The Muppet Show
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 🎵 It's time to play the music!
It's time to light the lights! It's to meet the Muppets on the Muppet show tonight! 🎵 | ||||||||||||||||||
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The Muppet Show is an American-British family-oriented comedy-variety television series that was produced by puppeteer Jim Henson and features The Muppets. After two pilot episodes produced in 1974 and 1975 failed to get the attention of network executives in the United States, Lew Grade approached Henson to produce the program in the United Kingdom for ATV.
The show lasted for five seasons consisting of 120 episodes which were first broadcast in Britain between 5 September 1976 and 15 March 1981 on ATV and was shown by the other ITV franchises in the United Kingdom. The programs were recorded at Elstree Studios, England. Henson continued to film in the studios even after The Muppet Show.
Plot
Kermit the Frog and the Muppets put on a weekly musical/comedy revue at The Muppet Theater. Unfortunately for them, things never quite go according to plan, for the Muppets or their weekly guest stars.
Why We Want to Meet The Muppets
- Clever humor.
- Lovable characters including the perennially stressed Kermit the Frog, the hapless comedian Fozzie Bear, the diva superstar Miss Piggy, the lunatic stuntman artiste Gonzo, the wild drummer Animal, the unintelligible Swedish Chef, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker of Muppet Labs, the old curmudgeons Statler and Waldorf and many others.
- Great musical numbers such as Happy Feet, Mahna Mahna and Rainbow Connection.
- Wonderful celebrity guest stars.
- The acting is great as well.
- It spawned great spin-offs like Muppet Babies (1984).
Bad Qualities
- The references to 70s pop culture didn't age well.
- It's not good at making fun of national cultures, like Swedish Chef, while funny at times, not acting like a Swede, speaking gibberish and seldom referring to Swedish culture (but he is better as a clumsy chef).
Trivia
- All the episodes (including the 4th and 5th season) were added to streaming services, such as Disney+ on February 19 (except some skits and some episodes were missing, especially Spike Milligan's episode, which that episode wasn't available in Europe for unknown reasons, despite being aired as re-runs and being included on Season 3 DVD, see BQ #2.) Brooke Shields' episode on Season 5 also isn't available on Disney+ because of music rights issues. The Chris Langham episode is also not available on Disney+, likely due to the recent controversy involving Langham.
- Richard Pryor was to make a special guest appearance in Season 5, but instead he backed out at the last minute, causing him to be replaced with Chris Langham.