< The Muppet Show

The Muppet Show/YMMV


  • Adaptation Displacement: Who here knew the Mahna Mahna song was written for a Swedish soft-core porn video in the 1960's before Jim Henson, for some reason, decided it would be the perfect material for an early Sesame Street skit??
  • Crazy Awesome: Crazy Harry, of course.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: Lots, given the sheer number of musical guests over the years (and actors who happened to have hidden musical talent.
    • "Hey There Good Times" from the Leslie Uggams episode.
    • Kermit's rendition of "Lydia The Tattooed Lady"
    • Scooter and Fozzie singing "Simon Smith and His Dancing Bear"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Gonzo was originally a mournful looking puppet without much of a role. Once his flamboyant oddness was introduced, he became a popular character and eventually was used as narrator in two of the movies. Muppets from Space even lists Dave Goelz before Steve Whitmire, who performs Kermit. Subverted in the 2011 film, where he plays a supporting role again.
    • The Swedish Chef also fits, in that while the character isn't shown having much interaction with the others, he is popular enough to have briefly gotten his own breakfast cereal. Not to mention the programs that exist to translate English into, um, Sveee-dish. Check out the Muppet Studios Youtube channel to see it in action -- the Chef is bordering on Wolverine Publicity for the channel.
      • Speaking of the Youtube channel, the Swedish Chef, Beaker and Animal have become an Ensemble Darkhorse trio. Likely it's because they're all The Unintelligible in their own different way (Sveedish, meeping and grunting, respectively).
    • Statler and Waldorf. They're so popular that they have commentaries at the bottom of most TV Tropes pages!
    • Animal is the best known member of the Electric Mayhem. He has even more merchandise than Kermit!
    • For a Muppet that only appears once in a blue moon, Crazy Harry is real popular with the fans.
    • Beaker.
    • Sam the Eagle demands why this site is not patriotic enough to include him as a darkhorse!
    • Uncle Deadly. He didn't appear much (only in a few episodes, musical numbers and the "Muppet Melodrama" sketches), but he became somewhat popular, especially after his major role in the 2011 movie.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Danny Kaye and Miss Piggy get into a huge argument right before they're supposed to perform the song "Cheek to Cheek," with the result that for most of the performance they're singing this romantic song to each other with forced smiles and clenched teeth. What makes it brilliant is that "Cheek to Cheek" was originally a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers song, and the sketch not only plays off that pairing visually (with Kaye as the suave older man and Piggy as the younger blonde), it ALSO evokes the popular belief that Astaire and Rogers supposedly hated each other off-camera, despite their great screen chemistry.
  • Fridge Horror: Who did murder Uncle Deadly? Well, who are the critics of the show? That's right. Statler and Waldorf! Though I don't think this makes much sense. Statler and Waldorf may be mean, but their not that mean! Also, Deadly has probably been around much longer than they have!
  • Growing the Beard: The first season is a little slow as mentioned on the main page under Early Installment Weirdness. But the pacing and a lot of hallmarks of the show came about in the future seasons. Beaker for example didn't appear until season 2, so not only did Muppet Labs have a duller looking set, lack its introductory jingle, but it was BUNSEN on the receiving end of all his inventions going wrong.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: "NOTHING can stop him {{[[[Star Wars]] Chewbacca}}]!" Tosi-Karu!
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: A real-life example. When the series first started, it was a real struggle to obtain guests. The prospect of appearing with "puppets" seemed embarassing, so to get guests, personal favors had to be made/called in. Rudolph Nureyev's Season 2 appearance reversed this. Now, it's hard to believe any actor wouldn't want to be involved in a Muppet production.
    • In one episode, a moose named Mickey becomes popular with most of the gang, even leading to them singing "M-I-C-K-E-Y" and wearing special hats. Kermit objects to this and wants nothing to do with Mickey Moose or friend Ronald Duck. Flash forward to thirty years later and...
    • Similarly, the cast's rendition of "When You Wish Upon A Star" as the finale of the Star Wars episode. Besides the obvious, it's also oddly reminiscent of Disney's newest Vanity Plate, which was displayed at the beginning of the 2011 movie.
    • Even cooler was hearing Mark Hamill go absolutely bonkers with vocal impersonations and voice gags. First remember that the special aired before Frank Oz played Yoda. Secondly, after time and facial scarring ended his live-action career, he has had an amazing second act as a voice actor.
  • Ho Yay: Statler and Waldorf constantly sit next to each other, do everything together, bicker and argue Like an Old Married Couple, and have even fricking danced together!!! Watch these two videos if you don't believe me! Doesn't help that Waldorf's wife looks exactly like Statler...
  • Nightmare Fuel: The "Hugga Wugga" skit. Among others.
  • Older Than They Think: Rowlf pre-dates even the oldest of the regular Muppet cast by many years as a Henson solo act.
  • The Scrappy: Averted for the most part in Robin's case; Robin isn't universally hated by any means, but some Muppet fans can be a little bit testy when he shows up. Not nearly as much as Bean Bunny or Pepe from later productions, though.
  • Smurfette Breakout: Miss Piggy, one of the few female Muppets, was initially only a minor character but her popularity skyrocketed and she is now probably the most famous of them, along with Kermit.
  • So Bad It's Good: Much of the comedy comes from just how lousy the variety show that the Muppets put on is. Notably, Gonzo's stunts and Fozzie's jokes. The Muppet Show, like Monty Python's Flying Circus and the cartoons of Jay Ward is a nigh perfect example of how it takes great intelligence and talent to create something so deliberately silly that it crosses the line into awesomeness.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Let's be honest here. Sam the Eagle is Surrounded by Idiots.
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: HUGGA WUGGA!
  • Ugly Cute: It's most apparent in the "monster" characters -- Sesame Street monsters such as Grover, Telly or Elmo tend to be more traditionally cute, but the monsters of The Muppet Show and related productions are usually designed to look more grotesque, and are still pretty adorable -- but it's a widespread trope for the Muppets in general. In fact, any Muppet not specifically designed to be cute is likely to be Ugly Cute in some way.
    • Also, Animal.

Statler: It says we're ensemble darkhorses here?
Waldorf: Yeah, we don't act and we're better than the rest of 'em!
Both: DOOOOOOO-hohohohoho!

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