Episode
The Muppet Show: Phyllis Diller
Overview
Aging wardrobe woman Hilda puts on a wig and makeup to try to make herself look younger. She is spotlighted in a backstage plot for the first and last time.
Details
- Series
- The Muppet Show
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 14
- Air date
- 1976-12-05
- Runtime
- 26 min
Episode context
Phyllis Diller is Episode 14 in Season 1 of The Muppet Show. It aired on 1976-12-05. The runtime is 26 min.
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Episode 13: Charles Aznavour
When he's unable to get a spot on the show, Gonzo asks Scooter to be his manager. Scooter advises Gonzo to do a rock act, banging on a large rock with a mallet. Later, Gonzo tries his hand at female impersonation, wearing a dress and a blonde wig. Scooter gives up managing when Gonzo eats his contract.
Episode 15: Avery Schreiber
To make Kermit jealous, Miss Piggy instructs Scooter to tell him that Avery is in love with her. Kermit finds out that it's all a trick, and Piggy karate-chops everybody.
More episodes from this season
Episode 12: Ben Vereen
Fozzie gets stuck in a magician's trick cabinet. The cabinet is dragged onstage so that he can perform his act -- and at the end of the act, two pig stagehands tip the box over so he can take a bow. Crazy Harry, who makes frequent appearances (and frequent explosions) during the show, blows up the cage before the end of the show so that Fozzie can escape.
Episode 16: Twiggy
Kermit is skeptical when everyone backstage is terrorized by "the Phantom of the Muppet Show." There turns out to be one, though -- Uncle Deadly, a monster-actor who performed in the theater years ago. After being panned by the critics, he vowed never to perform there again, and not to let anyone else perform either. He warns the Muppets, "Leave or be doomed!"
Episode 11: Candice Bergen
Fozzie brings a series of deliveries to Kermit, pestering the frog with lousy gags.
Episode 17: Valerie Harper
This is one of only a few Muppet Show episodes that open the show after the theme song with some kind of offstage scene. There's also a couple of scenes with the guest star in her dressing room conversing with Muppets instead of onstage in the Talk Spot. In last week's "At The Dance", Boppity danced in drag with another monster. This week Boppity appears as normal but his partner is in drag. In both instances, he ends up headless.
Episode 10: Harvey Korman
Embarrassed about being the "token person" on the show, Harvey is dressed up as a giant chicken.
Episode 18: Mummenschanz
Miss Piggy is repulsed when Gonzo tells her that he loves her. Kermit tries to help by asking Piggy if she would like to go to dinner -- and when she accepts, he fixes her up with Gonzo. Everybody gets karate-chopped.
Episode 9: Lena Horne
Kermit cuts Miss Piggy's scheduled song so she won't look foolish following Lena Horne. He tells her that "there are singers and there are singers," making her think that he doesn't want her to show up Lena.
Episode 19: Juliet Prowse
Muppy, the favorite pet of The Muppet Theatre owner J. P. Grosse, becomes a prima donna when Kermit reluctantly allows him to do a musical number with Scooter. Muppy even gets his own dressing room and star billing, but Kermit draws the line when the dog asks to change the show's title to The Muppy Show. When Muppy locks himself in his dressing room and refuses to perform, Scooter does the number with Fozzie instead.
Episode 8: Peter Ustinov
Kermit becomes jealous when Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Hilda and Scooter rave about Peter Ustinov. At the end, Peter admits that he's jealous of Kermit; he's always wanted to be a frog.
Episode 20: Kaye Ballard
Tired of the "embarrassingly square" theme song, bass player Floyd Pepper informs Kermit that he and the rest of the orchestra pit (except Rowlf) are quitting. Kermit says their conductor Nigel will write a new theme, but Floyd refuses: "He wrote the first one, man." Floyd performs his idea for a new theme, a dreadful Zappa-esque piece called "Fugue for Frog." Kermit won't use it and refuses that Floyd submits to Kaye Ballard a petition about the theme song, so the band leaves. The closing theme is performed solo by Rowlf on the piano.