Growing up, I loved The Muppets. While most people recognize them from the various movies they made, in which a ragtag group of misfits learns life lessons or finds the value of friendship, my most prominent memories come from the original show, which ran from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s.
I owned a collection of all five seasons on DVD, and let me tell you, those copies got worn out. I remember loving the episodes so much that I recently went back and watched a few of my favorites on Disney+, and some of those scenes were downright creepy. I loved it.
I think a big reason why I enjoyed the show so much as a kid was that I could tell that it didn’t feel the need to talk down to me.
What is The Muppet Show?
The Muppet Show, created by Jim Henson, was a humorous variety show that introduced celebrity guests and fun musical performances. Think of it like Saturday Night Live but for lovable weirdos, which I mean as the highest of compliments, obviously.
The show included sketches performed by the main cast that we all know and love, but it also often featured nameless, new Muppets who weren’t always seen again after their skits.
This set up a good foundation for The Muppets to become a global franchise, with theme park attractions and the aforementioned films. Audiences loved the dry humor and slapstick physical comedy that the cast perfected fairly early in their run.
Sketches that I shouldn’t have loved, but totally did
I have a distinct memory of being around seven or eight years old, watching a green alien-looking creature with fluffy pink hair and three legs have a panic attack on my screen while singing a song at an ever-increasing tempo.
It made me so nervous that I would get a stomachache, but then I’d rewind it and watch it again. I guess I had a dark fascination with the macabre.
Another skit that I loved included Zero Mostel, an American actor and comedian, who explained his deepest fears while various monsters lurked behind him, and an eerie score played in the background. It’s terrifying; the studio audience laughs away while he’s dramatically grasped by furry creatures.
Not to mention the multitude of scenes where the entire joke is that someone gets blown up or dies in a funny yet gruesome way.
Lighting and colors
The Muppets are known for their wacky outfits and bright colors, but when you go back and actually watch the show, you notice that the lighting is quite dim. Some of the songs and skits have entirely blacked-out backgrounds.
When it comes to colors, even though a lot of The Muppets rock vibrant fur or skin, they look, for lack of a better word, dirty, with dull and earthy tones around their edges, which you don’t often see in puppets that are used for children’s shows, such as Sesame Street.
I’d actually argue that The Muppets aren’t characters aimed at children, except for maybe the actual Muppet Babies cartoon.
With the introduction of The Muppet Show reboot special and possibly a new season altogether, part of me hopes that the old humor of the show will stay intact, and with that, the slightly scary undertones that make it so memorable.
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