Podcast: The Ride - The Muppet Show (2026) with Griffin Newman

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

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Forever. Warning. The following podcast contains media format talk, movie studio murals, and copious uses of the word whatnot. We're talking the Muppet Show 2026 special with Muppet Show audience member Griffin Newman on today's podcast The Ride.

Welcome to Podcast The Ride, where today it's a Scott-Free episode, but also a mic-free episode. That's right. It's a new kind of PTR episode. One that I'm calling, Jason Unleashed. And if this is your first episode, I'm sorry. But what sort of crazy experimental soundscape have I cooked up today? I invited the completer Griffin Newman on to talk about the Muppets. I Griffin. Hey, Jason, I am excited to be here on PTR's first drive time morning zoo episode, Jason Unleashed. I was in prep for this trying to think of what should the branding be, what should be the angle? If it's Jason Unleashed, I think part of this needs to be that this one episode we're recording is immediately sold into syndication and plays 3 a.m. at local affiliate station.

for the next 15 years. I would love that. I've been playing phone tag with Sirius XM, I Heart Radio, you know? No, but the answer is go straight to Byron Allen. Stop playing phone tag

with those guys. Go to Byron, the big dog. I would love to partner with Byron for some great content. You guys are such an obvious match. It's just, it's, everyone's been waiting for that co-lab. I think, I heard this come up on,

I think it was what a time to be a lie recently about how the one big serious XM comedy channel used to be called Raw Dog Comedy. Yeah. Oh, but is that in play? Have they let the copyright on

Raw Dog Comedy laps? Have they let it laps? Can you be? Can this be Raw Dog Comedy? Because I was thinking, obviously, you guys, when you and Mike are doing a Scott Free episode, you like to say, the cats away, the mice can play, right?

Yeah, daddy, or some variation of like, dad's a way the kids can play. Right, right. These are the kind of like, you know, the metaphors we're trafficking in. But I'm going to introduce a new theory, which is, is Mike keeping you down? Are you being on your best behavior to please Mike? And now the mice are away. The kids are away, if you will. Is today's episode run by Cockro?

by babies. Do you know what I'm saying? Like Mike is constantly pushing you to bring old Jason back and you're resisting. But Mike has a history with old Jason. He's got the burden of expectation. We're starting something new here today for the first time. It is what you're saying. It's Jason unleashed. Yeah. And this, it starts now. Is he, is he like a limiter on a hot water heater where it's like you can set it so it gets pretty hot. But they don't like, you. you do it where you would scald yourself? It's interesting that you said, is he a limiter? I'm acting like your therapist now. I just want to focus on the words that you just use, Jason, is he a limiter?

Because I want to remind you that today you're on mic with a completer. He's stopping you from completing. He's imposing a limit. And my job today is to make you complete. I want full completion, full release, unleashed Jason.

I love, I love that you immediately falled into being a scheming vizier for the podcast. Yeah, because the mice and the cats are away. The kids and the grownups are away. This is, I mean, the sky's the limit, I suppose. This is the limit. This might be the end of something. This might be the beginning of something.

This might be the realization of something. We don't know. We don't know yet. what Jason Unleashed is. I might go full Wolf of Wall Street, you know? You might. You might, or you might go full condoom. This is the thing.

You within you contain the range of Martin Scorsese. And people go, oh, it's just gangster movies all the time. That's circumstantial. That's what the industry is putting on him because that's what makes them the bafo bucks. And that's what Scott and Mike want. And I'm not saying they don't have your interest at heart. I'm not saying they don't love you.

But they're saying, what's the Jason that works for us? And I'm saying today, what's your motherfucking kundoon, man? What's your silence? Yeah, I was going to say. What's your age of innocence? This is our silent. I mean, we are doing a lot of repenting and agonizing today. Yeah, because we have to push through.

We have to break through to the other side, you know? And we're going to be talking about the Muppets who have had their own struggles to get to what feels like potentially a rebirth moment. But that didn't happen easily. No, it didn't. And congratulations last I saw the new Muppet show special was coming in at 100% on rotten tomatoes. I take full credit for that score, of course, as audience member number 17. Hey, no small parts, only small actors like you and I. This is true. This is true. I do want to just shout out. We want to talk about the special in earnest.

this felt like you reached out and I was like, this feels like a good place to share some of my experiences. And I've even just like on both the blank check and the podcast, the Rydredits and some other places, seen a lot of people asking me questions about how the production worked. And there's a little more time to like go in depth here. And we also just want to talk about the special itself

because it's very exciting that it exists. But like one question I just want to answer right off the bat. I've seen a lot of people kind of very supportively jealous just being like gritted teeth oh my God I would have like killed people to get on that set but I'm so happy you got to do it right

yeah and and I'm like look I I don't think I was more deserving of any than anyone else in being there I played the cards I had I was able to finagle it I did not take a second of it for granted it was very meaningful to me but I just want to correct one sentiment, which is a lot of people saying, I can't believe you got paid to work on a Muppet project. And I want to make clear, all rights waved away. The bar for entry was, photo release,

no money exchanged. Terrific. Disney might own all of my IP now. Disney might own every cell in my body now. You are- That was how I got through the door. They are feeding you into the AI machine. I'm going to be in the fucking Fortnite mode. Jack Skellington's going to take a fucking pickax to my head. Lenny and Carl are going to shoot rockets at you. While your co-star, digital Sabrina Carpenter looks on at last. Can I please add another title to be able to introduce me when I come on podcast The Ride? Sabrina Carpenter's co-star, Griffin Newman.

A peer even. Pure. That was definitely, that's what the hierarchy felt like in my 48 hours on set. Definitely felt like this is a peer-to-peer relationship. Let me be clear, I was not on set the same time as her at all. I, you know, you say that, but I was like starting to write down the questions. And I about Sabrina? No, no, just about like, I.

I think when I really like something, I buy into the reality so much. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I wonder how the buildings holding up. I wonder how the Muppet Theater is doing in the L.A. climate not being used. And what was it like to see an intimate Sabrina Carpenter performance? And I'm like, oh, wait, sound stages. Well, you know what's interesting is like it was a fascinating experience for me because in certain ways it was like demystifying this thing that has held such a sacred place. in my mind, right?

Like, the way I think of the Muppets, even as much as I've learned about how things are made and worked on things and gone behind the scenes of stuff and whatever, Muppet stuff does kind of feel magical. I think the Muppet stuff that works succeeds, if not exclusively, but like the special sauce

is how much Jim Henson cracked the code on filming those characters in a way that made them feel they were real. The construction of the, universe around them, whether he's placing them in a real environment or building sets around them, integrating them with human beings, that stuff feels really real. It feels like it would be filmed like any normal live action thing. You buy that reality, right? And in certain ways,

I was finally seeing the seams. And in other ways, and weirdly, like 70% of ways, the experience was so much more immersive than I could have possibly believed. There was actually magic that was added back into it for me in terms of how much doing it felt like what I as a five-year-old imagined going to see a taping of the Muppet show would be. That part of it was wild. Like, it felt so much closer to the experience of Muppet Vision 3D than what I imagined was it was going to be, which is like, we're putting you up against a wall, you're going to sit in a chair, and we're going to film five minutes of you clapping at random things. And it wasn't that, which was cool. I would have been thrilled to do that.

My whole calculation here was just how do I get onto that set? And being on camera sitting in a chair was the way I was allowed to witness any percentage of what was happening on that set. And I was going to be happy with whatever I got to see. And it was so far beyond my expectations. That's so interesting you say that. Because I, yeah, it felt so familiar watching it. And first off, I messed when I called you to set this up. I, without thinking, said Jane and I had so much fun watching this.

And then immediately rewatched it. And I was like, oh, shit, there's joking here about, hey, had a lot of fun out there. And I'm like, no, no, I met it sincerely. I was in a brush off. But every time you showed up, we were like, there's Griffin, there's Griffin. So, yeah, we really did enjoy it. And then I went back and I watched like the first seven or eight from the original run. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And we'll get to that later. Yeah, because it's interesting because there's definitely some growing pains in the first season. I feel like season two is when it basically crystallizes into they've nailed down the format. There's stuff in season one that's interesting to watch in terms of how. developmental it is. Let me ask you this. You may have clocked this before, and I'm sure some listeners clocked this.

The order they're listed on Disney Plus is not the air date order. Yes. Which is very, I only caught that because there's like two or three episodes and then there's an episode where Scooter introduces himself. And I'm like, oh, that's weird.

my memory and we're doing this is a pretty uh this plan came together pretty quickly we're doing this some pretty quick turnaround yeah i apologize if i get some muppet facts wrong or i i'm going to preface or a buffer everything i'm saying with in my memory this was the same thing they did when disney put out the first season of the muppin show on DVD probably about 20 years ago they only got three seasons in okay ever released season four and five i I was holding on to bootleg season four and five sets for years until they finally put all the seasons up on Disney Plus, I think about four years ago. But the DVD set had the episodes in production order rather than air date. And I think Disney Plus has the same thing.

I don't know why they have decided to do that as, of course, Jason Sheridan and a man with respect for both physical media. and streaming dreaming. It is often a tough decision these thoughtless, careless companies have to make when deciding how to put these shows and their seasons out because I think a lot of times they make a couple episodes

and then they'd go like, oh, maybe we need to introduce Scooter as a character. So then they write an episode where they introduce him, leave the note, air this one first, but then when someone else is compiling a release or a streaming upload or whatever, they look back at like script episode order.

Well, as the Jason Sheridan who worked in post-production, well, yes, of course. I will say, yeah, it definitely went down like that. And even the most like big legitimate media, so much is still very ad hoc. And if that posted note falls off like a canister of film or an external hard drive, it just doesn't happen.

Absolutely. And also that there were shows where episodes were intended to be aired in a certain order, and the network fucked with that order, and creators openly bemoaned for years. Well, they fucked up the story arc, this and that. So I think sometimes company, like a shout factory or whatever, says, we're going to put out the DVD set. We got to restore it to the original order. And they're in deep conversation with the makers of the show. Something like Freaks and Geeks was like a big example of that. But in other cases, Maybe it's like been 50 years. And some guy at Disney Plus is like being handed a bunch of paperwork and a bunch of files and hard drives for the Muppet show. And that guy's going like, what's the order that is the most respectful as a historian? You know, what is the right way to preserve this? And there's not a clear answer. Now, post-production Jason feels like some real Jason unleashed territory. Because you will bring this up sometimes.

But I feel like Mike and Scott don't pull at this thread. They pull at, oh, you working in a kitchen. They pull at you peeing on American gladiators. There's certain early Jason work experiences that they love to dig into it. I don't feel like we talk about post-production Jason Sheridan enough. And when I say we, I mean, we as a people. As like a society. It's not a PTR exclusive issue.

No, it's not. It's a larger cultural issue. Yeah. Can we talk about your post-production experiences? And plus, a lot of the laws nationally and statewise have, like, voided NDAs. Yes, yes, you're finally in the clear. One could say you're unleashed. I am unleashed.

And also, I was probably unleashed when those companies kept buying each other up and downsizing and laying people off and not existing anymore besides on a weird 401k privacy mail. like I get a couple times a year. Those NDAs are in the fucking dump. They've been trashed. They're gone. Yeah, they're gone. Best case scenario, they're in a fucking Raiders of the Lost Ark,

like fucking giant storage unit. You know, they're underneath a crate with the Ark of the Covenant on top of it. No one's finding those NDAs. You're unleashed. Yeah, I don't know. I joke post-production Jason, but I literally, I worked for like a couple years in Lodaghs. literally the vault.

It was a company that did a lot of, I believe it was referred to as non-creative post-production. So, okay. Color matching, audio tracks for other territories. Was there any logging

and capturing? Oh, tons of logging. Tons. Okay, this is what I'm looking for. I've been sitting on this question for years. I was on for a while. Do you remember one of the big projects there was updating

Star Trek the next generation for Blu-ray. Yeah, of course. So for a while, I was in like a converted telocinny room. As physical media shrunk and shrunk and shrunk, they would just start reducing the telecity rooms, which is a process I'm still not 100% sure about that, but involves

converting canister's film. to like digital files, high-res digital files. So they were going back and they were taking footage and updating the special effects. This is my memory. And as someone, I have not ever engaged as deeply with the next generation as I should. It is always kind of my next major project. So I say this, this is my memory, not as a next gen fan, but as a physical media fan who was very active on the boards and the sites, and I remember reading many articles about the

next gen conversion process. And as I remember it, the big issue was that next gen was shot on film. I believe it was shot on 35 millimeter film, but in those days, it was never, ever going to be shown in that format ever. There was no reason to broadcast anything with the resolution of 35, so they would start with a very high resolution film image. And then they would be do the credits, the titles, the special effects, certainly, any sort of overlay on that image at standard death levels. And they would do that all digitally, and then they would export the final episode as a video. A higher-res video than what would air, but something that would look way too low-res if put on a Blu-ray. So there was this thing, I think recently, finally for 4K,

they plunk down a whole shit ton of money to go back to the film and redo everything, which was a long process to like come up with new effects. I know they did that with the original series as well, but in your era, I think the issue was how do we take the video

and up or is it just enough? Yeah, well, there was tons of digibata copies which were like broadcast copies in standard. Right. And then there's a gray box, which is like the equivalent of that, but it's an HD version on tape.

I'm loving this. Yeah. And so I did that for about six months. What kind of tape are we looking at? Were you looking at like a three and three quarter? Like a three quarter inch tape? What kind of, do you remember? Oh, what is the term?

It's like HD. I'm going to look it up. I'm going to look it up. It's a gray Sony box and there was just... Yep, I know the exact one you're talking about. Yep. Keep talking. I'm going to find the name of this. So this only went about six months as like was happening all across the industry. They would just go like, yeah, we're not going to work with third parties.

We're going to take it in-house. Yeah, because they also were at this point where they were like, how much of a market is there for up-resing all this shit? And are we going to have to redo it again in three years when the resolution? gets higher, it was a fascinating inflection point. Because we had made the HT jump, but people were like, how many Ks are we going to add down the line? We can't keep redoing this every time a new K pops up. So I was in the vault.

I worked on the Star Trek, and I was working on some old media reclamation files. Does this look right, Jason? Does that look like the videotape? Yeah, that looks like, what is the term on there? This is, I think it's saying it's a 19 millimeter, D1, 90s. I think it was something similar to that. Again, I'm not opening this stuff very much besides putting barcodes. But does that look like the case?

Would that have been the case possibly? Well, there was some of those floating around. Okay, I love that. Yeah. And then eventually I went to like the asset management department, which was just the file, it's same as the vault, but it's files. And just moving this stuff around different servers. And now, here's the thing.

Go on. Sorry. I have a back pocket question, but I'll wait. I am reasonably tax savvy. Except when it comes down law, except when it comes to your 11th hour. And then my natural state, one of my natural states scrambling. I really, I do want to say, I really like this special. I knew listeners of your show and my show would be excited to hear a, us talk about it.

Yeah, and we're going to talk about it. We're not just going to talk about analog video formats. Let's be clear. We're not just going to talk about post-production pipelines, but I do think a kind of secondary goal on a Jason Unleashed episode is that we should get befuddled responses from both Scott and Mike. I would love that. I think both of these guys need to go at some point, reach out to both of us and go, what

the fuck is this that I'm listening to? I would love that. You know what? Podcasting, it's a marathon, not a sprint, you know? Hell yeah, brother. You got to stretch it out. You got to experiment. You're going to try new things and people usually come along with you.

I think so. Yeah, I think there's going to be a big spike in listenership this week. I would love, well, yeah. And I am excited for them to all come hear us talk about extinct tape formats. Well, here's, no, but here's what the spike's going to be. People are going to go, oh, Muppet Special, guy who was on the set. Let me listen to that. They're going to turn it off, go, I don't know what the fuck I'm listening to.

It was just them talking about old Sony tape formats. And suddenly the ears are going to start burning of some post-production gremlins who are going to go, finally, someone's talking about what it was like in the early to mid-2000s, trying to make the conversion to HD television. And now they're going to rush in and cause an additional spike in this. again, I'm a man of the people. This was an office. This was like an 8 to 4.30, 8 to 5 office job. You're just clock it and clocking out.

Clocking and clocking out because that is what I was told. They're like, do not take any overtime and take your full lunch. That's what the fucking man tells you. That's what the man tells you. And so meanwhile, I have not treated my. my lifelong anxiety at all. Same big, same brother. Sist on staying up late and staying out till all hours of the morning, doing shows or watching

shows. Absolutely. One or the other. So I'm just years and years of sleep deprivation, which is aggravating everything. And like, so it looms large in my mind because it's like, oh, some of that was a nightmare. And they really, some of the, like, paper pushers were really not listening to the people who deal with the stuff every day and have technical know-how. I had no technical know how, by the way. I'm copy and pasting and stuff between servers in Finder on a Mac.

Yeah. Like, and so I would just, like, fill in places and then. I'm making penny. I think when I left, I made $17 an hour. And that was great because I started at 12 and then 14. And was this pre-recession? Are we looking at like 0-607 or was this right around 0-8-09? No, this is 2010.

Because I was jumping. I was just doing like runner job, PA jobs in 2008, 2009. That's the American gladiator. there. Living hand to mouth and like I just at a party somewhat. I was like telling me about where they worked. And I was like, oh, I'm looking for a more stable job. And that's how I ended up there.

Look, I love them. They're dear friends. And they're two of my favorite podcasters. But I just have to say, if Scott or Mike were on this episode, let alone both, we never would have gotten the reveal that this was happening in 2010. this absolutely would have been cut off before that. And it changes everything. This is like 2010 to 2017.

I got caught in a round of layoffs. And thankfully, like a few days later, someone was like, do you want to be in a C-So pilot? And at that point in time, that was the future. That was the future. That was NBC Universal's comedy exclusive. streaming. Yeah, I would say I see so much comedy. I'm laughing so much, you know? Well, this was the thing. It was, they see-so, what does that mean as a name? And the answer was,

it means whatever you want it to mean. All we're saying is, you see what's on our platform, so you fill in the blanks. It's kind of a yes and, right? You see it, so you watch another one. So you laugh. So you tell a friend. The so was the start. of your own journey, a story that begins when the quality comedy programming provided by the fine folks at NBC Universal ends. Yeah. I and it was the thing where I made myself really funny, so I just kept getting shoot days. And then like they need a wild sound. So they're like, uh, yeah, just build them for a, they needed some lines record it. And they're like, Yeah, just bill them for the day.

And I'm like, okay. I want to promise you and the listeners that we're going to get back to post-production, that this is not the end of this. And I have some very specific questions about your approaches to file and folder naming. But I want to go a little bit into the Muppet experience. And then we'll resume post-production. Does that sound good? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. I just want to make sure no one thinks I'm leashing Jason. Jason remains unleashed, but he's done some laps around the dog park. And now he's just sitting down by a bench for a conversation. The leash is still off. I'm unleashed, but I still have manners. You know, I still want the guests to talk about what they want to talk about and want to talk about, I mean, the thing that I'm like, oh, my God, can you help me out with something yesterday?

But this is what, and once again, I love them. They're dear friends of mine and yours. They're wonderful podcasters. But Mike and Scott don't get this, that you still have manners. This is the problem. They're calling for old Jason, and they're thinking, oh, old Jason is this fucking rap scallion. He walks in in sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt on a fucking surfboard, and he's flipping people off, and he's telling ribald jokes.

No, he still has manners. He's outrageous and out of control, but he still had manners. Look, there's nothing more punk rock than politeness. That's what Superman told us. That's what Superman told us. I haven't watched it yet. I will tell you, I had the experience, so that was really fun. I guess I did it in December of watching sinners in one battle after another back to back.

And that was awesome. What format? What format? We're talking. Yeah, we're talking HBO Max. Okay. Because okay, okay, respectable format. Now, did they on HBO Max, because I haven't rewatched either film on that platform, did they retain any of the shifting aspect ratio business?

Because those are movies that, as you've said, the format is the fun. And they were released in multiple different formats and visual presentations. From what I remember, I believe they did because I saw the black bars shifting ones. Yeah, sometimes it get a little boxy, a little talky. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay.

So that sounds like a great day. It was, it was really funny. You know what it reminded me of? And I bring this up because you do a film podcast. 2007, uh, no country for old men. There will be blood where it's just, we were eating good. We were eating good. And this year, it was just like that, especially sinners.

Like, I will say the ending is great. Uh, both endings are great. But the middle of the movie, the performance scene, takes... Oh, is incredible. Such a big swing. And I'm like, I would just like had to admire that. And I had to. And hearing Ryan Coogler talk about, like he...

Like all this stuff around the film and like him getting obsessed with Irish folk music and all his kids getting obsessed with Irish folk music. But did you hear where he like... Like what he said one of his main inspirations was for the film and especially what's kind of started his exploration down the Irish culture rapid hole. I think I know what you're talking about. The Disney Channel original movie Luck of the Irish? Yes, which is really fun. I've not watched that movie.

I think Jane got very excited when she saw that. I am unsurprised to hear that. That really tracks. She knows the decoms like Hart. And I feel like Scott, like, knew a lot about, like, I was annoying teenage. I was a nerdy, too smart for my own good teenager. I'm knocking out the AFI 100. But it's the same.

Yeah. Scott and her have like an encyclopedic knowledge of Lizzie McGuire, I feel like. That makes sense. That is interesting. That is kind of the exact overlap square between Jane and Scott's case. Well, are they, I think they're both Leo's too. Okay. So.

God, God, I'm going to, you know what? Look, you're blushing bride Jane. Yeah. Love her. What a wonderful person. What a wonderful presence. But we wouldn't be having this conversation if she were on Mike either. Jason needs to be fully on.

Leach, you're able to talk about both of them right now, you know? You know, it's important for partners to have their own time, have their own time, have their interests. That is so true. And sometimes it's important for partners to engage in sexual activity as a bonding exercise. Both are true. I both are true. It's a good way to connect to your partner. It is. Sometimes you need your own interest. And sometimes your podcasting partner and your romantic life partner both need their own interests and those interests can overlap with each other's. I 100% 100%

As long as those two people Don't start doing the marital act That's where the line is no no no That's a bonding that doesn't need to happen Like might like Mike Might be my What is the phrase that Jane Sylem Bob Non-Sexual Life Partner

Which I appreciate pulling out that phrase Hetero life made I think Yeah We've talked about the VOSC universe so much. And of course. You have worked with the man. You brought me an autographed little guy of the man. I brought you an autographed, Cheeby, anime style Kevin Smith figurine that is not Silent Bob. It is Kevin Smith. It is Kevin Smith wearing oversized shorts and a purple blazer and a backwards hat. And I asked him to sign it. And I didn't get to explain to him that it was for you. I was going to tell him, hey, it's my friend.

he's a view of the universe means a lot to him this is a present for him and i wasn't able to convey all of that so he handed it back to me and it says uh i believe it says i love you kevin smith i'll take it i'll take it hey stream dream 430 movie currently on to me i enjoyed it a lot have you watched i haven't watched it yeah it seems right up my alley and not it's a pleasant watch it's a very pleasant watch yeah it seems like it and what here is a very old Jason reveal. Um, my dad and me and my high school friend had tickets to his speaking engagement, uh, at Villanova University. Okay. And we arrived to find out he had to cancel. And I believe that was when his father got very ill and then passed. This is what's so crazy.

He did some interview recently where he talked about, maybe, was in the last couple of years, he's been very open with his like mental health journeys. The thing I really appreciate. Yeah. And talking through that he had a bit of a breakdown a couple years ago, sort of what you and I were talking about pushing off issues, deciding to work through them later for a man who's very busy, takes on a lot of work. And he was talking about that experience of his father dying and how much he didn't really have the room to process it. And in telling the story, he was talking about doing a speaking engagement the night before his father passed away. and I believe I realized that I was at that speaking engagement.

It was a Wizard World Philadelphia in 2003. Yeah. Was mine a little earlier? Well, if you're saying it was when he got sick, it would have been like, right, probably a little bit earlier if that was when his father was diagnosed. Yeah. And then that event, I believe, was right before his father actually passed. Here is when I can pinpoint it to. Yeah.

It didn't happen. So my dad drove me and my friend, and me and my friend went and saw Oceans 11. Oh, yeah. And that might have been opening weekend. So I feel like... So then we're looking at, we're looking at November 2001. We're looking at, dare I say it, or dare you say it,

what kind of state was America in? You know, we were just looking. We were looking for some slick dress men to put on fancy clothes and rob a casino. I think it's the, no, it's not the Bellagio.

They look at the Bellagio fans. They do, but I think it's a fake one. Terry Bennettick's the casino. Yeah. So, and that's... But why were we looking for that?

Why did we need that at that time, November 2001? Oh, probably because we were in the state of shock due to the events of September 11th and we were all pining. Pining for the unity of September 12th, you know?

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. We had Mike Wozowski, we had James P. Sullivan, and we had Danny Ocean and his 10 friends, and they kept our hopes alive at the American box office that month.

Yes. After Keanu Reeves and the Children's Little League, the Disadvanted Children's Little League team, he helped coach. I was so happy you brought that up, Jason, because it is the exact same, matrix of how my mind works. I operate, I walk out of my home every morning, assuming that every person on the street obviously remembers that Hardball was the number one movie in America the weekend after September 11th. That it was not a strong number one, but considering the trauma

the country had just gone through, it was a little stronger than expected. People were kind of voting with their wallets for the escapism and the hope and the optimism that they needed. And the box office would really not roar back to full strength until November, Danny Ocean, the monsters, as we said. But Hardball was a little

it was at least a band-aid over the wound. It was a little disinfectant. Yeah. You know, you mentioned therapy earlier and my therapist, I was like, why do I still dwell on stuff when I was like 14 to 17? He's like, oh, every

thing affects you so much, like you make such strong memories and associations around that time. It can be very hard to forget or shake off. Yeah, and they tell us never forget. That's the other thing, right? Like, it's hard to shake off, but we were culturally living through a time in the wake of the dreaded events of September 11th, if I may, where the public was demanding. that we never forget. And we were in those developmental ages.

Yeah. And unrelated, check us both out at the Riyadh Comedy Podcast Festival. Uh-oh, we're taking our yapping across a couple of oceans. This is how we heal. Jason Unleash is headlining the Riyadh podcast festival. That's right.

It's me. It's the smart list, guys. I know we have competing mobile phone of projects, but, you know, I think we'll figure it out. To be fair, theirs is mostly about cellular plans with lower data rates because people are mostly using Wi-Fi on their smartphones. And your service is Beepers only, right? Yeah, I kind of took inspiration from the 30 Rock Tina Face boyfriend character, the King of Beepers. very smart.

That is played by what is that actor's name? Mayhem. Dean Winters. Yeah, Dean Winters. He's in the Allstate ads. He was on Law & Order SVU, I think. I mean, that's some old school

commercial money. Dean Winter is one of the few who made it through, right? He got on to Noah's Ark, and it's him and it's flow, and it's Melania Vintraub, the last people to get the golden ticket into the holy land

of endless commercial campaigns. Oh, Weintraub got it once, and then she got the reboot. She brought it back. You know, she brought it back. She got it back. And she also, then she started directing

them. Now she has creative control. Now she's wetting her beak twice. Is that true? That's true. When she came back, they offered her. They said, we think we want to bring the character back. And she said, I'm really more interested in directing these days.

I would reprise the role if I can also direct them. Talk about cracking the coat. Great gig if you can get it. Great gig if you can get it. Oh, unbelievable. Now, speaking of childhood and therapy and formative memories, it is, I just, I need to transition here. You worked on a Muppet Joe special. Yes.

Yes. Yes. No, but truly, I like, the week after this experience, my entire therapy session was just talking to my therapist about how, like, healing this felt to me in so many ways. Oh, great. my identity, look, it didn't fix everything, and by the way, things got bad like three days later, but there was a profound, it felt like psychological impact

of this experience in how much, sort of my identity of, you know, watching shows and doing shows, as you said, and wanting to go into this whole crazy racket and all this stuff is really tied to the Muppets and how formative they were in my childhood.

If I, if I can try to outline my story of how I got on set quickly. Seth Rogan, who I need to refer to by full name, because if I call him Seth, it sounds like we're much closer than we actually are. And if I call him Rogan on a podcast, it sounds like I'm talking about Joe Rogan. Oh, Joe Rogan. This is something I have learned the hard way. But in real life, you call him Rogie, baby, right?

That's what you have to do to differentiate them. But it sounds a little too familiar on Mike. It is. You can't communicate throwing your arms up for like being. That's the problem. Bear hug. The body language is what sells it. Rogie, baby.

I mean, this is why I don't tell my stories with Marty and Bobby, because I can never call them their full names. I just, I just know them as Marty and Bobby, you know? People don't get this. That it sounds like you're big timing your audience. But the reality is when you meet these people and you work with these people and you get to know them, calling them by those names feels natural because the pretension is down. They're demanding you call them by those names. Because they want you to see them as a peer, a collaborator,

Sabrina Carpenter, right? They don't want to be on this pedestal. But then when you go and then Marty said to me, suddenly you look like a giant fucking piece of shit, you know? Yeah. I remember Sabby was telling me a similar story. Sabrina Carpenter, my co-star on the Muppet Show special. Not Stavros, Halke. No, there's Stavi Baby and Sabby Baby. Okay, yeah. Oh, boy, that gets confusing. At the club when we're at the, you know, the nightclubs.

And the music's so loud and you can't hear and it's Sabby baby and they go Stavvy's here? No, no, Sabrina Carpenter. Probably Grammy winning. I forget what happened with the last album. Um, yes. Um, uh, uh, starts,

uh, listening to blank check a couple years ago and sends a very nice message, which is very flattering. Um, and that led to him doing the George Lucas talk show in Los Angeles, I guess about a year ago. And, uh,

a long kind of like, uh, process to try to find the right episode for him to do on blank check. And he, the, him doing George Lucas was the first time I actually met him in person. He also had a bit of history with, with a Connor had done an episode of Dead Eyes.

So that kind of like, united all the threads. And then he did a Big Lebowski episode with us when he was in New York last summer. And, you know, he had given me his phone number just in case there was any coordination stuff, scheduling, recording, whatever. And I'm very much like, I don't want to be the guy who makes Seth Rogan regret giving him his phone number, you know? I'm not going to overuse this privilege. He has been a very chill man with me, and I don't want to push that limit. A couple weeks or months after that,

there was a sort of screenshot circulating around the internet from the tracking boards, which just run down all the projects that are about to start filming, and especially if they're specifically in one state and whatever. And so there was this little, very kind of technical Seth Rogen Muppet Disney Plus project

breakdown thing that was going around and I feel like it came up in our text thread with I will say Scott and Mike the men who sometimes leash you a lot of my friends text me this and go do you know anything about this

because they know I'm a Muppet obsessive and they know that I now have a limited association with this guy and full credit to my friend David Ehrlich who's a regular guest on blank check. He goes, please tell me you've asked Rogan to cast you in this, Seth Rogan. And I said, no, I'm not, that's, I, I don't want to be the guy begging for a job. I don't know the man that well. You know, I just, I'm excited because it seems like from this

breakdown, what is happening is just the Muppet show again, which the first time I ever did PTR for Muppet Vision 3D. And we had a whole discussion. about like, what would you do with the Muppets if you had creative say tomorrow? I was always just like, you just fucking do the Muppet show again. You hire actual comedy people and you do the Muppet show again. And you don't do it as like a nostalgia exercise. You just try to make the best version of it you can today. That is the perfect format for them.

It is a format that I would argue has basically come full circle culturally. And, you know, it's an organic way to put them with modern stars and recontent. them and update them in that way, all of that, right? And it sort of seemed like on paper, that's what this was, which was very exciting to me. It's like the number one thing I wanted them to do with the Muppets for the last 20 years since Disney bought them. And did they try to do that at some point? Like a pilot version of that that never went anywhere was never released? I'll step back.

I'll give a little context on that. From my memory, I might be getting some of these details wrong. From my memory, there was the era in which this German company had bought the Muppets, that it was sort of the first half of the 2000s, maybe starting in the late 90s, that was a real dark period. And around that time, they were experimenting with doing like a live on-stage Muppet show. There was a Muppet convention that only happened one year that was kind of officially sanctioned, and they did a big live Muppet show with, I think, Brooke Shields and John Voight. and that was never, like, filmed or release,

there are photos from it you can find, and that was sort of being tested as a thing. Do we try to make this a stage thing? Do we try to do this on television? It never seemingly got anywhere. Then when Disney buys the Muppets, it's Eisner's last move kind of vindictively before he's pushed out, right?

It's like, it really felt like him being like, I have to resolve my original trauma from this job that the Muppet deal fell apart because the guy died. And I sort of got blamed for the guy's death. Oh, yeah. In terms of the stress of the deal. And then there's sort of in the 90s, the Muppets and Disney have this kind of floating affiliation where it's like Disney releases Christmas Carol and Treasure Island.

But the deal has been called off and Jim's gone. And the company is in a sort of rebuilding phase and the children are taking control. And, yeah, so Eisner buys them. in my memory mere months before he steps down as CEO. And then everyone's kind of like, the fuck is this? He just bought this fucking thing. None of us know what to do with it.

And there's a real scramble for what to do with the Muppets for a while. And there's some smaller things that get thrown at the wall. They announce that Frank Oz is going to make a movie called the cheapest Muppet movie ever, which was kind of the great unmade Frank and Jim script. Yeah, that's kind of. It's notorious Unmade Muppet stuff in the way that

the Muppet expansion at Disney MGM Studios is talked about of like, oh, this is like a holy grail that never happened. I don't think we have done an episode fully digging in to that Muppet Rideland proposal.

So, or it's just come up and pass a thing. so many times. It feels like that's a research-heavy episode, but it does feel like that's a kind of inevitability, a necessary episode at some point. I think so.

Yeah. The Muppet version of the Great Movie, right, is the one that I think about all the time. Yeah. Where it's like the bad version of the great movie, the quote-unquote bad. Like, the Muppets messing up in the way we all love to see the Muppets,

you know, messing stuff up. And I love that idea because it was like, right, part of the power of the Muppets is like a Muppet next to Debbie Harry. You know, it's a Muppet next to Alice Cooper. It's like having an animatronic Julie Andrews doing Mary Poppins and having Miss Piggy getting competitive next to her is like the relationship that the Muppets have to more legitimate pop culture. You know, that they're always kind of the sideshow attraction, the Borsh Beltie, kind of, yeah. And I think a thing that the special that you were in really captures from the original

and is like how game the real life performers are to the Maya Rudolph, Seth Rogen, Sabrina Carpenter, all seem very game to be doing, to be at the Muppet Theater, you know. Yes. I think it's a really important thing that the special gets right. That cheapest Muppet movie ever is announced. And then around that same time, forgetting Sarah Marshall hits, the Apatow wave is taken over Hollywood. Jason Siegel has a general meeting at Disney.

They said, what would you want to do? He says, I want to make a Muppet movie. They basically push Frank Oz aside because they're like, maybe what this needs is new blood reinvention, right? That's crazy. Have they seen the score? a wonderful 2000's

heist movie? You know, first of all, I now feel like if we, if slash when, we do Frank Oz on Blank Check,

which is a big passion project of mine, I'm wondering if you need to be on the score episode. I, it is one that I kind of like,

oh, what's that about from so many commercials? Have you ever seen it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But at the time

it came out, I think I was 14-15. So could not go art to the R-rated movies alone or with my equally underage friends. So it was one that really built for me. It's like the trailers. Oh, I can't see it in theaters. Oh, it's at blockbuster or Hollywood video or whatever. And I sat down and watched it.

And I remember enjoying it because it was Edward Norton and. And De Niro and Brando. It was sort of framed as like, here are the three generations, you know, Brando Bagat De Niro, De Niro, Begat Ed Norton.

At that moment in time, Ed Norton seemed like the heir apparent to that crown. Yeah. But it is interesting. Like, my sister's nine years younger than me. And her context for Edward Norton

is just guy who's funny in Wes Anderson movies, you know, like basically. Oh, yeah. That she's like, that's like a guy who's like a funny,

supporting actor. A big bird man. Probably, she saw birdman, or can I get the, is it the unexpected virtue of ignorance? I think you knew that a subtitle. Okay. Yeah. But I, yeah, she's like, oh, that's like that funny guy who plays pompous people. And you're like, no, in the 90s, he was like the most serious actor alive.

I, yeah. Fight Club. Fight Club. I mean, the early days of DVD. Just watching this Fight Club special edition. How many times you got to go and best buy to look at it before you finally buy it? It looks all cool with graphics and stuff. It's wrapped up in brown paper.

It's wrapped up. The disc is a bar of soap itself. Oh, there's lots of special features. Whoa. He's got a new movie called Panic Room. What's that going to be like? Okay. Yeah, pretty good average.

really revisit it. Panic Room DVD said, Hold my beer. Hold my beer. I am going... Three discs. Is there a special edition three disc of Panicum?

Correct. Jason, it felt like everything changed in that moment and yet I think very few films attempted the three disc ever again. There's obviously like the Lord of the Rings extended editions, but those contain multiple different cuts of the movie.

Panic Room and my memory is like the one where you're like disc one. the movie, disc two, special features only, disc three, even more special features. I, the only one I could think of is the two-disc anchorman, where if you bought it at Best Buy, you could get a third disc with a wake up brown burgundy, a movie that a movie, quote unquote, where they just use other takes. But even then, even then, that's a second movie. Panic Room said one movie, one cut, three discs.

But it is one that on a smaller scale to like, Jared Lato and Kristen Stewart were young. Yeah. Well, Chris Stewart is very young. She's very young. I guess Lato's in Fight Club too. Yeah. And that was like, I say euphoria because I'm like, oh, the cast of this is just everywhere to help. I was just listening to you talk about the euphoria cast.

You put it together. You finally, now beautiful mind style, see the code of the euphoria cast. They're dynamite. Did I try to get into euphoria and turn it off after 10 minutes on the final? Because I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if I wouldn't do this. Jason would have liked euphoria, but it's a little too ribald for a married man. Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah.

It's a very salacious show. I'll stick to my saltburn, thank you very much, my alluredy vehicle saltburn. Yes, yes. I'll go as far as cum slurping out of a bathtub, but no further. Yeah, it's a proper manner, and everything's above board there. Jason is now sipping from a humongous Stanley Cup. Let the record show. Yeah, it is.

I got one of these, like, well, after they were popular. You predated the... Oh, oh, after, after, after, after they were popular. After they were... After they were... Before it was popular. No, well after, well after.

I was just trying to drink more water. Sure. And fill up, like, rip, knockoff, Stanley bottle less. Which is only two cups. This is five cups. Yeah. Smart.

The score famously, on the set of the movie, Marlon Brando would not take direction from Frank Oz anytime Frank Oz tried to talk to him and that was very much

Frank Oz trying to move out of much like he transitioned from the Muppets to adult sort of live action comedy he was trying to try a drama,

more of a thriller picture transition his career and Brando would not take direction for him he would only call him Miss Piggy and refused to respect him as an actual person. And so what they actually had to do on this movie,

I tell this all the time on blank check because I'm fascinated by it. They had to give Robert De Niro an earpiece and Frank Oz would whisper things into a microphone that he wanted from Marlon Brando. And then Robert De Niro would say it to Brando conversationally. He'd go like, Hey, Molly, you know what might be interesting

as if this move like six inches to the left. Might be better for framing. And they'd be like, Oh, boy. Because he wouldn't take Miss Piggy notes. I want to know what was it like filming, not the score, but a later Marlon Brando project. Later Michael Jackson project.

But that music video where Brando and Jackson are in it together. Here's my guess is what it was like. Easy. Low key. Yep. Real low key, you know, and that's a famous story. Isn't the story about him in a car after 9-11? Yes, with Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor. And Jackson, it was all three of them. And by the way, to circle everything back, you're saying, oh, the score, you want to see it in theaters, you were a little bit too young, you waited until DVD. Well, my friend, if I'm not mistaken, the score came out either the end of July or the beginning of August in 2001. So if you had seen it in theaters, it would have been a pre-September 11th viewing of that film, but instead, you have only ever seen that film in the shadow of the terrible tragedy.

That's right. It would have been thrilling to see it in that late summer when we were all so young, Shrekmania sweeping the nation. And now it's in fact like people are looking back. So finally, they've turned Shrek into a series of dance party raids. Because there was a purity to that moment. There was. There was.

And Shrek 2, Shrek 3, Shrek 4, that was everyone just trying to will themselves back to that headspace. But they knew it wasn't the same. The difference was that only in Shrek 1 had we not experienced the tragedies of 9-11. I, what will it be like? What state will be in when Shrek? rec five comes out. I can't even imagine. They keep pushing it back and it just means there's even more stuff we're going to need to process before we see it. If I, if I can circle back to the Muppet conversation. Please. Yeah. Cheapest Muppet movie ever is pushed aside for the Siegel movie. The Siegel movie, which I I like, I liked a lot more at the time because I felt it was very single-mindedly focused on a thing that was really important, which was recontextualizing. the Muppets for a new audience and kind of trying to bring them back to the language of the Muppet

show, which is a little bit different than the language of the movies, which all have kind of their own realities. And even the Muppet movie, which is purporting to tell you the story of how the Muppets came together is a movie within a movie. You are watching the movie they made about their own origin story. And then after that, you get into the Muppets playing versions of themselves, the Muppets playing other characters. And I think you were getting a little bit away from what I love,

which is like the Muppets as a troop. You know, the Muppets take Manhattan gets back to that a bit. But like the Muppets are a creative team. It is a project. It is as much about the thing they are making as the thing you are watching. And you can sort of accept the head canon that those movies are the product they make when they get the contract from Orson Wells. Exactly.

The standard rich and famous contract. Yes, no, you nailed it. Yes. Okay. Were you saying his character name? Exactly. We were in sync, brother. We were in tandem.

I couldn't pull that. I'll tell you this. This is a funny MS thing where I've stumped doctors. Because they ask about like cognitive issues with multiple sclerus. They always check in a lot. Make sure that stuff is okay. And I once told a doctor, I was like, Well, you know, I find myself repeating myself a little, a tiny bit more in daily life.

I already retold the same stories over and over again. That's our edict for podcasting. Of course. It's five timers. It's one of your great breakthroughs at PTR is, let's turn into a feature and not a bug. It's actually good to keep repeating these things. Absolutely. And I remember telling a doctor, I was like,

The only thing I really notice is I was always bad with name recall. It's gotten even worse. And this occasionally gets difficult in my job because I'm a podcaster and I cannot think of the name of long dead character actors. And just dumbfounded. And they went, okay. Why would that be a problem? Yes. Okay.

So we're going to put no. Kind of thing. So that's great. Yeah, I, that's, I was trying to think about that the other day as I was watching Jim Neighbors. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. Muppet Show host. Yeah. In the first season.

A man who was shockingly, I don't think has come up a lot on the podcast. It might be time to get Mike into Jim Neighbors. I liked his episode a lot. I had no idea that a voice of an angel. Voice of an angel like a trained opera singer in addition to being like a funny all shucks. Exactly. He's this goofy Gomer Pyle and then he starts singing and you go,

oh my God, what a songbird. That was another moment with the wife where she said, who is Jim Neighbors? I was like, Jim Neighbors, you know, Goomer Pyle. And then I'm like, wait, I don't think I've ever seen a minute of go repile. Why am I saying that? Like she would know what I was talking about.

Yeah, well, I got to get into the neighbor first. You got to get into the, you got to move into the neighborhood, maybe. The neighbor's hood. You got to move into the neighbor's hood. There's still so much of Buddy Epson's work I'm exploring. I got to knock more at a time. Yeah. I just think, you know, your wife got you Oz pilled and it might be time for you to get your

wife, neighbors piled. That would be very funny. At least pile pilled. Are you watching Goomer Pyle again? Like, yeah, sweetie, come on in. Take a seat. Join me. No, we are watching Gomer Pile again. Baby, love means never having to say you're sorry.

A movie I've never seen all of, but I've seen the clip on AFI 100 specials a number of times. Gomer Pile, much higher priority. Go Mer Pyle, Bernie Miller. The Segal movie feels like it's really trying to reintroduce the language of the Muppet show. And the main plot of that movie is like getting the theater back, putting on a show again. They do the arches. They do the theme song. The last like 40 minutes of that movie are kind of, and Jason Seagull said this when it was coming out.

like my backdoor pilot to get the Muppets back on ABC doing the Muppets show. That's the thing I want to do. That's the format I think they work best in. And a movie is a way to re-communicate this to people. And instead, Disney made a second movie that I think is excellent and superior, but bombed pretty hard. And then, of course, brought the Muppets back to ABC in a single camera mockumentary style show about them doing a late-night talk show akin to. akin to the office, in the style of the office. A show that I greatly dislike.

It has its defenders, but to me, it's like, this is not what we should be doing with these characters. I don't want Fosian traffic. I don't want them in the writer's room throwing pencils up into the ceiling, struggling to crack monologue jokes. That's not the spirit. The Muppets is like fucking old Hollywood shit. It's backlot.

It's mania. It's big personalities. It's not like, oh, I'm on some gigging fucking, late-night job. It's razzled-dazzle bullshit. It's razzledazzle bullshit. And they fuck that up. I don't like that show. It opens, it rather, premieres pretty high, drops off pretty quickly. There were then talks. Like, do we do the Muppet show on Broadway? Once again, it was the thing that kind of got gumbed up in the works. Instead, there are these series of Disney Plus projects of varying levels of success, but it felt like they kept just avoiding the big

thing. I see this image circulating around. I go, this sounds like Seth Rogan is doing the thing. And my friend David Erlich says, just to reestablish a thread from

25 minutes ago, are you going to shoot your shot? And I go, no. And then I stop and I go, if not this, when? What am I saving the connection for? If there's any, not that it's kismet, not that it was

destiny, but I'm like, if I have a shot to shoot, there will be no time more impactful to me personally than this. And so there was, like, I think he had messaged me about something else or a meme or something. There was another reason that the conversation, the text conversation, got like pinged up again, right? And I seized the moment and I just said, look, I'm sure you can't talk about it. But I've seen the Muppet thing floating around on the internet. And if it's what I think it is, i.e. just doing the Muppet show again, I'm very excited. And he responds immediately, that's exactly what it is. And start sending me photos and telling me details of some of the shit. And I'm losing my fucking mind. I'm like, oh, my God, it's happening,

right? It took two Freaks and Geeks cast members over 10 years. But finally, they're just going to do the Muppet Show. That is. That connection. I was going to say to Apabel versus. guys, 16 years apart? 15 years? The two project? Yes. The first, the Segal

movie is 2011 and then I pick him up its most wanted is 13. But yes, yes. Like, right. 14, 15 years apart. So I'm just like losing my mind at the stuff he's sharing with me.

And then he goes like, oh, and if you're going to be in L.A. next month, I can like, you can come visit. he just throws it out. And I was like, well, Seth, I will come to L.A. You just tell me. If that is an actual invitation, I will just show up.

And he's like, yeah, we're going to do this thing where for the crowd reaction shots, we have humans and puppets sitting together so we can throw you in a chair there and then you can hang out for a couple days. And I was like, great, just fucking tell me when and where. Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. I, let me ask a question about locations. Did you shoot at the former Jim Henson studios,

the former Charlie Chaplin owned studios? No, okay. It was shot on the Fox lot. Now, did you ever work on the Fox lot? That is the one lot I, I've, I've not been to. Yeah, because I think I hadn't had much experience with it either. I was like, I've either never been here or maybe I was here for an audition over 10 years ago, but was certainly in more of the like office building section.

They have these big sound stages that are now mostly themed, have been painted over with kind of like important things in Fox history. So the buildings, yeah. Kind of a big historic place, the Fox lot. Absolutely. I feel like a lot was done there. I think pictures. There's a lot of pictures of like the Simpsons painted on there. Jason?

Yeah. I'm about to get to that. Okay. The Simps, to tie it back to PTR, Josh Siegel's book talks a lot about the Simpsons Motel, the crummy kind of office building that they were in, briefly moved out of, moved back in because it was like kind of copacetic. to their nasty takeout, strewn 14 hour a day Harvard guy with anxiety

writing sessions. Yes. Yes. So there are two big sound stages next to each other on the Fox lot. One of which is the sort of colloquially the Simpsons building

because it is the one that has the giant paintings of Simpsons characters all over the sides. And the one next to that is like the Empire Strikes Back building that has a giant mural of Luke. And I guess it's actually the return of the Jedi fight, but it has a giant Luke versus Darth lightsaber mural.

Yeah. So it's these two buildings of these two additional things that are incredibly important in my life, a Simpsons building and a Star Wars building. And across these two buildings lies the Muppet show, right? Seth puts me in touch with someone at his company, Point Gray, named Madeline Blair, who I want to call out because she was. was very instrumental in allowing me to be part of this. And what was fun was she basically said, like,

in the process of clearing me to do this, she realized, wait, I should clear myself to do this as well. So she is also in the audience. Her and her husband, I believe, are sitting right in front of me. There was kind of this grouping of, like, most of the people, or I should say at least, like, 10 of the people in the crowd reaction shots

where people like me, where it felt like the equivalent of, you got a golden ticket from Awanka Bar. You had one connection to this project, and they could get one person into one of those seats. So there was, Nina West, who was like a huge Muppet fan, is a Rupal Drag Race alum, and Disney has used a lot as kind of like a Muppet fan ambassador at like D-23 in events.

I was sitting next to Leslie Margarita, who's like an amazing musical theater performer, Tony nominated, did Matilda the musical on Broadway. There was like a whole collection of people like that. Some of the people who were part of the crew, like music director and choreographer and stuff, were like, and can I be,

is there a way to sort of get in and be able to interact with a Muppet? So it was like that and then a percentage of just like actual background actors who were getting paid to be there. Because in the special, It's an audience made up of humans and Muppets. Which was like a big thing because in the Muppet show, they really only do crowd reaction shots I feel like in the first season.

When you watch those early episodes you watch. They do and they're very, it's not a lot of people. It's not a lot. No, it's like all puppets. They use them very sparingly and then they basically wipe them out from the show. When they put on the Muppet show in the Siegel movie, I feel like they're. The crowd is more humans and Muppets on stage. And there was a lot of like going back and forth on like, what is the logic of like,

do the Muppets only perform for other Muppets? Do the Muppets perform for other humans? What is said by either of those things? And it felt like if you're trying to reintroduce the Muppets to a new audience, you have to be like, everyone wants to go see them, you know? So I think that's sort of how they landed on that. But it was this very cool system where basically that sort of part of the, of the set was like the facade of chairbacks, of these kind of red velvet chairbacks. But actually those were like

reliefs. And then they could put in chairs in front of that if a human needed to sit there on top of like a couple apple boxes raised up off the ground. But otherwise, that's just the kind of relief of a chair back, that a puppeteer can then be like crouched down in fetal position underneath with the clearance room to extend their arm fully up and make it look like a puppet is sitting there. Right. I was going to ask. So are those audience shot composites brought together to make an audience? All real.

No, all real. All real. Okay. This is what I'm building up to here for how immersive it felt. The reliefs. That's the thing. they always talk about the difficulty of filming with Muppets

is like you need trenches to put the Muppet performer's body. Like you need people need to fit beneath the frame. And then the frame has to look like a normal

dressing room or normal theater audience. Yeah. No, I'll get into all of this, but the chairs were, the chairs that humans were sitting in were all elevated. We were raised off the ground. The puppeteers were on ground level,

but they also were kind of crouched down. Most of the other sets are elevated enough off the ground that a puppet can stand up full height and raise their arm up, something like the dressing room, right? Yeah. That's high enough off the ground. It feels like a set on stilts

so that that's the base level is what would be natural for a Muppet performer to hold the puppet up at. And then Sabrina Carpenter is just walking on a very tenuous, like, sort of like maze-like floor with all these cutouts for the puppets to be able to move in between. I think a lot of it's very modular. Yeah. I, and credit to everyone who did have to walk around because that's, that's a thing I always

I mean, that's very similar to like, when the Kelsey Grammer, oh, good Lord fall. he is on the stage that they used to do the Aladdin show at California Adventure, I believe. Okay. So that's why. That is, with someone's like explained to Jane what, like, performers have to be specifically trained because there's all these cutouts and trap doors. It's not just a normal flat stage. It's all these different levels. And it's very funny imagining like a chart-topping, like global superstar trying to like scoot along a two-by-four and make it look like I'm just moving naturally as I talk to Kermit Miss Piggy.

I mean, once again, this is like the art that they refined for, you know, decades. And there's a lot of institutional knowledge applied to these things. to make it as comfortable for the human performers as possible, you know, to work them into their system with consideration rather than just be like, and don't walk

more than two inches in this direction, or you're in, oh, good Lord, territory. It's a fascinating thing. Yeah. Because it was like, even more difficult, I imagine, during musical numbers. Yes. I mean, there is a rat musical number.

It's all just rats. So that's easier to work with that like Rizzo the Rat and Bruno Mars makes a cameo and walks through the dancing crowd, you know? Totally. They're like different methods applied for all of these things that I've always been so fascinated by it. I've never really gotten to see in person. But if I can swing back a little bit in the story, I get there on the day. and Mr. Seth Rogen texts me and says, let me know when you're here.

I'll, like, show you some stuff. And I'm, like, going through the security and everything, I sort of, like, wave him down, and he goes, like, just come with me. They're going to tell all the background guys to go here. Come with me for a second. And he brings me into the Simpsons building. And through, I guess, just transitional stages, restructuring stuff, they have basically just in the weeks before the filming of that special, which I think it was September,

had moved basically the complete Muppet archives onto that soundstage. So the Simpsons building now is like the aforementioned Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse, where it's just stacks of boxes as high as the eye can see. And Seth is going like, you want to see something crazy? Like, look, this box says Gonzo, you open it up, there's Gonzo. and you open up and there indeed is Gonzo and then there's like 10 gonzo boxes you open one up and it's like

oh this is specifically Daredevil Gonzo versus like Red Tuxuit Gonzo then one you're in there and you're like this is like decayed Gonzo and you're like well they don't want to throw anything out because sometimes they can repurpose a piece you know like Beaker is like

20 boxes because Beaker there are so many different forms where there's like here's Beaker here's full body beaker here's Beaker if you need to see his legs. Here's Beaker where the eyes can light up. Here's Beaker with a tiny head. You know, there's so many different things like projectile head. It's like everything they've ever had that isn't in the hands of a private collector or a museum is basically in this one building. And at the back, there are a bunch of tables with like fabricators and what they call puppet rangers who are like

pulling everything together and like working on Miss Piggy's outfits. They're basically doing like costume fittings with Piggy. And they have Piggy. And they have Piggy. on a table and they're trying to pin stuff and like, well, there was a rewrite on the Bridgetton sketch, so now Piggy's color has to change and they're going through the archives of everything to find the pieces. And there's also

just stuff on display that they're assessing and taking inventory of. And a man flags me down and says, hey, I don't know if you remember me. It's a fellow named John Cody, who is within the lore of PTR, the Muppet

corrections guy. Cody is living the dream. Cody, like, he secreted his reality. Like, he got in. Absolutely did. John Cody, the great John Cody, is there. And it's one of these things where I'm, like, coming to this production, and I assume I'm not going to know anybody other than Seth.

And I'm just going to be sitting in a chair, watching the Muppets, and having the greatest time of my life. And what's kind of nice as someone who has built way too much of my life around my love of the Muppets, is I keep having this experience of being like, oh, of course you're here. Like, all of us kind of willed our way into being here. And I realize, like, I know 15 people on this set from doing different Muppet comedy shows over the year, from, like, different, like, Muppet message boards, you know, like someone like John who, like, reached out after I did the Muppet Vision episode that publishes this very long list of corrections

to the facts we got wrong. And then many times since then, I've met and has reassessed. asserted that he is a normal man. Yeah, really nice, super nice guys. I met a last live show we did. Yes, right. I was in town for that, and I said to John. I was like, are you going to go to the PTR show?

And so we both got to go to that, which was nice. But, yes, someone who, like, exists in the tapestry of PTR as, like, please don't send us three pages of corrections, like an archetype. I, looking back now, I'm like, oh, I love that story. I love. Yeah, man, good for you. It was such a cool full circle moment. Yeah. I have to, I always, I mentioned her before, but I, I, somewhere in my archives, there's a nice note.

But someone sent us a long list after the Lucy tribute episode of the Lucy facts, she got wrong, and came up after a live show and gave me the souvenir Lucy. The spoon. The spoon, yeah. Okay, so both corrections people have been vindicated as normal. So normal, so friendly. I hope I was friendly. I always feel out of my mind after any comedy show. Oh, tell me about it.

But Jason Unleash, still polite, you know. Of course. Still got to have manners. What's more prong rock than proper manners? You always got to have manners. Yeah. I'm looking at all this stuff. I'm like overloaded, right?

I really like, it's immediately like this is so emotionally overwhelming to me. You know, I said to a lot of my friends when I was planning to go out there for this and it came together pretty quickly. And I'll also say because the audience reaction shot days were going to need to be when they also shot the Maya Rudolph thing. and it wasn't Maya Rudolph, but they knew they needed, oh, there's a celebrity in the audience who's bragging about knowing the Muppets to an audience member. And I think they were, like, there were like 20 different versions of who it was going to be. So it kept getting pushed back in the shoot until it finally became the last two days. So the days I was there was the last two days of the whole production was all I got to be there for.

But it also meant that like there was a sense of, of everything else had been accomplished. I could ask people about what had happened so far and how the whole thing had been going. But I'm looking at all this archive stuff and then someone at some point's like, you've got to get into a costume, they're going to shoot the scenes.

I get put in, I brought whatever I could from home and then they added some more elements to it. It ended up being like a three-piece wool suit. Now, I don't know if you can relate to this, Jason, but I am a man who prioritizes physical comfort above almost all else. I just want to be comfortable.

Yeah. And I think it could go either way with a wool suit because some wool suits are very light. Absolutely. Would be great on a production because they're so light and breathable. And then some are very heavy. This was very heavy. Okay. You know, I just, I wanted to, they sent the thing out like 12 hours before I boarded a plane.

Most of the other people who are here are L.A. locals. They're able to, like, look at their full closet. I had to pack stuff in advance. And they were like, we want it to look like it's a nice event that the audience members have shown up dressed to the nines. Right? It's old razzle-dazzle bullshit. And so I was like, this is the nicest looking suit I have. There were a lot of guidelines around which colors you should or shouldn't wear.

In particular, like, you can't wear red because the theater is all red. the chairs are red. You need to stay away from that on the color wheel. So I got this green suit and I pack it. And then they're like, wouldn't it be nice to throw a sweater vest under that? And I'm like, great, another layer. Well, filming soundstages in live production are often very comfortable, right? Exactly.

Now, I'm not, none of these are complaints. This is a lot of, I love them up it so much that in any other circumstance, I would have been struggling a lot more. And there's a specific, uh, a page. off to this later, I want to get to. But I get in the costume and I go over now to the sound stage and it's truly like,

I walk in, it's razzle-dazzle bullshit, I'm seeing the back of the set where they do the islands and the stream number, right? So it's like the back of a kind of like swamp relief and fake trees and water

and boats. And I walk past that and this is what was the fucking mind blower. is the set, the main set, is continuous. By which I mean, I'm walking in, and from left to right, I am seeing the celebrity guest star's dressing room, right, where Sabrina Carpenter is going to sit and where Scooter is going to knock on the door

and say, five minutes to showtime as Carpenter. It is smaller than you think, because you don't really clock that everything has to be Muppet scale until you're surrounded by the Muppet things. Well, that's terrific. She's smaller than you think, too. Jason, everyone on the crew kept saying it made our lives so much easier that she's

basically Muppet scale. Yeah, I did see someone point out online that it's like, oh, it's probably easier to shoot a Muppet next to Sabrina Carpenter the next to Jason Segal, famous. Quite a tall man. Tall man. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

So she basically fits perfectly into Muppet scale, which is like just kind of 20% smaller. So even stuff's like like animals drum kit, which I'm seeing, you're like, oh, right, weird. It's bigger than like a doll drum kit. It's just a little bit smaller. Wow. You just imagine, oh, the puppets behind a normal drum kit, but you're like, no, that would dwarf him. So there's this dressing room that's smaller than you think it would be.

There's the door that Scooter knocks through. But right next to that room, continuous, that door opens directly into the upstairs of the Muppet backstage set. That is built real, as if it is a real structure. I can't even, Matt, like, all the sets I've seen are been on are so absurd when you look at them. Yes. Yes. But this is like Sabrina Carpenter could walk out from sitting at her vanity mirror in the dressing room, walk out that door, be at the top of the staircase of the Muppet backstage, walk down those stairs. And then if she walked across that floor, however narrow it might be, behind, you know, Kermit's desk, that would go straight into the wings of the Muppet Theater. That is all continuous. Oh my God. That's wild. This is where it's like goose bump shit, right? Where I'm just like, oh my God, it feels real. This is not falling apart as I'm seeing how it's made. This is feeling like actually getting

to be in the space. It's all smaller than you think. It's all weirdly five feet up in the air on risers because it needs to be. But it's like you're looking at it and it's scanning in your head as this is real. And then there is just the stage. There's the giant proscenia march, Staller and Waldorf, or right there to the side of the stage in the box, and the chairs that I am going to be sitting in are facing that stage.

So I've seen a lot of people ask questions about, like, what were you watching? What were they? Were they describing it to you? How were you told what to react to? And I'm like, here's what I reacted to. The Muppets. I'm sitting in a chair that is facing the Muppet Theater stage.

If I just tilt my head to the left, I see the backstage area as if you're like peeking around the corner. Kermit is on stage doing an introduction. The whole Muppet band is in the fucking pit with their instruments. Stalder and Waldorf are there over my right shoulder heckling him in real time. That I did want to ask, or are you there for Stadler Waldorf? Yes. So basically everything I got to see was anything that happened. in the theater in like a neutral state, right?

So when it goes to sketches like Muppet Labs, the musical numbers, the Piggerton, Bridgerton parody, all of that stuff is faked in the sense that that is built on a separate sound stage further back within that same building. And they edit it to look as if the curtains are pulling back and it's happening there on that stage.

Obviously, all those sets are too big to fit onto the Muppet Theater stage. Are you watching Seth and Fawsey? I was there when they filmed that. That was at a sort of different place. Okay. That is, to be technical, that is a thing I could have seen and I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, if that makes sense. I see.

Yeah, yeah. This is pretty crazy, Grip. Like, this is. It was insane. I thought you probably saw like a tenth of what they shot. Like, I thought you were staring at it. a tennis ball. That was fully what I expected it to be.

Yes. Was the Maya and the monster Muppet sitting in front of me? That was in front of me. When they filmed that sketch in front, that's crazy. That guy, that Muppet, I think,

to tie it back to the original Muppet show, I believe is in the Paul Williams episode in a sketch about trying to get a cheap plane ticket. And then they smush him and mail it. That sounds right. They call that character

the Beautiful Day Muppet. I think he's named that because of, and John Cody will correct me if I'm wrong about this. I believe it's from a Madeline Kahn sketch where his character says, what a beautiful day.

But he was basically, a lot of those random monsters would be called whatnot Muppets or would eventually get a kind of like production name that was never a name communicated out to the audience, but very often they would be named after the most prominent thing they had done like that.

This is my, so this is the one spot where I wanted more of those. First off, the fact that the one sketch, you mentioned as Bridgerton, that really never occurred to me. I thought that was a callback to the ballroom dancing sketches in the original. I guess it kind of is. It's a little bit of that too. Yeah. But I, God willing, we get more of this. I want more of the ballroom dancing scene.

Absolutely. With people telling like cat skills kind of jokes. And I want C&D list. I want the weirdest looking guys who move extra frantically. Yeah. I mean, when I told you guys, I think I'm going to get to be on set for this, I believe Scott's joke.

And let's be clear, Scott, he's a. dear friend, I love him. He's a wonderful podcaster. Of course. Of course. But, like, Scott's joke was, like, cut to five minutes later, Rogan regrets inviting Griffin to set as he harangues him for not incorporating enough obscure Muppets. And I was, like, Scott, Seth sent me, like, 20 pictures yesterday. And the number one Muppet I would have harangued him for not including was in those pictures.

Who is Hilda, who has lines in this. Hilda is the seamstress. She is another basically only season one character. And she is in season one so much. She's in it a lot. And then they basically drop her. She was like the second most prominent female character in the Muppets. She is the kind of like pink old lady with like red glasses.

Yeah. Do you want to talk about that first season a little since we keep mentioning it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to hear what your thoughts are from Washington. We'll come back to your experience more. But I'd be remiss if I didn't. So I watched, I believe it was the first eight. The last one I watched was Paul Williams.

Let me give a rundown here. I believe you're saying you watch Julia Prouse, Connie Stevens, Joel Gray, Ruth Buzzy, Jim Neighbors, Florence Henderson, Paul Williams. Does that sound correct? That is correct. And I assure you, we both popped for Joel Gray. And then he does. he does the cabaret song with Muppets singing along.

It's crazy. For two musical theater nerds, like that was great. And then Paul Williams, I'm familiar with a lot of his work, but there's so much of it. And I, his episode is almost entirely short guy jokes.

And I was like, oh, I got to learn more about Paul Williams. My brother. You got some Paul Williams energy. You and Paul Williams, you got some shared aspects, I would say. Some similar vibes. There are vibes. There are also like if I really grew my hair out.

You would look a lot like it. Yeah, I would look a lot like it. Jason, you could nail the fuck out of a Paul Williams Halloween costume. Would anyone get it? No. No. But it would be perfect. I still have not seen

Is it a Phantom of the Paradise? I have not seen that. You would love that movie. I've been told that many times. I have seen multiple times this Dexter's laboratory appearance. Well, of course.

Which is great. And it seems like he was having so much fun doing it. Yes, yes. And obviously his Muppet episode leads to this like very long, fruitful relationship. He is the guy who writes Rainbow Connection, and I hope I go back there someday.

I mean, he continues to work with the Muppets for decades. It all starts on that experience. He is a guy that you don't know you know him, but you might know him. Julie Proust was really funny because I was like struggling for that. I was like, oh, they said she's a dancer three times. Thank God. I mean, she's saying a lot, but her longest thing I think is basically like a dream ballet. Like you would say in singing in the rain or Oklahoma, you know.

Yes. I mean, the first season of The Muppet Show, you have to consider that every network passed on it. There are two Muppet show pilots. One is called Sex and Violence. And one is the Muppet Valentine's Day special. Which are you had to hunt for those, not on Disney Plus, right? No, no, no. They were not broadcast as by the show.

part of the Muppet Show proper. I'm trying to remember if either one of them was televised, John Cody will have the answer. But they were two different pilots, and it was Jim Henson really being frustrated by the massive success of Sesame Street, pigeonholing his work as for children only. Because before that, he would do, he did Sam and Friends for years, which is a local show, but then he was going on Ed Sullivan show, and he was going on the Tonight Show, and he was doing all sorts of different things. And some of the Muppet characters that we know today develop, and that time, but it felt like there was a versatility, and he was just viewed as this is a guy who is expressing himself creatively. And then they make this deal for Sesame Street. He creates

these indelible characters, and everyone's like, got it, puppets for kids. And he had felt like he had made progress in pushing past that assumption in his TV work prior to that and then had been set back. So the sex and violence special is really trying to be edgy. It's kind of got an old Jason vibe. It's called sex and violence specifically just to kind of make a joke about this is not for kids. It's not loaded with sex or violence. It's sort of just like a shocking title. That's how I always understood it.

But like the first season is very funny. Because first off, Kermit's flirting with every female host. They did not know that piggy was going to be that big of a character. There are episodes where Pige's where Pee's. If Piggy doesn't talk to Kermit, she seems indifferent to him, and then Gonsu and Piggy look to our eyes. They look bizarre. They look bizarre. A lot of the voices are there.

But it's quite a few episodes before Frank Oz starts playing Piggy. He's not Piggy for the first handful. So it's not only that the voice isn't locked in yet, it's that the performer changes. And it maybe changes twice. I want to see what the first Frank Oz Piggy episode is. Yeah, the voice acting pretty close on all of them. Gonzo's a little more gruff, Fossi's a little more vaudeville, but it's all there. Yeah, Dave Goals, who created Gonzo and had already worked with Henson the Muppets for a while here.

And once again, John Cody, correct me if my details are a little off here. had not really seen himself as a performer, framed himself as a performer. Gonzo as a character had been called the cigar box frackle from a different special that they had done. And they decided to repurpose this character to make him a semi-principle character on the Muppet Show. And I think he was very involved with the building of that character. And Jim Henson said, I want you to play him. And he didn't want to play him. He didn't see himself as a performer.

And he talks about that for seeing, season being a really like learning. on his feet, finding what the character was. Now, this is a somewhat controversial opinion, but I'm going to say it. Dave Goals looks back and says, I think Gonzo was too sad originally, and it took a while for me to find what Gonzo's character was. It was because the puppet looked so sad that I leaned into the sadness. And as it developed, we redeveloped the puppet to make him more of this wild man. For me, my perfect Gonzo is when he's at that midpoint. I think that's right. I will say he's very wild man the special.

The runner throughout the 2026 special where he tries to name off every Oscar winning supporting actor on Rockets game. Yes. Yes. And like, I'm sure people wanted to say like Mernaloy or something. Right. But it's like, well, we need a mix of like, Diane Weist is a funny one to end on, but we need some more modern ones too in there. Because you keep thinking the bits done and then he crashes through again and you need

another two quick names. It's like kind of a perfect Muppet bit for me. But yes, Gonzo starts off very different. Piggy starts off very different. There are segments that are really key in the first season that never appear again. You were talking about your kind of boresh belty stuff, vaudevilley stuff.

I love the talking houses on the street, the kind of one-liner. Did you get to any of the house stuff? I love the house stuff. Are they first season only? In my memory, they are first season only. I thought that was a great, like, what they call blackout gag.

Exactly. A lot of Muppet stuff is just like a one or two beat sketch or a blackout gag. Sam the Eagle introducing the performers that he constantly emphasizes our upstanding citizens. Wayne and Wanda, who are like the very kind of bland, upright, turning point USA approved Muppets, who always do a really kind of dry, earnest number that goes wrong. Yeah, I that some of this stuff is so refillable. Yeah, it's like, now wonder this show worked so well. And it definitely is a piece of a piece of the 70s variety hour like we talked about before. It was kind of a bridge, you know, like it's what's, I think so powerful about the Muppet show and why it's always been the thing that I felt they should return to is like,

They were kind of straddling the line of like your show of shows and laughing and the beginning of S&L. You know, there was sort of like a legacy of the variety show on television that had gone through multiple revolutions. And the Muppet show was able to kind of capture all of them or could do really corny, earnest musical numbers. It could do kind of like light comedy, hard joke comedy. It could push into edgier territory. And it was so malleable based on who. who the star was and what kind of energy they had, the guest star. And the first season, I was, I was going to say that because all the networks rejected it,

they got a guy named Sir Lord Grade. I think I got that name wrong because it's Lou Lord, the Orson Welles character, is riffing on him. And he was a wealthy British entertainment magnate who said, we should just self-produce this and sell it into syndication, which was a really, really big risk. and it ended up being like the biggest TV show in the world at the time. But it also means that the first season in particular is like the very European and a lot of its guest hosts. It's thinking international.

And because it was such an unproven concept and people didn't know how it was going to work, it's a lot of like older entertainers. It's a lot of people who are more like have a foot in 50, 60 variety stuff. It's a lot of musical theater people. And then there's also this, like, feeling of like, should it be dance people? Do we have moment shots? Like, a puppet theater company? Like, they're trying to figure out what kind of act works for it. Ruth Buzzy, I think, really works.

Because she is like, at the time was kind of a human Muppet. Yes. I mean, she just, was she on laughing or Carol Burnett? She was on laughing. Yeah. Okay. But, yes, has Muppet energy. That was kind of what they were doing.

hurting herself. First season, you get some big Muppets, too. Which I like when a Muppet, like a Sweetums is big. Yes. I'm more under earth when Piggy or Kermit are big.

Like those long ago walk around the costumes. Bad news. Yeah. No, I mean, that's, talk about some other shit that was kind of like, like pinch me moment. to just see like Sweden's walk around the sound stages

trying to like get to his mark, you know? Like at one point I was like watching what they were filming behind the monitors and then Sweden's just walked by. That is, that is, it sounds like. Like Sweden's holding like a cup of coffee and like looking at his sides, you know? This is the experience you dream of.

It was got, truly. You got the golden ticket. Yes. Like, Nina West, who I'd met before, had done these Muppet script readings with in L.A. that the great Matt Wilkie puts on and was kind of my seatmate. The two of us were sitting together sandwiched by whatnot Muppets or Random Muppets. And at one point, Nina said to me, can you believe this? We're actually at the Muppet Show. Like, this is, we are sitting at the Muppet Show. And I said, in this weird way, when I was five, I always thought,

this would happen, right? When I was too young to understand, I went, well, when I'm old enough, I will figure out how to buy a ticket and sit in that audience and watch the Muppet show. And then you get older and you get disabused of these notions and you understand, oh, this show was canceled. Ten years before I was born, you know, like this was never real. There never was a live audience, all that sort of shit. And the degree to which it felt like what I imagined could happen when I was a child was just astounding. I mean, the single greatest moment I saw, and it to me is one of the funniest things I've ever seen,

the Muppet performers, once they've put the character on their arm, kind of stay in character. It's a little bit like the way that people who have worked with Daniel Day Lewis describe the experience, where they're like, well, people like heightened it as if, like, if you show him a cell phone and he's in character as Abraham Lin, He'll have a mental breakdown. It's like, no, he knows he's on camera.

He's notes. He's doing a film. You can give him notes. You can adjust his microphone. But the bigger thing is that he kind of wants to hold on to the physicality and the voice and stay in it. So he's not turning it on and off. And it can feel as comfortable and lived in as possible, right? He wants as much kind of immersion as he can have without it being ridiculous.

And it's a similar kind of thing of like they put the puppet on the person's arm and they're kind of staying in it. And like, when I'm sitting in this chair and I'm watching the Muppet band in the pit, I'm watching them run what they're going to do on the next take as if it's just actors standing off to the side with their sides running their lines. Like the physicality of just, like, testing out the movement and going like, no, it's not that. Maybe it's with this arm. You know, that sort of like thing you see of actors just being like, okay, I got like 30 more seconds to like figure out what I want to do before I want to do it. And you're watching the puppets do that. And it's like you can see the puppets think.

Because even if the actor has yet to duck down and you can still see them, the puppet feels like it has life because they're not just doing it as a technical exercise. They're trying to make it feel like it's a living thing. And then when they dip down, it feels fully real, right? It feels fully immersive. But, you know, if the director throws out a note, the puppet responds to the note. If the director says, hey, can we actually for framing do this? The puppet responds. You know, if the director says, like, can I try this and the performer can't hear it?

The puppet says, like, sorry, can you say that again? That is, like, the opposite of Suicide Squad, Lido Joker, setting people rats and stuff. Exactly. It's why that kind of method shit is bullshit and is performative. And I contend basically exists so that people can write about it in the press. And people can self-mythologize how intense. they are. Yeah, I think Daniel Day Lewis is, he's up there enough all out.

Yeah, but also, like, Daniel Day Lewis is very intense, but doesn't do any of that shit just to show off how intense he is. We had Jared Harris on the George Lucas talk show recently, and he was telling a story about working on Lincoln where he played Ulysses S. Grant and that he was warned so much, hey, you know, Daniel, he likes to stay. in it and you're a Brit and we didn't want to hire other British actors because it really throws him off if he can't continue to talk to people in the same voice they have for the character. So we wanted to cast as much as possible with people who regionally fit into what the character

was. So he's not hearing people flip in and out of dialects. So as much as you can, if you can please try to sort of stay in Ulysses S. Grant because he wants that level of immersion or whatever. And he was so in his head and warned about that. And then he said like at the end of a filming day or when they were, we're going to lunch or whatever, he and Daniel Day Lewis got put in the same golf cart to be driven back to the trailers, which it's like, yeah, first of all, Daniel Day Lewis, if you put him

in a golf cart, isn't going like, what sorcery is this? What, I've never seen a horse character. No, he's a professional. He's not going to hold up a shoot. Exactly. He's an asshole. Right. And Jared Harris is sitting there in silence because he's like, I don't know what to say to this guy if he wants me to speak in character. And Daniel Day Lewis turns to him and in full Lincoln voice goes, I was like, so what's going to happen on the next season of Madman? And is just a Madman fan who's trying to pump him for Mad Men, spoilers. But it's like, well, obviously, I got to keep the voice going. Now, now, now.

Jared Harris is so good in Madman. He pulled me into thinking he was like a very intense British man. And then I saw some comedy shows that he was around backstage. And he was the most gregarious, nice man. Yeah. And he seemed so game for like comedy. Big belly laugh. Super cool guy.

Yeah. But yes, the Muppet experience felt like that. And the greatest thing I saw was they went like, okay, we're going to go in on Statler and Waldorf and do all the Stattler and Waldorf comments. Even though I'm basically clean of camera, they were very often shooting with multiple cameras so that they could get the interaction of, you know, it's the back of our heads, but Kermit's on the stage. and Salon Waldor for there, anything that's over the shoulder. Most often, and this was sort of the three-piece suit problem, is they place me prime center seat, but because of the way those fake seats are constructed, once you're in there, you're really in there. So, like, ask to take a bathroom break is a big ask.

It would complicate things for everyone for a long time to be able to reset. You're kind of, like, intricately stacked in there, like a puzzle, in order for the kind of optical illusion to work. You know, the back wall, what feels like the back wall of the theater is weirdly like a relief. The balcony doesn't exist. It's like an overhang. You look at it and you go like, how is this possibly going to work on camera? And then you look in the monitor and you completely buy it as a big theater.

It feels like it has more rows than it does. And the insane thing when I kept asking people, because I just kept cornering different people who, you know, were kind of didn't seem too locked into a task and would try to ask them like, so what about this and what about this and get all the intel. And the thing I learned very quickly was they built this set using the exact same blueprints as the original set. That's crazy. Who's like the one kind of original Muppet performer still playing a primary character was like, it is exactly the same. I could close my eyes and everything would be where I remembered it. Like it's muscle memory. It's bizarre. It has not been this close since

1979. Like, this is the same set. Well, let me ask, do, did any of the old Muppets in the Arkha's smell like cigarettes? I feel like that's a big time. That's a big different thing. I mean, I think

sadly, most of those Muppets are not still in any reasonable physical condition. All of these things are made out of materials that degrade pretty heavily. And the ones that still do exist, there's a Shipethius, I think, quality of like, this is a quote unquote original, but it's been updated so many times that how many pieces of this are still from the original, you know,

or certainly the ones that are that old, they don't want to perform with them because they're so delicate. Oh, Rip Boudriard, you would have loved this production. You would have been talking about simulations and simulacra left and right. Incredible. So the funny thing you saw. Yes. Yes.

Just to finish this loop, I'm wearing this three-piece suit. It's pretty hot under the lights. I sweat a lot and I get dehydrated easily. So I'm trying to stash water bottles around, but I'm also like, I can't drink too much because if I need to pee, then it's a problem. So many blank check listeners have called out that I seem to be eating that in a lot of the crowd reaction shots, I have. look like I'm eating something that I'm like chewing in my mouth. And the answer is, I had anti-dry

mouth gum. Oh, my God. Because that's a specific side effect of a medication I'm currently on. And once I got into that environment, it was like, oh, I'm going to be locked in here. Once I'm in this seat, I might be in here for who knows how many hours with how many different things they have to shoot. And I'm trying to stay hydrated, but not drink too much. I was trying to not chew whenever the cameras are rolling, but a couple of those moments come in there. So I'm in the middle of this thing, and then they're keeping us here,

even if because it's so tightly packed, you're not going to be anywhere on camera. They go to Statler and Waldorf, and they go, let's just get all the Statler and Waldorf stuff. They go, you guys ready? They go, yeah, we're ready. Okay, tell us when cameras are places. And then they run through.

They do this. Then they go like, great, moving on your lines to Manchild, and they do their one-liners. Great. Moving on, your reaction to Gonzo stunt, they do that. You know,

more Stettler and Waldorf lines than ended up in the final cut. They had jokes for every single bit, right? And then the director goes, great, I think we got it. Let's, and then the puppeteer playing Stattler,

like, raises his hand and goes like, oh, Alex, if you don't mind, we have some alts we'd like to try out. Yes. Perfect. And Jason, I swear to you, what I saw looked like the puppet raising his hand holding four sheets of paper. What I think was happening was the puppeteer is holding those sheets of paper in the same hand that is holding the rod that controls the arm.

And through angles, when they lifted both, it looked like the puppet was holding onto three pages of alt joke lines that they had written on their own. And then what I got to watch was kind of an extended wild take of Staller looking down and being like, okay, let's try that. Sabrina Carpenter, they're going to need a carpenter to repair this place after it shuts down. Okay, sorry, that one's a whiff. And we'll just move on to the next one. That's a bad joke I just made up. But I was like watching Staler and Waldorf like nail one joke get an actual wave of laughter from the audience and being like, okay, pretty good, pretty good. that one might work.

And then one would just flatline and they'd go like, okay, well, they can't all be winners. And it would just go on to the next joke. The dream. The dream. The dream from a Muppet fan, from a comedy fan, from a production, like how things are made fan. Right.

So I got to watch all the intros that Kermit did. I got to watch all the stuff with the band. The final stuff they were filming on that set where I didn't end up being on camera, got to see a good amount of it was the intro stuff with the arches. Thog, who's the big blue Muppet, who's like the biggest Muppet. In the Jason Siegel movie, they had to fake Thog in the intro because they realized they didn't build the arches high enough. And I believe he just walks out from under it because it was too short for him to even kneel down and come under. And it was a big thing where they were like, we finally built thog-sized arches.

Thog is going to have his proper. And it's a detail where you take it for granted, because if it's working, you don't even think about it. Of course, there's room for Thog to walk through, but it happens. And then they had rough cuts of the Muppet Lab sketch and the Pigs and Wigs sketch. So we watched those on a monitor, and they filmed our reactions, but also recorded our laugh tracks. So I don't know how it ended up being mixed, but a lot of what I was seeing was not just to be able to, to get the on-camera reactions of the audience, but was also to

get the audio reactions of the audience that I think they would then layer into the laugh track. Yeah. So they were showing us a lot because they wanted to get all of that stuff and test it for real. You saw quite a bit. I saw quite a bit considering

I was only there for two days. And the Muppet Lab sketch where Beaker's eyeballs start like projectile shooting out of his head, they showed us that cut. And then they had like two crew guys come out with what looked like a giant double-barreled shotgun and giant tubes, like giant rubber tubes that led into a bucket full of Muppet eyeballs. And they just started shooting them at us. And in the coverage of how it works out, they only cut to Maya Rudolph who gets kind of socked with one of those eyeballs right in the mouth and ends up choking.

But all of us were just getting, they were shooting like hundreds. of ping pong eyeballs at us. And I was, I say this in confidence, and I ask the listeners of this podcast to be cool and not nark on me. I did steal a pair of beaker eyeballs. They land, they were, we were supposed to be batting them away,

and I caught one in my hand, and I just very quietly put it in the inner breast pocket of my wool suit that was causing me so much consternation and sweat. And then they went, we're going to try another take, and I said, I'd like a pair.

This one eyeball's looking a little lonely, and I caught another one. I put it in the breast pocket. I walked off the set. You know, there's nothing better than being in very hot wool and then also having a couple of fragile things to deal with. Absolutely. But at the end of every take, they'd be like, okay, everyone, pass the eyeballs up. We were supposed to, like, scoop them up from the ground and pass them up. And I just, I kept the two close to me.

But that was like incredibly cool. And yeah, and then the Meyer Rudolph part, you know, in some ways, if you had physically or visually been established in a certain part of the audience, then if they were shooting a specific piece, they would go, well, we actually only need these two rows because of what's here. Other times, they would move you to a second seat in order to help create the illusion of the theater being deeper than it was. but obviously if your face is too visible in one spot, then maybe they only want to use you as a shoulder over here. So basically there was a puppet. I think her name is the laundress. They had like just racks on the side of the stage

that were clearly things they had pulled from the archives. Those are these kind of miscellaneous Muppets, a lot of pirates from Muppet Treasure Island, a character name Old Tom, a lot of kind of kind of like beautiful day monster kind of stuff. and they were like to populate the crowd, the audience, if they needed extra background Muppets

and things like this. These are sort of characters that have been pre-established visually and past Muppet productions but don't have defined personalities, voices, backstories, you know, there's not the preciousness.

Yeah, I didn't consider wardrobe having to dress humans and also dress Muppets. So most of the Muppets came as is. So like I was, for the Miar Roos, off stuff, they were like, we might need a shoulder in here. We're probably not going to see it. We might need it. Would you mind sitting in here? And I said, sure. And I sat next to the Muppet Laundress, who kind of looks like a frog. She's like one of the British townspeople in Muppet Christmas Carol who yells at Scrooge. It's a very visually distinctive puppet, but not like an established character. And it was being performed, I hope I'm getting his name right, but Ryan Dosier, who is the current performer who plays Elmo.

And this is another thing about this production. It's like everyone who has worked on Muppets or Henson's stuff for the last 30 years felt like they were like, I just want to be there. Even if I don't have a clear character to play, even if this is kind of like below my pay grade of what I've risen to within this field, I want to be there. There was a feeling of especially for so many of these people who even if they've been working for decades, it's like watching the Muppet show is what made them want to do this. but they became professionals after the Muppet Show had ended. And a lot of these people either just barely overlapped with Jim Henson

while he was still alive or did not get to work on any of these projects until after Jim Henson it passed. It's a class reunion, it's family reunion. You want to be there and just hang out. And further, I think, I mean, it's nice to see,

in their case, you told me the term a few weeks ago, Muppet performer, but Puppeteer, But the puppeteers in general, it's such a fascinating field. And there's so many genres and stuff. And they often are very underpaid and they don't get their flowers. But it's such a fascinating specialized area. And especially with doing film and TV stuff and the Henson style, it is like a weirdly small world built around institutional knowledge of how to build these things, how to maintain these things, how they need to play.

in this specific medium and all this sort of stuff. And it just felt like everyone kind of wanted to be there. Everyone felt like this is the reason we got into this was because of this original show. And even if I've gotten to work on Muppet projects before, this is kind of the purest evocation of what this meant to me and what kind of sparked in me originally. I'm sitting next to the guy who plays Elmo. Maybe one of the 10 biggest entertainers on the... Earth. Like, Elmo as a character might be one of the 10 most, not to turn this into a doughboys episode, one of the 10 most famous things. And the person who plays Elmo was basically playing like a background extra, right? And is similar to what I was talking about, even though this character isn't going to speak on Mike and all of them are there to be swings and be like, actually, would you mind jumping in and playing Zoot for a second or whatever it is? Because certainly if one performer primarily plays two or three or four,

different characters. If a couple of those characters need to exist in the same scene, then someone else has to take over it. If Fawsey and Piggy are in the same scene, two different people are perpetering, and they handle the voice and post. Or, you know, they switch off whatever it is. And so I'm sitting next to this guy who is playing the laundress, and there's a long time to work out the setup and the camera. So I'm just sitting next to him for 30 minutes, and he is staying in it. He has crouched down in a fetal position, not even at my feet, underneath next to the

Apple boxes that are underneath my feet, and with his arm up, and he just starts talking to me as this character, who basically doesn't exist, has no previously established, like, voice or lore, right? And we just have a conversation for like 30

minutes, as if we're just like two background actors who are like, so how do you get on this gig? What do you usually do? What else have you done? Going back and forth, and And he's just improvising with me in real time as this character. And Nina West in particular is like, you're just like having a full conversation. The lawn dress, the lawn dress pulling out her iPhone and going like, oh, a podcast, I'll subscribe.

I'll have to check that out. Jason, basically, basically. And I was like, I didn't think I needed this, but I would not do anything to shatter this illusion right now. Then we go into filming the piece. The piece is the Maya Rudolph thing. They basically tell me, okay, the shot ends at the laundress. I don't think we're going to see your shoulder unless something crazy happens. And the camera swings the other direction.

So you're probably clean of this, which to me is the greatest thing I could ever hear because it means, oh, I'm not on camera. But I basically have a front row seat to watch Maya Rudolph and Bill Beretta improvise. And if I'm staring right at them, which I couldn't do if I were on camera, because you should be staring at whatever's happening on the stage, not the audience member in front of you, I just get to fucking watch them. And I get to watch that scene develop over like five or six takes that started as just you're bragging about how you know Kermit.

And then with every take, there started to be more flirtation between the two of them. It started with like, oh, the beautiful day monster is kind of bored or is sort of rolling his eyes at like this woman bragging. And then it started being a flirtation. And then they were like, push it. Let's see where this goes. And then it becomes a full kind of love affair

so that when she chokes, he's like bereft, which then I watched in real time. They were like, oh, so he should be mourning her when they're bringing her out in the stretcher. Like more old Hollywood bullshit where I'm watching them like find a bit on its feet. Yeah. That's great.

And what a fun moment to get the Muppet News guy in. it just feels like the special has and even the final number where Kermit like the bit is he can't figure out how to fit everyone into the show and so he does a number with everyone in it it does feel like as much as there are limitations to a 30 minute special

and hopefully they will get to make more things it's pretty wise I think and strategic about understanding how to utilize the different characters and give everyone enough of a moment of shine and that doesn't just mean the most well-known Muppets. Like, you could just have based this special around Kermit and Piggy and Fazi and Gonzo

and Animal. And that would satisfy the checklist in most people's minds of what the Muppets are. But it's like, no, the Muppet Newsman needs to speak. Part of watching The Muppet show is to watch it and be like, man, the Muppet Newsman has a lot of fucking screen time in this. Yeah. And again, a lot of black, a lot of like one beat and were out cut of jokes. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's like the diversity of the segments and the characters and all of that is so much of it. And, you know, like the privilege of being invited to the set by someone closely involved is that like when they weren't shooting things with the audience, they would send the background actors to holding. And they were like, you can just hang out here. And if there was a set that they weren't filming on, I could just walk up to it and not try to touch or steal stuff, but be like, let me actually examine this. and the shit that I love nerding out over of like, oh, there's like a degree of weathering on this desk that to the human eye in person looks extreme, but you need that on camera for it to register as an antique or any of that kind of stuff, like wandering around all of that. And, you know, if they were like, this setup's going to take an hour, someone would just go like, okay, should we do another gonzo pickup? And then they would just run over to another stage where it's gonzo on a blue screen with fans so they can shoot some more of. him yelling out best actress winners

or best supporting actress winners or things like that. Like it felt so let's put on a show in a way while being very well-oiled machinery. It sounds it and I'm sure that just fueled the energy of the performers and the crew and stuff. You essentially talking about walking around

empty sets, you essentially did the opening of the special that Kermit the Frog does. Yes, which I also love as an opening because it feels like, oh, is this thing going to be too reverential, too sanctimonious, too kind of like nostalgia baity? And like this is, you know, the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show. You could put a lot of weight and historical pomp and circumstance on it. And I think that opening is like a little emotionally affecting. And then they just immediately

undercut it. And from that moment on, it's just here's an episode of the Muppet Show. We're not going to be like patting ourselves on the back. We're trying to make this feel as much like the closest version of that thing that could exist and should exist today. I think it's interesting. I'll pay them a complex. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg is his producing partner. And they both work. This was both of their company's thing. Point gray. Yeah, yeah. It is impressive how many things that they have adapted or worked on where it's just like, oh, they get, they like get the Muppets, they get Ninja Turtles. Yep. Invincible.

Invincible. I didn't even know they worked on that. Yeah. A preacher. Yeah. I think what's that? So to translate the insanity of a Garth and as Steve Dylan comic. Yeah.

That ran for like five years. But it is like the weirdest, gnarliest comic. and it touches on religion that they were able to adapt that for cable television and it makes sense. I think they genuinely are big

fans of a lot of stuff, right? And like, as we live in this IP slop era and these big companies are so tentative to develop anything that isn't kind of hammicked in the comfort of some IP and the idea of a built-in

audience, a lot of these projects, projects get offered to people who like no strike against them just want a job and they're like I don't know can I figure out how to make this comic book into a TV show and like I think they very strategically and they talk about that they've had a harder time getting original stuff made you know for the better part of a decade they were doing like live action original comedy movies and the bottom kind of fell off in that and they said like well if this is where the industry is going then we have to find the stuff that we actually care about, that we're pursuing because it is like based in a real appreciation of that thing and that we want to help protect that thing being translated correctly. This is not me repeating private conversations. This is like when they do interviews, when they talk about it, and it was pretty wild to like watch it in real time of just like sort of playing goalkeeper of like, no, I think it's got to be the way it was in the 70s, you know?

Let's not overthink this. and let's like really kind of correctly identify what the important tenets of that are and how to best translate them or update them. And I think viewers like that and respect. I think they can feel the nervousness of like, oh, we need this top 10. Totally. Like we need. It can't be this because what happens if this? Like people can.

I don't, me at least, I can. kind of feel that. But I know the both of us was like, yeah, personally we can be kind of snobby

and it's hard to, you know, find big like pop culture stuff sometimes that hits. Yeah. But it's like pretty quickly. I'm like, oh,

they, I think they nailed this. I think they got it. Yeah. I just think they got it, right? Alex Timbers, who directed it.

I'm just even down to like the framing of like, they're shooting the pieces we know from the right angles. And even just like the fact that this is like a high-deaf production and you're not used to seeing the Muppet show look this clean in certain ways it's a difficult balancing act because you don't want to see too much of the seams and the strings, but you also don't

want to feel like it's digitally manipulated. And I just think they hit like the right pitch for everything. I think, I mean, obviously my Rudolph, very experience. Yeah. Former sketch comedian. Seth Rogen has done million comedy things. I think Sabrina Carpenter was a really good choice because very public, very popular singer,

but she is down, like she has like body stuff in her performances. She has silly stuff. You believe it when she talks to Miss Biggast. Like, you were a huge influence on it. Like, that just kind of makes sense. Here, I'll get some Hollywood razzle-dazzle bullshit in here. I wrote down for Mike

That's Sabrina Carpenter She's got a good head on her shoulder My wife tells me She released a new album When she was still on tour for the previous album And I think that's just dynamite I think that's a good work ethic Yeah

Okay, that's enough of that Got it I wrote that out But there are also moments where I did it organically. So, Mike, there's your Hollywood razzle-dazzle bullshit. Are you happy now, Mike? Are you happy?

I don't know if I've ever seen him happy. I, um, no, I'm just kidding. No, every time he looks a new NECA ultimate TMNT figure in the eyes, of course he's happy. That's his most genuine smile. I've seen his eyes laid up when he weaves in it now to the display cases at Comic Con. I was in LA briefly a couple weeks ago, I guess, and I saw Mike. He met me and my friends at a bar, and it had closed down and we were standing outside in the street. And he was telling me scuttlebutt. He was telling me secrets and gossip and rumors about upcoming action figure releases from various collector-based companies. And he was saying it with both the intensity and the excitement as if they were the deepest government secrets. And we were surrounded by other people who were like, what are you talking about and why are

you talking about it this way? And he was going, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I saw. But it felt like it's time. The toy collecting needs their head hop. They need. It's like, yes.

There's nothing more dangerous than like so many people we know in comedy or acting. It's like, oh, we're all obsessive and they're very narrow obsessions. And also we're all little, we're all mother hens. We're all like pickle, pick a little talk a little gossiping about the things we love. I just like that when Mike talks about action figures to me and this comes across when I hear him say it out loud, it somehow comes across in the way he writes it in texts and Instagram DMs to me. it feels conspiratorial. He's delivering it with the energy of like the drudge report or as if he's like deep throat standing in the parking lot being hilarious. Like, you know, I mean, recently announced or at least teased on Instagram, NECA, our favorite company, is doing a new Muppet show line.

And they in the last two years have done a couple of Sesame Street figures that are excellent and everyone was wondering. Yeah. Does this mean the Muppets are coming next? Of course, there's the historic Palisades Muppets action figure line, the early 2000s that I talked about in our Muppet Vision episode, and it feels like they're attempting to do the legacy continuation era-parent modern standards Muppet line. And, you know, Mike is talking about it as if, like, I hear NECA might be doing 70s-style piggy. And he's looking over his shoulder, you know, as if someone's going to, like, tackle him to the ground.

I don't know. I just have been hearing. I feel like you can do a one piggy release and you give both heads. You get the modern head in the 70s head. Jason, you fucking get it. That is the assumption because they did recently show off their ultimate big bird, a deluxe, higher price point, but he's a large character. And he's come in with two heads. He's coming with the early season kind of sad big bird head from the late 60s and then the kind of final.

design we all know. Yeah, that's great. Let me ask you this, getting away from the Muppets. What do you think of those white box Simpsons action figures? Love them. Love them. I've been trying to get Mike in on them, and he's been so resistant, and I don't get it. It's like sometimes he doesn't know what's best for him.

He was really into the Super 7 Ultimates Simpsons line, which only ran for four waves. The figures were quite pricey, upwards of $55. each, they were a very large scale, much like the Muppets line that Palisades did in the 2000s, that was very deep and comprehensive. NECA's been making their Sesame Street figures and presumably these new Muppet figures to be in a compatible scale so you can mix the old figures and the new figures together in terms of different characters. There was a big playmates toys, Simpsons line in the early 2000s, the World of Springfield

line that went hundreds of characters deep, and these Super 7 Ultimates figures. wildly different scale. They can't coexist. Meanwhile, these new white box figures from Jack's Pacific, which are $12 and under, available at Target, available at market,

mass release, affordable price point, very articulated, scale compatible with the Playmates figures. So I'm like, I don't know if we're ever going to see a Gill figure

on the pegs of Target again. But Palisades, excuse me, playmates made Gill in 2000. And if you buy a new Jacks Homer, it's the right size next to the old Gill. And Mike is just going, I'm all in on the Super 7. I'm like, the Super 7 line is done.

It's over. They lost the license. I, the one Simpsons figure from the Playmates line I have, because I wasn't really into figures at that time. But someone was getting rid of some stuff and had some of them. And I said, I want Gil. I want old Gil. So I have the Gill with the pay phone, its accessories, and it's just an older man with his shirt sleeves rolled up.

I believe it has like a shoe store sizer. They tried to give him accessories from different dead-end jobs that Gil has worked over the years. But I'm telling you with supreme confidence, Jason, you go to Target, you see any of those new Jack-specific white box Simpsons figures on the pegs, you can safely plunk down your $12, buy one of those, bring it home, put it next to your Gill, no problem. That is one of the things I love most about Simpsons is the residents of Springfield. Exactly. You have built a town. Yeah, in the way that I want the weird old whatnot Muppets.

Of course. I went Gill. I went Kent Brockman. Yeah. I want Cletus. That's my thing. I'm like Diamond Select, try to Muppets line. about 10 years ago, but they were really teeny tiny. And they worked next to kind of human-scale action figures.

So if you wanted to treat your realistic human action figures, especially guest stars, and the Muppets are smaller next to them, they worked well in that capacity. But here's the problem. That line never went deep enough to give us a Muppet Newsman. And the Palisides line did, and those were bigger. And presumably NECA is going to make them that same size. So even if they don't get to Muppet Newsman, my old Muppet Newsman is safe rather than towering over Kermit.

And these are the big issues that even Mike won't let us talk about. This is crazy. People want to think, oh, if it's a Scott Free episode, action figure scales are on the table. But Mike is sometimes weird about scales. He's weird about scales. He's been trying to get me into the Mondo 12-inch. That's a big scale. Mike, I like, I like, I like.

a seven inch. Same. And I have too many memories of, like, being in elementary school or middle school. Yeah. And a parent not knowing what to take to a birthday party. And they just hand you a 12-inch ex-man. And I was like, this doesn't go with my other smaller figures. Yeah.

That's some grown-up doesn't understand it bullshit. And I'm not besmirching the work that Mondo does. But Mike's out here. saying, like, maybe I'm done with Marvel Legends. Done with Marvel Legends? The fuck are you talking about? How many characters is Mondo going to make? Yeah, maybe you're going to get your core

X-Men 97 team in a 12-inch Mondo format, but they're not going to make a leech? They're not going to make Ardean leech. They're not going to make the full serpent society. No, never. Never.

I think they cut a lot of them from the last captain America. They cut them all out. Yeah. It's, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's sometimes it bewilders me and I feel like Mike, and I love him and he's a dear friend and he's one of my favorite podcasters. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't know what's best for himself. I know.

And, and we were, we were at San Diego Comic-Con together. He is, dare I say it, lusting, lusting, tongue rolling out of his head, steam out of his ears, hitting himself the top of the head with a mallet. looking at Mondo's Savage Land 12-inch rogue figure on display. Now, admittedly, quite a looker. And he's going, I got to get it, I got to get it, I got to get it. Meanwhile, that's a pre-order, okay? That's a pre-order.

Meanwhile, on sale at the Hasbro booth, Marvel Legend box set, Savage Land, Rogue, in six-inch scale, Sawrod, and I'm going to get her name wrong. Shana. Shana? Shana? Yes. Khazar's partner.

Yeah. So they had already put out Kazar as a solo figure and they had made Sabu, their Sabretoothed tiger friend, the builder figure in that wave. And now finally there was a Shana to go along with it. And I got that three pack. And I said to Mike, you know, Mike, transparently, I really bought this for Sarad and Shana. Do you want the Savage Lang Rogue?

And he went, no, I'm kind of dumb with Marvel Legends. I said, Mike, this is a. free figure. Your friend's offering you a free figure. And he goes, I wouldn't even know what to do with it. Wouldn't even know what to do with it. I, I, it's funny to say that because he gave me a thrill joy, hot stuff the little devil. You've been revealing the seal. We sent you. We sent you. He sent me a video of you doing the rips. Yeah. And I said, which one do you like? And he's like, Well, I like the chase. I like the half robot, half devil.

And I'm like, I just like the standard. I got the chase and he has the standard. And I'm like, well, if you, we should trade. Like, you want the one with the guys. He's like, no, can't do it. Can't do it. Not going to do it. Not going to do it.

He was going full CarVHW mode. I don't get it sometimes. And I'll say like, Jason, if you want Savage Land Rogue, she's yours. I'll gladly ship it to you, and I'll pay for shipping. I'm not trying to get this thing off my hands, but I'm just, I thought, here I am, here's a friend who probably would appreciate this more than I would. You know, I was Jones in for different elements of that set. I got the rogue as a bonus.

I'm happy to display her, but I thought maybe it would make you happy, much like you thought, hey, you know what? Maybe Mike would feel a little joy every time he walked past that chase hot stuff on the shelf, when for me, I'm just looking for the classic. And sometimes he just goes, no. And I don't know what it is. You know, he has those hot books. What are they called?

What are the hot topic? For the hot topic? Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah. Do they also work at box lunch? I think it's a separate currency because I'm pretty rich in box lunch cash and pretty poor in hot box. Oh, I see.

But I've similarly been trying to apply it to Thrill Joy. I revealed two seals recently. I ripped open a dude from Big Lobowski, and the other one was Scareglo, evil ghost of Skeletor from Masters of the Universe, and I got two chases. I felt a little bit like Jason Sheridan, King of the Rip. Well, I wanted the chase of Rick O'Connell.

Same, and I got the standard. That's the one I got. Because he has the shotgun, the regular one, he just has a sword. I'm like, well, he doesn't he use the sword? No, it's not his primary weapon. And similarly, McCready from the thing, I wanted the chase because it was the snow covered with the dynamite on the vest at the final battle and said, I got the regular one.

I was a little disappointed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm wondering if there's any listener who feels the ability to connect to all the different things we've talked about today. I'm curious if there's one person who was like, I was here for post-producing. production formats, Griffin giving openly earnest about the Muppet experience, them shit-talking Mike being a scale queen. He is a scale.

Oh, I'm bringing back that one. Mike's a bit of a scale queen. It needed to be said. He's a bit of a scale queen. I think on that note, Griffin Newman, you've survived podcast, the ride. First, Jason Unleashed edition. Yes. Would you like to exit through the gift shop?

have any plugs? If you haven't watched the Muppet Disney Plus special obviously talked more about my experience being there than the thing itself, but that also means if you haven't watched already, you can watch it.

We didn't spoil a lot of the fun for you. I hope they make more of it. On my podcast, Blank Check, we're about to start covering the films of Peter Weir, wrapping up the films of Lynn Ramsey. We've been doing the Oz movies

over on our Patreon, get an Ozpil. I got to say Jane loves the second act of Wicked so she really liked the second movie I was like I don't know I don't know if this one has the juice I'd like just be exhausted from the marketing blitz Jason

this is an incredibly safe space it's just you and I hear Jason on leashed mode I think if there's ever a time to share your your full unvarnished opinions on Wicked for Good because I'll say this I did not think it was for good. I thought it was quite bad.

They made original songs for this movie. And when they start singing, there's no place like home. I was like, oh, brother. Oh, man. That's how I felt, too. I had a grand old time watching the first Wicked. And immediately I went, this ain't it. This feels wrong.

Yeah. And then I think all the people are, are exhausted. I felt bad they were not nominated for as many awards, but I feel like... But also, did they deserve them? I, well, I don't... There's such incredible performances in one battle. There's incredible performances in one battle in sinners.

Yeah. I'm like, oh, it's a hard year. Hard year for performing. It's a hard year. And I understand the come down is rough. Just a year ago, you were the bell of the ball. nine, ten nominations for Wicked. And now zero a goose egg, it's tough.

But did they deserve those nominations this year? No. I think the Oscar made no mistakes. Okay. Mr. Oscar. That's all what I'm saying. Mr. Oscar himself, the big statue. The big statue.

The big statue with the twisted inscriptions that show up in Los Angeles around the Oscars. If I can just, I want to, I was, you know, I said, whatever I had to say about blank check, but most importantly, I do want to plug the Jack's Pacific Simpsons action figure line. You can spot them for their distinctive white box on the pegs of all major big box retailers. You can purchase them online. They've gone five, six series deep in now. I think they've had a good mix of main core family members, variants, and fun supporting characters, and more to come if the leaklists are to be believed of what's coming later this year in 2026. Oh boy. We're We're eating good. And that's great. They're available at Universal Studios. Yeah, they are. But do not buy them there because they're insanely expensive.

And that's, and you know what? Here's the thing. Mike probably would be more incentivized to buy them there. His love of things being overpriced might overcome his love of being a scape queen. I think I am the one who's more likely to buy. Like, an item within a theme park. I'm like, well, it's in a theater special. I want to get it.

Sure. Sure, but he's, he loves his overpriced Taco Bell at City Walk, you know? That's true. Well, I still haven't visited the Raising Cades, so. Oh, yeah. No, I'm eager to hear that. That's going to be a full episode, right? I think it's got to be.

I did, speaking of things that need to be a full episode, I did ask you, can we spend some time on this episode doing a Jason Sheridan's toilet time, part two on the Muppet courtyard bathrooms or the Pizza Rizzo bathrooms. And it felt like there was too much to discuss. I couldn't find good footage or photographs of either bathroom. And I said, let's not put the pressure on ourselves today. That deserves to be its own episode later. I did not want to poo-poo your idea.

But I'm like, I think it's too confusing to put part one behind the paywall and part two on the main feed. but I wouldn't do that at some point. I just need to prepare. And just to kind of like settle the balance of everything we've talked about today, can I ask you, in your post-production days, did you have a favorite method of how to name files and folders

or were you always just adapting to the house style of what you knew your superiors wanted the most? That's interesting you say that because I worked with a lot of engineers. And they were, they, they had a style that was kind of the style of studios too. And it was a lot of camel case. Okay. Do you know, like you capitalize the first letter of each word?

So if you put, if you were to name a file, it was a copy of the score, it would be capital T, capital S, all one thing. The other thing. Oh, interesting. Okay. And I haven't encountered this a lot outside of post-production. There were some software programs that did not like dashes. So they were like, don't use dashes, always use underscores. So it's like Camel case and underscores.

So that, when I send files, is still kind of how I do it. I'm an underscore guy because I was, I was, I had a Dalian. with wanting to be an animator, and I was taught that that was the best way to name your files. And it's, I've just, I've copied that forever when I was having to do a lot of capturing of animation stuff. I'm a big underscore person, but I also do like capitalizing the proper words in those files, even though they are separated by underscores. And if it's just my track, I'll...

will put my name, sometimes I'll put how it was recorded. Oh, interesting. So who's ever is cutting it, usually Mike will be able to, like, without thinking, see what they're working with. So here's what I'll do, and this is basically the method I use for the, if I do, like, self-tapes and stuff, right? if I'm doing a Vio self-tape or a video self-tape for addition for a project. Here's how I'm going to send this file that we're recording right now to you.

To me, yes. To you, it will be capital G Griffin underscore, capital N Newman underscore. And then I will go all caps, Jason underscore unleashed. That's perfect. So that's how I differentiate between it's me sending you this. and here's the proper title of the project. You know? Do me a favor.

Put Muppets, 2026 at the end, just in case, whoever. The ed, oh, it's passed off to someone else. Okay.

When it's passed off, when it's passed off forever. They are, they are not like, what the fuck is Jason Unleash? So then it's going to be Griffin underscore Newman underscore, Jason,

all caps, underscore, Unleashed, underscore. And then I'm going to, have it be all lowercase Muppets period 2026 period

dot wave or Mp4 Just do me in favor Don't put my name in it because I'm putting my name in my file Okay then here's what I'm going to do I'm going to do Muppets underscore

26 underscore Unleashed Great Yeah that's perfect And do you think this has made both Mike and Scott Matt. I mean, I think confused. I think the audience will be happy that even with two of us,

we're pushing three hours. We're getting close to three hours. We're at a comfortable 230 point. I just wonder if they're going to say, hey, guys, you forgot to cut out the part where you decided how you were going to name the files that you sent to each other. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That was part of the episode. That's the cherry on top. That's cherry. That's the juice. Real quick, let me do this little bit of business. You can follow us on social media, mostly Instagram. You can email us podcast ride at gmail.com. And if you want even more of our fun stuff, patreon.com slash podcast the ride,

the second gate will give you three bonus episodes every month. Club three will give you those three a bonus episode that you help choose. and ad theory main episodes. I think that's all the business I've to do. Griffin Newman, do you have anything to say to sign off with? I'm just going to, hoping that he makes it this far, say to Mike, it's time to let go, embrace a shelf of varying scales.

Forever! This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan, Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Sillio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit Foreverdog Podcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Foreverdog Team and liking our page on Facebook.