The Muppets (franchise)

The Muppets
Debut:	9 May 1955
Creator:	Jim Henson
Medium:	Multimedia franchise
Crossover details
Time period:	2018
Relevant media:	STAGE: The Stolen Mirth [+]Loading...["The Stolen Mirth (stage play)"]
Relevant characters:	Link Hogthrob, Miss Piggy, Julius Strangepork, Sam the Eagle, Gonzo, Pepe the King Prawn, Fozzie Bear, Scooter, Lips, Bunsen Honeydew, Uncle Deadly, Rizzo the Rat, Kermit the Frog, Walter, Floyd Pepper
Relevant location:	The Swinetrek

The Muppets is an American multimedia franchise surrounding the titular Muppets, and was created by Jim Henson.

Crossover

A Muppets series - Pigs in Space - crossed over with Doctor Who in the stage play The Stolen Mirth ^[+]Loading...["The Stolen Mirth (stage play)"]/Mirthshock ^[+]Loading...["Mirthshock (stage play)"], which featured the Doctor (either in their tenth or fifth incarnations) encountering the crew of the Swinetrek, along with featuring Captain Link Hogthrob regenerating in rapid succession into several other Muppets characters dressed as various incarnations of the Doctor, ending with Miss Piggy as the Thirteenth Doctor.

References to The Muppets in the DWU

The poster created for the Doctor Who: Lockdown! tweetalong of A Christmas Carol was inspired by the theatrical poster for The Muppet Christmas Carol.

More to be added

References to the DWU in The Muppets

Despite a few references in Doctor Who stories to the Muppets, the references tends to point in the other direction. There have been several references in official Muppets releases to Doctor Who.

• In the Veterinarian's Hospital sketch from the episode of The Muppet Show Andy Williams guest starred in:

Nurse Janice: Who, doctor?

Dr. Bob: It's not who doctor, it's Doctor Who. That's another show.

• The Pigs in Space comic in The Muppet Show Annual 1978 features a food fight with several sci-fi references. Amongst them, a robot can be seen exclaiming "Egg-sterminate!", a pun on "Ex-term-inate!", the battle cry of the Daleks.
• The booklet for the 2009 HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina featured a Doctor Who-themed cover with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew dressed as the Fourth Doctor and Beaker, dressed as his companion Romana II, standing in front of the TARDIS. The artwork was provided by Roger Langridge, writer and artist for The Muppet Show Comic Book. Langridge is also a former illustrator for Doctor Who Magazine.
• In #1 of the Boom! Studios comic book Muppet Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, played by Gonzo, displays a detective certificate that says that it is not valid in, among other places, Torchwood.
• In #2 of the Boom! Studios comic book Muppet Sherlock Holmes, Inspector LaStrade, played by Kermit, hides inside a police box during a stakeout, but ends up getting lost because "It's a lot bigger on the inside than you'd think!" referencing the TARDIS.
• In #4 of the Boom! Studios comic book Muppet Sherlock Holmes, a police call box is one of many items found in a lake, referencing the TARDIS.
• A T-shirt released in 2011 depicted Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street sitting in a blue police box, with the captions reading "IT'S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE", a reference to the TARDIS. To add to this, Oscar is wearing a fez.
• A miniature toy TARDIS can be seen in the "Share It Maybe" video released online by Sesame Workshop in 2012. The TARDIS toy can be seen above a cubicle wall while Cookie Monster is looking at the copy machine.
• In an Entertainment Weekly video, Grover portrays the Eleventh Doctor, with Cookie Monster as Amy Pond, in a musical spoof of the show.
• A Season 45 episode of Sesame Street feature a parody of ComicCon and many science fiction franchises, amongst the spoofs which include Star Trek, feature a parody of the Fourth Doctor, Drone Dalek and Eternal Dalek.

Production connections

Cast

The original 1970s series, The Muppet Show, had a different celebrity guest in each episode. Two of these guests were Bruce Forsyth and John Cleese.

The aforementioned The Muppet Christmas Carol - an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol - featured Steven Mackintosh as Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew, Fred, Robin Weaver as Fred's wife, Clara, and Raymond Coulthard as a young adult version of Scrooge himself. David Shaw-Parker also appeared voicing a Muppet character, Old Joe.

The 1996 film, Muppet Treasure Island, featured Jennifer Saunders as Mrs. Bluveridge.

Yee Jee Tso appeared as an angel in the 2002 film, It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie.

Crew

Animatronics designer Tim Rose made his start designing puppets for Jim Henson's Muppet movies. He was also a Muppet performer in 1992's The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Miscellaneous

Back cover track listing of Themes from Children's BBC, including Muppet Babies.

• An extra on the Trial of A Time Lord DVD box set shows that on 23 November 1986, Ludo from Labyrinth (a non-Muppet production produced by the same company and performance team) appeared on Saturday Superstore to promote the movie. On that same show, Colin Baker appeared. At the end of the show Colin Baker, representing Doctor Who, cut a birthday cake for the series' twenty-third, surrounded by the cast and guests of the show, including Ludo, who all sang "23 today."
• The book Doctor Who: Regeneration, which goes into great detail about the production of the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie, stated that Tim Curry, who played Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, turned down the role of the Eighth Doctor. Since both the TV movie and Muppet Treasure Island entered production around the same time, it is possible that scheduling conflicts with Muppet Treasure Island forced Curry to turn down the role.
• AKOM worked on animation production for seasons 4-8 of Jim Henson's Muppet Babies.
• The theme song of the 1983 TV series, Muppet Babies, was included on the Themes from Children's BBC CD and cassette, alongside the Doctor Who theme.