In honor of the new muppet movie I will tell you my muppet story as best as I can remember it. Many years ago in 2005 I was living in Portland Oregon my TV show Movie Reviews and Previews aired on the CW. One morning I was sound asleep and I received a phone call from Melissa Duke she asked me if my show covered DVD’s and I of course said yes. She asked me if I wanted to interview Kermit the Frog for season one of the Muppet show on DVD and I of course said yes! She said a slot opened up but I would have to go live in 5 minutes and I said no problem. (Melissa knew my studio was in my garage and I often told her I would take anything she could throw my way, especially if someone canceled.) I sometimes got calls like this and I was told they like my interview style and would often get put first so I could warm up the talent. ( I believe this is a compliment) She emailed me the satellite coordinates and I crawled out of bed and grabbed a very wrinkled shirt that was hanging on the bedpost and I flipped on the green screen lights and fired up the satellite dish that was in my backyard. I quickly read the email about the DVD, saw there was a give away with the interview and the phone rang. I answered and it was the studio telling me I was on hold for the Kermit interview. I pressed a button on my Telos hybrid and transferred the phone line to my earpiece and then turned on my camera and as I waited for my turn I thought about what to say to Kermit. I decided to do this interview as if Kermit was a real person and grabbed a DVD that I was screening for an upcoming show and it happened to be The Simpsons and I was going to pretend this was live on my show. Then I decided I was going to just throw Kermit some made up gossipy questions and see how he would react, something I would often do with Will Ferrell and Steve Carell which always worked for me I looked at my monitor and there was Kermit finishing up his interview and I was next. A moment of dread came over me cause this was all happening so fast but then it left. I wasn’t nervous but I should have been. Im a lifelong muppet fan but interviews are what I do and to be honest, I was still sleepy and groggy. Melissa was now talking to me in my earpiece to check on me. Kermit was live with me next. I looked directly into the light for a second to wake up, hit record on the beta deck, paused and went for it. Here is the interview. I had no idea how brilliant and lightning quick Kermit was. People have told me they thought this was a scripted interview but it was all 100 percent adlibbed. The quality is so bad because I found a copy of this particular show on VHS and back in 2005 I didn’t keep a copy like we do now. I still can’t believe I wore that shirt but you had to be there. The entire evolution of this interview from the moment I woke up to the phone call to the end of the interview was 10 minutes. It is actually one of my favorites although I cringe when I see myself like this. youtube/watch?v=tLjlyvuQpHI Years later I had moved back to Monaca PA (studio also in the basement, satellite dish on the roof next door on grandma’s house to be exact) and when I got an email about interviewing not only Kermit again but Fozzie Bear, I freaked out. I had a chance to do one of my favorite interviews again and with Fozzie as well! I prepared all week for this one but this time I knew what they are capable of and I would be ready. I was sure this was going to be one of the best and funniest interviews I have ever done. About an half hour before the interview I dialed up the satellite (KU Galaxy 11 91 degrees) and I couldn’t find it for some reason and I started to panic. My interview was slated for 9:48 am to 9:54am. It was getting closer to my time and no matter what I did, I could not tune in the satellite. I emailed Michelle Alexander who was the Disney rep for this interview and she was not answering the phone (because I was dialing the wrong number) and I regretfully told her I was backing out of the interview do to Sat problems. I got a phone call about a minute later from her and she put me in touch with the tech people but it didn’t help. It was almost my time slot. Michelle said no problem we could do a tape and ship. I hate doing tape and ships but hey.. its Kermit and Fozzie. (a tape and ship means I would do the interview over the phone filming on my side and they would just overnight you the other side of the interview that they would record on their end and you edit it together) You lose seeing and reacting to the talent but it was better than nothing. It was three minutes to my interview and I was really excited for the magic to happen again. The phone rang and it was the studio. I was up next. I hit record and pressed the telos to transfer the phone call to my earpiece and instead of hearing the whoosh clip of the familar digital hybrid sound I heard a echo woosh. Something had gone wrong. Even with the volume turned up as high as it could go, the sound in my earpiece was low and far off in the distance, I could barely hear anything. Kermit and Fozzie was talking to me and I could not understand what they were saying. They could hear me fine is what I made out. I was really flustered. I told them I could not see them and barely hear them. We decided to go for it. Kermit said we will pretend we can see each other and we started the interview. It was a disaster and I was sweating. I would say something and I would hear a response but I didn’t understand what they were saying, only catching a word here and there. I would set up a question or say something funny and I had no idea if they were reacting so I panicked and moved on. My timeslot was almost over and my stomach was in knots. It kept getting worse. Finally it was over and the line went dead. I was devastated. I had tanked some major interviews in my time but this one I was really excited and prepared for. There would be no muppet magic. I was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Early the next morning the beta tape of the “A” side of the interview (Kermit and Fozzie) arrived. I didn’t even open it cause I didn’t want to see how horrible it was. In fact, it sat there for 4 days unopened. Finally I could wait no more, I had to edit the show for the week and I had to air something for the DVD segment. Maybe I could salvage something. I popped the beta tape in the deck and hit play. My mouth hit the floor. I had no idea what they were doing during the interview. It was hysterical! I just couldn’t see or hear what they were reacting to cause I was faking it on my end, grasping at key words I would hear in my earpiece. With some cleaver editing using Statler and Waldorf I was able to piece it together even with the technical glitches which you can hear every so often. It now has over 600,000 views. My friend Jeffrey K. Howard once told me he used to watch it ever day because it put him in a good mood. It is also one of my funniest and it had NOTHING to do with me. I love the muppets and these guys behind the scenes are brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. youtube/watch?v=WX679bByras
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 05:16:45 +0000
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