Muppet Maestros - Carmen

Muppet Maestros Part IV: Carmen
As heard on...
Sesame Street ("Operatic Orange," "Toreador Lullaby," various Placido Flamingo moments)
The Muppet Show featuring Beverly Sills
"Habanera" Muppet Viral Video

Hilarie Mukavitz - How many of you out there hear "The William Tell Overture" and think of the Lone Ranger? Anybody here the overture from "The Barber of Seville" and instantly picture Bugs Bunny? When you hear parts of Wagner's Ring Cycle, do you have the overwhelming urge to sing "Kill the wabbit?"  Cartoons and children's programs have introduced many of us to the classics.

For this reason, some day I will go to the opera to see "Carmen." When "La Habanera" comes will I be thinking "Wow that's a great soprano"? No... I'll be picturing an animated orange from Sesame Street! 

"La Habanera" has been a popular song in the Muppet universe over the years.  The animated orange version was first aired on Sesame Street in 1971. In 2004, opera singer Denyce Graves sang a version of it to Elmo as a lullaby. Miss Piggy sang it in the "Pigoletto" part of the Beverly Sills episode of The Muppet Show in Season 4. Then of course there was the marvelous viral video of "La Habanera" featuring Beaker, Animal, and the Swedish Chef.

"The Toreador Song" from "Carmen" has made a few appearances in Muppetland as well. It was another song in "Pigoletto," Fozzie sang it in the Christopher Reeve episode in the 4th season, and finally Placido Flamingo sang it with a chorus of honkers plus Olivia on Sesame Street.

Now if you'll excuse me... I feel an overwhelming urge to watch "What's Opera Doc?", some "Habanera," and maybe listen to the Weird Al version of "Peter and the Wolf."

Watch all of the sketches and songs mentioned in today's article on Hilarie's custom Muppet-Carmen YouTube playlist!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com

Muppet Maestros - Victor Borge

VICTOR BORGE

Guest on The Muppet Show Episode 405
Frequent guest on Sesame Street 

It was probably a PBS pledge drive week when one of my parents announced "Victor Borge is on!" "Who?"  "You know, that guy from Sesame Street." What a match made in heaven: Victor Borge and the Muppets.

Victor Borge was making audiences laugh before Jim Henson was even born. He was born Borge Rosenbaum to a Jewish family in Copenhagen, Denmark on January 3, 1909. A child prodigy, he began studying piano at age 2. While originally in his career he worked as a concert pianist, before long he started including humor in his act, including anti-Nazi jokes. He was on tour in Sweden when the Nazis occupied Denmark, and managed to escape to the United States.

In the United States he learned English, mostly from watching movies, and changed his name to Victor Borge. Within a year he was working on American radio. For the next 60 years he would perform in concerts, and on television and radio around the world. 

One of his most famous routines was "Phonetic Punctuation" in which he created specific sounds for each punctuation mark. If you aren't familiar with the routine, do yourself a favor and watch it. To give you a sense of how durable Borge's comedy is, my father first heard Phonetic Punctuation in high school, in the early 1960's, on a record player. Just a couple of months ago I played the YouTube video for my students. They were very appreciative.

Borge appeared multiple times on Sesame Street. (I know the clip that is most burned in my brain was the piano seat belt.) He also was a guest star on The Muppet Show in the 4th season. My favorite moment is the duet of "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" with Rowlf.








The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Muppet Maestros -- Cab Calloway

CAB CALLOWAY

Hilarie Mukavitz - Being introduced by the Two-Headed Monster can be a mixed blessing. The up side is they do not lack in enthusiasm. The down side is it took me years to find out what the Hi-De-Ho Man's real name was as "CABBACALLUHWAAAAAAAAAAAAY" is a bit difficult to decipher.

Born in Rochester New York on December 25, 1907, Cab Calloway had a long career as a jazz band leader (for the Cotton Club Orchestra) and singer.  He also appeared in several films in the 1930's and 40's.  He had a dance step seen in those films called "The Buzz" that is thought to be the precursor to Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. In the 1950's he in the Broadway cast of "Porgy and Bess" playing Sportin' Life. In 1967 he starred in a Broadway production of "Hello Dolly" with future guest star of The Muppet Show, Pearl Bailey.

In 1980 Calloway's career had a boost because of his appearance in The Blues Brothers. You can hear his performance of "Minnie the Moocher" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC6JUA8cjoY I actually like it better than the original; it's more spirited.

A year later in 1981 Cab Calloway would make 3 appearances on Sesame Street. Two songs were with the Two-Headed Monster: "The Hi-De-Ho-Man" and "Jumpin' Jive." He performed "I Want To Count" with, you guessed it, The Count! In the late 90's a series of animations emerged with the character Cab Callowmouse.

It just goes to show the range and depth of music on Sesame Street that this was the place where I got my first exposure to 1930's jazz. I'm so grateful, as it's one of my favorite styles.








The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Muppet Maestros -- Alice Cooper

Today marks the beginning of a brand new article series here on The Muppet Mindset. Muppet Maestros is a series of articles about various musicians, composers, and singers that our friend and previous contributor to the blog, Hilarie Mukavitz first learned about by watching The Muppet Show or Sesame Street. I think this is a really fun idea for an article series, considering quite a bit of my musical favorites were first discovered because of their appearance on a Muppet-related program. Please enjoy the first in the series, featuring Alice Cooper!

ALICE COOPER
Guest on The Muppet Show Episode 307

Hilarie Mukavitz - One night I was having a jam session with one of my friends. He was continually surprised at some of my song choices. "Where did you learn THAT one?" My response more often than not was The Muppet Show. It struck me just how many artists and composers I learned about for the first time because of watching The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. I thought it would make for a fun article series to explore some of them.

It just goes to show the magic of the Muppets that, being the hypersensitive child that I was, I could get nightmares from Scooby Doo, and yet have absolutely no problem with Alice Cooper. I'm enough of a fan that on a recent trip to Phoenix, the very first touristy thing I did was visit his restaurant. (Rumor has it that you can have anything you want at Alice's restaurant.) Plenty of waitresses with the Alice Cooper style eyeliner... but I didn't see any pictures of him with the Muppets. Alas.

Alice Cooper was born Vincent Furnier in 1948. "Alice Cooper" originally was the name of his band, not the man. Cooper has stated repeatedly that in late 60's rock and roll he saw mostly Peter Pans and wondered "Where's Captain Hook?" The dark, flamboyant, mostly tongue-in-cheek style of performance that became Alice Cooper's signature... which was later a perfect fit for The Muppet Show.

Alice Cooper was a solo artist by the time he came on The Muppet Show, where he performed 3 songs: "Welcome To My Nightmare" with a collection of Muppet monsters and ghouls, "You And Me" with Miss Piggy after he had turned her into a hideous bird-like creature, and "School's Out" with most of the Muppet monsters. In 1991 his song "I'm Eighteen" was parodied on Sesame Street. All are included in the playlist below. Enjoy!







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Everything I Know About Life, I Learned from Miss Piggy

Greetings, Muppet fans! It's over, it's finally, really over... The Muppet Madness Tournament 2011 has come to an end and a winner has been declared! Who is it? Well... he needs a proper introduction. Ladies and gentleman, the furriest, bluest, superest monster of them all...

...and he is cute, too! Yes, Super Grover is our winner, ladies and gents! Congratulations to everyone's favorite super monster--and my own pick to win. My ballot really did well this year... thank you Super Grover! And thank you Steve Swanson, Joe Hennes, Ryan Roe, and Dave Hulteen for letting The Muppet Mindset be a part of the tournament this year.

And without further ado... here's today's article.

Everything I Know About Life, I Learned From Miss Piggy

Hilarie Mukavitz - The divine Miss P. has been a role model of mine for quite some time. I thought it was about time I wrote about why that is.

1. Never miss an opportunity to make an entrance.
Forget less is more.  If you are a bona fide diva, MORE is more. She was also a prime example of when you blow said entrance... how to brush it off and move on, as you can see here:



2. Foreign languages are important, and can add a touch of class.
When I was 7 years old, I had two weeks of French in summer school. After that, naturally, I was an expert.  For months afterwards I insisted that everybody in my neighborhood speak to me in French. One of my childhood friends still bares the trauma of me trying to force him to pronounce "croissant" in the proper French pronunciation. Of course, when my very tolerant next door neighbor said "Parlez vous francais?" I had no idea what he was talking about. I suspect Miss Piggy went to the same language school for her French.



3. When you are having a bad day, the best way to deal with it is to have a good laugh with your best friend.
We've all had those days. The Broadway career isn't taking off and you are stuck in retail... and you've just caught the frog of your dreams being all kissy kissy with a cute young thing. Best thing to do is to get together with one of your gal pals, maybe give each other a makeup and laugh it off.



4. Being strong and tough and being a girlie girl are not mutually exclusive traits.
Miss Piggy and I were both products of the 1970's. The feminists of that era were rebelling against the whole June Cleaver image of women in the 50's. While I'm a big fan of Gloria Steinem and the like, and appreciate the strides forward they made that my generation benefits from... I didn't particularly care for the more masculine fashion sense that went with 1970's feminism. One thing I've appreciated about Miss Piggy is she showed you can wear pink poofy sparkly, clothing. However if a certain amphibian tries to mess with you, there is the option of SHFFITF... stomping his froggy face into the floor. You can pursue your mugger one minute, and show ladylike gentility to people coming to your aid the next.



5. Women can be the hero too!
I have always gravitated towards strong women characters. One of my first forensics pieces was the Japanese folk tale "Three Strong Women" about a mother, grandmother and daughter that help out a sumo wrestler... after they kick his butt first. Red was my favorite Fraggle because she took charge, and was a rival for Gobo.

I'd have to wait a couple of decades for Buffy the Vampire Slayer... but until then I had Miss Piggy. In the original Muppet trilogy, Kermit may have been the leading man, but Miss Piggy was the true hero. When Kermit was about to get an electronic cerebrectomy, it was Piggy who karate chopped their way to freedom.  It was Piggy who resisted the charms of Nicky Holiday's dubbed operatic charms, and broke out of prison just in time to save her precious time. Finally, when Kermit becomes an amnesiac right before their big Broadway debut, it's Piggy who makes sure that the show still goes on... and karate chops Kermit into remembering his true identity.



The divine Miss P. will continue to be an inspiration to me. Now, if you will excuse me, moi has to go exercise and do some phone lifts. Okay... maybe I should have chosen a different Muppet for my exercise regimen...

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier