2021 Top Picks 🎥 AND Special Guest Lisa Henson
LISTEN HERE
Season 2: Episode 50 Description
In today's episode: It's a Ten News Kid Takeover! 🏆 Host Bethany Van Delft hands the show over to let the kids share the best movies of the year! 🎥 Correspondent Sarah Namias sits down with the CEO of The Jim Henson Company, Lisa Henson, to talk about the 'Harriet the Spy' series. And, test your Disney knowledge on today's Trivia on the Ten. ✅
Sources:
Rotten Tomatoes: Movies | TV Shows | Movie Trailers | Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes
The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021) - IMDb
Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) - IMDb
Best Kids' Movies 2021: New and Upcoming Family Films You'll Love (timeout.com)
Raya and the Last Dragon | Disney Movies
The Top Ten Most Expensive Movies Ever Made - MintLife Blog (intuit.com)
The Return on the Investment of the 10 Most Expensive Animated Films Ever Made (pajiba.com)
Links
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TRANSCRIPT:
Marley 0:03
Calling all Ten'ers. This is a Ten News Kid Takeover. The new year is almost here, so Bethany turned the show over to kids to count down some of our favorite things from 2021. Today, we're sharing our picks for the best movies of the year. I'm Marley. It's Tuesday, December 28th. And this is the Ten News Top Picks Kid Takeover.
Various Voices 0:27
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Marley 0:35
Have you ever watched Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, or Alexander the Terrible Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day? They're all made by the Jim Henson Company. Jim Henson created the Muppets and Sesame Street and the company is now run by his daughter, Lisa Hanson. She's here to talk with correspondent Sarah Namias about the upcoming Harriet the Spy.
Sarah Namias 0:56
Hi, Lisa, welcome the Ten News. Hi, thank you so much for taking the time out of what I imagine is a very busy schedule to join us today. We're so excited to chat with you.
Lisa Henson 1:10
I'm excited to be here wearing my Harriet the Spy sweatshirt, which happens to be kind of Christmasy as well.
Sarah Namias 1:16
So, you are the chief executive officer of the Jim Henson Company. And that sounds like a pretty big role. So can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you do in your role as CEO?
Lisa Henson 1:28
Thank you. Well, the Jim Henson Company is the company that my father Jim Henson started. So we're most famous for doing productions that have puppets. We have a Creature Shop. But we also have been producing quite a bit of animation and other types of family programming. My job as the CEO is that I'm the business head of the company, but I also function as kind of the head of the production. And I get very involved with certain of the shows, perhaps not all the shows, but many of them, I have a lot of personal involvement in leading those programs.
Sarah Namias 2:04
So your latest project is an amazing new animated series called Harriet the Spy, which is streaming now on apple plus, right, with more episodes set to roll out in the spring of 2022.
Lisa Henson 2:16
Yeah, there are five episodes streaming now. And each time that New episodes come, it will be five more episodes.
Sarah Namias 2:23
Great. So this is the first animated adaptation of the classic novel by the same name. So can you tell us about the history of Harriet the Spy and what inspired you to bring this classic character to a new generation,
Lisa Henson 2:36
The Harriet the Spy book is so popular in schools and I think many kids read it, I hope if you're listening to this show that you will read it too because it's a fantastic book. And it was actually a book that was very unique in its day because writers were not writing for kids of that age. But the book has a very special style, it was written in the early 60s, it is in a period that isn't exactly like today. So we wanted to animate the show, have the characters look a little bit more like the characters as they were drawn in the books, but also create that period, New York City in 1964 was very exciting time. And it didn't look exactly like today, you know, so we had a lot of fun with making it look like 1964, New York while also being exciting and fun animation for kids today. So I think it feels a little bit like today and that the show itself is modern and fun. And very, very funny.
Sarah Namias 3:42
You definitely achieve that. I mean, the show is beautiful, and it's fun. And I was watching it with my seven-year-old daughter. And which brought up a really great moment in my house, which is she was mentioning it to my mother, her grandmother, and my mom chimed in. I love Harriet the Spy, you know, she knew it from when she was young. And so it was so cool just to see this bridging of the generations with my daughter and what you've done to be able to span that. So I think that's really cool.
Lisa Henson 4:10
It's interesting that you said that about generations because the very heart of Harriet the Spy, is this lovely friendship that is so fresh and real. And it's a friendship that is intergenerational because Harriet's best friend in the world is her nanny. Ole Golly. And she, they are so tight, and they are so wonderful with each other. And, you know, she does have a good relationship with her parents, but it's they're not friends in the same way that she's friends with her nanny. And that's, you know, that friendship is so authentic. And I think that a lot of kids can really relate to having an adult that understands them better than their own parents do. You know, and in this case, it's also Jane Lynch who plays all golly, it's Beanie Feldstein who plays Harriet the Spy. They were so charming together, that you really you almost like feel like oh, they'd be just as friendly like that in the real world.
Sarah Namias 5:11
What do you hope kids will love about and connect within this series?
Lisa Henson 5:15
Harriet's personality is just absolutely unique. And it's why the book is such a classic is that she, she has a voice, and she has a voice that she's developing as a writer because one of the most important things about Harriet the Spy is that she's actually not a spy. She's a writer. And the reason she spies is on people is that she's trying to get material, and she wants to understand the world so that she can write about it.
Sarah Namias 5:42
And as a storyteller yourself, kind of what do you personally love about Harriet and her friends?
Lisa Henson 5:48
I love the spirit of rebellion both in the book and in the series. Like she is quite rebellious and not mean you know, she just really wants to stand up for what she thinks is right. And there are some hilarious scenes where for instance, in our second episode, where she's told by one of the main girls in school that she shouldn't wear the coat that she just bought that she loves. And she just doesn't think that's right. She doesn't think it's right to be bullied into not wearing that that her brand new coat. It's because the other girl has the same coat. And she just goes to great lengths to make her point. And you know, I love that she's very strong, very outspoken and if the system doesn't seem fair to her, she will say something about it.
Sarah Namias 6:43
I love that too. It's been so much fun talking to you. Thank you so much.
Lisa Henson 6:49
Oh, thank you for having me. I hope people watch Harriet the Spy.
Marley 6:52
Wow. Sounds like a cool show. You can check it out on Apple TV Plus and check out our full interview with Lisa Henson this Saturday in The Ten News Gets Extra. Up next, it's time for the Ten News Top Picks of 2021 in drumroll please...movies. Don't worry Ten'ers, we won't give any spoilers. Our favorite robot apocalypse movie is The Mitchells Versus the Machines. This animated film is about a family road trip interrupted by a robot uprising. It's hilarious and silly and will make you wonder what really happened if WiFi went down? What would a functional family do? Our favorite sports comedy is Space Jam a New Legacy.
Sound Bit 7:44
What'd you do with my son? Where's Donald? The only way you're getting your son back is if you and I play a little basketball.
Marley 7:50
This update brought back our favorite Looney Tunes characters, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the Tasmanian devil, and added some incredible athletes. LeBron James, Sue bird, Nneka Ogwumike, and Anthony Davis all play themselves in the slam dunk movie. Classic. Our favorite musical adventure is in Ecanto.
Sound Bit 8:13
Our house. Our casita came to life with magic.
Marley 8:19
This movie has all new songs by Lin Manuel Miranda, who wrote Hamilton and the music. Mona Cantos has a story of the one and only ordinary girl living in a magical house in a magical town in the mountains of Colombia. Wait, how do I say the magic? Our favorite movie that takes place on a boat is Joan Cruise. Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson star in this movie based on a Disney ride. Jungle Cruise is a riverboat adventure on Amazon. There are huge waterfalls, hungry animals, and of course Okay, there we go. And finally, our topic for the best movie of the year is Raya and The Last Dragon. My name is Raya. Our lands have been at war for as long as we can remember. That's the end of the list. But we want to give some shout-outs to the many many sequels that came out in 2021. From Peter Rabbit to Ghostbusters Afterlife, Boss Baby Family Business, The Addams Family to Sing to Minions the Rise of Gru. That's a lot of sequels. And now...
Various Voices 9:33
What, what, what's the big idea?
Marley 9:36
It costs a lot to make a movie, but which Disney film is the most expensive anime of all time? Is it a) Beauty and The Beast, b) The Lion King, or c) Tangled? Did you get it? The answer is c) Tangled, it cost $260 million to create, making it the most expensive animated movie of all time. All right blondie. Rapunzel goes on tight. Tangled is a mix of hand-drawn and pewter animation, which is why it costs so much. But the movie brought in the big bucks. So far, Tangled has made over $590 million. Time's up. Before we go, here's a quick note for the grownups. Thanks for listening to the Ten News. Look out for new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. Ten News is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcast and is distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News creative team is re-reading Harriet the Spy and includes Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Adam Barnard, Tessa Flannery, and Nathalie Alonso. Sarah Namias contributed to this episode. Our production director is Jeremiah Tittle and our executive producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan. I'm Marley sitting in for Bethany Van Delft, and thanks for listening to the Ten News.
