Gorch Extra: Mysteries of Gorch Revealed!
Here’s an e-mail I got from Karen Falk, from the Jim Henson Company Archives:
“I was just looking at your Gorch page and thought I might share some spelling information that I recently discovered. Sometimes it is spelled Gorch, but sometimes it is spelled Gortch (on the original scripts and treatment, for example). The sans-t spelling has been used so much, I’m not sure it matters.
“The Mighty Favog is actually Fuvog (again — something I recently discovered). I’m sure you’ve heard the story about the character being named for the name on the clock in the green room of — The Tonight Show? The Ed Sullivan Show? The Muppet crew prayed to it, hoping that they would get on the show before time was up. (Live TV, you know.) But it was spelled with a U.
“So, if you’re ever in a Muppet spelling bee, these are your secret weapons…”
I wrote back to Karen:
“Thanks for the spelling info; it’s cool to have the inside scoop. I’m tempted to change to the Gortch and Fuvog spellings, but that may mean trouble. All the books, like Art of the Muppets and Jim Henson: The Works, say Gorch and Favog. So if I switch to Gortch, then I’ll get e-mails from all these know-it-all Muppet fans correcting me. There’s only one of you, and there’s like a dozen know-it-all Muppet fans, so maybe I’ll just post your letter as a ‘Gorch Fact’ and fudge it from there.”
I also asked Karen about who wrote the SNL sketches, and who was the original performer for Vazh. Here’s her reply:
“I agree — why confuse the issue on the spellings by making corrections. I just thought that you would want to know. I’ve gone back to the original proposal and character designs, and those documents use Fuvog and Gortch, but the other spellings are also used throughout the files. The Muppet books were written before the Archives was really set up, and before I was here to do in-depth investigative fact checking. They are riddled with minor mistakes. (I did indeed fact-check The Works manuscript, and did provide the chronology in the back right after I started here… but I didn’t have access to most of the files I now hold, and I have learned a lot in the last 10 years!)
“The female puppeteer who performed Vazh at first was [ actress and stand-up comedian ] Rhonda Hansome.
“The bits were written by the SNL writing staff, with some input from Jim and David Lazer. One staff list has ‘Marilyn Miller and Rosie Michaels — Muppet Writers’ written at the bottom in David’s hand. There are script notes from Ann Beatts, who was apparently writing one, and we have scripts with Al Franken and Tom Davis at the top, others with Herb Sargent or Michael O’Donoghue. In a file marked ‘Muppet Script Ideas,’ we have pages from Chevy Chase and Tom Schiller, and Alan Zweibel. So, I think most of the writers on the show gave it a stab.”
So — thanks to Karen for the excellent information! I also got the following e-mail from Chris Smigliano about Chapter 4: No More Gligs…
“Are you sure it’s Glig and not Glick?”
And the answer to that question, obviously, is no, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure how to spell Gorch.
by Danny Horn
