Memoirs of a Muppets Writer: (You mean somebody actually writes that stuff?) (28 page)

FLACK

We here at Terminal Research Incorporated like to say that we’ve maximized the impact
impact
of nuclear warfare with the U-Bomb.

KERMIT

The U-Bomb? Interesting. Could you tell us a little bit about it, Doctor?

FLACK

Well, after a five year, multi-billion dollar, in-depth survey, we determined that the real threat of nuclear war is simply the possibility of alien forces blowing us to Kingdom Come, unless, of course, we surrender to them. We call that the “Big Club” Theory.

KERMIT

The “Big Club” Theory?

FLACK

Yes. And that’s where the U-Bomb comes in. Basically, it’s just a very effective nuclear device, programmed to destroy the entire United States of America in six nanoseconds. And, at a very attractive price to the American tax payer, I might add.

KERMIT

Destroy the United States of America!!!

FLACK

It takes a moment or so to get used to. But think of the diplomatic and military advantage of totally denying our enemies the option of a nuclear take over, by simply having the capacity to destroy ourselves and everything of value before they get the chance! And, here’s the little beauty right here.

KERMIT

Right here!?

FLACK pulls the SHEET off an OMINOUS LOOKING DEVICE.

KERMIT

Ladies and gentlemen, this may be the first time a nuclear weapon has been shown on television. Mr. Flack, I’m sure there’s a very elaborate procedure involved in firing off the U-Bomb.

FLACK

Au
contraire, mon ami!
The U-Bomb is designed so that in case of attack, (PATTING THE BOMB), the slightest movement, the slightest vibration and …

KERMIT

Ka-boom?

FLACK

Ka-boom! Eight hundred percent over kill!

KERMIT

(STARTING A HASTY RETREAT) Eight hundred … Yes. Well, Mr. Flack, it has been nice talking to you. But actually, we’re late for a dinner engagement,,, in Shanghai. So, if you’ll…

Kermit turns and walks into the BOMB. It falls to the floor with Kermit right behind it.

KERMIT

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!

SFX: CRASH!

Kermit, hands over eyes, comes up into frame.

FLACK

Oh, no! No! No! No!

KERMIT

What’s wrong, Dr. Flack?

FLACK

What’s wrong!? It didn’t go off! That’s what’s wrong! Eighty million dollars for a dud bomb!

FLACK takes out his frustration by kicking the BOMB.

KERMIT

Dr. Flack! Hold it! Don’t kick that thing! (TO CAMERA) This is Kermit the Frog for 60 Minutes! No, Dr. Flack! Please stop it! Don’t!

FADE OUT

Chapter 49

Carnegie Hall

A
t the height of the 1984 New York social season, the New York Zoological Society decided to throw a benefit for the Bronx Zoo. For non-New Yorkers, the Bronx Zoo is one of the best in the world. It was founded by Theodore Roosevelt at the turn of the last century on 265 acres of rolling woodland in the Bronx. The Society was formed at the same time to operate the Zoo.

Because of its lofty beginnings, the Bronx Zoological Society is one of the most venerated charities in New York City. The name, Astor, appears rather frequently in their membership rolls. So, these guys really know how to throw a fund raiser!

Get me Carnegie Hall! Get me Bob Hope! And, that’s exactly what they did.

The show was billed as,
Bob Hope at Carnegie Hall,
starring, of course, Bob Hope with his wife, Dolores. The rest of the guests included then Secretary of Agriculture, John R. Block, Ex-New York Governor Hugh Carey, Comedienne Imogene Coca, writers and lyricists, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Composer Jule Styne, The Dance Theatre of Harlem, then Mayor Ed Koch, singer Liliane Montevecchi, Broadway legends Donald Saddler and Helen Gallagher, and Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers.

What, you’re probably asking yourself, are these super stars doing with the likes of me? Well, somebody, probably one of the Astors, had the idea of getting Big Bird to emcee the show. Calls were made to the Muppets and Caroll Spinney graciously agreed to do the benefit with one stipulation: he insisted on having his own writer, me.

At first, I thought it was a nice gesture on Caroll’s part, including me in this star studded event and the black tie reception afterwards. The required writing was only a few opening jokes and introductions, known colloquially in the trade as
gazintas
and
gazatas.

I was flattered. But I also knew that Caroll is a very shrewd performer who was not about to trust his signature character, Big Bird, to a writer with no real knowledge of the character or
Sesame Street
. He wanted to avoid the “bird brain” and “bird seed” jokes that many, inexperienced writers usually came up with for him.

Additionally, Caroll wanted someone who understood how the puppet actually worked. I didn’t realize how important that was until the first production meeting for the fund raiser, which was held about a week before the event.

The first idea that was suggested was for Big Bird to enter through the curtains, greet the audience, introduce Bob Hope, do some business with him, then segue into a song with another guest star and then …

That’s when I stopped it and carefully explained that Big Bird actually had a man inside him with his right hand extended through the neck and into the head, where he operated the jaw with his thumb. And, when you hold a human arm straight up in the air, very shortly all the blood runs out of it and all feeling and control are lost. So the maximum amount of time that Caroll can operate the puppet is about ten minutes.

“But,” they protested, “We’ve seen Big Bird do extensive musical numbers and comedy skits on television.” “That’s because,” I explained, “Those pieces are broken down into much shorter shots so Caroll can rest between them. When they’re edited together in post-production they appear to be one scene.” Since all these big name stars have very expensive representation, who regularly have very big ideas, it was an up-hill battle all week long.

Then came the rehearsal days in Carnegie Hall. As soon as I saw the stage, I realized we had another problem. I had to explain how, in a television studio, Caroll watched himself on the 1½ inch monitor inside the bird costume. Since there was no TV on the night of the benefit, the monitor would be useless. There is a one-eye peek hole in the costume, but Caroll can barely see out of it. And, of course, he has no depth of field or peripheral vision.

So, my great fear was that Caroll could accidentally walk off the stage and fall into the orchestra pit, seriously injuring Caroll, not to mention causing major production headaches on
Sesame
Street. Since Caroll was taping
Sesame Street
, he wouldn’t be available until the dress rehearsal on the day of the show. So, I was fighting the good fight alone.

One day at the end of rehearsals, Imogene Coca asked if anybody wanted to share a cab to the East Side of Manhattan. I jumped at the chance. I did, and do, live on the East Side of Manhattan, not very far from Ms. Coca’s apartment. But I wasn’t interested in saving cab fare.

Imogene Coca and her partner, Sid Caesar, were co-stars in a real piece of television history called,
Your Show of Shows
, in the early 1950s. It ran live for 90 minutes on Saturday nights. It was as popular, if not more so, than
Saturday Night Live.
The writing staff included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, M.A.S.H. creator Larry Gelbart, Carl (father of Rob) Reiner and Woody Allen. So, I had about 1,000 questions I wanted to ask her.

Since West 57
^th
Street, where Carnegie Hall is located, is a major Manhattan crosstown thoroughfare, I had no problem hailing one of New York’s 12,187 yellow cabs. Unfortunately, it was piloted by the angriest of New York’s 50,000 taxi drivers.

In 1984, there was still quite a residual radical civil rights movement in the country. And our angry driver, whose name on his license was something like Malcolm Triple-X Shabazz, was outfitted in what could only be described as the full Black Panther: a combat jacket; a gigantic afro; and a 50-caliber machine gun bullet pendant hanging around his neck.

Conversation between driver and passengers was impossible because of the rap music blaring out of the cab’s multiple stereo speakers. I did get a sense that Mr. Triple-X Shabazz bore some animosity toward the white race, of which Ms. Coca and I are members in good standing. That’s because he tore across Central Park at slightly under the speed of sound, ignoring red lights, stop signs and various other traffic indications along the route, while making obscene gestures at other members of our ethnic persuasion.

So, instead of getting first hand answers to dozens of my historic television questions, my dialogue with Ms. Coca consisted entirely of her screaming at me, “I was in a terrible automobile accident! Please tell him to slow down!

Please tell him to slow down!!!! PLEASE TELL HIM TO SLOW DOWN!!!”, all the way from Carnegie Hall to her front door.

Meanwhile, back at the Hall, the day of the big event rolled around. The afternoon dress rehearsal was the first time that the
powers-that-were
got to see Big Bird in action and what was required to sustain his performance.

My God!
, they exclaimed.
He can’t see! He could walk off the stage!,
all as if they had never heard it before.

The event came off beautifully. The two highlights I still remember were Alex Spanos giving Bob Hope quite a run for his money during a buck and wing duet, and Big Bird singing a very poignant rendition of People while Jule Styne, the song’s composer, accompanied him on the piano.

Mostly though, I spent the evening on the edge of my seat, using every ounce of body English I could muster to keep Big Bird from falling into the orchestra pit.

Chapter 50

The Day the Music Died

T
his is hard.

At 7:30 a.m., May 16, 1990, my telephone awakened me from a sound sleep. It was Bill Prady, another writer who worked for the Muppets. I couldn’t imagine why Bill was calling me at that hour. I was then, and still am a notorious night owl.

For a moment, I thought Bill and Jim were in some strange corner of the world and had lost track of the time change. Because of Jim’s hectic travel schedule, that happened occasionally.

“You’d better sit down.”, Bill told me. “Jim died last night.”

I was absolutely stunned. It must have taken a full minute for the news to sink into my brain. Jim was only 53. And, as far as I knew hadn’t been sick a day in his life.

I asked Bill if there was anything I could do. He told me to call anybody I could think of whom I wouldn’t want to hear the news through the media. That’s why Bill was calling me so early.

So, I went through my Rolodex. I just remember starting a lot of conversations with a tentative, “Have you heard the news?” Some people had heard, others hadn’t. In between my outgoing calls people were calling me to see if I had heard. As you might imagine, we were all devastated.

Eventually, the details came out. Jim had been sick for several days but thought he had the flu. He and his daughter, Cheryl, had gone to North Carolina to celebrate Mother’s Day with his father and step-mother. That’s when Jim started to feel sick.

When they returned to New York, Jim’s symptoms grew progressively worse. Finally, around 4:00 a.m. on May 16, Jim’s wife, Jane, convinced him to go to New York Hospital. There, Jim was diagnosed with Group A streptococcus pneumonia, a viral disease that starts out with flu-like symptoms but goes on to destroy major organs.

Group A bacteria is usually contracted through inhalation, so I assume Jim caught it on a plane. Jim flew a lot. He practically commuted between New York, London, Los Angeles and Toronto. And airplanes are really unhealthy. Basically, they’re sealed containers where hundreds of people inhale and exhale the same stale air.

If it’s caught early enough, streptococcus pneumonia can be treated with penicillin. However, penicillin is processed through the liver. And by the time Jane got Jim to the hospital, his liver had already been destroyed. Jim lingered on life support until 1:21 a.m. Then he passed away.

Jim was so low key and accessible, it was easy to forget that he was a world famous entertainer. He kept his celebrity deep in the background. It wasn’t until the media started reporting his obituary and condolences from presidents, celebrities and artists world wide that I really realized the enormous effect Jim Henson had on the planet.

I also remember getting a call from an old friend who said he had been contacted by an old friend of his. The friend told him that he remembered that my friend knew someone connected with the Muppets. He asked my friend to pass on his condolences to the Muppets through me. Four days later, the enormity of the world’s affection for Jim Henson would become immediately evident.

The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine is the world’s largest gothic cathedral. It’s located at 112
^th
Street and Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. At 601 feet, the nave is as long as two American football fields. Its 162-foot dome can easily accommodate the Statue of Liberty. It was started in 1892 and, in the best tradition of gothic cathedrals, is still under construction and has an apprentice building crafts program for local youths. Saint John’s seats 5,000 people. And at a memorial service on May 21, 1990, every seat was filled to celebrate the life of Jim Henson. The crowd swelled out to the steps and street outside.

Several years earlier, at around age 50, Jim had written instructions for his memorial service. He didn’t want anyone wearing black. He thought it would be nice if a few people said something nice. And, he wanted a brass band. He went on to say that his children might not agree with these instructions. But, since he was dead there wasn’t much they could do about it.

No one wore black to the memorial. In fact, it was one of the most colorful crowds I’ve ever seen. I wore my green satin
Muppet Show
jacket, just like the one Scooter wore on the show, a Christmas gift from Jim. My wife, Gail, who had made films for Sesame Street, wore an aqua satin jacket with the
Sesame Street
logo on the back. And, there was a brass band - The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, one of the greatest traditional New Orleans marching bands. And in traditional New Orleans style, they led the procession in with a dirge rendition of Just
a Closer Walk With Thee.