Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5
This past fall, Jim Henson Legacy President and Muppet writer Craig Shemin asked the world: What are your favorite Henson moments? He took the deluge of user submissions and turned them into a top 70 list (in honor of The Henson Company and the Muppets’ 70th anniversaries), which were unveiled at a special event at the Museum of the Moving Image.
This may come as no surprise to you, but there are a lot more than 70 great moments on our list.
After seeing the official top 70, the ToughPigs team decided to pool our efforts to create another list of 70 greatest Muppet moments. We submitted all of our favorites, then voted to (somehow) cull them down to just 70. And we are extremely excited to share them all with you over the course of this week!
In an effort to avoid being repetitive (or worse, repetitive), the ToughPigs Top 70 list does not include anything from the initial list. That way, we don’t feel obligated to keep “Rainbow Connection” or “Java” or “C is for Cookie” on every list. Instead, we got to focus a bit more on our personal faves, including some deeper cuts.
Before we get into it, we’d like to share (with permission) the original Top 70 Henson Moments list, as compiled by Craig Shemin and the Jim Henson Legacy. In no particular order:
- Rainbow Connection (The Muppet Movie)
- Old Black Magic (Sam and Friends)
- King of 8 (Sesame Street)
- Let Me Be Your Song (Fraggle Rock)
- Good Grief, The Comedian’s a Bear (The Muppet Show)
- I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon (Sesame Street)
- La Choy Commercial: Supermarket
- Dance Magic (Labyrinth)
- Drumroll, Please (Emmet Otter Bloopers)
- Happy Feet (The Muppet Show)
- How Does Santa Deliver Presents (Christmas Eve on Sesame Street)
- Wilkins Commercial: Cannon
- Aughra’s Orrery (The Dark Crystal)
- Turn the World Around – Harry Belafonte (The Muppet Show)
- Welcome to Sesame Street – Big Bird’s First Entrance (Sesame Street)
- Java (The Ed Sullivan Show)
- Kermit Guest-Hosts The Tonight Show – Opening and Monologue Excerpt
- Time Piece – Painting the Elephant, Diving Board, etc.
- I’m Going to Go Back There Someday (The Muppet Movie)
- Song and Dance Man – (The Jimmy Dean Show)
- Rubber Duckie (Sesame Street)
- Impossible Dream – John Cleese (The Muppet Show)
- When the River Meets the Sea (Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas)
- Danny Boy – The Leprechaun Brothers (The Muppet Show)
- You Cannot Leave the Magic (Fraggle Rock: Change of Address)
- Muppets Ride Bikes (Montage: Valentine Show/Emmet Otter/Muppet Movie/Caper)
- Tit Willow – Rowlf and Sam (The Muppet Show)
- Card Game with Devils (Storyteller: Soldier and Death)
- I Dance Myself to Sleep (Sesame Street)
- Puppets Performing Puppets (Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance)
- In the Navy (The Muppet Show)
- Miss Piggy’s Water Fantasy (The Great Muppet Caper)
- Dave the Human (The Animal Show)
- C is For Cookie (Sesame Street)
- Kermit and Piggy’s Wedding (The Muppets Take Manhattan)
- Dog City: Ace’s Entrance
- Oklahoma – Forgetful Jones and Kermit (Sesame Street)
- Mahna Mahna (The Muppet Show)
- Kermit Talks to Cher
- Fraggle Rock Returns – Montage (Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock
- Once in a Lifetime – Kermit (Muppets Tonight)
- Beat the Time – Train (Sesame Street)
- Fever – Rita Moreno & Animal (The Muppet Show)
- Sesame Street News: Rapunzel (Sesame Street)
- You Don’t Mess Around with Jim – Country Trio
- Singing and Dancing Waiter Grover (Sesame Street)
- I’m a Woman – Miss Piggy & Raquel Welch (The Muppet Show)
- Goodbye, Mr. Hooper (Sesame Street)
- Green (The Tonight Show)
- Glow Worm (Montage)
- Star Wars Finale (The Muppet Show)
- Furry Happy Monsters (Sesame Street)
- The Ice Age Cometh (Dinosaurs)
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Kermit and Joey Alphabet (Sesame Street)
- It Feels Like Christmas (The Muppet Christmas Carol)
- El-If-I-Know (Muppets Tonight)
- Man or Muppet (The Muppets)
- Cookiegate (Sesame Street Special)
- Lady of Spain – Marvin Suggs and the Muppaphone (The Muppet Show)
- Fozzie and Michael Parkinson
- OK Go – The Muppet Show Theme
- Visual Thinking (Sam and Friends)
- Swashbuckling Kermit (Muppet Treasure Island)
- Miss Piggy and Martha Stewart
- Just One Person (The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson)
- Mayhem Meetings – Floyd & Animal, Floyd and Young Dr. Teeth (Muppets Mayhem)
- Karaoke Night (The Muppets – 2015)
- Muppet Family Christmas – Jim Washes Dishes
- The Big Finale (The Muppet Movie)
Wow, what a great list! Thanks to everyone who voted!
And now, without further ado, the first chapter of ToughPigs’ Top 70 Muppet Moments!
1979 Muppet Movie Test Camera Footage
by Katilyn Miller
In 2025 it can be hard to remember that there was ever a time when people believed Muppets couldn’t work outside of a studio. But before The Muppet Movie, it hadn’t really been done. In order to prove that puppets and nature were a winning combination, Jim Henson and Frank Oz took Kermit, Fozzie and Miss Piggy (along with Steve Whitmire as Sweetums) out to the English countryside to film with trees, cows and charming architecture, and it’s hilarious. Jim and Frank are improvising their dialogue and still manage to have jokes, a narrative arc and touching interpersonal moments, and the scenery doesn’t look half bad either. I like it when they have a good time.
Kermit the Frog wants his Kermit the Frog T-Shirt (Sesame Street)
by Shane Keating
It’s the perfect comedy sketch – a great premise, Jim and Frank are great, and it introduces a new batch of weird monster names. And I own a screen-accurate KERMIT THE FORG shirt as a result.
Grover and Madeline Kahn – “Sing After Me” (Sesame Street)
by Anthony Strand
At the peak of her movie stardom, Madeline Kahn took a lot of time out of her busy schedule to spend with Muppets. She’s one of the few people to appear on The Muppet Show, in a Muppet movie, and on Sesame Street. For my money, her single best Muppet moment is this duet with Grover where she teaches him what a call and response song is. Madeline looks radiant, and she’s clearly having a great time. But the real hero is Frank Oz, who lets Grover fall to pieces as he tries and fails to be Madeline’s echo. An absolutely top-notch example of Muppet/human chemistry.
Miss Piggy covers NYE for Leno (The Tonight Show)
by Danny Horn
What do you get when you strand Frank Oz on the roof of a building in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter, and in the middle of The Tonight Show? Well, as Jay Leno learns on New Year’s Eve 1996, you get a Miss Piggy appearance that’s even more unhinged than usual. “I’m freezing my bajongas off!” she grips, as she shivers her way through a remote broadcast from Times Square. As the magic hour approaches and it doesn’t get any warmer, Oz finally loses patience with the entire experience and the Pig starts yelling, “THE BALL’S GONNA DROP! THE BALL’S GONNA DROP!” And guess what? It does.
Prairie Dawn Directs Singin’ in the Rain (Sesame Street)
by Becca Petunia
If you ask me, Prairie Dawn has been an important character since Season 2 of Sesame Street. But Singin’ in the Rain is the exact moment when she not only became one of the funniest Muppets on the show, but also the show’s de facto post-Jim Henson replacement for Kermit the Frog. Fran Brill effortlessly makes the shift from performing Prairie as a gentle, tired perfectionist to Prairie as a manic, frustrated control-freak, and she plays off of Frank Oz’s energy in beautiful, hilarious ways. Once this sketch existed, there was no way Prairie could ever be meek again.
Steve Martin as “Insolent Waiter” (The Muppet Movie)
by Anthony Strand
Halfway through The Muppet Movie, Kermit and Piggy just want to enjoy a nice meal on their first date. But their waiter is annoyed, impatient, and rude to them. This only works because the waiter is played by Steve Martin. For two minutes, he takes over the movie, making it a showcase for his idiosyncratic standup persona. Suddenly it isn’t a movie about the Muppets anymore, it’s a movie about Steve Martin, and he makes every second hilarious.
“The Grouch Anthem” (Follow That Bird)
by Jarrod Fairclough
Follow That Bird is the perfect film and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s sad, it has a blue Big Bird, it has a lot of creepy twin children. But to kick it all off, it starts with Oscar the Grouch singing an entirely unrelated song that doesn’t do any sort of plot exposition nor move the story along. Instead we get lines like “Something is wrong with everything, except the way I sing.” I’m pretty sure that’s the motto Taylor Swift has based her entire career on…
Boffo Lenny, Socko Lenny (The Muppets Take Manhattan)
by Katilyn Miller
When we think of Kermit the Frog, he’s usually got everything under control, or he’s having a passionate meltdown at whoever has finally pushed him over the edge, or he’s confident in his own skin, despite it being green. He’s never trying to be something he’s not. So when we see Kermit the Frog dressed in the skin of a 1980’s big-time producer, it’s instantly attention-getting. We’re then treated to a full minute of Kermit acting in a manner completely foreign to us, the audience. Not only is it hilarious to watch, it is downright taxing on Kermit, as we see him panting when it’s over. You’ll need to catch your breath from laughing so hard.
Have a Popover, Froggy! (The Frog Prince)
by J.D. Hansel
Listen. This isn’t my favorite Taminella moment. The scene I voted for was from Tales of the Tinkerdee, but that didn’t get much support. Instead, we have her most popular scene – a moment in The Frog Prince when she keeps shoving popovers into Robin the Frog’s mouth to keep him from giving her identity away to the king. Since Taminella is my favorite Muppet, I’ve tried to think of why it might be that this scene is her big hit. Her aggression and forcefulness at the expense of good puppetry is funny, as is the repetition, as is the sight of little Robin getting his face stuffed, and the scene ends with a perfect button. It’s a classic moment from an underappreciated special that’ll have you saying, “Tat a wherrific Scuppet mene!”
“IZ GOT EYEZ, JOE” (ToughPigs interview)
by Matthew Soberman
November 15 is a significant date in history. In 1864, General Sherman chose it to begin his March to the Sea. In 1920, it marked the first assembly of the League of Nations. In 2001, it hosted the launch of the Xbox. And in 2017, it signaled a milestone moment in the history of ToughPigs: the day that Gonger explained to Joe Hennes, in no uncertain terms, that there were eyes on the Foodie Truck. Why is it so beloved? I think it’s a couple of factors. First, because Joe doesn’t try to stop Gonger’s impassioned statement. He “yes, and”s the heck out of it. Second, because Warrick Brownlow-Pike finds, in the classic Muppet style, a way to turn a simple interview on its head, even if just for a moment. It’s random, it’s borderline absurd, and it’s wonderful. Truly, dis iz eyez.
“Ocean Breeze Soap” slogan pitches (The Muppets Take Manhattan)
by Shane Keating
The fact that “It’s Just Like Taking An Ocean Cruise Only There’s No Boat And You Don’t Actually Go Anywhere” is NOT on AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quotes is a disgrace. Who do we write to to complain about this? Does Mr. AFI have a mailing address or some such?
“Telephone Rock” (Sesame Street)
by Jarrod Fairclough
How many phone puns do you think you could fit into a 3 minute song? Is your answer “1 billion”? Then you may be Chris Cerf and Norman Stiles! Over 3 minutes and 31 seconds, Little Jerry and the Monotones make a tonne of gags about having “a good connection” and being “hung up on ya,” which would make it good enough to be on this list on its own, but the fact that it’s a genuine bop? That’s just icing on the cake.
“The Rhyming Song” (The Muppet Show)
by Katilyn Miller
What do you get when you mix Scooter, Fozzie, Annie Sue, Link Hogthrob and a train station? Classic Muppety chaos in the form of “The Rhyming Song.” Kermit has been whisked away on a train leaving these four Muppets to perform a song that should probably rhyme, but somehow, against all odds, does not, even as they deliver each verse with the confidence of trained performers. It ends in frantic hopping up and down and panicked exiting from the stage. I’m not sure how Kermit could’ve helped with this one. It’s already perfect.
Ernie and Bert Explore a Pyramid (Sesame Street)
by Becca Petunia
It often seems like the things that terrify us are the things we remember most, and that’s definitely true of this Bert and Ernie sketch. After all, it’s often cited as one the scariest things Sesame Street ever did, and believe me, folks are talking about it all the time. This sketch is great because it’s more than just a way to teach kids about dealing with fear: it’s also just got the amazing comedic timing and rhythms we all expect from Jim Henson and Frank Oz. I’ll always remember this sketch for its eerie atmosphere and amazing jokes, even if I’ll never learn where Bert parks his bicycle.
Come back tomorrow for part 2 of ToughPigs’ Top 70 Muppet Moments!
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by The Entire ToughPigs Team
