It’s time to play the music – again! The genius of The Muppet Show
The arrival today on Disney+ of all five seasons of The Muppet Show would always have been a source of good cheer, but in early 2021 it looks something like divine providence. Over the five years it ran, from 1976 to 1981, this showcase for Jim Henson’s most famous creations tickled us pink with its daft sketches, exuberant songs and exhausting list of definitively A-list stars (see below). From Julie Andrews to Sylvester Stallone, anyone who was anyone seemed willing to turn up on set and goof around with what were, after all, weirdly-faced felt puppets about half their size.
They knew what we still know now – that this is arguably the greatest family show of all time. It is very hard to do a “family” show well, to please every generation sitting around a TV set (remember those?) and give them something they can “get”. The Muppets, both bouncily innocent and yet so clearly knowing, are the perfect example of how to do it. They actually first appeared on our screens in the 1950s, on one of Henson’s first shows, Sam and Friends. Clips online show a young Kermit, in black-and-white on screen but still very green, feeling his way into the naïf persona we see today.
Their next big outing would be Sesame Street, but Henson’s arm had to be twisted to get them to join that educational programme; even then, he didn’t want his Muppets merely to be “children’s entertainment”. He always wanted them to speak to adults, which explains why they once guested on the much edgier Saturday Night Live, where John Belushi introduced them as the “mucking fuppets”. It also explains why one of the pilots for the eventual Muppet Show, aired in 1975, was called “The Muppets: Sex and Violence”. It was a tongue-in-cheek send-up of those themes, but still.
All of which, in turn, maybe hints at why American networks originally bailed on producing a first series. It is a source of British pride that it fell to Sir Lew Grade to make it with Associated Television: the first Muppet Shows were made in Elstree. And the formula was there from the off. Henson wasn’t trying to be radical: The Muppet Show, to be clear, is essentially a massive vaudevillian medley, a sort of Royal Variety Performance that you can actually bear to watch. We see them sing, act and high-kick like more normal human hoofers had been doing for much of the century already. Mind you, the show was also clever in that it removed the proscenium arch that traditionally went with puppetry.
Of course, the Muppets, like so many puppets and animations, work because they are both relatable to us and yet wildly (and reassuringly) far away. For me, the appeal is primarily in the face: a Muppet physique tends to depend on bulging eyes and a wide hanging mouth. It gives them an air of harmless gormlessness, until one of them says something surprisingly sharp. And then the eyes have nuances: the low-hanging, slightly forlorn peepers of Kermit, or the wide, expectant ones of Miss Piggy, deep pools of ever-spiralling delusion.
Oh, Piggy. Can you imagine life without her? She was one of several who only made her debut in The Muppet Show, which surely vouches for its value on its own. Her vanity, her histrionics, her snobbery make her a perfect comic creation, the awfulness offset by the fact that she is also just a pig in a (flicked) wig. Take the sketch where she, in scrubs, tries to tend to an ailing Kermit. “I may be a nurse, but I’m a woman first,” she cries. “Wrong,” the doctor snaps back, “you’re a pig first, nurse second. I don’t think ‘woman’ even makes the Top 10.” Piggy is undeterred: “Anything that happens to him, you will have me to answer to!” “Good,” replies the doctor drily, “I was wondering who was going to pay his bill.” Touché.
You couldn’t call the Muppets wildly political, but they have always been interested in the contemporary. There was a kerfuffle recently when the lobby group One Million Moms announced a boycott of a revival of the franchise (there have been a fair few reboots of varying quality, and films including the tremendous Muppet Christmas Carol), calling it “perverted” and “sexually charged”. This seems to allude to things such as Miss Piggy going on Tinder and asking prospective dates to “put this pig in a blanket”. The Moms said the show had lost its innocence, but that’s quite a stretch: it always had risqué moments, such as when a scantily clad Raquel Welch shimmied around with an oversized spider. In fact, it’s a perfect example of a joke that works on several levels, and it’s much sweeter than a whole raft of kids’ movies, from Bambi to Labyrinth.
Also, if the Muppets are knowing, they are never mean or cynical. Compare with the family fare of today: did The X Factor have any of the same innocence? Strictly may not have the soul-stripping cynicism, but then does it have any bite? You could turn to Ant and Dec, but have they ever managed anything that rivals the pathos of Gonzo? Just picture him, forever failing as he tries to execute another of his over-ambitious stunts. Perhaps that’s another joke that only gains pathos and pertinence with age.
The formula of The Muppet Show is simple: get some characters in a room, dress them up garishly, make them sing songs, and chuck in a few good jokes, some smart and some silly. It’s the party we always want to go to, and right now, we are nowhere near it.
The A-list superstars who met their Muppet match
John Cleese
Cleese’s turn, in an episode he co-wrote, is marred by miscommunication. When he isn’t offering poor Gonzo a nose-job (“give you a nice little Roman number”), he is bemoaning his working conditions: his contract has a “no-pigs clause” (said contract is duly eaten up). The ultimate indignity comes when he is forced to do a finale wielding maracas. He clearly hadn’t read the terms and conditions.
Rudolf Nureyev
When the ballet superstar first turns up in a biker jacket, he is shooed away: “Get a haircut!” After that, though, the Muppets try to go as highbrow as him, with varying results. The piece de resistance is a steamy number in a sauna with a besotted Miss Piggy, where they duet a very on-the-nose Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Nureyev, terrified, smashes his way through the sauna wall. As one commenter on YouTube puts it: “Miss Piggy has no gaydar.”
Elton John
Piggy is on surer ground in her duet with John, clad in a pink, rhinestoned catsuit as they sing Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. Perhaps she knew she had met her match. Elsewhere John gives a rousing version of Crocodile Rock, this time in a jewel-encrusted shower cap and multicoloured feather cape.
Julie Andrews
Ever the professional, Dame Julie doesn’t bat an eyelid as she sings The Lonely Goatherd with a selection of Muppets, including Kermit and a bunch of tuneless chickens. A live cow is the episode’s other star, but Andrews just about manages not to be upstaged.
Liza Minnelli
Minnelli is at the centre of a murder mystery where Statler and Waldorf are unmasked as the killers. She finishes things off with a flawless version of Copacabana, and as she is flung about by a life-size purple Muppet, she has never looked more at home.
The Muppet Show is available on Disney+ from today
