Flanderized Muppets?

[AquaGGR]

You mean in all of two sketches?

...um...yes.
The more I've thought about it, the more I think that Mahna Mahna hasn't really changed at all.

 

[minor muppetz]

I'll admit it, I added that Mahna Mahna entry to TV Tropes.

I don't know off-hand how many times the song was done back in the 1970s, but early on he was used in other contexts a fair amount of times. He did the String Quartet sketch and Sax and Violence, and while they weren't really major parts for him I'd also like to provide special mention for his appearances as a Hawaiian in the Spike Milligan episode and as part of the "Short People" band in the James Coco episode.

Then he wasn't used for many years before being brought back to lip-synch to his famous song at Muppetfest, and since then there's been quite a few performances and parodies with Mahna Mahna. Many of his appearances in the Boom! comics work in some variation of the song. His name is not all he can say, though the one time he had a lot of speech isn't exactly something many casual fans have seen (I do kinda wish I could see the Snowhts talk normally).

And there's the fact that in Bip Bippadotta's last Sesame Street appearance he shouted "Mahna Mahna!" Most of his appearances had him speaking coherrently (and he looked considerably different in the Sesame Street version of the song). Though the two are considered different characters, casual fans probably don't know the difference (though Bip was used in more significant ways than Mahna was). Sometimes I wonder if even Sesame Workshop knows they are different characters, since all album versions of the song credit the singer as "Ma Nah Ma Nah", and sesamestreet.org has that name as a search result for his clips (though the Mahna Mahna song isn't included). It can be especially confusing since neither character is ever directly referred to by name on-screen (and the one time Bip's name was mentioned was in the album credits for Every Body's Record, which was the first appearance of "Everybody's Song", a few years before it was on the show, and from what I read the album doesn't have a gatefold with images... casual fans might not instantly know it's him). But then again, Sesame Workshop must be aware of the different characters, otherwise they wouldn't have put him in a 2009 episode.

 

[Oscarfan]

Did you see M11? Almost every scene he was in he told some terrible joke; heck, his first line in the movie's a horrible pun.

 

[Drtooth]

Was Mahna Mahna even meant to be a regular character is my question. Seems like a character Jim used like one other time on Ed Sullivan because he didn't have a huge roster of characters in the old days. The character was created to do that one song, so I just can't say the character is "Flanderized" if the was no character to begin with.

 

[AquaGGR]

Does anyone think Fozzie was flanderized a little bit? His jokes got more and more lowbrow until it turned into fart shoes and the "Santa Jaws" joke in LTS.

 

[Oscarfan]

Does anyone think Fozzie was flanderized a little bit? His jokes got more and more lowbrow until it turned into fart shoes and the "Santa Jaws" joke in LTS.

I wouldn't say they got more lowbrow. "Fart shoes" is your only real example of a lowbrow joke. The joke in LTS was "Santa CLAWS", which is a terrible joke and worthy of Fozzie.

Honestly, he said so many groan worthy puns and other funny lines in the newest movie, it's easy to over look the fart shoes bit; the callbacks to it were a lot funnier.

 

[AquaGGR]

Honestly, he said so many groan worthy puns and other funny lines in the newest movie, it's easy to over look the fart shoes bit; the callbacks to it were a lot funnier.

I honestly don't get why everyone was so angry over the fart shoes bit. I didn't really think it was funny, but I agree that the callbacks to it were funnier.

The joke in LTS was "Santa CLAWS", which is a terrible joke and worthy of Fozzie.

I always thought it was Santa Jaws, which wouldn't make the joke Fozzie horrible. It would be just plain horrible.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I honestly don't get why everyone was so angry over the fart shoes bit.

Because it felt like studio mandated humor. "Oh it's a kid's movie, we need at least one bodily fluid joke!"

 

[muppetlover123]

Did you see M11? Almost every scene he was in he told some terrible joke; heck, his first line in the movie's a horrible pun.

He only has like one line in the movie...

 

[minor muppetz]

Was Mahna Mahna even meant to be a regular character is my question. Seems like a character Jim used like one other time on Ed Sullivan because he didn't have a huge roster of characters in the old days.

Hmm, you know, the original script for the String Quartet sketch referred to Mahna Mahna as "Harry", even though he's not identified by name in the script.