Were you one of those kids who got excited to see The Muppet Show every week, who laughed out loud at Pigs In Space, cheered for Fozzie and stared blankly at the Swedish Chef? I was. I dutifully carried my Miss Piggy (with wind-blown hair on a Harley) lunchbox and played The Rainbow Connection with my (shhhh) children's guitar troupe. I rallied the kids on the block to go see The Muppets Take Manhattan. At the time, I wouldn't have said I was a Muppet freak. I would've just said I was like every other kid I knew.
Cheryl Eddy reminded me of the Muppet-wonder I had during my childhood, and of the brilliance and absurdity that made the show and characters and movies great television for children and adults. The parodies and offbeat humor Jim Henson brilliantly injected into his puppetry projects, especially the Muppets endeavors, she says are worth revisiting.
I am sure there are lots of lessons that I can't remember learning but that I took with me from those years of tuning into The Muppet Show. I do know that it was broad-based humor, from slapstick to punny to the stuff only my parents chuckled at, and that it showed me, even in fuzzy felt and googly eyes, that it was perfectly fine for a frog and a pig to fall in love. That beats bodily function humor and animated rat chefs to me today and I bet it would have back then, too.
