SNL: “The Land of Gorch” #12-16
Scred, Ploobis, Peuta, and Wisss in the trunk.
At that point, they open the trunk and start to pile in and find the other characters already there. Peuta complains that, with Ploobis and Scred in there now too, there’s no room for her to breathe. “You’re a puppet,” Ploobis replies. “You don’t breathe! You’re not alive.” And with that, everyone from Gorch other than the Mighty Flavog is in the dreaded trunk, which then closes on them. And as soon as they’re gone, the Mighty Flavog turns to the camera and reveals his motives behind encouraging them to pack themselves alway: with them gone, he now hopes to score a spot on the show for himself! Muahahahahaha.
And, as I said before, while these puppets realizing they’re puppets is funny and clever, there’s a dark undercurrent here that feels much closer to Jim’s original Jungian conceit for the characters, which was watered down by the SNL writers. There’s actually something almost horrific about these characters discovering that they aren’t real–that even the very emotions they think they’re experiencing are actually illusions, calling to mind the existential horror underlying the theory that we and the universe we occupy is all part of a vast computer simulation. Fittingly, this scene, easily the most conceptually thinky of the Gorch sketches, was actually written by Jim himself–the seond time that he/the SNL team have been confirmed as having broken the union rules in this regard (the first time being Jerry Nelson’s penning of the Lily Tomlin/Scred sketch), though the official credit went to the SNL writers–and it shows, being much closer in spirit to The Cube and Tale of Sand than the silly sitcom goings-on that Gorch typically featured.
In some ways, it might have been best had the Gorch sketches ended on this perfect note, and yet there are still two further appearances, each of which has its moments but ultimately drags out the joke from this at-the-time seemingly final sketch without contributing much further to it. Two weeks later, on May 8th, Scred pops out of the trunk to talk to Chevy, who tells him he’s sorry to hear they were canceled. Scred asks if he could talk to Lorne Michaels (SNL‘s exec producer) about rehiring them, but Chevy tells him that Lorne’s gotten “too big to work with felt anymore.”
At that point, Scred tells Chevy that he heard that Lorne had been trying to get the Beatles on the show, which Chevy confirms. Well, as it just so happens, Scred knows someone who’s good friends with the Beatles: the Mighty Flavog! Flavog confirms that, yes, this is true–in fact, not only is he the real Walrus, but when the Beatles went to India, it wasn’t to meet the Maharishi but him!–and if Lorne brings the Muppets back, he’ll make sure the Beatles agree to appear on the show. Chevy goes off to speak with Lorne, and the scene ends with the Mighty Flavog quoting “The End” from Abbey Road and Scred singing the chorus of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. A cute scene, but again, it doesn’t add much and ultimately doesn’t go anywhere, since there’s no on-screen follow-up.
The Mighty Flavog and Scred promise Chevy the Beatles.
Interestingly, this scene nearly had a follow-up, however, though through no fault of the writers. Apparently, on the night this episode aired, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were in New York, watching it on TV, and they briefly flirted with dashing over to the studio to make a surprise appearance, but they ultimately ended up staying in. This was so close to being a historical TV moment, it’s almost heartbreaking!
And, finally, we come to the very last Gorch sketch, which was on the SNL season 2 premiere, which aired on September 18th. Although I continue to maintain that it would probably have been best to leave Gorch with that first trunk scene, at least this appearance serves a solid purpose: namely to plug the upcoming The Muppet Show, which began airing the very next day on CBS (another indication of the ultimate lack of hard feelings between SNL and the Henson Co. when they left)! It also centers on an amusing visual, namely that each of the Gorch characters has been filed away in their own drawer of a file cabinet, which today seems reminiscent of the airport-locker scene of The Muppets Take Manhattan, though this came years earlier. It also has some additional clever meta gags, such as this exchange:
SCRED: Peuta, did you know that we’ve been dead for 3 months?!
PEUTA: I was sure we were just on the air! Or was that a dream?
SCRED: No, that was a rerun…
Shortly afterwards, Ploobis awakens, refreshed, sure that he’s been resurrected, as was predicted in the “Great Book”. Scred asks if he means the Bible, and he responds, “No, Bil Baird’s Book of Puppetry,” which may very well be the most puppet-insidery joke ever written. Bil Baird was a famous puppeteer from the early days of television who worked with marionettes and whose work Jim watched as a kid, along with Kukla, Fran, and Ollie (as I mentioned in the first Gorch post), and his 1965 book, actually called The Art of the Puppet, was an influential work for many puppeteers. His best-known accomplishment today is probably “The Lonely Goatheard” sequence from The Sound of Music film, which starred frequent Muppet collaborator Julie Andrews.
Soon afterwards, we get a brief cameo by Wisss, who, as usual, is high af and totally bummed that they’re back on the show, even momentarily, and then who should they discover under a dust cover but the Great Flavog? He encourages them that, since this might be their final chance to prove themselves, they should claim to be able to do whatever is necessary for them to get their spot on the show back.
Just then, guest host Lily Tomlin arrives, and can I just say how lovely and fitting it is that she, who was part of Scred/Gorch’s single greatest moment on the show, is there for their send-off? In fact, the first thing she does upon joining the scene is to give Scred a kiss, fondly remembering their previous time together. “You know, I’ve been reading about your new show, The Muppet Show,” she says, congratulating them on it. But Wisss corrects her: “They won’t let us work on that. That’s family entertainment!” “Aren’t you family entertainment?!” Lily asks, and Scred gleefully responds, “Hell, yes!”
Lily bids the Land of Gorch adieu.
Lily then suggests they all do a song together: she’ll sing “Whistle a Happy Tune” from The King and I, and they can all whistle back-up for her! Unfortunately, none of the Gorchians can whistle, but having taken Flavog’s advice to do whatever they can to be welcomed back, they give it the old college try, and it’s a disaster. Flavog himself is so bad at whistling that, when he tries, his entire face gets sucked into his mouth! Lily leaves, claiming that they’ll come up with something else to do together but clearly at a loss for what that could possibly be. And then, other than a brief appearance the Gorch Muppets make in a group number with the entire cast called “The Antler Dance,” that’s all she wrote for Gorch!
Overall, this is a fun final sequence that establishes the vast differences between these Muppets and the Muppets who from this point forwards will always be thought of as the core Muppets: The Muppet Show Muppets. Even their failed attempt to have a fun singalong of a classic showtune cleverly underlines their inability to join in on the variety show shenaningans brewing at The Muppet Show. The Land of Gorch may have been a failed experiment, but, at least looking back on it today, it’s a fascinating one!
And I can’t believe I’m about to write this, but the next time we convene, it will FINALLY be time to play the music, light the lights, and get things started on HensonBlog’s The Muppet Show review/recaps! I almost can’t contain myself!
Pages: 1 2