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Dear Internet,
There, I'm
done with "The Muppet Show."
After today, I will not have to watch one more episode of this show
because I have watched them all, all 120 episodes in the length of five
seasons. Although with my luck, there
will be some sort of lost episode that is found in the Muppet archives and I
will have to watch it, but that will not be this day. In the mean time, I get a free card for being
able to repeat everything I have already said, for what else is a conclusion
other than a restatement of everything already talked about.
"The
Muppet Show" is not something that can be watched in large quantities or be
viewed in a marathon. Each episode is
very entertaining and quite humorous. However,
when they are placed side by side, certain aspects of the show become too repetitious
ands end up detracting from the show.
That is not to say that the jokes repeat or there is a lot of the same
material coming back throughout the show.
There were very few times that the jokes themselves were said
twice. On top of that, the non-comedy material
very rarely was done twice. Even the episode
that played out like an award show did reprisals better than most. This was the Phyllis George episode I am
talking about. In that episode, the show
covers a number of songs that the show had performed before. Instead of doing what most shows now would do
and make a flashback episode, a clip show, or show stock footage, "The
Muppet Show" is clever by shooting all new footage for the episode. Even though the songs are the same, the show
does them in a slightly different manner to prevent true repetition. There are pictures of all the guest stars
that had been on the show previously, but the show makes a comical song listing
all of their names so it is more like a visual reference rather than a cop out.
The repetition
that I am talking about is the kind where a little changes but never a
lot. It is the déjà vu kind of repetition
where you feel like you have heard it before but know for sure that you have
not. If you put all the Pigs in Space
skits together and watched them back to back, it would become tiring to
watch. The same can be said for all the
repeating skits but also the show as a whole.
The comedy is very similar between episodes to the point that can
overstay its welcome. There are only so
many times that a person can laugh at a puppet being eaten or exploding. It takes a long while but eventually one
reaches that dead end.
I could
not recommend someone watching the whole show.
That would be cruel even though I made it out alright, despite having a
few spasmodic twitches now. No, the
whole show is something that should not be watched unless one spaces it out
ever an even longer period of time. I do
recommend watching the show, just in a different manner. What I would do when recommending the show to
someone is to find the episodes they would like to see. "The Muppet Show" has a very long
list of guest stars that range from a wide area of entertainment
backgrounds. There were opera singers,
ballet dancers, musicians, singers, dancers, actors, and a few others. If someone is thinking about watching this
show, they would do best to first select out the episodes that feature the
entertainers that they know. When I was
going through the series, whenever there was a guest star that I knew I would
pay much more attention to the show because I was already familiar with that
person's work and wanted to see how the Muppets would use that person's ability
to add to the show. That is the main reason
for guest stars in the first place. They
are brought on to attract the associated viewers to watch the show. That is not to say that the episodes that
features guests that I did not know were not entertaining. No, I found many of the guests that I was
unfamiliar with to be very entertaining.
It is just that knowing the guest star beforehand is a helpful way to be
further pulled into the show. Only if
the prospective viewer wants to watch more episodes after fully watching the
ones featuring the people they know would I advise watching more.
On the
matter of the visuals, "The Muppet Show" is one that appeals to
everyone. No one really outgrows puppets. They only wish to appear that they have in
response to others stating likewise for that same reason. There is something magical about the Muppets,
something more than simple amusement. A
puppet can display a whole spectrum of emotion and can sometimes do it better
than an actor can. Not always, but
sometimes. Look at Robin, Kermit's
nephew. He is a small frog, yet he is able
to convey comedy, sadness, tragedy, joy, and innocence. All of this is possible from minute actions
and mannerisms compounded with emotionally delivered dialog. But what is the factor that separates the
ability of puppets from that of live action actors? The best guess I can give is that a puppet is
a pure emotion. It has to wholeheartedly
display a single emotion. A puppet can
display an emotion subtly, through those minute mannerisms I mention, but it
usually has to express that emotion loudly to compensate for the static
face. Look at Gonzo the Great. In the early episodes, he had both of his
eyelids rather low which made him look rather depressed or asleep. Later on, the puppet was given a moving
mechanism that allowed the puppeteer to change how low those eyelids could go
which helped to add a wider range of emotion.
This change was made because even with the overly enthusiastic nature of
the character, the eyelids were holding back that expression. That static face prevented emotion from
escaping and the puppeteer had to compensate by making the character much more
animated. Emotion had to pour out purely
so that it could get across to the audience.
Overall,
i like "The Muppet Show", but I would not watch it in its entirety again. It is a good show that I wish more people
were aware of and would show on TV, but it should not be consumed by the
truckload. It took too much time to get
through and is a major time sink that I sometimes found myself wanting to stop
watching. This is the second entity in
the Backlog that took a solid two weeks to get through. The first was "Eyeshield 21." Both I might one day go back to watch again,
but not in the same manner. I would skip
the filler episodes in "Eyeshield 21" in the same way I would only watch
my favorite episodes from "The Muppet Show." Trying to get through all the episodes and
watching them all for the sake of watching them all will rot your head. So, be happy I am here, Internet, to make
that dumb choice for you and report back my findings. Let us hope my head does not rot too soon.
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| You thought I was going to end on a high note? |
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Next is "Flandersui Gae" AKA "Barking
Dogs Never Bite" (2000).
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