On Saturday, November 21, The Brooklyn Public Library hosted a day of Sesame Street events. (Did you miss it? It's not like we didn't warn you!) Thankfully for us (and our lawyers), everything that Sesame Workshop advertised came true. There was music and art and puppets and panels, and we were there firsthand to see it and give you the full report. You can thank us later.

After the show, we had a few hours to check out the exhibit in the library. The front cases held photo puppets, original scripts and sheet music, claymation Bert and Ernie, the Teeny Little Super Guy, an invitation to Maria and Luis' wedding, an Emmy, and of course, lots and lots of photos. It's always impressive to see this much Muppet stuff in one room, and moreso to see it all be given the museum treatment it deserves. Behind these cases was a set of framed art, with original art from Sesame Street storybooks (including one from our favorite, "The Together Book"). It's easy to forget that Sesame Street has published so many books. I'll bet they could fill the entire library with illustrations by guys like Joe Mathieu, Michael J. Smollin, and Jack Davis.
One thing on my checklist that we weren't getting done was to get one of the new Elmo library cards. The advertisements said that they were for "new accounts", but I figured it couldn't hurt to try. When I asked, the librarian told me that they were "for kids." As if that's ever stopped me! But when I pressed further, she told me that I could request one, but only if I wanted to deprive some other child of getting his or her own Elmo library card. Needless to say, Elmo does not grace the cover of my card. Curse you, librarian guilt!
The main attraction for the day was the panel discussion, moderated by Louise Gikow, and featuring Chris Cerf, Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente, puppet builder Rollie Krewson, Bob McGrath, and Fran Brill. (Sesame Workshop CEO Gary Knell delivered the introduction, and he revealed that Iftah Ya Simsim, the Kuwaiti Sesame Street, is back in production.) After the customary how-did-you-get-started questions (Bob was big in Japan! Fran cold-called Jim Henson for an audition!), Louise Gikow did a great job at keeping the conversation moving and interesting to both the casual fans and the seasoned vets.

One of the most interesting bits to me was the inclusion of Rollie Krewson, who doesn't normally get to sit on panels like this. Krewson talked about getting her start as Henson's first intern (the first puppet she ever built: a baby Koozebanian, or "Koozie-pup", with the help of Dave Goelz). Another interesting tidbit she gave is that she prefers to sculpt characters before building, rather than sketch them out like other puppet builders. I for one would love to see some of the early sculpts for familiar characters. Yet another tidbit: Krewson's daughter came up with the idea to put sparkles in Zoe's hair (or is that fur?).

Chris Cerf, who lost his voice the day before, spoke briefly about working at Random House ("It helps when your father owns the company"), being in the army with Jeff Moss, and attending Harvard with Joe Raposo. He said that he got his start writing songs on Sesame Street because he "knew rock and roll", which is how his first song, "Count It Higher", came into fruition.

Bob McGrath talked about having trouble in his first year of Sesame Street because he couldn't figure out who his character was supposed to be. Jon Stone gave him the direction to "be himself", because kids can tell in an instant when an adult is faking it. Fran Brill spoke about the creation of Prairie Dawn, and how she started as "sweet, innocent and docile," but soon became a "neurotic perfectionist." According to Brill, the difference between Prairie Dawn and Zoe is that "Prairie would never go near a puddle, while Zoe would jump right in."

A few short tidbits from the panel: Fran Brill is 5'4", and sometimes has to wear 7" platform shoes, but she has never fallen. While performing a live-hand puppet, Frank Oz would sometimes rest his left hand over the right to keep the second puppeteer from over-gesticulating. Chris Cerf once wrote a sketch after receiving a letter from the Dairy Goat Association, in which a dairy goat apologized for a previous cartoon featuring a goat eating a sneaker (of course, it ended with a non-dairy goat asking, "are you going to eat those sneakers?"). The puppeteers and writers love Zoe's pet rock, Rocco, but they felt that he made Zoe "a little too bossy" (thankfully for all you Rocco fans, he'll be back in season 41). The Mr. Snuffleupagus costume weighs 115 lbs. While Paul Simon was on set in between takes, he walked past Oscars can, and Oscar popped out and said "Boy, you are short!". Paul Simon was not amused (Caroll Spinney said, "I don't know why I did that! I love Paul Simon!").

The highlight of the panel was an impromptu concert with Chris Cerf and Bob McGrath. Unfortunately, Cerf's voice was almost completely lost at this point in the night, so it's better in theory than in practice. But that doesn't stop these guys from being living legends, so enjoy this video of Chris and Bob singing a few famous Sesame tunes!

A million thanks go out to the great folks at Sesame Workshop and the Brooklyn Public Library for organizing this event. It was a lot of fun, we learned a lot, and we were thrilled to see so many people attend and show some love for Sesame Street.

If you'd like to see the exhibit, it will be on display at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza until February 21, 2010.
Click here to be denied a library card on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: events, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Hey, how about that interview with Louise Gikow from the other day? Wasn't that fantastic? Sorry, what's that? You think it should've been longer? Well you are in luck, my furry friend! Part two of our chat with Louise is right here, right now!

ToughPigs: How did you get started in your career with the Muppets?

Louise Gikow: When I was very young, I was a graduate student of Medieval Literature at Columbia University. I got my Masters and decided that it was insane to be a Medievalist. It was a bad economic time and nobody wanted professors of medieval literature. I also realized that university teaching and the university atmosphere was probably not for me. I wanted real life. So I left, answered an ad in the New York Times, and got a job at the National Lampoon Magazine for six years. I worked with everyone from Doug Kenney to Henry Beard to John Belushi, because I was a production assistant on the first Lemmings show. I’ve been so incredibly lucky. I was there for about six years as the Senior Copy Editor, and then I decided that I didn’t want to be working for that magazine when I’d hit a ripe old age. I loved it madly, but it was time for me to move on, so I quit and freelanced for a while. And while I was freelancing, my friend Mark Saltzman, who had been writing for Sesame Street, called me and said that they were starting Muppet Magazine and they were looking for freelance-permanent staff. And I became the Managing Editor of that.

TP: So Muppet Magazine was your first job with the Muppets?

LG: Yeah, it was my first Muppet experience. I worked there for about a year, and it was a great gig for me, because I would come in irregularly and I made about $12,000 a year, which at that time was an enormous part of my income, which goes to show you how the world has changed. After about a year, Jane Leventhal, who was the head of publishing, who is the older sister of J.P. Leventhal, who is the publisher of [the Sesame Street 40th Anniversary book], called me up and said she’d like me to come and work full-time in the publishing division. I really like freelancing, and I like having permanent jobs, but I really don’t like transitioning between the two. And I told Jane a few weeks later that I had a nightmare the night after she asked me to come where she was chasing me around the office with a meat cleaver, shouting “Come join us! Come join us!” And I was running away going “No, no, I don’t want to! I like freelancing!” But I went and joined them anyway because it was one of those things you couldn’t pass up. I was lucky enough very soon afterward to become kind of an ad-hoc creative group that Jim gathered of people from a variety of places, and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I guess he liked my big mouth and my ideas enough to invite me to all the meetings. So I didn’t do the scriptwriting very much for him, but I did a lot of bits and pieces like PR and internal films and things like that. Mostly I was a part of this brain trust kind of thing. And Jim… oh Jim, Jim was a wonderful guy. I miss him very much. He used to gather people together for these weekends, and he would hire the most amazing people, people who were famous in a variety of fields, and we’d go in and they’d tell you these fascinating things about their fields and we’d brainstorm about what we can do. It was just a joy, we were so lucky.

I did that for 11 years, past when Jim died, probably longer than I should have, mostly because I just loved it there and it was hard to leave. Then I got a job starting a publishing and multimedia division at Nickelodeon, and I thought I really had to try it. So I spent two years at Nickelodeon, and I learned more there than I had at any other job in my life, and it’s influenced everything I’ve done since, because it was more about what makes a successful show, what makes a successful network. And then Chris Cerf asked me to join Sirius Thinking, where I worked for seven or eight years, and I’ve got two Emmys to show for it. Then I left to freelance and I’ve been freelancing ever since.

I was always a book writer, I became a script writer, I helped develop shows like Johnny and the Sprites, I wrote the last two planetarium shows. And as a part of my freelance work, I got a call one day from J.P. Leventhal, and he told me about the 40th anniversary book, and he asked if it was a project I’d be interested in writing. Because when The Works was done, I was pretty instrumental in the publishing division, rewriting it and getting it all together. So I said you betcha. I know they’ve tried to do it before and haven’t really been able to. There was Sesame Street Unpaved, which was a different kind of book, and I think they planned on a 25th anniversary book in-house, but it was very difficult. I think one reason why it was possible now is because of the perspective. The world is changing so much and Sesame Street is still here, and it demands a celebration. It took a long time to get the project off the ground and it took a long time to get it done.

TP: You have written books for more of the Muppet franchises than just about anyone: Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, Muppet Kids, Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss., Labyrinth. Did you have a favorite franchise to work with?

LG: I love Fraggle Rock, I really do. I mean, I love them all, but there was something about Fraggle Rock that was joyous and amazing, and the people were extraordinary. It’s really inspired other people. John Tartaglia was inspired by Fraggle Rock to do Johnny and the Sprites. It has extraordinary music, it’s such a wonderful show. And it breaks my heart that more people don’t know about it, and I know they’re bringing it back now in DVDs, and I’m hoping that they really promote it because. It was a show that was ahead of its time in terms of a broadcast situation because it was on HBO and HBO wasn’t big enough. And the only place where it became popular was that band between America and Canada, because all of the northern states could pick up the signal from CBC. So we’d get huge numbers in Buffalo of Fraggle Rock fans because they could get it on television.

The other one that was close to my heart was the Palestinian-Jordanian-Israeli Sesame Street co-production. It was an amazing opportunity to work with those people, and to do something to really make a difference. That’s where Gary Knell is really standing out now, and that’s where he’s dug his heels in, saying this is how we’re going to change the world. I think Joan [Ganz Cooney] really wanted to change the world when she began, but I think she was thinking of the American world. And very soon after it became the international world. So to be a part of international for Sesame Workshop was an additional gift. I worked for Jim Henson for 11 years and it was all amazing, I loved it dearly, but that was something that let you wake up feeling good every day.

TP: Going back to the books, how did it work when you’d get an assignment? Did you pitch ideas, or would you get a note saying “We need a book about Wembley”?

LG: I’ll tell you the story about the first book I ever wrote. I wrote over 100 books, some under pseudonyms. I wrote under “Emily Paul” and “Rebecca Grand”. Emily Pauline is my niece, and Rebecca Grand was my grandmother. I liked both of those names, and I thought they sounded sort of professional. Now I can say it since no one will care anymore. Anyway, what would happen was we’d make a deal with the publisher, and they’d say how many books they want and how many pages in each book. So you really started with a format, and you’d know the kind of book you’d want to do and the age range of the kids who will read it. I was going to write the first Fraggle Rock books myself because they didn’t give us any lead time, and the show wasn’t going to be on for a while, and it was difficult to explain to people what the show was going to be. I was involved in production, I was at the set in Toronto, I knew about the show. So we were going to do the first books in-house and then outsource the later ones. You don’t want to do them all yourself, because then you don’t get any interesting voices. But I decided for the first book I ever wrote for them that I’d write “What’s a Fraggle?” I love rhyme, I love Dr. Seuss, and I wanted to write a sort of funny explanatory book for kids, because I thought it was a good way to start the line. Very often I would talk to the publisher about the book, or I would talk to [editor] Jane [Levinson] about my ideas, but this one I didn’t. We had a meeting where Jane told us what the formats were, and I said I’d like to do a book about Fraggles. She said let’s try a book like that, and then I went back to my office and wrote it in five minutes and came back and said “You mean like this?” She thought I was out of my mind. I’m sort of hyper when I get excited, and I’m a very fast typist. But I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and it was basically published verbatim, just as I wrote it. I don’t think there was a single word change. Jane really liked it and the publisher liked it, but God knows not all books were like that.

The way it works is, if the order is for eight books, you’d look at them and say “Let’s do a general book with all of the Fraggles, let’s do five featuring the main characters, and a Doozer book…” and I did a “What’s a Doozer?” book too, and I thought that had a genius idea, that the way Fraggles start was that there was a lazy Doozer who at a lot and didn’t exercise, so he became bigger and bigger and eventually became a Fraggle. So it’s part of Doozer lore that Fraggles are basically useless Doozers.

TP: You also wrote a lot of the Muppet Kids books. Was that any more difficult because you didn’t have source material to pull from, like Fraggle Rock or Muppet Babies?

LG: We were very careful on Muppet Kids. If you work for the Muppets for as long as we did, you really know these characters well. There were always creative kickoff meetings for things like this where we’d talk about how it would work, who would these kids be, where would they live, what would they look like and how would they behave?

The first time I came on board, when I was working for Muppet Magazine, I was writing the Miss Piggy column. The way you write a lot of this stuff, especially when you’re not the character yourself, is you get the voice of the character in your head. When I first began to do that, I had a meeting with Frank Oz. Frank was very particular about Miss Piggy at the time, and he spoke to me for a couple hours about Piggy. He told me the classic pig’s beginning story, born on a farm, lots of brothers. He was extremely helpful to me, because he told me where he got her from and from where he derived this extraordinary character and all the things that sort of made her her. So you’d get to know these characters like you know your friends. And I may not have known my best friend when she was 15, but I know who she was when she was 15. The essence of a person is the essence of a person. You know that Piggy started out scrabbling the yard with all her brothers, elbowing her brothers out of the way so she could get her share of the food because she was smaller, so she had to learn to be aggressive early on. So you know the kind of kid she was in grade school, and you know the kind of kid she was in junior high. She probably never went to college, and she’s probably embarrassed by that fact, because she had to go out and earn a living… To know who a character is is everything.

TP: You wrote the Sing Along with Kermit and Friends tapes. How was it different writing for Jim Henson, rather than just his characters in the books?

LG: Luckily for me, Jim was comfortable enough with what I’d written to just read them. Jerry Nelson, who’s just the most talented puppeteer, voice artist, character builder, and just an amazing and wonderful guy, did Robin on a number of those and was just amazing. I’m trying to think if it made any difference, and the truth is that it didn’t. Whatever I wrote they had to like, as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t a matter of whether they were going to read it or if they were going to read it and say it out loud. It was a little confrontational emotionally for me when they did it, but it was also very pleasurable. I loved working with them, they were brilliant, and I just loved being among them. But the books were just as important to me to get right, and if I didn’t write my best and do my best to get the voices right, I wouldn’t have been doing my job. And because everyone was so incredibly supportive, it was such a joy to work with them, it never occurred to me to be scared. It was actually more fun and more joyous, and I think the reason why I moved from writing books to doing more production is because I get to work with more people like that.

TP: I know that there are a good deal of inside jokes in the Muppet books. Were you ever caricaturized in any of your books?

LG: No, not as far as I know. My name was occasionally used as a character, but not artistically. Although I did play Miss Preen in the National Lampoon Yearbook. If you go back and find Miss Preen the guidance counselor, that was me.
Many special thanks to Louise Gikow for chatting with us! Keep an eye out for Sesame Street: A Celebration of Forty Years of Life on the Street, due in stores this November!

Click here to ask What's a Fraggle on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: interview, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

How do most average schmos mark their 40th birthday? They might have some cake, get some crappy novelty gifts like a “40 Isn’t Old If You’re a Tree” t-shirt, and endure a lot of jokes about being over the hill. But Sesame Street is no ordinary schmo. It’s one of the greatest TV shows of the last five centuries, which is why it deserves a big fancy book like the brand-new Sesame Street: A Celebration – Forty Years of Life on the Street by Louise Gikow. That's a pretty long title, but then, Sesame Street is a pretty long street.

The first thing you’ll notice about this book is that it’s massive. It’s a coffee table book, yeah, but you might just have to get a bigger coffee table to accommodate it. And if you were to hand the book to a small child of Sesame Street-watching age, he would most likely wobble unsteadily for a moment before adorably toppling over. This is a good thing: The bigger a book like this is, the more comprehensive it's likely to be, and we've been waiting for a Sesame book that we can not only sink our teeth into, but devour hungrily, Cookie Monster-style.

The second thing you’ll notice about the book is that the pictures are amazing. Even if you’ve read the previous behind-the-scenes books, seen the various TV specials about the show, and downloaded Muppet Wiki directly into your brain, I gurantee you will come across pictures you’ve never seen before.

It’s just as well the book is too big for me to take on the subway, because I would constantly be disturbing my fellow passengers with exclamations upon seeing all these cool and rare photos. Hey look, it’s Brian Meehl in China, wearing Barkley's head and feet! Hey look, it’s a promotional shot of the entire Muppet and human cast having a huge party on the “Around the Corner” set! Hey holy crap, it’s a shot of Jim Henson trying on Bert and Frank Oz trying on Ernie at an early workshop session!

The third thing you'll notice is that the book is equally perfect for the casual fan and the hardcore geek. About half of it is all the expected stuff, like how the show got started, how Maria and Luis got married, yada yada yada. That's all well and good for most of the book-buying public. But those of us who know how to spell "Snuffleupagus" without looking it up need more, and this book delivers. There are sections about how the set is built, how the music is recorded, the cartoons seen on the show, the various studios the show has occupied... and there are lots of tidbits throughout the book that I never knew: Slimey the worm's voice is that of sound effects editor Dick Maitland! Caroll Spinney still uses the exact same monitor when performing Big Bird that he used in the first season! Bobby Payne performed Telly in his first appearance! And so on.

And consider the fact that by the halfway point of the book, Sesame camera operator Frank Biondo has already been mentioned, like, eight times. That's right -- cameraman Frank Biondo is a major character in the book, and that is awesome. These shout-outs come during the pages that describe production on recent and yet-to-be-aired episodes, which really make you feel like you're there. Louise Gikow was a great choice to write this book, as she’s more than just a casual fan, she's an insider, having worked with the Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop on numerous projects.

I was initially a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a 40th anniversary TV special, but now I think this book is actually better. At 300 pages, it can delve into a little bit of everything instead of just showing us the same old boring clip of Ernie singing “Rubber Duckie” again.

As I said, it’s great for both geeks and normal people, and anyone can pick up the book and either read it straight through from beginning to end, or open it to any random page and find something to love. If you get sick of reading, you can stick the bonus DVD in your DVD player and watch the show’s first episode. Sure, you’ve already seen it, but it’s always fun to watch orange Oscar yell at Gordon #1.

So this is a book for anyone, basically, who’s ever heard of Sesame Street. I'm so glad it exists, and from cover to cover, it reminds me how glad I am that Sesame Street exists.



Come back later this week for part two of our interview with this book's own author Louise Gikow! And click here to give Sesame Street a crappy novelty 40th birthday gift on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Labels: books, review, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

The release of the epic coffee table book Sesame Street: A Celebration of Forty Years of Life on the Street is on the cusp of showing up on your doorstep (y'know, assuming you did the smart thing by pre-ordering it on Amazon.com). Rather than wait patiently on the stoop for the mailman, we took this opportunity to sit down for a chat with Louise Gikow, the book's writer and editor.

Stop back around these parts later this week for part 2 of our chat with Louise, when we'll be talking about her entire career with the Muppets. But for now, let's learn a thing or two about her work on Sesame Street: A Celebration!

ToughPigs: Can you tell us about some of the research you had to do for the book?

Louise Gikow: I was very lucky because I was with Sesame Workshop, and I knew many of the people involved. Many of the puppeteers, a lot of the writers, we were in and out of each other’s pockets over the years, and I love them all dearly. So one of the things I did was talk to every person I possibly could on the staff. And really, that was most of the research I had to do. That and my own knowledge of everything. I knew Richard Hunt very well, I knew Jim, I knew Jon Stone. I did use the internet. I used, God bless you, your site and I used the Muppet Wiki a lot. And I have to say, it’s extraordinary what you guys do. I will tell you, people at the Workshop have gotten information about what the Workshop is going to do from you guys before they even knew it was happening. There’s a habit at the Workshop, it’s a very casual work environment, that when some people got hired, they didn’t even know they were hired until somebody mentioned to them a week before shooting, “Oh by the way, we’re sending you your ticket,” and it’s like “So I got the job?”

I had to use the obituaries, sadly much more than I wanted to. But the truth is that most of what I did was talk to people. And it’s ironic because some of my interviews will sound like interviews that have been done in the past because people tend to give the same interviews over and over again, but I got them from the horses’ mouths. I was lucky enough to work with Betsy Loredo, who is a wonderful editor, who did a tremendous amount of work on this book. We had a conversation years ago, and we both felt really strongly that we wanted the book to not be a tombstone on what maybe some people think is a show that is no longer being produced. And what I envisioned was pretty much what happened. That season, I went on set for many, many days, I’d get there before 9 and I left when everybody left, and I sat in a chair on the set, and I got to meet all the members of the staff that I’d seen but never got a chance to talk to, and I literally scribbled in my notebook constantly. I wanted to get a sense in the book about actual production. I wanted this to be a book that people who are interested in television production could read and get a sense of what the show’s production is about. I really wanted to pay tribute to the people on staff who were the unsung heroes, not just the puppeteers. The technical people, the lightning people, cameramen, and really make sure they all show up in the book.

TP: Did you collaborate at all with Michael Davis?

LG: No, that was a completely separate project, but I think we’re appearing on a couple panels together. Actually, I still have to read his book. I specifically didn’t read it because I didn’t want to be influenced by it. He was writing at the same time I was, and I really wanted it to be my voice and the voice of the people who were in it, and it was too close a timeline. But because the books were so close, I wanted them to be different. I really wish him the best, and I want his book to sell well, I want our book to sell well. I think if they’re different, they’ll support one another. I also think it’s great that he was able to express a different point of view and really go after a different aspect of the whole thing. It was more me staying out of his hair because he got his haircut first, so I can’t say he had to stay out of mine. When I first went on set, everyone said “I’ve already talked to somebody who’s doing a book.” And I said, “But you didn’t talk to me! Who is this person?” I didn’t know about [Street Gang], and neither did publishing because it was another division of Sesame that had given him access. But they got used to me because I just sort of sat around and was very nice and smiled a lot. I was very well-behaved.

TP: What were some of the most challenging parts of writing and editing the book?

LG: It’s probably more publishing stuff; I know you’re more interested in Workshop stuff. That part was not challenging, everybody was very generous with their time, everyone was really willing, the materials were unbelievably rich. The problem was that writing a book like this is chicken and egg. When I spoke with my editor, and knowing the Workshop like I do, I asked her how she wanted me to do it, because there is an enormous treasure trove of images and information and letters and memorabilia, but we didn’t know what they were yet. They weren’t accessible yet because we hadn’t begun the research process. Each chapter starts out with an on-set visit and something that relates to that chapter, either puppeteering or behind-the-scenes or licensing or whatever. That part I could write because it was fresh. But the rest of the book was based on things that we didn’t have available. Normally if you’re writing a big coffee table book on just about anything, you’d have the images already, and your writing would determine what images you used. I couldn’t do that because I never knew what images were available. So the biggest challenge was writing an entire manuscript of many hundreds of pages, and then completely rewrite it for the most part because of what we discovered. We wrote it first, and some of it stayed, but some of it was cut because we didn’t have images, but more importantly, more images became available and we had to rewrite to that. And up until the last minute, we were rewriting to things that were surfacing weeks before it was due.

TP: Did you have a favorite part of making the book?

LG: Talking to the people. I got a chance to meet a lot of people I’d heard about. Frank Biondo, Caroll Spinney I didn’t know well, a lot of the actors and actresses. But talking to everyone was so extraordinary. And having an excuse to spend four hours with Steve [Whitmire], who I never get to see. Spending a little more time with Matt Vogel, who I vaguely knew. Getting to know Joan [Ganz Cooney], who I had met but never really spoken with. I got to watch the older interviews done with the American Television Institute. I just loved it. It was one of the main reasons why I agreed to write the book. What a gift, to be able to spend your life near people like that. It’s like, how did I end up here by answering an ad in the New York Times? These are the greatest people. I work with geniuses, whatever that word means.

TP: What about your least favorite part?

LG: It had to be all of the people I didn't meet. What I’m talking about is all the people who I didn’t get a chance to talk to. I mean, office managers from 1979. I send my thanks to everyone who was involved, all the people I couldn’t talk to as well as the ones I could, because every single one of them left a bit of themselves in the company and on the show.

TP: Was it difficult to find a balance in the book between the old years of Sesame Street and the new?

LG: Not really, no. I didn’t feel that there was. I’d like to think that I did a good job at keeping it balanced. Clearly there’s an awful lot of early stuff here, but I wanted to reflect what production is like right now and how it has changed.

One of the things I really wanted to do, and this is specifically to you and to [the Muppet Wiki] and all the fans out there, but I really wanted to put at least one thing in the book that you didn’t know, but I don’t know if I succeeded because you guys know everything! Many of the images I’m sure you’ve never seen, but I hope there’s at least a point of view or something that you guys will really like. It’s you guys who have kept it alive in an extraordinary way, and it’s humbling to everyone at the Workshop, and we admire you enormously. And it’s why I always felt that there was a little ToughPig sitting on my shoulder saying, is it good enough, is it original enough, is it unique enough, will you like it?

TP: I’m glad we were involved somehow! Was there anything in the book that you wanted to be in it, but had to cut?

LG: The truth of the matter is that you can’t include everything you want in a book like this. I wish I could have acknowledged every single person. Another thing that had to get cut was a lot of the on-set stuff. There were an awful lot of funny lines and interesting things that I had to let go of. I wrote a book that’s probably three times the length of the one that came out. But there’s nothing specific, nothing that stands out as a hole in the book.

TP: Since you’re one of a few people who has really delved into Sesame Street’s 40-year history recently, is there an era where you feel like the show was at its peak?

LG: Not really, no. The truth of the matter is that there are peak moments throughout. For example, there’s a description in the book of Jim and Frank in a recording session doing Bert and Ernie, and some of it was scripted and some of it was ad-libbed, and what comes out on the screen is just extraordinary. A couple of those moments with the kids, like Jon Jon, are just amazing moments. The sad moments, like Mr. Hooper, and the reveal of Snuffy. I like to think the show is sort of like a life. As a newborn, you take lots and lots of pictures, but less as it gets older. But that doesn’t mean that graduations and jobs and so many moments through a person’s life aren’t as important. The entire 40-year arc for me is a highlight.
Click here for part two of our interview with Louise Gikow, where you'll see Louise talk about her career writing for the Muppets!

Click here to be the little ToughPig on Louise's shoulder on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: interview, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

In the next step to help celebrate Sesame Street's 40th anniversary, Sesame Workshop is teaming up with two of my favorite celebrities: Brooklyn, New York and libraries.

The Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza will be slewing a host of events (sorry, that's hosting a slew of events) through November, including the exhibit "Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street". The exhibit will run from November 14 to February 21, and will include Muppets and show props, scripts and sheet music, and photographs and animation cels. I heard a rumor that they might have Emilio Delgado in a glass case, but that's probably not true.

When the exhibit opens on November 14, the Brooklyn Public Library will hold a Family Fun Day, in which you can be among the first to see the displays and meet a real life walkaround Elmo! We don't have word yet if it will be Kevin Clash in the Elmo suit, but don't get your hopes up. Or get them up, what do I care?

On November 21, Bob "Bob" McGrath will be on hand to kick out a few jams for the kids (and the Bobketeers like myself, who will be standing in the back row). Bob's concert will start at 1:00pm.

Following Bob's operetta, Louise Gikow will moderate a panel discussion about Sesame Street's 40th anniversary and the upcoming book, Sesame Street: A Celebration. Panel members include Fran Brill, puppet builder Rollie Krewson, Bob McGrath, Carol-Lynn Parente, and Chris Cerf. Panel watchers will include me. The panel will start at 4:00pm on November 21.

To reserve your free tickets for the two events, call the Brooklyn Public Library at 718-230-2100.
Finally, all 60 Brooklyn Public Libraries will have limited edition Elmo library cards to dole out to budding readers. There are only 30,000 cards, so get yours fast! And if you don't want a new library card (or if you're one of those "non-Brooklynites"), they will also be giving away free Sesame Street bookmarks, coming in four different designs.

If you live near the New York area, be sure to stop by and see the exhibit! And if you attend the panel discussion, come say hello to your ToughPigs friends!
Click here to crack open a book on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: events, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Hey, did you see the Sesame Street special Families Stand Together, which aired a couple weeks back on PBS? It was scheduled for a Wednesday night, but then Barack Obama went and decided to talk about health care or some crap like that, so it got preempted on many PBS stations. What's the big idea, Obama? I thought you liked Sesame Street! Who do you think you are, anyway -- the prime minister?!?!


But heck, who cares? Only old people still watch TV on their televisions! If you haven't seen the special, you can click this link right here to watch it on Sesame Workshop's website.


So, the point of the show was to help families deal with financial crisis in the recession, so I can't make fun of it or I'd be a big jackass. (Although I have to say the title's not very memorable -- I keep calling it "Families Standing Up" or "Families Hanging Out" or "Families Falling Off the Monkey Bars.") And anyway, it's a very good special.

It's hosted by Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts, who are hanging out on Sesame Street on the day of the big "Community Market," which is apparently a fancy name for a flea market. I love that Elmo and Grover and Chris all act like Al Roker is their best pal whom they've known for years. There are many reasons I'd like to live on Sesame Street, but that's a biggie -- the fact that I'd automatically be friends with any celebrity guest who dropped by.

Speaking of biggies, Al Roker sure looks different since he lost all that weight, doesn't he? I can't help but feel like he's the wrong shape somehow... he's kind of like a Stretch Armstrong that's lost all its elasticity. I wasn't expecting so much Grover in this special, but it's great to see so much of him. He has some great, Grovery bits with Chris, as he tries to buy a community at the community market and looks for a job.


Meanwhile, Elmo's family has run into trouble: His mom has lost her job. And so, as we see in scenes interspersed throughout the special, they're making a few changes in their lifestyle and cutting a few corners. But that doesn't mean they can't have a good time as a family! You know, I have to wonder how much money they've spent on fish food for Elmo's goldfish Dorothy over the past 12 years. That's one old fish.

So then there are real, human families who are not as loveable as Elmo and his parents, but who have also found themseles in tough situations after losing jobs and such. I really don't know how a child might respond to all this stuff, but the dominant theme is always "It's going to be okay because we're still a family," which is nice without being too unrealistic. It wouldn't really do any good to tell them, "Soon we're going to be able to take that trip to Disney World after all!" because it probably won't happen, but telling them they're going to be okay is probably... okay. There's a song about that too, but unfortunately it was super-bland.


So, yeah. This was a good TV special, and thank goodness Sesame Street is around to do stuff like this (I was surprised to see that they got some help producing this show from Worldwide Pants, which is David Letterman's company. I always got the impression Letterman didn't even like Muppets!). Of course, it would be even better if the economy hadn't gotten so bad and they had never had to do this special in the first place, but for all the tickle hands and silly Elmo birthday DVDs, it's great to see Sesame still doing something so important.


Oh, but I just want to point out one thing: Toward the end of the show, the kids from one of the featured families are selling lemonade for 25 cents a cup. Al Roker pays them a quarter and takes a cup... and then Deborah takes a cup too, but they never pay for it! It's a hot cup of lemonade! THE ROKERS STEAL LEMONADE FROM FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING CHILDREN -- PASS IT ON!

Click here to update your résumé on the Tough Pigs forum!

Labels: review, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

As you may have heard, Sesame Workshop was recently forced to let 20% of their workforce go. It seems that not even Hooper’s store is safe from this economic downturn. While we sit back and hope that Elmo’s coworkers can all get back to work real soon, let’s do what we do best: Make fun of a situation we have no control over.

It seems to me that Sesame Workshop’s woes would all be fixed if only they had a bit more dough, more clams, more bread, more kumquats. And they’ve got a workshop full of puppets just lying around on pegs and in drawers. It’s past time they all get off their furry bums and earn a buckaroo or two for Sesame! Here’s a few ideas I’ve had that can totally work, for realz.
It’s almost April, and if the Sesame Street Muppets are anything like me, they haven’t done their taxes yet. So let the Count do them. That vamp knows his way around a calculator, and he’s bound to get a whopper of a refund, mostly because he knows that cookies are tax deductible.
Ernie pulls the greatest scam ever, in which he releases Twiddlebugs into people’s homes, and then gets hired to exterminate for a nominal fee. Man, that idea is so good, I might do it myself.
Let Telly Monster enlist with medical research to test anxiety pills.
Start finding new sponsors for each episode. Maybe part of Sesame’s money problems lie with the funders: the letters and numbers. I’ll bet the umlaut or the ampersand has a marketing budget, and I’m sure they’d love the opportunity to be read aloud by Trash Gordon.
The Two-Headed Monster can get a job translating at the United Nations. Hey, if Nicole Kidman can do it…
Two words: Group baths. Then again, the money they’d save on the water bill would have to be spent on superhuge bathtubs.
Have Grover donate some of the money he’s made in his 97 different jobs. According to the Muppet Wiki, he’s been an actor, baker, bus driver, camp counselor, clerk, concession monster, chauffeur, conductor, construction worker, dancer, furniture deliveryman, doctor, daredevil, detective, dog walker, elevator operator, farmer, fast food worker, flight attendant… you know what? Just read the Wiki article. Grover lives with his mommy, so you know he’s living rent-free. And he doesn’t have to pay for clothes, so where’s all those paychecks he’s been saving?
Start selling real estate in Elmo’s World. The only downside is that Elmo would have to be your landlord, and I have a feeling he doesn’t know his way around a broken toilet.
Oscar doesn’t need money; he lives in a trash can.

Meanwhile, we at ToughPigs will keep on writing about Sesame Street in any capacity, helping to give the show more viewers and letting them know about the great merch that’s out there, which will hopefully keep money going to the Street we all love, and help to get some of those lost jobs back.

Wondering how else you can help? Donate to Sesame Workshop by clicking here!
Click here to give us your Muppety money-making ideas on the ToughPigs forum.

Labels: Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

This is part two of a two-part write-up of last Friday's Sesame Street panel discussion in New Jersey. Part One is here.

I also want to point out the latest edition of the MuppetCast, in which host Steve Swanson gives a detailed account of the other panel that happened before the panel on Friday night -- it was a session just for teachers. You can listen to that podcast by clicking here, or by subscribing to the MuppetCast via iTunes.

Now, let's see, where was I? Ah, yes. Michael Davis asked Fran Brill about Zoe, and moments later Zoe herself appeared onstage. I could tell right away something was different about her... From the balcony, she looked like more like a Zoe doll than the usual puppet. Sure enough, the puppeteers revealed that after a smaller Zoe was built for her role as the Dormouse in the Abby in Wonderland video special, they liked it so much they decided to use it for season 40 as the actual, real, official Zoe.

Fran Brill said it felt right to her for Zoe to be smaller, but I gotta say, I'm not convinced. What's she going to look like standing next to Elmo now that she's suddenly two-thirds of Elmo's size? But Fran said they've had kids visit the set and they don't seem to notice... which prompted Bob to point out that "We had three Gordons, and they never noticed!" That got a big laugh. Go, Bob.

Do you think he'd mind if I call him Bob? I feel like I know all these people well enough to call them by their first names in this article, with the possible exception of Tony Geiss. Somehow he seems like a last name guy.


Pretty soon Davis asked about Telly, and he too emerged from his duffel bag. As it turns out, Marty Robinson is incredibly funny, and Telly was very loud, nervous, and hilarious. After doing a bit about the fact that he had been stuffed inside a plastic bag, Telly insisted (loudly and frantically) that he's not neurotic, and that Marty is the one who's not normal -- there's a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on there.

Telly was completely freaked out by li'l Zoe. "She's a SHADOW OF HER FORMER SELF! Look at little homunculus Zoe! We used to be married! Now she's TOO YOUNG! Life on Sesame Street is REALLY WEIRD!" It's just too bad they'd never let Telly do the same rant on the show.

Davis asked Kevin Clash about Elmo, and Kevin briefly told the story of Richard throwing him the Elmo puppet with a command to give it a voice, a story we've heard many times before. Or anyway, I've heard it many times before. I had to remind myself a few times during the panel that not everyone in the audience was a Muppet fan, and in fact some of them were Normal People hearing these time-worn anecdotes for the first time. It was a good thing, though, that Kevin soon brought out Elmo for some improvised banter with Davis. Except I was so mesmerized I forgot to write down anything they said.

Next came perhaps the most inspired part of the whole evening: Michael Davis presented the Inside the Actors' Studio questionnaire to Oscar and Elmo. As expected, they answered very differently. Here's how it went:

What is your favorite word? Elmo: "Happy." Oscar: [Pause, mug to the audience.] "It's not happy!"

What is your least favorite word? Elmo: "Sick." Oscar: "Six? Did he say six? I was gonna say seven."


What turns you on? Elmo: "A great big hug." [The audience went "Awwww," and Elmo replied cynically, "Oh, come on! What did you expect from Elmo?"] Oscar: "You really wanna ask me that question? She's sitting right next to me." [Maria! Oscar totally lusts after Maria! After years of sexual tension, the truth comes out!]

What turns you off? Elmo: "People being unhappy." [Again with the "awww," and Elmo's resulting exasperation was wonderful. He can't help being sweet! He's trapped in a world of cuteness!] Oscar: "Happiness."

What is your favorite naughty word? Elmo: "Poopy." [You could sort of sense that the wheels in Kevin's head were turning as he tried to come up with something funny that wouldn't be too unacceptable for Sesame Workshop standards, and "poopy" falls somewhere within those boundaries.] Oscar said, "You better not ask me that." Which doesn't indicate anything specific, but it just sounds funny, doesn't it?

What sound or noise do you love? Elmo: "A baby laughing." [More "Awwws" from the audience, and Elmo threatened to leave.] Oscar: "You don't really want to know." Which was the same answer as the last question, but somehow it was funny again.

If Heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates? Elmo: "He would say He wants a big hug." Oscar: "How did YOU get here?!"

Then it was time for questions from the audience. It's always a crapshoot when you let people from the audience come up and ask unrehearsed questions at events like this, because you never know what kind of weirdos you have in the audience. Way too many of the question-askers felt the need to preface their questions with lots of details about their lives and their careers and their interest in puppetry. I mean, it's great that you want Maria to know your name, but she's already forgotten it 10 seconds after you ask your question. The questions, more or less:

Q: Is Linda Bove still on the show? Bob answered: No, she hasn't been for a few years. He's not sure why she left, but it might be because of the smaller episode count per season these days. She's lives on the west coast, where she's still involved with the Theater of the Deaf, so that keeps her busy.

Q: Has there ever been a study to determine what the world would be like without Sesame Street? [This one wins the prize for Most Impossible to Answer Question of the Evening.] Everyone on the panel kind of stared at each other silently until Marty spoke up: They tried, but there was no control group.

Q: For Frank - How do you come up with character voices? Before he answered, Frank said he wanted to talk about Richard, which he had not done earlier. He said Richard had a greater sense of "childlike abandon" than any other performer, and he always rooted for the underdog. Frank told a story from The Muppet Show days when the performers were all in a car, and the guy ahead of them threw a pack of cigarettes out the window, and Richard got out and yelled at him. Anyway, to answer the question, Frank said he's not a voice person, but rather the voice comes from the character instead of the other way around.

Speaking of voices, here Kevin talked about the time when he was working on Dinosaurs in Los Angeles and he would talk on the phone to his daughter on the east coast. She would often ask to speak to Elmo, and with the time difference he sometimes found himself at 5:00 in the morning trying to get his Elmo voice warmed up. (He demonstrated the result, which somewhat resembled Elmo after smoking his own pack of cigarettes.)

Q: For Frank - Is there a major shift required going between producing work for adults to working for children? Frank said, "This might surprise you, but I've never directed or performed for children." So basically, that's two questions in a row that Frank answered by negating the question, which is awesome. He said Jim's philosophy was not about separating children from adult sensibilities... He never talked down to the kids in the audience, which is what happens when you try to write "for children."


Q: For Frank - a question about Cookie Monster's healthy eating habits. Frank pointed out that they've been doing that with the character occasionally for years, but he said he doesn't buy it (and here the audience applauded). He thinks "kids are smarter than that," and seeing one character who only eats cookies isn't going to inspire them to only eat cookies for their entire life. Similarly, he thinks it's silly when people complain about Cookie Monster saying "Me" rather than "I," because no kid is going to grow up to be a lawyer and say, "Me want to represent you."

At the time, I had this thought: Ooh, what if Tony Geiss was the one who wrote "Healthy Food" or "A Cookie Is a Sometimes Food"? And Frank basically just dissed those songs with Geiss sitting right there! But I just looked them up on the Muppet Wiki, and Geiss wrote neither of those. Oh well.

Q: (From Tough Pigs forum member Chris Stultz!) For Frank - Does he miss performing? Frank said that more than anything, he misses working with the other performers, his "brothers and sisters." He did remark that that morning he had performed for the first time in two years, which is intriguing. Was he taping material for the new season of Sesame Street?

Q: Could Frank say something as Miss Piggy? I wouldn't have blamed Frank for just growling at that guy, but he answered simply: "I'm not going to do that," explaining that the characters are too important to him, and he does not use them like party favors. It would have been fun to hear Frank do some of his character voices, but I was just as happy to see that he was exactly as Frank Oz-y as I hoped he would be. But what if somebody had asked him to say something as, say, Prince Charming from the "Sesame Street Newsflash" sketches? Is that character important to him?

Q: For Caroll - Oscar started out orange. Why did he become green? I'm not 100% sure I wrote this down correctly, but I think Caroll said it was Jim's idea to make him green. The first green Oscar was seen on The Flip Wilson Show. Caroll arrived at the studio, opened the box containing the puppet, and was shocked to see this green thing sitting there. When one of the producers (Dave Connell maybe?) saw it, he said, "We have to change him back!" but by then the Flip Wilson stuff was ready to air and it was too late.

Q: For Frank - Has he ever thought about writing his autobiography? (The guy asking started by saying something like, "I'm begging you," and it sounded for a second like he was going to plead with Frank to do the Miss Piggy voice, which would have been pretty awkward.) Frank said, "I've thought about not writing it." He's a private guy, and he'd rather do new work than talk about work.

That's understandable, but man, it sure would be great if he would just dictate everything he remembers from his Muppet career. He also said that while he realized most of the questions during the Q&A session were coming to him, he wanted everyone to realize that Jim Henson was "the guy," and everything the Muppets did came from him. You can't argue with that.


Q: From nine-year-old Tough Piglet Emileigh: She started by explaining that she's nine years old, almost ten, and she's been watching Sesame Street for about 10 years now. That is adorable and brilliant. She's seen some of the newer characters like Abby, but what happened the older characters like Betty Lou?

Fran answered: Betty Lou has an interesting history... In the early days, they had two very similar little girl puppets, Prairie Dawn and Betty Lou, and they were occasionally mistaken for each other. Eventually, aspects of Betty Lou's character "morphed" into Fran's Roxy Marie character, and later, elements of Roxy Marie "morphed" into Zoe. They now have about 10 main characters that they focus on in most episodes, which means they can't devote screen time to every minor character.

At this, Marty chimed in to say that they have a "Dead Muppet Wall" in the green room, featuring all the failed characters. I'd like to see that for myself, and pay my respects to Elizabeth.

Q: How heavy do the puppets get? Marty answered: Snuffy's the heaviest, Slimey's the lightest.

Then they got onto the subject of Jon Stone, whom Frank referred to as "the Father of Sesame Street." He recalled when they were doing a scene, just messing around and having fun, and Frank asked, "What are we teaching?" to which Jon replied, "It doesn't matter!" Kevin said Jon was great with children. Manzano noted that Christmas Eve on Sesame Street was one of the purest expressions of Stone's spirit.

Q: For Caroll - What happened to Bruno the trashman? Caroll first explained that Bruno was inspired by something he saw on The Gong Show: a large, walking clown puppet pushing a baby carriage, with the puppeteer inside the carriage. The puppet builders wanted a way to get Oscar out onstage for live appearances, so Caroll came up with the idea of Bruno as a way of making Oscar mobile. Bruno was a man of few words, as it was hard to manipulate his mouth while also puppeteering Oscar.

A few years ago, Caroll asked the producers why they never use Bruno anymore, so they took him out of storage, but he had dissolved, and it would cost 20 grand to build a new one, so that's it for Bruno. $20,000 for one Bruno? Dang, that's a lot of money. It seems to me all you'd really need was a puppet head, puppet hands, and a uniform with a big hole in the middle, but I'll go ahead and assume that Caroll Spinney knows more about his job than I do.

Q: For Frank - Is it true that you were originally supposed to be Big Bird? Frank said no. The guy asking the question was like, "Are you sure? 'Cause I'm pretty sure you were." Frank said it was possible that Jim had the idea that Frank would play Big Bird early on... Frank hated playing large characters, and Jim liked torturing him by making him play those characters, but he never was going to be the bird. So there you go.

Q: How did they get Elmo to ride Snuffy? Kevin described how they actually had him inside the puppet with Marty and Bryant Young, who performs Snuffy's back end, and the camera avoided showing Snuffy's bottom half. Zoe's done it too, and Kevin and Fran agreed that the inside of that puppet between Marty and Bryant is not a fun place to be.

Then time was up. Michael Davis thanked all the guests, and we gave them a standing ovation. I want to point out here that normally I hardly ever participate in standing ovations, as I think they've become too commonly used for performances that are merely good but not great. Often I'll find myself the only person in my row not standing at the conclusion of a show, because I'm that curmudgeonly... but this time, I was one of the first people to rise, because if anyone deserves me standing up, it's the Sesame Street people. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to know they have my approval.

I don't suppose Sesame Street will last forever. But for one television show to be so important, and so beloved, and still so great, inspiring a concert hall full of people of all ages to stand up and applaud so whole-heartedly, even after 40 years? Well, I think that's pretty good.

I'm sure there's a ton of little bits and pieces that I left out, so you should really
click here to drop by the Tough Pigs forum to read the memories of other audience members, and to give Sesame Street a standing ovation of your own.

Labels: books, events, Muppet performers, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Last Friday night, an event took place which I'm pretty sure was the coolest thing that's ever happened in New Jersey.

They called it "Sesame Street at 40: A Night of Celebration and Discovery with the Legendary Cast," and it all went down at William Paterson University. A ton of grown-up Sesame fans were there, including a large handful of Tough Pigs forum members. This was lovely, because as terrific as the panel discussion was, it was a special bonus feature to get to spend time with so many fine Muppet fans, some of whom I've known in "real life" for a while now, some of whom I was meeting for the first time.

I'm going to tell you all about it now, and hopefully I'll get this posted before someone inevitably posts a video of the entire thing somewhere, thus rendering this written account completely moot. I hate being moot. I will, however, sprinkle in a few stealthily recorded video clips posted by a member of the audience.

The first person onstage was Tommy Shi. Tommy Shi! I couldn't believe it was really him! After all my years of watching Sesame Street, I never thought I'd get to see Tommy-- wait, who? I don't know. Some kind of guy from Mercedes Benz, apparently. I'm not really sure why he was there, but it's a good thing he was, because he introduced Street Gang author Michael Davis, who in turn introduced the eight people we paid 45 bucks to see: writer Tony Geiss, Bob McGrath, Fran Brill, Marty Robinson, Kevin Clash, Sonia Manzano, Caroll Spinney, and Frank Oz.

I don't think I'm alone in saying that, while I was excited about seeing all these guys and hearing their stories, it felt extra-special to have Frank Oz on the panel. He tends to be a pretty reserved with his Muppety memories -- as is his right, of course -- so I was particularly psyched to see his bald head. He was also rocking a fairly magnificent scarf. David Rudman was originally advertised as being on the panel too, but for some reason he didn't appear and wasn't even listed in the program.

Michael Davis kicked things off by asking everyone about their early days on the show. He asked Frank about the genesis of Bert and Ernie (prefacing the question by asking whether it's more correct to say "Bert and Ernie" or "Ernie and Bert" -- the consensus was "Bert and Ernie"; personally I've always used them interchangeably), and Frank talked about how, during the workshopping process, they initially tried Jim as Bert and Frank as Ernie until they realized it was more natural the other way around.

Next, Caroll Spinney talked about evolving Big Bird from the dumb, goofy fellow from the first season to the lovable, giant kid he is today. He said when he sees the first episode now he finds it "embarrassing."

Sonia Manzano said Maria was created as a response to complaints from the Hispanic community that there were strong African-American characters on the show, but no Hispanics. She talked one the earliest scenes she did -- It was with Grover, and she was watching Frank instead of the puppet, until finally Grover said, "Stop staring at that man!" She also mentioned an early scene with Big Bird -- She was feeling nervous, and Big Bird said: [and here Caroll jumped in and did the voice to finish her sentence] "Don't worry, Maria, just remember that behind that camera there are millions of people watching you."

Manzano recalled that Maria initially ran a library on the street, and over the years the character went from being a teenager to a bit of a hippie to a feminist, and eventually became a wife and mother. It's a pretty impressive fictional biography... Not many other TV characters have gone through so many phases of life in "real time" like that.

Kevin Clash talked about watching Sesame Street as a kid for two reasons: Because he liked the show, and so he could study the puppets to try to figure out how they were built. (When I was a kid, I watched the show for half of the same reasons.) Kevin's favorite character is Grover, and when he said this, Michael Davis launched into his "Grover as middle child" theory. If you've seen any of the publicity Davis has done for his book, you've heard the theory, in which he claims that Grover is a middle child because he tries so hard at everything he does in a desperate attempt to be noticed. It's an interesting thought, but it doesn't explain why Grover was my favorite back when I was first an only child, then an oldest child. In those days, Grover, as far as I was concerned, lived under my bed. What does that say about me?

Marty Robinson said he's been on Sesame Street since he was 28. Instead of starting out performing right hands for years and years, as is the tradition for newcomers, he was given Snuffy quickly. He now believes his first eight years as Snuffy were pretty terrible, which, if my math is correct, means he started getting good around 1988. He said there was a hazing process on the show, and that puppet builder Kermit Love in particular loved torturing newbies. He didn't elaborate on that thought, which is unfortunate, or possibly fortunate.

Fran Brill explained how she became an Muppeteer: She was doing work as a voice actor when she saw an ad stating that Jim Henson was training new puppeteers for a Christmas special (The Great Santa Claus Switch), so she called the company and talked to Jim on the phone himself. (Can you imagine? As Davis suggested, that's like calling Disney and talking to Walt. Heck, it's like calling Kellogg's and talking to Tony the Tiger.) She said she'd like to record voices for the special, but he told her they didn't really do it that way -- puppeteers do their own voices. She went to the puppet training workshop, got cast in the special, and ended up on Sesame Street. It was striking for her to work with Will Lee (Mr. Hooper) on the show, because he had been her acting teacher. I never knew that, and it's a great story, but having read Street Gang, it's amazing at how many little coincidences like that there were among the cast and crew of the show in the early days.

Bob McGrath talked about how being on Sing Along With Mitch led him to superstardom in Japan (Thousands of teenage girls screaming, "Bobu! Bobu!"), and how he decided he'd rather pursue a singing career in the States, which eventually led to his being cast on Sesame Street. He also had some funny stories about working with Ralph Nader doing "The People in Your Neighborhood" for The Sesame Street Special. Nader had trouble memorizing his lines, Nader insisted on singing "the people whom you meet" instead of "the people that you meet," etc. It's a good thing Nader didn't audition for the role of Bob.

Next, Michael Davis asked Tony Geiss about writing for kids, and Geiss replied that it's "impossible," so instead they write for people. He went on to describe how the writers are given a list of curriculum needs every season and they choose items they want to write about. For the environmentally themed season 40, he picked the word "hibernation" from the list and wrote a script about Baby Bear's family attempting to hibernate.

So all that stuff was fascinating and informative, but the audience really perked up when Caroll unzipped his duffel bag and pulled out Oscar. Oscar brought the house down every time he was on, leering at Sonia Manzano and doing his usual "I hate being happy because it makes me miserable, but being miserable makes me happy, but being happy makes me miserable" shtick, which is somehow still entertaining even after the millionth time. There was some discussion about how Maria and Oscar have a unique dynamic on the show, and Caroll took advantage of the opportunity of a grown-up audience to make it clear exactly what's at the root of that dynamic: "Maria, I just have one question," Oscar said. "So why'd you marry Luis?!"

The whole event was dedicated to the memory of Richard Hunt, and it was around this time that the discussion turned to Richard and his amazing talent. Manzano pointed to Gladys the Cow's song "Proud to Be a Cow" as one of his best performances, and Tony Geiss said the character of Sully proves that Richard was a great actor. They ran a video of the Forgetful Jones "Oklahoma" sketch and the Don Music "Mary Had a Bicycle" sketch. The audience absolutely loved them, and it was fantastic to watch them with an auditorium full of people cracking up. In fact, I would pay to attend an event consisting of nothing but screenings of Richard Hunt sketches. I can imagine that the "Cookie Monster tried to get cookies from a library" sketch with Richard as the librarian would get a huge response. If you're reading this website, you probably agree that Sesame Street is one of the greatest comedy shows in the history of television, and Richard was one of its funniest performers.

Geez, I still have pages and pages of notes left on this thing. This seems like as good a time as any to take a break. Come back tomorrow (or simply click right here) for Telly in a plastic bag, Michael Davis as James Lipton, questions from the audience, and the astonishing debut of Tiny Zoe.

Click here to comment on Richard Hunt's greatness, or anything else in this article, on the Tough Pigs forum!

Labels: books, events, Muppet performers, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Coming up after these messages is part two of our chat with "Street Gang" author Michael Davis! Be sure to click here and read part one, or else you'll be horribly, irrevocably lost. Continuity is king!

And in case you haven't been reminded enough, Michael will be appearing TONIGHT (that's Friday, January 30 if you're reading this late) with lots of famous Sesame Street alumni (including some folks by the names of Clash, Spinney, Manzano, McGrath, Robinson, Brill, Rudman, Geiss, and one Mr. Frank Oz) at William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Click here for more info, and if you're already attending, be sure to say hi to the ToughPigs, who will be attending the heck outta this thing.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled interview.

ToughPigs: Aside from the interviews, what sort of research materials did Sesame Workshop provide you with for the book?

Michael Davis: A lot of tape. And you probably know, all of Sesame Workshop’s paper archives up until about 1976 are at the University of Maryland. Whatever I needed after that point, they tried to provide if it was still available. So if there was something specific that I wanted, I had to know exactly what to ask for. They didn’t give me the key to the filing cabinet. But to their great credit, whenever I had a question, it got answered. If I wanted a document or a letter, they found the letter. They were very professional about their assistance to me. And because Joan was interested in the project and gave it her blessing, they were doing Joan’s bidding. She’s the boss of bosses. Nobody wants to let her down. I can think of no time when I was turned down for anything.

It got a little sticky when it came to finding photographs for the book. Because as you know, they’re very interested in creating their own book, and needed to have a proprietary sense about holding on to some of those images, and I understood that. But their reluctance was actually a plus, because it forced me to think about what I could get for this book that they likely won’t go after. And the answer became evident to me, that we should ask the sources in the book if they would consider providing images from their personal collections. I had a wonderful photo researcher work with me named Vashti Anderson and between the two of us, appealing to sources in the book, we were able to get over 50 images which, I think have a real intimacy, a real kind of family feel to them. They’re pictures you would probably see framed in somebody’s house. Some people were a little reluctant. Loretta Long, a little. But God bless her, some of the images she gave us were the best of them all. We could have done a whole book of Bob McGrath images. He and his wife Ann have done a wonderful job of collecting personal mementos, archives, photographs. He had so much great stuff, it was such a hard choice to narrow it down. People were wonderful, and because they were so generous, it gave a very different feel to the collection of photographs. Originally we were just going to have 20, but when Viking saw what was coming in, they’re the ones that said “No, 50.”

TP: I mentioned in my review, my only complaint about the pictures was that I wanted more. If you got 20, I wanted 50. If you got 50, I wanted 500. Are you planning on making the images available elsewhere?

MD: Yes, StreetGangBook.com. To my regret, we didn’t end up using any pictures of Matt Robinson. I want to do something nice about Matt on the site, and soon, because I have a couple of great Holly Robinson Peete stories that I didn’t get to use. I wanted to create content on the website for people to come back to. I haven’t done a lot yet, but I wanted it to be a place where I can update content every once in a while and write some more about Sesame Street. There’s so much to write about, even the current stuff. I thought the season that just ended was just superb. I love the animated Bert and Ernie, I thought that was great. It’s presumptuous, but I think Jim would love it.

He was so techno-savvy. I don’t think Jim ever thought the characters were too precious. That’s why I did so much in the book about Burr Tilstrom. People ask me why I did so much; it’s because Burr created a very different model about how he felt about those characters. He didn’t want any commercialism at all. He didn’t want a Kukla and and Ollie in the stores. He felt that there was only one Kukla and one Ollie and those were the puppets on his hands. He felt that they had a soul and a life of their own. Jim didn’t, he kept the puppets in a plastic bag, he didn’t think that they were alive. He knew that the performers were the ones that gave them life. I’m not saying Burr Tilstrom was off his rocker, he just came about it from a different angle with a very different belief about these characters and what they represent. He could have been a gazillionaire. I’m old enough to remember Kukla, Fran and Ollie on television and they were it. They were it for a while. They could have been in every five and dime, every drug store, every toy store, but he didn’t want it. And then here you have Jim who went about it carefully, cautiously, but he was interested in making money from the characters. Why? Because it gave him the freedom to do the things he really wanted to do like the Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. He wanted to expand and make sure that the people who worked for him made a good wage. It’s two different ways of looking at the world. It’s so true to say that Burr Tilstrom influenced Jim in a profound way. We don’t know when it happened, but we do know that the light went on in Jim’s head about the way that these characters are represented through the lens of the camera and how they’re projected on the screen and how they have dimensionality and shape and form. One of the reasons he knew that was because of Kukla Fran and Ollie.

TP: Regarding Caroll Spinney’s reading of the audio book, did you have any influence in getting him? Was that your idea?

MD: ((Nods yes)) He was really up for it. Right from the start when I got the first call from Viking that Listen and Live bought the rights to the audio book, my first words were “I want Caroll Spinney to read this book.” If it can’t be me, I would want Caroll. I think my persistence helped. I said that if anybody is concerned about the hint of New England accent in his voice, get over it, because within five minutes it will melt away. I think the world of Caroll Spinney, and it was such a thrill to listen to him read the book. To be in the studio and to do that interview with him and to hear him read the words that I pecked out on my PC, it was an out-of-body experience. (Note: The audio book is also available on iTunes, where you can hear a sample of Caroll's reading.)

TP: For people like me who bought the book in its first printing, if there will be extra chapters in future editions, will we get a chance to see them or will they be exclusive to those printings?

MD: I’m going to put everything up online. I have spoken to Viking about refreshing the book for its release to paperback and doing a chapter that updates the book and brings us right up to this year as the 40th anniversary approaches. I haven’t gotten anything that solidly promises that I can do that, but it’s something we’re discussing. I don’t want to ever make it like I’m trying to steal any thunder from the book that’s coming out this fall from Sesame Workshop, because they need their day in the sun too. If I’m allowed to, I’d really like to update the book because so much has happened and is happening. I think they’ve done some really interesting things in the last two seasons. I like Murray a lot and the Word On the Street idea. I realize that one of the great challenges of educating preschoolers and getting kids ready for school these days is their spoken vocabulary as well as their written vocabulary. Introducing kids to words now is so very important, and I admire what they’ve done for the show toward that end. I have no qualms whatsoever about Abby Cadabby. I think she’s adorable.

TP: I agree, I love Abby. And Leslie Carerra performs the hell out of her.

MD: She is magnificent. She’s hilarious, she’s adorable, she’s talented to the Nth degree. And they finally have their female star. I’ve read all of the contrary reviews about Abby and I don’t want to belittle it because I know it incurs the wrath of feminists that there’s this princess character in pink that reinforces what they believe is this kind of stereotype and an unfortunate target for young girls to reach for. But I’m old enough to see that everything in pop culture is a cycle, and we’re into that cycle of princesses again and little girls who desperately want to be in dresses and tutus.

It’s always a marriage of great writing and performance. If you didn’t have the great writing for Abby, she’d be shallow and a dud. But Abby grew out of the mind of the writing staff, Tony Geiss’ brain, he’s the one who gave birth to Abby Cadabby. It didn’t come from the marketing department, it came the old fashioned way. Abby didn’t spring forth fully formed, she evolved and they played with her a bit. The first season was good, but the second season was better. That says to me that they’re wrapping their arms around this character, creating a real persona, a real personality with depth. I think she’s hilarious and I love the situations they create for her. They’ve got to stay in business, and the competing forces in the marketplace are profound. This is the golden age for preschool television. There’s great stuff on Nick, there’s great stuff on Disney, there’s great stuff on Discovery Kids. Sesame Street ain’t the only game in town anymore. They’ve got to fight, they’ve got to make themselves known, they’ve got to continue to move merchandise in the stores, and I’ll say that with my support. Because the money that comes in not only supports the domestic show, it helps to keep propagating the ideas of Sesame Street around the world, and I buy into those ideas. I think it’s very good, what they do, and unless somebody shows me an example of a degrading Sesame co-production that’s wrong-headed or promotes cultural stereotypes, I’m going to keep saying that it’s a good thing. It may be the very best ambassador that the United States has out there in the world, and I’m for it.

TP: Regarding Jon Stone’s memoir, is the Stone family actively trying to get it published? Because I’d love to read it.

MD: It’s my dearest hope that it will be published someday, and I’ve mentioned it to [Stone’s wife] Beverly and I’ve mentioned it to [their daughters] Polly and Kate, and I have offered my assistance to them if they want somebody to help edit the book and get it ready for an agent to look at or a publishing house to look at. I do think there is a long section of the book toward the back that has a little too much anger and vitriol in it. I don’t think anybody really wants to hear it. I think it was extremely cathartic for Jon to get it out of his system, but I don’t think anybody wants to read it. If you surgically removed that, what you have left is this magnificently funny, moving, poignant insider look at not only Sesame Street but the early days of television, and it really is such a window into his psyche, into the mind of this great creative person. He’s very tough on himself, he doesn’t project himself as this wonderful guy who has no flaws. To the contrary, he writes about his challenges, about getting along in the workplace, he doesn’t come across as this guy who had all of the answers all of the time. He does come off as somebody who really appreciated women, women in the workplace. He has wonderful things to say about Bob Keeshan and his term of service on Captain Kangaroo. I really hope the world gets to read the book some day because it’s that good. I feel privileged for having had the opportunity to read it and quote from it, and I thank the Stone family over and over again for allowing me to do so. It was a real extension of trust for them to allow me to do that, and I hope I did not let them down in any way.

TP: The story of the production of Sesame Street starts about halfway through "Street Gang". With 40 years worth of production history to fit into about 200 pages, how did you choose what to cut?

MD: It was very hard. A smart person told me at the beginning of the project that I should have no more than seven major characters, so that helped me a little bit. I had to make decisions on what would keep the narrative moving. I also wanted to make sure that the people that I felt after doing the years of research who didn’t get as much credit, I wanted to make sure that the book would give them their due. So, Dulcy Singer. Lloyd Morrisett. Richard Hunt, I found his story to be so moving. I love his characters. Gladys, I love. I love Placido Flamingo and the Two-Headed Monster. His characters always spoke to me in a profound way. Oh, how could I leave this out? How could I leave out Sully and Biff? Genius, Sully and Biff.

TP: I don’t know any other character who could perform a silent character as well as Richard.

MD: And there’s a linkage there to Beaker. I really wanted to write more about that. I had a passage about Beaker and Stan Laurel, because I think they’re the same character in a lot of ways. And Beaker is genius.

TP: When we asked Steve Whitmire about performing Beaker, he said, “I can’t tell you exactly where that character came from, from within Richard, because I just don’t know.”

MD: My wife and I talk about this a lot, about the interior life of Beaker. We know his soft spots, we know what makes him happy, we know what makes him quizzical. It’s very hard for a puppet to do a comedic take, but Richard could do it. I talked to Caroll Spinney just the other day, and I asked him how he was able to make Oscar look chagrined and embarrassed when Sonia pulls him out of the can. Because he does, he shrinks. That’s just talent. These guys were master puppeteers. For all the things you can say about Frank and Jim, for all of Jim’s talents as a producer, director, performer and on and on, there was a point in our cultural history when he and Frank were the two best puppeteers anywhere. And if that was all they ever did, that would be enough. It’s very hard for me to watch Ernie and Bert’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” duet in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. It makes me so sad, I just couldn’t watch it this year. Because what it always brings me back to is that it can’t happen again.
Special thanks to Michael Davis for taking the time to meet with us, and double special thanks for writing a book like "Street Gang"!

Click here to discuss this article on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, interview, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

I hope you all bought this semester's required reading, Street Gang by Michael Davis. If you haven't there's still time before I give you a big fat F. And if you have, then you probably have some questions for author Michael Davis (aside from his recommended questions for book clubs). Well, you're in luck, because we at ToughPigs had the unique opportunity to speak to Mr. Davis and ask all of those pesky questions that have been keeping you awake during nap time.

And just a reminder, Davis will be moderating a panel discussion this Friday, January 30, at William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey celebrating the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. Panelists include a few folks you may have heard of: Frank Oz, Kevin Clash, Caroll Spinney, Sonia Manzano, Bob McGrath, Marty Robinson, Fran Brill, David Rudman, and Tony Geiss. The event will also have a special showcase celebrating the life of Richard Hunt. The ToughPigs will also be in attendance (not on stage, unfortunately), so keep an eye out for us and feel free to say hello! Click here for more info on the event.

Special thanks to Michael Davis for being supercool and making the time to chat with us. Take it away, interview!

ToughPigs: I’m sure all of our readers on ToughPigs are jealous over just about every person you got to interview for the book. Some of the more notable names, like Judy Collins, James Earl Jones, James Taylor, how were you able to get those interviews just to talk about one specific subject with them?

Michael Davis: I started with a polite letter explaining my purpose, and in some cases I had to give them a bracketed amount of time like, “I have to talk to you sometime this spring.” I do think that in most cases, publicists were very helpful. Having a contract with Viking definitely opened doors. And I would also just say please and thank you. What I found was, in every case, every case, people opened up tremendously about the show, about their experiences. They wanted to contribute to this book, wanted to share their stories. Judy Collins, goodness gracious, she talked about her battle with alcoholism. She said Jon Stone gave her a reason to live. James Taylor gave us that wonderful riff about how Sesame Street prepares children for the real world and doesn’t wrap it in cellophane. They all felt kind of a sense of duty to tell their story, their experience with everybody. And even those who sadly didn’t get into the book, I wanted to keep the book to less than 400 pages, there are a lot of wonderful people who gave me their time and with the website, over time, present their stories. Norah Jones is one of them; she was fabulous. So many of the celebrity guests had great stories to tell. More than you can capture in a book. There’s a tremendous sense of pride that celebrities have for being on Sesame Street. They feel honored. Some of them approached rather gingerly, like Johnny Cash. He really did say, “May I please come with my son?” And they said, “Of course! Will you sing?” So I didn’t have that many barriers to cross with people once they knew that I had a contract and this was something real, and I know that a lot of celebrities called the Workshop to ask if I had their blessing. Then I sent thank you notes right away, I sent them progress reports about the book, I tried to keep a line of communication open with everybody.

TP: Likewise, you were able to talk to a lot of family members like the Hunts and Raposos. Was there any hesitation in asking them on your part, or were they already open to talking about their family?

MD: There wasn’t any hesitation on my part, because what I tried to do was to learn as much as I could before approaching them, so I wasn’t going in there and asking vague questions. I came to them with specific questions about their dad or their husband. Some people expressed a little bit of hesitancy, and just like the celebrities, some of them called the Workshop to check on me, but I have to say, they were incredibly helpful, forthcoming, the interviews took on a kind-of intimacy, we cried a lot, we laughed a lot. I took my wife Debra with me on a lot of them, and she was another set of eyes and ears for me. She picked up on a lot of things that, because I’m male, I would not have picked up on them. So it was really like having another reporter there, and because she came with me, she got to be in the presence of these great people.

TP: Who were some of the more fun or interesting interviewees you got to speak with?

MD: We’ve already talked about him, but I’ll mention him again. I’m such a big James Taylor fan. I think he is one of the great singer-songwriters in history. I think he is to our time what Stephen Foster was to previous times. Also right at the tippity top was Bernie Brillstein.

TP: It’s so great that you got to meet him before his unfortunate passing.

MD: For me, he’s the real deal, and I was honored to be in his presence. His office could have been an airplane hangar. It was the biggest office in Beverly Hills that I have ever seen. He was this big, rotund man behind a desk you could land a helicopter on. Photographs and posters on the wall of all of his successes. In his career, if he did only what he did for Saturday Night Live, that would be career enough for most people, but Bernie did so much more. There was no hiding his love for Jim, and he cried a lot in that interview. And I think he felt, until his dying day, a tremendous regret for not being on top of what was happening on the week that Jim died. It tortured him. I know that they weren’t separated by age in that many years, but he took on a more paternal role with Jim as his son, and I really do think that Jim’s death was not unlike when a parent loses a child. And I put that interview right at the top, because it was so moving and so real and so funny. If there was a Mount Rushmore of comedy, I would put Bernie there.

Jerry Nelson, what a great man. I told Jerry when I met him, “You’re a Beatle!” For people who love The Muppet Show, he’s it! Dave Goelz, I flew out to California to be with him, and it was one of the very best days of the project. He’s an astounding person.

TP: Dave Goelz only worked on Sesame Street a couple of times…

MD: That interview was more about Jim and that ensemble. But it was really worth it. And you could see how they were a band of brothers. I’m very fond of Fran Brill. She gave me so much, just a great interview. Stephanie D’Abruzzo, who I think is one of the funniest women I’ve ever heard. These people are to be celebrated for their talent, for their virtuosity. And because they work with puppets, in some people’s eyes they’re seen only as “children’s performers”. They’re satirists, is what they are. I have such an appreciation for their talent, for their imagination, their bond. That we all could work in such an environment, wouldn’t life be so much better?

And then I would have to say, meeting Grover was very emotional. I was on set for a taping, and I just think it’s uncanny how an artist has channeled Frank’s characters like Eric Jacobson. It’s not just a representation. It’s almost eerie how great he is. So, there I am in the studio, and there’s Grover messing up Fat Blue’s order again. And Jerry Nelson was there, voicing Fat Blue but not performing him, and it gets done and everyone on the floor gives Jerry a standing ovation. All the carpenters and technicians, Frankie Biondo on camera. We’re all wiping away tears, because he’s Jerry! And they begin to clear away things, and Eric is still on stage with Grover, so I begin to very gingerly walk forward. Now, I’d been on this project already for four years, and this wasn’t the first time I’d seen the puppets in action, it was the first time I’d seen Grover in action. I’ve been with Elmo and Bird a bunch of times, but there’s something incredible about being in Grover’s space. I know that he’s my favorite of the Muppet characters, and I believe that Grover is of special interest to second-born children. We had that thing happen that happens to a lot of people with the Muppets, you buy into it. You drop your sense of disbelief and you’re in the moment with the character, and the puppeteer drops away, Eric wasn’t there, and we had a conversation.

TP: What did you talk about?

MD: Television. (In a Grover voice) “Tell me about TV Guide!” (note: Michael Davis is a former editor for TV Guide) I asked him some questions about being a waiter. He said some really funny things, but I didn’t have my tape recorder. He said “What I really want to do is act.” (Laughs) So, here’s my view about Grover. Grover, of all of the Sesame Muppets, is the greatest teacher. If you look at the clips, those stick in the heads of kids. Some of the characters might be hard to get, especially with the complicated characters like Forgetful Jones, but Grover, because he’s so direct and so earnest, and because he wants so much for you to know what he knows, he’s a great teacher. And of course, he’s an extension of Frank. And I can’t tell you how great Frank was to me in the five years of making this book. I just count it as one of the most fortunate things that’s ever happened to me. I shared with him what I learned over the course of the project, because I felt that he above everyone would tell me the truth and tell me if I was off course or if I had something really, really wrong. Not only about Jim, but about the whole deal of the studio, the early years, the characters, where they came from, the motivation. There’s a bluntness about him, he can be very direct. I shared a lot with him and he was great, providing me with a lot of the feedback I needed. So I owe him a huge debt. And if I sweated anything about the book, I sweated, “Will Frank respect this book?” If I wanted to reach anyone’s standards, I wanted to reach Frank’s standards.

TP: Was there anyone you tried to contact that you couldn’t meet for an interview?

MD: No. The only people I wanted to talk to who I couldn’t are no longer on the planet. There were so many days when I’d say, “Oh Jeff Moss, I need to talk to you!” Actually, I have to correct myself. Michael Eisner didn’t talk to me. I tried very, very hard in writing, phone calls, I know his speech writer very well who helped me make an appeal to him. I come from the school of journalism that says you don’t try to take a whack at somebody without giving them the opportunity to hear what you have to say and respond to it. I tried everything to get his attention and to get him to consider it. And after he said no, I tried to change his mind, I didn’t take no for an answer. I kept going back to him saying, “Would you please reconsider? Would you accept ten typed questions, written by me, faxed to you?” So I regret that he didn’t talk. It’s easy to criticize him, and he was a punching bag for a lot of people. I didn’t want to be part of that punching bag brigade. I presented what I believe to be a true, factual story about the tug-of-war between Eisner and Jim and Joan Cooney, but it would have been so good to have his voice in the story. All that being said, I don’t harbor any bad feeling for Eisner, and I would still love to talk to him. If he called me tomorrow and said, “Alright, I read your book and I want to talk to you,” I’d tell him that his words would be in the second printing of the book or the paperback version, and I still hold out hope that he will.

TP: If I meet him, I’ll let him know.

MD: (Laughs) Please.
Click here for part two of our chat with Michael Davis where you'll hear about the audio book, Abby Cadabby, and the Holy Grail that is Jon Stone's memoirs.

Click here to visit the Mount Rushmore of Comedy on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, interview, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

There’s a great story out there; someone just needed to tell it. Well ok, it’s been told before, but why haven’t we gotten that story with all the sordid details?

That’s what we’ve been saying for years. Sure, we’ve gotten the general Sesame Street origin before: Joan Ganz Cooney wanted to use the previously bad-for-kids medium of television to teach kids, hired Jim Henson and company, and created 40 years worth of history. But not many people have bothered to get into the nitty and gritty of the story. Until now. When someone did. Get the nitty.

TV Guide’s own Michael Davis did his homework (which consisted of over 200 interviews conducted over the last 5 years) and wrote the comprehensive history of Sesame Street in his new book, Street Gang.

But we don’t just get the history of Sesame Street, we get a thorough history of children’s television (including enough info on Captain Kangaroo to warrant its own book) and the stories of the most important people involved, including Joan Ganz Cooney, Jim Henson, John Stone, Jeff Moss, Joe Raposo, and some other people whose names start with the letter J.

The prologue starts the book on a surprisingly depressing note. Our tale starts with Joan Ganz Cooney attending Jim Henson’s funeral. It’s a fresh viewpoint on a story we’ve all heard many times before, and it successfully gets the reader emotionally involved before we read anything remotely related to television development and production. Davis shows us right away that for as many uplifting effects the story has, there is just as many upsetting. Street Gang is bookended with stories about death, as the end of the book deals with the inevitable passings of Jeff Moss, Jim Henson, Joe Raposo, Jon Stone, Northern Calloway, and Richard Hunt. As a Muppet fan, I’m sad to revisit this part of Sesame history, but I’m ecstatic to see their stories written with the brutal honesty they deserve.

If you have at least a passing interest in the history of children’s television, then the first half of the book will be like a triple malt sundae to you. It’s compelling, thorough, and it reads as if Michael Davis leaves no stone unturned. Even if he mentions someone mundane like the Kukla, Fran and Ollie cameraman, he’s going to give you a quick bio on him before moving on. Thankfully, Davis is able to do this without sounding like he’s meandering or losing the point of the story at large. I found this portion of the book to be very intriguing, but there’s just one small problem: You might not.

Although there’s more raw information in those first 150 pages than you can shake a stick at (assuming you’re one for stick-shaking), there isn’t much about Sesame Street or the Muppets. And let’s face it, you’re probably on this site in the first place because you’re a Muppet fan. Or because you’re my dad (Hi, Dad!).

There are some great bits in the first half of the book involving Jim Henson and Jon Stone, and lots more that set the stage for the premiere of Sesame Street, but if you bought this book because it’s got a big picture of Oscar on the cover, you might only really start to enjoy the book in the eleventh chapter.

Thankfully, that eleventh chapter starts with the preparation of the pilot episode, and that’s when the book gets a big shot of vitamin M. Throughout the second half of the book, we get interviews with just about every human cast member and puppeteer, we live through their glory years as the invincible children’s television machine, we get hit with the sudden competition of Barney and Sesame’s subsequent format changes, we witness the unfortunate downward spiral of Northern Calloway, and best of all, we see that after 40 years, Sesame Street remains the leader among children’s programming. It’s a wonderful rollercoaster ride, and my only complaint is that I wish there was more.

The book also contains a few pages of photos, most of which I haven’t seen before. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing pictures of Muppeteers with the puppets on their hands. My favorite by far is a picture of Bob McGrath in Japan, surrounded by Japanese teenagers waiting to get an autograph with “Bobu”.

Needless to say, I think Street Gang deserves to sit on every Muppet fan’s bookshelf, right between your copies of The Works and Sesame Street Unpaved. It will be the book we go back to regularly to confirm the details of the Sesame trivia we’ve memorized, and it will fit into the rotation of books we re-read every few years, along with Caroll Spinney and Kevin Clash’s autobiographies.

Street Gang will be released on December 26, and I recommend that everyone wait in line to get your copy at your local Barnes and Noble overnight as if this were the new Harry Potter book. I can’t imagine a more fulfilling way to spend your Boxing Day. Or click here to get a personalized bookplate for your book, signed my Michael Davis himself.

And don’t forget, Caroll Spinney’s reading of the audio book will also be available on December 26.
Click here to see a list of Street Gang tour dates, along with additional info.

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Labels: books, review, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

"Street Gang Activity"? What a terrible title for this article. It sounds like a rejected "Before and After" on Wheel of Fortune.

For years, the Muppet fan community has been hoping and praying and wishing and complaining and whining for an extensive, academic book encompassing the history of Sesame Street, along with lots of behind-the-scenes stories and photos. Man, did they listen or what!?!

Coming out this Christmas, "Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street" will hit shelves. The book will contain information gathered from over 200 interviews conducted in the last 5 years, and will most likely mention Muppets once or twice in passing. Author Michael Davis has been kind enough to offer up some information to us at ToughPigs about the book and some events surrounding its release.

There will be a book tour soon after the release, which will hopefully have some Sesame faces attached. The last of the confirmed dates is the biggie: on January 30, at William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, Michael Davis will moderate a panel discussion with Kevin Clash, Caroll Spinney, Sonia Manzano, Bob McGrath, Marty Robinson, David Rudman, Tony Geiss, and the one and only Frank Oz. The evening will also include a tribute to Richard Hunt. Tickets are going fast, so reserve yours right now. Go! This article will wait for you while you enter your credit card information.

The other confirmed tour dates are:

Monday, January 5, 2009
Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble, New York City

Tuesday, January 6, 2009
National Press Club, Washington DC

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Harvard Coop, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Saturday, January 10, 2009
Greetings and Readings, Hunt Valley, Maryland

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
University of Pennsylvania Bookstore, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Gershman Y, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Friday, January 30, 2009
William Patterson University, Wayne, New Jersey

From what I hear, many people in this country don't live on the east coast (s'matter with all of you?), so to make it up to the folks who won't be able to attend any of the signings, Michael Davis will send a personalized, peel-and-stick bookplate that can be pasted into your book. All you'll have to do is buy your book during the holiday season and you'll get the signature for free! What a sport, that Davis guy is.

One book that I make sure to revisit often is Caroll Spinney's "The Wisdom of Big Bird." Partly because it's a great book for a rainy day, but also because it's one of the few books to actually share these great behind-the-scenes stories from the early days of Sesame Street. For some reason, Caroll never recorded an audio version of the book, but as luck would have it, he agreed to read the audio book for Street Gang. That's a whopping 7 hours of Caroll in your head! Jim Dale, eat your heart out.

For more information, keep an eye on this space, as we'll have a review of the book up next week. Also, in early January we'll have an interview with Michael Davis himself. And there's always Street Gang's official website, which has the sole purpose of making us foam at the mouth in anticipation.
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Labels: books, Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop

Panwapa. It sounds tasty, doesn't it? Well, you can't eat it. But the good news is that it's a new Sesame Workshop venture and it has Muppets in it! Panwapa (the name comes from a word that means "Here on this earth" in the Tshiluba language) is designed for kids aged four to seven, and its goal is to encourage "global citizenship" and a general awareness of the big ol' world out there. That's a pretty tall order, but if anyone can do it, Sesame Workshop can.

The show will debut on PBS Kids Sprout (which is available as a digital cable channel and video on-demand) in a few months, and there's already an official website and an episode available for free download on the iTunes music store: Just go to the iTunes store and search for "Panwapa"... and then a few days later, you'll get a receipt showing that you paid $0.00 for it. (Just don't be a wiseguy and ask for a refund.) It just so happens that I am a child aged four to seven, so I decided to check out what Panwapa has to offer.

Mashed Potatoes

We're living in a glorious golden age of free, legal video downloads, aren't we? For absolutely no cost, you get no less than 48 minutes worth of brand-new content. Such a thing never existed until the internet age! Um, unless you count broadcast television, which has been around for 126 years now.

But wait... is this show called Panwapa or Panwapa Island? The bouncy theme song (which mostly consists of a guy singing the word "hello" in about 20 different languages -- original lyrics by the Lonely Planet Tourist's Phrasebook, apparently) talks about "Panwapa Island," but the title screen just says Panwapa, so that's what I'm going to call it. If you have a problem with that, I encourage you to write a letter to your Congressperson.

The show has a whole new cast of Muppet characters, most performed by veteran Sesame Street Muppeteers, so there's a comforting feeling of familiarity even though this is not actually a Sesame thing. It's like if you cooked up some homemade mashed potatoes from your beloved grandmother's old recipe, eating them would make you would feel all warm and happy like you were at your Grandma's house even though you weren't. I guess what I'm trying to say is, Panwapa is mashed potatoes.

Monsters Are Scary... or Are They?

As the episode begins, Azibo the monster (performed by Kevin Clash) is very excited because he's just arrived at his new home on Panwapa Island. We later learn that Panwapa Island doesn't have a permanent location -- it floats all over the globe, which is pretty cool. I picture it drifting around the ocean, bouncing between South America and Africa like the square in an epic game of Pong.

The first person Aizbo meets on the island is Koko the penguin (performed by Leslie Carrera), which makes sense. If there's one thing the Muppets have taught us, it's that penguins are perfectly comfortable in any climate. Ah, but Koko has never seen a monster before, so at the sight of Azibo she becomes black and white and FREAKED OUT all over. Koko runs aways screaming.

Azibo next attempts to introduce himself to Bill the bug, who is also terrified, and Tungar the tiger, who immediately drenches him with pepper spray. Okay, that last part's not true, but Tungar flees in terror just like the others.

You know, I get that this whole story depends on the fact that the Panwapans are afraid of Azibo the first time they see him, but it's kind of hard to accept because he's such a cute, fuzzy, friendly thing. I like his lime-sherbet fur and the way the little hairs sway when he moves his head. I'm not afraid of him; I want a plush toy of him to put on my mantel (just as soon as I get a fireplace). On the other hand, I think I'd be mighty frightened if I ran into a tiger or a giant talking bug , but maybe I'm thinking too much. Maybe.

Listen to the Owl

Fortunately, that's when Athena the owl shows up, and she explains what's going on just as Azibo is ready to say, Stop the island, I want to get off. Athena tells Azibo, "They've never seen a monster before, and what you don't know can scare you." Ah, now I get it. And it makes sense... I don't know anything about trigonometry, and it scares the crap out of me.

Athena encourages Azibo to try again to make friends with everyone. She gives him a pep talk. "Show me some monster pride -- puff out your chest, lift up your head, pound on your chest, hop on one foot! Perfectly prideful!" Then she convinces him that "Just because you're a little different doesn't mean you can't be friends." Athena is a feathered fortune cookie. Say... isn't it a stereotype that owls are wise? Doesn't that kind of go against the whole non-judgmental mission of this show? Ah, forget it -- I don't think anyone gives a hoot about offending owls anyway.

Azibo tries again to be friendly, and this time it works! So there you have it, kids -- if the other boys and girls on the playground won't play with you, just keep asking until you wear them down. They will become your friends and will by no means make you eat paste. So then everyone sings "We Can All Get Along," which I assume is an original composition. There are other songs later in the show, and they all have similar themes about tolerance and community spirit.

The message of "People can get along even if they're different" is a good one. It's one that Muppets taught us 20 years ago on Fraggle Rock, and it's been used on Bear in the Big Blue House and Sesame Street. But apparently it hasn't sunk in yet, because we still need Muppets to remind us. Maybe this time we'll learn.

We Come From France

After this, Azibo shows everyone his "Panwapa card" and then Athena shows us hers (Her favorite animal is a cat. Shouldn't it be, like, live mice?). The cool thing is that you can make your own Panwapa card on the website. Here's my Panwapa Kid with his own customized Panwapa coat-of-arms. I'm interested in cats and tacos! Do you like my hat?


And then there's a filmed segment with two little girls from France telling us about their trip around the world. Nothing says "entertainment" like looking at some strangers' vacation pictures. But this seems to be the structure of the show... You get a story about the Muppet characters, and then you get a segment about some real kids from various countries. It's sort of like if Sesame Street were half Global Grover, half street scenes, and no counting to eleven.

I've only talked about the first ten minutes so far. The rest of the show follows the same pattern, but I'll let you discover it on your own (for free!). I haven't told you about the Panwapans enountering snow, or playing in a public domain song cover band, or Azibo naming a nonexistent new nation after himself... heck, I haven't even mentioned the three other characters... they're SHEEP!

After watching the free episode of Panwapa I felt like running out and making friends with everyone in the whole wide world, even if they speak a different language or have different traditions or wear T-shirts with really stupid slogans. I guess my only real criticism was that it could be funnier... It just didn't give me as many hearty, well-earned chuckles as the average episode of Sesame Street.

I don't know exactly how they're planning to present this show on TV -- they could just as easily run it in fifteen minute bursts or in a compilation of segments like the iTunes download -- but I'm guessing not a lot of people are going to see this show on Kids Sprout, which probably has a lot fewer subscribers than, say, the Sumo Wrestlers' Macaroni Art Shopping Network. But I hope they get the chance to keep up the good work and maybe expand the world of the show a bit. And then they can get around to making that Azibo doll for my mantel.

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Labels: other Muppet/Henson shows, Sesame Workshop