The Muppet Show - Zoot Endings

[BlueFrackle]

Hey Guys,
This one is for the Die Hards !

Does anyone actually know the order of the Zoot endings ?

I have one season one Zoot like this -

(After S+W comment, Imposed over the last Orchestra Pit scene)
' ATV(logo) COLOUR PRODUCTION '

' © ATV NETWORK LIMITED MCMLXXVI '

Then it cuts to a light blue Zoot, Green nose, wearing no hat.
With this imposed over it -

' FOR ITC(logo) TELEVISION '
' © Independant Television Coproduction MCMLXXVI '
' Muppet Characters © Henson Associates, Inc. MCMLXXVI '

Then on the end of the Sandy Duncan episode it is like this -

(After S+W comment, Imposed over the last Orchestra Pit scene)
' ATV(logo) COLOUR PRODUCTION '

Then it cuts to -

Green Zoot, Yellow nose, darker blue hair, wearing no hat.
He blows his sax and a bubble comes out and displays white text imposed over Zoot.
' hit! '
HENSON INTERNATIONAL TELEVISION '
' © HENSON ASSOCIATES, INC. MCMLXXVI '

Zoot looks into the air at the bubble and then into his saxophone, amazed.

Ok, if that made sense then you probably know what im talking about.

So guys please respond if you have any episodes with any of these on the end.

Thanks

 

[Stulz]

Zoot Blow it!

The "Original" Zoot endings have the "ITC" overtop.
-They didn't save the footage with out the ITC logo on it. That's why you never see it anymore.

"Bubble Zoot" was used in Syndication when TMS aired on TNT.

"Sax and Violence Zoot" or "Bald Zoot" is the Syndicated version used when TMS aired on Nick. It is also the versin on most of the DVD's

 

[anathema]

So, can you confirm whether the 'ITC' version was attached to all 120 shows on their first broadcasts? VHS from that era is a tad hard to come by...

 

[BlueFrackle]

Guys,

But there were also more...

I know of two more, One light blue zoot with a hat on, And one Green Zoot with a hat on.

See ya

 

[Chilly Down]

I wrote an insanely long post on this not long ago. I'm not sure what thread it's under anymore. I just wanted to point out that in addition to the newer "bald Zoot" footage shot on a black background, made for Nickelodeon, there was also a "Zoot with hat" footage shot with him in what actually appeared to be the orchestra pit of the Muppet stage. This ending was probably created for some of the Odyssey channel episodes; you can see it on many of the episodes of the Time-Life series.

Alex, the 'ITC' logo was on all 120 episodes; that's why they had to dub it over with the JHP (Jim Henson Productions) logo. It occasionally was refilmed from year to year; sometimes Zoot would have a hat, sometimes he wouldn't. In fact, they mixed and matched footage from each of the seasons' ending credits as the years went on. Zoot's hat can appear and disappear several times within the same ending credits sequence!

My friend has the tail end of the Star Wars episode taped off of syndication from the late '80s, just before all the redubbing, so it still has the original ITC logo. That kind of thing is so cool to an obsessed Muppet nut like me.

 

[anathema]

Ok, thanks! Did they use the same shot of Zoot each year, or did that change as well?

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Reply

I've never realzied Zoot had so many different looks. The main ending on most of the videos I have is Zoot just playing the sax and shaking, then looking down at the inside of the sax to see what could have caused this. Either that, or it's pre-empted by the Henson companies logo (another reason they shouldn't say the videos are uncut). I do remember one (I think it was the Paul Simon episode, but I'm not sure) where Zoot blows the sax then looks at a music sheet to make sure he got it right and then nods or something.

 

[anathema]

It all depends on what's meant by 'uncut'. There are multiple 'official' edits of many of the shows out there, prepared by Henson. In some respects, it's like the difference between the original and SE releases of the Star Wars trilogy - the latest version (whatever that happens to be) is the 'official' version.

Endings and opening titles aside, there have been other apparently official re-edits done over the years. So far as I've been able to tell, the original edit of the Joel Grey show did _not_ include the two newsflashes - these were edited in later (and pretty sloppily, too I've also got a copy of this (and the Ruth Buzzi show) which inserts an extra comment from Statler and Waldorf immediately after the closing act. Other cuts: I've got a copy of the Paul Williams show which is missing the backstage scene where Scooter suggests that Fozzie do the 'telephone pole bit', a German copy of the Twiggy show which omits 'In My Life' in favour of 'Lean On Me', and two copies of the Harvey Korman show with totally different recordings of 'Halfway Down The Stairs'. Some of these may have been cuts made by the broadcaster for timing reasons (and 'In My Life' was almost certainly cut for copyright reasons), but not all of them. Actually, the Harvey Korman one shows signs of having been re-edited from scratch at some point.


Back to the endings, I've got recordings of most season 1 shows taped recently from the Disney Channel, all of which have the 'Sax & Violence' ending shot. I also have German-broadcast copies of the same shows, with the ITC logo'd version, and commercial VHS releases with the shot replaced by the current JHC logo. Credit rolls varied as well - most of the copies circulating today have centered credits, but I've got some older shows with left-justified rolls (which include a credit for the guest star). This isn't simply a case of a change in style, as I have copies of the Joel Grey show with both types. I _think_ the left-justified ones may have been the UK rolls, but I'm not sure.

What I'm trying to do is work out what each show originally looked like, and put them back together. There's obviously no point trying to build a 'definitive' copy of some of the shows, since material was added to them later, but I would at least like to see the original closing shots and season 1 titles

 

[BlueFrackle]

Guys,

Thanks for the input.

But what i was trying to find out was what version of the 'Soot endings' went with which seasons.

I think its safe to say that the first one i mentioned goes with Season One.

And that the HIT! one goes with probably all of th episodes that were shown in foreign countries ?

Screen shots would help this project...

See ya

 

[Chilly Down]

Sorry, Warrick -- don't know the answer to your question, since I don't have originial copies of the episodes (except for the aforementioned Star Wars ending). I do know (and this will answer your question, Alex) that Zoot was changed at least twice -- there are the two different versions used in Season One, as Warrick originally noted, and there's at least one later one where Zoot is, in fact, wearing his hat.

In response to Daffyfan: Yes, there were two different endings edited onto the new cuts of the episodes. The one that's been called "Sax & Violence" is the one that you described where Zoot (no hat) looks at the music sheet and appears to be happy with the note he played (that was the one used on Nick). The second version, which I didn't see till the Time-Life releases, was where Zoot (with hat) shakes and looks astonished at the note he just played. The second actually recreates the gag from all of the original endings to TMS; the first was actually a deliberate reversal of the gag.

I never figured out what the consistency is (if there is any) in how JHC decided which Zoot clip to use. I should double-check my DVDs and see if it's related to the season or not.

Of course, there were at least 3 episodes that didn't have the traditional Zoot ending at all: the Dudley Moore episode (Animal runs up and does...something to the MAMMA machine), Carol Burnett (she's trying to do her cauliflower routine on stage), and Mac Davis (the orchestra is filled with Beakers). In all three cases, I believe, they dub the black "JHP" logo without Zoot at all onto the end of the episodes. It wouldn't make sense to cut to Zoot, certainly, and of course it's cheaper than refilming it. But I'd still like to know what exactly Animal does to MAMMA, and in Mac Davis' case they still inexplicably keep a closing shot of the original Electric Mayhem orchestra instead of the Beaker orchestra just before cutting to the black logo. Weird.