Frank Oz would already have his place in pop culture cemented as the director of films such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob? and In & Out, plus his iconic role as Jedi Master Yoda in the Star Wars franchise. But that's not even counting his most famous career -- as the legendary Muppet performer behind Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Sam the Eagle, Animal, Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover and more, on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, multiple movies and various appearances of the beloved characters.

From 1963 to 2000, Oz dedicated a large chunk of his historic career to the Muppets, and working with Jim Henson and their collaborators. It's this period of his life that he's revisited for Muppet Guys Talking, a new documentary available now only through the website muppetguystalking.com. The film, directed by Oz, was shot in 2012, primarily as a freewheeling conversation between Oz and fellow Muppet performers Dave Goelz (Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew), Fran Brill (Prairie Dawn, Zoe), Bill Barretta (Pepe the King Prawn, the current performer of Rowlf the Dog and Dr. Teeth) and Jerry Nelson (Count von Count, Floyd Pepper), who passed away in 2012, a few months after the documentary was filmed.

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The aim of the documentary, Oz shared, is to celebrate what it was like to work with Jim Henson, and to showcase the spirit of creativity that have helped the Muppets endure for so many years. Oz spoke to CBR for an in-depth and honest chat about Muppet Guys Talking, the type of work environment Henson fostered, what Oz thinks it'll take for a new Muppets project to succeed, and why the wacky and lovable characters truly aren't (just) for kids.

CBR: Frank, you've been full-swing promoting this for a while now; the film has been screened at festivals including South By Southwest last year. The original conversation in the documentary dates back to 2012. How does it feel knowing that people are now finally able to see this, after years in the making?

Frank Oz: It's really exciting. Victoria Labalme, who conceived it, she and so many people are working on this, and it's the first time I think a documentary's really been released like this, from a private website. There's a lot of work to do. [Laughs] It's a big deal for us.

Not only is the release itself different from the norm, so is the structure -- it's not a typical documentary; it's primarily the conversation between the five of you. It feels spontaneous in that way. What inspired that format?

The format was just basically sitting around talking. Our first thought was to go in a restaurant and buy it out, and it just sounded so difficult and expensive. I thought, let's just sit around and talk. We got a loft in the Village, and we just sat around and talked. We just wanted to be friends talking. And it was all spontaneous, we had no idea what we were going to talk about.

It feels very natural that way.

Oh, it was. Part of the reason I shot it that way is because Jim Henson was very rebellious, and we were kind of anarchic in the Muppets, and I wanted to reflect that feeling in the shooting, which is why you see shaky handhelds, and you see zooms, and you can see the cameras in the back, and the coffee break. It's all because that's the spirit of Muppets.

And the spirit continues in this distribution, because if we had gone through a big company, then that would be kind of status quo, and we wanted to have a direct connection with our fans. That's why we're going out to people with it on our website, MuppetGuysTalking.com. You can't buy it anywhere else, it's only that place. It's not on DVD, it's not on Netflix, or anything. We like that, because that continues the rebelliousenss of it -- the idea that it's just us, and we're just trying to get it to people without a big bureaucracy in the way.

This was filmed in 2012, and it's been more than a decade since you were an active Muppet performer. Both in the original filming, and in promoting this documentary as of late, what's it been like to revisit this period of your career?

It's a joy, because I'm working with my brothers and sisters. We've been together -- Billy is the one who's been with us the shortest, and it's 26 years. [Laughs] We know each other so well. We've always kept in touch over the years -- we love each other. That's the joy. Not only just telling funny stories, but being together.

And also, the joy of letting people know, this is how we worked with Jim. We had a great time, there was no back-stabbing, no politics, no jealousy. That's part of the reason we wanted to do the film, to show people around the world, you can actually work like this and do good stuff.

It's striking that in just 65 minutes, a lot is covered -- you get a sense of a lot of different aspects of the experience, working with Jim Henson, working with each other, the process and the emotions behind it. What did you most want people to understand about the Muppet experience?

Mostly, that this is how people can actually work if they want to. If you have a leader, and people who just care about the quality of the product, that's all that matters. You can really be with each other without politics. You can work 24-hour days and still have fun. That's how we worked, and that's the most important thing to get across, for us.

Also, being inclusive. Jim was inclusive with everybody.

The creativity in every sense shines through -- that story about the scene from The Muppet Show where the Muppets are escaping up the drain pipe, and the performers were stacked on top of each other in a makeshift elevator.

And that was only one, we've been in so many other dangerous situations. [Laughs] We shot about nine, 10 hours -- we still have about eight-and-a-half hours or so that we're going to put together for special packages. We have more stuff to come.

As a fan, it was so great to see Jerry Nelson in the film.

Oh my god, yeah.

It must have been just months before he passed away.

About eight months or so.

How meaningful was it to you to have him included?

It's everything.

It almost didn't happen. It was my wife's idea [to do a documentary] -- I said no, because it'd be boring. I've been with Muppets since I was 19 years old, you know? I thought,s "This is nothing unusual, everybody works like this." I didn't realize that's not true. It took about a year of her pushing me, and I finally said yes. And thank god she did that, because we wouldn't have gotten Jerry otherwise.

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Wanted to talk about a couple specific points of the film -- you mention how none of you had kids in mind when performing the Muppets. You said something similar on Twitter a few weeks ago, and people were very surprised by that comment; a little taken aback. Why do you think that might be? And what do you think it says about how people view entertainment, and kids' entertainment specifically?

I don't know what kids' entertainment is. I have no idea. I don't know what family entertainment is. I really don't. Outside of, not profanity, and maybe not having as sophisticated ideas as in many adult shows. But other than that, the bright colors -- adults love the bright colors, too, the same way. We never thought of kids once doing Sesame Street, doing anything else, except for the curriculum. So we had to sell the letter "W," for instance. We knew we had to do that -- that's when we thought of the kids. But otherwise, we were adults playing, having fun, cracking each other up, with really good material written by the writers. It's hard for people to understand that we didn't aim it at anybody -- we just had fun ourselves. And that's part of the whole way of working with Jim.

It seems like that is key to the universal and enduring quality of these characters.

Yeah, because at the end of the day, we don't know what children think, for god's sake. I don't even know what adults think. All we can do is enjoy ourselves together. And as adults, we hope we have the same, universal emotions and feelings and values as everybody else.

Another thing that comes out in the film that I thought was really insightful, is that it's clear how serious all of you took all of these characters, even minor ones. You talked about having a back story that, even if it was never seen on screen, influenced the performance. How key do you think that is to the enduring success of the Muppets; taking these characters seriously for what they are?

I think it's very important, because if you don't take them seriously, if you think they're funny, they'll never be funny. And they won't touch people. They don't think they're funny. They are just living their lives -- their flawed, imperfect lives with each other and their relationships. They think nothing is funny that they're doing. Except for Fozzie, who wants to be funny, and he's not. [Laughs]

I think the real key is not the puppets, but the people underneath. If you hire people who just knew each other for about six months, or didn't know each other at all, that would be not working right, because we care for each other, we're rebellious, we're funny, we love each other, and that's where all the stuff comes from. Us, underneath, who know each other for so long, and it comes out in the characters. I think that's the key thing that people aren't aware of.

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Watching the movie, and thinking about all the different things the Muppets have meant to people, why the characters have endured -- the creativity, the humor and the heart -- it's a unique combination. It's hard to think of much else that fell into all those niches the same way. Do you think it's still possible for that to happen? Or the current climate doesn't allow for it?

It's harder. It's not just the climate, it's the person who's leading it. Jim was inclusive. Jim loved all different kinds of people. We don't live in as innocent of a time -- not that it was innocent in the '60s and '70s, but it was not as cynical as today. So it would be difficult. But if there was Jim Henson today, I think people would realize the authenticity, and be drawn to it.

It comes down to those key personalities. And in the past few years we've seen several different revitalizations of the Muppet characters, most recently the ABC show that received some criticism. Do you think it's still possible to recapture that same magic with the Muppets? Or is it a generational thing where it won't quite hit the same way?

No, I think you you can absolutely recapture it, if you just listen to the performers. Unfortunately, the writers and everybody else think they know what to do with the Muppets, and they don't get it. If they just listen to the performers, and work with them more deeply, that would really be the key.

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For you, as someone who hasn't been actively involved in 17, 18 years now -- when you see these characters still in rotation, does it make you happy to see them out there?

I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, I'm happy that they're there. That makes me very happy. On the other hand, I have a concern that they're not the pure characters that we had. The real affection isn't there. I think the use of them by the writers or producers, whoever else, I think they don't quite understand the value of the Muppets.

I'm not knocking anybody. They always love the Muppets. Everybody loves the Muppets, which is great. But when you think you know how to do the Muppets, it's not as easy as people think. It's much deeper.

I'm glad they're there, I just wish they were more pure of character, that's all. My brothers and sisters I've known for years are the ones performing them. At the same time, they are hamstrung if the script isn't right. I think people think they can write and produce for the Muppets, but if they just went to those guys, they'd get back to the purity and the spirit of it.

That feels like an optimistic answer.

It all depends if they just say, "Hey, we don't quite know how to drive this car. We love it. Maybe somebody can help us drive it?" That's all they have to do, really.

Muppet Guys Talking is available now on MuppetGuysTalking.com.