The Ramblings of Jarrod Fairclough, Muppet Nerd, Part 2

Jarrod Fairclough Presents: The Ramblings of a Muppet Nerd

Hi ho, and welcome to the second edition of my new article series. Before I start, I just want to say thanks to everyone who commented on the first article, especially Stelle, who absolutely made my day! Hopefully you’ll all enjoy the series as much as I enjoy writing it! Anyway, onwards to the article!

I love Muppet cameos. I love them like you wouldn’t believe. Which is why I get excited when they appear on other TV shows. Even if I don’t like the TV show, I’ll watch it, because it’s Muppets, and Muppets make the world a better place. But when I like the show, it makes it all the more exciting! There’s no better example of this than the appearance of Oscar, Grover and Elmo on Scrubs, one of my favourite shows. And it was perfectly done! And that’s got me thinking of other TV shows I’d like to see Muppets appear on. Let’s take a walk down TV show lane, shall we? Does that lane exist? Is there any housing available there?

• CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM:  Now, I have no idea how this would work convincingly, and I’m not sure any of the Muppet people would allow them on this show, because it can be extremely crass. But it’s hilarious, and with Muppet performers being incredibly good at improv, (as this show is mainly improvised), I can see some hilarity ensuing. Maybe an episode where Larry David goes to Stuffed and Unstrung and insults one of the puppeteers before the show, so they use the puppets to insult him in front of the audience.

• HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER: Neil Patrick Harris is a self-proclaimed Muppet fan, and he’s also appeared on Sesame Street as The Fairy Shoe Person–one of my personal favourite street scenes of all time. But how could Muppets convincingly appear on this? Maybe they could be interviewed by Robin about their new movie. Or Lily might play a video of them for her kindergarten class.  Of course it’d be fourth wall references all-round, because there’s some guy from that show that apparently has something to do with the new film? Ha, I kid. Believe me, we’ll get to Jason Segel, and my man-crush on him in the next article.

• 30 ROCK:  Alright, calm down, I know that the Muppets have been on it! But not Kermit, or Big Bird, or anyone awesome. And how would this happen? Well, it’s been established that Kenneth already sees the world as Muppets. Perhaps a conk on the head sees the 30 Rock team appear as Sesame Street characters to Kenneth. Prairie Dawn as Liz Lemon. Oscar as Jack. Zoe as Jenna.  Grover as Tracy. You get the idea.

• CONAN:  Okay, so technically this would be more of an appearance than a cameo. There are not many things in this world that I love as much as Muppets. But Conan O’Brien is one of them. And Muppets haven’t been seen with him nearly as much as they should have. I’m hoping they’ll appear to promote the new movie. And I’m hoping it’s better than their appearances on Leno... Anything would be better than Leno... I hate him as much as I hate Ke$ha.

• COMMUNITY:  This is the other thing I love as much as I love Muppets.  This show is by far one of the best sitcoms I’ve ever seen, one of the smartest pieces of work in the world. I could go on for days about the genius of this show, but I’ll try not to. The thing is, this show has done so many weird and quirky episodes, they’d think of a way to pull it off and make it look convincing. I mean these are the people who did a mafia movie episode (revolving around chicken fingers), numerous war episodes (all revolving around paintball, including cowboys and Star Wars), a conspiracy episode, a claymation episode, and a flashback episode that had 82 scenes we’d never actually seen before. This show could do it. This show should do it. In fact, I’m going to tweet show creator Dan Harmon about it now. One moment. There, I’m back. I really did tweet him about it.

These shows are some of my favourites, and I can easily see Muppets appearing on these shows. To any of the people who work on any of these shows, if you want to use any of these ideas, go ahead, I won’t sue. Just credit me with a thank you. No payment necessary! Unless you want to pay me... (Note from Ryan: And then who pays me?)

Tune in next time for my promised love letter to Jason Segel, the man I aspire to be. It helps I look a bit like him...

Have a shpadoinkle day! And if you got that reference, I love you.

Jarrod.





The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com