Crank Yankers

Yay.

[laughs] I also realize that, uh, Crank Yankers-

Yeah

... uh, Jim Florentine played a character called Special Ed-

But tell me about your puppeteer and how he actually set those puppets up.

So Drew Massey is a puppeteer and a puppet designer who's a genius, and I worked with him on Crank Yankers.

That's where I met him first, and then I...

On some other shows as well over the years.

And then we 3D printed the molds and made latex puppets with talented puppet f- fabricators here in LA that did a great job.

We flocked them.

Essentially Muppet-style or Crank Yankers-style puppets.

And then h- he and his fiancée, Nicolette Santino, did most of the puppetry.

Yeah.

People have mine, with mine, especially 'cause I did Crank Yankers, and I did that special ed character-

[laughs]

... and stuff.

Because that's how desperate cable channels were for content in the early 2000s, I guess.

Guys, it was Jim Baker or Crank Yankers, okay? We had to

take the right decision then.

Or The Apprentice.

Prank calls, yes.

But in America, I remember when Crank Yankers came out, the TV show.

Yeah.

It felt very much like in the South Park era, but I was like, "Crank Yankers? What the hell does that mean?"

Yeah.

I was like, "Oh, you mean prank calls." [laughs]

[laughs] Well, Crank Yankers is-

That was popular

Artie Esposito began working on his puppetry skills at a very young age.

Several years puppeteering at Walt Disney World, as well as honing his skills at workshops with the Jim Henson Company and the Muppets, would propel Artie to television shows such as Crank Yankers and Sesame Street.

He puppeteered Baloo the Bear in the live action remake of Disney's The Jungle Book, and puppeteered Freddy Fazbear for the film Five Nights at Freddy's, where he also served as puppet captain.

I talked to Artie Esposito about all of these things on this episode of Under the Puppet.

Well, what was that puppet show? Let's, let's transition to that.

Where did you, where'd you go from there?

So that was Crank Yankers.

I had, um, I had started working, um, on my off days at Disney, I would go over to, um, a shop owned by a puppeteer named BJ Guyer, and he sort of started to teach me how to build correctly.

I quit the Tonight Show.

I worked at Crank Yankers for a while, and then I had to quit Crank Yankers to start SNL.

Made fun of me a lot.

They were like, why would you quit this job to go work at what, just SNL? You could be doing puppets with us.

Yay!

Have any of you seen Crank Yankers? Yay! You sound like Special Ed.

Yay! It was a

show.

Most recently, she worked with Larry David on Life & Larry and The Pursuit of Unhappiness, playing the First Lady to President Harrison.

We also discuss her time on Mad TV, her characters on that, as well as the very funny prank show, Crank Yankers.

And we just talk the state of comedy in general.

Really enjoyed my conversation with Lisa, and if you do, please rate and review the show.

Yeah.

So you go Cassie, you do Connie, and then you do Cami.

So what's with all the names there? You know, with Crank Yankers.

I know.