Hi
@Toni - a few quick questions from me as i will be away from home for a few days
What did you think when you first saw the Muppets and who was your favourite? lol Who was your fav guest star to appear on the Muppets
What did you think when you first heard the "real" voices of the Dallas cast (I once saw Dallas dubbed in Spanish which was fun trying to guess what they were saying)
What are your memories of MIrande as I think you went there in ?? 2007 and what Dallas cast members impresssed you or disappointed you and why?
Do you like Sports - do you have a favoutire football team (Spanish wise I love to watch Messi) and are you athletic
Gracias for now
BF xxx
Thanks a lot for your questions
@Barbara Fan!
1. What did you think when you first saw the Muppets and who was your favourite? lol Who was your fav guest star to appear on the Muppets?
The Muppets were introduced in Spain through a show that gave previews of the next week´s TV programs, a bit like "The Simpsons" were introduced as part of "The Tracey Ullman Show". I thought they were a hoot, hilarious, and my only problem was that I didn´t know many of the guests back then. My biggest crush was on that fabulous superstar that is Miss Piggy. I found terribly telling that a few years later the actress who voiced her (because it was a woman in Spain, unlike the original show) also dubbed Pamela Sue Martin as Fallon on "Dynasty"!! Talk about "kin spirits"! I do have watched all their movies, and one of these days the new shows too. One of the things I don´t share with her is that I´m a basically peaceful guy... and hate physical confrontations! My favorite Muppets guest star was someone I think you dislike very much, Julie Andrews. Miss Piggy says that, to this day, Ms. Andrews is the only one who came close to overshadow her on stage...
2. What did you think when you first heard the "real" voices of the Dallas cast (I once saw Dallas dubbed in Spanish which was fun trying to guess what they were saying)?
Well, I guess I was as shocked as you might be when you listened to the Spanish voices. The women´s voices were the most shocking because, honestly, I think the Spanish counterparts sounded more beautiful. Victoria´s voice did disappoint me, though by now, I´m more used to it and love her laughter especially. I did like Barbara´s, Howard´s, and Charlene´s voices though. Also Susan´s and Steve´s, and also my dear Patrick´s. About the guest stars, I have a soft spot for the voices of Lois Chiles and Alexis Smith.
The problem with the Spanish dubbing was that they really had to rush to finish the episodes in a record time, especially in Spanish (the show has been aired in three other regional languages of Spain), because the post-Who Shot JR era was aired very late into the 80s, and shown as a daytime soap (!) with 5 episodes per week. The dialogues' translation was atrocious in some cases, and the characters´ names were mispronounced, sometimes the dialogues said nonsense things and nobody seemed to care about it. "Southworth" was "Southfork", "Jenna" was "Gina", "Kimberly" was "Kimberlay", and JR´s one-liners had additional "nuances":
"Joan of Arc would have been a drunk if she had been married to you" - "But she is not and you are".
In Spanish: "Joan would have been a drunk if she had been married to you" - "You should be burnt in a fire like her!"
3. What are your memories of MIrande as I think you went there in ?? 2007 and what Dallas cast members impresssed you or disappointed you and why?
It was a very intense experience, especially considering all the "facts". I went there with my then boyfriend, and had to use bus since we don´t drive. It was a long ride and I couldn´t actually sleep on the bus. When we got there, the place where we had to sleep wasn´t too comfortable or even quiet, so I didn´t sleep either. The next day I was sleepy and tired, when we got to meet the Fab 5, I was a wreck. It was a very exciting experience, and it´s hard to describe it in words. That's the only true fan activity I´ve ever had (my dreams don´t count!).
The only real frustration or disappointment had to do with the fact of how the responsible people handled the signing meetings. We were very far from the actors, even when our turn to meet them arrived. They didn´t allow us to give them anything to sign aside from the overpriced official picture. And I had carried the Suzy Kalter book with me, so I was disappointed.
My biggest impression was indeed Ms. Linda Gray, aka the very wonderful and fabulous Sue Ellen. She wasn´t anything like her character, not even in the way she moved or smiled. When I first saw her, I thought: "Oh mine, she looks as if she still is running Valentine lingerie." She didn´t look as the long-suffering, early Sue Ellen, but as the powerhouse that divorced J.R. I managed to exchange some lines with her, and told her when she would come to Spain (since then, she did visit Spain once, I think). She didn´t know that Patrick, Steve, Larry and Charlene had already been here, and asked Steve about it, and he said that it was a very brief visit for publicity reasons.
Bobster: "Spain? Isn´t that the third world?"
The Linda: "Oh, Pat says he´d love to come back soon..."
Linda shined and oozed elegance and bliss. I was so happy that I couldn´t say a word to Steve or Patrick. Then I met Charlene and said to her the same thing about Spain, and she did remember she had been there with her baby Cherish, who we saw later was with her. Charlene was very generous later on, and posed for us in a few pics. She was really enjoying her time there.
The story about Larry I have explained it before, so forgive me if I repeat myself. He was the last in line to sign the pic, and when he gave it back to me, I did the blink gesture with arms and all from Jeannie. He recognized it and smiled and pointed at me. After saying thank you one million times, I left but I couldn´t really walk. I was so frozen by the emotions!
Hours later we shared dinner with all of them, and the many fans, though the actors were logically isolated from us. The truth is that they were 3 meters away from us only, we were lucky to be so close. They had their spouses with them, except for Patrick and Charlene, who had Cherish. When everyone finished their dinner, it was time for pics again. I was surprised that Linda took photos of us with her own mini-camera.
At some point, I noticed that Steve was talking to a fan (
@Ray&Donna, one of two members I have met... so far), and I dared to join the talk. I told him we were from Spain, and he kindly shared a couple of minutes with us (there were bodyguards to keep poor us away from them, as if we were stalkers...). To this day, I thank her for not minding me being there with them! Then came the country music acts (it was a music festival after all) and the toasts and fireworks, making it a perfect night.
"Where is Waldo/Wally, I mean, Toni?"
Yes, one of those is moi!!
But the morning after... It was Sunday and I and my bf were going to take the first of two buses to go back to Barcelona, but we were told there was no bus until Monday. But we were on a limited budget, and couldn´t pay for another day there, or take a taxi since it was quite far away from Mirande. We were so lucky that one of the French fans we had met offered to take us there so we could get on the bus to Barcelona. We almost missed it by one minute...
I could go on and on about this, but I´d rather tell you that if you have a chance to meet your idols, don´t doubt it for a minute. We don´t have conventions in Spain unless they are SciFi-related. You can get a good impression or a bad one, but if you get to transmit something, anything, to them, it will be worthwhile. For what I have read, most people do have good interaction with fans and can even stay in touch with some of them. Another thing that I regret is that I couldn´t shake their hands or meeting
@Karin Schill, who initially was going to be there too. I´m also very grateful to Colin for letting me use his name to talk to them if there was any chance to make an interview for my own site.
4. Do you like Sports - do you have a favoutire football team (Spanish wise I love to watch Messi) and are you athletic?
Actually, I don´t. None of them. They bore me to tears. Football is the least favorite of all, I think everyone is unfairly overpaid and there are a lot of fanatics among the fans (wait, didn´t the same thing happened with supersoaps...?). When it´s football (American soccer) night on TV I have the feeling of living in an asylum because of the screaming!!! So no, I´m not athletic either. I once tried the pig´s Snackcercices, but I only got to the part of "snacks". Not that I wouldn´t like to be a bit thinner...