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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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themuppetmasterencyclopedia · 5 years

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King Ploobis

PERFORMER Jim Henson

DEBUT 1975

King Ploobis is the greedy, decadent sovereign of the decaying Land of Gorch in sketches on Saturday Night Live. Ploobis is the husband of Queen Peuta and father of Wisss, and is having an affair with Vazh. Ploobis frequently seeks guidance from The Mighty Favog, and is fond of mistreating his lackey/sidekick Scred.

In the closing credits of one SNL broadcast, John Belushi pulled a knife on Ploobis.

Ploobis (alongside Queen Peuta, Scred, Vazh, and Wisss) can also be spotted in The Muppet Movie's Rainbow Connection finale.

First appearance…

Saturday Night Live Season 1 (1975)

Best known role…

King of the Land of Gorch

“Come with us now… From the bubbling tarpits to the sulfurous wastelands… From the rotting forest to the stagnant mud flats… To The Land of Gorch!”

That was the introduction to the short-lived story of King Ploobis and his fellow Gorchians. Ploobis was created and performed by the great Jim Henson himself. The idea of Ploobis and The Land of Gorch was nothing short of a display of genius by Jim Henson and his colleagues. And for what? To show the world that Muppets aren’t just for kids anymore. The year was 1975, and The Muppet Show had yet to earn a permanent spot on television in the United States. But with the success of Sesame Street and a couple of Muppet Show specials on ABC, Jim Henson landed a deal on a brand new show called Saturday Night Live.

Few people seem to remember that the first year of Saturday Night Live included Muppets in the cast. Ploobis and the Gorch gang were created just for SNL, and as far as I can find, were never seen again after fourteen sketches of SNL, ending in early 1976. Although the short-lived life of King Ploobis was a hit among the adult audience of this new late-night sketch comedy show, he was not a hit among other cast members and writers of the show. Even Jim Belushi referred to the Muppets as the “mucking fuppets.” Remember, this was before the Muppets had captured the hearts of America, and the thought of working with a felt puppet was preposterous to most actors and writers–it was for children. But Jim Henson showed us all that even Muppets can get a little “dirty”!

King Ploobis was a clueless leader. And his kingdom of Gorch was a smokey, slimy swampland. Ploobis himself was quite the swamp creature. He was big, green and just plain ugly, even to a Muppet’s standard. This was not the only dirty aspect of Ploobis. The comedy of King Ploobis was definitely of an adult variety, unseen in a Muppet before or after his short life. He drank, he swore and he referenced adult themes that I do not dare discuss in this article. I think you get the point. Ploobis was perfect for this audience. Although to Muppet fans, he was quite bizarre, Ploobis had what it takes to appeal to a new kind of crowd. A crowd that wanted more than the squeaky-clean comedy that came before the 1970’s.

King Ploobis seemed to be blind to the fact that his kingdom was in danger of extinction. He was a very selfish king. In the first sketch, he opens the scene singing “From the bubbling tarpits… to the sulfurous wastelands… This land was made for me! And me only! Cause I am Ploobis! King of all I survey.” King Ploobis did in fact have a queen, Queen Peuta, performed by Alice Tweedy. And going along with the adult-theme of the sketches, Ploobis had extramarital affairs with another Gorchian, Vazh (Fran Brill). Other Gorch citizens included Scred (Jerry Nelson), Wissss (Richard Hunt) and The Mighty Favog (Frank Oz).

Although the Gorch sketches only lasted one season, and were pretty much only canceled due to annoyance from cast members and writers, they were very important to the success of all Muppets to come. In fact, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Jerry Nelson were in England, filming the first episodes of The Muppet Show when the Gorch set was burned and SNL unofficially said goodbye to the Muppets. I say “unofficially” because they did not go down easy! Jim Henson returned to the US and did a few more sketches before finally putting King Ploobis and company to rest for good. Even though the writers and staff were attempting to make a laughing stock of the Muppets, Henson laughed right along with them. I’d like to believe it was because he knew something they didn’t. That The Muppet Show was on it’s way!

Writing this article means a lot to me, especially because we just past the 20 year mark of the death of the great Jim Henson. Without characters like Ploobis, the world may not have experienced the genius within the lovable guy behind the Muppets. And I would like to add that not all cast members of SNL disliked the Muppets. Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner were among some cast members that fell in love with the Muppets. The latter even guest starred on The Muppet Show, and was a good friend to Jim Henson. And with the success of The Muppet Show, Jim Henson himself answered the question asked by Ploobis in one of the final sketches. He asks “They burned our scenery… we’re no longer booked on the show… and they said, they said we’re puppets, and we don’t even have a lower half. So what do we do?”

#jim henson #the muppets #king ploobis #information

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