Guess What I Got!

Welllll, I got to test drive the new Mercedes Benz C Class (I'm Middle Class Bitch!)and that was cool. Leggs got to ride Brownie and that was fun! But the coolest thing I got this weekend was The Muppet Show, Season 1 and Season 2 on DVD!

I actually first saw the DVDs about a month ago when I was at Costco with Mommy. (Yes damn it I am thiscloseto 30 and I will forever call the woman that birthed me Mommy!) I got really excited and freaked out in the middle of the store, but Mommy had to go and ruin my fun as only a mother can and suggested that I could find it somewhere else for cheaper. Needless to say, sometimes you SHOULD NOT listen to your mother cause homegirl was oh so wrong. Not only could I not find it for cheaper, the only place I could actually even find it was on Amazon. So 4 weeks and an apology from Mommy later I FINALLY GOT THE MUPPET SHOW SEASONS 1 AND 2 ON DVD! whoot whoot whoot!

I'm only on disc 2 of Season 1 but I already love it. That disc covers the 1976 season which was a year before I was born! Here's some interesting tidbits about Jim Henson's The Muppet Show!

• It originally ran from Sept. 1976 to June 1981, 5 seasons, 120 episodes (only season 1 and 2 are currently available) It went off the air in 1981, not because of lack of viewers, but because Jim Henson wanted to do bigger projects.
• Henson's Muppets received invaluable exposure when the began appearing on Sesame Street in 1969 (sheeesh I did not know Ernie was that old!) but fearing that he would be pigeonholed as a children's entertainer, Henson sought to create a program for both children and adults.
• Until I was 7, the only tv I was allowed to watch was Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.
• The Muppets were once featured on Saturday Night Live, but creative differences ended that partnership.
• Mahnahmahnah appeared on the very first episode to air.
• Jim Henson made a syndication deal with British commercial station ATV, which produced The Muppet Show at its studios in Elstree, England. ITC Entertainment was the vendor in the US and non UK markets. As a result, their were several segments that only aired on the UK version of the show. (I watched The Muppet Show on CBS, thats back when CBS had all the hot shows...)
• Originally, each guest star was going to be given a Muppet version of themselves (how fuckin cool is that?!) but this idea was scrapped after the third episode because of the cost. Only Juliet Prowse, Connie Stevens and Paul Williams received them (Wikipedia says Any Williams but I didn't see it and they were wrong about the next fact sooo)
• Wikipedia claims that the Muppet Show had problems attracting guest until ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev appeared but the Muppet Facts on the DVD says that Lena Horne was the first big name entertainer to appear. Several people told her that she would ruin her career but she went on to do both The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
• No guest star ever appeared twice, but several of them also did Sesame Street, the tv specials, and the theatrical releases (The Muppet Movie, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Great Muppet Caper, etc...)
• When Richard Pryor was unable to make the taping (how fucking funny would that have been?) one the the series writers, Chris Langham, filled in for him
• I love them all, but Sweetums is one of my favorite muppets!
  
• Some of my favorite guest stars are: Ernie & Bert (Bert wears a tux and tries to seduce Connie Stevens!), Rita Moreno, Jim Nabors (Well, Gooooolllly!), Lena Horne, Ruth Buzzi, Sandy Duncan, Candice Bergen, Ben Vareen, Vincent Price, Phyllis Diller, Twiggy, Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Elton John, Lou Rawls, Cloris Leachman, Gilda Radner, Pearl Bailey, Alice Cooper, Diana Ross, Harry Belafonte, Debbie Harry, Linda Ronstadt, Liberace, Carol Burnett, The Cast of Star Wars, Leslie Uggams with Big Bird, and Dizzy Gillespie