FROM THE VAULT: An Interview With Dave Goelz (Patreon)

Conducted ~1/1999

After my interview with Muppet performer Jerry Nelson, Jerry was kind enough to provide access for to the set of Muppets From Space, and vouched for me to his fellow performers.

What followed was over a month of me just hanging around the set in the increasingly cold January of 1999, part of which was spent chatting with and ultimately interviewing those folks. Also, getting my hair cut by the production’s hairdresser… just because. Well, my hair was getting too long. She cut it with a razor. I felt like a movie star.

Anyway.

One of the Muppet performers I met was Dave Goelz. Goelz, if you’re not familiar, is the performer behind (or underneath) Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Boober Fraggle, Zoot, Beauregard, Uncle Traveling Matt, and many, many more.

And he’s a pretty nice guy, to boot. Below, you’ll find our conversation…

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KEN PLUME: First of all, tell me a little bit about your background…

DAVE GOELZ: I have always enjoyed puppets, but at two times during my childhood puppetry became a hobby. When I was five I became a huge fan of Howdy Doody, and when I saw a Howdy dummy at the local toy store, I got very excited. My folks said that if I saved half the money, they would match my funds and I could get the dummy, which I believe cost either $3.95 or $7.95. I saved every penny of my 25 cents per week allowance, and in no time my parents were surprised that I was ready to make the purchase. The next Christmas my parents gave me a Howdy Doody marionette. During this period I was also interested in the original Time for Beany puppet show, starring Stan Freberg and Bob Clampett. I had Beany and Dishonest John hand puppets made by Ideal Toys, but was disappointed by the official rubbery Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppet. My mother made a beautiful Cecil for me completely from scratch. She was a big influence; she showed that you could make whatever you needed.

When I was thirteen, I became interested in marionettes. In junior high school I had become fascinated by the theater, with its curtains and colored lighting. My father built a marionette stage for me, and I equipped it with three strings of our Christmas lights; one whole string in blue, one in red, and the other in yellow. That way we could plug in different strings to make a range of colors. My friend Eddie Paul and I wrote scripts and put on marionette shows for our family and friends. I had a little printing press and we made tickets for the shows, for which we charged ten cents. We made well over a dollar in less than a month. Easy money.

After high school I studied to be an industrial designer, and entered the profession. After a couple of years I started watching Sesame Street on Saturday mornings and just got hooked. I had been a Muppet fan for many years, but now I started getting fascinated with the design process that went into what I was seeing on the screen. Who were these people who created the puppets, costumes and performances that were so evocative? I got very curious.

One day, I read in a newspaper and read that Frank Oz was to appear nearby at a puppetry festival, so I took a day of vacation time and went to see him. I was just blown away by the two shows Frank did at Mills College in Oakland. During the first show, I was like an assassin. I was in a window above and to the side of the stage with a telephoto lens and a couple of rolls of film. It was fascinating to see Frank working. During the second show – they had to give two shows since so many people came – I sat out in the audience. I could feel the love for those characters all around me. After the show, I got up to go back home and back to my job of designing these boxes for scientific instruments. As I trudged to the car amidst a buzzing crowd, I had a strong feeling that I should be doing puppetry, but I had no idea how I could make a living at it. I didn’t think there was any potential at all, so I was just sad. Within about a month of that day I was asked to make a business trip, which was a very rare event. Not only that, it took me to Pennsylvania. At the end of my work, I took a week of vacation time and went to New York and visited Sesame Street. How odd that my whole career grew out of six days of vacation time. I went to Sesame Street every day and just watched them work.

PLUME: Was the set more open then as opposed to now?

GOELZ: At that time Sesame Street was shot at Teletape Studios at 81st & Broadway. I had pre-arranged with Frank Oz to visit the set. This was the fall of 1972. I watched them shoot for the entire week and they were all very kind to me. I had brought some puppets with me that I had made, and the Muppet people there said, “You should show these to Bonnie Erickson, head of the Muppet Workshop,” .

So I phoned Bonnie and went across town to visit her. When I showed her my puppets, she said, “Oh, that’s great! You can build puppets. You should meet Jim, but he’s in France right now.” About a month after that, I was sitting at my desk in California and the phone rang and this voice said, “Hi there. This is Jim Henson.” I went, “WHAA?!?” He sounded like Ernie! I jumped up and looked over the partitions around the lab. Everyone was just working normally, and I had Jim Henson on the phone! I couldn’t believe it. He suggested that we meet in Los Angeles the following week when he was scheduled to appear on a Perry Como special. So we met in Los Angeles, and I showed him my portfolio. It was an industrial design portfolio that covered my career. It went something like this: John Deere tractor, American Airlines interior, Hewlett Packard laser interferometer — puppet. I told him my objective was to illustrate how my background was perfect for becoming a puppet designer. In fact, it was.

We agreed to stay in touch. I planned to borrow some video equipment and start performing in my own videotapes. In about a month or two I got another call from Jim saying, “I’m coming to San Francisco – would you like to get together?” So I booked a hotel for him in Los Gatos. I took him out to dinner and when I picked him up he was waiting outside; a tall, gaunt figure standing in the rain. He looked frail and vulnerable. Later I would learn just how strong he really was. After dinner I showed him the tapes that I had just completed. This was around February of 1973, and he was contemplating doing a Broadway stage play that utilized many forms of puppetry. He asked me if I would be interested in being involved both as a designer and a performer. We stayed in touch and by June we worked out a deal where I came to work for six months on the designing and building phase of that project. During my stint, Muppets got a series pilot with ABC, so we put the stage play aside and worked on the pilot. Jim asked me to perform three characters in the show, so I stayed an extra couple of weeks for the shoot. Jim invited me to join the company, but I didn’t feel at home in New York, so I went back to California.

I had been on a leave of absence from my electronics job, and during the extra two weeks that I stayed in New York, I was replaced. I realized this was a good thing, because I had been afraid that I’d go back to work, get comfortable and secure and never pursue this work that I was passionate about. After a few weeks I started my own business doing industrial advertising and videotape work using puppets. Soon I had a couple of clients and was doing good business. After about 8 months, Jim made me an offer that I couldn’t really refuse. Jim proposed that I keep my main industrial client, come to the Muppet Workshop as a designer/builder, and perform occasionally in specials. It gave me the Muppet work that I was passionate about, and included several escapes to California each year. This was an example of Jim’s business genius. He knew I didn’t like New York, so he conceived of a deal whereby I would get to leave frequently to service my client. How could I say no? So I did it.

PLUME: Did you work on the Sex & Violence special?

GOELZ: When I returned to New York in September of 1974 we started working on the Sex & Violence special, which was shot in January of 1975. One of the things I got to do was perform Zoot, the sax player in the Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Band. It was a vicarious thrill. Our first number was shot with lots of lighting effects and quick cutting, and I loved pretending to be a rock performer. This part of performing appealed to me; it offered the chance to live out fantasies. ABC did not pick up the series, and after a summer in which we guested on a couple of Cher shows, Lew Grade suggested that the Muppets create a syndicated series, to be shot at his ATV Studios north of London. These developments were all terribly exciting for us.

PLUME: Were you given Gonzo right off the bat, or did they say, “Pick which puppet you’d like to do?”

GOELZ: No, Jim actually asked me to do Gonzo. Originally, he was conceived as a character who does really awful acts and thinks they’re art. Jim chose that particular puppet from the stockpile. That puppet had appeared several years before as a character named “Cigar Box Frackle” in a special called The Santa Clause Switch. The character of Gonzo was conceived by Jerry Juhl and might have been forgotten about during the early meetings, except that Jack Burns – who was head writer on the first season – said, “Yeah! Yeah! Like he does these crazy acts like eating a tire to ‘Flight of the Bumblebee!” I guess that sentence inspired the writers, so Gonzo ate his tire in the first episode and grew from there.

PLUME: How difficult was it to perform Gonzo in the beginning, when his eyes were not moveable, and they were locked into a downcast expression?

GOELZ: The downcast eyes made him easy to play, because that was exactly how I felt. I was an impostor in show business. I was learning how to perform and to puppeteer on the job. Our guests were the top television, stage, film and music stars of the time, and it was intimidating to watch them ply their craft. I had literally just stepped into this world from my neighborhood, without any training or dues-paying, so it was easy to play Gonzo as a downcast character.

The whole first season, I only got one laugh out of the crew. It was painful. ATV Studios was one of the premier television production centers in the world, and the crew was used to doing high-profile shows. They had seen it all. They loved watching Jim and Frank work. When I came onstage, I could hear the newspapers come up. I knew they were thinking “The cub is coming – we’re gonna be bored for the next 45 minutes.” But near the end of the season, a miracle happened – I got one laugh, by over-emphasizing the word (in Gonzo voice) “Nnoooo!” So I sort of went away from the first season with my laugh and thought, “Gee, it seems like when he got excited, it was funny. But I can’t make this character look excited, because his eyes don’t open.” When we returned to New York, Jim allowed me to make a new Gonzo that had an eye mechanism. So I just breezed right into the second season and got another laugh. Two laughs in two years – now I was really on a roll!

PLUME: The second season was when Gonzo really started to become a core character, and it seemed to be cemented in the third season, as well as in the movie…

GOELZ: To me, it was just a progression. There were a few milestones. Once he became excitable it was much easier to make him interesting, because he could show a range of emotions. A pivotal moment was when he tried to put together a dancing chicken act. There were some scenes in which he was auditioning chickens backstage, and I ad-libbed a line that has formed a large part of his character ever since. As usual, Mike the animal trainer promised that the chickens would be able to do whatever we asked as long as he had three weeks to train them. So he got his three weeks, and when they came in, they wouldn’t dance. Not one step. By the way, Jim had a thing about chickens – he just thought they were hysterical. That’s why we were using them. So we were shooting, and Gonzo says stuff like, “Do a little timestep for me.” And the chicken just stands there. “Well, how about a pirouette? Do something. Anything.” The chicken just stands there. Finally, the chicken turned around and walked out, and Gonzo called after her “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” Then he turned to the camera and said, “Nice legs though!” Jim cracked up. That weird attraction to chickens just made him so strange, and it was something Jim liked a lot. So Gonzo soon got a chicken girlfriend, Camilla. Whenever it came time to shoot with Camilla, we could never remember what color her eyes were. Sometimes we used blue, sometimes green, and so forth. So Jim and I developed this theory that Gonzo actually couldn’t tell the difference between the chickens, and whatever chicken he could get to come along with him, he would call Camilla. Chickens, being limited intellectually, were happy to go along with this.

PLUME: Of all the characters you performed on The Muppet Show, which was your favorite? I’ve heard you talk negatively of Zoot in the past, and I was just wondering…

GOELZ: The funny thing about Zoot was that I was about 26-27, and we always conceived of him as a 50 year-old, burnt-out musician. Now I’m 53, and I still can’t play him – probably because I’m still locked into the Zoot I played from the beginning. If I started fresh it would certainly be easier at this point in my life. Anyway, I had a conception of him as a guy who was totally into his music, who lived in a succession of hotels, who had never had a home… his life was just music. And he was just spaced out all the time. He had no ability to communicate with people using words. As a result, whenever they scripted lines for him, I tried to give them to Floyd. I was always trying to give away lines, because I didn’t know how to do him. The irony was, after I did this for awhile and Zoot became established as a rather silent character, people started coming to me and saying, “You know, that Zoot is amazing. I know somebody just like him.” Sammy Cahn came up to me during the party after the British premiere of The Muppet Movie and said, “You do Zoot? He is fantastic! I’ve known so many sax players just like him.” I was bowled over; The only sax player I knew was Frank Reedy, of the Jack Parnell Orchestra, the musicians for The Muppet Show, and he wasn’t anything like Zoot. I didn’t follow or study sax players or read about them – all I was doing was trying to avoid doing the character, and here was Sammy Caan, telling me I’d got it nailed. So it was just a lucky break.

But to answer your question, Gonzo is my favorite among the Muppet Show characters. Having said that, I should mention that there is great joy in switching among many characters. It gives vent to many aspects of your personality. I perform several characters on Fraggle Rock, The Secret Life of Toys and Jim Henson’s Animal Show with Stinky and Jake. The variety is very stimulating.

PLUME: How did the big Gonzo scenes in The Muppet Movie come about? I speaking of “I’m Going To Go Back There Someday”…

GOELZ: There’s a bit of a story about that. Originally, no song was planned for that moment in the film, but Paul Williams had a strong identification with Gonzo. He said “Gonzo reminds me of a flightless bird, and for me that’s where his pathos comes from.” So he wrote this incredible set of lyrics about yearning to reconnect with something. Jim and Jerry Juhl decided to use the song at the bleak moment when all the characters are stuck in the desert. Gonzo’s song re-inspires Kermit to continue his quest. This all happened without me. I was in California preparing to build my house. I showed up the read-through and everyone said “Wow, you’ve got this incredible song.”

PLUME: Were there any guests that you really enjoyed working with on The Muppet Show?

GOELZ: First let me say that they all impressed me. The level of professionalism was overwhelming. I hadn’t been around entertainers before. These people would have a few telephone discussions before flying to London. They would arrive on a Saturday morning after flying all night and go to a costume fitting and a meeting with Jim and David Lazer. Sunday we would have a read-through and rehearsal and modify the script according to their needs. Monday we would record music – band in the morning, vocals in the afternoon. The guests would shoot their material on Tuesday and then they would be gone – poof. In the course of four days they had created these awesome performances completely from thin air. That amazed me.

PLUME: How many of the guests actually stayed around for the rest of the week?

GOELZ: None. They had places to go, and they were like I am now. We’re working right next door to Dawson’s Creek and I’ve got neighbors in California who love the show. Have I walked onto their stage once? No. It doesn’t even occur to me. When I was a kid, I used to live in Burbank, California, and all I could think of was to get inside Disney or Warner Brothers studios and look around. It’s just that when you work around it all the time, you’re less curious. Brooke Shields was 15 when she guested on The Muppet Show and it was very interesting, because she had been marketed as a prodigy, yet she was just a girl when she was with us. All she wanted to do between shots was go back to the workshop and make puppets, and that’s what she did. Another who hung out in the workshop was Phyllis Diller. She was such a nice lady and funny and fun to be with. Instead of going to her dressing room, she’d come to the workshop and just visit. Peter Sellers was a huge treat for me to work with. I forget which season that was in…

PLUME: Second season, I believe…

GOELZ: That sounds right. Remember, during the second season I’m on my way to getting my second laugh. He came in, and he really wanted to do something with Gonzo, because he loved the character. He felt that Gonzo was like Clouseau in his lack of self-awareness. This was great validation for me, because Peter Sellers was one of my idols. I’d grown up watching the Pink Panther films and loving his work, so when he came in and was excited about working with me, I was in shock. It was really weird now that I think back on it, but it was great.

PLUME: Were there any guests that were difficult to work with?

GOELZ: A couple, but not terribly difficult. What amazed me more was that virtually everybody was so professional and so good to work with. I guess when you go to get your watch fixed, you expect the jeweler to know how to do it. But when I saw these guests working, I was so impressed. For example, I’ll never forget the rehearsal with Elton John. We gathered in the rehearsal room around this old gray piano, all nicked and dented and banged up, and he came in on a Sunday morning, sat down and played “Benny and the Jets,” “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and “Crocodile Rock.” He did it time after time, perfectly. I was two feet from him, just leaning on the piano, enjoying a private concert from Elton John. I’m telling you, he could really play the piano and he could really sing, just like on the records. He could do it. I was just so astounded by that. I felt that way about every guest because they could really do what they did.

PLUME: How difficult a transition was it from doing the show to coming out to the States to do The Muppet Movie?

GOELZ: I always think of TV as calisthenics and movies as craftsmanship. You get in shape with TV, because you do so much material so fast. Sometimes quality suffers, but it helps you develop your instincts. Then you go shoot a film, and you get the luxury of doing it right. You shoot with a single camera , and it’s always in exactly the right place. The shot is lit for that angle, and you get to do a number of takes of that shot just to make it work properly. That craftsmanship is something that I just love about film, but is very useful to go into that type of film work with a television background.

PLUME: Which films do you look back on and say, “I really enjoyed working on that one?”

GOELZ: Well, the original Muppet Movie, mostly because we got to come to California. I was a bit homesick after living in cold and rainy London. We all looked forward to spending a few months out in California, and it was a very laid-back and easy going set. As I look at the film now, it was one of the most heartfelt of all – a very sweet film.

I loved the atmosphere on Dark Crystal. That turned out to be a very stimulating project, because it was pretty much unprecedented. On the very first day we filmed, the Skeksis had to file past the deathbed of the Skeksis emperor, performed by Jim. The Skekses all had ulterior motives as they walked by the bed to pay their respects. I our very first shot, I was inside the Garthim Master Skeksis with another puppeteer doing the right hand. I was totally blind except for a little monitor on my chest, and I just stepped off the platform and we started to fall. Fortunately somebody was there and caught us and pushed us back up. At that moment I thought “Jim’s optimism is going to get him this time – we can’t possibly shoot this film.” But after two weeks, we were all up to speed and it was a normal way of working. We got used to the conditions, and it became fun.

Another film I enjoyed was Muppet Christmas Carol. That was great fun. It was a nice change of pace to do a work of such depth, especially with Gonzo playing Dickens. It was Jerry Juhl’s way of preserving Dickens’ narrative prose. It allowed us to use his beautiful language in the film. Despite the presence of pigs and frogs and whatevers, I think the film was very true to Dickens’ intent.

PLUME: How much of the emotion of the film came out of the group coming back together after both Jim and Richard’s passings?

GOELZ: Well, that’s a good question because I think that this particular project was a perfect fit at the time. Our wounds were raw. Jim and Richard were very spiritual, and this project was about the ultimate spiritual journey. And going back to work together did feel like a rebirth.

Treasure Island was a lot of fun, too. And Muppets From Space has been a terrific experience. We have an extremely talented and warm crew here.

PLUME: I’m taking it that the two films you didn’t mention were your least favorites…

GOELZ: I had reservations about both Caper and Manhattan. Caper was set up as the characters presenting a movie to you. It felt smug and awkward to me. Manhattan was like a restatement of The Muppet Movie, but not as heartfelt.

PLUME: After Dark Crystal, you segued into Fraggle Rock. Was playing Boober a given?

GOELZ: That would be a good question for Jerry Juhl, since he always insists that there was no pre-casting, but I think there was. I think we went through the motions of playing around with the puppets in New York before we went to Toronto to shoot. I think they had always thought of me as Boober. I think each of the characters seemed to have been written for it’s performer.

PLUME: What sticks out in your mind as the defining moment of Fraggle Rock and sums up your experiences doing the show?

GOELZ: Jim originally stated the premise of Fraggle by saying, “I want to do a show that will end war.” So with that kind of lofty mandate, the show became about the need for harmony between individuals and species, and respect for the environment. Everything worked well and we had a great team. I would love to do a show like that again.

PLUME: When did you first hear that Jim was ill?

GOELZ: I was in New York doing some vocal recording with the other performers for a Disney World costume show, and we were told that Jim had called in sick. No one could remember Jim ever calling in sick. When all around him had colds and flu… Jim would will himself to be well. He once had surgery during his lunch hour and continued to shoot till eight p.m.. So this struck everyone as very odd, and we made light of it. We finished up, and the next morning I flew back to California. When I got home, there was a string of messages on my machine telling me that Jim was gravely ill. I couldn’t believe it. I spoke to Frank Oz at the hospital a couple of times, and he told me the doctors didn’t expect Jim to make it. Jim was so vital and indestructible, it took a whole hour for me to process the news. I got back on a plane and returned to New York. I had to change planes in Chicago. All the Henson people had been using a pay phone in the hallway right next to Jim’s hospital room. During my plane change in Chicago, I called that pay phone and a custodian answered. He said no one was around. That’s when I knew Jim had died.

PLUME: Does it surprise you how lasting your characters have become?

GOELZ: The public interest always surprises me. I come to work in these rooms with no windows. At night I go home. I just live my life. I guess I just don’t think much about whether people are going to watch. Most of my friends don’t know much about what I do, and we don’t talk about it. I have a different life away from work. Which is fine, because my work can get pretty intense.

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