Things That Disappointed You

D'Snowth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
38,849
Reaction score
12,813
You know... the more I think about it, even if these things DID have functioning mechanisms that actually honked or dinged... would they be audible? Or how audible would they be? Would the microphones even pick them up as ambient noise, or would they just be so faded that they'd have to do ADR sound effects for it anyway?
Actually, you've got a point there Drtooth of the Mighty Film Corporation (lol).

I'm not sure about the Dingers, but I think if Honkers actually honked, they might be audible, but as you said, it probably would've been faded slightly. Keeping mind how loud those kinds of horns can get, lol.
 

Drtooth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
31,717
Reaction score
6,706
Now everyone's got me thinking about the logistics of a working Honker Muppet. I say, it you can make a working Honker doll, (there is one) you can actually make a functioning puppet that makes the sound. problem is, it would either sound like a squeaky toy (like the plush) or it would be very muffled and just not provide the sound that they're looking for. As for the Dingers, they TOO could function, but they'd be pretty muffled anyway with all the fur and fuzz and foam.

When filming a TV show, some sounds can be ambient and audible (whether they intend on them or not... in the case of not, say a table falling over), and some sounds need aditional foley to bring them out. I'm guessing that would be the case. We could hear the honks, but the honks would be muffled and much softer than they intend to have them sound.

That said, when Telly dressed up as a duck for the baby duck he found, you could distinctly hear the clicking the plasticy beak was making when he talked.
 

Gelfling Girl

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Messages
2,463
Reaction score
59
Do you guys think it would be possible to maybe hook up a microphone of sorts within the puppets to amplify the honking/dinging?
 

D'Snowth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
38,849
Reaction score
12,813
That said, when Telly dressed up as a duck for the baby duck he found, you could distinctly hear the clicking the plasticy beak was making when he talked.
Or if you listen carefully during Patti LaBelle's Gospel Alphabet, you can hear Little Chrissy's hands hitting the piano keys.

BTW OF, that link you provided doesn't work. :smirk:
 

dwmckim

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2002
Messages
2,874
Reaction score
848
Ernie & Bert's apartment

During the first season apartment sketches, the view the windows provided were consistent with the idea they had a basement apartment, you could see the trash cans outside the window and not much else.

I think E&B moved out of the basement and into a different apartment within 123. That's how i fanwank it anyway and imagine that's how the people working on the show worked around it. There's the one nighttime sketch where Ernie wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to know what time it is - since it's too dark to see the clock or find the light switch, he walks over to the window, opens in and starts singing loudly ("Oh solo mio - oh solo you-oh") to which everyone else on the street yells that it's 3 o'clock in the morning (don't remember the exact time from memory but you get the idea). When Ernie opens the window and starts singing, the camera cuts to an outside view of Ernie singing through the window and it's certainly not from the basement windows.

Plus there's the street side views of Ernie's window from the Twiddlebug sketches and now even the new Season 40 opening theme that definately suggest B&E are not in the basement they were when the show started.
 

D'Snowth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
38,849
Reaction score
12,813
But there's other non-Season One sketches and insert that still supports the fact they live in the basement.

Like an early 70s bit where Ernie wakes up in the middle of the night wondering what time it is, so he opens the window and starts singing obnoxiously into the night as the neighbors in the apartments behind the arbor fence shout at him saying they're all trying to sleep at 3:00 in the morning.

Another one from the 80s (I think) that was sort of banned afterwards in which Ernie decides to let his and Bert's balloons float away, which he does, letting them out the window.

An even some exterior shots, they'll pan over and tighten on shots of the basement windows to fade to an E&B sketch, and sometimes, Rubber Ducky can be seen on the windowsill from inside.
 

Muppet Frog

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
401
Reaction score
30
When Jack be Nimble lost his hip in the Fairy Tales Today segment.
 

minor muppetz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
16,071
Reaction score
2,655
When I learned that the Muppets are really puppets, I wasn't disapointed, but I was disapointed to learn that Big Bird, Snuffy, and other full-body characters are costumes as opposed to really big puppets.

Just kidding. Though somebody insisted to me that the Gorgs were just really big puppets (I knew better, having seen The Secrets of the Muppets by then, but this person was just so insistive about it...).
 

MartyMuppets

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
6,171
Reaction score
131
One thing that really surprised me was finding out that Sonia and Emilio, aka Maria and Luis, were not married in real life as well as in the context of the show. I had taken it for granted that since Maria as I knew her, was so obviously genuinely pregnant, then it was really the child of her and Luis.
 

D'Snowth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2003
Messages
38,849
Reaction score
12,813
One thing that really surprised me was finding out that Sonia and Emilio, aka Maria and Luis, were not married in real life as well as in the context of the show. I had taken it for granted that since Maria as I knew her, was so obviously genuinely pregnant, then it was really the child of her and Luis.
Aww, lol, I'm sure a lot of people felt that way.
 
Top