There are certain movies that polarize audiences. The Happytime Murders is one of them. Henson purists scream ‘puppet sacrilege’ while other film lovers admire the balanced blend of action, film noir, raunchy gags that would make any self-respecting puppet blush, and overtures of discrimination. Creative Screenwriting Magazine spoke with screenwriter Todd Berger on his film influences, how he tackled writing The Happytime Murders, and navigating his screenwriting career.
Todd Berger doesn’t describe himself as a comedy writer. He just writes comedies. Sometimes. Known for It’s a Disaster, The Scenesters, and a handful of Smurfs and Kung Fu Panda shorts, Berger’s latest film, The Happytime Murders, has just cemented the screenwriter into a world of “writers who write comedy.”
Fifteen years in the making, the film follows Berger’s idea to remake Heat with puppets. According to the official description, “When the puppet cast of an ’80s children’s TV show begins to get murdered one by one, a disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private eye puppet takes on the case.” High jinx and seedy shenanigans ensue. And udders, purple hair… and lots of silly string.
Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, and Maya Rudolph star in the film, which is led by director Brian Henson. The son of Jim and Jane (seriously) Brian Henson has additional directing credits such as The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, and Muppets Tonight. It’s safe to say, he’s a veteran of the puppet film genre.
But, The Happytime Murders is no Muppets movie. In fact, the marketing campaign focuses on the “hard R” rating, just to make sure no parents accidentally take their children into the film. If they do, they’ll figure it out soon enough.
Todd Berger
Love For Satire & Dark Comedies
What drives Berger’s writing style? “I love dark comedy. I love satire. All the things I’ve ever tried to do—the comedy comes, not from the character making jokes, but from the absurd or satirical situation in which characters find themselves. You, the audience, find it funny because of the situation,” added screenwriter Todd Berger.
In comparison, Berger mentioned the HBO series Entourage, which is mainly one character insulting another character, so the other characters can laugh at the original jokester. Other examples include Judd Apatow’s work, specifically the film Trainwreck, written and led by Amy Schumer.
Berger, on the other hand, creates comedy that comes from character reactions. But those reactions are only funny due to irony. An example closer to Berger’s work might be The Office, seeing as the characters do not know they’re being funny. “That’s why it’s funny. Can you believe the character said that? Can you believe this situation?” They’re oblivious.
Style is one thing, but material is quite another.
Training Day Meets The Muppets – The Genesis Of The Happytime Murders
For The Happytime Murders, the major inspirations were Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles, and Training Day. “How can we take this world where puppets and humans coexist with each other? It’s not like the humans are the only main characters in the movie. Puppets are everywhere.”
Todd Berger worked with Dee Austin Robertson [story by credit] through the plot of the movie to create a beat sheet of characters and key plot points. Eventually, they developed a two-page outline that focused on the main characters. Then, Berger created the first draft of the script in a cheap hotel room. Robertson joined him and worked like a bounce board for ideas.
For the most part, Berger wrote the additional drafts alone, but he would occasionally check in with Robertson for notes and feedback. At the time, Berger was planning to write the script and Robertson, best known as a cinematographer on countless shorts, was initially slated to direct the feature.
“If you’ve ever developed a script with a director, the director is throwing out visual ideas and taking directorial approaches, but not necessarily writing dialogue or figuring out how scenes are going to work. Their job is totally different,” said the screenwriter. “That was our relationship in the beginning.” Eventually, they joined forces with the Henson Company, where Robertson stepped over to an Executive Producer role and Brian Henson would direct.
Berger and company wanted to create a story set in Los Angeles and focus on the idea, “What if puppets really did exist in our world? Would they be oppressed? How would we interact with them? If there was a puppet cop, how would he be dealing with that situation—especially if he had screwed up so bad he was no longer on the police force and now no puppets could become cops because of a mistake he made?”
Then, the noir-puppet-murder-mystery was born. Berger describes the piece as a “character story,” similar to a Philip Marlowe novel (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye). “A detective is thrown into a case that’s personally affecting him, what it has to do with his past, who he can trust and redeem himself…and do it with puppets.”
Based on Berger’s description, the original star of the film was actually the character Phil Philips, coordinated by puppeteer Bill Barretta. Despite taking fifteen years to get the film made, the script hasn’t changed too much since the very beginning. It was an issue of timing to get the R-rated puppet movie to mass audiences.
“I went back and looked at the first draft and it’s shockingly similar to the one produced” added Berger. “Of course the movie has changed over the years, but it’s pretty much the movie we came up with fifteen years ago. I think that’s very exciting.”
Mixed Reviews From Henson Fans
The day the red band trailer came out, there were obviously mixed reviews. Some fans would say things like “My childhood has been ruined,” but both Berger and Henson expected as much. “I don’t think the trailer actually ruined anyone’s childhood. If it did, I think you’ve got some more things going on in your childhood that you should look at.”
The screenwriter continued to say that this isn’t The Muppets and it’s certainly not the characters from Sesame Street. In fact, there was even a lawsuit around the tagline, “No Sesame. All Street.” (The Henson company created all the characters, but Disney now owns The Muppets, which led to the lawsuit).
“This idea that puppets are only for children is something that I just don’t agree with,” said the writer. “It’s like saying animation is only for children—same with puppets. If you want to make Team America or Ted, or something where you use puppets to tell adult entertainment, then go for it. There’s no law that says puppets are only for kids.”
For a film like The Happytime Murders, there are various levels of creativity to get such a project made. The screenwriter created his own version of the puppets on paper, which the Jim Henson Creative Shop then had to develop in real life. For the most part, the puppets were the same as the script, but some details did change.
“They tweaked some of them slightly: one, in particular, the character Goofer, who is kind of a sugar-addicted puppet. He’s actually the one in the trailer who offers sexual services to Melissa McCarthy. In our original script, we had Goofer look like Grimace from McDonalds—the big purple guy—but then we changed him up to make him a scruffy little guy because it worked better,” said Berger.
The screenwriter said that the Jim Henson Shop was very respectful of the original interpretations of the screenplay. In previous animation jobs, he’s described characters, but the animators simply changed them to fit their own abilities. Many of the side characters in Happytime Murders came from Brian Henson’s improv show, Puppet Up!
In addition to filling up the screen with puppets, there were other challenges such as underwater scenes and puppets smoking cigarettes that made filming the screenplay more challenging than previous puppet films. “You will see the whole puppet,” mentioned Berger about the CGI legs and added features.
Melissa McCarthy’s Detective Connie Edwards
In the end, however, they still needed a great actor to push the film forward. When Melissa McCarthy came on board, the role now known as Detective Connie Edwards changed from a male role to a female role. Previously, actors had passed on the live role, but offered to voice puppets, which isn’t how the Henson Company works. Instead, the puppeteer voices the puppet and gets credit for the role (this has to do with timing, on set recording, and sheer puppet principles).
“It’s not animation where you can just record a voice. So, in 2017, when Melissa McCarthy came on board, she brought in the spirit of her improv background,” added Berger. In addition to the male lead, Berger also pictured a straight man approach to the film, but McCarthy brought in a ton of riff [ad lib] work.
“Her character was the straight man, so when Melissa came on board, she took the character and made him a woman, and also made it more in her voice of the type of character she plays. When I first saw the very first cut of the movie, I thought, ‘This isn’t my vision, but this movie is funnier.’ She’s really funny in it—way funnier than I ever would have imagined.”
It’s also important to remember that it’s difficult to riff with puppets. The left arm of a puppet is controlled by one person and the right arm is controlled by another. The puppeteers are looking at monitors and it’s vital to know where everyone is on set in addition to where they’re going to be.
With the riffing, violence, sex, and hard R-rating, Berger didn’t think there was anything that was too offensive in the film. However, there was originally a puppet with a singing penis, but they decided to drop the scene. Ironically, they cut this scene after several hour-long meetings, where they discussed the logistics of the “singing puppet penis.”
“We wanted to make a movie for adults. The Henson Company really had to take the R-rating and embrace it. Brian could have made this movie PG-13,” said Berger. Actually, at one point, the writer did do a pass and cut the R-rating to make it PG-13, but that wasn’t what they originally intended.
Henson and Berger decided that their potential adult audiences, along with the puppeteers, would be more comfortable going for the R-rating and being creative in the new atmosphere. “They know no children are in the room so they don’t have to play it safe,” said the screenwriter.
Even the ad campaign is showing the raunchiest parts of the movie. “Not all the humor is dick and fart jokes. There’s a lot going on,” he added. “But, if we’re going to make the movie R, we do it with a capital R so no one has any inclination to bring their children.”
Studio Gigs Versus Spec Scripts
Like many screenwriters, Berger views studio gigs very differently than writing spec scripts. In addition to the pay, there’s a difference in creative perspective. “I like to think of something that is satirical and fun that’s set in a world that’s not really our own; familiar but slightly different. Satire is a four-letter word in Hollywood.”
Berger looks at today’s culture, politics, or lifestyles and makes sure to spin it as he writes a spec script. With Where’s Waldo?, for example, he had the idea to create a Where’s Waldo? idea similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark. But, Waldo wasn’t the main character like Indy [Indiana Jones.] Instead, he was the missing McGuffin in the movie. “You could see him in flashbacks, but he’s not the main character.”
Irons In The Fire
“What I learned very early on in my screenwriting career is that you always have to have a lot of irons in the fire,” said Berger about screenwriting career longevity. “You always have to have a thing that you want to be doing…and you have to be open to being a writer who is basically being paid to use your imagination on projects you do not care as much about. You’re still going to give it one hundred percent”
Because Berger loves the idea of being paid for his imagination, he doesn’t mind writing projects that aren’t his true passion. Meanwhile, there are other writers in the business who only write their passion projects. This might even mean that they have to have a day job outside of the business. Either way leads to the screenplay you have to write.
“You get in the room with people and you meet people who one day might care about that thing you really want to do,” said the screenwriter. “For me, I’m always down to write spec scripts and try to get them made and see the things that I really want to get made, made.”
The screenwriter also recommended the book, Writing Movies For Fun and Profit, by Thomas Lennon (Baywatch) and Robert Ben Garant (Reno 911!). The book told readers to give it one hundred percent, but not to necessarily get obsessed or overly attached to any given project. It’s a balance of art and commercialism.
“As a screenwriter, there are certain hills that you want to die on and there are certain hills where you’re like, ‘This is not my hill. I’m not going to die on this hill. I’m going to do my best, but this is not my thing.’ My own projects that I’ve originated, I will fight for and really want to get behind,” said the screenwriter.
“I kind of live in two worlds because I’m an Indie filmmaker who has written and directed three features and gone to a bunch of film festivals and I’m involved with Sundance…and when you’re in that world, artists aren’t really interested in the big Hollywood movies that you’re working on,” he mused. “But then I could go to a Hollywood meeting, a premiere at the Austin film festival, and they’d be like, ‘Yeah, so? Who cares? Did it make money?’”
“It’s two separate universes that don’t often intertwine and I’m trying to live in both of them at the same time,” joked Berger. “It can be kind of challenging.”
This article has been condensed. Listen to the full audio interview HERE.
