What I've Learned from the Muppets: One's on the Way

Season 3 of "The Muppet Show" features some classic bits. It's been a lot of fun slowly working my way through the recent DVD release. One song I had pretty much forgotten about is the closing number from the Loretta Lynn episode, "One's on the Way." This number is a great example of the puppeteers using their surroundings to play off of. As Loretta sings, the babies (in an appearance before becoming Bobby Bensen's Baby Band) pretty much just cause a lot of trouble. As you watch this number you have to figure that probably very little of what the babies do was actually scripted. The puppeteers were simply playing off of their surroundings. Above you see one of the babies gets it's head stuck in the bars of the crib.

Here you see another one trying to eat the table cloth. The puppeteers are simply utilizing the various props around them. In fact, as the song reaches it's end, the props they play off of are the other babies as they begin crawling over and hitting each other. Just having the babies sing backup would've been cute, but it wouldn't have been as funny as this song ended up being.