Muppets on TV!

Don't forget to set your TiVo, VCR, or kinescope this weekend for Studio DC: Almost Live! The special airs on the Disney Channel on Sunday, August 3 at 8 PM Eastern, and it features the Muppets interacting with some of the most popular performers around, like Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale, and the Jonas Brothers. If you're older than eleven, you may not have heard of any of these kids, but trust me -- they're huge.

This special is actually nowhere near live -- it was recorded a year ago, when Ashley Tisdale still had her real nose, and Miley Cyrus had yet to shock and appall every human on Earth by showing us the backs of her shoulders. We don't really know why Disney waited a year to air it, but I'm guessing it's because the special is so incredibly good they had to wait until we were truly ready for it. Or... some other reason.

Consider this: When The Muppet Show ended its run, the average Jonas Brothers fan was 18 years away from being born. So they may not be intimately familiar with Gonzo, Animal, or Floyd. But if the young people in the Disney Channel's audience like this special, they'll probably be open to seeing more new Muppet stuff, which I personally am in favor of, as long as it doesn't make me cringe.

No matter what, it'll be fun to see Muppets on television again... and maybe, just maybe, it'll be entertaining for those of us past puberty.

Click here to discuss the Disney Channel special on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Viral Muppeting

By the year 2004, variety shows on television were already in a comatose state when they were finally put out of their misery with The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour. With no viable outlet left for celebrities to sing and dance and make up funny skits, there hasn't been much hope for The Muppets to find their space on television.

But wait.

Who's that stopping the Locomotion with his bare hands? Racing faster than a speeding Buick? Leaping over tall buildings like they were homeless people sleeping in the street? It's.. the Internet!

Yes, the good old time-wasting internet, cleverly disguised as mild-mannered education and technology! With the powers it inherited from its home planet YouTube, it has brought songs and puppets and entertainment straight to the thing you're staring at right now.

The Swedish Chef, Gonzo, Beaker, and Statler and Waldorf have all started their own YouTube accounts, along with a brand-flipping new video from each (or 4 videos from the old farts). Take a gander at what our furry friends hath brought:
















(See our previous article about this video by clicking here)

The question remains: Now that they've covered unintelligible Public Domain songs and generic negative video reviews, what could they possibly do next? I've come up with a few suggestions, just in case Kermit and friends have stooped low enough to troll the blogs for ideas.

-"Ask a Penguin", in which a penguin answers e-mails from viewers. Unfortunately, every episode is read in the "Waak waak waak" of penguin talk, and the advice is always to eat more fish.

-"Leave Annie Sue Alone", where a teary-eyed, mascara'ed Scooter begs viewers to stop harassing the former starlet (and current dentist's assistant).

-"lonelyvalleygirl15", a video blog by Janice in which she reminisces about her time as a child actress on Muppet Babies. Rumors abound that all of her accounts are fictionalized, as nobody can find proof of a "Baby Janice".

-"Will It Blend (My Assistant)?", in which Dr. Bunsen Honeydew places his associate Beaker in a giant blender with different objects, such as a Gorilla Detector or Robot Rabbit, to see which will become horribly disfigured first.

-"Every Other Day", where Bobo the Bear takes his own picture every day for a year. Unfortunately, since Bobo doesn't move much, the project is completely ineffective.

-"Kermie Girl", starring an overly excited Miss Piggy as she proclaims her love for her favorite frog through song. There is still no word as to how badly this will affect Kermit's campaign for the Presidency.

Normally, this article would be considered parody. But nowadays with the all-around wackiness of YouTube, these videos could actually happen. So if you see a picture of a penguin dressed as a ninja, let me know so I can demand my 10%.

Click here to share your ideas for Muppet videos on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Season 3: A to Z (part 2)

Check out part 1 of Season 3: A to Z by clicking here! You can't expect to understand N-Z without reading A-M first, now can you?

N is for the Nazi Salute. When Spike Milligan participated in the Nod to all Nations, he felt it Necessary to also acknowledge the genocidists of the world. Thankfully, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it salute. Not-so-thankfully, it forever tarnished “It’s a Small World” for me.

O is for Onions. Oh, that Beauregard! So Obtuse! So Obvious! He Ordered Onions for Harry Belafonte’s big number! Me say Day-O indeed!

P is for Penzance. Perchance, when Gilda Radner first Perceived of a Penzance Plot, she Planned on a Parrot. Instead, Kermit Purchased a giant vegetable. Punniness ensued.

Q is for Quintuplets. That’s the only way I could explain Roy Clark’s doppelganger number.

R is for Rocky III. Really, when Sylvester Stallone Ran for a new Rocky film, he Reused footage from this episode of The Muppet Show. Mr. T was unavailable for comment.

S is for Sex. Raquel Welch and Fozzie Bear practically do it backstage of the theater. And no, that’s not innuendo.

T is for Tuned Clams. Too bad, we didn’t Tune in To see Manny Kaye play his Tuned clams Tonight. Instead, we had to watch that hack, Danny Kaye. No relation.

U is for Unitard. Unfortunately, the Alice Cooper episode of The Muppet Show is decidedly Un-scary. But that Unitard: Ugh!

V is for Violence. Jean Stapleton claims Victory as she duets with Crazy Harry and his Valuable Explodaphone! And yes, that’s really Jean in the photo above, and not an exploding Victor Borge.

W is for What makes Muppets Work? In the special feature, Muppets on Puppets, Jim Henson and his Weirdo friends explain Who the Muppets are and Why they are so Wacky. Shot in amazing black and White.

X is for X-tra sensory perception. Hey, you try coming up with something besides Xylophone for the letter X! We came this close to an entry on James Coco’s insistence on XXX dancers.

Y is for Yodeling. Yikes, Kermit almost calls Roy Rogers a Yellow-bellied Yankee! His Yodeling made Kermit Yearn for a black Yarmulke!

Z is for Zippity Zip Zap Shabadoo Yeah! Pearl Bailey put some Zing into her spring with Floyd in one Zazztastic number. (The writer of this article obviously has no rhythm)

And there you have it, 26 entries chock-full of alphabetty goodness, plus the added benefit of generic Muppet jokes! Who could ask for anything more?

Come on back when the fourth season of The Muppet Show comes out and I find a link between each episode and every color in the rainbow!

Click here to spell your name with Muppet Show guest stars on the ToughPigs forum!

Season 3: A to Z (part 1)

We at ToughPigs.com are always striving to keep our readers abreast of all Muppet trivia that comes across our desks. Education is a priority for us, as it was for our forefathers. This is why I want to make sure that you’re all aware of the basic Muppet facts, no matter how minute and obscure they may seem.

For example, did you know that Uncle Deadly was originally built to be the spokesman for Gatorade? Or that Muppeteer Bill Barretta is half chupacabra?

The latest factoid that I heard was about the “missing year” of 1978-1979 in which the TV-watching public saw neither hide nor hair of the Muppets or any other Jim Henson production. But Secret Squirrels have discovered the missing season of The Muppet Show, which apparently aired in between Season 2 and Season 4. The Muppet fan community has taken to calling this “Season 3,” though the name hasn’t been confirmed by Disney or The Jim Henson Company.

What’s that? I’m sorry, speak into my good ear. Oh, you’ve heard of the third season of The Muppet Show? And you know this because you purchased the DVD set that came out back in May? And you’ve watched it a zillion times and memorized every line? And you’ve counted the points on Lew Zealand’s head to enter on his Muppet Wiki article? And you think this whole paragraph sounds like a Bob Newhart routine?

Well, maybe there are some people out there in Internetland who haven’t heard of Season 3. Or, if they have, then maybe they haven’t been able to tear themselves away from the LOLcat blogs for long enough to go out and buy the DVDs. And it’s for those people (and, y’know, everyone else) that I give you The Alphabet of Season 3! So without further ado, I present to you the not-so-missing season of The Muppet Show in a bite-sized educational nugget.

A is for Animal cruelty. Lesley Ann Warren brings her A-game as an Actress as she Amazes at Marvin Suggs’ vicious mauling of some helpless furry creatures.

B is for Bird auditions. Liberace Brings a Bunch of Birds to his dressing room where they’re offscreen for the entire episode. What these auditions involve, we’ll never know. (And, for some reason, he shows up halfway through the episode to remind us that he’s down to his last 10 finalists, even though every Muppet with a beak shows up in his final number. I apologize for my Bitching.)

C is for Cavorting. You Can’t have the Chronicle of Robin Hood without a good Cavort. Lynn Redgrave Cavorts with the best of them. She’s a Cavorting fool! Cavort, Cavort, Cavort.

D is for Disease. Dang, the Muppet Show theater is rife with a Deathly Disease! The Cluckitis epidemic is turning the Muppets into not Ducks, not Dolphins, not even Doorknobs, but strangely familiar chickens! Roger Miller is, for some reason, immune.

E is for Elke. E is also for “Elkee”. E is also for “Elkeh.” See if you can spot how many different pronunciations the Muppets have for Elke Sommer’s name. Egad!

F is for Flat dog. Baskerville the Hound does his Finest Flat-Faced Figure in one of the Purina Dog Food ads on the DVD set. He could have a great career as a Fence.

G is for Girdle. Marisa Berenson Gives Miss Piggy some help in hiding her Girth. Great Googly moogly!

H is for Hunting Season. Leo Sayer gets Harassed by some local Hooligans. How will he get out of this Horrible mess? I Hope it doesn’t end with a Hanging!

I is for Incredibly creepy. My apologies to Leslie Uggams for not mentioning her in the entry for the letter I, but how weird is it that Gonzo falls in love with a 6-year-old male canary, who Invented this silly ABC shtick? Incredible!

J is for Jingle Bells. The Helen Reddy episode contains what may be the best moment of the entire season: The Swedish Chef and Animal singing a Jaunty tune in Helen’s dressing room.

K is for Karate. Cheryl Ladd and Miss Piggy Kick some butt in a Kung-Fu number. Unfortunately, the butt in question belongs to Kermit, which makes me Kringe.

L is for Lots of kids. Loretta Lynn Learns to Love her Little ones. Like, 30 of them. That Lady must’ve Liked getting Laid!

M is for Morbid. Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge can’t even Make eye contact with Gonzo after hearing about his plan to fake his own death for Monetary gain. Ok, so Maybe their reaction is More “Meh”.

Click here for part 2: N-Z!

Click here to talk about your favorite letters on the ToughPigs forum!

Sam the Eagle vs. Will Smith

Did you have a good Independence Day weekend? I sure did. Any 4th of July in which you set off fireworks without losing any major extremities is a successful 4th of July, I say.

But that wasn't the most exciting thing about this year's Fourth. No, the most exciting thing was the appearance of a new Muppet video! It's called "Stars & Stripes FOREVER!" and it showed up on YouTube, posted by a user called "patrioticeagle", who is apparently our favorite bald blue bird, Sam. Here, check it out:

Of course, the Muppet video wasn't the only new entertainment option last weekend. The Will Smith blockbuster Hancock was also released, and did pretty good business. Clearly, both productions are designed to target the exact same audience and to serve the same purpose, but which is better? Let's compare the two.

Lead actors
Muppet video: Sam the Eagle, Bobo, Beaker, Animal, the Swedish Chef
Hancock: Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron
Winner: Hancock by a nose, but only because Beaker hasn't been nominated for any Oscars (He just has the one Golden Globe).

Supporting characters
Hancock: A little kid, some criminals
Muppet video: Chickens and a penguin
Winner: Muppets, by far. Hollywood has yet to fully exploit the potential of singing chickens.

How many times can you watch it in 92 minutes?
Hancock: Once
Muppet video: 46 times
Winner: Muppets

Can you watch it with your elderly aunt?
Hancock: Definitely not. There's violence, drinking (of alcohol!!!), and more profanity than you can shake a sailor's mouth at.
Muppet video: Absolutely. And your elderly aunt probably loves the Muppets. After all, they worked with Milton Berle!

Explosions
Muppet video: One
Hancock: More than one
Winner: Hancock. They're a bit more impressive, though I certainly don't mean to diminish the fine work of Crazy Harry in the Muppet video, and I'd like to request that he please not blow me up.

Patriotism
Hancock: None to speak of
Muppet video: Overstuffed with it, from the song choice to Sam's reading of the Constitution to the montage of traditional American images playing in the background. It's so patriotic it makes me want to buy war bonds.
Winner: Muppet video

Conclusion: The Muppets win! Sorry, Will.

Click here to discuss the Stars & Stripes video on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Kermit Love (1916-2008)

Today's article was written by Andrew Leal. Andrew is currently an administrator on the Muppet Wiki. Special thanks to Andrew for all his hard work!

This past week, another seminal figure in Muppet history has left us. Kermit Love, the man, who may or may not have loved Kermit the frog (and certainly did not inspire his name), died at the age of 91. Alongside Don Sahlin and Faz Fazakas, he was a key pioneer in the Muppet Workshop and in shaping how Muppets look and move. For even ardent Muppet fans, his name may register only as that, an interesting handle glimpsed in the closing credits. As a child, my awareness of Kermit Love was limited to his role as Willy the hot dog man, and by the early 1980s, that was limited to a “Hey, it's that bearded guy who for some reason shows up in Sesame Street Treasury cast photos. But Kermit the human had a long and often surprising history, both within and outside the Muppets.

Before he came to Sesame Street, Love had his home on Broadway. After a childhood of puppet building and drawing, he made his stage debut in a small role as a student in the (apparently justly) forgotten 1937 musical Naught Naught '00, a musical full of characters named Spunky and P. De Quincy Devereaux (still, the show managed three revivals through 1946). He soon shifted to costume design, working on such shows as 1943's One Touch of Venus, the brainchild of humorsists Ogden Nash and S. J. Perelman, with music by Kurt “Threepenny Opera” Weill. For the latter, Love shared praise for “real genius” in the inventive costumes worn by ingenue Pauline Laurence (one featured “a front with no discernible relationship to its back.”)

Love continued in this vein, and was one of an odd assortment of craftsmen (costumers, puppetmakers, set designers, even actors) recruited to build the stop-motion figures used in Michael Myerberg's obscure 1954 animated feature Hansel and Gretel. Love worked with future Muppet designer Don Sahlin on the project, but soon returned to the stage. In the 1960s, he began working with famed choreographer George Balanchine, and created large-scale costumes and puppet figures, such as a giant for Balanchine's 1965 “Don Quixote.” Around this time, Love and Jim Henson crossed paths. Not surprisingly, he worked, at first anyway, mostly on full-bodied Muppets, working out both mechanics and aesthetics for the La Choy Dragon and the full-bodied beasties in The Great Santa Claus Switch and The Frog Prince, among others. His biggest impact was on Sesame Street, however, constructing Big Bird, a beloved character built like a tutu, Caroll Spinney, in The Wisdom of Big Bird, remembered Love as simultaneously “the most frustrating man i knew...” but also a “perfectionist and brilliant craftsman.” He went on to work on Mr. Snuffleupagus and for many years was the head of the Sesame Workshop, guiding and shaping the aesthetic of the street Muppets which was both familiarly similar and yet distinct from the Muppet Show gang. He did the same thing for many of the international shows, notably redesigning Samson and Tiffy for Sesamstrasse.

Love slowed down and eventually left Sesame Street after the 1980s (during which time he also worked on The Great Space Coaster and mentored the likes of Kevin Clash and Jim Martin), but abandoned neither puppetry nor costuming. Love was the man responisible for cuddly fabric softener spokescharacter Snuggle Bear, and in the 1990s, he launched a PBS series called Whirlygig, starring himself and various Love puppets. Through recent years, he worked with the Joffrey Ballet on their annual presentation of Balanchine's Nutcracker, creating mice and an enormous Mother Ginger puppet.

So Love leaves another void for the Muppet historian, another link to the past gone. But living to the age of 91 is quite antihistimine (not to be sneezed at), and Love left behind a very diverse legacy for future children, puppeteers, designers, and obsessive Muppet bloggers. And on a personal note, Love's life partner for an impressive fifty years was one Christopher Lyall. Lyall assisted Love on various projects, and in the Muppet realm, he chreographed Thog's charming dance with Mia Farrow in The Muppet Valentine Show. It's comforting to confirm that the grandfatherly, bearded father of Big Bird, this cheerful looking man called Love, was indeed loved himself.

Click here to help us remember Kermit Love on the ToughPigs forum.