Two short items tonight, joined together by that very wholesome – well, mostly wholesome – entertainment behemoth, the muppets. The combination marionette and puppet created by Jim Henson have been a staple of children’s television for a half century, and even spawned Yoda and a group of adult-friendly characters from The Land of Gorch who had segments on the first season Saturday Night Live.
Pokemon vs. Muppets : In a battle between pokemon characters and muppet characters, who would win? My standard answer to any battle between fictional entities is that the winner is whoever the writer wants. Ricochet Rabbit vs. Superman? Well, it depends… if the writer gives Ricochet a kryptonite bullet and puts Superman in the correct position, the obvious answer is suddenly the wrong one. Saying a nonexistent being will win in a fight is a fool’s argument… except that in the battle of pokemon vs. muppet, there’s evidence.
Magmar is #126 of the original 150 pokemon from the first game. Except… he isn’t. While pikachu and bulbasaur and butterfree are all in the original release, magmar is not. Instead, creature #126 is a boober. Everything is the same as magmar except for the name. This is because when Nintendo translated everything for the English release, they discovered there was already a fairly prominent creature running around called Boober – one of the Fraggles from the Henson-created Fraggle Rock television show. Even though Disney, with its multitude of lawyers, had not yet acquired the muppets Nintendo decided to bypass any potential confusion or conflict and simply renamed their creature. Pokemon vs. Muppets? Muppets won (although the ever-pessimistic Boober might still be waiting for the other shoe to drop.)
A Muppet Family Christmas : A staple of television in the 1980s and before were comments at the end of popular shows which were designed to grab the attention of potential viewers for the night’s news programs. Also during the 1980s and 1990s it was common to record television shows on VHS tape for later viewing. On Tuesday, a television comedy writer posted to Twitter a clip he’d found from an old VHS recording of A Muppet Family Christmas.
For those who naturally read ahead, I’m going to put some spaces here. Now, unless you have issues against clicking video links, listen through to the Nightline story that families, put into the festive holiday mood by the muppets, would have been hearing about at the end of the show.
Yes, nothing like an infant organ harvesting controversy to continue the Christmas mood.
Lacking any other details, I have to imagine that the programming director in whatever market ran that audio teaser received a very negative response from the station manager… and from the many parents who likely called in to complain to the station manager.
Question of the night: Who was your favorite muppet? (Alternately, what’s a memorable muppet moment, for those who like to post video.)
