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Muppet Show: Season Three (The)
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (15th June 2008). |
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The Show
 Before reviewing this I don’t think I have ever seriously sat down to watch a full episode of “The Muppet Show” (19761981). Not only was it six or seven years before my time, but I was content to keep to the movies like “A Muppet Christmas Carol” (1992) which was about 2 years after Jim Henson’s time. This has left me at a bit of a disadvantage reviewing “The Muppet Show: Season 3,” I had to Google half the names of the stars that appeared in the show, but for the most part it didn’t hurt the experience. “The Muppet Show: Season 3” plays out as a prime-time variety show, a bunch of musical acts and comedy sketches introduced by a host, Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson), in the Muppet theatre. Each week will bring a new guest star and season 3 of the "Muppet Show" is no slouch. If there is just one reason to buy this DVD, it’s to see a young Sylvester Stallone dressed as a Roman Gladiator singing a rendition of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” with a Lion. Many big stars of the 70’s that guest starred don’t have big names anymore and not all of them have kept the same career path. Until I saw Kris Kristofferson serenading Miss Piggy (Frank Oz), I would have never known that he was a singer, I only saw him as Whistler from the “Blade” trilogy (1998-2004) or the fanatical Christian assassin from “Johnny Mnemonic” (1995). Overall the guests are very hit or miss, but Stallone, Alice Cooper and Harry Belafonte stand out as the best episodes of the season. As a word of warning, some are unable to stomach puns of any kind, let alone the depraved and terrible puns that “The Muppet Show” perpetrates. Many of the horrible puns are made fully aware of how bad the puns are, which is key to any bad-pun focused routine. For me, the puns are near and dear to my heart, simultaneously making me cringe and smile like when Rowlf (Jim Henson) asks Fozzy (Frank Oz) why he’s holding a fish and Fozzy replies “Just for the Halibut.” You could watch “The Muppet Show” at least for some fantastic puppet design, especially in the Belafonte episode where he sings a song with a bunch of puppets styled as African Tribal masks. Henson supposedly called this his favorite episode of “The Muppet Show” and I would be hard pressed to disagree, many of the characters have a great look and personality created by the designers and puppeteers. Whether you watch it for nostalgia, if you can recognize all the celebrities of the season without the use of the internet, or puppetry, or just for some delightfully terrible puns, “The Muppet Show: Season 3” is worth checking out, at least for a few episodes. This DVD set of "The Muppet Show: Season 3" include all 24 episodes, they are: - Episode 1: Guest Stars Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge. Kristofferson sings a duet with Miss Piggy, Coolidge sings with woodland Muppet creatures and the couple sings a duet to close out the show. - Episode 2: Guest Star Leo Sayer. Sayer sings “You Make Me Feel like Dancin’” and dances with a ridiculous giant bird, Miss Piggy recites William Wordsworth. - Episode 3: Guest Star Roy Clark. Clark plays fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin with a bunch of Muppets , Fozzy nearly gets fired, Swedish Chef makes a dough monster and an installment of Pigs in Space. - Episode 4: Guest Star Gilda Radner. Radner performs a “Pirates of Penzance” medley with a 7ft. tall singing Carrot; Beaker, Bunsen Honeydew and Radner accidentally get super adhesive glue everywhere. - Episode 5: Guest Star Pearl Bailey. Bailey performs with a Muppet gospel choir, sings a duet with Floyd and the whole cast performs the jousting scene from Camelot as a Broadway medley. - Episode 6: Guest Star Jean Stapleton. Stapleton sings a duet with Fozzy Bear, Sam the Eagle finds out that Swedish Chef isn’t really speaking Swedish thanks to Stapleton’s translation of Mock-Swedish, Stapleton sings a duet with Crazy Harry. - Episode 7: Guest Star Alice Cooper. Cooper performs “Welcome to My Nightmare,” tries to buy Kermit’s, Gonzo’s and Miss Piggy’s Souls. Cooper closes the show by singing “School’s Out for Summer” with ghostly and monster puppets. - Episode 8: Guest Star Loretta Lynn. Entire show performed from a mock Railroad Station while Muppet theatre is fumigated. Lynne duets with a Muppet conductor in a broom closet, Kermit and Gonzo get hit by a train. - Episode 9: Guest Star Liberace. Liberace auditions birds for his big concert during the second half of the show, Swedish Chef makes coffee, and Liberace performs a mini concert for the second half of the show. - Episode 10: Guest Star Marisa Berenson. Berenson dances with floating scarves, sings “Our House” and Miss Piggy tries to trick Kermit into marrying her for the show’s finale. - Episode 11: Guest Star Raquel Welch. Welch dressed as a cavewoman sings and dances with a giant Muppet spider, serenades Fozzy Bear and duets with Miss Piggy. - Episode 12: Guest Star James Coco. Coco plays a mind reader in a sketch, Rowlf plays a tribute to Beethoven, Coco sings “Short People Got No Reason to Live.” - Episode 13: Guest Star Helen Reddy. Reddy sings in the Muppet’s recording studio, duets with Kermit and dances with a Camel. - Episode 14: Guest Star Harry Belafonte. Belafonte sings his famous “Banana Boat song” for the first time on Television, does a drum duet with Animal and sings “Turn the World Around” with the Muppet cast including some puppets styled as African Masks. - Episode 15: Guest Star Lesley Anne Warren. Warren dances an interpretation of "Beauty and the Beast", sings a song accompanied by the Muppophones and Rowlf the Dog, and closes the show by singing “Last Chance.” - Episode 16: Guest Star Danny Kaye. Kaye sings a duet with Miss Piggy, plays the Swedish Chef’s Uncle for a Swedish Chef cooking segment and sings “Inchworm” with all the Muppets. - Episode 17: Guest Star Spike Milligan. Milligan performs with Sam the Eagle, helps act out the Muppet news, and helps perform “It’s a Small World.” - Episode 18: Guest Star Leslie Uggams and Big Bird. Uggams sings with a bunch of monsters, sings accompanied by Ned Zealand on the Fish, and performs “Love Will Keep Us Together” with Big Bird in the closing act. - Episode 19: Guest Star Elke Sommers. Sommers sings “Animal Crackers” in different styles, a Pigs in Space step foot on a new planet, Sommers “chews the fat” with Miss Piggy and sings as Cleopatra. - Episode 20: Guest Star Sylvester Stallone. Stallone dresses as a gladiator to fight a tiger but ends up singing with it instead, Muppet groupies mob Stallone and he shows them some boxing/his muscles, Stallone sings “Bird in a Gilded Cage” dressed like a 1930’s bartender. - Episode 21: Guest Star Roger Miller. Miller sings with a patch of melons, the show is hit by an outbreak of “cluckitis” that causes some to turn into chickens at random; Miller sings about hats and sings to all the Muppets who were turned into chickens. - Episode 22: Guest Stars Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Rogers sings “Skyball Paint” and yodels, Evans sings “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” Rogers teaches Kermit to Yodel, Roger and Evans sing with a crowd of cowboy Muppets. - Episode 23: Guest Star Lynne Redgrave. Redgrave and all the Muppets do the episode as a production of Robin Hood, with Kermit playing Robin Hood, Fozzy playing Little John and Redgrave playing Maid Marian. Miss Piggy tries to steal Redgrave’s role. - Episode 24: Guest Star Cheryl Ladd. Ladd sings with a parade of Muppets. She also sings “Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy.”
Video
Presented in its original 1.33:1 full-frame format, the video quality of “The Muppet Show” holds up pretty well and even looks a bit better than it would have when it originally aired as TV technology has improved. The quality of the transfer of is exceptional considering it originally aired in the late 1970’s, though much of this could be owed to how well the footage was preserved.
Audio
“The Muppet Show” is presented in an English Dolby 2.0 Stereo soundtrack, and sounds good for what it is. The voices are clear and the laugh-track doesn’t override any of the dialogue, bad puns, or musical segments. Optional subtitles are available in English for the hearing impaired.
Extras
Buena Vista has included a documentary, two featurettes and some bonus trailers as extras. Below is a closer look at these supplements broken down per disc. DISC ONE: The only extras on this disc are a couple of bonus trailers for: - “Wall∙E” which runs for 2 minutes and 26 seconds. - “The Nightmare Before Christmas” which runs for 3 minutes and 6 seconds. DISCS TWO & THREE: There are no extras on these discs. DISC FOUR: First up is “Muppets on Puppets”, a documentary which runs for 58 minutes and 43 seconds. This feature was originally a TV special on puppetry that was filmed in 1968 and aired on National Educational Television, now PBS, in 1970. Henson hosts the program which features Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Juhl and Don Sahlin talking about the craft of puppeteering and puppet building as themselves and occasionally as their Muppet counterparts. The quality of the audio and video isn’t great, but it’s really interesting to see the original Muppet puppeteers and creators talking about the different kinds of puppets, how they’re used, and even how they made many of the different kinds of puppets you see on the Muppet show and affiliates. Second is “A Company of Players” featurette which runs for 10 minutes and 19 seconds. This behind-the-scenes retrospective talks to various puppet builders, performers, and other related personnel and uses behind the scenes footage from 1981 documentary “Of Muppets and Men” that shows the puppeteering on set of the Muppet show and table readings for the Muppet show. Another great, though short, featurette that goes into the origins of some of the characters, not only the voices and personalities of the Muppets, but who created the look of the puppets as well. Finally is the “Purina Commercials” featurette which runs for 2 minutes and 33 seconds and shows Rowlf the Dog’s television debut in a series of commercials for Purina Dog Chow that originally aired between 1962 and 1963. A fun look at the origins of one of the Muppets and his early voice and appearance.
Packaging
The set is packaged in a 4 disc bi-fold case with a slipcover that features a fuzzy Fozzy Bear.
Overall
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