Muppet
Split into The Muppet Movie, the fictional character Cookie Monster and The Muppets (franchise). Even if the Muppet Movie references are enough to keep this page, there is no reason why The Muppet Movie should redirect to Muppet.
Talk about it here.
The Muppets were puppet characters popular on 20th and 21st century Earth. They featured in a television series called The Muppet Show in the 1970s, (PROSE: Incongruous Details) and later in a feature film, The Muppet Movie, in 1979, a particular favourite of the Tenth Doctor's. (TV: Tooth and Claw)
The Sixth Doctor always liked Gonzo, and agreed that The Muppet Show was an indisputable classic. (PROSE: Incongruous Details) The Seventh Doctor once commented that if Ellen Woodworth didn't want to abandon her responsibilities and make people happy, she must have hated The Muppet Movie. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) The Ninth Doctor told Rose Tyler that Cookie Monster was an alien. (PROSE: Winner Takes All) Later, excited about visiting 1979, the Tenth Doctor mentioned to Rose Tyler that, among other great events of that year, The Muppet Movie had debuted. (TV: Tooth and Claw) Donna Noble was also a Muppet fan; she had a doll of the Bear in the Big Blue House character Tutter on her desk at H.C. Clements. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
Inangela Marrero watched an episode of The Muppet Show eerily similar to the events of Animal Farm and a special guest who looked quite a lot like George Orwell, confusing the episode and person as such. Valentine Bregman later watches the same episode and realises that Orwell couldn't be on a 70s programme, and it takes him a few seconds to realise it's just a striking likeness. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go)
The Twelfth Doctor, in "The Monster at the End of This Podcast", described Petra's prominent red hair as moving "Muppet-like". (AUDIO: Dead Media)
Behind the scenes
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.
The poster created for the Doctor Who: Lockdown! tweetalong of A Christmas Carol was inspired by the theatrical poster for the aforementioned film.
Doctor Who references
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.[1]
- 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.
- 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 a talk show 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.
- The Muppets Take the O2, a 2018 concert performance by the characters, features a "Pigs in Space" sketch acting as an extended Doctor Who spoof. Entitled "The Stolen Mirth" (referencing "The Stolen Earth") on Friday and "Mirthshock" (referencing "Earthshock") on Saturday, the Swinetrek is visited by the Doctor (the Friday night performance featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor, and the Saturday performances with Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, wearing a comically large celery for the occasion). Using his sonic screwdriver (which is mistaken for a lightsaber), the Doctor divines a plot device within the Swinetrek's controls that sends Captain Link to the ship's "Regeneration Chamber." The device alters his appearance to that of several other Muppet characters all dressed as various other doctors: Sam the Eagle as the First Doctor, Gonzo as the Second Doctor, Pepe as the Third Doctor, Fozzie Bear as the Fourth Doctor, Scooter as the Fifth Doctor, Lips as the Sixth Doctor, Bunsen as the Seventh Doctor, Uncle Deadly as the Eighth Doctor, Rizzo as the Ninth Doctor, Kermit as the Tenth Doctor, Walter as the Eleventh Doctor, and Floyd as the Twelfth Doctor. He finally settles as a duplicate of Piggy as Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor ("Brilliant," the captain utters). The Doctor returns later in the show to amend Gonzo's time-travel act gone wrong.
- The sketch ended with a scripted bit of the actor who played the Doctor gushing about getting to meet the Muppets while Scooter tried to get him to leave the stage. At Tennant's performance, he responded to Scooter's entreaties to leave by replying "But I don't want to go." "No one ever does," Scooter sighed.
