Click here for original audio.
Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock – Episode 19: Mezzo: Live in Concert
[Fraggle Talk theme music plays]
JOE HENNES: Hello and welcome to Fraggle Talk: Back to the Rock, the unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast brought to you by ToughPigs.com.
This is the podcast where we cover Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock episode by episode, along with the talented producers, performers and writers and builders who helped put it all together. I’m your host, Silly Creature Joe Hennes.
[Music ends]
JOE: Today, we are talking about season 2, episode 6, “Mezzo: Live in Concert,” in which Mezzo-mania strikes Fraggle Rock as Gobo takes a new job as an exterminator.
Today, we’ve got two fabulous guests, which means we’ve got enough people on this podcast to start a band. On drums, he’s the puppeteer inside Pa Gorg, under Jamdolin and around Wrench Doozer. Give it up for Andy Hayward. Hello, Andy.
ANDY HAYWARD: Hi, Joe. Thanks for inviting me back.
JOE: Of course, it’s so nice to have you here.
ANDY: Always a pleasure.
JOE: And on lead guitar, she is an executive producer. She’s Icy Joe. She’s Red Fraggle, and she’s an absolute rock star. Get on your feet for Karen Prell. Hello, Karen.
KAREN PRELL: Hello, hello. Thanks for having me back. Oh, it’s so fun chatting about all these things and spreading these stories for everybody.
JOE: So glad to have you both here. What a joy to have you back on the podcast and talking about this wonderful show. First of all, this episode, this Mezzo episode we’re about to talk about, doesn’t actually feature any more music than any other episode of Fraggle Rock, but it’s all music related.
So, first of all, do either of you play any instruments or have you ever been in a band? Because like I know, as performers, you’re obviously very musical. But I don’t think we know much about like what else? What other music-y stuff do you guys do?
ANDY: Well, I was a percussionist from 7th grade all the way through my last year of high school. So I did drums. I did a little tympany. I did a little xylophone. So all that rhythm stuff was part of my growing up years. And I dabble with piano.
JOE: So when I said “on drums,” I was accurately predicting that you were a drummer.
ANDY: Yes.
JOE: Wow.
ANDY: It’s like you’re psychic. I know. It’s crazy.
JOE: I just really do my homework for these podcasts. I do a lot of research. [laughs]
ANDY: You called up Mr. Brayford back in East Grand Forks, Minnesota and said, “What’d you teach Andy when he was a music student?” Very impressed. That’s actually the name of my band maestro, Mr. Brayford.
JOE: Of course, of course I know Mr. Brayford. Yes. Yeah. No, we’re good friends now. We’re Facebook friends. Yeah. of course. Of course.
JOE: Karen, what about you?
KAREN: For me, well, my musical instrument is puppets.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: I tell people it’s like performing a musical instrument and especially Red, beautifully built by Rollie Krewson, then and now. And I say Red is a Stradivarius. Then you’re using just so many of the same skills that you use for playing a musical instrument. You’ve got the creativity. You’ve got the technical part and all the muscle memory and get to the point where you just, you think about the result you want and it just happens.
So to me, I have tried actually learning a bit of piano, bit of guitar and just, it was just like, you know, a few bits of plunking on keys or strings and it’s, that, you know, didn’t really connect. But puppets, yeah, that’s pretty much my musical instrument.
Except for Icy Joe is more of an orchestra.
[All laugh]
KAREN: She’s like a mountain of people traveling around all over.
JOE: Yeah, yeah.
KAREN: Yeah, that’s how I play my music.
JOE: So I think I’ve always assumed that if you’re going to be a puppeteer, especially in the Muppet style, Muppet world, that you do have to have some sort of musical background, if only because they’re so musical.
So did you, I mean, back before your Muppet show days, Karen, did you have any sort of training or were you just like, I can carry a tune well enough and the more important thing is being able to actually perform the puppet?
KAREN: I always loved music as a kid. Growing up, I loved the, well, the earliest thing I loved was the music of the Beatles.
JOE: Oh. Yeah.
KAREN: They got going when I was about five years old and so that was some of the music of my childhood, but also I loved the music of the Disney movies and then once the Muppets were doing Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.
So I loved listening to it and then when I decided, oh, I wanted to be a puppeteer, that was kind of the first thing I would practice to is I would just put on some music or just put it on the radio and stand in front of the bathroom mirror with whatever puppet I managed to hack together and just have fun with the music.
Definitely I was absorbing all that. I never had formal training, but just kind of absorbed a lot that was all around me while I was growing up.
JOE: Talking about some of your musical influences, as you just mentioned, for both of you, are there, okay, so like, pie in the sky, like I know that Fraggle Rock has original songs as well as, you know, I guess we’ll call them covers of original series songs. Beyond the Fraggle songs, if you were to say like, let’s have the Fraggles perform, whatever, you know, it’s like a Beatles song, a Disney song, a song from your favorite artist, what would you love to see the Fraggle Rock characters perform?
I know that’s a big, that’s a big question because it’s like, of everything in musical history, pick something.
KAREN: Yeah! Oh my gosh, wow. They’ve already hit so many different types of music and they’ve all been so fun. The quiet little solo songs, the big group songs.
JOE: Yeah, in like every single genre you can think of. There’s nothing the Fraggles can’t do.
KAREN: Yeah! Yeah!
ANDY: Have they done country, Country music? That’d be kind of fun to, you know…
KAREN: A few of the Fraggle songs have touched on a little bit of country, but, you know, going more into that, because that’s always like, you know, a big, big fun group stuff.
I don’t know, just anything that’s rousing and fun, and just brings out a lot of energy and joy. I mean, there isn’t a specific thing that I can think of right now, but the Fraggles will be up for anything, really. Yeah.
JOE: Right, yeah, you could literally say anything and you can’t be wrong.
KAREN: Yeah. Yeah.
JOE: I think it would be a better question to ask, like, what would the Fraggles not be able to cover? That’s a struggle to think of.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: I don’t know.
KAREN: In the original series, they had the (laughing) dirge with Junior Gorg.
JOE: Yeah. A funeral dirge.
KAREN: I know! (in normal voice) It ended happily, it ended well. [laughs]
JOE: It is literally one of my favorite Fraggle songs of all time, is that funeral dirge.
So speaking of all this music stuff, can you both walk me through a little bit of the process of, so we know that Harvey Mason Jr. and his team will go and write a song. At what point do you receive a song and then what’s your process for getting prepared to perform it?
KAREN: Well, for me, as one of the co-executive producers, I’m kind of on the early end of it, before we’re on location. When we’re in pre-production, there will be demos of songs or written demos of lyrics that are presented to the producers. And it’s kind of, we’ll hear the pitch for episodes, and then a little while later, then demos will be created, and then we’ll look at those and give feedback on what the song’s saying and how it fits with the show and with the characters’ arcs during the show.
So I get kind of a foreign advance sneak preview more than Andy would, so we’re able to kind of help guide things. But usually just, you know, right out of the gate, they’re just brilliant and fun, and, it’s like, [gasps] oh my gosh. Can’t wait until we get to do that. And, you know, just needs a little tweaking to get it headed in the final direction.
So, you guys, Andy, that must be a lot closer to shooting that you guys get it, right?
ANDY: Yeah, I want to say that they try to roll it out…. We shoot the show in blocks of episodes. I want to say they try to get us, we have a, there’s a file sharing website that they use. They try to get us those tracks as soon as they can within the block of shooting. Especially for Jamdolin. I always like to get it as soon as I can, because he always has a lot of riffs and a lot of added bits that maybe aren’t originally planned, so I like to get that in my head.
But, yeah, you know, usually, I mean, there were times where I want to say it was as late as maybe a couple days before we were going to do the episode, but they do try to roll that out as soon as they can, which is helpful.
JOE: For Jamdolin, and we could talk about this a little bit later when we get to the music for this episode, but for Jamdolin, you already have Daveed Diggs’s voice in your ear when you’re performing, or is it the other way around?
ANDY: For the first season, they did a bunch of tracks with him just doing reads on the lines, so I could kind of get a feel for his tempo and rhythm. And then as we’ve gone on, I want to say starting with the holiday episode from season one, and then going forward, they didn’t feel they needed to do that anymore, because I kind of had his rhythm in my head.
So, yeah, so I do, when he’s talking, I do that just myself with my own voice, and he’ll come in and then put his vocals on top. But for the music, he’ll record the songs beforehand, which is great.
JOE: That’s cool. That’s got to be cool to have him literally singing in your earpiece.
ANDY: I love it. And what, just what a pleasure to, I mean, number one, the Fraggle songs are incredible, so like, it’s a pleasure to hear them. But then to hear him singing is like, it’s great. Like, I play it in my car. I listen to it all the time. It’s wonderful. I always tell people, this is the show to watch if you have kids that has the best music. You’re going to love it.
JOE: Yeah, it’s true.
ANDY: And then the vocalist.
JOE: And the music for this season, I mean, the music for the last season was great, but I am really struggling to even find a thing to complain about with the music for this season. It’s so, the soundtrack to the season has been so good, and I’m so grateful that it’s available on streaming platforms to be able to listen to outside of the show.
Because that was always a problem with the old show. It was so hard to find the songs. There was a couple of albums. Unless you were someone like me who–
KAREN: There were a couple but not all the, you know. There were like 96 episodes, and they each had like one or two songs. There’s so many songs from the original. They’re not all out there.
JOE: I know. It’s frustrating. And folks like us, the fan base, we had to try to find ways to rip the audio off of the DVDs or before that, off of YouTube. And, you know, just so that we could listen to… I mean, we were talking about the funeral dirge song, which is great, but it’s never been on a soundtrack. So, like, if you want to listen to it, you gotta get real creative.
And, you know, my hope is that at some point someone at the Henson archives will find the master tapes so that we can get them in good quality. Because from what I hear, that’s the reason we only have the album versions right now.
But I’ll put that wish out into the universe. That we’lll get official album releases of all the old songs at some point.
KAREN: And I wanted to mention when Andy is, when he’s on set, and he’s speaking the temp voice for Jamdolin, first of all, it’s not temp. He is Jamdolin, and it is just so fun to be in the middle of that energy. And, because you do your own riffing when you’re speaking for Jamdolin and Daveed, you know, he gets to go in there and do his part following what you do.
And you guys, just, you really work well together, just capturing that character. So it’s just really, really fun, just to see where you go when you’re performing Jamdolin.
ANDY: Yeah, I love that character. And I’m not that, in my real life, not that loud. [laughs]
[Joe laughs]
ANDY: So it’s fun to just kind of break free and get to be this cool guy every once in a while, and yeah, it’s fun.
JOE: I mean, first of all, Andy, you’re very cool. Don’t get me wrong. You’re very, you’re very cool.
ANDY: I appreciate that. Thank you.
KAREN: In my real life, I’m kind of the opposite of Red, like pretty, pretty quiet, and everything, and then Red is just like this. [Screams] So it’s probably similar to that. You just get to kind of open up and let this big, shining light out and that’s full of fun and energy.
ANDY: Yeah, I love it.
JOE: So, dare I ask, and feel free to say no. Can you do your voice that you use for Jamdolin for us.
ANDY: Oh, sure. So, okay, I’ll just… (in a low and scratchy voice) So for me, Jamdolin talks like this. It’s kind of like a gruff, you know, clap your hands, everybody in the stands. It’s the one, the only…
(in normal voice) It’s just kind of the Andy voice that I would do if it were going to be me.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: I think it kind of fits the same, you know, style that when Daveed comes in and does his magic. It kind of matches.
JOE: Yeah, totally.
ANDY: Yeah.
JOE: That’s awesome. It was great.
KAREN: Yeah.
ANDY: (in low, scratchy voice) It’s like this.
JOE: So cool. He’s so cool. [laughs]
ANDY: So cool. So cool. [laughs]
JOE: Let’s talk about this episode, “Mezzo: Live in Concert.” We open in Fraggle Rock and everyone’s just sort of hanging out. Wembley’s asking if anyone needs anything: a blanket, a Doozer stick, a rare worm. And Boober’s like, how rare are we talking? What a weird line that is that I don’t know if I should dwell on it or not that he’s offering a rare worm.
KAREN: I don’t know where that came from, but that was always there. And it just seemed to…It fit. It worked. Yeah.
JOE: Yep. It did. And I don’t know if I would call a rare worm uncool, but definitely the opposite of a rare worm happens in a moment because we hear a funky bassline and suddenly everything gets a lot cooler because Jamdolin shows up. And there he is. There’s you, Andy. That’s you as Jamdolin as we just established.
One thing I meant to ask, have you spoken with Daveed Diggs, like personally about performing the character or anything like that? Or are you just kind of living in your both, both of you in your own professional lives?
ANDY: (in normal voice) I mean, no, we never had the chance. And I still hope someday that will happen. Also, not only because of our shared character, but also I’m a huge Broadway nerd.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: So if I just get all of the stories about Hamilton, I would be so happy. Yeah. So fingers crossed someday, someday that will happen.
KAREN: I got to see Daveed in one of his last Hamilton performances. It was amazing! Oh my god. When he came out, when he came out as Jefferson, he was just milking the audience and just having fun. And oh my gosh, it was a treasure to see that.
JOE: That’s very cool. Yeah. Now I kind of want to see Jamdolin in Hamilton.
[Karen gasps and laughs]
ANDY: That’d be cool. Okay. Put that out into the universe and make that happen. That would be…that’d be amazing.
JOE: Jamdilton…is that a thing?
KAREN: Fraggles doing some speed rapping with Daveed. Now that would be a thing. They almost get there with some of the songs this season, but they can go farther with it, I think.
JOE: All right. We’re going to plant, we’re planting the seed. Season three. We’re going to have a Lin-Manuel [Miranda] style rap as one of the new songs, featuring Jamal–Jamdolin. I can’t even say it now because I got Hamilton in my head. Jamdilton…sure.
KAREN: Andy, start exercising your hand muscles. Get one of those hand exercisers.
ANDY: Oof. Yeah. Puppetry challenge accepted. We’ll see.
JOE: Yeah. Wow.
ANDY: Speaking of Broadway, and a bit of a sidebar, but I just saw Aymee Garcia in Wicked. It was wonderful. She’s amazing.
KAREN: Oh, that’s right. She’s on…A whole bunch of us got to see her in L. A. in Into the Woods.
ANDY: Oh.
KAREN: Yes. And that’s right. She’s touring with Wicked now. I need to see if she’s coming anywhere near where I can see her in that. Yeah. So talented. Oh, she got to shine so much this season.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: With her songs with Ma and the Trash Heap. And with Sherry. Oh my gosh.
JOE: Sherry Contrary. Yeah.
KAREN: Yes. Yes.
JOE: Actually, it’s Sherry Contrary.
[Joe and Karen laugh]
ANDY: It’s so amazing that we’re surrounded by all this talent, including this Broadway talent, like Broadway caliber singers. It’s really incredible.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: And Johnny, of course.
ANDY: Johnny, of course. Yeah. Yeah.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: And you both realize like this is how we, like Muppet fans, we all see you. I get, like Broadway is a huge caliber. Movie star is a big caliber. But, you know, Fraggle Rock puppeteers is like, oh my God, you’re a puppeteer on Fraggle Rock? It’s the coolest thing. So like, even though you’re, I just want to make sure you know that like, you’re geeking out about, you know, Broadway stars, a lot of people, a lot of people, feel exactly that way about you.
ANDY: That’s crazy. I think, but I am that guy too, though. When I meet puppeteers that I’ve been watching for years, I turn into a fan. I am a fan.
JOE: You are a fan. Yeah.
ANDY: Yeah.
JOE: Yeah. You turn into yourself.
ANDY: I turn into myself. [laughs]
KAREN: And when I started out on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show working with all the, you know, Jim and Frank and Jerry and Richard, all the original puppeteers. Yeah. Yeah. I was just totally, totally there, you know, in the background and just in awe to watch them making that magic. Oh my gosh.
JOE: Oh, I can only imagine. So, Jamdolin has come to Fraggle Rock bearing great news. And this is where we get our first song of the episode. It’s called, “Are You Ready?” And it’s another funky song, surprise, surprise, from Jamdolin. And he’s like, leading the Fraggle through the cave. And the whole song’s about are you ready, are you not ready? Okay. Let’s get ready.
I don’t want to say that this is a song that adds nothing to the plot. But it kind of doesn’t, and I kind of love the fact that it leans into that. It’s great.
ANDY: It’s a fun build up.
KAREN: It’s very fraggley to make a big deal out of, “Hey, I have something to tell you.” [laughs]
JOE: [laughs] Yeah, right.
KAREN: But that’s what, Fraggles, they celebrate that kind of stuff. And man, that was, remember Andy, shooting all that. So we had a few, you know, we have these moveable tunnel pieces, we kind of went one direction and then reset and did the other direction.
And remember, you’re seeing all those Fraggles and underneath them are human bodies, all squeezing together in that space and making it work. So it’s another one of those fun jumbles below the frame. I don’t know if we got any behind the scenes video of just all that stuff.
It’s one thing when we’re all in a static audience, as happens later in this episode, but when it’s a whole pack and they’re moving and they’re singing and there’s camera moves. It’s just crazy, because then, yeah, the crew and anybody moving pieces and moving the crane, they’re part of the parade as well. Think of the Macy’s parade in your kitchen. That’s kind of what it is. [laughs]
[Joe laughs]
KAREN: But it’s fun. It’s really fun.
ANDY: And you’ll notice too that Jamdolin does not have his tail present for that, because it was so complicated and there were so many bodies. It was deemed this six foot tail is just going to put this over the edge. [laughs]
JOE: Literally over the edge. Yeah.
ANDY: Yeah, for sure.
JOE: Although it would have been cool to have him leading a procession and then like all the fraggles behind him and then his tail.
[All laugh]
JOE: A little caboose behind them.
KAREN: It’s long enough. Yes.
[All laugh]
ANDY: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
KAREN: When the song finishes, we all end up in the final position and that last bit of the song where it’s all the talking. [Makes generic talking sounds]
Andy was there listening to it and he was just, you know, even he had the Jamdolin puppet and wears his tall shoes for Jamdolin. And he’s just concentrating. He’s got his eyes closed and he’s got his, listening to his recording. Just double checking all the stuff. To make sure before the take happens, so he can hit all those moments. Working so hard. And it worked. It’s just so awesome.
ANDY: I will say that was the hardest song for me. Normally, like, in the beginning, Jamdolin would be with the band and it was kind of a park-and-bark, where he’s singing, but he’s in one spot. This one to do that while moving, while trying not to trip over my own tall shoes and then Daveed had so many line riffs, but they were so fast.
Like, he was just throwing out all these little asides. It was a challenge.
JOE: Were those all ad libs from Daveed of just like the little, like, I’m sorry I didn’t write down the lines. The little like, “Unh.”
ANDY: For the most part, it’s his own flavor that he adds to the music.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: So it bumps it up to a whole new level. But it’s also–
KAREN: I’m trying to, if I can quickly call up…I’ve still got something where I could look up the lyrics. 206. Let me see. There might be a few things that are kind of written. And, but then Daveed would just, you know, take it and run with it. No, I don’t think it’ll be able to do it.
JOE: That’s okay.
KAREN: Yeah. It’s a little bit of planting seeds and then Daveed grows a whole forest from it. That kind of thing.
ANDY: That’s it.
JOE: That’s incredible. Yeah. One detail that I noticed as you’re all walking through this tunnel is that there are these blooming flowers coming out of the rocks which–
KAREN: Yeaaah.
JOE: Seems like it’s a reference to Cantus. When he would play in the original series, the flowers would bloom, which I very much appreciate. Nice little detail.
KAREN: It’s nice having that little call back there.
JOE: Yeah and speaking of details, so I don’t think I really noticed this because there was so much going on when we met Jamdolin in the first season, but I was really looking at his guitar in this scene. I think because he gets so close to the camera while holding the guitar. Is there anything notable about the guitar or interesting about the design that you’ve noticed? Or is it just a really cool prop?
ANDY: It’s really incredible. I want to say, and usually it’s attached to his chest or sometimes attached to his back, so I never really get to see it apart from there. But I think it’s made out of some kind of husk. I don’t know. It feels like or it’s wooden or something carved but it’s really earthy which is completely Jamdolin appropriate.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: Mmhmm.
ANDY: And it’s adorned with all these little extras. You know little tassels and things. Yeah. It’s cool.
JOE: Now in your opinion as the Jamdolin performer and knowing what we know about Cantus, is the guitar magical like Cantus’s flute is magical? Or is it just it’s a guitar and the magic is in you all along.
ANDY: I hadn’t thought of that.
JOE: Hmmm.
KAREN: Hmm.
ANDY: He always has it with him even if he’s not playing it. It’s on his back. I’m going to go with yes.
JOE: All right! It’s canon. It’s canon.
ANDY: That’s canon.
KAREN: That’s something to explore.
JOE: Hmm. Okay, okay. I also have to mention, because I’m mentioning every single one of them I spot. There is an inkspot dancing during this song and it’s wearing this like frilly purple dress and it’s kind of spinning and the frills are spinning. Just a great design and I just love the inkspots. They’re great. They’re my favorite.
KAREN: They’re just so fun to drop in there and any time,, any chance and man they have their own wardrobe now and just so fun. We never thought, 40 years ago, they were made for the Begoony episode and they were called the inkspots kind of non-canon. Just that’s how they were referred to because the song they sang with Begoony started out as kind of like The Ink Spots singers. It was in that style. So we started calling them the inkspots. And they were just so fun looking. We started doing little extra bits with them in the original. But then it’s just exploded now.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: And everybody has fun grabbing them and jumping in and doing stuff.
JOE: I think every show should have inkspots just hanging out, wearing costumes, holding weird props. I don’t know why. Like yeah. Get it in The Bear and Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. I don’t know.
So yeah at the end of the song, Jamdolin is, as you said, he’s standing in front of the rest of the band. All the Troubadours are there. It’s always great to see them. I love the little tweaks of the design updates from the original minstrels from the original series. And yeah, the song ends and, like I said, nothing changed from two minutes ago. Like it wasn’t like the plot is now moved forward. We still don’t know the news that Jamdolin is here to deliver.
KAREN: Right. [laughs]
JOE: But dang is it fun.
KAREN: Oh yeah.
JOE: It’s great.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: So the news is that performing in Fraggle Rock, one night only, it’s Mezzo. And Boober, who’s normally really cautious about any sort of excitement is like, “Oh, the build up really was worth it,” which is big for him. But Gobo loses his mind. Gobo screams like a fan.
All right, so here’s the question that I think everyone’s asking themselves that there’s probably no answer to. How does Gobo know who Mezzo is? Like how has Mezzo’s music made it to Fraggle Rock if Mezzo has never physically been to Fraggle Rock?
KAREN: We talked kind of in development, that question came up and we decided not to spell out anything exact but there’s just a way that they’re able to to know and pass on the music without somehow having seen the actual creature making the music just like however music gets transmitted in Fraggle Rock. It’s just part of the atmosphere or something that we have yet to learn about how things work in Fraggle Rock.
You know, kind of in the way, back in the 60s, you’d hear the Beatles on the radio. I’d never met the Beatles. But you know of them. There’s some weird and wonderful fraggley way that they know about it. And it’s enough to get them excited and we all identify with being excited about people like that.
JOE: Yes, absolutely. It sounds like my answer here is don’t think too hard about it, Joe. Just let it go. [laughs]
[Karen laughs]
JOE: And it’s obviously, it’s fine. I mean and for anything to be mysteriously transported through Fraggle Rock without explanation, music seems to be the thing that like, yes, that makes sense that somehow music magically makes its way through Fraggle Rock and Gobo is a big fan of this thing, even if they don’t have records or cassettes or CDs or whatever.
ANDY: I don’t know if you can see it in the episode, but on set in the concert area there was actually a merch table for her.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: There’s stacks of folded t-shirts. They had pins and it was great.
JOE: That’s cool. Yeah. Which, by the way, I mean, we’ll get to it. We should actually have Mezzo merch. Why not? Why don’t we have a Mezzo concert tee on the Henson online store.
ANDY: That’d be great.
JOE: Someone get on that. Yes, so Gobo loses his mind. He grabs Wembley and shakes him by the collar.
KAREN: I love, because Gobo works so well as a voice of reason in so many episodes where everybody else is…Red is kind of the cut to the chase character. Gobo, his tool in that tool chest is we needed voice of reason. And I love the shows where he’s not the voice of reason.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: And Johnny has so much fun with that in this episode. It was, oh my gosh, and he would just, every take, he would just go farther and farther and farther and farther. It was so fun to see that and I’m sure it was kind of a nice break for Johnny as well just to go nuts with Gobo.
JOE: Yeah. Well I think for all five of the Fraggles, and this is probably true for pretty much any
character in any show or movie, but seeing them pushed to their extremes, seeing Gobo lose his mind, seeing Red absolutely fall down a pit of her own making or Mokey just get completely distracted by something and etc, etc.
I mean I think when people talk about Boober specifically and how his best moments are when he’s at his bottom. Like he has just fallen into a pit of depression and that’s great for him but yes. But to see Gobo, who is normally so in charge, to a fault, so capable to a fault, to kind of throw caution to the wind and say like, “No, no. I’m actually fangirling a lot and not listening to what anyone has to say here because I love Mezzo so much.” It’s great. Super fun.
KAREN: So I don’t know if you were going to get to this, but when he runs off to get his merch…
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: That was a nice little, they had their two Gobo’s there. So someone was standing there with the merched up Gobo. Because it’s all in one take and Gobo’s all, “I’ll get my merch!” and runs off. And someone’s standing right there. Swaps Gobos, puts the other one on, comes in with all his merch. I love when puppets do that.
JOE: A little Texas switch. Is that what that’s called?
KAREN: Yep. Yep.
JOE: No, it’s so good. He’s got his Mezzo t-shirt and he’s got a rolled up poster and a lunch box and he’s got this like star thing over his eye, which we later will see that’s a thing that Mezzo has. He says, “Whenever I feel small, her songs make me feel big.” And then Mokey says, “Her music is so uplifting it makes me feel 10 feet tall.” And boy is that some foreshadowing what each of them has to say.
Something I did not notice the first time I watched this episode.
KAREN: It’s sprinkled all throughout. This show was written by Annalise Tahran who in our first season was a writing assistant, but this season she’s actually full writer on this and on the “Letting Go” episode and I just love how it’s all throughout the show. There’s all these things sprinkled and I love how all that when you get to the end it’s like, “Oooooh.” You know, it doesn’t give anything away.
JOE: Yeeeeeah.
KAREN: But it touches on it. Yeah.
JOE: And it definitely rewards rewatching. Yeah. Like for me especially, where like I didn’t know. I didn’t know that Mezzo was gonna have a reveal later on that we’ll talk about. The first time I watched it and so now it’s like oh, I see what you’re doing and it kind of makes me want to watch it a third time. What else did I miss?
So Gobo runs off to get Concert Cave prepared for the show. And as they’re kind of like all the Fraggles are setting up decorations and stuff, I love the shot of where the audience will be sitting and Gobo is popping up in the different seats to make sure that they’re all a good view. And these go like, “This one’s good. This one’s great. This one’s also great. This one’s bad. Just kidding, it’s great.” It’s fun.
KAREN: I love Gobo’s seat obsession. I don’t know if you’ve caught that’s kind of a little mini thread.
JOE: No, I haven’t.
KAREN: Starting with the season one Merggle show where while they were journeying to see the Merggle migration, Gobo’s obsessing about getting good seats.
JOE: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
KAREN: And Red was like, (in voice of Red) Enough with the seats.” (in normal voice) And so every once in a while, if there’s anything, it’s sometimes it’s just one little throwaway line, Gobo says, “I hope we get good seats.” And Red makes a face at him. And so this was like Gobo’s seat obsession just [blows a raspberry] That this part of his explosion is fangirling out and seat obsession to the max. So just, I think that’s going to be continuing. If we do more, there’s going to be continuing little comments of Gobo just wanting to make sure he’s got good seats for the events. Yes.
JOE: Yeah, I love that. It’s so true to life that people have these minor things of like it’s just a thing. I just always want to have a good seat. I just don’t question it. Yeah, I did not notice that. I love that about him.
KAREN: Yeah. [laughs]
JOE: There’s also a swarm of bugs that are kind of flying around the stage and Gobo asked them to kind of scooch somewhere else and he kind of swats them away a little bit. He does the same thing with Cotterpin and the Architect who are kind of just passing through. And he’s like, “You know this isn’t an active work scene. You guys can be somewhere else.” And they move along.
So okay we’re going to get into spoilers here, but I assume that everyone’s watched the episode but we will later learn that the bugs are someone very important. But so what is actually happening on the screen here where it’s not just little dots of lights. It’s not, you know, there’s definitely something of substance there that’s flying around. So are these CGI creations? Are these something that you guys filmed on the blue screen cube that we’ve talked about on this podcast before? What is actually happening with these little things that are flying?
KAREN: I can’t…For that specifically it might be little CG ones. I don’t know if they shot because they of course shot a lot of blue screen for these characters. And I don’t know if they shot, and for some they were, you know, in addition to standing, I don’t know if they did any flying with those guys. But I think for that, it probably… I can’t remember for sure. I wasn’t involved with that part of it but it might have been CG. They did a great job, just adding like a little bit of motion blur. And it really looks like very colorful little insects…
JOE: That’s right.
KAREN: …flying around. But yeah. So that was all added in post. There wasn’t anything temporary onset.
JOE: Sure.
KAREN: You know, Gobo’s just thrashing his arms and it was all in post. They kind of added them wherever, reacting to Gobo’s thrashing and everything.
JOE: That makes sense. Yeah.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: And we didn’t need, I mean, look, we talk about how the CG on the show is used so sparingly and this is one of those examples where like you didn’t need to go above and beyond to actually put tiny little puppets in there. We can barely see that as it is.
KAREN: Oh gosh, yeah. Yeah.
JOE: And the fact that I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell if it was CG or not, is also a testament to then it was a good use of it.
KAREN: Yeah yeah yeah. It’s good enhancement rather than like a full replacement of puppets which is ideal for this production. Yeah.
JOE: Yeah, exactly. We get our check-in with Doc and Sprocket at this point. They’re about to go for a walk, but Sprocket gets spooked by a bee. And I guess, the same question as before but I think it’s going to be the same answer. Is this also just a CGI bee that has been added in post?
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: There wasn’t anybody there with a little bee on a stick and that would just make it, again be able to to better react to Sprocket. With insect type things, if you’re trying to do something on the end of a thin rod because insects are just so fast and flitty, trying to do that on the end of a long, wobbly rod. It’s one thing if it’s a butterfly. The Muppet butterflies are always beautiful and amazing. But butterflies are kind of taking it easy. They’re very chill. But anything fast and zipping around, trying to do that on the end of a long wire is just tricky. So that’s where CG, it’s your turn to shine.
JOE: That’s right.
KAREN: Come in here and take care of it.
JOE: Good.
KAREN: Yep.
JOE: Yeah. Another good choice for CG for the post production team. We’ll just skip through this Doc and Sprocket plot. But essentially later in the episode, Doc is teaching Sprocket about the big impact that bees have on the environment. This feels very like educational moment to me, which is fine. That’s not a complaint. It’s just okay, we’re going to learn a little bit about bees and how fruit and flowers and etc etc all rely on bees. But what I really appreciate about this is that she kind of ends the whole thing by recognizing that because we can’t minimize the importance of bees, she can’t minimize Sprocket’s fear of bees.
And she learned something about like, oh I don’t need to like kind of explain this thing to you and tell you to get over it. I could kind of meet you halfway. And then later in the episode she dresses Sprocket up in a beekeepers outfit and just says I’m gonna be that crazy lady who’s walking her dog in a full beekeepers outfit, which I love. I love Doc is a crazy dog lady.
KAREN: Yup. Yup. [laughs]
JOE: Do either of you have pets and if so, do you ever dress them in costumes?
KAREN: I don’t have any pets at the moment. How about you Andy?
ANDY: I do. I have a 14-year-old Shiba Inu who’s pacing around the living room right now.
JOE: Oh.
ANDY: I tried to dress him up for Halloween once and he was very upset with me so that stopped. [laughs]
JOE: What did you try to dress him as?
ANDY: He was a skunk. He was the cutest little skunk you’ve ever seen.
KAREN: Awww.
ANDY: I did one picture and then he protested so I heard him, loud and clear. Yeah.
JOE: Wow.. Okay yeah. Good that you’re listening. Good that you’re meeting your Shiba Inu halfway like Doc is with Sprocket.
ANDY: Yes.
KAREN: I had cats and some little dogs as a kid and I think as a kid maybe we briefly, briefly tried putting hats on cats and that was not a happy ending. So that’s as far as we got with that. Yeah.
JOE: Yeah, I don’t imagine cats… You can’t put hats on cats. You can’t put mittens on kittens. You just can’t do it.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: At the Mezzo concert, everyone is there. There’s Fraggles. There’s Merggles. There’s Craggles. There’s Pogey, the Storyteller, Icy Joe, the mantivore, the grizzard. There’s a Gluey Rudey. Fan favorite Coop is there. Everyone loves Coop.
And I know, again, Karen you were talking about how there’s all these little references to the size stuff that’s going to come up in a few minutes, but the fact that the room has been filled with characters of every size from the mantivore all the way down to Gluey Rudey feels very deliberate for that reason. I have to assume it’s true.
KAREN: Mmhmm.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: Yeah, yeah.
JOE: Great. And just a great example of like look at all the the diversity of characters that have been created for this show. I really love seeing that. It’s not just Fraggles. I feel like if this was another episode or or the old series, it would just be Fraggles and the Fraggle gaggle in the background. But the fact that like we really get to see so many different types of species I think is really cool.
KAREN: Yeah, yeah. And I love that there was a chance to to revisit, bring back Manty and just revisit anybody who was available. And I love that they brought in Barry Blueberry but he’s off the clock. And he’s just kind of lowkey saving his voice. [laughs]
JOE: That’s so funny. He’s wearing like a tracksuit kind of. Like a very casual thing. He’s like “Not tonight. Just here as a fan.” And he’s saying it in like this very cool voice. Like it’s not his regular announcer voice. Because there’s so much to know about like the behind the scenes life of Barry Blueberry.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: There’s also, Andy, as you said, there’s a merch table with there’s t-shirts and sunglasses and stuff there. It really makes me wonder like how much other merchandise there could be and again like someone had to create all this stuff. Someone had to make all these little t-shirts that wouldn’t fit a regular human being so I guess they go into a drawer at the end of the day?
KAREN: The Fraggle props and costumes, depending on who makes them and who has room to store stuff, they get stored away.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: You never know when you might need them again.
JOE: That’s true. Yeah. Mezzo’s tour might take her back through Fraggle rock next year.
KAREN: Yeah, yeah. Who knows?
JOE: Yeah
ANDY: That’s incredible too. The creature shop, I remember during season one, just geeking out because the archives had shipped everything they had over. And they were perfectly preserved original series costumes.
JOE: Oh, sure.
ANDY: Just one off pieces. They’d saved everything. It was cool.
JOE: That’s cool. So maybe if there’s like another Fraggle Rock reboot in, you know, in 40 years then they’ll be like, “Oh my god, we have all these Mezzo t-shirts.” We gotta use them.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: I’m also, and I don’t expect that you would know this if it’s true, but I’m hoping that the back of the Mezzo t-shirts have a list of like, a tour list of all the places that she visits on the tour. And like what could possibly be in the world of Fraggle Rock or beyond Fraggle Rock. Where is she going?
KAREN: Ooooh. That’s when we get out the Encyclopedia Fragglia and every Fraggle cave location that has been visited or discussed in the entire history of the show, we have to put that list. The Crystal Caverns, Uncle Traveling Matt Cave of Doors. You know, all those.
JOE: Yeah yeah yeah.
KAREN: Yeah. [laughs]
JOE: Oh. That would be so good. I’m just imagining that that’s what’s there even if it’s not. Because that’s too good.
Gobo asks, he’s like, “What do you think Mezzo’s gonna play first? Is it “Clap Clap Shimmy Snap” or “Wiggle Wiggle Baloobius Drop,’” which Wembley says is a very serious song and I really want to hear what “Wiggle Wiggle Baloobius Drop” sounds like now. Even if it makes me cry.
[Karen and Andy laugh]
JOE: Jamdolin introduces Mezzo and no one’s there. Where is she? Well we’ll find out in a moment after we check in with the gorgs. Pa tells Junior that he’s doing a great job at growing strawberries but he wants them to be bigger. He wants to be as big as his grandpapa’s head who had the biggest head in gorg history. And he had to hold it with his hands while he walked.
And Andy, as Pa Gorg, you’re doing some great pantomime here. The whole like you’re telling the story and emoting in the right way like you always do, but also like doing this thing where you’re holding your own head and pretending to walk. It’s great.
ANDY: Yeah. Oh cool. Yeah. It’s a lot of fun. And with Frank [Meschkuleit] puppeteering, voicing because they updated Pa for season two and they gave him more facial animation, so his eyes now go side to side. We were really playing with he doesn’t need to turn so profile to look at someone because Frank will just clock the eyes left to right.
JOE: Oh interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ANDY: We were playing with movement this season to try to finesse that a little bit. I’m glad it
came off.
JOE: It did. That’s funny because I don’t think I really clocked that that was a new thing for the season just because it’s so natural. Like I don’t think about gorg eyes as much as I should apparently. I mean obviously we noticed a lot of it with Junior because Junior’s an entirely new build but yeah, with Pa and Ma to see that kind of subtlety.
So, that’s a good question then so for you, because you’re so used to from season one like doing bigger gestures to make sure that Pa is looking the right way and doing things like that, like is it a challenge especially for such a big puppet, to like make that a little bit more subtle?
ANDY: Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, just with, because the original had, his eyes would squint and widen and that was it for eyes.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: And then his mouth would flap up and down. This season Frank has, he can actually articulate the mouth. It can open left. It can open right. It can open center. Yeah, so we did like actively try to bring some of the physical performance down a little bit so that he could really utilize the face. And emote that way. So yeah. Yeah.
JOE: That’s cool.
ANDY: Yeah. Absolutely.
JOE: Are there any updates to Pa below the neck to this season?
ANDY: No. That is the original body that Gord [Robertson] wore. They did make new hands and new shoes. I think the hands were really beat up originally and the shoes. So yeah. But when I get into that suit, it is the real original series suit, which is crazy to think.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: And beautiful. It’s like couture work almost.
KAREN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
ANDY: The whole thing is threaded, one thread at a time, it’s all on mesh. It’s beyond. Yeah.
JOE: Incredible.
KAREN: And I haven’t been in the suit, but just the way they make it to be with oomping, with hoops, and very breathable fabrics. So you can get air in there and it can give when you need it to give and allow you to move and not be weighed down. Just the engineering from 40 years ago is still working.
Right now, it’s like, you know, look at that and it’s like, no, no, keep going. [laughs] But having the extra enhancements for Pa and Ma’s face this season, it was really, really nice to have that.
JOE: Oh, I’m sure, yeah. Karen, have you ever done full-body puppet work?
KAREN: In the original Fraggle show, well, I was inside the giant souffle. [laughs] If you remember, the gorgs build a giant souffle…
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: And it rises up until it’s really tall.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: [inaudible through laughing] And of course, the Junk Woman on Labyrinth.
JOE: Oh, yeah, of course, yes.
KAREN: Yeah, yeah, which was very tricky and top heavy, you know. Still a fun character to do. I tried to do a riding goblin, but that was just, it was very, very top heavy and hard to run and balance. It’s like, if you imagine running with your ankles tied together, holding a bowling ball out in front of you, that’s kind of how the weight distribution of the riding goblins worked. So I actually tried and just fell over. So it’s like, okay, someone else gets to do that.
JOE: Great.
KAREN: So not that much. There was, in the original series, they needed to do a shot of Ma Gorg’s hand and they didn’t have like the full group of people there. So I put on the Ma Gorg just her top just to get, because for her hands, you know, they had to see enough of her arm. And it was all connected with her body. So I just put on the Ma Gorg top and stood on a box and it was just a shot of her arm and hand doing something. So somewhere there’s a picture of me in Ma and no head, just the top of her body. But that’s pretty much the extent of it. It’s mainly been just hand puppets. Yeah.
JOE: Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. It’s not for everybody. You know, no. Frank Oz famously, like, I think he did, La Choy Dragon or something like that.
KAREN: La Choy Dragon. Yes.
JOE: Yeah. He’s like, I’m done.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: You get someone else to do this. [laughs] Call up that Caroll Spinney guy. He’ll do it.
KAREN: [laughs] Yes.
JOE: So, Ma suggests to Pa and Junior that there might be something in the gardening shed that could help. And Pa immediately dismisses her and says like, “Just leave the gardening work to the men folk.” And she is not happy about it. She’s got like a big scowl on her face. Her eyes squint. Big mistake there, Pa.
And later in the episode, Pa and Ga– Pa and Ga? Good god. Pa and Junior. We’re renaming him. His real name is Ga.
Pa and Junior, they go into the shed. They find a bag of gorgamax and it has a huge warning label, but Pa says they don’t have time to read it, which is funny because the warning label’s literally just a picture of a radish with an X through it.
KAREN: Yep.
JOE: I thought that was hysterical.
KAREN: Our classic style from the original series was important signs were pictures with arrows or crosses. Or if they are reading a book, then any writing is just like little scribbles.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: Written in fragglish, but just for the international audience of the show, just having, and for kids watching the show, just have a big sign. It’s just a picture that indicates what’s going on, is kind of the best way to communicate what you need to say.
JOE: That’s right. Yeah. We get it right away. And it’s funny. Like that’s also important. That it’s very funny that we don’t have time for this. Just pour it on the cart. Ma, of course, being the smart one in the family says this doesn’t sound like such a good idea. But Pa’s like, you’re right. It does sound like a good idea. And he sprinkles it on the garden and immediately it kills the sunflower.
Which is a nice little puppetry trick. It just kind of droops down. I love it.
KAREN: And yeah, nice foreshadowing for the plants and nice foreshadowing for Ma. I love her arc this season where she just comes into her own. So literally planting some seeds for Ma.
JOE: Ooooh, I see what you did there.
KAREN: Ooooh. Yeah. [laughs]
JOE: Back at the rock, the Fraggles are trying to figure out where Mezzo is. Mokey asks if maybe she’s just fashionably late because aren’t musicians famously on their own schedules? And I love that both Jamdolin and Gobo are immediately like, “Actually we’re very punctual. We’re always on time.” Like they’re both professional musicians. Don’t stereotype us as being late. No, we are working artists. We show up at our call time. Thank you very much.
And apparently wherever Mezzo is, it’s a mystery. And when someone says mystery, you know what that means. It’s a case for Inspector Red. And Red pops down, pops right back up in her detective outfit.
KAREN: Another Texas switch. Now that was not me. There was, in this show, we shot like all the big audience scenes, we shot them all together. So, like for the first concert that doesn’t happen for the weird poetry readings and all that and then for the final song, we shot those all together over a few days.
JOE: Oh, sure. Yeah.
KAREN: So we were in the middle of shooting, sashay song in the audience, I started out when Red wasn’t there. I started out doing Icy Joe in the audience. So that was very active. And I just started getting a bit tired. And generally for season two, Ben Durocher was kind of my Icy Joe stand-in for like all the crazy running around in “The Great Radish Ball” and stuff like that. So Ben was assisting me and I asked, could we swap? Can you hold up Icy Joe and I’ll do the hands?
Later that day, I was just feeling really tired. And in the morning, I was not feeling good. And it turns out I had COVID, which was at that time we had vaccines. So it wasn’t as serious, but it was like three weeks of bad flu. So of course, I let everybody know that I was standing next to him. And at that time, when we shot that, we were still, when we weren’t talking, we were wearing masks. The whole crew was required to, just for safety.
So for that scene of Inspector Red and doing the Texas switch, that was all Ali Eisner. They’re my Red Fraggle assistant and stand in. So they did for that whole scene with Red and Inspector Red in that cave. That was all Ali. They did a great job. I just dubbed it afterwards. But, yeah, any chance to bring just a quick Inspector Red thing is so fun. And for the later scenes with Gobo, that was shot earlier, I was doing Inspector Red for that. But, yeah, I’m glad Ali was able to jump in and have fun with her.
JOE: Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s seamless. We would have never known. Ali is very good at their job. So that’s no surprise there. And I love that, we’re talking about this Texas switch, and that Red pops down and pops back up in the outfit, but then Red has to pop down a second time because on the first pop up, she forgot her magnifying glass, which I think is spot on. Hysterical.
Now, Gobo has a reaction to this, like he does not seem happy to see Inspector Red. Does he have like an historical distaste for Inspector Red, like kind of like Red does for Matt’s postcards?
KAREN: I don’t think that was the idea of it. I think anything at all that interferes with Gobo’s idea that there’s no problem.
JOE: Mmhmm. Yeah.
KAREN: There’s no problem here. But when someone, Inspector Red showing up, it’s kind of a hint that there’s a problem.
JOE: Ah, sure. Yeah.
KAREN: It’s just kind of, it’s Gobo’s denial. “No, no. She’ll show up. There’s no problem. Why are you doing Inspector Red? There’s no problem.”
JOE: Yeah, right.
KAREN: I think that’s more of what that was. Yeah.
JOE: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, you’re right. Cause as the number one Mezzo-head, Gobo is, he’s determined to lead the hunt to find Mezzo. He says that maybe she got lost in Confusing-Turn Cave, which is not just a silly name.
And at this point, we do get another pan through the impatient audience and there’s one shot that I wanted to point out, which is Icy Joe, like leaning down at eye level almost with Gluey Rudey. And to see the two of them, that juxtaposition is like, it’s a great shot and it’s a great moment of just like this huge fraggle and the tiny little thing that I don’t even know how you could perform something that’s like the size of a finger. It’s great.
KAREN: Yeah, And Frank performs Gluey Rudey. So it’s, yeah, little rod puppet. I would love if we do some more to have Icy Joe and Gluey Rudey get up to some hijinks. I think that would be a good team. [laughs]
JOE: Yeah, a little back door spin off. We’ll get them going on a little adventure away from Fraggle Rock.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: See what shenanigans they get into. Are they best friends? Do you think they hang out? We’ll see, I guess, but do you think they hang out when the other Fraggles are doing stuff?
KAREN: I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, I can imagine, because Icy Joe’s got her cave to get away from things and Gluey Rudey might it seems like he might be kind of a similar kind of character. So, I don’t know. We’ll have to think about that.
JOE: Yeah. They’re both just like a little bit ornery, a little bit rude, a little bit too forward.
KAREN: Yeah. [laughs]
JOE: Okay. All right. We’re planting that seed as well. Season three. We’ll see.
Jamdolin tries to appease the crowd by saying, “No, no, no, Mezzo’s coming. We just have an opening act.” First, World’s Oldest Fraggle says, “I can grow a beard.” And then Pogey says, “Me too,” which, ah, god, now I want to see Pogey grow a beard. What a great visual. I can’t unsee it.
Barry Blueberry declines. He says,”Not tonight. Saving the gift.” And he kind of gestures to his voice box. Hysterical. That feels like such a Johnny Tartaglia line of like just ad libbing.
ANDY: Yeah.
KAREN: No, I think I was in the script. Yeah.
JOE: Was it? So good.
KAREN: But, yeah. Johnny just, yeah.
JOE: He sells it.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: So good. Jamdolin calls on the Storyteller. This is her job, like please come and tell us a story or something. And so instead of telling a story, she does some spoken word poetry.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: So I have to know, okay, first of all, I’m going to read the poem. And then, so it’s, “Fraggle. Rock. Lost. Sock,” which Boober likes. And she says, “I see who? Icy no. Icy Joe. I see sock.” Is any of this scripted or is it just Donna [Kimball] being Donna?
KAREN: That was in the script. Yeah.
JOE: Incredible. What a weird thing. Whose brain came up with, “I see who? Icy no. Icy Joe. I see sock?” That’s unhinged.
KAREN: I assume it’s Annalise. I don’t know the details, but yeah, that was in the script. And man, whenever there’s a Storyteller bit like this, everybody is like, ah, get out your popcorn. Donna’s going to kill it. And she did.
ANDY: Yeah.
KAREN: It was so fun. And, you know, just trying to keep quiet and not laugh during the take while she’s doing, and then the take ends and everybody just burst out laughing.
ANDY: Storyteller might be my favorite character (laughing) on the show. (in normal voice) What Donna does, it just, it cracks me, it cracks everybody up. And Karen’s right, like everybody wants to be there when Storyteller’s gonna do something.
KAREN: Oh, yeah.
ANDY: You gotta be there.
JOE: Yeah.
ANDY: Yeah. And then even too, I remember, somewhere on the depths of my phone, they did a play back, and I want to say Donna, I’m sure she did some improv too, like she had a million ideas. And I remember filming playback on my phone just so I’d always have that. Just so I could.
JOE: Good. I’m glad. Please share that with me if you still have it. I’d love to see that.
Yeah, no, it’s funny because like even her delivery, her line deliveries for lines that are not supposed to be as unhinged as something like this. Like when Jamdolin’s like, “Storyteller, you come on up here.” And she kind of does this like, all right, like here we go. It’s just like, she’s like ready to go.
KAREN: On it.
JOE: But in a way where it’s like, “That’s my job. On it.” That’s what she says. “On it.”
KAREN: Yeah. Yep. [laughs]
JOE: It’s so like perfect. It’s perfect. Again, all of you puppeteers on this show, so good at your jobs. I love it.
KAREN: And then she gets to turn around with Mokey and also kill it. With Mokey getting big and weird in a totally different way.
JOE: Yeah. And Cotterpin against the Architect like, Donna can be such a good straight man.
KAREN: Mmhmm.
JOE: I mean, good god. So good at her job.
KAREN: [laughs] She’s amazing.
JOE: So, Gobo is searching through the caves and he’s shouting, “Mezzo. Mezzo.” And there’s a little green creature pops up and is like, “Are you calling for me?” And this is the debut of Little Rago, who thought that when Gobo said, “Mezzo,” he was saying, “Little Rago,” which kind of sounds the same, but not really. It’s such a great non sequitur. It’s so like, oh, okay. Well, call me if you need me, whatever it is. It’s just like who is this Little Rago? Who we’ll see again in a few minutes.
KAREN: That’s Ingrid [Hansen].
JOE: Yeah, that’s Ingrid Hansen. Yeah. Yeah. Just having fun with this little quick gag character but just eating it up.
JOE: Yeah. And again, like we were talking earlier, about like Gobo has a thing for like seats. It’s like such a little thing. And like, yeah, Little Rago thinks that people are calling their name. Like it’s such a little thing. And yet, it’s so true and it’s so funny. And speaking as someone whose name is Joe, there’s a lot of words that sound like my name. So I always feel like in the distance, someone’s calling my name and I get it.
It’s like, “Are you talking to me? No? You said something that doesn’t sound anything like my name? Okay. Well, just checking and moving on.” [laughs]
Also, oh, there’s also signs all over this cave that he’s in with like arrows pointing in different directions and curled arrows and things like that because of course he’s in Confusing-Turn Cave, which I don’t think I picked up on that the first time I watched this that like, oh, it is confusing and they put up signs to make it more confusing. Great. Why not?
KAREN: And that makes me think, at some point, it would have been a lot to do just for one gag in the show, but we need like the Fraggle equivalent of the Escher maze.
JOE: Oh, yeah.
KAREN: Which is just like all the gravity and everything, all over the place and that would be, yeah.
JOE: Yeah. I like the idea that maybe that was what someone had in mind when they put it in the script and they’re like, “We don’t have the budget.” It’s like, “Fine. Just get some cardboard and a Sharpie.”
KAREN: [laughs] Here’s a sign. Okay. Go.
JOE: Moving on. It cost us all of $12. Like if you can’t do it expensive, do it cheap. No middle ground.
KAREN: And I don’t know if you can’t, when the Inspector Red shows up in that scene, we tried to do a repeat of a gag from the original series’ Inspector Red show, where she is in someone’s cave. I don’t know if it’s Boobers or Gobo and Wembley’s cave. And she is looking around and she is looking through her glass and she turns and “aah!” she gets scared by Gobo and Wembley are in the window.
And so I wanted to do a repeat of that gag, but we have it now with Gobo. Red does call out beforehand. So it’s not a pure surprise. But he turns around and then Inspector Red is there looking at him. So she gets, 40 years later, she gets back at him.
JOE: Yeah, great.
KAREN: Do a little jump scare. Yes.
JOE: Only took her 40 years, but…
KAREN: Yes.
JOE: Revenge. [laughs]
[Karen and Andy laugh]
JOE: Yeah. So as you said, Inspector Red show up and Red says, “Okay, I’ll leave you alone if you can win a game of rock, radish pond,” which I guess is like rock, paper, scissors. But what I love about this is they both seem to throw out a fist. Like I think Red throws out a rock and Gobo throws out a radish, but like they look exactly the same with their little rod hands.
KAREN: Yeah, with their little bitty fingers. I think the radish was…
JOE: Did he have a pinky up?
KAREN: One pinky out was the radish, but just trying to get that and plus us trying to hit the marks with our puppets and get the hands to read and all that kind of stuff and get the hand pose to read with the little bitty finger. And if it’s twisted the wrong way, you can’t see it. So we were trying that several times to get it to read. So in the final one, you could see Gobo’s got his pinky out.
JOE: Oh, I’ll have to look for that.
KAREN: It’s just different enough. Yes.
JOE: Yeah. Okay. I’ll take your word for it.
KAREN: But it’s because their hands are just, they have these big fat palms with the little fingers, so they’re just trying to come up with something that would read for the different, the different things. Yeah.
JOE: Yeah. So they hear a mysterious voice and they look over and they see the big shadow of Mezzo. And Red uses her magnifying glass to look down and see that it’s actually a very tiny Mezzo, who’s the size of a bug. Like the size of a twiddle bug, I think specifically. I wonder if that’s something that was maybe planned out.
Like way smaller than a Doozer even. So like I love that, you know, we’re not just building like a little Doozer-size fraggle like you guys used on the old show. And sometimes on this one. But like it’s just like no, we need to go smaller. It needs to be the size of a bug. It needs to be really, really tiny.
And she’s standing in front of Gobo’s lantern, which is how she’s casting a big shadow. Yeah. We meet Mezzo for the first time. She’s voiced by Ariana DeBose. Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, I should say. And I believe Donna Kimball is doing the puppetry. Is that right?
KAREN: Oh, yes. Oh, and that’s again, Donna killing it with the beautiful performance. And then when they get into the dancing, Donna is so good, just figuring out full-body choreography with dancing or just simple physical movement. And she’s got people that’ll always jump in to assist her. So when they get into the dancing later on, it’s just amazing. So yeah, that’s Donna doing a beautiful, beautiful job with that character.
JOE: That’s great. Yeah. And the design is great too. And we could talk about all four of the band members, but like she’s got these thigh-high boots and she’s bright pink. And she’s got a big stripe across her torso and she’s got these beautiful wings. Just great designs. The other band members, which according to the Muppet Wiki, I’m sure you all know this, but their names are Twelve-Toes, Dusty and Monchis. If I got that right.
KAREN: I don’t remember that.
JOE: Okay.
KAREN: I don’t know if they had different names for…that’s not what I remember. So I’m not sure…
JOE: What do you remember?
KAREN: Gosh, I don’t know. That was around, I was supposed to, the one that plays the keyboard, I was supposed to play her. And I think I did a few shots of her, but when it came time to do the song, I was home sick, so Anna Cummer jumped in and did the performing, the leg up on the keyboard.
JOE: Yeah, that was cool. Cool shot.
KAREN: So, I was just around for a few bits of their stuff. And, yeah, I can’t remember, but I was trying to remember. We first see her shadow. And I don’t think I was there for shooting that, but I think they actually had the big puppet in the set to cast a nice clean shadow.
JOE: Yeah, that makes sense.
KAREN: I think it was an actual shadow and not making a silhouette in post and sticking it on. I think they actually, I’m not sure about that, but I think that’s what they did. And, interesting thing about her design, when we were discussing her design, because we do see in advance some posters of Mezzo. And there were all kinds of different design thing ideas explored. Some that were truly very insect-looking. And then the thought was, well if there’s posters in advance, and it looks like an insect, it might give away what’s happening.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: So the idea was we’ll make them look, have the face and the proportions look Fraggley. So just between the Fraggles acting like they’re familiar with this character and seeing posters, the audience is just going to assume, oh, it’s a fraggle or a fraggle-size creature.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: So that’s just a little thing that kind of helps with the misdirection is having an almost fraggley design for them.
JOE: Yeah, I appreciate that, especially because, you know, it’s the same with the craggles and the merggles, where it’s like the differences between these species are so subtle. You know, like the eyes are a little bit different or the coloring’s a little bit different. And here we’ve got, obviously they’ve got wings, but they’ve also got these torsos that are like very furry with a big stripe across the midsection.
But speaking of that, do they have a name for the species? Did you decide on something behind the scenes?
KAREN: Not that I know of. And those puppets were custom made. Like for the merggles and the craggles, and the lost fraggles, they used the same bodies and heads that they use for background fraggles.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: But these guys were, they were all custom made because they’re just different enough. The shapes were just different and the colors just different enough that they are their own thing. But, yes, I am not aware of any name. It was just Mezzo’s band.
JOE: Okay.
KAREN: As far as I know, for now.
JOE: For now. For now. That’s the important thing. We’ll decide something, aybe when Mezzo’s tour comes back through. We’ll see.
Gobo recognizes them as the bugs that he shooed away at the concert hall. And so he’s like, “Oh, well, if I knew you were an important band, I never would have done that.” And like, Mezzo kind of calls him out on it, saying like, “You shouldn’t be treating anybody like that. Important or not.”
KAREN: I love how he states that, he is so oblivious.
JOE: Yes.
KAREn: When he states that. Whereas the audience, anybody else, is like, “Oh, no.” Gobo’s says, Well, of course. And then for her to call that out it’s like, oh, ah, yeah. Then it’s like, ugh. It hits so big. But it’s just handled so, so well.
JOE: Yeah. It’s true. Yeah. And that definitely has like larger implications in society of people who are treated differently because they are perceived as like a higher or lower caste. And, you know, obviously that’s a big topic that we don’t really have time to get into in this wonderful children’s show. But definitely.
KAREN: But even something that doesn’t register as being in a specific hierarchy, but almost being inconsequential.
JOE: Yes.
KAREN: Yeah. And so just to hit Gobo with that really hard, but just in a very strong and respectful way is just the writing and the performing it just handles it so well.
JOE: Yeah. After he reads Traveling Matt’s postcard, which is a story about him playing pickup basketball with some youths, Gobo says, well, there’s something I need to do. And then Little Rago shows up again and says, “Did somebody say Little Rago?”
Gobo’s like, “No. I said ‘there’s something I need to do,’” which again, I guess it doesn’t not sound like Little Rago, but it really doesn’t sound like Little Rago. What a great running gag. I love it. I wish it happened 12 times in this episode. [laughs]
Thank you for the gift of a Little Rago. Love them.
KAREN: Rago kind of, everyone once in a while, there’s a little bit of Rago. Yeah.
JOE: That’s good. Yeah. Looking forward to seeing them again.
KAREN: There are more chances to revisit Rago. Yeah.
JOE: Good. Good. I need to see more of them. Back at the concert. Okay. So now there’s like, obviously they’ve been going through all these different acts. Opening acts, we should say. Mokey’s doing like this weird ribbon dance and Wembley is dressed in black with a beret and he’s playing the bongos. And it’s very artsy. I think they literally say art at the end.
KAREN: Oh, yeah. [laughs]
JOE: Yep. Great. Great stuff. I love seeing how, it’s like on the old Fraggle Rock, Mokey’s art was always very passive, very like meditative. And I love that this new version of Mokey is like, “No, art can also be in your face.”
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: And it could be anything, which is absolutely true. And for her and Wembley, they say they just made it up on the spot and it feels that way. But it’s like, yeah, sure, do anything. It’s art.
KAREN: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JOE: Great.
KAREN: I love they just they just kind of, you know, bring the weird with pushing what they do with both the characters. Just a little brief thing. But it’s just such a gem.
JOE: It really is. Yeah. Gobo takes the stage. He admits that he messed up by dismissing Mezzo for being so small. He goes through this big apology. He also apologizes to the Doozers, because he did the same thing to them. And then Mezzo pops up. Is it like a rock is rising from the ground, and she’s on it?
KAREN: Yeah. Yeah.
JOE: Which is cool. I didn’t know that rocks could do that. But here we are, hanging out with rocks.
KAREN: Hey, you know, it’s the magical world of Fraggle Rock.
JOE: Yeah. And maybe that’s Concert Cave. Maybe that’s like their stages there. Sure.
KAREN: And how the images reflect on the big screens up top, that’s all part of that’s why Concert Cave is used for concerts. It’s got all those neat things.
JOE: I didn’t even think about that. I’m so used to seeing–it’s like the screens on the ceiling, so you could see up close. Like if you’ve got the nosebleed seats, you could still see what’s happening on stage. And I’m so used to seeing that in concerts it didn’t even occur to me like, they’re in a cave.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: How did they– yeah, Concert Cave.
KAREN: It’s like some kind of magical, more, more of the reflection, magnification magic. Just makes it work. Yeah.
JOE: Yeah. Magic on magic. So Mezzo agrees to play the concert. And this is where we get our second song of the episode. It is “Do The Sashay,” which is from the original series episode “Wonder Mountain.” Where some singing cacti sing it to Red, and hypnotize her.
KAREN: Yep.
JOE: Great. Oh, it’s good stuff.
KAREN: Beautiful, beautiful update of the song.
JOE: Yeah.
KAREN: My gosh. All the choreography that Donna did with her team, with the stepping with the boots. It’s like sometimes with a puppet you get the finished puppet and realize, “Oh, we could do this with the boots, and we can control her knees.” So sometimes you don’t realize until you get the puppet on. And it’s like, oh, we can do this. We could do this.
So because I think the puppets came together pretty close to the end. So it would have been a case of like, you know, seeing the puppet and realizing, oh, we could do all these things. And then Donna and her team just jumping on that and coming up with that choreography pretty close to shooting and just knocking in the back of the park.
JOE: Absolutely. I would have never known that they didn’t have a ton of time to prepare, you know, all of that in the choreography. Because it looks great and it feels very poppy, very concert-y.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: In a way that like other stuff on Fraggle Rock doesn’t, which is good. It shouldn’t feel like just more of the same. And of course, Ariana DeBose, nailing this song, like not a shock. Yeah, that she’s just does an amazing job singing this Fraggle song.
And It makes me want to have a whole album of like these Broadway stars singing Fraggle Rock songs. Like why not, right?
ANDY: Absolutely.
KAREN: Mm-hmm.
JOE: Like between her and Daveed. Good God.
KAREN: Oh my god.
JOE: And we also get some fun choreography from the band, the rest of the band. And the folks in the audience are having a great time. Andy, I assume you’re just, you’re on Jamdolin duty for this entire number.
ANDY: Yeah. [clears throat] Excuse me. They shot, like Mezzo was all done in the cube. And I wasn’t a part of it ’cause I was busy with Jamdolin for most of the shoot. But I remember watching, just dropping by and looking and just thinking, “Wow, this is going to be great.”
JOE: Yeah, y’all made a whole rock concert there.
ANDY: Yeah.
JOE: It’s great.
KAREN: Yeah, Andy’s one of our amazing choreography people. Usually when there’s like fancy footwork, like for “On the Same Page,” I think when it was Red and Wembley and Boober, I think you’re in there doing a lot of that stuff. So whenever Andy’s available, it’s like we try to get him in helping out with the choreography.
And it’s really good just to kind of briefly say something like this and then just trust that you’ll do it and it’ll be just so fun. So thank you for that, Andy. You helped make the choreography awesome.
ANDY: It’s one of my favorite things to do. Especially, well, one of my favorites was from the first season was the inkspots with Red, when she did her song. Absolutely loved doing that. Yeah.
JOE: That’s awesome.
KAREN: [laughs] Yep.
JOE: I can’t even walk in time, let alone like remember choreography that all has to happen like above your elbow, by the way.
KAREN: Mmhmm.
JOE: Like that’s insane. You guys are very good at your jobs. I know I’ve said that a lot. But it’s so true, I need to say it over and over again. Well done.
And this is pretty much where our episode ends. We end on Mezzo singing this great song. There’s some great camera shots by the way. There’s a great–my favorite is there’s an overhead shot of her with, I guess, it’s her dress kind of shoots out like a sun.
KAREN: Yeah.
JOE: And she spins and like, oh, it’s so good. Great stuff.
KAREN: And flying. She’s got her beautiful wings that unfold, another kind of misdirection with the costumes. You see they have capes and then realize, oh, that’s part of them being insects. It’s their wings.
JOE: Yeah. Yeah.
KAREN: Yeah. So they really went to town with just all the beautiful designs and the costumes for these characters plus the performances and the choreography is just a beautiful recipe of creativity coming together.
JOE: Absolutely. That’s been everything in my experience watching this new Fraggle Rock. The scripts, the direction, the puppet building, the props, the performances, the music. Like what a perfect storm of a series. Honestly, the fact that no one is like slacking. There’s not one department that’s like, but only if they did a little bit– No, everyone’s going above and beyond. And it really comes across on the screen. I really love it.
KAREN: Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful to be a part of it. Wonderful to watch other people doing amazing things. Because we’ll just bounce off each other and inspire each other.
JOE: Yeah. So with that end of this episode, do you have any other memories from the Mezzo episode or anything else that you want to bring up that we didn’t get to or that we skimmed over?
KAREN: We just hit so many epic moments in this season. And pushing what we did with some characters. I just love how we’re exploring and going deeper with some existing characters and then finding special things to do with new characters. I just hope we get a chance to do more and continue that journey.
JOE: Me too. What a crime it will be if you guys don’t get that chance to just continue this wonderful series.
KAREN: Cross fingers, cross baloobiuses.
ANDY: Yes.
JOE: On it. My baloobius is in knots.
[Karen laughs]
JOE: Andy, Karen, one last question for each of you. How do you plan to make the world a little Fragglier?
KAREN: I’ve been on a wonderful journey doing a six-day bike tour with a group of people. And it was a very fraggley experience. Just people that really clicked and seeing beautiful things and doing a lot of physical challenges but just come together as a team and looking out for each other.
And I just want to continue doing that for myself but also I think if I can inspire other people to do that. Just get together and get out in the world. Share experiences. And just find ways to connect with activities. Because the fraggles are just so active and doing all these amazing things. And I’m not going to be jumping off cliffs into swimming pools or some of the things the fraggles do but just getting out and sharing physical experiences with people. Definitely going to continue doing that.
JOE: I love that. Andy?
ANDY: I’ve been thinking about this question too, because you asked it before. The past week I’ve been doing a lot of doom scrolling. Just with all the political climate and all the news, which is very Boobery. [laughs]
[Karen laughs]
JOE: Yeah. Boober would be a doom scroller. Yeah, absolutely. If fraggles had phones.
ANDY: Yeah. But I started to become aware of how much I was doing that. And I’m like, you know what? I need more silliness, which is also very fraggley. So that’s kind of my goal. I want to inject a little more whimsy and silliness into the world, especially now. Easy and not take it very serious and worry. So that’s my plan.
JOE: I think that’s great. All right, we’re going to be more active. We’re going to get more silliness in our lives. We’re not going to doom scroll. These are all great things.
ANDY: Yeah. Yeah.
KAREN: Mmhmm. Sounds good.
JOE: And we’re going to keep our Baloobius’s crossed for a third season of Fraggle Rock.
KAREN: Yes! Yes.
JOE: All good things. Andy Hayward, Karen Prell, thank you both so much for being here. It’s such a joy to get to talk to you both. I hope that we get more and more chances to do this, because you guys will be doing more and more Fraggle Rock work. So looking forward to having you back. I’m just going to manifest it. It’s going to happen. We’ll have you back on the podcast. Done.
ANDY: It’ll happen.
KAREn: Yay. Good. Good. [laughs] Thank you so much. It’s always, always fun. And I appreciate you helping spread the word about fraggles to the wide world out there.
JOE: Doing what we can. Doing our best.
[Fraggle Talk theme music plays]
JOE: Fraggle Talk: the unofficial Fraggle Rock podcast is brought to you by ToughPigs.com. Produced, written and hosted by Joe Hennes. Fraggle Talk art by Dave Hulteen Jr. Fraggle Rock mark and logo, characters and elements are trademarks of the Jim Henson Company. All rights reserved. Transcripts provided by Katilyn Miller.
Fraggle Rock theme song, written by Philip Balsam and Dennis Lee, is used with permission. Special thanks to The Jim Henson company, Apple TV+ and the entire Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock family.
Be sure to follow ToughPigs @ToughPigs on all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. And please consider supporting us on patreon or by buying merchandise on Teepublic.
For more Fraggle podcast fun, listen to Fraggle Talk: Classic on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time, down at Fraggle Talk.
[Music ends]
