Little things we've noticed

[dwmckim]

Perhaps he counted on Zoot falling asleep.

 

[minor muppetz]

Or maybe Kermit remembered what Floyd said upon seeing Rizzo as a waiter: "I'm glad we've got no money, 'cause now I've got no appetite!"

 

[minor muppetz]

I've noticed that while none of the Play-Along Videos were ever rereleased, the Sing-Along Videos included quite a few clips in the opening.

 

[chudman1000]

In anticipation for the new Muppet movie, I´ve been watching one episode of the Muppet Show per day. Well after watching through the entire series, something caught my attention while watching the very last episode last night. Every member of the Electric Mayhem is part of the show´s orchestra except for Dr Teeth. Upon viewing shots of the orchestra pit I JUST noticed that he was nowhere to be found. I know he wasn´t really needed because they had Rowlf on piano, but I just couldn´t believe that I never noticed after all of these years of watching that the band´s leader was missing from the group.

 

[minor muppetz]

I noticed that in the talk spot with Juliet Prowse, Kermit points out that Juliet is "going to be on the show a lot". Of course like every guest star she never appeared on the show again, but I wonder if there was consideration early on for celebrities to return as guest stars again (perhaps dropped when they no longer had trouble getting guest stars).

I also noticed that in all the movies, they never cast any Muppet Show guest stars in major roles (just cameos), and both The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight never had guest stars who played major human roles in the movies. It could be a coincidence, but I also wonder if they didn't want young viewers to confuse the guest stars with the major characters they played in Muppet movies.

 

[dwmckim]

In The Muppet Movie, Kermit and Fozzie pass Big Bird on his way to New York (East coast) during Movin' Right Along. Yet, Big Bird ultimately ends up on the West Coast in Hollywood for the finale.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Well Big Bird also thought it would take 3 hours to walk from Illinois to New York.

 

[Speed Tracer]

I had really always thought Blind Pew was performed by Brian Henson - dunno why, it was just his similarities with Sal and Dr. van Neuter, but I was watching his scenes again (I think, personally, one of the comedic highlights of a very funny movie) and finally realized it was actually Jerry Nelson. I'm usually pretty good at guessing what performers are what character, but Jerry really sailed past me here. What a great vocalist.

"Watch where you're going, you stupid cat!"

 

[minor muppetz]

On The Muppet Show, there were only a few shots of the audience tapped, reused whenever a shot of the audience was needed. In some cases, they are shown singing to whatever song is being performed (maybe it's just me but the lip-synch doesn't look too bad regardless of the song). Sometimes, a shot of the audience would only be used once, if it had something to do with the act being followed (such as when Fozzie had a tough time with the whole audience).

But in the Madeline Kahn episode, following Happy Feet, the audience shot is a shot not used anywhere else. I noticed Zelda Rose wasn't in the audience, and I don't think many of the other same characters are, either. But I wonder if that was meant to make a big deal out of Kermit's tap-dancing performance. Another thing I noticed about that: Before cutting to the audience, we briefly see Statler and Waldorf cheering, not really making any funny comments or insults or anything.

I recently watched the "Sherlock Holmes" sketch on YouTube, and saw that it's actually 2 minutes and 14 second slong (well, the YouTube clip ends with the first second of Kermit introducing the closing number). I guess part of that had to do with the fact that the sketch wasn't intended on being the UK spot, but still, it's odd that a UK spot would have lasted longer than a minute (I wonder if they would have been able to squeeze the time to 2 minutes if they cut Kermit's introduction and/or the audience applauding at the end).

 

[minor muppetz]

I've always thought that Statler had visible eyebrows, but after watching a bit closely recently, I've noticed that we seem to see a bit of eyelids above the "eyebrows". So now I wonder if those are actually eyelashes as opposed to eyebrows. And it's not often you see a male Muppet (or male cartoon character) with visible eyebrows. Unless there's other similar cases I haven't noticed (Do Animal, Herry, and Sweetums have eyebrows or eyelashes?).

Though tonight I noticed that Link Hogthrob and Marvin Suggs both seem to have eyelashes. Weird.

DW McKim pointed this out in regards to a scene from the first episode on his blog, but recently I've been noticing that whenever a character or object fades away or fades into view, it seems all characters hold still while it fades (whether they turn the cameras off and back on or if they keep the cameras rolling and then cutting out the crew making changes). All this time I thought maybe the effect was done by blue/green/black screen. But when seeing things fade in or out of view, I've noticed slight fading on the other characters who are supposed to stay there, as if their performers tried to hold them still, but couldn't do it perfect enough (or maybe the camera people couldn't hold the cameras still enough). One example is in the Pigs in Space "dissolvatron" sketch. There's flashing lights in the background the whole time. As things fade away, it seems you can slightly see additional fading on those flashing lights.

All my life I thought Beaker wore a white lab coat. So I was surprised when I first saw the action figure had a light green lab coat, though Ken Lilly often said that lighting sometimes makes things look a different color. But then I've been watching some Beaker appearances, and have only now noticed a tint of green on his lab coat in certain sketches (the season two Muppet Lab sketches that have a blue background, the "elevador shoes" sketch), though there are also times when the lab coat looks white to me (a different coat or a lighting difference?).