A 'Muppet' odyssey: Classic comes to cable channel

"The Muppet Show" is now playing across the Kansas City area. And in the words of the inimitable Kermit the Frog: Yaaaaaayyy! Nearly two decades after it left the airwaves, "The Muppet Show" - perhaps the most widely watched show in television history - was added to nearly 200,000 area homes last week, along with "Hallmark Hall of Fame," "Lonesome Dove," "Doogie Howser, M.D." and a warehouse of other family-friendly titles offered by the Odyssey Network, the latest addition to Time Warner Cable's basic cable lineup. It actually was possible to see Odyssey before last week, but only if you knew about Time Warner's "mini-pay" service for its customers with AXS set-top boxes and were willing to pay an extra 50 cents a month for Odyssey. (Fewer than 2,000 customers did.) Comcast and former TCI-TeleCable homes in Johnson County also carry Odyssey, but until recently it wasn't easy to find on those systems. (See listings on page 47 of today's Star TV.) But Odyssey is a network on the up escalator, and we have Kermit & Co. in part to thank for that. Last year two of the best-known names in family entertainment - Hallmark Entertainment and the Jim Henson Co. - formed a partnership and purchased an interest in Odyssey. Before that it had languished for a decade as a religious network under various names (including VISN and the Faith & Values Channel). Odyssey aimed at an interfaith audience with a mix of Christian- and Jewish-themed programs and other well-intentioned fare. A coalition of nearly 70 Christian and Jewish groups still owns part of Odyssey. But the network had no national advertisers and was losing subscribers. Enter Hallmark and Henson, with their reputations for producing high quality TV and Nielsen ratings. A highly respected children's TV executive, Margaret Loesch, took over as CEO of Odyssey, and a new lineup rolled out April 1. The new Odyssey slate is thoroughly if wholesomely secular, and its schedule is dominated by the two H's, which between them have 4,000 hours of TV programs sitting on their respective shelves. Hallmark draws upon nearly half a century of "Hall of Fame" productions and its movies and miniseries division led by Robert Halmi Sr., which has of late produced "Moby Dick," "Noah's Ark" and (aptly enough) "The Odyssey" for TV. Henson has plenty of Muppet programming including 1980s hits "Fraggle Rock" and "Alf," and non-Muppet features like "Dark Crystal." Tonight's programming lineup, for instance, includes "The Great Muppet Caper" at 4 p.m.; "What the Deaf Man Heard," a "Hall of Fame" from 1998, at 8 p.m.; the Concordia College Christmas concert at 10; and at midnight, a documentary on African and African-American religion. Felt-lined stars In announcing the new Odyssey, Loesch emphasized that the network would continue to feature "shows that celebrated the human condition and the human spirit." But in a bow to Hallmark and Henson, Loesch added, "We're all on the same page for doing quality TV for today's family." Other networks are also claiming to be family-friendly, but not all of them have the prestige of Odyssey's new backers. And none of them has "The Muppet Show" (airing 5 p.m. weeknights on Odyssey), which is arguably as enjoyable and broadly accessible now as it was 20 years ago, and whose felt-lined "stars" are still recognized around the world: Fozzie Bear, who bridged the gap between Grover and Elmo as the most beloved Muppet among kid viewers. Gonzo, the show's resident mongrel bird and aviator-slash-trumpeter, forever frustrated in his attempts to give the "Muppet Show" theme a proper coda. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, the eerily even-keeled director of Muppet Labs, and his justifiably nervous assistant Beaker, whose experiments - shrinking pills, a luggage compressor and an "electric banana sharpener," to name three - often ended in disaster. Bobby Benson and His All-Baby Band - they couldn't talk, but they still belted out a mean "Pennsylvania 6-5000." The Swedish chef, whose jolly "bork bork bork!" will go down as one of TV's oddest catch phrases. "Pigs in Space," one of the show's best-known running sketches, with the dashing Link Hogthrob, captain of the spaceship Swinetrek; his assistant, Dr. Julius Strangepork; and first mate Piggy. (That would be Miss Piggy to you, the porcine prima donna who walloped anyone standing between herself and the limelight she felt she richly deserved.) All of this, by the way, was too good for the networks - they passed on "The Muppet Show" when it was first offered to them. But Henson (who voiced Kermit, the Swedish Chef and many other characters) got financial backing from English media mogul Sir Lew Grade and offered the program in syndication beginning in 1976. "The Muppet Show" was watched in more than 100 countries, reaching some 230 million people, a total rivaled only by "Baywatch." American TV stations typically put on syndicated shows at odd hours of the night or on weekends, but "The Muppet Show" got choice schedule spots and occasionally outrated network programs. The show went out of production in 1981, and Jim Henson died in 1990. His son Brian, who now heads the company, makes a few introductory remarks at the beginning of many of the "Muppet Show" repeats on Odyssey. Even though it played in an era of TV variety shows, "The Muppet Show" was still something of a throwback. Each half-hour episode was modeled on a vaudeville program, often with three or four songs performed by the Muppets and that week's guest (e.g., Elton John singing "Crocodile Rock" to a pond full of crocodiles). The written comedy was pretty dated, too. (This groaner was typical: A passer-by asks two bench-sitters, "Crosstown buses run all night?" The bench-sitters reply, in unison: "Doo dah! Doo dah!") Yet for all its kid-pleasing silliness, "The Muppet Show" had an absurdist sensibility that adults appreciated and few American TV shows have ever matched. It constantly poked fun at the conventions of television and at itself. There was Sam, the furrow-browed eagle who kept his eye on the program's "decency" levels; and two resident hecklers, Statler and Waldorf, who nonetheless were in their balcony seats for every performance. "The Muppet Show" was one of the last products of a more good-natured time in the mass culture, before the arrival of the Age of Irony, a period that commenced with David Letterman's morning show and fizzled out sometime during the dot-com TV advertising blitz this fall. Seeing Kermit, Piggy and the gang once again, I'm reminded of the time Letterman chided a guest for telling a story with an all-too-familiar punchline. "The old ones are the best ones, aren't they?" said Letterman, which he meant ironically - but I don't. To reach Aaron Barnhart, television writer for The Star, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com @ART CAPTION:Classics from the late Jim Henson are part of a mix of family entertainment, including material from the Hallmark vaults, available on the Odyssey Network. @ART CAPTION:Kermit the Frog and his furry pals can be see once again by area television viewers. @ART:Photos (2, color)