Met Martin P. Robinson this week!

MelissaY1

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Hey all,

Just to report: I attended the PofA Festival and was most gratified to have the opportunity to talk with Telly and Snuffalupagus puppeteer Martin Robinson. I was lucky enough to converse with him for about 45 minutes.

You can pretty much guess, he's a great guy. Very well spoken and obviously well-thought in his positions and attitudes.

He was very complimentary about the puppets I had displayed in the Festival Exibit. He spoke highly of my design sense, style and sense of proportion. I had to go home that night and let my wife deflate my ego for me.

He also was very honest about his view of what it's like "inside" of the "new" Muppets. Though I am unsure of how much of it was priviledged discourse, so I cannot in good conscience repeat anything he said directly to me that was not part of his presentation.

It seems he ascribes very sincerely to the idea that a Muppet character is similar to an "office" (my term). He really doesn't see any problem with a new puppeteer taking over a character as long as the original puppeteer has passed on, reliquished the character, or has been officially "let go" by the people who own said character. In fact, he has done just that in his career.

He is actually the third person to play both Telly and Snuffy. But in stepping into the roles, he was only willing to do so under the above circumstances.
In the case of the second Snuffy puppeteer, he had this to say: "...because I learned from him I can call him one of my teachers as well. And what I learned is that you should never say anything about someone that you wouldn't say to their face." This evidently includes producers on Sesame Street. The inferrence is that the second Snuffy puppeteer was "let go".

But other than that, the talk was pretty much uneventful. He talked about what a character is or could be, indicating the Telly puppet a a physical object asking, "is THIS Telly? No. This is a retired Telly. Right now, today, another Telly is being performed by a stand-in puppeteer in New York while I am here for the festival. Is THAT the REAL Telly? No. Because I'm the real puppeteer for Telly. I'm here. Not in New York. And happily so."

So he made us all stop and think about the grande melange of elements that "make up" a puppet (more precisely Muppet) character.

It was a good event. More to come later.

-Gordon
AWESOME story,Gordon. Martin is a great guy. I met him for the first time last year when he was at an event at the Museum of TV & Radio (now the Paley Center for Media) here in NYC. He also gave me a lot of time, let me get a picture with Telly which can be found on my MySpace at www.myspace.com/melissay1 under the celebrity pics..... Really cool guy and kudos to you for keeping what he said regarding working for the company under wraps. Maybe some folks would have a problem with that but like you I've had past firsthand Muppet experiences and have seen/heard things that I've been told not to discuss and I gotta lot of flack for it over the years.
 

RKUNKLER

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MelissaY1 could you post it so people who dont have a myspace or cant log in can see it.
 

zns

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I met Marty at the festival as well. I set next to him during a session with Joe Clokey and had a chance to talk shop with him in the puppetry store. I told him that I would like to keep in close contact with him and he said that would be just fine. I feel like I had spent the greatest week of my life.
 

dwayne1115

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thats what i like muppeters being close friends with fans.
 

MelissaY1

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Muppeteers in all seriousness, are some of the nicest people you want to meet EVER.
 

zns

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Muppeteers in all seriousness, are some of the nicest people you want to meet EVER.
Amen sister. Marty is a real easy guy to talk to, once you get to know him.
 

zns

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I have some photos of Marty and Telly from the festival. I'll see if I can upload them on here.
 

MelissaY1

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Heres the link to the Telly photo at http://www.flickr.com/photos/melissay1/269401834/. MelissaY1 what event was at the Museum of T.V. & Radio in NYC 10/13/06. I was there in September 06 for a muppet event and heard something but couldnt go.
It was a premiere screening for the documentary "The World According to Sesame Street". Marty was on the guest panel along with the filmmakers after the film was shown and he was cool enough to offer to let me get a picture with Telly. I originally asked to get just a pic taken with him but he asked if I wanted Telly in the shot. By the way, that's only one of the shots that you posted the link to. There's 2 up there...
 
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