| Muppets Tonight | |
 Clifford, host of Muppets Tonight |
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| Genre | Comedy |
|---|---|
| Format | Live-action/puppet |
| Created by | Jim Henson Productions |
| Written by | Greg V. Fera Brian Henson Tom Trbovich Gary Halvorson |
| Starring | Dave Goelz Brian Henson Jerry Nelson Steve Whitmire Kevin Clash Bill Barretta Frank Oz Drew Massey |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 22 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 min per episode |
| Broadcast | |
| Original run | March 8, 1996 – February 8, 1998 |
Muppets Tonight is a live-action/puppet television series created by Jim Henson Productions and featuring the Muppets. Much like the "MuppeTelevision" segment of The Jim Henson Hour, Muppets Tonight was a continuation of The Muppet Show, set in a television studio, rather than a theater.
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Format
The premise of Muppets Tonight was that Clifford (a Muppet who first appeared on The Jim Henson Hour and was voiced by Kevin Clash) was the host of a variety/talk show on KMUP. The show stuck closely to the Muppet Show format of various skits (mostly featuring the show's human guest star) interspersed with some sort of crisis occurring backstage.
Among the regular sketches were parodies of Baywatch (as Bay of Pigswatch); the various Star Trek sequels (as Deep Dish Nine: The Next Generation of Pigs In Space); and ER (as E-I-E-I-O R).
Muppets introduced in Muppets Tonight
Muppets introduced in Muppets Tonight included Bobo the Bear, Seymour (an elephant), Pepe (a king prawn), Johnny Fiama (a Rat Pack-style singer) and his "furry little monkey" Sal (short for Sal Minella), Bill the Bubble Guy, and Spamela Hamderson (see Pamela Anderson). Some of these went on to appear in later Muppet productions, particularly Pepe the Prawn, who has become a regular in the most recent Muppet productions. The show also featured regular appearances from Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Statler & Waldorf and Rizzo the Rat, and occasional appearances by other Muppet Show characters.
Series run
The show ran from 1996 to 1998. There were 22 episodes produced in two batches. 13 episodes were ordered by ABC, though only ten of them were run in the 1995-96 TV season. The program was then purchased by the Disney Channel, which ordered a further nine episodes and aired these along with the three episodes ABC did not air, in the 1997-98 season. One of the nine newly-produced episodes was a clip show compilation culled from the earlier episodes. Both ABC and the Disney Channel are owned by The Walt Disney Company, which also owns the rights to the Muppet characters outright, with the exceptions of the Sesame Street Muppets.
In the United Kingdom the show was transmitted at 7pm on Friday evenings on BBC1.
Guest stars
Unlike the original Muppet Show, most episodes of Muppets Tonight featured multiple guest stars. Typically, there would be one principal guest, but other celebrities would make small walk-on appearances. For example, the Garth Brooks episode (aired as episode #2) features a cameo from Leonard Nimoy.
External links
- Muppets Tonight at the Internet Movie Database
- Muppets Tonight at TV.com
- Muppets Tonight on Muppet Wiki, an external wiki
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