We Muppet fans have a reputation for being… somewhat impatient. I mean, it wasn’t long ago that we were pulling our hair out waiting to see when a 30-second video would be released! So naturally, I wasn’t content to just wait and see what the upcoming Hollywood Bowl show would look like. With the announcement that a number of classic bits from The Muppet Show would be returning for these performances, I thought I’d look into the Muppets’ past to see what a live stage performance of The Muppet Show looks like. And thanks to the generosity of YouTube uploaders, I was able to travel back in time* to December 9th, 2001 to The Palace in Los Angeles for The Muppet Show Live.
I had seen portions of the show before, but never in its entirety, so watching this was kind of a new experience for me. And I have to tell you, having seen it, this is a Muppet fan’s dream come true. If the Hollywood Bowl shows are anything like this, this weekend will be one fans will be talking about for a very long time. This is a well-crafted blend of classic and new material, a celebration of the Muppets and the people who brought them to life. To borrow a phrase from the kids these days, I squeed during the whole show.
To its benefit, it isn’t a carbon copy of the show as we know it. Backstage antics may be fun on television, but they’re not worth much when you’re sitting in the audience, so mercifully, they’re kept to a minimum. We get a cute bit between Kermit and Rowlf as they get ready to start the show, and later, Pepe getting over his stage fright thanks to Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, but that’s it. The action is onstage and in full view. Breaks for weary puppeteers to rest their hands are provided with archival footage of past Muppet show sketches (and they managed to pick some classics, including Muppet Labs’ banana sharpener, The Swedish Chef being raided by the lobster banditos, and the Swinetrek dealing with a weighty matter, but that’s what you get when the show is being written by legendary writers and Muppet fans Craig Shemin and Jim Lewis).
There’s also some new and rarely seen material, such as the camera tests for The Muppet Movie (well, they were rarely seen at the time), and a great look back on The Muppet Show’s guest stars set to a new spin on “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” And comedian Joe Pasquale does a standup routine that has a distinctly Muppet-eque vibe to it, which was a nice fit. But not surprisingly, the best break of all was Brian Henson’s tribute to his father, Jim Henson, and the people who worked on The Muppet Show, with Steve Whitmire, Dave Goelz, and Jerry Nelson sharing stories on working with Jim and the Muppets. You might think that pausing the show to bring out the performers might be jarring, but for Muppet fans, nothing could be more appropriate. Hearing their stories is one of the emotional highlights of the show.
But as nice as the interludes are, there’s still some incredible material to enjoy. Naturally, some of the classics are revisited, but with a twist. In “Mahna Mahna” (the song), Mahna Mahna (the Muppet) exits the theater as usual, but rather than just see him run off, we get to see his journey around Los Angeles, fittingly stopping for a bite at In-N-Out Burger** (and having been to California, I can certainly understand why!) before placing his concluding phone call. After 25 years, the Newsman seems to sense chaos heading his way, though that doesn’t prevent it from happening (though the timing is a bit off).
And we haven’t even gotten to the guest stars yet! Jon Voight feels wonderfully out of place in a chicken costume during a Gonzo bit, not unlike Harvey Korman decades earlier. Brooke Shields fills in for the conspicuously absent Miss Piggy with a decent impression. Perhaps even too good. She gets real flirty real fast, to the point where I’m surprised Piggy didn’t walk out onstage to give her a good talking to. And as a fitting conclusion to the evening’s proceedings, Paul Williams performs with the Muppets (including Elmo! What a time that was!) for the last fifteen-ish minutes of the show, presenting a compilation of some of his prolific body of work, mostly from The Muppet Movie, but also “Bless Us All” from The Muppet Christmas Carol and “When the River Meets the Sea” from Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. And as has become tradition with most live shows of this nature, everybody comes on for the finale, the unofficial (or maybe semiofficial) Muppet anthem, “The Rainbow Connection.” You’d think that eventually I’d get tired of this always being the finale for the live shows, but I haven’t yet. The message of hope for all the dreamers of the world perfectly represents Jim Henson’s creative vision, and is a wonderful way to connect the Muppets’ past with their present, sending the audience home on a high note.
Perhaps what’s most important about this show is that it’s proof positive that the Muppets can work in the context of live theater. Sure, the show has its occasional hiccups, but the performers get around them, and the fans appreciate their quick-witted improvisational skills, and that’s part of the excitement. (Well, with one exception: as the performers take their bows following the finale, Whitmire steps out from behind the piano to join his cast-mates with a new Kermit puppet, leaving the one on the piano looking like a desiccated husk. Not necessarily his fault, but it certainly looks disturbingly awkward. But hey, that’s theater for you.) Still, not having a camera framing the scenes doesn’t hurt them in any way; rather, it makes the show more immersive, as fans take the place of the Muppet Theater audience. The show could’ve stuck to the “greatest hits,” but presenting them in a fresh way and adding in new material makes it somewhat both timely and timeless. (The only real dated joke is a reference to The Jim Henson Company being sold to EM.TV. Remember when we thought that was going to stick?) All in all, this is fantastic blueprint for future live shows to be inspired by. You can certainly see its footprint in the Carnegie Hall and Montreal shows, and the producers of the Hollywood Bowl show would be smart to take a few cues from this once-in-a-lifetime production.
*This phrasing is strictly metaphorical. Google, owner of YouTube, has not developed time travel capabilities at this juncture in history. Upon development of sustainable time travel capabilities, please visit Wednesday, September 6th, 2017 and remove this disclaimer before publishing.
**I hope he got his burger Animal-style, but only because I’ve never seen them make a burger Floyd-style.
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by Matthew Soberman – Matthew@ToughPigs.com
