I'm glad that someone finally got around to releasing episodes of the zaniest variety show in history, Jim Henson's hilarious puppet-driven "The Muppet Show," which first ran in the late seventies and early 80s. Unfortunately, Columbia/TriStar is releasing only three episodes per DVD, when they could easily fit six onto one. The packaging also show that they're marketing these DVDs to a children's audience, but the presence of some extras shows that they also want to attract viewers like me, who fell in love with the show as children and want to relive these great episodes. So as a presentation, these DVDs fall in the middle: could be much better, but could have been much worse.
As for the episodes themselves: this is the first of the DVDs released, and they couldn't have picked a better episode to lead-off the series. The Harry Belafonte episode is my personal favorite and the one I best remember from childhood. In his brief introduction to the episode, Jim Henson's son Brian Henson comments on the close friendship between his father and Harry Belafonte, and that Belafonte performed the final number from this episode, "Turn the World Around," at Jim Henson's memorial service. "Turn the World Around" is a beautiful, very moving melody, and the performance in the episode with African mask Muppets is stunning puppetry artwork. The episode's running plot has Fozzie trying to script out the whole show, which doesn't really work well. Harry Belafonte sings "The Banana Boat Song" in a hilarious scene where Fozzie keeps interrupting him for explanations. Harry and Animal get involved in a drum duel, Floyd and Zoot perform "Honeysuckle Rose," and there's an episode of Pigs in Space where Dr. Strangepork switches everybody's bodies around. This is an all-around hysterical episode, and touching as well.
The Linda Ronstadt episode, from late in the show's run, is the weakest on the DVD. The running plot, with Linda getting a crush on Kermit while Miss Piggy fumes, is kind of a bore, as are all of Ronstadt's numbers. She performs "Blue Bayou" of course, but nothing particularly Muppet-like or clever happens during it. The highlight of the episode are two musical numbers (without Linda) that are classics among Muppet fans. Rowlf the Dog sings "The Cat Came Back," complete with bombs and cannons and an invincible little feline. Hilarious! Later, in one of the strangest musical numbers ever, two anonymous muppets in a dusty mansion dressed in dreary black clothing, both coated in cobwebs, sing "I Am So Happy" with the joy of a funeral dirge. It's screamingly funny to hear this gloomy puppet moan, "I - like - to - have - fun." The rest of the episode is just okay, but we do get another installement of Pigs in Space.
Finally, we have John Denver, another man very closely connected to Jim Henson (and also gone too young). Brian Henson again provides some interesting information on Henson's relationship with Denver at the beginning of the episode. John Denver seems very comfortable performing with the Muppets and seems to having a good time (in fact, he almost cracks up and loses it during one scene). His numbers are okay: "Grandma's Feather Bed" is pretty cute, but the garden number doesn't have enough happening in it. The real killer musical number is the opener: a version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?" performed in the midst of a full-scale war between every nation and every time period in history. The technical skill here is incredible, and the idea is darkly funny. The Swedish Chef pops up to make squirrel stew, only to face a deadly squirrel uprising. Some pigs sing "The Happy Wanderer" while climbing the Alps and fall off one by one. It's a pretty fun episode.
I recommend this DVD for the Belafonte episode alone; I really think it's of the best half-hours the Muppets ever did. But you also get exploding cats, Pigs in Space, two Swedish Chefs, the most depressing "happy song" ever, and Miss Piggy slugging an obnoxious tree. They just don't make entertainment like this any more.
