Season 3 was another solid outing for Henson and his crew.
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Jim Henson and his moppet-like Muppets touched an entire generation. If you weren't a "Sesame Street" kid, then you were a "Sesame Street" parent who could recognize characters like Big Bird, Kermit the Frog, and the Count on sight. Parents sat through repetitious skits geared toward helping their preschoolers learn the alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, and basic social skills. So when it was announced that Henson was bringing his Muppets to prime time TV and it would be pitched more at adults (though the kids were welcome to watch), there was more than a little joy. Here, finally, was a kid's show that took parents into account. Zippy little one-liners and innuendos could fly right over the heads of little ones while their parents could get a dose of much-needed cerebral humor.
Watching the show almost 30 years later, it's even more apparent that Henson & Co. were doing a straight vaudeville show with all the schtick and only a fraction of the humans. So if you appreciate the old variety shows, you'll get a kick out of seeing the same sort of things performed by puppets, because most of the gags hearken back to that variety format and many of the songs are, in fact, taken from vaudeville or the British music halls. But much of the show's success was due to the gimmick factor. In 1976, when the show debuted, it was unique to stage a variety show using puppets, with Kermit the Frog working backstage to whip everyone in shape and emceeing, while prima porka Miss Piggy strutted and preened, drummer animal did his crazy-beat thing, Fozzie Bear tried his hand at (bad) stand-up comedy, and two old guys in a balcony box seat tossed off the kind of jokes that the rest of us watching at home could have made. Now, of course, variety shows aren't exactly tearing up the channel listings. Now, reality programming is all the rage, and so newcomers to "The Muppet Show" might find this amusing to watch for an episode or two, but not for a season . . . unless you're a star-watcher.
Just as celebrities stood in line to appear on "Sesame Street" the line was long to guest star on "The Muppet Show." Each show was built around a single celebrity (or in some cases two), with standard skits and sketches and songs woven in like a vaudeville variety show. There were backstage shenanigans and plots, and standard lampoons like "Pigs in Space" (instead of "Lost in Space" or "Star Trek").
The show combined fresh routines each week with running gags. The famous opening song remained unchanged, with Gonzo then trying to blow a trumpet with varying disastrous results-a gag that was used in the old "Mickey Mouse Club" with Donald Duck, and even in the opening of "The Simpsons." This season's ballroom dance routine will seem like a more elegant variation of the old "Laugh-In" go-go dance sequence, which has brief stoppages to feature two-line jokes, mostly puns. This season's running "soap opera"--yet another brief framework for jokes--is "Veterinarian Hospital," featuring Miss Piggy as a nurse. It's all corny, silly, slapstick fun, with equal measures of bad jokes or puns and physical comedy.
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