Jim Henson's Little Muppet Monsters 1985

About

In 1985, after the first season of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies brought in huge ratings, CBS decided to expand the series from a half-hour to a hour-long block, pairing it with a show called Little Muppet Monsters to make a full hour-long package called Muppets, Babies & Monsters. The new show featured the original Muppet Show cast and characters reprising their roles, as well as Muppet Babies cast.

Episodes restored from VHS sources by Garrett Gilchrist. DVD format (VIDEO_TS folder playable in VLC etc).

In The Beginning, Space Cowboys, The Great Boodini

Unaired: Gunko, Foo-Foo Phooey. Gonzo's Talent Hunt

Starring Jim Henson's Muppets

Plot

The show was based around three young Muppet monsters: Tug (performed by Richard Hunt), Boo (performed by David Rudman) and Molly (performed by Camille Bonora) who, after an incident where Scooter put them in the basement because Molly and Boo played water polo in the living room, host their own basement-based TV show featuring a musical act with Nicky Napoleon and his emperor penguins, a few cameos and segments (like "Fozzie's Comedy Corner" and a segment with Gonzo) from characters of The Muppet Show (including The Electric Mayhem during the opening credits, excitedly watching the show at home on their television and sofa), recurring animated segments like "Pigs in Space", "Kermit the Frog, Private Eye" and "Muppet Sports Shorts" (featuring Animal) and one original Muppet song per episode.

Cancellation

The show was cancelled after three episodes and was never rerun afterwards (although segments of "Pigs in Space" and "Kermit the Frog, Private Eye" from the second episode were used in the final episode of Muppet Babies). According to Muppet performer Kathryn Mullen, this could have been because Marvel Productions were having trouble getting the animated subjects in between puppet wrap-arounds and found footage for the entire season ready for airing, leading CBS to respond by rerunning Muppet Babies in the show's place until Marvel Productions had finished the animated segments. However, the rerun's ratings were quite high, leading CBS to cancel Little Muppet Monsters outright.

But storyboard director Scott Shaw claims that, despite 15 other episodes being made, it was cancelled simply because Jim Henson felt that the concept and show itself wasn't up to his standard of quality, leading him to request its cancellation.

According to Mullen, the remaining fifteen episodes were never finished; the puppet wrap-arounds were made, but the animation was never put in, and there were a total of thirteen puppet segments shot (though most of the money was put into the show's animation), and there were ultimately only three "true" episodes made.

In addition to the three aired episodes, footage of the puppet segments of three other unaired episodes have surfaced, and were also restored by Garrett Gilchrist.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

Jim Henson

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Teens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed