So Many Muppets Trivia Quiz

'Sam and Friends' was a short-length show produced by Jim Henson and Jane Nebel (who was later his wife). It aired on WRC-TV (Washington, D.C.) on weeknights between 1955 and 1961, as a lead-in to 'The Tonight Show'. Sam was a bald humanoid puppet who was the centre of most skits.

His friends included Kermit (then more ambiguously amphibian/reptilian, not yet the frog of later years), Henry the Hipster (a beatnik black sock puppet), Yorick (a rock that tries to eat the others) and Pierre the French rat. All of these, and more, were performed by Henson, who also provided all the voices except for skits that involved lip-synching to a record.

Other actors in the show included Jane Nebel, Jerry Juhl and Bob Payne.

For many, the appearances of some Muppets in the Public Broadcasting System show 'Sesame Street', starting in 1969, was their first introduction to what were to become much-loved characters. Although the show was targeted as an educational show for pre-schoolers, the Muppets appealed to parents at least as much as to children. The Muppets and the human characters did not initially interact, as it was felt that children might find it confusing. However, it was found during test screenings that children were paying close attention during the Muppet segments, and not to the humans; Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch were created specifically to interact with the humans on the show.

By this time, Kermit was a frog, still being performed by Jim Henson. He was joined by a number of Muppets created specifically for 'Sesame Street', including Bert and Ernie, Grover, Cookie Monster, Count von Count, and Mr Snuffleupagus, Big Bird's friend who seemed to be an imaginary playmate for many years, before being seen in the flesh (as it were) in 1985. 'Sesame Street' holds the rights for most of these, so they do not make significant appearances in all future Muppet endeavours, although there are some guest appearances.

With so many characters involved in so many skits, the puppeteer contingent expanded considerably. Among the most enduring additions to the Muppet team were Frank Oz (Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover), Carroll Spinney (Big Bird, Oscar) and Jerry Nelson (The Count, Snuffy).

In 1976, the Muppets got their own show, 'The Muppet Show', which took the form of a variety show being presented by a troupe of Muppets, which raised their celebrity status to an international level. Targeting the adult audience which had been Henson's original vision for his Muppets, it was originally aired on British TV, as American networks were dubious about the concept. ABC ran two earlier Muppet pilots ('The Muppets Valentine Show' in 1974 and 'The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence' in 1975) but did not proceed; other networks were not interested. Within six months, 'The Muppet Show' was being aired in over 100 countries (including the US, in syndication). The original run was until 1981, but repeats can still be found.

Kermit the Frog was the show runner, trying to manage both Muppet acts and human guest stars - who were soon lining up for the chance to appear on the show. The Muppet performers included a number of new characters (as the familiar faces from 'Sesame Street' were not available).
Miss Piggy, who wanted to be a superstar and was madly in love with Kermit, was performed by Frank Oz, as were Fozzie Bear, possibly the world's worst standup comedian, and Animal, the frenetic drummer for Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
Scooter, Kermit's assistant stage manager, was performed by Richard Hunt. Dave Goelz created and performed Gonzo the Great, whose stunts always seemed to go wrong.
Not all Muppets were part of the onstage show. Two of the regular audience members were Statler and Hilton, elderly gentlemen who constantly complained about the quality of the acts and heckle the performers.

There were a number of recurring sketches, some of which became part of later projects. These include The Swedish Chef, Pigs in Space, Muppet Labs (where Professor Bunsen's experiment was more likely than not to injure his assistant Breaker) and Veterinarian's Hospital.

The Muppets hit the big screen in 1979, in a movie that developed the back story of the formation of the troupe that would perform on 'The Muppet Show'. Like that show, it was a British production, from ITC Entertainment.

After an opening scene to set the stage, we see a young Kermit sitting in a Florida swamp, playing the banjo and singing 'Rainbow Connection' before he is inspired to set off to Hollywood so he can pursue a career in show business. He teams up with Fozzie (who is already a hopeless comic), but they soon find themselves pursued by Doc Hopper, who wants Kermit to be the spokesperson (should that be spokesfrog?) for his line of French-fried frog legs restaurants. He continues to pursue them as they encounter, and add to their entourage, the rock band Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the band's manager Scooter, Gonzo and his girlfriend Camilla Chicken, Miss Piggy, Rowlf the Dog, and finally Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Bunsen. After surviving numerous hairy situations, they arrive in Hollywood and are immediately signed to a lucrative contract. Mishaps during their performance lead to the appearance of a rainbow above the movie studio, and the cast (joined by some Muppets from 'Sesame Street' and other Henson projects) reprises 'Rainbow Connection'.

As well as the fun of seeing the development of the familiar ensemble cast the movie offers the anarchic humour with which we have become familiar. The human guest star list was extensive, including Edgar Bergen (as himself, with Charlie McCarthy) in his last film appearance. Dom de Luise was the talent agent who sent Kermit on his way, and Orson Welles the producer who gave them a contract in Hollywood.

The movie was the highest-grossing puppet film until the 2011 release of 'The Muppets'. It was nominated for numerous awards, mostly for its music. Jim Henson and Paul Williams (who wrote' Rainbow Connection' and other tracks) were awarded a Grammy for Best Album for Children for the soundtrack.

Jim Henson made his debut as a film director for the second movie featuring the Muppets, a joint production of ICT and Henson Productions, which was released in 1981, shortly after the final season of 'The Muppet Show'. 'The Great Muppet Caper' was, as the title suggests, a heist film, in which Kermit and Fozzie (identical twins, in a running joke) are investigative reporters who travel to London, accompanied by their photographer Gonzo, to look into a robbery.

Along the way, the trio encounter a number of familiar faces, including Miss Piggy, the assistant to the fashion designer who has been robbed. She falls madly in love with the frog reporter, and pretends to be her employer in order to maintain contact. Another jewelry robbery sees Miss Piggy framed, and our heroes trying both to exonerate her and prevent the real thieves from yet another planned robbery. Lots of Muppet mayhem follows before their ultimate success. The three return home the same way they had travelled to London (due to lack of the financial resources needed tor more traditional modes of travel): stored in the baggage compartment, and jettisoned over their destination.

As well as the Muppets, the movie included human actors, including Diana Rigg as the fashion designer and Charles Grodin as her brother, the mastermind of the thieves. John Cleese made a cameo appearance as the gentleman whose home Miss Piggy pretended was hers as she was trying to impress Kermit.

'Fraggle Rock' (also known as 'Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock' and 'Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson's Muppets') was an international production from Television South (UK), CBC (Canada), HBO (USA) and Henson Associates. 'Fraggle Rock' aired 96 25-minute episodes over five years, starting in 1983.

With an international market in mind, the segments involving humans were produced in multiple versions for their markets. The original US version (which also ran in a number of European countries with dubbed voices) featured an inventor named Doc and his dog Sprocket; the UK version showed that Fraggle Rock was an island whose lighthouse was manned by the Captain and his dog Sprocket (changed for the last two seasons following the death of the actor who portrayed the Captain); in France, Doc was a baker whose dog was named Croquette. These segments involving live actors are referred to as wraparounds, and not all wraparounds were produced for every market.

"What about the Muppets?" I hear you ask. Fraggle Rock is a society with four main anthropomorphic species. The story lines focus on the Fraggles (especially Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober and Red), who live (along with the Doozers) in a system of caves. The caves connect to the Land of the Gorgs, and also to our world, which is referred to as Outer Space - they refer to humans as the Silly Creatures from Outer Space. While the Fraggles, Doozers and Gorgs are mutually interdependent for survival, the poor communication between species (whose roots are both biological and cultural) causes constant problems.

Fraggles are about two feet tall, with a carefree lifestyle that includes a 30-minute working week. One of their favorite foods is radishes - which they take from the gardens of the Gorgs, human-sized characters who consider Fraggles pests; they need their radishes to make anti-vanishing cream, without which they will disappear. Doozers, who are only about 6 inches tall, are industrious workers, constantly constructing buildings out of a candy-like material which the Fraggles love and steadily devour. The Doozers don't mind this, as it means they have more space to fill with reconstructing the stuff that has disappeared. But they do scorn Fraggles as frivolous.

The fourth Muppets film ('The Muppets Take Manhattan' missed the cut for this quiz) was this 1992 Disney Productions release, an adaptation by longtime Muppet team member Jerry Juhl of the Dickens classic. The film was dedicated to Jim Henson, who had died in 1990, and directed by his son Brian. Michael Caine guest starred as Scrooge, with Steven Mackintosh as his nephew Fred. Kermit (performed by Steve Whitmore) was Bob Cratchit while his nephew Robin (Jerry Nelson) was Tiny Tim.

Do you really need to be told the plot? Scrooge is a curmudgeonly miser whose life is changed when three ghosts visit him during the night, reminding him what his life had been like before his love for money drove the woman he loved out of his life, what the present is for the Cratchit family as they share their love in celebrating Christmas, and what his unmourned death in the future is on track to be. The three ghosts are newly created Muppets, but many of the others are old friends, including Fozzie Bear as Fozziwig (a play on the original name of Fezziwig for Scrooge's first employer), Gonzo as Charles Dickens (who is narrating things along with Rizzo the Rat), Statler as Jacob Marley and Miss Piggy as Emily Cratchit.

'Muppet Treasure Island' was released in 1996 as a CD-ROM video game, based on the Muppets' fifth film of the same name, an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure classic. The movie follows the original plot pretty closely, with the addition of a number of minor characters played by Muppets. The movie saw the film debut of Kevin Bishop as Jim Hawkins.

In the video game, the player controls the character of Jim Hawkins as he goes in search of treasure, accompanied by Gonzo and Rizzo, along with a new Muppet, Stevenson the Parrot (who offers hints when required, but the puzzles to be solved are not that tricky, for the most part - they are not really the point of the exercise). Along the way he encounters Kermit, Fozzie and Miss Piggy, along with Long John Silver (played by Tim Curry) and Billy Bones (Billy Connolly) - both of whom played these roles in the movie. As is the case for many Muppet projects, there is a mix of live-action segments and animated puppetry, with plenty of humour thrown in.

The sixth Muppets film, and the first that was not a musical, 'Muppets from Space' was released in 1999. It follows Gonzo's quest to identify his species (which had been a running joke since his first appearance). After being struck by lightning, he discovers that he is in fact an alien from space, and tries to contact other members of his species, wherever they may be out there. When he and Rizzo the Rat are captured by agents from the government agency C.O.V.N.E.T. (which is charged with investigating possible extraterrestrial threats), Kermit and others including Miss Piggy, Fozzie and Animal head off to rescue them. Rescue accomplished, they set off to Cape Doom, the spot Gonzo had suggested as a suitable landing place to the aliens with whom he had established communication. Guess who they look like? Gonzo ultimately decides to stay with his friends, while the head of C.O.V.N.E.T. travels to the alien planet as Earth's ambassador.

The film was not a financial success, possibly because it lacked the zaniness of earlier ones, perhaps because it did not include musical numbers to hook the audience, maybe because the elements of parody that were originally planned were abandoned during production, perhaps for some other reason. In any case, Columbia Pictures did not pursue any further film projects involving the Muppets. In 2004 Disney acquired rights to the Muppets, excluding those created explicitly for 'Sesame Street' and 'Fraggle Rock'.

Disney+ released all ten episodes of this series on its streaming service in May of 2023, and announced in November that it would be the only series. 'The Muppets Mayhem' (which was very nearly the title of this quiz, before my research made me aware that the title was already used, and you don't want to cross Disney) features Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, who are trying to record an album. Lilly Singh played Nora, the record company assistant who hopes to save the company by getting the band to create a successful album.

Band members Dr. Teeth (Bill Barretta), Zoot (Dave Goelz), Animal (Eric Jacobson), Floyd Pepper (Matt Vogel), Janice (David Rudman) and Lips (Peter Linz) are not as focused on the project as they might be, and struggle to produce the necessary material (hampered by various personal issues that arise). The titles of the episodes are hit songs, and provide cultural context to the events. For example, in "The Times They Are A-Changin'" they discover a basement recording studio where they can self-record the album, but have trouble deciding on a direction. (Bob Dylan's 'Basement Tape' sessions spring to mind here.) In "Eight Days a Week" (a Beatles song, for those of you who don't have vivid memories of the era), Nora tries to have the recording sessions filmed for a documentary, but intraband tensions make it all fall apart. You get the idea.

The film incorporates archival footage from 'The Muppet Show' to feature some of the deceased original performers in the band: Jim Henson as Dr. Teeth, Frank Oz as Animal, Jerry Nelson as Floyd and Richard Hunt as Janice.