More Ads & Tinkerdee

Mack and Kermit

Mack and Kermit

In one, Kermit is hanging out a window and the guy slams the window on his fingers when he tells him he didn’t bring the Claussen’s bread. “Why don’t you drop down to the grocery store for some?” he asks, as Kermit plummets off the building, much like Wilkins pushing Wontkins off a mountain or out of a tree. In another terribly punnish one, Mack is a baker who is kneading dough for Claussen’s. “Claussens, who needs it?” asks Kermit. Mack slams the dough in Kermit’s face and replies, “Everybody needs Claussen’s!” You can view them here and here.

 

The two later appeared in a McGarry’s Sausage ad, which you can view here, in which Kermit simply, innocently asks Mack what’s he eating, he tells him that it’s a McGarry’s Sausage, following up with, “Wanna bite?” And when Kermit actually answers in the affirmative, Mack bites him! “He’s a sharp salesman!” Kermit yelps. The injustice of it all!

 

While one might wonder why there’s a lot of repetition in these set-ups, you have to remember, as I mentioned before, that Jim was doing commercials for over 50 companies, which means that they were producing hundreds of these things, and furthermore, people were so delighted by these exact sorts of gags that many of these companies wanted him to reproduce the Wilkins/Wontkins magic for them. And as I explained in the Wilkins and Wontkins post, in many cases, some actually just paid to license Wilkins and Wontkins for their own products. Sometimes different characters in their roles, however, at least distinguished them in some degree.

McGarry's Sausage ad

McGarry’s Sausage ad

 

And, interestingly, just having Kermit in the ads does make them feel fresh and different, because, unlike Wontkins, he isn’t stubborn or obstinate. He’s actually very close to the generally reasonable Kermit persona we know today. He also sounds and looks almost exactly like himself here, although still sans collar, so the Tales of the Tinkerdee visual influence clearly didn’t quite stick yet. But in personality and looks, he’s evolving more and more into our Kermit, the calm center in a chaotic storm.

 

And now we come to our last piece for today, a fragment of another attempt at a Tinkerdee TV show, this time entitled Land of the Tinkerdee and with significant changes from the previous pilot. For one, the entire thing runs under 10 minutes (and, unfortunately, the below clip only represents the first 3 1/2 or so). Even at such a relatively short length, however, the pacing is much slower than Tales of the Tinkerdee. In fact, I found myself losing patience with it after only a minute or so.

 

This is probably because it’s based around a lone man and a Muppet dog–Goshposh apparently arrives later, although he isn’t in the clip, and is the only other Muppet in the pilot–and feels like it’s trying to recreate the Jimmy Dean/Rowlf dynamic, however neither Darryl the Gatekeeper of Tinkerdee nor Rufus the dog have anything resembling the natural chemistry and flow of Dean and Rowlf, and the dialogue doesn’t have the same zest and snap of either their conversations nor any in the previous Tinkerdee pilot. It grows quite tiresome quite quickly. You get the sense that Jim decided to simplify for this one after the elaborate production of Tales failed to garner a series pick-up. Land wouldn’t be ordered to series either, but in this case, I can understand why. It lacks the other’s inspiration and joy, at least in the first third.

 

At the same time, it remains fascinating today because of how almost shockingly closely the concept of the fix-it man working in his shop with his doggie assistant foreshadows Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock nearly 20 years later. They were also the “entrance characters” for the audience to identify with before being welcomed/transitioned into the series’ magical world, however far superior ones. Of course, Sprocket doesn’t talk, and interestingly, the next time Rufus appears in a major Muppet production–Hey Cinderella!–in which he plays Cinderella’s dog, he won’t either (here, his voice is halfway between Kermit’s and Rowlf’s, with Kermit’s high pitch, dosed with just a hint of Rowlf’s gruffness):

 

 

Finally, also from 1964–December 18th–to be exact, I also watched Kermit’s second appearance on The Jack Paar Program, in a sketch called “Glow Worm,” named for the piece of music playing in the background, and which can watch it for yourself here. What might be most incredible about this bit is that it’s the first time up to this point that we actually see Kermit act like a frog. He sits on a ledge while a number of rather cute orange-striped inchworms that foreshadow Oscar the Grouch’s worm friend, Slimey, crawl up to him, one a time, and he rather ruthlessly eats each one. Compared to the Kermit we know, it’s a bit jarring, but on the other hand, even in later years, he will snap his head for flies at times. It’s also a little strange because, although he’s definitely froggier here, he still doesn’t have his collar and his surprisingly rounded legs and feet are severely lacking in flippers, indicating he’s still more abstract at this point.

 

But, anyway, he eats two worms, so by the time the third comes sneaking up to him, he’s pretty confident that it’ll be an easy meal, so he reaches for it, bites down, but notices it’s longer than he thought. He pulls, but there’s more of it. And more. And more, like a magician’s handkerchief. Only once it’s too late does he discover that it’s actually attached to a large, particularly angry monster–a huge Muppet called Big V–a viciously funny comment on the life cycle. And although the clip I found cuts off there, the sketch actually ends with Kermit being gobbled up, one of Jim’s signature ways to end a sketch. A particularly popular sequence, Jim would recreate it for Ed Sullivan in 1966, and even feature a revised version with another character taking Kermit’s place on The Muppet Show years later.

 

And finally, a story about Jim on Jack Paar that has practically become Muppet legend: Jim and his team showed up a few hours early one day and had some time to kill and so, instead of just sitting around and wasting time, decided to transform an old, unused pipe closet into an art project. They took material, props, and paint and turned these pipes into abstract characters that look like Muppety totem poles, which is such a fantastic example of Jim’s always bursting-at-the-seams creativity and need to constantly be producing art, even when it wasn’t for public consumption and was only for its own sake. In 2010, Brian Williams took Frank Oz to the NBC Studio to look at the rediscovered closet and discuss his memories of Jim and the others, and you can watch this lovely, touching piece here.

 

Later tonight: come back for my review of the latest episode of The Muppets, airing tonight at 8 PM eastern time on ABC!

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