The Muppet Show 1.15: ‘Candice Bergen’...
With Candice Bergen, The Muppet Show had a perfect opportunity to concoct a classic episode. After all, it was rare for them to find a guest so comfortable with puppets. In fact, she had likely spent most of her younger years surrounded by them, given that her father was the great Edgar Bergen, one of America’s foremost puppeteers...
The Muppet Show 1.14: “Sandy Duncan”...
After at least a handful of uneven episodes–sometimes due to not utilizing a great guest star to their best advantage and other times due to a middling performance by a guest star dragging the proceedings down a bit–The Muppet Show finally finds its footing again with the Sandy Duncan episode, which benefits from a delightful...
The Muppet Show 1.13: “Bruce Forsyth”...
With the Bruce Forsyth episode, we have yet another mostly lackluster celebrity appearance. This isn’t helped by the fact that, despite Kermit extolling his virtues and calling him a “one-man variety show,” his singing, dancing, and comedic stylings fail to impress–or at least fail to impress a modern eye. I...
The Muppet Show 1.12: “Peter Ustinov”...
The Peter Ustinov episode of The Muppet Show is a perfect example of how, no matter how iconic and storied the guest star, whenever the Muppets failed to incorporate them into any musical numbers, the show usually suffered, particularly in the first season, when the writers made up for non-singing guests’ lack of singing by featuring...
The Muppet Show 1.11: “Lena Horne”...
Growing up, my only real point of reference for Lena Horne was that she was a celebrity who appeared on Sesame Street, but in her relatively brief scenes, she exuded a warm, gentle glow that, even at a young age, made me sense that she was one of those people who really got the Muppets. She and they seemed to fit together so naturally that I...
The Muppet Show 1.09: ‘Charles Aznavour̵...
In previous posts, I spoke of how, in the first season, before The Muppet Show became a massive hit and celebrity guest stars were banging down the doors to appear, the show paid host to a number of lower-tier stars who were friends of the producers, doing them favors. Well, given that the singer, Charles Aznavour, who Kermit calls an...
The Muppet Show 1.08: “Paul Williams”...
Remarkably, the Paul Williams episode of The Muppet Show received an Emmy nomination for Best Writing on a Variety Show. Unfortunately, the reason I find it remarkable is that it is easily the most poorly written episode up to this point with a higher-than-usual number of jokes that completely fail to land–for example, the Newsman...
Sesame St S6: Bert & Ernie
Today, we once again reach a slew of Bert and Ernie sketches. As I’ve probably said at some point before, while I couldn’t possibly cover the entirety of Sesame Street on this blog, I try to do as much of Bert and Ernie as possible, since they were not only performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz but the characters were very much based on Jim and Frank’s actual relationship, Jim being the more playful one and Frank often being a bit more of a fussbudget.
In a great many of the Bert and Ernie scenes, Ernie would playfully and intentionally drive Bert up a wall, often feigning innocence. In “The Blackout”, our first sketch today, however, Ernie does seem genuinely heartfelt, albeit thoughtless. Ernie wakes up in the middle of the
Read MoreSesame Street S6: Misc.
For today’s post, we have a bunch of miscellaneous clips from Sesame Street‘s sixth season. The first 2 are more Sesame Street Fairy Tales, as told by people from the street and acted out by the Muppets, the first being “The King’s Picnic”:
So, a pretty simple Sesame Street set-up and pay-off: a king assembles all of the people in his kingdom to have a picnic and asks them all to come back and bring various sorts of food so they can have a great big feast. If one so chooses, one could read into this a rather dark story about a despotic ruler who, rather than sharing his wealth and food with the kingdom, demands his subjects provide him with sustenance. I mean, come on, King, this would be pretty rude behavior from a neighbor, let alone a reigning monarch.
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Sesame St S6: Grover, Etc.
Today, after a long, unplanned hiatus due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, I’m finally returning to my Sesame Street season 6 coverage with a bunch of classic clips from the 1974-75 year, the first group today revolving around everyone’s favorite fuzzy blue monster, Grover.
Before I go on, however, I’d just like to acknowledge the sad reality that ABC decided to not renew The Muppets. Given that and the fact that I’m already behind, I’ve decided to hold off on completing my reviews of that show, as having them up in a timely manner is unfortunately no longer relevant, no matter how excellent it ultimately became. Instead, I’ve decided to return to them in the future, once I arrive there in chronology after Muppets Tonight, at which point the time and distance might also make it more interesting to reflect on the show’s legacy a little further down the line.
And now, returning to the matter at hand: Grover! We begin with “Marshall Grover Rides Backwards”:
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Sesame St S6: News Flash
I’ve mentioned before that Kermit’s News Flash sketches were quite possibly my all-time favorite Sesame Street segments, or at least very high up on the list, most likely because most of them blend two of my favorite things: Kermit and fairy tales, specifically those of the fractured variety. Well, as it so happens, Season 6 brought with it a slew of Sesame Street News Flashes, all of which I’m covering today, other than the “Jack Be Nimble” one which appeared in my last highlights post.
We begin with the fairy tales, starting with “Mirror, Mirror,” which just so happens to possibly be my favorite News Flash; it at least shares the top spot with the Rapunzel sketch and the one in which the Big Bad Wolf
Read MoreSesame St S6: Highlights
Today, I begin my survey of highlights from Sesame Street Season 6, and, as per usual, I begin with the clips included on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2 DVD set.
The first one is a rockin’, bouncy number written by Christopher Cerf and Norman Styles, “Telephone Rock”, which has a retro sound that seems musically inspired by classic rock songs about calling the operator to put the narrator through to the person they love–the humorous twist here being that the operator is the one the singer wants to talk to)–as well as Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock,” which was itself an homage to early rock n’ roll. Sung by the Muppet rock group, Little Jerry and the Monotones, the basic purpose of the song seems to be simply introducing the concept of the telephone–although children watching today might be confused about why someone
Read MoreThe Muppets 1.11: “Swine Song”
Since I’ve unfortunately fallen a bit behind on reviewing The Muppets, I’m going to be playing catch-up in my next bunch of posts, reviewing the rest of the season one episode at a time. And here we go!
As anyone closely following The Muppets knows, there has been a bit of backstage drama surrounding the overall creative direction of this still-young series which ultimately led to one of the showrunners, Bob Kushell, leaving and being replaced by Kristin Newman, who has co-executived such beloved cult series as Galavant and Chuck, and who promised to help the show course-correct, keeping the new innovations that work while restoring some of the heart and zaniness that many long-time fans felt were missing from the early episodes.
Read MoreSesame Street Ep #666
The sixth season of Sesame Street debuted on November 4, 1974, with the ominously numbered episode 666 (which is available to watch on the Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2 DVD set). Despite that, as should surprise no one, nothing actually disastrous occurs, however I do wonder whether the hour’s framing device of the Count perching on the famous Sesame Street lamppost and counting all of the lights on Sesame Street going on in the early evening and off later at night was meant to be a sly little nod to it, due to the Count’s vampiric origins.
This is actually a very different way to start a Sesame Street season, which usually opens up on a bright, energetic scene that reintroduces and
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