Play the Music! Light the Lights! “The Muppet Show”: An Appreciation

 By Michael Lyons

Pure joy.  That’s The Muppet Show.  And, what’s even more joyful is the fact that every season of Jim Henson’s wondrous show that ran from 1976-1981 at the height of “Muppet-mania,” will be coming to Disney+ Starting this Friday, February 19th.

The Muppet Show was a creative, comedic, and a musical flashpoint for a generation that gave us a  mismatched menagerie that included Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Rowlf and so many more that would fill our TV screens with animalistic and monstrous shapes.  All of this was marshaled together by the already famous m.c. and ringleader, Kermit the Frog, who is manager of the cabaret theater where they all appear.

Jim Henson, with his quietly brilliant mind, had been attempting to create a prime time show starring his Muppets.  He and his team had a not-so-great experience when The Muppets were part of the first season of Saturday Night Live, but Henson took lessons learned from this, particularly around TV production and applied them to The Muppet Show.

For five seasons, starting in 1976, the show gave us some surreal, silly, and ultimately memorable moments, many of them featuring some of the biggest actors, singers and dancers in entertainment, all of whom clamored to be part of the insanity and join on the "Muppet-mania" pop culture popularity that was so prevalent at the time.  

Now, wondrously, thanks to the blessed technology known as streaming, we can enjoy them all, in and out of order. some of the highlights through the years include:

• The now famous and oh-so-singable "Mahna Mahna" song from the first episode with guest Juliet Prowse.
• A Muppet jugband singing "I'm my own Grandpa," also from season one.
• Singer Rita Moreno signing "Fever," backed-up by Animal on drums, also from season one...and she won an Emmy for the episode.
• Miss Piggy, always prone to violent outbursts, lets loose with her first karate chop in the season one episode with Florence Henderson.

• From season two, Steve Martin, at the height of his own popularity, entertains a theater-full of Muppets with his trademark banjo-picking comedy.
• A scientist Muppet sings Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle," and as he does he continually gets younger, in this touching moment from season two.
• Also from season two, Fozzie tries his "hand" on ventriloquism, when Edgar Bergen guest stars
• From season three, Harry Belafonte singing his incredibly catchy song "Turn the World Around," which speaks of knowing where we've come from and world unity, in a number made all the more wonderful with Muppets that look to have been created for the number.  

• In season four, "The Stars of Star Wars" were the guests: Mark Hammill as Luke, along with C3PO, R2D2 and Chewbacca.  All of them there just in time to promote the debut of The Empire Strikes Back that summer.
• A boatload of Viking pigs sing The Village People's "In the Navy" (season five).  Enough said.

• Then, there were the recurring segments such as “The Swedish Chef,”. “Muppet News Flash” “Pigs in Space” and “At the Dance.”

All of these scratch just the tip of the many moments that made up The Muppet Show.

Through the years, the show has been called sometimes bizarre, sometimes beautiful, sometimes comedic, sometimes touching.  But, there’s one thing The Muppet Show has always been: pure joy.