Our final Little Muppet Monsters review was written by WaggToons, who also suggested the idea for this article series! With bonus art by WaggToons, Will Carroll, and Jon B.
Welcome to this final part of ToughPigs’ look into the extremely short lived Muppet show, Little Muppet Monsters!
Now some of you might be wondering, “Wait a tick, this show only had three episodes, and those were already reviewed! What else is there?” To that I say, “Who the heck are you and how did you get in my house!?” After that I would correct you and say that there are several more Little Muppet Monster episodes filmed, they were just never completed.
Despite producing a few unaired puppet segments, the cartoons couldn’t get completed on time (I don’t know if you know this, but animation takes a really long time). Rather than re-run the finished episodes after just three weeks, it was decided just to air a second episode of Muppet Babies in its place. Not only did this not cause the ratings to drop, but they improved. Thus, both CBS and Jim Henson agreed that there was no reason to keep the troubled production going when they could just double down on Muppet Babies, leaving the rest of the already filmed episodes to remain unfinished and unreleased.
By some miracle, three of the unfinished LMM episodes ended up online, however it’s only the puppet stuff. Anytime it cuts to a cartoon segment it cuts to a black screen We don’t get storyboards or animatics or Frank Welker reading script pages – just the void. For example, the puppet version of Kermit introduces “Kermit Private Eye”, but we see no footage of his animated counterpart. This unfortunately also effects “Fozzie’s Comedy Corner,” due to it being a segment that combines puppetry and animation, so we don’t get to see any of those. My guess is that these unseen skits would’ve involved Fozzie attempting to tell a joke about a chicken and the toon chicken being annoyed, but what are the odds of that??
Still, just having the live-action wraparounds is a fantastic find. I remember first spotting these on YouTube and I became overjoyed at seeing this material I thought would never surface. Even if I thought the three finished episodes of LMM were underwhelming, I’m always up for watching some vintage Muppet material. Surprising to me, I actually enjoyed these more than I did the finished episodes. How is that you may ask? Well, I’ll get to that in a bit.
GONZO’S TALENT HUNT
This episode focuses on hosting a special showcase of weird acts, with Gonzo being the main headliner, resulting in this being the most Gonzo heavy episode of the series. After seeing the first weird act, a Gargoyle performing ballet, Tug is inspired to bring in something to impress Gonzo, but he doesn’t have much luck impressing the judge board of chickens. His first attempt is to bring the ballroom dancing duo of Phil and Wilhemina, unfortunately only Wilhemina shows up, as apparently Phil decided to split and join the dancing gargoyle’s act. Wilhemina attempts to do the dance solo, but ends up falling flat on her face (literally). Turns out it’s hard to do a one-person dip.
Tug’s second discovered act doesn’t do much better, a seven-foot-tall tap dancing carrot (not to be confused with the seven-foot-tall talking carrot from the Gilda Radner episode of The Muppet Show), who seems to be a good dancer, but is so massive that his dance shakes the entire basement. However Wilhemina seems to enjoy his act.
Later Tug gets an idea, combine peanut butter and chocolate have Wilhemina and the dancing Carrot dance together! This ends up working super well, to the point where even Gonzo refers to it as “the weirdest thing he’s ever seen!” (And considering this is Gonzo saying this, it’s not something to take lightly.) We end the episode with a sweet ballad as Whilhemina and the Carrot become a brand new dancing team (and possible item? Well, we’ve seen weirder pairings in this franchise).
Out of all the episodes in the show, this feels the most like a classic episode of The Muppet Show (the ballet dancing Gargoyle definitely feels like it could have been an opening skit). A collection of fun and bizarre songs and skits with little bits of behind the scenes story tying it all together. You don’t miss the cartoons at all (I’ll go more into detail about this later).
FOO-FOO-PHOOEY
This one is the most unfinished out of all the unfinished episodes. While most of the incomplete footage for the other two episodes ends up running at around 11 minutes, this one is only 8 and a half. It is also lacking the Kermit introduction and closings to “Kermit Private Eye”, and there’s no “Weirder Than Me” segment to be seen. We can guess that this episode was intended to be more animation heavy.
In this episode, the monster kids attempt to put on a magic show (Wait, didn’t they already do a magic show episode? I didn’t think we’d be repeating ideas that quickly), only for Scooter to come in asking the kids to watch over Miss Piggy’s dog Foo-Foo.
Unfortunately for the monster kid trio, Foo-Foo drops the sweet cuddly act as soon as Scooter exits the basement, causing havoc on their magic tricks. Tug gets so annoyed with the dog that he ends up sticking her in a tuba. Had a member of the penguin band not blown her out, she might still be in there 40 years later. Tug committed a smidge of animal abuse, but since this is a Saturday Morning show everyone mostly shrugs it off.
It’s only when Tug ends up tripping on Foo-Foo’s basket getting covered in paint that she begins warming up to him, because while Foo-Foo might be Miss Piggy’s pet, no dog can resist the allure of getting dirty.
Miss Piggy is constantly referenced throughout the episode, “Miss Piggy needs someone to watch over her dog,” “Miss Piggy is gonna kill us!”, “Piggy’s coming very soon now!”, however Piggy is no where to be seen in this episode (I’m guessing Frank Oz was busy directing a plant that day). If this episode ended up making it to air, I can only imagine how frustrating it would have been for kids to be constantly teased a Miss Piggy appearance only for her never to show up.
GUNKO
As we start this episode, Tug Monster proudly announces that Little Muppet Monsters now has a sponsor (and one that isn’t a number or letter of the alphabet, a first for a Muppet). A product known as Gunko. The show proceeds to perform a new commercial for GUNKO, complete with an incredibly catchy song, “The World is Waking Up to Gunko”, which may be the highlight of the entire series. Unfortunately, while said commercial was entertaining, it leaves our Muppet gang with one question; “What does Gunko do?” A question that Tug has no answer for.
Tug attempts to find an answer to no success. It doesn’t work as an ice cream topping (if anything it’d probably be poisonous if ingested) and it’s certainly not furniture polish (burning a hole straight through one of the chairs). He gets so caught up in trying to figure out what Gunko does that he ends up using it all.
This greatly upsets the Penguin Band, who state it was their walrus repellent, and thus order a new case from Bob’s All-Night Supermarket sending the bill to Tug (harsh, but fair, he did use it without asking). Unfortunately even this answer doesn’t appear to be right, as the delivery man from Bob’s ends up being a walrus himself (“Well who do you expect to deliver from the south pole?”), who insists Gunko is used for shining instruments. He even gets to join in the band on trumpet. It seems like this might be the answer, but earlier on Kermit states that Gunko is “Flipper Powder”, insisting he’s used it before, so the mystery remains.
Maybe the real use of Gunko is the friends we made along the way, but probably not.
In Conclusion
And that brings me to a revelation I had after I watched these unfinished episodes for the first time. When I first watched them I didn’t find them great, but I still enjoyed watching these more than the finished episodes that got aired. Why was that? Then I figured it out. These episodes are all Muppets, no cartoons. Now I’m sure the animation crew did the best they could (especially given the small amount of time they had to complete these), but TV animation was still in a rut back in the 80s, with the quality leaving something to be desired until Disney and Warner Bros entered the game. When you just have some cheaply produced cartoons, it’s okay. When you have cheaply produced cartoons along side high-quality Muppet material, it’s gonna look poor in comparison.
Not to mention while Muppet Babies was put together in a quick amount of time, it was only one show, LMM was like 8 different shows rolled into one. It was a clear example of trying to do too much in too little time, which is why the program ended up flopping. If they had just focused on the live-action bits, or heck, maybe the live-action bits and one or two recurring cartoons it would have turned out better.
Little Muppet Monsters is often referred to by the Muppet Fan Community as one of Jim Henson’s biggest flops. So much that most people outside of the fan community don’t even know said show even existed. Is there any chance for the show to be re-released? Sure, having only three episodes doesn’t sound that appealing, but it’s bound to be easier to put those on Disney+ than the original Muppet Babies series. Maybe they could even bring Matt Danner and his crew from the 2018 Muppet Babies reboot to complete the cartoons for the unfinished episodes. There’s a lot of potential here for something special. Imagine the merchandise! Disney could be selling gallons of Gunko at the Disney Stores nationwide! The whole dang world could be waking up to GUNKO!
But even with all the possibilities, I can’t help but think back to Jim Henson. Jim wasn’t the kind of guy to dwell on the past, or past failures. Jim was more focused on the present and what was coming in the future. When you’re a creative person, you experiment a lot with things, and no matter how successful you are, not every experiment is going to succeed. LMM flopped, Jim decided to take the L and move on to the next thing.
It’s tempting and even sort of fun to think of how we can fix a failed experiment like Little Muppet Monsters, but in this case, we should take a lesson from Jim. Learn from our mistakes, dust ourselves off, and see what new projects the future has in store for us.
(Tribute art by Will Carroll, Jon B, and WaggToon. Be sure to click to enlarge!)
(For the sake of brevity I’m going to count these three episodes as one big episode for these end-of-article categories.)
Most Valuable Muppet: Honestly, I’m gonna have to give it to Gonzo here. He makes one heck of an MC during the “Talent Hunt” episode, even if he doesn’t show up that often. He just is full of energy like he can’t wait to show you what’s coming up next. Makes me wish we got to see Gonzo in a hosting role more often.
Best Segment: Despite only appearing in “Gunko”, Gonzo’s “Weirder Than Me” wins by default, as due to it consisting of Gonzo commenting on old public domain footage it’s the only segment in these unfinished episodes to actually see completion. True it’s nothing spectacular, but anytime spent with a Dave Goelz performance is time well spent. Maybe this could be a new show, have Dave Goelz comment over Public Domain movies in-character as Gonzo, sort of a Muppet take on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Quick, get me in contact with Disney+!
Weakest Segment: Tie with all the rest of them here! Pretty much every one cuts straight to a black screen, or in the case of “Pigs in Space”, holds on Boo awkwardly staring at his notebook and then cutting to a black screen. The closest we get to a extra segment is in “Gonzo’s Talent Hunt” where we see the beginning of that episode’s Comedy Corner, Fozzie makes one of his trademark entrances twirling a rubber chicken and letting a balloon loose. That bear sure knows how to make an entrance (“Now if only he can make his exit! Doh-Hohohohoho!”).
Most Prophetic Cultural Moment: In “Gunko” Tug basically allowed his show to be sponsored by a product he knows absolutely nothing about! In other words Little Muppet Monsters predicted modern day influencer sponsorships.
Dumbest Joke That I Laughed at Anyway: The various advertising phrases spouted out during “The World is Waking Up To Gunko!”
“Void where prohibited! No artificial sweeteners! Licensed drivers only!”
It all makes absolutely no sense. I love it!
First Appearance of: The dancing Gargoyle and the seven-foot-tall tap dancing carrot! Both of whom would never be seen again.
Most Astonishing Cameo: In “Gonzo’s Talent Hunt”, Wilhemina is actually the vocalist from the Muppet Show band “Geri and the Atritics”. Some people might claimed they just reused the same puppet for cost saving purposes, but she is also preformed by Kathryn Mullen so I like to think these are the same character. If true, then she’s the only member of “Geri and the Atritics” to actually get a name outside of Geri.
One More Thing…: Thanks to Muppet Wiki We actually have a bit of behind the scenes info about “Gonzo’s Talent Hunt.” According to a memo from Micheal Frifth, Kermit was going to be more heavily involved, as Gonzo’s acts would have to go through him before going to air, but this was taken out to make the episode more simple (probably the correct call here).
Okay, One More Thing…: Surprisingly, despite the “Gunko” episode not being officially released, it ended up featuring the most famous scene from the series, that being of Kermit quickly typing on his typewriter. The GIF (originally created by Muppet Wiki admin Scott Hanson) has become commonly used online and is now arguably the most popular Kermit meme, second only to him drinking tea.
Click here to debate about what Gunko does on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by WaggToons
