Emily Edwards (she/her): Greetings, gumshoes, and welcome to another episode of Silver Screen Sleuths. It's the most sensational podcast. And we are talking with a repeat guest, Mindy Carlson. How are you?
Mindy Carlson: I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to be your first repeat guest.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know, I'm so excited to have you back. we were sort of paling around on DMs trying to figure out if we could come up with another movie to talk about. And when I was like, man, I would just love to do something goofy like the great Muppet Caper, and you were like, I am absolutely down to do the Great Muppet Caper.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, no, like my my oeuvre of books in general, like I write humorous mysteries. So to do something that's essentially a humorous mystery, I mean it's a pretty there is a v like at the very, very tiny core of this movie, an actually good mystery in there, surrounded by layers and layers of goofiness, which I think probably was my gateway drug to writing humorous mysteries.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely, absolutely. I I have friends who are like, Your books are so funny and I'm like, Yeah, I can't actually take most things seriously. So even though there is a crime in the center of my books, they're always gonna be funny. There's the and we can accredit a lot of that to Muppet Muppety childhoods.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. No, I'm a hoot at a funeral.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And so because it's the great Muppet Caper, I sort of thought about like I I was like, well I either have a green shirt, which is kind of Muppet Green, but I decided to go because Miss Piggy is like one of my is an icon. and so I went with her lilac color
Emily Edwards (she/her): Love it.
Mindy Carlson: and then I put on like my little diamond studs here. So so I'm like representing Miss Piggy. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fabulous, fabulous. you know, before we really get into it, I want to acknowledge that we are recording the day after the passing of our extremely dear Tim Curry. And it is impossible to actually talk about the Muppets without talking about Tim Curry because him and I would say the male star of this movie, Charles Groden, absolutely understood the assignment of what it means to be in a Muppet movie, and that is to embody human Muppetiness.
Mindy Carlson: yeah. Well and he yeah,
Emily Edwards (she/her): You've I'm assuming you've seen.
Mindy Carlson: I actually when he when he passed, you know, naturally lots and lots of of clips and reels and memes started flooding my feed because I am in that algorithm. And I saw a clip of one thing that I I was I went err and then backed up on to research further. So Tim Curry was in Treasure Island with Miss Piggy as his
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: opposite, as his romantic interest. And
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: he he said, you know, there's like, let's see, I wrote it down because it's you know, so and then later so that was in, let's see, that interview was in 1996. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: he said that they had a tour love affair. you know, and it didn't survive the filming because, you know, he was embodying embodying the spirit of the pirate and you know, a girl
Emily Edwards (she/her): The long John Silver.
Mindy Carlson: in every port, and she felt that he was stepping out on her and he she just couldn't take that. So she she ended it abruptly breaking his heart. Then after he's had his stroke in I think it was 2016 he gave this interview, or maybe even later than that. So we're talking like twenty years later.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Y yeah.
Mindy Carlson: He says, the interviewer asks him, is there a great love of your life that got away? And he says, without missing a beat, he says, Miss Piggy. And and the interviewer starts laughing and and he was like, She's the one that got away.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, he says, you know, or and he goes, There always is. It's Miss Piggy. She's the one that got away. You know, once you've had pork, you don't ever go back. And but and he did it with this amazing deadpan, kind of like yes, of course it was Miss Piggy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I absolutely and he also wrote a passage about it in his memoir, like his actual book memoir about how he had a tourid love affair with Miss Piggy and Kermit was incredibly jealous, but like no one could stop
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the love. And it's just such an incredible, brilliant sort of joke to uphold and also to know that he meant that much to so many different generations. Like, I would say that the Muppet Christmas Carol was the first movie that I saw, like the first. Like Muppet movie and probably one of the first movies that I ever saw in theaters. That was in '92.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And then when Treasure Island was coming out, that was like, my gosh, the Muppets are back. Like you didn't we didn't really have the concept of like the Muppet show and that the Muppets were like a constant. You know, it was just like the Muppets are coming back. And then to see Tim Curry. And he has this beautiful baritone that he sings throughout the entire, you know, thing was like when you are a professional pirate is just like a classically perfect Muppet song. And it's just
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like, you know, just an incredible honor to have experienced him so much when when we were kids.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean he really his work formulated a lot of how I take in the world around me because we're talk I mean he was basically on the screen from the time that I was cognizant of what a screen was in until like yesterday. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: like I mean clue humorous mystery, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Muppet Treasure Island, taking a classic and making it palatable to kids, but also with that same kind of Muppetness of putting in jokes for the adults,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that it's they I that's one of the things I think Jim Henson did really well. That's one of the things I think Tim Curry did really well. Excuse me, that he he was in kids' movies but he didn't pander to kids.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes,
Mindy Carlson: He didn't dumb down or patronize his audience with how he portrayed the character.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. That is something that I noticed this go around while watching the Great Muppet Caper, which is just how wonderfully the writing for the Muppets is cross-generational and really incredibly intelligent. And when I was doing a little bit of research about like what other people thought of the Great Muppet Caper and how it fit in with sort of our cultural zeitgeist, I saw someone really explain it in a very interesting way in that there are some you know properties where the Muppets are individuals like that is Kermit. And then there are other Muppet properties where the Muppets are actors and that's Kermit playing a character. And I thought
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that that's such an interesting thing that they get to do because they're puppets, but also something that an actor like Tim Curry did so wonderfully and other actors who have been in Muppet movies, and to an extent Diana Rigg and Charles Groden, who were huge stars at the time that this movie was being made, they understood that there were times where the Muppets were their own mechanism and their own structure. And then there's times where you fit the Muppets into a structure. And
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I love the way that they dealt with the structure of a caper movie in this Because most of the time when you're talking about a caper, you're rooting for the thief. So I'm thinking like how to steal a million or the Italian job and you're like, you want them to get away with it. Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Thomas Crown affair, t classically, you r you want Thomas Crown to succeed.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, and I like the fact that they play with that here because you have your normal protagonist with like Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo and you want them to win, but you're also kind of rooting for for Nikki, the bad guy, to get away with it because he's just so charming.
Mindy Carlson: He yeah, Charles Groden, I think, as a character actor, plays these sorts of like, I don't know, likable smarmy guy. It would be really
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: easy, like, I mean, I almost feels like Troy McClure from The Simpsons,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: who he's like kind of this charming smarmy guy, but at the same time, the charm is legit.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. It's very weird. Like, well I'll circle back, but like the first time he gives Miss Piggy like a loving stare, you're like, my god, this man actually has chemistry with a puppet. This is so
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): bizarre.
Mindy Carlson: Well, and they say that like you know, what is it, Anthony Hopkins and some of these other like classically trained Shakespearean actors treated all of the Muppets like they were real people. Like when
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: they were addressing Kermit the Frog, they were addressing Kermit, not the puppeteer. They like
Emily Edwards (she/her): The eyes Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: they would talk to them and It it was one of those things. And then my husband also says, Yeah, Anthony Hopkins, they treated the other pup other Muppets like actors, but like Tim Curry became a Muppet.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. I think one of my favorite little snippets
Mindy Carlson: And I think Charles Grodin I'm sorry, I think Charles Gruden also does that to a certain extent, where he also becomes a Muppet.
Emily Edwards (she/her): He becomes very Muppety. I think my favorite little tidbit I ever read was like in the, you know, the IMDB trivia for Muppet Christmas Carol. Michael Cain was talking about how like when like people are adjusting lighting and things like that and blocking for a scene, like they just kind of put the Muppets on a stick. And he was like,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I would find myself having conversations with like the Muppet that was like on a stick and like didn't have a person manning him and you're talking to Kermit as though he s he was a person and you just realize, wait, though that's felt in some ping pong balls. Like what
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): am I doing?
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's I mean it just really is it goes to show how brilliant Jim Henson was
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: as a as a creator out of the box thinker. The Muppets appeared on the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Bounce.
Mindy Carlson: the Muppet Show was always intended to be like a vaudeville variety show for adults. like those sort of jokes are in there. And I and I actually I was watching the opening credits of this and then throughout of The Great Method Caper I was sort of like, wow, this is kind of in a way, some templates for Deadpool in here where they break the fourth wall and are
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: very self-referential and talking about, well, you know, like the credits are rolling and Fozzie says, Does anybody ever read these? And Kermit says, Yeah, they all have families.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: You know, so they're kind of breaking the fourth wall, talking about the credits that are rolling and and at the same time like talking about that, and then also kinda like, Yeah, but we're gonna do this movie. And then you go and you have the song that brings you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: into the movie. The first robbery happens behind them, and then suddenly you're in the newsroom with the same guy who was in All the President's Men. J Jack Warner.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. And I I I think one of the things that I love the most about this conceit that of the Great Puppet Caper, and that does not work in anything that's like way more serious and way more classic, like like an Agatha Christie adaptation, is that the guys who are writing the movie are also the performers. And so they have their own jokes about what they're doing. And I love the fact that the the crux, like the the initial, the exciting event for the adventure that Kermit, Fozzy, and Gonzo are going on is that they have missed this jewel caper that's happening behind them and they made themselves the story. And so like they're
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, literally behind them.
Emily Edwards (she/her): they're and so like the headline that they've plastered on the front page of the newspaper that they're looking for is about themselves. And it's just so smart for the writers who are there with the puppets on their hands, going, actually, like the Muppets are so naive, they're so childlike, they're so innocent that they could never conceive
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of a crime happening behind them, and that this is a Muppet movie. So it's going to be about the Muppets. And it's so postmodern at the same time.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, the two of the writers were Tom Patchett and Jay Tarsus. And Jay Tarsus is the air steward on the plane that throws them out into England. And Tom Patchett
Emily Edwards (she/her): Amazing.
Mindy Carlson: is the air steward that throws them out at the end of the movie back to New York. Which I thought was fantastic.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I love it. And then there was yes. And then it was also co there was another version or an aspect of it that was made by Jerry Juhl, who is
Mindy Carlson: Right, and Jack Rose.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and Jack Rose.
Mindy Carlson: think I think Tom Patchett and Jerry Tarsus were the first run and then Jerry Juhl and Jack Rose were the second run over it. So which is not uncommon to have to have Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Gotcha. Gotcha. It like W yeah, WGA rules are really weird.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole committee that comes in and determines who whose name
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: gets put up there, how much money they get from the cut. It's quite something.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. It's very wild, but I really love the fact that they're playing with this aspect of it because you know, one of the things that the Muppet Show did exceptionally well, and I think that the Muppets writers deserve a lot more credit for is how well they worked in genre. So, like one of my favorite sketches from the Muppet Show is Pigs in Space. It's just it's just a deep understanding
Mindy Carlson: Yes, yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of Star Trek and Sci-Fi and in space science fiction. And my husband had never heard of it. And I like because he didn't have cable growing up. So he never saw like reruns
Mindy Carlson: sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of the Muppet show. And so like I always watched them on like Nickelodeon because they ran a lot on Nickelodeon when I was a kid, but he never had cable. And so he didn't catch the first run of it in the 70s. And then like he didn't have cable to watch it in the 90s. And so I was like, what do you mean you've never heard of pigs in space? And so I got to play all these sketches for him. And it's And it's incredible to watch just how quickly they grasp on to genre conventions and manage to flip genre conventions on their head, which is like so evident in the Great Muppet Caper.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I wonder if that's easier to do in short vignettes or if it's easier to do when you have a longer period of time. Like, you know, this movie's got like a ninety minute runtime, whereas the pig pigs in space vignette is like three minutes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Three minutes. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So I wonder if it's easier or if it's easier with some genres than other genres. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: sci-fi has some pretty like apparent tropes, very readily recognized tropes. Romance has some very recognizable tropes that you go with, but and and so do heists. But
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this is definitely very much wrapped in other silliness. And but in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this, and actually I was super impressed with how Elegantly everything flowed together. This was Jim Henson's first directorial, like feature-length director's shot. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: he had done the Muppet show, he had done TV specials, he'd never done a full-length, he did not direct the Mupp the Great Muppet movie, which
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: which is actually one of my favorite movies, and the last part of it just cracks me up, where Orson Wells of all people says.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know bring them the standard f
Mindy Carlson: You know, write you know, Mrs. Lord, write them the standard rich and famous contract, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's so good. Like this movie has, you know, I wonder the same thing about what's what's easier is just like the two to three minute sketch where you're maybe only landing two or three jokes.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, you're building up and and really only landing two or three jokes, or something like this, where it, you know, but this movie is very like chapter or like picresque. Where it's like in this scene, we're going to be telling this short story and we're going to be building up to this joke. And then, you know, it it can be a little bit more you know, it does all flow together, but I've found while watching this that it was slightly more like strung together like sketches,
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like artfully strung together sketches rather than, you know, but it is well mapped enough that it
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I don't I don't know if I agree with the that they were strung together st sketches more than like very realized scenes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And they still relied on tropes along with breaking the fourth wall. Like so when Lady Hol when Miss Piggy is meeting Lady Holiday and she gets the job, and then Lady Holiday is going on this whole long monologue about her brother Nikki and being a failure and he always wears those bow ties and you know, all this stuff. And then Miss Piggy says, Why are you telling me all this? And she says, It's exposition. It's got to go somewhere. And you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: and it's sort of it's so I I love Diana Rigg so very much. I feel like she was a big star, but I also feel like in a lot of stuff she's very underrated because
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: her delivery style is so easy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, yes, totally. Like she does have this air of like of natural, like it's so natural for her to be doing any almost anything, you know, the scene where she's parading around and she's critiquing the designs and what people have changed in her designs, and then she like tosses ink on this one poor model, and then everybody
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): just goes like the imperiousness that she brings to this character is so flawless and I love how well they do actually work. Like I know we were talking about in our our murder on the Orient Express, you know,
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): episode that, you know, Agatha Christie is so good at working with like character tropes or sort of like he is the military man, he is the firstborn son, he she is the heiress, you know, and things like that that are so endemic to to you know, British literature and the concept of of British society. And I feel like this movie does that exceptionally well. And one of the things that they did exceptionally well in the sort of genre sketches that they did, which was they knew that they needed a femme faital. They knew that they needed an investigator. They knew that they needed, you know, the scampy sort of like the Charles Groden, you know, like the cat
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): burglar aspect to it. And they So expertly knew that Miss Piggy was going to be the femme fatale, not Diana Rigg. You have Diana
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Rigg, who's one of the most beautiful actresses working at the time.
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): She's so gorgeous. And Kermit is like, nope, I gotta fall in love with the pig. And they they make it natural and seamless in a way that lesser writers would not be able to do.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I agree. And and their joke structure is very nuanced because when
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: when di in that scene where you're talking about Diana Rigg throwing the ink on the clothes, and she's talking about like you look like an ostrich and you look like you know, this is and she's, you know, feathers like a chicken, and she's denigrating all of her things by using animal things, and then she goes,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: Why would I design clothes that make people look like barnyard animals? And then in walks Miss Piggy. Which is brilliant. I mean
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: that took some real thought to sort of layer that in so that when she enters, there's an incredibly great joke there, but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: also it isn't forced.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: It's not a joke that they had in stock and they were like, we are shoving this in here no matter what, which I think some movies fall down on and some writers fall down on. We're like, my God, this thing is incredibly funny, and I'm gonna work it in here no matter what
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: happens. And you know that that is a joke that has been worked in because it sticks
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: out like a sore thumb. It's funny, but it's not as funny as it could be.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And this just feels so natural. I mean this just it feels just like I mean it's silk. It's just
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Yes. I think one of my favorite jokes that worked in really well for the time and maybe got, I don't know, but like I love the fact that the electric mayhem doing their thing at the Happiness Hotel and the Happiness Hotel
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): number is so Chelsea hotel coded for like the 1970s when this is being filmed, where it's like, of course you're gonna find all these beatnicks. And then behind them, why like this is one of the things that the Muppets are absolutely excellent at. Is behind them there's all these posters for like art exhibits and you know other musical performances, So I I actually like
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): paused the movie like multiple times to read them. So there's a Balalaika concert, there's a Rachmaninoff performance, Georges de Cuevas and the Chilean ballet. And then also Magdalena Rodolescu, who's a Romanian painter. And I was like, my gosh, they literally have like, you know, all these like sort of left wing communist sort of like seventies jokes in this dirty Chelsea hotel set with electric mayhem. And I was just like, these guys must have been so smart and on so many drugs to think of all of these jokes.
Mindy Carlson: I totally agree with you. And it's I mean, that's one of the things about the Muppets is they're punk AF. I mean, they are
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: punk and subversive. And Jim Henson was like they were always meant for adult audiences. But we did understand because of Sesame Street, they would
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: be bring parents would be bringing children to this. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: all of their adulter jokes are very subtle.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I love it.
Mindy Carlson: Which makes them for me even more delicious.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. I was like, I if I had watched this when I was any younger, I never would have been like, is that a poster with a balalaika on it? And it's like, yeah, no, okay, yeah. There it is. There's the joke. No.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. Yeah, they're not gonna know like kids are not gonna register that at all. You know, and they're not gonna register that this is a Chelsea hotel sort of look a
Emily Edwards (she/her): situation.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, look alike situation. And then some of the like and I don't know as a child I don't think I got this as funny as it was, but when they are talking about how do you want to pay, you know, we take cash,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: checks or sneak out in the middle of the night. And he says, Well,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ha ha ha
Mindy Carlson: sneak out in the middle of the night. It's very popular choice, you know. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: it's so you have all of that stuff going on in and these 1970s coded things. Because they are very, yeah, the Muppets are a very subversive group of people. And I do feel like over the years they have become more and more for children. but I I would like to see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm. Yeah. Especially 'cause they got bought by Disney in the nineties.
Mindy Carlson: I would like to see Brian Henson and his sisters like build it back up to being much more politically coded, much more commentary on society coded. I mean, they had like the Muppet Show itself had a lot of people on where, you know, they You know, other shows would not have had them on or they
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and and doing things that they would not be doing on other shows.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Gene Kelly famously refused to sing Singing in the Rain ever again. There was, I can't
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: remember what happened or when it was, but he was like, I'm done with that song. And the Muppets got him to sing Singing in the Rain.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And then there's the famous Roger Moore one where he is James Bond and you have all of these Muppet animals trying to kill him.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Where he and he's singing Doctor Doolittle Talk with the Animals and Walk with the Animals as he's like chucking bombs away from himself. It is so good.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's brilliant. One of my favorites as a kid was the Harry Belafonte, you know, episode. And you know, he's doing the banana song. And of course, as a kid, I didn't understand the politics of Harry of Harry Belafonte and what he stood for and what he was always trying to accomplish. I'm just like, listen, yeah, that's the voice that's supposed to be singing the banana song. But it's like, no, it's like Harry Belafonte there doing Harry Belafonte things. It's incredible. And then I remember the first episode I ever saw was Juliet Prowse who I believe was the first ever host of the Muppet Show. And could anybody name a modern dancer working today who wasn't on So You Think You Can Dance? And here they have Juliet Prouse, who is the first host. And they treat her as though she's like just as big a celebrity as Gene Kelly
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and Harry Belafonte
Mindy Carlson: Absolutely. And they I so so growing up like I did as Generation X, late 70s, early 80s, I feel like we had a really great benefit of having this stuff and having producers, directors, and creatives that were brave enough to have
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: these people on television, including Mr. Rogers, presenting
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: the neighborhood that he wanted the future to live in. And which As a child, you don't question what's put in front of you. You just take it as in, that's just how it is. And
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that's, you know, like black people swim with white people. You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: Juliet Prowse is a huge, huge star. Like dancers are people to be celebrated. You
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: know, like you just sort of take it for what it is and where you're at. And then as you grow up, you're like, Well, why can't it be that way? Was
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that way when we were a child on television. So why can't this happen today? You know, and I'm I sort of feel like that is slightly missing in the zeitgeist of the youth today. I feel like people are I don't know. I don't know if the intentionality isn't the right word, but I feel like there are some missed opportunities. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. I'm an older millennial, so like I have the tail end of the Gen X of just like, you know, similar sort of zy guess, but a little bit less where it was still where we were starting to get sort of more of the moralizing, you know, like the more like the bald faced moralizing of just
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): just, you know, like no bullying, you know, it's like you really have to dial it in, you know, and we had slightly more Captain Planet sort of levels, you know, that kind of thing, which is still I think very beneficial and also missing from children's media a little bit. Granted, I'm not steeped in children's media because I don't have any kids. So maybe I just haven't seen it.
Mindy Carlson: I am I am no longer steeped in children's media 'cause my kids are seventeen and almost twenty one, so
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome. And you're just like, fabulous. I never have to listen to them, like listen to the same like kid's song, like on repeat over and over and over again.
Mindy Carlson: I I did play so my secret weapon in the war of people playing their music too loud in cars and like, you know, having the bass so loud that my own widow windows are rattling is I will turn on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song Hot Dog and blare it in my speakers. That is how I fight back.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's amazing.
Mindy Carlson: I'm like, you're gonna play your music so loud that I can feel it in my fillings? Well
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: get ready for this.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Do you really love though that you know, by this point, the Muppets and the Muppet writers understood that kids were going to be watching the show, you know, watching
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the movie, and it was going to be consumed as though it was children's like fiction. And I think that comes out the most in like Fozzie Bear has a speech towards like the lead up to the deneuement when they're going to go and try to capture the cat burglar in order to clear Miss Piggy. And Fozzie Bear has this speech where you know everybody's like, Yeah, we're in it. And then they realize that they could die doing the thing, and then they all back out. And Fozzie goes, Shame on you. I thought we were in this thing together. I'm just as scared as you are, but has to be done. We don't want the bad guys to win. We gotta do this for justice, for freedom, and for honesty. And I'm just like, that is a lovely soliloquy to throw into sort of like, you know, at the end of like a Steve McQueen movie where they're all trying to break
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): out of prison and it's like Fozzie Bear is giving the, you know, friends Roman countrymen, lend me your ears speech at the end.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, basically. I mean, and yeah, I think that's you know, Jim Henson just died way too soon. I mean, he was only fifty-six when he died,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I know.
Mindy Carlson: from bacterial pneumonia. And he yeah, I feel like that that's sort of like Frank Oz and Jim Henson, I think were really the heart of the Muppets and had this sentiment. And I feel like the Great Muppet Keeper is all of this like very much steeped together and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and done in I just love the old Hollywood kind of motif and set dressing that they're doing. Cause they have like the the water ballet happening.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: They have these big dance numbers, and you know, the the song Happiness, Miss Piggy,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know, that one in Oscar for Best Song. Like that is crazy. And then they have some, it's one of the most quotable movies of the Muppet movies. Because you have Sam the Eagle that comes out and says, You're all weirdos. Which
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: is, I mean, like I say that probably once a week. Still, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: it's some of the other ones was like, Look, Dad, there's a bear. No, Christine, it's a frog. Bears wear hats. You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: like all of these wonderful things. and like,
Emily Edwards (she/her): I think one of my favorite
Mindy Carlson: and we're we have to catch them red-handed. What color are their hands now? You know, and it's
Emily Edwards (she/her): All right, now
Mindy Carlson: So adorable. And then you have these people
Emily Edwards (she/her): it's so cute.
Mindy Carlson: in there that like I appreciate now as an adult, but didn't quite know who they were back then. John Cleese, Peter Ustinoff, Peter Falk is in it. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yes. I wanted to bring up Peter Falk because like I love the fact that, you know, we know who the guilty party is at the top of the movie. We see Charles Gordon
Mindy Carlson: Hundred yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): with the little mask and with the three supermodels, you know, stealing diamonds. And so it's not quite so much like a who done it because we know. I love that it takes on the how catch him. So to have Peter Falk at not be Columbo. But signal that it's like, you know, we need to come up with a devious way to catch the bad guys is so good. And again, Peter Falk, one of the greatest actors ever. And he is
Mindy Carlson: For sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): treating them as though they are actual actors throughout the entire scene that he has.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. And then he tries to sell Kermit a watch, which I absolutely adore. Sort of like, you are really not Colombo in this whatsoever. You are selling stolen watches.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Whatsoever. It because like you you forget that like Peter Falk was like best friends with John Cassavetes and and Gina Ro and Jenna Rollins.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you're just like, he was deep in Hollywood stuff, even though we know him as being, you know, Columbo, which, you know, again, leaps and bounds ahead of its time as a as like,
Mindy Carlson: sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, for for crime fiction. But you know, it it kind of lost some of its luster and its, you know, cred basically over the years when it played in in repeats and things like that.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean I still think that Columbo is one of the it's one of the television shows I think any aspiring mystery writer should watch because it is formulaic, but it is formulaic in a very successful way about like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this has to happen and then this has to happen and it has excellent twists. In it,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: it also has the kind of like, you know that this happened, and sort of like, but how you know, sort of like how his alibi works. If you're looking for a clever way to give your villain an alibi, Columbo is what you watch to sort of break down what are my options for making
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: sure that like he couldn't possibly have done it because he was at the party all night. And it's like, well, no. He killed the person two hours beforehand and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: they happened to have been in a sauna together. So the the body temperature was abnormally high and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: then the body temperature would come down more slowly over time. Or you killed him and then put him in the sauna, which makes time of death impossible to hit.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: So like I feel like col yeah, Colombo is one of those things that I think any aspiring mystery writer should watch.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely. And I feel like oddly, the Muppet again, because these movies are so and all Muppet sketches are so intelligently written, they understand
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the fact that like they're getting a wrench thrown in the works by Miss Piggy pretending to be Miss Holliday, you know, or Charles
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Groden, you know, falling in love with Miss Piggy in order to, you know, maybe convincingly or actually, but also using her as a scapegoat, or the fact that Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo are so innocent, they can't think about anybody doing anything bad. And that's just like this beautiful world that the Muppets live in, while you have the human characters who are doing very human things. Whereas the Muppets, even if they're humanoid Muppets, they don't understand that people do bad things because sometimes people do bad things. It's just like a lovely. sort of escape that you get f in in a very good crime movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, in a very good crime movie. I mean, they have the diamonds get removed from the necklace and it gets put into the pocket of her robe, which is a wonderful setup. And I don't know how closely you listened to what Miss Piggy was yelling when they were taking her away. But
Emily Edwards (she/her): Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson: she's like, It was you! You did it! You're no good! And then she yells, And your singing was dubbed So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And it's kind of like and that's just kinda like slipped in there. So if you're not paying close enough attention, you know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Charles going, No, no, no, no, I didn't. I mean, he's I cannot get over how good he and Diana Rigg are together. The scene
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, said
Mindy Carlson: when they're at the Dubonnet Club and she's like, Nikki, I feel like thieves are breathing down my neck. And he's literally at her neck going, Thieves aren't breathing down your neck.
Emily Edwards (she/her): When he first sees Miss Piggy dancing at the Dubonnet Club, and
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): he goes, She's sensational. And Diana Rigg responds, 45 words per minute about average, because she only thinks of her as a secretary. And
Mindy Carlson: Secretary.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I'm like, God, that is a flawless joke. It is so good.
Mindy Carlson: It is so good. And we were sort of in our conversation before we started filming, was saying that I really love this movie because it is all about Miss Piggy and that she
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: is she's one of the first icons of women empowerment. Like she knows karate, she can
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: take care of herself. You don't put your hands on her unless she tells you you can. She defends Kermit, who is, you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: know, notably not as tough or strong as she is, but he is smart and And charismatic and you know, you know, tenacious. And so, and she's the one who like she breaks herself, she's strong enough to bend the bars and break
Emily Edwards (she/her): huh.
Mindy Carlson: herself out of prison, and then like kicks Peter Ustinov's butt to get
Emily Edwards (she/her): S
Mindy Carlson: his truck to drive to rescue him, and then the motorcycle comes out, to which she turns to full camera and goes. What an unbelievable coincidence. And then she's riding this motorcycle crashes through the window, which I had that Pizza Hut glass forever
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: until it finally broke one day. But like, and if anybody wants to send me that glass, would happily take it because I can't find it
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: anywhere. But like, yeah, crashes through she's the one who comes and saves the day at the end. She's the hero.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: of the entire thing. And I think that like for me, for like little, you know, little eight-year-old Mindy, that was like a really important thing to see that it wasn't, you know, yeah, Kermit was doing his best to like prove her innocence and break her out of jail and save her. But then she turns right around and saves herself and saves him and saves
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: everybody.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. She has this really strong like women be doing it for themselves, sort of like Annie
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Lennox, you know, like that's what always plays in the back of my head whenever like I see Miss Piggy. And I l I sent you this morning this thing that that came up in New York
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, and vulture.
Emily Edwards (she/her): in Vulture, New York magazine, about how just like Miss Piggy is having an absolute renaissance amongst people our age and just of just like how much we love. Miss Piggy. And this article is literally like she's the last female movie star in the vein of like May West, where she walks in, and no matter what she looks like, the joke is that she's a pig, but she thinks she and she acts like and everybody treats her like she is the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen. You know, Diana Rigg, who again, very gorgeous, very imperious, very sort of like stiff upper lip British in this movie, she's just like. you're a pig. You can't possibly be a model. And then when Piggy has to go down the runway, everybody is enraptured by her. And so it makes Diana Rigg look like the jackass and makes Diana Rigg's like, you know, white shittiness look really, really awful because everybody else can see how magnetic Miss Piggy actually is.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, that's that is the one thing about Diana Rigg, It's like, yeah, she was only seeing her skin deep when clearly
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: her and I I had a guy once who was like who we were talking and he was like, you know, confidence is the sexiest part about a woman. You know, looks, you know, great, whatever,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: but if you're not a confident woman And presenting yourself to the world like I fucking got this, then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: you know, men are not gonna be as attracted to you or
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: or an other women, like whoever, whatever your, you know, cup of tea is, like you wanna attract somebody, confidence is everything.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Going in there like you own the planet is the way
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: to go.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I'm really excited that like at the moment, like the article mentioned that like Emma Stone and Jenna God Jennifer Lawrence, they're producing
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): a Miss Piggy movie or they have one in the works being written by Cole Escola, who did O'Mary. Yeah, I know,
Mindy Carlson: By Cole Escola, I missed that part. Holy cow.
Emily Edwards (she/her): yeah. So I'm just like, talk about three people who definitely would understand. The the actual sort of weight and gravity that Miss Piggy commands, you know, when she's on screen. Because I've I've never been like a huge Kermit fan, but I'm also not like the world's biggest fan of like the pure chaos Muppets, like animal, you know, where he, you know, things like that. So you have the dichotomy
Mindy Carlson: Sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of the Order Muppets and the Chaos Muppets. And so I lean more towards the order Muppets that can crack a joke, you know. So like Rolf and Rizzo, they're they're more orderly, but they're very, very funny. But I love the fact that Miss Piggy is pure chaos, but it can it's pointed, you know, whereas like Animal they unleash, or you have like Lou with the fish, you know, or the guy who blows everything up, Crazy Harry, I think his name is.
Mindy Carlson: Crazy I think it is Crazy Harry.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And they just are indiscriminately chaotic. And that like I can't handle. But Miss Piggy is so focusedly cr chaotic. And they
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): rein that in so well in this movie. Where it's like, no, it's not gonna be order that susses this out. It's gonna be chaos that sub susses this out.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. Well and she's a special kind she's like D.Va chaos.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: but it's I find her character very interesting because she is extremely loyal. Like once you're
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: her friend, you're her friend forever and she will bust out of jail and go through a plate glass window to save you.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: And so like that kind of chaos, and then I like to think of animal as like the hot sauce on any dish. You just want a couple of dashes of animal. And then yeah. Go ahead.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of one of my favorite Miss Piggy jokes is at the end of Muppet Family Christmas, she's been asking Kermit for a mink because you know she she loves luxury goods. And he he like introduces her to a live act like mink puppet named Minerva. And she's just kind of like, this is not what I meant. But she handles it so well of just like understanding that like the Mink is alive and she can't turn her into a coat, which is such an interesting Muppety joke, but also very indicative of Miss Piggy of like, this is a gift from my beloved Kermit. I will not turn it down. I will not, you know, tell him this is not what I meant. But no, I have to respect Minerva Mink because she's alive creature.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, now I've gotta I've gotta take care of her. Thanks, Kermy. I've now have a job.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Thanks, Kermit. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: But one of the things that going back to Jim Henson as a filmmaker and Frank Oz as well working in tandem together, they had to come up with some really creative ways to show the Muppet's full body.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So the the most famous scene is the bicycle scene. When Kermit
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: is riding a bike, he is a marionette. There is a crane above.
Emily Edwards (she/her): To credit.
Mindy Carlson: That has strings down, and the bike is on a bar that is being pulled or on a rope that's being pulled by a truck like many, many, many, many yards down. And they said, I heard an interview with Jim Henson, and he said that actually when they put Miss Piggy on the bike next to him, r operating the bikes became infinitely more easy because they just put a bar between the two bikes, and suddenly they had the stability of. four tires and not just two tires. And then you added in even more Muppets and everything became even more stable. And so like the
Emily Edwards (she/her): So smart.
Mindy Carlson: big and and then they would intercut it with close ups where Jim is with Kermit on a dolly being pulled. So you can get facial responses
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: and then the human brain kind of fills in the emotion gaps from the long distance shots. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's incredible. It's incredible work. And I do think, even though like we have to give so much credit, obviously, to Jim Henson, I personally think Frank Oz is one of the funniest people who's ever lived. Like Frank
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Oz appearing anywhere, both in human and puppet form, is just like a gift to whatever movie you manage to get him in. Because I think about his, you know, police warden scene in Blues Brothers.
Mindy Carlson: Yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you know, even in Knives Out, where he's the, you know, the will executor,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, he's the lawyer. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, Frank Oz just has the most perfect control over his voice and movements. Like, I I don't even acknowledge Yoda. I'm not a Star Wars person. Like, I'm just like, whatever, that was a one-off thing. Frank Oz needs to be known as like Miss Piggy and just the guy you insert into a scene in order to make that scene the the funniest it can possibly be.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, and Frank Oz has had I can't remember everything that he's directed, but he's directed some very successful movies, dramas and comedies.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: So and I mean comedies I think are infinitely harder to direct than dramas. Dramas
Emily Edwards (she/her): I agree.
Mindy Carlson: you have kind of like two emotional levels happening,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Okay.
Mindy Carlson: and in comedies you've so much more happening. The jokes have to land, the timing has to be right, it has to be interspersed with darkness and sadness so that the the light parts are lighter and the dark parts seem more darker and and i i agree with you i think frank eyes is a brilliant writer director producer and i do love yoda in star wars because he is if you watch the empire strikes back it's a real downer until you get to the swamp and then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: yoda shows up and he's just a little chaos bunny running like going into Luke supplies and like whipping stuff over his shoulders, like looking at a can, sort of like, well, this isn't gonna like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Nope.
Mindy Carlson: you know, so and then and he just is like this, yeah, he's this weird little chaos bunny running around. And then suddenly it's like then the turn happens and it's like, no, no, I am one of the most powerful Jedi's in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: existence right now.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I I just I you know, I just think about all the talent that goes into these my gosh. Sorry, I just was looking at my notes and I saw one more like meta joke that they include where it's like
Mindy Carlson: yeah, yeah, what is it?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Charles Groden, he's having a meeting with the models before the final sort of like theft. And I love the fact that the Muppel Muppets do not care about the dollar value of what's being stolen. They only care about saving Miss Piggy. They're like, who cares that he's stealing diamonds? It's just that they framed Miss Piggy and that's what we care about. But the he is Nikki is in his office and it says private irresponsible parasite on the door, where it's like, it's it's like he's not like a lawyer. His job title is irresponsible parasite.
Mindy Carlson: Parasite. yeah, I mean the meta jokes are fantastic. There was another one that I really loved. Miss Piggy saying adios, mono me. I mean, that is hilarious. It's
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's so funny. And then like he's doing yes, it's like when he's explaining like why he did the thing he did, and they're just kind of like, but why'd you do it? And he's like, because I'm a villain. Like I don't pure and simple. And it's
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I'm a villain, pure and simple. Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like, I actually wish that more things that are written now and are put on screen were allowed to just be like, he's bad. You know what I mean?
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, there is definitely like a movement towards gray morality and you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: know, some of the villainy being justified. Whereas
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: I agree, sometimes it's like, no, they're just they just want this for the money,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: for the power, for the prestige. And it's not because, you know, he didn't get the new bike when they were growing up. She got everything new. It's like at a certain point, like, yeah, if that happened, you know, great, but you're Like whatever happened to you is not responsible for the decisions that you're making today.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, like I, you know, when you're learning how to write and you're going through writing courses and things like that, they explain to you that like the antagonist is just simply the person or thing that stands in the protagonist's way. And I f
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and I was like, you know, again, we've had to have all these reasons as to why they're antagonists. And we get so much of it now in like the superhero movies and things like that. Or it's like,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, it's just like, you know, I got Especially in in DC where it's like, something happened and it turned me into like this person that turns into bees. And so and I didn't like being turned into bees. So I have to do all this. And it's just like, no, you're just the guy who stands in the way of Batman. That's literally it. That's that's enough. That's enough in most storytelling that you're just the person that stands in the protagonist's way.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I it's it is really interesting. I mean, I think I mean this was going on long before Marvel movies. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this was going on in Colombo because you definitely get you know, but I do feel like some of the older stuff, Columbo and Perry Mason and that kind of thing,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: the reasons are you know, yeah, you were a s you were selfish and you were a jerk and y they weren't giving you your way and so you killed them. I mean, it was much starker black and white. I mean Even though Perry Mason is the most two-dimensional of hero characters,
Emily Edwards (she/her): it so is. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: he he is there to facilitate the right. Well,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Truth, justice in the American way. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: it and the telling of the story around him. Like, you know, Paul Drake goes off and does all of the investigating.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Dela like comes in for the exposition drops to, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: be the person for him to bounce things off of. You know, and then you have the villain who, you know, basically when they're on the series they're like, 'Cause I'm a villain, plain and simple. I mean you know so but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. I wasn't rich. That guy was. I killed him. I took his stuff. Now I'm rich. And it's like, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. They were gonna fire me from the movie and I didn't think that because I was taking three hour lunches was a great excuse, so I killed him and to take his job.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's I I do feel like the villain's wants have gotten much more nuanced. I mean I do appreciate that in a lot of books and and some movies where the the villains
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: wants are much more nuanced. like knives out, not a
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: nuanced villain though.
Emily Edwards (she/her): No, not at all.
Mindy Carlson: He he was like, he was gonna cut me out of the will. And so I killed him and framed the person that he had put in the will because I wanted the money. And I feel and and I feel like perhaps Knives Out did so well because that not only was there the twist in the middle of it where it went from a who done it to how is she gonna get away with it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And then the villain was, whoops, sorry about that. The villain was very much like, you know, yeah, because I
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yep. I just
Mindy Carlson: wanted the money.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I wanted money. You know
Mindy Carlson: And I wasn't gonna take no for an answer, and the rest of my family is just as shitty as I am.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. You know, especially when it comes to like mystery fiction, I feel like the movement towards a more nuanced villain was often because, especially on television, it was like, that person is, you know, an other in some way, you know, gay, black, Hispanic, or whatever. And so like they have to be like, so of course they're corrupt, of course they're the bad guy. And so we started giving people more nuance in order to counteract that sort of like constant, you know, aggression towards the other. But when your bad guy is Charles Grodin.
Mindy Carlson: Which was doubling down, which is basically doubling down on the aggression of the other.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and and it it's gotten so convoluted and so complicated and so unnuanced now that it's just like you were saying earlier, like someone stole my bike when I was six and now, you know, all you know, that's my motivation. Every bike, gosh.
Mindy Carlson: All the bikes are mine. Every bike will be mine. But yeah, and I I feel like I feel like too that they have become more nuanced because a lot of movies now are having the heroic turn of the villain.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: The redemption arc of the villain has been very attractive to people for a long time. And I think it in part it's because of, you know, where we are in society today where we hope that the people that are doing bad things will suddenly wake up and stop doing bad things and see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: the error of their ways and suddenly become on the side of truth, justice, and righteousness.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And it's kind of like, and without that being represented in movies to us, you can tend to start to lose hope that things will change and things will get better and the bad people will ask for forgiveness and do the right thing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, but it's and and I and I can understand that that's how we have gotten here, but at the same time, you know, sometimes it's just more satisfying in your fiction if
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: your villains are just villains.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Or there's villains. And then you have Fozzie Bear go like, we have to do this for just free justice, freedom, and honesty. And you're like, yeah, those are actually values that you should put yourself, your little fuzzy bodies on the line for. For you
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): know, you know, and and go to bat for it. And you I just this the one your little felt bodies.
Mindy Carlson: Your fuzzy bodies on the line for your little felt bodies and ping pong ball eyes on the line for.
Emily Edwards (she/her): One of my favorite visuals, just like the constant visual in this movie of the Muppets getting chucked somewhere because they understood
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that they're inanimate objects. Just off the double decker bus and they just go sliding across this London sidewalk. And Fozzie Bear is just like teddy bear body is laying there. I could not stop laughing, even though I'm someone who absolutely believes, even at 40 years old, that like stuffed animals have souls and you don't like treat them horribly. Like
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): You know, it's like you can't throw a stuffed animal, even though, you know, if
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I pick up a stuffed animal in a store, like I won't do it because like they get sad if you put them back. You know what I mean?
Mindy Carlson: That's funny.
Emily Edwards (she/her): So, like, that was my way my mother was like, you don't pick up a stuffed animal because like she explained to us when you're little, because if you put them back, they get sad. But of course, that has permanently broken my brain of just now like I can't touch stuffed
Mindy Carlson: That's funny. That's permanently in there now.
Emily Edwards (she/her): animals that don't come home with me because they get sad when you put them back. That being said, I love How many times their little felt bodies are just indiscriminately chucked off of or into things.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, it was a gr I mean, I think that was one of the best running jokes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Well, and then but then they did it to Peter Ustinov. Because all of a sudden you see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: you don't see Piggy sees him, you just see him fly into the trash cans for another wonderful broken fourth wall moment where Oscar the Crouch comes out of the can and he says He says, you know, You okay?
Emily Edwards (she/her): What are you doing here?
Mindy Carlson: And then he's like, What are you doing here? And he goes, And you know, an unpaid can or a very short cameo and Peter Rustoff locks to the camera and says, Same here. Me you know, me too.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. Cause he's Poirot by this point. And we have to know
Mindy Carlson: By this point he's Floro.
Emily Edwards (she/her): he's there, you know, to to to again, like two great investigators make cameos in this and because it's a it's a mystery movie and the Muppets have to acknowledge
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): it.
Mindy Carlson: Well and I yeah, and I was thinking I was looking for other people too that I mean, and Jack Morden could be considered perhaps an investigator 'cause he was the one of the editors in All the President's Men and he
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: was not the foreman in Twelve Angry Men, but he was one of the jurors in Twelve
Emily Edwards (she/her): The jurors, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Angry Men with what is it, Peter Ford? Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fonda? Henry Fonda.
Mindy Carlson: Hen Henry Fonda, God, not Henry Ford. Henry
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I confuse them constantly, and so I only ever just say Fonda when I'm talking about one of them. I'm like, he was in that movie with Fonda because I don't ever remember which one it was.
Mindy Carlson: I apologize. Yeah, that found it. Well, and then there's like weird like I have to rewatch the opening scene again because I'm like, wait a minute, there are famous people all throughout that dance number. Wilt Chamberlain is in that dance number as the basketball player. It's bananas. He's in there for literally 60 seconds.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, that's crazy.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, so I what kind of want to go through, and especially with my mom. who are are is a contemporary of when they were adults, like she would point stuff out to me.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. You may not get exactly who they are, like, you know, 'cause
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): not of the same generation. Just I that is just one of the most brilliant things. Like, I like that they dialed it back a little bit fr in this movie from, you know, like the the Muppet movie, where it's, you know, it's like every three seconds there was a famous person that they were talking to. And, you know, it's like one of those I think it was Steve Martin's screen debut where he's like playing the you know, he was already famous by the time, but he's, you know.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, the waiter. He he is yeah, he's a famous comedian and he's been in Saturday Night Live. But yeah, would you Yeah, would you like to smell the bottle cap
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, and he was selling out stadiums and stuff like that. But I think it was like his first screen role. Yes. But like I I do like the fact that they dialed it back a little bit for this. And they
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): would have more played off of like your understanding of type and things like that. And again, like the they so artfully understood the fact that like the Muppets could be the Muppets or the Muppets could be actors in. This and and again, like playing off of just the different ways that you can explore mystery of like, you know, they're journalists, so they can be investigative journalists, and it's just so smart in this ninety-second non-stop joke movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean, and even their like the hero's launch to you know discovery is so trite that if I were to write it in a book, I would get nailed because it's like, no, we'll just go to England and we'll catch the real jewel thieves and save
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: our jobs. I mean, and that speaks to what you were earlier saying about their naivety and their childlike nature of like because of course we will go to London, England, a population of like several million people. And we will somehow get into a famous designer's office to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: ask her questions, like somehow insinuate ourselves into her lives enough
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: that we will be able to follow her around. And then we will single-handedly, you know, stop the jewel thieves from striking again and bring them to justice. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that is patently naive, but it works for this. It absolutely works.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's one of those things where if you do spend a little time on like the reader side of threads or Instagram, you often
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): run into people where they're just like, that's so unbelievable. That's so unbelievable, and that's so unbelievable. And every author is going like, please just suspend your disbelief for like two hours while you're reading a book or watching a movie, because that's what you have to do. And I wonder if those people who like, Really, really, really can't suspend their disbelief in every coincidence, like has to be explained to like the min the minutest detail. I'm like, how do you watch something like a Muppet movie? Or is it just like pure chaos? Like just nails on a chalkboard for you for the fact that like
Mindy Carlson: I mean, I have a friend who I have a friend who is very into verosimilitude.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Like the stuff has to make sense. And there was a movie that she watched and she was like, you know, super cute all the way through, suspending of disbelief. But like the c the key clue that sort of like unlocks the door to the answer to them is like that is not physically possible. Like that's not how
Emily Edwards (she/her): no.
Mindy Carlson: It's she's like, that's not how this works. Like, you don't take this thing and then this thing and have it work together. They don't and pr and to produce this thing. That isn't
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: how that's not chemistry. That's not how chemistry works. And, you know, in she is also a writer, and in her writing, she works very, very hard to make sure that everything is legit and does all of the research and stuff. And I think for people like that. Like she's like, I worked very hard to make sure that nobody could come back to me and tell me that, like, you know, this constellation wasn't discovered until
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right.
Mindy Carlson: nineteen thirty, so it couldn't show up in your nineteen twenty book as a known thing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, sh and so I think it bothers her that other people don't spend the same kind of time and care researching and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: that they are doing the easy way out.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right.
Mindy Carlson: But at the same time, I'm like, fiction.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: You know, but it is it is fiction in the real world and it should adhere to real world yeah,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Constraints. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: constraints. Like it should it should make sense in that way. But you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: know, we're also dealing with Muppets in this particular case. But I will s
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know, but the thing of it is is like for the most part, I feel like this really adheres to real world constraints for a lot of things. I mean, other than the fact that like, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's a talking frog.
Mindy Carlson: The talking frog. The frog and the bear and the and the whatever splash landing in the pond
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know.
Mindy Carlson: from like twenty thousand feet, they would be dead. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: there are certain like, you know, magic magic things are happening that you just have to sort of gloss over. But things like the clues make sense.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I love it so much. Like again, it it's not like there's such a large love story sort of thrown into the middle of the movie that the caper aspect of it is maybe only 30 minutes of a 90-minute runtime, but it's still excellent.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it is still an excellent caper. It is still excellently plotted out. Everything makes sense. There like the reasons why, you know, this got stolen from Lady Halliday, and then she's doing the she, you know, wears the necklace to the Dubonnet Club and that that gets stolen, which then leads to her decision to move up to like move the baseball diamond into the museum where it can be so I know I read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: where it can be protected. And you know, but that's like moving it directly into their hands. That's exactly what they want to have happen. Like that is all very meticulously plotted out. And then the side plots of like how Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo figure out this is what is going on, and then this like that is all very nicely plotted out. There's there's a very strong flow and core
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: of logic happening. Amongst all of this other stuff. This whirlwind.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And then to have the the chaos Muppet of Gonzo being a photographer and he manages to accidentally catch the theft on camera. And then because
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): they're in the chaos of the happiness hotel, the negative gets ruined while they're in the bathroom trying to develop it. And you're just like, my God, they actually thought about this like every single step of the way.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it it's it is yeah, I feel like it's just a very it's well thought out, but it's kinda like I you know, it's a mystery movie, but I also think that it is just it's it's got a romance element to it, it's got a friendship element to it. I feel like it y they talk about hitting like the four quadrants. I feel like this is a four quadrant movie for sure. Like it's gonna
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure.
Mindy Carlson: appl it's gonna appeal to everybody in there.
Emily Edwards (she/her): What's odd is that the couple of episodes that I've done where it's been like, this is how you learn how to do like the structure of a mystery or the or how you do this. The two best examples have been, I think, The Great Muppet Caper and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where you're just like, this understands the the tr the deep literary tradition of the genre that they're working in. And it might be simplified because the intended audience or one of the intended audiences is children. But there's so much there that adults who are trying to learn the structure and the craft and just like the the literary genre that they're coming from. It's it's it's just an absolutely flawless example of how to write an investigative like caper theft movie. Again, because there's no murder. And I like the fact that
Mindy Carlson: No.
Emily Edwards (she/her): we did something that doesn't, you know, the crux of it isn't violence. It's, you know, the theft of the baseball diamond.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's being
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: it's it's clever. It's it's cleverness. It's like the
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: whole crux of the film is can we cleverly do this heist?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Which yeah, and I and I think that's something, you know, when you're starting out writing and is whatever genre you're writing in, a lot of people are like, read, read, read, read, read. And people are like, well, you know, am I reading just because I can say, yes, I've read this book? Or like, why am I reading all these books? Why are people telling me to keep reading? Well, it's because you do need to read with intention. You have to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: read and look at how are they doing this? How are they introducing these characters? How are they presenting the red herrings? You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: where are they presenting the red herrings in the book? Where are the false leads? Where is the real lead? You know, and how how does the detective get to the answer in the end? And so and the more you're able to read like that with intention and almost breaking the fourth wall in your own way of of realizing
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that this is what they're doing and the Because the author is being very intentional about how they're telling the story. They're making these choices for a reason. And as a fellow author, you will learn a ton by reading these books and fig and and then asking them, you know, like, why are you making this choice and not this other choice?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So that's why authors say the best class that you could possibly take is just read, reading other people's stuff, read even the bad stuff. you read it and then you figure out why didn't this work? You know, I've read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: many books where like the hook is amazing. The hook
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: is a million dollar hook. But the execution of the idea in the writing really fell down. So like why is that? What
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: was it about like the choices that they made and how could I have done it better? So yeah, so I think and I think in The Great Mumpet Keeper is a great show to watch if you want to write a heist movie. And Thomas Crown Affair and what were the two others that you mentioned earlier?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, absolutely. Yes. how to steal a million is one of my favorites. and gosh, what was the other one? the Italian job is first one, you know, where they end up like
Mindy Carlson: The Italian job. Mm-hmm. The first guess.
Emily Edwards (she/her): dangling on a bus off a cliff at the end and you don't know if they get off the bus. It's just
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): absolutely incredible. Like and I don't know how you feel about this, but I am a huge fan of, again, if they're just sort of like paperbacks, mark up your books, like highlight and you know, especially if you've got the time to read and reread, go back and figure and you know, just the different threads and the different you know, red herrings and things like that. Highlight them in different colors, figure out where they're showing up, figure out where they're pacing, you know. are they coming or Are certain clues or red herrings always thrown together at the same time or are they spread apart? Are they, you know, dropped by different people? And that's how you thought one person was guilty when it turns out another person was guilty. Like go and and and consume the books that you're reading. Like really get deep in there. Like my books from college that I still like a couple of them that I still had until a couple of years ago, like they are dog-eared. you know, and stickered and highlighted to within an inch of their life because that's how you figure out the mechanics of of writing and reading. It's you have to get in there. Like they're not precious objects if you want to, you know, figure out how they work. You have to take them apart.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, absolutely. And and it also helps like when you're querying an agent or when you're pitching your book, you know what your comps are. Because
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: if you're reading people that you want to write like, you know, you're like, I want to be the next John Connolly. I want to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: be the next Alana Be, you know, I. S. Berry. I want to be, you know, the next Rob Hart. Well, read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: their books and dissect the crap out of them and just figure
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: out how are they do like where are the crucial choices and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: even as you just read them you pick up a flow and a cadence and that kind of thing and it's like okay if I want to write a book even in other genres too like romance like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: I want to write a book. I love Abby Jimenez. I want to write a book like Abby Jimenez. So like what is it about her books that
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know like what is what is her her brand of book. And it's like, yeah. And so by doing that, you're gonna add to your own abilities
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely. Who 'cause they often write the same s who is their protagonist and what are their values? Because very often in romance you'll have people they write sort of the same type of character whereas like she's, you know, she knows she might be a professional woman who, you know, like has these aversions to these kind of people and those aversions have to be overcome and things like that. And it's like, who is your t who is your type? Who what are their aversions? What are what's standing in their way of getting their goal of, you know, maybe an HEA or finding the criminal or whatever? Like what The antagonist is not just a person, it's not just a thing, it's their own their blocks and their psychology and things like that. And you're like, you really, real like when I come across someone who's just like, no, I'd never write in a book, and I'm like, why?
Mindy Carlson: I mean, there is something to be said about keeping your signed copy, Pristine, but like that's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: why paperbacks can be sold at secondhand stores or
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: or the goodwill for two dollars. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that's like a whole sometimes, you know, picking out five books and just dissecting them, that is a whole MFA program right there. Why, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, why are people making these choices? Where is this going? Where's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. And you can do it for
Mindy Carlson: the twist?
Emily Edwards (she/her): mm-hmm. And you can do it for ten bucks with second hand books. Like if you really, really want to. Or at the very least, please keep a companion notebook. Or if you read on a Kindle, you can highlight in different colors and keep notes and things like that. Just like Get into annotating your books. Like it's just so incredibly important. In the same way that I can't show you my screen, but I annotate when I watch movies. I have all of these notes and all of these things taken out. like
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I just noticed my thing where it's like, Beauregard
Mindy Carlson: I've my
Emily Edwards (she/her): shows up in this. He's one of my favorite chaos Muppets.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. I have I mean and the I have a you know, Rolf going, Woof woof it and then it pays to l know a second language. I mean that's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: hilarious. So yeah, I I also do the same did the same thing where I have like my notes
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Like the the femme fatal, like mistaken identity thing that happens with Ms. Piggy is directly out of, you know, like Raymond Chandler novels. Like this happens in it's like a it's a trope that you get that they exercise so perfectly. And I just like can't thank you enough for agreeing to do the make great Muppet Caper, because it's a flawless movie.
Mindy Carlson: I I was I there are very few flawless movies. I think I the Muppet movie, The Great
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Muppet Caper, The Princess Bride, Clue, I think is a flawless
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yep. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: movie. and there was one more I'd been thinking about, but I well the seven The Seven Samurai I think is a flawless movie.
Emily Edwards (she/her): For me, yes, absolutely. For me, one of them is Hot Fuzz, which with has
Mindy Carlson: yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that it again, if you're really into writing like a like a small town cozy, like it
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): is a flawless movie to figure out because it is, you know, a satire and it's pulling apart the tropes and showing them to you, and you don't
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): even notice that he's got the posters for the tropes behind him. Like it's an absolutely perfect movie to figure out how those movie how those books and those movies are written. I love that movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean I do, yeah, getting yourself into sa into satire is definitely a great way of like, what are the tropes? If you're having a hard time naming the tropes in your genre, find a
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: satire of that genre because they know what those tropes are and they are going to exploit them. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, it's
Mindy Carlson: like the in Hot Fuzz, I mean, one of my favorite scenes that I will fall down laughing about every time, no matter how many times I see it, is when they're jumping the fences.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And he Simon Pegg jumps those fences flawlessly, like an Olympic athlete. And then Nick Frost plows into the first one and then stands up and looks back at the camera. And I I mean, it is so funny.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I I love we're gonna have to do this movie again, like a little bit
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): in a little bit because it's just one of my favorites. But like when he's checking in and she goes, Fascism, wonderful. And it just plays the entire move. It explains the entire movie in the first like 10 minutes of him entering the scene. And you're just like, Yep, that's it. That's everything. That's everything you had to know. And
Mindy Carlson: That's it. That's the movie. There's yes, always always lead with your theme.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. And to an extent, the Great Muppet Caper is the exact same thing. It tells you what the movie is in the title. And it's like there's a
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): great caper and it's the Great Muppets and they are figuring it out. It's just perfect.
Mindy Carlson: The that that movie, I think the title was one of their daughters came up with the title. Lisa, Lisa Henson, when she was 19 years old, came up with that title for the Great Muppet Caper. Yeah, they were like,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Wonderful.
Mindy Carlson: you know, let's let's think of titles and names, and they were just all brainstorming together. And she was like
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's such a shame that Jim Henson left us so young. Like I can only imagine like another 30 years of of Henson. Like how, but you know, thankfully he's got such he cultivated such a group of people around him who were so dedicated to continuing the work. And, you know, I know that we were talking about the Muppet Show earlier at the start of the show, of just like, and I know that I think Seth Rogan just started, you know, he wrote, yeah, he rebooted the Muppet Show.
Mindy Carlson: Rebooted it. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): So I mean, like, you know, our lips to God's ears. We'll get some Seth Rogan and then, you know,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): also Jason Siegel did that incredible Muppet movie maybe ten or fifteen years ago that, you know, kind of didn't
Mindy Carlson: Yes, he absolutely did. Yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): really go anywhere. But hey, you know, we've got people trying and people who grew up probably watching the reruns and things like that. So we've got folks who understand it.
Mindy Carlson: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. It's yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of you know, I it'll be interesting to see as you go along with this podcast, like how how many other iconic movies that are really cornerstones of our society that really informed how our society like operates.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that that you'll end up doing. I wonder if you could come up with maybe like a a top ten list at some point of
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: of these like iconic cornerstone society changing movies. I mean I think Dog Day Afternoon is one of them, but that's not necessarily a mystery.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah. I I really want to do like I need to find obviously the right guests for some of these, but like in the heat of the night, I think is just one of those movies where you just have to sit down and realize the gravity of what was happening. And it is in a whodunit framework.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and it's just an absolutely again, you know, and also All the President's Men, where you have journalists taking on, you know, the role of private investigators and to their own detriment and going through all of the white night. Sort of things. And it's just like, I really think about, and you know, you also brought up 12 Angry Men, where it's a lot of the way that we had huge zeitgeist moving morality moments in the United States came because there was a mystery movie that was like, we're going to show you people sacrificing themselves to get to the bottom of this thing, which is like. I think one of the reasons, and I know this sounds crazy to keep bringing it up, but the Fozzie Bear speech where he's like, We've gotta do this for justice, for freedom, and for honesty, it really boils it down to like, I know they're trying to get Charles Groden who's stealing a fake diamond, but like it tells kids who are watching this that like honesty is incredibly important in how you go through life. Like if the Muppets can do it, so can you. And it's just a really Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: I mean it tells the adults too that honesty is so important 'cause I think that sometimes we forget that just being honest will solve a ton of your problems. Things
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: may be sticky initially for a little while, but if you're honest you don't you're not carrying the burden of the lie along with you for so long.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Which, you know, which in our current politics, like I think a lot of people are starting to kind of go back to mystery and like kind of going like, someone, you know, going through the motions and going through and just believing in finding the truth is something that is just incredibly important when you're living through extremely violent and corrupt times. And, you know, oftentimes it gets this is most me going on a diatribe. Honestly, sometimes it gets sort of. put through the lens of copaganda, but when you do it with private investigators, when you do it with cozy sleuths, when you do it with amateur sleuths, it, you know, it it reminds you that your average person, just a a person who believes in finding the truth, is incredibly important to remind people that that's possible.
Mindy Carlson: Right. And that's the magic of the cozy mystery, I think, right there, is that everyday
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: people can make a huge difference in their small, small societies. So, but yeah, if you're coming to BoucherCon next year, so 2027, BoucherCon is in DC. I live in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Even if they're a bear or a frog. Yes. Yes.
Mindy Carlson: I live in DC. We could do all the president's men in DC. If you if you want to do that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, can we really? Ya
Mindy Carlson: Okay, we could like we could maybe like go and do like a little tour
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: and do some video clips about like this is where this was, here's the Watergate Hotel, that kind of thing, and then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson: do like a quick movie sort of thing about all the president's men. We could do that if you want to.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I would love that. my gosh. so keep in mind, everybody who's listening,
Mindy Carlson: Ha ha
Emily Edwards (she/her): that if you want to come and like hang out with us, Boucher cons are really, really good adventures. And I know I'm gonna be out of
Mindy Carlson: They're super fun.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my element in Alberta, cause not only is Yay! Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: I'll be I'll be at Calgary. I'll I'll be up in Calgary. So I'm nominated for an Anthony Award for my short story.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Congratulations.
Mindy Carlson: And so anybody that goes to Calgary can vote for me. Or any of the other four amazing short story
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yay
Mindy Carlson: writers. I've read
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh.
Mindy Carlson: all of the short stories. They're all excellent.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Short fiction is an incredibly sort of like intense competitive thing to be involved in because there's so few places to get published now. But, you know, every time you see someone get like a short story out there and you read it and you're just like, my God, man, that is some freaking great writing. And I wish there were more outlets for it. But you know, like I've read your story, it's absolutely freaking amazing. And
Mindy Carlson: Thank you. I didn't realize that you'd read it. That's so nice.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I will have a link to it in the show notes for anybody who's listening. And how can everybody keep in touch with your future work?
Mindy Carlson: so I announce everything at mindycarlson dot com. I have a blog there. I just put up a little blog about Dolly Parton who had passed away two days ago.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and I'll just say this. I think her greatest epitaph is that sh everything that people are saying on the internet is just about how kind and good she
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: was. And I cannot imagine a better eulogy than being s Told over and over again just how nice and good you were in life.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know.
Mindy Carlson: So so I do have a blog there, and then I have a newsletter that you can sign up for that I send out almost once a month.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: but and then I'm on threads and Instagram. I post on Instagram all the time, and you'll see all of my cups of coffee on Instagram.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Whenever I see you post, you're just like, I'm writing. And I was like, damn, that means I have to go write. Because Mindy's writing. Like she's doing it. I gotta do it too. Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: That's right. If I have time to write, you have time to write.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fabulous.
Mindy Carlson: I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to be your first repeat guest.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know, I'm so excited to have you back. we were sort of paling around on DMs trying to figure out if we could come up with another movie to talk about. And when I was like, man, I would just love to do something goofy like the great Muppet Caper, and you were like, I am absolutely down to do the Great Muppet Caper.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, no, like my my oeuvre of books in general, like I write humorous mysteries. So to do something that's essentially a humorous mystery, I mean it's a pretty there is a v like at the very, very tiny core of this movie, an actually good mystery in there, surrounded by layers and layers of goofiness, which I think probably was my gateway drug to writing humorous mysteries.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely, absolutely. I I have friends who are like, Your books are so funny and I'm like, Yeah, I can't actually take most things seriously. So even though there is a crime in the center of my books, they're always gonna be funny. There's the and we can accredit a lot of that to Muppet Muppety childhoods.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. No, I'm a hoot at a funeral.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And so because it's the great Muppet Caper, I sort of thought about like I I was like, well I either have a green shirt, which is kind of Muppet Green, but I decided to go because Miss Piggy is like one of my is an icon. and so I went with her lilac color
Emily Edwards (she/her): Love it.
Mindy Carlson: and then I put on like my little diamond studs here. So so I'm like representing Miss Piggy. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fabulous, fabulous. you know, before we really get into it, I want to acknowledge that we are recording the day after the passing of our extremely dear Tim Curry. And it is impossible to actually talk about the Muppets without talking about Tim Curry because him and I would say the male star of this movie, Charles Groden, absolutely understood the assignment of what it means to be in a Muppet movie, and that is to embody human Muppetiness.
Mindy Carlson: yeah. Well and he yeah,
Emily Edwards (she/her): You've I'm assuming you've seen.
Mindy Carlson: I actually when he when he passed, you know, naturally lots and lots of of clips and reels and memes started flooding my feed because I am in that algorithm. And I saw a clip of one thing that I I was I went err and then backed up on to research further. So Tim Curry was in Treasure Island with Miss Piggy as his
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: opposite, as his romantic interest. And
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: he he said, you know, there's like, let's see, I wrote it down because it's you know, so and then later so that was in, let's see, that interview was in 1996. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: he said that they had a tour love affair. you know, and it didn't survive the filming because, you know, he was embodying embodying the spirit of the pirate and you know, a girl
Emily Edwards (she/her): The long John Silver.
Mindy Carlson: in every port, and she felt that he was stepping out on her and he she just couldn't take that. So she she ended it abruptly breaking his heart. Then after he's had his stroke in I think it was 2016 he gave this interview, or maybe even later than that. So we're talking like twenty years later.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Y yeah.
Mindy Carlson: He says, the interviewer asks him, is there a great love of your life that got away? And he says, without missing a beat, he says, Miss Piggy. And and the interviewer starts laughing and and he was like, She's the one that got away.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, he says, you know, or and he goes, There always is. It's Miss Piggy. She's the one that got away. You know, once you've had pork, you don't ever go back. And but and he did it with this amazing deadpan, kind of like yes, of course it was Miss Piggy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I absolutely and he also wrote a passage about it in his memoir, like his actual book memoir about how he had a tourid love affair with Miss Piggy and Kermit was incredibly jealous, but like no one could stop
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the love. And it's just such an incredible, brilliant sort of joke to uphold and also to know that he meant that much to so many different generations. Like, I would say that the Muppet Christmas Carol was the first movie that I saw, like the first. Like Muppet movie and probably one of the first movies that I ever saw in theaters. That was in '92.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And then when Treasure Island was coming out, that was like, my gosh, the Muppets are back. Like you didn't we didn't really have the concept of like the Muppet show and that the Muppets were like a constant. You know, it was just like the Muppets are coming back. And then to see Tim Curry. And he has this beautiful baritone that he sings throughout the entire, you know, thing was like when you are a professional pirate is just like a classically perfect Muppet song. And it's just
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like, you know, just an incredible honor to have experienced him so much when when we were kids.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean he really his work formulated a lot of how I take in the world around me because we're talk I mean he was basically on the screen from the time that I was cognizant of what a screen was in until like yesterday. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: like I mean clue humorous mystery, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Muppet Treasure Island, taking a classic and making it palatable to kids, but also with that same kind of Muppetness of putting in jokes for the adults,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that it's they I that's one of the things I think Jim Henson did really well. That's one of the things I think Tim Curry did really well. Excuse me, that he he was in kids' movies but he didn't pander to kids.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes,
Mindy Carlson: He didn't dumb down or patronize his audience with how he portrayed the character.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. That is something that I noticed this go around while watching the Great Muppet Caper, which is just how wonderfully the writing for the Muppets is cross-generational and really incredibly intelligent. And when I was doing a little bit of research about like what other people thought of the Great Muppet Caper and how it fit in with sort of our cultural zeitgeist, I saw someone really explain it in a very interesting way in that there are some you know properties where the Muppets are individuals like that is Kermit. And then there are other Muppet properties where the Muppets are actors and that's Kermit playing a character. And I thought
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that that's such an interesting thing that they get to do because they're puppets, but also something that an actor like Tim Curry did so wonderfully and other actors who have been in Muppet movies, and to an extent Diana Rigg and Charles Groden, who were huge stars at the time that this movie was being made, they understood that there were times where the Muppets were their own mechanism and their own structure. And then there's times where you fit the Muppets into a structure. And
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I love the way that they dealt with the structure of a caper movie in this Because most of the time when you're talking about a caper, you're rooting for the thief. So I'm thinking like how to steal a million or the Italian job and you're like, you want them to get away with it. Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Thomas Crown affair, t classically, you r you want Thomas Crown to succeed.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, and I like the fact that they play with that here because you have your normal protagonist with like Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo and you want them to win, but you're also kind of rooting for for Nikki, the bad guy, to get away with it because he's just so charming.
Mindy Carlson: He yeah, Charles Groden, I think, as a character actor, plays these sorts of like, I don't know, likable smarmy guy. It would be really
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: easy, like, I mean, I almost feels like Troy McClure from The Simpsons,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: who he's like kind of this charming smarmy guy, but at the same time, the charm is legit.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. It's very weird. Like, well I'll circle back, but like the first time he gives Miss Piggy like a loving stare, you're like, my god, this man actually has chemistry with a puppet. This is so
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): bizarre.
Mindy Carlson: Well, and they say that like you know, what is it, Anthony Hopkins and some of these other like classically trained Shakespearean actors treated all of the Muppets like they were real people. Like when
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: they were addressing Kermit the Frog, they were addressing Kermit, not the puppeteer. They like
Emily Edwards (she/her): The eyes Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: they would talk to them and It it was one of those things. And then my husband also says, Yeah, Anthony Hopkins, they treated the other pup other Muppets like actors, but like Tim Curry became a Muppet.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. I think one of my favorite little snippets
Mindy Carlson: And I think Charles Grodin I'm sorry, I think Charles Gruden also does that to a certain extent, where he also becomes a Muppet.
Emily Edwards (she/her): He becomes very Muppety. I think my favorite little tidbit I ever read was like in the, you know, the IMDB trivia for Muppet Christmas Carol. Michael Cain was talking about how like when like people are adjusting lighting and things like that and blocking for a scene, like they just kind of put the Muppets on a stick. And he was like,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I would find myself having conversations with like the Muppet that was like on a stick and like didn't have a person manning him and you're talking to Kermit as though he s he was a person and you just realize, wait, though that's felt in some ping pong balls. Like what
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): am I doing?
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's I mean it just really is it goes to show how brilliant Jim Henson was
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: as a as a creator out of the box thinker. The Muppets appeared on the first episode of Saturday Night Live.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Bounce.
Mindy Carlson: the Muppet Show was always intended to be like a vaudeville variety show for adults. like those sort of jokes are in there. And I and I actually I was watching the opening credits of this and then throughout of The Great Method Caper I was sort of like, wow, this is kind of in a way, some templates for Deadpool in here where they break the fourth wall and are
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: very self-referential and talking about, well, you know, like the credits are rolling and Fozzie says, Does anybody ever read these? And Kermit says, Yeah, they all have families.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: You know, so they're kind of breaking the fourth wall, talking about the credits that are rolling and and at the same time like talking about that, and then also kinda like, Yeah, but we're gonna do this movie. And then you go and you have the song that brings you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: into the movie. The first robbery happens behind them, and then suddenly you're in the newsroom with the same guy who was in All the President's Men. J Jack Warner.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. And I I I think one of the things that I love the most about this conceit that of the Great Puppet Caper, and that does not work in anything that's like way more serious and way more classic, like like an Agatha Christie adaptation, is that the guys who are writing the movie are also the performers. And so they have their own jokes about what they're doing. And I love the fact that the the crux, like the the initial, the exciting event for the adventure that Kermit, Fozzy, and Gonzo are going on is that they have missed this jewel caper that's happening behind them and they made themselves the story. And so like they're
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, literally behind them.
Emily Edwards (she/her): they're and so like the headline that they've plastered on the front page of the newspaper that they're looking for is about themselves. And it's just so smart for the writers who are there with the puppets on their hands, going, actually, like the Muppets are so naive, they're so childlike, they're so innocent that they could never conceive
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of a crime happening behind them, and that this is a Muppet movie. So it's going to be about the Muppets. And it's so postmodern at the same time.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, the two of the writers were Tom Patchett and Jay Tarsus. And Jay Tarsus is the air steward on the plane that throws them out into England. And Tom Patchett
Emily Edwards (she/her): Amazing.
Mindy Carlson: is the air steward that throws them out at the end of the movie back to New York. Which I thought was fantastic.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I love it. And then there was yes. And then it was also co there was another version or an aspect of it that was made by Jerry Juhl, who is
Mindy Carlson: Right, and Jack Rose.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and Jack Rose.
Mindy Carlson: think I think Tom Patchett and Jerry Tarsus were the first run and then Jerry Juhl and Jack Rose were the second run over it. So which is not uncommon to have to have Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Gotcha. Gotcha. It like W yeah, WGA rules are really weird.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, there's a whole there's a whole committee that comes in and determines who whose name
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: gets put up there, how much money they get from the cut. It's quite something.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. It's very wild, but I really love the fact that they're playing with this aspect of it because you know, one of the things that the Muppet Show did exceptionally well, and I think that the Muppets writers deserve a lot more credit for is how well they worked in genre. So, like one of my favorite sketches from the Muppet Show is Pigs in Space. It's just it's just a deep understanding
Mindy Carlson: Yes, yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of Star Trek and Sci-Fi and in space science fiction. And my husband had never heard of it. And I like because he didn't have cable growing up. So he never saw like reruns
Mindy Carlson: sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of the Muppet show. And so like I always watched them on like Nickelodeon because they ran a lot on Nickelodeon when I was a kid, but he never had cable. And so he didn't catch the first run of it in the 70s. And then like he didn't have cable to watch it in the 90s. And so I was like, what do you mean you've never heard of pigs in space? And so I got to play all these sketches for him. And it's And it's incredible to watch just how quickly they grasp on to genre conventions and manage to flip genre conventions on their head, which is like so evident in the Great Muppet Caper.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I wonder if that's easier to do in short vignettes or if it's easier to do when you have a longer period of time. Like, you know, this movie's got like a ninety minute runtime, whereas the pig pigs in space vignette is like three minutes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Three minutes. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So I wonder if it's easier or if it's easier with some genres than other genres. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: sci-fi has some pretty like apparent tropes, very readily recognized tropes. Romance has some very recognizable tropes that you go with, but and and so do heists. But
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this is definitely very much wrapped in other silliness. And but in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this, and actually I was super impressed with how Elegantly everything flowed together. This was Jim Henson's first directorial, like feature-length director's shot. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: he had done the Muppet show, he had done TV specials, he'd never done a full-length, he did not direct the Mupp the Great Muppet movie, which
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: which is actually one of my favorite movies, and the last part of it just cracks me up, where Orson Wells of all people says.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know bring them the standard f
Mindy Carlson: You know, write you know, Mrs. Lord, write them the standard rich and famous contract, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's so good. Like this movie has, you know, I wonder the same thing about what's what's easier is just like the two to three minute sketch where you're maybe only landing two or three jokes.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, you're building up and and really only landing two or three jokes, or something like this, where it, you know, but this movie is very like chapter or like picresque. Where it's like in this scene, we're going to be telling this short story and we're going to be building up to this joke. And then, you know, it it can be a little bit more you know, it does all flow together, but I've found while watching this that it was slightly more like strung together like sketches,
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like artfully strung together sketches rather than, you know, but it is well mapped enough that it
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I don't I don't know if I agree with the that they were strung together st sketches more than like very realized scenes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And they still relied on tropes along with breaking the fourth wall. Like so when Lady Hol when Miss Piggy is meeting Lady Holiday and she gets the job, and then Lady Holiday is going on this whole long monologue about her brother Nikki and being a failure and he always wears those bow ties and you know, all this stuff. And then Miss Piggy says, Why are you telling me all this? And she says, It's exposition. It's got to go somewhere. And you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: and it's sort of it's so I I love Diana Rigg so very much. I feel like she was a big star, but I also feel like in a lot of stuff she's very underrated because
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: her delivery style is so easy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, yes, totally. Like she does have this air of like of natural, like it's so natural for her to be doing any almost anything, you know, the scene where she's parading around and she's critiquing the designs and what people have changed in her designs, and then she like tosses ink on this one poor model, and then everybody
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): just goes like the imperiousness that she brings to this character is so flawless and I love how well they do actually work. Like I know we were talking about in our our murder on the Orient Express, you know,
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): episode that, you know, Agatha Christie is so good at working with like character tropes or sort of like he is the military man, he is the firstborn son, he she is the heiress, you know, and things like that that are so endemic to to you know, British literature and the concept of of British society. And I feel like this movie does that exceptionally well. And one of the things that they did exceptionally well in the sort of genre sketches that they did, which was they knew that they needed a femme faital. They knew that they needed an investigator. They knew that they needed, you know, the scampy sort of like the Charles Groden, you know, like the cat
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): burglar aspect to it. And they So expertly knew that Miss Piggy was going to be the femme fatale, not Diana Rigg. You have Diana
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Rigg, who's one of the most beautiful actresses working at the time.
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): She's so gorgeous. And Kermit is like, nope, I gotta fall in love with the pig. And they they make it natural and seamless in a way that lesser writers would not be able to do.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I agree. And and their joke structure is very nuanced because when
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: when di in that scene where you're talking about Diana Rigg throwing the ink on the clothes, and she's talking about like you look like an ostrich and you look like you know, this is and she's, you know, feathers like a chicken, and she's denigrating all of her things by using animal things, and then she goes,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: Why would I design clothes that make people look like barnyard animals? And then in walks Miss Piggy. Which is brilliant. I mean
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: that took some real thought to sort of layer that in so that when she enters, there's an incredibly great joke there, but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: also it isn't forced.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: It's not a joke that they had in stock and they were like, we are shoving this in here no matter what, which I think some movies fall down on and some writers fall down on. We're like, my God, this thing is incredibly funny, and I'm gonna work it in here no matter what
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: happens. And you know that that is a joke that has been worked in because it sticks
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: out like a sore thumb. It's funny, but it's not as funny as it could be.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And this just feels so natural. I mean this just it feels just like I mean it's silk. It's just
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Yes. I think one of my favorite jokes that worked in really well for the time and maybe got, I don't know, but like I love the fact that the electric mayhem doing their thing at the Happiness Hotel and the Happiness Hotel
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): number is so Chelsea hotel coded for like the 1970s when this is being filmed, where it's like, of course you're gonna find all these beatnicks. And then behind them, why like this is one of the things that the Muppets are absolutely excellent at. Is behind them there's all these posters for like art exhibits and you know other musical performances, So I I actually like
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): paused the movie like multiple times to read them. So there's a Balalaika concert, there's a Rachmaninoff performance, Georges de Cuevas and the Chilean ballet. And then also Magdalena Rodolescu, who's a Romanian painter. And I was like, my gosh, they literally have like, you know, all these like sort of left wing communist sort of like seventies jokes in this dirty Chelsea hotel set with electric mayhem. And I was just like, these guys must have been so smart and on so many drugs to think of all of these jokes.
Mindy Carlson: I totally agree with you. And it's I mean, that's one of the things about the Muppets is they're punk AF. I mean, they are
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: punk and subversive. And Jim Henson was like they were always meant for adult audiences. But we did understand because of Sesame Street, they would
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: be bring parents would be bringing children to this. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: all of their adulter jokes are very subtle.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I love it.
Mindy Carlson: Which makes them for me even more delicious.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. I was like, I if I had watched this when I was any younger, I never would have been like, is that a poster with a balalaika on it? And it's like, yeah, no, okay, yeah. There it is. There's the joke. No.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. Yeah, they're not gonna know like kids are not gonna register that at all. You know, and they're not gonna register that this is a Chelsea hotel sort of look a
Emily Edwards (she/her): situation.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, look alike situation. And then some of the like and I don't know as a child I don't think I got this as funny as it was, but when they are talking about how do you want to pay, you know, we take cash,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: checks or sneak out in the middle of the night. And he says, Well,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ha ha ha
Mindy Carlson: sneak out in the middle of the night. It's very popular choice, you know. So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: it's so you have all of that stuff going on in and these 1970s coded things. Because they are very, yeah, the Muppets are a very subversive group of people. And I do feel like over the years they have become more and more for children. but I I would like to see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm. Yeah. Especially 'cause they got bought by Disney in the nineties.
Mindy Carlson: I would like to see Brian Henson and his sisters like build it back up to being much more politically coded, much more commentary on society coded. I mean, they had like the Muppet Show itself had a lot of people on where, you know, they You know, other shows would not have had them on or they
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and and doing things that they would not be doing on other shows.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Gene Kelly famously refused to sing Singing in the Rain ever again. There was, I can't
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: remember what happened or when it was, but he was like, I'm done with that song. And the Muppets got him to sing Singing in the Rain.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And then there's the famous Roger Moore one where he is James Bond and you have all of these Muppet animals trying to kill him.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Where he and he's singing Doctor Doolittle Talk with the Animals and Walk with the Animals as he's like chucking bombs away from himself. It is so good.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's brilliant. One of my favorites as a kid was the Harry Belafonte, you know, episode. And you know, he's doing the banana song. And of course, as a kid, I didn't understand the politics of Harry of Harry Belafonte and what he stood for and what he was always trying to accomplish. I'm just like, listen, yeah, that's the voice that's supposed to be singing the banana song. But it's like, no, it's like Harry Belafonte there doing Harry Belafonte things. It's incredible. And then I remember the first episode I ever saw was Juliet Prowse who I believe was the first ever host of the Muppet Show. And could anybody name a modern dancer working today who wasn't on So You Think You Can Dance? And here they have Juliet Prouse, who is the first host. And they treat her as though she's like just as big a celebrity as Gene Kelly
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and Harry Belafonte
Mindy Carlson: Absolutely. And they I so so growing up like I did as Generation X, late 70s, early 80s, I feel like we had a really great benefit of having this stuff and having producers, directors, and creatives that were brave enough to have
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: these people on television, including Mr. Rogers, presenting
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: the neighborhood that he wanted the future to live in. And which As a child, you don't question what's put in front of you. You just take it as in, that's just how it is. And
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that's, you know, like black people swim with white people. You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: Juliet Prowse is a huge, huge star. Like dancers are people to be celebrated. You
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: know, like you just sort of take it for what it is and where you're at. And then as you grow up, you're like, Well, why can't it be that way? Was
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that way when we were a child on television. So why can't this happen today? You know, and I'm I sort of feel like that is slightly missing in the zeitgeist of the youth today. I feel like people are I don't know. I don't know if the intentionality isn't the right word, but I feel like there are some missed opportunities. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. I'm an older millennial, so like I have the tail end of the Gen X of just like, you know, similar sort of zy guess, but a little bit less where it was still where we were starting to get sort of more of the moralizing, you know, like the more like the bald faced moralizing of just
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): just, you know, like no bullying, you know, it's like you really have to dial it in, you know, and we had slightly more Captain Planet sort of levels, you know, that kind of thing, which is still I think very beneficial and also missing from children's media a little bit. Granted, I'm not steeped in children's media because I don't have any kids. So maybe I just haven't seen it.
Mindy Carlson: I am I am no longer steeped in children's media 'cause my kids are seventeen and almost twenty one, so
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome. And you're just like, fabulous. I never have to listen to them, like listen to the same like kid's song, like on repeat over and over and over again.
Mindy Carlson: I I did play so my secret weapon in the war of people playing their music too loud in cars and like, you know, having the bass so loud that my own widow windows are rattling is I will turn on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song Hot Dog and blare it in my speakers. That is how I fight back.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's amazing.
Mindy Carlson: I'm like, you're gonna play your music so loud that I can feel it in my fillings? Well
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: get ready for this.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Do you really love though that you know, by this point, the Muppets and the Muppet writers understood that kids were going to be watching the show, you know, watching
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the movie, and it was going to be consumed as though it was children's like fiction. And I think that comes out the most in like Fozzie Bear has a speech towards like the lead up to the deneuement when they're going to go and try to capture the cat burglar in order to clear Miss Piggy. And Fozzie Bear has this speech where you know everybody's like, Yeah, we're in it. And then they realize that they could die doing the thing, and then they all back out. And Fozzie goes, Shame on you. I thought we were in this thing together. I'm just as scared as you are, but has to be done. We don't want the bad guys to win. We gotta do this for justice, for freedom, and for honesty. And I'm just like, that is a lovely soliloquy to throw into sort of like, you know, at the end of like a Steve McQueen movie where they're all trying to break
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): out of prison and it's like Fozzie Bear is giving the, you know, friends Roman countrymen, lend me your ears speech at the end.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, basically. I mean, and yeah, I think that's you know, Jim Henson just died way too soon. I mean, he was only fifty-six when he died,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I know.
Mindy Carlson: from bacterial pneumonia. And he yeah, I feel like that that's sort of like Frank Oz and Jim Henson, I think were really the heart of the Muppets and had this sentiment. And I feel like the Great Muppet Keeper is all of this like very much steeped together and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and done in I just love the old Hollywood kind of motif and set dressing that they're doing. Cause they have like the the water ballet happening.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: They have these big dance numbers, and you know, the the song Happiness, Miss Piggy,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know, that one in Oscar for Best Song. Like that is crazy. And then they have some, it's one of the most quotable movies of the Muppet movies. Because you have Sam the Eagle that comes out and says, You're all weirdos. Which
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: is, I mean, like I say that probably once a week. Still, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: it's some of the other ones was like, Look, Dad, there's a bear. No, Christine, it's a frog. Bears wear hats. You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: like all of these wonderful things. and like,
Emily Edwards (she/her): I think one of my favorite
Mindy Carlson: and we're we have to catch them red-handed. What color are their hands now? You know, and it's
Emily Edwards (she/her): All right, now
Mindy Carlson: So adorable. And then you have these people
Emily Edwards (she/her): it's so cute.
Mindy Carlson: in there that like I appreciate now as an adult, but didn't quite know who they were back then. John Cleese, Peter Ustinoff, Peter Falk is in it. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yes. I wanted to bring up Peter Falk because like I love the fact that, you know, we know who the guilty party is at the top of the movie. We see Charles Gordon
Mindy Carlson: Hundred yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): with the little mask and with the three supermodels, you know, stealing diamonds. And so it's not quite so much like a who done it because we know. I love that it takes on the how catch him. So to have Peter Falk at not be Columbo. But signal that it's like, you know, we need to come up with a devious way to catch the bad guys is so good. And again, Peter Falk, one of the greatest actors ever. And he is
Mindy Carlson: For sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): treating them as though they are actual actors throughout the entire scene that he has.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. And then he tries to sell Kermit a watch, which I absolutely adore. Sort of like, you are really not Colombo in this whatsoever. You are selling stolen watches.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Whatsoever. It because like you you forget that like Peter Falk was like best friends with John Cassavetes and and Gina Ro and Jenna Rollins.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you're just like, he was deep in Hollywood stuff, even though we know him as being, you know, Columbo, which, you know, again, leaps and bounds ahead of its time as a as like,
Mindy Carlson: sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, for for crime fiction. But you know, it it kind of lost some of its luster and its, you know, cred basically over the years when it played in in repeats and things like that.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean I still think that Columbo is one of the it's one of the television shows I think any aspiring mystery writer should watch because it is formulaic, but it is formulaic in a very successful way about like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this has to happen and then this has to happen and it has excellent twists. In it,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: it also has the kind of like, you know that this happened, and sort of like, but how you know, sort of like how his alibi works. If you're looking for a clever way to give your villain an alibi, Columbo is what you watch to sort of break down what are my options for making
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: sure that like he couldn't possibly have done it because he was at the party all night. And it's like, well, no. He killed the person two hours beforehand and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: they happened to have been in a sauna together. So the the body temperature was abnormally high and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: then the body temperature would come down more slowly over time. Or you killed him and then put him in the sauna, which makes time of death impossible to hit.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: So like I feel like col yeah, Colombo is one of those things that I think any aspiring mystery writer should watch.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely. And I feel like oddly, the Muppet again, because these movies are so and all Muppet sketches are so intelligently written, they understand
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the fact that like they're getting a wrench thrown in the works by Miss Piggy pretending to be Miss Holliday, you know, or Charles
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Groden, you know, falling in love with Miss Piggy in order to, you know, maybe convincingly or actually, but also using her as a scapegoat, or the fact that Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo are so innocent, they can't think about anybody doing anything bad. And that's just like this beautiful world that the Muppets live in, while you have the human characters who are doing very human things. Whereas the Muppets, even if they're humanoid Muppets, they don't understand that people do bad things because sometimes people do bad things. It's just like a lovely. sort of escape that you get f in in a very good crime movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, in a very good crime movie. I mean, they have the diamonds get removed from the necklace and it gets put into the pocket of her robe, which is a wonderful setup. And I don't know how closely you listened to what Miss Piggy was yelling when they were taking her away. But
Emily Edwards (she/her): Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson: she's like, It was you! You did it! You're no good! And then she yells, And your singing was dubbed So
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And it's kind of like and that's just kinda like slipped in there. So if you're not paying close enough attention, you know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Charles going, No, no, no, no, I didn't. I mean, he's I cannot get over how good he and Diana Rigg are together. The scene
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, said
Mindy Carlson: when they're at the Dubonnet Club and she's like, Nikki, I feel like thieves are breathing down my neck. And he's literally at her neck going, Thieves aren't breathing down your neck.
Emily Edwards (she/her): When he first sees Miss Piggy dancing at the Dubonnet Club, and
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): he goes, She's sensational. And Diana Rigg responds, 45 words per minute about average, because she only thinks of her as a secretary. And
Mindy Carlson: Secretary.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I'm like, God, that is a flawless joke. It is so good.
Mindy Carlson: It is so good. And we were sort of in our conversation before we started filming, was saying that I really love this movie because it is all about Miss Piggy and that she
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: is she's one of the first icons of women empowerment. Like she knows karate, she can
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: take care of herself. You don't put your hands on her unless she tells you you can. She defends Kermit, who is, you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: know, notably not as tough or strong as she is, but he is smart and And charismatic and you know, you know, tenacious. And so, and she's the one who like she breaks herself, she's strong enough to bend the bars and break
Emily Edwards (she/her): huh.
Mindy Carlson: herself out of prison, and then like kicks Peter Ustinov's butt to get
Emily Edwards (she/her): S
Mindy Carlson: his truck to drive to rescue him, and then the motorcycle comes out, to which she turns to full camera and goes. What an unbelievable coincidence. And then she's riding this motorcycle crashes through the window, which I had that Pizza Hut glass forever
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: until it finally broke one day. But like, and if anybody wants to send me that glass, would happily take it because I can't find it
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: anywhere. But like, yeah, crashes through she's the one who comes and saves the day at the end. She's the hero.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: of the entire thing. And I think that like for me, for like little, you know, little eight-year-old Mindy, that was like a really important thing to see that it wasn't, you know, yeah, Kermit was doing his best to like prove her innocence and break her out of jail and save her. But then she turns right around and saves herself and saves him and saves
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: everybody.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. She has this really strong like women be doing it for themselves, sort of like Annie
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Lennox, you know, like that's what always plays in the back of my head whenever like I see Miss Piggy. And I l I sent you this morning this thing that that came up in New York
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, and vulture.
Emily Edwards (she/her): in Vulture, New York magazine, about how just like Miss Piggy is having an absolute renaissance amongst people our age and just of just like how much we love. Miss Piggy. And this article is literally like she's the last female movie star in the vein of like May West, where she walks in, and no matter what she looks like, the joke is that she's a pig, but she thinks she and she acts like and everybody treats her like she is the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen. You know, Diana Rigg, who again, very gorgeous, very imperious, very sort of like stiff upper lip British in this movie, she's just like. you're a pig. You can't possibly be a model. And then when Piggy has to go down the runway, everybody is enraptured by her. And so it makes Diana Rigg look like the jackass and makes Diana Rigg's like, you know, white shittiness look really, really awful because everybody else can see how magnetic Miss Piggy actually is.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, that's that is the one thing about Diana Rigg, It's like, yeah, she was only seeing her skin deep when clearly
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: her and I I had a guy once who was like who we were talking and he was like, you know, confidence is the sexiest part about a woman. You know, looks, you know, great, whatever,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: but if you're not a confident woman And presenting yourself to the world like I fucking got this, then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: you know, men are not gonna be as attracted to you or
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: or an other women, like whoever, whatever your, you know, cup of tea is, like you wanna attract somebody, confidence is everything.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Going in there like you own the planet is the way
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: to go.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I'm really excited that like at the moment, like the article mentioned that like Emma Stone and Jenna God Jennifer Lawrence, they're producing
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): a Miss Piggy movie or they have one in the works being written by Cole Escola, who did O'Mary. Yeah, I know,
Mindy Carlson: By Cole Escola, I missed that part. Holy cow.
Emily Edwards (she/her): yeah. So I'm just like, talk about three people who definitely would understand. The the actual sort of weight and gravity that Miss Piggy commands, you know, when she's on screen. Because I've I've never been like a huge Kermit fan, but I'm also not like the world's biggest fan of like the pure chaos Muppets, like animal, you know, where he, you know, things like that. So you have the dichotomy
Mindy Carlson: Sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): of the Order Muppets and the Chaos Muppets. And so I lean more towards the order Muppets that can crack a joke, you know. So like Rolf and Rizzo, they're they're more orderly, but they're very, very funny. But I love the fact that Miss Piggy is pure chaos, but it can it's pointed, you know, whereas like Animal they unleash, or you have like Lou with the fish, you know, or the guy who blows everything up, Crazy Harry, I think his name is.
Mindy Carlson: Crazy I think it is Crazy Harry.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And they just are indiscriminately chaotic. And that like I can't handle. But Miss Piggy is so focusedly cr chaotic. And they
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): rein that in so well in this movie. Where it's like, no, it's not gonna be order that susses this out. It's gonna be chaos that sub susses this out.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. Well and she's a special kind she's like D.Va chaos.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: but it's I find her character very interesting because she is extremely loyal. Like once you're
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: her friend, you're her friend forever and she will bust out of jail and go through a plate glass window to save you.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: And so like that kind of chaos, and then I like to think of animal as like the hot sauce on any dish. You just want a couple of dashes of animal. And then yeah. Go ahead.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of one of my favorite Miss Piggy jokes is at the end of Muppet Family Christmas, she's been asking Kermit for a mink because you know she she loves luxury goods. And he he like introduces her to a live act like mink puppet named Minerva. And she's just kind of like, this is not what I meant. But she handles it so well of just like understanding that like the Mink is alive and she can't turn her into a coat, which is such an interesting Muppety joke, but also very indicative of Miss Piggy of like, this is a gift from my beloved Kermit. I will not turn it down. I will not, you know, tell him this is not what I meant. But no, I have to respect Minerva Mink because she's alive creature.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, now I've gotta I've gotta take care of her. Thanks, Kermy. I've now have a job.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Thanks, Kermit. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: But one of the things that going back to Jim Henson as a filmmaker and Frank Oz as well working in tandem together, they had to come up with some really creative ways to show the Muppet's full body.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So the the most famous scene is the bicycle scene. When Kermit
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: is riding a bike, he is a marionette. There is a crane above.
Emily Edwards (she/her): To credit.
Mindy Carlson: That has strings down, and the bike is on a bar that is being pulled or on a rope that's being pulled by a truck like many, many, many, many yards down. And they said, I heard an interview with Jim Henson, and he said that actually when they put Miss Piggy on the bike next to him, r operating the bikes became infinitely more easy because they just put a bar between the two bikes, and suddenly they had the stability of. four tires and not just two tires. And then you added in even more Muppets and everything became even more stable. And so like the
Emily Edwards (she/her): So smart.
Mindy Carlson: big and and then they would intercut it with close ups where Jim is with Kermit on a dolly being pulled. So you can get facial responses
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: and then the human brain kind of fills in the emotion gaps from the long distance shots. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's incredible. It's incredible work. And I do think, even though like we have to give so much credit, obviously, to Jim Henson, I personally think Frank Oz is one of the funniest people who's ever lived. Like Frank
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Oz appearing anywhere, both in human and puppet form, is just like a gift to whatever movie you manage to get him in. Because I think about his, you know, police warden scene in Blues Brothers.
Mindy Carlson: Yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you know, even in Knives Out, where he's the, you know, the will executor,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, he's the lawyer. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, Frank Oz just has the most perfect control over his voice and movements. Like, I I don't even acknowledge Yoda. I'm not a Star Wars person. Like, I'm just like, whatever, that was a one-off thing. Frank Oz needs to be known as like Miss Piggy and just the guy you insert into a scene in order to make that scene the the funniest it can possibly be.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, and Frank Oz has had I can't remember everything that he's directed, but he's directed some very successful movies, dramas and comedies.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: So and I mean comedies I think are infinitely harder to direct than dramas. Dramas
Emily Edwards (she/her): I agree.
Mindy Carlson: you have kind of like two emotional levels happening,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Okay.
Mindy Carlson: and in comedies you've so much more happening. The jokes have to land, the timing has to be right, it has to be interspersed with darkness and sadness so that the the light parts are lighter and the dark parts seem more darker and and i i agree with you i think frank eyes is a brilliant writer director producer and i do love yoda in star wars because he is if you watch the empire strikes back it's a real downer until you get to the swamp and then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: yoda shows up and he's just a little chaos bunny running like going into Luke supplies and like whipping stuff over his shoulders, like looking at a can, sort of like, well, this isn't gonna like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Nope.
Mindy Carlson: you know, so and then and he just is like this, yeah, he's this weird little chaos bunny running around. And then suddenly it's like then the turn happens and it's like, no, no, I am one of the most powerful Jedi's in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: existence right now.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I I just I you know, I just think about all the talent that goes into these my gosh. Sorry, I just was looking at my notes and I saw one more like meta joke that they include where it's like
Mindy Carlson: yeah, yeah, what is it?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Charles Groden, he's having a meeting with the models before the final sort of like theft. And I love the fact that the Muppel Muppets do not care about the dollar value of what's being stolen. They only care about saving Miss Piggy. They're like, who cares that he's stealing diamonds? It's just that they framed Miss Piggy and that's what we care about. But the he is Nikki is in his office and it says private irresponsible parasite on the door, where it's like, it's it's like he's not like a lawyer. His job title is irresponsible parasite.
Mindy Carlson: Parasite. yeah, I mean the meta jokes are fantastic. There was another one that I really loved. Miss Piggy saying adios, mono me. I mean, that is hilarious. It's
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's so funny. And then like he's doing yes, it's like when he's explaining like why he did the thing he did, and they're just kind of like, but why'd you do it? And he's like, because I'm a villain. Like I don't pure and simple. And it's
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I'm a villain, pure and simple. Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): like, I actually wish that more things that are written now and are put on screen were allowed to just be like, he's bad. You know what I mean?
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, there is definitely like a movement towards gray morality and you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: know, some of the villainy being justified. Whereas
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: I agree, sometimes it's like, no, they're just they just want this for the money,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: for the power, for the prestige. And it's not because, you know, he didn't get the new bike when they were growing up. She got everything new. It's like at a certain point, like, yeah, if that happened, you know, great, but you're Like whatever happened to you is not responsible for the decisions that you're making today.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, like I, you know, when you're learning how to write and you're going through writing courses and things like that, they explain to you that like the antagonist is just simply the person or thing that stands in the protagonist's way. And I f
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and I was like, you know, again, we've had to have all these reasons as to why they're antagonists. And we get so much of it now in like the superhero movies and things like that. Or it's like,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, it's just like, you know, I got Especially in in DC where it's like, something happened and it turned me into like this person that turns into bees. And so and I didn't like being turned into bees. So I have to do all this. And it's just like, no, you're just the guy who stands in the way of Batman. That's literally it. That's that's enough. That's enough in most storytelling that you're just the person that stands in the protagonist's way.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I it's it is really interesting. I mean, I think I mean this was going on long before Marvel movies. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: this was going on in Colombo because you definitely get you know, but I do feel like some of the older stuff, Columbo and Perry Mason and that kind of thing,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: the reasons are you know, yeah, you were a s you were selfish and you were a jerk and y they weren't giving you your way and so you killed them. I mean, it was much starker black and white. I mean Even though Perry Mason is the most two-dimensional of hero characters,
Emily Edwards (she/her): it so is. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: he he is there to facilitate the right. Well,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Truth, justice in the American way. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: it and the telling of the story around him. Like, you know, Paul Drake goes off and does all of the investigating.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Dela like comes in for the exposition drops to, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: be the person for him to bounce things off of. You know, and then you have the villain who, you know, basically when they're on the series they're like, 'Cause I'm a villain, plain and simple. I mean you know so but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. I wasn't rich. That guy was. I killed him. I took his stuff. Now I'm rich. And it's like, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. They were gonna fire me from the movie and I didn't think that because I was taking three hour lunches was a great excuse, so I killed him and to take his job.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's I I do feel like the villain's wants have gotten much more nuanced. I mean I do appreciate that in a lot of books and and some movies where the the villains
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: wants are much more nuanced. like knives out, not a
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: nuanced villain though.
Emily Edwards (she/her): No, not at all.
Mindy Carlson: He he was like, he was gonna cut me out of the will. And so I killed him and framed the person that he had put in the will because I wanted the money. And I feel and and I feel like perhaps Knives Out did so well because that not only was there the twist in the middle of it where it went from a who done it to how is she gonna get away with it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And then the villain was, whoops, sorry about that. The villain was very much like, you know, yeah, because I
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yep. I just
Mindy Carlson: wanted the money.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I wanted money. You know
Mindy Carlson: And I wasn't gonna take no for an answer, and the rest of my family is just as shitty as I am.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. You know, especially when it comes to like mystery fiction, I feel like the movement towards a more nuanced villain was often because, especially on television, it was like, that person is, you know, an other in some way, you know, gay, black, Hispanic, or whatever. And so like they have to be like, so of course they're corrupt, of course they're the bad guy. And so we started giving people more nuance in order to counteract that sort of like constant, you know, aggression towards the other. But when your bad guy is Charles Grodin.
Mindy Carlson: Which was doubling down, which is basically doubling down on the aggression of the other.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and and it it's gotten so convoluted and so complicated and so unnuanced now that it's just like you were saying earlier, like someone stole my bike when I was six and now, you know, all you know, that's my motivation. Every bike, gosh.
Mindy Carlson: All the bikes are mine. Every bike will be mine. But yeah, and I I feel like I feel like too that they have become more nuanced because a lot of movies now are having the heroic turn of the villain.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: The redemption arc of the villain has been very attractive to people for a long time. And I think it in part it's because of, you know, where we are in society today where we hope that the people that are doing bad things will suddenly wake up and stop doing bad things and see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: the error of their ways and suddenly become on the side of truth, justice, and righteousness.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: And it's kind of like, and without that being represented in movies to us, you can tend to start to lose hope that things will change and things will get better and the bad people will ask for forgiveness and do the right thing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, but it's and and I and I can understand that that's how we have gotten here, but at the same time, you know, sometimes it's just more satisfying in your fiction if
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: your villains are just villains.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Or there's villains. And then you have Fozzie Bear go like, we have to do this for just free justice, freedom, and honesty. And you're like, yeah, those are actually values that you should put yourself, your little fuzzy bodies on the line for. For you
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): know, you know, and and go to bat for it. And you I just this the one your little felt bodies.
Mindy Carlson: Your fuzzy bodies on the line for your little felt bodies and ping pong ball eyes on the line for.
Emily Edwards (she/her): One of my favorite visuals, just like the constant visual in this movie of the Muppets getting chucked somewhere because they understood
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that they're inanimate objects. Just off the double decker bus and they just go sliding across this London sidewalk. And Fozzie Bear is just like teddy bear body is laying there. I could not stop laughing, even though I'm someone who absolutely believes, even at 40 years old, that like stuffed animals have souls and you don't like treat them horribly. Like
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): You know, it's like you can't throw a stuffed animal, even though, you know, if
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I pick up a stuffed animal in a store, like I won't do it because like they get sad if you put them back. You know what I mean?
Mindy Carlson: That's funny.
Emily Edwards (she/her): So, like, that was my way my mother was like, you don't pick up a stuffed animal because like she explained to us when you're little, because if you put them back, they get sad. But of course, that has permanently broken my brain of just now like I can't touch stuffed
Mindy Carlson: That's funny. That's permanently in there now.
Emily Edwards (she/her): animals that don't come home with me because they get sad when you put them back. That being said, I love How many times their little felt bodies are just indiscriminately chucked off of or into things.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, it was a gr I mean, I think that was one of the best running jokes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: Well, and then but then they did it to Peter Ustinov. Because all of a sudden you see
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: you don't see Piggy sees him, you just see him fly into the trash cans for another wonderful broken fourth wall moment where Oscar the Crouch comes out of the can and he says He says, you know, You okay?
Emily Edwards (she/her): What are you doing here?
Mindy Carlson: And then he's like, What are you doing here? And he goes, And you know, an unpaid can or a very short cameo and Peter Rustoff locks to the camera and says, Same here. Me you know, me too.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. Cause he's Poirot by this point. And we have to know
Mindy Carlson: By this point he's Floro.
Emily Edwards (she/her): he's there, you know, to to to again, like two great investigators make cameos in this and because it's a it's a mystery movie and the Muppets have to acknowledge
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): it.
Mindy Carlson: Well and I yeah, and I was thinking I was looking for other people too that I mean, and Jack Morden could be considered perhaps an investigator 'cause he was the one of the editors in All the President's Men and he
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: was not the foreman in Twelve Angry Men, but he was one of the jurors in Twelve
Emily Edwards (she/her): The jurors, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Angry Men with what is it, Peter Ford? Henry Fonda, Peter Fonda.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fonda? Henry Fonda.
Mindy Carlson: Hen Henry Fonda, God, not Henry Ford. Henry
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I confuse them constantly, and so I only ever just say Fonda when I'm talking about one of them. I'm like, he was in that movie with Fonda because I don't ever remember which one it was.
Mindy Carlson: I apologize. Yeah, that found it. Well, and then there's like weird like I have to rewatch the opening scene again because I'm like, wait a minute, there are famous people all throughout that dance number. Wilt Chamberlain is in that dance number as the basketball player. It's bananas. He's in there for literally 60 seconds.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, that's crazy.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, so I what kind of want to go through, and especially with my mom. who are are is a contemporary of when they were adults, like she would point stuff out to me.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. You may not get exactly who they are, like, you know, 'cause
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): not of the same generation. Just I that is just one of the most brilliant things. Like, I like that they dialed it back a little bit fr in this movie from, you know, like the the Muppet movie, where it's, you know, it's like every three seconds there was a famous person that they were talking to. And, you know, it's like one of those I think it was Steve Martin's screen debut where he's like playing the you know, he was already famous by the time, but he's, you know.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, the waiter. He he is yeah, he's a famous comedian and he's been in Saturday Night Live. But yeah, would you Yeah, would you like to smell the bottle cap
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, and he was selling out stadiums and stuff like that. But I think it was like his first screen role. Yes. But like I I do like the fact that they dialed it back a little bit for this. And they
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): would have more played off of like your understanding of type and things like that. And again, like the they so artfully understood the fact that like the Muppets could be the Muppets or the Muppets could be actors in. This and and again, like playing off of just the different ways that you can explore mystery of like, you know, they're journalists, so they can be investigative journalists, and it's just so smart in this ninety-second non-stop joke movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean, and even their like the hero's launch to you know discovery is so trite that if I were to write it in a book, I would get nailed because it's like, no, we'll just go to England and we'll catch the real jewel thieves and save
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: our jobs. I mean, and that speaks to what you were earlier saying about their naivety and their childlike nature of like because of course we will go to London, England, a population of like several million people. And we will somehow get into a famous designer's office to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: ask her questions, like somehow insinuate ourselves into her lives enough
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: that we will be able to follow her around. And then we will single-handedly, you know, stop the jewel thieves from striking again and bring them to justice. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that is patently naive, but it works for this. It absolutely works.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's one of those things where if you do spend a little time on like the reader side of threads or Instagram, you often
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): run into people where they're just like, that's so unbelievable. That's so unbelievable, and that's so unbelievable. And every author is going like, please just suspend your disbelief for like two hours while you're reading a book or watching a movie, because that's what you have to do. And I wonder if those people who like, Really, really, really can't suspend their disbelief in every coincidence, like has to be explained to like the min the minutest detail. I'm like, how do you watch something like a Muppet movie? Or is it just like pure chaos? Like just nails on a chalkboard for you for the fact that like
Mindy Carlson: I mean, I have a friend who I have a friend who is very into verosimilitude.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Like the stuff has to make sense. And there was a movie that she watched and she was like, you know, super cute all the way through, suspending of disbelief. But like the c the key clue that sort of like unlocks the door to the answer to them is like that is not physically possible. Like that's not how
Emily Edwards (she/her): no.
Mindy Carlson: It's she's like, that's not how this works. Like, you don't take this thing and then this thing and have it work together. They don't and pr and to produce this thing. That isn't
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: how that's not chemistry. That's not how chemistry works. And, you know, in she is also a writer, and in her writing, she works very, very hard to make sure that everything is legit and does all of the research and stuff. And I think for people like that. Like she's like, I worked very hard to make sure that nobody could come back to me and tell me that, like, you know, this constellation wasn't discovered until
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right.
Mindy Carlson: nineteen thirty, so it couldn't show up in your nineteen twenty book as a known thing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: You know, sh and so I think it bothers her that other people don't spend the same kind of time and care researching and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: that they are doing the easy way out.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right.
Mindy Carlson: But at the same time, I'm like, fiction.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: You know, but it is it is fiction in the real world and it should adhere to real world yeah,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Constraints. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: constraints. Like it should it should make sense in that way. But you
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: know, we're also dealing with Muppets in this particular case. But I will s
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know, but the thing of it is is like for the most part, I feel like this really adheres to real world constraints for a lot of things. I mean, other than the fact that like, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's a talking frog.
Mindy Carlson: The talking frog. The frog and the bear and the and the whatever splash landing in the pond
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know.
Mindy Carlson: from like twenty thousand feet, they would be dead. I mean,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: there are certain like, you know, magic magic things are happening that you just have to sort of gloss over. But things like the clues make sense.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I love it so much. Like again, it it's not like there's such a large love story sort of thrown into the middle of the movie that the caper aspect of it is maybe only 30 minutes of a 90-minute runtime, but it's still excellent.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it is still an excellent caper. It is still excellently plotted out. Everything makes sense. There like the reasons why, you know, this got stolen from Lady Halliday, and then she's doing the she, you know, wears the necklace to the Dubonnet Club and that that gets stolen, which then leads to her decision to move up to like move the baseball diamond into the museum where it can be so I know I read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: where it can be protected. And you know, but that's like moving it directly into their hands. That's exactly what they want to have happen. Like that is all very meticulously plotted out. And then the side plots of like how Kermit and Fozzie and Gonzo figure out this is what is going on, and then this like that is all very nicely plotted out. There's there's a very strong flow and core
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: of logic happening. Amongst all of this other stuff. This whirlwind.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And then to have the the chaos Muppet of Gonzo being a photographer and he manages to accidentally catch the theft on camera. And then because
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): they're in the chaos of the happiness hotel, the negative gets ruined while they're in the bathroom trying to develop it. And you're just like, my God, they actually thought about this like every single step of the way.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it it's it is yeah, I feel like it's just a very it's well thought out, but it's kinda like I you know, it's a mystery movie, but I also think that it is just it's it's got a romance element to it, it's got a friendship element to it. I feel like it y they talk about hitting like the four quadrants. I feel like this is a four quadrant movie for sure. Like it's gonna
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure.
Mindy Carlson: appl it's gonna appeal to everybody in there.
Emily Edwards (she/her): What's odd is that the couple of episodes that I've done where it's been like, this is how you learn how to do like the structure of a mystery or the or how you do this. The two best examples have been, I think, The Great Muppet Caper and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where you're just like, this understands the the tr the deep literary tradition of the genre that they're working in. And it might be simplified because the intended audience or one of the intended audiences is children. But there's so much there that adults who are trying to learn the structure and the craft and just like the the literary genre that they're coming from. It's it's it's just an absolutely flawless example of how to write an investigative like caper theft movie. Again, because there's no murder. And I like the fact that
Mindy Carlson: No.
Emily Edwards (she/her): we did something that doesn't, you know, the crux of it isn't violence. It's, you know, the theft of the baseball diamond.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, it's being
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: it's it's clever. It's it's cleverness. It's like the
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: whole crux of the film is can we cleverly do this heist?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: Which yeah, and I and I think that's something, you know, when you're starting out writing and is whatever genre you're writing in, a lot of people are like, read, read, read, read, read. And people are like, well, you know, am I reading just because I can say, yes, I've read this book? Or like, why am I reading all these books? Why are people telling me to keep reading? Well, it's because you do need to read with intention. You have to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: read and look at how are they doing this? How are they introducing these characters? How are they presenting the red herrings? You know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: where are they presenting the red herrings in the book? Where are the false leads? Where is the real lead? You know, and how how does the detective get to the answer in the end? And so and the more you're able to read like that with intention and almost breaking the fourth wall in your own way of of realizing
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that this is what they're doing and the Because the author is being very intentional about how they're telling the story. They're making these choices for a reason. And as a fellow author, you will learn a ton by reading these books and fig and and then asking them, you know, like, why are you making this choice and not this other choice?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: So that's why authors say the best class that you could possibly take is just read, reading other people's stuff, read even the bad stuff. you read it and then you figure out why didn't this work? You know, I've read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: many books where like the hook is amazing. The hook
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: is a million dollar hook. But the execution of the idea in the writing really fell down. So like why is that? What
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: was it about like the choices that they made and how could I have done it better? So yeah, so I think and I think in The Great Mumpet Keeper is a great show to watch if you want to write a heist movie. And Thomas Crown Affair and what were the two others that you mentioned earlier?
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, absolutely. Yes. how to steal a million is one of my favorites. and gosh, what was the other one? the Italian job is first one, you know, where they end up like
Mindy Carlson: The Italian job. Mm-hmm. The first guess.
Emily Edwards (she/her): dangling on a bus off a cliff at the end and you don't know if they get off the bus. It's just
Mindy Carlson: Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): absolutely incredible. Like and I don't know how you feel about this, but I am a huge fan of, again, if they're just sort of like paperbacks, mark up your books, like highlight and you know, especially if you've got the time to read and reread, go back and figure and you know, just the different threads and the different you know, red herrings and things like that. Highlight them in different colors, figure out where they're showing up, figure out where they're pacing, you know. are they coming or Are certain clues or red herrings always thrown together at the same time or are they spread apart? Are they, you know, dropped by different people? And that's how you thought one person was guilty when it turns out another person was guilty. Like go and and and consume the books that you're reading. Like really get deep in there. Like my books from college that I still like a couple of them that I still had until a couple of years ago, like they are dog-eared. you know, and stickered and highlighted to within an inch of their life because that's how you figure out the mechanics of of writing and reading. It's you have to get in there. Like they're not precious objects if you want to, you know, figure out how they work. You have to take them apart.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, absolutely. And and it also helps like when you're querying an agent or when you're pitching your book, you know what your comps are. Because
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: if you're reading people that you want to write like, you know, you're like, I want to be the next John Connolly. I want to
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: be the next Alana Be, you know, I. S. Berry. I want to be, you know, the next Rob Hart. Well, read
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: their books and dissect the crap out of them and just figure
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: out how are they do like where are the crucial choices and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: even as you just read them you pick up a flow and a cadence and that kind of thing and it's like okay if I want to write a book even in other genres too like romance like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: I want to write a book. I love Abby Jimenez. I want to write a book like Abby Jimenez. So like what is it about her books that
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: you know like what is what is her her brand of book. And it's like, yeah. And so by doing that, you're gonna add to your own abilities
Emily Edwards (she/her): Absolutely. Who 'cause they often write the same s who is their protagonist and what are their values? Because very often in romance you'll have people they write sort of the same type of character whereas like she's, you know, she knows she might be a professional woman who, you know, like has these aversions to these kind of people and those aversions have to be overcome and things like that. And it's like, who is your t who is your type? Who what are their aversions? What are what's standing in their way of getting their goal of, you know, maybe an HEA or finding the criminal or whatever? Like what The antagonist is not just a person, it's not just a thing, it's their own their blocks and their psychology and things like that. And you're like, you really, real like when I come across someone who's just like, no, I'd never write in a book, and I'm like, why?
Mindy Carlson: I mean, there is something to be said about keeping your signed copy, Pristine, but like that's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: why paperbacks can be sold at secondhand stores or
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: or the goodwill for two dollars. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that's like a whole sometimes, you know, picking out five books and just dissecting them, that is a whole MFA program right there. Why, you know,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: yeah, why are people making these choices? Where is this going? Where's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. And you can do it for
Mindy Carlson: the twist?
Emily Edwards (she/her): mm-hmm. And you can do it for ten bucks with second hand books. Like if you really, really want to. Or at the very least, please keep a companion notebook. Or if you read on a Kindle, you can highlight in different colors and keep notes and things like that. Just like Get into annotating your books. Like it's just so incredibly important. In the same way that I can't show you my screen, but I annotate when I watch movies. I have all of these notes and all of these things taken out. like
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I just noticed my thing where it's like, Beauregard
Mindy Carlson: I've my
Emily Edwards (she/her): shows up in this. He's one of my favorite chaos Muppets.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah. I have I mean and the I have a you know, Rolf going, Woof woof it and then it pays to l know a second language. I mean that's
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: hilarious. So yeah, I I also do the same did the same thing where I have like my notes
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Like the the femme fatal, like mistaken identity thing that happens with Ms. Piggy is directly out of, you know, like Raymond Chandler novels. Like this happens in it's like a it's a trope that you get that they exercise so perfectly. And I just like can't thank you enough for agreeing to do the make great Muppet Caper, because it's a flawless movie.
Mindy Carlson: I I was I there are very few flawless movies. I think I the Muppet movie, The Great
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: Muppet Caper, The Princess Bride, Clue, I think is a flawless
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yep. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: movie. and there was one more I'd been thinking about, but I well the seven The Seven Samurai I think is a flawless movie.
Emily Edwards (she/her): For me, yes, absolutely. For me, one of them is Hot Fuzz, which with has
Mindy Carlson: yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that it again, if you're really into writing like a like a small town cozy, like it
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): is a flawless movie to figure out because it is, you know, a satire and it's pulling apart the tropes and showing them to you, and you don't
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): even notice that he's got the posters for the tropes behind him. Like it's an absolutely perfect movie to figure out how those movie how those books and those movies are written. I love that movie.
Mindy Carlson: Yeah, I mean I do, yeah, getting yourself into sa into satire is definitely a great way of like, what are the tropes? If you're having a hard time naming the tropes in your genre, find a
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson: satire of that genre because they know what those tropes are and they are going to exploit them. You know, and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, it's
Mindy Carlson: like the in Hot Fuzz, I mean, one of my favorite scenes that I will fall down laughing about every time, no matter how many times I see it, is when they're jumping the fences.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson: And he Simon Pegg jumps those fences flawlessly, like an Olympic athlete. And then Nick Frost plows into the first one and then stands up and looks back at the camera. And I I mean, it is so funny.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I I love we're gonna have to do this movie again, like a little bit
Mindy Carlson: Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): in a little bit because it's just one of my favorites. But like when he's checking in and she goes, Fascism, wonderful. And it just plays the entire move. It explains the entire movie in the first like 10 minutes of him entering the scene. And you're just like, Yep, that's it. That's everything. That's everything you had to know. And
Mindy Carlson: That's it. That's the movie. There's yes, always always lead with your theme.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. And to an extent, the Great Muppet Caper is the exact same thing. It tells you what the movie is in the title. And it's like there's a
Mindy Carlson: yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): great caper and it's the Great Muppets and they are figuring it out. It's just perfect.
Mindy Carlson: The that that movie, I think the title was one of their daughters came up with the title. Lisa, Lisa Henson, when she was 19 years old, came up with that title for the Great Muppet Caper. Yeah, they were like,
Emily Edwards (she/her): Wonderful.
Mindy Carlson: you know, let's let's think of titles and names, and they were just all brainstorming together. And she was like
Emily Edwards (she/her): It's such a shame that Jim Henson left us so young. Like I can only imagine like another 30 years of of Henson. Like how, but you know, thankfully he's got such he cultivated such a group of people around him who were so dedicated to continuing the work. And, you know, I know that we were talking about the Muppet Show earlier at the start of the show, of just like, and I know that I think Seth Rogan just started, you know, he wrote, yeah, he rebooted the Muppet Show.
Mindy Carlson: Rebooted it. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): So I mean, like, you know, our lips to God's ears. We'll get some Seth Rogan and then, you know,
Mindy Carlson: Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): also Jason Siegel did that incredible Muppet movie maybe ten or fifteen years ago that, you know, kind of didn't
Mindy Carlson: Yes, he absolutely did. Yep.
Emily Edwards (she/her): really go anywhere. But hey, you know, we've got people trying and people who grew up probably watching the reruns and things like that. So we've got folks who understand it.
Mindy Carlson: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. It's yeah, it's interesting. It's kind of you know, I it'll be interesting to see as you go along with this podcast, like how how many other iconic movies that are really cornerstones of our society that really informed how our society like operates.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: that that you'll end up doing. I wonder if you could come up with maybe like a a top ten list at some point of
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, yeah.
Mindy Carlson: of these like iconic cornerstone society changing movies. I mean I think Dog Day Afternoon is one of them, but that's not necessarily a mystery.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah. I I really want to do like I need to find obviously the right guests for some of these, but like in the heat of the night, I think is just one of those movies where you just have to sit down and realize the gravity of what was happening. And it is in a whodunit framework.
Mindy Carlson: Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): and it's just an absolutely again, you know, and also All the President's Men, where you have journalists taking on, you know, the role of private investigators and to their own detriment and going through all of the white night. Sort of things. And it's just like, I really think about, and you know, you also brought up 12 Angry Men, where it's a lot of the way that we had huge zeitgeist moving morality moments in the United States came because there was a mystery movie that was like, we're going to show you people sacrificing themselves to get to the bottom of this thing, which is like. I think one of the reasons, and I know this sounds crazy to keep bringing it up, but the Fozzie Bear speech where he's like, We've gotta do this for justice, for freedom, and for honesty, it really boils it down to like, I know they're trying to get Charles Groden who's stealing a fake diamond, but like it tells kids who are watching this that like honesty is incredibly important in how you go through life. Like if the Muppets can do it, so can you. And it's just a really Yeah, exactly.
Mindy Carlson: I mean it tells the adults too that honesty is so important 'cause I think that sometimes we forget that just being honest will solve a ton of your problems. Things
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: may be sticky initially for a little while, but if you're honest you don't you're not carrying the burden of the lie along with you for so long.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Which, you know, which in our current politics, like I think a lot of people are starting to kind of go back to mystery and like kind of going like, someone, you know, going through the motions and going through and just believing in finding the truth is something that is just incredibly important when you're living through extremely violent and corrupt times. And, you know, oftentimes it gets this is most me going on a diatribe. Honestly, sometimes it gets sort of. put through the lens of copaganda, but when you do it with private investigators, when you do it with cozy sleuths, when you do it with amateur sleuths, it, you know, it it reminds you that your average person, just a a person who believes in finding the truth, is incredibly important to remind people that that's possible.
Mindy Carlson: Right. And that's the magic of the cozy mystery, I think, right there, is that everyday
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: people can make a huge difference in their small, small societies. So, but yeah, if you're coming to BoucherCon next year, so 2027, BoucherCon is in DC. I live in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Even if they're a bear or a frog. Yes. Yes.
Mindy Carlson: I live in DC. We could do all the president's men in DC. If you if you want to do that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh, can we really? Ya
Mindy Carlson: Okay, we could like we could maybe like go and do like a little tour
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: and do some video clips about like this is where this was, here's the Watergate Hotel, that kind of thing, and then
Emily Edwards (she/her): Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson: do like a quick movie sort of thing about all the president's men. We could do that if you want to.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, I would love that. my gosh. so keep in mind, everybody who's listening,
Mindy Carlson: Ha ha
Emily Edwards (she/her): that if you want to come and like hang out with us, Boucher cons are really, really good adventures. And I know I'm gonna be out of
Mindy Carlson: They're super fun.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my element in Alberta, cause not only is Yay! Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: I'll be I'll be at Calgary. I'll I'll be up in Calgary. So I'm nominated for an Anthony Award for my short story.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Congratulations.
Mindy Carlson: And so anybody that goes to Calgary can vote for me. Or any of the other four amazing short story
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yay
Mindy Carlson: writers. I've read
Emily Edwards (she/her): my gosh.
Mindy Carlson: all of the short stories. They're all excellent.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Short fiction is an incredibly sort of like intense competitive thing to be involved in because there's so few places to get published now. But, you know, every time you see someone get like a short story out there and you read it and you're just like, my God, man, that is some freaking great writing. And I wish there were more outlets for it. But you know, like I've read your story, it's absolutely freaking amazing. And
Mindy Carlson: Thank you. I didn't realize that you'd read it. That's so nice.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I will have a link to it in the show notes for anybody who's listening. And how can everybody keep in touch with your future work?
Mindy Carlson: so I announce everything at mindycarlson dot com. I have a blog there. I just put up a little blog about Dolly Parton who had passed away two days ago.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson: and I'll just say this. I think her greatest epitaph is that sh everything that people are saying on the internet is just about how kind and good she
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson: was. And I cannot imagine a better eulogy than being s Told over and over again just how nice and good you were in life.
Emily Edwards (she/her): I know.
Mindy Carlson: So so I do have a blog there, and then I have a newsletter that you can sign up for that I send out almost once a month.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome.
Mindy Carlson: but and then I'm on threads and Instagram. I post on Instagram all the time, and you'll see all of my cups of coffee on Instagram.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Whenever I see you post, you're just like, I'm writing. And I was like, damn, that means I have to go write. Because Mindy's writing. Like she's doing it. I gotta do it too. Exactly.
Mindy Carlson: That's right. If I have time to write, you have time to write.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fabulous.
