EPISODE: DOUG & EMMY JO

NEW SERIES: SAFARI TOWN

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back, everyone. You are in for a special treat because we have on Doug and Emmy Jo from the

New Zoo Revue. Welcome to the show. We’re so happy to have you here.

Doug: Hi there.

Emmy Jo:  Hi.

Thank you.

Colleen: Well, you know, we are New Zoo Review Kids. What is it called?

New Zoo Kids is what you call us now?

Doug: That’s what Emmy Jo says. I just sort of dubbed everybody.

Emmy Jo: Our New Zoo kids, they’re all grown up now, but in my mind, they’re kids. Little kids.

Colleen: Well, we’ll stick with that. A lot of us have grandkids that we have watching the show. But,

you know, I wanted to start off with the story of how the show came about because I love that it

kind of was started with your mom and her job at a toy store. Can you just kind of share that

story?

Doug: I will. You know, they often say a Cinderella story.

This really was. I mean, I was going to school, getting my degree in playwriting,

theater. And my mom was working at a toy store. And the owner of the toy store had a beanbag frog.

And she had an opportunity to get a local show on in L.A.,

a kid’s show. And she was talking to my mom, who can help me do this kid’s show and my mom, you

know being a good mom, said “well my son, he could help you” and so I went in and met with

her and she said my only requirement is that you’ve got to use this beanbag frog. Well obviously the

frog had no personality you know and I said okay I’ll give it a try. I mean I didn’t really want to

because it was a kid’s show, and I was in theater, and I was in a rock and roll band,

and I had other things going on. I remember that little frog was just green,

and it was a stuffed frog bent over your hand. I don’t even remember it had a mouth.

Maybe it did. I think it did. It didn’t talk better.

Colleen: So you didn’t have a lot to work with,

is what you’re saying.

Doug: That’s the bottom line. I didn’t have a lot to work with. But anyway, I went

back to my parents’ house and I wrote the theme song that night.

I sketched out the sets and the other characters. Actually, I created a,

Charlie was initially a giraffe.

Emmy Jo: Luckily, that changed because on the set, couldn’t have (a tree house).Well,

your name changed. That was the good thing. His original name was Anophany Zoo.

Bridgett: Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Colleen: That’s a mouthful. You think Doug is better?

Emmy Jo: Yeah, Doug is better.

Doug: So I went in and showed her my idea,

the theme song and the characters, and I even sketched out the set, what I thought could be the

set. And she said, I really like this.

I have some contacts at Mattel Toys. Well, sure enough, we live auditioned for the owners of Mattel

Toys in Hawthorne, California. It was a darkened theater. And I had written,

you know, about nine songs plus a script for this audition.

And I, first of all, I went to Emmy Jo and said, would you like to be in a kid’s show?

Emmy Jo: Sure.

Doug: But she’s an accomplished actress, so she’s like, really, a kid’s show?

Emmy Jo: But I will say, I remember, this has been a long, long, long, long time ago, but correct me if I’m

wrong, but I remember she (the toy store owner) had a contact at a local TV station.

Was that before Mattel? I think that was before Mattel, wasn’t it?

And then she had something to take to Mattel. That’s what I remember. But that’s how long ago it’s

been. Some of the details.

Doug: Anyway, the point is we live auditioned for the owners of Mattel Toys.

And the theater was, you know, we were playing our hearts out. I was playing myself and Freddie and

Henrietta in falsetto. And Emmy Jo was playing Charlie and herself,

Emmy Jo. And we were singing and doing all the characters. It was called A Revue,

R-A-V-U-E, because we were playing all the characters at the time. And I thought that was a

pretty cool title. So we just played our hearts out. And no,

there was no response from anybody in the audience.

Bridgett: Oh, no.

Doug: You could hear the crickets.

So we didn’t know what to think or anything like that.

They said, well, we’ll talk to you later.

We went our merry way. And lo and behold, they did like it.

And they said, we’re going to do a pilot. And so before we knew it,

they were building the set in a soundstage in Hollywood. And we got to go over there and see it.

And Sid and Marty Croft were commissioned to build our costumes. You know,

they didn’t design it, but they brought them to life. And I got to go over there and tell them a

little more smile on Freddie, please. And so it was just a magical time.

And, you know, for us, being theater and not really having a contact in the entertainment business,

this was like a dream come true. So that’s how the show was really born.

Bridgett: That is amazing.

I mean, I had not heard that story. And that really is something. And, you know, Sid Croft just

passed away recently. And I always, as a child, I always liked his shows,

but I was a little scared of them. Like I was a little scared of witches. I was really scared of

Witchypoo. But then I could see why now you said Freddie, you asked him to smile. And when we

were off air, I told you that Freddie was my first crush. I used to watch The New Zoo Revue and loved it. And something about when Freddie came on, I was so excited to see Freddie.

And maybe it’s because you made Freddie just a little, I don’t know, smiley. I don’t know.

Yeah, not as scary. Not as scary, which I did love all the puppets, though.

Doug: Freddie was a little boy,

or as our boy who got into trouble a lot, but who was also smarter than…

You think. And he and Charlie got into it and Henrietta and they were all just the characters just

kind of, you know, played off each other really well.

Bridgett: Yeah, they did.

And always the theme song saying that Freddie wasn’t too smart. And I’m like, I think I think

Freddie’s pretty smart.

Colleen:  She was getting protective of Freddie.

Bridgett: I was. I loved him so much.

Colleen: You know, I don’t think. That, you know, obviously, as children, we just enjoyed the show because

it was a very sweet, calming presence to watch the show.

You know, nowadays, you never know what you’re going to get on kid’s television. But your concepts

of kindness and love were really evergreen. Like you could watch it today and still feel that sense

of kindness, which is so important in any generation. But I don’t think that we as children realize

you were writing. And when I read the information that you wrote over 600 songs for the show,

how did you do that? I mean, there were three just every episode.

Doug:  Every episode.

Well, it was a dream for me because I was majoring in, you know, theater. And my dream was to write

a Broadway musical. And here was a chance to write a musical every day of the week where the songs

furthered the plot and explored the characters. And, you know,

I got to just have fun. And Emmy Jo was right there with the coffee because during the off season,

I would be composing and writing. And what do you think of this? And basically,

it was just fun. I just got inspired because, you know, we didn’t have any psychologists or

educators really advising us. It was just our instinct of what kids,

what we wanted kids to learn and know. And, you know, Sesame Street was doing ABC 123.

And I just wanted to do an opposite approach. Relationships. How to get along with your brother,

your sister, you know, your mother and father, kids at school. And so that was kind of the

philosophy behind it.

Bridgett: That’s so insightful because I was an elementary school teacher and just

hearing that, that that was just instinctual to both of you. Was there,

you know, you said your mother worked at the toy store. Was there some kind of any educational

background or was there something in either of your lives that just influenced that? It sounds like

you probably had a pretty good, pretty good parents. Both of you did.

Emmy Jo:  We had.

Wonderful childhoods. I mean, my parents have been gone now for 30,

35 years, and not a day goes by that I don’t miss them. I mean, my childhood was filled with

gentleness and kindness and happy experiences. My grandfather had an apple orchard up in the New

Mexico mountains, and I spent most of my summers in an apple tree, just up there eating apples.

And I don’t know, we just had a great time. My other grandparents lived in Lubbock and I spent

summers with them and all my cousins. And I don’t know, it just kind of sort of flowed out from us.

And we really didn’t know intellectually a lot about children. It was all instinct.

We learned a lot. Once our children were born, you know, once you have kids, that’s when you really

wake up and you think, boy, everything I do is going to have an influence on them.

And I have to think very carefully about my words and what I say and how I approach them.

I don’t know. I’m glad it all worked out. We had a lot of fun. A lot of fun.

Doug: And my background is,

you know, my grandparents came over from the Middle East, from Syria and Lebanon.

And, you know, here I was with an actual international family.

But they came over in like 1911 because we finally found the immigration records.

Emmy Jo: They came through Ellis Island. Not knowing a word of English. And stayed on Ellis Island until they

were approved. And then they just loved being Americans.

And that gratitude was always communicated to Doug. I remember that.

And I remember his grandmother, who I did get to know before she died when we first married.

And I remember her. Very often saying, you know, “I never let any of my children go out of the house

after school until I had had my English lesson.”

My mom and dad speak Arabic in the house.

You only speak English.

They wanted to assimilate. It just really influenced me because that,

you know, the influence of kindness and tolerance and love, that’s what I wanted to communicate

with our New Zoo kids. And somehow it worked. It did.

Emmy Jo: They were very kind to me, his parents. And, you know, here I was kind of culturally from a different (world)

you know, I was a Texas girl. Kind of a farm girl.

Doug: (pointing to himself) City guy.

Emmy Jo: You know, I went to the Protestant church.

His family went to the Orthodox Catholic church. And I never felt

outside the family they were so welcoming and kind and my parents were to Doug and so we just yeah

it was wonderful and that influenced the writing of the show and the songs you know and you

could hear that today really. His mother was so sweet when our daughters were uh

teenagers we went to, know where y’all located

Bridgett & Colleen: Nashville.

Emmy Jo: Okay. We went to this camp, a Christian camp in California. And every year I took my girls to the

mother-daughter conference. And one year we took Doug’s mother and she just had a blast.

She was just, she was just, oh, I’ll never forget that. We have pictures of that.

And I’m so glad we have that memory.

Bridgett: Well, I think it was so evident because I know for me.

And I know Colleen and I, we were just like right in that era where it was our demographic.

That was our demographic. That was our show. And I think that is something that attracted me so

much to that show because it was so calming and it was so kind.

And, you know, I didn’t feel scared. I related to the characters.

I can remember something about bragging about, you know, you shouldn’t be bragging so much.

And so it was, you know, it really was something I can remember my poor

Mother, I’m one of 12 children. So I’m number 11. And my mother had to have varicose vein surgery. Surprise, surprise. After having 12 kids!

Emmy Jo: But you wait, you wait, wait, wait, wait, you have.

Bridgett: No, I’m one of 11. I’m not, I don’t have 11 children. I have two, but I’m number 11.

Emmy Jo: I think that’s great.

Bridgett: It was wonderful. And my mother comes home and she’s,

she had to have varicose vein surgery because she had 12 pregnancies and she’s in bed and I’m up

there and I’m like, “mom, you got to watch this show.”

I completely remember that. She’s like. Like she was sweet, too. I was very lucky to have such a

kind mother. But just the influence and the kindness that that show had and the songs.

And I am amazed just the number of songs that you had to write. How many do you know how many

episodes there were and how many had to do a year?

Doug:  Well, we did 196 half hours all together over

the course of four years, four seasons.

You know, I wish we would have continued on forever, right? Because I still have a bunch of ideas.

In fact, I created a new kid show. Now maybe we can get into that a little later. Oh,

wait till you hear about that.

Yeah, we did. You know, that’s why there was almost 600, a little over 600 songs,

because in every episode, there was at least three to four songs in those 196 episodes.

And, you know, right now, I don’t know if you’ve been on to our YouTube channel or our Facebook

page, but I do a song, you know, usually once a month or once a week is what I was trying to do,

but it’s a little overwhelming. But I go back and I relearn the songs that I composed and I play

them acoustically. We get so much response like, wow, this really pertains today as much or more

than it did back in the day.

Colleen: Right. And that’s what I think it really was. It’s evergreen.

Concepts of kindness and love and empathy. It’s something that each child should be taught or

should just be ingrained from birth that they should be kind and thoughtful. So these topics don’t

change.

Doug: Yeah.

We have seen this. I never wanted to talk down to the kids. Right. Or compose down to the kids.

I mean, the music is, I’ve heard from a lot of people, it’s very complicated. There was time

changes. There was, you know, it was a musical comedy. I made six changes with singing back and

forth to each other. And I didn’t want the script to talk down to anybody.

Because I assumed that these kids get it. And they did get it.

Colleen:  Well, as a four, five, six, seven-year-old watching it,

Bridgett and I both got it. So you don’t have to worry. We understood when we were watching it.

Emmy Jo:  I’ll

tell you, one of the things that’s been, it’s really been very rewarding. One of our daughters,

our oldest daughter, Joanna, is the one that started that Facebook page. And so we’ve had an

opportunity to talk to and hear from thousands of our New Zoo Kids.

And some of the stories are so wonderful where children remember. It’s like with the two of you.

It’s a very, very happy memory. Unfortunately, there are other children we found that came from

very sad homes, very bad, destructive home lives.

They looked at our show, almost they wanted us to be their aunt and uncle or they pretended we were

their parents. And they’ve written about how our show, our little show helped them grow up to be

productive adults. And it’s very sad that children have those kinds of experiences.

Well, they have those kinds of experiences today. I mean, there are lots and lots of kids out there

that are not.

that gentle parenting that they deserve. And I hope that that’s one reason that Doug created this

new show to, you know, be able to reach some of those children.

Doug: And, you know, there’s such a new format, you know, formats now with everybody’s on an iPhone with

their head, you know, buried in it, even two-year-olds and they’re there or they’re on an iPad.

And so. I have to create something for that medium where the parents can sit there with the kid and

enjoy it interactively. And so, you know, we’re excited about it.

We love our New Zoo Kids.

Emmy Jo: Doug got to meet more of you than I did because I was home with Joanna and,

you know, then we had other children.  So I didn’t go out on personal appearances a lot.

And it’s just so fun to meet our New Zoo Kids. I’m so proud of every single one of them.

It goes the whole spectrum of careers from teaching many,

many, many teachers and doctors, dentists, law, you name it.

We’ve got them. And we’re just proud of it. Every single one of you.

Bridgett: Well,

if you told four-year-old, yeah Bridgett that she would get to talk to

Doug and Emmy Jo, I just don’t know what I would have done. I would be dancing around everywhere.

And that’s another thing that the physical work that you all did on this show.

I mean, you’re dancing and choreography and everything. How did that work out?

Because it seems like, you know, with all those shows, that had to be a lot of work.

Doug: It was.

It was. And that was the time when, believe it or not, videotape was still a little bit young.

And I don’t know if you know anything about videotape, but it’s gone through progressions. We were

on what they call two inch videotape, literally a reel to reel on a big tape machine.

And, you know, it’s gone from that to everything is on the computer now that used to be on those

big machines well those machines would break down we would be uh you know having to redo things we

have dinner catered because we were staying late and it was it was pretty intense schedule because

I would write all the songs during the off season and the storylines,

and then we’d give them to our script writers. And then we would, on Friday,

I would take 12 songs into the studio and record them with the band.

And then on Saturday, all the voiceover, and Emmy Jo and myself would pre-record all those songs, all those 12 songs. And,

you know, thinking, how is this going to play on the soundstage? And then,

On Monday, we would rehearse two shows and then go through the choreography,

the blocking and everything and the camera blocking and all of that. And then on Tuesday,

we would videotape those two shows all in, you know, and our director,

you know, he was very like, OK, moving on. And he wanted to do like three or four minute songs in

one take. And, you know, everybody’s inside those costumes. They worked.

And when they got out of the costume, they were just drenched, you know. But then on Tuesday,

we would rehearse another two shows. And then Thursday, we would tape those two shows.

And then on Friday, we would pre-record the next 12 songs. So it’s just constant.

It was a constant thing, but it was just joyful because we had such a great cast and the voiceover

people and the dancers and everything.

Emmy Jo: We had the best dancers,

absolute best dancers in those costumes and a wonderful choreographer, Anita Mann,

who was able to do all those clever little dances that looked like so much fun that she was able to

choreograph, not just for us, but for the animals and those bulky costumes so that they could dance

and do something clever like that. So we were, it certainly wasn’t just Doug and me.

I mean, we were surrounded by the best of the business and we’ll be forever grateful.

And we’re so thankful we’re still in touch, very close touch, with Sharon Baird, who was in the

costume of Charlie the Owl. And so we had the best talent.

Yeah, she was one of the original Mouseketeers.

Colleen: That’s what I was going to say. I thought I had

heard that.

Emmy Jo: Oh, I used to watch her.

She came on the set, and there was little Sharon from the Mickey Mouse Club. I just felt like she was

just a superstar in my book, so it was fun. We were very fortunate to have them. They were kind to

us because Doug and I had no experience in television. It was all theater, and they were very

experienced in film and television, and they were right there to help us.

We had a very close cast.

Doug: Yeah, when we first started, we were going to play to the theater.

But on television, you can’t do that because you have to tone down your expressions and play to the

camera. Well, that wasn’t the way we grew up. We would play to the back of the house.

Colleen: And you never took it on tour, right?

Doug: It never… There was never a tour,

was it? Not a tour, but I went out with Freddie many times.

Just my guitar and Freddie. And we went to shopping centers and churches and all kinds of things

during the off season.

Emmy Jo:  And we were at the White House twice, which was really,

really fun.

Bridgett:  Was that in the 70s?

Doug: We didn’t get a state dinner.

Bridgett: Was that in the 1970s?

Emmy Jo: 72. 72.

Bridgett: Wow. So when it was pretty new, when the show was pretty new?

Emmy Jo: It was pretty new. It was gaining in

popularity. And we were invited by the Nixons, who was President then and to be on the in the

Easter Egg Roll. At that time, The Easter Egg Roll was just us. There was no other character you know.

Doug: Now it’s like a every huge character in the world is there, but when the initial Easter Egg Roll was

just Emmy Jo and I and three character animals. they built a stage for us out on the South

Lawn and you know had a sound system and then Mrs.

Nixon invited us to appear. She was doing a Christmas party for the children of the foreign

diplomats in the East Room. And that was something I will just never forget because the White House

is always magnificent, but to see it at Christmas was just breathtaking.

Colleen: That’s so amazing. That’s on a bucket list right there, Bridgett, to see it at Christmas time.

Bridgett: I know, I know.

Emmy Jo:  Well, it was great because we got to bring all three characters and the dancers.

Doug: And we did a prerecorded show, of course, because we couldn’t bring the voiceover people.

So it was all prerecorded and we rehearsed it. But Emily Jo and I were live and then they would

play the tape and we would interact with that. The kids loved it.

It was fun.

Emmy Jo: And then one time, my mother was a school teacher, too.

And we actually did an appearance at the school where she was teaching. And to me,

that was just as special as the White House. Because like I told you, I was so close to my mother.

And she was able to get all of the children out on the lawn. And we got to meet them.

And we’ve got pictures of that. And it’s very special.

Bridgett: I don’t know what I would have done.

If you’d come to Kentucky, they would have probably had to calm me down.

I’d have to do some breathing exercises.

Colleen: Bridgett would be put behind a gate somewhere.

Bridgett: I would be jumping around. I would have been so excited.

Colleen: So you guys mentioned when I was doing

some review for this that your pilot season was really your honeymoon because you got married and

kind of dove right into the pilot season.

Emmy Jo: Oh, yes. We never had a honeymoon,

actually. We got married right before the pilot was done in Dallas.

And we went back the very next day.

And on that flight, in those days,

they had stationery. We were on an American Airlines flight. And Doug got some stationery from the

flight attendant. And he sketched out the set.

Doug: Well, I did when I initially created it.

I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t do the drawings. They started building it when we got back and

you gave them that design and it was really wonderful. I mean, they amplified it some,

but I’ve still got that stationary. That was very, very special.

Colleen: Oh gosh,

that’s probably so special to your kids too. It was wonderful.

Bridgett:  Yeah,

I followed, I think I found your daughter maybe a year or two ago, the Facebook page she started

for the New Zoo Revue. And I remember I started following that probably two or three years ago or

whenever she started.

Doug: Yeah, we’re up to 110,000 followers.

There is a Facebook page called the New Zoo Review Reunion.

Which is just for you New Zoo Review kids. And it’s fun. You know,

we don’t post on it or anything like that. But, oh, to see pictures of everybody’s families and

their pets and what they’re doing on vacation and memories that they have of the show is really

fun. But Joanna did that, I guess, a couple of years ago. I think it was three years ago.

Emmy Jo: She just walked in the house and she said, Mom and Dad, I think you need a Facebook page.

Colleen: Isn’t that great? What an influence you’ve been.

You didn’t realize the impact that still existed?

Emmy Jo: No. We had no idea. Because when we were doing the show, oh,

this is a sad story. When we didn’t get any fan mail or any kind of,

we had no contact with our audience except when Doug went out on personal appearances,

and he would meet the kids. But there was no kind of relationship or anything like that.

Some years ago, before Joanna did the Facebook page, somebody,

one of our new zoo kids, sent us a package of letters that they had gotten at a garage sale.

And it was, I mean, there must have been 100 letters in there. And it was all letters that children

had written us that we never saw. And honestly, I cried.

It just broke my heart. And that’s when we realized, we began to think about,

well, why didn’t we see these letters? Why weren’t we allowed to write to them?

Doug: Well, and the reason for this is, you know, we were young kids. And I was told,

sign on the dotted line and don’t worry about it. So the production, the producers and all of the

money people were, you know, in back of this, we really never…

We were just two green kids. Yeah. What do we know about entertainment? We didn’t even have an

attorney or an agent.

On a television set. I have no idea. And so after the show,

you know, stopped production, I was going, well, what do I do now? So I had an opportunity to go to

Las Vegas and open my own production company. And so that’s what we were doing for 40 years.

Emmy Jo:  I was raising our kids and I went back to school and got my master’s in

Marriage and family counseling, and we just moved into a different phase of our lives.

And then, you know, our kids grew up, went to college. Joanna got married.

She moved to Texas, which is where I’m from. And I didn’t want to live so far away from her,

so we moved to Texas. And then… her kids have pretty much grown up,

and she walks in and suggests that we have a Facebook page. And I didn’t even know how to process

it, but I thought, well, let’s give it a try. And she started it, and it has just been wonderful.

Very fun, life-giving.

We have become friends with our New Zoo kids. And we get to see them when we go to Comic-Cons.

We’re going to a Comic-Con in Colorado this summer. And I can’t wait.

Doug: I can’t wait. It’s just really gratifying to know that something I wrote so long ago and created so

long ago has had an influence. And that’s just the power of television. And I never…

I mean, it’s… You never realize when you’re 26 years old, that kind of power. It’s like a big

family reunion when we go to these Comic-Con things. If you ever can go,

we bring Freddie.

Colleen: Uh-oh. Bridgett’s like Colorado?

Emmy Jo: I’ll be excited for the one in Colorado because

Joanna’s little sister lives in Colorado. Colorado Springs is where the next one is. Okay.

So she lives up in Colorado and can come down for the show. But anyway, so it’s like a big family

reunion and we’re very, very thankful. And we’re very proud of every single one of you.

Colleen: Thank you. I was going to ask you, because I know you started going to Comic-Cons a few years ago.

The first one you went to, were you absolutely shocked at the number of people that wanted to come?

Emmy Jo: Yes!

They were stunned. I didn’t know how to process it, honestly.

I just thought, this is unbelievable. One man came up,

and he was kind of scary looking. Big guy with a tight t-shirt and all kinds of gold chains and

tattoos. And he comes up and I said, well, hello, it’s nice to meet you. And he started tearing up

and he said, I want you to know that I’m not in prison because of you.

So I just took my arms and I wish I could see him again. I want to know he’s okay.

It was wonderful. I mean, I just love it. I feel like I’m part of their lives.

Oh, when we were in this last one was in New Jersey,

right? And one of the security guys gave me something that had belonged to his mother.

She had died recently, and he said, I just want you to have it. And I keep that.

in my wallet as a memory. I couldn’t believe it that he gave me something that belonged to his own

mother. So I feel like we’re kin. We’re now kin to over 100,000 people.

Doug: We really knew, when there was a line to come to our table and to meet us.

And they actually asked us to stay an extra day to accommodate everybody because a lot of the

people that were working the Comic-Con couldn’t get off to go to it.

Colleen: They wanted to see you.

In correspondence, you know, with the… He just writes to us, you know, on Facebook.

And it’s someone that we met when we went to the San Diego Comic-Con. He’s a chemistry teacher out

there in California. And, you know, I get noticed from him every once in a while.

Emmy Jo: There’s another guy who works at a university in Claremore,

Oklahoma, where my… You know, I’ve got a lot of roots in Oklahoma,

so that’s pretty special. And we’ve just got New Zoo kids all over the United States.

Doug: And there was one guy who came to our Comic-Con,

and I found out his parents live in Dallas,

and he got in touch with me and said, I think you need a songbook, a New Zoo Review songbook.

And this guy is a… conductor and composer.

And he grew up and just loved my songs. You know,

that influenced him to do what he’s doing now. And so he and I collaborated and he came up with a

new songbook. It’s in our store.

Colleen: And we’ll have links to your website and to the Facebook group and all that stuff. Because I think

that… You know, like I said, it’s evergreen. I’m glad you’re finally experiencing the responses

that you should have been experiencing 40, 50 years ago. I think it’s insane that someone found the

letters at a garage sale. That is crazy.

Emmy Jo: I believe nothing happens by chance.

Yeah. And I think that everything that we’ve gone through had a reason for this late,

you know, discovery of our show. And I think it’s meaningful not only to us,

but to everyone else. And I think of it a little bit as a ministry because.

You know, at every single one of our comic cons we just get,

I guess, messages, not letters, but messages on our Facebook site of people that are,

you know, our New Zoo Kids that are sick or they’re going through some really tough times.

And I just put their name in my prayer journal and pray for them. And I am very grateful.

When I get a response back, they say, oh, listen to what happened and how God saw me through this

difficult time in my life. And because for me, if we’re going to do this,

I want it to be meaningful to people. It’s not just a fun thing, but has deep meaning to other

people.

Doug:  And in fact, she has a monthly newsletter.

Emmy Jo: Yeah, I do.

Colleen:  Well, we need a link for that. Yeah. We’ll have to get all

that info.  It’s on your website.

Doug:  The NewZooReview.com.

And right on the front page there, there’s a sign-up sheet. You know, it’s not very expensive,

but it covers our costs. But she writes it every month. And it’s got, you know,

Henrietta recipes. And it’s got some stuff from the show,

I think we’re going on our 17th month writing this so that you can see all the past editions and it’s

just it’s just fun it’s a fun way to stay connected with our New Zoo Kids keeping that community

and I want it to be more interactive than it is.

There’s always an opportunity for people to send in things for the newsletter. Not too many do,

but some do.

Bridgett: I think, you know, Colleen and I, we always were Generation X. We’re Gen X people.

And we always are considered like the ignored generation. But the New Zoo Revue was there for us.

That was ours. Like I talked to, you know, some like some of my siblings that maybe went to school

before I did. They weren’t able to watch it. They were in school. And I watched

it. My little sister, I think she watched it. But some of my nephews and nieces were a little too

young. And I’m like, this is for, well, it’s for everybody. But I really felt it was special

because they always say we’re ignored, but we had the New Zoo Revue. So it was great.

Emmy Jo: That’s great. That’s great.

Colleen:  It’s such a beautiful thing that there is a time of life that you can

think back and say “oh I loved that I loved that show, it was a time in life where it was simpler and

that that you so many people remember what you did and appreciate what you did and continue to love

the fact that you are still connected so we love it.  We have always been fans and we’re so

grateful that you’ve come on this show thank you so much for being here thank you for having us

Emmy Jo: You’re Welcome. We’ve enjoyed it. And if you ever come to the Dallas area, we want you to get in touch

with Danny so we can take you to dinner.

Colleen:  Oh, wow. Okay, Bridgett. I know.

Bridgett: My daughter lives in Austin. And I guess was Dallas about four hours from Austin?

I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll have to. I’ve never been to Dallas.

Colleen: She will be wearing her green.