Twin Peaks is TV unlike any other TV.
It's art.
It deals with life and death and love and the simple pleasures of eating pie
and smelling trees and listening to the wind.
In the pilot, they walk into the bank
to get the safety-deposit box.
And there's a moose head on the table.
And that's when I fell in love with the series.
Twin Peaks never insulted your intelligence.
It lets your mind open up to go:
"It could be this and maybe..."
And you didn't know what direction.
And I always felt that was the coolest thing about the show.
People really kind of equate a fan festival
to something like a sci-fi convention or Star Trek convention.
You know, something of that nature.
This is something very different.
Driving through town, you see the filming locations,
like the Twede's Cafe, that was the Double R.
And they're like, "Oh, that's so cool."
But you're driving up to the building where the sign-in is located,
and you're like, "This could either be really awesome or really, like, weird."
I was, like, had this nervous laughter as I was walking in with my friend
because you don't know what to expect.
During a typical Twin Peaks Festival
the celebrities are there throughout the weekend
at as many events as we could get them to.
So fans have plenty of opportunities to meet celebrities,
chat with them, get autographs, pictures,
and get questions answered.
We are co-organizers for the Twin Peaks Festival.
Hello.
My favorite part is watching the fans.
Because you get new people every year
and you see the enthusiasm.
First-time attendees, their favorite part is the celebrities,
and getting to see some of the people that were on the show.
But after you've come enough times it really becomes just the people.
I'm Bill Cole, this is my wife, Rebecca Cole.
We're here because we're huge Twin Peaks fans
and we're on our honeymoon.
This is my 12th festival.
I was here for the first fan festival in 1993.
And I only missed two since they started, '97, '98.
I went to my first one in 1997
when the dwarf was dancing here.
But the dwarf hasn't been here for a few years.
The dwarf really scared a few people.
Especially girls.
This is my third time at the festival. I brought him for his first.
She talked me into coming.
- It's his 30th. I bought him tickets. - She bought tickets on my birthday.
Thirtieth.
It's a lot like
this alternate reality you're rubbing against
with the real reality.
And it's the closest thing you can get to entering a fantasy world.
There's a very certain person, I think, that gets into this and really enjoys it.
The moment that sold me on Twin Peaks
was involving the original Red Room sequence.
I saw that as a method used to give out clues for the show.
And I just thought, "My God, this is genius."
And I was watching it with my father who is at the time in his mid-50s
and an old-fashioned, conservative gentleman from the South,
and he's watching it and he's just like, "That's weird."
I'm from a town very similar to, you know, it's a...
I don't know, population 6000, probably.
So a small town. The same types of people, quirky.
You know, people without teeth and such.
Throughout my teenage years and my adult life,
you know, I've always been a little bit different.
I got into the series when I was 13 years old.
I found the secret diary and I think any young girl
who's going through finding herself sexually,
going through drugs and experimentation,
will identify with Laura Palmer. She's my favorite.
I have my... My screen-saver slideshow
and people are always going... Asking me:
"Why is there a dead girl on your computer?"
It's kind of unique, you know, having people,
you know, who love this show that was on 15 years ago, you know,
16 years ago, that are still into it.
Very into it. Into theories. Just, you know...
- Even just quoting lines with you. - There's a fish in the percolator.
There's a fish in the percolator.
I'm bad when it comes to remembering lines and stuff like that.
Just thinking about how you could accidentally get a...
- Get a fish in your percolator. - A fish in your percolator.
You just... That's...
- Yeah, I find that truly hilarious. - Hard to believe.
Okay, let's go.
Over here to my right, is the Snoqualmie Valley Railroad Museum.
Right now we're going to the Fall City Grill.
You can hear, like, this crackling of the neon sign.
This is the location Mo's Motor. The one-armed man turns around
and then comes and is sitting beside the Palmer vehicle.
Big Ed's Gas Farm changed hands like six different times.
And it looks completely different. It was a kite store.
It was a place called Butchie's.
It was a church.
And it currently is a sort of granite store.
They sell granite, I guess.
Locals jump off this bridge.
Oh, my God.
Okay, one, two, three.
One, two... Is this one turned on?
Ready, one, two, three.
- Perfect. So that's the tour. Thanks. - Thank you.
We try and throw in a few little changes every so often if we can.
Kind of stir things up.
The first day is usually the sign-in and then the film night.
And then Saturday is the bus tours, hikes down to the falls,
and the Twin Peaks Town Hall.
I'm Pat Cokewell and I owned the Mar-T Cafe
PAT COKEWELL NORTH BEND, WA
when they were filming Twin Peaks
and for nine... Eight years afterwards.
And so I got to see all the stars, and the Twin Peaks fans.
And David Lynch was just as pleasant as he can be.
I have pictures of him sitting in the booths and me standing there
with my hand on the booth, talking to him.
But I never knew that they were putting the pies and the coffee in the series.
They would send over from the office, which was across the street,
and have pies delivered.
Most often it was the peanut butter cream. And, you know, I...
They didn't order cherry to go over there that I remember at all.
Saturday night is the big dinner with the celebs.
And the Q & A is there and a bunch of stuff happens there.
I think we're gonna start with Q & A, is that correct?
Cool, so if we could ask Jan and Kimmy and Phoebe to come up.
Do you guys have any interesting stories?
We can just go down the line about your interview process
when you were... Not interview, auditioning for Twin Peaks.
I don't know how to feel about this, telling this.
Because it kind of makes me seem prudish maybe.
But after I read, then Sheryl Lee read
and they came to both of us, we were standing side by side
and they said, "Well, we have a decision to make.
We have two girls and we have two parts and we need to know
if either one of you have a problem with nudity."
And I was really young and kind of not dated very much or anything.
I was just newly married.
And I said, "I think I might have a problem with nudity."
And Sheryl Lee said, "I have absolutely no problem with nudity."
What made you decide to participate in these fests?
Either in the past or even this year.
Well, the first time I agreed to come up here
was because the people who asked me,
I was so impressed with how sweet they were.
Just good people, I can tell. And so, who can say no to that?
And then I said I would come back because I enjoyed the company.
- It's fun. - Yeah.
And it's an incredible learning experience
because you're, like, reliving something
when you were a totally different person.
You know, we thought it was really, a really cool, like, show to be on.
And we felt really grateful.
Because you don't get those kind of breaks
in this business unless you screw somebody a lot.
And you're... And that last name is Douglas or something.
It's just amazing how much people have given to me towards the series.
And the creativity of it.
And so it's always wonderful to be identified with that.
And people ask you questions about it so that's why I keep coming back.
We do have a costume contest
that the fans get really involved in and it's fantastic.
This is our first year coming to the fest.
So we thought we'd go, you know, Dale-Laura whatever, whatnot.
And then we'd just go super obscure the next year.
We're either gonna go as Dr. Jacoby's coconut
or I was thinking also of the seamstress
when Audrey is in the...
- She's like a weird unknown. - At One-Eyed Jack's.
She has the hunchback and she's, like, wearing a potato sack.
She's very, you know, very Disney character.
So I thought I could identify with that.
Name, location and your character.
Chris Matthews, Seattle, Washington.
Party-time Leo Johnson.
As always, Laura wrapped in plastic...
That's always... That's a popular costume.
After that, the costume contest, was the lingerie
that Laura Palmer was wearing when she was killed.
It was a little nerve-wracking walking around in my underwear
but, yeah, I had a good time.
I was Madeleine Ferguson,
Laura's cousin in her death scene.
The two weeks before I came here
I wanted to be in the mood so I rewatched the whole series.
And that scene came on and I was like, "That's it."
Third place
is our death-scene girl.
- Yes. - Second place
is number five.
I figured he'd make a perfect Andy
because he's kind of quirky and clumsy.
You know, and has the same hair.
Number one is...
Just because when I walked in I thought somebody was visiting here.
- Number four.
I came as Agent Dale Cooper.
Well, for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that I...
Just an accident of birth I guess you could call it.
I look fairly similar to him.
Vanessa said there's a lot of similarities
- between my personality - There is.
And just who I am in real life.
And some of the character... Some of the characterizations
- I'm married to the real deal. - Of Agent Cooper on the TV series.
He'd never seen the show, he'd go around and blow on a duck call
and not understand why I laughed.
So I was... I just couldn't stand it.
I'm like, "You gotta watch it, you'll get it."
I felt the people who won, really worked for it.
- They did work for it. - Except for that Maddie character.
Okay, this is a trivia game.
If everybody who is not sitting in that area
is sure they don't wanna be in the game.
The free prize... The prize is a free ticket to next year's festival.
Your question is, what type of table is at the convenient store?
Formica.
- Is that Formica? - Formica.
- Judges? - Yes.
- Formica. That's how I talk. - Your judges...
- Upon. - Orchids.
What's the title of it?
- Butte, Montana? - Exactly right.
Oh, Cooper does have white eyes, that's correct. So you're right.
Mary, you just won a free ticket to next year's festival.
I won the trivia contest. She was totally in amazement.
Those guys were good.
They... And I guess, they win, like, every year
and out of the blue, I came and won.
So that was very, very exciting to me.
Fourteen years of festival it's never rained till on this day.
But oh, well.
I bet it won't last for more than 10 minutes.
- We'll see. - I know.
We still have the Tibetan Rock Toss contest to do.
The Cherry Stem Tying contest to do.
There's the rain and this is the first time it's rained in the festival.
But the picnic is going well.
Cherry pie, apple pie, everyone loves the cherry as usual.
Let's dispense with the cherries.
Oh, yeah, you can pass them down.
Do not put the stem in your mouth at this time.
Just go ahead and dispose of your cherries.
On the command of go, pop the stem in your mouth.
The first person that ties it in a knot is the winner.
Mark, get set, go.
They're off, coming in third, coming in under the five,
under the five, they're coming in under the... I'm sorry.
And Rachel is the winner.
Proof is in the pudding. How are you still single?
I have the gap, so I can hold it.
Horrible, terrible gap.
I think Robin has acquired enough rocks. I got a:
I think we're good. Tibetan Rock Throw.
We're cheating, we're doing halfway. The...
You know, according to the show it's 60 paces.
Well, I counted 30 and it seems far enough.
I am wearing the oven mitts.
Here's usually how this goes:
You say a name that you want to dedicate your rock to.
Ronette Pulaski. Too bad she's not here anymore.
Johnny Horne.
Churros.
Long story.
You hit it.
Let's make a note. Okay, let's move five paces closer
because we're on round two.
The log.
Waldo the bird.
- Yes. - He did it.
It's like a family reunion. It's what it is every year.
That's my favorite part. Not any specific events.
But just hanging out with people that you,
you know, met over the years.
My very first night here in Washington,
I made friends that I'm friends with to today.
My best friends are from here and we stay in touch online.
And yeah, we always have a good time together, have a lot in common.
When you find just this great group of people
who come together with so many different backgrounds and just meld.
There's this camaraderie and that is what draws you in.
And then once you experience it,
people keep coming back year after year.
As long as fans are interested, the festival will continue.
There's other places I'd like to go
but every year I end up saving all my money to come here.
I did spend government scholarship money to come here.
Which was cool. And I skipped one of my best friend's weddings yesterday
which I didn't call or let them know.
But if this goes on the DVD, Justin and Michelle,
I hope you had a great wedding. I'm sorry.
I said to Eric "Can we go please, please, please?"
- He's like, "Okay, let's go." - And so here we are.
Here we are.
First fest, first plane ride. First everything.
We take small vacations. I think this is the first vacation...
We've been married almost nine years and never really taken a trip.
So this is a big deal. It's a really big deal for many reasons.
- And it's been... It's been a lot of fun. - Just a blast. Just a blast.
For the two of us, this is the best honeymoon
we could have ever had. I mean, it's our honeymoon.
Everything that I got into Twin Peaks for
and what I thought I would find by coming to the real Twin Peaks
turned out to be true.
I loved, you know, eating cherry pie.
And, you know, whatever. And just hanging out with people
and meeting people that, you know, I could be really good friends
with these people if we lived by each other, I think.
This is what I refer to as my Mecca.
This is the pilgrimage I take every year, my three days of complete relaxation
and get away from it all.
There's definitely something there that keeps people coming back.
That's a value
and it's so important
to perpetuate something that deserves to go on.
Cooper just had this look of...
I can't even explain it. But... Oh, sorry.
And it's just really, really...
It's just funny because the way those two look at each other...
Do you wanna redo that one?
I am just on the verge of solving the mystery of the egg.
Security guards might come up, just ignore them.
We've been partying.
- This is why we came here. - It's an open bar.
We came here to party. It's an open bar,
We're not responsible for what we say. We just signed our lives away, so.
I'm going to publish it in a film very shortly.
My film will come out shortly. It's gonna be called The Egg.