What Muppet Fans Are Thinking About

[WalterLinz]

This just occurred to me:

In all 60 years of the Muppets, why has there never been a sight gag where Kermit sticks to a window?

Isn't that what frogs can do?

Welll Kermit has been licked on and has been thrown/stuck on to a Russian gulag wall...

 

[minor muppetz]

This just occurred to me:

In all 60 years of the Muppets, why has there never been a sight gag where Kermit sticks to a window?

Isn't that what frogs can do?

I don't get it.

 

[Muppet Master]

I watched TMS episode 213 yesterday, and the UK spot was Something's Missing. I have seen this episode before, but this time I found it odd how at the beginning the man sings about a tricycle, and at the end he has a love intrest. It feels really weird. Another weird thing is this is one of the few songs on the TMS box set for season 2 that have closed captioning, so is it a song that was written for the episode. Though it was a good song anyways.

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently I read that The Disney Channel actually showed the UK spots for Muppets Tonight in America. I watched Muppets Tonight on The Disney Channel and don't ever remember seeing any of those segments on there. Could this change have occurred late in the shows run on The Disney Channel (though I'm sure I still watched regularly as they were still showing the reruns)? Could the UK spots have just aired when the show first entered the channel (my household didn't get the Disney Channel until about a month after the show was added to the channel)? Could the contributor have mistook an international copy for an American broadcast?

Of course there's not much reason to not include the UK spots on the channel, since even though The Disney Channel started to be a regular cable channel and had commercial breaks (in fact my cable provider had a free Disney Channel weekend shortly after MT entered the channel and the channel was already having commercial breaks then) the channel never had ads for products, just for other Disney Channel programming (and occasionally PSAs).

 

[minor muppetz]

In The Secrets of the Muppets, there's a girl Muppet seen in the background during the end credits. Anybody know who she is?

It's during the 47:42 mark:

In case it gets taken down before anyone can check but there are people who have the special on video, she can be seen next to a rat way in the back, during a close-up shot of Kevin Clash. Has she appeared elsewhere on The Jim Henson Hour (I certainly don't remember seeing her outside of that scene)?

 

[minor muppetz]

I've been thinking, if an Electric Mayhem song where Dr. Teeth was not the lead singer was released on an album, how would the performers of the song be listed? If any Electric Mayhem song led by Floyd was released (I know, Mr. Bassman and New York State of Mind were, but he's the only member who got vocals on those songs), or if Rockin' Robin was released, it would be weird to list the performers of the songs as "Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem", and it would sound a little odd if it listed the singers as "Floyd and the Electric Mayhem" or "Janice and the Electric Mayhem" (maybe if they said "with" instead of "and", though it'd still be odd considering they are part of The Electric Mayhem). Would it just say "Electric Mayhem"? In the case of Rockin' Robin, it could just list Janice as the singer, or maybe "Janice with Dr. Teeth, Animal, and the birds".

Maybe that's why those songs were never released on any albums (though no tracks from the last season have been released on any albums).

 

[minor muppetz]

I've been thinking about how in Muppets Most Wanted, Miss Poogy and Pops' roles seem more like them recycling characters than bringing them back for new appearances, except they both have their regular performers and voices, and both are identified by name in the end credits. Miss Poogy never mentions being part of The Moopets or the events of the previous film, and doesn't notice Kermit looking like Kermit (okay, so very few characters in the film notice the similarities between Kermit and Constantine). And it seems weird for Pops to be a prisoner, since he's usually part of the Muppets and had been used in a few productions in recent years. Maybe if it was a more obscure character from Muppets Tonight or Muppet Treasure Island (or a Jim Henson Hour character) it wouldn't seem so odd.

I know that the movies often have the characters being introduced to characters they already know, but in this case it still feels different. It doesn't feel like Pops running the Happiness Hotel or The Swedish Chef serving pop corn at a movie theater. It doesn't feel like Bobo working for a villain or designated villain.

 

[minor muppetz]

All this time, I thought that the full title for the Play-Along Video series was "Jim Henson's Play-Along Video", but today I was looking at some of the covers, and noticed that Jim Henson's name was not written as plural... It's actually "Jim Henson Play-Along Video". I never noticed before. I guess it's similar to how today's Disney productions (at least on promotional materials) have "Disney" written above the title as opposed to "Disney's".

Though I also found an image screen for Peek-A-Boo on Hulu, and that lists it as "Jim Henson's Play-Along Video: Peek-A-Boo". And I didn't think that the Play-Along title would be used in the title listings for Peek-A-Boo at the places where one can stream or download the video.

I've always assumed that all of the videos were released on the same date, and I recently found a print ad that seems to confirm it (though it doesn't say what date the videos were to be released, just "fourth quarter" 1988). It mentioned there being a TV and print ad campaign.... If there actually were TV commercials for the series, I'd like to see them. But it's also interesting that they didn't continue making new Play-Along Videos after 1988. A Muppet Babies Video Storybook and Muppet Sing-Alongs both got multiple videos over the course of a few different years.

 

[minor muppetz]

When Jerry Nelson was interviewed for Muppet Central back in 1998, he mentioned that he performed Statler in Sex and Violence and something else before The Muppet Show began. I wonder if he actually did perform Statler somewhere else, or if he was misremembering. I don't think there's any pre-TMS appearances by Statler as performed by Jerry Nelson besides the pilot, but that doesn't mean there's not something obscure where he might have performed the character. Are there any known Muppet appearances from 1975 or 1976 where none of us know any details (which could have had Statler)?

But again, he could have been misremembering. After all, in that interview he also said that he performed in the first two episodes of TMS and then didn't perform on the show again for 5-9 episodes (I can't remember what number he said), but we know that he didn't perform in the first two episodes (outside of "Ain't Misbehaving" which was shot later in the season) and that he did perform in episodes 4-10 before taking a five-episode break.

There have occasionally been audio interviews with the performers for Muppet fan sites where they briefly appeared as a character. I wonder how Henson/Disney/Sesame Workshop feels about those instances, when it's not exactly an interview arranged by one of those companies. I know that performers and voice actors tend to use the same voices for characters for other companies, but in these interviews it's clearly meant to be those characters. I also wonder if the performers need permission from the right company when there are video interviews for fan sites that include appearances by one of their characters (such as Constantine's cameo during Matt Vogel's acceptance speech in Tough Pigs' "Snuffy Awards" video).

 

[dwayne1115]

When Jerry Nelson was interviewed for Muppet Central back in 1998, he mentioned that he performed Statler in Sex and Violence and something else before The Muppet Show began. I wonder if he actually did perform Statler somewhere else, or if he was misremembering. I don't think there's any pre-TMS appearances by Statler as performed by Jerry Nelson besides the pilot, but that doesn't mean there's not something obscure where he might have performed the character. Are there any known Muppet appearances from 1975 or 1976 where none of us know any details (which could have had Statler)?

But again, he could have been misremembering. After all, in that interview he also said that he performed in the first two episodes of TMS and then didn't perform on the show again for 5-9 episodes (I can't remember what number he said), but we know that he didn't perform in the first two episodes (outside of "Ain't Misbehaving" which was shot later in the season) and that he did perform in episodes 4-10 before taking a five-episode break.

There have occasionally been audio interviews with the performers for Muppet fan sites where they briefly appeared as a character. I wonder how Henson/Disney/Sesame Workshop feels about those instances, when it's not exactly an interview arranged by one of those companies. I know that performers and voice actors tend to use the same voices for characters for other companies, but in these interviews it's clearly meant to be those characters. I also wonder if the performers need permission from the right company when there are video interviews for fan sites that include appearances by one of their characters (such as Constantine's cameo during Matt Vogel's acceptance speech in Tough Pigs' "Snuffy Awards" video).

I was wondering about that to.