The Muppet Show 1.01: “Juliet Prowse”

Posted on Nov 29, 2016 in Henson, Shows, Television, The Muppet Show

It’s…THE MUPPET SHOW!!

It’s been over a year in the making, but now I can finally type the words I’ve been waiting to write for what seems like forever: we’ve finally reached the very first episode of The Muppet Show!! And what a journey it has been, both for Jim Henson and us, with so many pilots, dreams, hopes, false starts, and near misses finally culminating in the series that Jim spent practically his entire career working to bring to fruition. A show that, just as he predicted in his pitch reel, did become the most popular in the world!

Now, I’ve seen The Muppet Show, particularly the first three seasons, since they’re the only ones currently available on DVD, numerous times, but what might be most fascinating to me on this viewing is that, whereas

SNL: “The Land of Gorch” #12-16

Posted on Nov 24, 2016 in Guest Appearances, Henson, Shows, Television

Chevy Chase covers for Gorch.

As I spoke about in the previous Land of Gorch post, by the time these sketches were in production, Lord Lew Grade had already greenlit The Muppet Show, and the first two episodes had filmed in London, meaning that Gorch was on its way out at Saturday Night Live. In the meantime, however, these strange alien characters made a few final appearances in a series of sketches that were actually about them being “fired” from SNL. While their lack of popularity on the show had come up before on the show itself, Gorch goes entirely meta in this last burst of sketches, producing some of the cleverest material they ever had, taking the opportunity to even get a bit existential as these puppets begin to actually grapple with what it means to be a puppet who’s about to be shelved for good, adding a surprisingly melancholy undertone to these comedic scenes. After all, for Gorch, this is

SNL: “The Land of Gorch” #7-11

Posted on Nov 22, 2016 in Guest Appearances, Henson, Shows, Television

Scred and Gilda

In my first Land of Gorch post, I explained the circumstances surrounding this Muppet sketch’s recurring appearance in the first season of Saturday Night Live (if you want to see these sketches, the first season of SNL is up on Hulu and Amazon, or you could buy it on DVD) and how the Muppets and their performers never really came to mesh well with the cast and crew of SNL, which was particularly frustrating to Jim Henson, as all of his efforts to get the Muppets their own variety show had failed up to that point. Luckily, however, this unfortunate situation wasn’t to last long. Instead, fate intervened in the form of Lord Lew Grade, a Ukrainian-born British lord who ran a highly successful television production company, ATV, and who seemed to come down from the heavens in order to finally grant Jim his fondest wish: The Muppet Show!

One to One with Julie Andrews

Posted on Nov 17, 2016 in Henson, Julie Andrews, Specials, Television

Kermit conducts a (shrinking) choir.

Although, technically, One to One is the third Julie Andrews/Muppets special–after Julie on Sesame Street and Julie: My Favorite Things–it barely feels like it, as Julie and the Muppets hardly ever interact over the course of the show, other than the finale, in which two Anything Muppets stand at the back of the stage while Julie sings in the front, which doesn’t really count. It seems kind of shocking that anyone would pass up the opportunity to actually take advantage of Julie and the Muppets being in the same studio together, but there you have it.

This is also much less of an entertainment variety special than the first two. Instead, it’s an infomercial for World Vision, an Evangelical-Christian-run charity that raises money for humanitarian aid, and while its religious

Sesame St S7 Clips #2

Posted on Nov 15, 2016 in Henson, Sesame Street, Shows, Television

Today, we wrap up Sesame Street Season 7 with one last batch of clips, most of which I found on the show’s official YouTube channel. First up, we have Cookie Monster teaching us the Spanish word for “love”:

Don’t tell me you’re surprised about the object of his affection! I particularly love the romantic flower beside them. Such a nice touch.

Sesame St S7 Clips

Posted on Nov 10, 2016 in Henson, Sesame Street, Shows, Television

Grover makes it snow at Kermit’s.

Today, I continue my look at Sesame Street‘s seventh season with the assorted clips that appeared as bonus features on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2 DVD set, a few of which I don’t have much to say about, so I’ll just breeze through those first. Two are two of the classic pinball machine counting animations, which you are guaranted to remember if you watched this era of the show (you can check one out here). Another features Buffy Sainte-Marie–a Canadian First Nations woman who appeared numerous times on the show in this era–singing “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and in yet another, Bob plays a musical game of “Follow the Leader” with a group of children, some of whom have Down syndrome. This is a lovely segment, because Bob never points out these kids’ disorder but treats them exactly as the others, and they respond to the game just as the others do.

Sesame Street Ep #796

Posted on Nov 8, 2016 in Henson, Sesame Street, Shows, Television

Susan and Gordon don’t see Snuffy.

The seventh season of Sesame Street debuted on PBS on December 1st, 1975–fairly late, given it usually started up in September or October–with episode #796, which I watched for today’s post (and is available on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2 DVD set). And while I can’t really judge the entire season based on the premiere alone, it would seem that not much has changed in Sesame Street‘s evolution from last year to this one. There is still very little connective tissue holding the episode together, and, in some ways, I found it the least interesting one to watch thus far, but I might just be growing a bit impatient with watching full episodes of this by this point. There’s some great individual stuff here, but, as an hour of television, it doesn’t hold up well.