Ben and Pete grovel, grovel at the feet of that fabulous funny-man, the inimitable Milton Berle, while also marveling at the intemperate timekeeping of Dr. Julius Strangepork, the indescribable transcribing of Jerry Juhl, and the indefatigable patience of King Charles the Third.

Sources and References:

While not mentioned in the episode, the idea of cats inheriting an estate has come up before on the podcast, with Ben and Anna talking about it with regard to the plot of The Aristocats, and a news story that may have been the source of the idea. As per Pete’s joke as to a Charles fighting it out to inherit with pets, while there doesn’t seem to have been any questions floated as to whether Queen Elizabeth II’s famous pet corgis would have received any inheritance after her death, who would take care of them seems to have received an enormous amount of parallel coverage.

You can judge for yourself whether Zelda Rose’s singing owl more resembles Bubo from Clash of the Titans or the bling Furby from Uncut Gems, and also judge whether Pete is too much of a cheapskate for not attempting to purchase the actual item from the film. Or whether Henson Incorporated! is possibly a cheapskare for including Abby Hadfield‘s unsuccessful audition to be part of the Muppet company as part of an uncredited part of their broadcast.

Did Ben play dirty pool by not giving Pete credit for saying Madeline Kahn when he was naming previous Muppet Show guest-stars who were in The Muppet Movie? Maybe? Here are the possible connections between Milton Berle and Jim Henson based on the films in his IMDb Top Four:

Milton Berle’s affair that resulted in the birth of a child who grew up believing someone else was the father is the opening chapter in his ghost/co-written autobiography with Haskel Frankel. The fact that he told this story and it was a strange focal point is evident in that it is referred to even in a comedy website’s article about an estate sale that included parts of his joke archive. The altercation with Richard Pryor about the anecdote currently remains on his Wikipedia page. The origin of his nickname and its relationship with his connection to the sales of TV sets is detailed here.

You can check out all the extra punchlines smuggled into the musical performances of “Top Banana” in both the 1954 Phil Silvers film version and the Johnny Mercer and Rose Marie 1955 television version on YouTube. The additional lyrics that were cut from the published song can be read in the Google Books excerpt of The Complete Lyrics of Johnny Mercer.