Jenny Slate And Film's Cutest Stars, Marcel The Shell And The Minions : Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! : NPR |

Hey, guys. I'm Emma Choi, and welcome to EVERYONE & THEIR MOM, a weekly show from Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! This week, we're talking about the Minions - you know, from the movie - with Wait Wait panelist, comedian and someone who I think drinks pickle juice right out of the jar. It's Emmy Blotnick. Hey, Emmy.

EMMY BLOTNICK: Hi, Emma. You're right about me.

CHOI: I love it. Well, Emmy, the Minions are everywhere, as I'm sure you know. I mean, you've probably seen them in an insurance commercial, on a Twinkies box, on Tic Tacs. It's hot Minion summer, baby.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As Minions, imitating Liberty Mutual jingle).

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Minion) Hello.

BLOTNICK: It truly is. The marketing budget has never been hotter for the Minions.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Minion) Hey.

CHOI: Emmy, much like COVID, the Minions have become endemic. "The Rise Of Gru" is an absolute box office hit this summer. You've probably noticed that you can't go more than, like, 10 seconds without seeing one of these yellow Tic Tac guys promoting everything from your bananas, your Happy Meals. And Universal Studios kind of accidentally created the universal object of affection, which is apparently a little round guy wearing jeans who just wants to hang out. And I feel like it's why we love Danny DeVito so much - same characteristics, right?

BLOTNICK: Yes, I see that. I see the link there.

CHOI: I mean, I think the really beautiful thing is that everyone is making the Minions, like, their own. And there's this trend - I feel like maybe you've seen it.

MORGAN KOLKMEYER: The gentle minion TikTok trend continues. It's where a group of kids, mostly young men, dress up in suits and show up at movie theaters to see "Minions: The Rise of Gru?"

BLOTNICK: That - I like this. I like that as a trend. I feel like, you know, there's not a lot of excuses to, like, get dressed up anymore, so...

KOLKMEYER: #Gentleminion in case you want to get in on this.

CHOI: But at this point, it's gone a little overboard 'cause it's currently - it's a lot of unruly teens running around in suits, and so much so that a theater in the U.K. is, quote, "currently not admitting unaccompanied children wearing suits for 'Minions: Rise Of Gru.'" Like, Gen Z committed so hard to the bit that international film law has changed.

BLOTNICK: That is incredible. Yeah, you rarely ever hear a thing that's like, hey, everyone stop cleaning up so nice and coming to the cinema.

CHOI: OK. Minions are everywhere, and people love them. We wanted to talk to an expert on creating lovable characters.

Will you introduce yourself to us?

JENNY SLATE: Sure. Hi, my name is Jenny Slate, and I'm Jenny Slate. (Laughter) I don't know what else to say.

CHOI: Yes. You're a comedian. You're a writer.

CHOI: And most recently, you co-created, produced and starred in a movie that's out now, called "Marcel The Shell With Shoes On," about a tiny, lovable creature. So thanks for coming here.

SLATE: Thanks for having me.

CHOI: Can you describe Marcel the Shell?

SLATE: Sure. Marcel the Shell is a little creature who's one-inch tall, and his body is a shell. But, like, where, you know, the little snail would come out, he has just one googly eye. He has one eye. And he has two shoes, and he has a face. And about, you know, like, a little over a decade ago, Dean Fleischer-Camp, who also directed the film, he and I created this character. And he has, like, a little voice, like...

(As Marcel the Shell) He, like, sounds like this. Like, this is, like, what Marcel sounds like. And he just, like, talks about himself. And it's not like, that big of a deal. But in one way or another, I guess it's rather interesting.

And that's what he's like.

CHOI: That's awesome. And it feels like you've decoded what makes something lovable. Like, you put - you took a shell and you were like, bam, lovable. Is there, like, a checklist that makes something instantly adorable, lovable, cute?

SLATE: (Laughter) I mean, well, Dean is the one who really did the character design for Marcel. That was all him. I think that the element of mismatch, like, that he's a little dude, a little guy trying to do things that - since we're big, we know actually how big they are. Let's say - like, in our film, Marcel has lost his family. If you had lost your family or if I had, you would understand that that is a - the biggest thing. It's the most gigantic loss. And we watch him go through it. And it is - it's not just a mismatch. It's extraordinary that he decides to match up with the adventure of finding his family when, of course, we know that he is so very small.

CHOI: Yeah, he's a tiny little guy.

CHOI: To get into character, did you, like, hang around a bunch of giant furniture and pretend to be small?

SLATE: (Laughter) You know, I think I - it's not hard for me to get into character as Marcel because a lot of being him is just being as, like, easy-breezy as I would like to be if I weren't as anxious as I am.

SLATE: And also, you know, like, I'm a 40-year-old woman with, like, a - you know, a version of what a female body is, and that's not always the most, obviously, like, stress-free thing to have. So...

SLATE: ...You know what I mean? So to play, like, an ageless, male shell feels really good.

CHOI: Can you tell us more about - like, how did he come together? Did you just, like, collect some random stuff in your house?

SLATE: Yeah, that actually is what happened. I started doing the voice, and Dean started to interview me in that voice. And that - some of that audio, you know, is in our very first "Marcel The Shell" short. And then Dean went to the craft store in our neighborhood, and he went to the toy store. And he got, like, a big container of shells and googly eyes. And he got, like, a doll that was sort of like a Polly Pocket but not really - like, not the real one, a cheaper one basically...

SLATE: ...And started to, like, basically, like, glue gun stuff together or, like, glue stuff together. And he made a bunch of different character passes - like, different tries at making the guy. And then he finally did find the right combination and was like, I think this is him. And I looked, and I said, oh, that's definitely him.

CHOI: I feel like there's a really thin line between cute and creepy. Like, have - were any of those, like, outtakes of "Marcel The Shell," like - you're just like, that's not right, like, no?

SLATE: I don't think that - I'm trying to think if, like, there was anything creepy that - like, because he has such a small voice, it was really important to make a laugh for him that wasn't creepy...

SLATE: ...And wasn't, like, cackle-y (ph). And so for the most part - and what I finally settled on was Marcel's laugh sounds like this. It's like...

(As Marcel the Shell, laughter).

CHOI: "Marcel The Shell" came out, like, 10-ish (ph) years ago. Was there something broken inside of us back then that we needed, like, loveable things at that moment?

SLATE: I think that moment is always occurring.

SLATE: And we're lucky that we have, you know, new ways to try to soothe ourselves. It used to be that - I would assume you would either have to, like, go out into nature, or if you were, like, a person of extreme privilege, maybe you could, like, go to - I don't know, like, hear an opera or, like...

SLATE: ...You know what I mean?

SLATE: Like, be in the queen's garden and, like, hear the harp or something - but I think it's nice that we have movie theaters now. We were like, if we're going to make something that goes in there, you know, we want it to be really, really, really beautiful and really soothing and really funny all at once because what you're saying - like, 10 years ago, what did we need? - like, I just think we need the same thing that we needed then.

CHOI: Yeah. Well, what do you think we can learn from Marcel?

SLATE: Well, I think one thing to learn is that, like, there are very few moments where only one thing is happening for you. Like, for example, Marcel feels grief that he lost his family, but he also feels pride in the way that he's structured his life. And he also feels determined to live a beautiful life. Very rarely is something entirely a hundred percent either good or bad, and Marcel's a nice example of what that can look like.

CHOI: Yeah, absolutely. Should I just, like, glue one, big eye to the bottom of my body for Halloween? Like, I think there's going to be a lot of Marcel Halloween costumes, and I'm very excited about that.

SLATE: I certainly hope so, and I hope I get a picture of every single one of them. It's also, like, you know, a good costume for chilly Halloweens.

CHOI: Absolutely. Unless you're doing sexy Marcel, then it's a little bit cold.

CHOI: Well, Jenny, if it's OK, we want to play a game with you called Where Do The Shoes Go? Are you up for it?

CHOI: Awesome. OK. So your movie is called "Marcel The Shell With Shoes On." So we figured you must be an expert in figuring out where to put shoes on, like, weirdly shaped objects.

CHOI: Yes. So we're going to give you an object, and you tell us where to put the shoes. Sound good?

CHOI: Great. Let's do it. A bread knife - where do the shoes go?

SLATE: Oh, a bread knife. I would stand him vertical, and I would put the - just one shoe on the very bottom of the handle, yeah...

SLATE: ...And make him be, like, a little hopper.