The Muppet Show

The Muppet Show, TV comedy series created by Jim Henson that ran from 1976 to 1981. It featured the Muppets, a cast of now-iconic characters that included Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, and Gonzo, as they prepared for their weekly vaudeville show.

While attending the University of Maryland, Henson and his future wife, Jane Nebel, created the puppet show Sam and Friends for a Washington, D.C., television station. The five-minute program introduced the first Muppets, including Kermit. The term Muppets was coined by Henson to describe the meld of marionettes and puppets that he used. They were usually made of sculptured foam rubber, plastic, and various fabrics. For The Muppet Show, most of the Muppets were hand puppets, which were voiced by the people operating them.

Following graduation (A.B., 1960), Henson, along with his assistants, did commercials and brief spots on various television shows. In 1969 the Muppets began appearing on the Children’s Television Workshop’s program Sesame Street, bringing Henson and his humanoid animals extraordinary nationwide popularity. Yet Henson wanted to show that Muppets appealed not only to children but also to adults. After several unsuccessful attempts to produce The Muppet Show in the United States, Henson finally received support from the London-based television producer Lew Grade. The show began airing in 1976 and soon gained a global audience. Each week, Kermit the Frog, the harried producer of the fictitious show within a show, had his patience and composure tested by the unfunny comedian Fozzie Bear, the clownish and unpredictable Gonzo, and, most of all, the relentlessly amorous Miss Piggy. A different celebrity appeared in each episode, and over the series’ five-season run such performers as Steve Martin, Carol Burnett, Gene Kelly, and Gladys Knight guest starred.

The popularity of The Muppet Show inspired a number of motion pictures—including The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)—as well as books, magazines, records, commercials, and merchandise. After The Muppet Show ended in 1981, other series featuring the Muppets followed, including Fraggle Rock (1983–87), a puppet show about subterranean creatures, and Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies (1984–91), a morning cartoon program.

Prior to his death in 1990, Henson was in negotiations with the Disney Company to sell the rights to the Muppets. The deal was finalized in 2004, and it transferred the trademarks and copyrights of most of the iconic characters to Disney. Later projects included the feature film Muppets Most Wanted (2014) and The Muppets (2015–16), a television series purporting to document the behind-the-scenes antics of Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, and their cohorts.