A chat with Puppeteer: Noel MacNeal( Bear in The Big Blue House, Sesame Street)

Join us as we talk with Noel MacNeal who is famous for his roles in Bear in the Big Blue House and Sesame Street.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We need to tune in if youwant to hear we have chat Josh,

(00:03):
Dmitris and Marcus every front. Ifthe square round taber, it's the square
round tabe. Just have a last. I knew well work you had a
long day. Just the last?All right, all right, what's going

(00:26):
on? My freaks and geeks.This is the Scuround Table Podcast. I
want to thank all of our viewersand listeners for coming out and joining us
for another amazing show. And guys, we have a very special guest tonight.
We are so thankful that he wasable to take time out of this
busy schedule or a chat with acouple of nerds. So, without further
ado, guys, I would loveto welcome the legendary actor and puppeteer and

(00:47):
our friend and yours, mister Noelmcmull Yes, the legend took time from
cleaning the cat box. Yes,thank you, that's what we legends,
Jue. We just we have appreciateeverything you. I'm not going to nerd
out the whole podcast long, butyou you are specifically. It was like
considering we're black and nerds, it'sreally blurred. If we're gonna get really

(01:08):
specificate yea, just own it andjust move on. Yes, yes,
of course black nerds, we areblurred and it's definitely been a part of
that, like literally our whole lives. We're all Joshua was the youngest out
of all of us with me andbecause we're right at thirties door, but

(01:29):
ever since how old is young Joshua? Wow? Yeah, So you've definitely
been there from the beginning and we'rejust here tonight to definitely honor you and
chat a little bit. So great, So before we jump into anything,
what we like to do here atthe Score round Table is just get an

(01:53):
idea for how you're doing. Iknow we talked a little bit before then,
but how's the mental health? Haseverything and going for you? I
know it's new year, you're justgetting off the holidays. We talked about
getting fat because of how have youbeen doing? Yeah, between the fat
and the depression of just the samebefore, like how Christmas just sets you
up, Like the December just setyou up with Christmas Hanukkah Kwanza, just

(02:15):
like every party, every little gettogether at excuse to try this nibble that,
listen to music, go to ourconcert and then of course it's Christmas
Day, and then there's New Yearsand then it's done. And then all
the lights are gone, all thedecorations are gone, the music has stopped,
and it's just dark and damp.And I hate January with a ashen

(02:45):
capital age. Yes, eight January, it's the worst February. First,
like, yes, we've made it. January. We got the exactly that's
it. And then from there,I don't know how like older damn begets
in Atlanta this time of year,but here in New York because I'm in

(03:07):
Brooklyn. It's been raining all dayand I've just been coming up excuse after
excuse not to leave the house onthis day off. There's no I don't
have to do that. I canjust yeah, I can do that,
or like dinner, we have dinner, what's up with the cupboard? Oh
yeah, I can pull this together. There's like just not wanting to leave.
So we still have a Christmas treeup because it's just dark. It's

(03:28):
just dark, and it's just miserable. Want to keep the best of keep
the lights going, just to keepit going. We're gonna take it down
this weekend, but we're just likehanging on because here's the thing with the
holidays. The holiday season, Ibelieve, starts with Thanksgiving. That's the
start of the holiday season, andof course with the Thanksgiving Day parade here
in New York, the last flowto Santa, which kicks off the whole

(03:50):
holiday Christmas season. So the seasonbeginves and Thanksgiving. So you've got so
you've already been prepping for Thanksgiving,been shopping for Thanksgiving. You're doing Thanksgiving,
then afterwards the shopping for Christmas,and you're getting ready for Christmas.
And then there's Christmas, and thenthere's maybe you want to do something for
New Years, and so there's alwaysthere's always something going on during December,

(04:12):
even a party or some sort ofget together, like commitment to do.
You're always doing something so that bythe time January comes, you could actually
like breathe because the holidays are over. So in a way, you could
enjoy the holidays now because you've gottenall those commitments done with, but you
can't because they're gone. And againthat whole setup of the rugby pulled out

(04:34):
from under you. Oh you're relaxed, tough, No, seriously, it's
like you're ready for all of thisgood stuff. And then you have Christmas,
which is like so exciting. Andthen it's because my mom talks about
it all the time. She saysher her least favorite day is the day
after Christmas because it's like the biggestdrop off. Everybody's just oh, yeah,

(04:56):
we're not excited anymore. Yeah,this is what what do we do
now? It's almost yeah, yeah, because it's always that. It's always
just that weird time span between Christmasand New Year's especially if you're like visiting
like relatives or and it's just likeyou're there and what do we do now?
It's like what kind of you don'twant to say out loud, but

(05:16):
you're trapped and you're really it's likethe only thing you can really come up
with constantly is oh, one dayis it? I don't even know what
day it is anymore, do youknow? Because that's the only thing you
got left. That's it. That'sit. You don't know what day it
is. It's the closest to apost apocalyptic zombie attack as it is because
you're stuck inside. You really can'tgo out anymore. There's nothing else to

(05:38):
do. Really, you're like feverishlytrying to figure out what to do.
Is there a movie we can see, Is there ice skating? Is there
anything we could do to the countdownto getting back on the plane and going
home. That's why Netflix is sucha wonderful thing because you can use that
as like a disruptor of just thequiet. You're like, oh, this
is an excuse, let's try tofind something on that, something on that

(06:00):
anything exactly. Yeah, even topaying one of your family though, it's
always that debate of what should wesee, and it's like the cons should
we do this movie or no?Should we watch The Grinch? Or should
we watch die Hard? Is thata Christmas this movie? It's like in
that spends a debate and then itgets down to subconsciously, this really isn't

(06:21):
about watching die Hard. This isabout all those little, picky, passive,
aggressive things I've let you get inaway with for the past forty years.
But now it comes down to this, You're not watching die Hard.
I'm not dying on that hill.Yeah exactly, it's like it's over,
You've crossed the line completely. Butno, we definitely feel a lot of

(06:43):
the same way. So that's why, for sure, we're definitely happy that
you could be already of sunshine.This job, amongst all of the rain
and snow because it's raining here inGeorgia. Okay, okay, not as
bad as California though, So thatthat's insane. That's nuts. I've never
seen it's I forget the phrase,but it's pretty much like it's raining rivers

(07:06):
and I've never heard that in mylife. It's raining rivers like an actual
river is falling from the sky.It's insane. And that's what our other
co hosts is with Demetrius. He'sfrom California. He's in Stockton right now.
So it's okay, yeah, it'scoming down, so yeah, I
definitely hope it gets better. Sogood they do such I guess extremes.

(07:30):
So it's either really hot where treesare catching on fire and that was this
yeah yeah, And just to remindyou, like where you are, Oh
by the way, here's a littleearthquake, like yeah, just just like
in case you forgot, hello,you're on a fault line. Yes,
it's always a second Phoenix. Arizonacould be the new West Coast, So

(07:55):
just to remind you of that,exactly, it is the same. That's
why I'm glad we're don't have todeal with any earthquakes or any of that
is just Georgia is just hot.It's just hot on top. We just
get mostly hot rain, get hotrain, cold rain, and it's always.

(08:16):
It's a wonder why. I likeevery person is uncovered in some kind
of molder moss, like, it'salways it's humid. It's humid here all
the time. That it's like astate of being human. You have to
carry water with you everywhere you go. Hydrate, Yeah, you have to
insane. I would love to.That's why I love to go to New

(08:39):
York sometimes and just get a changeof scenery not have to worry about just
bursting into flames when I walked out. Oh yeah, I mean it does
get hot here too, but wehad the added advantage of having a subway,
so you always have that treat ofwhat smell am I going to encounter
on this trip combining with heat andhumidity and several questionable members of humanity,

(09:05):
yes, constantly living through that constantStar Wars line. What an interesting smell
you discovered? Yess Yeah, Ithink I'm good on that. I might
have to pass on that part.We have Marta, but we don't have
to, you know, no,I've written Marta like one of the last

(09:26):
times I was in Atlantis. It'sadorable. It's really and I say that,
yeah it is. I say thatas a survivor of the New York
subway system. It is just cute. I expect, you know, get
to pull into the neighborhood and makebelieve at the next stop. It's just
so sweet. And I was like, welcome to the Magic Kingdom. This
is quaint. Yeah, not asinteresting. You say that because I always

(09:48):
feel cool when I'm on Mary.Yeah, this must be what New York
feels like. I guess. Yes, if Disney did a version of a
New subway, it would be Marta. Yeah, let's grime up the monorail
and that's Martya. Yes, understood, but we'll definitely put some respect on

(10:15):
we got yeah, yeah, Martadoesn't have like rats going up the stairs
with a piece of pizza in theirmouth. I can't rodents going up the
stairs with their takeout. You don'tgot that yet, really, you That's
the one thing Mark's like here.You rarely even see like a rat or
anything that I almost lost my mindwhen I saw on the other what is

(10:35):
this creature? Like? Is this? I was in Disney World one time
years ago, there's the Magic Kingdomat night and we were leaving and by
the castle and all of a sudden, like this nose like sticks out from
the hedges and we just all stopped. Oh God. And then the rest
of the head comes out and thelittle ears pop up and we're like,
oh, it's a bunny, butit the New York like it was a

(11:01):
little and he just opped over tothe other side. I love how all
of you have a collective PTSD.Any kind of animal or ruder you're like,
oh, that's yes exactly. Itwas like, what is it,
Like, where's it going, what'shappening? Yes, yeah, that's part
of the wild life here. Althoughwe do have wild life we have I

(11:22):
saw always the last year before itwas in the own. It was like
in twenty twenty during lockdown, Iwas looking out the window at neighbor's yard
and it was like this huge Mywife says, oh, look at that.
That's a huge cat along the fence. And I looked out and she
didn't have her glasses on, andI said, honey, that is not
that was It was a raccoon.Whoa goodness, yes. And we're in

(11:46):
the middle of Brooklyn and it's araccoon. Because we're also a block away
from Prospect Park, and so there'sall kinds. There's raccoons, there's rabbits,
there's like ducks, geese. Soonce iime someone actually saw a deer
in Prospect Park, I have alittle bit of everything. And then and
I don't like raccoons. They havethey have thumb like I don't really Oh,
they can be nasty. I don'tget down with that. Yeah,

(12:07):
this is not Miko from Pocahonta's Kids, right, You see how Disney just
said everybody up for failure like that, Like exactly, it's a little more
like if if rocket raccoon really juststarted just like foaming at the mouth,
that's more realistic. I could stillhave some sensibility of socializing where he'll curse

(12:28):
you out, but at least he'scursing you out it's supposed to just like
going for your throat exactly. Iwould rather that. Yeah, yeah,
I can't do the right thing.You like literally everything, So I'm good.
One of the things we definitely wantto get into. And we talked
a lot about how you're doing,and that's good. We're all doing well.
Also trying to get past the Januaryslump, trying to make it the

(12:50):
February. But one of the thingswe want to talk about is your background,
because we know, of course,you have a huge career in puppetry
and you've done so much in differentlike avenues. We just want to know,
Number one, where did you growup and where did your passion for
acting in specifically puppentry come from.I grew up here in New York,

(13:11):
in a central Harlem and in thisplace called the Lanx Terrace. Now get
any thoughts of like tenement and gangsout of your head, because this was
more like the Jeffersons. It wasa wonderful apartment building with a terrace and
a doorman. It was like thefirst of its kind in Harlem. And
that's where I grew up. Andat the time when I was growing up,

(13:33):
there was more puppet shows on TV. There was like Sherry Lewis and
Lamb Chop. There was everything aboutto say, just google it Sherry Lewis
and Lamb Chop. There was CaptainKangaroo, there was Mister Rogers. There
was a Paul Winchell who was aventuloquist and he had a show called Winchell
Mahony Time with his two characters.Paul Winchell also went on later to be
the voice the original voice of Tiggerfor Winnie the Pooh, as well as

(13:58):
many About Area characters. He alsoco invented the artificial heart, so a
piece of puppet yeah Yeah. Andthen when I was about like seven years
old, one Sunday night, therewas this half hour show on a local
PBS station, Channel thirteen, andit was this half hour show talking about

(14:20):
this brand new kids show coming ontomorrow morning, and it was hosted by
two puppets, and it was thekind of puppets that I've ever seen before.
One had a head like a bananabecause it was yellow, and the
other had a head that kind oflooked like the shape of a football.
And their names were Ernie and Bert. And they were talking about this brand
new show coming on tomorrow morning calledSesame Street, and they showed clips from

(14:43):
Sesame Street. I think the specialwas actually on YouTube, you could actually
look it up, and they showedclips of it. And when I saw
a big bird for the very firsttime, it was like a puppet that
you could that could actually walk aroundand interact with people. It just blew
my mind. Now in retrospect,if you look up big Bird, like
first appearance of Big Bird on Google, it is nowhere near the Big Bird

(15:05):
that we know a light years.And if you look up mister snuff Lubb
becaus his first appearance, that isthe stuff of nightmares for those of you
out there. Pause, go toGoogle, look this up and then once
the trembling stops, come back andyou know, expressing the comments which you

(15:26):
thought of the very first appearance.Yeah, exactly. So then I started
following the Muppets during the course ofmy childhood and when I was in high
school that's when the Muppets show happened. And when it came time to think
about college, I was thinking,Jim Henson, he's figured out how to
make puppetry a career and all thesepeople are with him and they're doing it,
so maybe I could do this too. So then I did research the

(15:48):
old fashioned way, because this wasbefore the Internet and looking up anything.
I went to the library, whichis like Barnes and Noble, but it's
free. Exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah. And I looked up two
colleges and they were in the areaof New York. There were two.
There was one in Connecticut at theUniversity of Connecticut and stores Connecticut Yukon,

(16:08):
and it had a puppetry program,a four year puppetry program where to this
day you can get you a master'sdegree in puppetry at Yukon. The other
was in Brooklyn and it's called PrattInstitute, And at that time, Pratt
had a theater department. Within thetheater department was a puppetry course. And

(16:29):
so I got all the information togetherand I was going to present it to
my mom. Now, my momwas a single mom. My dad walked
out on us when you were eighteenmonths old, and so she pretty much
had taken two jobs to put methrough private school because when it came time
to junior high. In high schoolin our area of central Harlem, there
was the school where the kid gotstabbed or where the kid got shot,

(16:52):
so those are not options. Soshe were working two jobs as well as
she had taken care of her momand her uncle who also lived with us
until they died. Got all thisinformation ready, she'd just presented to the
single mom working two jobs, Okay, I want to be a puppeteer.

(17:14):
And she looked at me and shesaid, Okay, what do we have
to do. Oh, there's thisschool and there's this goal. Okay,
what do we have to do?This one's due by this date. This
one's due by this date. Okay, what do we have to do?
That's all she kept saying. Guys. She never belittled it, she never
dismissed it. She never say havea backup plan, because she always told

(17:34):
me you can always get a job, get a career, and so she
just supported me from the get go, and after this all like presentations,
she was totally down with it.I said, are you really okay with
this? She said absolutely? Andfor some reason, you want to be
a lumberjack. Tomorrow, we'll figureout how to do that. Awesome.

(17:55):
Yeah. Yeah. So I endedup going to because you can turned me
down because it's first come, firstserved for Connecticut residence. And I was
thinking, even back then, it'slike, how many Connecticut kids are wanting
to be puppet tiers? What?So I ended up going to Pratt and
at the Pratt the theater department,the puppetry course was taught actually by a

(18:17):
designer and builder not only of themuppets, but he designed and built a
big bird and Snuffy and his namewas a kermit Love And no, the
frog was not named after him.It's just one of those freaky coincidences.
Yeah. So I went to Prattand then the summer before my senior year,
just before pretty much two weeks beforeI was supposed to go back,

(18:40):
Sesame Street was back in production becausehe was on set taking care of Big
Bird, and he had an assistantwho helped him, and his assistant quit,
so he offered me the job.And so it took like a microsecond
to decide, let's see, shouldI go back or should I take this
job. Also a little note,when I joined the theater department three years

(19:03):
prior, they were closing the theaterdepartment after me, so I would have
literally ended up in a class bymyself. They would have been no more
theater department because they weren't letting anybodyelse, so anyone who graduated ahead of
me, they were gone, andit would have just been me. And
it's like I really didn't have adesire to put on a one man show,
so I did it right, SoI just took I took the job,

(19:25):
and I started off at a testwhich was a great education and television
production and behind the scenes and howlike the most famous kids show in the
world worked. And I started offat what's called the wrangler, the person
who takes care of the puppets.So I would help Carol Spinney who originated
Big Bird and Oscar I would helphim in and out of Big Bird.
And when I got to know allthe other puppeteers as well as the human

(19:48):
actors, and they were all wonderful, And that's where I met and worked
with and got talked puppetry by JimHenson and Frank Oz and the other puppeteers
Richard Hunt or Frank Brill and JerryElson and Carol himself who was like my
mentor. And so I started inSeptember of nineteen eighty two. So last

(20:08):
this past September was like the fortiethanniversary of me being associated with this show,
and like the things I've done withit since then, gone to co
productions around the world and audition andtrained puppeteers and worked with directors and writing
crew or their sesame streets. Andnow I'm a director for our sesame street

(20:30):
here for the show and also forthe YouTube channel. Right out of the
gate. Yeah, it doesn't alwayshappen like this people. I was very
fortunate. I was very lucky.So it just fell into place. So
there you go. That's really cool. So as far as so you start

(20:56):
off like Street straight out of college, Sesame Street, you're saying that you're
basically helping out the actors on set, working with the puppets, caring for
them, trying to make sure everythingis cool with that. So with I
know, because because of how theshow works has got to be pretty rigorous.
So how was that for you whenyou first started? I know your
head was like all the over.Oh yeah, it was like it was

(21:19):
incredible and also intimidating at the sametime making sure that everything because you have
to make sure the puppets are preppedbefore you give it to the puppetsier and
like any props they need to useor have, or any costume elements they
have to have, it has tobe right. They have to make sure
it's right for the for them.And then there are production meetings, so

(21:40):
you get these like I remember thefirst week at this pile of scripts and
doing lunch is the production meetings.Sometimes they would extend lunch an hour and
a half because depending upon how lengthythe scripts were, but usually it's an
hour. So the cast goes offand at lunch, the crew goes off
at lunch, but we would goupstairs and have the production meeting with the
director of the producers and the propdepartment, costume department. The writers never

(22:06):
showed up at that point, likethe writers had done their job and they
just never showed up, which isa good thing because sometimes they would just
tear the script apart in terms ofthis doesn't make any sense, this isn't
going to work, and just outof the blue, there's an item one
cut. It's like for for reasonslike there wasn't there's not enough, there's
the show's too long, there's notenough time, cut it, or just

(22:29):
they just didn't find it funny,like cut or just strike it. There
must be an entire I don't know, room of scripts. There must be
volumes of unused bits from Sesame Streetthat just never got made. And so
you just go through and you makesure, okay, this probably we need
this, pubbly we need that,and just go through and then eventually when

(22:52):
that show comes up, that's whenthe Henson Shop would bring over like whatever
props or costume moments were needed andfor that particular bit. And that was
back when Sesame Street was an hour. It was an hour show, and
it's starting to the production start inSeptember and would wrap around like March,
like early March, and we woulddo something like like there's like over one

(23:18):
hundred shows, because that was backwhen it was like daily and so it
was like a daily show. Andso a season of Sesame Street would be
like something like one hundred and thirtyshows or one hundred something, but like
twenty twenty five of those shows wouldbe reruns from a previous season. The
rest would be brand new shows andthat would just air every single day until

(23:40):
they pulled the episodes off HBO Max. You could get a sense of that
because the show was an hour andyou got a sense of the format.
Then it was like there was thestreet story and then they would cut to
these different inserts of Grover Kermit ora cartoon about the number three, or
a live film about a flower andget back to the main story. So

(24:02):
that happened back when they did that. They still a production meetings now and
they still have going through stuff likewe're starting Monday next Monday, We're starting
season and fifty four of Sesame Street, and I'm directing two days of these
segments that that are called Monster FoodieTruck. It's with Cookie Monster and the

(24:22):
Donger who make recipes for who callit. So we're doing that next the
Monday at the set which is atthe Kaffman Studios in New York. Yeah,
and going to other countries and whohave their own Sesame Street is an
adventure because we take our humor forgranted, this sort of like tongue in

(24:44):
cheek satire kind of stick. Wetake it for granted. Other countries didn't
grow up with this. I rememberI was in Palestine, was had a
Sesame Street and they were rebooting theirSesame Street and they were bringing it back
and because it had been a coproduction with but now they were having their
own Sesame Stream and so they're bringingit back. And so they had writers,

(25:08):
a couple of writers who had neverwritten for TV before. They were
rule for puppets, and so throughthe interpreter, I was like telling them,
like Sesame Street, you know howyou teach things through entertainment, Like
the first rule is make it funny. Second rule, make it funny.
Third rule and then within that islike the actual lesson. And so I

(25:32):
would show them examples from our Sesamestream and then I said, the next
day, come in and pitch usan idea and then maybe it's good enough,
will actually you get to write itand use it on your Sesame Street.
And so the next day came andthis young writer pitched his idea.
Now, with Palestine, every everySesame co production has sort of a curriculum

(25:53):
for that particular season they're going for, Like India when I went there,
it was about hygiene and clean water. Japan when they were rebooting Theirs,
it was about express it. Itwas about emotions and how to express emotions
because the Japanese can be very reserved. For Palestine, for their reboot,
they wanted their theme to be identity, like identity of who you are as

(26:18):
a person, who you are inyour family, who you are in your
community, who you are in yourcountry. So identity was very important to
them. So he pitched this ideawhere it's a split screen and on one
side is the Sesame Street character whoanswers the phone, and on the other
side the split screen is their Muppetfriend in the Gaza strip and it's hard

(26:45):
for the Gaza Strip muppet to heartheir friend talking because of all the bombing
and the gunfire in the background.So the Sesame Street muppet wants to make
their friends feel better and pies anote and ties it to a Muppet bird
that flies out of frame. Amoment later, on the Gaza side,

(27:07):
you hear a gunshot and feathers fallonto the head of the Gaza Strip muppet,
and I said through the interpreter aworld of no. I understand what
you're doing, dand what you wantto do, but this is not the

(27:29):
way to do it, because it'sstill Sesame Street and in still this sense
of a safe haven. And yes, the outside world does intrude occasionally,
but there is a way to handleit. So I said to everybody else,
how could we take this story andmake it so that it could help
kids through this situation of worrying aboutsomebody that they know and love in the

(27:55):
Gaza strip. And so it camedown to the human character is worried about
his friend and the Gaza strip andthe two muppets come by see their friend
is sad, so they're trying tothink how can we make them happy?
And they come up with ridiculous littlescenarios, even dress up like files.
They're trying to do balloon animals thatblow up and they just keep flying out.
They can't do it. And intheir attempts to try and make him

(28:18):
happy, he smiles and they askhim, do you feel better? He
says, I do, and you'veactually given me an idea. So that's
when they draw this picture, thethree of them, and they roll it
up and they use one of theballoons and they blow it up and they
tie the drawing to the balloon andthe balloon rises up and sails over the
buildings like towards the direction the Gazastrip would been. And so it helps

(28:44):
their friend feel better. It's aboutlike empathy and recognizing how you can help
somebody feel better. And the youngwriter, through the interpreter, said you
watered it down, and through theinterpreter, I said, god damn straight,
I wanted it down because it's sesamestreet. So it's just just adjusting

(29:06):
for like other countries, other countrieshave. Ireland didn't even have usually they
have a street, like India haslike a street, and Mexico has a
street. Even Germany has a streetIreland, they were more used to a
magazine format, almost like sixty minutesa version of it. So it was
so it was called Sesame Tree andit was about this muppet monster who lived
in a tree. He was agoraphobic, he was afraid of like outside,

(29:30):
so he would send his little muppetlike bird friend to go out and explore
and have all these screens. TheUK version of it was called The fur
Chester and it was set in ahotel if Faulty Towers met the Muppet Show.
And it's because the British are morefamiliar with farce and so it was

(29:52):
set in a hotel. So youjust adapt the sesame to that particular culture
and heritage. Wo Basically, thethe idea is just the format of how
you guys teach through comedy and usingyour puppets. You don't necessarily have to
use the same name, so noneof it. They don't have to be
called sesames. Oh no, yes, there's translates to other languages like an

(30:18):
India, it's called gilli zim zin Um. But then if you can't
use the word sesame, they preferit because it's it's a branding thing.
So it's like that's what it wasa business. So it's like in Nigeria
sesame square, in Mexico it's plusthe sesimo, but Germany of it it's
a sesim straus. Yes it's justso warm, and yes some strauce it's

(30:51):
like, how am I supposed tofeel fun? Having fun now? They
just celebrated their fortieth anniversary because theywere the first, one of the first
co productions. And instead of havinga big bird, they have a big
bear named zem Zim And instead ofhaving a grouch, because Austar represents like

(31:15):
that person who's just different from you, who has just a different outlook and
a different viewpoint. That's what hissole purpose was, is to be just
like somebody who's completely different, butyou respect who they are and the choice
that they make, even though it'ssomething you would never choose to do.
So that's what Oscar is. InGermany, they don't have a grouch.

(31:37):
They have a bird. Her nameis Tiffy, and instead of loving trash,
she is obsessed with neatness and perfection. Yes, so everything has to
be perfect, yes, and sotrying to deal with yeah, And then
that represents the whole thing of noteverything is going to be perfect, but
you can still deal with it,still be fun and so yeah, so

(32:00):
it's like adjusting characters for that particularcountry with a lot of sesame. There's
Cammy, and Cammy is the firstmuppet with HIV in order to educate people
about AIDS and specifically that you canbe around somebody who's HIV positive but you
won't catch it. You can actuallyplay with them, you can actually touch

(32:21):
them, and so she's been veryimportant for that curriculum. No, because
like you were definitely blowing my mindright now, because I didn't because of
course, just being here and notpaying attention, you just don't know.
You know how this property is handledin different places, and you've been overseeing
pretty much how these things it formedin other countries. That's so cool.

(32:43):
How long have you been doing thatfor? I was, like I started.
I've been associated with the show sinceSeptember nineteen eighty two. So I
started as a wrangler. Then itbecame like a background puppeteer, so I
transitioned out of that, became likea puppeteer and assist assisting puppets, and
then then it became so I wouldfill in for Carol when he was in
the bi Yeah, and now Igained a direct so yeah, so yeah.

(33:07):
But during that time I've also beenable to go to the co productions
back when you could actually do that, when budgets would allow that to be
like Kitty Welcome, Welcome, myname is Lola. She was just like
going back when you complain. Wait, yeah, so sess Me brags it's

(33:35):
the longest street on earth, forgetcompletely. But between that also I also
got to do like other shows andlike I did commercials and a couple of
movies that had nothing to do withsess Me Street. So I was in
the third Turtle. I was aboutI was just about to say, we
have to look. You gotta lookat Mark as a shirt right now.

(33:59):
You got really didn't do this,It wasn't on purpose, quinkydink, Yes,
absolutely, yeah. And you alsodid Ubi. Yes. Yes.

(34:19):
It was just like the most basicpuppet you can think of it, like
your bare hand and some taxi germyeyes. That that was it. So
Ube was funded. It was avery interesting show because they can only talk
one or two sentences at a time, and then we we're going to do
for the last season, We're goingto do a musical, and we kept
wondering how these characters are going todo a musical they only talk one or

(34:40):
two words at a time. Butit worked. It's totally great. It's
on you can watch it on Ithink it's it's on Paramount Plus and you
can watch it. It was onfor the longest time on Nick Junior during
the day, and then it gotshifted to like in the middle of the
night, two or three o'clock inthe morning. But apparently we're still popular
during that time because that's when allthe college kids would come home and after

(35:07):
great evening and get back and watchthe talking hands with the balls of eyes
on their knuckles and yeah. Butit's like you just happened across it,
because I've done that too, Likeyou just half on a crossing and you
just get stuck, like you justcan't turn away from them. Yes,

(35:34):
something from your child. It waslike, oh, I remember, It's
like it wasn't a fever dream.No, you actually saw this as a
child. Got wasn't the Mandela effective? Actually, yeah, it actually happened,
like actually happened. Yeah. Sothat's the thing with Because I worked
on another show in the nineties itwas called a puzzle place, and some
people remember it, but some peopledon't because unlike Nickelodeon NICK or like the

(36:00):
Disney Channel, back then, theywould have a schedule and so the shows
would be on specific times. Yourlocal PBS station controls that their own schedule.
In some markets, it would beon at seven o'clock in the morning
or seven thirty before kids would goto school, or beyond at four o'clock
in the afternoon or four thirty afterkids gave home. But sometimes it would

(36:22):
be on in the middle of theday, like here in New York it
was on at ten o'clock in themorning. So depending upon what market you
were in, you probably don't rememberthe puzzle place wherever saw these characters before.
And that's definitely true because pass howit was for me with my camera
off, But yeah, that's howit was for me with Between the Lions.

(36:45):
Does it just seemed like it cameout of nowhere? Have you guys
watched Between the Lions growing up akid? It sounds familiar, man,

(37:07):
Yes, I definitely remember that thatwas my favorite show because I liked to
read books and I used to loveto go to the library back before we
even though we had computers and stuff, we still went to the library to
research and do stuff. So Ialways thought it was cool that it was
a show with my favorite animals andthey ran a library, so I was

(37:27):
like, why not, this isperfect, So it was. It definitely
was one of my all time favorites. Growing awesome. Yeah, it was
a fun show. I got towork over the last two seasons. We
shot both last two seasons at thesame time, and it was in Jackson,
Mississippi. Oh yeah, and itwas it was fun. It was
great. I got to do Lineand he was a fun character, and

(37:50):
the show itself was just like reallyfun to do. Yes, and it
was created by Chris Surf and MichaelFriff and Norman Styles. They were all
better from Sesame Street and the Muppets, So that's why I had that certain
classy like stick comedy, said definitely, and just kind of like outrageousness and
silly. Yeah, I think myfavorite like side from that show. It

(38:15):
wasn't like a cliffhanger. Cliffhanger ain'tnever got off there, Yeah, exactly,
no animation and it's just like thehanger hanging from Yes, it's just
all the time. You never gosometimes you would get off and then fall

(38:35):
And I thought I always thought itwas cool too that the mouse was an
actual mouse. Yeah, like computermouse. I thought that was really cool.
Yeah it was the mouse. Andthen there was Busterfield, the statue
pigeons who lived up above the lobby. So it's just like, yeah it
was And then all these characters becauseyou had the lions, had like like

(38:58):
buster Field had the monkey who werelike running around. Then you had already
smarty Pants and just sort of likethis bizarro puppet and his mommy swammy mommy,
and he would like reach into theword of the day, let me

(39:19):
reach in, took my smarty pantsand he was just big this work.
Just thinking could you get away withthat today? Probably? Not probably,
But it was like the little dancelike dance smutty pants and then reached It
was like, yeah, it wasgreat. It was like awesome, like

(39:40):
I love, I love. Thatwas the best part of the show for
me. It was great. Butone thing I wanted to know as far
as like that leads to my nextquestion, So, out of all the
puppets that you've operated, like,what is your favorite kind? Because I
know even from Sesame Street you weredoing some of them members of a snuff

(40:00):
Aloka's family. You're doing walk aroundpuppets even like you said, I didn't
even know that you were a standin for Carol Spinning. That's super,
that's awesome. And like I said, you offer operated hand puppetry too.
So as far as all of that, like what's what was your favorite style?
It still is like the big walkaround kids, the big giant puppets.

(40:21):
Yeah, it's like the snuff easand a bird and then the character
that I did for a Disney aBear for Bear in the Big Blue House.
It's just like this big walk aroundpuppet, which was pretty much the
Big Bird technology. It was thesame style as Big Bird. Being inside.
You had a little camera, alittle monitor strapped your chest and there's
a microphone and you're looking down.My right arm was up through the neck

(40:44):
into the head doing that and itwas like a little trigger for bears like
little eyebrows, and my left armis in his left arm, and the
same thing with Bird. That's howbig Birds done the same way. And
so it was great able to likewalk around and not be like hidden around
anything. When I started doing appearancesand when that's the other thing with the

(41:07):
monitor which you saw at home,is what I saw. So I saw
a bear the head to toe whenhe was in the foyer, but I
couldn't see out. That was theonly vision I had was what I saw
on the TV camera. And soif you ever, it's on Disney Plus.
Now, yeah, it's on DisneyPlus. So if you look at
it, if like in the beginning, the foyer has the rug, and

(41:28):
it has these thresholds in the doorwayfor the living room, the little strip
of wood at the bottom of thedoorway for the living room and the dining
room. And so with my feetI could feel like even I could if
I couldn't see it, I couldfeel like when I was on the rug
and when I was off the rug, and when I was like near the
threshold, on the threshold, soI could turn and leave or just like

(41:51):
talking and just like backing up.And as soon as I felt the banister
behind the stair I knew the staircasewas about behind me, and then I
could just turn around and I'll startto go up the stairs like the first
like the first rehearsal day, becausewe did rehearsal, because we all knew
it with these characters I without havingBear on, I walked through the fourty
eight and then I walked through again, but then I closed my eyes,

(42:15):
so it was kind of like beingblind in your own home. So just
and a gatting used to the feelingof okay, this is what it feels
like under my foot, and okay, that's what it feels like bumping against
the banister, and then going upthe stairs with my eyes closed, and
then coming down the stairs with myeyes closed. So then it has a
certain rewiring of the brain inside.But when I started doing appearances at Regis

(42:38):
and Back, then was Regis andKathy, then Regis and Yeah, and
then became Regis and Kelly. Andwhen I did like the Way Brady Show
and Hollywood Squares especially, that's whenthey had a camera in the eye and
bears left eye. It was likethis little lipstick camera embedded into his eye,
like the glint of his eye.So they had another eye, but

(42:59):
the matching glynd But this way Icould actually see out and see why I
was walking around. So the visionon that monitor was if you did this,
if you close your eye and justdid this, that's pretty much what
you had in terms of a lotof enough vision. Yeah, and I
would also do hospital visits because whenI did appearances, I always asked,

(43:22):
could I do a hospital visits?And I did, So that came in
handy too because then Bear could actuallywalk around, like down the halls or
like peep into rooms of the eyeand all that, so it really helped.
And then when I was on TVshows like Hollywood Spirits, I would
have that camera in the eye,but then I would also have the feed
from the TV show, so whatyou saw at home is what I see.
So then I had two monitors strappedto my chest, one for the

(43:44):
eye and then one for the TVcamera. The TV a whole lot.
I know that that's a whole lotof the whole lot of electronic storing on.
But oh and and the image onthe monitors is Bawards. It's not
a mirror. Wow. Yeah,so if the bear, if I turned
my hand to make Bear look tohis left on the TV, it would

(44:07):
be looking towards the right. Butyou just hard wire your head and just
get used to it. For crack. Yeah, but that was fun.
He's doing well on Disney Plus,so maybe maybe new stuff. And then
I've been recently speaking of like bigcharacters. I've been on a vacation swing

(44:29):
for Off Broadways Little Shop of Horrors, so doing like the Plants, the
Monkey Monkey Body Productions created this revivalsPlants, the Audrey two Plants, and
they were looking for a new vacationswing for the fall, and Mark Petches
you know, called me and saidno, would you be interested? And
I was like, gee, it'sbig, it's heavy, it's hot,

(44:50):
I'll spent like a pig. Sure, I'm in. And so nothing I
haven't done before so in terms ofbig body puppets. But the Audreies have
been like great. And there's alsomy first time because I've been primarily like
TV, occasionally like the movie allbut pretty much like TV. This is
the first time I've done like real, like legit theater and it's been remarkable.

(45:12):
It's been such an experience, especiallyhanging around like theater people, and
it's been one and the cast andthe crew had been they were so welcoming
and just so genuinely sincere and nice. They were great. They were all
and such genuine people too. Andstars there's stars of theater. It's like
I got I've been working with starsof theaters. It's like Rob when I

(45:36):
first when I came in, RobMcClure was a Seymour. Rob McClure has
done so much theater. He wasin like you look him up on YouTube.
He was in Honeymoon Vegas. Hewas in Beetle Juice. He was
something rotten. And he was alsoin Avenue Q, like a during production
of Avenue Q. Which is whyhe was so good. There's like the

(45:58):
one Audrey two puppet that he hasto perform. He was like great at
it. He was like, hewas so good. But he actually fanboyd
over me. Why because he grewup watching Eureka's Castle and so he loved
Magellan. And that was the dragonthat I did again, another big puppet

(46:21):
that I got to sweat inside.So it was like it was great.
So I had one. One ofthe promotions of Pizza Hut back then was
they had these little rubber rized versionsof Eureka, Batley and Magellan, and
I had one, so I gaveit to Rob because he was leaving and
Matt Doyle was taking over. Sofor his last day, I gave Rob

(46:44):
Magellan and he just it was great. But that's how really like Sweetie is
and then Matt Doyle to go overand Matt's that the great guy. It's
wonderful. And Rea he just wonthe Tony from being in the Vival of
Company. It's just like remarkable,mar canly talented, sweet guy. It's

(47:04):
like really good and everybody there allthe other Because that what's called a swing,
and that means it's if somebody callsout because this past like a couple
of weeks, is this thing.I don't know if you've heard of it.
There's this thing called COVID. Iknow it seems new, had to
had to google it. Just think, what's a I got covid and so

(47:25):
been filling in and so it's beengreat. So it's been awesome. That's
awesome. And I'll go ahead,Josh, you're about to say something that,
Oh I was gonna just act whatis a vacation swing? But because
I was like, wait a minute, I don't know what a vacation swing
is. Yeah, it's like termslike what a vacation swings? Is that

(47:46):
what you do with the playground thatyou're visiting is a vacation swinging? Yeah,
it's a swing. Is there's there'san understudy, So an understudy is
for a specific character understudying for Hamiltonor understudy for Burr, and you learn
their part called the track, soyou learn their track, their dialogue and

(48:07):
their songs and also their choreography.A swing is somebody who would learn Hamilton's
track, or Burr's track, orMadison's track, or Lafayette's track, or
pretty much almost all the male sometimesthe male tracks if you're a guy,
or the female tracks if you're agirl. So then you could easily just

(48:30):
jump in to any of those rolesin case that person all out, So
you can like pretty much swing into that role or swing into another role.
Where the term comes from, I'mguessing. So yeah, so mixes,
Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And there there was one day
doing a rehearsal because I had rehearsedthese things, and one of the people

(48:52):
were saying that they were listening toa podcast, a theatrical podcast, and
the host was asking the guests thefine question he always asked, always ask
my guests, what are your threethreats? And everybody started laughing, and
I'm going, my mind, threethreats? What? And of course the
reference was the triple threat, youknow, acting, singing and what more?

(49:16):
Talent could you do? That's whatlike the triple threat is, So
what are your three threats? AndI said to them, oh, okay,
see not being theatrical, coming fromTV and living in New York.
See, when I think of oneof my three threats, one would be
being tossed into the tracks of thesubwayet getting mugged, and Republicans. So

(49:36):
those are my three threats. Its. Yeah, yeah, it was really
one thing that I want to askyou too, because I know for people
that perform huge characters, like I'ma huge horror fan, right, so
a lot of those guys they mighthave a mechanism for maybe some cool water
ran through their costume to keep themfrom literally falling out. So what did

(50:00):
if you do stop literally passing outwith all the big characters you've been doing
over the years. But with Birdyou could easily just pop them off because
you wear big birds legs and feetlike a pair of pants, so you
just, like in the rest ofthe you just take them off and just
slip them on. With Bear onceyou inside Bear in case, there was
no like between the zippers and thesnaps and the vocals, Like once I

(50:22):
was in there, I couldn't likeget myself out if I tried, which
is why when we first started theshow, I worked out with my wrangler.
In the unlikely event of an emergency, I'm going to put my hand
on your shoulder and you're going tojust lead me out of the building that's
potentially on fire, and I'll probablybe outside with everybody else still just as

(50:44):
a bear. But I'm alive,so there we go. But yeah,
it's like I've always liked big bodypuppets. They're just do you mean,
They're just more fun. You canhave more fun with them and sole in
the snow the costume. Were youon the front or in them? I
was in the front. I've donethe back once, never again, So

(51:07):
what's wrong. It's just it takestwo people to do Snuffy, so in
the front, and normally it's MartyRobinson, who's just like a virtuoso with
the expression of Muffy does Snuffy does. Marty also originated the plant and the
puppeteering for the original production of LittleShop of Horrors off Broadway, which just

(51:28):
celebrated its fortieth anniversary this past fall. So when he's in Snuffy, I'm
I'm a Snuffy you're inside, andthere's like this harness you wear so that
if you tip Florida back, it'sconnected to the rest of Snuffy's head so
that you can move around. Andthere's a candle for the mouth, and

(51:49):
there's a little trigger for the eyesand eye blinks, and then there's a
monitor that's attached to the side,so this way you're looking over so you're
doing all this, but you're lookingat the monitor to see how to do
Snuffy's expression. And in the backyou're because that's where like Snuffy's profiled.
It's not it starts here like likeslope down. So in the back you're

(52:10):
crouched sumo like squatting position. Itwould like bent over slightly. With your
own monitors, you can keep trackof like where you're going. It's a
little tiring, especially if depending onhow tall you are. So I did
it once, never again, noI filled in. It was like,

(52:30):
no, I do it. Itdoesn't get no, forget it. But
he's a great But I love Snuffy. He's such a beautifully designed now,
such a beautifully designed puppet. Ohso there's the front standing up. I
mean you're standing, but you're justlike you're you're in the front, you're
standing upright in the back, you'rejust say, you're almost like squatting.

(52:51):
You're just just bent over slightly andwalking. And then but you're you're the
rehearsed a bit outside of Snuffy.Then you get inside, come back,
and then you'll do a take andthen you'll do maybe one more. So
in between that and we're setting,that's when they bring stools and they put
them underneath. And that's when youcan just sit down on the stool while

(53:12):
still being inside and just take abreak needed. Yeah, and then you
like stand up again. They pullthe stools out and yeah, you continue
on and yeah, and then Snuffyin order to be Big Bird, there
is like a pole, so youjust put big Bird on this giant like
pole. When you don't need him, just put them on the pole.
Stuffy doesn't have that. So onceyou get in that Stuffy, he gets

(53:35):
cabled. There's like these two biglike cables and you just and he's so
big, you just raise him upto the ceiling so he's out of the
way. So he's just like upthere. Yeah, and of course you
can't see that he's connected to anything. He's just and Marty makes a point
of always closing the eyes, sothis way you look up and he's not
just like with his eyes closed.I remember one time back when I was

(53:59):
wrangling, a kid came in andsaw a snuffy up there and he asked
me. He's like, why issnuffy up there? And I said,
trying to think fast because the kid, like I said, oh, he's
you see his eyes closed. He'sasleep and when stuff up because his dream
they float, so that's why he'sup there. Probably started it was like

(54:28):
I said before, like big birdspants and feet you wear like a pair
of pants and the big birds onthis pole. So then Carol would rehearse,
would just like the pants and thefeet on, but have his hand
up and he would like do thelines and rehearse while big bird was like
on the pole standing by. Andthis one kid came in one day and
watched the rehearsal and he's looking atCarol and he looks at Bird, and

(54:54):
you just kept doing it and youcould just see that in his mind he's
trying to like put these two imagestogether. I was like, how is
he doing? Yeah, And thensomebody wants to asked Carol, like why
are you carrying Big Bird? Andno, just why are you under Big
Bird? And Carol said, oh, he's riding on my shoulders, and

(55:15):
the kids, oh, that's it, that's it works. There you go.
There was a kid who came bywhose favorite character was Oscar, and
he had trash like crumpled up paperfor Oscar and he wanted to give it
to Oscar and Carol said, oh, just a second. He went to
what we called the Muppet box wherewe keep tools and all that, and

(55:37):
there was like a special box forOscar. So he pulled out Oscar and
put him on his arm and said, hey, how are you doing?
And the kid like looks at Carol, it looks at Oscar and says,
that's a puppet of Oscar. Where'sthe real Oscar? And Carol's still wearing
on He said, oh, justone second, and Carol just walked over

(55:59):
to the trash can, duck down, the lid flies up, the same
puppet pops out and says any Marcusand the kids arc and just had this
whole conversation because that was the realOscar, that this puppet, that's Oscar.
Yeah. It's always great when kidswho visit the set we had that

(56:22):
on Bear. We would have kidscombined visit and it was always it's always
that nice reminder of like, whyare we doing this? Oh, yes,
it's for you. Now with Beargetting comments from the kids that are
all grown up and are now introducingtheir kids, and that's so cool because
it's like, I have a Idon't have any kids, but I have
a niece and I used to shestarted out like watching sesem Streets. So

(56:45):
when you talk about kicking monster,he bakes the stuff. Now, I
watched that with my niece, soit was cool to do that. And
then also being a sesemeent Street kid. Yeah, and bearing a Big Blue
House kid. It's gets so soreally not because when you said that for
the longest when I first got DisneyPlus, I was like, where it's
Bear. I was like, Idon't care that I'm a thirty old man.

(57:09):
I just want to say, Okay, I know people would ask people
ask me for the longest time wherehis bears? I don't know. I'm
not keeping a file hiding away.It's like you should bear the Big Blue
House songs. Quite frankly, itwould never have left it was up to
me. But obviously it's not soI don't know where Bear is, but
it's good. It's good to havethem Batman, because just that song,

(57:30):
when it's time to go, you'rejust like, no, it's not time
for the Ever since the back oftwenty twenty, I have this puppet of
Bears, so it's a puppet ofa puppet, which is very meta.
It was made for me by adear friend of mine, James Royall Junior
and who's who was one of thepeople who made one of the original bearheads,

(57:52):
so he knew exactly what to do. It was actually came about from
our friend Paul McGinnis and Hayley Jenkins, who are too talented puppeteers. Paul
and I work on the Disney seriesThe Book of Pooh, which is on
Disney Bluffs, and Haley of hispuppeteer, she is if you've heard of
the show Donkey Hoodie, it's likeshe's Donkey Hoodie. And so Paul and

(58:13):
Haley were getting married and for thereception, Paul asked with me and Peter
Lance and Tyler Bunch do a songfrom Bear, the song I Love Loves
the Most Amazing Thing. And Ibecause Haley was one of the puppeteers for
the Bear Puppet Show at Walt DisneyWorld. I said sure, yeah.

(58:34):
I started thinking about this. That'sgonna be really weird and creepy, like
three guys up there like doing thesevoices. And so I had this idea
of Okay, I'll make some puppets. I'll make Pip and Pop puppets and
give them to Peter and Tyler,and then I'll make a bear puppet for
myself. And I got like furlike kind of matched. And when it
arrived, I started trying to figureout how to do it, and I
kept texting James, what should Ido here? You could do this?

(58:58):
And I just kept texting them foran hour and then finally he just text
me pack back, No, justsend me this stuff. I'll do it
just And so the day of thewedding came and he knocked on my hotel
room and came in and the bagand pulled out this like gorge. I
could never have done this in mywildest dream, never could have done this.

(59:19):
It's just beautiful. So I havethis puppet of Bear. And so
during the lockdown, my son,who was at the time fourteen, and
said, Dah, you should goon TikTok, and I said, what's
a TikTok? After a thirty secondcondescending explanation as only a teenager can give
you, he explained what TikTok was, and he said, you should use

(59:40):
your Bear. And it's like whymillennials loved Bear. I love that won
wrong And I did a video andas he just took off from there,
I couldn't believe it. And thenand all these some of them I've gotten
like millions of likes. It's justlike insane. It's just like how people
just like, I'm down to this, and that's why I'm on a cameo

(01:00:00):
too with him and doing like littlegreetings. So then bared back on Disney
Plastic Crime the Pump. Yeah,I remember this guy. Now he's finally
back on TV. And now peopleare asking me, like about merchandise,
like we'd love merchandise. We getsome merchandise. Again, I don't control
this exactly. I don't have acloset of I don't do this people.

(01:00:25):
I'd like some merchandise too, Idon't have it. Be patient. Maybe
if we do something new merchandise,that's it an hope. Ways is long,
it's still like really interesting, howBear and Big Bird just like these

(01:00:47):
and trict puppets because that's just thoughtthere were the Chucky Cheese and mascot or
it's just like a rule. Thisis basically just like a kind of like
suit. Yeah, it's not.That's the difference between a mascot or a
cost is the fact that it's apuppet. It's a puppet you wear.
So the same principle you would usefor doing Kermit the Frog or Elmo,
like putting your hand inside and movingthe mouth. It's just inside of a

(01:01:13):
puppet. It's just some it's apuppet you wear. It's the same principle.
Mickey Mouse is not a puppet.Chuck E. Cheese is not a
puppet, the Philly Fanatic is not. Mister is not a puppet. Those
are costumes. Those are mascots,which is a whole different thing. But
these are actual puppets. People sayit was a costume of Beart. I

(01:01:35):
have tot No, it was apuppet, did you It's like you're the
voice of Bears. No, I'mthe puppeteer Bear. So I was inside
and I did the voice, whicha lot of people just don't put the
connection with They did the same thingwith God. Were you the voice of
Miss Piggy the voice of Yoda?It's like, why would you just assume

(01:01:57):
it's just one thing? Why wouldyou disconnect? Why would you like separate
the performance, the voice and thepuppeteering of it. So yeah, so
just explain that little stuff of puppetrygets enough disrespect as it is so like
another we were here in the UnitedStates, like puppeteer is relegated to teaching
the alphabet and three is the magicnumber, which is why it's so nice

(01:02:20):
to do on to go on othershows like Saturdaynight Live or Last Week Tonight
with John Oliver where I'm the lizardentpuppeteer and you can like curse and just
like last week Tonight, I'm inan interview Vulture Magazine, which is online.
They asked John, of all themascots done, what would be the
one that kind of like epitomizes,like symbolizes last week tonight, And he

(01:02:44):
said it was mister Nuttabutter. Andmister Nuttabutter was this giant squirrel for this
story and connection with this coal baron, this evil coal baron, and it
was this great segment with this talkingsquirrel, that was. And the thing
with John Oliver, who also,by the way, is the nicest guy.

(01:03:05):
He was so respectful of puppetry andhe says that in the article and
he's just genuinely a nice guy.And doing rehearsals, John will always rehearse
before John comes. Then we dorehearsal with him. He never sees like
what I am until the actual rehearsal. So my goal is always to get
can I make John laugh during this? And so we missed a Nutherbut because

(01:03:27):
there's a giant squirrel, he comesout and I'm able to like hold onto
the head because I get lip sync, but I hold onto it and I
can like jerk it like back andforth like a squirrel would like spreading him
right, And just scurried over andstood next to John, and John not
only laughed, he couldn't talk.He was just like he couldn't talk,

(01:03:50):
and it was like that was likeinside I was like and it was great,
like he loves he loves mister NunaButter, and he mentioned me my
name in the article. I wasvery flattered. And he's been on sesame
too. So he made a pointof saying people think this is easy.
It's not easy. It's like playingan instrument, getting like the respect.

(01:04:12):
It's like very nice of someone whogets it. It's oh, that's look,
I said, that's why we reachedout to you. We definitely appreciate
it. We do. I waslike really blowing away with the bear's arm
mechanism. Yes, whereas one piece, but you apparently move the other arm
with another piece that's on this oneparting mechanism. It's this whole transformers and

(01:04:40):
it's here's the secret people. It'sagain it's the big beard technology. I've
got my arm up inside on myleft arm and his left arm, and
then there's a monofilament like fishing stringfrom the wrist going up through a ring
what under the chin, and thendown to the right hand which is stuff
and it's pinned on so that whenI do this with the left it just

(01:05:03):
does. That's the mechanisms. Itstill blows up. Yeah yeah yeah.
And then there are times where wedo have a right hand comes in.
It's a bear does do both hands, but normally it's just it's that's what

(01:05:23):
it does. So actually I workedwith um there's this an Australian company called
Earth the r and they do dinosaursfor shows. And the cat scratching the
couch. Thank you, the catscatching the couch as soon as you take
your eyes off exactly. See whatlegends have to put up with kids like,

(01:05:44):
yeah, this is it. Yeah, I don't even know what I
was talking about it anymore. Soit's like you just love my train of
thought. Thank you? Shut up? Um, what was I talking about?
You said, earth? Right?Oh yeah, and you do think
a dinosaur. So it was ashow I was involved with. And the
the guy in charge of it atthe Scott he always like Bear. He

(01:06:06):
was always so amazed and with withthe dinosaurs inside his harnesses and like the
mechanisms that it's like the steel framingand all this complicated electronics going on inside
the wearing. And he was warningabout like the mechanism inside Bear. The
neck was so fluid, Like howwas that done? I said, like

(01:06:28):
this, I just my arm up. It was like how was your arms?
Like, yeah, that was myarms, Scott, old fashioned,
old school stick your arm up there, that's it. Yep. So when
it works, it's called job security. Kids, there you go, job

(01:06:50):
security. Put on my smart patents. Job security. But even as a
grow. I didn't really know fullyand like how big bird work. They're
working, so I watched this video. It was like I think it was
like a couple but years ago whenI was trying to get a puppeteer on

(01:07:11):
the podcast and I was just likeoh, because they literally have a video
on YouTube like how Carol Spinney performedbig and it blew my mind. I
was just like wow. Because thecounterbalance thing with the hands, like if
you're not really being ultra focused onthe other hand, you would think there's
another that you have both hands inthere, and that's how it's working.
Yeah, there are times when you'llhave what's called a right hand who will

(01:07:32):
like slip in and do something andhold something for big bird. I'll be
from like behind, he'll just leacharound. He'll put his hand or her
hand inside big Bird's wing and soit looks like he's using both hands.
That's usually when big birds like standingstill, because trying to do this while
you're walking would be really hard.So it's been usually big where it's standing
still, that's when that would occur. So we have I think it's called

(01:07:55):
like right hands, and I haven'tdone left right handed for Jim Henson when
he was Oh yeah, and withthe right hand, you put the puppeteer
does the head, the principal puppetiersas the head, and the right hand
the left hand thinking gesture, andthe right hand just does the right hand
and just gestures very minimally. Youno one like overdo it. So there's

(01:08:19):
this a bit on YouTube, classicbit with the Count. Jerry Nelson's character
is called the Batti Bat and it'sjust like this waltz that the the Count
does. And I was the righthand for him, and you know,
I just go twirling around the set. Richard Hunt, who was another puppeteer
where I loved and admired, hegave me this trick of just loop my

(01:08:42):
thumb through Jerry's belt, loop inthe back and hang on. And so
that's exactly what I do, becauselike as soon as it's time to Walter,
just hold on and you just gotwirling around, twirling around, and
you could, like again, lookit up on YouTube, the Batti Bat.
Yeah, all things down below?Is that people you mentioned this,

(01:09:05):
Oh no, we're definitely putting allof that in the description. Oh yeah,
yeah. I usually say that myresume is most people's childhood memory,
which I'm really proud of. Waytoo much television at some point in your
life, probably some of something Ido most of us on TV now or

(01:09:25):
on YouTube. Yeah, it's crazy. Like I said, there's no way
you couldn't. And then like Isaid, I've I definitely prepared for the
podcast, but you're just naming stuffand it's blowing my mind. I'm like,
you did that too, as insaying, like, my mom is
like the biggest little Shop of Horrorsfans, so when I tell her about
this podcast, she's going to literallyfreak out. Yeah, and so it's

(01:09:49):
really crazy. You've done a wholelot. But one of the things I
do want to make sure we getin. I wanted to talk about something
that you're working on. I'm notsure if it's already out the show show.
Oh yeah, it's something I starteda while ago, and I have
videos on YouTube that it's called toShow Me Show, and it's a show
I've been developing specifically for kids withautism and special needs, and so I've

(01:10:12):
been like pitching it around and hopefullysomeday will actually be like a full fledged
show. So I'm still hopeful,But there are still videos online that you
can watch have fun with it.So it's called they'll show me show Okay,
great, so we'll definitely put thatin the description below. Also,
thank you, and of course we'regonna put We're gonna promote this podcast so

(01:10:36):
much and get all of it out, no worries. We got you.
And then I wrote my memoir andthat's gonna be put me out through Amazon
Publishing in the next few weeks.Oh nice, so we will. So
yeah, we'll definitely be bothering youin the email. Hey, we're putting
it out, so we're gonna getall of that stuff out there exactly we

(01:11:02):
got you. We'll just being thenerds that we are, though, we
have to know. Hold on theblurds he told you to say it man,
thank you, Thank you, Marcusads out there. My apologies making
the blurds that we are. We'regetting a black doctor who come on,
never gonna happen again, so enjoythis. We definitely are. So we

(01:11:27):
have to know, especially since Marcusis wearing the shirt, how did you
get to be Rafael? Basically wheredid that even come? Fish? Um,
it's not a puppet per se,but what happened it's interesting. It's
like a combination between a costume anda puppet because it takes it takes five
people to do one turtle. Sowith Raphael, there was the guy inside,

(01:11:49):
the actor inside, Matt Hill,who's also a voice actor. Great
guy. He and I got alongso well. It's so tight our bott
it was great, so we reallyknew how to play off of each other.
While he was inside and he's wearingthis head of rap. It has
all these gears and servos and likewhen you turn on, it's just looks

(01:12:11):
like it's you have to really bein a zen state of mind as well
as and then acting and his face, the mouth, the lips, the
eyes are all radio controlled. SoI'm off to the side with this little
station and I'm remote controlling the mouthand the eyes. So this and with
the microphone, so then Matt canhear me, and he can hear the

(01:12:35):
lines that I'm saying as Raphael.So then when Raphael has to fight,
then there's the martial arts like expert, and so the martial arts expert has
their own suit and does the fightingas a Turtle. And then the third

(01:12:58):
one was in Back in Time andFuel of Japan, and funnier enough,
the mountains of Oregon looked just likeFeudal Japan. And the turtles who grew
up in the sewers of Manhattan.They've never ridden horses, so there's like
a scene where they're trying to ridea horse and they keep falling off while
the horse is running. So thenthat's the fourth person, that's the stunt
double, who has their own suitthat they fall off of. And then

(01:13:23):
after all this principal photography with allthe turtles, it gets send back to
Hollywood, gets edited together, andthen the voice actor sits in the audio
studio. The fifth person sits there, the official voice and just dubs over
everything. And the other puppeteers havesaid, so it takes five people to
do one turtle. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but it was it was

(01:13:45):
fun, it was great. Itwas quite that they used they used The
first two movies are done by theJim Henson Creature Shop. This one was
done by the same people who didthe movie Short Circuit, so that's the
robot twenty five ye, So theyused their technology and so it was great
and the puppet cheers with myself,Gordy Gordon Robinson, and he was from

(01:14:09):
Fraggle Rock and Rick Lyon who wenton to do Having Your Que Broadway,
and then Jim Martin who was ashow I worked on with him, a
great Space Coaster, and he alsobecame a director for our as Sesame Street.
And so there was the four ofus as the Four Turtles, which
was really cool. That's awesome.Yeah, never never thought we would have

(01:14:35):
a well turn on the podcast ontop of all the things, all the
other things that you do, thebig mountain of everything else keep which is
good. It was great. Yeah, Like I said, oh yeah,
I kind of kid about to gointo college. So yes, any work

(01:14:55):
you got let me know. Yeah, and you're throwing me off because I
was thinking, okay, so likethe Timagemun the Turtles, like they worked,
like Bear and Big Bird and thisis the so this is the first

(01:15:18):
he knows nothing today. Yes,yeah, I didn't realized how intricate.
It is. Pretty cool. Ohyeah, when it works. When it
doesn't work, it's not. Sothere was all of our heads. We
had a principal head, and thenwe had a second head, a secondary
head in case something went wrong withthe first one. So Jim Martin's head,

(01:15:40):
he did Leo Leonardo, and therewas always something going wrong with the
principal head, so he had touse the backup head. And so finally
they brought it back in the principalhead, and our stations were on one
side of the room, and thenthere was a table about let's six feet
away, and on the table that'swhere they would have the head so we
could like preprogram expressions so that that'swhere if we did a certain thing with

(01:16:05):
the triggers and with the glovy warit would work automatically. So he was
working with his and so they proudlybrought in like the yo head and put
it down and hooked it up andsaid, okay, Jim, turn it
on. All the man does isjust flick a switch to turn it on,

(01:16:25):
and the head suddenly every orifice justopens up and freezes like that,
and it shakes as it's doing thatfreezes, and then a bolt from the
back of the mount shoots out acrossthe room and hits his stage falls,
and then the technicians just very quietlyunhooked it and just it up and just

(01:16:50):
walked out of the room. Andmeanwhile, me Rick and Gordy we're in
tears laughing at this. Oh yeah, so there you go. It's like
there's turtle fans out there. SomebodyI think it was, like, is
that there was a TikTok or aYouTube somebody found like one of the heads.

(01:17:14):
That's yeah, the rubber has rotted, so it's this. It's yeah.
If you ever would to make thatwork and hook it up, oh
my god, there would just bethat would be like a nightmare. Little
dude just like the other one andtotally sees and then something will shoot out
exactly, just shoot out, justexplode. Yes it's last gas, but

(01:17:39):
just like completely fall apart. Yeah, but it's all rubbers, so it's
all deteriorated. But yeah, it'sjust the nasty kids, the older puppets
to all those looks crazy. They'rejust oh yeah, thing now yeah,
pretty Yeah. Any puppet is akind of phone. It's called reticulated phone.
It's the kind of phone that youfind air conditioners, and that's what
the inside of puppets are made of. And then when they started to disintegrate,

(01:18:03):
it's called the toast because if youput your hand in and put your
hand out, it's like it's allthese little pieces that kind of look like
toast crumbs or if you were tolike shave toast, it would just to
be all of it because it's justdisintegrating. So use the puppet. Why
you can? Is that just likethe best material to use or not pretty

(01:18:24):
much because it was like the itwas the kind of where because of the
holes in it, it would likeyou would put glue down and it would
just like it'd here and they wouldjust have a nice like smooth like out
of surface to it. But they'reusing I'm not a builder. So they
found like other foam that they coulduse in a pinch, but usually it
would be like that kind of boomoh, puppety workshops. I've told kids,

(01:18:49):
like puppets are made out of thiskind of foam, and you would
find an air conditioners. Do notopen the air conditioners the next thing they're
going to do when they I know, do not open the air conditions when
you get home. I was aboutto open air condition Josh, don't do
it. Leave me. It's notworth it. No. Yeah, but

(01:19:10):
that's out of poem on a fleece, out of fabric, out of again,
bear in hand eyeballs. There,that's it. That's it. That's
all you need and anyone pay youto do this really lucky. So one
of the one of the last thingswe want to snow before we get out

(01:19:30):
of here. Number one, justletting you know again it has been such
an honor. I haven't on thepodcast. That's fun to hang out with
you guys. Thanks, definitely won'tanytime you want to come back. Like
I said that, because there inthe Big House, we're gonna put it
out there is getting pick up byDisney. Plus, we're just we're just
gonna put that out in the universe. Yeah, so new episodes of Bear
would be coming, just saying it'llbe true. Oh yeah, did you

(01:19:54):
hear? Did you hear about putthat rumor out there? There's new episodes
for Bear coming. Plus and thelast thing though, we wanted to know
because, like I said, athree year career here, you've done a
lot of great things with the puppetryand blending the relationship of comedy and entertainment,
but also teaching and helping a lotof children grow into responsible adults.

(01:20:18):
And they've done that over and overagain. So I wanted to know,
as far as from your perspective,what makes you passionate about what you do?
Every day and once you continue todo Now, I think it's because
more than ever, I just feelthat kids acpointed like children are a future,

(01:20:38):
like almost like a song cue.But it's true. It's like they're
children are taught and you can teachthem anything. Children aren't born racist,
they're not born prejudice. It's somethingthat they learn. The fact that can
be like a positive influence on akid's life and like ripples like through a

(01:21:00):
family is It's not something I'd takelightly because when we did Bear, like
for instance, Bear, we knewit was like a cute show. We
knew kids loved it, but wehad no idea how long lasting it would
be. And the fact that thispath October was the twenty fifth anniversary of
the show and it's back on DisneyPlus and people have just responded so sincerely

(01:21:26):
that it was like people have writtento me and said, this was the
best part of my childhood. Ididn't have a great childhood. Bear was
like the father I should have hadit. He was always there to comfort
me. It was like it wasthe thing that my grandmother and I would
watch. And so it's very satisfyingthe fact that you've been able to do
that for other people. When thenHip him was the voice of the moon,

(01:21:50):
Luna a Bear and Peter Lins wouldpuppets here for the puppet for her
a memorial service. By the way, the show did not go off the
air because then died. The showwent off the air, and then almost
two years later lind died. Ithad nothing to do with each other because
that always comes up. So onceagain, then Hippin's death had nothing to

(01:22:10):
do with the cancelation of the showmoving on, So there was a memorial
service here in New York. AndI was because Lynn worked on not just
television but the movies in theater.She's, for instance, like the classic
movie The Warriors. I don't knowthe guy's I've ever seen like The Warriors,
but oh yeah, the DJ thenarrator, that was Linda and she

(01:22:32):
said she told me about it.She said she pretty much went in for
a day and just did it ina couple of hours. That was classic
iconic character. And she's done likesoap overously did a TV she was on
sess Me one time. So allthese people had stories about her. And
then I was the last one tointroduce this clip from Bear the Big Blue

(01:22:53):
house, and it was the lastepisode where the characters thing Bear is leaving.
It turns out he's just leaving togo on vacation. He's won this
trip that he can bring five ofhis closest friends, So he brings Pip
and Pop and Ojoe and Trillo andTutter with him to this like Sequoia Lodge,
this hotel, which by shier coincidencethrough happens to have a balcony that

(01:23:16):
he can step out onto and lunarizesand she's shocked as a bear. And
he was saying and the whole themeof that show was appreciation and how you
appreciate somebody and feel appreciated by whatyou do. And Beart says he felt
appreciated by his friends because they thoughthe was leaving, so they threw this

(01:23:36):
little show called thank You, Beart, and it's a whole song about thank
you Bert. It was the waykind of like wrapping things up. And
Luna said that she was very proudof Bear's friends were making feel that way.
And she said that one life touchesanother each day. It would be
nice if we could touch each other'slives and a as positive way as possible,

(01:24:00):
and that's pretty much like the wholepoint of life and just encountering people
just being as positive as you can. This past Christmas, I was giving
presents to my wife and my sonand all that, but I thought,
what present am I going to givemyself? So I decided I gave myself
to give them hope and just optimismand just being positive. And I gotta

(01:24:25):
say, so far, like when'sthe January teen. So far it's actually
been paying off. So yeah,like Jim Henson said, it's a nice
life. Be nice to each other. That's it. That's awesome. And
wow, that was amazing, andlike you said, that's a great positive
note to end out a wonderful podcaston and like I said, thank you

(01:24:45):
so much. It's just positivity andeverything that you've done and just being able
to chat with us and walk downmemory lane. It's been It's a big
deal for us. We were children. It's great. Thank you so much.

(01:25:05):
And again it really helped on thisthe dimensions January dimensions dreary outside mention,
January sucks. So this has reallybeen a really something to look forward
to all day and it really helped. Thank you so much. Thank you.
And before we get out of here. Definitely let all of our viewers
and listeners know, Like we talkedabout your show, and we talked about

(01:25:25):
Disney Plus, but the floor isyours. Mention it again, let everybody
know what you got. It's likethe show Me Show, which is on
YouTube and my little channel with allthese little videos with myself and like all
these little puppet characters. I'm oncameo. So if you'd like to Bear
do a little birthday greeting or anniversaryor just a little reaffirmation of you're a

(01:25:48):
great person, you can do thaton Instagram No McNeil, And there's also
Instagram for a showy show. Andoh and I'm on the TikTok he's a
no McNeil and the like. Thereare videos I'm done with my Bear puppet
as well as other little video butthe Bear seems to be the one that

(01:26:09):
gets the most views. So it'slike I'm trying to do other things and
my sons and no, Dad,they want Bear, that's all they want.
You gotta give the people what theywant. Dad read the room.
It's like they want Bear, that'sit. Although the al I gotta say
the algorithm and TikTok makes no sense. It's like I was just talking about

(01:26:29):
my son's seventeen now. It's justif a teenager can't figure out the all
the room, the TikTok it communatelydoesn't make it easy. We're doomed,
right, Oh he told me aboutthis thing. Okay, one guys,
I don't know if you've heard aboutthis thing. He's dad. Do you
want to be a part of mybe real? I was like, Yo,
what can you explain this app that'snow see reach your faces? I'm

(01:26:50):
thinking, oh good, it's notjust me. Okay, So apparently there's
this app now and it's only comesonly becomes active like once a day.
We're for two minutes. You havea two minute span where you can just
post exactly what you're doing at thatparticular moment. And it's like you haven't
prepped anything, you haven't rehearsed anything. That's why it's to be real,

(01:27:14):
and you'll take it, will takea picture of to take two pictures,
so the front of your camera inthe back of your camera, so if
you're with somebody, then that sidewe'll get photographed, and then you'll get
photographed. So he did this tonightbecause as he's saying this to me.
I said, I have no ideawhat you're talking about. Can we just
do this and I'll understand it better? And we did it. I was

(01:27:34):
like, oh okay, so let'sdo enough picture. He said, oh,
the time's up. That's it.I was like, oh okay,
and it's posted's yeah. I waslike, oh okay, all right,
all right, I don't know.So it's the thing, guys, gon

(01:27:55):
be real. I guess we shouldgetting the story. I'm table. I'll
be real too. Let's do okay, But apparently it's just short allowed two
minutes, like that's it, okay. I never even heard of this app
before today. This is my firsttime. And see, you guys are
young, so I can't indicate itbecause you have no idea none, no,

(01:28:17):
no, even little Joshua has noidea what's going on with this.
I barely know what Instagram is.Be real, I have no idea that
new app. So that's how Ifeel about TikTok. Like you said,

(01:28:38):
TikTok totally. Because we have aTikTok with our podcast, all of us
are as a collective scared to touchit. We don't even post anything.
We don't know what to do.Yeah, and here's the thing about TikTok.
No, I know you're on aInstagram too. I always complain about
TikTok because in the morning, likewhen I get it doesn't give me a

(01:29:00):
chance to get myself together. Assoon as you put on TikTok, it's
some kind of loud video. Atleast Instagram gives me. Yeah, it's
a picture, or you can goto the story. I think, scroll
through somebody's story, but TikTok suddenlyit's just it's like right there in your
face. It's something it could be, you could even be an ad,
but it's something like very like yousaid, very loud and very frenetic.

(01:29:24):
It was like, just woke up, I didn't have a coffee yet.
Could we just stop? I'll comeback in an hour. But then it
won't make any difference. Really,do the same exact things in your face
every time? Yeah, exactly.But no, we will definitely put all
of your information in the inscription below. So thank you so much. We
appreciate you for sharing all of thatgood stuff. And guys, oh yeah,

(01:29:45):
you're welcome. And marguson Josh,guess what time it is. It's
so shame it's so shame these guys, but it's time for our shame was
promotional and we are the Score RoundtablePodcast, so you could catch this amazing
episode as well as all of ourpast episodes on our website and that website

(01:30:06):
a Score Roundtablepod dot fanomlim dot comand one more time, that website is
Scoreroundtablepod dot fanomlim dot com. Andguys, you can also catch us on
our YouTube channel by the same nameSquare onntable podcast, you could smack that
like button and subscribe, guys toget all of our amazing content and content
such as this, And we arealso on rat NERD Radio guys, so

(01:30:29):
you can tune into that and weare on there to every Tuesday and every
Thursday at seven pm EST. Sogo ahead, guys and get on all
of our social media, subscribe,follow us, comment got below anything you
like from this episode. Tell usyour favorite Sesame Street character, guys,
tell us how about you like Bearin the Big Blue House all of that
good stuff. And yeah, otherthan that, guys, I would love

(01:30:50):
all of our amazing co hosts andour guests to introduce themselves before we part
ways tonight. And once again,guys, just like every night, I
am your host, Chat Singleton,I am Josh Singleton, hashtag yes,
hashtag no Marcus Loan and I've beenand we'll continue to be. Noel McNeil.

(01:31:13):
All right, guys, and thishas been the Square On Taking podcast.
We are out, good night bynow