Muppet Babies (1984 - 1991)

It’s time once again for me to talk about the Saturday morning cartoons of my youth. 

Ahh… youth. 

Let’s Kablama Slam! 

 

The Premise: It’s right there in the title. The MUPPETS are BABIES. Kermit the Frog and friends hang out in a nursery under the care of their nanny,…Nanny. They play, sing songs and solve problems using the incredible power of their combined imagination. 

 

     There have been countless spinoffs, over the years, where characters from a franchise are reimagined as younger versions: The Flintstone Kids, Yo Yogi!, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, Baby Looney Tunes, Disney Babies, Baby Yoda… okay that last one’s a little on the fence, but still! The idea’s been done! Muppet Babies, however, did it first! 

     The whole concept spawned from a random scene in the 1984 film, The Muppets Take Manhattan, or rather that random scene spawned from the concept. The actual plot of the film involves the Muppets trying to make it on Broadway, but then there’s this moment where Miss Piggy inexplicably daydreams about the gang knowing one another since birth! It’s jarring and completely out of character, almost as if its only purpose was to plug a cartoon series that would air two months later. I may sound as if I’m saying all of this with a tone of cynicism, but whatever! It worked! The moment is BY FAR my favorite of the film and, what’s more… I loved this show! 

     Where other preschool cartoons focus on more basic things like shapes and numbers, Muppet Babies was all about using your imagination. One minute the gang are in their nursery, and the next they’re serving cheeseburgers in Jabba the Hutt’s palace! While the situation would constantly bounce back and forth from the babies’ reality to their stock-footage filled daydreams, at no point do any of the characters question what the others are doing. They take the ball and run with it like a preschool improv group made up of bears, pigs, and whatevers. It’s hard to think of another show that more accurately visualizes “playing pretend,” as well as promoting creativity to the level that Muppet Babies does. When you consider that the show is the product of one of the most creative people who’ve ever walked the planet, however, well… there’s no other way the show could have gone!

Kablama Slam! Fun Fact: Most of the main cast appear in puppet form in The Muppets Take Manhattan with the exception of Animal and Skeeter. The puppet version of Baby Animal later appeared during a scene in A Muppet Family Christmas, while Skeeter, in one of the largest failures of the human race, has yet to appear in puppet form ever!