MUPPET BABIES

'''Jim Henson's Muppet Babies''' is an American animated television series that aired from 1984 to 1990 on CBS in first-run episodes, and then until 1992 in reruns. It was loosely based on a sequence in the Muppet film ''The Muppets Take Manhattan'', where Miss Piggy imagined what it would be like if she and Kermit the Frog grew up together. The show portrayed childhood versions of the Muppets living together in a large nursery in the care of a human woman called Nanny (the whereabouts of their parents are never addressed). Nanny appears in every episode, but viewers never see her face, only the babies' view of her pink skirt as well as her distinctive green and white striped socks. This motif of never seeing the face or upper body of Nanny is parodied in the cartoon series Cow and Chicken, in which the parents of the main characters are only seen from the waist down.
''Muppet Babies'' was produced by The Jim Henson Company and Marvel Productions. Although the episodes were 30 minutes (including commercials), it was typically shown in 60 and even 90 minute blocks during its peak popularity.The show outside the US is handled by Walt Disney Television Animation

Contents

Characters

Overview

Music

Film spoofs

Running gags

Other appearances

Trend starter

Syndication

Other information

DVD Releases

Voice cast

Comics

Episodes

References

External links

Characters

The series starred the following characters from ''The Muppet Show'' and subsequent Muppet films: Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Scooter, Rowlf the Dog, Gonzo, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and Beaker. Camilla also appeared in the form of Gonzo's stuffed chick. Kermit's nephew, Robin, appeared in at least one episode as a mute tadpole in a fish bowl.
A notable character introduced on ''Muppet Babies'' was Skeeter, Scooter's twin sister, who only appeared in this series, and was never a real-life Muppet. This was done because the producers wanted another female character added to the cast, despite the fact that Skeeter was always voiced by male actors (first by Howie Mandel and then Frank Welker), almost in the same vein as what was done for most female Muppets on the regular live-action Muppet programming (such as Frank Oz performing as Miss Piggy, for instance).
Bean Bunny, a Muppet who joined the regular Muppet cast in the 1989 TV series ''The Jim Henson Hour'' (and before that, the 1986 special ''The Tale of the Bunny Picnic'') was added as a baby character in the final season of ''Muppet Babies''. Statler and Waldorf also made occasional appearances (as adults).

Although he has usually been referred to as a "whatever", characters in this series referred to Gonzo as being a "weirdo", as if it were a sort of creature as much as it referred to his behavior. (The movie ''Muppets from Space'' delves more deeply into the matter). In one episode, he temporarily believes he is an anteater.
No adults' faces were ever seen, except for those of actors in the live-action film clips and Uncle Statler and Uncle Waldorf, both original Muppets. One exception to this was where the Muppets have to overcome their fear of going into the basement in a search for Baby Animal, in which they believe it is the Temple of Doom. As with most of their imagining situations based on movies, live action clips from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom are interspersed with animation. An animated Mola Ram shows his face when he tells the Muppet Babies he has them trapped in a dead end. A second instance is actually when Nanny's sister comes to visit and the audience sees her face at the end.

Overview

The Babies had active imaginations, and often embarked on adventures into imaginary worlds and perilous situations from which they were eventually saved when some external event—often Nanny coming to see what the noise was—brought them back to reality, revealing that, for instance, the giant squid that had them in its tentacles was really just the tail end of a curtain.

Music

Approximately 100 of the songs were co-written by Alan O'Day and Janis Liebhart. O'Day is a songwriter who was known for writing #1 hits in the 1970s including "Angie Baby" (sung by Helen Reddy) and "Undercover Angel".

Film spoofs

As an animated television series, ''Muppet Babies'' was unusual in that it frequently incorporated footage from old films, and occasionally spoofed popular fictional characters and Hollywood films, including ''Star Wars'', ''Indiana Jones'', ''Batman'', ''Ghostbusters'', ''The Three Stooges'' and ''Beetlejuice''.

Running gags

A running gag in the show involved one of the Babies, usually Gonzo, opening the closet door in search of something or looking down a dark tunnel or something similar only to meet film footage depicting something scary and unexpected behind the door or tunnel, such as a huge monster roaring or a train barreling towards him. Gonzo's nose would also make a honking sound when someone, usually Miss Piggy, squeezed it. Another running gag involves aspiring comedian Fozzie trying to tell jokes to an (imaginary) audience, only for them to boo him and throw rotten tomatoes at him. Once in awhile he get other food thrown at him if he tells a joke about the food. An example would be telling jokes about eggs and instead of getting hit by tomatoes he would get hit by eggs. Possibly the most famous running gag from the series was a short clip that ran after the closing credits, in which Baby Animal would appear (usually in an environment related to the theme of the episode) and say, "Go bye-bye!" Something that contradicts what is usually considered Muppet canon, a reference to the "real" Muppets is given in one episode where Kermit wishes his friends would stay together and enter show business—which they did in ''The Muppet Movie'' (though the clip accompanying this scene was actually from ''The Great Muppet Caper)'', and the movie from which this series was based ''The Muppets Take Manhattan'' was all about the group staying together as adults while trying to sell a Broadway musical. Live-action, adult versions of Kermit the Frog, Dr. Teeth and Oscar the Grouch (although there were never baby versions of the ''Sesame Street'' [or even ''Fraggle Rock''] muppets on the show itself) appeared in live-action film clips.

Other appearances

Baby Kermit, Baby Piggy, and Baby Gonzo also made small appearances in the drug prevention TV special (later released on home video) ''Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue''. A live-action version of the characters also appeared in ''A Muppet Family Christmas'' as a home movie. The segment was cut out of the home video releases of the special, however, due to music rights (because they sang the song "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town").

Trend starter

The most notable feature of this show is that it started a trend for relaunching popular character franchises as younger versions of themselves. This trend can be seen in ''A Pup Named Scooby Doo,'' ''Baby Looney Tunes'', ''Flintstones Kids'', and numerous others.

Syndication

After ''Muppet Babies'' stopped airing on CBS, it was later re-run on other channels.

★ Nickelodeon (1992–1999)

★ Odyssey Network (1999–2000)

★ Playhouse Disney UK
Whenever an episode ended (or when a 60 or 90 minute block of ''Muppet Babies'' has concluded), Baby Animal would always say, "Gooooooo bye-bye! Ya-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!!," usually after a small bit of physical humor at Gonzo's expense. If there is still another episode coming up in the block, Baby Gonzo would always say "Don't go away, we'll be right back."

Other information

★ For a brief run in the second season, the program became ''Muppets, Babies & Monsters,too!'', and a second half-hour was dedicated to segments featuring live action puppets and cartoons featuring the adult Muppet characters. This format only lasted two weeks before Jim Henson pulled the plug, despite 18 episodes having been made. The show then reverted to an hour of ''Muppet Babies''; however, a portion of the ''Little Muppet Monsters'' theme could still be heard in the show's end credits for the remainder of its run. The show later expanded to 90 minutes after ''The Garbage Pail Kids'' was cancelled before it aired.

★ Sometimes Baby Gonzo has envisioned himself as the superhero "Super Gonzo", in which he was "Cluck Kent" when his superhero duties were not required. In one episode explaining the Muppet Babies heritage, Baby Gonzo claims he was from the planet "Cruton", a planet of weirdos like him but doomed to being transformed into a normal planet. Gonzo's parents sent him to Earth to escape this fate, where he is adopted by two chickens "Ma & Pa Cluck". Gonzo clearly imagines himself just like Superman, who is a licensed character of DC Comics.

★ One of the series' writers, Jeffrey Scott, spoke of how he incorporated a Scientology teaching into a ''Muppet Babies'' episode:^[1]
:"Hubbard discovered that the number one barrier to study was the MISUNDERSTOOD WORD. He found that the moment a student went past a word he/she didn't understand the rest of the material became more or less 'blank'. ''[...]'' So in a 'Muppet Goose' episode I wrote Piggy was reading Little Miss Muffet, and when she read 'sat on a tuffet,' her imagination went blank until she cleared up her misunderstood word."

★ Also in 1992, after the last aired ''Muppet Babies'' episode in 1991, an episode book collection of ''Muppet Babies'' was produced from the book company Grolier. It was called '''The Muppet Babies Press Books'''. The book talked mostly about character traits and learning for young children. It was produced and ended in 1992.

★ In the third season of The Office, Jim Halpert claims that Dwight has Animal tatooed on his stomach.

★ In the Season 4 episode '''The Muppet Broadcasting Company''', Rowlf states that he is the oldest baby. This is a nod to the fact that Rowlf is in fact the oldest Muppet having appeared in TV commercials and on The Jimmy Dean Show back in the 1960s.

★ In the mid 1980's PVC Muppet Babies Toys were available as prizes in McDonalds' Happy Meals. Each non-articulated character came with a wheeled vehicle (IE: Baby Kermit came with a skateboard, Baby Gonzo had a big-wheel, etc)

★ Voted "Top Cartoon of the Childhood Days" by the Irvin Hall newspaper's weekly review of the Pennylvania State University in 2007.

★ "Nanny's Day Off" features Darth Vader (without showing his head or face) as a substitute nanny, this was a segment imaginated by Fozzie.

★ The episode "Babes in Troyland" features a live action clip of a monster from the X-rated film Flesh Gordon.

DVD Releases

Although the show was (and still is) quite popular, there have been no plans announced of any DVD releases of Muppet Babies. One possible reason is that clips from other TV shows and movies (such as ''Star Wars'') were used extensively in the Babies' imagination sequences and closet opening scenes and thus could pose difficulties in terms of resolving possible copyright issues. Recently, a few episodes were made available as bonus DVDs with Muppet Babies plush toys.

Voice cast

★ Greg Berg: Baby Fozzie, Baby Scooter

★ Barbara Billingsley: Nanny

★ Dave Coulier (1985–1990): Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen, Baby Bean Bunny, Uncle Statler, Uncle Waldorf

★ Katie Leigh: Baby Rowlf

★ Howie Mandel (1984–1985): Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen, Baby Skeeter

★ Laurie O'Brien: Baby Piggy

★ Russi Taylor: Baby Gonzo

★ Frank Welker: Baby Kermit, Baby Skeeter (1985–1990), Baby Beaker

Comics

From 1985 until 1989, Marvel Comics produced a monthly comic book of the ''Muppet Babies'' with their Star Comics imprint. The series lasted for 26 issues. In 1992, Harvey Comics acquired the rights to produce ''Muppet Babies'' comics and produced a further 3 issues (restarting at issue #1).
The Muppet Babies also appeared in ''Star Comics Digest'' (also known as ''Star Comics Magazine''). This comic was printed in digest size format, and features a number of short stories in each issue. The series itself lasted for 13 issues from 1986 until 1988. It should be noted that the Muppet Babies appeared in some, but not all the issues. Other short stories contained in ''Star Comics Digest'' included Madballs, Heathcliff, the Care Bears, and Top Dog.

Episodes

Main articles: List of Muppet Babies episodes

References

1. http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/4173/scott.html

External links

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★ Muppet Babies @ TV.com