On-Set at The Muppet Show #2: The Parrot’s Revenge (And Watch Out Fleet Street!)
Our second of three articles written by a journalist standing next to bearded Americans with cloth anthropomorphisms on their arms. This one comes from the final episode of season two, on which John Cleese was a guest - indeed, halfway through the article abandons its Muppet reportage completely to focus on Cleese’s upcoming projects, including an innocuous, calm-before-the-storm mention of Life Of Brian, and a film set in Italy written by Jack Rosenthal. The film was unproduced but the Italian-British divide was obviously on Rosenthal’s mind that year as on Sunday the 27th of February 1977 LWT broadcast his teleplay about a bunch of Brits in an Italian restaurant, Spaghetti Two Step. Amongst these Brits was one Connie Booth.
Of special note for Muppet fans in this article is quoting of the parrot’s explosive response to Cleese’s pirate, which is nothing like what happens in the episode itself, and the sad comment on the removal of one of the stars of the first season, Hilda. Although largely forgotten today, the Transylvanian wardrobe mistress grew somewhat of a fan following in the UK during the shows’ original run, and her season two disappearance following the departure of her Muppeteer Eren Ozker caused a mild fluttering of furore in the tabloids.
From the Evening Standard, Friday the 19th August 1977:
THE ARTS…….. and SYDNEY EDWARDS is interviewed at THE MUPPET SHOW by a new young columnist who’ll do anything or a story.
It was the most inspirational, sensational, celebrational meeting of the week. John Cleese, who memorably epitomises the denseness of the English middle class, met Kermit the Frog and friends, including Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, The Great Gonzo and Rowlf (not, alas, dear old Miss Hilda - she’s been shipped back to Transylvania). The reporters and cameramen were there in force. The lady columnists queued up to interview Miss Piggy (“I became a star when they threw me a wig”) and Kermit and Kermit’s young nephew, Robin, a dead ringer of the old man.
But I was on another assignment. Word had reached Fleet Street and me, in particular, of a new arts and showbiz columnist newly arrived from the United States…
THE PARROT’S REVENGE (and watch out FLEET STREET!)
FLEET SCRIBBLER has already interviewed George Burns the other day, Nureyev and Elton John are next on his list. He is fearless, probing, will do anything for a story - and he’s YOUNG!
He looks like an ex-pop columnist I know. Denims, groovyish, dark glasses, badge on the lapel, thin-lipped long-haired (fringe at the front) and just a touch mean when it comes down to business. “What’s the big story in the Street today, Syd?” he rapped.
He scribbled something on a piece of paper. The Haselblad around his neck got in the way of his pencil. Boy, was he keen. I muttered something about a lot of flooding last night. “No,” he shouted. “Let’s get the dirt, real stories.” I wanted to go away and lie down but he was relentless.
“Boy, did I give that George Burns a going-over!” said Fleet. “I’m a go-getter. The stars are frightened when they hear the name Fleet Scribbler.” I thought that was possibly true. His face is Fleet Street puce (ahead of me there - at the moment) and his tongue orange.
Fleet Scribbler is the newest arrival on The Muppet Show. You will see him interviewing Mr Burns (actually, Mr Burns blew cigar smoke in his face at one point and shut him up) on the opening night of the new series on Friday, September 30.
His muppeteer is a tall, bearded American called Jerry Nelson who comes from Muskogee, Oklahoma, who also plays Floyd Pepper (“from the home of the chronically groovy”), J. P. Grosse, Robin and Uncle Deadly.
Jerry has worked with Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets, for seven years. The Muppets originally began on the American TV show, Sesame Street, and on Sesame Street Jerry is Sherlock Hemlock and Herry Monster.
Filming with Fleet or Floyd Pepper or any of the others is a physically restrictive business.
The Muppeteers work at standing height with their hand through a hole in a raised floor. A monitor set in front of them shows what’s happening up above and there is a small microphone attached to their chests for the dialogue.
I watched a wickedly funny sequence this week where Jerry was a white feathered chicken who was meant to be alive, spread-eagled in the middle of a sandwich and garnished with lettuce. He clucked away through the small microphone and watched the monitor set at his feet.
The Muppets, now in their second year, already have an audience of 14 million in Britain and a much more sizable one in the United States. The show won the Golden Rose at the TV Festival in Montreux in May.
There are more guest stars in the coming season. In addition to Cleese, Nureyev and Elton John there will be Peter Sellers, Cleo Laine and Petula Clark.
There is a lot of British talent involved. The series directors are Peter Harris (once the stage manager at Covent Garden) and Phillip Casson (once a dancer with the Festival Ballet). Jack Parnell is the music man, and the choreographers are Gillian Lynne and Norman Maen.
John Cleese found himself in the middle of a neat Monty Python joke this week. In one sequence he played a pirate with a parrot. All Python fans remember the man in a pet shop selling a dead parrot. At one point this week an exasperated Cleese had to say to the parrot: “How would you like to be an ex-parrot?” And the parrot replied: “And how would you like to be an ex-pirate” and promptly shot pirate Cleese.
“The most admirable creatures,” said Cleese afterwards. “Talking to them is uncanny. They’re so nearly alive. I was a little apprehensive about doing a new thing like this but they were good to perform with. Terribly responsive, I hadn’t realised at first the scene with the parrot was meant to be a Python joke.”
Cleese, 6ft. 4ins., has a huge following of his own as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers. After the Muppet Show he has spent the rest of this week appearing in a film called How Am I Doing?
This is being made in a preparatory school (empty for the holidays) in Oxshott, Surrey. It is one of a series of industrial films setting out by means of short, witty, well-acted stories to show modern attitudes and bad, old-fashioned attitudes in the industry. Five thousand companies hire the films in Britain and they are shown in 15 other countries.
“We try to reflect people’s behaviour and they recognise themselves,” says Cleese. He formed the company, Video Arts, with Anthony Jay, Michae Peacock, award-winning TV directors Peter Robinson and Robert Reid, Jonathan Lynn (now director of the Cambridge Theatre) and Denis Nordern.
The Python team are preparing a new film to be made in Tunisia, called The Life of Brian, and Cleese will also make a Jack Rosenthal film about an English football referee on holiday in an Italian hotel who has to referee a match between the Italian staff and the foreign guests.
He and his wife, Connie Booth, are writing a new series of Fawlty Towers. Is there such a place as Fawlty Towers? “Yes, we got the idea staying at a hotel in Torquay and there was a waiter like Manuelle where we used to go to. You never got what you ordered.”
Cleese likes to takes time over writing. “The reason I do commercials is to make money to give me time to write. I don’t want to be under pressure to turn out episodes every 10 days.
“I’d love to be a really good writer. They say jealousy is the best indication of what you want to be. After some thought I’d say the people I hate most are Ayckbourn and Stoppard. I see Bedroom Farce or Jumpers and I’m jealous.”
