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popculturebuffet · 1 year

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Monthly Muppets Madness: The Land of Gorch (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

It's Monthly Muppet Madness with our special review topic, The Land of Gorch, yayyyyyyy! Courtsey of viewers like you and WeirdKev27.

I give Kev full credit for the idea of this one: after my previous looks at the muppets earliest days, Kev was curious about this odd chapter in their history and having wanted to watch these shorts at some point anyway, I was more than happy to oblige.

For those less familiar, the Land of Gorch was a recurring sketch on Saturday Night LIve during it's first season, just before the Muppet Show's own first season. Yes folks the muppets were live from new york every saturday night for most of it's first season but a combination of the muppet show finally taking off and the writers actively resenting the Land of Gorch's very existance sunk it. So what was this weird experiment and how did it become a milestone in muppet history but a footnote in snls? Join me under the cut to find out!

From the Bubbling Tarpits to the Sulfurous Wasteland…

Henson came to SNL from a place of desperation. What jim had feared from doing Seasame Street was coming true as most in hollywood had no intrest in a show for kids AND adults from the muppets and wrote him off as "kids stuff"

Thankfully Jim had backup from Bernie Brillstien, his agent who looked for more adult venues.. and Bernie just happened to also be the agent for one Lorne MIcheals , as well as Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Gilda Radner, and loving the idea of performing to an adult audience and the chance to shake the Seasame Stigma, Henson jumped to it, getting Frank Oz and Micheal K Frith's help crafting the characters. And Lorne Micheals genuinely loved the idea and was convinced it'd be a massive hit, as he should be: the set design was marvelous, creating a horrifying otherworldly swamp and the muppets were awesomely detailed.

So with all that going for it, what went wrong? Why aren't we seeing a land of Gorch Series on peacock or convention halls filled iwth gorchheads? Simple: the writing. See Jim wasn't ALLOWED to actually write the sketches, as WGA rules meant the SNL staff had to. And their response?

The SNL staff were in clinical terms, snotty little dicks about having to write for the muppets, drawing straws for the job and with Writer MIcheal O'Donahuge being paticuarly childish saying "I don't write for felt" and calling them "Mucking fuppets" and "hairy facecloths" in an interview. Or to sum it up in a line

It was that 'i'm an adult" sensiblity that was at the heart of the conflict: you had in one corner a bunch of 20 year olds who, having read the book Live From New York it's Saturday Night, I can confirm were powered by cocaine to get through the crazy deadlines (somethign that thankfully stopped after the tragedy of JOhn Belushi), and were likely focused on trying to be the most clever and a bunch of more settled middle aged men (jim had FIVE kids by then. Holy shit), who knew what they wanted but couldn't actually execute it. It likely didn't help Jim was exact about what scripts he wanted and thus struggled to find a writer who actually gave a damn. Neither side was bad at what they did, iv'e seen a few early snl sketches, it's not bad stuff and the muppets speak for themselves.. it's just they didn't mesh creatively AT ALL. You can't make good work forcing someone to do something they don't want to do. It's why while i'll review just about anything on comission I will talk to my clients if I feel I just can't give a good review of something. I'd rather change gears and see what else they want than push something out i'm not proud of and I suspect the throw it at the wall and see what sticks nature of SNL, a part of it tha'ts essential, just didn't mesh with the well prepared and throughly thought out muppets. The Land of Gorch only lasted for season 1, with a combo of these issues and Jim FINALLY getting the Muppet Show Greenlit ending it, though they returned for one sketch in season 2 to see the characters off. Despite not really ever taking off though and the Gorch muppets only showing up in cameos after this, it ended up being an important piece of muppet history: Henson may not have made many friends in the writers room, but he made plenty of show biz contacts with at least 7 muppet show guest stars having also appeared during the time LOG was on SNL. He also realized he liked creating a weird fantasy world without humans around, and took the grungy creative part of LOG to create the Dark Crystal.

So now we've seen the messy road to it's creation let's see the messy results!

Episode Guide!

Nothing But Flowers

There aren't any offical titles for these sketches, so i'm just making up my own. You've been warned. If your curious you can find all but one on THIS FACEBOOK PAGE. You can also find them if you have peacock but given i'm on the tier with ads, it was just easier to use the facebook apart from the one episode they didn't have. I"ll mention it when we get here.

So the first episode is….

It introduces most of the cast: King Ploobis (Jim himself), the tyranical ruler of the land and selfish bastard, his nagging wife Queen Peuta (Alice Tweedle), his creepy assitant/viser/wife fucker Scred (Jerry Nelson), his mistress Vazh (Ronda Handsome here, Fran Brill after0 and the Mighty Favog, their god they go to once an episode for advice (Frank Oz). It's easily the slowest paced muppet production i've seen, mostly just stopping to introduce someone else then moving on. It only really gets funny once we get to the Mighty Favog. Oz does a terrific job as usual and the puppet for favog is weirdly expressive despite it's size and the fozzy voice fits a huckster god really well, helped by it sounding just deep enough from fozzy. I just love the concept of him: a god who really offers no helpful advice but will gladly take your money now, with the great catchphrases of "talk to me" and "it'll cost ya". He feels like the only character to actually have a personality, as well as fit BOTH crews style well.

It's the Money or Stop

The kingdom is broke and our heroes need money. Ploobis sells Scred to Favog by shoving him down his hole. I"m not doing the phrasing or goodnight everybody gags here on the grounds that they knew exactly what they were doing. i'm 95% sure scred was into it.

Sunshine Supermuppet

We meet Wiss, Ploobis stoner son played by Richard Hunt. He's high.

So is Favog. That's also the joke. NEXT

Eat It

This one's a bit funnier as Ploobis has eaten his faviorite food to extnction. It's ideas like this I feel got later filtered into the concept for Dinosaurs, another one on my to do list. Maybe later this year. But the idea works well enough as does the solution: Favog asks for a Glig as his payment and then give sit back when he's told the actual problem.

Out of My Headache

Ploobis has a headache. If your wondreing why these are so short it's that most of the cast is REALLY thin. Favog is your standard asshole, Peuta is his nagging wife, Vazh fanservice etc. While Scred isn't much deeper, Nelson really gives the little shit a lot of character and Ploobis annoyance with him and frequent homer simpson esque stranglings are a delight. But otherwise there just isn't a lot to latch onto in these early sketches, which likely didn't help either sides agrivation.

I Got You Babe

This one feels like night and day from the others non favog scenes as it has an interesting premise: Scred has a crush on lily tomlin and has gone to see her: Ploobis and Peuta going thorugh his stuff is fun, and we get a nice rendition of I got you babe from the two. Weirdly Tomlin never did Muppet Show, though she did do seasame street a few times, but she's great at this. She still is: Just look at Grace and Frankie. She's a fucking national treasure. It's also a sign things DO get better.

Everybody's Drunk

This one is fun even if it's VERY low effort: basically Ploobis gets very drunk, forces Scred to get very junk and they go to the Mighty Favog absolutely shitfaced. That's the episode. But unlike the others where I didn't have a lot to say the performances of the two are so hilarious and the sight of a muppet absolutely blotto so rare it carries the episode. It helps this is one of the shorter ones so the thin premise dosen't outstay it's welcome: it's just pure fun.

Christmas Time (Do Let the Bells End)

Another highlight of the series, as King Ploobis throws a Christmas party no one goes to as everyone's at the Killer Bee's party. Fun Fact: I've never seen Killer Bee's sketch. So there's that. It's fun enough especially with the sketch ending with Skred and guest Candice Bergen ditching the party for the Bee's party. It helps these sketches start to zero in more on what worked, i.e. the main duo of ploobis and skred, and their simple but effective act of Ploobis doing the setups, Skred saying something funny, and ploobis threatening to murder him for it.

Sex Lawz

So as set up in a previous episode, Skred is having an affair with the queen who after a few decades of this has decided to have Skred come clean before they get dirty again. Ploobis being who he is is a hypocrite and plans to murder anyone who sleeps with his wife, while Peuta is laso a hypocrite as she's mad her husband's cheating on her while she's doing the same. What i'ms aying is Skred is the most likeable person in the cast next to Favog, who advises Skred to exercise self love.. preferably with some magazines. THere's also a nice joy of sex runner.

Buy Me Toys Skred buys Peuta a sex toy. He struggles to put it together. The episode mercifully ends after it blows up. You know with what Jim can do with his imagination I expected WAY more and way weirder from a muppet sex toy. When I heard the premise of this one I was excited.. which says a lot about me I haven't fully processed, but this one's fully on Jim and Co for not making a better prop.

Honey Queen

A shorter sketcha nd the beginging of the end. For this last batch, the bits get experimental and thankfully get to a place where BOTH creative teams thrive: backstage shenangians. You can see a lot of the muppet show wraparoudns in these bits as the land of gorch muppets, mostly skred, try to get back on the sohw. In this case, Skred shows up as a bee to be in a sketch, only for Gilda Radner to tell him it was canceled. Gilda plays off him VERY well and it's no shock she went on to be on the muppet show. She's great at playing off them. It's also clear alongside Favog Skred was the breakout, and thus gets the most to do in this last stretch. It likely helps his puppet was easier to work in.

Look What I Did To My Id

This one is just .. bad. It's chevy chase dicking around with his hands because ostensibly our heroes are at the grammys. It's clear he didn't really respect what they did. The IDEA isn't bad, having an episode done just with hands, but instead of having Chevy act out a sketch or a parody, he just.. renacts a porn about the milkman because he and the writers coudln't be assed ot come up with actual jokes.

Eeee Eeee Eee Eeeeee DUN DUN DUN DUN dooo.. do do.. do do..

Is this question me and my dad, or Skred and Anthony Perkins? The World will never know

Anthony Perkins, aka Norman Bates, shows up and he's REALLY good. I had no idea he was this funny. He also wrote a murder mystery film, the last of shiela based on parties he threw. Yes really. YOur life is better for knowing that. And this sketch is one of the best, if not my faviorite as the muppets beg for work, with Anthony understandably annoyed as he dosen't actually run the show so he can't help. Skred also cratshes the ensuing sketch, with a great entrance. Easily the highlight.

Don't Start Now

Raquel Welch rebuffs Skred and Plobis hitting on her because there's nothing bellow the waste, possibly the first muppet dick joke and certainly not the last. I also got paid good money to type "muppet dick joke"

Chevy shoes them away then tells Raquel to take her shirt off.

Can't Buy Me Love

Another high point. It's clear these show biz bits just fit better. Favog claims to know the beetles and tries to bullshit our heroes way back onto the show. Not much else to sya, which is a habit here: the sketches can be funny but there just.. isn't a lot to disect. The good oens are just fast paced comedy and the not so good ones are just

Don't Leave Me This Way The ending sketch is my second favioroite and a good exit. The Land of Gorch Crew finds themselves in storage, beomaning how their jobless and how the muppet show has started without them. Lily Tomlin TRIES to find them work, but it's ultaimtely fruitless. IT's kind of a sad ending, but the fun of seeing them LITERALLY ins torage and coming out of cabinets (inclduing Ploobis shoving his way out despite his wife's discomfort given she's just bellow him), and the fact most of them aren't tha tlikeable help. And the muppets all TRYING to whistle is just.. comedy gold. It's clear Jim likely wrote this one or at least got to help more since he was on his way out.

So that was the land of gorch. and it's just kinda there. It has cool loooking muppets, but the clash between both creative teams and the lack of direction leave us with a series of shorts that's mostly filler and then Favog shows up. The last few are pretty damn great and really feel like they came right out of the muppet show, so it's clear Jim was getting his groove.. but it just wasn't built to last. SNL's side bits are better when they have a creative force behind it like Mr. Bill being indy films (with the writer being hired later), or the lovely chaos I need to explore at some point of saturday tv funhouse. and later groups like The Lonely Island and Please Do Not Destroy being built in house, still creatively experimenting, but in a way that fit sthe style of the show more. As it stands the Land of Gorch is just a weird evolutionarly step for the muppets that didn't quite land. Like the wartortle to Muppet Show and Dark Crystla's Blastoise: kinda there but not really.

Next Month: For the first time since I started this BRAND. NEW. MUPPETS. CONTENT. It's Muppets Mayhem baby! Need I say more?

#the muppets #saturday night live #the land of gorch #jim henson #chevy chase #lily tomlin #gilda radner #raquel welch #frank oz

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