Muppeturgy: A "The Muppet Show" Rewatch Podcast

Welcome to our new season, all about movies that appear to have been greenlit by a bag of cocaine! We’ve mentioned a lot of these in passing before but now we’re taking a deep dive into the shallow end, starting with The Apple, one of the most WTF films ever made! Is it a cautionary tale about the corrupting influence of fame? An allegory for totalitarianism? A retelling of Genesis? Yes, and so much less! We’ll try to make sense of it all with our very special guest star Amy Spalding! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/apple

It’s America’s 250th birthday! We’d sing it a song (it took two people to write it!) but we’re…ambivalent at best. So instead we’re looking back 50 years to when patriotism felt less fraught (but not as much as you might think!), the centennial was bi, and the culture was mono. We watched an assortment of artifacts of varying levels of interest and weirdness, and we made you a playlist so you can too (though we don’t really recommend it). There are even some Muppets! From 1982. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Anyway we hope you have a great holiday weekend however you choose to celebrate, or ignore, or protest, and to our non-American listeners have a great day and we’re sorry we’re like this. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/bicentennial

Remember back when we did the Star Wars Holiday Special and were sad it didn’t include the commercials? Well thanks to two lovely listeners who shared that we are bad at searching YouTube, we can now be completists and talk about the commercials? Was that a good idea? Is there a government publication that can tell us? Will a neutron bomb take out anti-regulation eagles? Is our pantyhose union made? What will cure our headaches? And most importantly, what is Tobor?? !tuo dnif dna netsiL https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/swhs-commercials

If we could turn back time, we’d somehow insist that Cher be a guest on The Muppet Show. But we got you (babe) the next best thing: The Muppets being guests on Cher’s show. Do you believe in life after love? What about frogs who are horny for the bicentennial? Will love keep Cher and Sweetums happy together? Is Ray Charles — brilliant entertainer, great humanitarian, and close personal friend — worth the full concert he gets here? We probably haven’t seen the last of Cher, but for now let’s enjoy peak variety show! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/cher

Our friends at Kermitment said they wanted to watch some non-Henson stuff and we didn’t want to suffer alone, so we all decided it was time for a crossover episode!!! Join us as we explore the tedious nightmare that is The B.B. Beegle Show, a failed pilot for a Hanna-Barbera puppet-based variety show, featuring stars from Three’s Company and Laugh-In (no, not the ones you’re thinking of…no, not those ones either). Are we nuts for doing this? Listen and find out! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/bb-beegle

Won’t you let us take you on a sea cruise with multiple Muppet Show guest stars, some grumpy old men, Broadway and Hollywood legends, a Golden Girl, and a famous singing android? Break out all five of your mambos and get ready to sway with us as we head out to sea! (When we recorded this, Out To Sea wasn't included with any streaming services but now it's on Prime in the US and Disney+ in Canada if you want to watch along.) https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/out-to-sea

Muppeturgy — here we go again! I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey. To Summer Night City, where you won’t get two for the price of one but you will get a bonus co-host, our very special guest star Amy Spalding! Shine your super trouper on and on and on us and we’ll gimme gimme gimme a man (Dick Cavett) awkwardly interviewing one of our favorite bands (ABBA) after (probably not actually) midnight. Knowing me, knowing you, knowing us, it’s going to go to some weird places, and mamma mia will we talk about musicals! Thank you for the music! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/abba-dick

It’s The Mup-pet Show! No, really! It’s back! For one episode, at least. Can four fans who’ve been marinating in the original show for nearly 5 years be objective about “new” performers and writers? Can the modern, corporate Muppets capture the organic magic of the shaggier original? Will Sabrina Carpenter release our inner manchild or leave us floating like islands in the stream? Would it be enough to just have Gonzo yelling the names of Best Supporting Actress Oscar winners? (We’ll give you that one now: Yes.) Watch the new special now and then listen as we roll out our new old formula, Muppeturgy Classic! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/sabrina-carpenter (Photo credit: Disney/Mitch Haaseth)

Since it came up way back in season one, Sandy in Disneyland might be the very first thing we ever threatened to add to The List. Well, here we are! You’re welcome? Join us and very special guest star David Beukema as we sing and dance through the happiest place on earth with Sandy, Ruth Buzzi, John Davidson, Lorne Greene, Ted Knight, Loggins & Messina, Ernest Borgnine, Doc Severinsen, and The Jackson Five. It’ll make you feel good all over! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/sandy-in-disneyland

On the 12th hour of Life Day,Art Carney gave to me12 pocket fishtanks11 ripped up banthas10 Harvey Kormans9 clowns a-flailing8 Wookiees wailingJefferson Starship6 R2-D2sBEA ARTHUR SINGSFour bored HansThree Boba FettsLeia and Lukeand a Diahann Carroll just for meeeee Have a nice life………day. With our very special guest star, Anthony Strand! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/star-wars-holiday

Welcome to Phase 2 of Muppeturgy! We’re following paths and pulling threads that came up during our coverage of The Muppet Show to bring you more 70s and 80s variety show nonsense. It’s going to take us to some places! (What about them?) We started off close to home and went to the movies with The Muppets and it was…kind of exhausting, honestly. But if you’re a fan of Muppets and Mad Magazine and Swedish art films, this special might be for you! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/movies

They said it couldn’t be done but we did it. We finished The Muppet Show! We thought we’d take some time to process our feelings and answer your questions. Thank you all for listening to this very silly thing for all these years! And: We’re not done! We’ll be back in your feeds very soon with Muppeturgy: Phase 2. So stay subscribed and follow us on social media and all that good stuff. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/finale

For your eyes only, it’s a view to the Roger Moore episode of The Muppet Show! It’s also the last episode of The Muppet Show! Listen to find out if Muppeturgy will live and let or die another day! (Yes we know that last one isn’t Moore, leave us alone. Octopussy.) Anyway join us on a slow boat to China for pies, spies, a village full of viking people and Frank Oz crammed under a couch! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/roger-moore

Don’t let our second to last Muppet Show episode blow by you! Shoop shoop that Play button and you’ll be so happy to hear us talk about the great Linda Ronstadt, rhythmic frogs, a cat who came back (with multiple tunes), fan dancers, old dreams, and of course a trunk full of fungus. All with our very special guest star, Christie’s Mom! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/linda-ronstadt Send us your questions for our grand Muppet Show finale (but not our Muppeturgy finale): muppeturgy@gmail.com .

We’re transporting ourselves with delight to dance in the dark, which leads to some banging around with Buddy Rich. Beau may get electrocuted but it’s good day sunshine for the rest of us, so drumstick around and listen! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/buddy-rich

The Muppet Show is going country (again) and live on the radio (somehow). We’re going to Jackson but that doesn’t answer any of our questions about where the theatre is…though the prominently displayed Confederate Flag suggests it might be somewhere south of Pittsburgh. But hey you can do worse than a Johnny Cash concert with Muppet chickens in tiny cowboy hats, and you can definitely do worse than listening to us talk about it! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/johnny-cash

It’s an old-fashioned vaudeville show! With less offensive material but also so, so many teeth. Get Pecos Bill to squeeze us and we might be able to hit the high note in Danny Boy. With our very special guest star, Taylor Cole! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/wally-boag

This is a weird one, so we’re just going to lay it out here without getting cutesy about it. Chris Langham was a writer on The Muppet Show, and he filled in at the last minute when the scheduled guest star set himself on fire (really!). Later, he was also a convicted sex offender, which is why (we assume) this episode isn’t on Disney+. (Anything goes! …see, that would’ve been weird.) We’re completists, so we wanted to cover it anyway, and we hope you’ll join us and very special guest star Shane Keating while we talk around Langham and get into the delightful “Friendship,” possibly racist Londoners, and one wild gnu. https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/chris-langham

It’s gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight ‘cause we’re bugging out about the Marty Feldman episode of The Muppet Show! Open Sesame and welcome our guest J.D. Hansel! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/marty-feldman

Statler and Waldorf are taking over the show! Not our show, we’ve got grumpy criticism covered already. We also put the bomp in the bomp bomp bomp and go deep on sauerkraut, lands that may or may not be your land or my land, and of course Hal Linden and Barney Miller. Oh and BALLS! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/hal-linden