A Muppet tale from yours truely

Well, I know that if a lot of Muppet fans actually knew my blog was out here, they'd read it. And I do know plenty of Muppet fans via the internet but I have the distinction and honor of possibly being one of the few Muppet fans to actually have the opportunity to stick their arm into a real, authentic, Muppet Workshop-built puppet.

Actually, I didn't get to perform the mouth but I did get to be on left-hand duty with the super-friendly Tyler Bunch. That picture you see at the top of this post is a then-13 year old BobThePizzaBoy exactly four years ago at the Museum of Television and Radio. It was a Henson Company-sponsored event celebrating the company's 50th anniversary. I still  look back on this whole day with extreme fondness. I had been to other Henson events beforehand but this was something that has just always stuck with me four years later.

In a nutshell, highlights of the day included a screening of the pilot episode of Henson's series Frances (which didn't even show up elsewhere until two and a half years later). After a few minutes, I had my wit's end and left the auditorium showing it (to this day, my family still uses the "bread and jam" bit in mocking Frances) and moved upstairs to a special screening of the second-to-last episode of Fraggle Rock and the 1987 behind-the-scenes documentary. Considering the first season of Fraggle Rock had come out a few weeks before, I was on a complete Fraggle kick and more than happy to see these guys highlighted so much. Then I met the lovely Cheryl Henson, someone who got a kick out of my self-deprecating Muppet fan humor (I always joke about how I seem to have nothing better to do than obsess about Muppets, calling myself a "Muppet freak" to Ms. Henson). She wrote in my book "To John - thanks for being a Muppet freak! (or fan) Best wishes, Cheryl" There was also a Gobo Fraggle walk-around character, which was a very well-done costume. It's too bad I haven't seen it elsewhere.

Then came the moment this story is really about, Tyler Bunch's puppeteer demonstration. I was right up front and as Tyler showed the audience how to perform a rod puppet via a Whatnot puppet the audience helped contribute to via color requests. He could tell I was getting into it when I pointed out the puppet looked like Roosevelt Franklin. I could tell he was surprised a kid my age knew who Roosevelt Franklin ever was. When he got to the live-arm puppet, he pointed at me calling me "Kermit" due to the shirt I had on. We introduced ourselves and I helped him perform the puppet you see the picture by pointing to it's body parts ("Now, John, I asked you to just point NOT POKE IT OUT!"). It was such an exciting experience to get to work alongside this guy with such a huge crowd.

I haven't seen Tyler since, even thought I have him as a Facebook friend, but really, it's rare you meet people as friendly as the Muppet performers are and I'm proud to say that being a small, small part of such an event was the opportunity of a lifetime.

I'm proud to play "the love child of Grover and Oscar the Grouch."

Quick little post for everyone. Yes, it's that wonderful time of year again where I get back into the swing of things in the wonderful world of high school theater. This year we're doing Seussical as the fall show and I have just been cast in the role of The Grinch and I'm excited as hell. Now before anyone inadvertently brings me down by saying The Grinch is a very small part... I'm well aware. But, dude, it's The Grinch! If there was a play of, say Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck were in that play in very minor roles. Wouldn't it be a dream of any Looney Tunes fan to play those characters even if they only have a line or two? That's at least how I feel about the situation. So there you go.  The good news is that, unlike Little Shop of Horrors this past spring (don't ask about what happened there, I don't want to talk about it), Seussical wasn't a central part of my future puppetry career being determined (in fact, I just have a small gut instinct that it just might help with this show... maybe). The bad news is... well, it's a small role. But that's the last thing on my mind at the moment. I even bought a stuffed animal of The Grinch's dog at a church sale today for 50 cents and got all excited when I saw it. So to say I'm miserable about a small role is, quite frankly, not true.

Speaking of which, maybe someone can help me out. One of my favorite shows growing up was Jim Henson's The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. I'm hoping to base my Grinch performance around Muppet performer Anthony Asbury's take on the character from that series. So no problems. Incorrect. Like pretty much all Henson Company-produced shows, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss isn't airing anywhere on US television and has too many DVD releases for its own good. I've focused on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock and the fantasy worlds (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Storyteller) for so long, I've ignored stuff like The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss for years. If anyone could help me out and recommend DVD's of the show that have episodes where the Muppet Grinch is prominently featured or could upload episodes on YouTube that include the character, I would really appreciate it.

Why was 6 afraid of 7?

Okay, that's a really bad joke. I apologize. But I will say this, I walked into Shane Acker's 9 with high expectations. With Tim Burton's involvement, the PG-13 rating and Focus Features' previous animated film Coraline, I was sure this was going to be an excellant film. The trailers made the movie stick out and seem exciting enough on its own. But when you really get around to seeing 9, while it picks up and gets better as the movie goes on, it's a bit of a letdown.

The concept itself, the movie being a feature-length version of the 2005 short film of the same name which was nominated for Best Animated Short at the Oscars, is quite unique. But it also harms the film. The characters are rather hard to keep track of not by personality but by name or number in this case. It's hard to keep track of who lives and who dies and which number is which (besides 9) until the movie really begins to pick up and when it does, it's not intense at all. But it's certainly a movie that makes you jump and is very exciting without being too outlandish. The plot twist the film takes when you think it is about to end definitely comes as a surprise and helps bring the movie to a great climax.

Is 9 an animated feature we will all take notice of? Quite honetsly, no. Of the animated films of 2009, 9 falls way under Up, Coraline and Ponyo. I will say that 9 had a much better storyline and all-around better film than Monsters vs Aliens. There isn't really much else to say about 9 due to its short length of 79 minutes. It is worth seeing but you don't need to rush out and go see it. I believe a 2.5 out of 4 is a fair rating for 9.

2010 is The Year of the Muppet!

I hate to do two blog posts in one day, but this stuff is too amazing not to post! So, in case you didn't know, this weekend was Disney's first fan convention ever: D23. Sort of a Disney Comic Con. Except all the programs focused on Disney properties. Naturally, the Muppets ended up on the D23 line-up with their own program announcing all the upcoming projects and 2010 is going be insane!

First off, on Friday we got an official announcement on The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever for a 2011 release (that's just my own estimate). The film as announced will be written by and will co-star Jason Segal of TV's How I Met Your Mother and the films Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You, Man. Segal has cited being a huge Muppet fan, holding the utmost nostalgia for the characters and I can tell that he's really trying with this film and I wish him the best of luck. But Sunday was the huge day for Muppet news. Here's a list of what to expect:

• An online cooking show with the Muppets and starring Chef Cat Cora. I have no idea who Cat Cora is but this seems like a start.
• Muppet YouTube music videos for "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Dust in the Wind" and "Stand By Me" all coming online soon. These sound exciting, I can't wait for "Stand By Me" myself. The Timon and Pumbaa version is Muppet-y enough already, I wonder how they'll top that.
• Halloween special slated for October 2010. This was supposed to be filmed and aired this year but got delayed. I'm a little miffed, but hey, at least it's coming! COUGH-COUGH America's Next Muppet COUGH-COUGH
  
• The Muppets to appear on Andrea Buccelli's Christmas special this year. I knew about the album but a special? That's cool, too.
• Muppet*Vision "Remastered" coming soon. It's about time! They've been saying they'll switch to a digital projector for years, it took long enough.
• The Muppet Show: Season 4 for 2010, Gonzo makes the cover. Great news! We're almost there!
• Muppet iPhone apps. I don't have an iPhone, but this is a great thing to do.
• Statler & Waldorf book. If it's like Before You Leap, I'm sold. Well... I'm sold either way...
• Studio DC DVD. That took long enough.
• Muppet Whatnot Workshops in Disney parks with new Whatnots. YES! I haven't gotten a Whatnot yet, what a better time than when these new workshops go up?
• Mobile Electric Mayhem. Neat! I hope I get to see it when I go down to Disney World in February.
• Kermit's gonna be at the VMA's tonight. Hopefully Steve is there for the ride.
  

It's safe to say 2010 is going to be one of the best years for the Muppets in years. How fitting for the 55th anniversary of the franchise. I guess the countdown to New Year's begins now! 2010, the year of the Muppet. You heard it here!

Shalom Sesame is back in business!

When I was younger at the peak of my elementary school years, I had an intense interest in the international co-productions of Sesame Street. I tried to get my hands on as much international Sesame Street as I could. I still remember the odd look that Toys R Us employee gave my dad when we bought two Plaza Sesamo tapes. But still, out of that stage of discovering the world impact of the Street, I discovered one of the more underrated Sesame Street productions: Shalom Sesame. My exposure to Shalom Sesame is unfortunately minimal, I've only seen about 4 episodes (I'd buy the box set in a heartbeat if it weren't so goddamn expensive. Seriously, even used copies of the individual discs are impossible to find for less than $10!) but what I've seen is some really great stuff. It really makes me want to visit Israel and learn Hebrew. Besides, it has Moishe Oofnik: easily one of the best international Muppets... and probably the only Muppet to ever get drunk on camera.

But we cannot deny that Shalom Sesame in 2009 is a bit dated. The Rechov Sumsum it was adapted from has now been off Israeli airwaves for years and several other factors age it. When Rechov Sumsum was revived in 2006 with a new cast of Muppets (Moishe Oofnik being the only one to return between the two), I have long hoped that Shalom Sesame would come back with this new crew.

Now in 2009, wouldn't you know it? New Shalom Sesame installments are on the way! This is very exciting stuff. It's great to see the Israeli Rechov Sumsum crew willing to do this. It makes me even happier that there will be an American Muppet on the new set of Shalom Sesame full-time, namely Grover, who is my second favorite Sesame Muppet after Oscar (who also spent a little bit of time on Shalom Sesame! Small world.) I'll certainly be on hand to watch these come Hanukkah 2010 and I'm not even Jewish. I will miss Kippi and the totally awkward 80's cheapness of the whole thing but, hey, new Shalom Sesame in the 21st century. That's more than enough for me.

Inglourious Basterds is a slow but worthy journey

I'll admit, I was not completely intent on seeing Inglourious Basterds. Honestly, the only reason I'm here is to support The Weinstein Company. They were just going through some pretty bad financial problems and considering they are releasing the upcoming Fraggle Rock: The Movie and The Power of the Dark Crystal, they needed all the help they can get. Besides, Quentin Tarantino is a huge Jim Henson fan. That must amount for something.

But that said, Inglourious Basterds starts off exciting with it's "chapter 1" opening which sets up the character of Shosanna who is one of the most appealing characters in the movie aside from the Basterds. Ultimately, what makes this first hour and a half of the movie fall flat are the scenes where the Basterds are absent (which is the majority of the time), setting up Shosanna's side of things where she gets roped into having her theater be the spot of the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (A Nation's Pride). Realizing Hitler will be at the premiere, the film picks up momentum when she announces to the projectionist her plan for revenge on the Nazis to set the theater on fire with the Germans in it. The film begins to excite us with that but then loses a bit of momentum on long talking scenes. I have nothing against these scenes, but for a film advertising itself as so violent the violence is far and in-between during this first half.

A bar scene in particular, which sets up the Basterds' connection with the movie premiere having similar plans to Shosanna starts to pick up the movie once their connection is mentioned just goes on and on and on, picking up only at the end with the Basterds' entrance.

The film's final "chapter" (the final hour of the movie) is what saves the film. It is perfection and a chilling, cringe-worthy film sequence. Just what Tarantino wanted. Bear in mind, the movie is NOT for everyone but if you feel perfectly fine with blood and over the top violence that you can grin and bear, you'll adore this movie. But feel free to get some snacks or go to the bathroom anytime during the first hour and a half, you won't be missing much. If this movie doesn't get any Oscar noms, call me surprised. Inglourious Basterds gets a hesitant but well-deserved 3 out of 4 stars.

School's in session and the future is calling...

Yes, school starts for me on September 8. In the midst of this horrible economy, I've heard via Facebook that my school has been rapidly taking out clubs and activities that are too costly to keep going and are just not bringing anything to the school. Moreover, new clubs are not allowed anymore. Now, I can't really say this is official yet but I have had a very large feeling that the Puppetry Club (see my 5-part "The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club" series) has indeed been cut.

And I couldn't be happier.

I won't go into the details of why I'm so happy because you can just read part 5 to see what a cumbersome task it was for me to continually write up budgets, try to group people together, and come up with promotional material. Had the beginning gone off to a much better start, I'm sure I could have over time taken the club into the sunlight but I was not ready. I overestimated the club's worth which promptly led to its downfall. I've taken the failure well since then and I don’t feel as bitter as others would in my position. I have since ported all my characters and ideas I created for the Puppetry Club into other projects. With this also, I'm going back to my original goal... to make a television show with puppets that people notice.

Ever since I started doing puppetry, I've always had that goal. In 2000 when I started doing puppetry and became fascinated by Arms-Length Productions puppets (www.armslength.com), I started planning out a sitcom in my head based around the puppets on that site who are the black family. Named after the puppets, the show was called The Afro Family (at age 8 I didn't really realize a sitcom about a black family with that title wouldn't be all-PC). The show revolved around the afro boy on the site, who I named Kyle (after my cousin's then 7-year old son), who was a klutzy but lovable pre-teen who was best friends with the Anglo boy Billy (named after the protagonist of Gremlins, my favorite movie at the time) and his sister Ally (named after a girl in my third grade class who I ironically was pretty annoyed by). Kyle also had a talking pet dinosaur who somehow survived the extinction (I actually planned out a whole episode that explained the dinosaur's origin story!). Other then that, there was not very much to The Afro Family besides surreal storylines that only an eight-year old kid could come up with.

But the thing that sticks out the most from my pipe dream was not so much the weirdness and political incorrectness of the whole thing but rather the format itself was unique. I wanted the show to be an hour long, the first and last 15 minutes would be the Afros' story while that half-hour in-between would be devoted to random puppet skits. I was really into Rocky & Bullwinkle at the time thanks to that R&B movie that came out that everyone seems to hate but me (OK, it's not that great movie but it's not as terrible as everyone makes it out to be), and I'm sure the format of that show had more than some influence. But there were two recurring sketches I came up with based on Arms-Length puppets: Ant Scouts, which was a bunch of Boy Scout-wannabe ants who can't really get much of anything done successfully, and Moonbeamies, which was about two alien cops.

Over time as I got older, I grew out of The Afro Family idea and began to focus more on just growing as a puppeteer which lead to the club and you know the rest... but over this summer, I have begun to have a new idea and restarted myself with the characters I created for the Puppetry Club and putting them into an idea for a new children's series.

It wouldn't be a show for very young children; the show would really be aimed at kids entering kindergarten about to outgrow Sesame Street. Whereas Sesame Street teaches children the alphabet and how to count, my show would have a huge emphasis on love, forgiveness and friendship (not that Sesame Street doesn't do that but we would emphasize it more). Using VeggieTales as model for the format, my two main characters Conrad the Otter and Milo A. Monster would serves as hosts for stories emphasizing these points. Unlike VeggieTales however, my show would seldom have direct references to God. I'd use Bible stories occasionally to make points but that's it. Everything else is parody or whatever works best for the message with enough pop culture references (mostly 80's and 90's jokes of course) and double entendres to keep their parents and older siblings entertained.

Yes, I'm going into life now with a new outlook anticipating to actually get somewhere with this show that could really be kind of entertaining and rewarding but still a lot of fun for everybody. So goodbye Puppetry Club; I'm back for good, television industry.

A correction that has to be made

Last night, obviously we saw the Muppets go on America's Got Talent and let's just leave it at that.

An anyomous guest to this blog commented on that post and accused me of blaming Disney for the appearence being so "blah". That was not my intention. For the most part, what Disney has done with the Muppets has been fairly good. We got a TV-movie, three television specials, season sets of The Muppet Show and many more appearences in the media... all within the last four years. Compare that to Henson's use of the Muppets during the last four years before the Disney sale. All we got was one TV-movie, a reasonable amount of merchandise (including the now bankrupt Palisades Toys' excellent Muppet action figure line) and the infrequent Hollywood Squares appearences... and that's it. Was this appearence last night the worst thing Disney has done with the Muppets? In my opinion, yes. But did Disney screw it up? No. I will blame someone from The Muppets Studio for turning what could have been a good appearence into a Big-Lipped Aligator Moment (but, hey, at least last night's appearence still had more consistancy than We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story).

On the subject of Kermit's voice, just as we all assumed it was not Steve Whitmire. Rather, it was Artie Esposito who, ironcally, I almost got a puppet built by a year ago. I'm sure Artie is a good guy and I feel a little bad for him right now after what he's probably been going through today but please don't perfrom the frog again.

And, oh yeah, Sharon Osbourne and Kermit had lunch. But that doesn't excuse Sharon's much-too-strong British accent.

America's Got Talent - except maybe Kermit

OK, so the America's Got Talent semi-finals just ended. I wasn't really paying much attention to it as I don't really watch it. But one thing stuck out: a performance by Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

Now, two years ago, I'm sure everyone remembers during the finals the amazingly talented Terry Fator got to duet with Kermit. It was, in my opinion, one of the best appearences the Muppets have done on TV in a long time. The Swedish Chef, Animal and Beaker filled in for the typical judges just for Fator and in turn he got a well-deserved win (Fator).

So I looked forward to this appearence tonight. But what I saw was awful. It was pre-established earlier in the show that Kermit had been doing God-know's-what with Sharon Osbourne (I've watched this scene at least 3 times since I taped it and can't understand for the life of me what Osbourne is saying). But this makes Piggy mad and prompts her to chase Kermit out of the dressing room when he shows up.

For the recond, Eric Jacobson is clearly having a ball performing this as Piggy. He really is loosening up to the character and really getting into Piggy's strong feminism that we haven't really seen in her since The Muppet Show. Jacobson saves it from being completely terrible but that doesn't mean it wasn't bad.

Kermit was the key problem in this. It clearly was not Steve Whitmire under the frog. The puppetry seemed to be on beginner level at points and his voice sounded more like Jimmy Stuart trying to do a Jim Henson impression. Because of this new performer, Kermit really doesn't do much. The frog and the pig accompanied by some Muppet chickens, sang the Elton John/Kiki Dee duet "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart".

Piggy briefly yells at Kermit at the very beginning for whatever he did with Sharon Osbourne and then gets right into the song. Piggy has no problems during the act. Kermit randomly runs offstage and gives host Nick Cannon a CD labled "CD for when Piggy has a fit".... why? She isn't having a fit but, OK... The act pretty much ends as you would expect with the pig forgiving the frog. FOR WHAT?! I THOUGHT SHE WAS OVER IT! It's not in-character for Piggy to go on with anything if someone messes with her frog. Period.

Overall, it was a nice try. But it failed miserably. Hopefully Disney will be able to wipe their hands clean of this with some better Muppet appearence. But, again, at least the Muppets were out there. I've said this about Studio DC, I'll say it about this appearence: it may be mediocre, but at least the Muppets are getting some exposure. And the audience did seem to like it. That must count for something but I was pretty disappointed.

(Wow, nearly all my posts on this blog thus far have been me spewing negativity. Rambling about money, a 5-part "rise and fall" tale and now this. Something postive better pop up soon! :D)