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

Back in May, MacFarland Publishing released Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives of Jim Henson’s Muppets, an academic anthology using the Muppets as the stock in their smartypants soup. Some of the essays relate directly to the Muppets (for example, “Gonzo, (the Great) Cultural Critic”, which analyzes and compares the methods of Gonzo and Sam the Eagle), while some use the Muppets as a gateway into a larger issue (for example, “The Uniquely Strong but Feminine Miss Piggy”, which studies Piggy as a non-stereotypical woman). In any case, this is the kind of book that seems to be written specifically for us: the Muppet fanatics who have nothing better to do than overanalyze the films and episodes we’ve seen dozens upon dozens of times.

I must admit, when I first heard about this book, I (selfishly) wondered why we at ToughPigs weren’t contacted to contribute. I mean, we write about Muppets every day. Wouldn’t we have a unique perspective, not to mention an overabundance of research materials, to crank out an essay or two? But two pages into reading the first article gave me my answer: I am not nearly smart enough to write an academic essay. These 16 writers do have the chops, which do a great job at covering both the Muppets as well as the issue at hand.

One blatantly absent part of most of the writers’ research was one for which they can’t be blamed. Aside from the readily-available films, they mainly focused on episodes from the first three seasons of The Muppet Show, which are not-so-coincidentally the only ones out on DVD. A few episodes from the Time-Life releases are cited, but two-thirds of the series is all but ignored (thankfully, the Muppet Wiki serves as a reliable source for most of the essays). There’s nothing we can do but blame Disney for not hurrying up and getting these DVDs out, but this might serve as a glaring omission when re-reading the book after we’re all more familiar with seasons 4 and 5.

Because this is an academic anthology, I expected it to be rather heavy (content-wise, not weight-wise… try saying it like Marty McFly), and it didn’t disappoint in that regard. The fact that this review is coming out over a month after its release might give you some idea of how long it took me to get through it. Some articles dragged on to a painful degree, with an overabundance of five-dollar words and unnecessary elaboration. The worst culprit of this was Hugh Davis, who wrote “The Muppets and Shakespeare.” Now, you’d think that an essay comparing The Muppets and Shakespeare would be fascinating, but instead it reads like a list copied from the Muppet Wiki of Shakespeare references in Muppet productions stretched out to 10 pages. Go ahead and click on the link above to the Wiki's Shakespeare article. And now you’ve read everything Hugh Davis had to say.

On the other hand, some of the articles are rather compelling. “The Muppet Show Re-Forms the Fringe” by Anissa M. Graham (who also served as one of the editors) illustrates the different ways guest stars would interact with the Muppets. Some were in on the chaos, some were victims of the chaos, and some invited the Muppets into their own chaos. It’s an interesting way to categorize the episodes, and Graham did a fine job at keeping it interesting. Likewise, Ginger Stelle’s “Starring Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit: Muppets as Actors” discusses the idea that the Muppets are actors unto themselves, as opposed to puppets who can become anyone the puppeteer chooses. Both of these subjects are exactly the kind of thing I (and presumably, my fellow fanatics) would obsess over after a few too many viewings of the Alice Cooper episode.

Eagle-eyed ToughPigs readers might recognize one of the authors as being our own Andrew Leal. Andrew has guest-written for ToughPigs, and he serves as an administrator on the Muppet Wiki. Of course, since I know Andrew personally, I was deeply afraid that it might not be good, and because we’ve got a reputation for being jerks, I’d have to be honest and say so. Thankfully, Andrew’s article, “Muppets and Money” (which serves as the caboose to the anthology train), is one of the highlights of the book. He took a subject that could very well have been another list of facts about the Muppets’ history with economics and turned it into a quasi-narrative about how Jim funded his career, as well as money’s role in the fictional universe of The Muppets. Nice work, Andrew, and we’re happy to have you on our team!

At the $35 asking price for "Kermit Culture", I’m hesitant to recommend it, because I’d say only about 50% is worth the price of admission. For the uber-fan like myself, it’s a must-read. For the casual fan, it’s your call. For the casual fan who happens to be a college professor who might use the book as a textbook, you should have ordered yours yesterday. The bottom line is: Nothing pleases me more than the fact that an academic anthology all about the Muppets exists.
Click here to visit McFarland Publishing's website where you can order Kermit Culture.

Click here to discuss this article to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance" on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, review

In honor of Sesame Street being old enough to be your mom, Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers is releasing Sesame Street: A Celebration, a 304-page hardcover book with 1,100 photographs, loads of behind-the-scenes materials, and a DVD (just in case reading just isn't your thang). Not just that, but the publisher provided ToughPigs with some sample pages of the new book! And we'll do with those pages what we do with everything: Put it online for the entire world to read. You are most welcome.

Sesame Street: A Celebration is due in stores in November, 2009 and will retail for $40.

Click here to discuss 40 years' worth of Sesame Street on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, Sesame Street

Back in November, Hyperion Publishing released Pepe the King Prawn's first book, It's Hard Out Here For a Shrimp. As you may or may not remember, I gave the book a not-so-pleasant review. Oh, why mince words? I thought the book stunk. Literally. It actually smelled like Pepe.

Pepe's book was only the second Muppet book of a series (preceded by Kermit's Before You Leap, published by Meredith Books) that will someday fill a bookshelf of book spines that will be looked at, but rarely removed. The latest in the series is Miss Piggy's The Diva Code: Miss Piggy on Life, Love, and the 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do. To be honest, it was difficult to read this book with the prior knowledge of what came before, but if anyone knows how to bounce back from failure, it's the Muppets.

The first thing I did when I received the book is flip through and look for pictures. The image on the cover is pretty, and thankfully not recycled from another production (as far as I know). However, the images inside the book are black-and-white reproductions of old poser photos. And not even the good kind of old (read: frizzy-haired Piggy, giant hat Piggy, etc.), but recent pictures that hold exactly zero nostalgic feelings. At least the Pepe book had some new cartoony illustrations. But I digress, this is a book containing words, and nowhere does it advertise that there will be photos at all. Let's see how the wordy part measures up.

Miss Piggy provides her own introduction (for who else would be able to give her a proper fanfare?), followed by "A Note About the Typeface". These are the only portions of the book written in conversational paragraphs, which makes them the most enjoyable parts of the book. Especially the typeface portion, because let's face it, nobody cares about typeface, especially a Diva.

The next section delivers on Miss Piggy's list of 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do. Aside from the overuse of striking through the word Men, this part was actually, dare I say, funny. It's not hilarious, but I admit, I squeaked out a titter or two. Naturally, Piggy only makes it through 42 of her promise of 10,000 tips, which elicits a complaint from Kermit the Frog (who has apparently been transcribing this whole time), at which point the Frog quits and leaves Piggy to her own machinations. Unfortunately, when Kermit leaves, so does the quality.

The remainder of the book reads just like Pepe's. Every page has between one and four one-liner jokes (leaving a lot of white space), and though some are clever, few of them are funny. The main difference between the two books is that Pepe's book is all about how men can be deceiving, manipulative, and selfish in a relationship, while Piggy's book is all about how women can be deceiving, manipulative, and selfish. The content gives me little faith that anyone, myself included, has any idea how to coexist with the opposite sex (whatever the species).

The most unfortunate part is that there is a perfectly good book "written" by Miss Piggy, all about life, love, celebrity, and dealing with your frog. The book is called Miss Piggy's Guide to Life, written by National Lampoon founder Henry Beard. Guide to Life takes advantage of the brilliant mind of Beard, the inspiration of Frank Oz, and the amazing photography of John E. Barrett to create a genuinely funny, yet practical book that captures Piggy's voice as well as your full attention. As much as it pains me to even hint at not supporting new Muppet merchandise, I suggest you search online for a used copy of Guide to Life and purchase it in lieu of The Diva Code. Sorry, Jim. Sorry, Mom.

But don't take LeVar Burton's word for it; here's ToughPigs' own Brad with some thoughts of his own: The Diva Code should have just been called "101 Miss Piggy Jokes" (and, aside from a 3rd grader, who sits down to read a joke book?)... I feel the writing is perfectly in-character and that Pepe and Piggy’s voices are spot-on, but I see these books and ask “what’s the point?” and “who’s the audience?”. Maybe you can get more enjoyment out of the content of these books if you tear out each page, fold them up, and bake them into Chinese cookies; or take the various one-liners and Photoshop yourself some creative Muppet posters or T-shirts around the funny slogans. I don’t expect to see anyone sitting down with a nice glass of wine to read through the pages of The Diva Code and there’s never going to be a book club (or even a book report) that covers It’s Hard Out Here For A Shrimp. They just aren’t that kind of book. It's a shame.

Well said, Brad. And that begs the question: Who is the audience for these books? Joke book enthusiasts? Desperate self-help seekers? Or are we, the die-hard Muppet fans, this book's core audience, and I just told you not to bother buying it? Sorry Hyperion, but you've got to do better than this.
Click here to discuss the 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do on the ToughPigs forum!

Labels: books, review

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

So, Pepe wrote a book. He took one of his seventeen tiny little hands, held an even tinier littler pencil, and jotted down his most personal inner thoughts. Of course, this isn't true (Spoiler: He's a puppet). Jim Lewis gets the "As Told To" credit on the title page, although this is his only mention, as his name doesn't appear on the cover and he doesn't get an "About the Author" blurb. Poor Jim Lewis. But I guess it serves him right, since he keeps letting Muppets tell him things.

Let me start with the title. It's a joke referencing a song about someone who rents out their employees for sexual favors. Well, cover him with fleece and he's already a Muppet! I'm as much in favor of risque humor as the next guy, but it's hard to know where to draw the line when it comes to material being marketed toward kids. Does this cross the line? Probably not, but I can't help but think about that whenever I look at the book. Now, if Pepe decided to go into the whoring business himself, maybe I'd forgive it for the autobiographical issue.

The book starts with an introduction by Kermit the Frog. Kermit's his old wacky self here, but if you stop to think about it, Jim Lewis also wrote Kermit's shtick. So here we've got an introduction by the same author. It wouldn't be a big deal to most people, but it quickly becomes anticlimactic once you put two and two together. I guess that's the trouble you get into when you're making a book written by fictional characters.

Immediately after Kermit's introduction is Pepe's foreword to the book. The foreword is written like conversational Pepe, which helps to hear it written in his voice (the rest of the book is not conversational, more on that in a bit). Here, Pepe introduces us to the guy we'll be reading about: he's greedy and womanizing and Spanish and edible. There's a bit with potential where he begins to tell his life story: "Born off the coast of Malaga, Spain, I was discovered by a casting agent on a fishing trip. This happened, then that happened... The next thing you know, I am meeting the very famous Kermin the Frog." Well, so much for that. Maybe we'll learn something new about him in the next book.

And that's where the entertaining part ends.

The rest of the book is split up into broad categories (money, friends, work, fashion, etc) for which Lewis wrote a series of one-liners. There's one or two on each page, leaving a lot of empty space. Even leafing through the book at the bookstore, you'd be able to tell that you're getting a lot of ink-less paper for your dollars. Even the money-grubbing Pepe would tell you that's not a good deal.

The book is small and short. It's only about 150 pages long, and if you read slow, you'll get through it in about an hour. It took me the better part of three days, because I grew very sleepy trying to weed through all of the "Okay"s and "Kermin"s.

The jokes are mediocre, but better than I thought, considering my expectations of both a Pepe book and a joke book. It's far from laugh-out-loud funny, but clever enough to avoid eye-rolling. I think the material would have worked much better if the book was written in the form of a narrative. The presentation made me feel like someone said to Robin Williams, "Ok, so you're a crustacean talking about polygamy. Go!"

Because everything is written from Pepe's perspective, none of the advice is actually good advice. That puts this book in a different category from Kermit's recent books, "It's Not Easy Being Green" and "Before You Leap," both of which double as an entertaining Muppet romp and an inspirational gift for high school graduates. Therefore, I can't figure out who the audience for this book is. It's not funny enough for the joke book crowd, it's not uplifting enough for the self-help people, it's not kid friendly enough for the young 'uns, it's not small enough for a stocking stuffer. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one in the demographic, and I've already got mine.

I'm guessing that Pepe's opus was only written for one reason: to have a book to sit in between "Before You Leap" and the upcoming Miss Piggy book, "The Diva Code." There are a lot of completists out there (yours truly included) who might want one of each of the series. And while that's a little sad for those of us who will get this book and never bother to open it, it might give hope that a book by Fozzie or Gonzo or Statler and Waldorf or Crazy Harry might be around the corner. Though hopefully they'll take a hint and avoid the inspirational genre. Kermit can pull it off. Greedy, slutty prawns can't.

Sorry to say, this book is not recommended. Unless you are Jim Lewis' parents, in which case you should be nice and support your son.
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Labels: books, review

During the Great ToughPig Hiatus of 2006, many great things happened in the world of Muppet fandom. For the first time EVER, Sesame Street had a 37^th season. Puppet Up debuts and delivers Mr. Guy into the hearts of children worldwide. Muppets appeared on TV shows like Martha, The Tony Danza Show, Jeopardy, The Late Late Show, and E! True Hollywood Story: Miss Mousey. (Note: the last one may or may not be made up. I am too lazy to fact check.)

One important Muppet product that we didn’t get a chance to criticize is Kevin Clash’s book, “My Life as a Furry Red Monster.” The book was written by the top half of Kevin Clash’s head with Gary Brozek.

When Caroll Spinney wrote “The Wisdom of Big Bird” in 2003, he wanted to write it as an autobiography, but instead wrote it as a compilation of life lessons to boost sales. Kevin Clash must have gotten the same memo because his book is set up similarly. With chapters like “Love, “Creativity, “Tolerance,” and “Cooperation,” Clash uses stories about his childhood, working on Sesame Street, and things that happen to Elmo in his everyday, crayon-drawn life to illustrate what he has learned about the overlaying topic. Sadly, crayon-drawing is not one of the chapter headings, though I’m sure Elmo has taught Kevin a lot about the subject.

Speaking of illustrating, in the copy I bought, each chapter includes a cute pencil drawing of Elmo by Louis Henry Mitchell. As much as I enjoyed the pictures (no sarcasm intended), these are the only images in the entire book (with the exception of the dust cover). I was a bit disappointed at the lack of photographs which normally grace an autobiography, but hey, that’s what the Muppet Wiki is for. Actually, I was just hoping for a picture of Kevin puppeteering Juggles the Juggler.

Anyway, back to the words or whatever. Like I said, each chapter has a mix of stories from several different points in Clash’s life. At first, this is a bit confusing since he is taking us on a trip back and forth through time without a DeLorean. But after the first chapter or two, we get used to it and even begin to look forward to it. By the last few chapters, I found myself wondering what Elmo would have though of this anecdote, or how he learned how to share from working on Captain Kangaroo. Y’see how that works?

The last Muppet-related book I read before this was “Sesame Street Dad” by Roscoe Orman (take a looksee here for my review). As much as I enjoyed it, my main gripes were that there wasn’t enough Sesame-related material and that Orman bored me from time to time with lists and facts, rather than to emote his experiences to us. I had neither of these problems with the Furry Red book. With this book, you’re guaranteed to get at least one or two Sesame stories per chapter. Plus, his experiences watching Sesame Street, working as a teenaged puppeteer, and working on shows like Captain Kangaroo and Great Space Coaster are just as exciting as when he’s working with red fur clinging to his arm.

On top of it all, his stories suck you in, whether he’s writing about meeting Jim Henson for the first time or if he’s telling you about a car ride with his family, you will feel like you’re there with him and that you can’t wait for him to succeed and live the dream so many puppeteers can only hope for.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Sesame Street, puppets, television, monsters, America, bathrobes, spare keys, rectangles, gum, or none of the above. It’s a keeper.

I give this book 5 Mr. Noodles out of 5. And now if you'll excuse me, I've got many questions to ask to a baby.

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Labels: books, review, Sesame Street, Sesame Street humans

Way back in June, 2006, Roscoe Orman, the third and favorite Gordon, released his memoirs in book form. Sesame Street Dad: Evolution of an Actor was put onto shelves, a tour was scheduled, and Roscoe read a few pages and signed a few books around the country. Several months later, the Muppet fans found out that the book existed.

I can't say that's the best form of publicity, but maybe we're to blame. We did disappear for about a year.

First off, let me say thank you to Mr. Orman. There's only so many people who have been working with or around Muppets for 30 years or more and I know they've all got stories to tell. If I had a magic genie who granted me three wishes, the second or third one would definitely be to have each of the Muppeteers, actors, and crew members publish an autobiography. We were lucky enough to get books by Caroll Spinney and Kevin Clash in the last few years, and now Roscoe is letting his story be known. I can only hope that some of the other folks who've been around are currently toiling away at their typewriters as we speak.

Anywho, I grabbed the book at my local book conglomerate and I read the heck outta that thing. To be honest, it wasn't exactly what I expected. I'd re-read Caroll Spinney's book, The Wisdom of Big Bird, recently and I automatically thought that this would be a book about Roscoe's experience on Sesame Street, laced with life lessons and nostalgia. On the contrary, the book is a chronicle of Roscoe's career in which he took part in New York's black theater scene throughout the 1960s. His stories of what he accomplished before becoming a household name are quite exciting and he really makes us root for him the entire time, which isn't hard since we already think of him as Gordon, trying to make his way to Sesame Street.

Actually, it isn't until page 86 when he talks about his audition for Sesame. In his audition, he writes about having to interact with Oscar (in which he delivered his lines to Caroll Spinney instead of the puppet) and everyone's favorite counting child, John-John. Throughout the following 100+ pages, Roscoe talks about his experiences on Sesame Street, including his connection with Loretta Long, getting to meet several First Ladies, and being able to work with his son, Miles, who played Gordon's adopted son from 1985-1992.

Since Sesame Street doesn't film year-round, the rest of the book continues to talk about his other acting jobs, which jumped from stage to film to television, with some live Sesame gigs intermingled within. It really is interesting to see how crazy a working actor's life is, even one as famous as a Sesame Street cast member.

Sadly, there is only one downfall to Roscoe's writing style. Whenever he talks about a new part of his life or a new show he works on, he lists the names of everyone he worked with. And although it may be a great collection of actors and directors from the 1960s or human actors on Sesame Street, it's still just a list of names, which gets a bit hard to read after seeing a block of names on every other page. My suggestion, skip a few lines when you see a list of names and the book will read much more smoothly.

Some people who weren't included in one of Roscoe Orman's lists were Thomas Jefferson, Gallagher, Papa Smurf, Santa Claus, Bea Arthur, Luncheon Counter Monster, Aquaman, Jean Stapleton, Danny Horn, Mike Ditka, Mildred Huxtetter, and Joan Ganz Cooney. No wait, scratch that last one.

There are some very touching moments in the book, especially near the end, when he realizes the impact his career has had on every generation of Sesame Street viewers and that he really has become a father-figure to many of us. Hence the name of the book. Didn't see that one coming, did ya?

So my final assessment is a hearty thumbs-up if you're interested in the career and success of a struggling actor. If you want a collection of stories from the set of Sesame Street, you may want to opt for Caroll Spinney's book, though Sesame Street Dad isn't worth missing in the long run.

I give it three bald heads out of five.

Labels: books, review, Sesame Street, Sesame Street humans