Muppeturgy: A "The Muppet Show" Rewatch Podcast

It’s a Very Muppeturgy Chrismukah! To celebrate the Winter Solstice, we muddle through this legendary — but definitely not timeless — 1979 network television special. Join us for a journey the uncanny valley of puppets whose faces don’t move and the uncannier valley of John Denver whose face doesn’t move, with stops at Christian hegemony, crimes against lyrics, how religious was too religious for...

Anthony Strand joins us for a highly cultured episode to talk about racism disclaimers, Lobster Newburgh, 70s fashion, Johnny Cash being a giant, Conan O’Brien’s lip-sync “puppet” nightmares…oh yeah, and Beverly Sills is here! Was opera big in the 70s or was the monoculture small? Is this the weirdest episode? One of the best? Both? Do we, like the Muppets, wish we could hang out with Beverly Sill...

Happy Thanksgiving! We definitely did this on purpose. We’re thankful for getting to spend this time together talking about baffling accents, even more baffling songs, waking death and Muppet mortality (totally normal holiday dinner table stuff), and of course Alice’s Restaurant! Stop by the woods on a snowy evening on your way to Hernando’s Hideaway and give us a listen! https://muppeturgy.com/ep...

Mamma mia, this episode is weirdly prescient! We’ve got a show business labor dispute over replacing human artists (well, Muppet artists) with a robot…and also Dudley Moore is here! He’s pretty charming! This television is wonderful. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/dudley-moore

Muppeturgy, this is your podcast! (Poof, you’re a podcast!) There’s a new girl in town and Linda Lavin is feeling, looking, and sounding good, but there are also some old friends coming to visit. Join us beyond the blue horizon for some clowning around and some frog kissin’. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/linda-lavin This episode was released during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the...

Get ready, classical music lovers! This week, we go gaga for macho man Victor Borge, reconsider Bobby Benson and his attack babies, and have several outbursts of pedantry. Is this episode telling one story to the normies and another to the perverts, or did the Muppet guys not understand the significance of dressing the pigs in leather on a Greenwich Village set or did they really think they were m...

The minute she walked in the joint we became Dyan Fannons. But is this episode all fun, laughs, good times, or has it gone to the dogs? Or the Congo? Is Foo-Foo secretly a Fosse dancer? Why would a Muppet set have a floor and a ceiling? If a cavegirl outfit isn’t designed by Bob Mackie, is it more problematic than Ally McBeal? And what’s the deal with Pogo?? We’ll answer these questions and more o...

We just can’t stay silent about the Shields and Yarnell episode of The Muppet Show. We have a lot to say about 70s clown culture, mime weddings, and the sheer rage of hearing a mime speak in their act. But did they make ‘em laugh? Take a chance on us and listen! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/shields-yarnell This episode was released during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of...

Hold on to your neck seams and take a walk down River Road with us to board the ship called the Alpha Centauri…which is also bound for Alpha Centauri. It's very confusing. Let’s hope we don’t run into Dearth Nadir on the way, or any Klingons…or the most feared things in the galaxy, Muppet nipples. Back on Earth, we’ve got a prairie dog glee club (it’s really more of a show choir), bankruptcy...

It’s our official Season 4 premiere! Oh yeah and the Muppets’, too. Some country roads will take us, inch by inch and row by row, to get campy about camping. We hope there are neither any al-i-ga-tors when we get there, not a Muppet version of The Last of Us. After all, man is made of dreams and bones, which might explain why goats are out to get us. Hopefully we survive and can crash on grandma’s...

From the glamorous Cocoanut Grove (where definitely no one was assassinated) in beautiful Hollywood (which definitely wasn’t a nightmare in 1979). it’s The Muppets Go Hollywood (which definitely won’t make you go “wow, TV in the 70s was...wow”). We watched this special promoting The Muppet Movie/grasping for ratings/beta testing Jim Henson’s idea for a live Muppet show so you don’t have to! There...

It’s our season finale, and we enjoy being a Muppet Show podcast with our own very special guest star, Danny Horn, of Tough Pigs, Muppet Wiki and Muppet Pictures. Yaaaaay! It’s a super-sized episode, because we needed extra time to go all in on queer theory, Miss Piggy as long-form drag performance, Muppet jobs vs. Muppet identities, dogs and cats and chickens living together, eyelid mechanisms, t...

Hooray, hooray, come cavort with the Muppets as they put on a play! Anything we do we do it for Lynn Redgrave, even watching an episode that sometimes feels like getting tortured with thumb screws. Listen as we and take aim at egregious Lady Kluck erasure, noted Yoda stan Frank Sinatra, and the enduring nature of the Robin Hood myth (yeth?). https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/lynn-redgrave

Hit those happy trails, we’re going deep in the heart of Texas where the stars at night are big and bright (👏👏👏👏) but there’s nothing but blue skies for the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans episode. Well…and some terrifying babies. And confusing horses. And a somewhat alarming amount of gunplay. Okay, there a few tumbling tumbleweeds. Still, join us at home on the range with some adorable prairie dog...

Well dang us, this is a clucking good episode of The Muppet Show that charmed even the country music skeptics among us. Is it because Roger Miller is such a charmer, or because everyone is turning into a chicken? Why not both? Can a penguin rollerskate to Alabamy in a buffalo herd? Do they only wear hats in the summertime? Is cluckitis an STD? Will it make your weasel pop? Do wacka do listen for a...

Hey it’s a guest star we don’t have to explain! He’s on a TV show right now! And also, like, super duper famous. But what’s it like to go back 45 years to peak Rocky Balboa and watch Sylvester Stallone…fight a lion in a gladiator sketch? And fend off groupies including Scooter? And sing music hall while looking like the opening credits from Cheers? Because we’re us, we’ll also manage to talk about...

However you pronounce it, Elke Sommer seems delightful, so it’s unfortunate that she’s overshadowed by the Bobby Benson Baby Band. Give those kids some animal crackers and row row row them out to sea! Backstage, Beau and Beaker hammer out their new relationship and the Pigs in Space explore Koozebane in sneakers and tights. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/elke-sommer New shirt! Just for the Halibu...

It may be January but June is busting out all over and we’re huckin’ the bejeepers with Leslie Uggams and Big Bird (of Sesame Street, maybe you’ve heard of it). We have our quibbles (here we come again) but what a delight after a couple of episodes we weren’t super into to have not one but two guest stars who are charming and charismatic and seem to really want to be here! Does Gonzo try to have s...

Content warning: This episode of our podcast contains discussions of racist tropes and inappropriate depictions of races and cultures because this episode of The Muppet Show contains those things and, well, that was kind of Spike Milligan’s whole deal. It’s a small world after all, and he offended most of it, including Britain and America (I know you do!). There are arguably (and we will argue abo...

We’re so grateful to have very special guest Noah Diamond, who really appreciates Danny Kaye with us this week because we…did not. But you don’t come to us to treat beloved national treasures with kid gloves, you come to us for deep dives into the music theory of why “Inchworm” is creepy. Plus disco oddities, possible child refugees, amazing outerwear, formally dressed hippies, dancing fruit, and...

We love Lesley and/or Warren just the way she is, but is it the last dance for the Muppaphone? Is the Muppets’ take on Beauty and the Beast ahead of its time or a shreky misstep? Does Gonzo’s feat of lunatic daring succeed, or die like disco? Can Sam handle Dr. Teeth being curt and vile? Don’t get hit by dummo rays, listen to our latest episode and find out! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/lesley-...

Leggies and jenglefins, come let us tally the ways we love this episode! It would be a real (drum) battle to narrow it down, but so is life. This banana boat stops at Beetlejuice, Dreamgirls, and witnesses the birth of C-SPAN?? Turn your podcast player around and join us! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/harry-belafonte

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Starting this week, we’re going to be releasing new episodes every other Thursday. But we didn’t decide that until after we recorded, so you’ll hear us say “next week” at the end of the episode. And also at the end of the next episode, when it will actually be three weeks because of Thanksgiving. We’re sorry for lying to you but if you’re anything like us you’re probably behind o...

We’re back from a little break, ready and…somehow not at all rested. But that’s okay because James Coco brings us a fairly languid episode, despite all his talk of pace pace pace! Maybe his energy was low because of his severe diet. Fortunately there’s also some underwater delights from a failed skiffle outfit, a Droop sighting, short people, and Wayne and Scooter finally acknowledge their forbidd...

Baby, it’s Raquel Welch! We’re pretty mixed on this episode, which has some wild gender politics along with some wild spiders, and the horniest Muppets we’ve seen to date. And what’s more troubling, Miss Piggy frying up bacon in a pan, or pondering Gonzo’s living situation? Only one of them is a W-O-P-I-G, and only one of us saw Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark three times, so put on your Bob Mackie...