Talk: Muppet Show Episodes

The Muppet Show episode guides part 2

A new user recently added two pictures to the guide at Episode 102: Connie Stevens covering Fozzie Bear's opening joke, and Statler and Waldorf's closing comments. I kind of like the idea of including these, but I was wondering how everyone else felt. I think it was voted against over on the discussion page for the John Cleese episode, but I thought it would be worth bringing up again since we have a few more guides now. --Justin 18:45, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, personally I'd prefer them not to become standard, since with only a few exceptions (mostly much later in the run), they all look alike and they're just throwaway moments. Maybe one representative (and Fozzie's jokes in particular don't vary visually) and the rest only in very rare cases, when there's something really notable visually (not just as an excuse to quote their closing line or whatever). When/if we're in a position to reformat Episode 414: Liza Minnelli, for example, I can see including the closing since it's plot related and visually distinct, or the Sesame Street cast in the balcony at the end of the Marty Feldman show, and so on. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:27, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. I like that idea. Only if there's something visually distinct. --Justin 22:39, April 14, 2010 (UTC)

The Muppet Show episode guides

reposting from Special:Community

I've been meaning to work on these for a while now, but I don't know if we've really come up with a set "look" for them. For Episode 223: John Cleese, the first one that was made, all of the pictures are set at 200px and there is a "Segments" listing. For Episode 107: Florence Henderson, there are no "Segments" listed and the pictures are all set at 300px. I had tried Episode 108: Paul Williams with 250px, which looked pretty good (changed to 200px today). What would be the preferred style? The original John Cleese version? Maybe something "completely different" all together? --Justin 03:15, March 2, 2010 (UTC)

That's a really good question -- this is something that we've never quite figured out, and we really, really should. It's silly that after 4+ years, such a major part of the site still looks the way it does.

I came up with the format on Episode 107: Florence Henderson in January -- a tweak on the usual Sesame episode guide format, with bigger pictures, and without an extra column for "Song" / "Sketch" / "Backstage". (I think that extra column works for the Sesame guides, because we want to make an obvious distinction between Street segments and inserts... For the TMS guides, it just feels like wasted space.) So I'd be happy if that became the standard, unless someone else feels differently. -- Danny (talk) 20:57, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

I'm fine with that format, but I'll still uneasy about the table pictures being that big. I'd be happy to work on the guides! - Oscarfan 21:18, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I really think 250px works best. I'm going to change the Florence Henderson episode for now to give you an example. --Justin 22:14, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

I think 300px makes sense, cause that's our standard picture size throughout the site... Our episode and sketch pages are so great, I actually think it's kind of a shame that we shrink the pics down to 200. The pictures are one of the things we do best around here; I want to show off how awesome they are.

If you guys decide that 250px is better, then I could accept it, but I want to put in my vote for 300px. I like 'em big. -- Danny (talk) 22:17, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Also -- I'm so so happy that you guys are psyched up about working on these! It would be really nice to get all these pages looking consistent and sharp. -- Danny (talk) 22:18, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Episode 107: Florence Henderson is now set at 250px. I think it looks a little nicer than 300, but it's still large enough. 200 is definitely too small, but if you think 250 is too small as well, I'll gladly revert it.

I've added galleries to several pages so far that could easily be turned into guides. That's really my favorite part of doing them: the pics! --Justin 22:22, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

If you're about to do a bunch of work on these pages, and you prefer 250, then I'm totally cool with that. You earn the right to make that call by being the dude who's going to do all the work. :) -- Danny (talk) 22:44, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Hey, thanks! I think it's kind of a happy medium. I like 250, so if Oscarfan's cool with it (since he wants to work on them as well) I'll go with that. Though, if eventually more people want to go with 300px, we can switch it to that. Whatever works, eh?

I like the segments listing as well, but it gets a bit confusing at times, such as with Episode 208: Steve Martin. I think it's better to leave the extra column out for TMS, as you suggest, Danny.--Justin 23:03, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

I think the pictures sizes are good. 300px just looked way too big to me. - Oscarfan 23:10, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

While on the subject of pictures, I think that it would be very nice to have pictures that are unique to the episode guides. That way when you're browsing through the guide and you click on a song, you're not just seeing the same picture over and over again. It makes the guides more fun and interesting, I think. Now, obviously this won't work for everything. There's not always another choice for the picture. For instance, on the Paul Williams page, the same picture is used for "All of Me" as on the page for the song. If you can't really find a shot that is as clear and works as well as the image from the linked page, then I think that should be the only exception. Any thoughts? --Justin 02:36, March 5, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I agree that there should be exceptions -- if there's one great picture and one lousy picture, we shouldn't use the lousy picture just for variety. Also, feel free to put multiple pictures on song pages -- they tend to be pretty short pages, so if there are a lot of interesting visuals in the song (fun background singers, etc), then go ahead and make a gallery. -- Danny (talk) 17:53, March 5, 2010 (UTC)

Oooh! Excellent! There have been a few songs that I've wanted to do that with, but have always been hesitant because it seemed to go against the "format": One picture per song (at least when the page is short). I'd thought about galleries, but I'd kind of assumed (for some reason) that they'd be out of place. If I come across any songs that would look good with a few more pictures, I'll definitely add them. --Justin 03:39, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Oh! Yeah, I don't think we have any guidelines about limiting pictures, beyond just a normal common sense limit. If there are a bunch of interesting visuals in a song (or a book, or whatever), then galleries are great. -- Danny (talk) 20:09, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Louise Gold's credit in Season Two

For all the season two episodes, Louise Gold is "credited" as being uncredited in the closing credits. However, the closing credits on the Elton John episode released on DVD does have her credited as a performer. Since that episode had the UK left-hand credits, I wonder if Louise *was* credited after all on the UK credits. Same goes for the other two performers who auditioned for Season Two. Were they credited on the UK credits or left off? The only way I can think to resolve this is if we ask over on Muppet Central for fans with off-air copies of TMS with the left-hand credits to check for us. Sadly, I don't have any off-air copies with the left-hand credits.David French 09:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The episode with Rudolph Nureyev also has the UK left-hand credits on the season two DVD, and Louise Gold isn't credited there. Then again, her voice isn't heard, so we don't know that she even did perform in that one (or maybe she was only credited in the UK versions of episodes where she performed speaking roles). --Minor muppetz 14:40, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

The Muppet Wiki guide and the Muppet Central guide don't list her as one of the performers in the Nureyev episode so I think we can safely assume that she didn't work on that episode.David French 21:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Airdate confusion

discussion moved from Talk:Episode 201: Don Knotts

If the production date was May 23-25, how could it have aired in February of that same year? --MuppetVJ 22:25, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

While we have sources for the production dates, all Muppet Show airdates were added by User:David French. This has been questioned before, several times even, and his source for the UK dates was someone else's grid. Since the US airings varied by market and the UK ones also seem questionable, I'd favor yanking all airdates for The Muppet Show. It's not like Sesame Street or other shows where it's possible to pin down the first airdaye, and most often have. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 23:10, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The US airdates we originally had on these pages came from Kermitage.com which used documents from Henson, so we should keep those. I don't know what User:David French's sources were. —Scott (talk) 23:22, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no. Looking through the history, it seems like the *production dates* came from Kermitage, but French added the US dates too (which he did to a random assortment of episodes; others still omit them). David French's source for the UK stuff is on his talk page, but both US and UK dates come from this grid. We have proof, in fact, from TV Guides and such, that new Muppet Show episodes didn't always air in the same day in every market (not least because, as a syndicated property, and even with the CBS station airings, they weren't limited to a specific day where they had to air). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

This might be a Special:Community discussion, but I think we should choose one date to be the "official" US airdate. When discussing shows and dates, most TV reference books go with what the New York stations showed. I'm (of course) partial to L.A., but if we have to choose one, I'd go with New York. -- Ken (talk) 03:31, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the episode guide for The Muppet Show at the old Henson.com listed both New York and LA airdates for most episodes. --Minor muppetz 04:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, that strikes me as yet another reason not to mess with it at all, at least not in the box. But it could be a note on the page as long as we have Henson.com or another reliable source and not just a fan's grid (we took a similar approach with taping dates for Dinosaurs, given how there were delays between production and air seasons and a batch of episodes which went unaired until the syndication package). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I would be happier without the airdates. We know that there wasn't a single US airdate for Muppet Show episodes, but the box clearly implies that there was. For it to actually be accurate would require either a pointless level of precision (an airdate for every major US market) or an arbitrary, meaningless standard (the airdate in NY = the US airdate).

Based on what I know about syndication from Dark Shadows fandom, my guess is that Muppet Show episodes were released to the local markets twice a year, in 13-week packages. Apparently, at that point the airing order was at the discretion of the local station. So if it's possible to say anything about US airdates, the only thing that we could say is that this episode was in the first half of season two, and aired in any given US market sometime in the 13-week period beginning in September 1977. Even if we could narrow it down to a few weeks, the show aired on different days of the week in different places. (In the New York area, it was Monday nights, but I know it wasn't Monday everywhere.)

As the wiki's evolved, we've set ourselves a higher standard for accuracy. I think the airdates that we list don't meet our current standards anymore. -- Danny (talk) 06:55, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, when you put it like that, I could live without the airdates too, since they're all over the place (different days, and different order). We got it on Saturdays in L.A., but when I tried to look up the L.A. airdates years later, I noticed that they bounced around between 7:00 and 7:30, and even changed days sometimes, because of specials and whatever. It would have been nice if this had been a network show like Jim had wanted in the first place, but it wasn't, so we'll never have "real" airdates like The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight did. -- Ken (talk) 07:25, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm ok with not having specific airdates, although something general like "Fall 1980" might be nice to give people an idea, and would be reasonably true. However, if we take out airdates, then our ordering of episodes like Episode 501, which was the last filmed but the "first aired", starts to be very strange. -- Wendy (talk) 14:03, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that needs to affect the order, since we have official Henson sources for the numbering system. And to clarify, most of those specific airdates weren't even there until one user started adding them. The more general ones (like on the Kelly article) were there before. I can take those or leave them alone in the box (though again, worth noting in the article, moreso than any specific date for one market or another.) -- Andrew Leal (talk) 16:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm ... when I originally asked the question, I didn't notice that the UK airdate had a typo (it said 1977 when it should have said 1978, according to the grid). I think I may have started a debate that proved to be unnecessary ... --MuppetVJ 15:58, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Either way, it's good that we had the conversation. I think a few of us had concerns about the accuracy and relevance of those airdates, so I'm glad it came up. -- Danny (talk) 20:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

As the person who provided the airdates I think it is silly *not* to include them. If we are going to have airdates for every other Muppet special/TV series then why not one for what is essentially the most important Muppet project of them all. I would point out that Muppet Central uses both NY and LA air dates in their episode guide. The US and UK dates that I added indicated the first airing of that episode for that particular market. This wasn't just for a "randim assortment of episodes" either - they were going to be for *all* episodes only I hadn't found time to finish the "project". The dates are not "questionable" at all - there was no complete of *any* of the ITV channels when TMS aired in the UK; they were all regional channels. Despite that, ATV was the company that made the show and it was the ATV/Midlands channel that was the "host channel". People also shouldn't be confused about the somewhat random order, as it is well known that TV series are not always recorded in transmission order.David French 11:26, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi, David! I apologize if it seems like we were dismissing the work that you put in to these pages. I appreciate what you've contributed to the wiki, and I'm sorry that we ultimately decided to take the airdates out.

The difference between The Muppet Show and the other Muppet series is that TMS aired in syndication first. There's a single date when Fraggle Rock aired on HBO, Muppets Tonight on ABC, etc. For TMS, there's a New York date, an LA date, a Washington DC date, etc. Choosing one set of dates is just arbitrary, but using them all is unworkable -- there's too many. Ultimately, the dates for any given episode just become a range, which you might as well just call "late 1977".

The real comparison is to other Muppet projects that aired first in syndication, like The Frog Prince and The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. On those pages, we list a year, and not a single airdate. -- Danny (talk) 06:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

What if, as a sort of comprimise, we created a single (well-sourced) "List of The Muppet Show air dates" article and collect this kind of data there rather then on all the individual the episode guide pages? It wouldn't give every single date for every episode in every single market (that would be huge and impossible task), but it could provide readers with an idea of when an episode first debuted in some of the major markets. It could be a table format with the episodes listed down one column and then columns listing the known airdates for some of the major markets (with a New York column, a UK column, Los Angeles column or whatever). Again this would have to be well sourced, and not just taken from IMDb.com, TV.com, our own assumptions, or other unsourced fansites (which could be hard). But such an article could be a resource to give idea to those interested as to when the episodes aired around the world. We could have some lead text explaining the syndication system used and we wouldn't be presenting these dates as the episodes' universal, sole or definitive debut dates - they would just be a sampling of some major markets. -- Brad D. (talk) 04:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I ever thought you guys were dismissing my work so no offence was taken; I think I was more slightly surprised. Thinking about this some more, I like Brad's idea but as a second comprimise perhaps we ought to at least keep the ATV (UK) airdates since unlike the US dates we're referring to a proper channel - in this case the "host" channel.David French 07:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I think Brad's idea is great; let's do it! I think having any airdates on the episode pages is problematic -- it implies a single airing order for the series, which didn't exist. But the table would show the true situation. -- Danny (talk) 08:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

sketch lists

Regarding the list of sketches we have on every episode, I wonder if there's a better way to include the antics we currently cite on some pages by indenting under the Theme Song. When we discussed the issue of listing "Highlights" (which became "Songs/Sketches") months ago, there was a general consensus that the bulleted list was neat and easy to read. To me, the indented bullet stands out and looks messy in this case. Is there another way we could do it so that the lists remain tidy? — Scott (talk) 14:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey, that comment was me. I must have typed an extra tilde. Anyway, I'm thinking that taking the bullet away on those lists and leaving the sub-filtered Theme Song text just plainly indented looks better. So, I'm gonna go ahead and do that. — Scott (talk) 17:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Works for me, but what do you think about a single space between the Fozzie and Gonzo bits? Check out the example I jsut made on Episode 101: Juliet Prowse? -- Peter (talk) 17:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that an extra line in the code doesn't make much of a difference in spacing on the final page. It just splits the code up. I've looked at it in Opera, IE and Firefox and they all seem to do the same. — Scott (talk) 17:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Background Muppets

I've been wondering about what constitutes someone being classified as a main Muppet under each episode's cast listing as opposed to a Background Muppet. Mahna Mahna, for example, is listed as a Background Muppet in Episode 102 even though he's in Sax and Violence and Dr. Teeth & Janice are listed as a BM in Episode 104 even though the Mayhem plays the opening number.

I don't know if we ever talked about this, but I wanted to open it up before changing stuff around. --Peter Pantalones 18:18, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

"Background Muppets" are supposed to be characters that don't speak or have a major role in the episode. If characters are in the wrong place, it's probably a mistake. Feel free to move 'em around. -- Danny Toughpigs 03:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Production Dates

Are the production on Kermitage reliable? I'm pretty sure that air dates were different around the country, so where did they get those? --Peter Pantalones 18:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, Kermitage used the earliest known airings of each episode. As for production dates, I have no idea. They had been doing the site with help from Henson, so maybe it's from an official list. -- Scott, Scarecroe 18:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reliable enough. --Peter Pantalones 18:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Guest Puppeteers

Which episodes had guest puppeteers? I seem to remember one (which actually scared me as a child) of a tale of a girl and a dragon. Possibly Bunraku style? -- User:Kmcnay 23:24, March 8, 2006

Normally, I would suggest that this type of question is more suitable for a discussion forum, but you did inspire me to create this list: Guest Puppeteers on The Muppet Show... of which there are more I'm sure. -- Scott Scarecroe 04:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)