This is a very strange episode. Jessica is working in the studios of "Flappieville", which are decorated like a playground. Flappieville is a puppet series, and the cast are designers, "fashioneers", puppeteers and possibly imagineers as well. They all hate each other and their egos clash like matter and anti-matter particles. Don Crosley, the head puppeteer, is always "on", speaking in funny voices and would-be funny lines and funny acts. He wants to keep his original character, Pound Dog, alive, though the canine has obviously had his day.
This is not a genius series like the Muppets or Sesame Street. We see a lot of the puppets in action, and everything about them is dire. The puppets are sinister, the scripts are unfunny, the voices are harsh. The up-and-coming puppeteer, who seems to identify a bit too strongly with Jessica's character Inspector Le Chat, gives a masterclass in over-acting. Surely he doesn't have to be quite so nerdy and weird. And his sidekick the clothes designer dresses in primary coloured children's clothes, including a red hat.
Everyone speaks in what they think are witticisms or aphorisms, including one of the puppeteers, a would-be blackmailer, and the chief exec she has her claws into. "Just for the non-record, this meeting never happened!"
Yes, it's Inspector "Le Chat", French for "the cat". He is a Poirot parody (and Don Crosley originally gives him a voice that is a Peter-Sellers-as-Clouseau parody). The puppet even looks vaguely like a cat. Nothing to do with Lestrade or Holmes - though is he wearing a deerstalker cap?
This is not a genius series like the Muppets or Sesame Street. We see a lot of the puppets in action, and everything about them is dire. The puppets are sinister, the scripts are unfunny, the voices are harsh. The up-and-coming puppeteer, who seems to identify a bit too strongly with Jessica's character Inspector Le Chat, gives a masterclass in over-acting. Surely he doesn't have to be quite so nerdy and weird. And his sidekick the clothes designer dresses in primary coloured children's clothes, including a red hat.
Everyone speaks in what they think are witticisms or aphorisms, including one of the puppeteers, a would-be blackmailer, and the chief exec she has her claws into. "Just for the non-record, this meeting never happened!"
Yes, it's Inspector "Le Chat", French for "the cat". He is a Poirot parody (and Don Crosley originally gives him a voice that is a Peter-Sellers-as-Clouseau parody). The puppet even looks vaguely like a cat. Nothing to do with Lestrade or Holmes - though is he wearing a deerstalker cap?