Memoirs of a Muppets Writer: (You mean somebody actually writes that stuff?) (27 page)

Even though I had been in television production for 20 years, watching Jon on the reeky was still an education. Any location that we wanted to use was photographed from every angle by Polly at Jon’s direction. And, since we were going to shoot almost exactly a year later, Jon had his compass out and made copious notes and diagrams of the sun’s location and movement. Now we could tailor the scripts for the best locations. And, we’d have a jump on lighting and camera position when we shot the following year.

I, on the other hand, was trying to soak up some local atmosphere. In the name of disclosure, my father’s parents immigrated to New York from Belfast in the late 19
^th
Century. There’s always been a generous supply of Irish Blarney on my father’s side of the family.

So, when I arrived in Ireland, I expected the occasional, jocular bon mot. But what I discovered was an entire country of stand-up comics. Laughter is in the Irish soul and in the air. Here are a few examples.

We had arrived in Ireland in late June. As the Fourth of July approached, an Irishman asked me if we were going to do anything special to celebrate American Independence Day.

“Yes, we are.”, I told him, fatuously. “We’re planning to go over to the east coast and moon England across the Irish Sea.”

“Well”, came the dead panned response. “I understand several hotels on the coast have set up grandstands and offer free bus service for just such activities.”

While we were traveling through County Cork along Ireland’s south coast, the talk was all about the computerization of the Irish lighthouse system. Ireland is surrounded by some of the roughest seas in the world. So every harbor has it’s own lighthouse and rescue boat.

In the past, the lighthouses were manned by crews of lighthouse keepers. Stories abound about the keepers saving boats from running aground, or worse, during storms. Now, the lighthouses had been automated and their schedule would be run by a centralized computer.

The subject came up again while we were having lunch in a pub overlooking Bantry Bay. “For all we know,” the female publican lamented. “Boat loads of neurotics could be waiting to come ashore and who’s to warn us?”

I immediately pictured a flotilla of ocean liners, just over the horizon, filled to the gunnels with characters from Woody Allen movies. All were chain-smoking furiously while talking to their analysts on their cell phones, and waiting for dark so they could invade the Emerald Isle.

In Ireland, in late June, the sun rises around 4:00 am and sets around 11:00 p.m. It’s a great misconception in the United States, but England, Ireland and Scotland are not due east of New York. Rather, they’re on a geographical par with Alaska. Their summer days are much longer and their winter days are much shorter. So, if you drive around Ireland in mid-summer with a northeastern American sensitivity, you expect the sun to set around 8:00 p.m. But, because you’re so much farther north, the sun is fully risen at 5:00 am and doesn’t set until around 10:30 at night.

So, our work days were a lot longer than we had anticipated. Your inner clock tells you when the sun starts to set, you quit work and get hungry. So, our work day ended around 10:00 p.m., even though it felt like 8:00 p.m. in New York.

One night, after a very long day on the road, we checked into a Fitzpatrick hotel. Jon and I went into the bar. We found a couple of bar stools and ordered two pints of Guinness. It was only my ten day exposure to the Irish that gave me the courage to throw out a verbal hand grenade.

I turned to Jon and said, in my loudest voice, in my worst New York accent, Well, Jon,
I, guess it’s true.

What’s
true?, Jon responded in an equally loud voice and American accent.

I guess it’s true all the charming Irish are in New York!

By the time I counted to five under my breath, a head popped up half way down the bar.

What
do you
mean,
all the @#**#@
&
charming Irish are in New York!?,
he demanded.

Well, I replied.
We’re been in here for ten
minutes and
nobody’s charmed
us yet.
If you’d like to
come down here, have a
pint and give it a shot, be our guest.

That was all it took. By the time we left that bar, ‘way too late that night, we had met the high school principal, the dog catcher, both of the town cops, the Ford dealer, the undertaker and everybody else in town.

Since the Irish President, Mary Robinson, was the country’s first woman president, Jon and I had planned to write a cameo role in Big
Bird in Ireland
for her. So, we immediately contacted Mrs. Robinson’s office as soon as we arrived in the country. But it was at least a week later before one of her staff invited us to tea at An is House, the Irish Presidential residence. Thanks to my association with the Muppets, the Irish White House was the second presidential residence to which I’ve been invited.

Over tea, the staff member apologized for the delay in contacting us, and told us the following story:

The week before our arrival, Mrs. Robinson was reviewing the troops at an Irish Army base. She was wearing a bright yellow suit. Some trooper in the ranks murmured, “Oh, look! It’s Big Bird!”, causing the entire troop to collapse with laughter.

Knowing their own people as well as they do, the President’s staff figured that any message they received, at all associated with
Sesame Street
, was going to be one, monumental Irish put-on. Now, it was too late to change the President’s schedule to include us. Apologies all around. But it was still an interesting experience.

Though almost in the center of Dublin, Anis House is located in an idyllic spot surrounded by meadow and parkland. A herd of dairy cows grazed placidly across the road. At that time, 1992, a lamp burned continuously, day and night, in one window of the residence.

The reason? Mrs. Robinson literally kept a lamp in the nation’s window for all the expatriate Irish who were forced abroad because of their lack of opportunity at home. As a descendent of Irish emigrants, I found the gesture quite touching.

Chapter 47

To be or … whatever

I
t’s no secret that film and television are two of the most heavily unionized industries in the country. The actors, directors, writers, set designers, stage hands, electricians, camera men, sound men, prop men, wardrobe people, make-up and hair people, and musicians all have their own, individual unions with their own arcane contracts.

Joining any of these unions is a true exercise in Catch-22. No production company with union contracts will hire anyone who is not a union member. But, most of these unions won’t let you join unless you have a job at a union production company. Don’t ask. My membership in the Writers Guild came about when I joined
The Muppet Show.
The show insisted on having me so the union accepted me.

But, the first thing I learned about film and TV studios was
DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!
Every item in the studio, camera, light, prop, is covered by a specific union. Their members, and only their members are allowed to touch it. Cross union touching is a no-no. In 25 years in television I never touched anything in a studio but the floor.

By and large we all get along pretty well. But some union members (including my own) are a little more gung-ho than the rest of us, which is why I got a call from the Screen Actors Guild sometime in the mid-1980s.

When I answered the phone, a pleasant sounding woman informed me that SAG was holding a residual check for me. I explained that it must be a mistake. I was not a member of SAG. I was a member of the WGA. The check was probably a Writers Guild residual that had been sent to SAG by mistake. I asked her to mail it to me.

However, she insisted that I pick the check up in person. I couldn’t understand why. But a few days later I was near the Screen Actors Guild office on West 57
^th
Street, so I stopped by to retrieve my check.

I introduced myself to the receptionist and was told that a Mister So-and-so wanted to see me. I couldn’t understand why since this was some kind of clerical mix-up. I killed some time wandering around the reception room. Since actors constantly travel, the walls are filled with notices advertising and seeking apartment sublets.

Eventually, Mister So-and-so’s secretary fetched me. I was ushered into a nondescript office and invited to sit down. Mister So-and-so (I really don’t remember his name) started rifling through a thick file on his desk.

“Did you”, he asked me, “Play Itchy the Prospector on
Sesame Street
in 1975?”

I thought back and it came to me. I had written a
Sesame Street
episode where Big Bird imagines what it was like back in the Old West, back in Sesame Gulch. The set was re-dressed with hay bales and hitching posts. I think they put swinging doors on Hooper’s Store. All the cast wore western costumes.

In a “Sorting” segment (
Which of these things is not like the others
?) I called for three men with beards and one without. Just for fun, I indicated that one of the beards would be my boss, Jon Stone. Jon simply crossed his name out of the script and inserted mine. So, I showed up for wardrobe and became Itchy the Prospector.

I was used as an extra in several other scenes, as Big Bird first imagines himself as the bad guy, Bad Bird, fastest wing in the west, and then as the good guy, Marshall Matt Bird. I even had a line. I got to run down
Sesame Street yelling, Bad Bird’s back in town!

I told Mister So-and-so that his records were correct. I had played Itchy the Prospector on
Sesame Street.
I still had no idea of where this was going.

“And, Mister Bailey, did you play a pizza delivery boy on,
Hot Hero Sandwich, in 1979??”

Hot Hero Sandwich
was a Saturday morning, pre-teen show on NBC. I was one of the writers. For the final episode, the producers thought it would be fun to include the production staff on camera, including the writers. There was a skit about a bunch of girls having a pajama party and ordering a pizza. I was cast as the pizza delivery boy.

I believe my line was, “Pizza.” Short, economical and to the point. And, I delivered it with a depth and nuance never seen before or since on television.

So, I told old So-and-so that, yes, I had played a pizza delivery boy, to the hilt, on Hot Hero
Sandwich.

“All right”, he told me. “That’s twice. The next time you do it, you have to join the Screen Actor’s Guild.”

It took a full minute to dawn on me. Entertainment law is not part of a writer’s job description. But somewhere in the back of my head I knew that anyone could make two screen appearances without joining SAG. But the third appearance required joining the Actors Guild and paying a hefty enrollment fee.

I couldn’t believe this guy had gone back over ten years of records to check my status with the Actor’s Guild because of an errant Writer’s Guild residual check! And then, call me into his office like a misbehaving school boy to let me know the Screen Actors Guild had their eye on me. Wow! And I thought the teamsters were tough!

All I could think to say to him was, “Well, if I join the Guild, does than mean I can deduct my haircuts from my income tax?”

Before he could answer, I grabbed my check and ran.

In the elevator I remembered thinking that it was a good thing he didn’t know about my “playing” Buffy Saint Marie on
Sesame Street
episodes in Taos, New Mexico.

Chapter 48

60 Minutes

S
omething you should never, ever do in comedy is tip off the punch line before you set up the joke, which is exactly what I’m going to do. You’re going to know the punch line of this story by the time you finish the third paragraph. So, please indulge me.

In 1982, Jim’s secretary called to set up an appointment with him. Several days later, I sat across from Jim in his office. He told me the following:

He had recently had a conversation over lunch with Don Hewett, the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. Hewett told Jim that Andy Rooney was talking about retiring from 60 Minutes.

At that time, 60
Minutes
had recently done a piece on the Muppets. In it, Miss Piggy had Morley Safer collapsing with laughter. So, Don Hewett thought the Muppets would be the perfect replacement for Mr. Rooney. Jim asked me to write some sample Muppet material that would be appropriate for 60
Minutes.

As I walked home to my apartment, I could feel my stock rising. No more
kidvid writer
! No more gag man! I’ll be writing for the top news show on television! I’m going to become a satirist, a shrewd, sophisticated social savant, a (trumpet fanfare)
Political Pundit!

I threw myself into my work. I knew that the Muppets would be a natural on 60 Minutes. What a wonderful satirical button to put on the week’s news - the Muppet’s take on it. I remembered that when the Muppets appeared on the first season of
Saturday Night Live!,
I thought the show missed a great opportunity to use them to satirize what was going on in Washington. Those were the days of the Nixon White House with all its palace intrigue and treachery.

Of course, you know Mr. Rooney continued to comment on 60 Minutes for another 29 years, finally retiring in the fall of 2011 at age 92. But I’d like to include my favorite piece from the 60
Minutes
Muppets material. After nearly 30 years, I think it deserves to see the light of day.

(Note: this was written at the height of the Cold War.)

THE BOMB

Camera comes up on an ELABORATE RESEARCH LAB. KERMIT THE FROG, IN TRENCH COAT AND FEDORA, holding a MICROPHONE is reporting to CAMERA. He is standing next to P.R. FLACK, a rather mild mannered scientist in a WHITE COAT. Between them is a LARGE OBJECT covered with a SHEET.

KERMIT

Kermit the Frog, for 60 Minutes, reporting from Terminal Research Labs, the firm that claims to have developed the ultimate nuclear weapon. This is Dr. P.R. Flack, Director of Serendipity and Community Relations. Dr. Flack, have you indeed developed the ultimate nuclear weapon?