Bill Prady visits the crash of 1987

Bill Prady is an experienced writer and creator/executive producer of “The Big Bang Theory”. Here he divides a memory when he was at a moment of global economic instability as an author of the Jim Henson Co..

On November 6, 1987, the muppets appeared in a special “town hall” edition of ABC's “Nightline” in segments after a devastating stock market crash to explain the financial system. I wrote this segments and have not thought of them for years – until John Oliver recently radiated one of them in “Last week” last week.

In 1987 I had my first professional job as a writer. I was a computer programmer when I broke off the college and moved to New York, but a number of decisions they made in their twenties had ended up in the muppets. I was a production assistant, then I worked in the license department and then became a personnel author with a Miscellany portfolio.

Funny Box specimen for the muesli of the Swedish chef? That was me. “Dial-A-Muppet” sketches? Me. An explanation to Miss Piggy's press? Me. One of the things that I did not concentrate on as a 27-year-old for a frog and a pig was the stock market.

The US stock market crashed on October 19, 1987. The dow fell by 23%and percentuoo the economy. Ted Koppel, the moderator of “Nightline”, began production from a special to look at the crisis in detail. When he realized that an understanding of some basics was essential, he wondered whether the muppets were available to treat the task.

I have two favorite parts of this story. The first is the call between Ted Koppel and Jim Henson. If they weren't there, I should let her know that 1987 was a pretty primitive time. We hadn't started to walk around the Internet in our pockets. Jim's office received a message that Koppel wanted to speak to him, but Jim would not be available that day. We have shot public service announcements for the National Wildlife Federation on site in Central Park.

ABC said Jim's office that this would not be a problem. You send a cell phone to Central Park. Sure enough, in the middle of the afternoon we found a production assistant from ABC in the forest in front of the big lawn. He opened a large aluminum filing pocket, expanded an antenna and moments later the thing rang.

While we watched in awe in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Koppel Jim explained what he wanted: short funny parts that explain basic terms such as “Bull Market”, “Bear Market”, “Margin Call”, “Contrarian” etc.

Jim turned to me. “You have that?”

“I have that,” I said.

Bill Pradys reading begins in this episode of 37:45 in this episode of Variety weekly podcast “Strictly Business”.

Bill Pradys read this story begins in the 37:45 brand in this episode of Variety weekly podcast “Strictly Business”

The next day I went to the New York public library to learn more about the stock exchange. (Again it was 1987. 1987 Wikipedia was a building in which they were filled with books and people.) I was told that Jim and Frank Oz would carry out the pieces, so I wrote them for their characters. Jim would perform Kermit and Rowlf the Dog that Frank would perform Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and some others. The pieces were short and as funny as I could do it while I conveyed the content.

We made our way to the ABC News Headquarters on West 66th Street to shoot. Our SET department had a miniature version of the then Abbus messages Peter Jennings' desk and the doll's workshop covered in an intelligent Newsy Blue Blazer. When we came in, Jim noticed that the studio in which we were in, ABC Studio One, was the home of “The Jimmy Dean Show”. From 1963 to 1966 “The Jimmy Dean Show” showed Jims Puppet Rowlf. It was the first regular network appearance of a Muppet character.

The studio was not ideal for shooting dolls. Although we had a desk in the right scale, there was really no good setup for the puppeteer. Jim and Frank had to wedge under and behind them uncomfortably. We worked as soon as possible.

Fozzie Bear explained the bear markets and Miss Piggy took the roof in Ted Koppel's raw material question on pork bellies. A grumpy old puppet identified as a “contrarian” and then agreed with everyone. Rowlf smashed apples to illustrate that “the market is beating”.

And then a camera broke. And that led to my second favorite part of this story.

Because they were trapped, Jim and Frank stayed on the spot while a technician worked on bringing the camera back to life. To stay relaxed, they did what puppet players often do between the settings – they kept the dolls high and “alive”. Jim had the dog on his arm and Frank worked Sam Eagle.

Rowlf looked around. “You know,” he began in his rough dog snort, “we shot the old Jimmy Dean Show here.”

Sam Eagle put his wing on his head in fake exhaustion. “Oh hell,” he said, “here are the Jimmy Dean stories.”

And then the most amazing piece of improvisation followed. When you think of Kermit and Piggy or Rowlf and Fozzie, forget that you were brought to life by one of the greatest comedy teams of all time: Jim Henson and Frank Oz. There, in ABC Studio One, Franks Sam began the piece and invented a story that he had “heard” from Rowlf. Jim's Rowlf repeated what Sam said, but he pretended that he hadn't listened – as if a needle had just fallen into a groove.

“I was just a little puppy,” said Sam mockingly.

“I was just a little puppy,” Rowlf started.

“Looking for my first break,” moaned Sam.

“Looking for my first break,” said Rowlf Hell.

“So I hiked outside the streets of New York …”

“So I hiked outside the streets of New York …”

“… through an open door,” sighed Sam.

“… through an open door,” Rowlf continued.

And so when Frank led and pretended to not follow Jim, we heard the story of a dog that broke into television. The ABC News team, which largely ignored us, stopped working and drifted to watch them. The bird and the dog continued. The director switched himself to the camera technician and asked when he would be repaired.

“Oh, we have been ready for a while,” said the guy. “I just didn't want to stop the show.”

Nowadays, when something amazing and magical and an American eagle passed, which was exhaustively sitting through the memories of his dog friend, iPhone videos from 20 different perspectives were published throughout the Internet.

But in a world in which portable phones are available in aluminum files, this moment only exists in the memories of the people who were there.

Thank you, John Oliver that you made it incredulously and brought it to mind.

“Strictly Business” is Diversity'S Weekly Podcast with discussions with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. ((Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes are debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded from Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, Soundcloud and more.