Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson - Lisa and Brian Henson

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Lisa and Brian Henson, of The Jim Henson Company, join Kate and Oliver this week to discuss growing up alongside the world of Muppets. They discuss how their parents got into puppeteering, how Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy came to be, why the Muppets got fired from SNL, taking over the family company, and more.Executive Producers: Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonProduced by Allison BresnickEdited by Josh WindischMusic by Mark HudsonThis show is powered by Simplecast.This episode is sponsored by Article and Upstart.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. September is a great time to travel, especially because it's my birthday in September, especially internationally. Because in the past, we've stayed in some pretty awesome Airbnbs in Europe. Did we've one in France, we've one in Greece,

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You're just not. Listen to IVF Disrupted, the Kind Body Story on the IHeart Radio app, Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Hudson. And my name is Oliver Hudson. We wanted to do something that highlighted our relationship. And what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling rivalry.

No, no. Sibling rivalry. Don't do that with your mouth. Sibling, revelry. That's good. This was such a great conversation. We spoke with Lisa and Brian Henson, and that this is Jim Henson,

who is the creator of the Muppets. These are his children. That was her papa. Yeah, and these are his children who have taken it over since he passed and have been doing some really interesting things and keeping his work and then adding to it as well going.

I loved it. I loved every second of it. Me too. Well, even just a little window into his parents too, you know, and how they came from, you know, how they met in like puppeteering school. And it was so, like,

it's just so eccentric and offbeat and odd. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, and also. So the artistry behind it, I mean, it really is, it kind of feels like it's a dying art and yet there's still all these amazing, you know, puppeteers out there who are creating these incredible puppets and also learning about the Muppets. I had no idea half of the things that I learned on this about S&L, about that it was not intended for children. I mean, it was like the whole thing I was just very taken by. Also, just like the icons, like how Kermit and Miss Piggy sort of came about. Oh, Kermit, we sang for them.

Didn't we sing for them? We did. Or did we sing for ourselves? You sang, I tried. I don't know. We got off. Yeah, probably. And then I had a little Kermit with me.

And we sang Rainbow Connection. I think we destroyed Rainbow Connection. And I think that's really what happens. I love that song. Oh my God. It's the Willie Nelson version, especially. But it was also just a really interesting conversation because these kids have had to take over an iconic company and brand, exactly,

and how to manage that and how to sort of individuate but still keep the integrity of what their dad wanted them to do. It was just a really fun conversation. They were engaged and willing to tell the stories. And it was really, really fun. And they're doing really cool, cool shit right now, too. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And Lisa Henson, who really runs the show, she was just so sharp.

I just enjoyed her frankness. And you could tell that she is more of the sort of structured type of brain, whereas her brother, Brian, is more of the creative, you know, and kind of like more director style and... Yeah. She's the designated driver when Brian's, like, on 18 hits of acid. Well, I'm not so sure Brian is an 18 hits of acid kind of guy, Ollie, but... I don't know.

Well, it was a good conversation. You're going to enjoy it. And check out Earth to Ned because I'm on it. And I actually worked with Brian Henson. Hey, Ollie, do you remember when, because I forgot that they, it's also Fragal Rock. Oh, God, yeah. Come to Fragle Rock. Caca, ca, like, them from another day in tap A-dap-dap-too.

I mean, these are like ingrained. Yeah. They're ingrained in my head. Fragle Rock. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. That is flashbulb memory stuff. Big time.

You know, where I'm like. You're like going down into the rock, into the mountain. The title sequence, it's like, it's like ingrained in my old brain. I know, it's true. It's a bit triggering. You're like, oh, no, like, where's our father? Um, where? Um, what was your favorite Muppet?

Um, that's a hard one. gosh i mean animal was always stood out you know just he was just crazy i like i like that you know yeah but then oscar you know oscar the grouch always dug him i know oscar the grouch i know oscar the grouch oh beaker beaker always made me laugh he's just a weirdo i loved animal animal was great and and miss piggy i mean miss piggy i just always that's She was so funny. I mean... She was badass.

All right. Well, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. It's really interesting, and we absolutely loved having them on the show. Yeah, we started off by talking about Earth to Ned, which I did, which is now on Disney Plus. So, without further ado, here is Lisa and Brian Henson. This is something we've been working on for quite a while, but... So Ned is a big giant alien, and he's the captain of a spaceship, and they were sent to Earth basically to invade or destroy Earth, but Ned instead fell in love with Earth, mostly through TV. He started monitoring TV, and he just fell in love with everything, entertainment and celebrities and pop culture.

and so he and his lieutenant cornelius who's his put upon sidekick and their artificial intelligence betty who is a virtual character and then there's a whole bunch of these little clods that are running around which are kind of the crew the disposable crew and so he decided rather than invading and destroying earth i'm going to do a talk show so that i'll be the most beloved celebrity in the world that's basically what he wants so and then what he does is he and cornelius have the ability to just beam anybody into their ship anytime they want. And Oliver was beamed in to the show. And it was a ball. And the actor was offstage, you know, improvving with me. It was all improv, which was so fun. Well, he's a puppeteer. He was working the face.

Oh, he was working the face. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. On Ned, there's two puppeteers working the face by remote. And then there's one puppeteer inside and three puppeteers under all six of them working one character. Okay, so now that we're talking about puppeteering, it was a blast. I want to start from the beginning.

Now, but for those who don't know that are listening right now, your father was the beloved and very infamous and, uh... Infamous. I mean, famous. Infamous? It's like the Three Amigos. He's like, no, no, no, no. He's infamous.

He's more than famous. Three Amigos. We love that movie. Jim Henson And I know for us He is like a staple Not only in our childhood And your guys' childhood, clearly

But even kids today Their childhood He just lives on and on And one of the things I learned When I was doing my research on you guys Was that your mom and him met Literally Your parents met at puppeteer school

They met in a puppeteering class That's right I didn't know how influential your mother was to all of this as well. So I kind of want to just start with where were you born? Well, I'm going to start with where I was born

because I'm the oldest. So I was born in, I was born in Washington, D.C. And that's where our parents were living at that time. As you said, they met in puppeteering class at the University of Maryland. My father was a freshman, and he was really cautious. and advanced.

And my mom always said that it was like he was teaching the class. Like he had already been doing a puppet show on television locally, which he'd started as a teenager. So he was just taking that class just to get a really easy credit because he was already a puppeteer. And so he sort of took the lead in the class and thought she was a pretty good student. And so he hired her to come and help him on the local television show.

And she was three years older than him. So it was a freshman and a senior, which seemed like a vast age golf when they first met. But then they worked together for a long, long time, best of friends, partners in the business, and then ultimately very romantically involved. Were they both from D.C.? Or where were they from originally? My father was born in Mississippi. Yeah.

Mom born in New York City. So what year was this? In the 50s, like late 50s. like late 50s. And I was, you know, I was born in, I was born in 1960 and somebody had sort of the bad idea, at least it's sort of been kind of a bad joke on me, of incorporating the Muppets on my birthday,

which has caused people to celebrate Kermit the Frog's birthday on my birthday. So it will show up as like a, you know, when you say like what celebrities are born on what, day, it will be like, May night, 1960, Kermit the Frog. It's like, not Kermit. That's me.

I was born out of the day. How many kids are there? How many siblings do you have? Five. There are five total. Our brother died. It's a brother passed away. It's a podcast.

Like when you hold up five fingers, that just means not a lot of. You're right. That doesn't help at all. Yes, there were five of us. Our brother passed away. And so there's now three. girls and one boy and what's the age difference from Lisa from you to the youngest

10 years my mom had five kids in 10 years wow it was just a brood but she had but she had four of us in five years and then the fifth was five years so she was literally just pregnant so what was that what was the house like what was it like growing up just craziness you almost asked the the most unwelcome question that we're always asked which is like did we did dad do puppets around the house and did we and did we think the puppets were real so i wasn't going i wasn't going there quite yet no but oliver you're allowed to because in our and when oliver came on earth to ned we we we asked your permission but we did the whole interview where ned is only excited about everybody else in your family.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I was going to say, like, and just wants to know about her. Yeah. Yeah. We have a, we have that in common. I was going to say, like,

the relatable aspect of this interview will be. We know what it's like when people ask the same. So what kind of advice did your dad give you when? Was it just performing every morning at breakfast? Yeah, that's right. Were you singing? Did you sing? Right, yeah.

Around the tape. It didn't happen. No, well, for us, we had a house full of animals. And our mother was, she co-founded the Muppets and was very, but obviously once it was a house full of kids, she was also like an art teacher. She would sometimes be a substitute. But she was like an art teacher at home.

So there was always crazy arts and crafts that were half finished in rooms all over the place. And then there was just animals, like animals everywhere. What kind of animals? Like dogs and cats are like rabbits? Birds. It was, well, I had rabbits. My brother had ferrets.

We had guinea pigs. We had hamsters at one point with birds. Mostly a lot of cats. And the cats, we couldn't even keep the cats away. Like, the cats would run away from a neighbor's house and come move into our house. And then we couldn't get the cat to move back to the neighbors. So we just ended up, like, gathering cats like a snowball. Yeah, some of them had, some of them didn't have good names either.

because after we had so many cats, then they would just get named for, like, where they came from. Like, one was named Wilderness, one was named Woods. And one was, and then we just gave up. One was named Kitty. Although my cat that I had, we were allowed to name the first cats we got. We each named, and mine was named Snowy Feats. Wow.

Because he had white feet, feet. But it was specifically snowy feats, which was great. Oh, but the other thing about our. cat house is the cats, the way they would get into the house is we would leave this door open on the second floor terrace off the back of the house. And the cats would climb the outside of the house, which was wood. Literally, they'd hang out with their claws and climb up one story to get to the terrace. And that's the way they would get in and out of the house, particularly during the night. And the raccoons figured it out. And the raccoons started following the cats up.

And then the raccoons and the cats got along So it was all fine And so we The raccoons started eating with the cats And my mother was like Ah what the heck, I'll just feed them all So then we got to the point Where we'd be sitting having dinner

And there'd be three raccoons At the right at the patio door Next to us just waiting for their dinner It was a crazy It was the house was like a crazy zoo It was It really was Were there any rules

I mean it was a very free a free home to do what you please? Yeah, it was pretty unruly. Yeah. It was pretty free. Like, there were even, like, things you would think, they have to have a rule against that, like jumping off the balcony into the swimming pool

or jumping down the laundry chute two floors. Like, everything was allowed as far as I can remember. Isn't that wild? When you were kids, was the Muppets happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that before? you were born? Yeah, the Muppets were started, what, officially did 55, Lisa, 55 to 58.

It's like, I think it became incorporated in 58, but really they started like in 55, which is, you know, five years before Lisa was born. No, definitely. And then like Sesame Street, see, up until Sesame Street, our dad never did any, he didn't do kids stuff. Yeah. He did the special with your mom. he did he was on. Yep.

That's right. Yeah. Oh my God. I forgot about that. Oh, that's right. Yeah, he, and Kermit was a guest. Yes. A very funny piece where Goldie kisses Kermit and Kermit warns her that he might turn into a prince

and then she kisses him and she turns into a puppet. And then Ruth Buzzy comes in and that shit. Everybody turns into puppets because they're kissing each other. Pretty ridiculous, but hilarious. But up until Sesame Street, our dad didn't do kids. It's much kids. He did some very early in his career. But then when Sesame Street came out, he started like entertaining to our age group. So we were like, I was like the perfect age for Sesame Street. Lisa, who's three years older than me, was probably just a little old for Sesame Street,

right, Lisa, when they saw me? Sesame Street came out when I was 10. So I would say I was really a lot too old for Sesame since I learned my alphabet away a lot longer. But also originally, but originally, Sesame Street was targeting like the five-year-old market. It's gone younger and younger and younger as it's gotten. So how did it all start, though? I mean, Sesame Street was for kids. It was more sort of adult material prior to Sesame Street.

Yeah, before that, he was on Ed Sullivan. He was a regular on the Muppets as an act. It was a regular on Ed Sullivan, did a Tonight Show, did your mom special. to study and share, they would basically do appearances and then the Muppets had some specials too. They did them. In fact, we were just looking at his my dad's

diaries and after doing the Goldie Hansho, he came up with the idea of doing a Valentine special and he wanted to do it with Goldie but then I guess she wasn't available and he ended up once he finally did sell it, he ended up doing it with Mia Farrow but it's interesting. Oh,

that's so cute. I love that. Isn't it crazy when you think about like what those time what that time list have been like for them because you had just that one opportunity how many channels did you have you know to be able to do a special like that yeah yeah and those variety shows were so interesting i remember going to watch a lot of the tapings and you know just even the idea of a variety show is a little bit alien today like because i tell people they were they were like how do the puppets get started i said well they were on variety shows they were a variety act. And they went from one variety show to another. And ultimately, the Muppet show kind of

grew out of that because it was the Muppets' chance to have their own variety show and bring on guests versus them being the guest on somebody else's variety show. But the whole genre feels like it's, you know, so much of the past. Oliver and I were just talking about this, how we want to do a show and we were like, maybe we should do a variety show. I know. They're dead. We should revive the variety show. With the numbers and the, you know, of actual like moving cameras. And all that jazz.

Do they work a ton? I mean, were you guys on your own to do your stuff? Or were they home a lot? Well, there were so many kids that our mother had to pretty much stop working. So our mother was home with us. Got it. Almost all the time. But our dad was working all the time.

He would try to come home. if he was in New York he would generally come home but I can remember he would come home like maybe just before we go to bed often and he worked a lot he was also crazy he could do like 72 hour stretches and I don't know he was just one of those people

like in the beginning of Sesame Street he and Frank Oz and Don Saline which was most of what Muppet's Inc was in those days in the first year Sesame Street they did all the animated films too so he was he was also an animator for Sesame Street and did these anime films, but they used to go in

and just work nonstop until they'd finish the film, like work for 55 hours without stopping or sleeping. Wow. And he also worked a lot in Canada and in England, and so we did get used to him

being gone for long stretches of time. And, you know, when you think back, like, that was no texting with your kid, your family. You know, that was really out of touch. Where were you guys living at the time? Like, where was the family home? Suburbs of New York.

Yeah. Our Monk, we were in Aramonk, New York, which is right next to Bedford, New York, which more people know. Yeah. And I was born in New York City, but then right after I was born, the family moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, and then just over the border to Bedford, New York. And that's where we grew up until we all went off to school. So, wait, growing up, what was your relationship like with your siblings? It was a pretty tight group? There's a lot of you.

There's five of you. I mean, was it a big unit, or were there little factions? At first, when we were really young, like we didn't even have other playmates, particularly. We lived in this beautiful home in Greenwich, Connecticut. In Greenwich, yeah, we had no neighbors. And my mom is a little bit antisocial. So, like, we were each other's playmates. That was it.

And then later we moved to Armagh, New York. We had a neighborhood. We had some, we started to make some other friends. But, yeah, when we were literally, we were extremely close-knit. Yeah, we were close. But, you know, there weren't factions so much, but certainly for, we were so close in age that that always creates some issues. Like, I wanted my friends, but my brother wanted my friends. And then my sister, you know, like, for me, I've got a, there's a sister between Lisa and I.

So, and I are only three years before. So, and there's one in the middle. So my older sister was just like one, two. to two grades higher than me, depending on whether it was before or after I had to be held back. And then my brother was one grade under me. And it was just like we were so close in age.

I was just like crossed my mind something really interesting. And maybe it's not to anybody else but me. But I was thinking about how when we were growing up, when we were young, nobody knew really who our parents were until we got older until we were more in the teens. Because our parents made movies that we didn't watch when we were kids.

So, but for you guys, your parents did things that like every kid was watching. I mean, like millions of kids over what a hundred countries watched the Muppets or Sesame Street. Like, everybody that you must have known when you were little knew that, like, your parents,

that your family was the number one thing they watched. They knew the Muppets. Some people knew, Jim Henson because he had done personal appearances on talk shows. But really it was the Muppets that were so famous. And then what happened is my dad, I think he did the, was at Lisa the first American Express card commercial? It was that American Express card campaign. Yeah, the first time they did that that signature campaign where the one where they said, you may not know me, but you do know of me. What was the catchphrase of that, Lisa? Do you remember?

something like that yeah it was all hosted by people who their work was very well known but people didn't know that i don't know but that ad took off like wildfire and they just placed it everywhere all the time so for us literally like overnight our dad became face famous right like up until one day he could be anywhere and nobody knew who the heck he was and then it felt like the next day he couldn't walk down the street without being recognized It was also the height of popularity of Sesame Street. So he was like a, as we were saying, like sort of a variety show act, not the, you know, the Muppets were not the star of a huge hit show.

And so Sesame was also very big at that time. And it was so big. I think they showed it on PBS like four times a day. Like you could just turn on that channel and it would just be Sesame Street all the time. And so, yeah, the one-two punch of the American Express ad and then the Sesame Street success. And I think this was around 71 or so that this happened. Then suddenly he was very famous. I was just talking about this, actually.

I forget with who, but I was saying how Sesame Street was so far ahead of its time as far as inclusion and diversity and, you know, finding the oddities and bringing them to light. You know what I mean? It was just so far ahead of its time. It was so, so progressive. Yeah. It truly was. And also the equity, the idea that urban kids were not getting the same advantage of private preschools. And at that time, wasn't even preschools.

It was really kindergarten. They were kids that were not going to kindergarten. And then other kids that were going to full-time kindergarten, and they had a big advantage over the other kids. But just the idea that the show should be created, you know, not only to harness the power of television in terms of educating kids, but really to address a kind of societal inequity, which does feel very contemporary.

Mm-hmm. It does. I mean, obviously that was your dad's vision, right? I mean, from the get-go. It actually wasn't, no. He was on it from the very beginning. He was a big talent get for them. It was actually created by academics and public television producers who created,

They had a workshop called Children's Television Workshop, and it was with academics at Harvard. They studied what could be taught to kids through television. And it was really, I think, the first, like, hard educational show on television. Because now we think, well, there are just hundreds of educational shows. But at the time, that was it. They experimented on how you could teach, and then they did it. Yeah, I mean, the big shows when Sesame Street,

came out, were like Mr. Rogers and... Romperoo? Romper, no, it was local. Captain Kangaroo. I remember. Yeah, yeah. So, for me growing up, like, I remember going on the sets of Big Trouble and Little China,

and I was just in awe, right? Like, I would, I would, I mean, it made me want to be creative. It was like, oh, yeah, this is the world that I want to be a part of. I want to do this. I mean, I wonder, there's five kids of all of the, kids, did all of you guys have a little bit of that where you wanted to follow in this footstep? Because your mom, too, I mean, even though she, she's clearly a creative. I mean, oh, huge. And she, you know, she founded the Muppets with our dad. It was just there was so many

kids at home. But definitely we all spend a lot of time on the set with our dad, largely because he worked so much that, for instance, if he was working in New York on the set, on a weekend, he would take at least one of us to work with him. So if it was not a school day and he had to go to work, he would take at least one, maybe two of us to work. So we all spent a lot of time hanging out in the Muppet Workshop, hanging out in the shooting stages, reading, you know, for me, a lot of my childhood was spent reading paperback novels

sitting on the floor of a shooting stage and loving it and loving it. Me too. Not only on the floor, but under the puppet stage. Yeah. Like literally, yeah. Yeah, the way that the puppeteers work, they have a raised stage. And then, so the set is raised. So there's this whole kind of underground below the set of scaffolding and such. And there's also monitors down there.

So the puppeteers can see what they're doing. So as a child, you could plop yourself hide under this stage, watch what they're doing on the monitors, and just go about your business of reading, homework, whatever. And we did long days on the set. Like, you know, it wasn't like, oh, visit for an hour and a half. You know, it was, you know, call to wrap and you just got very used to being here. Yeah.

Yeah, we just hung out for 12 hours. Yeah. We would just sit there all day. It was just what we did. Was it, was it nice to get picked, meaning like dad's like, all right, you guys come with me and the rest are like, God damn it. I, you know. Yeah, actually.

But I think he was, he was always very careful to try to kind of give equal time. I think he was, actually, he was always very careful. I think like those days that we spent with him while he was working, get to be the one kid or the one of the two kids that were there with him that day, it would feel really, really special because he was incredibly inclusive.

Like, he would bring us into the editing room, to every meeting, to the story meeting, to the, to like, the private conversation with the executive producer about what's really going on. Like, you know, we really went with him absolutely everywhere. And then consequently, as you were asking, we did all get very interested in the business. And all of us did work in the business in different ways since we were teenagers or, you know, unofficially even earlier.

And he had this idea that we would have a family company. So he was sort of looking at all of us to see what roles we could take within the company. and, you know, some of us embraced it. Some of us were a little rebellious about those roles. Ultimately, here we are. Like, we own the company together. We run it together. So it all did, you know, his wish came true.

Is everyone involved in it? Not just you guys. Yeah, to some degree, everybody is. To some degree. I mean, Lisa and I really put in the most time, I guess, into it. But everyone's involved to some degree. But, you know, when Lisa was talking about how he would bring us anywhere, So there was, I can really only remember one time that my dad was genuinely, really, really angry at me.

Because he didn't usually, he almost never actually got angry. So rarely. And there was one time he was really, really angry because as Lisa says, he would bring us anywhere. And one day I was in New York with him working. And he had, they had to go do a meeting. He was with Frank Oz. They had to go do a meeting. I think it was Frank Oz.

Might have been David Laser. And I was just in the habit of. wherever I go, I will plunk myself in the corner and read a paperback novel. So he's going to have a meeting. I don't even really know who it's with or anything. And Jackie Onassis walks in, and we're sitting in, anyway, we're sitting in this office, waiting for my dad to have a meeting, and I take out my paperback novel and just start reading. And Jackie Onassis walks in his car office to have a meeting with my dad.

And my dad, and I think it was Frank, stood up and shook hands. And I, of course, just did what I always do, which is I stayed in the corner reading my paper bag novel. When we got out of that meeting, he was so angry at me. He was like, you stand up when a woman enters the room. And I'm like, I'm sorry, Dad. I dare you stand up. Oh, my gosh.

He was really genuinely upset with me that I was that rude, awful, unruly, undisciplined, filthy shit. They wouldn't even stop reading his paperback novel. I'm sure for everyone that, like, Jackie O walking into a room is like, stops everybody in their tracks. But he didn't know. Except I was so young. Yeah.

He's like whoever. Yeah. So it sounds like he has pretty even-tempered. He didn't really get angry much, huh? He was famously even-tempered and almost kind of like, kind of zen peaceful through all kinds of conflict. He actually hated conflict, which is a step beyond being even-tempered. So he's even-tempered, but also really did not like conflict around him. And that would give him a little inner conflict at this time.

So he could get a little repressed about anger because he just didn't want conflict around him. But he was just a really genuinely upbeat guy who was very much the glass half full, very much like what is if something is a challenge or difficult like what are how what can we learn from this like you know so many of those those values of just being genuinely positive looking for opportunities to be creative and grow and learn from things like that was really what he was like that's so amazing and also like such a hard thing to live up to i was just i was just about to ask who who's the most like him of the siblings do you think as far as disposition goes perhaps our brother who passed away probably oh really

he is very sunny sunny individual yeah yeah and mom did did mom appreciate conflict sometimes or was she also similar um even tempered total opposite yeah total opposite loved conflict loved to like just get into it um and and consequently they didn't remain married for their whole lives like it it didn't work out long term because, you know, he really didn't want to engage in, in active conflict or debate or, you know, deep questioning. He actually was a very in the moment kind of person and truly very, I keep saying upbeat and positive.

There must be a better word for that, but, you know, or a deeper word for that. But it wasn't, but when we were saying, our mom, I could remember her getting mad in ways I used to love. I remember there was one time, oh, my God, she threw her. We were at ice cream store and some guy nearly backed up into my brother and I, because he hadn't looked in his rearview mirror, and he started backing out of a parking space and almost hit us. And she just went over and threw the ice cream cone into this guy's car. And then we had to leave quickly. but the truth is it wasn't like she got angry a lot it was a little tough for my dad because he because they co-founded the company so they created the Muppets together and then my mom was suddenly so full-time mom because she was pregnant for five years straight and so he'd come home from work all exhausted and all he wanted to know was how are we how school and she wanted to talk to him about work

She wanted to know how work was going, how the Muppets were doing. And he didn't want to have that conversation because he was tired and he'd been finishing. So that was sort of when Lisa says it was a little conflict between them, it was, that was usually at the heart of what the conflict was. Do you think there was resentment, you know, just like, God damn it. I love our kids. And I know I know this is where I'm at. Right. But I'm raising them.

But I'm raising them. And this is something we did together and I should be there too. It was both of our dreams. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense.

I mean, at the end of the date also is a very different generation. And it might have been different if, you know, it was today. I can totally relate to both of their situations. Yeah. Yeah. And she found a great role for herself sort of in the puppetry community. Because while it wasn't easy for her to dip in and out of the day-to-day of running a big business, you just can't do that. Like, you're either in it or you're not in.

in it. And for her, it was better for her to not be in it. But she was so, so good to the puppetry community. Yeah. You know, so good at discovering new talent, at helping people in other, you know, other puppet troops and other parts of the puppetry world, like the theater puppeteers and international puppeteers. And she became, like, very beloved as a mentor and a teacher and all of that. And she, yeah, she taught, she taught puppetry. So most of our puppeteers were initially, of that generation, were initially found by our own. How old were you guys when, when they split up? It was like early 80s, yeah.

Oh, okay. So they were together a long time. Yeah, you were a little older. Yeah. Was it hard on the family because you were older or did that make it a little easier? It was really good because they had different, they were in different place. You know, I think for me, like, it was one of those divorces that I was eager to see happen. And I found they got along better when they weren't living together as well.

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when you go to upstart.com slash sibling. That's upstart.com slash sibling. Don't forget to use our URL to let them know that we sent you. Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit, income, and certain other information provided in your loan application. Go to upstart.com slash sibling. As a woman, do you think growing up, seeing your mom, you know, she founded this and didn't necessarily was able to follow it through, did that kind of inform the things that you wanted to do as a woman

and how you see your work relationship? Yeah, I was so different from my mom that in sometimes I would question, like, am I even a woman? Like, I'm so, I was following my dad, like, every step of the way. Like, what can I do to be more like him in every way? So, you know, he was my role model. He was my mentor icon in every way. It took me a really long time to relate to my mom until I had kids my own. I didn't understand almost anything that she did or why. And then I had a tremendous understanding.

You know, as soon as I had kids, I was like, oh, this is huge. Like this is really, really amazing. You can make the meaning of your life about kids. But I, you know, I had kids a little bit later and I had a big career. And I just, yeah, I was more defined by not being like her as I was growing up. And were you, so when you had kids, were you able to sort of balance that career in kids? And was that informed by the way you grew up? Well, I think I balanced it.

Oliver. What would they say? He's an armchair psychologist. You don't have to answer any of his questions. I think I balanced it. But I've been working full time the whole time I've been raising my kids. And so, you know, there would occasionally be questions like, well, why do you work so hard? Why do you work full time?

Why do you just work half time since you're a mom? I was like, well, as I said before, it's like, I think you're either in it or you're out of it. Like, you know, to me, I'm in it. And I like to think that the pleasure that I get from the work and the quality of what we do and all of those things I hope would be encouraging to my kids about having careers of their own or getting or being um being creatively connected to what they do and you know i'd like to think that i'm being a role model but you know i didn't spend as much time with my kids as my nanny did so we'll see i hear you oh god i know we were clearly our dad is he was the one who was setting the role model of being a functioning adult and i don't know i think in our family

I think what we do, what our work is, is a little bit too important. It's in our heads. And I think we're all just a little bit too much trying to define ourselves by what we do. And that creates, I think, natural, like insecurities and stuff like that. I think that what I do has been too important to me deep inside. And it makes you a little bit crazy. It makes you a little bit crazy. I think all of us siblings are a little bit crazy

and our family. I think a little bit of that came from being too important. What you do is just too important. But you recognize, you know that, but you still just like, oh, like, and I'm still crazy? You're still crazy.

Yeah, you do have to remind yourself, like, it's just television. Yeah. It's just puppetry. Yeah, but that's like telling the monarchy, like you're just a prince. Like, it's legacy stuff. You know, you see and you grow up with your parents not only working so hard,

but caring so much about what they're putting out into the world. Like, you feel, you do feel a little bit of this sort of duty to that legacy to not let them down. Did you, is there pressure there at all? I know I feel that way. Yeah, no, there's no pressure. That, what? He was, they were joking. Was there pressure?

And I was like, oh, my God, are you kidding? Yeah. I was 27 when I had to take over the company. after my dad, I was 26 when he died, 27 when I, when a CEO, the pressure was so horrible. Yeah. It was so terrible is wrong. Terrifying. Terrifying is what it was.

But when I made him up at Christmas car, I was 28, I think. And I was terrified, terrified throughout all of it. And the pressure to not screw up was so horrible. but it also made me really close with everyone I was working with. Everybody was so supportive. So it was also very rewarding at the end. But yeah, for me, certainly for me, Lisa started her career. She was more in the studio system at Warner Brothers in Columbia,

whereas I was freelance when my dad died. I was like, yeah, I was freelance, but at least half the work I was doing was with my dad. And I was a puppeteer and special effects and a director of TV stuff. But, yeah, no, the pressure was really intense. I was so terrified of screwing it up. And I would say, I mean, your father, he was 53, right when he passed away, 53? I mean, that's so young.

I mean, you guys were young. I would think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the, not only that pressure, but just having to mourn. It was very difficult, and I reach out sometimes to other people who lose a famous family member to say to remember to mourn for yourself you know because you have to somehow like address so many total strangers and media and all this and you forget that you have like yourself to take care of during all of that you know but uh and yeah 53 was really really young obviously nobody was expecting it and the company was turned upside down instantly and it was very hard We didn't, I personally didn't feel any grief for a year.

And then about a year later, I, like, had a huge panic attacks and anxiety and it all, like, landed on me. But for a year, I was like a robot, like just a robot dealing with this challenge. It's interesting, it was really. I think my dad was alive in my dreams, still is, probably still is two nights a week. But for probably 15 years, it was seven nights. week, seven nights a week, he was there in my, in my dreams. And yeah, because we never, we weren't, we didn't really get to grieve. We just sort of had to take over, right? I mean, it had to take over, but also the whole world, it's like, it's like everybody else took the, in one way, it was,

it was, it was, it was, it was, comforting when the whole world is, is, is mourning for what you feel is your loss, but they feel it all is their loss. The whole world, the whole world was mourning when Jim Henson died. And so at first you feel like this is, this is comforting because everyone's in this with me. And then you realize you kind of got lost in the mix and you never got a chance to process it yourself or something. Now I'm not being clearly. No, you are. You are. I totally understand. I feel like it's like anything else. It just outshines even your own morning process. You're like, it's so big for everybody else. And therefore, like, I have to be there to kind of stay sturdy. I think that's right. How did you feel once you made that first piece

and you had to take over and that pressure was it alleviated once you realize like, wait a minute, I can do this. You know, was there that moment? I still don't know that I can do this. You still don't know. Well, Lisa, Lisa runs the company now. Yeah. I don't know.

You always have a, no, you have a, listen to me, I'm not an arrogant person. I come across as very arrogant. But the truth is I have tons of self-doubt. And so I'm always, I'm always worried that what I'm doing isn't, isn't as good as people are saying. They're saying it's good to be nice to me. You know, it was like, when I made that movie Happy Time Murders and the whole country hated it, I was like, finally, somebody's telling me the truth.

I was like, finally. That's so funny. How do you guys work together? You guys have a good working relationship? Well, we do very different things. You know, I came up through, in the business, through being an executive and a producer, and he came up through being a,

performer and a director. And so we kind of, we definitely meet in the middle in terms of running the company. And Brian ran the company for many years. And then he decided he would focus more on the directing and the show running. And then I just, so I've been the CEO for a while. But I think I protected myself from some of these fears that Brian has had by just never putting myself out there creatively on the same level. Like, because I don't direct and because I don't write and I don't perform you know i'm being a producer you're you're back like you're behind the camera you're behind the scenes and you get to be a little bit more emotionally protected from the scariness of of doing your own creative work but darling you are still a puppeteer don't you know you're still

holding the strings exactly exactly i see what you're saying it's interesting but speaking of puppetry and puppeteering it's it is interesting with my father when he he was in his 40s and 50s, he started to kind of realize that he was one of the only really successful puppeteers and that, you know, puppeteers in general are just struggling and it was such a, you know, not respected art form. So he started helping other puppeteers through his foundation that he set up and through making, you know, bringing people over from overseas to perform in America. And so it's interesting, both of our, the sisters who are not on this podcast, both of them are really, really active with philanthropy

and helping other puppeteers through the found the Jim Henson found, yeah, he has a Jim Henson Foundation and then also the museums that put out Jim's work, which is in Atlanta at the Center for Puppetry Arts, and also in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image. And so, you know, both Cheryl and Heather are really good to the puppeteers. And I think that's so important, because, you know, Jim was taking that responsibility on himself, you know, when he was getting older.

How big is that art form? I mean, would you consider it, like a lot of people consider jazz a dying art form, which makes me incredibly sad. I hope it's not the case and I hope it, you know, I think the arts always ebbs and flows. But would you say that puppeteering still like maintains or is it kind of few and far between that people go down that? path. It's been small our whole lives. It's a pretty small community and it's not much bigger than it was. I will say that the work that like my sisters have done and Jim, they've done a lot to help the art, the art puppetry world. So, you know, artistic puppeteers who want to do theater, there are a lot more opportunities for them, a lot more theater is interested in it than, than there was in the 70s and 80s. But, you know, it's still a pretty small

world, very, very intimate. People really know each other. Most puppeteers are very introverted until they put a puppet on. So, you know, they get to really exercise all their egos and stuff like that through the puppets. Puppeteers are weird people. The whole puppet, they are really weird people. I think, I think Lisa's right. It's been a small community. It continues to be a small community but they're really we're really crazy people i do remember going to all these puppeteers in america conventions and stuff like that and going wow they're really they're kind of really crazy people but crazy not in an angry mean way right crazy and a really weird they're just really weird people that's going to be so appreciated by the pub look look what we're doing for

puppeteers today no hey weird is good weird is good we mean a weird is a good thing yeah i think The thing is, is that we're losing sight of all the weirdness because everything has to be so perfect now. It's like, the arts are weird. We're weird people and it should be embraced. How are some of these characters created? You know, I mean, is it the puppeteer themselves or do you guys create some of these characters? They come out of, like, they come out of basically three places, the puppet characters. So it's either the writer has created a character on the page.

and has described the character and it's come from the script and then we'll do designs we'll pair up the character with the right performer and then it becomes a character but it can also come out of the designers and sometimes a designer

we call there are some puppets that are fabricated with no plan and like with the Muppet show or the Muppet movies when they start making the background characters often the puppet builders are building puppets on their desk

where they don't really have a complete plan of exactly how that puppet's going to come out and that's real that creates some really cool puppets and then that puppet builder will will show that puppet to the to the puppeteers and then and then somebody will go i've got a voice for that character and it'll come up that way and it can come from puppeteers um and literally like if i pulled like my favorite characters they're pretty much a third a third a third it might have come up from the writers it might come up from the puppet builders. And then some of them

are out of the puppeteers. Like Bill Beretta does Pepe the Prawn in the Muppets nowadays. And I've known Bill since he was a little kid. And Pepe the Prawn, that crazy character is his wife's mother, I think, or his wife's aunt.

And he would do an impersonation of his wife's aunt. And then it was like, we've got to make a puppet of that. And so sometimes it comes out of the performers, sometimes out of the writers and sometimes out of the designers, which is kind of cool from different ways. How was Kermit and Ms. Piggy, like, what was the conception?

Well, Kermit is so old. Kermit is one of the very, very first. So, Lisa, you want to jump on Kermit. Kermit, Piggi, are very different. Well, Kermit was famously sewn from a green felt coat of my father's mother, my grandmother. and uh spring coat it's like imagine that color is a little bit strange for a coat but that is that's the truth and and you know my mom uh told hermit wasn't and kermit wasn't a frog

he was just a thing he was kermit he was kermit the creature look here comes kermit he didn't have the collar at that point and he didn't have he had human feet not not flippers but in the the first kermint okay yeah but he sewed him when he was kind of he made him himself and he made him when he was really young, like still probably a teenager. And my mom said that my father's grandfather was dying and that he was like sitting by his side, you know, for multiple days. And that was when he happened to make Kerman. I was like, wow, that's so interesting. It's very deep.

But in any case, he was always considered a bit of alter ego for my dad because he was in almost every production that did involve Muppets, you know, unless it was a dark crystal type of thing, almost all the other productions had Kermit in some manner and he became the face of the show and he was very close to my father's personality, but a little different.

He's only different, but it's close. They're like alter egos. And it was interesting because it was first it was Kermit that was like that hosty lead character. Then for a little while it was Ralph's the dog. When our dad was doing Ralph on the Jimmy Dean show, the variety show. And Ralph was on the gym.

So for a little while, Ralph was our dad's main character. He was the lead Muppet for a while, Ralph. And then after the Jimmy Dean show, then it went back to Kermit and Kermit became the Kermit that we know. But those two characters are clearly the ones that were the most

important to our dad was Ralph the dog and Kermit the Frog. When I think of Oliver, right, and this is like one of those things that when he was little, he loved the rainbow connection that was that's like still love that's like oliver's number one the willie nelson version too is so good yeah so oliver i always think of whenever i think of like i love that song still like makes me cry yeah it makes oliver emotional what about the voice was that and was that just a nat

was it boom right there kermit's voice this is kermit's older than us so so now we're we're talking yeah but basically he just put a gooey thing into his voice that's it so kermit is basically Jim Henson, but he then puts everything into a little gooey, a gooey machine. So he sort of goos up his voice and then it becomes Kermit. And it's pitched up a little bit from where our dad's voice was. But other than

that, there's not a lot. The gooey thing. Yeah. That was what he did. I want to touch a little bit on school. Lisa, you went to Harvard and then you were also the first female president of the Harvard Lampoon.

And I do want to know, a little bit about that because I think that's really cool. How did that happen? It was really fun. I mean, the Lampoon is a, is a comedy magazine that the school, that is published by this club, which is the Harvard Lampoon. And when I went to Harvard, I didn't feel like I fit in that much. Actually, we went to public school in, in Armonk. And I was aware that I had much less. of a good education than a lot of the kids that I met at Harvard. It was like there were so many private school kids. They had studied Latin and Greek.

And I was just overwhelmed on a certain level. But the people that I immediately just hooked into and I felt such common ground with them were the kids that were on the lampoon. And then I realized after I joined this lampoon that I had known other Lampoon members in my childhood that were friends with my father. So Michael Frith, who was the design. designer of many, many of the Muppets. He had been on the Lampoon, Christopher Serf, who was Bennett's son, and Fred Gwynn, who

was Herman Munster, who was a friend of, who was, like, kind of a neighbor of ours, a friend of my father. So I had known these Lampoon people, so I suddenly felt like I had, like, kind of found my tribe. And it's funny, you were saying before, Kate, that, you know, we're all, like, we're like circus people, you know, like creative people are weird. they're they're scruffy and they're they're not perfect and so when I found the lampoon it was kind of like those were my circus people like you know as a put Harvard was a little too perfect and

the lampoon was a little more imperfect and felt more right for me and so I was a graphic I was an artist and did a couple of covers and graphic stuff for them I wasn't a writer the real superstars of the lampoon are always the comedy writers and they're still huge in Hollywood Huge. Yeah. Huge. Like there are some years where the comedy Emmy is just like four out of five of the nominees will be Lampoon people. Yeah.

So it's still really big. But I was a little, I was a little bit of a misfit, even amongst the Lampoon people, by being an artist and not a writer. Right. And then you became president. And did it, did it register to you that you were the first female to? Not at all. It was, it was my, one of my worst surprises. was to wake up the next day and realize that it was news.

I was completely unprepared. I did horrible interviews for the Today Show and Newsweek and all these things. And so one thing that I learned from that, and I've kind of taken it with me as an adult is, if somebody ever tells you you need media training to do something, you must do the media training. Like, don't do a bunch of interviews not prepared. I try to tell that to all of her, but he still just wings it.

Oh, God, that's why I'm so good at them. But when you're a first, I would think that there would be a little bit of, like... Pride. Yeah, like, wow, that's, I mean, eventually, maybe now looking back on it. It didn't seem to me that that would matter at all for, you know, in terms of bigger news. Because there actually had been women on the lampoon for 10 years. There just hadn't been a president of the lampoon who was a woman. And, you know, it continues to, I continue to be surprised when things make news like that.

But Lisa, so, you know, your CEO, you're sort of in the business side of things, but you're an artist, you know, what are, what are your creative outlets? What is, where is your artistry? Do you, do you just put that into your business, pretty much? But just put it into putting people together and putting, you know, putting ideas with talent, with people. and I don't draw anymore. I did really enjoy being. I was very, very artistic as a little kid. Like when Brian was talking about those art project days, I was a huge project maker.

And, you know, I wasn't afraid to draw or try to make anything. But, you know, my interest now is making things on a bigger scale. And, you know, the productions are creative. And we, it's kind of embarrassing. It's like, yeah, I give really good creative notes. I'm really great with structure Having a father like Jim and then taking over the company for so many years

Is there ever a struggle of maintaining What he would have wanted And where you want to grow Does that ever become conflicting? Yeah, no, no, no, it's really hard And initially And then Lisa picked it up after after I did it for a bunch of years.

But yeah, it's tough because you're always trying to protect the legacy and let the legacy grow. But then like our dad's number one creative advice is don't ever copy yourself. You know, don't ever. If it's not original, if it's not new, don't do it. Don't invest your time, your energy. Just don't do it because it's just not good enough. I mean, he's the guy who canceled the Muppet show at the end. of season five when it was like the most successful show of the world had ever seen.

And he was like, I'm done. I've done five seasons. I can't, I don't have another. I'm going to start repeating myself now. So, so, so, so it was tough because, because you, people would always say, so do you always try to think what would Jim have done in this moment? And then he said, yeah, well, what he would have said was be original. So that's hard.

So it's kind of, you know, so it was always a little bit hard. But definitely, for me, and I'm sure Lisa's feeling the same way, trying to guide the creative effort of the company to always be in sync with that, the big mission of Jim Henson, and then always trying to be original at the same time. And then I've had little tensions like my Happy Time Murders movie that the world hated. My dad wouldn't have made that.

And, and, and, and, um, and I have a show called Puppet Up Uncensored, which is a blue puppet show that does a live show. That's actually, that one's very successful and popular, which is fun. So those are, where is that? I put, I just put it up, well, it's a live show. It's nowhere now. So it's nowhere now. Right. There's no theater right now.

Oh, it's a theater. It's a theater show. I just did every, I would, let's say last year, meaning 19. Um, I had it up at, um, Not Scary Farm for a while, but I would chore it and then I put it up in the, um, in the studio. It's just a fun. It was improv puppet show. Yeah. It's really, really fun. It's really fun. Actually, we staged it a lot at our lot on the, um, at, on Libreya. So people could come and watch the show, but also get a little, get a look at our, our studio, which is pretty private. So it became, that was a, that was the most fun, I think, when you were putting up that show on the lot. I hope we can do it again. That's where I was, right? Was I in, I was in, was it Charlie Chaplin's office?

Was that? That's where I was, right? That was cool. Yes. Yes. What is currently, the Henson lot was originally the Charlie Chaplin lot. It's the little, um, tutor looking buildings along La Brea near sunset. And it also had some very cool people own it in between, including a really long

ownership by A&M records. So Herb Alpert had it for years. We have a beautiful recording studio that's historical that they built. But there's layers of history. It's kind of fun that there's layers of history there where you have the chaplain history. It was owned by a few other people, including Red Skelton, who, speaking of variety shows. He owned it at one point. And then many years owned by A&M Records.

So it has all this rock and roll history. And now on top of that, the puppetry and the motion capture. and all the kind of animation and things that we do there. So it's really, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a lot of history packed into it. What you're doing is historical. Do you ever feel that way? I think sometimes the spirit, the whole principle of puppetry is bringing something inanimate to life.

A life. Sometimes they have even, even the magic castle sometimes brings in puppeteers because there's something like when they bring a beautiful marionetteist, they are. because even though he's not doing magic, he's doing marionetic, but there is something where you do feel like, oh, it's magic, it actually looked completely alive. And so I think there is a little bit of that

in the nature of puppetry. And then, of course, like, we've grown up with it and we understand how it's all done. So, you know, there's no, we can never say, oh, my gosh, I thought it was alive. like we're never we're going to always be the insiders to it but even so there are times when you when you're sort of like um sit back and go you know that is really a startlingly good effect or that is really a startlingly um convincing moment like what even what you were saying

about ned talks on the character of ned on the on the show like that's six people pulling one, making one performance. And by the way, doesn't Ned's voice sound exactly like Brian? Yes. Yeah, I think it's him. Yeah. So it's six people impersonating Brian

and it's like, and it's a giant alien. Yeah. You know, but it's kind of, but when it's so seamless like that, it is there is a little bit of magic. Oh, I was in awe. I mean, I was in awe there. It was amazing because those little dudes,

I forget what you called them popping up and down. The claws. The claws, yeah. Clads. Yeah. And it was all of this. These crazy talent, oh, totally psychedelic. These talented people just creating this whole world

and I'm sitting there improvving with, with, I don't even know what, some voice over here. And I remember leaving thinking that was one of my favorite times doing anything as a performer. Well, you were particularly fun to work with. I've actually been calling you out. As I've been doing publicity and all for the show, I often call out your interview because I think we had the most fun doing.

Oh, it was fun. I am like, I did have a moment of like, okay, East Coast. I'm looking at Kermit, your dad, like, like, I'm thinking like Timothy Leary, like, did your dad just drop a ton of acid? No. Did he just think ofedalics at all? No mushroom. No, and both.

Yeah. And he liked to drink what, the way he drank wine was embarrassing. Like, I learned how to drink. wine from him and he would drink like in a big wine glass like a third of a glass of white wine and then it was a spritzer like the rest was yeah no no and and and they were like everybody thought of my mom and dad is that they were like hippies they were like you guys are the hippies and they would dress like hippies and everything but it was everything except for the drugs they were they were very they were very clean cut and also it's like even

He didn't need anything to help liberate his volcano of imaginary thoughts. I love that. Did your mom have a puppet? Like was she, was she voiced? I mean, was like your dad was sort of Kermit, you know, was mom Miss Piggy? Well, she, like we were saying, she was very involved before we were born. Yeah. So, but in those days, most of that, oh, most of what.

they did was lip-syncing to existing tracks, like Louis Prima. They love to, like, do puppets lip-syncing to Louis Prima and other things. So there wasn't a lot of voice performance. But, yeah, our mom was a really good puppeteer, and she trained all the puppeteers. So she was a puppeteer, but there weren't famous puppets that she performed. Right. She was very early. Or no puppet that sort of was her personality, you know, or nothing like that.

So with five kids, how many cousins? And how many kids do you all have that are all cousins? Yeah. Eight. There's eight. We all have, we had two kids each except for one of my sisters is single. So, so there's four siblings have two kids each. I think it's fair.

And we all had our kids a little bit older. I think it's interesting. We all came out of a big family And none of us went Oh, all I want is to have my own big family Mm-hmm You're like, yeah You're like, you're like, one, maybe two kids

Do you guys all get to see each other? I mean, forget COVID for a second But are you guys pretty tight Do you get together on holidays and you know Or often? Yeah, often Yeah. It's particularly Thanksgiving

But not this last week. Yeah, yeah, of course. Is it usually L.A. New York or does everybody go to Colorado? we we have it's really interesting we've been having florida we've been having thanksgiving in florida because my father bought a little cottage in florida um in the days that the muppets were going into disney world and he was planning to spend a ton of time there in florida so he bought a little cottage and it we go there at thanksgiving so that's been our so we got we kept the cottage and

nobody lives down there so we all would go we go almost thanksgiving And then we, I mean, the cool thing is we're all, we're kind of, because we all own the company together, we also have our business meetings like four times here where we have to spend. And that's, so it's weird, it's kind of holds us together as, as well. We all get to see each other a lot. But this last year, it's been all Zoom. It's all Zoom. Do you guys agree or are there a lot of disagreements?

Actually, really, in terms of the company, we agree a lot. We agree a lot. And we went through one period of time. it was like in the early 2000s where we did in quick succession a bunch of business deals that were very complicated so it was about 10 years after my dad died we sold the company we bought it back we sold them up it's to Disney we launched something else and in that period of time we we realized like these are not the transactions that people do very well in family companies if they don't get along and and everything went really really smoothly so you know

know, even though we have sibling conversations, like there are times when we are just a family and we might disagree about family things. When it comes to business, we are like very in sync and very easy to do business with, actually. You know, because we're not, like, people don't have to kind of psych out. Like, what are the family dynamics if you want to work with the Henson company? Like, you just don't have to think about that. Right. Do you have memorabilia, like, up the wazoo? I mean, you know what? We were really. We do, but we were also really careful to get it into museums because the things that have been built over the years, they're so beautiful. Like, you know, a lot of those puppets are pieces of artwork and the amount of handwork that went into all of them.

So, you know, the puppets from the early years were sought after by museums. Nowadays, the things we make, they're still really artistic, but it's a little bit harder to figure out where to put them all because they're not all of historical importance. What about Kermit, the first coat, Kermit made out of the coat? That's the Smithsonian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, our mom got, like the very earliest Muppets, they're all at the Smithsonian. Okay.

That was something that our mom did. Before we speed round, I got to know about Miss Piggy, because she was such a staple in my life. Oh, she was just so different. It was a little, you were a great story, actually. She was my first crush. I was, like, attracted to her for some strange reason. I like that sort of gruff, you know. Like, you know, it was, that's my kind of woman.

Frank used to describe her character as she's a truck driver who thinks she's Marilyn Monroe. Oh, hilarious. She came in with the Muppet show. So she became part of the starring cast of a new show. So she had no history before the Muppet show. But she wasn't even in the original main cast of the Muppet show. She wasn't like one of the characters who was drawn out and sketched out by the writers. Like when you were talking about,

Where did the characters come from? This one came really from Frank Oz as a performer, imbueing a very supporting character, like this pig puppet was just in the chorus. And in the very early, he wasn't even the only one. He wasn't the only one who did the character. But when he did it, it was so funny. But there was, the first thing that happened was

there were just a bunch of pigs created. and then they threw a, you know, put a wig on one of them and Frank came up with this personality and this character and that was it. But she came a lot, obviously a lot later, not until the Muppet Show. It is funny that she's the classic chorus girl. You know, she's the classic story of the chorus girl who came to the front and took the solo

and then became the lead of the show because she was literally a chorus girl pig. Wow. That's really funny. It's like, what is it called? 20 feet from stardom, the documentary. It's like her. He was a backup singer puppet. And then she went for a big makeover.

So if you look at her very first, it was really like a pig puppet with a wig on. But that's really a character that came out of Frank Oz. That was that really came out of his head. What do we have to look forward to from your production company in these next couple years? so many things all sorts of stuff I mean we do you know we try to say everything that we do as an element of fantastical invention in it but but nowadays we do we do 3D animated animated shows we do 2D animated shows and keyframe animation we do digital puppetry which is 3D animation but it's all puppeteer it's all live performed and live shot we do all of our puppet productions and then we do science fiction and fantasy And we, you know, we, we, we do a little bit of everything, do movies, TV shows, some of it's for a more adult audience, some of it's for specifically for kids.

But, but honestly, we just try, we just try for real, like creative excellence, being creative. It's a celebration of being creative and original is what we try to do whenever. we're making something. People also, a lot of people expect us to kind of revisit the old titles, and we do. You know, we did the big Dark Crystal series for Netflix. We are now viewing a new Fraggle Rock series. Oh my God. Fragle Rock.

That was my chain. There's a lot of love for Fraggle Rock out there. That was like our, was it, let the music play, waiting for another day. Down a Fraggle Rock. It was part of this new thing. thing called HBO. And we remember our dad really loved the idea of HBO because I think up until then the idea that basically what you're doing is you're making TV shows so that there will be

people watching television when the commercial break comes. And the reason of existence is to make sure there are eyeballs for when the commercial breaks happen. That's what the business of television was the four minutes of commercials every half hour. And so my dad, he really loved the idea of HBO. That was right that people were actually paying money for a subscription to be entertained. What would your dad think about today, technology, all the platforms that are available now, Netflix streaming, but do you think he'd love it or hate it? I mean, he kind of loved everything. Yeah. Like he loved innovation and new ways of doing things. I mean, he probably would be more embracive than I probably am because I'm like, oh, I've got to protect puppetry.

stuff like that he'd be like oh let's do something different yeah i don't know he would he he would love all of it and he saw like reality tv coming he knew that cameras were going to become cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and that before you knew it it that programming was going to be coming from a 22 year old kid and their two best friends you know in the middle of nowhere would be producing you know huge hit television shows he kind of saw all that coming and what a shame because he would have only been 83 today. Like he could have still been alive and working and would have been. And how much would he have done?

How much more would he have done if he hadn't died? It's, yeah. I feel like he would have gotten incredibly interested in virtual reality as well as anything like immersive and interactive because he was so, he was very interested. interested in stereoscopic and I was like why are you interested in that like the green and green and red glasses but he was really into it and that led to him doing a 3d movie at at disney but he was really into it because of its potential for being immersive and and he was very interested in anything

like interactive so you know but he's he everything has developed way way way beyond what he was thinking of at that point. I think one thing that's such a shame is that, you know, when he made Labyrinth, you know, with David Bowie and Jennifer Collins, the movie was a terrible flop when it came out. And that was the last big thing that he had finished before he died. And it's such a shame because the film has done substantially better every year than it did. Yeah.

first year it was made. So now it's a huge hit and it's a cult classic and it's the most important title in our library and it and I wish he had seen that because unfortunately when he passed away that was his his big commercial failure was Labyrinth which is now nobody believes you when you say to them oh you know it was a huge box office failure they go no couldn't have been it couldn't have been it's a classic. Yeah it is your dad I have this little thing here that I love of when he wrote a letter before he passed away and he said, please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody.

It's a good life, enjoy it. Is that like a touchstone for you guys? Very much so, yes. I think he was actually doing his estate planning and instead of just leaving a bunch of documents like we all do, he had the thoughtfulness to write a letter and enclose it in the documents

and the letter sat there for years and years. And, you know, it wasn't particularly prescient that he wrote that. I think the letter was sitting there for quite a long time, along with his estate planning. But it did make me think, what a nice thing to do. And everybody should do that. Everybody should write something personal to go with those legal documents. As a person, he was somebody that always had his little lessons.

You know, we have like a lot of. of Episcopal ministers in our in that side of the family and and our dad was quite like that. I mean, often we'd sit down for breakfast and he'd have basically a little lesson that he wanted to share that day over breakfast, which I can't imagine doing with my kids. Not in that sort of formal way, but, but he always had his little things and oh my God, he'd love, he'd love the cassette playing players that you put in your cars before anybody. else had him when they were the eight tracks and then the cassette players and and he'd always have the best one and it would always get stolen in new york and so and he just had it was

you could see it was always so disappointed when we'd get back to the car after dinner and the windows were smashed again and the stereo was gone again and he'd go well i guess obviously they needed it more than than i did wow then i did yeah so that's a special kind of That's the opposite of what I would have done. I love your doubt. I know. All right, guys. Let's do the speed round.

Some of these you can also answer your other siblings if you want. One word to describe the other. I'm just going to say smart. I would say engineer. One word to describe your relationship. Supportive. Cool. Who's the most artistic?

Oh, Brian. As between us, Bright. I think I've done more art, but I don't know that I'm more artistic. If your sibling was a Muppet, which one would they be? Ned. As I've said. Well, I don't know. Lisa, see, she has to be the smart, cool one.

You know, we'd have to have been one of Jerry. Nelson's characters, like Floyd or something. Oh. I'll take it. He's not one of the female characters. I'll take it. I'll take it. Something that your sibling is really not good at.

Both of us cooking. Yeah. We're both not good at cooking. Who's more competitive? We're both crazy competitive. Are you? Equal. Yeah, we're both crazy competitive.

In fact, that's part of why we approach things and, like, Lisa came out of development and executive and I came from the floor so that we're always a little bit different. So we're never, like, directly competing with each other. That's good. That was very clever. That's a good thing. Who gives the best advice? Me.

Oh, that's so interesting. No, actually, it is, it is, Lisa. Because I'm terrified of giving people advice. I don't want to give people advice. If you guys disagree or when you do disagree, is there a topic that you disagree on the most? You know, is there something that you guys just do not see eye to eye on? This one just ought to be at the tip of my tongue, and I can't think. What do we disagree?

I don't know. I mean, there is something when it comes to actual, like, movie making or, and when I say movie making, I mean, TV shows or whatever. where I have less respect for the committee than Lisa does because I grew up on the floor. I have more respect for the vision. Yep. But that's good. That's good. I like that.

That's a good one. First celebrity crush. Oh, mine was 100% Debbie Harry. Yeah, that's a good one. 100%. It almost, it was almost. Linda Ronstad, but then it was Debbie Harry. I'm like blanking out, but I have a feeling it has to do with that first season of Saturday Night Live.

The Muppets were on Saturday Night Live, and we got to go from the whole first season, we got to go and watch Saturday Night Live. And that was like when I felt like I grew up from being the high schooler that I was at public high school in Armagh, New York to, like, a cool person that goes to New York City and goes to 30 Rock and watches Saturday Night Live and comes home and tells people at school that I was there and saw it live, season one, two, and three. It really was just season one. But you're like a...

I was in high school. I was in high school. That's cool. I was like 11th grade or 10th or 11th grade. So it was probably like, it was probably like Chevy Chase or something. You're like, it's the 70s. Chevy was the man. teenager. It's the 70s. You're a teenager and you're at 30 Rock watching

SNL. Pretty cool. Season one. I mean, nothing's cooler than that. That's all time right there. And for sure it was Chevy Chase because Chevy Chase was hot. That's so interesting. I think, but Lisa, weren't you a big fan of Jack Burns when you were like really little? And then he became the head writer on the Muppet show. So I thought you were a big fan. But now that's really little. Because Burns and Triver was a show that was really important in our household. And then Jack Burns ended up being

the head writer on the Muppet show. Oh, wow. Well, yeah, I had a childhood. It looked like we got to meet this guy that had been so important to us. All right, seriously, nobody who's listening to your podcast knows for these people that they were talking about that.

But I did have a childhood crush on Tommy Smothers. Oh, there you go. I like comedians. Yeah. It was Chebby Chase. It was Chebby Chase, John Belushi, Guild of Radner, John King, Curtin. Dan Aykroyd.

Dan Aykroyd. Balushi was in Belushi the first year? No. Yeah, yeah. He was. He was. That's so cool. Oh, that's so cool.

I remember because he, I remember him going around the halls going, oh, what? Oh, here they come. The mucking fuppets. You didn't actually witness that, did you? I absolutely witnessed that. You witnessed it? I thought it was an apocryful story. That's, no, no, I just went walking down the hall.

And he yelled, there they are, the mockingfoppies. There you go. Which he only gave very lovingly. No, no, I heard it in the hall. I mean, the poor Muppets, you know, they were really, really a big flop on Siren Life. Oh, were they? I didn't even know that. We were really cool that we got to go and see it.

The Muppets were like the only thing that didn't work on Scy Rite Life. So it was this outrageous, huge, huge hit. And everybody was talking about it. And it was the show of, you know, it's been the show of the century, practically. The Muppets got fired off of it for after season one. Oh, that's up in. Okay, yeah. That's so sad.

No, but let me, no, but let's go in, because you were, as Kay, earlier we're saying, but what really happened was Jim was trying very hard to make the Muppet show. And all of the broadcasters in America said, Muppets are for little children. That's what Sesame Street has proven. The Muppets are just for little kids. And my dad was furious. So he made his first pilot of a. the Muppet Show was a Valentine's special, the Valentine's with Mia Farrow that was going to be

with your mom, but it was with Mia Farrow. And he made that, and it went on air, and that was his pilot, and all three networks passed and said, no, no, no, puppets are for little kids. It's Sesame Street. You should be sticking with that. He was furious. So the next pilot, he then sold a second pilot for the Muppet show, and he called it Sex and Violence with the Muppets, so that people wouldn't say it was just for a little kid. And he made it. made that and put it on air. And all three networks passed on doing the series. And then he was, then he was so pissed off that everybody was saying,

you should just be doing children shows like Sesame Street, that then he went and did Saturday Night Live because it was already controversially going to be the most offensive adult TV show ever made of its time. So he's like, that's where I'm going to be. I'm going to prove that I'm not just for little kids. And then during that season one, Lou Grade in London, who ran ITB or ATD Studios, was it, called and said, I've seen your pilot, bring your Muppets here to England, I will make a series, we will shoot the whole series and we'll sell it back to America,

which is exactly what happened. So you're saying he got fired, but Lisa, as soon as Lou Gregg wanted to make a Muppet show, he was counting the days until he could get off at Sesame Street. Right. I mean, get off of a Saturday Night Live. Because all he really was trying to do was get the Muppet Show made. That's a great story. He was pitching the Muppet Show for years and years and years and years.

It's really interesting because people think he had so much just automatic success. But like how much rejection he had for the Muppet Show was incredible. The success of Sesame Street was a problem because he was sort of on a track that was pointing to the Muppet Show. And then Sesame Street was so successful that everybody was like, we'll make more preschool education shows. I think it's really important for any creative to hear these kinds of stories because I'm always like, success is like

you hear more no than you do yes and yet you just have to keep going to know that the Muppets took so long. It's wild, right? It was really hard for it. Okay, I have to ask what's your personal favorite Muppet? Ralph the Dog.

he's great I usually say I can't answer this it's all this I'm going to give it to them you've never told anybody your favorite Muppet they won't yeah I like him for different reasons but I guess Gonzo probably was my favorite

Gonzo is the greatest Gonzo is the greatest does anybody ever say that Kermit is their favorite I mean it's like I feel like because he's like the number one nobody says he's the favorite

No, no. Most people do say Kermit's their favorite. And I often say Kermit's kind of my favorite because he was the most like my dad. I mean, Kermit was, if you know Kermit well, you knew my dad well. Okay. So the very last question that we always ask, all you ask the question. Two-parter, two-part question. First part being, if you could alleviate something, if you could take something from your siblings. that it will alleviate a stressor in their life or something to make their life a little bit better, what would it be? And on the flip side of that, if you could take something for yourself, a quality

that they possess that you wish that you had, what would that be? Huh. Well, Brian was speaking earlier about feeling pressure and stress of living up to the legacy. I'd love to take some of that off of him because I think he's great in his own. right and I would like to take a little of his perfectionism onto me because I think as a producer

I need to get things done and so I'm I'm like hey let's just approve 75% of everything we look at you know because we just got to get going so if I could take some of his perfectionism on me so that our work is better if I could afford to do that I definitely want to do that I don't know what I would take off of Lisa. I don't know I know of burdens that she has that are too personal to talk about.

But you can like say that certain burdens. She is certain just the two personal burdens I want to take them away. I wish she didn't have to have that are not of her making. And then if I could be able to

multitask, I feel like I'm incapable of multitasking. For me, multitasking means I do one thing for an hour, then something else for an hour. I can't even, I can't even like do two, three emails at the same time. It's like I have to stay with that email until I'm done with it. And then I do the next time. Lisa says, well, I can manage eight shows. It's like, I don't know what that means. I can like, I can delegate seven. That was excellent. Thank you guys so much. It was so much. It was so fun talking to you. It's like a dinner party.

I love it. It's been really, really fun and lovely talking to tonight. Sibling Revelry is executive produced by Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson. Producer is Allison Bresden. Editor is Josh Windish. Music by Mark Hudson, aka Uncle Mark. If you want to show us some love, rate the show and leave us a review. This show is powered by Simplecast.

I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Introducing IVF Disrupted, the Kind Body Story, a podcast about a company that promised to revolutionize fertility care. It grew like a tech startup.

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