TMS's US and UK skit/song differences

[Yorick]

Here comes a long multi-part question...sorry

I heard a while back that the Muppet Show had a different skit (or was it song?) between the US and UK version of every episode. Is this true? And if so, why? And lastly, were both the UK and US ones on the DVD sets? If not, which one was chosen for them (other than the legal issued that prevented season 1 from being totally complete, of course)?

Thank you!

 

[MelissaY1]

Here comes a long multi-part question...sorry

I heard a while back that the Muppet Show had a different skit (or was it song?) between the US and UK version of every episode. Is this true? And if so, why? And lastly, were both the UK and US ones on the DVD sets? If not, which one was chosen for them (other than the legal issued that prevented season 1 from being totally complete, of course)?

Thank you!

This should answer your questions: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/UK_Spots_(The_Muppet_Show)

 

[Yorick]

It sure does clear it all up - thank you!
Now I feel like I read this before - but even if that's true, since I forgot, I still "needed" that info!

 

[dwmckim]

A funny anecdote from my childhood...i grew up in Ohio on the shore on Lake Erie so among the tv stations we received was CBC (Candian Broadcasting Corporation). When CBC would air The Muppet Show they usually showed the UK sketch but would take out a scene from somewhere else in the episode...so i'd see the American broadcast earlier in the week and then watch the Canadian broadcast and get to see a "bonus sketch" At the time i didn't know why this was but it was always a very cool exciting treat nonetheless. A couple years later it also became neat that i could see Fraggle Rock without having HBO.

But since the thread title lends itself to such a discussion, it's worth pointing out that every rare now and then there would be a difference between US and UK episodes. For one thing, the closing credits. Since DVD releases uses both kind of randomly, the US credits ran in a different order, had some slight differences as to what was listed and ran down the center of the screen (UK credits rolled to the side). In the scripts for TMS these were referred to as "US rollers" and "UK rollers"

Other differences: In the House of Horrors sketch, Uncle Deadly's punchline is that the Master turns into Guy Lombardo. This was changed to Jack Parnell in international versions where the joke would mostly have been lost. Different lighting was used for the background of Robin's Halfway Down the Stairs number in the Harvey Korman episode" Many of us know how they inserted a musical number by Mary Roos into the German version of the Twiggy episode. And though not technically TMS but very close to where it was practically an "honorary" TMS episode, the special The Muppets Go to the Movies" used a different take of the closing scene of the Muppets exiting the theatre. (US version: Piggy asks Kermit why he put the penguins in the Heatwave number - UK version: Piggy gushes about how she loves to ride the Tube)

 

[Yorick]

GREAT post, dwmckim! Thank you for that information!

 

[Whatnot1988]

It should also be noted that another UK/US difference that I only recently discovered was the logo featured in the original Zoot ending.

While the US rollers ended with the ITC logo, the UK rollers had the ATV logo instead. Luckily, someone on YouTube posted an example of the latter.