The Muppet Show - 50 Years Later

[David French]

Some of you with good memories may recall that I started a post five years ago about the original UK air dates of 'The Muppet Show'. I never finished that and I'm glad I didn't because over the subsequent years I've discovered more information and have a clearer picture of what happened.

And as today (in New Zealand at least) marks the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show in the UK...

The series was produced by ATV (Associated Television) for the ITV (Independent Television) networks. In those days ITV was franchise based, with each different region of the UK having their own separate identity (similar to the concept of the local affiliated networks in the USA). There were 14 ITV regions in the UK; in alphabetical order they were as follows:

1. Anglia Television (East of England)
2. ATV - Associated Television (Midlands)
3. Border Television (England/Scotland border)
4. Channel Television (Channel Islands)
5. Grampian Television (North of Scotland)
6. Granada Television (North of England)
7. HTV - Harlech Television (Wales and West of England)
8. LWT - London Weekend Television (Greater London and the Home Counties)
9. STV - Scottish Television (Central Scotland)
10. Southern Television (South of England)
11. Thames Television (London and surrounding areas)
12. Tyne Tees Television (North-East of England)
13. Ulster Television (Northern Ireland)
14. Westward Television (South-West of England)
15. Yorkshire Television (North-West of England)

The clever-clogs amongst you will have noticed that there's 15 in that list, and that's because London had two franchises. The weekday franchise (Monday morning until Friday 7:00pm) was Thames and the weekend franchise (Friday 7:00pm until Closedown on Sunday night/Monday morning) was LWT. There was no complete networking of ITV at the time and while the franchises screened the same programmes, they didn't always air them on the same day or time.

For the purposes of this first post, we'll deal primarily with ATV's dates, and then the other franchises.

So on September 5, 1976 ATV began airing The Muppet Show, starting with Joel Grey. Most of the other franchises follow suit, but there are exceptions (which we will come to later). ATV airs the series for 16 straight weeks, ending with Twiggy, before taking Christmas week off. LWT started late and didn't begin until seven weeks into the run. Initially LAWT started at the beginning, but six weeks into their run they joined the network, starting with Charles Aznavour. The series resumes in the New Year with Valerie Harper and continues until the end of January when ATV and most of the other franchises call it a day (the last episode being Bruce Forsyth). A handful of franchises carry on and show the last three remaining episodes. After this, LWT carries on and screens some of the earlier episodes they had previously omitted. On Easter Saturday 1977, ITV schedules a special compilation entitled The Best of the Muppets, after which there is a repeat run that includes the three episodes previously missed out.

The episode run is as follows (all times 5:05 pm unless otherwise stated):

1. Joel Grey (09/05/76)
2. Rita Moreno (09/12/76)
3. Sandy Ducan (09/19/76)
4. Jim Nabors (09/26/76)
5. Ruth Buzzi (10/03/76)
6. Paul Williams (10/10/76)
7. Florence Henderson (10/17/76)
8. Peter Ustinov (10/24/76)
9. Lena Horne (10/31/76)
10. Harvey Korman (11/07/76)
11. Candice Bergen (11/14/76)
12. Ben Vereen (11/21/76)
13. Charles Aznavour (11/28/76)
14. Phyllis Diller (12/05/76)
15. Avery Schreiber (12/12/76)
16. Twiggy (12/19/76)
17. Valerie Harper (01/02/77)
18. Mummenschanz (01/09/77)
19. Juliet Prowse (01/16/77)
20. Kaye Ballard (01/23/77)
21. Bruce Forsyth (01/30/77)
22. The Best of the Muppets (04/09/77) 7pm
23. Connie Stevens (04/16/77) 5:15pm
24. Vincent Price (04/23/77) 5:15pm
25. Ethel Merman (05/28/77) 5:15pm

To be continued...

 

[David French]

Okay, now brace yourselves. This is where it gets messy. What I'm going to do now is to list some of the anomalies and other bits of interesting trivia concerning the other regions. So, deep breath, and...

• For the most part Channel, Grampian, Granada, Southern, STV and Westward followed the network (i.e. ATV) pattern when it came to the days and timeslots, although changes were made for the repeat run. Tyne Tees and Yorkshire initially started with the network, but switched to 1:10pm Sundays seven and eight weeks respectively into the run (Lena Horne was shown at 1:20pm in Yorkshire). Border and Ulster originally went for 4:15pm but both joined the network eight weeks into the run (Border aired Joel Grey at 4:20pm).
• If you've read Brian Jones' book, there's a sentence where he says Granada switched from Sundays to Saturdays, but subsequently switched back. Actually, it was a change to Monday for Mummenschanz only.
• HTV scheduled the series for Mondays at 5:15pm. Anglia went for Tuesdays at 5:15pm but from Mummenschanz switched to Saturdays at 5:45pm.
• Why did LWT start so late? It's because they originally intended on airing the series in a Saturday morning slot, but were persuaded otherwise by ATV. LWT originally aired the series at 5:35pm on Sundays, but from Valerie Harper switched to Saturdays at 5:15pm.
• Over the years it was widely believed that LWT only aired 23 out of 24 episodes. This anomaly is due to the fact that the TV Times listings for the London area on 23 April billed a repeat of Vincent Price (same as the network). However, various newspapers that carry the listings for London state that the episode that aired that night was Candice Bergen, the "missing" episode.
• HTV and Southern are the only regions not to air Ethel Merman. Instead, they screened an episode of The Invaders in the usual TMS time slot.

More to come...

 

[David French]

• The earliest date for Valerie Harper is 29 December 1976 on HTV at the earlier time of 3:50pm.
• Listings for Tyne Tees have two dates for Mummenschanz - 9 January (as per the network) and 23 January. Nether of these is billed as a rerun. For the past 12 months or so this confused me no end and I wondered if something had happened the first week that caused Mummenschanz not to go to air. It wasn't until I looked at the dates for Yorkshire that I figured it out. One of the papers for Yorkshire had the following - 9 January: Valerie Harper, 16 January: Juliet Prowse, 23 January: Kaye Ballard, 30 January: Kaye Ballard & Bruce Forsyth (sic), 6 February: Bruce Forsyth. Now then, from previous research I knew that the date for Bruce Forsyth and the second date for Kaye Ballard was right. I also noticed that Mummenschanz was missing from that list. I also knew that both Tyne Tees and Yorkshire didn't air TMS on 2 January and I initially thought that both had omitted Valerie Harper. This is due to the fact that on 2 January, both aired the Cathy Lee Crosby Wonder Woman pilot instead. What then must have happened was that both regions aired Valerie Harper on 9 January, Juliet Prowse on 16 January, Mummenschanz on 23 January (hence the second date for this episode in listings for Tyne Tees), Kaye Ballard on 30 January and Bruce Forsyth on 6 February.

Still more to come...