Good morning, and welcome to “What Was That Show Called Again?” with me, Hermon O'Couchula. Today we have with us on the sofa, some old favourites from The Moppet Family. The Moppet Family debuted 10 years ago online, and later became a television, audio-visual and merchandising giant, releasing books, action figures and an endless array of Wilson's Branded Items. The show may have been off air for a while now, but it remains alive in our hearts.
So, first up, let's introduce the gang.
Artwork by Louise, based on original MopFam art created by herself in collaboration with Tabi
Who are you, and who did you play in MopFam?
Ryan Dosier, the original Jack Bandit (before Clooney replaced me)
Kyle Wilkinson, I played Kyle Moore and Kyle's pets Yakky and Biggy
Christy B, I played Mother (aka Christy, aka Nicky)
Louise! Although I was, in my time of MopFam and generally in my time of living-socially-on-the-internet, known as Vibs – which was also my screen name
and also one of my characters in MopFam (and the Danish name of Red from Fraggle Rock). The toddler Vibs was a super hyper, extremely adventurous and magical little girl. Literally – she had magic powers, just like her twin brother Viq who, apart from that, was her complete opposite. Together, Vibs would usually end up creating some kind of mess, caused by said powers, and often with the poor father Mr. Moppet as the target of her shenanigans. Viq, then, would either try talking her out of one her crazy (dangerous) ideas or have to be the one cleaning up after her. Vibs also had a crazy crush on the some 20-years-older Jack Bandit and, as I recall, once turned him into a toddler – much to his frustration, naturally.
Louise (continued), I also occasionally played a female villain called… eh, something (?!). I recall she once kidnapped Viq and sang a song about how he should join her evilness (I ehm, literally made a song. On my piano. And sang it. And recorded several of me as backup choir…). She also once kidnapped Mr. Moppet – not sure why. A ransom maybe? But who knows! It was MopFam
Ed Castle, known at MC as The Count. The MopFam character I played was Adam Cole, blind brother to Christine Niccolah "Nicky" Dimitri MacCullah Cole. Now you know why we called her "Christy" or "Nicky" for short.
Tabi, or Minidoozer if you go by screen names. I played Miss Mingostone. Liza Eewopp Mingostone is her full name if I remember correctly. I haven’t had to sign any autographs in character for so many years. Fun fact:
Liza is pronounced
Lisa, by the way, at the time Zs were just way cooler.
Matt Drapper, I played Father (aka. Beauregard aka. Moppet aka. Parker)
What is your fondest memory of being involved with the show?
Ryan: There were so many great, great moments all highlighted by the others involved. It was just a joy to watch them act, react, and explode around what I was doing.
Adam: Hmm, fondest memory of the show. Looking back on all the craziness and associated DVD's/specials/reboots, I'd have to say it was during the First MopFam Fanfic when Christy expressed she wished I could be able to see with the power of her own eyes.
Christy: Swaehb! Still so embarrassing
Louise: It is kind of like a memory spread out over 2-3 years – during my high school years. I would come home from school, turn on the computer and become Vibs – both the MopFam character(s) but also the internet-version-of-me, who was somehow allowed to be a bit more silly and crazy and honest (?) than real-life-me. I became very very close with some of the people behind the characters, staying up late talking on MSN about… everything. It somehow felt like an escape from real life sometimes actually – not that my “real life” completely sucked or anything, but I was at that time still coping with my parents’ divorce, a new school, a new place to live and generally turning into more of an adult than a kid (a confusing time). I really felt kind of home and safe online. Plus, my drawing skills improved a lot, drawing all the characters – not to mention my English. And, of course, meeting up with Harvey and Beauregard and, some years later, being Tabi’s maid of honour for a wedding that, had it not been for my super geeky interest of Fraggle Rock when I was 15… might not have happened. Just sayin’. *insert cool-looking, slightly smug and also nostalgic smiley*
Kyle: There were so many episodes I couldn't keep count but awesome Muppet fans who can come up with funny lines right on the spot. Couldn't do this without them.”
Tabi: Staying up late to make sure the scene we were working on was finished properly so that the audience weren’t left hanging till the next morning (this happened rather often). Doing artwork involving the characters was also fun! I taught myself a ridiculous amount of photoshop skills during the MopFam years. But really, my best memories of MopFam don’t even directly involve MopFam. It involves some of the other cast members. It’s probably common knowledge that Louise and I (Vibs and Viq) had known each other for almost 10 years already (we celebrated our 20th Friendiversary last year!) so her and I had a LOT of fun during the making of the show. Just before I joined the cast, she introduced me to Beauregard (Mr Moppet) who is now one of my oldest and bestest friends. (I know bestest isn’t even a word but it goes so well with “oldest”, doesn’t it?) A few month into the show, during a meeting about the artwork, I was finally introduced to Harvey Towers (Mr Harvey) who I hadn’t had any scenes with at all at that point. The next summer, all four of us spent a week together at my house, going on fun days out, writing out MopFam storylines on a bunch of laptops in the living room and generally just laughing more than most people usually do in an average week. It was fun! 6 years later I became Mrs Harvey Towers with Vibs as the maid of honour and Beau as the best man. So that’s really my favourite thing to come out of MopFam.
Matt: I loved the small non-story moments, like when all the characters got into this car one time and went to Diana's Diner for lunch and the Fairy God Mother showed up for the first time. Hysterical and the humour was all within the personal interactions and we got to improvise – something you can't do when you have a massive VFX Zombie Animal scene being filmed. I always loved anything with DanDan and Fem Taer. The foot sure could act and he had his own trailer...well...it was a shoebox.
Was there a storyline which, looking back, should have been cut?
Louise: Oh, probably. But then again – that was the beauty of it. Sometimes awesomely fun stories were just magically written by whichever amount of people who were in them, and it was an amazing flow. Other times… some characters kind of wanted to go in one direction and others in another, fighting a little bit for the storyline. But at the end, it would usually wrap itself up and we were back to square one, with new stories ready to happen.
Christy: It got weird at times! So many storylines...
Ryan: Hmm. It’s hard to remember a lot of them now, but I really can’t think of one that I didn’t just immediately jump into. The beauty of Jack was his unwillingness to participate coupled with the fact that he just couldn’t help himself from tagging along.
Kyle: A bunch that I would have thought the FCC would be up our butts...Is it alright to say butts? But yea some really weird stuff. So many......so many.....
Matt: I think some of the stuff that was setting up future storylines – Vanessa the Vampire, Parker as a previous Secret Agent – etc, shouldn't have been featured until they got fully fleshed out. But then again, part of the beauty of the show was that you never knew what was a throw away line and what was going to be a game-changer for character development.
Adam: Regarding cut storylines, no, my feelings on that subject are more directed towards my contributions as will be explained in the remaining questions.
Tabi: Some of the stuff that happened in (one of) the reboots/reunions/revisits was very “trying too hard to be interesting”. I mean Mingostone had a baby (what even?!). It was bad enough that she spent most of her scenes just talking to a lizard named Hank but the baby thing shouldn’t have happened. I can’t even remember if we knew who the father was (was it implied that it was the handsome pirate Hevej?) or indeed the name of the baby. How embarrassing. In my head that just never happened.
What do you think your character is up to, ten years later, how have they grown?
Ryan: Jack was always the worst thief ever. So he probably did a few odd jobs for his boss, Don Canolli, here and there, but most likely never stole more than a cable subscription. I see him still stuck in the Moppet house, reluctant babysitter to teenage Viq and Vibs, apple of Aunt DanDan’s eye, and generally happy with his existence. Until Father Moppet offers him unsweet tea.
Kyle: I could see Kyle married to his girlfriend Grey with two kids, one adopted and one's of his own flesh and blood living in his parents house which has since then been remolded and also out trying to track down his best friend Vic with his other best friends Yakky and Biggy. Just getting to have a family who took him in when he needed the most. That's how I seen how much my character has grown and he has a family too.
Louise: Oh they have grown. Hopefully. Seeing as now they would be 10 and back then they were toddlers. *drum roll… ish*. I imagine they would be much like back then, though. Viq would have learned to read (properly) and be reading and quoiting Sokrates, Platon, Nietzsche… you know, typical 10-year-old-boy reading material. Vibs would have created a time machine (unless she already did? In that case, she would use it more!). I think Vibs would constantly struggle with her mischievous side – but at the end, she would always turn out to be good. After all.
Tabi: Well, if the baby thing did happen, she would be a single mother of an 8-ish year old girl. I can’t even begin to think what that would be like. Her character was already very unlike myself, physically and emotionally, so after a while I did struggle a little bit to identify with her. I think that either we’ve grown apart completely or that she’s stopped trying to be as unlike me as possible and actually is just a taller, curlier-haired version of me now. Who knows.
Christy: I couldn't even write that person if I had to today. I'm guessing adrift somewhere at sea.
Matt: Father Moppet will still be in the house, probably with a ridiculous cast of renters taking most of the rooms (but no Cacti). He'd be 48 now (according to his Wiki page). You can often see him standing on the porch with a mug of tea in his hand looking out wistfully and waiting for Mother to come home. He's hoping to get early retirement from Wilson's so that he can take up gardening.
Adam: Heh, I see Adam as having taken on the role of Magic School's headmaster allowing Ms. Featheringill to either retire or continue but at a pace more suited for her own style. Also, I kind of imagine Adam Cole has become a wealthier person in mind and spirit given his triplet kittens have grown to have families of their own by now.
Did the series ever spill into your real life? How do you think being involved impacted your own character?
Kyle: Nah. Not really. I just had fun writing for my character's. I do have two pets but don't have evil scientist parents (which would be cool but only if they weren't evil) I could say that ever since meeting other fans it has just opened my world up. Also getting to bounce off ideas to the others too.
Christy: I learned valuable lessons. It happened during a topsy turvy time in my life. It's just all lumped together into this time that feels like a separate person that isn't the real me. I made mistakes and learned. Isn't that a part of life and being young? I bowed out when I needed to because it was best for me. It still is best for me. I enjoy my anonymity now. I enjoy no one knowing me out there, and being a quiet Muppet fan.
Louise: I think I started out as a slightly Vibs-ish character online – I was 16… and crazily hyper (more hyper than I actually was in my everyday life). But I slightly became less and less… Hyper-happy-super-crazy-capital-letters-a-lot-of-exclamation-marks-and-general-bad-English and more… you know, human. I think the series sparked so much creativity in me – like, making stories, drawing, creating characters and joking around. I wouldn’t say that MopFam and that time of my life turned me into a completely different person… but it was definitely part of forming who I am now.
Ryan: It never really affected my real life… unless you count staying up way too late muffining up threads or bouncing back and forth in a MopFam story. Being a part of MopFam certainly helped my writing and charged my creative juices when I needed a fun outlet. It made me realize how fun original characters can be.
Adam: Actually, I think it's more of a case of my own life spilling into the series if anything. There's the fact that Adam Cole was portrayed as a blind person, that comes from my own real-life visual handicap. Additionally, I tried to be the voice of reason when the family got
into certain situations that spilled out for pages and pages of script (or off-script) interaction.
Tabi: Mingostone never did. MopFam in general did a bit. The people behind the characters definitely did. I mean, I’m married to one of them. I was on MopFam at a time when I was growing up and becoming a young adult and it probably helped shape my “I’m trying to be as weird as possible!!!!!” teenage self into an actual person. (not that teenagers aren’t actual people but they do tend to be a bit extreme and unstable in their emotions and everything else). I’m still not convinced I’m an actual adult and I do love doing silly things and making up stories about our budgies, Bobby (who’s declared herself Supreme Empress of the Realms when she’s not complaining she hasn’t been elected Pope yet) and Sky (who just puts up with her nonsense) and our time travelling goldfish, Francis. In practical terms I think my English language skills went from average Danish teenage level to completely fluent in about a year. Now people can’t tell where I’m from which is usually a good thing.
Matt: Being a part of the series gave me a confidence that carried into my real life interactions. Also, in most of my real-life friendship groups I accidentally take on a Fatherish role of watching out for everyone, making corny jokes, standing back, but jumping in when needed. One of my friends said of my co-workers recently, “You do realize they are your coworkers and not your kids, right?”
Where are YOU now? What are you up to? Do you feel like the same person as when you started?
Louise: In Esbjerg! Nobody knows where that is. Not even in Denmark. Unless you are… in fact… in Esbjerg.
Ryan: Currently I live in Zanzibar as a Zanzibarbarian. But really I live in Los Angeles trying to find a real person job while maintaining The Muppet Mindset as much as possible. I’m definitely not the same person as when I started, but I still feel that twinge of theprawncracker every once in awhile trying to get me to come back. (Sidenote: Since this interview Ryan landed his dream job working with the Muppets at Disney...we're not jealous...nope...)
Louise: To understand the above statement: I am from Copenhagen (the capital of DK) and twists and turns in my life have led to be Esbjerg to study (we Copenhageners tend to think of it as… a long way from home). After I graduated high school, I studied at a live-in theatre school for a year and met my boyfriend for almost 7 years now. Then I spent 2-3 years trying to figure out what I wanted to be and now I am almost done with my bachelor education as interaction designer (creating anything from films to games to installations to art). I am aspiring to start my own company with my boyfriend and some fellow guys from Uni – and… my wish kind of is to earn money doing what I love most and am educated in – making stories (films, audio, games), drawing and playing music. I hope it will come true.
Matt: I'm a manager at a hotel in a small town, which sounds boring, but means I get to welcome guests into their holidays and I figure it's a very Moppety thing to do, although we never burn the toast. I also do a lot of volunteer work helping people figure out what they are doing with their lives and how they can do it better. I miss being a part of the online craziness though and try and foster a bit of insanity into my day-to-day life when I can through imagination, over-reacting and a lot of well-timed puns.
Kyle: Still living in Sweetwater Texas with my parents. Still looking for a full time job. Have had a part time job for about 9 going on 10 years which I don't mind but just isn't what I need in my life right now. I've just recently started writing my own halloween fiction story. Hoping to get it published in the near future, maybe. Still needs more but I write little by little by day or month. I kinda feel like I still do but I know there's something about myself that I know has changed but like Ryan said it comes out when you don't expect it too.
Tabi: I’m in Scotland! I know you meant “what stage of your life” and not geographically but when I started I lived in Denmark where I grew up. I’m a very different person from when I started. I was 16, had never been away from my parents for more than a couple of weeks (even though I at the time went to a live-in school), I was SO shy it was just embarrassing and I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do in life or what was about to happen. I’m pretty sure a lot of what did happen to my personality was just plain old growing up but I give a lot of credit to MopFam as well because without it I wouldn’t have met my husband, I wouldn’t have moved 700 miles away to be closer to him and I wouldn’t have had to be confident enough to talk to people in a country I’d only been to a few times before and suddenly found myself living and studying in. Most people I meet now wouldn’t call me shy. They totally would have 10 years ago. I still don’t really know what I want to do in life but I do have a job teaching craft classes, I freelance as an artist (how did that even happen!) and two shops have been in touch to ask if they could stock some of my handmade items (they’re only at the interest stage so nothing could come of it but it’s still exciting!) I also photographed a wedding last week which was a first!
Adam: Today I'm the moderator at the Muppet Central online forums, apparently the one member of the staff that most people feel they can approach if they have questions or requests with various issues. I try to help them as best I can given the abilities that have been conferred upon me by the site's administrator.
Christy: I'm doing well. I've been very blessed despite my mistakes. Great job. Good friends. Stability. I'm happy.
Can you give us a current quote from your character if I were to ask them what they’d learned in the last ten years?
Viq: “Well, Hermon O'Couchula, very interesting question indeed. But I will ask you – how can we know that what we have learned was not in us all along and has merely been awoken by the gentle hand of time? And how, for that matter, do we know that time
has passed? What if it is all an illusion? I think, therefore I am. But in what medium am I? Am I a brain or a body or a soul or a voice? Am I-“
Vibs: “- a complete tool, yeah. But anyway! I don’t know about like, the past ten years etc. etc. and so on. But look what I made! IT’S A DRAGON! He’s Jasper and he breathes fire. Neat, huh?”
Viq: “… eh, this is just a leash?”
Vib: “……………. oh…- gotta go!”
Viq: *frowns*
Jack Bandit: “Huh. Has it really been ten years of this nonsense? Geez, what a life I haven’t lived. If I’ve learned anything after all this time it’s that you should never drink warm tea, never ask a talking foot for directions, and never trust a moose with to babysit your friend’s kids. You should also be as honest as possible to the ones you love… so I guess now is as good a time as any to reveal that my name isn’t
really Jack Bandit. It’s a name I made up to get girls (which never worked). I’m really Gregory Liebowitz.”
Mother: "Never go off being someone you're not. It ends in hurt for everyone involved. The things you are looking for you already have. They aren't in a story or out with a person or place you've never seen or met. Appreciate home and treasure it. "
Miss Mingstone: “Would you like a lollipop that tastes like polkadots?”
Kyle Moore: “If you ever befriend one of your neighborhood friends when you were little try not to loose him or for him to run away and join some circus or something. I'm speaking of my first friend Vic. If you didn't catch that. I wished I knew where in the world he was. What? Oh you didn't ask what I would do if I could go back in time. You asked what I have learned in ten years. Oh, sorry 'bout that. I have learned to just act like yourself and don't worry what others think. If you want to dance like a chicken or yak with fleas. Just do it! Where have I heard that saying before?”
Adam Cole: “If I've learned anything in this life, it's anything is possible. That, and magic always comes with a price."
Yakky Nelson: “Don't ever let yourself get caught by some evil scientist cause then they'll work on your brain and then make you be able to speak and other things. I just wished I could be with my family. But I still love my family here That's what I have learned. LOVE THE FAMILY YOU ALREADY GOT!!.”
Father Moppet: “With love...and tea, obviously...you can overcome any obstacle.”
Biggy Foot (Of the Bigfoot clan): *
Biggy is wearing a monocle with a top hat and some cluff links on all four of his hoofs. British accent* “I say don't worry what others think. Oh, is that what Kyle said? He just bites me so. Ok let me think a bit.........Here's a good one. You might want to write this down. Are you ready? Can someone get him pen? Oh wait I have one. Here you go. Ok. Here I go. The British nation is unique in this respect: they are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst. That is Winston Church Mountain.” (We had to stop Biggy to explain that it's a Hill and not Mountain.
) “I don't care. Am I done? *
takes off mike* Can I go? Where is that Kyle? He supposed to pick me up to have dinner with him and and his family. Have you got to meet his two little ones? They are just the cutest things. And that wife of his. I remember when she was..........” *
Biggy just keeps talking up a storm*
And so it is that we come to the end of another episode of “What Was That Show Called Again?” with me, Hermon O'Couchula....I leave you with a few final thoughts from the cast of The Moppet Family.
Adam: If we're being honest, I'm not entirely happy with my interaction throughout the run of MopFam's history. There were times when I tried to not just insert some common sense but tried to actually control the outcome of the situation. Perhaps that was because I felt that as the MC forums' moderator, the gameplay shouldn't be so, what's the word I'm looking for, oh yeah, "outlandish". I now realize I should have been more free-wheeling like some of the other players. That gets me to a second point. I guess I was both envious and impressionable of Ryan Dosier's Jack Bandit character. There were a few other characters I myself played in MopFam who I will say now, "forced" as couplings with others. That's kind of why I backed out of returning to MopFam in the later seasons. Would like to say I've matured to recognize that kind of behavior, which is why I'm being candid and admitting it for the first time here now. I apologize to the other players for forcing that, further explaining my backing off in later MopFam seasons so they could come back and have the freedom for their own characters to develop however they wanted.
Matt: There's a part of me that wishes that MopFam was still running. I know, I know, none of us have the time or the space to be online all day posting stuff, but those moments of utter abandon and ridiculous laughter and incomparable. Sometimes when I'm having conversations with friends I start to reference something from the series like, "Oh I used to be a pirate once...well, no...it was in a TV series...well, no...it was a role-play game..." But those memories will always stay with me as a kind of alternate reality. And throughout all the original series, relaunches and reboots, I met the greatest cast and crew that a guy could ever wish to be friends with. In that way, through our friendships, MopFam lives.
MopFam Protester Outside the Studio: MopFam doesn't exist!!!
In lieu of a response to the Moppet Family actor survey, the actor who plays Mr Harvey has provided the following short statement about what he affectionately calls “that accursed little sitcom which is the only thing I’ll ever be remembered for...” It reads:
"The actor who plays Mr Harvey often thinks back to his time on the show remembering his fellow cast members and the production team, although usually in the context of wondering which one of them got all of the money from the syndicated re-runs.
"It was mid-way through MopFam's first season that he joined the show going on to simultaneously both threaten to and refuse to leave for the remainder of its run. Coming to the role via open casting and the speedy realisation that coal mining wasn't really for him, he looks back on his time on the show as one of the "most creatively challenging and lucrative" times of his career.
"One of the most complex characters of modern sitcom, Mr Harvey was often said to have "held up a mirror" and saw a lot of himself in it. His favourite story line on the show was the time travel episode, more specifically the read-along audio book version which he narrated. He is delighted that MopFam can finally be said to be - in modern media parlance - truly "multiplatform" given that it fails to appear equally in every form of broadcast and online media.
"It is a testament to his professionalism, commitment and his ability to hold a tune (which has inexplicably gone unnoticed by various casting directors of both Broadway and West End musicals) that he has agreed to take part in these tenth anniversary celebrations at all while his legal case against Happy Fish productions relating to his short lived smart phone app "Mr Harvey's Mop Pets Family" is still unresolved.
"He is currently touring in what critics have been describing as "more than just a one man shown" as the audience routinely consists of two or even three people. He sometimes writes things in the hope that he will still be able to make his old cast mates laugh."
Thank you, and good night.
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