Special Features

As we have learned from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, all really long and really complicated stories need really long and really complicated special features, including, and not limited to, a complete and (sort of) comprehensive guide to all of the in-jokes.

A COMPLETE AND (SORT OF) COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO ALL OF THE IN-JOKES , IN CASE SOMEONE ACTUALLY CARES...

CHAPTER 1

-Mickey Moose and Ronald Duck I saw on one of the "compilation best-of" Muppets videos so I don't know what episode it was, but they were, as can be seen by their names, pointedly making fun of Mickey and Don.

-"feeling taller by being around Muppets" is from the Paul Williams episode (ep. 8) where Williams states that for the first time in his life, he is the tallest person present...immediately followed by a bunch of huge Muppets coming up behind him.

-Uncle Deadly being a landlord...well, he's already "the phantom of The Muppet Show", haunting the theater, so "landlord" isn't too far off.

-Mike Oznowicz is the name of Frank Oz's father.

-"Goelz" is a reference to Dave Goelz, the puppeteer behind Gonzo and Zoot among many others. He's also the only member of the more famous original Muppeteers (Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson and Goelz) who's still Muppeteering today.

-the whole paragraph where Phyllis "explains" Fozzie's problem is a reference to a scene in The Great Muppet Caper where a guy walks up to Kermit and does the exact same thing: gives him the "story of his problem" and launches into an entirely inaccurate yarn—instead of explaining how Kermit thought that Miss Piggy was Lady Holiday and that she left behind her glass slipper like Cinderella, he goes on this whole huge explanation of how he had this traumatic life running a laundromat until he finally took his last savings and sunk it in the glass slipper business. (Actually, that's where the part about "the detergent lady at the laundromat" came from in mine...)

-"Mahna Mahna", in case you somehow don't know, is the famous Muppet routine with the little guy that just says "Mahna Mahna" throughout the whole song. It's maybe the most famous Muppet routine, as it has been performed numerous times on The Ed Sullivan Show and other places...and I think now it's a Dr. Pepper commercial.

-"Uncle Henson's Theater"; well, the Jim Henson reference is obvious there, but the "Uncle" part is a reference to Scooter's uncle owning the theater in The Muppet Show—a fact that Scooter brought up quite often.

-Irving Bizarre showed up at least in episode 22 of Season One of The Muppet Show as Fozzie's agent...he was a weird little guy who was really just a top hat with feet, and spent the whole episode trying to negotiate Fozzie's contract. He ended up getting Kermit to pay Fozzie around ten times what Foz was currently getting, but then they realize exactly how much ten times zero is.

-I'm not certain if everyone recognizes them, but Wayne and Wanda were the singing couple from Season One who could never get past the first few lines of a song without something going wrong...case in point is the famous "Trees" number, featured in Chapter 3.

-yes, everyone Fozzie listed really was successful in each of those fields, and reunions for The Brady Bunch probably number higher than the rate of commerce for the US.

-George the Janitor was in The Muppet Show Season One, but was retired after that and replaced by Beauregard. He was performed by Frank Oz.

-the "Bravo! Encore!—Oh no, they heard us!" joke is a variation on a couple of lines Stat and Waldorf used at the end of one of The Muppet Show episodes from Season One, as well as a between-sketch transition in the Ethel Merman episode (ep. 22) and in the Kaye Ballard episode (ep. 23).

CHAPTER 2

-"Movin' Right Along"...well it's kind of pointless if I have to define this one, but I'm putting in all the in-jokes...it's that song from The Muppet Movie, that everyone knows because it was a song on a sing-along tape that anyone young enough at that time probably saw a million times before they refused to admit they ever watched it. I, for one, will readily admit that I remember the words to almost every song on that tape, but only because I, unlike the rest of us, had the guts (and also the bored mind) to take it out of those hidden vestiges of the closet to watch it once more.

-"Eight Little Notes" was a song that Rowlf played at some point during The Muppet Show, and was also on that same sing-along tape I just finished rambling about.

-the line about each striking of the keys jolting Rowlf more than "the tornado shook up Dorothy" was a direct reference to The Muppets Wizard of Oz, which I hadn't seen when I'd written this part. (It was actually not so bad a movie, really...better than I'd expected, and Ashanti actually was an OK actress...but it was way too commercialized, the opening number I considered completely pointless, it was more "racy" than the finest of the Muppets movies, and some of the parts were simply overdone. All right, I'm FINISHED! You know, you could've skipped this last part, or even this entire section...aw, too late now.)

-the "triple-cream sodas" and the "I don't drink with strangers" bit was taken from a sketch Rowlf did in the Phyllis Diller (whom Phyllis Pepper was named after) episode (ep. 18) of The Muppet Show.

-let me just take the time out to say that before Rowlf became Rowlf, two other names considered for him were Wendel and Vanderwoof. This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with anything, but I HAD to say it. If I ever get bored enough that I actually sit down and write a sequel to this story, I'm going to find some way to incorporate that into the plot.

-"You and I and George" from the historic episode 1 of The Muppet Show is pretty much the only song in here that hadn't been cut down to make it shorter...yeah, that's the whole song. And really, nobody is credited for writing it because presumably they don't want to have to admit it. Plus, the preamble Rowlf gives is pretty much a condensed version of the intro he gave the piece during the show...in Season One, though he reprised the song for an episode in Season Four.

-"a dog with a sheepish expression" is a modified quote from Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary Wolf (the inspiration for the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, one of my favorites), where Eddie Valiant narrates "Roger showed me what had to be a real oddity, a rabbit wearing a sheepish expression."

-Steve Urkel, you know the pants-up-to-his-neck kid from All in the Family (?).

-"Minuet in G" and "Fur Elise" were actually two pieces that Rowlf played during The Muppet Show, specifically in Season One.

-the character I call "Alice" is actually a nameless circumstantial character with the same personality who appeared in several "At the Ballroom" sketches during Season One. Her voice was loud, grating, and one of my favorite of her jokes is when she complains really loudly that she would have been a hit singer, but her albums didn't sell and she didn't understand why. Her dancing partner asks if she sings rock. She shouts, "No...lullabies!"

-about the "George Bush" line...I don't keep up with politics, I'm not supporting anyone, I just had to make a funny joke.

-Kermit being a newspaper reporter is from The Great Muppet Caper, which was pretty much the whole kick-off to the plot...

-"The Pizza Twins" was the pizza company Kermit and Fozzie pretended to be from when they tried to sneak into The Mallory Gallery during The Great Muppet Caper.

-the "albino monk" is Silas from The Da Vinci Code, which I have never read (or watched), but a friend of mine refuses to shut up about him.

-after Phyllis crashes into Gonzo, she says "whoever or whatever"—I'm hoping that at least someone picked up on that crack...

-"That's OK, I just landed on my head" is from The Great Muppet Caper too—specifically the opening number, "Hey a movie!".

CHAPTER 3

-"Whatnots" are stock Muppets—their heads look like Scooters, and they pretty much have interchangeable features so one Whatnot could, over the course of the series, portray five or more incidental characters. Scooter himself was a modified Whatnot.

-Ernie, as some may remember who aren't too embarrassed to admit that they watched Sesame Street as well as that sing-along video, was famous for singing the song "Rubber Duckie".

-Jerry Nelson was the performer who did Floyd, Lew Zealand and Statler (among others) until his death.

-"Shoeshine Scooter giving information about important stuff" is a crack at the old TV show Police Squad starring Leslie Nielsen, who paid Johnny the shoeshine boy for info.

-Kermit's outfit when he shows up at Scooter's is the one he wore in (AGAIN!) The Great Muppet Caper.

-"Steppin' Out With a Star" was one of the songs in The Great Muppet Caper, and I personally consider it one of the best in the movie even though I am insanely in love with all the musical numbers...I have memorized "Happiness Hotel", "Steppin' Out With a Star" and "The First Time It Happens".

-the "Wizard of Oz medley" was a number from a Muppet TV special that I only know of from the aforementioned Muppets sing-along video. I guess it was the spiritual inspiration for The Muppets Wizard of Oz, because Gonzo was still The Tin Man and Fozzie was still The Cowardly Lion...but Scooter was originally The Scarecrow (I personally think he fits the character more), Miss Piggy was Dorothy and Foo-Foo was Toto. Oh yeah, and all the Muppets perform their respective songs in that medley better than the "real" actors in the original movie The Wizard of Oz (according to me, anyway).

-"Can You Picture That" was the The Electric Mayhem song from The Muppet Movie, and it makes a reappearance later in Chapter 13.

-"Vend-a-face" was a very expensive machiney-looking Muppet that removed a Muppet's face and gave them a new one. Apparently the Muppet people had only been planning on using it once, but the upper management said "You paid that much for it, you're going to use it" and it was incorporated into a few more sketches. Statler did actually use "Vend-a-face" once in exactly the circumstances he describes, in the final episode of Season One (ep. 24).

-the "photographer conveniently standing nearby" is about that part in (wait for it...) The Great Muppet Caper where to pay for the meal at the DuBonni club, Gonzo took pictures of the various people and sold them. (Speaking of the DuBonni club, even though John Cleese's cameo in that movie was completely pointless it is one of my favorite parts of that film.)

-yes, I do believe that Wayne looks like Zeppo Marx from the first five Marx Brothers films (you know, the one who sang and got the girl but didn't actually do anything funny).

-and that is exactly what happened when Wayne and Wanda sang "Trees" on The Muppet Show.

-"the Gogolala Jubilee Jugband" was the jugband from Season One of The Muppet Show until they were replaced, and they did actually once perform "I'm My Own Grandpa" (which I consider to be an awesome song, whether Muppet-done or not).

-Sam calling the Jugband "not sounding culturally uplifting" was from a line he had on the Ruth Buzzi episode (ep. 4) in Season One.

-"the Amazing Marvin Suggs and his Muppaphone"—Marvin was the crazy guy who hit his fluffy little "Muppaphone" characters over the head to make them emit tonal yelps put together into a song. I will now take the time to insist that this sketch bore an uncanny resemblance to one from Monty Python's Flying Circus in which a man (Terry Jones) does the same thing with a box full of mice. However, may I also point out that they never thought of the finishing gag in which the man ends up getting hit with the giant hammer.

-"Sergeant Floyd Pepper", the namesake for Phyllis's last name, was named after the Beatles album "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Breakfast Bar"—this is also why, as I have suddenly realized, Floyd's dressing room has "Beetles" records all over the door in Chapter 9.

-the whole thing about the band hating the music comes from episode 23 of The Muppet Show where Floyd and the rest try to quit because they hate playing the Muppets' theme music.

-Sam's introduction for Fozzie's act as well as Fozzie's own preface were all borrowed almost word-for-word from the "Good Grief, the Comedian's a Bear" routine from episode 10, Harvey Korman. (The routine's also mentioned in Chapter 10).

-almost all the jokes Fozzie tells at "Uncle Henson's Theater" were made up by me, but the "life after death" one was based on a Monty Python skit—a talk show with three dead people about the existence of an afterlife—and the "eats shoots and leaves" gag is one of the famous ones that is now a title of a book on grammar and punctuation. It may be the only bit of real comedy in Fozzie's whole routine, but it loses something if you don't hear it aloud...

CHAPTER 4

-"Java" and "Hugga Wugga" were two extraordinarily strange acts from The Muppet Show Season One—"Java" in episode 22 (as well as on The Ed Sullivan Show), "Hugga Wugga" in episode 18 (though its precursing sketch was on The Ed Sullivan Show and was called "Skrap Fyap"), and the "piano solo performed solely by chickens" was a routine in a later season.

-all the acts Gonzo references himself as having performed at "The Theater" are true from some point in the TV show...mostly not from Season One, but the "growing a plant to 'The 1812 Overture' " is. (Incidentally, he has also demolished a car with a sledgehammer to "The Anvil Chorus" and eaten a tire to "The Flight of the Bumblebee"—at least, I think I got those two facts right...)

-the dress Miss Piggy wears is the same one she first ever appeared in when her character was introduced on The Muppet Show.

-the "silver backdrop" for Miss Piggy's number was sort of born from a cross between the backdrop she had in her "Heat Wave" number on the sing-along tape and Ethel Merman's sparkling, blinding backdrop from when she performed "No Business Like Show Business" in episode 22 of The Muppet Show.

-Floyd is very well-known for his intense dislike of Miss Piggy—another reason why he's Phyllis's cousin.

-although fans of the TV series will hate me for Kermit's reciprocal of Miss Piggy's affections, let me just remind you that in every movie he feels the same way about her. And even though this story reminds me more of a video game than a movie (you know, how everything is conveniently there and you need a specific item or information to advance?) it still bears more resemblance to the movies than the TV show.

CHAPTER 5

-"Go to sleep, you're not missing much" is a variation on Statler and Waldorf's ending lines on the recording of the The Muppet Show end theme on the 25th anniversary CD, which was a rerecording of the same song on The Muppet Show record album.

-the bit where Phyllis explains Fozzie's electricity situation made me really think of Basil of Baker Street, you know from The Great Mouse Detective and also the kids' books, where he knows everything about a client after he's just met them...(he's mentioned again in Chapter 12 and Chapter 19.)

-Fozzie reading "Dear Abbey" is from (drumroll please) The Great Muppet Caper, in a gag Fozzie has in the beginning of the movie; the editor at his, Kermit's and Gonzo's newspaper is mad at them for missing the scoop on the theft of Lady Holiday's necklace. He shouts out various versions of the headline from several different newspapers, then states their headline: "Identical Twins Join Newspaper". He asks them which paper they'd rather read, and Fozzie says, "I'd read the one that has 'Dear Abbey'." (And let me just point out, that gag about Foz and Kermit being "identical twins" and then the photograph of their "father" was the single funniest event in my life for days after I first saw it.)

-"Gags Beasley" is Fozzie's gagwriter, mentioned first in episode 14 of The Muppet Show and apparently elaborated on in the later seasons. He allegedly wrote the famous "Banana Sketch", which frankly is funnier in the not telling than it would have been had we actually gotten to hear it.

-"Or my writer, the hatrack"—in the Peter Ustinov episode, Kermit is explaining to Mr. Ustinov how almost anything can be a Muppet and informs Ustinov that the show's writer was a hatrack. And during the end credits for that episode, under "writers" it actually says "The Hatrack". (Mr. Ustinov also made a guest appearance as the truck driver in The Great Muppet Caper, as well as in Chapter 10 of this story.)

-Fozzie's mother is, to my guessing, maybe Fozzie's only surviving parent, because I've never heard of a father...but then again, I've only seen the first season of the TV show and she never appears in the movies (except for in a photograph at the beginning of Muppets From Space).

-Nick Charles—the famous detective from the Thin Man movies, which I reference throughout pretty much this entire story.

-"maybe he left behind his resumé or his son or something"...that was (sort of) a line from this radio quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, where they were saying that a criminal in (coincidentally) Sweden was caught because he left behind at the scene of the crime either a) his business card, b) his son, or c) his resumé. (The answer was C, by the way.)

-Fozzie and the Groucho glasses...well, he wore them at "The El Sleezo Café" in The Muppet Movie, but I was thinking more of the sequence in (bum bum bum bum BUM) The Great Muppet Caper where, to disguise themselves, every single &ing Muppet wears Groucho glasses!! ,

-"struck a pose, wide-armed and open-mouthed"...the same pose Foz strikes when asked to be visually compared to Kermit in, give the good man twenty dollars, The Great Muppet Caper!!

-if you don't recognize the Star Wars joke when Foz gets the trenchcoat...that's a problem. (Plus it's doubly ironic 'cus that's the Yoda line and Frank Oz performed Yoda, and Frank Oz performed Fozzie, and so...OK, I just killed it. Sorry.)

-a bowler hat was what Fozzie's cousin wore in his minor appearance in Fozzie's comedy routine during episode 22 of Season One. (in case you're wondering why I know all about the Season One stuff specifically, well, I got the Season One DVD set and I'll be hyperventilating 'till the next one comes out. I've watched all of Season One three times already, and it just keeps getting better.)

-The tagline to that last in-joke is an in-joke in itself, as in the movie Beetlejuice, the title character proclaims "I've seen The Exorcist 167 times, and it JUST KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER."

-Statler and Waldorf have done several hearing aid jokes before, so I can't reference just one for that crack...

CHAPTER 6

-Mortimer Snerd was Edgar Bergen's secondary ventriloquist dummy, and was lovably the original "idiot", the basis of characters like Goofy and Beaky Buzzard.

-and yes, referring to that character as "Chief Sweetums", even just as text on a computer screen, is really hard to do with a straight face.

-"Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear" was the number Scooter sang with Fozzie in the very historical episode 1 of The Muppet Show. It was originally, in the episode, supposed to be "Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Dog", but Muppy (Scooter's dog) canceled at the last minute and Kermit roped Fozzie into going onstage instead. Plus, the song "Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear" was written by Randy Newman! (As you'd know if you actually read those stupid little footnotes at the end of the chapters, but then again I wouldn't if I was reading it.)

-you'll notice that the bit of dying/being hurt by a misfired rubber chicken is a running gag in my Muppets stories, as it makes its appearance both here and in my Fozzie mockumentary, and is also scheduled for a cameo in my next Muppets story...which I haven't even started yet.

-eleven Oscars is the number the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was both nominated for and received.

-Muppy and Baskerville: I don't know if they are commonly known or not, but they're two Muppet dogs. Baskerville was Rowlf's "sidekick" character on The Jimmy Dean Show, and was named after the hound in the Sherlock Holmes book that Rowlf liked in Chapter 2. Muppy, on the other hand, was Scooter's sweet-looking-but-violent-and-egotistic dog who, as stated before, was the reason why we have "Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear" as opposed to "Dog", so he can't be all bad...

-Muppet Labs is the laboratory where all of Bunsen's inventions are made during the TV skits, and the slogan for Muppet Labs actually is "working to better the world situation" (or is it "Where the future is being made today"?). This shows up again in Chapter 15. Plus, originally it was only Bunsen on those sketches, but in Season Two or something they added Beaker so, as stated in the informative-but-not-applicable-to-most-real-life-situations "Muppet Morsels" bonus track on the DVDs, "he would no longer have to blow himself up during his experiments".

-the exploding hats, earmuffs (as well as the "double-barreled effect" bit) and neckties were all Dr. Honeydew inventions from The Muppet Show Season One, episode 18, and all of them exploded while he was wearing them. As for the exploding socks mentioned in Chapter 15, well, I was just being silly.

-shortening "Oznowicz" to "Oz" is just what Frank himself did, but that was before Bunsen.

-Hilda was the costume lady at The Muppet Show during Season One until her character was retired...it was rather interesting that they got rid of her, though, because she was used a lot to bridge some of the sketches, and the guest stars interacted with her almost as much as Kermit.

-the Gorilla Detector is one of the most famous Muppet Labs skits (ep. 16), and the Gorilla Detector is even featured in the action figure playset. It's supposed to light up whenever a gorilla is in the room, and the "in...several circumstances" that Bunsen references was from his own sketch with it, where he knew by "scientific principle" that he could prove that he was not being eaten by a gorilla, as the detector hadn't gone off. ...And the gizmo lit up and started flashing only after Bunsen was dragged off-camera by the primate.

-everyone's done the gag where they list a bunch of good traits about themselves and then end the list with modesty, so I don't even remember specifically where I got that one from.

-"Fearless Fosdick" was a segment in the Li'l Abner comic strip about this really stupid detective. It was a parody of Dick Tracy, and Li'l Abner's, and every other "red-blooded American boy's" hero, even though his "author" in the strip was proven scientifically that he was completely and utterly insane. (There was even one story, my favorite, about how Fosdick caught a murderer Chippendale Chair.)

CHAPTER 7

-I am not trying to make fun of any religion with my comment about berserk evangelists so if you feel that way please, I didn't mean it like that, but it's just there was a Woody Allen radio routine where he said word-for-word "berserk evangelist", so that's why it's in here.

-Fozzie and ginger ale comes from (you'll never guess...) The Great Muppet Caper, where he comments that "if you put enough sugar in this stuff champagne, it tastes just like ginger ale".

-Animal, true to name, is always on the lookout for women. He's kind of like a feral Harpo Marx like that...He even prefers blondes, just like ol' Harpy.

-the concept of Floyd and Zoot switching off as Janice's boyfriend came from the fact that in Season One Janice is always with Zoot, whereas later in the series she's barely ever seen without Floyd.

-Floyd is pretty much the only guy who really has the ability to control Animal in any way, shape or form...but even his authority is limited.

CHAPTER 8

-you know ol' Humphrey Bogart, he always had his hands in those pockets...

-I am not comparing The Muppetburg Times to The Daily Planet, but that's the simile I thought of. I was more thinking of The Electric Mayhem's van while I was describing the exterior paint design.

-and Jerry Juhl was the head writer on The Muppet Show and several of the movies, so it's only fitting that he (or at least probably a Muppet version of him) founded The Muppetburg Times. Also, coincidentally, he was in part responsible for the creation of Lew Zealand, the editor of this newspaper (well for a while he was the editor)...well anyways, apparently Juhl or someone had hired a British writer to help with the script for one of the episodes, and the guy just said to Juhl, "Lew Zealand: throws boomerang fish" and Juhl added him to the script without any further description.

-the crack Waldorf makes about Statler and Queen Victoria was based on a joke from the Connie Stevens episode of The Muppet Show (ep. 2) where after Connie sings "Teenager in Love", Statler comments, "I was a teenager in love once." And Waldorf says, "Yeah, but Queen Victoria wouldn't have you!"

-the joke Phyllis plays on Kermit—opening the door and creeping inside without him seeing—was, as I have only just realized from episode 21 of The Muppet Show. Uncle Deadly was trying to scare the Muppets out of the theater as "The Phantom of The Muppet Show", so at one bit while Kermit was just sitting at his desk the door slowly and mysteriously opens. He freaks out only a little, but just keeps on working. Then Uncle Deadly comes in, and that was the end of that.

-the "you scared me out of ten years' warts" bit that Kermit says, while the joke in there is obvious, I have also only just realized came from "The Phantom of The Muppet Show" episode, where Kermit thinks that it was George the Janitor scaring everybody with a mask. He accuses George of "scaring him out of ten years' growth—and at this point he can't afford to get any smaller". Then Uncle Deadly appears on the stairs, and they realize if George was down there, who was up there—and everyone runs away screaming.

CHAPTER 9

-"hitching a ride on the back of a bus", while not specific to any root source besides the illegal activities of young hoodlums in the forties, I picked it up from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Eddie catches a free ride on the back of the Red Car bus (also referenced in Chapter 16).

-the "bulbous yellow guy from 'Hugga Wugga' " was the little character in that song who just popped out of the mist and started singing "You Are My Sunshine". This wasn't my favorite musical number, but I liked that little guy and how he concluded the routine by blasting away the big "Hugga Wugga"-singing guy.

-"those pink cow-like things", as Phyllis doesn't have the opportunity to know, are called "Snowths". They were performed, one on each hand, by Frank Oz while Jim Henson was Mahna Mahna.

-"Michelle Oznowicz", of course, is a variation on my "Mike Oznowicz" gag from the beginning. I honestly have no idea whether or not there is a Michelle in the Oz family tree.

-Paul Williams, as at least some of you should know if you read those annoying little authors' notes at the ends of the chapters, is the genius songwriter who wrote a bunch of songs for the Muppets (like all the songs in The Muppet Movie and Muppets Christmas Carol) and also appeared in episode 8 of The Muppet Show.

-Richard Hunt is (or rather, was, sad to say) the mastermind behind Scooter the Gofer, (I believe) Janice, and Wayne, as well as Miss Piggy's initial performer before Frank Oz took over.

-the "Marx brothers mirror routine", one of their funniest visual gags, debuted in their fifth film Duck Soup and was revived for Harpo's guest appearance on I Love Lucy. It involved a full-sized mirror being knocked out with two people on either side, each looking identical to the other; the one, suspicious, makes several motions, but the other mirrors just as if it was a real mirror. They even circle around each other and back to their own sides of the "mirror" before they suddenly realize all of it. (The Muppets even used it themselves once before in either episode 2 or episode 3 of The Muppet Show, where Scooter ordered a robotic Kermit and Kermit did the routine with it by accident. It was also in one of those old Mickey Mouse cartoons where Goofy does the "Mirror" with a ghost.)

-about "Marvin Suggs having some things in his dressing room that the cops might like to see", Frank Oz, his performer, always said that he imagined Suggs living in a scuzzy trailer park with his put-upon wife, and that he'd keep the Muppaphone in a cage and beat them regularly—someone call the Humane Society!!

-the suit I describe (purple-and-red pinstriped) was Floyd's from at least The Great Muppet Caper. And by the way, did you notice that in the number The Happiness Hotel, we first see Floyd in his regular outfit—the red shirt and cap—when the bellhop rats go by, then when it's the part in the song with The Electric Mayhem he's suddenly in that suit? How does he do it?!

-"never smoked, through his mouth or anywhere else"—there was a corny "At the Ballroom" joke during The Muppet Show Season One where a guy asks his partner, "Mind if I smoke?" and smoke comes out of his ears as well as several other parts of his body, filling up the room.

-"Mr. Bassman" was a song that The Electric Mayhem sang with Scooter in episode 24 (of The Muppet Show, of course. What, did you think it was from The Munsters or something?).

CHAPTER 10

-the Swedish Chef has done that before, where he shoots a "muffin" through the center and calls it a "doughnut".

-Wayne's Napoleon costume is the one he wears during the theme song sequence from The Muppet Show Season One, and it's just my favorite one so that's why it's in here.

-my philosophical speech about Muppets being trusting and kind is my attempt at an explanation for the sorts of moral and ethical lessons they always have on Sesame Street.

-the "wearing nametags" was a gag I borrowed from my other fanfic, "Journeys of a Space Cadet", a Duck Dodgers one.

-"Just call me 'Great' " was from the Joel Grey episode, ep. 6, just before Grey started singing "Give 'em the old Razzle-dazzle". (May I also note with some bitterness that that episode marked Gonzo's final appearance on the show for a while.)

-the purple tuxedo is pretty much stock Muppet wear, and even Kermit—who's usually not in any sort of costume—has worn it numerous times.

-"it's always the one you think is just there to annoy you that has the important information that you need to solve the case"—a reference to the fact that in The Cocoanuts, as well as other Marx movies, Harpo is the one who finds out the terrible secret and he's the one who can't talk.

-"taking a night class in chicken"—well, taking any course in chicken, as I have also just realized, is from a Far Side comic strip about when chickens go to high school they have to learn "Beginning Duck". Why do I have all these pointless facts in my head that just coincidentally tie in with the rest of the story?!

-Gonzo actually has been in love with Miss Piggy a few times throughout the series—the first time this shows up is in episode 24, when he keeps pestering Miss Piggy and doesn't even realize that she hates him.

-"...in the caper I was about to pull off." Notice one specific word in this sentence and then guess the hidden reference.

-"Reach for the floor"—a line Foz used in the "The Day Kid Fozzie Came to Town" sketch from episode 1 of The Muppet Show. In a nutshell, it was a parody of John Wayne's cowboy flicks, and Fozzie fires off with a pair of pickles, as well as pulling out a carrot as his "knife" and a lit apple for a bomb.

-the "sticking my finger in the small of one of their backs and hoping they thought it was a gun" was borrowed from Bob Wright's Muppets fanfic "Who Framed Kermit the Frog" (on this very website), where Gonzo pretends that he has a gun and the head bad guy says "You idiots, that's not a gun that's his finger!" It's also one of my favorites of the non-ReneeLouvier Muppets fanfics.

-Peter Sellers, Avery Schrieber and Bruce Forsythe, three amazing comedians, all appeared on The Muppet Show at various times. Also referenced at the same time as Forsythe was Foz complaining how he never got back at Stat and Waldorf—something that Bruce Forythe, ep. 12, helped him do.

-"Smokey"—you know, "Only you can prevent forest fires". That bear.

-the banjo—Kermit's famous instrument.

-"when he lived in the swamp"...well, The Muppet Movie opened with Kermit in a swamp, so that obviously must be where he grew up...not to mention that the movie about Kermit as a kid was called Kermit's Swamp Years. (Incidentally, I have not yet seen this movie, but the next chance I have to go to the library I'm checking it out.)

-perhaps Kermit's most famous piece besides "Bein' Green", "The Rainbow Connection" is an obvious song to have started Kermit's career in this story since it kickstarted his first movie.

CHAPTER 11

-I know Fozzie usually plays some sort of string instrument—it looks kind of like either a miniature guitar or a ukelele, I think a ukelele—but the kazoo fits his character more, and besides his other instrument was probably at his home, not Phyllis's and Kermit's flat.

-the Homburg (sp?) hat comes into play just because it was mentioned in a Groucho Marx radio routine with Bing Crosby where he was trying to sue Crosby for splashing mud on his client's dress, even though it's obviously a frame-up shyster attempt. (I notice now that while The Thin Man is made public throughout the entire story, the majority of my in-jokes are about the Marxes. CURSE YOU, TCM!!)

-I actually do make certain random attempts at the acoustic guitar, like Phyllis, but I'm tone-deaf (which Phyllis admits of herself in Chapter 13), my guitar is probably less tuned than a tuna fish and I completely suck at it. But at least my non-talent has become famous here through my fictional character.

-the stuff about the sewer place and how "life isn't always just how it appears on Kodak commercials" is my personal perspective of the Universe, because you always see these happy "come on down" ads for Jamaica while, to my understanding, the other 98 of that place is dirt poor and run-down.

-though there are probably a lot more Muppets that fit the description of the bouncer at the sewer place, I based this guy on the Muppet from episode 2 of The Muppet Show, who was part of the group who did backup for Connie Stevens in her "Teenager in Love" number. The group of them was called "The Mutations", which is referenced by Pépe in Chapter 12.

-the thing about Kermit actually sounding like an out-of-work musician because of his slang was like one of the only funny scenes in Song of the Thin Man where Nick and Nora go to a party for musicians and Nora immediately picks up the lingo like a natural.

-"reading lines off a cue card"—I don't know which episode this was from, but one of the ones with a female costar (Florence Henderson? Lena Horne?) had a gag about cue cards during the "talk spot". And once again, I only just realize this now.

-all that stuff about Muppet "skin" drying up and "toast", as Statler and Waldorf so graciously explain, is completely true. It's just one more of the many ordinary, everyday completely useless entertaining facts that you learn when you watch The Muppet Show with "Muppet Morsels" captions.

-as you might have noticed, with the songs I try my best to have all the lines performed by the same characters who did them in whatever the original source was. So in the bit with "The Magic Store", I had Phyllis do the Miss Piggy and Gonzo lines since those two weren't conveniently nearby.

- Rufus T. Firefly—Groucho Marx's alias in Duck Soup

Emmanuel Ravelli—Chico Marx's alias in his and Groucho's radio show Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel, as well as in Animal Crackers

J. Cheever Loophole—Groucho's alias from A Day At the Circus (not one of my personal favorites of their films—my absolute favorite is Monkey Business—but I adore the name...PLUS it's Groucho's alias when he sings "Lydia the Tattoed Lady", one of Jim Henson's own favorite songs and one Kermit performs in episode 2 of The Muppet Show.)

-as you might have noticed had you read one of the many annoying little author's notes, the bit about "I'm Gonna Always Love You" being written for Miss Piggy by Jeff Moss is actually completely true. He wrote all the songs for The Muppets Take Manhattan, and also wrote for the Muppets Ernie's trademark "Rubber Duckie".

-the trumpet player who almost overhears them in the sewer cavern is Lips, who played for The Electric Mayhem later on in The Muppet Show. But I believe in the "old-school" traditional group, so he was excluded from their ranks for this story.

-Stat and Waldorf's wandering commentary at the end of Chapter 11 was based on one of the routines they do on one of the Season One DVDs if you leave the menu screen on for too long. Sometimes I just leave the screen without doing anything, just to see what they'll say...and yes, I do believe I'm a shoo-in for the next annual "Pathetic Losers Without a Life" award in the "Hopeless Nerds" category. (I'll at least take bronze.)

CHAPTER 12

-calling Pépe a shrimp is sort of a mockery of that running gag where everyone always calls Pépe a shrimp, but he explains that he is a quote-unquote "king prawn".

-Playprawn is obviously a play on Playboy, but also in Douglas Adams's series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy there's a bit of a recurring joke about a magazine called Playbeing. (Though this is totally off-topic, my favorite gag about it is from, I think it was either The Restaurant at the End of the Universe or Life, the Universe and Everything—I think it was Restaurant—but anyways, it said of the galactic location Ursa Minor Beta that Playbeing wrote in an article "When you're tired of Ursa Minor Beta, you're tired of life". It went on to say that the suicide rate there tripled overnight.)

-the "feminine charms" thing is a very direct reference to Pépe's disturbingly lecherous nature. The word "lecherous" I borrow from Inuyasha by Rumiko Takahashi, because it describes Miroku to a "T" as well as Pépe. As an aside, if anyone has ever read Ken Akamatsu manga like Love Hina and Negima, then they'll agree with me that Pépe would sell his soul to join the cast of those stories.

-Fozzie pulling a whoopee cushion out of the pocket of Kermit's suit is from another line in Who Censored Roger Rabbit, where Roger is wearing a suit borrowed from Eddie Valiant and somehow manages to pull a magnifying glass out of the pocket—even though Eddie had never put a magnifying glass in the pocket of that suit.

-The Clodhoppers were the backup dancers in episode 20 of The Muppet Show for the number "Nobody Does it Like Me" with Valerie Harper.

-Nigel was the conductor for the pit orchestra in The Muppet Show.

-The Happiness Hotel is pretty much one of the only settings in this story that I didn't have to invent myself, so the description of the whole place—including Foz, Kermit and Phyllis's room—is pretty much the same as in The Great Muppet Caper, though with a few modifications. And I can even explain away the British flag there, because instead of symbolizing that the Hotel is in London—as in the movie—I can claim that it's a symbol of the "British invasion" in rock n' roll. HA! Take THAT!

-the sequence where they enter the Hotel and ask for a room, from their entrance to when they're asked for their names, is almost word-for-word the same as the matching sequence in The Great Muppet Caper, even to the point where Pops is asleep when they go in.

-the three Muppets (besides Pops) who say "Somebody's checkin' in?" are the three "caricature" Muppets, as I call them (known by normal people as "The Country Trio"): the first one is the Frank Oz Muppet, the second is the Jim Henson Muppet, and the third is the Jerry Nelson Muppet. The variation they each do on "somebody's checkin' in" (each accenting a separate word) is based on a part from a radio routine Groucho had on the Dinah Shore Bird's-Eye program, where another guy says to Groucho in disbelief "You'll take it? You'll take it?" and Groucho replies "There's still another variant of that: you'll take it.".

-the bit where Phyllis asks to remain nameless and everyone freezes, then they're like "OK, whatever" is a gag from the manga Comic Party by Sekihiko Inui. Kazuki has to get his comic book checked before he can sell it at his booth at the convention, so he has the Comic Party official, Minami, read it to make sure it's appropriate and everything. She picks it up, opens it and then there's this sudden pause pause where you're like "OHMIGOD!", and Kazuki's thinking "Oh no, oh no, oh no..." Then Minami just shuts it, smiles and says "It's all fine."

-the location of their room is also from The Great Muppet Caper, because in their cab ride with Beauregard they tell him that they're on the second floor, and he apologizes because "he can only drive them as far as the lobby".

-you know what? I just realized that the sewer community at this point seems to be amazingly like the Court of Miracles from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (you know, the gypsies' home, where all the brigands and crooks go?).

-the bit where Phyllis compares her thinking at the moment (whimsical) to what Bogart would have thought (hardcore, tough) is like a bit in one of the episodes of Duck Dodgers, where Dodgers is on a "Survivor"-like game show and he's almost won one of the trials. The host asks him, "What's on your mind right now?" expecting an intense answer, and Dodgers says, "Actually, I'm thinking about butterflies. They really creep me out!" And so obviously a butterfly just conveniently appears right then, and Dodgers freaks out so much that he zooms across the finish line in an attempt to outrace it.

-comparing the conversation to a tennis game is like the debate segment of The Muppet Show from episode 10 where Miss Piggy argues with Harvey Korman over whether or not life is like a tennis game. The bit about "the ball being in my court now" is from that same sketch.

CHAPTER 13

-Nigel's soliloquy about being forgotten is mostly true; truthfully, who off the top of their head remembers him? He was originally slotted to be the host for The Muppet Show and was filmed as such in the pilot episode, but he was considered "too wimpy" and Kermit took his place. The first time any of the fans really ever see Nigel is in episode 23 when the pit orchestra threatens to quit. (Well, in episode 2 he gives Zoot his sheet music and has a couple of lines, but that doesn't really count.)

-Miss Mousey was the mouse Phyllis notices in the hallway while they were breaking into The Electric Mayhem's room. She made her debut in the Ethel Merman episode (ep. 22) singing "Don't Sugar Me" while sitting in a teacup in Statler and Waldorf's balcony seats.

-"The Monkeys" is obviously making fun of British band The Monkees, and "Strike Jones and his City Sneakers" is a poke at the slightly lesser-known Spike Jones and his City Slickers, a band who did lots of wacky songs back in the fifties or somewhere and were the inspiration for "Weird Al" Yankovic. "Jimi Hen-drips" is pretty clearly Jimi Hendrix. (By the way, my vision of "Jimi Hen-drips" looks mostly like another Muppet character called "T.R. Rooster"...but I only really know the name and the likeness, no idea what he's from besides a few circumstantial appearances in The Muppet Show Season One.)

-"left-handed guitars"—this isn't just because almost all the Muppets are left-handed (their performers were usually right-handed and had to use their right hands to puppet the heads), but Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, also collected left-handed guitars as he himself was left-handed. He is also one of the only authors who has ever jammed with the band Pink Floyd, which I think is pretty cool.

-"Manhattan Melodies", as some may recognize, is the Broadway musical that Kermit and company were trying to sell during the movie The Muppets Take Manhattan (one of my least favorite Muppet movies, but unlike several critics I like the songs in it). The story was that they had just graduated from college, so that's why Kermit supposedly wrote it after he graduated in this story.

-Lord Lew Grade is the "media magnate" (I have no idea what that means, but that's what it says in the CD booklet) who gave Jim Henson the rights to produce the first 24 episodes of The Muppet Show in London, so that's why I christened him the guy that Kermit sent "Manhattan Melodies" to. That, and I can't remember (or even care) who that guy was that produced the musical in Muppets Take Manhattan, I just remember that he looked like Napoleon Dynamite-slash-"the son of Woody Allen".

-all the songs on the desk in The Electric Mayhem's room are songs that The Electric Mayhem has performed at some point or other, whether in a movie or on the TV show. ("Can You Picture That?" is from The Muppet Movie, they did "Jam" in episode 10 of The Muppet Show, "Ain't Misbehavin' " was sung by Floyd in The Muppet Show episode 2, and "Love You to Death" is also from episode 10.)

-"El Sleezo" is, of course, based on "the El Sleezo Café", the place where Kermit met Fozzie in The Muppet Movie. But "El Sleezo" is too shady a name to waste on a café, really...

-I can't tell if Janice's "catchphrase" is "for surely" or "for sure-really", so I smushed them together into "for sure-lly". This is probably the most irrelevant of all the little comments here, but look, I'm bored and this is already an insanely long list of in-jokes and I'm only up to listing the ones from Chapter 13, so...yeah, whatever.

-Zoot "losing his groove" is from The Muppet Movie, when they're in the church and Zoot can't remember his name, which Floyd explains by saying that Zoot "lost his groove again".

-"going off into space, we can't afford a rocket"...that pathetic joke is my reference to Muppets From Space. Thank you, no applause please.

-when Phyllis says "Go for it", I have also just realized that I have once again unknowingly cited The Great Muppet Caper—how long can I keep this up?—because near the climax when everyone's getting ready to go to The Mallory Gallery everyone says "Go for it"; Nicky, all the Muppets, and Miss Piggy's jailmates.

-"five-foot-tall rooster playing the guitar with his tongue"—from what I've heard, that sounds very much like Jimi Hendrix (hopefully not the rooster part though).

-"stifling a sneeze so as not to be found"—in the TV show My Favorite Martian episode 3 "There is no cure for the common Martian", Uncle Martin (the Martian) has a cold, and every time he sneezes he turns invisible. So using this to his advantage, he sneaks into a private meetin between his "nephew" Tim and the owner of a toy store, and when Uncle Martin feels another sneeze coming on Tim has to stifle the invisible Martian's sneeze or else Uncle Martin will pop back into visibility and be discovered.

-after Phyllis's line about "last successfully running a three-minute mile", I was reminded of a Looney Tunes comic that I have with a Duck Dodgers story where Dodgers says "Fast? Pfft! Duck Dodgers knows fast! Why, I ran the three-minute mile in under an hour once!"

-"Running like the Dickens"—I don't know the origin of that phrase, but I used that particular expression as a (sort of) tribute to The Muppets Christmas Carol...the reference should be obvious, or else you really need to study up on your classics.

CHAPTER 14

-Doctor Watson, in case you share with "Chief Sweetums" in not knowing, was Sherlock Holmes's assistant. And as an aside, Dr. Dawson from the Basil of Baker Street series parodies him as Basil parodies Sherlock.

-um, I think that "Fonzie" is from Happy Days...I don't watch it 'cus I'm more of a Munsters-Andy Griffith-Gilligan's Island-Leave it to Beaver-and-Green Acres person when it comes to TVLand...

-Lt. Columbo was the protagonist of a series of TV movies, all of which are kind of funny (at the right points, that is) but still pretty cool. Columbo as a show was also referenced during The Muppet Show at one point, in the Bruce Forsythe epsisode (ep. 12), when Forsythe commented that America and England are always exchanging drama shows. Columbo was one of the ones he mentioned coming from the U.S. (I have also just realized that the guy I mentioned in the in-joke list for Chapter 1, the one who told Kermit Kermit's own "life story", was Peter Falk, the guy who played Lt. Columbo!!)

-"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" ending in a meteor crash is borrowed from the fanfic "The Sad Story of Wayne and Wanda" by The Blue Paratroopa (on this website), just 'cus I thought it was hysterical.

-"You must be the lovely Miss Piggy/Yes I must be", you know, the part right before "The First Time it Happens", was a variation on a line from The Great Muppet Caper in exactly the same sequential order (right before that same song) where Miss Piggy insists to Kermit "After all, the night is young and I am so beautiful." Actually, Miss Piggy has a lot of lines in her career that this one could deviate from, but oh well.

-it'd be hard to miss the reference to Kermit's famous song after Phyllis threatens to "strangle him until he turns green again".

-when Beauregard asks Phyllis to repeat the question, that's a follow-up to my previous Mortimer Snerd reference; Mortimer's famous routines with Edgar Bergen usually involved Bergen asking Mortimer a simple question and Mortimer needing large quantities of clarification.

-"Exuberant Hour", as can be seen, is the Muppetburgian "Happy Hour", which is kind of funny since Muppets are always bright and cheerful, so...yeah. Well, I hope it's funny, anyways.

-the scene with Rowlf before he sings "I hope that somethin' better comes along" is similar to the scene in The Muppet Movie before he sings that same song. Originally I had been going to use a different song for this scene, but then I saw The Muppet Movie again and decided on the current one. It wasn't until a while after I'd typed in the lyrics that I noticed the amazing similarity between the two scenes, and then of course I had to go back and elaborate on the similarity to make them almost identical.

CHAPTER 15

-Waldorf really does have a wife, named Astoria; both of them are named after the hotel in New York. Statler is also named after a hotel (the Hotel Statler. Original, I know.) As an aside, I have also recently learned that Astoria is Statler's sister, making Statler and Waldorf brothers-in-law, which is kind of weird because I always assumed that they were just heckling friends who met in kindergarten and made fum of all the other kids in school.

-"Trekkie", you know, hardcore Star Trek fan. ...Not that I am one (for once being serious—I've never even SEEN Star Trek, ANY of the generations), but I've seen enough Archie comics and whatnot to know what they can be like.

-Dr. Strangepork, as you probably remember but I am going to state anyways to try and present the illusion of being smart, was the scientist character in the "Pigs In Space" sketches. Link Hogthrob himself, the captain, appeared in Chapter 24 near the end of the story.

-Muppet Labs Tenderizer was the invention from Bunsen's first appearance on The Muppet Show in episode 8, and also the kick-off for the rest of the Muppet Labs sketches.

-Fozzie's crack about "ex-variables" is a variation on a line from an Animaniacs comic book where Yakko is asked about all of his exploits—Yakko replies, "I don't have any ex-ploits. All my ploits are still ploits." (I HEART ROB PAULSEN! GO YAKKO AND PINKY!!)

-though I borrow most of the Muppet Labs products from The Muppet Show, aside from the exploding socks (mentioned earlier), I also myself made up the Flare Pen because I couldn't think of any Muppet Labs items that resembled a pen. Also personally made up are the Action Hero Laser and Zebra De-Striper because I couldn't think of a Muppet Labs product that started with either letter "A" or letter "Z".

-"Raposicus Joesium" is a crack at the Muppet songwriter, Joe Raposo. If you read all of those annoying authors' notes that I put at the end of musical chapters, you'll know that Raposo wrote the music for The Great Muppet Caper. Raposo also wrote for the Muppets Kermit's song "Bein' Green".

-"Jackicus Parnellium" is a reference to Jack Parnell, who conducted the orchestra that played for The Muppet Show, and was also a very famous character in Britain where The Muppet Show was filmed. (Vincent Price even made fun of him in episode 19 of The Muppet Show.)

-and to follow up my obsession with The Great Muppet Caper, I have a whole plot synopsis of the movie appearing very "subtly" in the timeframe of Phyllis's conversation with Dr. Strangepork.

-and yes, it is a little conceited that I put myself in the story if only for a one-cough appearance, but oh well...that's the only way I could make that joke funny, even though making Statler and Waldorf ridicule my story-writing skills always makes me feel better because, hey, they heckled The Muppet Show, they obviously only take their time out to heckle something that's at least halfway decent!

-"walkin' along, singin' a song, side by side"—that's the song that Fozzie sang with Bruce Forsythe after Foz finally bested Statler and Waldorf.

-"Professor Netty Jennings" is a parody of Professor Newton Jennings, a character from episode 5 ("Man or Amoeba?") of My Favorite Martian.

Here is a bulleted list of the different Muppet Labs products that Phyllis mentions in Chapter 15:

-Growth Pills—I don't know what episode those are from because I found it on one of those tapes that splice together sketches from different episodes, but Bunsen really tested these on Beaker and made him grow so tall that Beaker extended off-screen. They're also in The Muppet Movie, though instead of stretching out Animal they instead scale him up until he's as big as a house.

-Robotic Politician—this is from the Peter Ustinov episode, with Ustinov playing the robot politician. He did impressions of several different nationalities of politicians before exploding.

-the Instant Door and Invisibility-Spray-Squirting Rubber Duckie were both from Muppets From Space from when they had to sneak into the government building to get Gonzo.

-though the resemblance is totally irrelevant and completely coincidental, when Fozzie yells "I'll get it", that is currently reminding me of the running gag in The Muppet Show episode 5 where whenever Fozzie yells "I'll get it" to answer the telephone, something really funny happens (i.e. he answers it and smoke pours out of the receiver—it's the fire department.) Even less relevant is the fact that in one of the early Animaniacs episodes where Yakko, Wakko and Dot sub in as Mr. Plotz's secretary, whenever a phone rings they all yell "I'LL GET IT!" and subsequently wrestle for the phone.

-no, I don't think that Fozzie can speak chicken, but I needed a loophole like that and, c'mon, that "rubber chicken" line is just priceless.

CHAPTER 16

-the "watch-me-do-this-and-maybe-you'll-forget-what-a-fool-I-just-made-of-myself routine" quote is from Return to Howliday Inn by James Howe, describing Chester the egotistical, "I'm-always-right-and-you-know-it" cat.

-I'm sorry that Kermit acts so uncharacteristic when he hears Camilla say it was Miss Piggy and Gonzo, but I had to get them down to the "Theater" and Kermit thinking rationally just didn't seem to make the cut for possiblities. If I re-edited that part and forgot about it but didn't get rid of this line here, well, then just ignore this.

-this is also completely coincidental and pointless to say, but Phyllis yelling "Hold it" is the same as when Fozzie yelled "Hold it" in the opening to The Great Muppet Caper.

CHAPTER 17

-the thing Statler and Waldorf were saying about Romeo and Juliet ("No, but they should be here any minute") is a variation on a line from one of the Muppet Show episodes: Statler, clapping, yells, "Author! Author!" Waldorf sits up and asks, "Is he here yet?" "Who?" "Arthur."

-yes, I do think that Miss Piggy has multiple personalities.

-this is as equally pointless as that other thing, but I picked up the word "truncated" from , 'cus on one of my friends' emails it listed the original message and when the message was too long, it said "message truncated". "Truncated" and "syncopation" are currently my favorite words just because they sound cool.

-and I have proof that someone takes out a gun and admits to all the charges in all of the Thin Man movies.

-the existence of a "Christmas show" is from Renee Louvier's awesome fanfics, but something embarrassing happening at one is a fact I stole from one of the Spongebob Squarepants episodes, even though I despise the show. But, as a way of reassuring myself on this point, I will now recognize here that, true to what Stat and Waldorf say, all of the "embarrassing moments" on TV that are only given fleeting references happened at some sort of Christmas party...presumably because beside New Years's it's the most alcoholic holiday in America.

-"chutzpah" I just think is a cool word, like "syncopation" and "truncated". And, you know, I wrote it before I realized that not only was it Jewish, it was also pronounced "HUTZ-pah", not "TCHUTZ-pah". (This realization came from looking up the lyrics to "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi".)

-all the songs Miss Piggy references she has sung at one point or another in the movies or the TV show. ("What Now My Love" she did in The Muppet Show episode 15, "Never Before and Never Again" was her tedious, annoying number from The Muppet Movie, and "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" was Miss Piggy's part of the big Ethel Merman medley from The Muppet Show episode 22.)

-actually, After The Thin Man DOES have almost the same plot as the Camilla thing, but I won't give away the details if someone hasn't seen it yet.

-this is a really pathetic excuse to incorporate something, but the line where Miss Piggy's "toeing the carpet" was borrowed from the fanfic "King Thrushnose" by Daffywriter (on this site)—to which I am anticipating the conclusion, if said author may happen to be reading this. (Yeah right—who'd actually read this far into such a boring section? Unless it was my stellar wit...and the fact that I'm already enough of a nerd to be writing this in the first place.)

CHAPTER 18

-piecing together the ripped-up piece of paper...the similarity isn't extraordinarily important, but the day I wrote that sequence I had just finished reading the Basil of Baker Street book Basil Goes to Mexico, and Basil had to do the same thing to gather one of his clues—though more easily, because he only had one sheet of paper to reconstruct, and he got a bunch of little Mexican mice to do it for him.

-"Pachalafaka" is the name of a song performed during The Muppet Show episode 3 by a pair of Whatnots—the male one, the singer, sings of his mysterious love, who's dancing all around him; then at the end of the song, he pulls off the mysterious lady's mask and "she" has a mustache.

-"D.U.N.G." is, of course, just "dung".

-the "two certainties in the world" quote was a variation on something Dave Goelz once said about being a Muppeteer—"When I'm doing the show, the only things I have time to worry about are death and laundry." Yet again amazing wisdom from the "Muppet Morsels" track that has no practical application elsewhere in life.

CHAPTER 19

-"as if he had to consciously try to remember what had happened when he had been awake"...there's not too much similarity between the two, but just so I can tie together all the loose ends (even if they're tiny little threads that I just put there as an excuse to reference my favorite things), in the comic Bone by Jeff Smith, there's a scene where Phoncible "Phoney" Bone, feeling paranoid, asks his cousin Smiley whether he'd seen any huge, rat-like monsters around. Then when Smiley takes a break to think about it, Phoney exclaims, "They're monsters, Smiley! You don't have to think about it!!" to which Smiley replies, "Well, sometimes I have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality."

-"like I'd just jumped thirty thousand feet out of a moving plane..." that one is from, again, The Great Muppet Caper—in the ending scene just before the credits, when they're on the plane the guy says that they're letting off everyone who wants to go to the US. Fozzie then asks how close they are, and the guy says, "Oh, about thirty thousand feet" and then he bodily throws them all out. (They had parachutes, though, so no worries. PHEW!)

-the "covered up like you're really invisible" line from Dr. Teeth reminded me for no apparent reason of the scene in Muppets From Space where they use the aforementioned invisibility-spray-squirting rubber duckie to turn invisible and sneak into the government stronghold, then Fozzie gets them discovered because he washed off the spray that was on his hands after he used the bathroom.

-the line about the "fork in the road" was a direct reference to The Muppet Movie, because at that point in the song—during the movie, though not on the soundtrack—Kermit tells Fozzie that they have to turn left at the fork in the road, and Fozzie does so by turning left at an actual fork stuck in the middle of the road. (A side comment—look, if you know all about all these scenes and think that I'm wasting your time with them, well, a) sucks to be you and b) I'm doing this just to wrap up everything in case someone doesn't know about some of these or they, like me, would totally forget without prompting.)

-Animal saying "go bye-bye" is a direct reference to that show we all really hate to admit we watched, Muppets Babies. That was in a sense Animal's "catchphrase", though you can't really quote me on that because aside from a very faulty memory and the fact that it's been probably over ten years since I last saw that show, my only connection to it is through a really old Marvel comic book. And by the way, I'd like to know when Disney's going to start releasing that on DVD. (Hear that, Disney?! I'm talkin' to you!!) Wait a minute...do they even have the rights to it? It was a Marvel production, after all...

-the phone-shaped candy dispenser that Pépe uses like a real phone is from The Muppets Wizard of Oz, where he does the exact same thing while he and "Dorothy" are on the Yellow Brick Road. (As an aside, I'd really hate to be Dorothy if Pépe was my Toto.)

-"Marvo the Magician"—I have no idea whatsoever if he ever shows up again, but in episode 17 near the end of Season One, Fozzie accidentally locks himself in a trick box and can't get out. Kermit says that the box belongs to someone named "Marvo the Magician", who was touring somewhere else...but Foz eventually got out, though after doing his comedic segment on the show while locked inside the windowless box.

-"hit him with a rubber chicken—what, too subtle?" is from the Bruce Forsythe episode of The Muppet Show (ep. 12), as Fozzie is trying to figure out a way to deal with Statler and Waldorf's heckling. He tries these out on Kermit, and he tells a joke, Kermit ridicules it and Fozzie tries out his newest method—which usually fails. At one point Fozzie tells a joke and Kermit says, "I've seen cheeseburgers that're funnier than you!" Then with no warning Fozzie takes out a rubber chicken and slaps Kermit with it repeatedly, then stops and asks, "What? Too subtle?"

-have you noticed that when these in-jokes aren't about The Thin Man or the Marx Brothers and they're actually about the Muppets, an alarming percentage of those revolve around Fozzie?

-speaking of The Thin Man, the movie The Libeled Lady (starring the same two title actors as The Thin Man, William Powell and Myrna Loy) is this really crazy romantic comedy that only has libel to do as a catalyst. I just put it in there because I needed to use the word "libel" and I just made an immediate connection.

CHAPTER 20

-the "Alzheimers agnostic" line is from Eric Idle (of Monty Python)'s published diary of his solo tour (which I cannot print the title of because of an unsavory word contained therein), where in the margin of one of the pages he printed that same quote almost word-for-word.

-this is another completely irrelevant inconsequential thing—oh no! you're probably weeping, if you made it this far—but the bit where the Chief adjusts to Phyllis's garbage dump odor within fifteen seconds is like the skit he does in the Avery Schrieber episode, where Avery and Sweetums duel with insults—when the duel ends in a tie, Avery protests, "But it wasn't his insults that got me—it was his breath!"

-and everybody should know the "Crazy Harry" tendency to start blowing things up whenever somebody says something in any way related to that phrase. (It makes me think of this funny little line from The Muppet Movie, where near the end Harry giggles, "Crazy Harry plays with electricity!")

-since Beau was the janitor on The Muppet Show after George was retired, it's only fitting that he would be the janitor for the police too...

-it's also only fitting that Beau would call Uncle Deadly a phantom, because Uncle Deadly's initial appearance during The Muppet Show WAS as "The Phantom of the Muppet Show". (That's discounting his cameo as Dracula's assistant during the Vincent Price's episode 19 of The Muppet Show.)

-"cooking quite nicely" is based only extremely loosely on a line from The Muppets Wizard of Oz (personally just about my absolute favorite bit in the movie), where Bunsen insists that they'll be fried by the Wizard's brilliance without the special glasses, then Ashanti points out that Bunsen isn't frying, and he forgot the glasses. So Bunsen pretends to writhe in pain as he cries "AHH!! Run, I'm frying, I'm cooking before your very eyes!!" before giving up and slinking quietly away...

-I was thinking of old "Ah-nuldt" at this point: "I'LL BE BACK!"

-and I do believe that Uncle Deadly would be at least one of the best lawyers in town, because he can always "haunt" the judge and jury, or at least scare them into submitting like he was almost able to do to Kermit during his "Phantom of The Muppet Show" stint.

CHAPTER 21

-Another random point, I would like to apologize if Uncle Deadly, Lew Zealand and Beauregard sound out of character during this story—well, all the characters, but those three specifically. Uncle Deadly I have only really seen "in action" during a few episodes in Season One, Lew Zealand from the first three movies, and Beauregard from his role in The Great Muppet Caper, so as can be seen I have had limited experiences with all of these characters and must work from guesswork and impressions come across from reading fanfictions and fan sites and Wikipedia profiles. So, if they come across weird—that's the fault of underexposure.

-"Doc Hopper's" is, as should probably be known by most people who are reading this (though I have been mistaken in assumptions before, like Phyllis) the bad guy from The Muppet Movie who owned a chain of frog leg restaurants and wanted Kermit to be his mascot.

-Lew Zealand's trademark quote ("I throw the fish in the air...they sail away...and then they come back to me!") is taken as close to word-for-word from its source as possible, to make up for everything else I don't know about Lew.

-it's not really a very common expression anymore, but people used to wrap fish in newsprint—which meant that whatever newspaper they used was "only good enough to wrap fish in"—so that's where the humor is derived (I hope) from Lew Zealand's remark.

-Lew Zealand's fish "saving a guy from being married" is from what I have heard about Lew Zealand's premiere episode (which I unfortunately have not yet been privileged to see) where Kermit introduces Lew Zealand and his boomerang fish just in time to avoid having to marry Miss Piggy during her so-called "wedding sketch" where she hired a real priest.

-Lew Zealand's comment about how "he" always seems to answer the letters to the editor if stolen from the unfinished Dirk Gently novel The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams (reprinted in a collection of the same name after Adams's regrettable death). Dirk is explaining that every so often, he calls up his own number to see if the phone book has it listed right, and he says "And the funny thing is...every time I call my own number, I answer." Sometimes the quotation takes a while for you to wrap your brain around, but if you think about it long enough both Dirk's and Lew's version of it are actually kind of funny...I really hope so...

-and as for Phyllis forgetting about the receipt, well, I myself also kind of forgot about it at that point because I had to have Kermit go with them when they checked out the store, but he couldn't if he had to stay at work, so I made up all that stuff with the "accidental jam" and the surprise investigation just as a stall until Robin could take Phyllis to Doc Hopper's to see Lew, after which she, Fozzie and Kermit would check out El Sleezo and find out the "terrible truth". (I also somehow initially pictured this story as being a lot shorter and a lot less complicated, but...well, I don't really seem to have made a Nostradamus of myself, have I?)

CHAPTER 22

-the "virtual reality glasses", if someone here's seen The Muppets Wizard of Oz, were those glasses thingies that Bunsen and Beaker made everyone wear if they had to see the Wizard, because the glasses gave you a different sight of what you were seeing...and that's why he had to try and get Ashanti and company to go back and get the glasses, which I referenced in another one of these incredibly annoying lists of in-jokes.

-Eren Ozker puppeted Wanda (of Wayne and Wanda) and Steve Whitmire did Beaker in (at least) The Great Muppet Caper and replaced Jim Henson on Kermit after Henson's death.

-though I'd be surprised if anyone remembered them anymore, Laserdiscs were like the forerunners to DVDs, but they were really big, pretty unwieldy and could only play a series of chapters in sequential order, no possibility of a menu or anything. I think they were pretty cool, as some of my favorite movies and cartoons and stuff (like Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes and The Muppets Christmas Carol) I personally only have access to on Laserdisc.

-since Scooter was the gofer on The Muppet Show, well, it makes sense that he'd believe that gofers have a bigger meaning in the scheme of things. (That was just put in there as a gag, though I would have probably asked that of Scooter myself...)

-"Scooter knowing everything about the personal life of everyone in Muppetburg" is actually kind of possible, since in The Muppet Show (at least during Season One) he seems to always hear the wrong thing and pass it on to the wrong person. Case in point: in one of the episodes, Kermit cuts Miss Piggy's act because the guest star, Lena Horne, would be a lot better than Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy, however, believes that Kermit cut her act so she wouldn't overshadow the guest star. But later, Kermit gives Scooter a whole "it's lonely at the top, you have to be ruthless, merciless and cruel" speech and references his cutting of Miss Piggy's act. So, when Kermit leaves, Miss Piggy shows up and says how Kermit cut her act so she wouldn't overshadow the guest star. But Scooter goes and tells her the real reason, and both he and Kermit receive several karate chops in return.

-the line "What's the word on the street, Scooter?" is a direct reference to Police Squad (mentioned before, in case you forgot), where whenever Lt. Frank Drebin aka Leslie Nielsen needed information from the shoeshine guy, he would ask, "What's the word on the street, Johnny?" and slip him some cash. And the "word on the street" usually just happened to coincide with whatever case Frank was working on—which is why it's (I really hope) a little funny that Scooter's word on the street doesn't.

-Edgar Bergen, already referenced earlier as Mortimer Snerd's ventriloquist (as well as, more famously, Charlie McCarthy's), was also one of Jim Henson's inspirations to start being a puppeteer. Edgar made a guest appearance during Season Two (?) of The Muppet Show and had a very short cameo with Charlie McCarthy in The Muppet Movie, after which he sadly died. And that, if you're wondering, is why it says "Dedicated to the memory and magic of Edgar Bergen" at the end of the movie. Plus, in that same far-fetched attempt at an explanation, Scooter mentions Edgar as having gone under the pseudonym "Ray Noble"; Ray Noble was the orchestra conductor and somewhat droll comedian who usually haunted The Charlie McCarthy Show.

-in The Muppets Christmas Carol (my second favorite Muppet movie after The Great Muppet Caper), one of the (many) food items that Rizzo seems to conveniently have during the course of the film is a bag of jellybeans.

-the "El Sleezo" in this story is different from the "El Sleezo" in The Muppet Movie, so that's why they're two different buildings as opposed to my just "adapting" (stealing) it from the movie like I did with The Happiness Hotel.

-"Koozbanian aliens" were the little alien guys in that sketch in one of The Muppet Show episodes from Season One. Kermit was doing a by-the-minute "report" on their mating rituals, which ended with the two aliens exploding and turning into little baby Koozbanians.

-Lenny the Lizard isn't a very major player in the Muppets universe, as most folks if they even know him don't know him by name, but anyways...he was this lizard guy. And he wasn't really bad, I just thought that he'd be the type who'd work part-time at El Sleezo or something...whatever, I'm just being weird and wasting your time. (But wait, haven't I been doing that for this whole section?)

-and to follow up my other "Simon Smith" joke from Chapter 6, apparently his likeness is known well enough in Muppetburg to rank bootlegging.

-that bit about Statler complaining that he realized he's been sitting on a tack...I don't remember which episode of The Muppet Show that was from, but at the end of one of the episodes he says "That show brought a tear to my eye." Waldorf, surprised, asks, "Really?" And Statler says "Yeah...I'm sitting on a tack."

CHAPTER 23

-the bit about Phyllis's mind being like "a washing machine at full spin cycle" is a line I stole from this e-mail printout a friend showed me, titled "Why English Teachers Retire Early" and listing a whole bunch of analogies used in real high school essays—ones like "She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 legs missing", "Every time she spoke he heard bells, like she was a garbage truck backing up", "Her face was the shape of an oval that had been compressed by a Thighmaster", and, a personal favorite, "He spoke with the wisdom that comes from deep within, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those little pieces of cardboard with the holes in them and then goes around talking to kids at schools about only watching solar eclipses by using those little pieces of cardboard with the holes in them." But anyways, that analogy that Phyllis uses is a variation on this next one: "His mind was cluttered, each thought bouncing around, making and breaking alliances, like a pair of underwear in a washing machine without Cling-Free."

-the "U-shaped, pink-and-orange-striped Muppets from 'Java'" are the two selfsame of that description, you know, the ones who look like the "Omega" symbol or something. (This in-joke explanation has been shortened for the following two reasons: a) I'm trying to make up for the almost obscene length of the previous in-joke listing, and b) I'm too lazy to go into more detail.)

-Janice tanning herself "with the help of a sun lamp" when someone suddenly crashes through the door is another reference to...THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER, where after Beauregard drives through the wall into the Hotel, that's what Janice was in the middle of doing.

-"swearing like the Dickens"—unless you have a very bad memory, you'll already know what I cite (again) with this line.

-Floyd dog-napping Foo-Foo is not a new concept; in one of those aforementioned "compilation" videos that splice episodes together, I saw one continuing bit where Miss Piggy needed someone to watch Foo-Foo for her, and everyone passed the responsibility on until Floyd ended up having to do it, 'cus there's no one else left. So he locked Foo-Foo in his dresser drawer, because "don't worry, he can breathe through the keyhole". Then Miss Piggy goes on a desperate search for her mysteriously missing pooch (including a hilarious bit where she thinks that The Swedish Chef is talking about Foo-Foo when he's really talking about some hot dogs he's cooking), and at the end of the episode we see Kermit onstage and Miss Piggy walks on with Foo-Foo. Kermit asks where Floyd is, and Miss Piggy says, "don't worry, he can breathe through the keyhole"!

A quick run-down of the gigs The Electric Mayhem allegedly "couldn't play for":

-"a ship looking for buried treasure"—The Muppets Treasure Island. The Electric Mayhem only really shows up twice in the entire movie, but since the actors who played most of those characters had passed on, that might be understandable. (ROWLF doesn't appear at all in that ENTIRE MOVIE, except for a brief cameo in the beginning!!) They actually did get Tim Curry: he was Long John Silver.

-"The Poppy Fields"—the nightclub The Electric Mayhem played at during The Muppets Wizard of Oz.

-"Christmas party at rubber chicken factory"—The Muppets Christmas Carol, Scrooge's past; Fozzie as "Fozziwig", Scrooge's old employer at the rubber chicken factory, had The Electric Mayhem play for him (as well as a very young Statler and Waldorf!).

-"the college play"—The Muppets Take Manhattan. Say no more.

-"the bar mitzvah"—at the beginning of Muppets From Space, Gonzo explains that he's not performing at the bar mitzvah he was scheduled for, and he'd gotten The Electric Mayhem to take his place (and I don't know about you, but I love it when they all walk by in the conservative outfits and say "Mazel Tov"!)—and that's where the "replaced by a human cannonball" comes from.

-"the bus tour of London"—this one's kind of a shaky association, but technically when they drive the Happiness Hotel bus to The DuBonni Club in The Great Muppet Caper that's a "bus tour of London". So THERE!

-and yes, the "if this is the happiness I'd hate to see the sad" is from The Great Muppet Caper.

-though this is totally irrelevant and wastes your time almost as much as all those quotes about "why English teachers retire early", one of George's most "famous" props was his mop, and that's why he uses it specifically here. (THERE! I'm DONE!! MOVING ON NOW!)

CHAPTER 24

-though that was kind of the point, this entire sequence of the revelation reminded me of the ending scene of all the Thin Man movies.

-Janice's statement after everyone else has quieted down is a parody of the recurring joke (that is, it's "recurring" to me because it's in both The Great Muppet Caper and Muppets Take Manhattan) where everyone starts talking at once, then everyone goes quiet except for Janice, who's in the process of saying something rather embarrassing. As well, it has proven my steadfast belief that if you're saying something embarrassing, automatically everyone else around you shuts up.

-Phyllis refers to Link Hogthrob as "Cap'n" not just because of his status as the captain of the black market division of Muppet Labs, but also for his holding of that same position in "Pigs In Space"; the sketch itself gets a mention at the beginning of the epilogue.

-"honesty and goodness and blowing things up!"—truly what everyone should remember as the creed of Muppet Labs.

-the bit about Lew Zealand quitting his job as editor of The Muppetburg Times by simply taking a lunch break and never coming back is from one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, where they state that one of the original editors of the REAL Hitchhiker's Guide went to lunch one day and never returned; in his honor, every editor since then has been called simply the "Acting Editor", and some people still entertain the notion that the original editor had simply popped out for a croissant and would one day come back to them.

CHAPTER 25

-this is almost as irrelevant as some of these other comments, but restraining the Chief by all of his limbs reminded me of the passage from the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Veruca Salt being described in the book as being pinned down with, I think it was twenty-five squirrels sitting on each of her appendages.

-the "chain of command" line reminded me of the gag in the fanfic "Muppets in Havoc in TVLand" by someone with the pen name "Me" (not used in this context as a pronoun, but as somewhat of a proper name for whoever wrote this...all right, this is confusing me), where there's this recurring bit about the "chain of command".

-and about Animal being a prison escapee...well, let me just say that when you think about it, it's not really that far-fetched.

EPILOGUE

-if you don't recognize the HUGE reference to The Muppet Show at the beginning of this chapter...you're probably in trouble.

-the Sherlock Holmes sketch that I mention Rowlf as being in was from one of the first episodes of The Muppet Show; he really did play Holmes in a really funny sketch where the murderer eats all the evidence against him, including the maid, who was a witness! (It was one of the "British Spots" of the series, meaning it aired only in England, so unless you got the Season One boxed set it's probably missing from your collection.)

-"an octopus's garden"...well, the song "Octopus's Garden" was on The Muppet Show, one (or more) of those "compilation" series, The Ed Sullivan Show, and on the sing-along video too, and it's one of the slightly more famous pieces, though it hasn't obtained the standing of stuff like "It's Not Easy Bein' Green".

-"shave and a haircut", the knock that got Roger out of hiding in that sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit just before the car chase with Benny the Cab.

-...and there's my word "TRUNCATED" again!!

———

Deleted Scenes, in case you lasted through all that...

Hi, and welcome to the DELETED SCENES! I honestly don't know why anyone would be reading all this, as they'd probably have fallen asleep before I finished the in-joke list for Chapter 1, but I might as well put it in here in case somebody wants to know what horrors almost made it into the plot.

Camilla and Rizzo

Rizzo was on the borderline of getting a bigger part in this story, because I had originally slotted him as a pickpocket (well, he proved that one) who helped Phyllis with the Camilla frame-up by finding the pictures of Gonzo in either the incinerator or the garbage can in Camilla's dressing room. The whole "Camilla" thing actually ended up a lot shorter than I had expected (praise the High Ones), and so Rizzo was relegated to a two-bit appearance. ...That is, until I decided that he was part of the whole "Lew Zealand frame-up" thing, but then again his part's still microscopic.

Gonzo

When this story was still in the "concept" stage, I had originally thought that the "arrangement" of the characters would be more like The Great Muppet Caper; Phyllis was originally supposed to already know Gonzo and Fozzie, and Gonzo had been slotted as her assistant detective/photographer.

Animal

That bit at the end where Phyllis tells Floyd that Animal had been a maximum-security escapee had been slotted as more than just a side remark, and that was at first going to be part of the whole "Electric Mayhem Radio Wave Overrider" investigation. But that would've made the story even longer and more complicated, so I just made it, as stated before, a side remark.

Rowlf

At first Rowlf was going to have a slightly bigger part, and that he was somehow going to be involved with the "murder"...I don't remember much of this bit, but it says on one of the sheets I took notes on that Rowlf "wasn't a part of The Electric Mayhem's scheme, just in the wrong place during a 'murder'."

The Swedish Chef

The Chef was originally going to have a bigger part too, because apparently in my mind since no one can understand him, everyone thinks he's a part of a huge foreign conspiracy...but I just made that part of one of Statler and Waldorf's commentaries instead.

Beauregard

Beauregard was originally supposed to just show up for that one bit in the beginning of Chapter 6 before the Chief appears, but over the course of this work I expanded on him even more and, hey, now he's the chief of police. (GO BEAU!!)

The Frenchman Who Always Gets Beaten Up

In the opening "act" of episode 5, the guest star (Rita Moreno) keeps beating up a Muppet "Frenchman" in a barroom location, with all these great visual gags; during The Muppet Movie when Kermit's in "The El Sleezo Café", you can see in the background a French guy in a red, striped shirt who's always getting slapped by his female companion, which is a direct reference to that episode. ANYWAYS, that Frenchman was supposed to appear at some point as a customer in Uncle Henson's Theater, but he just never showed up...guess he must've been left in an alley somewhere...

Muppet Labs and Dr. Strangepork

Originally Phyllis wouldn't ever have to go to Muppet Labs, and Dr. Strangepork wasn't ever going to show up. But then the receipt appeared, and I realized "Hey, I could make him Bunsen's colleague or something!", so he was shoved in there. Then out of that spun the whole "Black Market Division" sub-plot, but thankfully that had always been relegated as simply a side remark at the end.

The Receipt

Speaking of the receipt and Muppet Labs, originally Phyllis was supposed to find both the Mr. Bassman matches and the receipt in Floyd's dressing room at the Theater. But when I decided to include The Happiness Hotel (see next note), I took the receipt out of Floyd's old zoot suit pocket and stuck it on his desk in the Hotel instead.

The Sewer Community and The Happiness Hotel

At first, Mr. Bassman was supposed to be the entire underground musician colony, and it was just a singular "apartment" in the old sewer system. But then I thought that I wanted to put The Happiness Hotel and, subsequently, Pops in there too, so Mr. Bassman became just a nightclub. Also, the song that Kermit, Phyllis and Fozzie have to play to get in was originally supposed to be "Together Again" from Muppets Take Manhattan, but I realized that (at that point) I might not have a chance to incorporate music from anything besides Muppets Take Manhattan and The Muppet Show, so I changed it—and now with the help of "The Magic Store", songs from The Muppet Movie dominate the "movie" half of the music. As well, "Mr. Bassman: For Unemployed Musicians" was originally "Emmett Otter's Home for Out of Work Musicians". (I personally think it's all much better the way it turned out.)

"Broken Heart, Right?"

When Rowlf tries to cheer Phyllis up after Kermit meets Miss Piggy, he was originally going to sing "New Love Song", a song I liked from The Muppet Show. But I realized that I didn't have the lyrics to "New Love Song", and also (in accordance with my attempt to make all the songs match up to their original performers) Rowlf only played the piano in that song, he didn't sing. Then I saw The Muppet Movie again, decided to change the song, and I burned a copy of "I Hope that Somethin' Better Comes Along" onto a CD and copied over the lyrics. Then I realized how similar the two scenes (fanfic and movie) were.

Scooter

First, "Shoeshine Scooter" was supposed to have just a throwaway bit part and only be mentioned in passing. Then I read ReneeLouvier's fanfiction "The Search for Sadie" (present on this site and one of my FAVORITE stories EVER), and the story distressed me enough that I vowed that Scooter would have the biggest bit part I could write for him. I was obsessing over Scooter for a while there, worrying about him and always trying to spot him in the crowd during scenes in The Muppet Show, but then I saw The Muppets Wizard of Oz, and with my relief as seeing him "active" again the chemicals in my brain reverted back to normal and...his bit part is still a bit part. Oh yeah, and originally when Phyllis went to Shoeshine Scooter's to try to find out about the location of El Sleezo, Scooter was supposed to sing his lines in the song "Happiness Hotel", then Rizzo was supposed to sing his part (which came immediately after Scooter's), and that was how they were going to find Rizzo. But then I realized that they were already at Scooter's for a bit too long, so that got cut.

STATLER AND WALDORF

I had had trouble for a while about including the thing with Statler and Waldorf being the "ultimate villains"—first I'd laugh my head off and go "YEAAHHH!!" and then I'd think "No wait that's the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard!!"...but I kept it, and here probably BOTH of those statements are right.

———

All righty, that's the last of the special features. So, in the very touching, heart-wrenching, mind-bogglingly-sentimental words of Animal:

"GO HOME! GO HOME! BYE BYE..."

HAVE A VERY MUPPETS INSERT YOUR CHOICE OF CONVENIENTLY NEARBY HOLIDAY HERE!!