It’s an extra-long episode of self-indulgence as Pete goes down a nerdy rabbit hole of calculating dropping a weight on the Muppet newsman, and Ben investigates a tweet about Robin’s princely origins. They also talk at length about Bernadette Peters’ awards and honors, unwrap a new minifig, and payoff conversational teases of obscure redheads, House of Leaves situations, and Karnak’s mystery prediction.

Sources and References:

When Ben evaluated the Kermit and Miss Mousey performance of “How Can You Believe Me When I Said I Love You When You Know I’ve Been A Liar All My Life”, he was comparing it to an out-of-theatrical context clip of Jane Powell and Fred Astaire performing it in the Stanley Donen-directed, Nick Castle-choreographed film version of Royal Wedding. The fact that there’s a strange heightened circumstance in the Kermit/Mousey version is certainly complemented by the fact that the song is song between a brother and sister in the film. The reputed “longest title” aspect of the song is repeated in Powell’s obituary in Deadline, and the band that Pete refers to, The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die amusingly has shortened its name to seven words in its official band URL, and a mere ten characters in its Bandcamp address.

Pete points out that the Muppet Fandom page claims that this is the first episode in which Robin is identified as Kermit’s nephew, after first accidentally saying this is Robin’s first appearance. Ben counters by pointing out that the “Halfway Down the Stairs” 7″ single had been previously released in 1977, and asks Pete how Robin is credited on that record label. Turns out, it’s as “Kermit’s Nephew Robin”, who Doug Benson referred to as an “all-purpose child frog” in his Doug Loves Muppets segment when he and his guests were also confused about his relationship with Kermit. We remain particularly amused that Doug sings a verse from “Five, I’m Five!”, considering that particular segment is not available on Disney+. As per whether Robin is below average in weight or size, Ben consulted “How Big Do Frogs Get?” on Pete-ducate in order to educate Pete.

Ben is familiar with the song “They call the wind Mariah” from the gentle ribbing the song gets by The Smothers Brothers, but it did originate in the musical Paint Your Wagon, from which Pete — due to classic Simpsons overexposure — only knows the not-actual song “Gonna Paint That Wagon, Gonna Paint It Good“. And the reason why Ben — hopefully non-litigiously — refers to Jon Peters as a “giant-spider-loving maniac” is because he notoriously has tried to shoehorn a massive mechanical spider into the climax of a couple of different movies, including both Superman: Reborn Lives (now memorialized in the Ezra Miller Flash) and Wild Wild West.

One can take a look at Jim Henson’s original sketches for the members of Lubbock Lou’s jug band on the Jim Henson’s Red Book website. It’s perhaps of interest that the jaw-harp player is listed as going to be called “Slim” in the sketch — perhaps contributing to the confusion as to why the names of the members are confusing — and that Henson’s Red Book site conflates the Lubbock Lou and Googalala Jubilee Jug bands together, as they include that sketch in relation to Twiggy performing with the latter.

Pete refers to the phenomenon of feet washing up on the shoreline of Washington state. For anyone unfamiliar with the gruesome occurrence, here’s a primer and explanation. His other reference is “Shoe Money Tonight!“, which will be familiar to familiar with the Aaron Sorkin canon.

Pete’s first moment was his glee at noticing the boom mic in the Bernadette Peters song to Robin. The original footage has the mic bob down against a dark background, and it’s almost — but not quite! — unnoticeable. This image has been lightened so that the mic “pops” more easily.