On-Set at The Muppet Show #3: Making the Maniacal Muppets
The final of our three articles written by people who had visited the set of The Muppet Show is this annoying whimsy from the Wednesday the 17th of May 1978 issue of Punch, written by the man who, ten years later, would become Punch’s twelth editor. The running reference to Mahna Mahna (officially the title is two words, though the original record was called Mah-Na Mah-Na) is because nearly a year before this article was written the song had entered the UK singles chart as the b-side to Halfway Up The Stairs - the single peaked at number seven on Saturday the 18th of June 1977, suddenly soaring up the charts after Jerry Nelson performed the song as Robin from inside a hollowed-out staircase on the edition of Top Of The Pops broadcast Thursday the 2nd of June 1977. The outstanding illustration accompanying the piece is by Wally Fawkes, a.k.a. Trog.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS
Making the Maniacal Muppets
Still humming Kermit and the team’s hit single, Mahnamahna, DAVID TAYLOR returned breathless from a frantic recording session in the ATV studios of THE MUPPET SHOW.
HULLO from Borehamwood and, erm, mahnamahna, two-three, from almost Elstree where, mahnamahna, from the studios of not just THE TV but from ATV, it’s time to light the light; just a moment ago it was time to play the music and, erm, in just another moment it’ll be time, mahnamahna, to run the tape on another sensational, another inspirational and celebrational, erm, Muppet Show, intro-mahnamahna-duced by none other than bearded Jim Henson, head of Henson Associates - the trade-name is HA! - whom, mahnamahna, you’ll see only in the person of, two-three-four-AND: Kermit the world’s one and only frog em-cee.OK and now the man, ah, in the shades there is Zoot, the super-cool sax man from Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem Line-Up and, erm, in the plain frames Frank, ladies and gentlemen, Oz - a senior Muppetman and funny, funny guy, manipulator-in-chief of the gorgeously-groomed porkeuse with a left hook that can pulverise rock, erm, Miss, quiet please, Piggy, and, to complete our line-up for today’s snap, Waldorf, who, has not had a good laugh since the opening of Medea with the original cast. Thank-you for your time.
And hullo again from Below Stairs on The Muppet Show where we must ask you, please, not to fondle, molest, handle, touch or tweak the more than two hundred disparate lengths of luminescent, anthropomorphitic old felt - please! - who can together command a worldwide audience of, ready for this, 235 million. That’s including Fozzie Bear. Just a moment, erm, but from monitors monitoring the studio floor today’s pianist on The Muppet Show appears not to be Fozzie but another wholly wholesome showman with the charm to strip chromium off a candlestick, erm, erm, ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s guest on The Muppet Show, that’s Wladziu Valentino LIBERACE.
How does Lee find the show? It’s wonderful, wonderful, just wonderful. Two-three and take it away, kerplinkety-plink. Mind the cables and say nothing until the break for a photo-call of the Liberace Fan Club and SMILE. Thank-you. Thank-you. Thank-you again. This is wonderful. Off-camera, please everyone, and we’ll Take Five for a smoke and natter.
Erm, probably you should know about Jim. Thing is, Jim’s the designer, writer, producer, director, performer - you have to say that Jim created The Muppets, half marionette, half puppet, all Jim, who’s 42 come September and from Greenville, Missouri, or more recently from Maryland, right outside Washington, DC. Listen, I hate to keep moving Jim around, but the fact is he comes from Bedford, New York. Also, in a way, he comes from Sesame Street, America’s children’s TV blockbuster and precursor of Muppetmania, coast-to-coast. Jim heads a team at HA! that’s into all kinds of TV experimentation besides Muppets with, erm, an imaginative, creatively upbeat, professionally dedicated bunch of people with, erm, vitality and, sort of charm, plus you’d have to mention dexterity and so on. People such as Jerry Nelson, who can fool around with voices like nobody else can, and Richard Hunt and Dave Goelz, who’re just natural puppeteers, Muppet-makers Rollin Krewson and Amy Van Gilder, Head Writer Jerry Juhl and Executive Producer David Lazer who’s known Jim for a zany decade. Sure, it’s an industry. It didn’t start out to be, it just took off, got took on board as an analogue of fallible existence - please! - which is to say people of all ages just identified, you know?
Sounds crazy but in a fistful of felt could be expressed sort of an essence of human frailty - where things are loused up one after the next but, through force of personality, the show goes on. Something like that, huh? No mystery, really. The Muppets are cute, colourful and seem real.
And are over-running right now, so please, could we call Lee back on set for the overlay sequence - just sit and play and we’ll electronically put in some surrounding Muppet intervention a little later, OK? Sure there’s an audience. Must be thirty, forty people out there in the auditorium - all friends or guests of the team. They like to see the way it is done. It’s slow, of course, but Jim’s after perfection the whole time - ask anyone. Wonderful. Cue the swirly fog around Lee’s solo, please and QUIET ON THE FLOOR, this is a live take, two-three and kerplinkety-plink: SMILE. More pictures later, OK? The lady in mauve is Kay Durant from the Liberace Fan Club. Wonderful. Be ready with the high-wire for the next take, studio. The lighting is sensational, isn’t it? No wonder the list of awards for The Muppet Show is that long. No, longer. What’s today? Must be that long by now. Jim’d know. Have you met Jim? Guy with beard wearing a studio radio-mike for direction of this scene. He really created the whole thing. The Muppets. What a guy.
Beautiful, Lee, really was. And we’ll break for lighting. Mahnamahna. D’you get all you need? Wonderful. Cue the frog. Strike the orange tree when you’re ready. We’re going to need the overspill day. What a show. Erm, you OK? Wonderful. Sorry it’s a little busy this afternoon. That’s The Muppet Show. It should be a great series - goes out in the Fall, or about. Let’s hope they do - fall about.
You’re welcome. And, erm, well, have a good day, OK? Mahnamahna.
Cut.
