Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Moving Right Along.

I'm Muppet Movie Podcast.

That's You by toughpigs.com.

This is the podcast where we watch Muppets from space 2 minutes at a time and talk about it a lot.

I'm your host, Anthony Strand.

And I am your other host, Ryan Rowe.

And we are delighted to be joined by a return guest, a legend here on the program.

Guest, who are you?

I'm Patrick Hotner.

I'm a legend on the program.

That's it.

So true, man.

And Patrick is joining us to discuss minutes 15 and 16 of Muppets from Space.

In these minutes, Gonzo, Mostly, it's on the roof.

But a very important two minutes in the movie.

It's true.

It's true.

It's gonna it's really gonna set him off on his journey.

Yeah.

Yes.

But we don't start with Gonzo.

We start where we left off at the Covenant cement factory.

And we start with General Luft.

I didn't know.

I did not know Pat Hingle's name was General Luft until you said it last week by the.

Way I would not have been able to tell it to you from memory.

No, definitely not.

Great.

I unfortunately could tell the two from memory.

I was, I, I, I watched the movie this afternoon again, but I was rewatching the clip of media before coming out.

And I was like, oh, what's his name?

What's his name?

General Luft.

And I said, first I said General Hingle.

And then I said, no, that's not his name was Pat Hingle.

And then I said.

General Luft, you knew it, but that's not a shock because you also, like, know the names of every pod racer in The Phantom Menace.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

But we're not here to talk about Gascono, you know?

No, we're not here to talk about that sci-fi movie from 1999.

Yeah, it's a different one.

This is a different one.

A big year for for me in sci-fi movies.

Sure, sure, yeah, we will get into it.

But first, General Luft, as we all know and love him, says.

And you bring me doctored photos and a spiral.

You are on thin ice, boy.

Boy, yeah, that's.

He calls it boy.

He's just, he's a child.

Condescending.

Yeah.

Yeah, I really love the way Pat Hingle spits out Spiral like it's the biggest waste of his time.

Yeah.

I would be curious if anyone and if any listeners what want to do this.

I think this would be a fun little treat is to go through General Lufts badges on his uniform just to see if you can like gain anything about his military experience.

There's a lot of them.

He's got, I'm looking at it right now.

He has so many.

So many stripes and metals, yeah.

Yeah, so I would really appreciate it if someone or even like, you know, get it up on Muppet Wiki, like try to figure out what battles he was in, all that kind of stuff.

I feel like that would be very helpful for people in the future.

Yeah, General, General Lufts military history.

Make that a page.

That's.

Yeah, a page of his own.

Please.

Yes.

But then we all we have a third character in the scene, our old pal Rentro, played by Arnold Pal Bobo as Rentro and you guys.

Gotten to the bottom.

I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Have you guys gotten to the bottom of why his name is Rentro?

You know, I did.

I failed to look up this exact interview, but I vaguely recall, which I think I mentioned last week, there was an interview where somebody with The Muppets said that they thought it was so Bobo himself wouldn't be a villainous character.

So, like, he's not Bobo.

Bobo's not a bad guy.

It's Bobo playing Rancho, and Rancho is a bad guy.

His name's Bobo in the Seagull movie though, isn't it?

I guess so.

Do they address him by name in that even?

I don't know if they, but I think yeah, he.

He's definitely listed among Bill Brett, his characters in the closing.

Credits.

Yeah.

So they by that time, they just so we see.

His name on screen, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And his name is his name Bobo in letters to Santa, where he also plays Nathan Lane's.

Oh, that's true.

He's also an antagonist, yeah.

That's the cause.

To me, That's the classic Muppet trilogy is Muppets from Space lenders to Santa and Muppets 2011, where Bobo plays the villains henchman.

That's the that's the key ingredient, you know.

Yeah.

Why do you think that they think he's a villain?

Well, I mean, he's assisting the characters.

Who?

Oh, you mean in general?

Because in this one.

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah, I'm saying why do you think?

What do you think?

He lends himself yeah, I guess he's kind of like a just following orders type like on on Muppets tonight.

He would kind of like they would say don't let anybody in and he just wouldn't let anybody in.

I.

Guess that's true.

He's a security guard, which is kind of a cop.

So Bobo I guess counts as a cap.

Yeah, he can hinder other characters from doing what they're trying to.

Do sure, much like much like Bear on patrol, all cops are bears.

Right.

And sometimes pigs.

Yeah, right.

No, but, but I also think he just has like his role in this is very much like Ned Beatty in Superman, right?

He's he's like, like both of those characters are not really villainous.

They're just like a like a good heart, like a cheerful oaf who works for the villain.

Yeah, he's not a meme.

He got a job.

Yeah, like he doesn't do anything malicious at any point in his movie.

Ranchoberg.

Ranchoberg.

Yeah, Ranchoberg.

I think Otis from Superman.

The movie is good.

That's my hot take.

I.

Mean here's the thing, if you if you were to OK God, I hate already digging into this dumb Internet meme.

If you're recasting Superman with Muppets is Bobo Otis, I think that's not a bad yeah.

Absolutely.

I think I think Bobo is Otis, yes.

And I want to be clear to everyone listening, stop doing that meme.

Yeah, stop, please.

Yeah, like my.

Mind is already.

Working like.

Would Spamela Hamderson be Miss Tessmacher?

But Nope, Nope, Nope.

Got to cut it off right there.

Cut it off, got it off.

That's enough of that.

Yeah.

Clifford is the guy who says Jim, that's a bad outfit.

Cut it out, cut it out.

Stop getting.

Deep.

They're bringing back Clifford for this.

Speaking, OK, not not Speaking of anything.

What what Renchro does in this scene is he says, oh, I gotta hand it to you, Sir, I thought your presentation was just wonderful.

But meanwhile, he has marshmallow and honey all over his face from the sandwich that he made earlier.

Which he has now taken 2 bites out of.

Yes, and he has it all over his face and paws because he's a a big lug.

He's messy.

And he was probably an yeah, I was gonna say it was probably a nightmare on set to do something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know what this what this actually is when he when he touches singer with his his sticky pie.

I don't know what what that really is that.

Substance.

Can you guys make me a promise?

Yes.

By the end of this movie, like covering it on this podcast, will you get to the bottom of what that was?

Will you reach out to someone who will know the answer to this?

We can make some inquiries.

OK, OK, that's all I ask.

Just try.

It is.

It is the stuff from the Larry Cohen movie The Stuff.

Oh, could be.

Yeah.

Yeah, Bobo, don't eat that stuff.

Yeah, it's just sour cream.

It's there's eaten tubs of sour cream.

What a picture.

Which.

All right.

No, but he So he Pats singer on the shoulder and as he says this in his hand, of course, sticks to Singer's shoulder.

And Jeffrey Tambor does a great job of looking like he hates every decision he's ever made.

Yes, leading up to this moment, A.

Lot of regret there.

I mean, he's great in this movie.

He's so good.

He's so funny.

He really is, as we as we discussed last week, yeah, it's it's kind of too bad how good he.

Is Yeah.

Look, look, this this movie I think does have the highest percentage of cancelled cameos for a Muppet movie, right?

I feel like it has to.

Yeah, there's, yeah.

We haven't gotten to most of them yet.

Spoilers for everyone who's watching along with this podcast.

They've.

Never seen it.

They're watching the podcast 2 minutes.

They're watching the movie 2 minutes at a time.

They're gonna be, they're gonna be so surprised when Phil Van Neuter shows up.

But that's, that's it.

That is, that is all we see of the Cove Net gang in this scene, because then we cut to the inside of The Muppets mailbox.

I like that shot.

I like that this it's like kind of a cool, creative way to to shoot the mundane act of Clifford checking the mail.

Yeah, although do all of these people really share one mailbox?

It seems like it.

And also, they're not getting that much mail for that many people living in that house.

That's.

True.

That's right.

Yeah, that's the thing and it seems.

Like most of it's for Clifford.

Yeah.

Right, so then.

So then Clifford looks into the mailbox and says Whoop there it is, which seems to be a reference to the tag team song Whoop, There it is, but he doesn't say it.

Right.

Yes.

No, he says.

It sounds to me like OOP.

There it is.

OOP.

He says OOP because he loves the comic strip Alley OOP.

Maybe.

Time travelling caveman comic strip.

Yes, I'm gonna be honest with you.

Yeah, I was going to say I watched this movie today and I watched this clip I think three times and I never once heard him say OOP there.

This was a very dated reference at the time.

That song is from what, 1990?

TO1993193 it hit #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Woomp.

There it is by tag team.

And then of course later there was the remix Adams Family Woomp which was heard in the film Addams Family Values.

Stop the Addams family new baby in the house makes 3.

There's what Fester Pugsley alerts you rang no Wednesday Pugsley alerts you rang Fester grandma Ma and thang wait can't forget Cousin it tag team makes another party hit.

It's Addams family movie theme.

Gomez, Morticia.

Come on, Sing.

Is that the one where it's to say what they want to say, do what they want to do, play what they want to play?

No.

That's AC Hammer from the.

First one.

That's the first one.

So the second one is just Addams Family woop.

So after all that, the chorus just goes woop, Addams Family.

There it is.

Like that's literally the chorus.

Is it tag team that's doing the?

Sorry.

Is it tag team that's doing the remix?

Yes.

Also, thank you for apologizing.

And the video has Christina Ricci and Pugsley name.

Name unknown in the video.

Yeah.

And it's why do I know it still?

Why do I know that?

Song.

I mean, why not?

There's there are so many things I could know instead.

It was probably.

Did you have that movie on VHS?

It was probably on the tape, right?

Yeah, well, yeah, it's on the tape.

Yeah, or it was on the radio and, you know, on TV when the movie.

Came out, but it's but it's plays over the credits too.

Yeah, right.

Right.

Yeah, Do you know the controversy of the of the original Woomp?

There it is possibly being stolen.

No remind.

Me so in 1992, I believe, or or at least just months, within months before Woomp There it Is by tag team came out a similar song called Woot There It Is was released by a group called 95 S and they the the tag team people claimed that it was just a coincidence.

But on Wikipedia it says decades later, 95 S has maintained that the similarity of songs was not a coincidence and that Woot There it Is was stolen by tag team.

Wow.

Yeah, tag team said woomp or woot.

There it is, was a common expression used by dancers in Atlanta and Miami nightclubs that members from both groups frequented.

So who knows?

So maybe that's where Clifford got it.

Yeah, Clifford went to the same nightclubs.

Yeah, right.

They all got it from the same place.

But it in this case of when Clifford says it, presumably refers to the mail because he says it as he picks up the mail out of the mailbox.

Oh, and what one more thing though, about the tag team song.

That song also has Boom Shakalaka in it, which was of course referenced to in my particular trial.

Yes, yes.

2 That's two in a row for Boom.

There it is.

We probably talked about the Addams Family song last year too.

Jerry Jewell just really loved tag team.

Yeah, I'm sure.

I'm sure that's what it was.

So.

So Clifford goes through the mail and he shakes his head as he says Roberta Dolores.

And then he very excitedly says, oh, Shanaynay.

So fellas, did all of these women write Clifford letters in 1999?

It sure seems like it.

I mean, people wrote letters more often than they do than they do now.

But you do kind of have to wonder, like, why aren't they just calling him, even if they're not emailing?

Yeah.

Leads me to my bigger question.

You know, how people, when they're going through the Muppet movies, they're like, some of these are movies that they made with their contract.

Yeah, like with the contract that they signed at the end of the.

Month.

You mean people trying to explain as if all the movies are tied together?

Are they The Muppets in this movie or are they just people?

Yeah, we've talked about that and it's kind of, we don't know that.

I don't think there's enough information because they don't seem to.

So Kermit's on vacation, but we don't know from what, and they don't seem to be like on a break from making The Muppet Show or making Muppet movies, but.

It's certainly part of Piggy's story that she is not famous.

Right, she's trying to get.

Into.

I guess that's true.

She.

Gets hired on on Andy Macdowell's TV show as a like APA.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

There's no there's no reason to think she's been a star.

No, not yet.

But Gonzo has been hired to perform at a bar mitzvah, and he has the Electric Mayhem go in his place.

So he has some kind of, you know, show business career or at least at that level.

Because I also think like they're in this house, which is obviously a very cool house shot in Wilmington, right?

Wilmington, DE, The house is still there.

I look Wilmington.

North Carolina.

Yeah, I I looked it up today.

The house is still there.

It still looks great.

But you're like, OK, if they are actors in the troop of The Muppets, why are they living here?

You know, not that there's anything wrong with North Carolina, but, you know, that's even the vibe of that place.

It's like, clearly not a coastal city where all of these actors would be living and working.

So I assume this is another movie if we're working with that theory.

And we do have, we have a cameo later in which the actors comment on this being a movie.

Just one.

It's the Dawson's Creek.

That is true.

That is true.

OK.

That's I think that's the only time they acknowledge that this is a movie.

Yeah, I think so.

Because that would be weird if this meant that this was sorry.

Now I'm going down a rabble because those Dawson's Creek actors are playing their characters.

From Dawson's Creek.

So if this was real life, that means the characters of Dawson's Creek exist in The Muppets real life.

Yeah, right, Right.

And Pepe says this is a Muppet movie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And of course, none of these questions ever occurred to anyone involved in the making of this movie.

They they did not care about any of these questions.

Yeah.

Right.

And neither should we and.

I mean, we it's fun.

It's fun to think.

Of it.

It is fun.

It is fun.

Speaking of questions that no one cared about, Kermit is painting the house because animal bit one of the house painters.

Yeah, and Clifford says.

Yo Kerm, what should I do with the bills?

Kermit says.

Just leave them inside.

Kermit is painting the house with his right hand.

It's always a little bit disappointing to me as a lefty to see Kermit using his right hand as if it's his dominant hand, because usually most Muppets are left-handed.

Ryan, I'm also left-handed.

Well, there you go.

Weren't you a little bit sad?

I was a little bit with his right hand.

Yeah, it kind of ruined the movie for me.

Now that I'm like thinking about it, I'm re ranking all these movies.

It just got pushed so much further down.

Right.

It's so much lower, but Kermit says just leave them inside.

And this basically never comes up again.

Like, this is not a movie about The Muppets having financial trouble in any sense, but Kermit's like, just don't worry about those bills.

And it's like he doesn't worry about him, he just leaves him inside and they never mentioned again.

There just had to be something else in the mail or something to draw attention to Kermit painting the house.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah, but there was something.

It's a slice of life.

It is.

That's true first.

One.

That's it.

That's true.

You're right.

It's a real Joan Micklin Silver.

Movie.

Yes, this is.

Yeah, this is the closest The Muppets get to Altman.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there was something else in the mail, because then Clifford asked Gonzo, do you want your new issue of insanity fair?

Yeah.

This is a pun you see on a famous magazine called Vanity.

Fair, yes.

But Gonzo's insane, I guess.

In this scenario, or he wants to read a magazine about insanity.

Yeah.

So you think that is a real magazine that he's talking about and he's not just making a joke to Gonzo?

Because I don't think you see the magazine.

As Gonzo says, I'll get it later like.

I know, I know.

Yeah, Gonzo's not like, what are you talking about?

That's There's no such magazine, Clifford.

Yeah, that's true.

All right.

But what is Gonzo doing?

He's sitting on the roof watching this guy.

With his his cereal box prize telescope.

Yep, which cannot be very effective like you.

Wouldn't think so.

This tiny little plastic telescope, he's like sitting there looking at the stars through it.

Maybe Gonzo has really good vision, though that's not something that's ever really been, like, looked into, you know?

He's just using it to like focus on one spot maybe.

Sure, he's like my giant eyeballs.

Yeah, my eyes can see to Venus, but with this, you know, telescope, I'm able to like just look at the one spot that I want to be looking at.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's my, that's my working theory.

Yeah, why not?

But then when we fade to night, it is daytime when we see all of this so far.

But then we fade to night, and now Gonzo is still sitting on the roof, looking through his Captain Alphabet telescope.

I think at this point we've also switched from the location of the real house to sound stage a set just gonna.

I'm just.

Gonna bring that up too.

Yeah, yeah.

They recreated this entire roof just so that Gonzo could sit on it.

Yeah, I think not.

It's just we kind of just see the Dome, right?

But there's another They're all sitting on the roof at the end too, so they can see scenes out of it.

Yeah.

Oh, that's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But so inside the house, Kermit is worried about Gonzo.

And Rizzo just reminds Kermit that the serial told him to sit on the roof, which, I mean, it did tell him to watch the sky, I suppose.

Yeah.

It didn't say how close he had to be.

Yeah.

It didn't say sit on the roof and watch the sky, but sure.

But then Clifford says talk about whole grain and nuts, and everyone laughs.

Yeah, and that's not funny.

No.

Then they're all acting.

Fuzzy.

That's not funny.

No.

Maybe they just feel like they have to keep Clifford happy, you know what I mean?

They're like this guy, this guy think, you know?

Oh, all he's going to do is talk about Shenene, you know?

Otherwise, let's laugh at his.

Or or he was so stressed out on Muppets tonight and now he's finally back to his regular laid back personality.

Let's just try to keep him even tempered.

What's the final Clifford appearance?

Is it Wizard of Oz?

It is probably, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, OK.

There was no follow up question of that.

It was.

Just no.

That's a curious worthy question.

Also, Kermit has a a plate in front of him at the table, and the only thing he has on the plate is just like a pile of peas.

I don't know.

What if there's an entree?

That's that, You know, maybe he already finished eating, but he just has a a plate full of peas.

Yeah, there is stuff on the table, but nothing on his plate.

I'm looking right now.

I think Rizzo, Rizzo's got something, too.

It looks just like a hamburger bun, but I can't tell if that's actually what it is.

OK.

And.

And Clifford only has corn.

Oh.

This is weird.

I will say that that shot does look really good.

The shot of them at the table, the like saturation, like the the color correction in that scene, they all look really good.

They all pop a lot.

I think this movie weirdly like more so than a lot of the other ones, like looks like it's shot on film.

I know what you mean, yeah.

Sure, it's just gotta look too.

And I think maybe coming later than like the the original 3, it looks more like what we think of movies looking like.

Yeah, now ish.

And also it's on a lot of real locations, you know, way that Christmas Carol and until they get to the beach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right.

But yeah, Treasure Island and Christmas Carol are are so much soundstage.

Yeah, all completely endorsed.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're both completely soundstage movies and including the beach.

If you did, you mean the Beach and Treasure Island?

Cuz that's the soundstage, no?

No, no, I meant the beach in this.

Beach in this one, Yeah, Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Also when you say about the characters like the colors popping Muppets mayhem a good series but man the way they desaturated the colors on that show like make The Muppets look colorful like Muppets.

They just everything was so washed out.

That's sort of a streaming thing that's like a problem.

It does seem to be, yeah.

Yeah, It's like Netflix has their yeah, Netflix has their own look where they'll like sort of flatten everything.

I don't really understand why.

I don't know if it's just for like we can bang it out quicker or whatever, but like the saturation on so many things is just like gone and things don't look fun anymore.

And no they don't.

A shame because this movie looks fun, whether or not you guys think it is fun.

No, visually it looks.

I love it.

Yeah.

I've been, I've been nothing but delighted, like talking about this movie.

I love it, Yeah.

So Ryan is the one who is not a fan, I mean.

We kind of we kind of switched roles from yeah.

It just, it's the bottom of my ranking of Muppet movies.

But you know, something has to be, it's just I don't, it does not bring me as much joy as the others, but it's, you know, I'm finding things to like about it.

Yeah.

Are you only counting theatrical on that or are you counting TV movies too?

Yeah, theatrical.

OK, what about with TV movies?

Where does it land?

It is.

I would probably rank it higher than yeah, probably higher than both Wizard of Oz.

And it's a very jolly Holly, whatever Christmas.

You know the name.

Don't pretend like you don't know the.

I know the name, it's just more fun to make up a different name every time.

Yeah, it's just like a running gag we do to make up names for.

It's a snappity crackly poppity Christmas.

Yeah, it's a it's a Kermity Crutchety David Arquette movie or.

Whatever, right?

Yeah, it's a whoopity Goldberg movie.

Yeah, it's a it's, it's a William H Macy.

William H Macy Unnecessary cameo movie.

Or whatever.

But what about Kermit Swamp?

What of what of the swamp?

Years, right?

You know, I haven't seen that in such a long time.

I see.

The other ones I actually liked quite a bit the first time I saw them.

Kermit Swamp.

Years.

I don't know that I ever liked it very much, but you know, I should watch it.

Again, it's not anything I should revisit it.

I mean, we'll, I think we'll do a bonus episode.

On it.

Oh yeah, we will.

Yeah.

I think we got.

A bonus episode, not a bonus season.

No, you think of just like an episode covered in that movie.

We don't need to do 44 episodes of Kermit Swamp Years.

What if you just did like 1 episode for every 15 minutes?

Are you are you volunteering to be on all of?

That 100 percent, 100%.

OK, Yeah, I.

Just think you're going to disappoint the fans.

I think you're disappointing the fans.

Maybe I'll host it.

Let me host it.

Let you host.

That would be all right.

We'll think about it.

We'll think about it.

We we got a lot left on this one.

I love that.

But anyways, Gonzo, he's watching this, watching that sky and then finally some sort of shooting star or ball of light flies right towards him.

His eyes widen and he says cool.

Then he stands up, throws his arms wide.

Gonzo, his arms wide.

The yeah, the the trademark Dave Gulls puppetry move.

Yep, the puppet.

Flings his arms open.

His arms wide open and and then Gonzo gets struck by lightning.

Do you think there's any possibility, maybe it's too early for this to have become a like a famous shot, But I was thinking of the Shawshank Redemption shot.

It's like Tim Robbins spreading his arms open.

Yeah, probably too early because I feel like that movie only took off really on cable.

Yeah, it hasn't really become what it is now.

Right.

No, but no, but, but guys, no, because it very well could be.

Because this movie has a very explicit reference to the Shasha redemption.

With Oh, that's true.

Yeah, my school poster covering the.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

So maybe.

So I it, it's actually kind of likely now that I'm thinking about that.

Yeah, yeah, clearly they had that movie on their mind.

But.

But yeah, 'cause this is the same, this is the same year the Green Mile came out, so by then Shashank was already was already a thing.

It's probably running on TNT by now.

Maybe sure, but I do think this shot of the lightning striking gonzo looks very cool.

It's really cool.

There's a lot of special effects in this movie that look very cool.

And then there's somewhere you're like, it's 1999.

But that shot in particular and even like the shot of him flying through space, like doesn't look terrible.

I.

Can't imagine this movie was like a huge budget movie.

But like the effects don't look bad.

No, for a lot of stuff.

Some of it is iffy, but a lot of it does not look bad.

Yeah, but what I like about this shot is suddenly the world freezes and I'm pretty sure Gonzo literally becomes a still image at some.

Point Yes.

Right, but the camera keeps moving around it like it like doesn't it like does it Yeah, effect on that's a good way to.

Describe it.

Yeah, it's like the he, Yeah, it freezes and then it the image kind of starts warping.

But it does look like the camera's moving, yeah.

Yeah, and his, his, his eyes are aglow, which I think helped.

Like we like, zoom right in on his eyes as we pass him and they're yellow.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's weird.

There's something very striking about it.

Was that the puppet that they sold a few years ago?

Didn't they sell one of them on prop store or was that the IT?

Was the IT was the like burnt one right after this?

Yeah, yeah.

When he gets back.

But what's he doing?

He suddenly is flying through the stars while Shining Star by Earth, wind and fireplace.

And Ryan, what is that?

What is Shining Star by Earth, Wind and Fire?

Oh, it's what is it?

It's a song.

It's a funk song.

Yeah, but didn't you write down like how it did on the charts and stuff?

You did that for Woomp?

There it is, I thought.

You didn't tell us.

No.

I oh.

Then never mind, never mind.

I'll just.

I did that with the song that does not actually play in this movie, but I failed to do that with the song.

That does.

Play in the movie.

I did it.

So this is Shining Star by Earth Wind Fire, which was a #1 billboard hit in 1975.

We we had the reference to woomp there.

It is a number three hit, but this one did it 2 better.

It was actually a number one hit and it's one of I mean, I think of this as like one of the two big earth, wind and fire songs, right?

It's it's this in September.

I I in my mind at least.

Yeah.

And it rolls like gonzo flying through the sky with with this song playing makes it like, say what you will about the soundtrack to this movie, and I know it doesn't work for you as well as does for me, Ryan, but like, I don't know, Shining Star is playing and Gonzo's flying.

No, it's a good choice I think.

That's two things I love.

And I'll say this, I don't think it would have.

I mean, maybe it could have worked for this to be a musical number of Gonzo's singing about the fact that he's flying through space.

I don't think that would have been like an ideal place to put an original song.

So I think it works really well to have the song playing for this sequence.

It feels like every other major song in this movie, though could have most of them.

Are a lot of them, yeah.

Yeah, this is sort of the one where it's like, I don't, I don't think I would rather have him singing, right, a real song.

Yeah, so.

So the rats?

The rats should be singing while they're running around the Oh.

Absolutely.

Instead of survival by the o'jays.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, I think Brick House feels like it should be a song.

Yeah, 100.

Percent and and celebration feels like it should be a song Yeah it.

Should be an original song.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

We were talking earlier about Superman the movie.

This kind of maybe just cuz I recently watched Superman but this kind of reminded me seeing gonzo flying through space reminded me of Superman.

Like I will believe that a whatever can fly.

Watching this, Yeah, yeah.

And of course, this will remind so many of our listeners of the video game Chaos at the Carnival from 1990 Muppets Adventure Chaos at the Carnival, in which Gonzo's level is the space ride where he's flying through space in a little tiny spaceship, shooting at asteroids and aliens and stuff like that.

So maybe, maybe that's what inspired this.

A lot of times at night it's like very late and I should be asleep, and I'm lying in bed thinking like, man, I know way too much about The Muppets.

Like, really, my brain is broken.

Why do I know this much stuff?

And then I come on here and Ryan talks about a video game that I've literally never heard of before.

And now you're gonna, after we finish recording, you're gonna go to YouTube and watch a 40 minute playthrough of that.

Time or I'm gonna buy this, I'm gonna buy the system and go buy the game.

There you go.

Well, it was released on the NES and on a few home computer platforms back in the day.

OK, looks like I'm buying an old home computer.

Good.

Yeah, Buy a Commodore 64.

And so I've never played this game, but I'm looking at the cover art, Yeah.

And it looks very much like a comic book cover from the late 80s.

Like.

Yeah.

But don't be fooled, the game is not as fun as the cover the game.

Oh, I'm sure it's very bad.

Well, I'm sure it's awful.

Yes.

The cover is kind of fun.

Yeah, Piggy.

And like, Piggy's outside.

Piggy's tied up to a diamond while like Gorilla menaces her, right?

That's the grump Asaurus.

Sure.

Wait, that that guy, that gorilla is the grumpus?

Yeah, I guess it has like.

I think so.

It has like, weird things running out of its head.

But yeah, Piggy looks like she's having fun is what I enjoy.

She's like smiling and making a goo goo.

Isaac Kermit.

Well.

She knows they're taking her picture show.

Yeah, and look, I'll say the thing.

I'll say the thing that Anthony's afraid to say.

Piggy looks good.

She looks good on that cover, that video game.

It's true, man.

Who's next to her, though?

It's not the grump Asaurus who's the other bad person.

There's a mad scientist, yeah.

He's like Doctor Grump or something like that.

He's.

Doctor.

The guy who kidnaps her, Yeah, I mean, and of course, it's a video game from the 80s or 90s.

So it's like the the male character must save the female character who has been kidnapped.

I don't know why I possibly doubted you, but yes, his name is Doctor Grump.

There you.

Go.

I don't even have to look it up now.

Thank you.

Not to be confused with Doctor Grouch, the Golden Age Superman villain.

Part of the duo Mr.

Meanie and Doctor.

Grouch and Mr.

Meanie should not be confused with Mr.

Meanie, the villain from a Sesame Street live show in the 80s, which I believe was called Save Our Street.

Save our street.

Yeah, I remember that.

No, I don't.

I've never heard of it.

Yeah, Mr.

Meany and Dr.

Grouch Superman's Christmas adventure.

All right.

Anyways, nothing else happens in that.

We didn't say it was over, but this ends with 22 seconds of Gonzo flying through space.

And he is having.

A great time flying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's having so much fun.

He's twirling around.

He's going like, ha, ha.

He's like, he's like making the sounds Will Smith makes at the beginning of a song.

He's like going ha ha, woo, yeah.

Brian, would you like this movie more or less if the next 40 minutes was just gonzo flying through space?

Well if he flew like past different planets and.

No, no.

No, just through empty space like this, yeah.

What would you do for the podcast?

Would you still do 2 minutes at a time or would you say we're just gonna cover the next 40?

Yeah, So like next week we would say here's minutes 17 and 18, which Gonza is still flying through space.

There's minutes 19 and 20, Gonza is still flying through space.

Yeah, I don't know.

We'd have to think about that it'd.

Be good.

I would actually love that.

But anyways, that's the end.

Any other thoughts about these two minutes, Patrick, before we go?

I mean, look, I like this movie.

I think this movie's fun and I had a really good time rewatching it.

I think it's a lot of because all my Muppets tonight friends are in it and I think we get away from that pretty quick in in The Muppets in general.

I think, I mean, I'm just going to give you thoughts on the movie in general.

What I think is funny.

I think the Phil Van Neuter scene is very funny.

I think it's like top tier Muppet movie scene.

And I think, I don't know, I just think it looks good.

I think it's got a good pace.

I'm never bored during it.

I think most of the cameos are pretty good, even if some of the people who are doing the cameos are bad.

And I think that I don't know.

I think if they, I'm saying I think a lot.

But if they had pumped out seven to 10 movies that were like Muppets from space, we'd be in a better place in the world.

You know, that's, that's my take.

I don't know.

I.

Think the rainwater Muppets in the Old West.

Sure, Muppets.

A dry Muppets just driving in a car.

That's that's the in between enough space and water.

That's the middle.

Yeah.

No, actually, no.

But you actually just described The Muppet Movie, by the way.

Yeah, you're right.

That's.

Actually, what the Muppet?

Movie is.

And a solid chunk of the seagull Muppet movie, too.

Yeah.

No, I don't know.

I think this movie is funny and I think Jeffrey Kambour is funny in it and Bobo is very funny in it.

I'm just naming the things that I think are good and I I think it gets a bad rap, but I also understand why.

Ryan, you don't like it?

I get it.

It's different than the other movies.

And I mean, were we talking with someone on Facebook about this and they thought it felt like a Nickelodeon movie?

Is that what it was?

Yeah, yeah.

That was previous guest on the podcast, Carolyn Wiesner.

Yeah, yeah.

She thought it felt like a 90s Nickelodeon movie, which which I can see certainly.

A lot of the, yeah, a lot of the whatever, just like the style of the jokes feels very kind of 90s snarky, Yeah.

I think there is a cut of this movie that's maybe like 60 seconds shorter or something like that, where you cut out five of those jokes in an immediate sure becomes.

A better movie.

Yeah, it's just like I, I think there is a world where you could cut this and you would almost be indistinguishable from the regular cut, but it would be a better movie.

And maybe I'm going to go work on that tonight.

Great, can't wait.

Please, please share.

Ryan, did you have any other thoughts before we go?

No, I don't.

Great.

So Patrick, we've been asking all of our guests 2 questions.

First one is our usual question.

What is your history you gave us?

You told us everything funny.

What is your history with Muppets from Space?

So I definitely saw it in the movie theaters.

I don't remember seeing it in the movie theaters, but I absolutely did.

You're.

What about 6 years old in 19?

90 it would have been seven would have been 7, which is like peak, peak Muppet time for me, you know what I mean?

7 until current day.

Yeah.

We're.

We're still there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the thing I do remember about this movie specifically is 2 things.

I had the making of book, the little paperback making of thing, which was like huge for me.

I'd like worn out the binding on it.

I think I still have it here somewhere.

But I used to look at that book constantly.

And the other thing was I that my hometown was the North American headquarters for Lego and there was a day where they were having like AI don't want to call it a picnic, but it was like a fair kind of, but it was also just like promoting Lego stuff.

And it's just a local kind of small thing.

And they had a car that was coming out that was Lego themed.

I don't remember anything else about this car, but I remember that it had a DVD player in the like with a screen that came down for the back seats.

And I remember saying to my mother, whoa, that's so cool, I could watch Muppets from space in that car.

Love it that's.

That was my first thought.

That was the first.

We didn't even have a DVD player.

But that was the thing where I was like, if I was to get a DVD player, absolutely it would be Muppets from Space.

No question.

No question.

Yeah, that.

So that's my history with this movie.

But I, you know, try to.

I probably watch it once a year, maybe something like that.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's fun.

Just who cares?

Every Muppet, Every Muppet movie is pretty good, you know?

Yeah, right.

That's the thing.

Whatever.

And then the second, the second question is what is your favorite science fiction movie or TV show or book or any any other science fiction property?

Yeah, I mean, it's Star Wars, but I'm not going to give that answer because I think that's a boring answer.

I have been recently I've been in a big X-Files kick.

I actually just started X-Files from the beginning.

Great.

Have you ever seen it?

But have you ever seen it?

I have seen it, but I have never watched it all the way through.

OK, a lot of it's bad.

Yeah, great.

That's what everyone says.

Yeah, a lot of it's bad, but a lot of it's great and especially those first like 7 seasons in the first movie and stuff like that are really great.

But that's sort of been my big thing recently.

I've been, my girlfriend's never seen it so we're like slowly going through but I'm also curating it being like these next 4 episodes are bad, we're not gonna watch them.

Yeah.

What I thought is if I ever did a rewatch, I would just, yeah, be very selective about which episodes to watch.

We're watching all of the mythology episodes and then I'm being just because it feels, even though it becomes a mess as you go on, Like it would feel confusing if you skip those.

And then we're watching like a solid amount of the monster of the weak ones.

But yeah, that's that's my big thing.

I just read the the comics that came out like they they came out before the reboot happened.

They put out a season 11 comics and I don't know that they were great necessarily, but it was like a fun.

It's scratching the itch without watching an episode I've seen six times, you know, Sure.

Sure.

Yeah, no, I get it.

And I just watched.

Sorry this feels more up your guys out.

This feels like something you guys would like.

Have you ever watched Kolchak the Night Stalker?

I've never, I've never thought.

About it many times.

Yeah.

I.

Remember I remember ads on daytime TV in the 90s for like the VHS collection?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, Keno Keno Lorber, the Blu-ray company put out a collection of all of them and they were on YouTube and they like looked like garbage.

And I was like, I'm not going to watch them here.

I guess I'll just blind by this Blu-ray and I like flew through them and it's it's fun and it's dumb and it just feels like The X-Files, except in like 1970s LA, which is fun because they're like driving down the street and I'm like, that's literally my street right there, you know, and and it seems.

Like that was what, the two seasons maybe?

Or one one I believe.

Oh, only one it's.

Just one season it's.

I think it's 20 episodes and two movies.

Oh, wow.

For being so short lived, it seems like that show had such a big influence on so many, Yeah, people who have gone on to, you know, write and create so much other TV shows and books and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah, it was huge for The X-Files, but also like David Chase wrote a ton of them.

Sopranos Creator.

That's why seven of them or something like that.

It was just it was interesting to watch it.

I don't know, but that's my recent sci-fi thing.

Yeah, I should know.

I should definitely, I should definitely give that a shot because yeah, obviously, like I said, I'm watching The X-Files.

I love Buffy and stuff, and I love dark.

I love dark shadows, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, It's very similar.

It's very campy and it gets campier as the season goes on.

But I don't know, it just feels like something you would watch on TV in the 90s at 3:00 PM, you know, for sure.

Like that's exactly what it feels like so.

Awesome.

All right, well, thank you so much, Patrick, as always, always a joy to have you listeners.

We will be back again in another week, but until then, you can check out toughpigs.com on the Internet, Facebook, blue sky all over the place.

You can become a patron of ours on Patreon.

You can buy T-shirts with sometimes veiled Muppet junk on them from us on T public.

We would appreciate that.

We got some great designs up there.

Yes and yeah.

You can follow Ryan on Blue sky at me Ryan Row.

You can follow me on Blue Sky at Durwood Clapper.

You can follow Ryan on Letterboxed at Movies are Neat and me on Letterboxed at Zeppo Marxist Pedrick.

Remind our listeners where we can find you and your work online.

I don't think I knew your name was Durwood Clapper on there.

That's.

Oh really?

That's extremely funny.

Zeppo Marxist was taken.

Is the sure, I get it and you got to go for the next best thing, which is Durwood Clapper?

Obviously, yes, I'm on Instagram at Kotner COTNOIR, I'm on Blue Sky, Patrick Kotner, I'm on Letterbox, I'm on all that stuff.

But also I produce and Co host a show called the George Lucas Talk Show.

If you live in Chicago on November 23rd, we're going to be at the Den Theatre and we have some really cool guests for that.

And then if you live in New York, we're going to be at the UCB Theatre on December 18th.

It's a very fun show.

Connor Ratliff plays George Lucas and we interview guests as themselves and Griffin Newman plays Wado from Star Wars.

The Phantom Menace.

There's a documentary about the show that just came out and it just got released by Keno Larber, who put out the Kolchak the Night Stalker.

Yeah, that's exciting.

2 discs, 57 audio commentaries on it.

Over.

Actually, Yep, over 100 hours of bonus features on this movie.

It is as of now, as far as I can tell, the record for the most audio commentaries on the movie ever.

I'm waiting for Guinness to certify it.

Good.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've.

I've submitted it, but also I've been doing these live reads of the Star Wars scripts at Dynasty Typewriter here in Los Angeles.

You can watch them all at Southwest Live read.com.

And we have The Force Awakens 1 coming up January 10th and you can buy a live stream ticket for that.

But yeah, check it all out.

It's all it's all pretty available online.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

That is.

And Kirk Thatcher was in the last one, was in our Return of the Jedi reading.

He played Admiral actor.

Look at that.

Yeah.

Yep.

There you go.

Awesome, a man whose work we will be discussing much in the years to come.

But so yes, thank you again, Patrick.

Thank you to Jordan Brandon for writing our theme song theme music, and to Morgan Davey for designing our logo.

And thank you to you listener for watching the skies, giving us a review and telling everyone you see in the skies to listen to.

Moving right along.

Goodbye, bye.

Bye.