More Sam and Friends
“Where Hunger is From”
“Where Hunger is From”
Another lip synced song, this one a syncopated, jazzy number written and vocally performed by Ken Nordine, about eating midnight snacks. The song actually calls to mind “Tick Tock Sick” with both its beat and talk-singing narrator. I don’t know whether or not it was an influence on that song of Jim’s but it definitely has a similar style. The sketch is basically just Yorick consuming numerous snacks, such as celery and crackers. I have to admit I found this one a bit tedious as it went on, as it’s basically just repetitive eating. At the same time, I could tell that back then, it must have been very impressive, particularly given the audience wouldn’t have been used to Cookie Monster’s devouring cookies and more, as we are, and this is certainly a proto version of that concept. Speaking of which, it’s kind of funny given that in later years, Cookie Monster would come to treat cookies as a “sometimes” food that this monster was chowing down on vegetables as a snack years earlier! This is apparently also the only time that Yorick is seen to have a hand, which is operated by a real puppeteer’s hand in a glove, foreshadowing the Swedish Chef’s real hands. You can watch the sketch here.
“Visual Thinking”
This is arguably Sam and Friends‘ most famous sketch, an at-the-time extremely innovative one that merged puppetry with on-screen animation and required Jim and a fellow puppeteer–Jane or one of the other two who eventually joined, Bob Payne and Jerry Juhl–to learn exactly where the animation would be appearing on the screen and to react with it perfectly, looking up at the exact right moments, moving with it, etc. The rather high-minded concept behind it is that Kermit is learning how to perform a technique called “visual thinking” that allows your thoughts to appear as visual symbols in the air above your head, and Harry eventually shows him how that can be applied to music, with the notes floating above them.
This gets particularly difficult when it comes to jazz, with crazy reams of notes appearing all over the place, the only way to get rid of them being to sing exactly what you sung backwards–accomplished through playing the recorded audio of Harry’s voice backwards a la the Red Room in Twin Peaks. However, eventually, his scatting becomes so complicated, he can’t remember how to reverse it and the chords eventually ending up covering and whiting out the entire screen, Kermit calling for help as they disappear. It’s an extremely funny and accomplished sketch that is in many ways miles ahead of the other Sam and Friends stuff in terms of conceptual sophistication and execution, and shows the kind of out-of-the-box type of thinking and imagination that came naturally to Jim Henson. Again, a perfect example of deceptive simplicity, and another example of Kermit’s character being pretty darn close to his better-known incarnation.
“The Westerners”
“The Westerners”
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a complete version of this sketch still in existence, however, it’s another one that’s fully lip synced from a comedy album, this one by a comedy team called Bob and Ray. It’s also another Western, here with Kermit and Chicken Liver (who played Dilly in Powder-Burn) trying to ride their horses backwards in attempt to get off of them, again foreshadowing later Muppet Western sketches (there’s even a specific later one of Grover as a sheriff riding a horse backwards), and again with Kermit not only lip syncing another person’s voice but playing a nuttier character than we’re used to today. You can view it here.