As of this publication, the date is March 14. This may not mean much to you (unless you’re Michael Caine, in which case, happy birthday!), but in the geek world, it’s a day full of math and baked goods.
Yep, 3/14 is Pi Day. The day that helps you find the area of a circle and gives us the excuse to eat copious amounts of pie (as if we needed a reason). To celebrate this all-important holiday, we thought it would be appropriate to take a closer look at our favorite instances of Muppets and Muppet-related people getting hit with pies throughout Muppet history. Okay, that’s a flimsy excuse, but we’re gonna go for it anyway. Here they are in a relatively ascending order, so get your whipped cream ready!
Jerry O’Connell sneezes into a pie. It just doesn’t quite have that zip that usually goes with the excitement of being hit with a pie. Maybe if someone trusted Murray to throw the pie without getting whipped cream on his fur.
Then there was that time Chris got hit with a pie when the Help-o-Bots tried to help him stack pies. And you know what Chekov said: If you show a stack of pies in the first act, someone’s going to have a pie slowly dripping down the back of their neck by the third act. Or something.
I have to admit, the video above is one of the Muppet Show songs that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Cheryl Ladd and Piggy do a great job and all, but I hate seeing Kermit get pummeled for no good reason other than the fact that Piggy needs a punching bag. If it were Gonzo, maybe it’d be funnier, but now I just feel bad for the Frog. Partly because of the pie he takes to the face at the 3-minute mark.
In the Phyllis George episode of The Muppet Show, Billy the Bear wins the Fred Award for Best Comedy Performance by a Bear. Apparently the Fred Award voters equate “comedy” with being a dick. Not only was Fozzie robbed, but he goes into his insult comic schtick, gives Fozzie an exploding cigar, and hits him with a pie. Is this what passes for humor these days?
In what started as a running gag in the Candice Bergen episode of The Muppet Show (Fozzie delivers a “wire”, a “letter”, and a “flower” for Kermit), Kermit completely de-evolves the bit into a thin excuse to hit Fozzie with a pie. (“Pie for Fozzie Bear! Are you Fozzie Bear? Pie for you.”) Bonus points for that little bit of whipped cream that flies off Fozzie and onto Candice Bergen.
In the intro to the Vincent Price episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit promises no silliness and is immediately hit with a pie. He might as well just say “I don’t know” on You Can’t Do That On Television.
I really wish this clip was on the internet in English, because I love watching Bert’s stringy little arms plop that pie right onto Ernie’s mug. That’ll teach him to eat crackers in bed or inviting sheep into the apartment after bedtime or whatever it is Ernie did to Bert that forced him into such a violent state.
It’s about time someone knock Sam the Eagle down a peg with a well-intentioned pie to the face, as thrown by Beautiful Day Monster in the Zero Mostel episode of The Muppet Show. Thank you, Beautiful Day Monster, you’re a hero to us all.
Behemoth hits Sandy Duncan with a pie. I wish I had a job that let me type sentences like that every day.
In the climax to this spot-on Godfather parody, Statler and Waldorf finally get what’s coming to them in the form of a slow motion dessert attack.
Oh man, it doesn’t get much better than Maria, Luis, Bob, and David pelting each other with pie while trying to keep straight faces. I wish I could see people in tuxedos get hit with pies every day.
(Pie hits face at 3:00 in the video above.) Fozzie gets hit with a pie yet again at the end of “Scarborough Fair”. But while the pieing isn’t particularly hilarious, Fozzie’s deadpan “What happened?” afterward is comedy gold.
That poor baker. He had to fall down the stairs at least 10 times, wasting all those pies and cakes before I could eat them! At least he got the rare opportunity to be voiced by Jim Henson. That’s worth risking injury right there.
In what might be the most iconic pie attack on this list, Fozzie drives directly into a billboard for Aunt Amy’s Custard Pies in The Muppet Movie, which for some reason is equipped with a real, giant pie, which is flung through the air onto Doc Hopper’s car. While I question Aunt Amy’s reasons for leaving an oversized baked good attached to a billboard in the middle of nowhere, we’re sure glad she did!
Many thanks to the Muppet Wiki for their pie-related curation! Happy Pi Day, Muppet fans!
Click here to take a cobbler to the face on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
