Earlier this week, in honor of Jim Henson’s 88th birthday, we got a surprise gift. Kermit the Frog, Gobo Fraggle, and Oscar the Grouch appeared on-screen together to pay tribute to their creator. It doesn’t take a Muppet fanatic to see that this was pretty dang cool, but most people may not recognize the sheer importance of this moment.
These days, we tend to think of the wider worlds of Jim Henson in three categories, conveniently divvied up by the companies that own them. Disney’s got the Muppet Show family, Sesame Workshop has the Sesame Street gang, and The Jim Henson Company handles Fraggle Rock. There are others, of course, like Bear in the Big Blue House and Wilkins commercials and Brats of the Lost Nebula, but for simplicity’s sake (and so we won’t be here all night discussing semantics), we’re gonna focus on just the Big Three.
Why does it feel so special when these three worlds are allowed to interact with each other? I mean, sure, it was cool when the Jetsons met the Flintstones, but somehow Muppet crossovers hit different. I believe it’s not only because of the Jim Henson connection (which rivals the Rainbow Connection for best conduit of connectivity), but because the theme perfectly embodies all three franchises. The unpredictability of the Muppets, the interconnectivity of Fraggle Rock, and the kindness of Sesame Street. And all three rely on the theme of community, appreciating that bringing more friends into the fold makes them stronger, especially when they come from different backgrounds.
The various worlds of the Muppets have been crossing over as far back as 1974 when Bert and Ernie popped up during the credits of The Muppets Valentine Show. Sesame Street had only premiered a few years earlier, and The Muppets Valentine Show was one of the first. productions that kicked off the world of The Muppet Show, so it didn’t take Jim Henson long to start identifying opportunities to get these cool cats together.
There were a bunch of Muppet/Sesame crossovers through the ’70s and early ’80s on The Muppet Show, the Muppet movies, and some live appearances, but the Fraggle Rock characters didn’t enter the mix until… well, Fraggle Rock premiered. Starting with Uncle Traveling Matt crashing the wedding of Kermit and Miss Piggy in The Muppets Take Manhattan, which was also attended by some of Kermit’s former Sesame Street neighbors.
Once that threshold was crossed, no crossover felt complete without seeing representatives from all three franchises. And every time we saw them together, it felt like we were seeing something really special.
The Muppet Wiki has a pretty thorough list of crossovers, which I encourage you to explore at your leisure, but I’d like to focus on a few of them.
The Muppet/Sesame/Fraggle trifecta came into effect in several awards shows and live events, including the People’s Choice Awards and Night of 100 Stars, but the pinnacle came in 1987 when Jim Henson was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. The Muppets, Sesame characters, and Fraggles all paid homage to their creator through the song “Jim Is,” which is an incredible celebration of all of Jim’s biggest creations that’s worth revisiting every year.
How great is that?? Literally entering the worlds of the Muppets, Sesame, and Fraggles to showcase the characters and locations built by the House of Henson. But also, it’s a great example of these three specific worlds coming together as the epitome of Jim Henson’s work.
Okay, maybe I prematurely spoke when I said “epitome,” because the actual apex of Muppet worlds is A Muppet Family Christmas, which is commonly spoken of as not only one of the best Muppet productions, but a near-perfect spotlight on the Big Three. Unlike other crossovers, the actual story involves the surprise and joy at seeing these characters appear and interact with each other. Other productions that utilize them all – like “Jim Is” and The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years – keeps them mostly separate from each other. It’s still great seeing them hang out in the same general vicinity, but nothing comes close to the deep connections they get with each other in Muppet Family Christmas.
In the early 2000s, Disney purchased the Muppets and Sesame Workshop took control of the Sesame characters, and for the first time in their respective histories, the ownership and rights became extremely complicated. Fans knew that we’d likely never see another Muppet Family Christmas, and we gave up hope that Fozzie Bear and Red Fraggle and Abby Cadabby might get to share the stage together.
But then! We got a handful of live appearances where they managed to pop up together! In 2012, Jim Henson’s Musical World – a live show at Carnegie Hall in New York City – featured all three gangs. For reasons unclear to us, someone made the decision that the three worlds wouldn’t cross over at the same time, so none of them appeared on stage together, but it was still a thrill to see them on the same night.
Future live programs did away with that rule – including a live show honoring Dave Goelz and The Jim Henson Retrospectacle in New Zealand – featuring Muppets and Sesame and Fraggles on stage together, multiverse rules be damned! The appearances in this era were the first time in which characters from all three franchises appeared live together since “Jim Is” in 1987.
All that history brings us to this week, when Kermit and Gobo and Oscar reunited for Jim’s birthday. It was a total surprise to us, and the first filmed and produced crossover between all three since they all appeared on screen together for the final song in The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson in 1990.
Honestly, we’d given up hope that we’d ever see anything like this again. I am not privy to the internal conversations between Disney and Sesame Workshop and The Jim Henson Company, what their limitations were for the live appearances, and why these crossovers can be so complicated to produce. But they proved to us that it’s not only possible, but audiences are going absolutely nuts for it. It’s a true family reunion, featuring cousins that vowed never to speak to each other again, now bonded again over their grandpa’s birthday celebration. Or some other metaphor that doesn’t evoke the trauma of an estranged family.
So here’s the question I always ask when something cool happens in the Muppet world: What’s next? Will we see more crossovers now that the seal has been broken? Are there plans for live collaborations, YouTube videos, Muppet performer homages, or even (dare to dream?) a full-fledged production? Can this lead to commercial releases or streaming premieres of existing Muppet content, like Muppet Family Christmas?
We’ll be speculating along with the rest of you for a while yet. But we’re so happy to see the family back together again (again). It’s amazing how Jim Henson continues to bring folks together, even all these years after his passing. And it’s incredible to see how a short social media video can elicit such an emotional response by simply featuring three of our favorite puppets.
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by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
