Labyrinth has its 30th anniversary later this year, so
we had already planned to do this episode down the line.
But with David Bowie unexpectedly returning to the stars earlier this month,
it seemed appropriate to let this episode jump the line.
Here are nine things didn't know about Labyrinth, probably.
(Music)
If anybody but David Bowie has been cast as Jareth,
Labyrinth would have been a completely different movie with different music.
Jim Henson and Labyrinth's conceptual designer Brian Froud actually came up with
the idea of a rock star playing the goblin king and
doing songs for the film very early on.
>> How are you enjoying my labyrinth?
>> They were lucky enough to get their top choice with Bowie, but
most people don't know who the other contenders were.
It was a pretty short list, but they had also considered Michael Jackson and Sting.
It was the 80s after all, so
there weren't any stars bigger than MJ, Sting, and Bowie.
It's a good thing Bowie took the job though.
I don't think any of us would be able to watch Labyrinth the same way today if it
had been Michael Jackson wearing those pants.
(Sound) >> If Labyrinth didn't have David Bowie,
we also would never have gotten Magic Dance.
So let's talk a little bit about how they actually made the Magic Dance
sequence happen.
See, for this part here in Jareth's chambers, he's surrounded by goblins.
And you probably never realized just how many goblin puppets are actually there.
There are 48 puppets along with upwards of 52 to 53 puppeteers.
There were so many puppets crammed into the scene,
that once the puppets were removed from the set,
the set was so full of holes it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.
On top of all the puppets, there were a good 8 to 12 little people running around
in costumes and being pulled eight feet into the air on harnesses.
It was so hectic,
that no one ever really got around to giving the performers any real direction.
The only thing they had to go on was to, quote, be goblins.
And the performers figured out what to do just based on that.
>> Well- (Laugh) >> And that definitely explains how this
ended up being one of the most bat (Bleep) arts of a fully bat (Bleep) movie.
(Sound) >> We can't
play Magic Dance because we don't want to get sued,
but that won't stop us from sharing another thing about it.
All of the baby noises on Magic Dance are actually David Bowie.
When they were recording the song,
the baby they had in the studio was one of the backup singer's kids.
And that baby wouldn't make a sound, not even a gurgle.
Bowie joked that he did everything he could to make the baby scream but
it was futile.
So in the end, he decided to just do it himself.
>> And baby said- (Sound)
(Music)
>> Let's talk about Jareth's balls.
Not those balls, his magic balls.
>> I've brought you a gift.
>> Well, those balls probably has a fair dose of magic too, but
I'm talking about these balls.
These balls, the one he's always playing with.
(Sound) That may have been a poor choice of words.
It's pretty obvious that David Bowie is not really doing those
tricks with the crystal balls.
But you may be surprised to find out just how they faked this.
They had the elite juggler Michael Motion do all of the tricks.
That's right, that's not a computer effect.
No CGI, no compositing, no green screen.
It's just a guy crouching behind David Bowie doing the old reach around to fake
is right arm for Bowie's.
And he's doing it all totally blind.
Because motion couldn't be seen on camera for the shots to work,
he had to be positioned in a way that prevented him from being able to see
what the (Bleep) he was even doing for each trick.
(Sound) Excuse me.
>> They rehearsed like crazy beforehand using a stand in for Jareth.
But it was still an extremely challenging feat, and it still took a lot of
takes before they were able to get the shots we see in the film.
Luckily, David Bowie was super gracious and patient with the whole thing.
In fact, he found it amusing and just had fun with it,
because David Bowie was the freaking best.
(Music)
While they didn't use computer effects at all for Jareth and his balls,
they did use them for this owl in the opening credits.
I mean, obviously.
The owl was done by Industrial Light and Magic.
And while it doesn't look great by today's standards,
it was still an important innovation.
That owl is one of the first fully realized CGI creatures ever done on film.
So take it easy on the owl critiques, you gotta start somewhere, right?
(Sound) Merlin.
>> Merlin the dog is basically Sarah's Toto, but
you may not know how the dog got that job.
The film makers picked a sheepdog for one simple reason.
It might it easy for them to do a puppet version of Merlin,
which they knew they'd need for certain shots.
The hairiness of the dog breed lent itself very well to puppetizing it.
>> You're going the wrong way!
>> I mean, yeah,
you can totally tell when they're using the puppet version of Merlin.
But just imagine how much more obvious it would have been if they'd
cast a Peruvian Inca Orchid.
I mean, come on.
(Sound) The stair sequence is super trippy and
weird, and it involves a lot of movie magic to create the illusions.
But there was one thing that Jim Henson didn't want to cheat,
he wanted to put the baby Toby up on a tower for real.
Toby is played by Toby Froud,
the then one year old son of Labriynth's conceptual designer Brian Froud.
He and Jim Henson knew they'd need a baby for the movie, and why hire some diva baby
when you have a free baby already hanging out not doing (Bleep) right?
Anyway, when Henson proposed putting little Toby up on a tower for
the sequence, Froud and his wife Wendy were not exactly on board.
Neither of them were too keen on heights to begin with.
And Henson's promises to have guys to catch Toby if he fell didn't exactly
assuage their concerns.
Ultimately, the Froud's straight up told Henson no,
dude, that's our baby, figure something else out.
For the final shot of the film, Toby is just on a short platform on the floor, and
he's totally safe.
And thanks to a little bit of smoke and mirrors,
they still got the effect they wanted.
(Sound) With hindsight being 20/20,
anyone who has seen Labyrinth will know that this tracking shot is meant
to reference all of the influences within the film, as well as within Sarah's mind.
Alice in Wonderland, all that crap.
But there's one glaring omission.
None of Brian Froud's books were included amongst the influences.
Considering he's largely responsible for the entire premise, the creatures, and
the world of Labyrinth, he was influential enough on the film
to have included one of his books in with the rest of Sarah's room.
Problem was, Jim Henson forgot, it straight up slipped his mind.
So Froud missed out on getting his own little Easter egg.
And who knows, if Henson hadn't forgotten,
maybe Froud would've let him put baby Toby up on that tower.
Think about that.
(Sound) >> Excuse me.
>> Excuse me.
It's you.
>> Let's end on Hoggle, because up to the point of making Labyrinth,
Hoggle was the most elaborate puppet that Jim Henson's team had ever built.
See, Hoggle is a bit of a hybrid between costume and puppet.
There was a small actress named Shari Weiser inside of the costume.
But Hoggle's face and expressions have no connection to hers.
His face was controlled by 18 motors operated by
four puppeteers by radio control.
So Weiser could only control the performance from the neck down.
And it took a bit of time before she and the puppeteers could learn each other's
rhythms, as well as the for the puppeteers to get in sync with each other.
>> Ow, stop it (Inaudible).
>> Aah!
>> It took a lot of trial and error for
them all to be able to coordinate Hoggle's reactions to be seamless and fluid.
On top of that, Weiser had very small hands, so
they had to build larger hands for Hoggle, which she wore on top of her own.
>> It's Hoggle.
The hands made it really difficult for her to hold and grab objects,
which created a learning curve of its own.
Yeah, Labyrinth may just seem like it's all puppets, and LARPing, and riddles, and
magic darkness, and a rock icon wearing some truly obscene pants.
But it was actually a lot of hard work.
All right guys, we hope you enjoyed our David Bowie tribute episode.
Be sure to check out our Movie Buzz episode, where T and
the gang play a labyrinth drinking game.
Thanks for watching.
And be sure to check cinefix.com and subscribe for more truish things about
movies and sometimes, magical balls, right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Music)