What Muppet Fans Are Thinking About

[minor muppetz]

Been thinking about how it would be great if one of the big Muppet fan sites interviewed David Borgelnict, author of Sesame Street Unpaved, back when that book was published. At the time, we didn't have Tough Pigs (and I think it took awhile before Tough Pigs started interviewing people involved with the Muppets, were there any such interviews before Ryan and Joe took over?), The MuppetCast, or The Muppet Mindset, and now it's common for those websites to interview people from the company, as well as people involved with newer merchandise or events involving the Muppets.

At the time, Muppet Central was doing interviews, though normally they were just people who had heavily worked for the Muppets, not people who worked on Muppet merchandise (the exception being Ken Lilly, whose interviews appear in the MC reviews for Palisades series 4-8). Pretty much all interviews were for the sake of interviewing the people, as opposed to any special occasion to promote something.

But today, if there's an impressive non-fiction Muppet book out, we're likely to see an interview on at least one of the big Muppet fan sites (and we'll probably see interviews on both Tough pigs and The Muppet Mindset). Wouldn't it have been great to have had an interview when Sesame Street Unpaved was published? The author could have been asked about whether certain characters who don't get their own sections were included, if there were plans for bigger character sections in the "classic moments" chapter that didn't make it, what moments were considered to be represented, if he was aware of the upcoming changes for season 30 that were not mentioned, if he was aware the wrong character was pictured for Professor Hastings, if he was aware that existing Don Music material was still being shown at the time of the books development...

It would also be great if one of these sites could get an interview with Christopher Finch, since he wrote three different books on the works of Jim Henson.

 

[minor muppetz]

For years, I had been wondering about the production order for The Jim Henson Hour. In 2013, I found a number of sources (that Henson-Disney deal book listing that episode under the title "First Show", plus a Red Book article and Jim Henson: The Biography, plus the fact that one fan was told this by, I think, Mike Dixon) that revealed that the Bobby McFerrin episode was the pilot (and then in 2014 I saw an official production order list, which surprisingly listed Bobby McFerrin as the fifth episode).

But recently I obtained a copy of Jim Henson: The Works. Previously I had occasionally checked it out from the library (and I think the last time I checked it out of the library was in 2010), but I was looking in the book, and it actually does say that the Bobby McFerrin episode was the pilot. How did I miss that? Did anybody else notice that in the book (I don't think it was noted on the wiki until 2013)? Did anyone notice and mistakenly think it was a good?

 

[Harleena]

I've been thinking about the fact that the beginning of "Lon Lon Ranch" from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sounds like the beginning of "Rainbow Connection"…maybe Koji Kondo had heard the song before and was inspired by it? The Muppet Movie came out in 1979, and Ocarina of Time came out almost 20 years later in 1998…here's the song in question:

Most people on here probably know what "Rainbow Connection" sounds like, so I'm not gonna bother to link it.

 

[Luke kun]

I've been thinking about the fact that the beginning of "Lon Lon Ranch" from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time sounds like the beginning of "Rainbow Connection"…maybe Koji Kondo had heard the song before and was inspired by it? The Muppet Movie came out in 1979, and Ocarina of Time came out almost 20 years later in 1998…here's the song in question:

Most people on here probably know what "Rainbow Connection" sounds like, so I'm not gonna bother to link it.

Reminds me of the track I have on my Strawberry Shortcake Live album called "Flying", that sounds like Rainbow Connection at the beginning too.

 

[Ladywarrior]

Why does Dr Teeth's cover of "Zat You, Santa Claus?" give me really unsettling images of horror films? Who wrote that thing anyway?

 

[Harleena]

Why does Dr Teeth's cover of "Zat You, Santa Claus?" give me really unsettling images of horror films? Who wrote that thing anyway?

Here, have a happy image:

Whenever you're sad or scared, imagine Fluttershy or something else happy.

 

[FraggleLover130]

NEW MUPPET SHOW ABC

 

[minor muppetz]

A while ago, I saw on Muppet Wiki that there's no evidence of The Jim Henson Hour airing in England, though some pages say that Living with Dinosaurs (with JHH intros) and Food/The Three Ravens aired there, and that part of the confusion comes from the fact that Living with Dinosaurs, along with Monster Maker, did air in England around that time, but without the shows opening and without Jim Henson's hosting segments.

This gets me wondering, if that's true, then how did fans get copies of Food and the intros to Living with Dinosaurs?

I also wonder about the MuppeTelevision titles. The only official source for them comes in that Disney-Henson 2004 deal document. Outside of that, it seems like Henson never refers to them by the actual titles. I know that the Paley Center for Media lists all episodes as, for example, "MuppeTelevision/The Heartless Giant", "MuppeTelevision/Song of the Cloud Forrest", and so on (but that could just be the Paley Center doing that.... Paley Center also gives "titles" to Sesame Street episodes). When somebody at Muppet Wiki got a list of the official production order from Craig Shemin, the MuppeTelevison episodes were listed by guest star, with "Food" listed as "No Guest Star", but then again, the old Henson.com episode guide for Muppets Tonight didn't list any of the titled episodes by their titles. I wonder if TV guide listed the first half hours by their official titles (I've seen a print ad for the fifth episode, which only promoted Miss Piggy's Hollywood). I believe that the titles listed in that document are the official ones, but I also find it odd that they seem to avoid using the titles.

 

[minor muppetz]

Recently, I was watching Rowlf and Baskerville's performance of "Dog Eat Dog", and it seems like the laugh track goes off when nothing funny is said or done. Seems like there's laughter whenever Baskerville sings. Is it supposed to be funny that it's a dog singing?

 

[MuppetSpot]

You know what I always wondered about what if Muppet series 10 & Sesame series 1 were released?