{"id":1547,"date":"2008-09-26T09:43:24","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T09:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1547"},"modified":"2008-09-26T09:43:24","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T09:43:24","slug":"tv_title_sequences_the_muppet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2008\/09\/26\/tv_title_sequences_the_muppet\/","title":{"rendered":"TV Title Sequences: The Muppet Show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Friday morning and time for another wander down televisual memory lane. Given the subject matter of the only entry I&#8217;ve managed to write this week, I&#8217;ll bet you smart kids out there in the audience can guess which TV opening we&#8217;re about to see&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"344\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Y9_YBRQJ2LU&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"425\" height=\"344\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Y9_YBRQJ2LU&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>As I recall, the title sequence for <i>The Muppet Show<\/i> varied a little bit for each of the five years it was on the air, and there were also week-to-week variations consisting of a different &#8220;cold opening&#8221; &#8212; the little gag before the music starts, usually featuring that week&#8217;s guest star &#8212; for each episode, a fresh grumble from Statler and Waldorf (the two grouchy old guys in the balcony), and a unique closing gag involving Gonzo and his trumpet. YouTube has several different examples; naturally, I had to choose this one featuring Mark Hamill (who turned 57 yesterday; happy birthday, Mark!) and the droids from <i>Star Wars<\/i>. Well, <i>Empire<\/i>, judging from Luke&#8217;s outfit.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Muppet Show<\/i> ran on Sunday afternoons around these parts, which meant I was usually at my grandma&#8217;s house and competing with the grown-up menfolk for control of the TV. I rarely had much success at talking them into switching from the football game to a Ray Harryhausen movie, <i>Star Trek<\/i>, or &#8212; god forbid! &#8212; <i>Space: 1999<\/i>, but <i>The Muppet Show<\/i> was another matter. <i>That<\/i> was something pretty much everyone liked, even grandma, who frankly didn&#8217;t understand why we had to have the TV on at all when there was so much &#8220;visitin'&#8221; to be done. But she did like those &#8220;crazy puppets.&#8221; Didn&#8217;t we all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Friday morning and time for another wander down televisual memory lane. Given the subject matter of the only entry I&#8217;ve managed to write this week, I&#8217;ll bet you smart kids out there in the audience can guess which TV opening we&#8217;re about to see&#8230; As I recall, the title sequence for The Muppet Show [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tv-title-sequences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}