bel Air Hotel and he and his assistant. And we had lunch. And then we went back to his bungalow.

And I had brought a portfolio and some sculpts I'd done of creature, these puppety creature things. And pitched him the show and then showed him drawings and just kind of got to know him. And we hit it off and had a fun time. I ended up sitting on the floor and he sat on the floor and we just went through drawings and sketches and stuff. And, you know, I thought it went really well.

And he's a super nice, very comfortable guy. There was no pretense or any sort of feeling like, you know, you'll be meeting a mess to treat me with respect. That just wasn't his. No, no. He's more like, no, that's neat.

That's really neat stuff. I like that. You know, he's just like another fellow creative guy who, He was enthusiastic. So a couple weeks later, I got a call from his people and was like, well, he called me. He actually called me.

I was staying at my parents' because Star Trek paid so poorly I had to move back home. But, you know, would have done it again because the experience was amazing. I found out why. It was Leonard paying me. The studio wasn't– it was not a job that they– he had an assistant who answered his phone, you know, his mail.

Yeah, that was part of the– That was part of the deal. But they weren't going to pay for his, you know, right hand guy to to so he paid me out of his own pocket when i found that out i was like all right well you know thank you yeah um particularly the breaks he gave me uh anyway i got this my mom so i was working out my area i had where i would draw my art room she came out she said oh honey jim henson's on the phone for you and i'm like really because I don't know how much she knew, you know, she's had her life. And I'm like, seriously? She's like, well, I think it's one of your friends. But yes, someone's saying he's Jim Henson's on the phone.

So I pick up the phone. He's like, hi, old Kirk. And I was like, hey, Jim. And my mom's like, so afterwards I hung up, you know, and he said, hey, I'd like you to work on the show. And, you know, we'll have our business affairs people call you out and you fly out to New York.

We'll have some meetings. Great. Awesome. Fantastic. So my mom's like, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed.

I said, what, what happened? She goes, I pick up the phone, and he was like, hi, ho, is Kirk there? And she goes this funny voice, and I'm like, yes, I was calling. He's like, oh, it's Jim Henson. She's like, okay, Jim Henson.

She was like, I'll play along. So she was so mortified that she had, I mean, obviously nothing inappropriate, but she had sort of been like, okay, Jim Henson. Yeah, sure. So my mom was a lady, so she was very concerned that she'd been offensive. I'm like, oh, mom, I probably didn't notice.

Anyway. So that's how we met, and I started freelancing with him for about a year and a half on a couple ideas, designing characters and helping brainstorm. What was great about these brainstorm sessions is Jim would fly me out to New York, and Jerry Jewell, who lived in Mendocino at that point, he'd fly him out there and me and a couple other people, and there'd be a room. He had a conference room that was maybe like 40 feet long, and in it was like a 30-foot table, a mahogany table made by Thomas Moser. some famous cabinet furniture maker. And it was all beautiful cherry and mahogany and maybe 22 chairs around it where he'd have meetings.

And so there was all these creative people, puppeteers and Jerry Jewell and Jim and Bill Prady back when he was working there and a guy named Jim Lewis and all the in-house creatives, including marketing, whatever. And we just brainstormed. So I was like, this is amazing. This guy just wants, there's no bad ideas. It doesn't matter. who it comes from.

So I was just comfortable and riffing and having fun. And so, you know, we went well. So a year later, beginning of 88, he said, do you want to move to New York and work on the show where we sold, uh, called the Jim Henson hour? I said, yeah, I would love that. So I moved to New York, uh, uh, with basically like two suitcases.

I didn't have a lot. And I got a little one bedroom apartment in the Upper East Side. And, and, and, Worked in New York. I kind of lived half the time in New York and the other half in Toronto, Canada doing the Jim Henson Hour. And just doing the same thing.

Gags, character ideas, character designs, and concept stuff. So it was great and a very easy job. And just basically hang out with Jim Henson and come up with neat stuff. Do some sketches and sell, build it. Brainstorming and writing for the Muppets is their... is there that sense of anarchy that carries over into the show?

Or is it like other shows where everybody's, well, this explodes here. So writing, so the brainstorming is different than the writing. The writing was a bunch of writers and writers as you, basically comedy writers tend to be misanthropes. So that's, that's the people stroking their chins going, hmm, that's, that's funny. My bit was funnier.

Yeah. Well, I think we should go back. I actually had, that was my favorite Bill Prady story back when he's one of the writers. I was not a writer. It's an idea guy that I was on. the Jim creative side, not the sit down and write script side.

And Bill was one of the writers and I was designed, I had designed and was working on Waldo C graphic, the computer bug. And, uh, so the gag was at one point in the sketch, he was going to be a talk about being a cowboy and, and two, uh, six guns would appear and you go, pow, pow, pow. And I said, and what is he wearing a cowboy hat? They said, yeah, great. And I said, Oh, what if it's a cowboy hat with an arrow through it?

You know, that guy and Bill, Bill pretty said, the joke isn't that, he's wearing a funny hat. The joke is that he's wearing a cowboy hat. And I said, what if he's wearing a funny cowboy hat? And this is how it went. And he goes, that's a joke on a joke.

So it's like a hat on a hat. Wait a minute. Exactly. And I'm like two hats. So that was my, that was my introduction to dealing with writers who were not necessarily visually funny.

Well, that's what I was wondering in general is because you come from a very practical end of it. Visual, yeah. Yeah, you're doing practical effects on like the special effects stuff. You're building creatures. You're even doing puppetry.

Even from the art end, you've got that. But once you move into screenwriting, which then you eventually end up doing, did you feel comfortable becoming a writer, so to speak? I'd always been a writer in that I came up with ideas and I'd write down, but I'd never written screenplays and I didn't know. about the three-act structure and all. I mean, I kind of heard about it, but I was not well-versed in it, let's say. So that all happened because of dinosaurs.

So I was working, again, visual development, gags, concept art, and ideas for dinosaurs when Jim passed away. So Disney liked the idea, and they brought in Michael Jacobs and Bob Young, who had done My Two Dads, I think it was the last show, the show they had just finished working on, to develop into a sitcom. So I would sit with them, and we'd talk about the characters, and I'd show them the drawings, and then kind of did the last set of drawings with them and you know they were they were not visual so like this is great like we love that that's hilarious you know it was not it was very different when you're with people who don't draw and think visually they're kind of more easily impressed I would say yeah and sometimes don't get there's a story about that uh don't understand the visual language and anyway so Michael in his generosity said you know you're funny you have great ideas you should be a writer on the show not just the design guy and I said I would love to do that So I learned how to write sitcoms.

I literally earned while you learned. I got to learn the process by becoming a writer in a sitcom. So I'd sit in the room with the other writers. We had a writer's room and contribute ideas and gags. And what I think my strong point was, and I wasn't a strong writer, but I was visual.

So they were all good at plot and character stuff, where I was good at what's a funny idea that's not a twist on a social norm or something. Mine was like, you know, the first script I wrote or co-wrote was food goes, food gone bad or food goes bad. And because the refrigerator, and this was, you know, part of my concept of the show was the refrigerator should be a terrarium because they eat live animals. So it's not, they're not dead, they're alive. And so it's like, they have this little environments in the fridge.

So I said, well, what if the, you know, the joke is the food is revolting, you know, all the jokes work. Oh, it's been in the fridge too long. And so that's what it was. It was this, it was this free little creature that, had had his right arm eaten off, and so he stuck a fork in it as his prosthetic arm, and his pet cabbage was his sidekick. And his name was General Chow.

It's just stupid, stupid jokes. But it worked. Dinosaurs, right? So that's what I brought to the table, kind of the visual silliness and the conceptual silliness of dinosaurs eating, drinking, sleeping, having cars or not. Right.

And so it was a good– I think the room on that, it's like animation– Simpsons is very much a drawn sitcom. It's really a drawn radio play. But my buddy David Silverman, who turned the Matt Groening cartoons into animation, brought that visual anarchy and silliness to them. Because the way he drew, he was an animator. We had gone to college together.

And he had this really fun style. And he could take the Matt Groening very simple life and hell kind of style of art, if you know that, where Matt came from. and turn them into not just animatable characters like with turnarounds, but the way they moved and the crazy expressions when Homer chokes Bart and his mouth becomes this abstract shake and his eyeballs are two different sizes. It was very sort of Dada-esque or Dolly-esque. These extremes were not Tex Avery stuff. It was more two-dimensional stylized stuff, but he made them funny looking. the characters are funny.

The stories and dialogue was funny, but it was, if you'd done it straight laced, it wouldn't have been half of what the Simpsons was. So I brought that to dinosaurs, which is puppetry is a, again, not stating the obvious of visual medium more than like, you know, friends. Uh, so that was my strength. And then going right from that into writing for the Muppets was the same thing. I would think of things that were funny because they look funny, but it doesn't read funny.

Um, and, or even things were just silly. I, I, kind of to your point, writers tend to be people who live in their heads. And I definitely am more intellectual than I am emotional. But, you know, I come from sort of, as you said, the visual kind of physical stuff and sort of comedic acting. I'm silly.

I did improv. I love that. So I sort of jump into character and walk around and be, you know, more Robin Williams than, um, you know, John Williams. I mean, you know, uh, As opposed to sitting and going, what would be funny? It's like I kind of act out and sort of visualize it.

So that's what I think was my strength in the Muppets. As a writer, Treasure Island is very visually silly. It was Polly Lobster and all the goofiness, Gonzo's arms stretching. And Jerry Jewell, who was my mentor, he was very visual too because he had come up as being a puppeteer. So he knew how to write for puppets and their strengths was in things like puppets running around in a room with powder keg is funny.

It doesn't sound funny. Like if it was people, they'd just run around. But puppets and the spark. Puppets running is funny. It's funny, yeah.

And, you know, Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim was, I remember they're going, why is he saying it like that? I said, because it'll be funny. And they're like, but it doesn't read funny. I said, trust me, Billy Connolly, who I knew, not personally at that point, but I knew his career. I said, Billy Connolly saying Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim is going to be funny.

Yeah. And then when he doubles on down and says, I'm not Jimmy, Jim, Jim. He's Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. And then he repeats it. Jim.

Yes, Captain. Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. It's like absurd. You could only pretty much get away with that with the Muppets and Monty Python, which I always thought the Muppets were. To me, they were not heartfelt little fuzzy creatures that learned about friendship.

They were nuts. They were Monty Python. They were absurdist. So if you look at the old coffee commercials. No, yeah.

They're just insane. Yeah. And so was Muppet Show sketches. Yeah. The Koosbanian stuff.

If you read that, it's like, oh, we're here on the planet Kuzmain to see the mating ritual, and two weird Muppets make noises and explode. You're like, how is that funny? And then you watch it, and it's hilarious. So I've always thought that was the strength of the Muppets, and that's why I like the Muppet monsters, because they can be terrible or not kind and cute. So that's how it started.

So it was dinosaurs, and then into the Muppets, and then... writing and directing his Muppet shorts, um, you know, before YouTube, uh, things that were for the Henson was made a deal with the Hallmark channel to make Henson Hallmark. And so we did these little Muppet shorts, kind of the early days of like viral videos. Uh, the one that really, I really was proud of was the Muppet frog father or Kermit is, uh, we put like little cotton balls in the puppets. I'm like this and Steve Littman. And it was Fozzie as Fozzie Berry, uh, uh, Fozzie Barzino.

And he's like, I come to you, Frogfather. These two men, they harassed me and everything with Stalin and Waldorf. And that was very silly. But we shot it nice and I got to direct it. So that was one of the first things.

And I just was doing that while they were doing prepping for Muppets. Well, it was originally called Muppets in Space. And I had written a script. So all this time, too, I was writing Muppets screenplays. It was getting paid for them, but they didn't get made.

So I'd written Muppets in Space. And then they were... So Disney was going to do that. And Sony... They were pretty much ready to greenlight it.

And Jerry had written a much smaller, more intimate movie called Star Gonzos. And. When Sony took over from Disney as a distributor, they wanted to do that. And so that's what they ended up doing. But they kind of ruined what Jerry had written.

And I think it was very hard for him because he'd kind of been the guy. And then it was overproduced and overdeveloped by the development team at Henson, who were not Muppet people. These were studio people who had been brought in. And to me, it was not a great Muppet movie. It's fun.

There's great silliness in it, but it doesn't really hold up that much. I don't know. I mean, it's still fun. It's not terrible. But for me, like, Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, to me, those are...

And then, obviously, Muppet Movie. Yeah, Knot and Caper. I think our weakest were Manhattan. Again, story-wise, it's just all over the place and really shaggy and woolly. Great stuff in it.

And then Space, I think, are the two weakest in terms of, like, what's happening. When you're ones that you were just writing on... how much control, like once you had it on the page, were you on the set to be able to continue? I was there for the first three weeks of production for punch up and rewrites and just to enjoy watching what, you know, we write, get made. I could have stayed all the way through, but I'm like, you know, it's. It's almost worth it if Tim Curry's going to be on set.

And Billy Connolly. I was definitely there for Billy Connolly. The fact that you had those two in one movie. I couldn't have been happier. I mean, Billy was my pitch.

I was like, Billy Connolly should play Billy Bones. He was written with that voice in mind. In fact, one of the jokes or stories I tell is that when we're writing the script, we bring in the guys in way before it's cast, and we do a read-through to make sure the Muppet voices are right, and they're on board. And I would read Billy Bones as Billy Connolly, because I loved his commentability, you know. Hey, Jimmy, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, you know, Jim, beware of the black spot.

And so when we got Billy to do it and he came and did a cast read-through, somebody came up to me. It was one of the performers who didn't know Billy Connell. And he said, he sounds just like you. I thought that was funny. I was like, no, I would sound like him.

Yeah, no. Your impression of Jim was spot on. Like, there were a couple times where I was like, Jim Henson's actually. In the room. Oh, Jim Henson.

Well, I kind of do Jim talking to you, not Kermit so much, because he has this very mellow voice. He was enthusiastic, but he was not hyperkinetic like I can get. He was more like, hmm, that's really neat. And he laughed like Ernie. You know, he was very much in his head, and he had that kind of gentle, hmm.

I mean, that was the joke. If Jim likes something, he'd go, hmm. And if he didn't like it, he'd go. It's amazing that he made it in an industry that. Just eats people.

He didn't make it in that industry. He did an end run with The Muppet Show. He couldn't sell it to network television. He couldn't sell a movie. He was on SNL for six episodes.

So he found– life finds a way. Jim found a patron. I've always joked that I need a patron. Because– That's what I keep telling people. I know.

Well, that's what Patreon is and that's what Kickstarter is now. That's the new patrons. You just– if your idea is good enough or people know you from doing other things, you go on there and you say, Hey, you know, I want a hundred grand to do this. And if you can get people to kick it in, you found your patrons. And I think that's great.

It's the democratization of, of, uh, creativity. It's like the only hope for art at this point. Everything else has fallen off. It's all corporate owned and corporate managed. I think my biggest frustration with the Muppets now is that it's just so overmanaged.

I mean, they cut jokes in this last thing I did, uh, Muppet, uh, Haunted Mansion, uh, There's stuff there that's innocuous and funny and it's silly. It's the kind of stuff I like. And they're just like, well, nobody– six out of eight of us didn't like it. I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. It's only– whatever.

That's the stuff that made The Muppet Show what it was. I agree. And look, it's totally personal and non-objective. It's completely my opinion. But there's a lot more– the thing that– this is what's frustrating.

It's not that they agree or disagree. There's six layers now of people who have to– I always use the term blandardize it and make it great. Well, someone might be offended. We had to take– well, I shouldn't probably talk about this stuff. But everyone is so woke now and everyone is so afraid of offending anybody that they took out stuff that no one would be offended by.

And it's like in Pirates of the Caribbean. They were auctioning off women because that's what pirates did. Well, we got to take that out. Yeah. Cause that, I said, yeah, but it's historically, it's historical.

It's not like they're saying, it's not today saying, oh, slavery is great. Not endorsing that now. And yeah, I mean, I understand it's, it's, but they were pirates. They're not the good guys of the Caribbean. They're the bad guys of the Caribbean.

It's like we did a bank robber movie from, you know, a prohibition with mafia guys. They wouldn't be helping little old ladies across the street. And you know, they shot each other with guns. Um, no, we got to take that out. That's not, we don't want kids thinking guns are groovy.

So, Wait, what world do they live in? And that's the problem. And again, the people, the layers, the executives are all mean well, but they're just all worried that somebody's going to be offended, particularly Disney because they're huge and people like to sue them. So I get it. But as a creative person, it's really frustrating.

It's like not just asking your mom what she thinks of your painting of a cow. It's asking your mom and your aunt and your uncle and the neighbors and then your principal at your school. And the thing you learn as a writer is you ask eight people what they think, you're going to get eight different opinions. I love this. I hate it.

Actually, you kind of know you're in the right track when someone loves and someone hates it. Yeah. Because, okay, so it triggers a response. My art teacher in high school said, the worst thing anyone can say about your work, whether it's a song or a story or a movie or a painting or a sculpture, is it's nice. In other words, it didn't offend me and it didn't excite me.

I just thought it was fine. I never got that. With any project I worked on, it was all this. That's interesting. I don't know how to process this.

So I'm just saying nice as best I can. Interesting is the same as nice. Although I have– so what I've learned is because people show me stuff and I don't really know how to respond. And I've often said this is not my milieu. I don't know how to react.

So I could say it's interesting, it's nice, but I don't want to blow smoke. But it's different. I don't know how to kind of either appreciate it or even understand it. and that's not bad. Um, you know, especially art pieces. I've seen some kind of, uh, abstract puppet pieces where it's just, you know, flying forks banging into red circles and you're just like, you know, to a weird music track and you're like, that's crazy, man.

That's wow. Wow. Come Christopher Walken. Wow. That's crazy.

I, yeah. Wow. Um, I've learned the thumbs up because people now send me stuff on Facebook. Now I'm going to get grief because I thumbs up people a lot. And they'll say, what did you think?

And I'll say, fun, thumbs up. Because it is fun. I mean, that's the point of a lot of this. I mean, forks flying into red circles is fun. It's kooky.

I don't know what it means. If you're happy with it, that's all that should be important. Well, and then that's the trick. And then that's the other thing I've learned is what do you want to do? Are you trying to sell this as a TV series or are you just making something cool and different?

It was cool and different, but if you want to sell it to– children's television workshop, you probably should put the letter A in there. Or at least the color red. Or at least it should. Be brought to you by. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So, again, and and that's true for all art i mean some people make art for art's sake and that's great there's there really can't be judged uh except how you personally respond to it but then most people that talk to me want to either get a job as a puppeteer or you know sell shows and that's the world i'm in so i can give more directed uh input but also i'm not you know sadly i wish i were the guy who made the decisions I'm just like them. There's no difference from me and some kid in school who has a fun idea for a movie. You know, the guys created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, just two guys coming with a dumb, like almost a joke between themselves. Like, what's the wackiest thing we could do?

And they're multimillionaires. It's been sold. Making fun of other comics. At the time. Exactly.

Yeah. Exactly. You know, it's the, yeah. They sold the toy rights. Because it was, and that's the thing that's frustrating.

And that's not just Disney. That's Hollywood right now. It's that. It's all owned by corporations and they all don't want to be sued and they only want to make things that they already know are hits. So it's all children's books or reboots or Caldecott winners, which is fine.

But they take things that have already been proven in the marketplace, which I get. It's a safe bet. But that's not what filmmaking was in the 80s. Gremlins, everything I worked on in the 80s was not based on– except Star Trek– was not based on a previous hit. Well, okay, Jedi and Star Trek.

But Jedi was already– Doing stuff. Doing weird stuff. But Gremlins. Gremlins, you know, Poltergeist, E.T., they weren't reboots. They were like, let's take a risk on this crazy idea.

Now it's like they don't really do it. They, you know, we're having a fourth, fifth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. They're doing, and here they're doing another Gremlins. You know, I naively go in with like, but here's an original idea. And they're kind of like, yeah.

I mean, Disney has even said, we don't want to really develop original ideas. We want to... What can you do with Crocodile from Peter Pan or The Lost Boys? Well, they've been remaking their own movies. Well, that's what I mean.

That's what I'm saying. That's like the definition of not even a reboot, but just a straight up remake of your own film. Of your own films. Yeah. We're going to do The Little Mermaid live action.

Isn't that great? I don't know. It could be. It could be awful. Just watch the other one, but I mean, whatever.

Yeah. I mean, and that's sad as a creative person. And I know, like you mentioned earlier, the fans are frustrated. because i go where's originality we want you know where's why is it not like the 80s when you had adventures and babysitting and you know just crazy movies that were like what a great i mean it was all you know the wildness of the ideas was the draw you know what's a crazy idea i want to go see that now i mean i will say um cable uh streaming is sort of replaced it but it's all And series are great to explore characters and all that, but the movies were movies because it really only could last 90 minutes to two hours. It needed to be that. It needed to be like, here's a crazy idea and here's the fun we're going to have with it.

As opposed to, here's a crazy idea, how can we get 13 episodes out of it? Do you think there's more hope now because... Technology has changed and now everybody has the equipment. Like on your phone, you can make whatever you want. And you can stream it to the whole world essentially.

Yeah. But you just don't make money then. Right. It's just for your own purpose. There's a lot more opportunity.

I said, you know, YouTube and the democratization of creativity. You can buy a 6K camera, which you could then, whatever you shoot, you could then show in any movie theater in the world for $ 2, 500. That used to be the cost of the tripod, you know. I mean, no, for $ 8, 000 to $ 10, 000, you could have your own, you know, except for lenses and maybe lighting equipment, depending on what you're going to do. You could have your own editing pack, you know, editing suite, camera.

I mean, Blackmagic, they give you the editing software. Yeah. And it's great and color, you know, color correcting. So, you know, that's what I'm going. I'm going to go into Kickstarter and the money I'm making from Haunted Mansion, I'm going to use to buy as long as I can get another job so I can pay the mortgage.

But I want to use some of it to buy the equipment. And some of it you can rent. But if you're going to use it for more than three weeks, then you might as well buy it. Because exactly what you said, the thing I'm banking on is I've done enough stuff over 40 years that people might go, oh, I'd like to see what this guy– because I've never really gotten to do what I– the closest for Muppets was Treasure Island. That had a lot of my sensibility in it.

And then the closest for TV would have been somewhere between Dinosaurs and Christine McConnell because I helped create them. And, you know, with Christy McConnell, I wrote four to the six and directed all of them. That sounded great. I think that's with so many projects, especially streaming now, is you also don't hear about them. Like, there's no system.

By the time you find out about something, it's already not gotten picked up. People have found Christy McConnell two years later and said, oh, I love that. And I was like, yeah, I created it. They're like, what? And also, my name isn't on it except as executive producer for union reasons.

So. what it's getting down to is the democratization is great. The problem is marketing. You can make a great movie, but you know, unless you're going to go to Sundance and try and sell it and then they'll give you 2 million by the, you know, they'll cover your negative costs. So you don't make money at it. I mean, unless it's a hit and that's the problem.

It's, it's, so I've been focusing on television because, or streaming because there's a living in that. If you're going to make 13, you can actually make it's living. If you're making one movie, usually you put, try and put it on, screen and then they won't make unless you get a big star being a big star might be you know kevin pollack or you know kind of somebody who's known but not has a reputation yeah yeah and then you got to give them the two million and then you're out of your five million dollar budget now you're making a three million dollar movie uh which is fine but it it's again that's coming out of your pocket not kevin pollack's um well that was. The one of the things i saw recently you'd done in in the last few years um the episode of the kids are all right That's human beings.

I know. You're directing people. I know. How did that go? Well, the guy I wrote Food Goes Bad with on dinosaurs, a guy named Tim Doyle, who was just out of the Disney Writers Program, and this was his first series, and he and I are about the same age.

We hit it off, two big goofballs. Both grew up in the Valley, kind of really similar childhood. So we weren't Jewish, which almost every other writer was. So we had– It was funny. On a Jewish holiday, the writing staff was Tim, myself, and the other co-creator, Bob Young.

It was Thatcher, Young, and Doyle. We're like, we sound like a legal law firm in London or Ireland. But anyway, Tim and I became really good friends. And so he's gone off to create and run shows. And he created The Kids Are All Right.

And I've been telling him for years. And he was like, you're a good director. I said, it's so hard when you do Muppets. People don't think you can direct people. I'm like, you know, there's people under the puppets.

They think it's like kids shows. I'm like, Oh, it's really hard. So he had done, he had sold kids are all right. And he was doing it and he said, I'm going to get you, you know, I'm going to pitch for you to be a director. And what had happened was the new Muppets series, the Muppets, uh, the, the director who was a producer on that, um, Randall, uh, what was Randall's last name?

Einhorn, uh, had directed almost all of the, I think he did most of the, the Muppets, the 13 or whatever that aired. Yeah. And he was the producer on that and the main director. Like he was going to direct half the episodes on The Kids Are Alright. And he went to bat for me.

He said, look, anyone who can direct the puppets can direct people. It's so much easier. That's what I was thinking. It's got to be ten times more complicated to do a scene with the Muppets. It is.

I would say blocking with three cameras for eight actors is easier than blocking for three puppets on one actor. It's just faster. And faster. So they started making the show and they were about six episodes in and I met with him and the And the producer who'd done most of the, actually the producer and the line producer and the creator, Tim, were all Muppet alumni. They'd all done the Muppet show, the Muppets, sorry, the original Muppets, the Muppets.

And a lot of the Muppet viral videos, like Bohemian Rhapsody. So they all knew me. So I met with Tim and with the line producer and the producer, and they all said, we're always going over budget because we're taking too much time. And the director who was doing most of them and his buddy who he'd brought into to do the other ones they were just taking you know 14 hour days you know sometimes going into a sixth day which and and they had told you know the director that those guys had said you just were writing scripts that are too long they we can't do that in this short amount of time so they both all these three these guys like we know and tim said i know you're fast i know you don't mess around so if you can show that this can be done in the five days, you know, you're, you're golden.

I'm like, okay, I can do that. And I looked at the script and, and anyway, I did it in less than five days. I did it. You get 60 hours, essentially five, 12 hour days. I did it in 46.

I was four hours short. And I remember on the third day, like their wardrobe person was like, you know, we were just, I'm just meeting the crew. And I'm like, wow, you're, you're fast. I'm like, is that, That's good. We like it.

We get to go home and have dinner with our families. And I'm like, well, that's kind of what they told me is like, you got to prove that we can do this in the amount of time. So I did it. I did the amount of time and went in for my edit and spent like two hours with the editor and it already, you know, it was a rough cut and it was fine. And, and then the producers get there at it.

And so I called her, I hadn't heard for two weeks. I'm like, Oh, you know what happened? She goes, no, it was first. We thought you didn't get it. You were a little light on coverage, which means, you know, how many takes and how many angles you said, but you know, and I'll cut together.

Fine. I said, okay, great. So kind of waited to hear, Waited to hear. It aired. It was fine.

I promoted it, saying, hey, I did this. So they were looking at doing another six, because they liked it. it and it was getting good critical reviews. Sadly, in the ratings, it was going like this. It was going down. Again, any network sitcom.

It's like flip a coin and see what catches on. They don't give it a lot of time. It was a really smart show and it wasn't helpful at the time. It was a really smart show and kind of cynical in a smart way. Yeah, good cast.

Amazing cast. It was more– well– So I read the script and I was meeting with Tim, the creator. And I said, so he's saying we don't do reaction takes. We don't, you know, there's no laugh track. And that was good.

He said, we don't do really specifically. We don't do swingles, which is like, if I'm talking to you too, I would, you say your line would swing over and get your line. And so it gives it a dynamism. No, it was like three cameras, always dirty overs. You always have a shoulder side of a head.

So you really feel like you're in there with a family, which I got in very, you know, mise en scene, you're, you're there. And they didn't want to look, you know, there was no dolly shots. Everything was handheld. That was the other thing. So it was, you know, that was their style.

And they picked it, Randall Einhorn had created that. And it was great. It worked with it. But so I did it and it aired and everything was fine. And so I said, hey, you know, and he said, hey, if we get a second seat, I said, can I get one back six?

And I don't think so. I was like, why? He said, well, the word came out that you didn't get enough coverage. I'm like, what? I said, I shot it.

And he goes, yeah, I know. But the thing was, The guy who was the producer who went to bat for me, well, I guess they felt I was making him look bad because he'd never done one. But I have to say he had scripts that were really complicated, like 12 characters doing Christmas presents. So there were some scripts I'm like, well, I couldn't have done. It's not like I was some wonder kid.

I just kind of knew how to do it fast. But because of that, I think. They had to defend themselves and say, well, he just didn't– he did it fast because he didn't shoot enough stuff. But he cut together fine. But yeah, if you shot the extra stuff, you would have been over in time.

Well, exactly. How do you win? Your friends are saying, can you do this under time? And you do it and they're like, good job. And the edit was fine.

But then the guys who were– also went to bat for you, you didn't make them look better. Of course. And, you know, I don't have corroboration that they were mad and hated me or something. But it was weird when I'd done what essentially the entire production team and the creator had asked me to do successfully. And then it didn't get picked up, so it was all moot anyway.

But that's the last time Tim has had a show. And that's the last time I've directed anything for network television. So it's great on my reel. I'm really happy about it. I'm so grateful that both Tim and Randall went to bat for me and let me do it.

But it kind of fueled more of the, I'm going my own way. I'm going to go try to get Patreon. Well, and also sitcoms are dead. They're not making them. So the guys are directing them are like, you know, Tommy Schleimer, the guys directed everything since like cheer, you know, huge comedy directors, which, you know, they just know it's a safe bet.

I don't have to worry about it. They're not taking a chance on, you know, I'm not young, but I'm kind of new to the, you know, that world. Cause there's not puppets in it. So my angle is Kickstarter or like go for Mandalorian or Marvel. The Marvel guys I'm friends with, so I've been talking to them, trying to get even just episodic TV stuff.

They've got nine in the works right now. Exactly. I said, come on, you guys. But the thing is, and I've been told this to my face, you're a white man. We're not hiring white men.

I said, but I've got experience. They're like, yeah, but it's all about diversity, which I can't be mad about. I'm supportive. I'm very left of center. But it's tough when they literally look at you like, oh, so that's what it must be like to be a woman or a person of color.

Or like, oh, we can't. They would never say to them, at least after 1975, we can't hire you because of your color or your race or your sexual orientation. But they can tell a white guy that. Yep, can't hire you because you're a white male. Straight white male, don't need you.

So, again, that's pushing me more towards Kickstarter. Because I think people don't care if they like the idea. which is how it used to be. But I understand it. So it's just, that sucks. But it's sucked for a lot more people for a lot longer.

Yeah, definitely. So I can't be, you know, you can be frustrated by it and also go, oh, there's karma. Why am I the one who takes the road? Why can't it be the jerks that nobody likes working with? Can I pick who we put?

Yeah. That guy, that guy over there. The guy who has five shows on the air and directs all the time, but everyone says he's a total jerk. Why can't he be the one you want to hire? Oh, because he has five shows on the air and he's, you know, he's a hit.

He's a hit maker. So that's human nature, not necessarily showbiz. Well, we only had one more wraparound from last time. Sure, sure. Because we dove into the punk on the bus quite a bit last time.

Yeah, yeah. Going through, I saw the Spider-Man reoccurrence of this punk. Yeah. Who is this punk on the street? That was Kevin Feige.

I said I'm friends with the Marvel guys. It's through my friend Michael Giacchino. I dropped a name. Kevin Feige. Oh, I dropped another one.

The floor is littered with names at this point, folks. You can't see it because it's a podcast. So Michael Giacchino has been a friend since he scored Muppet Wizard of Oz for me. We became pals with very similar sensibilities. He introduced me because he'd been scoring a couple of Marvel.

He'd scored the– we did Spider-Man close to– or Far From Home. No. You did Spider-Man Homecoming. And they were shooting it when I met Kevin Feige at Comic-Con. And Kevin Feige walked up to me.

Michael said, this is my friend Kirk Thatcher. And Kevin Feige walked up to me dead straight and said– wait, are you the Kirk Thatcher? And I looked at Michael like, wait, are you punking? Like, what? And I was like, started giggling, like, yeah?

Like, where is this going? And he said, the one in Star Trek 4 that played the punk? And I said, yeah. And he puts down his hand and he goes, it is a pleasure to meet you. You're the reason I got into film business.

I'm like, what? I'm laughing like you're like, what? That is a statement. I keep looking over my shoulder at Michael like, come on, this is a put on. He said, no.

I saw that when I was 15 and I said, so the producer got to be in this movie as a punk, got to write the song, got associate producer credit. I want to be a producer. You can do everything. And I'm like, seriously? He's like, absolutely.

And I said, well, geez, I'm a fan of what you guys are doing. So we became friends, and I was pitching. So I said, because I was a little drunk at this point. It was like 12 o'clock at night. I said, well, if you're a big fan, why don't you have me direct one of your movies?

Because that's what I do. And he said, you're right. Let me get you my information so we can trade in info. Over the next year, really, I was working with one of the producers there to develop a Marvel property that would be kind of in my wheelhouse. I wanted to do Howard the Duck, but it was already spoken for.

So we were developing it and I was having a meeting at Marvel over at Disney and Kevin came in. He was supposed to be in the meeting, but he was busy making Spider-Man. But he came in and he said, hey, I'm going to sorry, I'm late. My car blew a tire. Now I got to go.

I got to get in a plane. I'm going to New York. I said, I'm going to be in New York on Friday, which was true. This was a Wednesday. He said, what are you going to New York for?

I said, I'm just seeing friends and I had something I had to go for. And he said, well, we're shooting, you know, we're shooting Spider-Man now. You should come visit the set. I'm like, oh, that'd be cool. And he goes, wait, oh no, you know what?

We should put you in the movie. You should be the punk. We should put you as the punk in the movie. I'm like, Wait, what? He's like, yeah, yeah.

I said, well, I don't know if I can get the mohawk. He goes, it doesn't matter. We'll figure it out. You can have the boombox. You can be playing the song.

And I'm like, okay, cool. He said, can you be there Friday? I said, well, I'm going to be there Friday. He goes, Friday at 4 in the morning or 6 in the morning? I'm like, well, I could probably change my flight.

He goes, all right. And he handed me off to the line producer. He said, they're going to call you. And so I literally got a call on Thursday. And they said, okay, Kevin wants you in the movie.

You're going to play the punk on the street. I'm like, okay. And just threw it together. The director looked shocked when I showed up because he was like, yeah, what are you? You knew what it was.

Yeah, no, he didn't care. He did not say that. He didn't even use me on camera for more than a couple seconds. But that's how I ended up in the movie because Kevin Feige was a huge fan. That's amazing.

Yeah. So we're still pursuing. You never know where it will come back and pop up. That's what I mean. Half the business is what you know.

The other half is who you know. And who you know introducing to who they know. And that pays to be a nice person, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Someday I'll learn how to do that. You jerks know. Yeah, so that was that. And hopefully something will come of the Marvel connection, whether it's they're starting to do little TV movies now too. Kind of ideas that maybe don't need a $ 200 million feature.

Uh, so, you know, something might come of it. I mean, the Netflix ones were kind of successful. That's what I mean. It's like they should learn from that. And they are.

Incorporated into Disney Plus, which is what they want to do. Disney is dying for content. Yeah. And Marvel has the perfect track record. They're better than Pixar now.

Pixar had it for years. Now it's Marvel. Lucasfilm blew it years ago. So Marvel's their golden boy, you know, and the goose that lays golden eggs. So.

Every time you start expanding and making Falcon and Winter Soldier, maybe that's not as successful as WandaVision. You're filling the airwaves with so much content, it's hard for everything to be a winner, as opposed to one movie every year. But we'll see. Between that and Kickstarter, and I'm developing an animated series with Netflix that I'm writing the pilot. Actually, I'm waiting to get the notes on the pilot.

I can't say what it is or anything, but it's an adult animated series, more like what you'd see in Adult Swim. with an established animation company out of Canada. So that could be fun. And it's not cutesy, kidsy. Again, adult always sounds like it's porn or R-rated, but it's more just like, again, Adult Swim is probably, that's what's nice. You can use that now and people go, okay, it's not naked ladies, people having sex.

It's just not little kids per se. It's still horribly inappropriate. Just different. Horribly inappropriate. Exactly.

It just doesn't do with making babies. No weenies or boobies. Well, never mind. I know. Why would I be interested in that?

Did you have any big specific ones to get in there. Before we wrap it up? I did have a quick question. Yeah, sure. Were you involved with the Hollywood Bowl shows?

Yeah, a couple years ago. I remember those. I co-wrote them and directed them. I directed them and co-wrote them, yeah. What's the difference between doing a live puppet show versus.

In terms of the writing, you're really hampered by what you can do on a live stage. In other words, you can't suddenly take every... I mean, use theater tricks like now we take you to Planet Kuzma and you just drop a weird looking alien planet and you're in Kuzma. So we weren't so limited by that. We were limited by how many puppets we had and Directing it was the bigger challenge.

I'd done theater in high school, so I kind of knew how that worked. I'd never directed theater before, but it's not that different. It's just you're doing a live show, so it's like doing a three-camera show. But the thing that we really struggled with when figuring out is do we have walls up so you only see the puppets? Do we have the puppeteers on black with black hoods so you can't see them?

And Bill Beretta, who was one of the main puppeteers and producer on it, he said– and he kept pushing like, nope, we should just have him out there and the lights will see him. And I'm like, oh, but you can't film that. That's going to ruin it. And so we kind of realized the best thing to do was have the cameras just showing– if you watch the screen, you're going to see the puppet show. If you watch the stage, you're going to see how the sausage is made, as I said.

People loved it. And Bill was right. He said people are going to love that. And again, you couldn't see a close-up of Dave Goels talking with Gonzo floating above him. You would see Gonzo.

But if you were in the close enough seats, you could see Dave's mouth move. But if you're far enough away, you could still see Dave and how they worked. So people loved that because it was kind of the best of both worlds. So that was the fun. The tricky part was rehearsing.

It's all about timing. It's like doing a big dance. Getting people on and off stage and working with the venues. So yeah, the Hollywood Bowl and the London O2 shows were yeah, there was like three writers on it and I was the only director. And it was fun.

And a nice experience. Awesome. Cause yeah, I wondered how that would be like if the Muppet perform, I guess coming from a puppet background, I guess a lot of them probably do have some stage. Yeah. Well they were, and then Bobby Moynihan, of course, that was Bobby was, I take credit for that.

Cause he had just left SNL. I said, we should get Bobby Moynihan. And they're like, you know, he's a white guy. So yeah, I know. And he, but he was a huge, he was not only a Muppet fan, he was a huge Star Wars fan.

So he and I become friendly or friends and, And he was just– I'm just still proud that I made that suggestion because he was so perfect. He really is a Muppet and he gets– you know what I mean? There are Muppet people and not Muppet people and he's a Muppet person. Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely.

He jumped in with both feet and he was– like he would tell us, I would pay you to be here. He loved it so much. And so that energy is not– you can't fake that. So he's just out there having a blast and totally– He almost cried. Gonzo, he said, was his favorite Muppet.

And he did so much with Gonzo. And yeah, that was great. And he came with us to London. Right? Yeah.

That's amazing. No, I love those. And the big fun thing was writing it. We wrote it like The Muppet Show. It wasn't any clever pretense.

It was literally putting on a live show, just like The Muppet Show. Wow. So Scooter was there helping. And Kermit was trying not to lose his mind. And Piggy was a diva.

And so... and, and the critics and every, every time I do something, the critics and the fans go, this is amazing. The Muppets are back. This is what they should be doing. And then they hire, you know, someone else to do the movies or the, and it's so frustrating. And it's, it's that human nature is like, well, you're a Muppet guy.

You're not really, you know, you can't, it's, you're never a prophet in your own town. Is that, if you've heard that phrase and it's really true, it's like, well, we need big, we need big, we need big TV people. Not, that's why I didn't work on the Muppets. I wasn't a big TV guy. I only written Muppet movies and TV series, you know, uh, And won an Emmy for it.

But you weren't. You didn't work on Big Bang Theory. That's crazy. Oh, the finest of writing. I was like, I get it.

You're not going to hire me to create it or write it. But hire me as the writing staff. Like, I get it. And they're like, no, no, we want sitcom writers. And that's what you get.

So, whatever. Human nature. I don't take. You have to learn not to take that stuff personally. Right.

Yeah. I still have voodoo dolls with, you know. But it doesn't work. Nobody's died. But I do like stabbing people.

Nobody's gone blind. One gosseter hearing, one in each ear. Well, thank you for hanging out with us. Thanks for having me. You let us know what you've got to to put out there yeah we can definitely spread the word on on kickstarters.

And anything patreon and yeah that would be great pass it on i'm trying to figure out how to do patreon because that i feel like you've got to produce something every month. It's a fight because we've we've got one right now so you heard him people you have to join our patreon group and then we'll tell you give. Them the five dollars a month yeah oh no wait don't give me your five dollars. I'll i'll uh you've got 10 bucks give us i'll have. I'll have i'll have naked muppet stories um Well, I was talking to Bill Diamond, who's a puppet guy.

He's got his own studio. And his suggestion is, and it was a good one, it was like, do your Kickstarter for the pilot. Yeah. So you can show people. And then your Patreon is, if you give me, you know, 40 bucks, you'll get six episodes a year.

Yeah. So that's it. It's like, you know, it's getting Netflix for three months or four months. Yeah. But you get six episodes.

It's a whole new business plan. And I'm like, that makes sense. You know, and if I get 5,000 people to give me 20 bucks, I could produce, you know, a show every two months. Yeah. So I don't know.

I got to figure it out. It's a brave new world. I'm not, I don't really have a head for business in that way. I'm always like, I just want to make stuff. So, and that's what's great about Bill.

Besides the puppet stuff he does, Bill Diamond, he makes these great shows and he, he finds the money. He just, he doesn't go to. The way to keep it going. Cause I've seen him here for years. I know.

I so admire, I so admire that about him. He's a businessman and a creative and I'm kind of more of a creative and. It's a hard balance. It's hard to be both. Yeah.

It's hard. Yeah. I mean, you know, Walt Disney was, that was his genius. And to some degree, Jim Henson, although, you. Know, he was more artisty and that's what.

Yeah. Well, you know, commercials is what kept the Muppets alive for years. Sullivan show didn't pay anything. It was Wilkins and Wilkins and all the stuff he did as a commercial. Yeah.

All that stuff paid really well because it was commercials and there were three networks and everything. And, you know, it was a lot more money back then compared to now where it's, they still pay really well, but, There's 700 outlets, not three. Yeah, it's insane. Well, good luck with your Patreon. We do what we can.

So, yeah, let us know what you got in the works and we'll pass it on. Oh, I appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks for being here. Should we put our clothes back on now?

What? I mean, why? Yeah, it's true. All right. If we've made it this far, let's get this going.

The all-nude movie meltdown. You're assuming we wear clothes on any episode. Yeah, it's true. I think I'll have to listen more closely. Yeah.

Thanks, guys. Thank you. Sayonara. I'm your puppet man. Can't you see it?

Puppet, puppet man. I can't do anything unless you pull the strings. I think I'm going to have to move to the other side of the table because I'm pretty sure there's a spider over there. Do you see him? Tarantula.

Do you see it? He's right there. How do you not see him? I want to move to the other side of the table. I don't like spiders.

I see him. It's a spider. He's coming to eat you. I know. That's why I'm going over here.

Oh, there's spider webs over here too. Yeah, he's already been there. He set up shop. I'm going to hang out right here. But then I can't see what's coming up behind me.

Monsters. We're back. From Wonderfest to tell you it was awesome. Yeah. We're glad we've worked our way back into the world here at Wonderfest.

And I got to go to the book sale at the library today and I found a copy of Halloween 3 for 50 cents. The novelization. I'm jealous. I want you all to know. You should be.

Because I want that and I want to pay a little amount of money for it as possible. 50 cents is the least amount of money you're probably going to get a book for. Especially Halloween 3. Especially Halloween 3. Good luck.

Go look at it on eBay. It ain't cheap. Is it not? I would say any of those novelizations of Halloween is a fortune. Friday the 13th I thought they made some of.

They're a fortune. There's some early nightmare ones I think that are a fortune. So I'm assuming the weird cult that Halloween 3 has also the novelization is worth a fortune. So you made cash today. But we want to thank Wonderfest for all the fun that we've had today.

So if you haven't been here, you really should be. It's awesome. Go to wonderfest.com and find out what's going on next time around. I believe they usually go ahead and plan it for next year. So I think they've already got the date on this thing I'm wearing right here.

It says next Wonderfest, June 4th and 5th, 2022. It's the weekend after Memorial Day, much like this one. So they've got their plans. See, they know what they're doing. They've got it down.

Go to wonderfest.com. Come here next time. This one's even in worse shape than mine is. Look at that. All right.

And what are they asking for that Halloween 3 paperback? Exactly. What did I say? It's $ 109. 85.

You paid 50 cents for yours, and it's in better shape than that one. I told you. Money. I have the first one, too, which has the best cover ever. That one's going for a lot, if I remember correctly.

But I do want the... ya series of following too and the freddy krueger series of following ya books i'm. Sure you do okay well with that i say we're gonna get out of here we'll be back probably for more wonderfest coverage in the very near future otherwise that about does it we will return next time same geek feed thanks for listening. Yeah. Yeah. Rub it from a string and I'll kiss your lips.

On your bucket now. Shake out a line and I'll bring you pride on your bucket now. Love. And when you've got a bad eye, you're popping out. Yes, you're freaking popping.

Do what you gotta do I'm your poppin' pop Come in for a. Drink And I'll do my thing I'm your poppin' pop Come in for a drink And I'll kiss. Your lips. Well, then it's time to hang around. Let's go away.

Don't waste your time. You're bummed. You're bummed. You're bummed. Okay, you over there.

You over here. Where am I moving? No, you're killing me. Just sit here. See, now you're not looking at anyone's back.

Oh, okay. Okay, but I'm going to turn my chair around. Yeah, well, that's up to you. No, see, now I can just look at two people and not go like this. That makes sense.

Jesus, guys. You know, since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to get into an argument with a Muppet. I feel like that's the culture. That's a whole new meaning now. What the hell are you doing?

Nope, not going to do it. You can go sit in a lake full of ants. I feel like Snoop Dogg right now. Oh, my God. All right.

Not as high. There was a lizard. It was a skink, and they are my least favorite of lizards. It went behind me on the other side of the wall. You can't see him now.

He's probably coming after you. He probably is, too. Him and the spider are going to gang up on him. They're teaming up. Inside is scary.

This is why you've been in the house for a year and a half. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios. with opening music performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.