The New New Quote Thread

antsamthompson9

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Steve and JD discuss wither Piggy or Fozzie will win a round of the 2016 Muppet Madness Tournament
JD: In year one, Fozzie beat Piggy. This year I don't think he's going to and here's way: Because I think that the TV show has actually taken Piggy's character and improved it so greatly that she is now likable again.
Steve: I think that's somehow strangely true.
JD: Yeah, it wasn't too long ago that in general, whenever anyone online posted something about Piggy, you'd get a bunch of people going "Ugh, never liked her. She was such a..." and I can't say the rest. But generally people aren't crazy about Piggy or at least haven't been in recent years with the way she's been portrayed in the past 15 years or so. And so the new show got her character just about right and really evolved it and made her a better person. And so now I think with all the focus on the pig on the show making us like the pig again, I think she's gonna beat Fozzie.
 

Duke Remington

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I think @Duke Remington is gonna love my next few quotes, because they're all about how Miss Piggy has improved on the ABC show. From episode 15 of Let's Talk Muppets.
JD Hansel: Kermit was pretty sure he was gonna see a tissue box hit the window and I was too. I think that moment did work.
Jarrod Fairclough: That shows her growth over the last 16 episodes. Because you watch her in the pilot episode, she absolutely would have thrown tissues and probably more at him. But over the last 16 episodes, we've seen her go from a completely obnoxious diva into someone who cries about being replaced.
JD: Now the question I do have, because this is on some small level a concern for me, is their primary way of humanizing Piggy just making her less aggressive and more of a cry-baby?
Arianne Gallagher: I don't think so. I think why that moment was so great, was because it was a key powerful moment where it shows that she's vulnerable. We've seen in multiple spots where she's always trying to be the powerful one, the strong one, nothing can affect her, she has no weaknesses, and you see that with her. With this scene, it was a very real emotion. It was the first step of her moving down the Hollywood ladder, and just being a B-level star and how awful that would be for her. And just showing that moment of vulnerability, where we kinda see some of that in a meaningful way, and not in a mean diva way. I thought that was a really good moment. So I don't think it's necessarily her being humanized by her being a cry-baby. It's just finding those key parts of the story where they show her weaknesses and her vulnerability and that she does have concerns and she does have faults and things that she worries about. I think that's the key of why these past couple episodes have worked so well, because we've seen a lot of those moments where she feels vulnerable and we see her reacting to that.
It's reasons like this that Frank Oz should be ashamed of himself for hating the 2015 show. :mad:
 

D'Snowth

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You just had to trigger him, didn't you Anthony? *Facepalm*
 

antsamthompson9

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Didn't you though, Anthony, didn't you?
To be fair, Frank only saw the first 16 minutes, so he doesn't know how good the show actually is.
JD Hansel: When I first saw Muppet Christmas Carol, I was used to seeing Kermit in the forefront, and now here comes a film that makes Kermit Bob Cratchit and reduces Miss Piggy's role even lesser than that.
Steve Swanson: I think that's one of the reasons why I like it. Because it's not Piggy karate-chopping and moi-ing everyone to death.
JD: Well, that wasn't as much of a threat at the time.
Steve: Well, I know, but still.
JD: Okay, that's fair.
 

antsamthompson9

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I want @D'Snowth to weigh in on these quotes from the latest episode of Getting Felt Up a Puppetry Podcast.
Dan Becker: I love the future, except for when the future is used to edit out arm-rods in Muppet productions.
Kirk Thatcher: Oh really? You don't like that?
Dan: Nate and I are big arguers against editing out arm-rods. Are you a proponent for arm-rods being edited out?
Kirk: Okay, my answer is if you're gonna edit out some, you have to edit out all otherwise it'll stand out.
Nate Begle: That's what I was gonna say.
Kirk: And that's usually what they do, like in the movies and TV show all arm-rods are gone and that's part of the budget. It doesn't bother me that they're not there. I'm not a purist where I need to see it. I think if the puppeteering and story are right, you don't care.
Nate: I think it's just the initial adjustment period of it, because we're so used to it.
Kirk: It's funny, it never bothered me. I thought oh that's cool, now they look more autonomous.
Dan: I think it's cool, but I like seeing those rods. I like knowing the weird things they gotta do to make the arms do what they gotta.
Kirk: That's just your puppet obsession, that's not your average Joe.
Dan: Julie's Greenroom doesn't. Some scenes they edit out the arm-rods, some scenes they don't. And it becomes very distracting. Like wait, what? But I like the idea that the Muppets are real characters, but I like that the puppets are given life by someone. My favorite bit was the behind the scenes JHH where they're talking about the rods and how Gonzo can't pick up the phone without a cutaway.
Kirk: That was a big debate, you could show a behind the scenes still, but they didn't wanna show the puppets talking and see the guys working them cause it would ruin the magic.
Nate: I'm sure when the camera backed up and went below the frame, that caused problems.
Kirk: They decided we're gonna just go for it, but they still didn't break character. They were still talking like who are those guys? That's weird. That was the fun meta part of it, they didn't go dead, they kept talking. You saw Dave Goelz and Gonzo moving above but Gonzo was still acting autonomously and Dave just happened to say his words.
Dan: That moment of magic is why I'm like leave me my arm-rods. Because I like to know there are hard-working folks underneath those wonderful animals making stuff happen.
Kirk: That's the trick, we don't want people to think about that. I mean, you're a puppet aficionado and you're deep in the world.
Dan: I'm just that one a-hole who likes puppets, don't mind me.
Kirk: You're not an a-hole, but it's like I wanna know how the magic works. But then it's not magic anymore. But I'm a magician, or I love magicians. It's like yeah, but for 90 percent of people, they don't wanna know.
 
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D'Snowth

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I get where Kirk is coming from, and I know there are some people out there who actually feel the same way that he does - that seeing the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff and such ruins the magic for them.

At the same time, I see where Dan and Nate are coming from as well, especially Dan's comments about arm rods showing there's hard-working, dedicated people down below breathing the life into these characters: it's like what Nick Park says about claymation, they don't bother trying to smooth out thumb and fingerprints from characters like Wallace and Gromit when filming, because it's a way of seeing the artist in the art.

And again, as I said before in the past, I feel the more and more they try to make puppets seem as perfect and pristine as possible, the more and more cold and artificial they become - like we've discussed before regarding how the overall construction of new puppets lack a certain warmth and edge that they possessed in years past, when perhaps head may have been a tad lop-sided, or eyes may have been a tad askew, other features may have been a tad crooked . . . and so what if we saw arm rods, or seams, or sleeves/socks? As long as the performer is able to give the character life and personality, that's what really matters. Look at all the times little kids meet Muppets in person: everything becomes invisible to the kids - the performer, the rods, it's all invisible to the kids, they're main focus is on that character that they know and love. I've had that experience with becoming invisible to kids, and even a grown man on one occasion.
 

Flaky Pudding

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Best Robot Chicken quotes:

William Shatner:It's not easy being William Shatner!
Joey Fatone:My name is Joey Fatone, you killed my bandmates, prepare to die!
George W. Bush:Tacos rule!
Cobra Commander:I'll take a sssstrawbery ssssshake with ssssome fries and sssspecial ssssauce pleasssse
Lion-O:Today's weather report is:thunder, thunder, thunder!
SpongeBob:Sandy, You're pregnant!? But you said you had a sponge in your-oh, you meant me!
The Bill:We're the characters from the TV show, Schoolhouse Rock we taught kids about math and grammar through music. But now those kids have grown up to be illiterate adults so we're back with new songs because nobody seems to remember the sh*t that we tried to teach 20 years ago.
Ash Ketchum: Pikachu peed on my rug so I trapped in a Pokeball, that might teach him a lesson.
The Nerd:I was playing The Sims and I made a Scarlett Johansen sim but she caught fire and died because my sim didn't have a fire extinguisher yet.
Brainy Smurf:Oh mother smurfer!
Jenny (Forrest Gump):*three tree monsters run by* Run, forest, run!
Beavis:*giggles* Starfire has orange boobs
Bloopers Host:*after watching a clip of Lassie attacking someone* that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "fetch the balls".
The Beast:I'm actually human under all this so me and Belle are morally fine.
Monterey Jack: Don't mess with my cheese!
Seth Green:After that Burger King commercial I did, I can't even say the word hamburgers without *pukes violently*
 
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