"Ma-Na-Ma-Na." - Wild Muppet Singer on The Ed Sullivan Show
Muppets Magic From The Ed Sullivan Show DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
Jim Henson's Muppet creations appeared on many variety and talk shows before The Muppet Show premiered in the late 1970s. One show on which Henson's creatures appeared regularly was The Ed Sullivan Show. Muppets Magic collects twenty of their sketches from that show onto one DVD.
Henson's work first appeared on Sullivan's show on September 18, 1966. Sullivan throws down an "instant rock and roll" seed and steps back as a one man band grows in its place. This is a terrific beginning. The sketch is wildly inventive and visually amazing - the one man band has three heads and a seemingly endless number of arms.
Most of these sketches feature some of Henson's more imaginative creatures rather than the familiar characters and personalities that graced The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Fan favorites Kermit the Frog and Big Bird do make appearances, though. Kermit - who at this point did not have flippered feet, plays a visual-thinking hippie dippy character in one sketch. In another, a blonde bewigged Kermit lip syncs "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" to a hideously strange creature who actually eats its own face before proceeding to munch on a dinner of frog legs. This achingly funny sketch is matched by an equally funny sketch in which Kermit attempts to eat a "worm." Big Bird appears in a bizarre bird watching themed musical number set to an score of electronic squawks.
Another familiar face is the buoyant singer who performs the song "Ma-Na-Ma-Na" with a duo of canon-snooted creatures. This classic sketch from November of 1969 would appear in modified form on The Muppet Show years later.
One of the most fascinating things about this DVD is that it allows Muppet fans the opportunity to look at the antecedents of later characters. There is a green Cookie Monster-like character, for example, who piece by piece dismantles and eats an "indestructible" new electronic device. And an otherwise boring number features Arthur Godfrey as a singing Santa who reforms an evil, greenish-brown Grover look-alike (and Fozzie sound-alike). It is fun to see how with a few physical tweaks (and personality transplants) these creatures went on the win the hearts of millions of kids.
Some of the sketches, like pun-filled musical number set to Ringo Starr's "Octopus' Garden" would have been right at home on The Muppet Show. But Sullivan's show also allowed Henson to explore themes that may have been too sophisticated for a children's show. There is an extraordinarily touching sketch about an unattractive woman named Amanda who reads the book "How Not to be Ugly" so that she can improve her appearance. With the help of the book, her appearance transforms right before our eyes, winning her a handsome boyfriend. By the end of the sketch, however, she has learned that beauty is only skin deep. In one Monty Python-esque sketch, a glutton eats everything in sight - including himself.
Viewers can watch the entire special or can jump to individual sketches. Unfortunately, the music featured on the scene selections menus is the discordant number from the Big Bird bird watching sequence. Helpfully, the original airdate appears onscreen at the start of each sketch. Henson occasionally appears when called over by the sublimely stiff Sullivan.
