Western Animation / Muppet Babies (1984)

Clockwise from top left: Fozzie Bear, Kermit, Gonzo, Rowlf, Animal, Skeeter, Scooter. In the center (with the book): Miss Piggy.

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, records and other merchandise.

Aside from the original Nanny character, whose face was never seen, it featured most of the big Muppet celebrities (Scooter's hitherto unknown sister Skeeter 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 Episode random 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. It briefly gained a companion show in Little Muppet Monsters (running in an hour-long block as Muppets, Babies and Monsters), but that show was quickly cancelled for various reasons.

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. There was also a spinoff book series called Muppet Kids, which featured the characters at about elementary school age. For the 2018 CGI reboot from Disney Junior, see Muppet Babies (2018).

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Examples:

A–D

• Abandoned Mine: "Water Babies" begins with the kids pretending they are in such a mine (in reality, a series of cardboard boxes) looking for treasure.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Statler and Waldorf, known for their constant heckling and snarky demeanor, are considerably nicer in this series.
• Adapted Out: Most of the members of the Electric Mayhem not named Animal. Janice appears in only one episode, and Dr. Teeth, Floyd, Zoot and Lips do not appear at all. Also missing are, among others, Sam the Eagle, the Swedish Chef, Sweetums, and Rizzo the Rat (understandable, since he was still a minor Muppet in the '80s), though those four characters would appear in the 2018 reboot.
• Affirmative Action Girl: That was why Skeeter was made and put into the show. They didn't have too many female muppets besides Miss Piggy to work with. Janice was only in one episode, her valley-girl persona apparently not providing enough of a contrast to Piggy's girly-girl.
• Age Lift: Scooter and Bean Bunny are around the same age as most of the other babies, and both older than Animal, whereas in the regular Muppet continuity Scooter is apparently a teenager and Bean is a child, while the rest are adults. Janice, while she appeared in only one episode, was depicted as a few years older than the babies (though already a Valley Girl), as evidenced by the fact that she could already read.
• Alien Episode: In "From a Galaxy Far, Far Away", the babies pretend to be space creatures and are surprised when they find what they think is a real alien from Neptune. It's actually a koala from a nearby zoo.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Gonzo is hopelessly in love with Piggy. Saying the feelings aren't mutual is an understatement, as she thrashes him in return. See Mad Love below.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot: In "Gonzo's Video Show", Nanny gives the Muppets an old home movie camera to play with. After arguing about what kind of movie to make, they settle on doing their own version of the original Star Wars.
• And Starring: "And Barbara Billingsley as Nanny"
• Animation Bump: The first three seasons were outsourced to Japan's Toei Animation (with the third season looking the best out of the three); the rest of the series at AKOM. The difference is that the animation for AKOM is that it has better animation, though cheaper than Japan, and slightly thinner outlines. The fifth season (1988) in particular stands out from the rest of the seasons AKOM did.
  • "Eight Flags Over the Nursery" includes examples of both studios' work for those looking to compare, as it incorporates footage from The Little Muppet Monsters, which was done by Toei.
• Apple for Teacher: "Fozzie's Last Laugh" opens with the babies playing school. Piggy plays the teacher, and Fozzie gives her an apple, which he hid a rubber worm in to prank her with. Fozzie finds this prank funny, but Piggy certainly doesn't.
• Ascended Extra: Rowlf, Scooter and Animal. They were hardly nobodies on The Muppet Show or in the first three films, but for many, it was this show that firmly put them into core character territory with Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie and Gonzo.
• The Artifact: The end credits theme from Season 2 onwards is actually that of Muppets, Babies and Monsters, the very short-lived pairing of Muppet Babies and Little Muppet Monsters. The castanets and trumpet solo at the end also come from that.
  • "Eight Flags Over the Nursery" also reuses footage from the Little Muppet Monsters episode "Space Cowboys", specifically the "Pigs in Space" and "Kermit the Frog, Private Eye" segments.
• Art Shift: In most cases when we visit Animal's imagination, the artwork becomes very childish.
• Balloonacy: In "Fun Park Fantasies", when the gang imagines they are at the fun park, Animal grabs a bunch of balloons being sold to visitors and floats into the sky. Kermit and Piggy, who are flying on one of the elephants from the fun park's elephant ride, shoot peanuts out of the elephant's trunk to pop the balloons, causing Animal to return to the ground.
• Banana Peel: The gag of slipping on a banana peel is a major plot point in the episode "Slipping Beauty". See Fractured Fairy Tale below.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: "Don't wish for elephants unless you own a zoo/ 'cause wishes have a way of coming true!"
• Beach Bury: "Gonzo's Video Show" begins with the babies pretending they are enjoying a day out at the beach. Fozzie is shown buried in the sand, looking as if he is twice as tall as before, until it is revealed that the feet sticking out from the bottom belong to Rowlf, who was buried beneath him. Rowlf is disgusted by Fozzie's foot odor, and asks him why he doesn't wear shoes. Fozzie tells him that even if he did, he'd still have bear feet.
• Beeping Computers: Scooter's computer often makes beeping sounds whenever he uses it.
• Big Eater:
  • Piggy, being well, a pig and all. One time, when the gang wanted some blueberry muffins but they were all gone, Piggy demanded to know what happened to the rest of the muffins, with Nanny answered promptly to her, "You ate the last three."...much to Piggy blushing.
  • Animal even more so, and in his case, he can (and does) eat almost ANYTHING.
• Birthday Episode:
  • In "Scooter's Hidden Talent", the gang makes an exercise bike as a birthday gift for Nanny. All of the babies help to build the bike except for Scooter, who starts to worry when he thinks he may not have a talent.
  • "Happy Birthday, Uncle Piggy" has the children help Nanny with a surprise birthday party for Statler.
• Bond Gun Barrel: In "Nice to Have Gnome You", the James Bond gun barrel sequence is briefly parodied at one point in the song "Bookah Bookah" by having Gonzo use a squirt gun on the gun barrel.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: At the end of "By the Book", Gonzo warns Animal to not say his catchphrase "Go bye-bye!" because everyone just got to sleep and he doesn't want to wake them up. However, since Animal doesn't remember what he says, Gonzo says the catchphrase and wakes everyone up anyway.
• Box-and-Stick Trap: In "Raiders of the Lost Muppet", the gang tries to use a box-and-stick trap to find Animal, using cupcakes as the bait. Fozzie winds discovering the cupcakes and ends up in the trap by accident when he goes to eat them.
• Boyish Shorts: Nearly all the boys are wearing shorts, diaper-style covers, or romper style clothes, in contrast to their adult appearances. Notably some of the babies are more dressed than when they're adults; while adult Kermit wears just his collar and Fozzie just wears a hat and tie, Baby Kermit wears a sailor suit with shorts while Fozzie is decked out in a short yellow romper set.
• Brainy Baby: Bunsen is the same brilliant inventor he's always been, only smaller.
  • Also, Scooter, being the little computer whiz he is.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: From the episode "Good Clean Fun".
  Animal: Go bye bye!
  Piggy: No, Animal, the show's not over yet!
  Animal: Sorry.
  Piggy: It's ok.
  • At the end of "The Case of the Missing Chicken", Kermit tells the audience not to worry about Gonzo; he'll be okay by next week.
  • In the third act of The Next Generation, the episode's writer is shamelessly and hilariously asking for more money!
  Piggy: I don't know who's writing this, but give him a big bonus!
• Burping Contest: Animal holds this with rocks and some others in "Journey To The Center Of The Nursery".
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Most of the go bye bye skits feature Animal playing some cruel prank on Gonzo and sending him flying Team Rocket-style.
  • Whenever Fozzie tells a joke, he's lucky if the worst reception he gets is mere booing.
  • Beaker, even as a baby, is still often the unfortunate guinea pig for Bunsen's inventions. The most prominent example being the anti-nightmare device in "I Want My Muppet TV"
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: In "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Dark?", when the babies are in the closet, there are a couple of shots where their eyes are the only visible objects.
• Call-Forward: This being a cartoon about the Muppets as children, it's no surprise that there are scenes alluding to what the characters will be like as adults.
  • Animal is occasionally seen playing drums and stating how much he loves drums, a call forward to how he'll be the drummer of Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
  • "When You Wish Upon a Muppet" ends with Kermit wishing that he and his friends would grow up and make movies together. We even see a clip from The Great Muppet Caper.
  • "Eight Flags Over the Nursery" has the babies imagining movies starring the adult versions of themselves, including an animated version of Pigs in Space. The footage shown is recycled from Little Muppet Monsters.
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: In "The Transcontinental Whoo whoo", while Statler and Waldorf are telling the kids about railroad trains, Bean Bunny says, "This is confusing. Which direction is the bathroom?" And his friends tell him.
• The Cameo:
  • Tom Selleck (in live-action!) as a lovestruck fan of Piggy. It may have helped that both this and Magnum, P.I. were on CBS.
  • Stan Lee also makes a live-action cameo in "Comic Capers" (this one was helped by the fact that Marvel Productions produced the show).
  • In “A Punch Line to the Tummy,” John Ritter and Whoopi Goldberg appear in live-action footage as clients of Gonzo’s talent agency, while Dave Coulier (who by this time was the voice of Animal) appears as himself, warming up the crowd for Fozzie’s act.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Scooter is surprisingly worse at joke telling than Fozzie. While taking Fozzie's cue for telling the old "Why did the chicken cross the road" joke, he ends up getting hung up over whether or not the chicken crossed at the crosswalk.
• Canon Foreigner: Skeeter, though an adult version of her has made appearances in The Muppet Show Comic Book, so (depending on how much you're willing to take the comics or even that storyline as canon), she may be verging into Canon Immigrant territory. Skeeter's absence in most of the other Muppet productions has been retconned with the explanation that she grew up to travel the world as an archaeologist, making only occasional visits home.
  • Puppet versions of Skeeter did exist, but only as "photo puppets" to be posed for photographs (i.e. as storybook illustrations), not for performance purposes.
• Cartoon Bomb: In "What's New at the Zoo?", Fozzie imagines he is telling jokes to some laughing hyenas. The hyenas don't like his joke and run away after he tells it, followed by Gonzo appearing out of nowhere as part of a bomb squad looking for a bomb that somehow got set off by Fozzie's joke. The side of the truck Gonzo rides has a cartoon bomb on it.
• Catapult to Glory: In "From a Galaxy Far, Far Away", the gang makes a big catapult to launch the alien back to its home planet of Neptune.
• Catchphrase:
  • Anytime Fozzie tells a joke, he says "Give up?" before the punchline, and then says "Wocka wocka wocka!" afterwards. The rest of the babies yell "Fozzie!" when his joke sucks. He also says "I knew that" after someone corrects him.
  • Kermit says "Sheesh" when frustrated.
  • Piggy says "Yippee skippee!" when she's excited. And like her adult counterpart, she usually refers to herself as "Moi."
  • Rowlf when excited says "Far out!"
  • Animal's favorite expression is his Signature Laugh, a grotesque "Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah!"
  • Everytime Piggy abuses Gonzo in some way, he says, lovestruck, "Ooo-hoo! She touched/grabbed/squeezed my nose! It must be love!"
• Character Focus: While Gonzo was always a major character in the Muppet franchise, this show really gives him a lot of this, with numerous A Day in the Limelight episodes and prominent B-plots in others.
• 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).
• Chicken Joke:
  • In "Noisy Neighbors", Fozzie attempts to tell this joke to Animal to get him to be quiet. It doesn't work - in fact, Fozzie doesn't even make it to the punchline before Animal starts to make too much noise again.
  • In "The Weirdo Zone," in the "Attack of the Silly Tomatoes" segment (which launched Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! back into the public consciousness), the radio announcer tells this joke and is promptly attacked by the tomatoes for it.
• Cinderella Plot: In "Pigerella", the babies become impatient waiting for lunch, so Scooter and Skeeter sneak snacks from the kitchen against the wishes of both Nanny and Piggy. When Piggy tries to return the snacks to the kitchen, Nanny assumes that she was the one who snuck the snacks, makes her clean the kitchen by herself as punishment, and has Scooter and Skeeter supervise her. As Piggy cleans the kitchen, she complains that she's being treated like Cinderella, and an Imagine Spot occurs where Piggy is "Pigerella", Nanny is the wicked stepmother, and Skeeter and Scooter are the wicked stepsisters. In the end, the other babies help Piggy clean up the mess and explain to Nanny that the mess was their fault, not Piggy's, so Nanny rewards them with a fruit salad for lunch.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Piggy for Kermit. Like in The Muppet Show and the movies and...pretty much any Muppet franchise, don't you dare try to come between Piggy and her Kermie. There were times when Skeeter tried to do that, though it may have been just to mess with Piggy.
• Cloud Cuckoolander:
  • Gonzo, as in all Muppet media, is portrayed as the weirdest of the group.
  • Fozzie also qualifies to an extent. A minor running gag has the other babies react negatively to him abruptly making a very bizarre statement, like claiming to help himself sleep by counting baby ducks jumping over chili dogs into a bowl of tapioca bumblebees rather than Counting Sheep.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: A comic book based on this cartoon began publication in 1985 and ran for 26 issues. The first 17 issues were published by the now defunct Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics, with the parent company handling the publication of the remaining 9 issues. There was also a version published by Marvel UK that was published weekly and lasted 59 issues and a Summer Special one-shot.
• Companion Cube: Camilla exists in this series as a stuffed chick owned by Gonzo, who dotes on her almost as much as in regular continuity.
• Company Cross References: In "The Daily Muppet", Oscar the Grouch, from fellow Jim Henson series Sesame Street, makes a cameo during the episode's song, "The Daily Muppet".
• Competition Coupon Madness: "Six-to-Eight Weeks" has a scene of Fozzie explaining his convoluted theories on why some cereals offer free prizes in exchange for mailing box tops.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Fozzie Bear suffers this greatly, not only from his friends but also from his imaginary audiences when they boo and throw tomatoes at him for every joke he tells to them, good or bad.
• Continuity Snarl: Only if you consider the Fridge Logic: when is this show taking place, anyway? Let's not even get started on the later season that introduced Baby Bean Bunny; Bean's a young kid in the normal Muppets continuity! Or that fact that this was all just Piggy's dream sequence in the third film, but *actual backstory* in A Muppet Family Christmas. But wait, that would contradict The Muppet Movie... yup, this is a galaxy-sized snarl. It's somewhat justified, however, by the very nature of The Muppets. In pretty much every continuity they're entertainers, so any works that don't square with others can be called Mutually Fictional. Remember that The Muppet Movie itself includes a throwaway line indicating that liberties had been taken with the "real" events.
• Cool Old Guys: Statler and Waldorf had much softer personalities in this series.
• Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel:
  • While The Muppet Show was set in the 1970s (the time it was airing), this show has baby Scooter with a personal computer, and it's clear that Star Wars and other late '70s/early '80s pop culture creations already exist.
  • Interestingly, a proposed prequel animated series (which was ultimately scrapped) would have shown the Muppets as teenagers in The '50s, even though (as The Muppets Take Manhattan makes clear) they graduated from college in the early '80s.
• Couch Gag: Animal's "Go bye-bye!" stinger occurs in different settings and styles, based on the theme of the episode.
• Counting Sheep:
  • In "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Dark?", Gonzo asks Beaker if he's ever counted sheep to help him get to sleep. He also asks if he's counted elephants, squirrels, and kangaroo rats. Fozzie then says he always counts baby ducks jumping over chili dogs into a bowl of tapioca bumblebees. (Yeah, we don't know either.)
  • "Muppet Goose" had Fozzie try to count sheep, but was overwhelmed by how many sheep there were. Of course, it was all an Imagine Spot.
  • In "Gonzee's Playhouse Channel", Kermit and Scooter use paper bag puppets to play the respective roles of "Kert" and "Bernie" on Sesame Seed Boulevard. When Kert can't sleep, he tries to count sheep, but Bernie finds this a bad idea, since Scooter is allergic to sheep. When the sheep jump over the beds, Scooter sneezes, causing his Bernie puppet to fly off his hand.
  Kermit: AAAAAAHHH!!! HE SNEEZED HIS FACE OFF!
• Cousin Oliver: Played with, as Bean Bunny joined the Babies in the 1989/1990 season. However, Bean was a well-established Muppet character in his own right, averting the trope.
• Covered in Kisses: In "Piggy's Hyper-Activity Book", the babies pretend they are coloring each other with crayons in the coloring section of an activity book. After Gonzo sees Fozzie coloring Kermit blue and gets the idea to trick Piggy into thinking he's Kermit by coloring himself green, Piggy tells Kermit that she recognizes him no matter what color he is and kisses him several times on the head, leaving several visible lipmarks.
• Cowardly Lion: Fozzie fits this bill, as he is shown to be quite fearful of different things. He even plays the Trope Namer in a The Wizard of Oz-esque Imagine Spot in "By the Book".
• Cute Bruiser: Piggy. She's an adorable little piglet, but she has a bad temper and could possibly kick anyone's butt. "HI-YAH!"
• Cut a Slice, Take the Rest:
  • In the episode "Happy Birthday, Uncle Piggy", the song "It's Hard to Be as Wonderful as Me" has a gag where Piggy "shares" a cake by handing the other children a tiny slice while keeping the rest of the cake to herself.
  • A variant in "Muppet Babies: The Next Generation"; during "The Future is Counting on You", Kermit, Piggy, and Animal are having a picnic. Animal takes a bunch of bananas out of the picnic basket, pulls off a single banana, and then eats the rest of the bunch.
• Dame with a Case: An Imagine Spot in one episode involved Kermit as a private eye with a dressed-up Piggy coming in and getting him onto a case.
• Deadpan Snarker: Piggy will sometimes make dry remarks about the others, particularly Gonzo's unrequited crush on her and Fozzie's inability to tell good jokes.
• Detectives Follow Footprints: In "Of Mice and Muppets", Gonzo becomes a detective in order to search for Officer Carruthers' pet mouse Peewee, who Rowlf let out of his cage by accident. Gonzo notices some footprints leading directly out of Peewee's cage, follows them into the wall, and comes to the conclusion that Peewee is in the wall.
• The Dentist Episode: "Dental Hyjinks" is about Fozzie getting a loose tooth and being afraid to go to the dentist. Nanny ends up taking him to the dentist, leaving the others worried, but Fozzie ends up coming back perfectly fine.
• Derailed Fairy Tale: "Snow White and the Seven Muppets" becomes one when Piggy, who was playing the Evil Queen against her will, realizes that Kermit (Prince Charming) will be kissing Skeeter-as-Snow-White awake, so she starts (via narration) bringing in antagonists from other fairy tales to interrupt the final scene.
• "Double, Double" Title: Of the triple variety. One episode is titled "Hats, Hats, Hats!"
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Piggy on Gonzo. When Gonzo accidentally annoys her or ticks her off or when he shows romantic feelings to her, she'll thrash him or throw him across the room.
• Double Take: In "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Dark?", Fozzie tries to point out that there's no such thing as slime monsters as the gang is being chased by one. The slime monster then appears next to him, Fozzie notices and tells it that he was afraid it was the slime monster, and then realizes it is the slime monster and panics.
• Dragged into Drag:
  • In "Pigerella", when Nanny accuses Piggy of sneaking snacks from the kitchen (when it was actually Scooter and Skeeter who did it, Piggy was trying to return them), she makes Piggy clean the kitchen by herself as punishment, and tells Scooter and Skeeter to keep an eye on Piggy. When Piggy complains about being treated like Cinderella, a Cinderella-esque Imagine Spot occurs, with Piggy as "Pigerella", and Skeeter and Scooter as the wicked stepsisters. Scooter's not happy about having to wear a dress, since he's a boy, but Skeeter reminds him that in the story, Cinderella had two stepsisters, so he reluctantly does as she says. Later, when Prince Kermit V invites Scooter and Skeeter to the ball, Scooter tells Skeeter there's no way he's wearing a dress to it. Skeeter then says he can always go without it, and takes off his dress, leaving him in his underwear. An embarrassed Scooter decides to wear the dress after all, and puts it back on.
  • This becomes a Running Gag with Scooter throughout the series. Almost every time they need an extra girl in an Imagine Spot, he gets stuck wearing a dress. It's even lampshaded in "Babes in Troyland", where he insists that this time he's not playing a girl again.
  • At one point in "Muppet Island", an Imagine Spot parodying Gilligan's Island occurs. As Piggy is cast as Ginger Grant, Skeeter is cast as Mrs. Howell, and the roles of the male characters are all taken by Fozzie, Kermit, Gonzo, and Scooter, Rowlf is cast as Mary Ann Summers, and he's not happy about it.
• Dream Episode: In "Elm Street Babies", the babies have strange dreams, so they wake up in the middle of the night and tell each other what happened in them. Kermit's dream involves the babies in the Wild West and him getting into a showdown with Gonzo, Rowlf's dream involves him turning into a "wereboy" at a dog prom, Gonzo's dream is a spoof of Leave It to Beaver, and Fozzie's dream is a spoof of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
• Dream Reality Check: In "Of Mice and Muppets", Gonzo pinches himself several times to make sure that he's not dreaming up the strange sound coming from under the crib.

E–L

• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the first issue of Star Comics/Marvel's comic book adaptation, Kermit was depicted going naked like his adult self for some reason. The remainder of the comic had him wear a sailor suit like he did in the cartoon.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first two episodes, Fozzie, Gonzo and Rowlf have deeper voices and sound closer to their adult selves. (Fozzie in particular sounds very much like he did in the first season of The Muppet Show.) The episode title music is also different.
• Earth Song: The episode "Muppet Babies: The Next Generation" ends with the song "The Future is Counting on You", which is all about protecting the Earth.
• Every Episode Ending: After the end credits, Animal always says "Go bye-bye!" in a different setting depending on the episode.
• Everybody Cries: In "Raiders of the Lost Muppet", all the young muppets are in tears when they can't find Animal in a game of hide and seek.
• Extreme Omnivore: Animal. If it's edible he'll eat it, if it's NOT edible he'll eat it, if it's something in-between he'll also eat that, if it's something in NONE of those three categories he'll eat that too.
• Eye Glasses: Like his adult counterpart, Scooter has these as well as his twin sister, Skeeter. Things get strange in one episode as the kids learn to be more like Gonzo and embrace something weird about themselves. Skeeter takes off her glasses, and shows that her pupils are still in the lenses. And then she shakes her glasses, and the pupils rattle around like Cookie Monster's eyes.
• The Face of the Sun: In "Fun Park Fantasies", the babies are so excited to go to the fun park that they imagine themselves at the fun park at night. When Kermit tells Piggy that they're going to the fun park during the day, Piggy imagines a sun with sunglasses and a mouth into the imaginary fun park.
• The Faceless: Nanny. You never see anything about her shoulders, but she has very distinctive socks at least.
  • All non-Muppet adults in the babies' imaginations, although an adult's face is seen briefly from time to time.
  • Subverted when Statler and Waldorf visit.
• Father, I Want to Marry My Brother:
  • Scooter and Skeeter play a married king and queen in two different "Sleeping Beauty" sequences, Mr. and Mrs. Howell in a Gilligan's Island parody, and Ward and June Cleaver ^note Interestingly enough, since Nanny is voiced by Barbara Billingsly. in a Leave It to Beaver parody.
• Feud Episode: In "Fine Feathered Enemies", Nanny brings a parrot named Polly into the nursery and tells the babies that she's considering adopting him. When Gonzo lets Polly out of his cage, everyone starts to argue when they think the others are making fun of them, unaware that it's just Polly speaking. In the end, the babies decide not to keep the bird because he talks too much.
• Fiery Redhead: Skeeter is full of energy and spirit, and loves to have adventures. She's tomboyish, loves sports and often ends up clashing with Piggy.
• First Day of School Episode: Two books based on the series, "I Can Go to Preschool" and "Baby Piggy Goes to Nursery School", focus on Kermit and Piggy's first days of preschool, respectively.
• Flying Broomstick: In "By the Book", when the gang imagines themselves in The Wizard of Oz, Scooter appears as the Silly Sorcerer of the South, who flies on a broomstick.
• Flying Car: In "Out-of-This-World History", Gonzo appears in a flying car to save the others from Queen Teacup on Planet X.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: In "Musical Muppets", Bunsen invents a bouncing ball that bounces to the words of a song in this fashion. Beaker tests out the ball, so all of the on-screen lyrics appear as "meep".
• Fooled by the Sound: In one episode, Rowlf's stomach grumbles. Piggy angrily tells him not to growl at her.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: Several times throughout the series. For example, in "Slipping Beauty" instead pricking her finger to fall into a deep sleep as in 'Sleeping Beauty', Piggy as the sleeping princess, slips onto a banana peel, falls and then goes into a deep sleep. Slipping Beauty.
• Freudian Couch: In "Remote Control Cornballs", the song "Is That What's Bugging You, Pearl?" has a scene where Piggy lies on a couch with Rowlf as psychiatrist.
• Full Moon Silhouette: Animal's "Go bye bye!" scene at the end of "From a Galaxy Far, Far Away" has him flying on a bicycle with the alien who's actually a koala, referencing the famous scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel:
  • "The Great Cookie Robbery" had this happen with Gonzo, when Nanny trusts him to share with the rest of the babies to tide them over before lunch. The angel Gonzo says that he should indeed share them, while the devil Gonzo (decked out in a leather biker outfit) says that he should keep them all to himself and not tell the other babies.
  • In "The Frog Who Knew Too Much", Kermit witnesses a surprise Nanny had planned for the babies, and Nanny makes him promise not to tell. When the others find out, they want to know what it is, so the devil Kermit suggests that he tell. Kermit is about to do so, when the angel Kermit reminds him that he made a promise to Nanny, and that promises are meant to be kept. This gets the devil Kermit to realize that the angel Kermit does have a point.
• The Great Whodini: In "Fine Feathered Enemies", Gonzo does a few magic tricks under the name "The Great Gonzini".
• Growling Gut: It happens to nearly everyone (except for Gonzo) in "The Great Cookie Robbery". Nanny was late with making lunch, and she gave Gonzo the task of passing out cookies to tide everyone over until she could get it ready, but he ended up eating them for himself. At one point, Piggy snaps at Rowlf, thinking he's growling at her, only for him to say it's his stomach.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Many episodes seem to start this way. The kids are usually involved in some sort of gang or group fantasy, until a little later, something arises (usually started by Nanny) that completely changes the focus of the episode. Such examples include...
  • "Dental Hijinks" starts with the babies pretending they are in a big auto race, until they crash, giving Fozzie a loose tooth and triggering the main plot.
  • "Eight Take Away One Equals Panic" begins with the babies pretending they are flying on an airliner, until they overhear Nanny on the phone and think she's planning on getting rid of one of them. (She was on the phone with a charity and actually looking at getting rid of an old chair from the nursery but was having trouble deciding which one; naturally, with the babies only hearing part of her end of the conversation...)/spoiler
  • "What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?" has a variation of this, with the babies pretending to be hospital surgeons and Fozzie as their patient (in a possible reference to "Veterinarian's Hospital"), and after playing that, Gonzo mentions he want to be a doctor like that when he grows up. This gets the other babies to start stating what they want to be when they grow up, but Kermit can't decide what he wants to be, getting the main plot underway.
  • "Close Encounters of the Frog Kind" begins with the babies acting out a bank robbery and showdown in The Wild West (with Gonzo as "the Lone Weirdo"), until Nanny comes in with Kermit's baby nephew Robin, changing the focus of the story altogether.
  • "Gonzo's Video Show" starts with the babies pretending they are enjoying a day out at the beach, until Nanny arrives and lets them borrow her video camera she rented to make some fun videos with it.
  • "Piggy's Hyper-Activity Book" begins with the kids spending a rainy day trying to build a house out of cardboard boxes until it collapses, and then the babies decide to play with an activity book, thus getting the main plot underway.
  • "Fozzie's Last Laugh" begins with the babies playing "school," with Piggy as the teacher. When she gives Fozzie an "F" for all his bad jokes, Fozzie decides to give up comedy, which turns out to be the main plot.
  • "The Muppet Broadcasting Company" opens with the babies trying a domino setup, until it leads to an argument. Then a sudden thunderstorm knocks out the power and Gonzo thinks it's an alien invasion. When the babies complain they can't do anything without electricity, Nanny recommends they listen to some classic radio shows she saved on tape cassettes, which gets the main plot underway.
  • "Bad Luck Bear" starts with the babies in the bathtub pretending they are whale-hunting (with Gonzo as the whale), until Fozzie breaks a mirror and everyone believes he has bad luck.
  • "Water Babies" begins with the babies pretending they are in an Abandoned Mine tunnel (actually a series of cardboard boxes) looking for treasure, until Nanny comes in with an aquarium of fish.
  • "Where No Muppet Has Gone Before" begins with the babies reenacting Lewis and Clark's expedition to the Pacific, until Nanny comes in with Baby Bunsen and Beaker, who have come over to spend the night. Bunsen then begins teaching the babies about space, getting the main plot going.
  • "Beach Blanket Babies" begins with the babies playing an impromptu game of mini-golf, until Nanny comes in with new bathing suits for them and a small wading pool.
  • "The Air Conditioner at the End of the Galaxy" opens with the babies acting out a Star Trek parody. But when they notice things getting hotter, they act as if they are about to fly into the sun. After leaving the cardboard box they were using as the USS Enterprise, the babies learn from Nanny that the house's air conditioning system broke down during a heatwave. This prompts Scooter to act out The African Queen to pass the time, getting the main plot underway.
• Handcuffed Briefcase: One of their Imagine Spots had Kermit as a secret agent trying to transport a briefcase like this, and the others being enemy agents trying to steal it in one of those mystery on the train scenarios. Their attempts to steal it got pretty blatant, up to Gonzo trying to hide it under his hat while it was still cuffed to Kermit's wrist!
• Hair-Trigger Sound Effect: In "The Muppet Broadcasting Company," Gonzo played The Weirdo in one of the kids' radio shows, and every time his name was mentioned, Rowlf played a Musical Sting on the piano. Eventually, Gonzo got tired of it and asked Rowlf to knock it off.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • "Good, Clean Fun" opens with the babies accidentally breaking Nanny's lamp and make up for it by making her lunch, and ends when they break Nanny's scale.
  • "Muppets Not Included" has the children try to determine what an object Nanny is looking for is used for. After Nanny explains to them that the object is a tea strainer, the children then get into an argument over what the tea strainer is used for, some of their interpretations resulting from mishearing "tea strainer" as something else. Kermit even says "Here we go again" at the end.
• Hidden Depths: Piggy always cast herself as the Damsel in Distress Princess Classic in their make-believe adventures, only to usually end up saying something like, "Gimme that stupid sword!"
• Honorary Uncle: Statler and Waldorf are this to the babies.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • "Snow White and the Seven Muppets" has Piggy protest to playing the villain of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
  Piggy: I'm not playing any wicked queen! Why... I haven't got a DROP of wicked in me!!!
  • Gonzo makes fun of Fozzie for sleeping with a teddy bear in "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Dark?", but stops when Fozzie pulls Camilla out from behind his back.
  • The "Go Bye Bye" segment of "Six-to-Eight Weeks" has Gonzo suggest that one of the weird things he could include in his clubhouse would be talking furniture, an idea which is ridiculed by actual talking furniture.
• "I Am" Song: In the full version of the Opening Theme:
  Kermit: I like adventure!
  Piggy: I like romance!
  Fozzie: I love great jokes!
  Animal: Animal dance!
  Scooter: I've got my computer!
  Skeeter: I flip through the air!
  Rowlf: I play the piano!
  Gonzo: And I've got blue hair! Ha!
  Bunsen: Me, I invent things!
  Beaker: ME-MEEP MEEP MEEP MEEEEEEEEEP!!!
  Nanny: Is everything all right in here?
  All: Yes, Nanny.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: In the episode, "By the Book", Nanny gives the kids some books they can look through. Skeeter resists however, feeling that books are boring, and goes off to do her own thing. She ends up getting more invested in each of the books than the others.
• I Just Want to Be Special:
  • One episode dealt with Scooter feeling like his computer abilities were nothing compared to the other kids' areas of expertise. Oh, if only he'd been born later...
  • 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".
• I Will Show You X!: In "The Weirdo Zone", when the others finally start to understand Gonzo's weirdness and start to act weird themselves, Gonzo bets that Piggy can't act weird. Piggy then says "You want weird? I'll show you weird!", imagines that the nursery is made entirely of candy, eats several of the objects in the candy nursery, and eventually floods the nursery with butterscotch, at which point Gonzo says that Piggy may be acting too weird, even by his standards.
• Imagine Spot: The babies did this a lot, often all partaking in the same spot together. Justified in that the main premise was to show how fun and important the imagination can be.
• Impact Silhouette: In "Noisy Neighbors", the babies are pretending they are fighting each other at sea. Scooter sends Animal down a ramp to hit the side of the box Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo and Piggy are using as a submarine, and he creates a hole in it that's shaped exactly like him.
• Insane Troll Logic: "Muppets Not Included" has a scene where Kermit and Animal have to draw pictures while celebrities from the past guess what is being drawn. When Animal draws a smiley face when told to draw a cow, Edward G. Robinson correctly guesses that Animal was supposed to draw a cow with the reasoning that smiley faces are drawn by happy children, children are made happy from drinking milk and milk comes from cows.
• 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.
• Jerkass Ball: Skeeter is uncharacteristically mean and unfair to Piggy in "Pigerella". When she and Scooter steal cupcakes from the kitchen, Piggy tries to put them back but gets caught and Wrongly Accused by Nanny for it, and Skeeter stops Scooter from confessing the truth. It's no wonder that when Piggy imagines herself as Cinderella afterwards, she imagines Skeeter as a wicked stepsister. Fortunately, in the end she realizes her mistake and confesses to Nanny.
• The Joy of X: "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Dark?", whose title references the song "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf?" from the Disney short The Three Little Pigs.
• Kiddy Coveralls: Gonzo wears a strapped overall romper and out of all of the babies, he's the weirdest. Not only is he not a recognizable animal or person, he's most of the time seen as a Cloudcuckoolander.
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Lampshaded and subverted in one episode. Gonzo threatens Kermit that he'll make Kermit eat all of his green vegetables. Kermit just points out that he likes green vegetables because they put color in his cheeks.
• Kids Prefer Boxes:
  • In "I Want My Muppet TV", when the TV in the nursery breaks, the babies make a TV out of a cardboard box and act out their own TV shows with it. By the time Nanny fixes the TV, the babies continue wanting to play with their cardboard box.
  • In Meet the Muppet Babies, a book based on the series, Kermit prepares to play with a cardboard box, but his friends all take turns using it as different things. Fozzie uses it as a bear cave, Gonzo uses it as a space station, Scooter uses it as a computer, Rowlf uses it as a piano, Skeeter uses it as a parade float, Piggy uses it as a castle, and Animal uses it as a canoe. When Nanny comes into the nursery check on the babies, Kermit tells Nanny that the box is his, but now he forgot what he was going to use it for.
• Kissed Keepsake: At the end of "The Muppet Museum of Art", when Piggy apologizes to Gonzo for blaming him for leaving his roller skates out and causing Skeeter to trip and hurt herself, Gonzo says that he wants her to kiss him on the nose to make up for it. Piggy obliges, and a flattered Gonzo exclaims that he'll never wash his nose again.
• "Knock Knock" Joke: In "Noisy Neighbors", Fozzie tries to tell a knock knock joke to the dragon in Piggy's story. Kermit tells him that dragons can't talk, so telling one a knock knock joke would be useless.
• Lame Rhyme Dodge:
  • In "Good Clean Fun", Kermit remarks that Piggy weighs more than he thought after she stands on him to reach the sink. When Piggy gets mad, Kermit hastily claims that he said "Those are the nicest shoes you bought".
  • "The Pig Who Would Be Queen" had Piggy claim to have said "You look just like your brother" to cover up her complaints that by the time she was done with the quest given to her by Skeeter, she'd be a grandmother.
• Literally Shattered Lives: "Babes in Troyland" had Medusa end up turned to stone when Gonzo uses his camera to deflect her petrifying gaze. Afterwards, Medusa tumbles over and shatters into pieces.
• Little Miss Snarker: Piggy, when she's not being a Tsundere.
• Look Behind You: In "The Great Cookie Robbery", Gonzo distracts the others by saying there's a flying dinosaur with tennis shoes so that he can eat one of the cookies he was supposed to give to them to tide them over while Nanny prepares lunch. When the others point out there's nothing there, he changes his mind, saying it was probably just an unidentified flying donut.
• Loose Tooth Episode: In "Dental Hijinks", Fozzie has a loose tooth. However, he and the other babies are afraid of the dentist, so they try to pull it out themselves so he won't go there.
• Lost Voice Plot: In "Once Upon an Egg Timer", Rowlf loses his voice. The others take turns telling a story to cheer him up.

N–Z

• Mad Love Triangle: Piggy's crush on Kermit, and Gonzo's on Piggy. Things can get crazy. What with Piggy not wanting anyone or anything to get between her and Kermit, and with Gonzo always pouring his heart out to Piggy only to get thrashed by her.
• The Man in the Moon: In "The Great Cookie Robbery", Kermit explains a weird dream he had where he rides a train into space. The babies imagine that the moon has a face and eats their train as it enters space.
• May the Farce Be with You: The final stretch of "Gonzo's Video Show" is a Star Wars parody, and smaller-scale sendups appear in other episodes.
• Mock Cousteau: "Water Babies" had Gonzo doing this while the babies all imagined exploring underwater.
• The Name Is Bond, James Bond: "The Frog Who Knew Too Much" featured an imagination sequence based on James Bond where Kermit at one point says "The name's Frog, Kermit the Frog".
• 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!").
• Newhart Phonecall: In "Eight Take Away One Equals Panic", Miss Piggy imagines she's running a lemonade ice company. She gets a couple of calls, one telling her that the US president has bought two billion dollars worth of lemonade ice and another telling her that they're running out of lemons to use in the lemonade ice. For both, the person on the other end cannot be heard speaking.
• No Fourth Wall: Later seasons would have the babies making aside glances and snarky comments to the viewer.
• Not Quite Starring: A weird example: none of the original puppeteers reprised their roles as their respective characters. (Didn't happen with the Fraggle Rock Animated Adaptation either.)
• Ocular Gushers: In "The Case of the Missing Chicken", Fozzie starts to cry with tears that gush out of his eyes when he is being interrogated by Gonzo, who thinks he's the one who took his plush chicken Camilla.
• Off to See the Wizard: One of the stories spoofed in "By the Book" is The Wizard of Oz. Piggy is the ruby sneaker-wearing Pigorothy, Rowlf is her Toto stand-in Rowlf-Rowlf, Kermit is the Scarefrog (who needs a new job because he sucks at scaring crows), Gonzo is the Tin Weirdo (who needs a new nose because his metal one keeps falling off), Fozzie is the Cowardly Comic (who needs courage to not be scared by the tomatoes people throw at him), Scooter is the gender-flipped Silly Sorcerer of the South, Animal is the (unseen) Wicked Witch's flying monkey, and Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker double as the Wizard.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: In the first two seasons, Howie Mandel, a Canadian actor, was the voice of Skeeter, Bunsen and Animal. Occasionally one of them would say sorry as soar-ee. Though in Animal's case, that's a close approximation of how Frank Oz's Animal says it.
• Paper People: In "Noisy Neighbors", Gonzo imagines he's Super Gonzo. He is in an elevator with his crush, Piggy Lane, when the rope on the elevator breaks and the elevator starts to fall. Gonzo transforms into Super Gonzo and stops the elevator, only to be Squashed Flat by Piggy. Super Gonzo remains in his squashed form until he leaves the room and comes back as normal Gonzo.
• Phrase Catcher: Fozzie usually catches a WHAT???? from the others when he comes up with some bizarre scenarios.
• Pirate Girl: In one episode, the kids pretend to be treasure hunters and encounter a trio of female pirates.
• Pixellation: In "Get Me to the Perch on Time", live-action footage of a Goodyear blimp has the logo blurred out.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Scooter and Skeeter, a shy computer geek and an outgoing tomboy.
• Porky Pig Pronunciation:
  • From the beginning of "Dental Hyjinks":
    Rowlf: Good afternoon, race fans. This is Rowlf the Dog coming to you live from the Indiabanolopolis— uh, the Indiamarabopolis— uh, this is Rowlf the Dog coming to you live from that big race with the 500 after it.
  • From "Fozzie's Family Tree", when Piggy waters her chrysanthemums:
    Piggy (to Nanny): How do you like my chrysanathynums? Uh, chrystistanythy, um, chrystanynum... how do you like my flowers, Nanny?
• Pounds are Animal Prisons: Discussed and subverted in "What's New at the Zoo?", Rowlf applies this trope to zoos because they remind him of dog pounds by keeping animals in cages. Nanny explains to Rowlf that many zoos don't use cages anymore, and shows him the importance of zoos to preserving animal life. By the end, Rowlf changes his view and is now anxious to visit the zoo.
• Produce Pelting: Whenever Fozzie tells one of his bad jokes, he's usually pelted with tomatoes, bananas and similar foods.
  Fozzie: Something tells me I oughta give up comedy and go into the tomato sauce business.
• Propeller Hat of Whimsy: Fozzie, the would-be comedian, is signified by his propeller beanie.
• Pun-Based Title: The episode title "Dental Hyjinks" is a pun on "dental hygiene". The episode is about Fozzie having to go to the dentist to get a loose tooth removed.
• Real-Place Background: Often in the imagine spots the babies will appear in backgrounds which are obviously taken from real life.
• The Real Spoofbusters: In "Bug-Busting Babies", Gonzo leads the babies into a team called the Bug Busters to catch the bug messing up Scooter's computer program. The episode also spoofs the theme song from the 1984 film, and features Bug Busters and a car similar to the Ghostbusters and their Ecto-1.
• Redheads Are Uncool: Scooter is a klutzy redheaded computer nerd. Averted with his Polar Opposite Twin, the athletic Fiery Redhead Skeeter.
• Reference Overdosed: The various film clips that are sampled easily land this show firmly in this trope.
• Rejection Affection: Gonzo continually woos Piggy, despite her greeting his advances with contempt and karate chops. This is borrowed from The Muppet Show, where it occurred less frequently.
• Remember the New Guy?: Skeeter. As of the first episode, she was just plain always there.
• Rhymes on a Dime: In "Of Mice and Muppets", Piggy tells everyone her own version of the story of the Pied Piper. Her version of the story is presented in the same style as a Dr. Seuss book, right down to the dialogue rhyming (until Piggy tells Kermit to stop with the rhyming, at least).
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Beaker.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: Due to the show often sampling live-action footage the animated babies sometimes appear next to and interact with real actors. One notable example is an Imagine Spot in "The Incredible Shrinking Weirdo", where an animated Baby Gonzo interacts with a live-action adult Kermit. A clip from The Muppet Show (episode 223: John Cleese) was used for this scene, with Frank Welker dubbing new lines for the adult Kermit and Baby Gonzo matted into the scene.
  • It's also prominently featured in "Puss n' Boots n' Babies", where the babies look after Officer Carruthers' live-action pet kitten.
• Runaway Train: Combined with DIY Dentistry in "Dental Hyjinks". In order to get Fozzie's loose tooth out so he doesn't have to be taken to the dentist about it, the rest of the babies tie Fozzie's tooth to a toy train and start it up, but the train ends up jumping its' tracks and running all across the nursery, sending Fozzie flying along behind. The train eventually ends up crashing and making a mess of the nursery, but the tooth is not pulled out.
• Running Gag: What will they find in the closet this time?
• Sadistic Game Show: Kermit has an Imagine Spot about hosting one in "Dental Hijinks" after Fozzie is taken to the dentist for his loose tooth. The game show is called Tooth or Consequences, and the contestant (Fozzie) must answer a question correctly, or get one of his teeth drilled by their champion, The Dentist, with a very large drill.
• Santa Claus: In "Piggerella", when Piggy imagines she's in the story of Cinderella, Skeeter, who is playing one of Cinderella's stepsisters, tells Piggy as Cinderella to clean the chimney. Piggy asks who would go in the chimney, and immediately afterwards Animal comes out of the chimney dressed as Santa Claus. Animal leaves after Skeeter tells him that Santa doesn't appear in this story.
• Scary Flashlight Face: Skeeter does this at the end of Gonzo's mystery tour in "Muppetland". When confronting Gonzo for stealing part of her planned theme park attraction, she approaches Gonzo's tram holding a flashlight up to her face and smiling, and then it fades to a clip of The Phantom of the Opera before the others scream in fright and the Imagine Spot ends.
• Scooby Stack: In "Raiders of the Lost Muppet", the babies peek through the door of the nursery room stacked on top of each other in this fashion.
• Seashell Bra: In "Bad Luck Bear", when the gang imagines themselves as mermaids, Piggy and Skeeter both wear seashell bras.
• Secret Path: The babies think Animal found one in "Is There a Muppet in the House?" after Rowlf tells them about an old horror movie he saw the night before where secret passages were featured. It turned out to be an old dumbwaiter. By the end, Nanny explains how they were used and that they shouldn't play around in it.
• Shoe Phone: In what's almost certainly a direct reference to the Trope Namer, "Case of the Missing Chicken" has a literal example in its sequence where Gonzo's a spy. It combines it with This Page Will Self-Destruct, another spy show's trademark, for comedic effect.
• Shooting Gallery: The Muppets are fantasizing that they're at a carnival and Fozzie decides to try his luck at a shooting gallery, but he misses every shot. Rowlf steps up and suggests that maybe his problem was he forgot to say "bang" when he fired. He then demonstrates and hits every target. Fozzie says he wants to try again, but instead of saying "bang", he says "Boom!" The shooting gallery then explodes.
• Shorttank: Skeeter wears shorts and is tomboyish. Although, there are times when she doesn't mind wearing a dress in the imaginations.
• Shout-Out: How many movie references were there?
  • A Star Wars one (just like the original Muppet Show) where Kermit was Luke, Piggy was Leia, and Animal was Vader. (Now, that is impossible, Luke.) They also did Indiana Jones.
  • Muppet Babies runneth over with Star Wars references, in fact. Thanks to how close Henson Productions and Lucasfilm 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. The target audience being relatively familiar with the works due to their fame helped matters a lot, too.
    • However, it would seem that this ended up being a problem anyway years later as a major factor for why the show has no physical release (along with the multitude of other live-action snippets). On the other hand, with Disney now owning both the Muppet and Star Wars franchises (along with Marvel, which had a big hand in the show's production), a solution is seemingly possible.
  • Another episode had Scooter and Piggy re-enacting Nanny's favorite movie, The African Queen.
  • "Nice to Have Gnome You" is based around shout-outs to (and extensive footage from) Labyrinth and The Witches, two of Jim Henson's non-Muppet productions.
  • There's a scene when Animal comes out of a toy chest dressed in medieval garb while clicking a pair of coconuts together.
  • "It's Only Pretendo" is based around gentle spoofs/pastiches of various Nintendo Entertainment System games, plus Frogger, Fantasy Zone and of all things, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones.
  • In "The Daily Muppet", Gonzo pretends to be a newspaper photographer, just like his adult self in The Great Muppet Caper... and as in the movie, he yells "Stop the presses!" for no good reason.
  • In two different episodes, after Gonzo makes a remark about his own big "schnoz," he adds "Ha-cha-cha!" or "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!" – both catchphrases of the similarly big-nosed Jimmy Durante.
• Sick Episode:
  • In "Scooter's Uncommon Cold", Scooter catches a cold, so the other babies imagine themselves going into his body so they can learn about the immune system.
  • In "Slipping Beauty", Piggy catches the chicken pox, so the others cheer her up by telling her the story of Sleeping Beauty. They hooked her up with a walkie-talkie so they could communicate with her since she was quarantined from everyone else.
  • In the Baby Gonzo Has a Cold book, Gonzo catches a cold when he plays outside with his friends. By the time he recovers, Kermit catches a cold.
• Signature Laugh:
  • Animal's growly "Hyahyahyahyahya!"
  • Fozzie's nasal, bleating "Heheheheheh!"
  • Skeeter has a distinctive giggle too, which started out as "Ha-ha-ha" when Howie Mandel voiced her, but became "Tee-hee-hee" after Frank Welker took over.
• Slippery Skid: In "Fine Feathered Enemies", during the song "Remember to Love", Fozzie accidentally spills gumballs from a gumball machine all over the sidewalk, and the others end up slipping on the gumballs.
• Snake Charmer: In "Fozzie's Last Laugh", Gonzo explains to Fozzie that to be funny, you have to be unexpected. The example Gonzo uses is to play his nose like a flute and summon a construction worker from a nearby manhole in typical snake charmer fashion.
• Spin-Off Babies: The Trope Codifier of an adaptation where the characters are made younger. The very premise of this cartoon is the Muppets as toddlers.
• The Stinger: At the end of every episode, Animal would say "Gooooooooo bye-bye!"
• Stock Animal Name: The parrot in the episode "Fine Feathered Enemies" is named Polly.
• Stock Femur Bone: In "Close Encounters of the Frog Kind", Skeeter and Scooter pretend to run a bank. Rowlf gives them a bone of this kind to keep in the bank.
• Straight Man: Rowlf tends to serve as a stoic person reacting to the antics of the wackier characters.
• Straying Baby: Animal on more than on occasion wanders off with the other babies having to keep him out of trouble.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: In "Out-of-This-World History", in the song "Yankee Doodle Rock", Fozzie starts to sing "Yankee Doodle" when Rowlf cuts in with this line:
  Fozzie: Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his head and called it...
  Rowlf: Lasagna!
• Superstition Episode: In "Bad Luck Bear", the gang learns about superstitions after Fozzie breaks a mirror and is convinced he'll have seven years of bad luck. The others help Fozzie to turn his luck around.
• Surprisingly Functional Toys: In "Close Encounters of the Frog Kind", Kermit's little nephew Robin drives a toy car like an actual car when the gang looks for him so that they can put him back in his fish bowl.
• That's All, Folks!: At the end of every episode, Animal would say "Gooooooooo bye-bye!"
• Theme Tune Roll Call: A variation: the characters, rather than giving their names, say what they like or what they do.
• This Page Will Self-Destruct:
  • In "The Case of the Missing Chicken", Gonzo imagines he's a spy and is informed through his shoe-phone that both his plush chicken Camilla and the president's socks have been stolen. He is then informed that his phone will self-destruct in five seconds, and the phone blows up on him.
  • In "Pigarella", Gonzo hides in a drawer and pretends to send a message to Scooter with his nose as the transmitter. At the end he says "My nose will self-destruct in two seconds," and then sneezes, blasting the drawer, and Scooter, several feet forward.
• Time-Passage Beard:
  • "Eight Take-Away One Equals Panic" has an Imagine Spot from Gonzo where all of the babies, including Skeeter and Piggy, have grown long gray beards by the time they see each other again after a hundred years.
  • In "Six-to-Eight Weeks"' musical number "Waiting for You", which has the children lament how hard it is for them to wait for their playhouse to arrive in the mail, one part shows Kermit and Gonzo with long gray beards while throwing a ball at each other.
• Time Travel Episode: "Back to the Nursery" is about Fozzie accidentally spilling hot cocoa on a photo in Nanny's yearbook. The babies then build their own pretend Time Machine and imagine they go back in time to recreate the photo.
• Toilet Training Plot: Two books based on the series, "Bye-Bye Diapers" and "I Can Go Potty" respectively focus on Piggy and Kermit being potty-trained.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Piggy and Skeeter respectively (No, we did not get that mixed up — Piggy dresses in pink, bows and lace, and karate chops anyone when they set off her Hair-Trigger Temper, whereas Skeeter is a pants-wearing athlete, but sweeter and much more mellow.)
• Tooth Fairy: In "Dental Hyjinks", Fozzie imagines Gonzo as the Tooth Fairy, who refuses to give Fozzie one million dollars since his loose tooth hasn't come out yet. Kermit then appears and says he wants to give Fozzie double that amount. Cue several of the other Muppets appearing and offering Fozzie even more money than that, with each Muppet offering double the previous Muppet's amount.
• Totem Pole Trench: In "Of Mice and Muppets", the babies help Gonzo, who is imagining he's been trapped along with several mice by the Wall Wonker, by stacking themselves on top of each other, wearing a big trench coat, and pretending to be an even bigger Wonker who informs the other Wonker that he's failed his job and has to go back to his home planet.
• Tough Room: Fozzie getting pelted by tomatoes for telling bad jokes.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: A lot of the songs have this.
  • "The Loose Tooth Boogie" starts in C, shifts up to C♯ during the instrumental break, and finally shifts up to D.
  • "Good Things Happen in the Dark", "Best Friends" and "Sandman" start in D major and end in E♭ major.
  • "A Table for One", "Practice Makes Perfect", "Railroad Trackin'", "We Love Cartoons" and "Just Read a Book" start in G major and end in A major.
  • "It's Up to You" starts in E major and shifts up to G major after the middle eight.
  • "Merry-Go-Round", "Make a Nursery Rhyme", "The Great Unbeatable Me" and "Don't You Wish You Were a Kitty Cat?" start in D major and end in E major.
  • "Show Us the Real You", "Wocka Wocka Wocka" and "Check Me Out" start in F major and end in G major.
  • "Music is Everywhere" starts in E♭ major and ends in F major.
  • "Yankee Doodle Rock", "Waiting for You", "The Right Stuff", "It's the Bees" and "Faraway Places Are Calling Me" start in G and end in A♭.
  • "How to Tell a Chicken Joke" goes from F to F♯ to G.
  • "Animals Are My Favorite People" has the verses sung in A major, the choruses and middle eight sung in B major, and the final choruses sung in C major.
  • "Art is for Your Heart" has the first two verses sung in E♭ major, the first chorus sung in A♭ major, and the second chorus sung in B♭ major.
  • "Someone's Gonna Fix It", "I Never Get Tired of Toys", "Pirates" and "Runnin' Out of Time" start in B♭ major and end in C major.
  • "Let's Heart It for Your Ears" and "Jailbirds" start in A and end in B♭.
  • "Amadogus" and "The Daily Muppet" start in A and end in B.
  • "Get Well Soon" has the verses in B♭ minor and the choruses in B♭ major, the middle eight in C♯ major, and the final chorus in C major.
  • "Flyin' Away" has the verses and first pre-chorus in A♭ major, the first chorus and second pre-chorus in B♭ major, and the last choruses and middle eight in C major.
  • "Remember to Love" has the first verse sung in F minor, the first pre-chorus in A♭ major and the first chorus in F♯ major. Afterwards, the rest of the song follows the same pattern, this time respectively in F♯ minor, A major and G major.
  • "This is Your Lucky Day" has the verses in E minor and the choruses in G major.
  • "Imaginationland", "There's a Fish That Looks a Lot Like Me", "Give Food a Chance" and "Numbers Make My Day" start in C and end in C♯.
  • "Guiding Star" has the verses sung in G major, the choruses in C major, and the final chorus in D major.
  • "Costume Party" starts in B major and ends in C major.
  • "Come See Nanny" goes from B major to C major to C♯ major.
  • "You Can't Stop the News" and "Sunday Funnies" start in C and end in D.
  • While "I'll Be Blue for You" is sung entirely in E major, the middle eight is sung in G major.
  • "It's Fun to Write" has the verses sung in C major, the choruses in F major, and the final chorus in G major.
  • "Making a Rhyme" starts in B minor and ends in D major.
  • "Simon Says" starts in B major and ends in C♯ major.
• Tsundere: As in all Muppet productions, Piggy is a mix between this and Yandere.
• Valentine's Day Episode: In "My Muppet Valentine", the babies try to cheer up Rowlf when Nanny forgets to give him his Valentine's cookie.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Piggy and Skeeter, the only two girls in the nursery. Like all the babies, they're friends, but they're especially prone to competing and catfights.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • In early episodes, Gonzo and Rowlf's voices were more gruff, as if their voice actresses were trying to sound closer to their adult counterparts. Their voices got more higher and relaxed by the end of the season.
  • Also in early episodes, Fozzie spoke with a stilted accent vaguely similar to how the adult Fozzie sounded in the first season of The Muppet Show. As the season went on, his voice got more relaxed and more like the familiar Fozzie from the later Muppet Show seasons and films.
• The Walls Are Closing In: In "Raiders of the Lost Muppet", Kermit, Piggy and Fozzie imagine they're exploring the Temple of Doom and end up stuck in a room where the ceiling is closing in on them. Piggy uses Fozzie's propeller hat as a drill to make a hole in the ceiling to use as an exit.
• Wingding Eyes: There are several instances where Gonzo's eyes turn into hearts as he is admiring Piggy.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: "Pigerella" had Piggy imagining herself as Cinderella. Gonzo, the Fairy God-Weirdo, changed it to seven for a similar reason it was done to Casper in his film. Gonzo told her that, because they're kids, they can't stay awake up to midnight.
• Word, Schmord!: In "Of Mice and Muppets", Gonzo goes into the closet to look for Officer Carruthers' pet mouse Peewee. He imagines that he and several mice are captured by the Wall Wonker, who wants to use them to power a treadmill that will let him harness all of the world's electricity and Take Over the World. He then realizes Gonzo isn't running on the treadmill and asks why the "mouse" isn't running. Gonzo clarifies that he's a weirdo, to which the Wall Wonker replies with "Weirdo scmeirdo! Why aren't you running?"
• Writer's Block: Shows up once where Piggy and Gonzo literally ran into a writers (toy)block and Gonzo explained this trope. It was solved in the most zany fashion possible - writer's termites.
• You're Cute When You're Angry: In "Piggy's Hyper-Activity Book", the babies make paper dolls from an activity book. Gonzo imagines he tries to kiss a paper doll of Piggy, commenting that he can kiss it all he wants without it honking his nose... only for it to come to life, duplicate itself into three, and honk his nose, to which Gonzo replies with "Isn't she beautiful when she's angry?"
  • In "Bug Busting Babies", Piggy discovers Gonzo in her detective's office and starts arguing with him enough to ignore Scooter's request to have his computer fixed. Here's the following exchange:
  Gonzo: Y'know, you're cute when you're angry.
  Piggy: I must be getting more gorgeous by the second!
• You Wanna Get Sued?: In "Sing a Song of Superheroes", when Gonzo appears in the Batmobile, Scooter comments, "Hey, you're not Batman!"
  Gonzo: Batman? Are you nuts? Warner Brothers wanted two million bucks for a three second film clip.
  Fozzie: Boy, I wonder what they pay Bugs Bunny.
  Bean Bunny: So who are you then?
  Gonzo: Batboy. No charge.
  Piggy: Well, at least the price is right.

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"Goooooooo BYE BYE! Hyahyahyahyahya..."