Part Three: Mid-Season Slump
June 3-7, 2002
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
The low self esteem episode
Monday, June 3
Sharp-eyed TP readers may have noticed that I haven't done a My Week with the Muppet Show since approximately ever. Isn't this always the way -- you start out all excited and tell everybody that you're going to watch every single episode of The Muppet Show in order and write about each one, and then lurking in there at the start of Week 3 is Lena Horne, and it just gets kind of disheartening. Doesn't that happen to everybody? Help me out here.
I mean, I really wanted to watch all the episodes of The Muppet Show. It seemed like such a good idea. But I forgot that I was going to have to start with season 1, and the dirty little secret of Muppet fandom is that season 1 just isn't really very good. It has its moments, of course, when everything works and it's obvious why the show became a hit. But for every great episode, there's a Lena Horne episode.
And it's not like there's anything particularly bad about the Lena Horne episode. It's just so bland that I'm finding myself stalling with three paragraphs of introduction before I even start thinking about it. It actually occurred to me that maybe it would be kind of funny if I skipped writing about the episode altogether, and just rambled on like this for another few paragraphs to distract everybody from the fact that I don't want to write about this episode. But it's so early in the week to just fall on the ball like that. Thursday is Sandy Duncan, and I should probably save that trick till then.
The interesting thing, actually, is that Lena Horne is trying to avoid this just as much as I am. As is the custom in season 1, she doesn't show up until minute six, and even then she's studiously avoiding eye contact with Muppets.
Lena appears alone onstage, standing on what looks like an abandoned train platform. I think those are train tracks, although it's hard to say whether it's train tracks or just a road, and then there's some boxes that look like luggage, and there's a hand cart, and some trees. Yeah, I guess it's an abandoned train platform, although why Lena and her dog are standing in the middle of the train tracks is beyond me. She sits down on one of the boxes, and the dog snuggles up to her, and she stares straight ahead, and she sings a song that does not make one damn bit of sense.
I'm serious. See what you can make of this.
Like the pine tree lining a winding road
I got a name
I got a name
Like the singing bird, or the croaking toad
I got a name
I got a name
And I carry it with me, like my daddy did
I'm living the dream, and he kept his
Moving me down the highway
Rolling me down a highway
Moving ahead, so life won't pass me by
Now, what the heck is that all about? "Like the croaking toad, I got a name, and I carry it with me like my daddy did?" It's just word salad, set to vaguely inspiring music. Anyway, a bunch of Muppets pop up behind her for the chorus, and they join in for the highway bit. Lena doesn't seem to notice they're there. She just looks dead ahead for the whole verse, and then kind of looks down at the dog a little, then straight ahead again. She keeps this up for the whole song. There's actually a moment where she fakes us out -- she sort of cocks her head a bit and it looks like she's about to look at the Muppets, but then she looks back towards the audience and stands up. It's like she's under strict instructions not to make eye contact with the puppets for any reason.
And the next sketch she appears in is a Muppet News Flash bit, where she appears on a little screen and just looks dead ahead at the audience again. What the hell does Lena Horne have against the Muppets, anyway? Who asked her to be on The Muppet Show, if she's going to be all uppity about it?
Anyway, after the commercial break, she finally talks to a puppet for the first time, and now it's like she's making up for the first half, because she spends every scene in the second half sucking up to the Muppets. Kermit appears in a talk spot with Lena, and his first line is, "We're so pleased to have you with us on the show tonight. You have long been one of our favorites," which gives Lena the opportunity to say, "Oh, thank you, and I'm a big fan of you and the Muppets, Kermit." Fozzie appears, indignant that he never gets to talk to the guest stars -- so then Lena has to ask, "Hey, aren't you Fozzie Bear, the great comedian?" She keeps buttering him up for the rest of the sketch. Apparently, someone gave Lena a stern talking-to during the commercial break about being nice to the Muppets.
But that scene isn't enough to feed the great Muppet ego, no no. Next up, Gonzo tries to sing "Pop Goes the Weasel," but Animal pops his balloon, and everyone boos. Dejected, Gonzo hightails it to Lena's dressing room for a pep talk. "Sometimes it takes a long time for an artist to be appreciated," she says. "But, listen -- as long as one person appreciates you, you just gotta keep on trying! And as for me, I think you're fantastic!" She sings him a song about how amazing and extraordinary he is, despite all available evidence to the contrary. At the end of the song, she hugs him and gushes, "You're GREAT, Gonzo!"
There's more. Next, Lena appears onstage, leaning on Rowlf's piano. "Y'know, there's a children's TV show that I really enjoy," she says. "Maybe you've heard of Sesame Street? Anyway, here's one of my favorite songs from that show." Okay, Lena, we get it -- you really like the Muppets now. I think I liked it better when she was ignoring them.
At the end, Kermit thanks Lena for being the guest star. She pats his head and says, "Thank you, Kermit... it was fun." Kermit nods and says, "Oh, good." This is like the low self esteem episode; the Muppets need constant reassurance that they're doing okay.
Everything's fine, guys. Stop worrying about it so much. Next time we'll get you a guest star that actually likes hanging out with you, and maybe then you can relax a little. Jeez.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
The hatrack
Tuesday, June 4
Kermit introduces Peter Ustinov, who joins him on stage. And I really don't have a choice but just to quote the whole dang scene.
Peter: Kermit, it's a pleasure for me to be with you tonight. It's my first experience in performing with, er -- performers other than people, if you follow me.
Kermit: Oh. Yeah. Well, it takes some getting used to, I guess, but we've worked with humans before. So just relax, take it easy, and don't sit on any of your fellow performers.
Peter: Well, I'll try not to, but I was going to sit down on my dressing room chair, you know, and it walked away.
Kermit: Oh, well, that was a Muppet. See, that chair is married to the show's writer.
Peter: Who's the writer?
Kermit: The hatrack.
Peter: This show was written by a hatrack? Oh. Well. That's extraordinary.
Kermit: Well, you see, anything can be a Muppet. In fact, in this next sketch, you are going to be a Muppet.
So then I'm sitting there, watching today's episode, and I just know a hundred percent for sure that the next sketch is going to be funny. It's a really neat moment, to watch an intro like that, and just be absolutely certain that the next thing I watch is going to make me laugh.
And this is the weird, split-personality thing about the first season. They recorded that dull, bland Lena Horne episode, and then the very next week, they went into the studio and recorded this lovely bit of nonsense about the hatrack. It's uncanny. It seems like they're just jumping from one show to the next at this point, and either the show clicks this week or it doesn't -- and if it doesn't, then better luck next week.
So the way they turn Peter Ustinov into a Muppet is by putting him in a Muppet Labs sketch where they attach some wires to him and make him into the Muppet Labs Robot Politician. Bunsen fiddles with some dials, and Peter does his impression of a British prime minister, an American president, and a Russian premier. And yeah, it makes me laugh.
In fact, "anything can be a Muppet" is pretty much the extreme-sports challenge of the whole episode. The opening number is "An Evening at the Pops," with a balloon-head conductor performing a classical piece by jabbing his baton into the balloons in his orchestra. It ends, of course, with the conductor's head exploding. Then they do a great number where a woman sings "You Do Something To Me" while a sinister magician casts spells on her, turning her into a tiger, a bird and a singing potted plant. There's also a gag on the fact that Kermit appears on television without any pants. You just can't see this kind of stuff on any other show.
At the end of the show, there's a panel discussion sketch, where Peter plays a German psychiatrist, throwing his hands around and spitting, rolling his RRRRRR's and generally going on like the old-time comedy pro that he is. He tells Kermit that psychiatry has its own jarrrgon -- terms like Complex! Sublimation! Rrrregrression! Gestalt! "Gezundheit!" shouts the panel. Then Peter demonstrates how primal scream therapy can get rid of all your problems -- by shrieking at the rest of the panel until they all hide under the table.
And then, as if that's not enough, Kermit goes out on stage and sings "Bein' Green," which is such an obvious thing to do that it's amazing they waited twelve episodes to do it. He's walking through a lush forest set while he sings, and he ends up sitting quietly by a lake, surrounded by foliage.
It's beautiful, and they make it look so easy. Y'know, these guys ought to make a TV show; I bet they'd be great at it.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Saved by the duck
Wednesday, June 5
Well, The Muppet Show pulls another bait and switch on me today, but luckily, I don't have to take it. Following yesterday's excellent episode with Peter Ustinov, today they head back down the drain with Bruce Forsyth.
There's not a lot I can say about Bruce Forsyth except that if this is the kind of celebrity that England was producing in 1976, then it's no wonder the United States spent the whole year celebrating its independence.
But I don't want to talk about Bruce Forsyth today, and you can't make me. This was gonna be a tough one -- another season-one runaround with a bad guest star and a couple of running gags. I could've spent this whole episode cowering in my chair, knocking back double whiskeys and trying to figure out how I was gonna spin a whole My Week piece out of this episode without just repeating the same tired old season-one critique.
But I do have something to write about. I can write about the Duck.
Muppet fans have uncovered a lot of weird little bits of trivia over the years. We like peeking into the corners and finding out arcane little facts, like the names of all the Frackles, or who performed the Swedish Chef's hands. But so far, no Muppet fan has ever really figured out what was up with Cynthia Adler.
Cynthia Adler appeared in two episodes of The Muppet Show and then, as far as I know, never worked with the Muppets ever again. She appeared in the discussion panel sketch in the Peter Ustinov episode, performing Cynthia Birdsley, a one-time character who mostly distinguished herself by not sounding at all like any of the other Muppet performers. She has a kind of Joy Behar, tough-talking New-York-dame rasp. She's fun, and she sounds more like a real woman than anyone else on The Muppet Show.
Then, in the Bruce Forsyth episode, she plays the Duck.
The Duck appears backstage right after the first number, and she approaches Kermit with a kind of whiny persistence. "Oh, Kermit... I finally got the punchline down for the act tonight, wanna hear it?" Kermit says okay. "Good," says the Duck, and she takes a deep breath. "QUAAAAACK!"
Kermit is nonplussed. "Fine, fine," he says, "but, uh, keep working on it, okay?" The Duck walks away, shaking her head: "Oh, sure, thanks a lot. Put me down, like everybody else. Yeah, that's fine... put me down..."
Kermit does a take to the camera. "Bitter duck."
I love the Duck. The Duck is my new favorite character.
She appears again halfway through the show, in the talk spot with the guest star. (Don't talk about the guest star, Martha!)
Then she makes her final triumphant appearance as the patient in the Vet's Hospital sketch, where Dr. Bob persists in calling her a chicken. "I'm not a chicken, I'm a duck!" she shrieks. They pay no attention and say they're going to treat the chicken. "DUCK!" yells the Duck, and they duck. They do this about six times. Finally, Dr. Bob says to the Duck, "What kind of doctor do you think I am?" The Duck says, "QUACK!" and that's pretty much the end of Cynthia Adler's career with the Muppets.
After that, according to her Internet Movie Database entry, Cynthia Adler did some voices for the Rankin-Bass special Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, and for an animated Coneheads TV special. She did a couple of seriously minor movies, and her most recent entry is for playing Louella Hopper in a Carmen Miranda biopic called Bananas Is My Business. Who was Cynthia Adler, and why did she cross paths with the Muppets for two weeks? And once they had her, why did they let her go?
It's a minor Muppet mystery that may never be solved. But for Cynthia Birdsley and the Duck, Ms. Adler, thank you. You saved me from writing about Bruce Forsyth today, and for that, I am eternally in your debt.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
An end to cynicism
Thursday, June 6
It's all about the guest stars, really. I think that's why being stuck in the middle of season one has been so wearying this week. As the story goes, nobody believed that The Muppet Show would be a success, so all the guest stars in the first season were doing personal favors for Jim Henson, or killing time till the bars opened, or working off their community service hours, or whatever. And the Muppets are so appreciative that they even have guest stars, that there starts to be this kind of numbing obsequiousness in each episode. We're so honored to have Lena Horne here, we're such big fans. Peter Ustinov is so great, he's such a comic genius. Bruce Forsyth is so almost bearable.
All this flattery kind of takes the edge off things. In later seasons, they'll get a lot of comedy out of humiliating Jaye P. Morgan, or exasperating Carol Burnett -- but for now, the guest stars can only be seen in the most positive light possible.
So when Fozzie says that Sandy Duncan is "a star who does it all -- she sings, she dances, she acts, and she makes you feel good all over," I'm like, yeah right. Sandy Duncan, as far as I can recall, was a little pixie who wore tights and ate Wheat Thins. She has never made me feel good all over in my entire life, and I doubt she's gonna start today.
Then Sandy's first number is "A Nice Girl Like Me," in which she plays a despondent drunk in a seedy bar, downing whiskey and flirting with a monster biker gang.
No, really, it is. And not only is it the second drunken bar fight scene this season, it's also the most energetic and amazing production number they've done so far. Sandy hiccups and drinks her way through her first verse, then gets up to dance with the biker gang. She's instantly terrific, growling and shaking her hips, obviously thrilled at the opportunity to tweak her nicey-nice Peter Pan image. She gets picked up and literally thrown about by the huge monsters, and she still manages to sing, dance, act and drink all at the same time. The monsters tear her skirt off -- it says "YOW!" in my notes here -- and, yeah, she's wearing tights, that part was true, but the girl is working it. At one point she shakes her entire body and screams the lyric, then snaps instantly into a sarcastic demure pose, then goes into a Broadway kick step, then throws her leg onto one of the monster's shoulders, does a back flip, and gets turned upside down and shaken by another monster for about five seconds, and she's still singing the whole time.
The number ends with Sandy downing a row of eight drinks, sashaying to the middle of the stage, and turning in a circle, breathing at the crowd of monsters -- who all fall down senseless as she turns to acknowledge the well-deserved cheers from the audience.
Now THAT, my friends -- THAT is a guest star. I actually feel good all over.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Passing the pig
Friday, June 7
We're past the halfway point in the first season, and the question at this point seems to be, what to do with Miss Piggy?
I mean, she's clearly a major character by this point. She appears in half the scenes in the Candice Bergen episode, including Vet's Hospital, the talk panel sketch -- and, most prominently, her own solo opening number, singing "What Now, My Love." She even interrupts Kermit's opening intro to demand that she be given that opening spot. Her comic aggressiveness is well established; she karate chops both Fozzie and Mildred in this episode, and intimidates the frog. She's so important that they even build a pair of legs for her, so she can lie on a divan for her production number.
But they can't decide who performs her. It's weird. Frank Oz does the opening and sings the number. But then Richard Hunt plays Piggy in the talk panel sketch, while Oz performs Sam. Oz takes Piggy again for the Vet's Hospital sketch, and then Hunt performs Piggy for Fozzie's karate chop backstage. They keep passing the pig back and forth the whole episode.
It's partly because Oz is performing other characters in the scenes where Hunt performs Piggy, but that's not the whole story. In the Vet's Hospital bit, Jim Henson is performing Rowlf as Dr. Bob, but then Kermit pops up at the end of the sketch -- and Kermit's dialogue is looped and lip-sync'ed, so that Henson can perform both Kermit and Rowlf in the same scene. They do it for Kermit and Rowlf, but not for Piggy, even though she's clearly a featured player in the episode.
At this point in the show, the only other characters who don't have a consistent performer are the really minor ones, like Droop. ("Who?" you say. My point exactly.) And even with the minor characters, they try not to switch voices in the middle of an episode.
The only explanation I can think of for the Pig switch -- and this is pure speculation -- is that they were resisting giving Oz another major character. From the start of the series, the Kermit-Fozzie relationship was front and center. They avoided giving Henson another major character, so he could focus on performing Kermit -- and Rowlf, in particular, ended up being used much less than he otherwise might have. It looks like, at this halfway point in the first season, they're realizing that Miss Piggy is developing into a major character, but they're not sure whether Oz should have two main characters.
All the other Muppeteers end up with one "signature" character on The Muppet Show -- Henson has Kermit, Hunt has Scooter, Dave Goelz has Gonzo, and Jerry Nelson has Floyd. At the start of the series, Oz has Fozzie... but it's slowly becoming more apparent that Piggy is pushing her way to the spotlight, and that she's Oz's character, not Hunt's.
Fifteen episodes in, they're still fighting it, but there's no hope for the bear. Miss Piggy is the rough beast, her hour coming at last, slouching towards center stage to be born. Or something like that.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
My Week with The Muppet Show Contents