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The Muppet Show
1976 · TV series · 26 min episodes · 5 seasons
Created by Jim Henson
Go behind the curtains as Kermit the Frog and his muppet friends struggle to put on a weekly variety show.
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10 comments on Hacker News
I had not known that! In a similar vein, there exists an Alice in Wonderland-themed Muppet Show episode, starring Brooke Shields, which has had to be left out of home video releases due to so far unresolvable music licensing issues. Not quite totally lost, but somewhat hard to find!
I watched it last week, and I loved every moment of it. It's really the Muppet Show, not one of those boring remakes and spin-offs that never worked. Even my 9 year old daughter who would usually roll her eyes when I would even suggest watching Muppets, watched it till the end. Probably mostly because of Sabrina Carpenter, but whatever.
Would love to get more episodes.
> the 1st and 2nd seasons were released on DVD, the 3rd was pressed and ready to go but never actually shipped
The Muppet Show itself had a similar issue—the show was 5 seasons, but seasons 4 & 5 never made it to DVD. I had assumed that they were gone for good, but Disney+ actually released all 5 seasons.
Maybe someday we'll also see the later versions of The Muppet Show, like "Muppets Tonight" or "the muppets.". But I'm not holding my breath.
The Disney Channel has a short warning that appears before summer Muppet show episodes.
I was surprised, but I liked the approach. Disney gets to say that someone might be upset, but we the viewers are empowered to see the content and make our own decision.
Maybe they replaced the music? That's what they did in order to be able to release the series Daria on DVD. Included in the package was an apology letter explaining why they had to replace all the music.
They might have also secured some of the rights and just dropped the episodes containing songs where they couldn't. That's what Disney did when they put The Muppet Show on Disney+. A few episodes are missing because even with Disney's money they couldn't get the rights to all the songs.
Surprisingly complete, but there are some missing.
"The Sun Also Sets" is the fictional soap opera in the 1991 movie Soapdish.
Ultra-Max is the fictional (and lethal) game show in the third season of Futureman.
Not sure if "Pigs in Space" from The Muppet Show counts.
And I suspect there are a lot more missing from the Simpsons, like "Blood on the Blackboard: The Bart Simpson Story".
Find some episodes of The Muppet Show. Late 1970s, with a entertainment-related guest on each episode.
Sometimes the guest is an actor or actress, and they're very nice looking.
Sometimes the guest is a musician... and they look funny to modern eyes. Then they pull out their instrument or open their mouth, and you can hear the same (or better) quality as today's musicians.
The Muppet Show ended in 1981. MTV launched in 1981.
I checked out the list that someone compiled on Reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/Muppets/comments/lnwse2/muppet_show_episodes_with_content_advisories/
And I had to look up this one:
> Beverly Sills: Most likely for the Chinese Gorillla Muppet.
Yeah, that one was pretty bad. I think a disclaimer is appropriate.
I get what you're saying. There are casualties in this effort to contextualize or remove the humor of previous decades. I totally agree about the Fawlty Tower episode. But I think it's easier to have simple rules than to try to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis. Humor is subjective after all.
> Literally the only people actually being offended are - who...?
It's not really about being offended though is it? The ones being offended and actually complaining is just the tip of the iceberg.
This kind of humor can create attitudes that can be a constant pain in the side for certain groups of people. I mean, you've still got shit like this going on today : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc1GhI1Dwyc
How would you approach this problem?
> probably the vast majority
Ugh, naw, not at that time if you ask me. Most comedians are not as smart and tactful as John Cleese. He was ahead of his time in many ways.
You can still get away with quite stereotypical humor today if you frame it correctly, and I think most comedians today are more clever about it. They're not all smarter now, there's just a better culture around it.
There was a show in Norway that was pulled from streaming because an actor was using "blackface". But that comedian/actor has a thing about playing lots of different characters (men, women, older, younger, etc), and in that case he just happened to portray a vaguely middle-eastern character. There was a big counter-reaction, particularly from immigrants saying that this wasn't offensive to them. And the show was put back online, with a disclaimer. So I think it shows that there is course-correction when the humor isn't actually in bad taste.
I am assuming you read the article in detail and simply forgot that they listed the actual examples:
> a multitude of caricatured national costumes as part of a performance of It’s a Small World After All, including as a Chinese person with exaggerated front teeth and a long braid.
> Peter Sellers appears in a segment titled A Gypsy’s Violin wearing a black headscarf with gilded trimmings, a red vest and a large red satin belt, and singing in a heavy accent
It seems like almost everyone interested in a good faith discussion would agree that these two examples are offensive stereotypes that don’t really belong in a children’s show. Considering the episode’s aren’t being removed I can’t imagine why anyone would object to this in good faith.
Unfortunately there are a ton of people who are fully aware that these stereotypes are offensive but, in bad faith, pretend that they are innocuous jokes and that this is just a moral panic. Although HN rules prevent me from accusing anyone of bad faith, I will suggest that someone who doesn’t have a problem with Apu from the Simpsons is someone who affirmatively supports using racist stereotypes.
There are more examples here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Muppets/comments/lnwse2/muppet_show_episodes_with_content_advisories/
As a Gen Xer growing up in the 80s, I remember drowning in Baby Boomer nostalgia for the 60s counterculture, classic rock, cutesy retro advertising, old TV shows on Nick at Nite, Frank Capra movies, and so on. The culture was immersed in it.
Then, starting in the 90s, our generation started to do the same thing, looking back nostalgically at childhood favorites like the Muppet Show, Gilligan's Island, and the Brady Bunch.
So I would say that this sort of nostalgia has a staple of modern life for at least several generations.