Dave Barclay

[00:00:00] This is the Big Sci-Fi Podcast, the biggest sci-fi podcast in the galaxy, a proud part of the Trek Geeks Podcast Network. Season 6 was a blast, but Season 7 is going to be even more fun as we continue to go where no podcast has gone before, deep into the sci-fi universe. Join Idina, Brian, Chris, and Steve as they explore television, film, and literature for the best sci-fi has to offer.

[00:00:26] Even if you're not a sci-fi fan, you'll love the banter and the epic tangents as these four friends talk about what they love. We invite you to sit back and relax because the journey is just beginning on this season of The BIG Sci-Fi Podcast. Welcome back, listeners of The BIG Sci-Fi Podcast. This is Idina, and I'm here with my co-hosts, Chris, Brian, and Steve. Say hi, guys. Hey, everyone. Hey, guys.

[00:00:56] How's it going? Welcome on show. Glad to see you on a go. Oh, my goodness. That was Steve. Yes. Famous puppeteer, are you? Yes. Okay, it's enough of that. So today, we are honored to be joined by someone whose work has absolutely shaped the worlds of some of the most beloved films and TV shows of all time, and I'm very excited to talk to him. Our guest is none other than Dave Barkley.

[00:01:23] Our guest is none other than Dave Barkley, a legendary master puppeteer, animatronic designer, and supervisor who has been at the cutting edge of animatronic puppetry since about 1979. Did I get the year right? Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Awesome. Well, you may not have seen his face on screen. And I'm going to ask very specifically about that in a minute because I had remembered something earlier this evening.

[00:01:46] But you've definitely seen his incredible work from helping bring Yoda to life in The Empire Strikes Back, even stepping in as chief puppeteer for the legendary Jedi Master, to animating Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. Dave's artistry has been a vital part of Star Wars. Beyond the galaxy far, far away, he's worked on unforgettable projects like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Fraggle Rock, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

[00:02:12] And he's also contributed his craft to movies like Little Shop of Horrors, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Where the Wild Things Are, just to name a few. So today we're going to dive into Dave's incredible career, the art and innovation behind puppetry and animatronics, and his experiences working alongside legends like Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Stuart Freeborn, who I'm interested to hear about. So sit back, relax, and welcome Dave Barkley.

[00:02:41] Well, thank you. What a wonderful introduction. I try. I try. That's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here. I have two things I'd like to just state, Mr. Barkley, before we get going. The Muppet Christmas Carol is the best Christmas Carol ever made. I agree. Personal opinion. Michael Caine was fantastic. So was Gonzo. He deserved an Emmy. I don't know why he didn't get it. Or, sorry, an Academy Award. Academy Award. Yes.

[00:03:13] But also, there was something else. Oh, yes. Fraggle Rock. Yes. Beloved Childhood Memory. Oh, God. That show was fantastic. My daughters grew up watching that when it was on HBO. Yeah. And that was just, it was so delightful. It was such a sweet show. It was a wonderful show to work on. And also, it was some of the initial development work that went into Dark Crystal, but some

[00:03:40] of the ideas that were never used were evolved into what became Fraggle Rock. So it was interesting. It was an amazing creative time when I first joined Jim and the Henson Associates, as they were called back then, and working on Dark Crystal. And then, yeah, seeing the very first ever pilot episode of Fraggle Rock while I was working for Jim. So, wow. Wonderful times. I'm a graduate of the University of Maryland, which is where Jim Henson went.

[00:04:10] So I remember my last year of college, so 1997, they had decked out our student union with like a whole, it was like a temporary thing, but it was like a whole Jim Henson museum or something. And I remember going through there and seeing like, I think it was from the Dark Crystal, but like how like hands were made. We had a demonstration of like the latex and how hands were made. And I was fascinated. I went home and I told my boyfriend at the time, like, I want to make something like this.

[00:04:39] And he looked at me like I was crazy because I had zero skill. But I was very motivated. You know, so yeah, Jim Henson is known around the university. They like to talk about him, you know, quite a bit there. Well, I mean, Jim, he was definitely, everyone says it, but I know from firsthand, he definitely was a visionary. He was thinking way ahead of all of his peers. And he reimagined hand puppets and glove puppets for television, for the Muppets and Sesame Street. And there was nothing quite like them before Jim came along.

[00:05:09] And then he redid it all again for movies with the Dark Crystal. I mean, he started creating these animatronic characters, the likes of none had ever been seen before up to that point. So I'm bringing new techniques and materials and artists together to to create this whole new world that was definitely just one of his great passions was bringing creative artists together. And so how did he get you? How did you get in? How did you get brought in? How did I get in?

[00:05:38] Well, the the initial in for me with puppetry is because my parents are puppeteers. So I grew up from the age of four with them doing all the work for a two person traveling puppet company by themselves. So they designed and built the puppet theater, the puppets, the costumes. They wrote the plays.

[00:06:03] They did all the electrics and the audio and they booked the all the venues. And so that between them, they did everything to to create this touring puppet company, which became their life. And they they did that for their entire working lives. And so I was I grew up with all of this around me, this creative buzz and puppet making and designing and mold making and all the things that I loved as a kid.

[00:06:28] And but as I got slightly more into my teens, I decided I wanted to be more not to the traditional theatrical puppetry like the the kids parties and that sort of thing. I wanted to do TV and films, but there was really no work other than Muppets. And it was impossible to get anywhere near them at the time. So I didn't know quite how I would sort of break into the film industry.

[00:06:55] But when I saw Star Wars for the very first time, I saw it with a friend of mine. His father had got us the opening weekend tickets in London and they were impossible to get hold of. So I don't know how he did it. But we watched the film at the end of it. We turned to each other. We have to work in the film industry. It was like, yes, we have to. It's like, oh, I wish I could work on something like that. You know, so but neither of us knew how we could get in.

[00:07:22] This was 1978, 79. So I was doing a few commercials as a puppeteer and found out there was a summer job selling toy string puppets, the same sort of puppets I loved when I was a child. And so I knew these puppets very well, Pelham puppets. So and these were being sold at Hamley's Toy Store in London, the big famous toy store.

[00:07:52] So I thought this would be a good summer job. So I went along to Hamley's. And while I was there and out at lunch one day, Mark Hamill from Star Wars came in and bought a whole bunch of puppets from Hamley's. Hamley's. Marionette puppets because he collects puppets. Oh, OK. I came back to lunch and found out. No, I'd missed meeting him. I didn't see him. And I didn't get the commission for selling the puppets.

[00:08:21] So it seemed like a terrible day. And I wrote to him saying that I'd love to make a Darth Vader marionette for him because that's what I was told by the person who was there. He was looking for a custom Darth Vader string puppet about 18 inches tall. And so did they know anyone? And she said, oh, yeah, Dave Barclay. He'd be a good person to do it. So I wrote to the address in Malibu, never heard anything and forgot all about it.

[00:08:46] And six months, nine months later, a friend of mine of Hamley's calls me up to say, Mark Hamill's returned to Hamley's and he's looking for you to build the puppets. So I went to meet him and his wife, Mary Lou, in Chelsea. And they duly commissioned the Darth Vader marionette. I mean, they are a couple of the nicest people you could ever, ever imagine to meet. And they are just they were just so lovely. And so I spent a lot of time trying to make it as good as I could.

[00:09:17] And when it was ready, Mark said, well, why don't you come along to Elstree Studios where they were doing all the studio filming for the Star Wars movies and see one of the shots being filmed and bring your puppet with you. So that's what I did. I drove along to Elstree and walked onto the soundstage there. And it was like it was Star Wars and there was Mark dressed up as Luke Skywalker. It was just like amazing. A big fanboy in me were just like, oh, this is wonderful.

[00:09:47] So then Mark only had one shot to do. And then said, would I like to meet Stuart Freeborn? And I was a huge fan of Stuart's because I had been into doing more of the prosthetic makeups and mechanical masks as a teenager. So I went along and got to meet him. And he was very, very busy because Mark just took me along there. And I had some photographs of the work that I'd done.

[00:10:17] So I had a little portfolio with me. And he looked through it. He said, oh, yeah, no, that's very interesting. Very good. He said, I might be in touch in a few days time. And then he went back. And to me, it was like, oh, yeah, he's just saying that to get me out of his office, to be honest. He was just being nice. He was just being really nice. However, a week later, I got a phone call and an offer to be a trainee in Stuart's special effects makeup department on the Empire Strikes Back.

[00:10:46] So if I hadn't gone to Hamley's and sold some string puppets and missed Mark Hamill, I probably wouldn't have got onto working on Yoda. And it was because of working with Frank, Kathy and Wendy that I got my direct connection to work for Jim. And so the initial question is quite a long answer to that first question. No, it's fine. We learned a lot about you.

[00:11:14] But, yeah, the first time I met Jim was we were filming Yoda. We were about probably two thirds the way through of filming on the Dagobah set. Which was raised. The floor of the set was raised six feet so that puppeteers could work from below. And also so they could build the water, the lake that was in front of it. So, yeah. So the actual height of the floor that we walked on was all fake. It was six feet above the ground.

[00:11:43] And puppeteers working from below. And Frank sort of huddled everyone together. And because the British always were doing practical jokes every single day in the film sets. And in all the workshops and everything, it was a daily thing. And so this particular day, Yoda's doing one of his scenes. They're running film and Frank's doing it. And we think we've probably got it.

[00:12:09] And Frank's doing the typical puppet thing where he's holding the puppet up. And then because it's so heavy at the end of it, he drops it out of shot so people can't see it. And then, so let's do just one more take. Okay. So they roll the film. And then up comes Miss Piggy and Kermit. Oh, gosh. Nice. So Jim had come along and he had his Kermit. It was the first time I ever saw Jim and a real Kermit the Frog next to me in the pit. So while I was doing Yoda's eyes.

[00:12:39] And Frank had switched out of Yoda into Miss Piggy. And the crew went nuts. They were just collapsing. We're actually doing some really quite complicated, difficult stuff. And the crew was quite tense at this point. And it just broke all that out. And everyone was just having a blast of a time. But very quickly, Irving Kosh and the director said, yeah, now we need to get back to doing this. Thanks, guys. We were back to nose to the grindstone. But it was lovely meeting Jim at that time.

[00:13:09] And then, yes, I became the very first British puppet maker to be employed on Dark Crystal. So it was November 1979. And there were a number of the original American puppet designers and builders like Tim Clark and Lyle Conway, who had been working in New York. But they had flown out and now are in the Hampstead workshop, continuing the research and development stage.

[00:13:37] And so I got to know them. But that 1979 November was special for me because it was my very first ever Thanksgiving. Oh, how nice. The British don't do Thanksgiving. No, you don't. I never had that experience. But, of course, Jim and all the Americans living in London wanted to have a Thanksgiving.

[00:14:00] So I got invited along to Jim and Jane Henson's house, which was literally just across the street from the workshop. Could literally walk from one to the other in about a minute. So, yeah, we were all invited over to Jim's house. And with Jim and Jane, I celebrated my very first ever Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time.

[00:14:22] And I felt very lucky to be part of this extended family because when we started, it was just the handful of us working on the initial research and development before Jim crewed up to what ended up being 500 people. So we were the first like dozen. And so I had a chance to get to know him and his wife, Jane, quite well at that time. Thanks. That's great. So you said something a minute ago about, you know, you're working on something very challenging at one point.

[00:14:51] And I want to I'm really curious about how it all works. As in, how do you develop a puppet for something like Dark Crystal or Star Wars? I mean, especially you're not it's not they're not human characters. These are creature characters that you're inventing, you know, that's getting invented for the films. Like, where does that process start and what is that all like? Yes.

[00:15:16] Interestingly, the process for any most most puppets and most films usually start with the conceptual designing. So you get Ralph McQuarrie did a lot of sketches for Yoda and Joe Johnston. They had all various different looks and ideas. And none of them were actually none of them were quite like the way Yoda turned out. But they were all inspirations.

[00:15:41] And so Yoda particularly started off by Wendy Midner, who became Wendy Froud, married Brian Froud later. She started off making pretty much a Muppet style snipped furniture foam version of Yoda. So this everyone could see the size of his head, size of his ears, the body or the proportions.

[00:16:05] So she made this first rough prototype, basically just giving everyone an idea of how big is Yoda. Do we want to be a little bigger? Should the body be bigger? Should so is really just a discussion point. But it was all based on these different sketches and designs that the conceptual designers had come up with. Then it moved into creating a sculpture, which actually Wendy did the first couple of sculptures of Yoda.

[00:16:32] And in the end, it was Stuart Freeborn who did the final head and sculpted this beautiful clay sculpture of Yoda. And I think half of Yoda's success, I think, is that sculpture because Stuart had to make it look like flesh. Well, he always had to. I mean, as a makeup artist, if he was going to sculpt a false nose or some jowls to make somebody look older, it had to look like flesh glued to an actor's face. So he used the same technique with Yoda.

[00:17:01] So Yoda's sculpture looks like flesh, I think. And I think it's an amazingly wonderful and genius sculpture. And there's part of Stuart in there as well. He definitely had a mirror. He was looking at himself while he was sculpting. So that sculpture becomes the fundamental building block of the character because it's supposed to have as much of the character as possible. And then that is molded in Yoda's case in plaster.

[00:17:29] And then there's a foam latex skin is taken out of that mold and it's put on a smaller core or skull, which is to keep the foam latex in shape. And then this was where typically most puppets would stop. But with Yoda, it's like, right, OK, we need his eyes to move. We need his lids to move, his eyebrows to move and his ears to move.

[00:17:55] We need him to be more sophisticated than any glove puppet that ever had been made, you know. So that was some of Stuart's research and development. He originally planned to have the eye movement controlled by Frank's middle finger inside the head. But when Frank put his hand in the head and put his thumb in the jaw, index finger and third finger in the upper lip, the middle finger wouldn't connect to the mechanism. It was too close.

[00:18:25] So Frank stretched his middle finger up over the eye mechanism and up into the middle of the eyebrows. So his middle finger would control the eyebrows. So now we were left with eye movements, lid movements and ear movements to be cable controlled. Wow. So Wendy had been doing some developments for the Gelflings using kind of soft mechanics, using strings, wires and thin tubing.

[00:18:54] And so she developed the ear mechanism, the soft ear mechanism to make Yoda's ears move. And I thought it was beautiful. That didn't look mechanical. A lot of organic movement to it. And then it, but it didn't stop the ears moving. So if you really shake, shook the head, the ears would still move. Whereas if you put like a mechanical hard sort of linkage in there, the ears wouldn't move because you'd have a mechanical sense to them.

[00:19:20] And then Bob Keen created some lovely, very simple, straightforward, direct linkage eye mechanisms that work really, really well. And so now we've got one person doing an awful lot of work in the head. And that's Frank Oz. So there's one person doing eyes, one person doing ears, and then Kathy Mullen doing the right hand with Frank doing the left hand.

[00:19:43] So Frank's doing the left hand of Yoda, the whole body, the head, the mouth, the eyebrows and the voice and all the body movements. And it was just, for me, it was a master class of the best puppetry on set every day. It was just phenomenal.

[00:20:02] So, yeah, I think Yoda was, I think pretty much he really was the first animatronic performance puppet that anyone had built before. I think Rick Baker had done some, he did the King Kong walk around suit in 76 with various different heads with different sculpted faces and some sneer mechanisms with cables.

[00:20:28] There was nothing quite as sophisticated as Yoda because that was all in just the one package. There weren't multiple expressions for Yoda. It was the one sculpture and it was the puppeteering performance and the mechanisms that brought him to life. So, yeah, looking at ways to trick the audience into believing he's real. So it was marvelous. It's just, yeah, it's stunning. The way he looks is just like, it feels like it's a real person. Yeah.

[00:20:58] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, again, that's Stuart's aesthetic. He was just so brilliant at that stuff. I mean, he had done the 2001 Apes for Kubrick. And that was a phenomenal amount of work. And just no one had ever taken it anywhere close to that level. I mean, John Chambers did a phenomenal job on the original Planet of the Apes. But these were like realistic. They actually had extended teeth connected to the performer's teeth.

[00:21:26] And Kubrick wanted them to bite into real meat and tear real meat off of bones and that sort of thing. He said, oh, no, it can't be props. It's got to be real. So it's like, how on earth Stuart did it? I don't really know. But I mean, he was such a genius problem solver. Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, it's amazing because, you know, I was a kid when Empire came out and we first saw Yoda. And of course, I was completely entranced.

[00:21:51] But, you know, years later, even knowing some of the behind the scenes, you know, getting the curtain peeled back, I can still watch it. Right. And still be entranced that Yoda is this amazing, you know, amazing creature. So where does the personality, is the personality Frank Oz or does the personality start with like the physicality of, you know, the head? Like where did the personality start for Yoda? That's a very good question.

[00:22:20] Where did the personality start? I think a lot of character will come from the script, of course. So everyone will read the script to be on the same dialogue page. So they know what Yoda is going to say. And Frank is a very, very good actor. And so he's looking at Yoda as an actor rather than he says that he's not a big fan of puppets, but he loves characters.

[00:22:45] And Yoda is a good example of where it's Frank's genius of being character driven that makes it work. So he was looking at all of the different human quirks and traits that would make this character real. And so, yes. So he worked on originally the voice when we were filming was going to be replaced by a celebrity, not by Frank. Oh, really? Yeah.

[00:23:14] So he just did. It sounded a bit more like Grover than the Yoda voice. I mean, it was it was a voice kind of in that range, but he was focusing on the voice because it was going to be replaced. So so it wasn't something that we really concentrated on, making sure that the vocal was spot on. It was really about making sure that the movements were right. And the first few days of filming, I wasn't involved.

[00:23:40] I was still being a trainee in the makeup lab doing sort of grunt jobs, basically cleaning up stuff, expanding foam skins and building spare mechanisms. And suddenly I was drafted in one afternoon to take over because someone was ill and they needed someone just to take Yoda's eyes for the afternoon. And I thought and before I knew it, I was on set controlling Yoda's eyes.

[00:24:07] So I didn't have time to be nervous because if I'd been having to audition for it, I would have failed miserably. But as I was just like thrown in the deep end, given the controls, right, do this, get on with it. It's like, OK. And I thought after my first afternoon, well, this is brilliant. I've had the opportunity to work with the amazing Frank Oz and actually get to puppeteer on this Yoda. Fantastic. But the following morning, Frank said, no, he was very happy with what I did.

[00:24:34] And he'd like me to stay on as a puppeteer and not go back to the workshop. So for the rest of the Yoda shoot, I was I became the fourth puppeteer and puppeteered Yoda's eyes.

[00:24:46] And so it was yeah, it was really interesting because when I joined in for that following morning, Frank would do had been doing a procedure every morning before we started filming of looking at the scene, looking at the script. And we had a little port-a-cabin that we could work in. And he would then actually act it out himself as a human being, not with the puppet.

[00:25:13] He would do the movements with his body. He'd do the turning of his head. He would actually call out if the eyes were going to turn, if we were going to blink, where are we going to look? And we would block it out as though it was like animation. There was no, it wasn't like it was just like something happened and we filmed it. Now, he worked it all through with a fine tooth comb.

[00:25:35] And then he got all of us, the three of us to follow him behind him doing the very same sequence so that we got into his rhythm. We knew what he was doing. We knew when to look. We knew. So we got into the sense of this character. So through his voice, through his own acting and through his own physicality, we all got used to who this character Yoda should be. And then we did our very best to emulate that with the puppet.

[00:26:04] And of course, Frank did an amazing job with that. But particularly, I think we only did maybe three or four days of that because then there was just so much work. We didn't have time and we'd got used to it. We'd got used to Yoda's character so we could just go in and we would just follow what Frank was doing. And obviously, we'd have rehearsals. So we'd try and get those right. But and for my part, I had the I shared the eyes with Wendy.

[00:26:33] Wendy did the eyes for some of the shoot. But I think I did them for about the bulk of it. And what I was trying to look for is to trying to find the emotion in in Yoda. And so I. Frank always notated when he wanted an eye blink. So that was always really is. But nearly always it was when you cut to mark.

[00:26:59] But it was almost to the point where no one ever saw him blink. There's usually a nice blink and it was all coordinated. So there's a lot of time where you don't see Yoda blink, but it's maybe it's the Michael Caine thing. It's better if he doesn't blink. I don't know. But but so I was with so the eyebrows, you couldn't do masses of expressions. You could raise them up and down a little bit, but you really didn't get different emotions per se from them.

[00:27:27] So I was I was trying to find ways of matching Frank's tone and the mood of Yoda with movements of the eyes to try and squint them down and use them to give the impression that Yoda was thinking about certain things. So that was that was something I just sort of naturally did. And and Frank seemed to like it. And so everybody else did. So I wasn't told off. No, no, don't do that. So and I look back at it and it's like my very first ever job.

[00:27:55] I looked at it more recently. I thought, wow, that's that's yeah, it's actually it's a great way of doing it. And these days, typically the with the fact that the mechanisms are so much better, there's a lot more blink, blink, blink eyes moving around. And that was far more subtle and just slower and more intense. And so looking back on it, I feel very proud to have been involved in that.

[00:28:22] So we have the great honor of having Jamie Anderson, Jerry Anderson on our show. Yes. So growing up in London, did you watch Thunderbirds? Did you watch Supercar? Did you watch his shows? Because his was all marionettes and using, you know, audio animatronics to sync voice with lip movements and eyebrows? That did, you know, did that impress you as as a youngster as well? I love Thunderbirds.

[00:28:51] Yeah, it was one of my favorites. And I loved Stingray and Four Feather Falls and all the early ones, Fibre X L5. I loved them. I knew the puppeteer John Blundell was one of the British live puppeteers that my parents knew. So I knew all the different puppeteers that were working on it because I was basically a kid at that time in the 60s. So it wouldn't be something I would work on. No. I loved it and I loved the miniatures.

[00:29:19] But I was also very critical of some of the puppetry and the walking. And it's like, no, they haven't built the legs right for that. The legs aren't going through the right walk cycle. Who built that? That's fantastic. Even as a kid. So I loved all the miniatures and everything. And even as a kid, I fell about when they used the rubber gloves for picking up things. I just thought it was just like, come on, guys. But no, I loved it.

[00:29:47] It was part of my childhood. And I was, because at that time I was doing, I was the warm-up act for my parents. That's from six years onwards with my Pelham puppets. So they would put on an LP on a turntable, a battery-controlled turntable. And I would dance my Pelham puppet string puppets to the different tracks in the music. And I had about like a half a dozen of them.

[00:30:14] So I was, and I could, yeah, I taught myself to like puppeteer for hours on end. So I built up all the muscle memory and the stamina for it. And this is as a kid. So, yeah, I took my job very seriously. People say, oh, you're going home to play with puppets again. I said, I'm not playing. I'm working. You're working. This is like seven or eight. I was like, no, I'm not playing.

[00:30:41] Is that about the time when the photo was used for your cover book? Yes, exactly. Okay. I looked at the picture. I'm going, yeah, he looks like a nice kid, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But just, I'm sure just barking crazy then as well as I am now. But they're loving it, loving it. Absolutely loving the puppetry. But I took it very seriously. That's because that's what my parents did. They took their work very seriously. And they were very professional.

[00:31:07] And when I was having to be inside their puppet theater, I was totally silent the whole way through a 45-minute show, even when I was four or five. So, yeah, I got the opportunity to learn stage presence and all the practices of theater from an early age, which, again, definitely helped me when I got into the movies. Were they very impressed with you, with your work on Star Wars? Like, you know, our projectile son has done an amazing thing.

[00:31:38] Well, definitely. Because in my couple of years beforehand, when I was about to take all my big school exams, I was more interested in doing a standard 8-millimeter cine film home movie fan movie, you would call it nowadays, from Planet of the Apes. I love the original Planet of the Apes. And so I took live casts of myself and my friends. I made all the costumes. I made the sets. I did all the masks, the wigs and everything. Wrote the script.

[00:32:06] I mean, we did all these films. And I spent an awful lot of time and all my pocket money. And when I worked at the supermarket for the weekend, it all went into there, into making my films. And my dad, at one point, was saying, oh, you will never get anywhere making those bloody ape films.

[00:32:23] So then when I finally got to employ him on who framed Roger Rabbit, I was now chief puppeteer. I was department supervisor. And so it was up to me who I brought in. And so I brought my dad in. And he said, nice. So glad you didn't listen to a bloody word I said. It's a fantastic story. So you did.

[00:32:51] You got to kind of enter into the film world through Yoda, which is amazing. And I just love your story is so fantastic that you were just kind of raised in this and given tools. And you obviously embraced it and loved it at a young age and saw the value in it. Because, you know, some kids might have tried to run away from that. You know what mom and dad are doing to be different, whatever, you know.

[00:33:21] But obviously you loved it at a young age. But Yoda being your film entrance, what was the next couple of things you did after that that kind of kept you going or that was along the line? Right. Okay. Yeah. Well, after wrapping on the Empire Strikes Back, I went to go and work for Jim Henson on The Dark Crystal.

[00:33:44] So I was one of the key puppet designers and worked with Lyle Conway on The Skeksis, The Ur-Skeks, and Augra. I sculpted the 11-foot taller Skeks and sculpted some mystic feet. And I sculpted half of the Skeksis. Lyle would sculpt one side and he said, I can't be bothered to do the other. You do it. So then I'd have to match his style with a little bit of variation because Brian Froud always wanted asymmetry in everything that we did. So I had to take the thing.

[00:34:14] And so I finished the other halves of the Skeksis for Lyle and had a wonderful, again, just the most amazing lesson in sculpting these characters. I mean, he gave me such a great gift in asking me to do that. So it was, yeah, fantastic. And then we ended up building 27 puppets in nine months, which was Lyle, myself, Tad and Graham Galvin.

[00:34:38] So we were, yeah, we were just a very small team of building all this stuff again because there was nothing had been built like this before. There was no how-to books. We were just making it all up as we went along. Real pioneering, it sounds like. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everybody was on Dark Crystal. Everyone was doing new, innovative stuff. But I think Lyle was probably, in my opinion, he was the guy who was the most innovative of everything.

[00:35:05] All of his ideas and concepts were always based around performance and bringing emotion and character to the puppets. Where other people may be great mechanics, but they don't quite know what those mechanics could possibly do for the performance. Where Lyle knew exactly and was, again, just for me, just a great, like Stuart Freeborn, just a great mentor to work with and learn from.

[00:35:34] And so Dark Crystal was, yeah, just a fantastic experience. But again, like all the films, it gets to a point where the film is finished. The 500 crew are all let go because we're all freelance. And I would think, well, I wonder what's next. And then I find out that Jim wants me and Lyle to stay on and work at the creature shop indefinitely. So it's like, wow. Wow. Okay.

[00:36:01] So after that, we are doing promotion for the Dark Crystal because they're working on completing all the post-production. And they're going to do a big release on it. And so we're going to do exhibition figures. We're going to do some live appearances on TV. And so we were in charge of all of that. And we also got a chance to see the very first pilot of Fraggle Rock. Ah, that's cool. 30-minute work week.

[00:36:28] So Duncan Kenworthy was the British producer. And he said, hey, Lyle, David, have a look at this. See what you think. And we watched it through. And I said to Duncan, you know what? Sprocket the dog. That's my favorite bit of the whole thing. I said, that's my sort of thing. I love the fact that he doesn't speak. He doesn't have words. So it's pure puppetry. It's you. He has to express himself with all his gestures and his mime, pantomime. And so I said, I'd love to do something like that.

[00:36:58] That's really my thing. And he happened to mention that to Jim. And unbeknownst to me, Jim was planning international co-productions of Fraggle Rock, where they would re-film Dock and Sprocket in England, France, Germany, and Sweden. I'll be darn out. And I got another puppeteer to cover for Steve Whitmire because he did the original Sprocket. And so I got to be Sprocket in all the other countries. Nice. Nice. That's great.

[00:37:26] And the performance of performances with Sprocket. And basically felt like, all right, I've made it. I'm now a Muppet performer. So from all of those amazing experiences. And then, of course, I got the phone call from Stuart Freeborn saying, oh, would I like to be chief puppeteer for Jabba the Hutt? Wow. I was working at Henson's and it's like, oh, yes. Yes, I'd love to.

[00:37:55] But I am contracted to Jim Henson, so I'll have to speak to him first. So I spoke to Jim and he said, as long as I cleared all my work for the release of the Dark Crystal, because that was the period of time that we were going to shoot Jabba. As long as I cleared all that work, then yes, he would release me to puppeteer Jabba. So again, I got my cake and eat it.

[00:38:16] I not only was going to be lead chief puppeteer on George Lucas's biggest gangster of the sequels, original trilogy, I should say, not the sequels, but the sequels to the original Star Wars, which is now called Five and Six. But I also got to stay employed by Jim Henson as well. So, yeah. So I got your cake and eat it. Yes, I really did. And it's like I was 22 at that point.

[00:38:45] So I was quite old. That's incredible. So what did you puppeteer in Jabba? What was your involvement in that? Yeah, well, again, when usually you have a chief puppeteer, they typically do the voice. On films, they're nearly always replaced with a celebrity. Even on Dark Crystal, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, all their voices were replaced by different voice performers.

[00:39:14] So typically with films, you know that you're just going to provide a guide voice. So I provided the guide voice. I spoke in English so that the actors and the crew knew what Jabba was saying, because if you spoke in Huttese, nobody would have a clue. And I don't even know if they'd worked out the language at that point fully at that stage. So, yeah. So I spoke all of Jabba's lines in English. And then I was the right hand of Jabba. My left hand went under his throat into his jaw.

[00:39:45] And so I did the mouth and his lip sync to my own voice. So when I spoke, I made his mouth move. And then my friend next to me, Toby, he did Jabba's left hand. We sat shoulder to shoulder inside Jabba. And with his right hand, he controlled Jabba's head and then his tongue. Oh, yeah. That's wild. Did you have a mustache and glasses in those days? I did. I had it for the very longest time.

[00:40:13] And I only relatively recently got rid of the mustache because I was going to be doing facial motion capture and I needed to glue all the markers onto my face. And then when I did that, my two adult sons said, oh, you look much better without your mustache, Dad. So it's stayed off ever since.

[00:40:34] So the reason I ask is leading up to, you know, talking to you this evening, I was telling my son, who is 14, I was telling him what we were going to be talking about tonight. And I was telling him he was a puppeteer that worked Yoda and worked Jabba the Hutt. And he looked funny at me like they're kind of like they're puppets. And I think because he's used to just everything in the universe being CGI, whatever. And it sparked a memory. And so I had to go back to this right before we got on.

[00:41:04] Back in the day, back in the 80s, I remember when there were always these little events on TV in the evenings. And I have a memory. Well, I sparked this memory of this behind the scenes documentary on Return of the Jedi that came out the same year. And I remember it being just as big a deal to watch this documentary as it was to watch the film.

[00:41:33] And I remember that's where I actually learned that they were puppets because I didn't really process. You know, I was eight or nine when it came out. I didn't completely process it. And I remember being like, I didn't know what I thought it was. But when I learned that these, especially when I learned about the Jim Henson tie, because I grew up watching, you know, the Muppet show. I remember my mind being blown. So I'm like, I bet you this documentary is on YouTube. And so, yep, it's on YouTube. I went. Oh, really? They had several minutes.

[00:42:03] We'll post this. You know, they had several minutes devoted to Jabba the Hutt. And they were showing. And yes. And so then there was a gentleman speaking in with an American accent, you know, in. Yeah. Yeah. In English. Yes. And I was like, that sounds like that what Jabba is saying. Because, yeah, I was wondering. So, yeah. So you're in this documentary. Yes. Yeah. They came along with them with a little 16 millimeter film camera and they shoved it up inside Jabba.

[00:42:32] And and so I found it a bit. Oh, I found it uncomfortable, to be honest, because being a puppeteer, I'm not you. It's not usually my face. I don't usually have to speak to people. I certainly didn't have to back then. I was always hidden behind the puppet. But my my friend Toby, he had been a juggler and a street performer. So he was brilliant at talking to the camera where I was rubbish.

[00:42:56] But I got a few words in and then they they edited it together to make it sound almost sensible. So, but, yeah, it was it was amazing. It was my first opportunity to be actually seen as a puppeteer in control over such a big. Important Star Wars character. Yeah. I was amazed. And and then it's that particular documentary.

[00:43:23] It sort of runs through all the the important people, the creature people that brought Star Wars to life, including like the Dave Prowse and Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker. And Toby and I are included in that. And we were just blown away. It's like, wow, we've really made it. And so. But again, as Toby said many years later, it was like it was one job for a few weeks.

[00:43:47] And neither of us thought it would still be so popular today. Forty years later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love about these films, too, that in the Star Wars is just a really fantastic example. But like George Lucas, George Lucas, excuse me, gets so much props for just creating Star Wars.

[00:44:12] But without guys like you and plethora of other artists and people bringing it to life, it's still just an idea. And it may be a really good idea, but without other artists and incorporating a ton of people in as you have to in films to really bring it to life is remarkable.

[00:44:32] And the thing about the original three Star Wars films that I think is still really wonderful is I don't sit there and go, oh, Yoda's a puppet. You know, I don't I don't consider that there's two guys inside Jabba the Hutt. You know, that's and that's your job, right?

[00:44:52] That is to give the audience an experience where they can just be lost in the story and the characters and what's happening and not go, oh, that's clearly a puppet. You know, then we can just watch Jabba and enjoy those scenes and get grossed out by his big old tongue. You know, exactly. Certainly, that's what we were all aiming for back in the day. But I mean, this was really early days. I mean, yeah, Yoda was the very first.

[00:45:20] And two or three years later, after having done Dark Crystal, Jabba was certainly the biggest ever animatronic puppet that anyone ever tried to build. Just trying to cast his prosthetic foam latex skin was a major undertaking that no one had ever tried before. And they usually you would fill up the mold with a foam latex mixture and you'd have to heat cure it, which means you'd have to put it in an oven to bake so that it would stay.

[00:45:48] It wouldn't squish when you pressed it. And so but there was no there were no ovens big enough. So they actually had to convert an office into an oven for baking Jabba's foam latex skin. So just all these problems that had to be solved in different manners that no one had ever attempted before. So it was really exciting to be part of it all.

[00:46:14] But again, it's the the the potential of it going wrong, I think, could have been quite high. And I remember George Lucas was worried that if Yoda didn't appear real, he would have to go back and reshoot it all and find an actor or do something. Because I think it was finally when after going through 17 different celebrity and voice artists to find the right Yoda voice, none of them came close.

[00:46:41] He went back to Frank and said, well, can you make it sound a little less like Grover? So and that's where Yoda's voice came from. And Frank's vocal performance is just glorious. Again, the acting in his voice. And again, it's so perfectly timed and in tune with the performance, which I think probably the other voice artists weren't used to doing. So Frank knew the intention of every moment of what we were doing. So, yeah, it was.

[00:47:10] And so I was lucky that I was able to have Jabba's voice on set and then get an incredibly deep and wonderful voice to replace my English, British voice. The Jabba sounded really good. But my son is an Emmy winning sound engineer and he's he's looking at some of the stuff.

[00:47:31] And I noticed that they when they recorded when they did Jabba, they actually slid the voice track slightly out of sync. So it's slightly late. And what that does, it makes it feel that the voice is coming from even further deeply down inside the character. Wow. Oh, that's cool. Tiny details, like one or two frames shift the track. And I was because I'm thinking I'm looking at the other track slightly out when I'm putting together a show reel. It's like, so I slide it over and it's perfect.

[00:48:01] Oh, but it doesn't sound as deep and as strong. It's like, wow. So they every single trick in the book to make these characters come to life. That's amazing. So you talk a lot about the, you know, how fun it was. And you mentioned some of the difficulties. But were there any scenes in particular that you remember that you knew you were going to have to shoot the next day that where you, you know, you try to go to bed and you're sleeping and you wake up and you're like, oh, my goodness gracious. You said, I've got to shoot this scene with Jabba the Hutt tomorrow.

[00:48:32] Well, it was certainly the very first day was that way. Yeah. Because we were supposed to get two weeks rehearsal, but they were busily building Jabba. He wasn't ready for us. So we would go inside and then we try and work him and then stuff would break. And so we'd have to leave them to fix it. Because, again, no one had ever built anything like this. And this was the very first ever prototype built under sort of very tight schedule. And so we didn't have time to really bed our performance in before we started.

[00:49:01] So the very first day was tough, just exactly that. But after a couple of days, we found our stride and that was great. But one of the scariest things was the fact we, well, we couldn't see out of Jabba at all. He was completely enclosed because we're not wearing a mask. So the heads were inside his chest.

[00:49:23] The only thing we can see are two old fashioned monitors slung around our necks that have a video image from the lighting rig. So they've got a camera way up there to give us what they called a wild camera. This isn't the camera that is filming Jabba. This is just a reference for us. A bit like a security camera, I suppose. And so that's how we are performing. We can't hear.

[00:49:50] So we've got little earpieces in to try and hear what the actors and what the director is saying. And that sometimes would break up. It wouldn't always be consistent. And then I had a microphone inside, a lapel microphone, so that when Jabba was speaking, they would feed that to a speaker outside Jabba so people could hear me what I was saying. But we felt very cut off from the rest of the set. We never saw Carrie, of course, in her costume because we were inside in pitch blackness.

[00:50:20] But when we had Femi Taylor, who played Ula, and Carrie as Leia, Jabba had them with a chain around their neck. And Jabba was holding that. That was my arm and my hand holding that chain. And it was just a chain around their neck. And so if I'd really pulled and they weren't ready for it, I could have either throttled them or done some damage. So that was really worrying. That bothered me a lot. And I remember we did a sequence with Carrie.

[00:50:50] And I was supposed to pull the chain. And again, I've got these big rubber gloves with mechanical finger extensions on, so I can't really feel much in the chain. I can't really see what I'm doing. And we do the first take. And then Carrie turns. And she would always call us as Jabba, just like the director. Dave or Toby. And she would just address Jabba. Jabba, I can't act a limp chain, you know. So if you're going to pull me, you have to pull me.

[00:51:18] And I said, but Carrie, I can't really see what I'm doing. And I'm really worried about hurting you. And she said, well, I'll take full responsibility. But I can't. You have to pull that chain. Otherwise, this shot doesn't work and we're wasting our time. So I said, all right, okay. So I did my best. And she was as good as her words. She made sure that she didn't get hurt. But she was prepared for it. And the shot looked great. Yeah, it sure did. It was really worrying for me. Because there were no safety wires on there.

[00:51:47] It was just a chain around her neck. Was that like, did the unions have any concerns about it? Because I would think they'd be very like, okay, we've got to make sure this is safe for the actors. No, we're talking the 1980s. I feel like it's changed over the years. Yeah. Was it a metal chain or was it a plastic chain? Was it a real metal chain? I think it was a plastic chain. Okay. Okay. So, yeah.

[00:52:17] I think it was a plastic chain. But it was still a very strong chain. And it was still around the neck. Yeah. And there was like, the collar just fitted on. So it was like, if I'd pulled it, it could have really done damage to her and to Femi. And so Femi would grab the chain and we'd pull the chain because she would do that dance. So that was all right. Can I just, I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir.

[00:52:43] But I just want my fellow crew of the Big Sci-Fi Podcast to just sit in the acknowledgement and the realization. We're talking to the man that was inside Jabba the Hutt that had the hand in the arm that held the chain. That pulled the heck out of Carrie Fisher back into Jabba the Hutt. That's who we're talking to. I want to tell you. Everyone knows. My son-in-law, Brian, lives, breathes Star Wars.

[00:53:10] When I tell him that I'm talking to Yoda and Jabba the Hutt today, he is going to, well, I don't know what he's going to do. But it's going to mean a lot to him. And it means a lot to us as well to speak with you today. So. Yeah. There are probably like a thousand stories you could tell us.

[00:53:31] However, I'm imagining that a lot of them, many of them, hopefully tons of them, are written in your new autobiography that you have coming out. Yes. Well, quite a few of them are. I mean, one of my friends about 20 years ago said you've got all these stories. You have a unique insight into the animatronic world, into Star Wars, into puppets. And you really ought to write the stories down.

[00:53:59] So eventually I thought, oh, maybe I'll do it during COVID. But no, I didn't. After COVID happened, I thought, well, OK, I better do it. So I actually really enjoyed the process. But I thought, well, there's so many. It's like this would just go on forever and people will be it'd be too tedious. So I thought, well, how can I approach this? And so I decided to try and choose one or two stories from each of the films and base it around a photograph. Oh, nice.

[00:54:29] So if there was a story, there was a photograph to back it up, as it were. And so I went through all the photographs that I had. And I was very lucky to get Lucasfilm and Frank Oz to approve all the Star Wars from Yoda and Lucasfilm for the Jabba ones. And then I got Mark Hamill as well. Mark approved a picture with me and him when I was chief puppeteer for Yoda, which was, again, just amazing that he would do that.

[00:54:58] And then the Jim Henson company and the Jim Henson family for approving the pictures from Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and Fraggle Rock. And then people like Brendan Fraser, when I worked with him on Looney Tunes. He was just such a delightful man. And I think he replied saying, yes, everything was fine within like five minutes of me sending the email. Wow, wow. That's great.

[00:55:23] Everyone is really wonderful about approving me using the photographs in the book. So I've been able to use photographs to really explain certain parts. But yeah, if I'd put all the stories in there, it would be massive and just be too much. So but this way, there's there's hopefully because there's there must be like two, three hundred photographs in the book. So. Oh, excellent. And where can people find it? And when is it?

[00:55:52] Yeah, it's going to be released beginning of February. So my manager and very dear friend, Derek Mackey from Cold Waters Productions, he has arranged a pre-sale version of it already up on his website. So that's the best place to get it right now. It will be available in Barnes and Noble. But the catch with that, of course, I won't be able to sign it.

[00:56:18] So I think the best thing to do is for me to do it through Derek's website as much as I possibly can. And also when I go to conventions, then I'll have some copies with me. So if people are interested to pick it up at a convention, then I can sign it for them and we can chat about it. So, yeah, so that's that's that's the current plan. So and I want to let people know, you know, so, yeah. So we'll put the link to where you can get an autographed copy online.

[00:56:45] And what I have what I see for convention appearances. So if our listeners are in Chantilly, Virginia, which is actually almost my backyard last weekend of May, first weekend of June. Yeah. Big Lit Comic Con. I think you'll be there. I won't. And neither of my coworkers, even though it's in my backyard, I will be at Trek Long Island at a different convention. Yes. But so there's that.

[00:57:13] And then for folks who are in looks like North Dakota. Yeah. You know, North Dakota in April, April 25th that weekend. You'll also be there. Those are the ones that I see. So if you see Dave, if you're near either of those areas and see Dave, you can get an autographed copy there. But yeah, we will absolutely. And I think I'm going to go ahead and order a pre-release copy right after we're done, because I'm now. Yes, I'm hooked. I want to know more. Yes. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah.

[00:57:43] And actually, Derek's got a whole and a few more conventions lined up for me, which we're waiting to get the final green lights on them. So hopefully I'll do a good two or three, maybe four more conventions this year. So more opportunities to meet people, which which I love. I mean, it's one of the best things of sort of being now semi-retired is that I have the time.

[00:58:07] I mean, when I was like 10 years ago, I'd have a I'd be working seven days a week, months on end and just wouldn't be able to get out and meet people. So this is this is great. Yeah. Yeah. I just I cannot wait to tell my son that I talked to the guy that had the arm that was inside Jabba's pulled the chain. Great. Great.

[00:58:31] Well, I just want to say as a as a last thing for me, Mr. Barkley, is just thank you for your artistry. Thank you for your dedication to that, because without people like you behind the scenes doing all the stuff you've done through the years and using your great skill and artist artistry talent. And it just films are what they are because of people like you. So thank you, sir. Thank you for making making films rich for us. Well, thank you for saying that. Yeah. I had one quick.

[00:59:01] Hopefully it's a quick question, but I'm so curious about I don't even remember the name of the character, but like I call him Yoda's buddy. Is there not Yoda's buddy? Jabba the Hutt's like little friend who's like commenting in the back. Was that a separate in the back? Yeah. Cackling in the back. Was that a separate? That's the best impersonation you've done in the whole history of the big sci-fi. I think so. Right there. It might be. That was the best. Was that a separate puppeteer or did you also? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah.

[00:59:28] No, I mean, that was a character called Salacious Crumb. Right. Salacious Crumb. And he was created by two of the puppet makers that had worked on Dark Crystal. Tony McVeigh. And Tony, actually, I think recently was the guy that did the initial concept design for Grogu. Oh, OK. He's a genius sculptor. So he and another puppeteer, Mike McCormick, who worked on Dark Crystal and on Jedi.

[00:59:57] They built Salacious Crumb in the workshop, actually in the States. So and then he then the puppet came over and was puppeteered primarily by puppeteer friend of mine called Tim Rose. And Tim was also Admiral Ackbar in Jedi. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That's cool. So, yeah. So he did he did Salacious Crumb.

[01:00:23] And yeah, so there would be for most of the time they would cut a hole in the plinth that Jabba was sitting on. And again, Tim would have to reach his hand up through. They dropped the puppet on his hand and he would he'd be puppeteering until his hand went numb and then take the hand out, get some blood back in it and back up into the puppet. Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Awesome. Yeah, we could absolutely sit here and ask stories about every character all day. But then no one would buy the book because we'd explain everything here.

[01:00:52] So buy the book, folks. Yes. So, you know, unfortunately, we're going to have to come to an end of another episode of the Big Sci-Fi Podcast. Dave, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your stories. This has been this has been wonderful. My pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Yes. So I can't read to read the autobiography. And I hope listeners, I hope many of you are going to grab a copy, too, especially an autographed copy. And speaking of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.

[01:01:22] As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts. So you can find us on Facebook or drop us a line at the big sci-fi podcast at gmail.com with anything you have to say about today's episode or science fiction in general. Now, I feel like I learned a lot today. I hope you all did, too. Live long and prosper. Be kind to each other. And we'll see you next time on the Big Sci-Fi Podcast. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Big Sci-Fi Podcast.

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