Pete and Ben talk about an episode where Cheryl Ladd and Miss Piggy demonstrate their martial arts skills, and then go hammer-and-tongs against each other about their wildly divergent opinions about a classic novelty song from the 1950s. They also establish two or three new pieces of head-canon for the show, stretch five moments out to seven, and — once again! — try to work out the application of physics in a real House of Leaves situation.

Sources and References:

The Fandom page for this episode confirms the details about the actual production dates of this episode, as confirmed by the Henson’s Red Book website, but fails to explain why the episode is listed as the final production episode of the season. Was this because reshoots needed to be done on the backstage runner and why neither Gonzo’s nor Fozzie’s character stories seem to have a satisfactory conclusion or pacing? Who can say.

ERRATA: Speaking of Henson’s Red Book, the cover image of Miss Piggy and Cheryl Ladd was from Le Figaro magazine and not Glamour. You can decide for yourself if Ben’s summary of the cover blurb is, a) an accurate translation, or b) an actual prediction of The Muppet Movie‘s chance to pick up an Oscar or just sensationalist text to get you to buy something from the newsstand. It certainly is sufficiently rife with comma splices to confuse many readers.

<<Miss Piggy, aux côtés de Cheryl Ladd, la marionette vedette des Muppets, recevra, probablement en avril, à Los Angeles, l’Oscar 1980 de la meilleure actrice.>>

In other vague errata news, Ben is correct that he was incorrect about which Charlie’s Angel is on the famous poster. The photo of a feathered blonde in a red bathing suit that is considered to be “the best selling poster” is, in fact, an image of Farrah Fawcett. Wikipedia confirms its best-selling status with a link to a CNN article from 2009 written in the flush of context outpouring from the actress’ death a few days prior.

If you’re having a hard time following Ben’s logic about the idea that the muppet in the opening dressing room segment isn’t really wearing Cheryl’s “costume”, here are some visual aids from the Fandom page about the episode: it’s clear that the material used here on the Lunch Counter Monster is definitely the same fabric as the vest Cheryl is wearing here. But Ben’s attempt at a point is that it in no way resembles Cheryl’s whole ensemble, as the monster is essentially draped in the fabric like a muumuu, but that does not make it remotely the same as Cheryl’s “costume” of a shirt, vest, trousers, and snappy bowler hat. Pedantic, perhaps, but what else is a podcast for?

The Discogs page for the red vinyl edition of “There’s a New Sound” by Tony Burello shows that the secondary market’s highest price has gone up somewhat since we recorded the episode — it now seems to have maxed out at $60. Also, Discogs pages often link to YouTube videos of the music, and this is no exception, so you can avail yourself of the full two minute twenty-seven second original version of the song, as well as get a cloe-up look at the label, which does indeed query if the recording has “vocal?”s, hence Ben’s confused and confusing rising inflection on that credit. The label is also scanned in on the Wikipedia page, which is where Ben sourced that particular piece of trivia. Wiki is also where a citation of Brian Jay Jones’ biography of Jim Henson led Ben to the anecdote about Henson using the song as a test to see if anyone was watching Sam and Friends.

As is traditional, Pete and Ben engage in some rough mental math about the size of the Muppet theatre, claiming that it seems to be inconsistently large on the inside, much like the warped interior of the titular House of Leaves. There is some small merit to the discussion. While their back-of-a-matchbook calculations approximated that forty meters of rope would have fallen over four seconds, the Free Fall Calculator indicates that a single object, sans air resistance, would fall 78 meters in that time, or approximately 257 feet. So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. That said, whether 131 feet or 257 feet, that remains considerably taller than the fly height of most standard stages, according to It’s All Sew Biz, Inc., a source so trustworthy that Wikipedia stole their diagram of curtain sizes and placements for their page on theatre drapery. They state that a standard full-size theatre would have a proscenium that was 30 feet high, necessitating twice that height-“ish” for fly space. That is only about half as high as Ben and Pete’s conservative estimate of rope length. If you then concede that the rope has to be twice the height of the fly space in order for the curtain to be fully lowered… well, then The Muppet Show had rope falling for the minimum mathematically correct amount of time. Are we saying that someone did an equal amount of nerdy math in order for the joke to hold up to pedantic scrutiny? We sure hope so!

As for the average weight of a car? Well, Ben’s claim that average cars don’t weight two and a half tons is both accurate and inaccurate. Yes, the average weight of a car tends to be two- to four-hundred pounds less, with SUV skirting right below the 4,000 pound mark. But the average weight of a pickup truck is almost exactly two and a half tons, according to this same source. And Consumer Affairs tells us, like Pete speculates in the episode, that cars and trucks have decreased in weight slightly since 1975.