Quotes from James Bobin

'Muppets' was very much an exercise in anti-CG and the anti-effects world. It was very much in camera. We wanted to create a world where tangible puppets walked around and talked to each other. You could touch them. You could meet them.

Lewis Carroll, you see, wasn't really interested in telling an exciting story. Well, he wasn't interested in things like cause and effect or a linear narrative. It's surreal, it's absurd, it's wordplay, it's satirical, it's analyzing itself, it's funny, it's an enormous challenge.

'The Muppets' is really about innocence and charm and sweetness and light and having hope - and stupid gags.

Film shouldn't be a pain. It's a creative process.

When you try to teach children things, you're trying not necessarily to do it directly.

Cable news is 24 hours long, so you have to fill it up with something.

I think, as a director, it's always worth pushing yourself and finding out new areas and exploring new ways to tell story.

'Alice' is effectively a story about a game of cards. 'Through the Looking Glass' is a story of chess.

Personally, I've always liked movies about big diamonds, like 'Pink Panther' and 'The Thomas Crown Affair.' I've always found those films really interesting, and they have a good energy about them, which I like.

There's a cyclical nature to what people like in the world. Through time, things come around again.

My films have a lot of historical context; I'm a huge fan of ruins. You see a lot of ruin work in my movies, I like ruins.

I've always loved 'Alice,' and I've always loved Lewis Carroll. I love his kind of tone and his intelligence.

I love the idea that if you build something with enough depth and texture, you can watch it again and again and see new things every time, and that's very important.

The joy of puppetry is that it is very simple and low-fi, which I love.

Honestly, puppets themselves are actors effectively. The joy of puppetry is that it is very simple and low-fi, which I love.

In England, 'The Muppet Show' is very much seen as an English thing. So for us in the U.K., it is one of the treasures of the history of children's TV and of comedy, basically.

There's nothing sadder than being in a tribute band - especially a tribute band for your own thing you did originally.

It's a beacon of hope in a dark world. You watch 'The Muppets' and you're smiling for an hour and a half, and then you go outside, and the economy is in crisis.

'The Muppet Show' spoke to me at 5, and it speaks to me in my late 30s in the same way.

Everything in culture moves in a cyclical way.

'Muppets' is incredibly analog, 'Alice' is very digital.

Muppet films are never easy to film 'cause Muppets have no legs.

No, the Muppets are not communist. And the character of Tex Richman is not an allegory for capitalism in any way. The character is called Tex Richman.

I remember watching 'The Muppet Show' in the '70s. I was six or seven, and my dad watched it with me, and my grandparents watched it with me, and we're all laughing throughout, but I think we were probably laughing at different things.