The New Yorker Radio Hour - Frank Oz on Miss Piggy’s Secret Backstory and Jim Henson’s Legacy

Episode Date: April 10, 2018

Frank Oz was a teenager when he started working with Jim Henson, the puppeteer and filmmaker behind the Muppets. Oz went on to create characters like Bert,  Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy, and Yoda from “Star Wars.” Michael Schulman is a contributor to The New Yorker and the magazine’s foremost authority on all things Muppet. He takes a trip uptown, to Frank Oz’s home in Manhattan, and talks with Oz about his most iconic characters, moving on after the death of Jim Henson, and what’s missing from today’s Muppets. Plus, The New Yorker’s Naomi Fry recommends three things not to miss on the Internet. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Nomi Fry is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and she's our pop culture correspondent. She writes about internet news and gossip columns and much else, and I trust her to lead me to things that I just might not find otherwise. Nomi just wrote a piece called The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck, and it stirred the internet into the a days-long frenzy. Poor Ben Affleck. I'm talking about Ben Affleck.

I feel a sympathy towards Ben, and I was more sort of trying to sort of recount how the Internet, in fact, has treated him. And I thought... When you speak of the Internet, it's almost as if you're speaking of this living, breathing, 48-eyed, 19-eared monster. I mean, it's a bit like that, I guess. Do you have anything to suggest? Yes, I do.

I have several things. So the first thing is the show Big Mouth, which was on Netflix. Tell me a little bit about the show. So it's an animated show, and it's about puberty. Oh, God, that sounds like hell on real. Who are just, yes, so that moment, that hellish moment is being explored in ways that are both really, and really sensitive and touching. So, how do you two know Roland?

Are you dating her? I only ask because I know Nick, you know, likes her. Andrew. Or I'm sorry, are you two dating each other, like, as gays? Or maybe you're just people? Andrew, please, shut the fuck up. Ah, yes, Mr. Boring. You are my next art installation.

And I would say that it's the best show about teens or tweens. Like, oh, I guess just teens. That's the point. since freaks and geeks. I'm hooked already. I know. It's incredible. It's really incredible.

And I want to urge anyone who hasn't watched this amazing show to do so. Right away. Right away. Just stop listening. But when they finish watching the show, what should they do next? Okay. So the next thing I have, this is a series of videos that started the magazine Complex. They do this recurring.

It's like about once a month. It's called sneaker shopping. And it's usually like athletes or rappers or like reality stars or models. And I am a pretty late adopter to this. Like a lot of other people, I probably only learned about this. When this was in October of 2017, Bella Hadid goes sneaker shopping. As you can see, it has almost four and a half million views. These are coming home with me.

You're going to put these with a black dress, so you're going to look sexy as shit. So you're going to kill it. Slip-ons over there. And Bella Hadid, for those of us who don't know, is a supermodel. And she also has a deal with Nike. So she also is, like, showing her commitment to the brand. What's different about these videos as opposed to some other kind of, you know, taste-making videos? Well, I think it's very interesting because we're being sort of invited to view these videos as a place where we'll see what's cool.

and like what's the now, what's the most now thing. But what's revealed is this kind of incredible awkwardness often. There's something about what the people do or don't do with their hands, their attempts to explain something that they feel sort of interested in, but maybe not totally passionate about, like sneakers. That just makes for a very, like, avant-garde, almost like a kabuki theme. kind of feel, which is something very odd to find in like a video about sneakers and shopping where you tally up like the bill at the end and leave with like bags full of loot.

What's next? Okay. So the next thing I have, go on Instagram and check out the feed, the account Shaya's outfits. This is a person, I believe he's out of Philadelphia. It's not his personal account. He created it about a year ago. and he basically just posts pictures of the actor Shia Lovuf and his street style. So he gets photographed a lot.

We're talking jeans and cargo shorts here. We're looking at it here. We're leafing through. It's a little on the street smooching kind of right out of us weekly. So here he's wearing crocs and socks. Is that considered a fashion mistake? It's considered, I think by most it would be considered a fashion don't. Maybe now that he's done it, maybe people.

will be like, oh, Crocs, it's actually cool. And in fairness, the crocs themselves are the color of what used to be called in Popsicle world, sky blue. So, yeah, so Shia looks a bit like a schlub, you know, to the untrained eye. But in fact, you know, he's very much appreciated as an icon in the kind of the world of streetwear. And it's because of these little twists that he does. It's like he weirdly like tucks his pans inside his socks.

And it looks like bulky and weird. but then you look at it again and you're like, this is actually like kind of a cool silhouette. Or he tucks his sweatshirt inside his shorts. Like who does that? No, no, no, no. No, but I'm telling you. No, no, no, no.

But that's the thing. It looks great. Yes. Yes. If I do it? You know, just try it. We just come into the office one day and I'll tell you. You're on.

You're absolutely on. Incredible. Nomi Fry, staff writer at The New Yorker. There's a pretty good chance you know the name, Frank Oz. If you don't, I guarantee you know his voice. Frank Oz was a teenager when he started working with Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets. Oz went on to create characters like Bert of Ernie and Bert. Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy, and if you're not impressed yet, he did Yoda.

So certain are you? Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally different. No, no different. Only different in your mind. Frank Oz went on to direct his own films with full-sized adult people, comedies like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, and Bowfinger. His latest is a documentary that he made with some of his former colleagues from the Henson Shop.

It's called Muppet Guys Talking, which is probably pretty self-explanatory. The New Yorker's foremost authority on all things Muppet is Michael Schwarz. Shulman. Recently, Michael paid Frank Oz a visit, and he brought along one of his most prize possessions, a lunchbox. How's your lunchbox? I brought it. I'm so happy. I did bring this. So, you know, last time we met, I gave it to you to sign. I just thought you were going to write Frank Oz on it, but you took it away for a couple minutes, got a Sharpie, and when you gave it back to me, it was just So I got a full-on shutter through my entire body because, so you signed to Michael from Frank Oz, and then on Fossey, on top of Fossey, you signed as Fossey with this special signature with a little hat over the eye,

and then turned it around. Miss Piggy has her own signature, which is kind of dainty and girly, and then Animal on the back has his own signature in character, which is completely crazy and unhinged. And it just made me think about how deeply you know these characters that each of them actually has their own signature. I mean, how did just the signatures develop? You know, all of us do that. Jim had his own signatures for all the characters, for Kermit, for Dr. T, for everybody. And I think it just kind of happens organically.

We don't really plan anything. You know, once you do, you know your character, eventually you start getting not only a signature, but a voice. because the voice just comes much later, you know. And one thing I'm so fascinated by is the sort of psychological profiles you have of these characters who I think people who don't really appreciate the depth of the Muppets and the art that you guys all brought to it

would see them as sort of simplistic characters, but they really have so much going on beneath the surface that makes them real. You have not been honest with me, Kermit? I haven't. Told me, we were responsible. spending a week in the swamp? You never said there would be snakes and spiders and alligators.

No, I was saving the best part for a surprise. Surprise? Kermi, you are out of your little green mind. Can we start with Miss Piggy? Sure. Can you tell me a little bit about how she was shaped as a character? Yeah, you know, it's not an intellectual exercise. I don't know if anybody else does it, but I have biographies of most of my characters, not all of them.

I mean, even Yoda. And with Piggy, it came about. And she grew, I mean, my feeling, I'll give you a shortened version of it, she grew up on a farm. And her father, who absolutely loved her, died in a tractor accident. Her mother then started getting suitors. And as Piggy grew up, the suitors started getting more. more interested in Piggy than the mother. And that caused tremendous tension.

And so Piggy had to leave. She made some money doing some things that she was not very proud of. What? Yeah, she would do, you know, like a bacon. No, yeah, bacon commercial. Oh, God. And then she, once you got the money, she went to charm school and learned how to be a lady. because if she was just herself, she was too strong for men, and men don't necessarily like strong women.

And so she had to play coy, 1950s, coy, while underneath it, she's really a tough pig, a tough woman. It goes on and on like that. I'm honestly so obsessed with this. I could hear the long version. I hear the day-long version. But again, it makes no difference from anybody else. It's just, it's important for me to know. So I can have a full idea of a character.

And if I didn't know that, then I believe you guys wouldn't believe it. So you also did Animal. And I can't imagine that Animal has as deep a psychology as some of these other ones. How do you summarize Animal? I think there's no one, when God's Earth, Freud could penetrate Animal. There is no psychology whatsoever in Animal. there's just sensuousness and appetite and desire. In the documentary you say there are five words that define him, I think.

Five words that define animals. Drums is one of them. It's drums, food, sleep, sex, and pain. That's animal. That's all it is. Sex, for real? Oh, absolutely. Not that you would ever have sex.

He's heard about it somewhere. And so he's got to experience everything. He's never had. But nevertheless, he's so, who would? Who would go with him, by the way? Who would? That question I cannot answer. But that is animal.

So, you know, all these characters, none of this is known to the public. Now, I guess it is. But it's only known to me in order for me to believe them more. So you guys believe them. Right. So I want to talk about Jim Henson a little bit, because I really think of you and Henson as one of the great creative duos of the last century. up there with...

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I really think of you and Jim as one of the great creative duos. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. I really think of you and Jim Henson. You totally bought that, didn't do. It's going to get even better if you let me finish. Do what, should I say that again? I'm sorry, I just couldn't hear you.

I'm sorry, I just couldn't hear you. I'm sorry. Lennon and McCartney. I was very kind of you. I was cheap. It was cheap. I admit that. I totally admit it.

It was cheap, but I felt for it. But thank you very much. So what was a typical day working on the Muppet show like? Well, on the Muppet Show in particular, the days were this. It was, we had weekends off, except Jim didn't because Jim would be editing the previous week's work. Jim worked harder than anybody else. Monday, we would get together with the guest star of the week. And the guest star, who, if they had musical numbers, I remember right across from me when Ethel Murmer was on.

And there were no puppets. there, but just we were doing the bit, and she was singing like six inches from me, you know, not a foot from me, you know, there's no business like show. It was a wow, incredible. But we didn't have puppets on at that time. That was a musical rehearsal around the piano. And then we would all take our tape recorders out, our guys, and prepare for the next day, which would be band day.

What we would do is then we would get individual tracks. So I would get individual track of the drums. Dave would get tracks of the saxophone versus root. Richard Hunt would get the individual tracker of Janice for the guitar. And Jim would get the individual track of the keyboards. So we prided ourselves on that night working like crazy to make sure we weren't just screwing around. But we actually hit those notes. Wow.

And this is for the fabulous Muppet House band, the Electric Mayhem. Yeah. Who is my favorite band growing up? That's great. And then we would, you know, that band day was one pretty long. day and then the next day we'd start shooting and we'd have three days to shoot the show and then we start all over again the following week and what was the creative atmosphere that allowed all of you to create that kind of chaos that was jim that was that was the safety of knowing the gym wanted us to

try anything and if he failed no one's in trouble if you failed no one's going to get fired he failed no one's going to be demoted no one's going to be yelled at he just wanted to push the envelope on everything I mean, look at Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and everything else. He just, and storyteller on TV, some of the best TV I've ever seen. He just wanted to always push the envelope, and that included us. So we're allowed to push the envelope and totally screw up. But he said it was okay. Let's just play.

The technical aspects of shooting the Muppets are always so interesting. And you hear about these incredible lengths that you would all have to go to, like, you know, at the beginning of the Muppet movie, when Kermit singing in the swamp, the Rainbow Connection, and Jim had to be in an underwater tank with his arm up all day. The bicycle riding scene in the Great Muppet Caper, I understand, was just a huge technical challenge that Jim wanted to do. What was the hardest thing that you remember doing as a Muppet performer on a technical level? You know, it was all hard, and that's what we enjoyed,

and that was the joy of it to do the hard stuff, because that's what Jim liked to do. So it was all hard. I mean, I guess when I was under, again, Jim did The Impossible, when Piggy was underwater. Oh, in the Great Muppet Caper. The Synchronized Swimming Number. That's one of the all-time great Muppet songs. I had to work Piggy, and she was brought out to me by a rowboat on a rowboat

because you had to put Piggy on my arm while I was under the water. And as I said, the speakers were there, so I was. I could hear the music. There was also underwater monitors. I could look at the performance. I also had to put both of my feet in kind of loops around bricks so my body could stay down so it wouldn't float up. And then there was a scuba diver next to me with an air hose.

And so I would be breathing in the air hose. And then Jim would, our first AD, would say, okay, ready? And I'd spit out the air hose and we'd start the take. and I'd do the take for as long as it took and then say, okay, and cut, and then the scuba, I would bring the air hose back to me, and that went on for about a week. Oh, my goodness.

Well, it was all worth it. That's one of my all-time favorites, Piggy's Fantasy from the Great Pumpacaper. I love it. It's just, people say it's hard, but this was part of the tarry. We didn't think it was hard, and we thought it was normal,

because Jim thought it was normal. So in 1991, of course, Jim very tragically passed away of an infection and it was a loss to, you know, the children of the world and his company and his family, but also very specifically to you as his creative partner and friend. And I'm wondering, how did you react to that as an artist? Did you have to sort of rethink what your role as a creative person was now being without that very close partnership? I never thought about it. Also, when you mentioned it was important that children of the world, actually half the people who saw them up at show were adults.

And so people talk about the children, but the truth is, it was really so much the adults and the children, not only one or the other, because Jim was never a children's performer. I was never a children's performer. We just did what we did as adults, and then adults and children either liked it or didn't. But I've never been asked that, Michael, before, about reassessing creatively after Jim died. You know, it was, you know, I actually, I think it took a long time for any of us to work with Jim's characters

when somebody else was doing Jim. So I think the period of grief was long enough that that could be done. It was never the same. It was never the same chemistry. But I never had to actually reassess. There was a sense of loss of this chemistry that we had. Other than that, no, I didn't reassess.

I just had to go forward. So the Muppets are now owned by Disney, and they've been back in the last couple of years doing new movies, a TV show, show on ABC that was short-lived. When you see the Muppets now functioning under the Disney corporate umbrella, I mean, what do you see in terms of the Henson legacy being carried on or not? Is it the same? No, it's not the same. I mean, I don't slam Disney because I know they really love the characters. And first of all, there's one person in particular who,

Debbie McClellan, who works at Disney, and she's absolutely fantastic and she's the best. And she's the best. But, you know, today's Muppets, I feel are, you know, the music has always been so important. And I don't sense much music with Muppets. I think even though our guys who are doing it are fantastic. But the writing of it, I don't sense that rebelliousness, that anarchy, and affection. You know, and that's what it was about, that what I call affectionate anarchy with the Muppets, that Jim really taught us without teaching us. And so I've not been asked for help, and so I'm not, you know,

there was a movie I wrote with Jim Lewis, and they decided to go with another movie that Jason Siegel did. And so their view is just, is a different view of Muppets that I have. If you were consulted, what advice would you give them? What's the sort of special?

sauce that you think. I'd say, listen to the puppeteers more. Let them lead. They know what they're doing. So you've played all these characters who, you know, from Yoda to Miss Piggy to Fazi, who are so lodged deep in people's subconscious. I mean, at this point, anyone under 50, and that includes me, you know, who grew up with a television on, knows these voices, these characters, which are aspects of you.

I'm wondering, what is that like for you just moving through the world? Do you have these weird experiences with people where they feel like... Yeah, it's not weird, it's quite touching. I mean, with Muppet guys, this has happened so many times, but with Mupply Guys talking when we were at the South by Southwest film festival, which is really great, people, I mean, I remember somebody coming up to me and couldn't even speak, she was just sobbing and said, you know, Fosie's my hero because I'm dyslexic, but Fosie never gave up, so I didn't give up.

and I became valedictorian. I mean, well, how do you, how do you grasp that? Those kind of things happen all the time. On Twitter, I have gotten several tweets from people saying, you know, I was an abused child or I was lonely on my child or whatever, and the Muppets were my only friends, the only people who I could relate to. You know, those Muppet characters, they are not normal. none of them are even Kermit

but Kermit as normal as you can be and so you have all these different species living together who have their own inner conflicts their own problems exactly like us and yet they get along and that's

I can understand how people can feel comfortable in that because that's kind of who we are we're not perfect and yet you know it doesn't mean just because you're perfect just because you have a problem, it doesn't mean you're not valuable, you know? Absolutely.

Frank Oz, one of the founding members of the Muppet team talking with the New Yorkers, Muppet correspondent, Michael Schulman. And if you're a fan, you can find the documentary Muppet Guys Talking on the Internet. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Rianning Corby, Calalia, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, Mithely Rao, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Michelle Moses, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.