Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show!

On Episode 247 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview producer, director and writer Benjamin Lehmann! Benjamin has worked for Sesame Street since 2000, which has won him dozens of Emmy awards. He produced many of their recurring segments, such as Elmo's World, Elmo the Musical, Abby's Flying Fairy School, Super Grover 2.0 and various home videos, specials and outreach projects. F...

On Episode 246 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview voice actress Katie Leigh! Katie's voiceover career spans across several decades, with some of her best known television roles being the voice of Baby Rowlf in the original Muppet Babies series, Sunni Gummi in Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Honker Muddlefoot in Darkwing Duck, Alex in Totally Spies! and various charact...

On Episode 245 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview puppeteer, puppet builder and wrangler Ben Durocher! For 8 years, Ben was a puppet wrangler for Sesame Street, including various specials and the spin-off series The Furchester Hotel and The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo. He was also a puppet fabricator on The Happytime Murders and was an additional puppeteer on the Apple TV+ series Hel...

On Episode 244 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview author and producer Debbie Gendler! Debbie is a four-time Emmy nominated TV executive and producer who worked at CBS and ABC. Aside from her work in the television world, she is best known for being a Beatles fan. She attended The Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show and was interviewed about The Beatles for the Beatl...

On Episode 243 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview writer and author Louise Gikow! Louise's professional career started as a writer and copy editor for the National Lampoon magazine. She then started writing books based on a number of Henson projects, including Fraggle Rock, Muppet Babies, Labyrinth and many others. She also wrote music and lyrics for the Sing Along with Kermit an...

On Episode 242 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview non-binary children's musical artist Jules Hoffman! Jules' career in the music business started in the rock band Boketto the Wolf, before becoming a children's artist. Jules is best known for their Songs for Littles series and their educational resource videos. Throughout their career, Jules has collaborated with Laurie Be...

On Episode 241 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview producer Carol-Lynn Parente! Carol-Lynn first started working for Sesame Street in 1989 as a post-production coordinator, before moving to production assistant, associate director and producer, becoming executive producer for them in 2005. Carol-Lynn was a producer on Elmo's World, executive produced the segments Elmo the Musical,...

On Episode 240 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview singer-songwriters Again Again and Mista Cookie Jar! Jennifer Cook and Anne Montone of Again Again Music are a pair of singer-songwriters, parents and lifelong friends. C.J. Pizarro, better known as Mista Cookie Jar, is best known for his family band Mista Cookie Jar & the Chocolate Chips. Together, Jennifer and Anne collaborated...

On Episode 239 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview actress and singer Lisa Foiles! Lisa started her acting career on the Disney Channel series Even Stevens and as a guest star on Malcolm in the Middle. She is best known for her time as a cast member on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That from Seasons 7 through 10 and occasionally in the 2019 revival. During her time on All T...

On Episode 238 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, we interview TV creators Scott Schultz and Christian Jacobs! Scott and Christian are known by many for creating the hit Nick Jr. series Yo Gabba Gabba! Recently, they came together to reboot the series as Yo Gabba GabbaLand! In this discussion, the Happy Nostalgia team talk to Scott and Christian about the success of the original series, the trans...

On Episode 237 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is puppeteer and puppet wrangler Melissa Creighton! Melissa is best known in the puppet world for performing the character Burdette on the PBS series It's a Big Big World! She also worked on Sesame Street for several years as an occasional puppeteer. Aside from her work as a puppeteer, Melissa worked as a set dresser on the Noggin se...

On Episode 235 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is puppeteer and actress Jimmica Collins! Jimmica is a puppeteer who has worked for Sesame Street as a Muppet performer since Season 53, where she performs the character Grandma Nell! Outside of Sesame Street, she puppeteered on the Apple TV+ series Helpsters and the PBS Kids series Donkey Hodie. Jimmica is also a theater actor who has r...

On Episode 235 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is writer and producer Ken Scarborough! Ken is known for his career writing for numerous TV series, with one of his earliest writing credits being on the Nickelodeon and Disney series Doug. He was also one of the original writers and head writers of the PBS series Arthur and wrote for Saturday Night Live, Between the Lions, Curious Georg...

On Episode 234 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is songwriter Angelo Natalie! Angelo's career in the music business started out with the gospel-rock group Clockwise. Some of his best known music work includes writing dozens of songs for the Barney franchise, including Nothing Beats a Pizza, You Can Count on Me, It's C-C Cold BRRRR!, Books Are Fun!, Walk Around the Block and ma...

On Episode 233 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is writer and producer Adam Peltzman! Early on in Adam's professional writing career, he was a writer and head writer on the long-running Nick Jr. series Blue's Clues, where he also voiced the character Green Puppy! After Blue's Clues, Adam became a writer and head writer on The Backyardigans, wrote for The Wonder Pets!, Bubb...

On Episode 232 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is director and producer David Gumpel! David was a frequent director and producer on various projects with The Jim Henson Company for many years. Some of them include working as an associate director on The Jim Henson Hour, directing the Muppet Sing Alongs video series and producing the Fraggle Rock documentary Down at Fraggle Rock: Behi...

On Episode 231 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is puppet designer and builder Paul Andrejco! Paul is best known for his countless contributions to The Muppets and The Jim Henson Company as a puppet designer and builder! He started out as a puppet designer and builder on The Muppet Christmas Carol and was in the Muppet Workshop for Muppet Classic Theater and Muppets Tonight. Most nota...

On Episode 230 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is blogger and Muppet fandom expert Joe Hennes! Joe is best known for being a professional Muppet fan and contributing to the Muppet fandom in many different ways, more notably as the co-owner of the Muppet fansite, ToughPigs, where he has had the pleasure of interviewing a wide variety of talent in the Muppet world and got to host sever...

On Episode 229 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is puppeteer and dancer Bryant Young! Bryant first started out as a dancer, where he had the opportunity of performing with the New York City Ballet, the Briansky Saratoga Ballet Center and many more. Since 1979, Bryant has been a puppeteer on Sesame Street, more notably as the back-end of Mr. Snuffleupagus! In addition to assisting Snuf...

On Episode 228 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guests are actors David Connolly and Charlotte Walker! David is an amputee actor, choreographer and disability advocate and Charlotte is an actress and artist with autism. For many years, David choreographed a number of TV series and films, including the children's series The Doodlebops and its animated spin-off, Doodlebops Rockin' Roa...

On Episode 227 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is Danielle Vega! Danielle is an actress who got her start on the religious video series Psalty's Songs for Li'l Praisers, before landing the role of Kim on Seasons 4-6 of the hit PBS series Barney & Friends, as well as a number of Barney home videos, including Barney's Sense-Sational Day, It's Time for Counting, Barn...

On Episode 226 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is Brendon Gawel! Brendon is a puppeteer and actor whose work is best known on the long-running Sprout network, where he was one of the puppeteers of Chica on The Sunny Side Up Show and performed Curtis E. Owl on The Sprout Sharing Show. During his Sprout days, he also worked on the Holiday special Preschool Musical and got to perform in...

On Episode 225 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is Judy Rothman Rofé! Judy's professional career consists of writing and creating a wide variety of children's projects! Early on, she worked as director of development for Disney Channel and developed and wrote for the Madeline TV series, based on the children's book series. She also wrote the Sesame Street home video Big Bi...

On Episode 224 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is Chase Woolner! Before working as a puppeteer, Chase grew up a Muppets fan! His love for the art of puppetry eventually turned into a career, where he worked as an additional Muppet performer on various films, TV series and commercials with The Muppets! Chase has also been a participant at the Eugene O'Neill National Puppetry Confe...

On Episode 223 of Jake's Happy Nostalgia Show, our guest is Dean Gordon! For many years, Dean Gordon worked as a director and associate director for children's television. He got his start directing for the Nickelodeon series The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss and since then, has directed numerous other series, including Bear in the Big Blue House, Out of the Box, Between the Lions, The Book...