Melissa McCarthy really ‘snorted’ puppet drugs
Melissa McCarthy got down with R-rated puppets in The Happytime Murders, even snorting puppet drugs in a wild party scene (as seen in the redband trailer).
In the scene, McCarthy’s Detective Connie Edwards hangs out with some criminal lowlifes who compel her try their drugs — pure sugar, which has cocaine-like effects on the puppets.
“The problem is (puppets) develop an addiction to super high-grade sugar. They become sugar addicts,” says director Brian Henson. “But (McCarthy’s character) gets high on it too, just like a puppet.”
Really high. It knocks her detective out after the first long snort.
Shooting the scene of the sugar-snorting required some puppet ingenuity. Henson’s special effects people set up a tubed system for McCarthy (it’s the same Hollywood magic that allows Muppet Kermit to blow out candles or sip champagne).
This particular system sucked up the sugar, allowing McCarthy to make it appear she was inhaling the sugar through a Twizzler directly into her nose.
“The tube went up her arm and out of the shot. So you never saw the tube,” says Henson. “So when she’s sniffing, it is sucking up all of the sugar, but it’s a little vacuum cleaner that we have.”
McCarthy gave high-grade acting like she was very affected. But Henson assures us: “She never snorted any sugar in the movie.”