Hey, I'm linking to a Fred Kaplan article! There's a novelty. This one was about Wesley Clark's comments the other day about John McCain's military service. It sounded to me like the kind of argument that, while perhaps technically accurate, was a blunder as campaign fodder. Clark didn't make one person in America less likely to vote for McCain. All he did was to force Obama to disavow him and praise his opponent's service record.
Here's what's up with my occasional employers, Sid and Marty Krofft. As noted, there's a huge-budget Land of the Lost movie in the works (I was on the set two weeks ago) and other projects in the offing. I've worked for them on and off for thirty years and one thing I learned early-on was never to write them off or count them out. Along with their other talents, they're darned good at just bouncing back. If this new movie were to fail — and I'll betcha it won't — they'd be back a year later with something successful.
I am assured by half the Muppet Experts in the world that Cookie Monster, as seen on The Colbert Report, was performed by a gent named David Rudman. Frank Oz began cutting back on his Muppeteering in the nineties due to age and other career opportunities, and others began imitating him. Around 2001, Mr. Rudman emerged as the primary Cookie Monster manipulator and it's easy to see why. He's darn good at it.
A month or two ago, I spent a few hours on the set of a Muppet shoot with Kermit, Gonzo, Fozzie, Piggy, The Swedish Chef, Pepe the King Prawn and a few others. Four Muppeteers were handling the cast...with a few more providing hands and such. The four were Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson and Bill Barretta. Dave originated and still plays Gonzo and Bunsen Honeydew, and Bill started Pepe and a few other recent characters.
But for most of the stars, we're on to second (and third) generation Muppet Wranglers. When Jim Henson died in 1990, he willed the role of Kermit to Steve. Eric is the specialist in the roles Frank Oz no longer does — Bert, Grover, Fozzie, etc. For a while, he did Cookie Monster on Sesame Street but Rudman took it over, in part because it was easier to have Bert and C.M. interact if they weren't done by the same performer. I don't watch Sesame Street often and haven't since it essentially turned into The Elmo Hour. But when I've caught new Muppet segments, I am impressed with how faithful they are...and how well they integrate with scenes rerun from the era of Henson, Oz, Hunt, Nelson, et al.
Having been deeply critical of some cast replacements on animated shows, I'm impressed that someone knows the difference between a good Muppet imitation and a bad one...and hires accordingly. The four men I saw on that set a few months ago were as good as you could reasonably expect; maybe a little better than one would dare hope for. I wish more people cared that much about keeping classic characters sounding and behaving like themselves.
We return to the theme of "Brilliantly Talented People Mark Has Met." In September of '06, I told you about how the great magician Jonathan Pendragon had been seriously injured. He fell onto an arrow which pierced his chest and for a while there, the magic community figured him for a goner. But Jonathan is an amazing human and I'm happy to say that he and his lovely partner/spouse Charlotte are performing again. I think they're at the Magic Castle this week and if I wasn't leaving for Minnesota on Wednesday, I'd scurry up and see them in action.
You saw them in action recently if you've been watching America's Got Talent. In case you missed it, here's how it went, including a brief discussion of Jonathan's near-fatal accident. And when they do the trick — which is even more impressive when you see it in person — pay attention to Charlotte's outfit. Most people are so boggled by the illusion, they don't even notice she changes clothes.
July 2, 2008
