Cover to Cover
The number-one way to know for sure that you’re a Muppet fan is when you find yourself playing Spot the Muppet. The game can be played anywhere, at any time, and the object of the game, obviously, is to Spot the Muppet in whatever pop-culture retrospective is going on in front of you. Points are awarded based on how many Muppets appear, and how prominently. It’s pretty much a non-competitive game, unless maybe you’re hanging out with Star Trek fans or something.
TV Guide has been a great source for Spot the Muppet games lately, since they’ve been doing their apparently endless 50th anniversary celebration. This week, they do a big list of the 50 greatest TV Guide covers, and I won’t spoil your own round of Spot the Muppet by revealing which Muppet makes the list.
The article basically answers the burning question of whether TV Guide covers are the coolest thing ever or what (their answer: yes), and it includes a list of the seven celebrities who have been on the most covers. (Maybe. They’re a little unclear about whether this is supposed to be the top seven or not. I smell a cover-up.) Top of the list is Lucille Ball, with 34 covers, and there’s also Oprah Winfrey with 19, Carol Burnett with 16, all the way down to Lassie, who’s been on the cover 10 times.
Now, of course, in my own little Spot the Muppet universe, that just seemed plain wrong to me. Is it possible that Lassie has been on the cover of TV Guide more times than, let’s say, Kermit? I mean, Lassie? It can’t be.
Luckily for me, TV Guide has anticipated my every thought, and they’ve posted a searchable TV Guide cover database on their website. So I played Spot the Muppet on the database, and guess what? Lassie wins.
Well, actually, that’s not completely true. If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you want the stats. So here they are.
The Muppets have appeared on the cover of TV Guide 13 times — starting with a Great Santa Claus Switch cover in December 1970, up through a Kermit appearance a couple months ago.
Kermit has appeared 5 times — or 6 times, if you count Baby Kermit, which I don’t. Ernie’s next on the list, with 4 appearances, followed by Big Bird and Bert with 3 apiece.
Here’s some more TV Guide trivia — the shortest gap between Muppet covers was only two weeks. Ernie and Bert appeared on a “Parents’ Guide to Kids’ TV” cover on October 30, 1993, and then Big Bird and Hillary Clinton appeared two weeks later, on November 13th, to celebrate Sesame Street‘s 25th anniversary.
The longest gap was 7 and a half years — Miss Piggy and Kermit appeared on the cover on August 1, 1981, to mark the end of The Muppet Show, and then there wasn’t another Muppet sighting until Big Bird made a “Parents’ Guide” cover on February 18, 1989.
Getting even more trivial, I was surprised to see that Elmo has only appeared on the cover once, tying with Sherlock Hemlock. This seems wrong to me, and I think something should be done about it.
Speaking of doing something, I’ve taken the liberty of stealing all those Muppet covers from the TV Guide site, and I’m posting them here to, um, celebrate the 50th anniversary of TV Guide. But don’t tell them about it.
#1. December 12, 1970
#2. July 10, 1971
#3. August 6, 1977
#4. August 9, 1980
#5. August 1, 1981
#6. February 18, 1989
#7. March 3, 1990
#8. November 17, 1990
#9. October 30, 1993
#10. November 13, 1993
#11. March 16, 1996
#12. March 15, 1997
#13. April 6, 2002
By the way, one last bit of trivia: In the magazine cover spread in Jim Henson: The Works, there are two TV Guide covers — one from December 1979, with Kermit and Miss Piggy, and another with the Fraggles — that don’t appear in the TV Guide database. I think they must be from the Canadian TV Guide. If anybody in Canada has information on these covers, then send it in; all of a sudden, I feel like I have to know. That’s the power of a good round of Spot the Muppet.
by Danny Horn
