I love the idea that if you build something with enough depth and texture, you can watch it again and again and see new things every time, and that's very important.

The Muppet Show is very much seen as an English thing. So for us in the U.K. it is one of the treasures of the history of children's TV and of comedy basically.

I love the idea that if you build something with enough depth and texture, you can watch it again and again and see new things every time, and that's very important.

It doesn't matter if you're good at anything, just try your best. Then there's the idea that individually they're flawed but together they can do amazing things. I think that's a very nice message and it's not something you hit people over the head with. It just comes with The Muppets; it's what they're about. It's that kind of innocent try, try, try quality. And it also makes them underdogs. You can't help but support the underdog.

Cable news is 24 hours long so you have to fill it up with something. No, the Muppets are not communist. And the character of Tex Richman is not an allegory for capitalism in any way. The character is called Tex Richman. It's a joke. Clearly he is a classic, old school bad guy. He's bad not because he works for an oil company but because he's evil. No, it's not a communist movie in any way.

With humans you would say, "Don't stand over there." and that would probably work. With puppets, you can't stand over there because you would see the guy underneath. So it is a lot of foreground stuff.

You're basically the same person forever so you find the same stuff funny forever. The Muppet Show spoke to me at 5 and it speaks to me in my late 30s in the same way.