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Revision as of 15:52, 22 February 2007

1976 multi-national TV series or program
The Muppet Show
Kermit the Frog, as seen on the show's opening sequence.
Created byJim Henson
StarringJim Henson
Frank Oz
Jerry Nelson
Richard Hunt
Dave Goelz
Steve Whitmire
Louise Gold
Kathy Mullen
Eren Ozker
John Lovelady
Country of origin United Kingdom
 United States
No. of episodes120 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time30 minutes per episode
Original release
NetworkITV
syndicated
ReleaseSeptember 27, 1976 –
June 8, 1981

The Muppet Show was an Anglo-American television program featuring a cast of Muppets (diverse hand-operated puppets, typically with oversized eyes and large moving mouths) produced by Jim Henson and his team from 1976 to 1981. The show stars Kermit the Frog, also one of the main Muppet characters of Sesame Street. Whereas Kermit was a happy, perky and somewhat avuncular character on Sesame Street, here he is trying to keep control of the varied, outrageous, kinetic Muppet characters (and his temper), as well as keep the human guest stars happy and secure. The television show depicted a vaudeville or music hall style song-and-dance variety show, as well as the backstage antics involved in putting the show on.

The show was well-known for outrageous, highly physical (slapstick), sometimes absurdist comedy, and particularly for using its puppet characters to create uniquely humorous parodies. Each show also featured a human guest star; after the show became popular with audiences, many major celebrities were eager to perform with the Muppets on television and in film. The diverse roster of guests included Christopher Reeve, Twiggy, Sandy Duncan, Julie Andrews, Steve Martin, characters from Star Wars, Mummenschanz, Diana Ross, Ethel Merman, Paul Simon, John Denver, John Cleese, Gene Kelly, Alice Cooper, and over a hundred others.

Though they appear in various earlier forms (see Jim Henson), the Muppets gained widespread popularity on the landmark PBS live-action/puppet series Sesame Street. The Muppet Show became the cornerstone of Jim Henson's enormously popular ongoing productions. Other Henson Muppet creations were featured in the films The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and the Sesame Street-based Follow That Bird, as well as in a large variety of films, made-for-TV movies, direct-to-video children's releases, and television specials.

Major show writers included Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns.

Muppet performers over the course of the show include:

History

Since 1969, Sesame Street had given Jim Henson's creations invaluable exposure; however, Henson began to perceive that he was being pigeonholed as a children's entertainer. He sought to create a program that could be enjoyed by young and old alike.

Two specials were produced and aired that are considered pilots for The Muppet Show. Neither led to the sale of a prime-time network series. However, the prime-time access rule had just been enacted, which took the 7:30 to 8pm ET time slot from the networks and turned it over to their affiliates. CBS suggested it would be interested in Henson's proposal as a syndicated series it could purchase for its owned-and-operated stations, to run one night a week in that time slot.

Lew Grade, head of the British commercial station ATV, offered a deal to Henson that would see his show produced at the ATV studios in Elstree, England. ATV would network the show to other ITV stations in the United Kingdom, and its syndication arm, ITC Entertainment, would sell the show in the United States and around the world. Henson put aside his misgivings about syndication and accepted.

At first, signing guest stars for the series was a challenge and the producers had to call on their personal contacts to appear. The breakthrough is thought to have occurred with the appearance of the hailed ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. The publicity of the dancer appearing on such an unusual show generated such positive publicity that the series became one of the sought-after productions to appear in. The Muppet Show premiered in 1976 and finally, after 5 years and 120 episodes, it went off the air in 1981, not due to a lack of popularity, but because of Jim Henson's desire to move on to bigger and better projects, such as The Muppet Movie released in 1979.

List of recurring Muppet Show characters

File:Muppets-FullCast.jpg
The Muppet Show poster

See also Kermitage: Character Guide

Recurring skits

  • At the Dance – Laugh-In style one-liners from the characters as they ballroom dance. The sketch was a regular during the first season but was used less frequently from the second season onward.
  • Muppet Labs – The latest invention from Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, with his assistant, Beaker, getting the worst of its inevitable malfunction. The character of Beaker was introduced in the second season; during the first season Bunsen hosted Muppet Labs by himself, but the writers soon realized that another character was necessary to show Bunsen's failings.
  • Muppet News Flash – A news announcer (a variation of the Guy Smiley puppet) gives a newsbrief only to have some disaster typically befall him (usually the same disaster he was just describing), or another strange scenario. Such as the time that he ran on, stated "There is no news tonight.", and ran off. In the first season, the Muppet News Man read out news items that occasionally featured the guest star for that week playing a character that was somehow involved in the item.
  • Pigs In Space – Parody of science fiction shows like Star Trek, but also old '30s sci-fi serials. The spacecraft is called USS Swinetrek and the title voice-over is a parody of main Star Trek competitor Lost in Space. It featured Captain Link Hogthrob, Miss Piggy as first mate, and Dr. Julius Strangepork (the name a takeoff on "Dr. Strangelove"). Usually, the sketches would involve the long-suffering Piggy putting up with the wacko Strangepork and the braindead Link treating her as an inferior because she was a woman.
  • Swedish Chef – Cooking show parody. It consists of the Swedish Chef, who speaks mock Swedish, semi-comprehensible gibberish which parodies the characteristic vowel sounds and intonation of Swedish. He attempts to cook a dish with great enthusiasm, until the punch line hits. A hallmark of these sketches was the improvisations between Jim Henson (who performed the Chef's head and voice) and Frank Oz (who was his hands). One would often make something up on the spot, making the other puppeteer comply with the action. Perhaps the best example is a sketch where Frank Oz repeatedly adds pepper to a soup, leading to Jim Henson cracking up. Famous gags include "chicken in du basket (two points!)", meatballs that bounce, chocolate "moose", and attempting to cook Kermit's nephew!
  • Vend-a-face – A vending machine that offers unique face-changing services—usually agonizing contortions of the Muppets who are dumb enough to feed the machine.
  • Veterinarian's Hospital – Parody of soap opera General Hospital and other medical dramas, consisting of Dr. Bob (Rowlf) cracking jokes in the operating room with Nurses Piggy and Janice; each installment ends with Dr. Bob and his nurses looking around in puzzlement as a disembodied voice tells viewers to tune in next time to the "continuing stooory". On one occasion, both this sketch and "At the Dance" went on at the same time, with the dancers dancing in the Vet's Hospital set. On a second occasion, the cast of "Vet's Hospital" appeared on the "Swedish Chef" set, and on a third occasion, Doctor Bob and Nurse Janice appeared on the "Pigs in Space" set. The voice of the announcer was usually performed by John Lovelady in the first season, but Jerry Nelson originally performed the role in the Harvey Korman and Rita Moreno episodes (the first two episodes in recording order that had the sketch) before taking over the role permanently from the Phyllis Diller episode. In the introduction, Dr. Bob went from "a former orthopedic surgeon" to "a quack" who's "gone to the dogs."
  • Wayne and Wanda – Usually introduced by Sam the Eagle, Wayne and Wanda—a slapstick tribute to Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald—are plagued by bad fortune. Every song attempted by this duo inevitably ends in disaster. It is considered an accomplishment for them to get to the chorus line! They disappeared in later seasons. It was eventually revealed that Kermit had fired them, but forgot why he did and decided to rehire them. Unfortunately, seconds after they started to sing, Kermit remembered why he fired them and instantly fired them again and forced them off the stage.
  • Bear on Patrol – Fozzie is an unlucky police officer and Link Hogthrob is his stupid superior who always get into the silliest situations with the criminals brought in. The voice of the announcer was performed by Jerry Nelson.
  • Fozzie's Stand-up; Fozzie Bear gets on stage and performs his infamously bad jokes. Statler and Waldorf heckle him, in a perpetual rivalry. The sketches became slowly less frequent as Fozzie's character came into play and he became more prevalent in Backstage scenarios.

List of guest stars

File:Tv muppet show harry belafonte.jpg
Harry Belafonte with The Muppets on The Muppet Show, performing one of the series' most celebrated numbers, "Turn The World Around"

No guest star ever appeared twice on the Muppet Show, although John Denver appeared both on the show and in two specials (John Denver & the Muppets: A Christmas Together and John Denver & the Muppets: Rocky Mountain Holiday).

One unusual guest star was one of the series writers, Chris Langham, who took the place for Richard Pryor when the star was unable to attend taping.

Home video

Selected episodes can be found on VHS and DVD. Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of The Walt Disney Company, released the first season on DVD in August 2005. Bits of the show also sometimes pop up in movies (An American Werewolf in London and Rocky III). The rights to the episodes and characters used in The Muppet Show, and subsequent film outings, were bought in February 2004 by The Walt Disney Company.

Several songs were cut from the Season 1 DVD release due to music licensing issues. There have also been some cuts in the intro sequence, and backstage scenes leading up to these songs.

  • "Stormy Weather" (Joel Grey Episode) Sung by Wayne and Wanda;
  • "Gone With The Wind" (Jim Nabors Episode) Sung by Jim Nabors;
  • "The Danceros" (Jim Nabors Episode) Sung by The Danceros;
  • "All Of Me" (Paul Williams Episode) Sung by Two Monsters;
  • "Old Fashioned Way" (Charles Aznavour episode) Sung by Charles Aznavour with Mildred;
  • "You’ve Got A Friend" (Vincent Price Episode) Sung by Vincent Price, Uncle Deadly and a chorus of Muppet Monsters

In addition, the version of the Joel Grey episode on the DVD is in fact an earlier edit as it does not include two Muppet News sketches and a balcony scene featuring Statler and Waldorf that were added to the episode at a later date. This appears to have simply been a mistake of Disney using the wrong tape.

The second season DVD, which was originally scheduled for release in February 2006, has been bumped back until Spring 2007.

Spin-offs

The Muppet Show characters went on to star in The Muppet Movie, which was the first film to feature puppets interacting with humans in real-world locations, and later films such as The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, The Muppet Christmas Carol,and a Muppet remake of The Wizard of Oz.

The Jim Henson Hour featured many of the same characters, plus new and boldly different content. The format was later revived as Muppets Tonight in 1996. The first 10 episodes aired on ABC while the rest aired on The Disney Channel. Today, all three incarnations are syndicated together as a single package.

There is talk of a new revival of the format, with FOX being the initial serious contender. Disney is using the America's Next Muppet mini-series to test the viability of a full-fledged series.

Different television stations

Trivia

  • Because the show was produced in the United Kingdom, it was recorded in PAL video as opposed to the NTSC format used on typical United States productions. For broadcasting and sale on home video formats in the US and other NTSC regions, the video has to go through a standards conversion process to modify the video into the NTSC standard - this (like with any other PAL-to-NTSC video conversion, e.g. Monty Python's Flying Circus, Father Ted or seventies-to-eighties-era Doctor Who) significantly degrades video quality.
    • The reason for shooting purely in PAL is unknown; ATV's Elstree facilities were equipped to shoot and record both in PAL and NTSC simultaneously as ATV made significant sales to the United States. The company recorded a number of shows there by the singer Tom Jones in 1970 primarily for UK transmission and for US export using both systems.
    • It has been suggested that the stranglehold broadcasting trade unions had on British television at that time may have dictated the decision. Indeed the unions often boycotted the use of colour equipment during disputes and many shows were recorded using only the monochrome facility on such equipment (for example the drama Upstairs, Downstairs). However this is unlikely as Lew Grade was noted within ITV for paying whatever it needed to get shows for export made and was often considered by other ITV management as being the 'weak link' in management-union relations.
  • According to the Guinness Book of Records, the Muppet Show was the most widely viewed program in the world, with an estimated audience of 235 million in 106 countries in August 1989.

See also

External links

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