Memoirs of a Muppets Writer: (You mean somebody actually writes that stuff?) (16 page)

But CBS agreed to run it only if each show had a celebrity guest star,
and
that guest star had to be billboarded in the opening of the show to hold the viewers. That’s why the show always opened with Scooter announcing how long before show time to the guest star in the star’s dressing room. Jim determined that Scooter’s dialogue would coincide exactly with the length of the skit. If the skit timed out at 19 seconds, Scooter would announce to the guest star, “19 seconds ‘til curtain!”

Initially, it was difficult to attract guest stars, mostly because of the American belief that puppets on television were only for kids. (They thought the same thing about animation until The
Simpsons
and South
Park.)
However, after the show became a hit in 1976, stars were lining up to appear on it.

It was the culture of
The Muppet Show to
make sure every guest star was made to feel welcome and comfortable. So, a week or so before we started a script, Jerry Juhl would talk to the star’s manager or the star himself, or herself, to get a feeling of what they would be comfortable doing on the show. Usually singers wanted to sing, and dancers wanted to dance.

But, occasionally, stars saw the show as an opportunity to play against type. I remember Beverly Sills, the great opera singer, told Jerry Juhl she always wanted to tap dance and sing Country and Western music. Since the Muppets operated in a parallel universe, we could usually accommodate the guests. (We did for Ms. Sills.)

Once a week, the writers also met with Jim to get his input for the next script. Sometimes Jim had an idea for a back stage story line. Sometimes he had ideas that involved the guest stars, or a
Pigs In Space,
or a music number. Jim thought about the show constantly. So, it was very important for Jim and the writers to stay in creative touch. The Muppet Show really was the product of Jim Henson’s imagination.

So, when the writers started to construct the show, we knew what the guest star wanted to do. We also knew the guest star had to be in the dressing room opening, star in two skits or musical numbers, and do a “talk” spot with Kermit. These pieces, along with Jim’s input, were sacrosanct. But, we could also use the guest star in other pieces if it was appropriate. Also, every script had to have a four-scene backstage story line.

Here is a typical writers’ run down for the show that starred Helen Reddy as prepared by Jerry Juhl after the initial writers’ meeting.

THE MUPPET SHOW NO. 72 - Helen Reddy

1. OPENING (Scooter/Guest Star in Dressing Room)

2. OPENING TITLES

3. COMMERCIAL NO.1

4. KERMIT WELCOMES

5. OPENING MUSICAL NO.

6. STATLER & WALDORF NO.1

7. BACKSTAGE NO. 1 - Beauregard, the stage hand, has waxed the backstage floor - no one can stand up.

8. KERMIT INTROS HELEN REDDY

9. HELEN’S FIRST NO.

10. STATLER & WALDORF NO. 2

11. NIGHT COURT - a new magazine element… maybe

12. HELEN, FOZZIE & AUSTRIAN BAND

13. BACKSTAGE NO. 2 - Kermit has stopped Beauregard just in time. He was starting to wax center stage.

14. KERM IT INTROS FOZZIE - who is going to do a Folk Dance with two other guys.

15. THE SLIP DANCE - Fozzie and his partners try to do their dance, avoiding the one slippery spot on the stage. Guess who keeps finding it.

16. COMMERCIAL NO. 2

17. UK SPOT

18. HELEN & KERMIT TALK SPOT INTO SONG.

19. STATLER & WALDORF NO. 3

20. BACKSTAGE NO. 3 - To cut the slipperiness, Kermit asked Beauregard to toss a little sand on the floor. Everyone is knee deep in sand. Beauregard is apologetic. A camel arrives (?)

21. AT THE DANCE

22. MUPPET SPORTS REPORT

23. BACKSTAGE NO. 4 - Beauregard has swept the sand out of backstage. And put it on stage.

24. KERMIT INTROS HELEN

25. HELEN’S CLOSING NUMBER - desert setting - Arabs and camels.

26. COMMERCIAL NO. 3

27. GOODNIGHTS

28. CREDITS

29. STATLER & WALDORF CLOSING COMMENT

When the run down was finished, Don, Jerry and I would have a meeting to decide who writes what. Usually, whoever came up with the backstage story line wrote those four scenes. The rest would be divided up more or less equally, based on who had an idea for what.

It’s been more than 30 years since I worked on this script but I do know I wrote Numbers 12 and 21. In Number 12, Fozzie decides to make Helen Reddy feel at home by surprising her with an Austrian, um-pah band, dressed in lederhosen. When Helen explains she’s Australian, not Austrian, the band plays an um-pah version of
Waltzing Matilda
while hopping around like kangaroos.

In Number 21, At The Dance, I thought it would be fun to have the Muppets form a conga line. Each bad joke segued back into a conga. E.g.:
What did Pocahontas sing to John Smith when they danced? The Indian love son-ga!; What
does
the dancing cowboy sing to his cattle? Little dogie get alon-ga.
As you can see, I did learn to write bad jokes.

With the exception of the Sunday morning read-through, we writers just hung out in our offices and wrote. Although we were located in a different building from the studio, we had television monitors that showed us what was going on in the studio. Of course, a writer would closely watch the monitor if a piece of his material was being taped. It’s always interesting to see how something you wrote is finally performed.

Occasionally, something goes wrong. You’re watching a piece you wrote and it’s not working. Maybe it’s too complicated. Or, maybe it just isn’t funny. Don Hinkley had a technical term for this. He called it a “jokeoid.”

A jokeoid, Don explained, feels like a joke when you think of it. It reads like a joke when you write it. It sounds like a joke when you rehearse it. But, when you tell it, nobody laughs.

When things go wrong in the studio, as they do, and you’re watching something you wrote die, you know what the next step is. The phone is going to ring and it will be the studio asking for a re-write. Here’s something you may have spent a day or more writing and they want a new ending -
immediately!
But, as Don used to say: “That’s why we get the big bucks.”

While the writing staff is frantically trying to come up with a new ending, all studio production stops and the entire cast and crew stand down and wait. Thousands of dollars are being wasted. To make matters worse, while we’re scrambling to re-write, the camera pans around the studio so you can watch the cast and crew trimming their nails and twiddling their thumbs.

Basically, our job was to show up every day and be funny. However, there was a certain amount of practicality involved. Television shows have to have structure, continuity and contrast. So, the lunacy had to be channeled.

Obviously, there’s a lot of daydreaming. It’s part of the job. Don and I also worked out an intricate body language to signal if we were really working on something or were available for some serious breeze shooting. Sometimes, that even led to a useable idea.

Don and I were as opposite as two people could be. I was hirsute and bearded. Don was clean shaven and bald. I was the nervous, edgy New Yorker. Don was the laid back Californian. There was also a twenty-year difference in our ages. And yet, we never had a bad word. We did have a lot of fun. I’ve often thought of doing a play about the two of us trapped in that tiny office creating comedy.

Every Thursday, at the end of the work day, we writers had to have a finished script. The last thing we did on Thursday nights was time the script. We did that by running a stop watch and reading through each scene ourselves, out loud, approximating the characters’ timing and attitude. If it needed trimming, that’s when we trimmed it. In other words, we did our own version of the script with the writers playing all the characters. Jerry usually played Kermit and Don and I did the other characters. We were always careful to lock the doors before we started timing the script.

Chapter 27

Jerry Nelson

J
erry and I became friends several years before
The Muppet Show
premiered. Jerry and Richard Hunt were teamed up regularly on
Sesame Street
during my first four seasons on the show. So, we developed a creative relationship between my writing and their performing.

They performed both ends of the Snuffle-upagus with Jerry in front doing the talking. They performed the Two-Headed Monster, Frank-N-Stein. They were Biff (Jerry), the loud mouth hard hat and his partner, Sully (Richard), who couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Jerry also performed Herry (pronounced as a cross between “Harry” and hairy) Monster and Count von Count, the numerically crazed Transylvanian nobleman.

During the early 1970s on
Sesame
Street, the Snuffle-upagus was believed by the show’s adults to be a figment of Big Bird’s imagination. So, the fun, as a writer, was to see how close I could bring this elephant sized mammoth to the adult cast, without their seeing him.

I used him in a show I did about a blackout on
Sesame Street
. After careful negotiation, and minute planning, the adults are about to meet the Snuffle-upagus when the blackout occurred. I also once wrote a party down in Oscar’s can, which was basically a radio show. We only saw Oscar’s can from the outside. Snuffy’s snuffle appears from inside the can and a cast member inside is heard wondering, “Who’s that big hairy guy with the trunk?”

“Aw, it’s just some friend of Oscar’s.”

So, according to my
Sesame Street
history, the adults were actually at the same party as the Snuffle-upagus. They were just never introduced.

When
Sesame Street
was in production and the Snuffle-upagus wasn’t being used in the studio, the elephant-sized puppet was “flown” from the ceiling. “Flying” is a theatrical term for moving things up and down through a series of pulleys from the top of a studio or theater. Scenic backdrops are “flown.” Curtains are “flown.” Lighting is “flown.”

So, when Snuffy wasn’t being used, cables were attached to his head and back and he was hoisted 40 feet in the air, where he was out of the way and safe. When it was time for the puppeteers to suit up, the giant puppet was lowered to the deck.

What made this so much fun was that in those days, we had a lot of kids on the show, playing in the background. There were also a goodly amount of visiting children, friends of the cast and crew. Many of these kids spotted Snuffy hanging overhead. When they did, they went nuts!

Kids would grab the leg of the nearest adult and yell, “Look! Look! It’s the Snuffle-upagus!”

And, the adult response was always the same: “Aw, c’mon, kid. You can’t fool me. There’s no such thing as a Snuffle-upagus.”

The Count is really a wonderful character, thanks to Jerry’s creativity. I’ve had him counting bathroom tiles and how many times a piano was carried in and out a door. (Inside dope: The Count’s Countmobile license plate is
Transylvania six, five thousand.
)

Jerry also performed Herry Monster, the big furry blue monster with the big purple nose. I based Herry on a friend of mine who was extremely strong and extremely clumsy. Herry didn’t know his own strength. Like my friend, Herry just went through life accidentally tearing doors from their hinges. On one occasion, I wrote a song for Herry called, I Can’t
Help It.
While performing the song, Herry destroyed the entire Fix-it Shop.

One day, I walked into the
Sesame Street
production offices and was grabbed simultaneously by three or four people.

“You’ve got to see this!”, they exclaimed.

They dragged me over to a monitor that was connected to the studio uptown on 81st Street. It was between takes of a piece where Oscar the Grouch’s cousin came to visit. Jerry was performing Oscar’s cousin. I hadn’t even written the piece, so I couldn’t understand what all the excitement was about.

The call for “action” came and the skit started. It was a good bit, but it didn’t seem to warrant the gales of laughter from the people around me.

“What’s so funny?”, I asked.

“Jerry’s doing your voice for Oscar’s cousin!”

“That doesn’t sound anything like me!”, which, of course, is what everybody says when they hear their own voice. I like to think I sound like Carry Grant. Please don’t break the illusion.

Perhaps my favorite Jerry Nelson
Sesame Street
character from those days was Biff, the opinionated hard hat. Every job site, factory floor and neighborhood tavern has a Biff, a blowhard know-it-all who was seldom, if ever, right. Biff was right up there with Cliff Clavin in Cheers! He even antagonized Maria by referring to her as
Little Lady.

In one
Sesame Street
episode, in an explosion of feminism, I wrote Maria a job on a construction site. While she was working on a steel beam, along came Biff and Sully. Biff decides to teach the
Little Lady
how to rivet. In doing so, he inadvertently riveted his lunch box to the beam.

It’s always been fun to be a part of Jerry’s characters. They’re just so beautifully finished.

But there’s another less known but extremely important contribution that Jerry Nelson brings to the Muppets - his musical ability. Jerry can sing on key in all of his voices. Much of the big, Muppet choruses you hear are Jerry’s voices over-dubbed several times.

At this writing, December 2010, Jerry recently released
Truro
Daydreams, a CD of his own music, sung with his own voice accompanied by his own guitar. Buy it. In fact, buy three or four.

Chapter 28

Writing Assignment: Gonzo’s Song

O
ne morning, Jerry Juhl called me into his office to give me an assignment. The English version of
The Muppet Show
was two minutes longer than the U.S. version because they had fewer commercials. The usual solution was to do a musical number. Music can be timed exactly, and so it’s easier to fill a segment that has to be exactly two minutes with a musical production number.

The problem was that a show had to be delivered to the English network, but the musical number wasn’t ready. There was a musical number starring Gonzo already produced, but it only ran one minute and forty seconds. Something had to be written to fill twenty seconds so the piece would time out to two minutes.

Normally, Kermit would do an introduction in front of the curtains. But,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
the Great Gonzo will now sing Blah-blah-blah, only takes five seconds. There is still 15 seconds left to fill. Fifteen seconds can be an eternity in television. They do complete commercials in 15 seconds. So, I had to create a 20-second introduction.

Having Kermit talk for 20 seconds seemed contrived to me - and not very funny. I needed a simple piece of “business” or action for Kermit to fill the time. I came up with this solution:

Firstly, the usual Kermit puppets (there are always several on hand) ended just below the waist, since he’s usually shot from the waist up. But I knew there was at least one Kermit with legs for shots where he sits on a chair or a wall.

I had Kermit enter from off camera to start the introduction. But about a quarter of the way in, I indicated that his right foot gets stuck on a piece of chewing gum. This could be realistically accomplished by Jim or a second puppeteer holding Kermit’s right leg below camera range.

So, now Kermit’s trying to introduce Gonzo
and
get his foot unstuck at the same time. Additionally, during the introduction, he’s complaining to someone off stage about the gum and demanding to know who sweeps the stage and why it wasn’t swept. It was just a little piece of “business,” but Jim played it beautifully. Of course, at the end of the introduction, Kermit’s foot pops free and he flies out of the frame. We hear an off-camera “crash!” as the curtains open on Gonzo’s song.

Chapter 29

Surviving London

I
owe my survival during my first few weeks in London to Richard Hunt and Jerry Nelson. At the studio, we were on camera until 8:00 at night,
if
we didn’t go into overtime. By the time I got back to my flat it was at least 9:00. By then, it was too late to shop. And the English shop owners had strange ideas about closing early on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

In New York, eating late was never a problem. I could leave a studio at anytime of the day or night and find some place to eat. Many bars’ kitchens are open until midnight or 2:00 a.m.. There are also all night diners and delis all over New York City.

London, on the other hand, was quite different. First of all, a lot of pub food was frankly awful. And, it’s a little known fact that indigestion, along with relationship problems, is an occupational hazard for comedy writers. For that reason, I stay away from strange Mexican, Indian, and Thai restaurants when I’m working. It’s hard enough to re-write comedy on the spot when there’s a problem and the meter is running. You certainly don’t need your bowels on fire to boot.

All of the better London restaurants were very strict about reservations, requiring tables to be “booked” days in advance. Sometimes in New York, if a restaurant is full and you haven’t a reservation, they’ll let you wait at the bar until a table opens up after the dinner rush.

No such luck in London restaurants. No booking, no table. Their philosophy seemed to be that Londoners were divided into two groups: those who had money and didn’t work; and those who worked and had no money. There was no accommodation for people who worked
and
had money.

Since we were never quite sure when we would finish at the studio, it was impossible for us to make dinner reservations. After several weeks, I solved the problem by eating most nights in the London branch of Joe Allen’s, the theatre bar on west 46
^th
Street, New York’s Restaurant Row.

Joe Allen’s had great steaks, cold beer and ice, items in rare supply in most London pubs. Since they served food, they were open until 1:00 a.m., and I could eat at the bar without a reservation. But, until I discovered Joe Allen’s, many nights I dined on my “emergency rations,” a one pound bar of Cadbury chocolate and a few cans of Heineken beer. I’ll admit it’s an acquired taste.

Getting around London at night was also a lot tougher than New York. Most taxicabs in New York are owned by fleets. The taxi fleets keep their cabs on the street 24 hours a day. There are privately owned taxis in New York, but their owners also usually hire drivers to work the night shift.

In London, most of the cabs are privately owned and the drivers take them home at the end of their work day. So, it was usual to hail a cab and hear:

“Well, Gov’ner, I’m on me way home to the wife and kiddies down near Battersea. If you’re going that way, ‘op in. Otherwise …”

Sometimes, growling at them in Brooklynese helped.

“I wanna go to Regent Park.
Ya gotta problem wit dat?”

Kojak
was then the hottest show on British television (next to
The Muppet Show
). And, the one thing every Londoner knew about every New Yorker was: 1., We were all heavily armed; and 2., We ate our young. So, sometimes that worked. But usually by evening London cabs disappeared from the streets.

Joe Allen’s had the number of a mini-cab service, which was just a group of guys moonlighting with their own private cars. So, when I asked them for a mini-cab to get home, I was never sure what was going to show up. Sometimes it was a 30 year old Peugeot with three fenders. Other times it could be a brand new air-conditioned Volvo.

I once told Jim I had solved the late night, London taxicab problem. I had, I told him, isolated the scent of the female London taxicab and I kept a vial of it with me at all times. When I needed a cab late at night, I simply sprinkled a little around the base of a street lamp. Then I hid in the shadows and waited for a randy buck taxi to show up. After I told him that, Jim said he knew then I was legitimately crazy.