Jim Henson Pilots The Muppet Show with Adult Episode, “Sex and Violence” (1975)

In the ear­ly 1970s, Jim Hen­son was wor­ried that the Mup­pets were becom­ing type­cast as chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment. So in Decem­ber of 1974 he pro­duced a pilot episode for The Mup­pet Show and gave it a name that was about as far away from Sesame Street as you could get: “Sex and Vio­lence.”

The half-hour pilot was first broad­cast on ABC in March of 1975. It’s a fast-mov­ing series of vignettes, fea­tur­ing a mot­ley cast of characters–many of whom would become famil­iar in lat­er years–appearing and reap­pear­ing through­out. Sam the Eagle, Sgt. Floyd Pep­per, The Swedish Chef, Statler and Wal­dorf, and a wrestler named The San Fran­cis­co Earth­quake all make an appear­ance. At one point, Ker­mit the Frog propo­si­tions a female with the line, “I might be able to get you a job on an edu­ca­tion­al show for kids.” The sto­ry, to the extent there is one, cen­ters around prepa­ra­tions for a “Sev­en Dead­ly Sins Pageant.” Alas, the pageant nev­er quite gets off the ground. As Sam the Eagle sage­ly asks: “Do we real­ly want to get into a ‘dead­ly sins’ sit­u­a­tion?”

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pup­pet Mak­ing with Jim Hen­son: A Primer

Jim Henson’s Zany 1963 Robot Film Uncov­ered by AT&T: Watch Online