 This is the SF Productions podcast network Wait a minute. Let me look at this. Called a VC. See back before all the video was put directly in the computer memory in the comnet. People used to tape shows. Let me see. There's a tape on the end here. Let me hook this up here. Let me see what we got. Back with us to the 60s and 70s dwelling place of the last generation. An era whose heroes, role models and very lives were molded and formed by weekly installments of favorite television programs. Welcome to the place your parents didn't understand. Welcome to the vast wasteland. Welcome home. Baseland. I'm your host Mark Smith-Bar along with Wilbert Neal and Marty Wiley, and we're here to talk about 60s and 70s television. And before we get into tonight's exciting extravaganzo fun, this one I tell you we're on Tuesdays at 6, Wednesdays at 10, and Thursdays at 3 p.m. Here on the ACTV cable 21. Also, I want to tell you our box number, and for those of you who may not be regular viewers, just want to tell you we have a new box number. It's box 151411, Columbus, Ohio, four, three, two, one, five. There it is. Wow. The magic of television. It's like magic. So let's go on to tonight's big topic. Certainly one of the... It's a contest. You got to guess what it is. Oh. Well, we'll let you in on the big secret. Tonight's topic is Jim Henson. Yes, of course, he's no longer with us, but we're not gonna, I don't think we're gonna fall on that. We're gonna, since the, you know, our reasoned art or whatever. Raised in art. Raised in detra. Detra, whatever. Is basically ends at January 1st, 1980. We're basically just gonna talk about Jim Henson as he was. Well, it's like a major part of our growing up. Oh, sure. Well, I know for me and Wilbert, Ed Sullivan was special because the Muppets were on it. And, because we're kind of the pre-Sesame Street. Well, see, that's me. See, I was like hitting kindergarten the first year of Sesame Street. So I was like in the first generation of Sesame Street kids. Put it in your shoe, it'll break. Put it in your shoe, it'll break. So it's, yeah, certainly an important part of my life because it... You couldn't count the 10 with the alphabet. That's right. You couldn't. You couldn't do the alphabet. That's like, forget it. 9, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. See, before Sesame Street, it was Ed Sullivan. Right. And Bill Rolf was special. On the Jimi Dean Show. In fact, in fact. Yep. Says here. Since and like did local, did like a local show before all that. He did. He did a show called Salmon Friends. Yeah. Philadelphia. Washington, Washington. Maryland. East of somewhere? Somewhere. Maryland in 1955. Baltimore. Something. Let's see here. Jimi Dean here. Yeah, Jimi Dean. I got it right here. Okay. Well, it was just one of your generic kind of variety shows, really, except it was more country-fied. You know, the Texas Wildcats, the country lads. Intro to He-Haw. Mary Click, yeah. The Chuck Cassie Singers and blah, blah, blah. But the important thing was that this was the first time we saw the first, well, nationally, we saw the first Muppet, which was Rolf. Right. A continuing character on the ABC series was Jim Henson's Muppet Hound, Rolf. Whom Dean joked and battered, with whom Gene joked and battered. My old buddy. Gene. Yes. Jimi Dean. Jimi Dean. Jimi Dean. Yes. Jimi Dean. Jimi Dean. Good. Jimi Dean. Actually, Kermit is the oldest. True. Right. Kermit is the oldest, but I think Rolf was the first one. Was the first national exposed. The first national exposed. Yeah. Nationally exposed. Nationally exposed. They never wore anything, so except the Muppet babies do, so that's the amazing thing. When they come to adults, they don't have to wear clothes anymore. Yes. Well, I mean, when the Muppet show came on, you know, they started wearing the clothes. Right. To make sure it's Sesame Street, they're just Muppets. That's right. Clothes. They just changed their heads to change the character. Yeah. Give them new eyes. Piggy was always dressed. Right. The latest fashion. Piggy came out in the Muppet show, though. Right. Yeah. Well, you know, the Muppet show, like, he wanted to do it here, but everybody turned him down. No, a show of puppets didn't go to work. Went to London. Yes. And did it in London. For lots of years. Lots of years. And became one of the most, I suppose, like the most widely seen syndicated show ever. I mean, worldwide. Probably. That's what I've read. It was just incredible. Piggy, if you ever saw, like, the first one. Right. Piggy wasn't Piggy. No. That's right. She was Piggy Lee. Yes. And this singer lady, who was before my time. Piggy Lee. Piggy Lee. Yes. She's got, like, Mucho Upsetto. Yep. Yep. And, like, did she threaten to sue? Probably did. Well, she sued Disney later, because of that... The Tramp? Yeah, laying in the Tramp deal. So she sues a lot of people. That's like how she made her name. Well, it's like once the career dies, you can have a new career being a suing people. Being lawsuits. Yeah, exactly. Exciting career in lawsuits. Yeah, you can have an exciting career in law. That's right. Singing career finished. Well, before they went on, there was a, to Muppet Show, or to Sesame Street even. There was an obscure show on CBS, a summer replacement show called Our Place, which was hosted by this guy right here. Oh, okay. He was the host. In featuring everyone's favorite, the Doodle Town Pipers. Ah, yes. Doodle Town. Where are they now? And as was asked by David Letterman, I believe, where the heck is Doodle Town anyway? That's right. That was Jack Burns, Avery Schreiber, you know, the Burns and Schreiber. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, I think I watched that. That was on. There was a, well, 67. Summer 67. Oh, I'm sure I watched that. 67 summer replacements for Smothers Brothers. Because I just loved watching Muppets blow up. Yeah. Muppets blew up. They blowed up real good. They blowed up really eight things, you know, like each other. They really, yeah, because they brought that. They started out with, really, with Sam and friends. It was pretty violent, but, and you see it, you saw it all the way into the Muppet Show where there was that guy. I can't remember his name. Crazy. He would always blow things up. Was that his name? No, quite possibly. Wasn't it Harry? Yeah. Always had the plunger, dynamite plunger. Yeah. And blew everything up. Yeah. I can never understand what he thought the show was so... Well, that was violence. Yeah. That was just funny. That was just funny. The first time, you know, kids were just like, hey, it's like everything you want to do in your little kid's room. They did it on part two. It was like the anti-duty or something, you know? Howdy was just like, everything was nice and lovely and Henson was like, no, no, no, no. Kids love violence. Oh, it wasn't any worse than the cartoons. Right. Exactly. These are just like cartoons a step away from cartoons. I mean, they were like live cartoons. Right. That's true. Which was great. So let's see. Right before Muppet Show, we had their very short appearance on Saturday Night Live that one season. Oh, yeah. That was great. Those were like the mature Muppets. Yes, yes, they were. The first mature Muppets, before they jumped into the incredible films he made that nobody ever liked that made. Well, no, the films were fun. I mean, I thought Dark Crystal was just wonderful. I thought Labyrinth is like one of the best movies ever, ever made. I didn't. But I don't think... Nobody else even saw them. Like a really long David Bowie video. But those were really... That's okay. He had cool hair. Well, yeah, so... But those were... What were their names? And the big idle thing that sounded like... The Mighty Pivot. Yeah. What? What? That was the Land of Scorch. What was it? No, his name was... I mean, it was in the Land of Scorch, though. Yeah, uh-huh. His name was... I forget. Any time I try to think up their name, I end up thinking of Belldar and... No, that was the conehead. I know. But it's like they had some strange names like that, though. I don't think they even mentioned them here. I'm looking through here, and I don't see... I don't see any even references to those. They weren't on for very long because they really didn't... I mean, although it was a lot more adult than anything Henson had done before, they still felt, well, this is just something which was some sort of compromise that they did for NBC to allow this thing on, and it really didn't work. To the point at the end, the cast was openly making fun of it during the show. There was one where, I remember, Chevy Chase stood in for the Muppets and did this thing. It was the same set, but it was just like his hands going like this and... What was it called? Paying the Milkman. Yes. Didn't Chevy show up in their movies later? Jim said, hey, now I have the money. And you're like a has-been, bud. I just really realized those... we can't think of what their names are, but by golly, they've made a resurgence because it's almost... it's like the big guy and his rather thin wife, you know, and the funny, thin friend. They've made a resurgence on the dinosaur show. Right. Yeah, well, I mean, you look at those and it's a lot like Dark Crystal. I mean, those characters were a lot very reminiscent. I mean, obviously it was the prototype for Dark Crystal. Yeah, they were the first ones with scales and not all fuzzy and happy. They weren't all fuzzy and happy. They were, like, gnarly nasty. I always thought they were great. I always thought especially the big idol there with the Edward G. Robinson, because, you know, it's just the first time I thought it looked like a stone. Didn't expect it to speak. I thought they were really cool. That reminds me of the trash heap that was on... Fraggle. Fraggles. Yeah. Which kind of jumps ahead there, but it's still the same idea, the fact that Jimmy, he learned from what he did and he improved on it. Definitely improved on it, which was the neat thing about the... What were they called? The anything people that he had on Sesame Street? People in the neighborhood. Yeah, the people in there. They were called like the anything people or something, because they changed their eyes, changed their heads. They were interchangeable, basically, which was a neat thing that he learned that he could do. He did it. The puppeteers like a group effort, because it's like you can identify some of the puppeteers with the characters. Like the guy that does Gonzo. Golas, is that his name? Dave Golas? I see it when it's spelled it out. Gols or something. G-O-E-L-S. Pronounce it L-Z. Pronounce it everyone. He created Gonzo. Jim Henson was definitely Kermit. Yes, he was Kermit. I wonder why Frank Oz was Piggy. There was even a team up. Henson was Ernie and Frank Oz was Bert. And who else was Frank Oz? Yoda. Yoda. You know, the puppets was just like a whole team effort. You know? It was just like a whole team effort. You got a real individual feel as characters developed. When they were first on the Sullivan show, they weren't really any... You didn't have a definite character. It was more like a set. A scene, a set. Things happened, things blew up. Things shrank, things grew. But they did it to music. It was art. So they were like little cartoons. Yeah. Little live action cartoons. You know, Rolf was probably the first one we knew his name. And I guess Sesame Street came along. That's when you really got characters. We got to know Kermit. We got to know Big Bird. Bert and Ernie. Oscar. Well, Frank Oz is Cookie Monster. The guy that does... Cookie! The guy that does Big Bird is also Oscar. Carol Spinney. And it was really interesting in... Later on in Sesame Street, a fella came on Mr. McIntosh, the fruit seller guy. That was Kermit Love. Who this guy was named for. He was like Jim Henson's mentor. Wow. And he might still be on the show. Mmm. Snuggle Bear. The Bear Show! Snuggle Bear. I love this guy. So he's kind of a cousin to the Muppets. Mr. McIntosh was... And I was surprised reading to Kermit Love. Where do I know that name? Read some of this stuff. So I don't know. It's kind of a... It's neat. It's neat. And there were the great Muppet movies that were done. The Great Muppet Caper. The Great Muppet Caper. The Muppets Take Manhattan. In which they incorporated all these different stars into the plot. But they had just about every Muppet you ever saw. And for the first time you got to see things like Kermit's legs. You got to see Kermit riding a bicycle in a Muppet movie. And so then by... The Muppets Take Manhattan. They were all riding bicycles. Every Muppet. Before it was always like... You always just thought about here. It was easy to figure out. Then you saw Kermit riding a bike. How did they do that? Oh no. Oh no. Reality. Maybe they are alive. Maybe they're... And then there were the specials. The Friends of Bremen. The... The Frog Prince. Which was just one of my favorites. Because the Prince has talked backwards. It was great. And they had lots of nifty little songs in there. And there was a little frog. And Kermit was the narrator. The little frog wasn't that Robin? Yeah. They realized they needed a second generation frog. It was just some great stuff. They couldn't use Kermit in every scene. Robin did a real cute thing on the Muppet show. One time where he was sitting on the steps. Doing the... The milling home. The half... And my halfway up. What is it? Halfway up the stairs. Is that what it's called? It was very cute. It was one of the cutest things I remember Robin doing. I thought Robin was a cute character. Yeah. Back when they got cute again. The Muppet show was cute. But it was pretty outrageous. Just to go to... One of the last big projects was Jim Henson Hauer. When they brought in the characters like that. Oh. That lion. What I loved was that... What was the bunny's name? And it was like intentionally... Bean's bunny. It was like, I'm really cute. It was just making fun of these cute puppets, you know. Found and then they went on and did the Storyteller. Storyteller. It was incredible. And then the one where he would introduce with that huge lion. Oh yeah. He was just doing all this computer graphics. And I love the bit where the stairs appeared and he was like walking down these stairs that were like floating on nothing. I don't think puppetry would have gotten as far. Because I mean all this stuff. When I saw how... Okay, I like Watched Fraggle Rock. Even though that's an 80's show. It's like... When I saw how they did that stuff. Take you behind the scenes. How those little... There was actually somebody working the doozers. They were like a remote control. Intricate toy. Right. And the guy that creates that stuff. I can't even pronounce his name. It's a very long name. I don't have it on here. I saw Radio Remote Control. Oh. Who would have thought to do that? I wouldn't have thought to do that. Well, that's the thing. When you really think about it, if Henson hadn't been around, basically puppetry would still be pretty much at the... Cucliver and all. Bunny rabbit smack it inside of the table. Yeah. Look at the ping pong balls. Bunny rabbit, a character with so much emotion. Bam! Bam! That like King Friday the 13th. That would be about it. Oh. No. No, no. But always look at the Muppet ideas. You got Muppet. It's like Puppet and Marionette together. Right. Because that's kind of what they were. Some of them had hand things, some of them had string things. But then you get to the great big ones that actually had people in them. Right. And then the big ones, they had people in them and what was going on, what the thing was doing. They were in a TV inside. It was just wild. Well, what's the... Job of the Hut was a Muppet. Right. He had two people inside. There was three people. Two people and a guy remote controlling his tail or something. No, the person in the tail was actually a little person. That's right. I thought there was two or three little people in there. He had a little person doing the tail specifically. Because you had to be tall to be a Muppeteer. Henson was like, oh, he was like six foot tall. Right. So he scaled things to his comfort. Right, to him. You better be in my height or you're going to be like a lot. You better be tall or you're going to wear heels or whatever. Right. So, yeah, you had to be tall to be a Muppeteer. This was something I read and I was like really upset. Because I was like, well, there goes that career goal. Yeah. Oh, well. I don't know. I think of Java and Yoda as like cousins of the Muppets. Because weren't those pretty much Frank Oz's creations? Well, kind of. But they had a lot of other influences. I mean, you got the whole George Lucas industrial light and magic going there. Right. But they're just their Muppets. And the Sarlacc that lived in the pit. That is a great big Muppet too. It's like it goes back to the old Muppets where they're always eating things. They're just throwing stuff in there. People are just falling in there. And it just belches too. This is great. I've never got away from it. I mean Cookie Monster ate boxes of cookies whole. So I would be falling out. He would eat letters. This was just great. Anything that was around. Maybe try to eat buildings too. Even kids were never afraid of the monsters on Sesame Street. Well, because they weren't. They were monsters, but they weren't monsters. I mean, there were monsters because there's like Sweetums. Sweetums was a great big thing. Sweetums is not scary. He was in the Frog Prince. Yeah, that's where Sweetums first popped up to my notice. But then he was like a regular Muppet show guy. Yeah, he's on a Muppet show. And then there were the other monsters too. Oh, I remember the great Muppet show where Alice Cooper was on and danced with all the monsters. Yeah, some of the guests they had on there. Elton John. For the end of the show, all the Muppets had the feathers and the big glass. And Elton comes out and all conservative. They did Crocodile Rock with Crocodiles. They do. Now Alice Cooper was on there. The school's out. Yeah, with all the monsters leaving school, Vincent Price did the show. Oh, gosh. Whenever they had some sort of heartthrob, you'd have an underlying subplot of Piggy running around after him. Like Christopher Reeve is on and they did something from Superman, I think. You know. He's dressed up like Lois Lane. And he's like... And the poor great Gonzo. He knows he's great. Hey, we got people around here like that. But anyway... I always love Gonzo wrestling the brick. You know, that's just... That's entertainment. I was like, Sam the Eagle. Come on, you know. The spoof on censorship there. This is completely okay. This should be a dignified show. George Bush watches this. Sam the Eagle. I need to remind you of... What's his name? Monty Python or... Stop it. This is silly. Yeah. No, that was... Yeah, that was great. Colonel. That's the moment. Start again. So you had... Let's see... One of my... Oh, yeah. It had Captain Link's heartthrob of... Pigs in Space! Strange concept. Oh, you got a picture. Oh, Pigs in Space picture. Pigs in Space shape like a ham. Yeah. I don't actually have a picture of the space ship, but I got a picture of Link's heartthrob. Oh, and the Swedish chef. Yeah. I don't think there's any chance. Let's hold it over this. Yeah, there we go. Follow the picture. Okay, okay. Let's see. This Link... And the Swedish chef started out with real hands. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, at the beginning. They were Henson's hands, I think. Yeah, like real hands. Like throw chickens around. Dr. T. Bork, bork, bork. What's his name? Dr. T. The electric mayhem, yeah. Electric mayhem. And these old guys... Where's the other old guy? Well, that guy's not in there. Is that guy smiling there? Yeah, that's guy smiling. I think this is the first Kermit that was made out of his mom's coat. Yeah, something like that. Did you think that your mom would have a coat that green and you had to wear it? Yeah, green is like a putrid, nasty color. Well, quite old, you know. Well, that's true, the color fades. Of course, this was before color. Yeah, there we go. Way too much gloss on that. Thank you, Jen, I got an idea. Da, da, da, da, da, da. Slow pan here. Gee whiz, Bert. Well, that's Ernie down there. Ernie. Oh, my old buddy Bert. Look at all the Henson characters. That's up here from Fragils. That's right. Sweetest Chef and Ernie. Yeah. Oh, that, what was that called? The dog, when they did the dog game. Oh, that great dog show. Remember that? Dogtown. Dogtown, okay. Yeah, Bugsy. Three times around or wind up in the pan. Dogtown. We're true. Certainly, like we said, without him, it pretty much would have been go to LeBrand and Ollie and King Friday the 13th. That would have been the Stan puppetry. He would have been stuck with poor little Gary Anderson puppets. Yeah. Super car. Well, anyway, we're getting the signal to get out of here. So, next time on Vast Wasteland, we're going to be doing cult shows. The kind of shows that you know, we're only a few episodes of, but boy did they catch on. That's right. Well, we caught on with this very small but ultra-dedicated audience. And so, we'll be taking a look at that next time. Mostly you, me and Wilbert. We're at the cult. That's it. So, anyways, for all of us here at Vast Wasteland, we'll see you next time. Good night.