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Interview with Noel MacNeal
(starts at the 3:44:11 mark in the download)
Mutt: Well, I guess to close off the show, we're gonna do a live interview, and on the phone right now… lemme go get the phone… we have the one-and-only Noel MacNeal from the TV show Bear in the Big Blue House! Hold on a second! Woo-hoo! Hey, Noel?
Noel MacNeal: Hello.
M: Hey, sir! How are you doing?
NMN: Fine, thanks. How are you doing?
M: Great, welcome to the Funday Pawpet Show!
NMN: Thank you. It's great to be there.
M: Well, thank you very much. So, you live up in New York, correct?
NMN: Yes, I do.
M: Great, great. And, um… I was wondering if you wouldn't mind possibly answering a few of my questions, and maybe even take some live questions from the show.
NMN: Sure.
M: Great. How did you get your start there, Noel?
NMN: Uh, let's see… Well, I always wanted to be a puppeteer. It was since I was a little kid, and I remember a show that probably you guys don't remember called Kukla, Fran and Ollie, Shari Lewis, and then, I remember, it was one night in 1968, I was about six years old, and it was a Sunday night around 6:30, a half-hour show came on hosted by these two puppets named Ernie and Bert, and they were describing this brand-new show that was starting tomorrow morning called Sesame Street. I watched it, and I had been watching it ever since, and as I went through high school, that's when The Muppet Show started around, and I thought, “Well, if this guy Jim Henson can make a living at it, well, maybe I could too.”
M: Wow.
NMN: Yep.
M: That's cool.
NMN: And my mom was totally supportive. When it was time to pick that college, I said I wanted to be a professional puppeteer, she didn't blink an eye and said, “Okay, what do we have to do?” I told her about two places, she said “Great, what do we have to do?” So, that was it. She said, “You can always get a job, get a career.” And that's how I got started.
M: Wow. Fantastic!
NMN: Thank you.
M: Well, what was your first show?
NMN: Uh, let's see… Um, my first real show, well, I worked on and off on Sesame Street as like, you know, a background grouch, an extra chicken, righ-hand, various little parts like that. But, my first show as my own character was a show that was on Nickelodeon, now it's on Noggin, the re-tread channel, and it's called Eureeka's Castle. And I played a character named Magellan the dragon.
M: Wow. Fantastic!
NMN: So that was my first major character.
M: Ah. And how did you score the role of Bear from Bear in the Big Blue House?
NMN: Oh, I auditioned for it, just like everybody else, and I was like… I was actually the last guy there. So, I just kinda like went it… actually, they faxed me a picture of Bear, and I was like, “Oh, this looks kinda cute.” So I went down, and I thought, “You know what, this is just a courtesy. They've already picked somebody out. You know what, I'm just gonna have fun.” So, I just went in and just had fun and the script said like, you know, “Bear sniffs his nose to the camera.” Well, I actually did it, and apparently they liked that and, well, there you go.
M: Wow. Fanta- and I think the key word there is “have fun.”
NMN: Yes. Which is a major thing because it is a puppet show.
M: And it worked!
NMN: Exactly.
M: Well that's awesome! Wow, fantastic.
NMN: You guys have fun down there, right?
M: We're laughing to the point we're almost peeing ourselves every night.
NMN: Okay.
M: We're gonna get some questions from the Internet right here.
NMN: You do?
M: Yes, we do.
NMN: Wow.
M: And, what's your favorite thing about being on the show?
NMN: Um, being on your show right now?
M: No, not this show. Absolutely nothing favorite about being on this show. What's your favorite thing about being on your show?
NMN: I don't have to pay for the call. That's a great factor.
M: Yay!
NMN: Are you taking that in? He didn't pay for the call.
M: Make a note of that.
NMN: The great thing about the show, Bear in the Big Blue House, is the fact that not only do I have fun on it, but everybody on the show has fun - the crew has fun, the production staff has fun, the writers have fun, I'm one of the writers, so I definitely make sure we have fun, and it's just a very fun program. Not to mention all the great e-mail and fan mail we get from different people and families, not necessarily people with kids - we got fan letters from people who don't have kids, who just like watching the show. Crazy enough, a demographic of women between 24 and 54 has gone up. I don't know why, but it has.
M: Well, there you go. Hey, Bear is pretty cute!
NMN: Well, if you think about it, Bear is a pretty good catch by today's standards, you know. He owns a home, and stays with kids, he listens, he can talk, he can dance, he has a lot of hair on his back, but you know, all things considered…
M: He's got hair on his back! (laughs) Oh, that's hysterical! And the show is doing very well - in fact, it was just nominated for a Grammy, wasn't it?
NMN: Actually, um… I don't know about a Grammy, it was nominated for three Emmy awards.
M: An Emmy, that's right! Emmy awards.
NMN: And, it won two out of three, which ain't bad. It won Best Directing, and Best Sound.
M: It is an awesome show, without a doubt. Now, you also sing, don't you?