We apologize for the fact that this picture is not in color.
Muppet Babies (1984-1991) was one of the few well-received Spinoff Babies conversions, partially because it was one of the first. Spinning off from The Muppet Show, the show's premise was a takeoff from a sequence in The Muppets Take Manhattan involving baby-versions of the characters, itself later referred to in an amusing callback. It also naturally spawned a side franchise of children's books.Aside from the original, and otherwise unseen Nanny character, it featured most of the big Muppet celebrities (Scooter's hitherto unknown sister notwithstanding) discovering quite mundane things and approaching them in a precocious, childlike way — before completely blowing them out of proportion with their overactive imaginations. The Once an Episoderandom song and trademark gimmick of spliced Live Action Stock Footage (one of the main factors that has prevented it from getting an official DVD release) gave it a rather surreal quality, too. And despite being a Saturday morning spinoff, it managed to contain all the wit and intelligence of its predecessor. Some fans even prefer it to the original Muppet Show.Later seasons would feature guest appearances from other Muppet characters, including fan favorites Statler and Waldorf. The Babies also had a memorable appearance in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.
Ascended Extra: Rowlf, Scooter and Animal. They were hardly nobodies on The Muppet Show or in the first three movies, but for many, it was this show that firmly put them into core character territory with Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie and Gonzo.
Animal:Go bye bye! Piggy: No, Animal, the show's not over yet! Animal: Sorry. Piggy: It's ok.
Burping Contest: Animal holds this with rocks and some others in "Journey To The Center Of The Nursery".
Butt Monkey: Gonzo's fates in many of the go bye-bye skits are shockingly cruel.
Canon Foreigner: Skeeter, though an adult version of her has recently made appearances in The Muppet Show Comic Book, so (depending on how much you're willing to take the comics as canon), she may be verging into Canon Immigrant territory.
Cat Fight: Piggy and Skeeter at least 3 times. For someone so young, Piggy sure can be vicious...
Chekhov's Gun: In the beginning of the episode "Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dark?," the kids play with Scooter’s computer pen with a glowing tip. By the end of the episode, it is used by Beaker to ward off and defeat a slime monster (a representation of his fear of the dark).
The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Fozzie Bear suffers this greatly, Not only from his friends but also from his imaginary audience when the boo and throw tomatoes at him for every joke he tells to them, good or bad.
Not to mention Gonzo's nose fetish and his line when Piggy takes him into the closet, "Be gentle with me."
Hidden Depths: Piggy always cast herself as the Distressed DamselPrincess Classic in their make-believe adventures, only to usually end up saying something like, "Gimme that stupid sword!"
In one episode, the babies try to figure out how to relate with Gonzo better by finding ways where they are really weird too. It worked too well, and Gonzo wound up coming to the conclusion that he wasn't really weird and if he wasn't a 'weirdo', then he wasn't anything at all. Of course, for the Muppet Babies version of Gonzo, being labeled "weird" was always a point of pride.
"I Want" Song: "The Biggest Little Pig In Hollywood" in the episode "This Little Piggy Went To Hollywood"
Irony: In "The Muppet Museum of Art", Skeeter slips on Gonzo's roller skate and twists her ankle, forcing Nanny to cancel a trip to an art museum to take care of her, and Gonzo has a guilt trip over ruining the trip they were all waiting for. The (dramatic) irony is we see Skeeter slipping on one of Piggy's roller skates, and she swapped it with one of Gonzo's to pass the blame to him. The rest of the episode has the other babies making their own art museum for Skeeter, while Gonzo makes various works of art featuring Piggy, subconsciously sneaking a roller skate in; Piggy reacts negatively to each one as it reminds her that Skeeter's accident was her fault.
Additionally, Skeeter gets to stay in the living room with Nanny, watching TV and drinking soda-pop while Nanny pampers her. Not a bad deal at all.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Could somebody please speak to congress and get them to make U.S. copyright laws less restricted like they are in Europe so we can get this on DVD? We'll settle for Clumsy Copyright Censorship!
Mad LoveTriangle: Piggy's crush on Kermit, Gonzo's crush on Piggy.
Narrative Shapeshifting: Baby Beaker, while explaining his fear of the monster under his bed to the other babies (since, like Adult Beaker, all he can say is "Meep!").
No Export for You: There are no plans announced of any DVD releases of the show, due to copyright issues.
Not Quite Starring: A weird example: none of the original puppeteers reprised their roles as their respective characters.
Shout Out: How many movie references did they have? A Star Wars one (just like the original Muppet Show) where Kermit was Luke, Miss Piggy was Leia, and Animal was Vader. (Now, that is impossible, Luke.) They also did Indiana Jones.
Muppet Babiesrunneth over with Star Wars references, in fact. Thanks to how close Henson Productions and Lucasarts were at the time, Lucas basically gave the Henson crew free rein to make as many references as they liked without fear of lawyers, a privilege they used as much as they could.
Talking to Himself: For the first two seasons, Howie Mandel voiced Skeeter, Animal and Bunsen. Frank Welker voiced Kermit, Beaker, Skeeter (taking over for Howie respectively) and various other voices. Dave Coulier also took over for Howie respectively, voicing Animal and Bunsen, as well as voicing Bean Bunny, Janice, Statler and Waldorf. Greg Berg voiced Scooter and Fozzie. Russi Taylor voiced Gonzo and Robin.
We apologize for the fact that this picture is not in color.
0 reviews