Gilda Radner guest stars, and Muppet Labs' new super-strength adhesive gets everywhere and wreaks havoc.
Songs and Sketches
- "Lullaby of Broadway"
- "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" and other selections from The Pirates of Penzance
- "Muppet Melodrama: Cliff
- "Witch Doctor"
- UK Spot: "The Bird on Nellie's Hat"
- Muppet Labs: Super Adhesive
- "Body and Soul"
- Muppet News Flash: The Glue Crisis has been solved.
- "Tap Your Troubles Away"
This episode has examples of:
- Blatant Lies: The Newsman reporting that the glue crisis is over might be more believable if he weren't stuck to his notes... and his chair.
- Brick Joke:
- Statler and Waldorf's "igloo" joke ("Someone must have broken their ig") after the "Lullaby of Broadway" number is brought up again during Muppet Labs.
- The episode features the payoff of a brick joke set up two years earlier on a different series. In the Anthony Perkins-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live from March 1976, filmed after the Land of Gorch sketches were scrapped, Scred (Jerry Nelson) pleads with Perkins to get the Muppets back onto SNL, making his case by impersonating Gilda as Emily Litella expressing horror at seeing "toasted English Muppets" on a diner menu. Fast forward to 1978, and Gilda opens her Muppet Show appearance in character as Emily Litella wondering why she's appearing on The Muffin Show.
- Hand Stomp: During the melodrama sketch, Uncle Deadly has Piggy hanging from a cliff. Wayne arrives to save her, but Deadly recognizes him as a flamenco dancer he saw in Kansas City and asks to show him how to do a paso doble — a little too close to Piggy's fingers. Then Deadly joins in and the two of them dance until they step on Piggy's fingers and she falls.
- Head Pet: Piggy plays Nellie in "The Bird on Nellie's Hat". The titular bird sees all of Nellie's beaux and knows when she lies to them.
- Hey, That's My Line!: When Gilda Radner cracks that the talking carrot got paid a huge celery for singing a song from Cole Slaw, the carrot moans, "Now she's stealing my jokes."
- Karmic Transformation: Marvin Suggs, who acts as a total Jerkass towards his Muppaphones, gets his head transformed into a Muppaphone after a Witch Doctor takes the titular song's lyrics too seriously.
- Pirate Parrot: Gilda plans to do a duet from The Pirates of Penzance with a talking parrot, but there's a slight misunderstanding, and she's instead given a talking carrot
◊. - Poor Communication Kills: Gilda had written to Kermit, requesting a seven-foot-tall talking parrot for her The Pirates of Penzance number. Kermit, who couldn't quite read her handwriting, had ordered a seven-foot-tall talking carrot.
- Rule of Three: For the Pirates of Penzance medley, Gilda is initially on stage alone as she breaks into "I am the very model of a modern Major General"note ... but when she starts tripping over the words after just three lines, the seven-foot carrot enters and chides her for her mistake. After a short duet of "When a felon's not engaged in his employment", the carrot starts singing the Major General's song... and only gets two lines in before he starts verbally stumbling; his hypocrisy is not lost on Gilda. After another duet of "Poor wan'dring one", they finally sing the Major General's song as a duet, trading off every few words.
- Something Something Leonard Bernstein: Neither Gilda nor the singing carrot can keep up with the lyrics to "Modern Major General" until their third and final attempt.
- Sticky Situation: The experimental adhesive from the Muppet Labs sketch spills all over the theater, leading to everything and everyone sticking together throughout the rest of the episode.
- Visual Pun: Backstage, sometime after the Muppet Labs sketch, Kermit notices Gonzo, who's extremely close to a TV set.Kermit: Hey, Floyd, what is Gonzo doing back there?
Floyd: Oh, he's watching television.
Kermit: Yeah, well, shouldn't he be further from the screen?
Floyd: Nope. His eyes are glued to the set.
[Floyd turns the TV sideways to reveal Gonzo's eyes stuck to the screen.]
- Statler: Goodnight.
Waldorf: So long.
(They try to leave, only to see they are stuck to the balcony.)
Both: Oh, no!
