Saturday Night Live is 50 this year! If you’ve ever done a deep dive on the history of the Muppets, you’ve learned the fun fact that a group of strange, grungy Muppet characters were featured on the first season of the show. They were the residents of the Land of Gortch*, and their antics were much more adult than those of their cousins over on Sesame Street.
(*For years, Muppet fans spelled this word “Gorch” because that’s how it appeared in the book Jim Henson: The Works. More recently, it’s come to light that the original scripts spelled it “Gortch.” The “Gortch” spelling also appears once onscreen. So there you have it.)
The saga of the Gortch Muppets is always told the same way: Most of the SNL writers and cast members hated the Muppets for taking up time on the show. The Muppet people weren’t allowed to write their own sketches, and the SNL people resented the burden of having to write them. Thus, it was good for everyone involved when Jim Henson got the green light for The Muppet Show, which went on the air the following TV season, and the Gortch Muppets disappeared.
To mark the occasion of SNL’s big anniversary, I watched every episode of the first season on Peacock. I watched closely to track the early evolution of the show, as well as how effectively or ineffectively the Muppets fit in.
I’m hoping to answer a few questions, including: Are the Gortch sketches really that bad? Did SNL have the same kind of first-season growing pains that The Muppet Show did? And are there signs that any of the SNL folks actually liked the Muppets?
Before I jump in, a little bit of timeline context:
- October 11, 1975: The series premiere of NBC’s Saturday Night (not yet called Saturday Night Live!) aired, and included the first “Land of Gortch” sketch.
- January 19, 1976: The first produced episode of The Muppet Show (Connie Stevens) began production.
- May 8, 1976: The Gortch Muppets’ last appearance in season one of SNL aired.
- September 18, 1976: The Gortch Muppets made one final appearance on SNL in the second season.
- September 20, 1976: The first episode of The Muppet Show to air in New York City (Rita Moreno) was broadcast.
Thanks for those dates, Muppet Wiki! They’re startlingly close together! Okay, come with me now, from the bubbling tar pits to the sulfurous wasteland, from the rotting forest to the stagnant mud flats…
Episode #1 – Host George Carlin, Musical Guests Billy Preston and Janis Ian
The Show: It’s not quite there yet!
George Carlin, as host, doesn’t appear in any sketches, but he does three standup monologues. There are a handful of sketches and commercial spoofs, all surprisingly short compared to the eventual format of the show. “Weekend Update” includes a long “remote” spot with Larraine Newman reporting from a dangerous hotel.
Elsewhere in the show, Andy Kaufman does his now-famous “Mighty Mouse” bit, and there’s another featured standup comedian named Valri Bromfield. That’s right — two guest comedians in addition to the sketches and musical spots! There’s a short film by Albert Brooks, which is a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”-style compilation of fake amazing news stories, and which is more “witty” than “funny.” Overall, this show barely resembles what we think of as Saturday Night Live.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: This shaky first episode includes the first Muppet sketch, as America meets the gang. There’s Ploobis, king of all he surveys, as well as his assistant Scred, his nagging wife Peuta, the object of his lust Vazh, and the stone idol The Mighty Favog. The audience chuckles a little bit at Scred being a weird little guy, at the appearance of Favog, and at Ploobis saying “Holy guacamole.” But the sketch is mostly met with silence.
Here’s something that occurred to me. It’s usually accepted as fact that the first recurring characters on Saturday Night Live were the Killer Bees. The Bees appear in this episode… but they show up after “The Land of Gortch!” That means “Gortch” is the REAL first recurring character sketch! It’s time to rewrite the history books!
Episode #2 – Host and Musical Guest Paul Simon, additional musical guests Randy Newman, Phoebe Snow, Art Garfunkel, and the Jessy Dixon Singers
The Show: Sheesh, this one feels like an episode of a completely different variety show. Between Paul Simon and his other musical guests, there are many, many songs and only a few comedy bits. The cold open isn’t even a sketch — it’s Simon singing! (And yet it does conclude with Chevy Chase falling down for the first time.)
Paul Simon must have liked the Muppets well enough, because he guest-starred on The Muppet Show a few years later. It’s funny that this episode of Saturday Night features a ton of Paul Simon songs, and in his episode of The Muppet Show, all the musical numbers are Paul Simon songs. Except in that case, Simon didn’t hog the stage and sing all of them. He let Floyd & Janice and Bobby Benson’s babies sing some too.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis is worried because he has too many bills he can’t pay. (Are kings usually responsible for paying the bills for their kingdoms?) The biggest laugh comes when he announces that Gortch is “on the verge of default.” Huh.
Scred reminds Ploobis that when they need advice, they usually go see The Mighty Favog. So here we have a group of Muppets who regularly consult an eccentric oracle for wisdom, and that wisdom often seems cryptic or unhelpful. This concept, of course, will return with the Trash Heap on Fraggle Rock! Anyway, the sketch ends with Ploobis sacrificing Scred to Favog.
Oh, and there’s a moment when Favog gestures with two of his fingers, independently of all his other fingers, which are clasped together. I had no idea the puppet could do that!
Episode #3 – Host Rob Reiner, no musical guest(!)
The Show: There are more sketches than last week, but most of them are still very short, and some of them (like a violent square-dancing bit) feel like they could have used more rehearsal. As much as the first season of The Muppet Show feels like it hasn’t reached its potential, I’m going to boldly proclaim that its first few episodes are better and more confidently assembled than these very early SNL episodes.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis learns that his son Wisss is a “crater head,” which means he gets high from smoking the gas produced by craters. The Wisss puppet can actually exhale smoke, which is cool. (Not that I approve of crater-smoking.)
When Ploobis seeks advice from The Mighty Favog, Favog says “The answer, my friend… is blowin’ in the wind.” Not much of a punchline. The biggest laugh from the audience in this sketch comes when Ploobis smacks Scred around.
Episode #4 – Host Candice Bergen, musical guest Esther Phillips
The Show: This episode is a big step forward in the show’s journey to find itself. Bergen is the first host to really blend in with the cast — she almost feels like another cast member. She should probably be talked about more when the history of SNL is discussed!
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis and friends love eating a bird-like animal called Gligs. In fact, they’ve eaten so many of them that there are only two left alive. Ploobis and Scred ask for advice from The Mighty Favog, who charges them two chickens and a Glig before telling them what to do. They give him a Glig, but then they realize what they’ve done and he refunds it. And… that’s it. The audience does not laugh much.
This is the worst Gortch sketch so far. I wonder when exactly Jim Henson and Lorne Michaels realized these sketches were a hopeless cause.
The Endangered Species Act was signed about two years before this. Is it possible the writer(s) of this sketch intended it to serve as a warning about what could happen if humans use up all our natural resources? I doubt it!
The audience does seem pleased to see The Mighty Favog. Frank Oz’s choice to play an all-powerful stone deity as if he’s a world-weary salesman works really well.
Episode #5 – Robert Klein, musical guests ABBA and Loudon Wainwright
The Show: It’s a step down from the previous one. Like Carlin, Klein does multiple standup sets. When ABBA performs their hit “SOS,” they’re on the Titanic, which sinks as they sing. Come to think of it, that sounds like something they might have done on The Muppet Show. I mean, obviously comedy variety shows had been doing stuff like that for decades, but something about this one strikes me as Muppety. Maybe it’s because it’s based on a straightforward performance going terribly wrong.
In “Weekend Update,” they reuse a bit where a commentator offers a rebuttal to a story while Chevy Chase makes faces behind them. AND they reuse a bit where Garrett Morris shouts the top story for viewers who are hard of hearing. So for anyone who complained about how quickly the current season of the show brought back the “Domingo” sketch… well, they’re just continuing a proud tradition!
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis has a migraine and Scred has assembled everyone to help. Peuta sings opera and Vazh does a dance. The audience doesn’t react at all. Scred pulls out a do-it-yourself acupuncture kit and instructs Ploobis to stick needles in his head. I guess Jim Henson was okay with jabbing them into his puppet, very close to his hand?
Ploobis declares that “It hurts like hell!” but continues shoving needles into himself. This sketch should be getting laughs — Jim Henson and Jerry Nelson are bringing a lot of energy to this sketch, but the audience gives them nothing in return. Eventually, Scred and Ploobis go to seek advice from The Mighty Favog, who says “Not tonight, I’ve got a headache!” and also has needles sticking out of his head.
We’re just a few sketches in, and there’s a clear formula here, with every installment concluding with a visit to The Mighty Favog. I’m sure if the writers continue to follow this thus-far unsuccessful formula, it will eventually work out.
Episode #6 – Lily Tomlin, no actual musical guest! (although the in-house band is credited as “Howard Shore and His All-Nurse Band”)
The Show: Isn’t it wild that the original bandleader for Saturday Night Live, who appears here wearing a nurse’s uniform, later went on to win Oscars for The Lord of the Rings?
Like Bergen, Tomlin is a good host who fits seamlessly with the cast. In the middle of the show, she does a long monologue that essentially serves as a one-woman show about a teenage girl at a dance. That’s something you’d never see on the show now.
The “Land Shark” sketch from a previous episode returns. I can’t help but notice that the Shark, which is essentially a crude puppet, gets a MUCH more positive response than the Muppets, which are artfully crafted (if unattractive) puppets.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis can’t find Scred anywhere, and Peuta suggests that Scred might be in love. The last time this happened was when he fell for Fran Allison (the human co-star of the 1950s puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie — a reference that folks in 1975 would have known.) Eventually they figure out that he’s in love with Lily Tomlin.
Cut to Scred and Lily, as Scred expresses his fondness for her but she’s hesitant to have her name “linked romantically with a puppet.” Scred agrees to keep things casual, and they sing “I Got You Babe.”
The audience loves this. It’s the warmest reception anything Gortch has ever received, and I’m going to go ahead and say it’s the best “Gortch” sketch. For Jim Henson, this must have been a nice confirmation that Muppets work well with human guest stars. It works as a prototype of many romantic guest star moments on The Muppet Show.
Episode #7 – Richard Pryor, musical guest Gil Scott-Heron
The Show: You can tell Saturday Night caught on with audiences fast. The show is already well enough established that when Garrett Morris tries to do a slapstick fall in the cold open, Chase pushes back and insists it’s his trademark. Even though he’s only done it five times so far!
Pryor (a future Muppet Movie cameo!) is in several sketches, and really feels like the star of this episode. The show is still doing a lot of very short sketches, like one where Dan Aykroyd plays a military intelligence officer briefing Pryor and Pryor accidentally eats a cyanide capsule and dies. It feels more like a MAD Magazine comic strip than what we think of as a Saturday Night Live sketch.
This episode features the first of John Belushi’s “Samurai” sketches and the first time Gilda Radner’s character Emily Litella appears on Weekend Update misunderstanding a news story. The cast and writers are really starting to appreciate the convenience of a recurring bit. This is another longtime feature of variety shows, and another one The Muppet Show did well — everyone loves “Pigs in Space” and the Swedish Chef.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: Ploobis is drunk. He convinces Scred to drink too, and when Ploobis says “Drunk like a man!” Scred responds “You forget what planet you’re on. That’s ‘drinking like a snerch!’” ‘Cause they don’t have men on Gortch, you see. There’s also a moment when Scred’s arm gets snagged on Ploobis. There are no second takes in live TV!
They go to talk to The Mighty Favog, but they’re still drunk and acting stupid. Scred shouts to Favog, “Me and my little dog Toto here wanna go back to Kansas!” That’s a pretty dumb “Hey, recognize this reference?” joke, but the audience does laugh at it! Although “Gortch” in general tends to be met with apathy, viewers are amused by Scred and Favog.
Favog feels insulted, so he makes thunder and lightning and says “THE MIGHTY OZ HAS SPOKEN.” It’s not much of an ending, but it’s fun for us Muppet nerds because we know that, in addition to being a callback to Scred’s line about Kansas, it works on another level because The Mighty Favog is performed by Frank OZ. How about that?
Episode #8 – Candice Bergen, musical guests Martha Reeves and The Stylistics
The Show: Bergen is back, just four episodes after her previous appearance! Once again, that’s something they would never do now. But she’s funny and up for anything again and this is a really fun holiday season episode.
There’s a call for submissions: They want viewers to send in funny home movies! It seems odd that the writers were complaining about the Muppets taking up screen time that could be used for sketches, and now the show is soliciting material from the home audience that’s going to take up more screen time.
There’s a murder mystery sketch in this episode, and it ends with John Belushi looking up and asking announcer Don Pardo if he’s figured out the solution. It’s kind of like those moments on The Muppet Show when the casts of “Veterinarian’s Hospital” and “Pigs in Space” react to hearing the announcer’s voice.
Meanwhile, on Gortch…: There are so many puppeteer heads visible in this one.
Ploobis and Peuta are planning a Christmas party, but they’re not sure if they have enough food. Frank Oz performs a morsel of Muppet food who’s excited to be eaten, and it actually gets a nice laugh!
Scred arrives and tells Ploobis the Bees are having a Christmas party at the same time. Vazh and Wisss show up briefly before going to the Bees’ party. (Wisss calls Vazh “honey.” Are they a couple now?)
Candice Bergen arrives and tries to make the Muppets feel better by claiming she likes intimate parties, then she and Scred and Ploobis sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Bergen and Scred gaze into each other’s eyes and Scred says, “Let’s ditch this guy for the Bees’ party.” Wow, that’s the second host Scred has hit on. What a confident fellow. The audience has no idea whether the sketch is over. But it is, so they dutifully applaud.
Hey, The Mighty Favog wasn’t in this one!
Of course, Bergen must have had a good time working with the Muppets, because she appeared as a guest star on the first season of The Muppet Show.
After this episode, Saturday Night went on hiatus for a few weeks before returning in the new year. Would the second half of the season turn out brighter for the Muppets dwelling in “The Land of Gortch?” Click here for part 2 of this article to find out!
Thanks to Muppet Wiki for most of these images, especially because getting screenshots from Peacock was frustrating! Click here to consult The Mighty Favog on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
