We are saddened to learn that veteran comedy writer Marshall Brickman has passed away. Best known for his collaborations with Woody Allen (including an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay for Annie Hall), Brickman wrote for series such as Candid Camera and The Dick Cavett Show, and he served as the head writer for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
With all of these comedy accolades, you might think he would’ve crossed paths with Jim Henson, and you’d be right. In 1974, Brickman co-wrote Sex and Violence, one of the pilots for The Muppet Show. According to the Muppet Wiki, his major contribution was in writing the Seven Deadly Sins Pageant segments.
But his work with the Muppets didn’t end there. Around that era, Jim Henson was working on developing the character we now know as The Swedish Chef. Although Jim performed a gibberish-speaking chef as far back as the early 1960s, it wasn’t until Sex and Violence when he decided that the language should be mock Swedish. During pre-production for the pilot, Jim discovered that Marshall Brickman did a much better imitation of Swedish than him, and so Brickman offered his assistance to help. According to the Jim Henson Archives, he may have gifted Jim with a tape on “How to Speak Swedish,” made for tourists. (It’s also possible that he recorded himself on an audio tape, but if so, the tape was lost.) Jim studied this tape until he was able to perfect the Chef’s voice. Today, the original cassette tape is on display with The Swedish Chef at the Museum of the Moving Image.
In addition to his work on Sex and Violence, Brickman was hired to write a script about the Seven Deadly Sins (presumably a much more serious version than the one he created for the Muppets) for director Anthony Minghella. The project would have featured creations from the Jim Henson Creature Shop, but sadly, the film never made it to production.
We thank Marshall Brickman for his small, yet important contributions to Muppetdom!
Click here to help us remember Marshall Brickman on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
