Muppets make everything better

Generally on Saturday Night Live, you can tell when they’ve got the real person and when they’ve got somene doing an imitation for satiric effect. But when the “real” person is Kermit the Frog, there can be a lot more doubt. It took me a while watching the monolog portion of last night’s SNL to decide that the puppetry was just right and it was the genuine K.T.F.

But the real treat for Muppet fans came right before the end, a fun little bit with Horatio Sanz, Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, and Animal performing the Christmas song that the SNL men have performed in recent years. Most of the rest of the episode is skippable but not unwatchable. If you’re watching for it in reruns, it’s the one with Robert DeNiro and Destiny’s Child — which is not the only episode for either.

(And say what you want about the concept of Disney controlling the Muppets, but they have put together a nicely media-rich website for the gang.)

Christmas comes too early

I’m not much one too complain when the stores put up their Christmas displays in October or Christmas carols come on the radio. Not being a Christmasian, the timing of Christmas really doesn’t bother me.

No, what gets me is seeing the new Christmas episodes of TV shows during the first half of December — because it can only mean that we’re getting nothing but reruns until after New Years.

(By the way, speaking of New Years: It’s been announced that Regis Philbin will fill in for the hospitalized Dick Clark this year. As my pal Mark Evanier points out, most of the material besides the ball dropping has probably already been filmed. As such, you can probably count on some careful editing as the folks at the various pre-filmed party locations toss back to the host.)

Feetnotes

FootnoteTV is a website which provides summaries and links for the real issues which are reflected on episodes of The Daily Show, The West Wing, and more.