Kermit Lives In A Drawer & ‘The Muppets’ Was Shot In London…
On June 28, 2014
- TV History
Kermit Lives In A Drawer & ‘The Muppets’ Was Shot In London…
Who knew? I was quite surprised to find out that ‘The Muppet Show’ that aired here in the US from September 1976 till March 1981, aired in the UK at the same time and was shot there too.
After two pilot episodes produced in 1974 and 1975 failed to get the attention of America’s network heads, Lew Grade approached Henson to produce the programme for his ATV Associated Television franchise in the UK. The show lasted for five seasons, consisting of 120 episodes, which recorded at ATV’s Elstree Studios just north of London. It’s not easy being green. Enjoy and share.
Also worth noting, regarding the DVD box sets: Because British television didn’t have as many commercials as American television, they had to pad the time for each episode of “The Muppet Show” with extra musical numbers and skits that would air only in England. But if you buy the box sets here in America, the episodes have all of that extra material.
Those old syndication prints of the show were off back during the height of ITC’s syndication of the show. I recall WGN in Chicago still using the old ITC prints in the late 1980s. Disney’s DVD release of the show is a big gigantic leap up from that.
How the PAL>NTSC conversion was done? There’s some Queen shows from the 70’s with really creepy image due to bad conversion :/
Because PAL to NTSC was so bad, I understand the Tom Jones show (seen in the US and UK) was shot twice; once in PAL then once in NTSC. I believe that the Engelbert Humperdinck show, done by the same people if I remember correctly, also followed that same workflow. Of course, David Frost answer was to fly across the Atlantic doing chat shows in both countries.
Sir Lew Grade was also the financial backer of “Thunderbirds” and nine other programs produced by Gerry Anderson in ‘Supermarionation.’ A new series of “Thunderbirds” is in production as we speak.
I remember as a kid I noticed the PAL conversion. The show had the fuzzy Quantel look of the era.
I loved it since day 1 . Muppets started in Communist Poland in 1978 , commous loved it to 🙂
Fantastic show! The US episodes seem to suffer from poor image quality, though. Presumably due to the poor (analog) 625/25 to 525/30 standards conversion in use at the time. It’s evident here with a soft picture, a vidicon-like motion smear, and ‘pull down’ effect (from the different frame rates.) Does anyone here know about how vintage color standards conversion was done?
http://youtu.be/EJ9yAV8uQ7g
Love your posts, thanks