Memoirs of a Muppets Writer: (You mean somebody actually writes that stuff?) (23 page)

Jerry and Richard engaged him in a deep conversation about jazz history. But I was still dumbfounded. Then, I realized that, under my turtleneck, I was wearing a special
Muppet Show
t-shirt that had only been distributed to the staff and cast of the show.

I took off my sweater and then the T-shirt and gave it to Stephane Grappelli. He lit up like a Christmas tree, thanked me profusely and announced he was going to wear it when he performed the following week at the annual Montrose Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

So, thanks to
The Muppet Show
, I got to give the great Stephane Grappelli the shirt off my back.

Chapter 41

Chicken Feed

O
nce a week, the writing staff was scheduled to have a lunch time meeting with Jim Henson in his office. It seemed like a good idea for the writers to get together with The Boss and kick around creative ideas. That’s exactly what we did for the first two or three weeks of the season.

However, at the time, along with producing and performing in
The Muppet Show,
Jim was the sole proprietor of Henson Associates, a fairly large company with all the legal, administrative, and human resources problems that went with it. Besides the London production, the company was supplying puppets, costumes, props and puppeteers for
Sesame Street
from the New York headquarters.

Additionally, Bernie Brillstein, Jim’s manager in Los Angeles, was lining up guest stars for the show and negotiating future projects. All together, Jim had about 40 highly professional business and creative people working directly for him. He handled it all with amazing grace and efficiency.

To say that Jim was stretched thin may be the understatement of the 20
^th
Century. Since Henson Associates was operating in three different time zones - London, New York, and Los Angeles-Jim pretty much had to be available for business calls from 3:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. London time.

Very often, problems in Los Angeles, New York and other places had to be dealt with face to face. So Jim was a frequent flyer - on the Concorde. The man had his own personal time zone. One year, Dave Goelz gave him a scuba diver’s weight belt as a Christmas gift to slow him down. Jim returned it.

All of this meant that during our weekly meetings with Jim we mostly talked quietly among ourselves and ate grilled cheese sandwiches from the canteen while Jim fielded phone calls from various parts of the world. To get any value from our preciously short time with Jim, we suggested that our weekly meetings take place somewhere outside the studio.

A short way down the main street of Boreham Wood was an Italian restaurant called Bamfi’s. And that’s where we ended up with our weekly meeting with Jim. Of course, since this was
The Muppet Show
, things didn’t work out exactly as planned. Bamfi’s was the most disorganized restaurant any of us had ever seen. So, half of our meetings were spent flagging down waiters and straightening out orders. It was still better than meeting in Jim’s office, but not much.

I was reminded of playwright George F. Kauffman’s famous epitaph for a waiter:
God finally caught his eye.
We renamed the place “Fawlty Towers North,” after John Cleese’s BBC comedy about a dysfunctional country inn.

One of Jim’s methods of dealing with writers was to throw out a subject and give them free rein to see what they could do with it. Usually, this worked out pretty well. It gave the writers a sense of what creative direction Jim was currently headed. After all, our job was to be a creative extension of him. And, as a writer, I thought Jim showed a lot of respect for my ability to just aim me in a direction and give me the freedom to run with it. This was typical Henson modus
operandus.

A good example of this was a meeting about a Christmas album I wrote while I was working on
Sesame Street.
Jim said he’d like to do something that incorporated the story line from the
Gift of the Magi.
That inspired me to write a scenario where Ernie decided to get Bert a cigar box to keep his paper clip collection together. To do it, he traded his cherished rubber ducky to Mr. Hooper for a cigar box.

Meanwhile Bert decided to get Ernie a soap dish to keep his rubber ducky from falling into the tub. So, he traded his paper clips with Mr. Hooper for a soap dish.

On Christmas Eve, the two friends decide to open their presents.

As soon as Ernie unwraps the soap dish, Bert urges him to put Rubber Ducky in it. Ernie covers by urging Bert to open his present. As expected, Bert is thrilled with the cigar box until Ernie tells him it’s for his paper clips.

There is an awkward moment until Mr. Hooper comes in with presents for Bert and Ernie. Of course, Ernie’s present is his rubber ducky and Bert’s is his paper clip collection.

When Bert apologizes for not having a gift for Mr. Hooper, Mr. Hooper replies that he got the best gift of all: seeing everybody getting exactly what they wanted for Christmas.

It’s one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever written. Eventually, it also became part of the
Sesame Street
special,
Christmas Eve
on
Sesame Street.

But, in this particular Bamfi’s meeting, Jim said he wanted to try and get some live animals into the show. Immediately, Jerry, Don and I began studying our fingernails, searching for a waiter and evaluating ceiling moldings - anything to avoid Jim’s eye. Animals are tough to write into comedy. At best, they stand there and do nothing. At worst, they’re highly unpredictable and occasionally leave “deposits” at inopportune moments. Jim said he’d like to start with a cow, and Don Hinkley gallantly volunteered.

Don created a wonderful back stage story line with the cow. Watching Kermit deal with the frustration of having a cow back stage was very funny. The scenario then continued with Scooter making milk money jokes, Gonzo trying to date it and the Swedish Chef painting it up like a butcher’s diagram while muttering something about barbeque.

Finally, Scooter tells Kermit that the Flying Zucchini Brothers, our hapless human cannon ball act, has decided to include the cow in its act. Kermit is just glad to get rid of it. But during the “good-byes” at the end of the show, Julie Andrews, the show’s guest star turns to Kermit and sweetly asks, “Oh, by the way, Kermit, have you seen my cow?”

At that very moment, we hear a cannon go off back stage and something bovine flying through the air.

The cow episode was so successful that Jim decided he wanted a show with live chickens. Since Don had written the cow show, and Jerry Juhl was the head writer with much more important things to do, the chicken routine fell to yours truly.

My first thought was a story I had heard about Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s manager. On the occasions when the young Elvis couldn’t make a performance at a county fair, he substituted an act called,
Colonel Parker’s Dancing
Chickens.

The act consisted of two chickens, a record player and an electric skillet covered with straw. Depending on the tempo of the music, the good Colonel would set the skillet heat higher or lower. You get the picture. I suggested something along similar lines to Jim. But, he was too much of an animal lover to go along with it.

A few days later, I got a call from the production department that an animal trainer was downstairs with his trained chickens. I remember walking downstairs and thinking, “I’m auditioning chickens! This has got to be the nadir of my show business career!”

The chickens had a pretty limited repertoire. When bribed with corn, they could dance on one leg, turn around and move in one direction or the other. I went back to my office and dutifully wrote a sketch called, “Gonzo and His Dancing Chickens,” a sort of paean to Colonel Parker, of whom I was now extremely envious.

Several weeks later, the shooting day for, “Gonzo and his Dancing Chickens,” arrived. I had been hoping for a root canal or a mild heart attack, but no such luck. Around mid-morning, I got an emergency call from the studio floor manager. The chicken trainer had arrived. But somehow, his trained chickens had gone to that great Kentucky Fried Chicken in the sky! All the trainer had was a chorus of untrained, no talent chickens!

As I walked down the stairs, I thought to myself, “Whatever the career level
below
nadir is, this is it!”

Well, the only solution was to capitalize on Gonzo’s unhealthy preoccupation with fowl in general, and give him a few lines while the chickens wandered around the stage. So, after a big fanfare and build up, the sketch reduced itself to Gonzo throwing lines at the chickens like, “Wow! Look at the legs on her!”, and “Whatcha doin’ later, chickie?”

Dave Goelz, who puppeteers Gonzo, wrung every bit of comedy he could out of it. For the next month, I ate nothing but chicken. And, whenever possible, I’ve avoided writing for animals ever since.

Chapter 42

Richard Hunt

I
met the irrepressible Richard Hunt when I joined
Sesame Street
in 1973 when he was just
22.
Coincidentally, my wife, Gail, knew him as a child when he hung out around the Tappan Zee Summer Theater and she was the General Manager. Richard Hunt left us much too soon at age 41. He died of that terrible disease, AIDS. It’s public knowledge now that Richard was gay. But he was just one of many gay people who made major contributions to
Sesame
Street.

I had never thought of it before, but after I joined the show I realized that human beings feel an innate responsibility to educate our young. You would expect that of parents. But parent or not, straight or gay, that was the true spirit behind Sesame Street. And, Richard was a sterling example of that.

When Richard died, Jon Stone said:

“It’s impossible to imagine a world without Richard. He came to us a wide-eyed eighteen year old and grew into a master puppeteer and inspired teacher. No one ever had a more manic love of the outrageous and absurd; no one could ever make me laugh the way Richard could. A generation has grown up absorbing Richard’s art, and I have to believe that every one of them is a smarter, funnier, stronger, sillier, more generous person because of him.”

Richard really could make Jon laugh like no one else. And that was dangerous because Jon had a rare disease that caused him to lose muscle control when he laughed - talk about your occupational hazards! So, when he directed the Muppets, Jon always kept a wheeled office chair handy in case of collapse.

One of Jon’s favorite Richard Hunt stories happened while Richard was playing Gladys the Cow during a
Sesame Street
taping. Between takes, Gladys appeared on camera reading a copy of Variety, the show business newspaper. Gladys stopped, turned to the camera and said,
Nothing in here but cattle calls.

Along with Gladys, Richard’s other
Sesame Street
characters were half of the Two-Headed Monster (with Jerry Nelson), Sully, the silent sidekick of Biff (also Jerry Nelson), Placido Flamingo, Forgetful Jones, and Don Music, the manic composer who had Joe Raposo’s picture on his wall. (Little inside
Sesame Street
dope, there.)

Richard also played the back end of the Snuffle-upagus, Big Bird’s imaginary friend. Jerry Nelson played the front, of course. In 1973, the Muppets won an Emmy for their performance on
Sesame Street.
At the celebration, we kidded Richard mercilessly about winning an Emmy for playing the arse end of a Snuffle-upagus.

On
The Muppet Show
, Richard performed Scooter, Statler (the old man in the right of the box), Janice, the Electric Mayhem’s guitarist, Bunsen Honeydew’s assistant, Beaker, and Sweetums, the walk-around monster.

I’ve told you how much fun Richard was on the Queen Elizabeth II and about his and Jerry’s generosity toward me when I first got to London. But there are three more Richard Hunt stories I would like to relate.

Richard was the unofficial tour guide of
The Muppet Show
. Whenever we had visitors, Richard would take them in hand, show them the studio, the shop, and put on his characters and perform for them. One day, a class of blind children were touring the show. I walked into the shop to see Richard performing Scooter for them. Scooter was talking to one pretty little blonde girl of eight or nine.

Here, feel my face. Here’s my nose.
Cute, isn’t it.
Be careful of my eye! And, what do
you
think of my jacket? Pretty cool, huh?

The little girl and her friends were giggling uncontrollably. The memory of that is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think of my dear friend, Richard Hunt.

When Jerry Nelson married his lovely wife, Jan, on the beach in Truro, Massachusetts in the summer of 1984, Richard “officiated” at the ceremony in his persona of Reverend Richie of the Church of the Holy Mackerel. Since Jan and Jerry had really married the day before in the Truro Town Hall, the “showbiz” marriage was all classic Richard, written by Richard and Jerry.

The sham ceremony ended with a champagne toast by the Reverend Richie, which ended up with Richard saying something like, “You will be shelter unto each other and feel no rain.”

Just as the toast ended, the skies opened up and it started to pour. A tent had been set up for the reception. You could see dozens of guests, dressed in summer finery, simultaneously realize that the tent was too far to reach, even at a dead run. So, we all just stood on the beach in the pouring rain and continued toasting the bride and groom.

The Muppet Show
work week usually ran from Sunday to Thursday. On those Thursday nights, I realized there were two types of reactions to creative exhaustion. Some of us, after a hard week, just went home and collapsed. Others of us were so wound up and full of adrenalin, we had to go out and blow off some steam. I, of course, belonged to the latter group.

One Thursday night, Richard, Jerry, myself, and several others piled into Richard’s ancient Ford and went rumbling up to Hampstead Heath. We were on our way to an Italian restaurant which had been highly recommended. Good restaurants that didn’t require reservations days in advance were hard to find in 1977 London.