Tag Archives: television

The Muppet Show S2 E16-E24

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Guest Star: Cleo Lane

Guest Star: Julie Andrews

Guest Star: Jaye P. Morgan

Guest Star: Peter Sellers

Guest Star: Petula Clark

Guest Star: Bob Hope

Guest Star: Teresa Brewer

Guest Star: John Cleese

Guest: Cloris Leachman

I have to say that the Muppet Show truly got some of the biggest stars of the time to guest star on their show. Bob Hope, Cloris Leachman, Peter Sellers, John Cleese and Julie Andrews were iconic names that, even today, would be recognized by the public as superstars. Sure there was Cleo Lane, who I swear I have never heard of before, but most of this list was remarkable.

That was the power of Jim Henson and the Muppets. Everyone wanted to appear on the show and the entire second season was littered with amazing superstars as guests.

Even with the ton of superstar celebrities, it seemed that Rowlf had plenty of time to play the piano. Rowlf was given time to play a variety of musical pieces, even if they had to speed a few of them up because of time. My favorite one during this block of episodes was when he and Fozzie played the piano. I laughed out loud when Rowlf said to Fozzie that he didn’t know Fozzie played the piano, and Fozzie replied that he did not know it either.

The final episode of season two with Cloris Leachman featured the Muppet Show being taken over by pigs. They locked Kermit, Gonzo and Fozzie in the boiler room and they replaced all the main acts with pigs. Kermit the Pig took over the emceeing, there was a Swedish Chef-pig, Vegetarian’s Hospital among others. Miss Piggy was angry about Kermit being taken away until she found out that she was being featured in the opening number. The call of the stage was just too great for Miss Piggy.

It was nice to see Jaye P. Morgan on the show. I used to love her on the Gong Show, hosted by Chuck Barris, and she was funny. Jay P. Morgan passed away this year, so it was a nice way to honor her. RIP.

The Bob Hope episode was funny as Bob Hope was shown as so busy that he had to go between other gigs and kept returning to the Muppet Show. His “Don’t Fence Me In” song with a sarcastic horse was a highlight of the season.

Season three… here I come.

Ted Lasso S4 E5

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“Riches of Embarrassment”

A fabulous episode of Ted Lasso with a return to form for Ted and the others.

And some Ted Lasso quotes to add to it…

My favorite… “There’s a reason the rearview mirror is smaller than the windshield.” That was a classic Ted Lasso-ism.

I do hate what the show is doing with Keeley and Roy. Having Roy find another woman after Keeley insisted he go on a series of dates is just too cruel. I don’t know if this is leading to a Keeley-Rebecca pairing, but I still want Roy-Keeley to be together. I hope that is the endgame of this relationship section.

Ted and Beard realized that they have a “coach problem,” as Alice’s negativity is isolating her and making her an outcast among the team. There is a definite story here that is unresolved and I am here for it. I was shocked when Ted told Alice that he was suspending her for a game so she could figure out what was going on with her. He made a reference to Nate without mentioning his name.

Ted Lasso’s positivity is just off the charts and he does a whole halftime speech on embarrassment that is just so great that it carried the entire episode.

However, drunk Rebecca is right up there too.

The match against Chelsea was well done and Richmond’s defeat felt right. They fought back to tie after being down 2-0 at half when Ted’s inspirational message on embarrassment brought them out of the tizzy. However, the sudden defeat did feel like it was right for the overall narrative of the show.

This was an episode that reminded me of how much I wish I was like Ted Lasso. He is such an awesome model to inspire to.

Oh, and Beard is hilarious. What was up with that play?

Boston Legal S2 E1, E2, E3, E4, E5

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“The Black Widow”

“Schadenfreude”

“Finding Nemmo”

“A Whiff and a Prayer”

“Men to Boys”

The start of season two was a strange one. At the end of season one, they gave a preview for the next episode which dealt with Lori’s sexual harassment and an discomfort in the workplace. Then, in episode one there was no sign of these scenes and we do not see Lori again until a brief moment in episode four.

The scenes showed up in episode five, which was the end of Lori’s run on the show.

You could tell that Boston Legal had gone in a different direction. We had new characters such as Denise Bauer played by Julie Bowen, Sara Holt, played by Ryan Michelle Bathe, and Garrett Wells, played by Justin Mentell.

This season had one of my favorite episodes of the whole series, which was when Denny took Alan to Nemmo Bay in Canada to fly fish. Their interactions in the room after the day of fishing was hilarious. It had one of my favorite low-brow jokes of all time when Denny and Alan are going to sleep in their room and Denny says, “Don’t take this personal” and then lets out a fart. I am not a fart joke fan, but that was unbelievably funny.

We also have the storyline of Bernard come to a close at the end of a skillet by the hand of Betty White’s Katherine Piper. Katherine was afraid that Bernard, who had killed his mother and a neighbor at the end of the first season, was going to kill again. He had been talking about leaving clues for the police like the BTK Killer. She wound up hitting him with the skillet that he had used to kill his victims. In an allusion to Picket Fences (also a David E. Kelly show), she put the body of Bernard in a icebox.

Alan was able to get a “not guilty” verdict for Katherine, though she wound up getting “Schmidt-canned” because of the whole thing.

The Denny-Alan relationship was explored more in these first five episodes of season 2. They build the relationship more than they have last season and this central relationship is vital to the show. And we learn that Alan find the pig noises Denny makes when sleeping to be soothing.

Tara broke up with Alan and she left the firm, being one more of the changes to the cast.

This first five episodes were excellent and are going to build on a long season of 27 episodes.

Boston Legal S1 E13, E14, E15, E16, E17

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I wrapped up season one of Boston Legal on Hulu this afternoon with some great episodes.

These episodes included:

  • “It Girls and Beyond”
  • “‘Til We Meet Again”
  • “Tortured Souls”
  • “Let Sales Ring”
  • “Death Be Not Proud”

Some amazing guest stars started to show up, as a couple of the regulars from the first half of the season were starting to be phased out. Some guest stars included Betty White, Carl Reiner, Courtney B. Vance, Chi McBride, Shelley Long, Kerry Washington, and Freddie Prinze Jr (resuming his role as Donny Crane).

“Death Be Not Proud” sent Alan to Texas to try and prevent an execution of a man with an IQ of 80, whose confession may have been coerced, and might be innocent. It was a powerful episode with an end sequence that was very difficult to watch. I think that was clearly the intention of the scene, even though we mostly focused on Alan and Kerry Washington’s character Chelina.

Bernard Ferrion returned from earlier in the season and Katherine (Betty White) took him under her wing, especially after Alan rejected him once again. I know this is leading to a big story in season two.

One of the funniest running gags in any episode was how uncomfortable Brad was with the word “lesbian,” and how the others around the Crane, Poole and Schmidt offices wouldn’t let him off the hook.

The idea of Denny Crane having Mad Cow Disease happened in these episodes. It would be Denny’s fall back stance against the potential Alzheimer’s that he had.

Alan continued to have terrible behavior in a lot of instances, while trying to do what he thought was right. Even though the others at Crane, Poole and Schmidt had troubles with Alan, it seemed as if they still took advantage of Alan and what he would be willing to do to get things done. Shirley actually went to Alan to co-chair a case where she did not want to do the closing because she did not want to go to the level she thought she would need to go. She knew Alan could do so, despite it being a case of police brutality/torture that Alan did not want to be a part of. There is a lot of hypocrisy when dealing with Alan.

Lori, who in these episodes had really seen her screen time diminish, had reached the end of the road with Denny’s constant sexual harassment. She told Shirley that she wanted to formally charge Denny with it.

I do believe that there is an episode that is missing from the season one list. I am not sure what is going on, but I am going to go investigate what has happened.

Boston Legal S1 E1, E2

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“Head Cases”

“Still Crazy After All These Years”

I have been seeing a ton of clips of Boston Legal on TikTok recently, and it influenced my decision to start a rewatch of Boston Legal. I found it on Hulu and I discovered that there were only five seasons. I really thought there were seven of them. Episodes varied per season as season one only had 17 whereas season 2 had 27 of them.

Watching these first to episodes of the series, it struck me how this cast changed over the years. Some of the characters of the first season were flashes from my memory, such as Lori Colson, Tara Wilson and Sally Heep. These women were replaced as the years moved on. No Shirley Schmidt, though I do think she comes soon in season one.

The appearance of the black Little Orphan Annie was a classic case that I did not think was in the premiere episode. It featured a cameo from the Reverend Al Sharpton as Denny’s “Rabbit out of a hat.”

It showed how questionable Alan and Denny’s tactics were at times when they were doing things that were for the “greater good.” I loved how these characters were shades of grey. They are complex and written so amazingly.

Alan Shore debuted on The Practice, as did Denny Crane. Their relationship was not as prevalent in these first two episodes as it would become. The chemistry between James Spader and William Shatner was off the charts. They were better than most couples on TV at the time. These first two episodes did not feature it as much.

Denny’s ongoing inner doubt about his lost of his abilities was highlighted early here and would be a major plot point through to the end of the series.

It was fun to see Elizabeth Mitchell, who I got to know as Juliet from LOST, make an appearance in episode two here. She played one of Alan’s ex-girlfriends who was committed after she tried to kill Alan. Alan helped defend her when she was trying to be released from the asylum. This story extends into episode three.

This David E. Kelley project joined several other Kelley shows that I loved (including Picket Fences, and The Practice).

I am looking forward to watching this 100 episodes moving forward.

Rick and Morty S9 E1-E8

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I started the ninth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max today and watched the first eight episodes. I discovered that the Rick and Morty show was shown originally on Adult Swim earlier this summer and then it debuted on HBO Max, releasing every episode weekly. I was confused at first as I saw episode 9 and 10 listed on Wikipedia as having been released already, but it was not available yet on HBO Max. I see that the last two episodes will be released over the next two Mondays, so we will finish as we go.

The last few seasons of Rick and Morty have been lesser than I was used to. They weren’t bad, but there were more episodes that I did not love as much as some of the earlier seasons.

However, I thought that the season nine episodes were just awesome.

The first episode kicked off with the return of Evil Morty, and Morty discovered that Rick was running adventures with Evil Morty. Rick was able to trick Evil Morty into destroying the Omega blueprints in all universes. It set off a war between them and Evil Morty gets arrested by the time police after he tried to time travel.

In “Ricks Days, Seven Nights” Rick went on vacation in a dimension and he wiped his own memory. He does it every year and goes to a planet under the name Ted. Ted decides to stay, and he has to fight against himself trying to get Ted to remember. This was so clever and creative… I loved it.

“Rick Fu Hustle” is next up and while Rick and Morty are trying to keep themselves from having their hearts exploded from a Kung Fu master’s special punch, Jerry is having sex with his robot pool cleaner. Not kidding.

The season seems to have a running storyline where Rick is trying to stop drinking after he has had several bad events, including locking himself out of the lab in the garage. He also lost his always filled flask of vodka from a world of pigs. There was another incident where Rick’s head is decapitated from his body, and the two parts of Rick get into a war with the other. While Rick’s head was separated, he saw how good he felt without the alcohol. Morty had the head and Summer had the body and they tried to reunite.

My least favorite of this season was “MortGully: The Last Rickforest” which saw Rick and Morty on a planet trying to find some special sap from a tree. The tree was alive and called the Warden, who sentenced Rick and Morty to be single celled organisms. The episode was the two of them trying to evolve enough to escape the Warden’s trap. It was funny, but it really went a long way for the joke, which was replayed multiple times.

There was also a wild story with Jerry consuming a bunch of space worms which made him more confident, but caused him to eventually vomit up a massive amount of worms.

I have liked this season more than the previous couple, but there does not seem to be much of a thorough line for the overall story arc. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I would like a little more connection.

Two more episodes to go.

Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2

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Amazon Prime’s second season of its animated TV show, Batman: Caped Crusader dropped recently and I got to binge it today. I had planned on watching five episodes today and then watch the rest on Sunday, but I just did not want to stop watching once I got into it.

This was fabulous.

The flavor and feel of this show is so much like the Bruce Timm Batman: The Animated Series, but mixed with the violence of the present day, such as Matt Reeves’ The Batman. That makes sense since both of those gentlemen worked on this project.

I can understand if someone did not like this show since the show takes many of the known characters from the Batman universe/rogue’s gallery and give them a different touch. An example is Edward Nygma, known to the Bat-fans as The Riddler. The Riddler was so named because he would “riddle” his victims with bullets. I like most of the new versions. You can compare these differences to those you might see in the Absolute DC universe.

The Joker came into the show this year and spent most of the season in the background doing sneaky stuff. His arrival front and center was downright frightening, especially in episode 9. Watching all of the people dying from laughing was horrific. I was not as fond of the gas turning the people into Solomon Grundy-like creatures. Seeing the people actually die was much worse for me.

The Joker was less crazy as we usually see him portrayed as, and here he is colder, more serial killer-like. I’m not sure it was my favorite version of Joker, but he was a frightening character.

This show is absolutely not afraid to kill of these characters. Season one had the death of Two-Face which was shocking, but this year, we saw Rupert Thorne, The Riddler, Hugo Strange, Hattie Tetch (who was supposedly a version of the Mad Hatter, which I never got) and, of course, countless cops and henchmen. I thought this violence was better used than in, for example, Invincible since it does not focus on the blood splatter.

They took several low-level comic characters that made their way into the show. Carrie Kelley, who appeared in season one, becomes a Robin in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and she takes on a Grey Ghost-like persona. A villain called Thorn, who I actually had to look up. I had never heard of her before.

They gave us a version of The Spectre, which came from season one with the character of Jim Corrigan (which was the episode with Onomatopoeia). Again, it was not my favorite version of Spectre, but, as a part of this episode, I thought this turned out great. As I said, I think of this like a Elseworld version or an Absolute version.

This was a lot of fun and I just enjoyed every episode. I do think episode 9 was my favorite of the season as I was on the edge of my seat the whole time watching these people die from the Joker Smile-X. I hope there will be more of this series in the future because these are great.

Rick and Morty Season 8

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I finished season 8 of Rick and Morty this afternoon, leaving me with just the remaining 8 episodes so far of season to watch (I am not sure when new episodes are released on HBO Max. It would be fun to catch up to the current run before it wraps up the season).

I was not as much of a fan of season 8. I found most of season 8 to be average to slightly below average. It wasn’t bad per se, but I just did not think the plan for the season worked as well as previous seasons.

Then, among the first 4-5 episodes, I found a few of them to be in the same vein as season 8… disappointing. It did not make me feel confident about the whole season.

Among those first five, “Summer of All Fears” was one I did not love. It was a Summer-centric episode and, historically, those have not been my favorite. I also was not a huge fan of “The Rick, The Mort & The Ugly” which featured a story with other Ricks, specifically a Wild West version that reminded me of Clint Eastwood from Unforgiven. While I love that movie, this one bugged me. Another trend I am not a fan of is when we follow a character that is not our Rick (and I know that can be convoluted).

However, I did like the Space Beth episode “Valkyrick” a lot. The whole trope of a heist movie spelling out the plan of the heist as we see it on the screen was shown here, but the images on the screen showed the heist falling apart because of too much of a dependence on “Cisco.” I really loved that section of this episode.

“The Last Temptation of Jerry” was another of the first episodes that I thought was really funny, if not sacrilege. the whole Easter bit with the rampaging Easter Bunny was really funny and co-opting the Tim Allen Santa Clause plot was great too.

Episode five, “Cryo Mort a Rickver,” was another that did not impress me, though I found it better than the previous episodes that I thought were lacking.

Then, things turned around for the show, and the rest of the season felt like big hits.

I liked how Space Beth and Beth turned themselves into little girls who were anything but sweet. I liked the episode where Jerry gets lost on the road thanks to another Jerry. It was cool to see Morty’s son Junior make a return, which I think I called back when Junior was originally created.

The finale with Rick trying to purge the memories of his wife Diane from his mind so he could be more emotionally open was a very good episode. I loved the ending where Rick pretended to have killed “Memory Rick” and “Memory Diane” but instead set them up in a memory storage device. The finale was difficult to follow at times, but there is no doubt that it was a strong finish.

Then, episode seven was one of my favorite episodes of the series. “Ricker than Fiction” saw Rick and Morty watching the latest movie from one of their favorite franchises, “Maximum Velocitree,” but they responded with anger and vitriol. The dialogue was great as they were clearly mocking those people online who claim things like a certain movie “ruined my childhood” or some idiotic statement like that. They went to Warner Brothers to complain and came across James Gunn (yes, voiced by James Gunn himself).

They got into an argument with James Gunn and Rick decided to fix the next script to make it better. Rick designed a machine called the Movie-Lizer which can create a movie if given a script. It also allows the user of the machine to change the script easily. This is obviously a commentary on AI and its intrusiveness in the movie industry. Rick and Morty get sucked inside the Movie-Lizer and find themselves in the story, which they have to try to fix before it is too late. This is such a meta episode, but it is also remarkably funny and clever.

I loved the guest star voice of James Gunn who ran across Zack Snyder, who was also an actual voice for this episode. This unbelievably meta and hilarious encounter made me respect Zack Snyder way more. He was really funny and was allowing the script to give him crap.

The second half of the season was considerably more consistent and engaging than the beginning and “Ricker Than Fiction” is probably in my top 10 of all time.

Rick and Morty Season 7

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I have to say, Season 7 of Rick and Morty was my least favorite overall so far.

It was amazing when I found out that they had replaced the actor who voiced both Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland, because of a domestic abuse charge, because there was absolutely no concernable way to recognize the difference. Big shout out to  Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden for their seamless transition into the roles.

The season had a bunch of episodes that were fairly meh, and at least a couple that were total flops. Specifically, “Rise of the Numbericons: The Movie” may have been my least favorite Rick and Morty episode of the series run so far.

The end of season 6 hinted at season 7 being all about finally ending Rick Prime, but that story arc did not run the whole season. In fact, it was mentioned early, but all came to a close in episode 5, “Unmortricken,” which also brought about the return of Evil Morty. Rick ended up, thanks to Evil Morty, beating Rick Prime to death his his own hands. I found this end to be very unsatisfying. I think that might have been the point, having the theme be that revenge never makes you feel better.

Rick was scattered the rest of the season, and I do not think the show was able to regather the momentum of previous years. The Fear hole episode finale “Fear No Mort” was pretty decent, as Morty tried to face his fears at a Denny’s. There was a character introduced in “Mort: Ragnarick” that was fun with Bigfoot. Finally, there was a sick episode where there was a world where the people who committed suicide turned into tasty spaghetti that the Smith family loved to eat.

My favorite moments of the season came from the guest star Hugh Jackman in the season premiere featuring Mr. Poopybutthole. Actually voiced by Hugh Jackman, they spent the whole episode making fun of everything. Jackman clearly has a great sense of humor.

Other episodes featuring the return of Unity, turning Morty into a “Kuato,” and Rick and Jerry combined into the Jerricky were all lower than I thought.

Next up is season 8. I am streaming these all on HBO Max.

Silo S3 E5

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“Memory”

This was a big episode, focusing heavily on the shocking cliffhanger that they gave us last week, the very much alive Bernard.

The biggest part of the episode was the flashbacks to show us how Bernard survived the fire and how he wound up not being incinerated. Of course, the man behind Bernard’s survival was Sims.

This is the first time in three seasons that I did not see Sims as the villain. Same with Bernard. Both men were given material to show how much they were forced to do what they did. That did not excuse their choices, but it helps to understand the levels that they were at.

And, as the episode’s title implies, the show was also about memory and the reclaiming of the memory by Juliette. By the end of the episode, Juliette had gotten her memories back of the other silo and the information she learned about the Safeguard. Thanks to the Pez Dispenser.

Rebecca Ferguson continues to be excellent as Juliette, playing her confusion and the slow return of her memory beautifully.

Meanwhile, a new danger is uncovered by Sheriff Billings, and it sounds really bad. Light bulbs are being stolen and they are down to just about two years supply remaining, which means, soon, they will be unable to grow their food.

We only get a little time at the very end of the episode for a flashback to the before times, but it is a big one as Daniel and Helen are driving and the car suddenly takes control and is driving itself.

Great episode this week that really built on the shock from the last scene last week. Silo has been a touch slow at times this year, struggling to get its story going. That is not a factor any more.

Rick and Morty Season 6

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Season six had two of my absolutely favorite episodes from the entire six seasons.

“Full Meta Jackrick” is my favorite episode of the series. The full embrace of the 4th Wall breaking with the return of Story Lord and new characters such as Miss Lead, Flash Back, Protago Nick, Connie Tinuityerror, and Mr. Twist. There was another character called Rhett Caan that made me laugh out loud. It was such a clever episode that it really stood out for me.

Following that episode was “Analyze Piss” which saw Pissmaster come to challenge Ric. However, Rick had decided, through therapy, that he would try to ignore the supervillains that come to challenge him. This led to Jerry stepping up and defeating Pissmaster. This episode had a trigger warning at the beginning about suicide because Pissmaster takes his own life. meanwhile, Rick takes his place to help give Pissmaster a happy ending for his daughter.

Both of these were just fully engaging and entertaining.

The first half of the season saw Rick lose the ability to form the portals. There was a running joke that Rick kept saying that he could fix the portal gun, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. Funny too was the fact that the dinosaurs were the ones to fix the portals.

We also got a season long arc with Rick Prime, the Rick who killed our Rick’s wife, free and searching for Rick to kill. Rick Prime killed off Jerry Prime, who we met again after “Mortynight Run” in season two.

The end of the season sees Rick, who had built a robot to replace himself, without the family knowing, so he could continue his search for Rick Prime. The Rick-Bot was programmed to give more support to Morty (22% more…) and soon became a beloved family member to the whole Smith clan.

Space Beth was around a lot this season, even though there were not too many major events with her. Of course, she did have an affair with married Beth in “Bethic Twinstinct.”

“Rick: A Mort Well Lived” had Summer at the heart of a Die Hard parody. Maybe parody isn’t the right word, since they openly talked about Die Hard and how this episode was like the movie. I do love Die Hard so the use of the allusion was awesome for me.

“Night Family” was not one of the best episodes of the year, but I did like the attempt at the horror genre. There were some imagery that worked well, but the story did not appeal to me as much.

Perhaps my least favorite episode of the season was “Final DeSmithation” which had Jerry get a fortune cookie that said that he would have sex with his mother. This only got stupider from there.

Sounds as if Season 7 is going to be Rick and Morty hunting down Rick Prime. I’m in.

Rick and Morty Season Five

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I watched the fifth season of Rick and Morty on HBO Max this morning, moving my way through the series.

The last two episodes of the season, “Forgetting Sarick Mortshall” and “Rickmurai Jack,” really flipped the show on its head with a break-up of Rick and Morty, and the revenge of Evil Morty, aka the President of the Citadel.

I have to say, one of the things I love about Rick and Morty is how they use continuity and return to dangling plot lines from previous episodes, even previous seasons. When in episode “Rickdependence Spray” they sent the Giant Incest Baby into space, I knew it was coming back around sooner or later.

It makes sense that they need to shake up the status quo on Rick and Morty as they have gone for five seasons. You have to keep it fresh and much of this season did a decent job of that. There were several episodes that seemed to me to be very complex, maybe even overly complex. The whole “decoy families” in the episode “Mortyplicity” and the whole “Amortycan Grickfitti” episode felt too much.

Lots of obvious parodies of the season including Planetina (Captain Planet), the GoTron ferrets (Power Rangers/Voltron), and Changeformers (Transformers).

The rivalry between Rick and President Curtis is revisited in a weird episode where Rick tries to get the President to pardon him by turning himself into a turkey. They also mentioned that this is not the first thing that Rick pulled this trick. It was weird because during the course of the episode, Morty accidentally opens up the giant robot hidden in the Statue of Liberty. That was a story bit that really was never fully touched on.

I did like Mr. Nimbus, who seemed to be a parody of Prince Namor, the Sub Mariner. This was the first episode, which had a weird storyline with Morty going into a dimension in search of wine and how that affected the creatures of that dimension.

Overall, I liked this season more than I liked season four. I have seen some hints that Space Beth is going to be used in a storyline which is interesting. Maybe she can do something with Giant Incest Baby, which would be her grandson.

The Muppet Show S2 E4, E5, E6, E7, E8

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Guest: Rich Little

Guest: Judy Collins

Guest: Nancy Walker

Guest: Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy

Guest: Steve Martin

Some fun episodes from the second season highlighted the Muppet Show rewatch today.

Starting with the Rich Little episode. Honestly, his imitations of the Muppets were fairly weak. I have heard many better over the years. I did enjoy the final number where Rich Little sang as famous celebrities songs from musicals including “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Did You Ever?,” and “I Remember It Well.”

That first episode also started Gonzo’s affection for chickens, as he was auditioning them for a dancing act. Of course, these were live chickens.

Judy Collins came next and she sang a whole bunch of songs. I guess when you have someone with her voice, you try and use it as much as possible. The performance of “Send in the Clowns” is one of the most iconic guest songs of the show. I enjoyed her version of “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” too. It was neat seeing her do a piano duet with Rowlf with “Do-Re-Mi.”

We get the backstage storyline with Scooter’s uncle J. P. Grosse, who is ready to tear down the theater to put in a parking lot.

The Nancy Walker episode saw Kermit at home sick and Fozzie trying to run the show. Things do not go well for our favorite furry funnyman. My favorite bit was the accidental mixing of Veterinarian’s Hospital and At the Dance. They worked very well together.

Edgar Bergen brought his ventriloquism act to the Muppet Show, which fit in beautifully. Charlie McCarthy was very smart mouthed when it came to the Muppets. It was a lot of fun.

My favorite number on that episode was the “Time in a Bottle” song where the old scientist was making a formula to turn him younger.

Then, the best episode of this chunk was with Steve Martin. They took the typical Muppet formula and flipped it around as Kermit cancels the show for the night because they accidentally scheduled it on a night when they were supposed to be having auditions. Kermit sent the audience home and they spent the time auditioning new acts.

Steve Martin stuck around to “entertain the boys” and did a bunch of fun things from his act, including balloon animals, banjo playing, doing “Ramblin’ Guy.”

Some of the new acts we saw audition included Statler & Waldorf singing/dancing to “Varsity Rag,” a little girl named Carrie Louise and friend (who was a frog, and she would sing while the frog added the word ‘ribbit’ to the songs), Baskerville the Hound and his comedy act that reminded us all of Fozzie Bear and Marvin Suggs and his All Food Glee Club.

The show had removed the laugh track since the audience was gone and we would hear just a few guffaws from, apparently, the Muppeteers.

I loved how they took the format and tried something totally different and it really was a fresh episode.

Rick and Morty Season 3

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I watched season three of Rick and Morty on HBO Max throughout the day today. I have not watched many episodes of Rick and Morty over the years, but I have seen some. This season included a few of the episodes that I had seen before.

Specifically, I have seen “Pickle Rick,” “Vindicators 3: The Return of Worldender,” and, I believe, the season premiere “The Rickshank Rickdemption.” These were very strong episodes, but I remember the reason I did not consistently watch the show when it was originally on was because of the time it was on TV (Late night Sunday night).

The season long storyline of Jerry and Beth’s marriage falling apart saw the two of them planning a divorce, though they wind up back together at the end of the season. The last couple of episodes questioned whether or not Rick had cloned Beth and let her wander the universe to find herself. At the end of the finale, Rick claimed that Beth was not a clone. I am not sure I believe him. It feels like a storyline that could carry over the next several seasons even.

In “The Ricklantis Mixup” starts with Rick and Morty heading to Atlantis, but the episode did not follow them there as the show went to the new Citadel of Ricks and saw the struggles and conflicts between the Ricks and the Mortys. We see a new Morty elected president. It is another potential future arc for the show.

The “Morty’s Mind Blowers” episode was batshit crazy, using some old memories that Morty had erased from his mind. It was done as a replacement for the typically annual Interdimensional Cable episode that they had in both of the first two seasons.

One of the most iconic episode was “Pickle Rick.” I did not think that this episode, the one where Rick turned himself into a pickle in order to avoid family therapy, was this early in the overall series. I love this episode.

I did enjoy the battle between Rick and the President of the USA in “The Rickchurian Mortydate.” It was also funny how the conflict was resolved.

Overall, season three was tremendous. My favorite episode is “Pickle Rick” and my least favorite was “The ABC’s of Beth.”

Rick and Morty Season Two

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Spoilers

I decided that I would start watching the Rick and Morty series as I did in the What We Do in the Shadows series. Since there are a limited number of episodes in each season and each were around 25 minutes, I decided that I would watch the whole season in one sitting.

Season two was the first season that I binged on HBO Max.

The first episode was “A Rickle in Time” where they picked up immediately when season one ended with Morty and Summer finished cleaning their house as time has been frozen. It winds up having multiple Ricks and Mortys and Summers since they were messing with time.

My favorite episode of the season was episode four, “Total Rickall” where an intergalactic parasite found its way into the Smith’s house and, by planting fake memories into the Smith’s heads, created people and creatures they believed were real. There was Mister Poopybutthole, Cousin Nicky, Sleepy Gary, Pencilvester, Tinkles the Fairy Lamb, Frankenstein’s Monster, Mr. Beauregard among others. It was such a funny episode.

Jerry and Beth’s marriage was a huge side story again. They even are taken to a planet for the most successful marriage counseling organization, which they destroy it with their toxicity. This was episode 7, entitled “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez.” The continue to be fighting and this marriage truly feels to be temporary.

Also in episode 7, we get “Little Rick!” Rick puts his mind into a younger clone of himself to help search out a vampire in Summer and Morty’s school (who was Coach Feratu). The vampire plot is mostly off-screen as it is the “Little Rick!” character that is focused. He shouted “Little Rick” very much like he would eventually yell out “Pickle Rick” in a later season.

“Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” was a sequel to the interdimensional episode from season one. This one was funny, but it felt like it was not as strong as the first one.

There are several moments of breaking the fourth wall in this season as well. These all worked pretty well including the one where Rick called “Interdimensional Cable 2: Tempting Fate” a sequel, but he did not know why.

There were other parodies including an episode spoofing the movie The Purge.

There was a great cliffhanger at the end of season two with Rick turning himself in as an intergalactic terrorist in order to get Morty, Summer, Beth and Jerry freedom to return to the earth. The whole family had left earth to attend the wedding of Birdperson and Summer’s high school friend Tammy. Tammy turned out to be an agent of the Federation, killed Birdperson and arrested everyone. It was a cool twist and sets up the show for season three.