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