networks rejected their ( frankly awesome) pitch for a weekly series, they instead finagled a distribution deal with Britain's ITC, under the auspices of Lord Lew Grade. The Muppet Show was produced for worldwide weekly syndication from 1976 to 1981. It was videotaped at the London studios of ITC's parent company ATV. The choreography for the human guests was created by Gillian Lynne, who later went on to design all of the ballet sequences in Andrew Lloyd Webber's stage version of The Phantom of the Opera. The show became so popular that in at least one U.S. Market, two stations broadcast different episodes of The Muppet Show in back-to-back time slots! The show was never actually cancelled instead, Henson and company decided to end it so that they could work on films, The Muppet Movie in particular.Ī different human entertainer was featured as the show's guest performer in each episode, and the show's cachet quickly became such that they were frequently A-list-often uniquely so (ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev, anyone?). Each week, technical flubs, talent crises, rampaging egos and financial issues (when the pigs weren't rebelling, or angry clones weren't on the loose, or the Star Wars cast wasn't rampaging through in search of Chewbacca) would bring the show teetering to the brink of disaster each week, the show somehow managed to go on. Recurring sketches included Veterinarian's Hospital, starring Rowlf ("the continuing stoooooooory of a quack who's gone to the dogs") Pigs in Space ( yep, pretty much) Muppet Labs, with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his perpetually terrified assistant Beaker ("Now your family can be protected from the heartbreak of gorilla invasion!") cooking segments with the game-but-goofy Swedish Chef and the disaster-prone 'Muppet News Flash'. And sitting high above it all in the balcony, in prime position to volley insults, were codger hecklers Statler and Waldorf: Piano-playing Doctor Teeth and his Electric Mayhem - laid-back bassist and singer Floyd Pepper, groovy guitarist Janice, silent saxophonist Zoot and drummer Animal - were the house band. Ostensibly a family show, The Muppet Show in practice played freely with the dark side of Henson's vision, more familiar from his later work.
Notable guest stars included Alice Cooper, Vincent Price, Jonathan Winters, Peter Sellers, Christopher Reeve and Steve Martin.
Songs from adult shows like Chicago and Cabaret were worked into the mix (to say nothing of Elton John singing "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", or Cooper's "Welcome to My Nightmare".) Casual violence abounded, seemingly gentle skits often took a weirdly surreal turn.
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