Muppet Babies

From Freepedia

Jim Henson's Muppet Babies
Image:MuppetBabiesTitle.jpg

Jim Henson's Muppet Babies title screen
Format Animated series
Run time 30 minutes per episode
Creator Jim Henson
Starring Barbara Billingsley
Frank Welker
Laurie O'Brien
Greg Berg
Russi Taylor
Howie Mandel (1984–1985)
Katie Leigh
Dave Coulier (1985–1991)
Country USA
Network CBS Television Network
Original run 1984 – 1991
No. of episodes 107

Jim Henson's Muppet Babies is an American animated television program that aired from 1984 to 1991 on CBS. Loosely based on a sequence in the Muppet movie The Muppets Take Manhattan, the show portrayed childhood versions of Muppets living together in a large nursery in the care of a human woman called Nanny. Nanny appears in every episode, but viewers never see her face, only the babies' view of her striped socks or stockings.

The Babies had (over?)active imaginations, and often embarked on adventures into imaginary worlds and perilous situations from which they were eventually saved when some external event—often Nanny coming to see what the noise was—brought them back to reality, revealing that, for instance, the giant squid that had them in its tentacles was really just the tail end of a curtain.

As an animated television series, Muppet Babies was unusual in that it frequently incorporated footage from old films, and occasionally spoofed popular fictional characters and Hollywood films, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, and Beetlejuice.

A running gag in the show involved one of the Babies, usually Gonzo, opening the closet door in search of something only to meet film footage depicting something scary and unexpected behind the door. Another running gag involves aspiring comedian Fozzie trying to tell jokes to an (imaginary) audience, only for them to boo him and throw rotten tomatoes at him.

Although it technically contradicts what is usually considered Muppet canon, a reference to the "real" Muppets is given in one episode where Kermit wishes his friends would stay together and enter show business—which they did in The Muppet Movie. Live-action, adult versions of Kermit the Frog, Dr. Teeth and Oscar the Grouch appeared in live-action film clips.

A notable Muppet Babies character was Skeeter, Scooter's twin sister, who only appeared in this series, and was never a real-life Muppet.

Although he has usually been referred to as a "whatever", in this series, characters referred to Gonzo as being a "weirdo," as if it was a sort of creature as much as it referred to his behavior. (The movie Muppets From Space delves more deeply into the matter.)

Baby Kermit, Baby Piggy, and Baby Gonzo also made small appearances in the drug prevention TV special (later released on home video) Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue.

The most notable feature of this show is that it started a trend for relaunching popular character franchises as younger versions of themselves. This trend can be seen in A Pup Named Scooby Doo, Baby Looney Tunes, Flintstones Kids, and numerous others.

Muppet Babies was produced by The Jim Henson Company and Marvel Productions. After originally airing on CBS, it was later re-run on Nickelodeon. Walt Disney Home Video has announced that the first season of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies will be released on DVD in 2006.

Voice actors

See also

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.freepedia.org/Muppet_Babies.html"


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