MuppeTrek
MuppeTrek - Episode 126 - "You Can't Do That Without a Hat" and "We'll Always Have Paris"
- Oh, hi, oh, there's this is Creamity Frog. - Fascinate, I'm Captain Kirk. - Magic is always there. - Always be keep looking for it. - I get it. - What does God need with the starchy? - Thank you, thank you, love you, mwah. - I protest, I am not a merry man. - Digger, dibbers, digger. - Places please, man, here we go. - And a Frego Rock. (upbeat music) - Welcome, doosers, gorgs, trash heaps, De Bruins and things, episode 126, The Muppet Track podcast. I'm Jarmin. - And I'm Steve, we're on a journey across the stars to compare and contrast the creative worlds of Jim Henson and Gene Roddenberry. - What started as a comparison between The Muppet Show and the Star Trek original series has expanded. - And this week we have Frego Rock episode, you can't do that without a hat. And next generation episode, we'll always have Paris. - But before we get to the reviews, Steve, I want a rock, I want a rock. - Ah, that's right, this is that, that rocks, there are plenty of gems and geodes to be found in Frego Rock and among them might be Alexandrite. Discovered in Russia and named after a Tsar Alexander II, but when he was a kid, like some scientist named after him when he was just like a prince Tsar, or whatever that's called, it's a color changer. Under daylight, it looks teal, bluish, green, but under artificial light, it looks red or like purple-ish. So it'll shift depending on where you are. These gems are extremely rare, 'cause they're only found in a few places, and they are considered on the precious level among things like rubies and diamonds. - Oh wow. - And it's the Burstone for folks born in June. - Ah, I know I'd heard of that one before. - Yeah, that's one of these views I've like, I know that one. - Yeah, I suppose the other ones we've heard from the show so far, like I've never heard of that one. - Well, that's Alexandrite and that rocks. - Yeah! - I want a rock! (laughing) - Well, let's talk about this week's episode. Starting with what's up, Doc? Doc is working on the perfect barrel scraper. He is tirelessly pounding nails into this brush thing, causing sprocket to get no rest. By the end of the episode, Doc finishes his scraper, which then makes even more noise once turned on, and sprocket loses it further. - It took me a second to it, it's like, "Oh, scrape the bottom of the barrel." Okay, like that phrase. - Yeah. So what's going down in Fraggle Rock? Gobo and Boober head out to outer space to get the postcard for Uncle Traveling Mat. Boober is told to whistle if there's danger, but when danger comes, he can't whistle, and the beast sprocket nearly grabs Gobo. Gobo escapes and is able to grab a stave shaver, a doodad from Doc. Boober blames himself for the close call and calls himself a worthless coward, and the group basically agrees with him. (laughing) Red suggests and then volunteers to go see the trash heap with him, to make him brave and get some wisdom. They go to see Marjorie the trash heap, who offers less than helpful advice, surrounding you can't do that without a hat, and then sings a song about it. Boober boogie-wiggies his way back to Fraggle Rock, the gorg just noticing them. Boober has a new sense of charisma. He tries to intimidate a horn-nosed creature who blasts him, causing him to lose his hat and his confidence. The hat lands on a dooser, who is now blindly walking around, pushing a cart. The other Fraggles try to cheer him up. They sing another song that helps no one. Boogie goes and makes dooser a new hat out of twigs and debris. And that's when she realizes that the dooser constructions just aren't right, something's wrong. And the doosers realize they're missing flecks, one of their guys. Turns out he's the one covered in the hat he's currently wandering around blind. Gobo rees Uncle Traveling Matt's postcard to cheer him up, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Boogie gives Boober his new nest hat, and he is mortified. Gobo hunts down Boober's hat, a dooser had it in the gorg's garden. They are set upon by Junior gorg, but managed to escape once again. Boober returns triumphant, and the Fraggles break into song again with the iconic line. You don't know where you've been until you're homeward bound, and you don't know what you've lost until you've found. That was a good song. Boober realizes he didn't need the hat to be brave all along, and that's what happened down in Fraggle Rock. German, what did you think of this week's episode? I thought that nest hat was perfectly fine. I thought it was great. If anything, I thought they weren't going to pay it off. I thought we weren't going to get to see it on goober. Yeah, but we did. It was great. I thought it was a adorable episode. I must say this is the first one that I've watched with my wife since I told her we were starting this journey with Fraggle Rock, and she hadn't seen it since she was a kid either. And she was just like, "I forgot how adorable this is." And she said, "You're not allowed to watch any more of these without me now." I said, "Okay, I won't." So we will watch them together. But it was a great message with the curages inside you the whole time. You don't need the hat. I did love the little line that they have where he says, "Oh, he's got a hat now, so he has courage." And she read, says, "Didn't he always wear a hat?" And then gobos like, "Yeah, but trashy said it's true now." So that's what makes it right. But yeah, just a lot of great songs. Definitely, they're still high quality, they haven't gone down. I don't know. I did like that. Even the, I'd not say the songs this week were less high quality. But one of the end was certainly good. They had those two shorter songs that were only like 15 to 20 seconds long. And that's fine too. And because they were short, they didn't need to be extraordinary. I think that's a great way to do that. Yeah, instead of having a long song that's hit or miss, like just have some short ones that could be fine for 15 seconds. And that's great. It keeps the musical episode feel still there, but not like dragging along. I think this might be the lowest. I think the energy was maybe a little low because it was downtrodden. And then everyone was kind of downtrodden with him. Like, yeah, maybe that put this a little lower for me. So maybe it's the worst of the episode so far. For me, because we're just getting in. Yeah, we're just getting into it's hard to tell because this it didn't feel it fell on par with me for the first couple episodes. But I think the water one might be my favorite so far. Maybe that one was good. It was really good. But yeah, I don't know. It wasn't bad by any means. So yeah, it's hard to place though. But I'm just saying, like, I think the energy was a tad lower. And so because of that, it does fall the littlest bit low. I can see that. I can understand that. Yeah, fair. Well, this week, what are those silly creatures up to you? Uncle Traving Matt is given a coin by a woman who thinks he's homeless, which I love. He then uses the coin to accidentally purchase a donut, which is then devoured by a dog and stolen from him. Well, donuts find their origin in ancient Rome where deep fried dough balls were often topped with sugar and cinnamon from far reaches in the spice trade. Then later examples of the famous trio came from Portugal. But it's thought that that recipe actually came from their trade with China. But then the name donut didn't show up until the early 1800s, where it was found in a book called a history of New York from the beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty, not the catchiest name. A little clunky or workshop it because apparently the way it came to the US was in the form of Dutch oil cakes was how it showed up in New York City when all the immigrants came over in the 1800s. And now they're just donuts and you're dunking them all over the place. I never would have guessed I was the origin of that. So that's pretty fascinating. Those are donuts and that's what those silly creatures were up to this week. I've only learned some crazy shit with this new format, man. I'm just saying this thing. I was like, each week, he does something diverse. So he's just going to pick my topic. I just have to give like, you know, a little blur. John, what do you think was the best muffin hearing moment this week? I don't know how I'm going to fall out of love with the doozers because they just I'm obsessed with them every time. And we did get the first time when they're introducing that they have different names for each little dozer and put that whole scene of them just talking to each other and watching these tiny little mouths on these little things move around in ways that like they're actually talking. I was just too obsessed with that scene to give it anything else. But just the doozers kind of like all talking about worst flex. You know, like I loved it. I love it. I love the kind almost lower kind of things that are happening very subconsciously because I also wrote down the doozers really surprised. Because it's the first time we've seen that many of them talk. I think we got a few small things here and there. But then my daughter even stopped and pointed at the TV and amazement there. She was like, Oh, look at that. I'm like, I know, right? They look unreal. It's like they should be CGI, but it's not. It's like minions, but they're like real. The other thing I loved was when they said that flex was missing, they all kind of talked at the same time. Yeah. And said the same words. And I was like, are they like a hive mind? The doozers is the board we just established. The doozers are the board. So I just love that little lore thing that I now have in my head. That's funny. I didn't even think about that. So German, what happened on this week's episode of Star Trek, the next generation? This time we have, we'll always have Paris. Everyone on the enterprise is has a weird time distortion where they repeat everything that happened just a couple of seconds ago, starting off with this lovely fencing scene with Captain Picard. But they didn't get a distress call from far away from a Dr. Mannheim and when Picard hears that name and that voice, he seems to be recognizing and this is very disturbed from like some kind of memory in his past. And data tells us that Dr. Mannheim is a friend scientist of sorts who is studying time itself. And he was rejected by the mainstream and he's now off studying on his own. And apparently Picard was also in a relationship with a woman that is now Dr. Mannheim's wife, Janisse, which is a terrible name a long time ago, but he stood her up on a date they were supposed to have in Paris, this wonderful cafe. He just left her there and shipped off out into service with Starfleet because he was afraid of commitment. So the enterprise goes off to find them and they reach them at this weird planet toy that's surrounded by a force field. And apparently only the Dr. and Janisse are left alive on the space station so they are finally able to beam them up to the enterprise, but the doctor is very ill and unstable. And so the Dr. and Janisse tell them that they were, um, that there was an accident with their time experiments and killed everyone else in the experiment except for them. And they have to shut down the experiment on the station. Otherwise a rip in time will affect the entire galaxy, but, but they go down to the station, they'll be very careful because there are a lot of security systems in place on the planet toy. So it could kill people if they're not careful and they aren't able to send a whole away team down because the transporter won't work that way. So they find a way to send just dated down so he can shut down or patch the system before it's too late. Meanwhile, the weird time effects are still happening and people on the ship are seeing versions of themselves from a few seconds before and they're able to actually even interact with them and talk to them for a few seconds before they meld back together again. Um, and this is another reason why they sent only data down to fix the problem because he seems time, he sees time linearly linearly. That's not a word in a linear fashion, um, whereas humans see time in a more relative fashion so he can more focus on the problem fix it. Meanwhile, things are very hot and awkward between Picard and Janisse since they never got closure on their relationship and Dr. Crusher hates seeing their reactions to this is getting all jealous. And Troy tries to give everyone therapy throughout the episode where they keep shutting her out when they really probably could use therapy. Uh, so data eventually goes down to the station. He narrowly avoids the security traps. Um, he gets time distorted, but he's able to figure himself out enough to patch the system in time to save the galaxy and apparently patching the system also saves Dr. Mannheim that puts his brain back in order because he was all screwed up from the time rep and this is much to Picard's either chagrin or relief I can't tell because if that doctor had died, Picard would then be stuck with Janisse. So I don't know if he wanted that or he didn't want that. It's hard to tell. Um, Picard then takes Janisse down to the holiday holiday to simulate the restaurant in Paris where he was supposed to meet her so long ago. So he can say goodbye to her properly with a nice little cheers of champagne. Um, meanwhile, she stuck with Dr. Mannheim. So that is the end of the episode. Steve, what'd you think of that? Uh, all right. So some things I liked, um, the time loop was a great hook. And I liked that they immediately ruled out that it was an illusion or something that the crew was just having happen in their mind. I like that they're fighting immediately. Like this actually happened. The system with the computer here. Um, I kind of enjoyed the exploration of, um, this is the one time I didn't hate it. Science beyond understanding being almost akin to magic is sort of how they treated it. Yeah, it was so far beyond that, um, that I was finally, okay. Cause normally I don't like the whimsical stuff they do in Star Trek. Like with that one episode, Skin of Evil, where the guy was like, I'm the evil of an entire people's left bod. I was like, Nope. Can't get behind that. Uh, for some reason, this felt a little better. Uh, and I felt like Deanna Troy, I know she's had a couple of good episodes recently. I feel like she actually helped Jean Luke. Yeah. Like she lived, like, I wish the scene could be translated because she basically stopped and went, Jean Luke, go to your room and get your shit together. She's like, I can tell you're fucked up by this. Whatever it is, go to your room and get the shit sorted out. Jean Luke. So I liked it. That's not what she said. It was much more, you know, it was kind of like a doctor say, like a crusher. If she saw him broke, break his arm, she's like, you got to fix that first. Nope. You can't cap him with a broken arm. Troy was doing the same thing. He's like, you can't cap him with that broken head to veers, basically. Um, otherwise this episode felt really low for me on the whole, um, because the setup with him just conveniently going to this cafe and the hollow deck where he missed this woman moments before she pops back into his life was too convenient. Like I couldn't get on board with that. Well, he only purposely made the holiday go to that moment in time. No, but at the beginning, at the beginning, he goes to the cafe. Yeah. After Troy says you need to go deal with this, uh, whatever you're dealing with, then he goes to the cafe after Troy tells him that. See, I thought that was before that. No, no, it was right afterwards. Why do I have the timeline right in my head? Um, do much pot. So either, either way, no, never, never too much. Um, so that being said, the pacing was slow. Yeah. I could feel that. I don't care about this woman. You didn't say goodbye to Jean Luke unless it has some impact on who you became, which there's no indication it did. Right. The whole thing was that, like, would he be different or he could have chosen a different life? Um, I just, yeah, I couldn't get on board with that level. And then the time thing, unless they got confusing, but because they treated it with such mysticism for such a large chunk of the episode, I feel like it never got the resolution. It was like somehow connected to another dimension, but we wasn't really explained. Yeah. Um, but like, yeah, I just didn't care about the stakes of this episode because I don't think they were broadcasting me as a audience member. Well, well, that makes sense. I won't really talk about it in trivia, but I did read that. Apparently this was during the writer strikes at the time. So like this is broken up with writing was screwed up and they had like a week before they realized the episode wasn't fully written still. So they had to finish the episode really quickly. And the play makes reasoning of why it didn't really connect really well in a lot of parts. Yeah, well, I could feel it, but I like the sci-fi aspects. The time travel thing was cool with the three versions of data. That was just a cool scene. That was, um, they could talk to each other for a few seconds before they all meld back together. Is it neat concept? I thought that one data was so sure it was him. And I was like, why, how? I like to think it's because of what he said earlier of how his like internal mechanisms make it so he knows which time is the right time, but they didn't really explain that. So this is me, my own. But at least two of those data's weren't sure. Yeah. So maybe he knew that he was sure. So he must be the real data. Maybe that could be true. Cause he's the only one that was certain. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, maybe, um, I did feel like the romance stuff with Picard was good in theory, but it felt really clunky in the execution. And there wasn't a lot of chemistry between him and, um, Janice, I didn't feel like. And speaking of Janice, I thought she was just gorgeous. So I had to look up who she was. I'd never seen her before. I thought, but she looked somewhat familiar. She's from Wilson Phillips. She's Michelle Phillips, the singer from Wilson Phillips. And she had a few acting parts throughout the years, but she's mainly known as from the band Wilson Phillips, um, which is pretty cool. Also, the mom is in the poppers. Oh, I'm thinking of mom's poppers, not Wilson. She both are, is it maybe it's maybe, I don't know about that. But you're right. Mom is in the poppers. Yeah. I think it's both eventually she went through work with both those groups. Um, but yeah, she's a beautiful singer and beautiful woman. Um, it was great. A lot of good data scenes, uh, but yeah, not like you said, not a strong episode, but I didn't think it was crap. Like it wasn't, we've seen a lot of bottom of the barrel. This one was kind of like, uh, it's all right, but just didn't quite hit the line. This one might fall, might fall to the bottom for me. Not the worst. We're getting towards, we're getting towards the end of the season, but we had coat of honor season. Well, coat of honor definitely has its play, but we can get three. I'm just saying that's all that's true. That is true at the bottom. There are three of them. So some terrific for this episode, uh, the menu at the cafe in Paris, uh, includes such delicacies as croissant, de lithium, and Klingon Targola mode. Tribbles done less blankets and anti matter flambé. That was all in the menu. If you had freeze framed it apparently, uh, the title was a direct reference to Casablanca. Uh, indeed, Riker recalls a bar on Sirona, uh, eight and Picard recalls its name, the blue parrot cafe. And this is the name of the Senor Ferraris bar in, uh, the Casablanca, which is a lot of cool references there. And the image of the background of 24th century Paris was a map painting, which was then reused. Yeah, no shit. It was then reused in Star Trek, uh, six, the undiscovered country where it was hung outside the office of the Federation presidents. They used the same exact map painting of the movie, which is kind of fun. Uh, but Steve, what are our truck connections, muppet connections to step for a, uh, oh boy. Well, Michelle Phillips, as we mentioned, was a member of the mamas and the papas who did California dreaming. She also then turned actress and did many one-shot stints, including things like Diagnosis Murderer and the Dick Van Dyke show. Uh, well, Dick Van Dyke played Burt in Mary Poppins, which star Julie Andrews, who was a muppet show guest. Wow. That was a lot of steps, but, uh, Isabel, not as many as I've had to take in the past, um, if anything, this is becoming like seven degrees of Henson, as opposed to trick that connection. So, uh, we can just change the name. That'd be fine. We might. I might. Uh, Isabel Garcia Lorca had a small role of Gabrielle. She was the woman in the cafe, who like had the converses with wearing very little clothing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, well, she was in an episode of Colombo, which, which starred Peter Falk, who had a cameo in the great muppet caper. Just one more thing. Thank you. I jerk birdie down the street. Very good. And then Jean Paul Vignon, who played the, the, the waiter at the French cafe, played one of the merry men, the voice of one of the married men in Shrek, Jim Cummings also provided a voice for the movie. Jim provided the voice of the, uh, Jim then provided a voice in a short lived muppet production, Little Mermaid's Island, which was put into production before the movie came out. Oh, we're going to capitalize on Little Mermaid and it featured puppet versions of all these different characters in the live action area. Uh, and two episodes were shot only months before Henson's death. Oh, wow. Very little has seen the light of day. Oh, that's too bad. That sounds interesting. Yeah. Um, so those are the track connections this week. Oh, wonderful. I mean, cause you were so easy because it's similar episodes. They're so similar. Basically. I mean, both feature distortions of the norm, the time ripples slash duplicates and the doosers building all wonky because of their missing man. True, true. Uh, both have a mad scientist working on their projects to the detriment of their loved one, uh, Dr. Mannheim and his wife feeling distant because of his time doing research and Doc becoming so focused on his barrel scraper that he's denying sprocket, his treats. That's right. Sprocket is the spurned lover. Yes, he is. This is disturbing. Both feature people reliving their past. Jean-Luc Picard revisiting the cafe in Paris to get it right the second time. And Boober returning to the Gorgs garden to learn his lesson about bravery. Mmm, true, true. Uh, both have a character whose only problem is all in their head. Boober thinks he has no courage, but that it sets all just a mindset, basically. And Dr. Mannheim quite literally has his brainwaves and two separate dimensions. The problem is that it's all of my brain. Oh, God. What's that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. It's part of the show where we transport one character from one episode to the other. And then vice versa. So what you got for us, Steve? Trek to rock this week. I'm going to bring over Dr. Paul Mannheim and replace the trash heap with Boober seeking advice from him. But all you can do is like mumble nonsense and hold his head. I got Dr. Mannheim trading places with Doc. He would take that tinkering shop to a whole other level of time-dimensioned space. Rock to Trek this week, I'm going to bring over the doozers and replace the entire cafe in Paris with like a beautiful dozer construction because it was so new age and weird and angular. It would fit right. I could be a dozer construction. It would be fine. The 25th century or whatever it is, that'd be great. And there'd be something really enchanting about Jean-Luc having this romantic scene and seeing little green guys pushing cards behind them in the background. I do love the doozers this time of day. A Fraggle rocket Trek, I'm going to have Boober trading places with Dr. Mannheim. He'd think he needs to fix his machine to stop the rip in space time. But really, all he needs is his lucky hat back. It's a hat. It's just a hat. All you need. But that brings us the episode 126 of the Muppet Trek podcast. Join us next time for the Fraggle Rock episode, The 30-Minute Work Week. And next generation episode, conspiracy. So from the lovers, the dreamers and us. Live long and prosper, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Muppet Trek podcast. Be sure to follow us on social media on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts YouTube Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. This podcast is brought to you by A Play On Nerds.