Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
This Best of the Muppet Show compilation puts together three half hours starring Diana Ross,
Brooke Shields and Rudolf Nureyev. It won't disappoint fans of Kermit and Miss Piggy - the color is
fine and the fast pace and clever effects make up for the sometimes corny jokes.
The Muppet Show was a pleasant sensation of the late 70s, a variety antidote for lame
network fare. It was syndicated but always scheduled as a second-class production. No matter, it
soon became one of the most popular shows on the tube, and the whole nation sought it out.
It was the big payoff for Jim Henson after a couple of decades working as comedy filler on various
variety shows, and pioneering the creative educational creatures of Sesame Street. His earlier
deadpan topliner Kermit appears here as the emcee for a wild music-hall revue show, with a guest
performer every week. Master puppeteer and later director Frank Oz did wonders with a raft of
characters like Miss Piggy.
The format tries to sell the idea that these various furry and feathery creatures are performing in a
real theater, using video matting and ingenious effects to tie the backstage wings to the footlights,
and the stage to the audience. The two old gentlemen hecklers in the right-side box no longer seem
as funny as they did, but like everyone else in the show, they're given lively comedy material. We
quickly accept the characters as living entities, forgetting that
they're manipulated mostly from below. The performers seem to accept the Muppets as well, and the
colorful showcase attracted many of the top names in show business.
Diana Ross's episode is the best of the three, mainly because it's a more standard show,
with the cast fawning over the singer and trying to figure out why the audience loves her but boos
all the usual acts. There are reasonably good episodes of Pigs in Space and
Veteranarian's Hospital to back up Diana's songs, which include her standard Reach out and
Touch Somebody's Hand.
Brooke Shields is on hand for an extended takeoff on Alice In Wonderland probably concocted
to compensate for the fact that the young model-actress doesn't have exploitable stage talents. She
ends up being the walk-on reactor to a number of situations pulled from the children's story without
much rhyme or reason. Some of the lyrics in the songs are clever but it's not as inspired as some of
the better way-out Muppet material. Fozzie Bear gets confused about what story he's in and then
can't extricate himself from a Tin Woodsman suit. For a while we think the two storylines might
intersect, but it all just ends in an okay sing-along to "We're Off to See the Wizard."
Rudolf Nureyev's show is hampered by a single theme - the stodgy American Eagle character keeps
hammering away at the need for dignity and culture, while Nureyev just wants to relax. He does
a Gene Kelly / Fred Astaire type dance, none too well, and then goes through a predictable ballet of
Swine Lake, opposite an unbilled partner in a flabby pig suit. Among other riffs on the idea of
"culture," Rolf the dog plays DeBussy on the piano while Fozzie ruins everything trying to
light his candleabra.
The shows are great for nostalgia's sake although the luck of the draw might make a different
trio of episodes a more entertaining set. Savant is certainly nostalgic for the Muppets, as I still
remember rushing my 1 year-old daughter through her Saturday bath in order to sit her on my lap and
watch it before her bedtime, waving her arms around in sync with Kermit's spindly flippers. I wish
I could do it all over again.
The shows come with some gallery and text extras called Movie Mania and Muppetisms.
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