Marlene Sharp – To Catch a Running Fridge and a Four-Legged Star

Marlene Sharp 0:00
Oh, she loves to be the center of attention. And she loves children too. If it was a bunch of adults who are directing her and trying to get her to do stuff, she might have been more resistant, but she loves my nieces. And she’s just very agreeable when it comes to kids. So I think it felt like playing to her. If it, if it had felt like she was being directed, she would have resisted it because she is a bit of a contrarian, and she, she tends to do the opposite of what people want her to.

Claudia Henock 0:36
Hi, everyone. Welcome to Your Most Precious Thing, the show that talks about the stories about items we hold near and dear to our hearts. I’m your host, Claudia Henock, and let’s meet our guest for this week.

Claudia Henock 0:46
Marlene Sharp is a creative and business-savvy entertainment multi-hyphenate who originally hails from New Orleans but is now a (San Fernando) Valley girl. Firmly ensconced in LA life, Marlene is top dawg at Pink Poodle Productions. Noteworthy clients and collaborators include The Center for Learning Unlimited and its companion animation studio employing adults on the autism spectrum Brainstorm Productions; Neko Productions; Panda Mony Toy Company; Action Amanda Frohlich; Rainshine Entertainment; and the Agency for Cultural Affairs for the Japanese government.

Claudia Henock 1:22
Prior to Pink Poodle, Marlene served as Director, Production at LEVEL-5 abby, home of YO-KAI WATCH and other Japanese hit video game-based franchises.

Formerly, as TV Series Producer at Sega of America, Marlene worked on much more than the Teen Choice Award-nominated Cartoon Network series SONIC BOOM. For example, her extensive Hedgehog duties took her to the heights of nerd-dom as an official San Diego Comic-Con panelist. She also contributed to the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog feature film.

Claudia Henock 1:52
As a freelance journalist, Marlene concentrates on pop culture for noteworthy fan sites and industry periodicals, such as Global Toy News, Game Developer, Broadway World, and DOGTV. As a short film auteur, she has snagged recognition at La Femme Film Fest, Austin Comedy Film Festival, KIDS FIRST! Film Festival, Canine Film Festival, and San Luis Obispo Film Festival. Marlene is the proud winner of the 2019 LA Shorts International Film Fest Script Competition (an Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying fest), at which her backdoor sitcom pilot received a staged reading courtesy of The Groundlings.

Claudia Henock 2:30
Hi, Marlene, welcome to the podcast! How are you doing today?

Marlene Sharp 2:33
Hey, how are you, Claudia?

Claudia Henock 2:35
I’m doing fantastic. It’s almost the end of the week. And you do what you gotta do, sometimes?

Marlene Sharp 2:42
It is, yes.

Claudia Henock 2:44
So to start, what would you say is your most precious thing?

Marlene Sharp 2:50
Well, my most precious thing is my pink refrigerator. Now we’re talking inanimate objects. If we’re talking sentient objects, that’s sentient people, animals, that’s a different story. But my pink refrigerator is my most precious non human or animal thing.

Claudia Henock 3:10
I definitely want to, I’d actually do actually want to talk about your dog if we have time as well, because I did a little bit of research before the episode started. And I just had a few questions about Blanche as well. And just before I got ahead of myself. Blanche is Marlene’s dog and we will be talking about her later in the episode. But to start, so how did you get this refrigerator?

Marlene Sharp 3:34
Well, it’s quite an odyssey. I have loved the color pink for my whole life, and have used it as a key decorating motif in dorm rooms to apartments to the condo where I live now. And so, I think it was like around 2014, I discovered that there are a couple of companies, only like a couple, that make pink refrigerators and in a kind of vintage style. And I don’t even know how I found out. Maybe I saw it on Facebook or something like that. And then I became obsessed. And because I love, I love vintage like 1950s, early 60s style and then to find out that the refrigerators were able to be ordered in pink was just like too much, too much excitement, too much goodness. So I researched both of these companies. And as you might have guessed, these pink refrigerators are quite expensive because it’s not like you can just walk into a showroom and buy one it’s not like going to Home Depot or Lowe’s or anything, it’s a special order, special mix of paint, and then also because the refrigerators are, the basis of them are like standard Whirlpool refrigerators but then these, these other companies take those refrigerators and then build on top of them to make the cool vintage design.

Claudia Henock 5:08
Yeah.

Marlene Sharp 5:09
So it’s a lot of work. And then there are none of them, I live in Los Angeles, there are no manufacturers like that locally. So they’re either in Canada or I can’t remember where the other company, the other company might be, like, in Europe or something. But anyway, so it was not feasible for me to get a pink refrigerator when the hankering first surfaced back in 2014. So I just started saving my money and wishing and hoping. And then during the pandemic, I just took the plunge because I was working from home so much. And I thought, well, everybody else is upgrading their places, and I’m mostly eating my meals at home and I deserve it. So that was the deep thought process that went into actually making the purchase. And so I did it. But then it took almost a year for me to get the refrigerator because it was supposed to sit typically takes three months.

Marlene Sharp 6:19
But because of the pandemic, I guess everybody wanted fancy refrigerators during that time. And then also, there was that whole snafu with the supply chain, and like ships getting stuck, stuck off shore and whatnot. And so um, so what happened was I placed the order in November of 2021. And then I didn’t get the refrigerator until the end of July of last year. And so, I and then I had to go through like a third party broker. So then I had to place the order through a store in Orange County, California. And then they had to then place the order with the Canadian company, you know, there’s like all these things that have to come together before this thing actually arrives and its functional. So but, so anyway, finally, at the end of July, and it was there was a lot of following up, meaning stalking, on my part of the people in Anaheim, like where’s my refrigerator. And luckily, I didn’t have a refrigerator that had broken. The refrigerator that I had was like 14 years old, but still working. And that’s one thing I would, I would say to your listeners, if you, listener, want a pink refrigerator, especially from Big Chill, that’s the name of the company I ordered from, they do a beautiful job. But the time to order is not when you have a broken refrigerator, the time to order is when you’ve got a fully functioning refrigerator and a year to spare, just in case, just in case you there’s any mess ups.

Marlene Sharp 8:10
So but anyway, finally the refrigerator came, but then getting it into my place was another challenge. And it took four workers and they had to take my stove out of the kitchen to make it fit. And then during the process they kept saying it’s not going to work, we have to come back with the battering ram, or I don’t know they wanted to knock down the wall and my place is pretty small. I think that’s what the problem is. There’s not a lot of room. The kitchen is like two feet long, and probably just as wide. So they couldn’t. I don’t know I took measurements, but I didn’t measure the actual spaces that it would, like the doorframe that it would have to go. I didn’t measure that I just measured the little alcove. But um, finally it was installed and it looks fabulous. And I admire it every day. It’s like a work of art. It’s definitely the the focal point of my whole place. And the process of getting it being so arduous definitely makes the victory even sweeter, so.

Claudia Henock 9:29
Hey, and it’s your place you can basically do whatever you want with it, and if a vintage refrigerator makes you happy, it makes you happy. Especially during that time period when everyone was basically at home, like working from home you basically do whatever you like essentially, it sucks that it took that long though..

Marlene Sharp 9:48
Oh yeah, but you see, it’s it’s really sad, especially if you’re a fan of the color pink, or any of those colors that used to come standard like in the 50s. You could get Like, you buy a house or you go move into an apartment, and you’d have a beautiful pink tiled bathroom just that was like the standard, it was like white back then either pink or light blue or light yellow. And then I don’t know, at what point it was decided in the world that white was gonna be the default color for everything and that even like colored toilet paper, you can’t get that anymore. When I was a kid there, there was pink toliet paper and yellow and blue and all different colors, now it’s just white. Now, it could be maybe that the dyes aren’t good for people for, but it for refrigerators and tile, I would think it doesn’t matter what, you know that that’s not going on somebody’s skin. So it should be okay. But yeah, everything is just like so cookie cutter. Unless, if you really want something, you either have to go to an architectural salvage place or look on Etsy, or eBay or some resale kind of a website or E-commerce platform, or commission somebody to make it for you. If you don’t want just standard Home Depot white, then you really got to work for it. And yeah, it’s sad that that’s what the world has come to. But to get anything that’s cute and adorable, forget it, it’s going to cost you top dollar.

Claudia Henock 11:23
Yeah, that kind of reminds me of the current like interior design trend where it’s just like, all white, or all beige, where it doesn’t look like anyone like lives in the house.

Marlene Sharp 11:33
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that Well, I guess that, that was born out of practicality, because that’s pretty much what’s available. That those earth tones and white, that’s what you get, if you’re shopping retail. But if you want stuff that’s like custom, or even, even if it’s white, or tan, but it’s got some kind of flair to it, like it’s vintage flair, or I don’t know, even super contemporary, if you want something that’s not just like the plain old assembly line stuff, it costs a lot of money. And it usually takes a lot of time to get it, because it’s not going to, no matter where you live, it’s not going to come from that area, you can bet that it’s going to come from somewhere far away. That needs to be, where it needs to be shipped, or go through several ports of call before it gets to the destination. And but yeah, during COVID, I was just, from time to time, I would just Google pink refrigerators and like long for them. But during the pandemic, I was like, Screw it. I’m, I’m going to do it now because I can die of COVID. And why don’t I go out with a good refrigerator since I’ve been wanting this for so long.

Claudia Henock 12:52
That kind of reminds me of sometimes with life, you just want it, you just have to go for things that you want, whether it’s a dream opportunity, or just a cute refrigerator that you actually like, yeah, life’s too short to have regrets for anything.

Marlene Sharp 13:06
That’s right. That’s right. Yes. And the refrigerator is definitely you, one could consider it a symbol for all kinds of things, taking chances to get things that you want. And actually the whole process of getting refrigerator might sort of be like a metaphor for my life, longing for things for long periods of time. And then going for them, or like kind of taking baby steps toward a goal and then and then making a big move, but only after years of, of soul searching.

Claudia Henock 13:40
That’s definitely interesting to hear as well and, and going on to actually your other most precious thing a little bit. So prior to our conversation, I did a little bit of research, and I know that you’re an LA based executive producer that’s worked on a lot of properties with film and television. And I know that you are in charge of your own production company called Pink Poodle Productions. And based on my research, I saw that your inspiration was your dog, Blanche. Forgive my pronunciation because I’m still learning French a little bit.

Marlene Sharp 14:12
That’s okay. I don’t pronounce her name the French way anyway, I, I call her Blanche like the golden girl Blanche.

Claudia Henock 14:21
Okay, no problem.

Marlene Sharp 14:22
Yeah. You can pronounce it any way you want. It’s, it’s okay. And she, she’s perfectly agreeable. She’s actually napping right now. So she won’t protest. Not yet anyway.

Claudia Henock 14:35
No problem, I totally understand. So when I was on the website for the production company, I saw that Blanche was actually the star of her own short movie. Can you tell us more about it?

Marlene Sharp 14:48
Yes. So a few years back, we went, we meaning Blanche and I, went to visit my family in New Orleans for Christmas, and it was a very rainy miserable Christmas in New Orleans, and my brother and his family, they were visiting at the same time. And my nieces were ages 10 and 7. And so I had Blanche with me. And then we were all in my parents house, and the girls really were into their iPads at that time. And they, they were using that the iPads to record stuff. And so I just said, “Hey, why don’t we make a movie with Blanche? Because we’re all here? Why why why not?” And so, so they liked the idea. And so my, my older niece, who was 10, Isabella, she really took charge. She was the director, and the cinematographer and the editor.

Marlene Sharp 15:42
And so we made up this little story, and we formatted it like a movie trailer. And so the basic premise is, this called Blanche’s Bichon Buzz, because Blanche is a bichon frise, poodle mix, so she will identify as a bichon when it suits us. And when it suits us for her to identify as a poodle, she’ll do that too. So we’re, we’re flexible that way. And so, so we call it Blanche’s Bichon Buzz. And the story is that a little dog, Bichon named Blanche has an accident on the floor in her grandmother’s house, and Blanche runs away, and then everybody’s trying to find her and wrangle her to give her a bath. That’s kind of the bath is like the punishment. So it’s a one minute action, thriller trailer for a movie, for a bigger movie that was actually never made. So it was kind of like a parody of of movie trailers.

Marlene Sharp 16:39
So Blanche is the star, and so we so, and based on a true story, because Blanche actually did have an accident on the floor. This was the inciting incident, she did have an accident on the floor, and my mom was upset about it. And so we just use that for our art. And we were able to film, we filmed the actual puddle that was, that was resulting on the floor. And then, and then Blanche ran off when she could see that a crowd was gathered, like she did. And then, and then we did stage some stuff after that. But we put it in film festivals and everything. And because my two nieces were the main creatives behind it, we were able to enter children’s film festivals. And my niece Isabella won an award for being the youngest director in one particular film festival. So we never really intended that, it was really just an activity to keep us, taking lemons and making lemonade is what it was, great during the the rainy Christmas holiday period. And then yeah, as we got we we got some extra joy out of it for several months, if not years to come.

Claudia Henock 18:06
And when I was on the website, I noticed that there was, that the short had won 15 awards. I was like, oh my god, this is actually, I was not expecting that, I’m not gonna lie.

Marlene Sharp 18:17
Yeah, it might have even gotten more awards than that. I, at a certain point, I lost count. Because I, part of what I do for a living for various clients and in the past employers is, is take content and enter it into film festivals. For, it’s a good marketing tool for lots of things, there are there like 1000s of film festivals in the world. And it’s relatively cost efficient to enter stuff, enter your material in there. And then if you’re selected, then the festival does a lot of its own marketing. And it’s, it’s a good way to establish credibility as a filmmaker, as a company. And then you know, get the word out there about what you’re doing. So I was submitting other projects for film festivals at the same time that, I actually I was working for SEGA at the same time that I was submitting Blanche’s Bichon Buzz and so, so I was submitting a couple of, we had a couple of different things that we were submitting from SEGA. One was the show that I worked on, Sonic Boom. And then we had some other stuff going on. And so I was just submitted. So there’s a way you can submit through a portal. The one that I use mostly is called FilmFreeway. So you create a a profile for your project, and then it becomes just a few clicks to submit to different festivals, and then your credit card info is in there. So if it costs anything to submit, it’s just automatically charged. So I was submitting so many things. It was really hard for me to keep track. Okay, which which one are we in for Sonic Boom. Which one is Blanche’s Bichon Buzz? Which one is like for this, that? I lost track? But yes, you’re right. It was a lot of festivals, certainly not intended when we started it, but a really great surprise.

Claudia Henock 20:15
You never know what’s gonna come out of it. You know, it never hurts to just, I guess have fun with it too. And my next question is, how did Blanche feel about being the star of her own movie?

Marlene Sharp 20:24
Oh, she loves to be the center of attention. And she loves children, too. If it was a bunch of adults who were directing her and trying to get her to do stuff, she might have been more resistant. But she loves my nieces. And she’s just very agreeable when it comes to kids. So I think, it felt like playing to her. If it had felt like she was being directed, she would have resisted it because she is a bit of a contrarian, and she tends to do the opposite of what people want her to do. But I think it was a, all the elements came together to make for a good project. And, and definitely a big part of that is the fact that kids were calling the shots.

Claudia Henock 21:13
And it was probably a lot of fun for everyone too involved as well.

Marlene Sharp 21:17
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, my parents got in on it. My brother was there. And yeah, everybody participated. So it was, it was, it was always fun to, to update the family about what was going on on the festival circuit. Because at the time, my parents were living in New Orleans, and then my brother and my nieces and his wife, they were all living in Singapore. Or it was that when they were in Japan, they were in Asia for about seven or eight years. And so, so we didn’t gather very often at all, and it was a nice way to bring us together online or just, you know, texting or messaging each other about hey, look with, you know, the film is in this festival now. And it was, it was something that unite us all even from far away.

Claudia Henock 22:09
That’s really cool as well, because it’s always important to just maintain those family connections, no matter how far away you are from each other as well.

Marlene Sharp 22:17
Yes, yes, definitely.

Claudia Henock 22:20
And then speaking of symbolism, as well, I understand earlier that you mentioned Blanche sometimes identifies as a be bichon or identifies as a poodle, depending on the context.

Marlene Sharp 22:30
Yes.

Claudia Henock 22:30
So what led you to use her as inspiration for naming Pink Poodle Productions?

Marlene Sharp 22:38
Well, I just love her so much, I sometimes feel like I gave birth to her. I know that’s gonna sound weird, but I can’t help it. Just the way that I feel and also, when I got her, Well, I had never had a dog growing up. And we, my brother and I, we had some pet fish, we had a turtle that met a, an unfortunate end, when it went to live with my cousins for a couple of weeks, and then we had a bird, that again, we had for a very short time, and then it was discovered that my brother was allergic to it, so we had to give it away. So my experience with pets in the past were either short lived or tragic, or both.

Marlene Sharp 23:21
And so um, so at a certain point, I think I really wanted to have a baby. But um, my boyfriend at the time, was not ready for that. And neither was I, quite frankly, and I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it by myself. But I thought, well, maybe a dog, and an ex boyfriend of mine, his brother had a bichon. And it was quite a number of years ago, but the dog was so cute and made an impression on me. And then I discovered how closely bichons and poodles are related. And then I happened to be volunteering at an animal shelter at the time that I crossed paths with Blanche. I don’t know if somebody brought her to the shelter, or if someone like if one of the officers found her on the street, I’m not sure the circumstances, but she was only 10 months old. And she came into the shelter and I had a behind the scenes look at the intake process. And so I saw her and I thought that looks like the dog for me. And um, that’s what happened and so, so I just love her and I and, and I do feel like she’s my child and like a little human in a in a dog outfit. But then again, I know of course, I feel that she’s really special and all, but maybe a lot of dogs exhibit the same kind of behavior, but I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve had her now for 14 years, so I know a lot about her. But I don’t know if some of the things that I think are so special about her are her or just all dogs. I, I’m sure that all dogs are special in their own way. But, but I do feel partial to bichons and poodles, because I have one in the same and, and she’s, she’s pretty great.

Claudia Henock 25:21
Yeah, as someone who has grown up with dogs all her life and is now living, essentially the first time by herself without any pets due to no dogs allowed in his apartment, I can definitely understand the love that you have for Blanche. And forgive me if I just go from like the French pronunciation to like from Blanche to Blanche, because that’s just how I speak. But I can see that you have so much love for her and, and I’m sure that she has a lot of love for you as well. Since you guys have been in each other’s lives for a lot of years at this point.

Marlene Sharp 25:55
Yeah, a lot of years.

Claudia Henock 25:57
So do you have any other funny stories you, or like fun stories that about Blanche as well?

Marlene Sharp 26:03
Well, we did a mother daughter cabaret act during the pandemic. And that was pretty fun. It was through some friends of mine from graduate school, because I went to graduate school for musical theater. So some of my friends organized an online cabaret during the pandemic. And so they themed one of the shows around pets and they called it pet tales. And so everybody who was in the show, we had to write like a one person act with songs and a story or, or stories about our pet. So um, so, so Blanche was in mind, it was more like a cameo. But it was about for some reason, during the pandemic, the neighborhood where I live in Los Angeles, got a whole lot seedier. And we we found we had an episode where we found bullet casings on the ground in front of their friend at the entryway and we find like, needles, and I don’t know, there were some missing women and posters that would go I mean, it was crazy. And then, at the same time, I really escalated my listening to True Crime podcasts, so that was really on my radar. So so our act was about all the crime and crime adjacent things that had happened to us in the years prior. And Blanche is very fierce. She’s only eight pounds, but she never hesitates to throw herself at danger, whether it’s like a big truck or a big dog, or some kind of menace. She’s very bold, and I think she would have had aspirations, in her younger days to be a police dog, but you don’t really see that. You don’t see like cute, fluffy dogs as police dogs, even though they are they can be very confrontational. But anyway, so we were able to live out our sleuthing our citizen detective fantasies, during unexpectedly during the pandemic, just by like weird stuff happening in our neighborhood. So that that’s what the act was about. And then then there were songs in it and, and Blanche and I, we dressed alike, we both we both have British flag shirts. And we wore those. So yeah, that was a, it I guess it’s more hilarious if you see the act that the 15 Minute Opus in its entirety. But um, but it’s, it’s fun to reminisce about it too.

Claudia Henock 28:51
Hey, it’s always fun to reminisce about the good times, the good memories as well. So Marlene, I want to say thank you, again, for being on my show today for this special two for one episode about one, working on getting something that you want in a form of a pink refrigerator, and then just building and having a loving relationship to someone that’s important in your life, which is Blanche.

Claudia Henock 29:14
And so. So Marlene, if people want to get to know about more about you and Pink Poodle Productions, where can people find you?

Marlene Sharp 29:23
There’s my website, pinkpoodleproductions.com. And I am active on most of the social channels, but my favorite one is LinkedIn. So please link with me. And yeah, you can send me messages through pinkpoodleproductions.com too, the website takes messages. So I’ll see you there.

Claudia Henock 29:47
That’s awesome. And I’ll definitely put all that into the show notes. And before we go, do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience?

Marlene Sharp 29:55
Well, I just want to compliment you Claudia on this show because this It’s such a brilliant idea for a show. And, excuse me, great conversation starter. And it’s obviously great for in an interview, it’s a great start to an interview. But even if you just want to start a conversation with a person at a party or in the grocery store on the street, to ask them about what their most precious thing is, I would guess that a lot of people, if not most people could just continuously talk about that. So I’m compliments to you. And thank you for inviting me to be on the show.

Claudia Henock 30:36
That is my pleasure. And as I make an awkward bow that people cannot see. So Marlene, I want to say thank you again for being on my show, you were a pleasure to talk to, and it was a pleasure hearing your stories. And I hope you have an awesome day.

Marlene Sharp 30:50
Thank you, you too.

Claudia Henock 30:51
Thank you for listening to this episode of Your Most Precious Thing. If you want to support the show, you can leave a review on your favorite podcast platform and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can also contact me @claudiahenock on Instagram and Twitter, and Claudia Henock on LinkedIn. In addition, you can also contact me at claudiahenock1@gmail.com. You can also follow Your Most Precious Thing through my official website, www.claudiahenock.com, and anywhere where you listen to your podcasts. Intro and Outro music is Synapse by Shane Ivers and you can also listen to his music on silvermansound.com.