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Recap / The Muppet Show S 3 E 7

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Get ready to rock and roll in Halloween style for our very special guest star, Mr. Alice Cooper.

Songs and Sketches

  • Song: "Welcome to My Nightmare" - Alice Cooper and The Vile Bunch
  • Backstage with Kermit and Alice Cooper
  • Muppet Laboratory: Germ Enlargener
  • Backstage with Kermit the Frog and The Great Gonzo
  • A stalagmite complains about his toothache, while his fellow speleothems repeat what he says (with a few miscommunications). They are shown to be the teeth of another stalagmite, who begins to recite the sketch again.
  • Guest Star's Dressing Room: Sam the Eagle and Alice Cooper
  • Cafeteria: Fozzie Bear meets the Clean-Cut Kids.
  • Song: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - Robin the Frog
  • Song: "Once a Year Day" - The Vile Bunch at Backstage
  • Song: "You and Me" - Alice Cooper and Miss Piggy at the guest star's dressing room.
  • Pig In Space: Outline Scanimation
  • Song: "School's Out" - Alice Cooper and The Vile Bunch

This episode provides the example of:

  • Affably Evil: Alice may terrify the Muppets, and is trying to get them to sign up for a Deal with the Devil, but he's tremendously polite the whole way through, never actually pushes them into anything, and when the only Muppet to take him up on his offer demands he take it back, he does so.
  • Continuity Nod: Kermit says that things weren't this weird when Julie Andrews was the guest star.
  • Deal with the Devil: Alice offers Kermit a contract for fortune and fame in exchange for his soul. He doesn't take the bait, but Gonzo is all too eager to sign, if he only had a pen. Piggy apparently took the deal, but she has Alice take it back once she finds out it turned her into a hideous monster.
    Gonzo: [to a passing monster] Hey, give me a pen! Look, I'll give you a chicken for a pen.
    Monster: Uh-uh! [Walks away]
    Gonzo: I'll give you all my chickens for a pen! I'll sell my soul for a pen—no. I have other plans for that. A pen! I gotta have a pen! Somebody! Fozzie! Scooter!
  • Disney Acid Sequence: The "Toothache" sketch is possibly the weirdest thing ever done on the series.
  • Halloween Episode: The second (and final) Halloween-based episode of the series.
  • Insult Backfire:
    Sam the Eagle: You, sir, are a demented, sick, degenerate, barbaric, naughty freako!
    Alice: [smiling] Why, thank you.
    Sam the Eagle: Freakos: one. Civilization: zero.
  • Kiss of Life: In the Pigs in Space sketch, Link Hogthrob is suffering from "a mysterious space disease" that Dr. Strangepork plans to cure with a risky shock treatment. When Miss Piggy asks if there's any other option, he suggests that she could try mouth-to-mouth. She's not enthused about the idea.
    Miss Piggy: [Beat] You connect the wires, I'll throw the switch.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Kermit blows out a candle and then says to the camera, "Think about that, folks", in a repeat of a gag from the Juliet Prowse episode.
  • Mega-Microbes: Bunsen's invention this week enlarges germs to make them easier to study. Naturally, the germ attacks Beaker.
  • Recursive Reality: The stalagmite with a toothache sketch ends with it and the others being inside the mouth of another stalagmite, which complains of its own toothache.
  • Re-Cut: "Once a Year Day" was only shown in Europe only. It was never seen in North America until it was reran on The Disney Channel.
  • Relax-o-Vision: After Fozzie asks for "one nice thing" on this show, we get Robin singing a straightforward rendition of "Over the Rainbow".
  • Shockingly Expensive Bill: Throughout the episode, Cooper tries to get various people to sign a Deal with the Devil, but it doesn't work out well. At the end, Gonzo materializes in a puff of smoke, holding a very long scroll.
    Kermit: Gonzo! Is that the contract with the Devil?
    Gonzo: No, Kermit, it's worse than that. This is the bill from special effects!
  • Tempting Fate: Fozzie can't take the creepiness on the show and decides to stay in the canteen with a bunch of "clean-cut" kids. Said kids laugh, revealing fangs.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Alice Cooper sings "You and Me" with a strange-looking monster. Then Scooter asks for Miss Piggy, and the monster answers in Piggy's voice. She looks in the mirror and realizes what she's been transformed into, then demands Cooper change her back.
  • Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Statler and Waldorf at one point heckle why someone would name their son Alice.
    Waldorf: Where do you suppose he got the name Alice?
    Statler: Well, it's a family name. He was named after a maiden uncle.
  • William Telling: A William Tell act is on stage while Kermit is talking with Alice, and arrows are constantly landing backstage. At the end, the performers walk by and the son has an arrow through his head.
    William Tell: You just can't move when I'm shooting. I've told you that a thousand times.
    William Tell's son: Well, you know me. In one ear and out the other.
    [He takes a bite of the undamaged apple.]

Statler: So that was Alice Cooper.
Waldorf: You should see his sister... James Fenimore.

 
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Talking Speleothems

The stalagmite with a toothache sketch in an episode of The Muppet Show ends with it and the others being inside the mouth of another stalagmite, which complains of its own toothache.

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4.8 (5 votes)

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Main / RecursiveReality

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