I wonder what made them eat certain characters and not others.
In "Pigs in Space" on the Carol Burnett episode, watch Big Mama's eyes at the beginning of the sketch. The character looks pleased at the sight of Piggy and displeased at the sight of Link and Strangepork.
In the Sherlock Holmes sketch, Fielding AKA Gorgon ate the maid, Piggy, because her testimony was evidence. It's kinda weird if you think about it, because their characters were co-workers in the Bottomly manor.
On that same sketch, I don't get why he eats Watson/Baskerville- he's already eaten the evidence against himself, he could've just let Watson take the wrap. If you look closely, though, you can see him looking over both Sherlock Holmes/Rowlf and Watson/Baskerville, like he's deciding which of them to eat. I imagine it would've been technically more difficult to have a larger character get eaten as opposed to a small one.
On a side note, that freaked me out when Gorgon ate Baskerville- I always for some reason thought that cute furry animals and mustachioed men were exempt from being eaten. For the longest time I thought that women were exempt too, until I saw the sketches in which Piggy was eaten.
I also wondered why when Gorgon Heap ate Wayne he didn't eat Wanda as well. It could just be her dress, but she looks more plump than Wayne, and I dunno, I figured she'd be more appealing than him. Of course, Wayne's hammy hubris and love of the sound of his own voice probably clouded his awareness of what was going on around him, thus making him easier to catch- notice how he keeps singing even after his head is in Gorgon's mouth. Wanda didn't seem to have quite the ego that Wayne had- just the snobbery. I saw this sketch years ago, in the "Rowlf's Rhapsodies" home video, and thought that maybe the sketch cut before Gorgon ate Wanda. I imagined it going something like this:
Wanda: (crying) "Now I'll never see him again!"
Gorgon: "Oh, no, that can be arranged."
Wanda: "You mean, you can bring him back out?"
Gorgon: "No- put you in! OWM! AWP!"
Wanda: "Aaaaaahhh!!!!"
But no, it just cuts to Vet's Hospital. And it stands to reason that once they used the eating gag in a Wayne & Wanda sketch they couldn't re-use it. Perhaps if they'd lasted longer, i.e. if Eren Ozker hadn't left the show, they would've gotten back around to having a monster eat Wanda.
It's kind of ironic, really, given the fact that she looks like one of those weak, innocent heroines-victims from an early melodrama, the kind of damsel in distress whom Uncle Deadly or others of his ilk would tie to the railroad tracks, dangle from a cliff, or suspend over a pit of crocodiles. They did do this in Season Three, with Deadly, and Wayne, who also fits the prototype of the old melodrama hero, but with Piggy instead of Wanda, playing at least the one sketch off of Piggy's aggressive personality being an ill fit to her part. Perhaps if they had done something like this in late season one. Hmm, that gives me a fanfic idea...
Any comments on the above?
Btw Martin, thanks for the tip-off about your thread.
David "Gorgon Heap" Ebersole
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
