Pete and Ben discuss the legacy, potency, and popularity of the Soviet Union’s premiere cultural defector, and consider how he’s objectified by the episode, whether Statler and Waldorf should sing along to the theme song, and how big Robin’s hat should be. They also determine a head-canon for the Muppet Show warm-up comedian and that Pete doesn’t appreciate anything classy.

Sources and References:

Lots of casual in-jokes and references in this show, just in the first ten minutes. Pete and Ben have long fought over when Pete’s birthday is. Pete claims that he should know, it’s his birthday, but Ben claims that he should know — after all, Pete was too young to remember when it actually took place. They then go on to talk about the film career of Ken Russell, who is referred to as “Uncle Ken”, because all famous Russells are — by “bit” edict — relatives of some kind, based on their age: uncle Kurt, cousin Keri, great-aunt Jane, etc. (That said, one could get confused by Apple’s auto-generated podcast, which mistakenly believed that Pete said that Rudolf Nureyev had had a personality conflict with “Aunt Margaret”, whereas he instead said Ann-Margaret. Woo, A.I.!) And, because they both listen to the Blank Check podcast, there are also references to that podcast’s in-jokes as well — an early motto of that show was that they were “no-bits, pro-[Jimmy] Smits”.

After Jimmy Smits comes up, Ben refers to the fact that because of the inclusion of a satire of NYPD Blue on Muppets Tonight, there was likely to be a Jimmy Smits take-off Muppet. In the “NYPD Green” sketch, Kermit’s character is named Amphibowicz, a reference to Dennis Franz’s character Detective Sipowicz, the other frog cop on the show, played by Bill Barretta, is built on the Gil puppet, one of the advertizing executive frogs from Muppets Take Manhattan. This is surprising, because Gil’s male-pattern baldness more evokes Franz than Kermit’s perfectly smooth dome, so one might think that Gil would have been assigned the pastiche name reference. As it is, Gil’s character remains unnamed in the sketch, so it would be a — ahem — leap to say that he is Jimmy Smits of the sketch.

(The sketch is fine, if slight, but suffers by evoking the classic Stan Freberg sketch “Elderly Man River” without as successful of a comic escalation.)

At the time of recording, Pete was unable to find any advance notice of the Paris Opera’s decennial tribute to Nureyev that was traditionally scheduled to take place in March 2023. This could have been because the French transliteration of Nureyev is “Noureev” and might not have immediately been recognized. Currently, however, both the Opera de Paris and the Nureyev Foundation have a list of 2023 tributes, including a quiz one can take in addition to the one Pete gave Ben.

Most of Pete’s research about Nureyev came from his Wikipedia page, his IMDb page, an article about The White Crow in Time magazine, and that magazine’s early extensive profile about Nureyev, only a few years after his 1961 defection.

There are probably more famous examples of warm-up comedians out there in the world, but Ben felt that Connor Ratliff was a particularly good example of someone who crossed that membrane of warming up the audience and being part of the show. For those of you unfamiliar with Connor or The Chris Gethard Show, do check some examples of his work on that programme. Unfortunately, while Pete’s headcanon of Lew Zealand having been the Muppet warm-up comic before becoming a full cast member in season three is contradicted by the canon sequence of Kermit not knowing Lew when he auditions his boomerang-fish act in the Marisa Berenson episode.

The Minuet in E-major by Luigi Boccherini has a rather limp notation of it pop culture uses by Wikipedia. They do say that it is “used extensively in popular media including movies, television and video games, often as a backdrop or leitmotif to underscore or denote instances of gatherings or settings taking place within high society”, but then go on to list a paltry six instances, not including either John Hughes film Ben mentioned, nor its inclusion in Greystoke, for which it is noted according to Naxos licensing.