We banged our heads for a while on how to introduce these awesome behind the scene photos of The Muppet Show, but then we decided to do it on the most appropriate sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational way:
It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight.
It’s time to put on makeup , It’s time to dress up right
It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight. Why do we always come here ,I guess we’ll never know
It’s like a kind of torture ,To have to watch the showAnd now let’s get things started
Why don’t you get things started
It’s time to get things started
On the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational
This is what we call the Muppet Show!Take a look at these 27 amazing behind the scene photos of the Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie:
Since 1969, Sesame Street had given Jim Henson’s Muppet creations exposure; however, Henson began to perceive that he was pigeonholed as a children’s entertainer. He sought to create a programme that could be enjoyed by young and old. Two specials (The Muppets Valentine Show and The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence) were produced and aired on ABC that are considered pilots for The Muppet Show. Neither led to the sale of a prime-time network series. However, the prime-time access rule had just been enacted, which took the 7:30 to 8 pm ET slot from the networks and turned it over to their affiliates. CBS suggested it would be interested in Henson’s proposal as a syndicated series it could purchase for its owned-and-operated stations, to run one night a week in that time slot.
Lew Grade, head of the British commercial station ATV and accustomed to the idea of puppet television considering he underwrote the various 1960s Supermarionation series produced by Gerry Anderson such as Thunderbirds, offered a deal to Henson that would see his show produced at the ATV studios in Elstree, England. ATV, as part of the ITV network, would broadcast the show to other ITV stations in the United Kingdom, and its distribution arm, ITC Entertainment, would sell the show in the United States and around the world. Henson put aside his misgivings about syndication and accepted
The Muppet Theater is the setting for The Muppet Show, a grand old vaudeville house that has seen better days. In episode 106, Kermit identifies the name of the theater as The Benny Vandergast Memorial Theater, although by the time ofIt’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, it is simply called “The Muppet Theater.” It is then that the theater becomes registered as a historical landmark.
According to The Phantom of the Muppet Theater, the theater was built by a stage actor named John Stone in 1802. At some point a production of Hamlet ran in the theater, with Stone playing the title role. An alternate exterior is also shown in the book.
Locations seen in the Muppet Theater include backstage right (which includes Kermit’s desk), the dressing rooms, the attic (featured in four compilation videos released in 1985), the canteen, the prop room, the stage, Statler and Waldorf’s Box, the auditorium, reception, the recording studio, the stage door lobby, and the back alley. A replica of the theatre serves as the setting for the Muppet*Vision 3D attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure.
Scooter’s uncle J.P. Grosse owns the theater, and rents it to the Muppets, as Scooter is only too happy to remind Kermit. In a deleted scene from It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, Kermit reveals that J.P. has died and left the theater to the Muppets in his will. This would have taken place sometime after 1996, as J.P. can be seen (and referred to as such by the head of the KMUP network) in episode 107 of Muppets Tonight, the 1990s reworking of The Muppet Show.The Muppet Theater is shown to be in New York City as Rachel Bitterman plots to tear down the Muppet Theater and build a club. She is thwarted when Pepe the King Prawn manages to get the Muppet Theater to be made into a national landmark.
In the film The Muppets, a version of the Muppet Theater is seen in Los Angeles and is located next to Muppet Studios. It is the main storyline of the movie that the Muppets reunite to raise money to buy back the Muppet Theater deed from an oil magnate named Tex Richman.
