Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Puppeteer and voice actor, best known as the voice of Miss Piggy and other Muppets.
On the island
Eight records
Don't Get Around Much AnymoreFavourite
I chose it because the jacket cover has Moes Allison sitting there. It's a white cover. He's sitting on a chair. And I remember it placed in the record rack in our home. And our home has a nice redwood floor. And I can see this when I think of Young Man Moe's. Redwood floor with a big picture window and the trees outside and our stereo. So it's a great sense of home and feeling of home when I sense Moes Allison.
I picked that because whenever we had Christmas, my parents, we have a very family-minded family. We're very close. My parents said, well, let's not open the presents yet. Let's sing some Christmas carols. And they put on Bing Crosby, God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman. And I was going crazy because I wanted to get at those presents.
George Gaynes, Warren Galjour and Albert Linville
For some reason, when I was a child, I played this album over and over again, again, in my home. And I can sing it. And if I was in that desert island, I think I could just sing to my heart's content.
Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong
It's a movie I saw when I was again a youngster with my parents. I was in the back seat watching at a drive-in. And I bought this from my father when we bought our Columbia record player at that time. This was 25 years ago. And since my mother bought the stereo from my father, I bought this record and I brought the stereo down to my room and I heard Louis Armstrong on the left... And praise the Lord, Danny Kaye on the right. And I couldn't believe it.
I just love the lyrics. And again, I know all these songs on this album, so if I was on a desert island I could sing all these songs and I'd be very happy.
When I was in Los Angeles where I met my wife doing the Muppet movie, I drove around in my car and this is one of the songs I listened to. And it reminds me of just the sunshine and the open feeling driving around Los Angeles. And it's also a beautiful song, a beautiful lament.
I brought it home one day for my wife to hear on a cassette. And we're listening to this song and we're having the greatest time. It has such energy. It's very simplistic, but it has such energy. And I just remember my wife's attitude listening to it. She has such a great love of life and great vivaciousness. And it reminds me of that quality in her.
Mose Ellison, uh, obviously is somebody I'm crazy about. This particular cut is called Parchman Farm. It's one of those of uh a couple of dozen that I could easily choose. I just think he's terrific.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:54Where do your parents come from?
My mother is Flemish. She was born in Bruges. Uh and my father is Dutch. He was born in Amsterdam. And uh they really lived in Antwerp, Belgium, before moving to the United States.
Presenter asks
5:25Did you work with [your father] as a child?
The only time I did work with him was uh I did a show in a children's park when I was about fourteen and uh it was a uh a show that he and my mother and I worked on and it was significant in that we had screaming fights. Well, of course, this is no, because I was a young kid trying to get away from my parents and at the same time uh working with my parents. As any rebellious young kid knows, it's time to get away from home and I chose that time to work with him. But it it was fine. You know, it worked out fine.
Presenter asks
7:42Had you ambitions at that time to be a professional puppeteer?
No, as a matter of fact, I I I did my first show when I was about eleven years old. I did a show in front of a supermarket for thirty-five dollars. And I did shows up until I was eighteen years old for some extra money where I could buy things. And I w was known very locally around the San Francisco Bay Area and did birthday parties and fairs and bazaars and churches and parking lots and everything, which was a very good experience, excellent experience for a performer. But in truth I I stopped when I was eighteen thinking this is silly, I'll never make money at this.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
8:39Was it before you came here or when you returned to California that you met a man named Jim Hansen?
I was in California. I was seventeen, this is prior to finishing high school, and I met Jim at a uh a conference the Puppeteers of America are having... And he asked me to... come out... He was just moving to New York from Washington DC. He was uh doing commercials and guest appearances on various variety shows... on television.
Presenter asks
15:58Was [The Muppet Show] to be a children's show?
No, no. We we tried for quite a while to sell a family adult show in the United States, but no success. The uh three networks uh thought puppets were just for children. And uh Lord Grade asked us to come over and we had the opportunity to do what we wanted, which was a family adult show that we knew was not just for children.
Presenter asks
23:12Was the whole thing carefully scripted or was there a certain amount of ad-living on the floor?
It was carefully scripted. We had uh excellent writers, about three of them usually, Jerry Jewell, the head writer, and we would take the scripts and we'd work on them for weeks and edit them down until the very last moment we'd be s editing. And then we'd ad-lib maybe five, ten percent at the very most. They were tightly scripted.
“I had never had any idea that I'd go into puppetry, I mean, or and performing, because I was much more interested in writing than in journalism.”
“We didn't want to be Americans coming in and trying to be British. That's pretty silly. We just we didn't even think about nationality. We just wanted to do a show that we thought was funny.”
“I'm gonna sound like a real sissy here, but I don't like taking those hooks out of the fish's mouth. I really don't. I'd much rather order out.”