Ben and Pete clash over what comes off more poorly in this episode: the newly corporeal figure of of Scooter’s uncle or the folk music stylings of the guest-star. They also guess what segment of the show was produced months after filming and engage in a truly gross pun run.

Sources and References:

ERRATA: J.P. Grosse makes his Muppet Show appearance in this episode, and Ben goes on a long tangent about how he works much better as a comic foil where talked about but not given flesh. He compares this to the lessons learned on Fraiser, where the character of Maris never appears so that the most outlandish things can be said about her, whereas when Frasier use to say horrible things about Lilith in Cheers, it made his character seem petty once she was humanised by appearing in the flesh as Bebe Neuwirth. It’s unclear where Ben got this inaccurate version of events, but it is very clear that he doesn’t know as much about Cheers as he thinks he does. Lilith first appears on the show during the fourth season as a first date of Frasier’s that goes badly, and then returns for a further 81 appearances over the remainder of the show. So, according to TV Tropes terminology, she is an “Ascended Extra“, and not, as Ben claims, a “Ghost” made flesh.

As Pete says, the Muppet Fandom page quotes Of Muppets and Men, where Jim Henson also claims that J.P. Grosse was a better concept offscreen than depicted onscreen, and you can compare his eight prior mentions to this appearance and see which you prefer.

Ben’s research on Judy Collins began with her autobiography, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, which was in the collection of his local public library. In a strange coincidence, within a month of him checking it out and reading, the library discarded it from their collection, so you may need to resort to dubious methods to double-check his research. Wikipedia does confirm some of the trivia Ben extracted from her biography: “Gypsy Rover” is mentioned as her earliest exposure to folk music (but not that she heard it performed in the Alan Ladd film The Black Knight), and the fact that her first hit on Wildflowers was her cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now”. Ben’s short summary of the origins of Stephen Stills’ “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and of Collins’ and Stills’ relationship indicates that their dynamic is complicated. Some of that complexity is expanded upon in this Guardian article about the history of the song. Ben had also checked out The Girl in the Song by Michael Wheatley and Frank Hopkinson to delve into their account on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, and that was the basis for the bonus question about songs based on Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell. And Collin’s appearances in nine episodes of Sesame Street are chronicled on her Muppet Fandom page.

Judy Collin’s appearance in Junior as the head of the fertility clinic that Arnold’s character visits can be seen here:

And her official Henson Connection map as charted on ConnectTheStars.xyz is as follows: