Interview: “The Muppets Mayhem” Creators Bill Barretta, Adam F. Goldberg, and Jeff Yorkes

Today, The Muppets Mayhem hit Disney+. To mark the occasion, Ben had a chance to chat with the creators of the show: Bill Barretta, Adam F. Goldberg, and Jeff Yorkes.

Benji Breitbart: First, congratulations everyone on the amazing Muppet Mayhem series that the world's about to discover.

Jeff Yorkes: Have you seen it? You've watched it?

Benji Breitbart: Yeah, absolutely. I went through all of them in one sitting.

Bill Barretta: You have to.

Benji Breitbart: So I was thinking back, The Mayhem have sort of come into their own. Obviously they had the Outside Lands concert several years back and the Hollywood Bowl, they were prominent there. Where did the idea come from to have a series that was focused on the band that you created?

Bill Barretta: Okay. So you brought up Outside Lands, Benji. So when we did Outside Lands, I was blown away with the people that showed up. I couldn't believe that many people showed up to watch this band play. And so after that I was just thinking, well, geez, if people are digging them live, we should take them on tour. Why don't we try and take the band on tour and wouldn't it be fun to do a show about that? Be challenging? But let's see, maybe that's something fun to do. And so I developed this idea and then created this treatment and went and pitched it to the Muppet Studios. And they liked the idea we were talking about, let's try and do something. Little did I know that there were two other guys who were all…oh, sorry, so I had pitched it in 2017, and then the powers that be at the Muppet Studios changed. And I went back to pitch it again to a new, very smart group of people, ultimately, when they put us all together. But little did I know that Jeff and Adam had been developing a band idea as well, and they came and pitched it to the Muppet Studios and the Muppet Studios was like, yeah, why don't we put these guys together and see how this goes? And that's what happened. But you guys could speak to where this started for you.

Adam Goldberg: Yeah, well it started because I was doing The Goldbergs show, and that show really came to be because Jeff, his job before creating a show was editing, putting together sizzle reels to help sell shows. And Jeff is the one that edited all my home movies together to sell The Goldbergs. And after that, Jeff was like, "I'm going to present you something of a sizzle that I did on my own on spec. And I think this could be an awesome movie." And it was The Muppets Mayhem trailer that he cut, which is so dead-on in its tone, that we actually used it as our first promos for this show, which is I think pretty amazing. And Jeff and I bonded in college over our love of Muppets. And what he, over the years, was always pitching me Muppet ideas. But when he said The Mayhem, I'm like, that is not a movie. That's a show. And for fun, we just started kind of riffing on the backstories. I'm like, let's just try and get to know these characters. 'Cause we're working in a vacuum and we're guests.

And some of that is actually reflected and seen in the show. The Dr. Teeth backstory, that's something we came up with. And when we were brought together with Bill, we were so nervous because here is Dr. Teeth and we're the ones being like, here's your character that you've been playing for decades. Here's his backstory,

Bill Barretta: And this is where we're bored.

Adam Goldberg: Yeah. And thankfully Bill was like, "that's great." And then we knew there was kind of like a magic here when we started working together and fleshing out other backstories and everything Jeff and I came up with over email in our little vacuum, it just kept getting better and better when Bill was helping. And that, I will say, that was something that's been brand new, is I really fought hard to have Bill be a co-creator with us.

Bill Barretta: You did, thanks. You did.

Adam Goldberg: And that's a first that a performer has been really integral in the DNA of the show. And because of Bill, we had access to all the other performers, getting to talk to them, getting to know them. We wanted this to be like the old school, Jim Henson hippie, everyone is…

Jeff Yorkes: Collaborative, just collaborative.

Adam Goldberg: Collaborative and part of it.

Bill Barretta: Well, and that's the thing, the last times were probably Jim and Frank as a part of it in that way, which, so this was a new thing. And I'm thankful, grateful.

Jeff Yorkes: It seemed like we'd be foolish not to. And we already just saw, even from the few conversations we'd had with Bill from the beginning, we're like, this is just great and we can make this even greater.

Bill Barretta: And there's like, some ideas, like they said, Dr. Teeth's backstory, and I can't remember, maybe you guys already met Jeff, because you're such a huge fan too. Maybe you already were thinking this, that because I know Dr. Teeth, and where Jim's backstory of Dr. Teeth, and I know some things about him, that he was from New Orleans. Occasionally there were things where I go, oh, you know what? Let's just check in and we'll make sure that we're in line here with whether these characters have been coming from over the years, even though it hasn't been explained or heard just yet. And we were always pretty much in sync. It wasn't that hard to be in sync.

Benji Breitbart: One thing that was really great about the show is it kind of matched the zaniness with the heart that I think The Muppets, it has become a hallmark of their greatest work. Can you talk about how you settled on the tone? Since you had the concept. How did you get to that point?

Jeff Yorkes: And part of the concept was, at least the elevator pitch of it was, it's Almost Famous meets The Muppets. And that's certainly something that just makes you feel, you know. You have these crazy characters, but at the center you have this heart of it. And then it was definitely Adam who's just like, I've sort of made a career out of having heart in my shows and let me try to explain how.

Adam Goldberg: The tone was terrifying to me because I've discovered that Muppets have super fans and they're very, very opinionated. Jeff is a super fan, so he's opinionated, as well, as to what Muppets should be. And I was very nervous at striking that balance. I wanted people to be happy and feel joy and laugh, but then at the end really go, oh, these aren't just puppets. These are real living, breathing creatures.

And that tone is really hard to do. And it hasn't really been done in a show like this over 10 episodes. I love the Haunted Mansion because it was wall to wall jokes, but there was this core of Gonzo going through something in that emotionally. And I thought, okay, this is great. And they did it in a special for 40 minutes, but can we do this over and over again every episode? So it was really scary because it's much easier to just give nonstop zaniness. And that's what people are expecting. And I think what we're going to give them is different. And I hope that that difference is well received and not…I hope my fears were for a good reason that it was such a hard tone to strike and we were all on the same page as what the tone should be. Grounded in the real world.

And Muppets, like, there's no talking fruit in this. You know, you don't open the fridge. We had one joke that we were laughing about the office Bagel Boy, and should we have a bagel Muppet.

Jeff Yorkes: That JJ was originally the office bagel boy, the intern, you bring the bagels.

Adam Goldberg: And you go there in your comedy room and those pitches are so fun. And we would always be like, no, no, no, real world, let's keep it real. Let's keep it grounded. And that's risky for Muppets because I think they typically place so fun and broad and zany.

Bill Barretta: Yeah, from my perspective over the years is that the heart is kind of innately part of The Muppets. It's what Jim created and what they kept on holding onto as much as they can to bring them into projects. And I just wanted to avoid a kind of cynical comedy that's just everywhere. And The Muppets have always been that way. We try not to be cynical or use that cynical sense of humor. And fortunately, the three of us are very comfortable with that idea. And so I think that was part of it. It's upholding what The Muppets’ heart and joy is. But it was a challenge because these characters don't seem to be that flavor, like a Kermit and the other characters. There's a kind of hipper, cooler, down and dirty thing about them that I think people weren't sure, how are we going to find the heart in characters that don't really worry about anything? They're just doing their thing. They're just playing their music. Where are we going to find these storylines? And that was the challenge. And we were able to, by being a challenge, we found great ways of telling heart stories, joyful stories.

Benji Breitbart: The Muppets have a long legacy of music. But I imagine having a show where music is at the core of the identity of the character, put an extra pressure to nail it, which you guys obviously did, and it's great to see have the vinyl pre-ordered and all that. But can you talk a little bit about how that came to fruition?

Jeff Yorkes: That was the biggest pressure for me, was like, we have to just wind up making an album that is worthy of The Electric Mayhem and also tell our story and relate to our characters. And then there were the covers that also had to do that. I think we did it, but we worked very hard.

Bill Barretta: Yeah, the challenge…the easiest part was finding, well, not easy, but the less difficult part was finding the covers to do that fit the characters. Somebody would suggest a song. And in my little brain I'm thinking, I can't hear anybody singing that one quite right.

Jeff Yorkes: That was a really interesting thing to pitch a song and be like, it's perfect.

Bill Barretta: And it's not as pretty, yeah. And we all have, with a cover, we all have an idea of what that song sounds and feels like and what that means to you. But then when you hear it sung by a character that can't quite hit the right key or the same feeling, it just doesn't work. And so it was about finding the right songs. And what was really helpful too was Jeff's library of music in his head. He would find with “True Colors”, it was the perfect choice for that moment and that story, because that's Nora finding herself and Janice singing it was just a perfect fit. It was the right key and all that stuff. But then the cover, sorry the originals, was much more challenging. And it took us… I'm sure it was very frustrating for all of the songwriters and people who wrote these new tunes because we kept going back with, you know what, this is great, but gee, it doesn't quite feel right here for them. And it's in this key and it's in this style. And it was much more difficult with the covers. But boy, I think we came out with some really great songs in the end, the collaboration between everybody, Linda Perry and Ed Mitchell and Steve Morrell, and I mean, there's several others too. I know their first names.

Jeff Yorkes: Hannah Friedman, one of our writers wrote the theme song, wrote “Rock On.” I mean, it's just amazing. One of the best songs too.

Bill Barretta: Yeah. So that collaborative thing was really interesting to find for original songs. And it's dangerous in a way, because this is supposed to be a band that is great. And if we don't have great originals, we fail. And in our last episode, as you know, that's an original song. And I think it pays off beautifully. I think it came out really well.

Jeff Yorkes: I think there are three, two or three, originals in that last episode?

Bill Barretta: Probably. I'm just thinking about the final song.

Jeff Yorkes: Yeah, totally.

Bill Barretta: That's where the head, we come to that point.

Benji Breitbart: To wrap up, obviously cameos is another long line of Muppet heritage. Can you talk a little about, was there anyone who was just super excited to just be a part of a Muppet project that was a memorable view?

Bill Barretta: All of them.

Jeff Yorkes: All of them. Yeah. I mean, we were lucky. Just everyone, once we got to them, were just excited to do it. And then were just, I think like, okay, yeah, I'll do this. This is very cool. And then we're on set with The Muppets and we're just like, huh, this is sort of mind-blowing.

Adam Goldberg: Yeah, it was. The most surreal by far, was Morgan Freeman. Just coming in and being like, we're nervous. Like he has to play Zoot. Does he know who Zoot is? Is he going to want to wear a blue wig? And he was like, "slow down." And then he is like, "I can't do the voice." But he's like, "my only note is, can I say 'what up, I'm Morgan Freeman?'" We're like, great.

Jeff Yorkes: No, it was "Sup y'all, I'm Zoot."

Adam Goldberg: "Sup y'all." Yeah, that's right. "Sup y'all, I'm Zoot." Just to see Morgan Freeman coming and just being all in was so amazing.

Bill Barretta: And the history with The Muppets has been, people get excited. The child in them, they tend to go "yeah!" You go, "would you like to work with The Mu…?" "Yes." And we had an interesting situation though, because of coming out in a sense of COVID, the end of COVID, all of the musicians that we were hoping, that we tried to get, were now on tour again.

Jeff Yorkes: By making up for two years of lost income.

Bill Barretta: It was a bit challenging with our musical stars that we had join us, but I think, in general, everybody was just excited to come and play.

Benji Breitbart: Just have to try again for season two.

Adam Goldberg: Yeah, exactly.

Bill Barretta: Hey, from your lips to God's ears.

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