HEART to heart
Your Emmy speech was eloquent…
Marty: I was just glad I was alive! I want to correct Sid, who has these big ideas about how long we’ve done this. It’s been 50 years.
Sid: When you joined me, I was opening for Judy Garland [as a puppeteer] in 1958 and said, “I need an assistant.”
Marty: All right. Fifty or 60, both sound bad.
What reactions do you get from fans?
Sid: They’re all grown-ups. Every year we do Comic-Con to see their emotions and the importance we had to them. It’s a big honor. I could be in Kansas, hand someone my credit card and they freak out. That freaks me out.
Marty: It’s great, except when I speak to my daughters. They don’t think I’m a legend. Deanna is a great producer who runs our company. Kristina is an actress and writer, and Kendra is a great makeup artist. That’s why we look about 32 years old.
Sid: Yeah, sure.
Is it easier to build an empire with a sibling?
Sid: No. Can you divorce your brother? But ask anybody Marty does business with: They love him to death, because he always delivers what he promises and even more on the screen. That’s why we’re not rich.
Marty: Oh, we’re not rich because of Sid. Sid: Because I want everything on screen.
Marty: And he wants to know why we don’t have cash! That’s OK. Our father always said, “If the only problem you have in life is
money, you have no problem.”
What drew you two to puppets?
Sid: I was 10. We’d moved from Montreal to Providence [R.I.], were in a big hurricane and lost our house. There was a couple in our new building that half-adopted me. [The man] gave me a ticket to a theater that had a puppet act. There was an ad for a $3.95 marionette,
so I asked my dad, who became furious: “You’re a boy and want a dolly? $3.95 would feed your family for weeks!” He always apologized to me for that, but that was the first marionette I got. He didn’t buy it. I sold Christmas cards out in the streets without my family knowing and I saved up $3.95. That’s how it all began.
You’ve worked with some legends.
Sid: When I was in Paris, Liberace came backstage and said, “I want you to tour with my act.” Dean Martin saw us at the New York World’s Fair and invited us to perform puppet girls on his show. Hanna-Barbera came to us in 1968, and I guess they regretted it ever since, because NBC asked us to do our own show.
That’s amazing!
Sid: In the ’60s we met Walt Disney. He said, “Always put your names above everything you create [and never sell it]. Someday it will be worth something.”
Where do you get your ideas?
Marty: From my nightmares!
Sid: No, just experience. Sigmund and the Sea Monsters came from a real experience on a beach.
Marty: I ran into the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, found out he had a kid [Calvin Millan] and [got the idea for
Nick Jr.’s 2015–’17 show] Mutt & Stuff.
And you created Donny & Marie!
Marty: I was just with Marie the other night. I told her, “You owe me a lot of money.” She said, “No, no. You owe me money.” I said, “OK, good.”
Marty, how did you balance your work and home life with your daughters and late wife, Christa?
Marty: I learned the hard way that work is not your whole life. I was always at work, so I don’t know which one won, but the daughters are still talking to me and they all love Sid. We survived all that.
You’re both in your 80s. How do you two keep challenging yourselves at this time in your life?
Marty: The one answer is: We don’t do drugs. People thought we did on these shows, but you can’t [be high] and be creative at the same time. We don’t know how many high school and college kids were [high] while they were watching. We hear that all the time.
Do you guys usually agree?
Marty: Never. Are you kidding?
Sid: Why do you think I’m having this phone call at home? I couldn’t be sitting in the office with him!
— Reporting by Ilyssa Panitz
“Giving is more important than
receiving.”
— Marty