dwayne1115: Yes... it was terriffically cool. In many many ways. The least of which being that I got to hang around and see the magic happening.
Beauregard: yup... the "many Beakers" were there in the "secret black trailer". It was awesomely cool to see them up close and personal.
Zeppo: Nope. No jest. I got a call at my work (I run a special effects shop in Minneapolis) from EM:HE asking if we did pyrotechnics. We don't. It takes a special license to do pyro and we never got one. But in my conversations with the producer, it was mentioned that they needed a circus cannon to launch Gonzo from. Well, that's what we do here... we build props. The producer was also completely floored by how much I knew already about the Muppets. I was asking questions about who was going to be doing the shoot (by name)... even he didn't know who most of the Muppeteers were by name. plus, we're pretty connected to the production community resources around here, so I was able to give him some starting points in his search for necessary components locally. Like a fog machine...
Anyway, they pretty much turned me loose and I designed and built the cannon. My co-worker Mike rigged it up with two confetti shooters inside attached to a trigger. It was set up so that Gonzo could be hauled out of the cannon on a monofilament line, brushing past the trigger which activated the confetti shooters all in one go.
And we got the hero shot in one take. Woot!
Gonzo's Hobbit: It was Dave Goelz on the roof. And as far as I know, there was no particular waiver or anything. A production like this is insured up the wazoo. They have to be. Its up to the show's producers to make sure they aren't really endangering the talent. And while Dave had to climb up a ladder and lay across a shingled roof for a few minutes, I don't believe for a moment that they'd let him do it if it was inordinately dangerous.
There was, on my part, a great amount of frustration during the shoot. I've been doing effects and film shoots for the past 18 years and so it gets frustrating when I have only one single thing to do "officially" for the production. That means a LOT of standing around doing nothing for many many hours waiting for my part to come up in the shooting schedule. And in the end, I "worked" for approximately a half an hour in three days worth of hanging out. The rest of the time was spent trying to stay out of the way of the rest of the production crew. You know, they guys who were getting paid to be there.
But it rankled me to be so useless. I know it didn't cause no nevermind to the crew, but its against my nature to ignore the work that's going on and not help out somehow. Its a shoot, you know?
It was likely a HUGE faux pas, but at one point I offered to help the Muppet Heap folks with whatever they might need an extra hand on. Carrying, standing guard, whatever. I got a pretty cold "No, thanks." which I probably completely deserved. I understand what they had at stake there and how they wouldn't open the door to getting messed up by a complete stranger. Yeah... my bad.
Oh, and let me tell you, if you desire to have your fingers, hand or arm broken in lightning-fast order by a petite lady with long, gray hair, just get them near a Muppet! I did NOT transgress the holiest of holies by doing anything of the like, but the gal in charge of those puppets (when they aren't ensconced on a Muppeteer arm) gave the subliminal impression that breaking your exremeties would be the least of your punishment if you did. I'm just sayin'.
-Gordon
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I do wonder what's going on there. 
lol oh well it's not like "I laughed O cried" is copywrited or anything