Jim Henson's Muppet Babies, commonly known by the shortened title Muppet Babies, is an American fantasy comedy animated television series produced by Marvel Productions for Jim Henson Productions. The show portrays toddler versions of the Muppets living together in a nursery under the care of a woman known as Nanny, involving the concepts of the power of imagination and creative problem-solving. The show's main target group is for children aged 2–5. The idea of presenting the Muppets as children appeared in a dream sequence in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), released two months before Muppet Babies debuted. The idea was a success, and it transformed into a spin-off.
The show aired from September 15, 1984, to November 2, 1991, as part of the Saturday-morning cartoons lineup on CBS. The show received universal acclaim for its animation, visuals, writing, humor, educational values, and appeal to younger and older audiences. It spawned a successful merchandise and won seven Daytime Emmy Awards (including four consecutive awards for Outstanding Animated Program), as well as a Humanitas Prize. Due to its popularity, the show remained on television in the United States for a decade, but is unable to stream on Disney+ due to copyright and licensing fees regarding the film and television footage used in episodes.
The rights are now held by The Walt Disney Company following the company's acquisition of The Muppets franchise in 2004. A reboot of the series premiered on Disney Jr. on March 23, 2018.
Premise
The series stars Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Scooter, Skeeter, Rowlf the Dog, and Gonzo as toddlers. Supporting characters include Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and Camilla in the form of Gonzo's stuffed chick. In the final two seasons, Bean Bunny and Statler and Waldorf made regular appearances. Several Muppets made guest appearances, including Janice as an older preteen and Kermit's nephew Robin as a tadpole.
The Muppet Babies live in a large nursery watched over by Nanny, who is seen only from the neck down. The babies' imaginary games transition from the nursery into scenes that become "real" to the babies, such as outer space and the past. The fantasies have the babies interact with live-action backgrounds, old films and photos, engravings, and hand-drawn backgrounds. The babies used their imaginations to have their own adventures based on everyday things and toys around them. They also use their imaginations to solve a problem.
In post-credits scenes, the babies are doing something related to the episode's plot. Their activities (mostly Gonzo's) are interrupted by Animal who crashes the scene in a comedic way and calls "Go bye-bye!"
Cast Frank Welker as Baby Kermit, Adult Kermit (looped dialogue, episode 45), Baby Beaker, Baby Skeeter (Seasons 3–8), Camilla, Irma/Charlie (episode 12), The Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard (episode 31), Polly the Parrot (episode 38), Bosko the Snowman (episode 100) Laurie O'Brien as Baby Piggy, Captain Black Wig (episode 36) Greg Berg as Baby Fozzie, Adult Fozzie (looped dialogue, episode 45), Baby Scooter Russi Taylor as Baby Gonzo, Baby Robin, Aunt Fanny, and Camilla (occasionally) Katie Leigh as Baby Rowlf, Mrs. Mitchell Howie Mandel (Seasons 1–2) as Baby Skeeter, Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen Dave Coulier (Seasons 3–8) as Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen, Baby Bean Bunny, Janice, Uncle Statler and Waldorf, Camilla (occasionally), Himself (episode 91) Barbara Billingsley as Nanny
Additional Peter Cullen as Smoggy the Bear (episode 33), Football-Playing Bear (episode 33), Sor-Elbow (episode 33) Pat Fraley as Announcer Tress MacNeille as Skater Ka
Episodes
Production
Origin The idea for the show was created by Jim Henson and his staff, originating in Jim Henson's art department. During the creation of Sue Venning's Muppet Show Bill, Henson suggested to include the Muppets as "tiny little selves, in other words, as babies." The book was not changed, but the idea was described as "charming". Afterwards, the staff, including Michael K. Frith, created character designs of the Muppets as toddlers. After Frith showed a sketch of Baby Piggy to Henson, Henson decided to turn it into a line of merchandise. Throughout 1983, several marketers featured prototype versions of the Muppet Babies on merchandise such as infant and toddler clothing, nursery decor and diapers while Henson was developing toddler versions of the characters.
During production of The Muppets Take Manhattan, Miss Piggy's original fantasy sequence was written on the screenplay. Because Henson was enthused about the Muppet Babies, he convinced Frank Oz to include them in the film, replacing the original fantasy sequence. Despite Oz's dislike of the idea, he thought that the idea was brilliant. Shortly afterwards, the art department asked the workshop to create models of the puppets of the Muppet Babies. The staff of the workshop favored the idea and decided to include them in the film. The scene was shot on August 28, 1983. It is considered to be one of the most difficult scenes to shoot during production of the film, as the puppeteers had to perform the baby versions of the characters by using their "stubby little limbs." The film was released on July 13, 1984. The idea was a success, and it received very favorable reviews from fans. A music video of Henson's self-directed "I'm Gonna Always Love You", combined with scenes of the film and new footage, was created for MTV.
Development and writing After filming of The Muppets Take Manhattan was completed, Henson felt that the brief scene featuring the Muppet Babies could be developed into a children's television series. Meanwhile, network executives and several others suggested Henson Associates to transform the Muppet Babies into a Saturday-morning cartoon. Although budgeting and scheduling conflicts prevented the idea from becoming a live-action series, CBS's former vice president of children's programming Judy Price looked at the "cute qualities" of the Muppet Babies in The Muppets Take Manhattan and thought the series would be successful in animation. After the concept of the series was created on March 10, 1984, Price granted permission to Henson and his staff for its proposal on April 13. Henson was skeptical, as he initially stepped away from Saturday-morning cartoons. However, he liked the idea a lot that he decided to create the show for something better.
Henson visited nearly every major studio in California while exploring the potential of an animated series. Henson chose to work with Marvel Productions after a meeting with Marvel Productions' vice president of network development Hank Saroyan and his team, including Bob Richardson and Jeffrey Scott, citing that he was impressed by their ability to adapt "challenging source material." Production commenced with Scott as head writer and Richardson and Saroyan as showrunners. Most animators from Marvel Productions thought the series would be a disaster, believing that transferring from live-action to animation could possibly not match the success of The Muppet Show. Richardson, producer, director, and developer of the series, proceeded with caution to market the audience, welcoming "the challenge of capturing the spirit of the characters with their distinctive personalities as babies."
Scott was tasked to incorporate the concept into the series, creating a series bible with major input from Richardson and Saroyan. Many development meetings with Henson were held in Los Angeles and New York City, where some creative ideas were discussed. For simplicity and to increase the potential for interactions, they decided to use the nursery as the setting like The Muppets Take Manhattan for all of them to be together. To focus on the "unique Muppet world", Nanny was only seen from the neck down to represent the kids' view of an adult. Henson and Marvel Productions agreed to implement the core theme of the power of creativity and encouragement of imagination. As the series needed another female character to contrast with Baby Piggy's "bombastic personality" and provide more feminine empowerment, Scooter's twin sister Skeeter was exclusively created for the show. All of the writing scripts for the show were done in Marvel Productions, with Jeffrey Scott writing all episodes of the first season. After Scott left the series by the third season, Saroyan, Sindy McKay, Larry Swerdlove, Mark Stratton, Lois Becker, and J. R. Young wrote the remaining episodes of the series. Richardson and Saroyan continued to work together until contractual issues led to Richardson's departure after the sixth season.
Casting and recording Looking for new actors to "capture [the] spirit" of the Muppet Babies by bringing "zest and personality to the role at the same time", several actors auditioned for the series. While studying with Daws Butler, Greg Berg based his voice impressions of Baby Fozzie on Frank Oz's rendition of Fozzie and Baby Scooter on Robin, particularly his song "Halfway Down the Stairs". Laurie O'Brien nearly did not audition for the series. O'Brien's agent Herb Tannen called her during an afternoon to ask her to voice "Miss Piggy as a child." O'Brien responded that she had a "little girl's voice in [her] bag of tricks and figured [she] could probably add Miss Piggy's idiosyncrasies to [the] voice." Tannen answered that she could do the voice and the other three Muppets, scheduling the appointment at 10:45 a.m. for the next day. As O'Brien was busy rehearsing a drama she wrote, she did not want to go to the audition. Tannen convinced her to come to the audition by stating to her that it is a "game changer." Not owning a videocassette recorder at the time, O'Brien rented The Muppet Movie and brought it to her friend's house and played it on the recorder. O'Brien took the recorder and recorded a few sections of Miss Piggy's lines that represented her tone and attitude, practicing the lines several times with her "million dollar little girl's voice". On the day of her audition, O'Brien brought the recorder to the audition, listening to it when she lost Miss Piggy's rhythms and tone.
Russi Taylor, who was a "crazy" fan of The Muppet Show and Gonzo, wanted to be Baby Gonzo and auditioned for him. Howie Mandel voiced Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen, and Baby Skeeter. After the second season, Mandel left the show, and his roles were given to Frank Welker as Baby Skeeter and Dave Coulier as Baby Animal and Baby Bunsen. Finalizing the cast for Nanny, Saroyan brought in Barbara Billingsley, who was immediately loved by the cast. The first time the cast met her, they were worried and thought they had to behave, but Billingsley had fun as much as the cast did.
Recording sessions were held in various recording studios in Los Angeles. In the first session, Henson and Saroyan told the cast to "make the characters [their] own and above all to have fun[.]" Several recording sessions had to be stopped due to the laughter of the cast.
Designs and animation By the start of production, several artists developed character models of the Muppet Babies, but most of them were deemed unusable. After analyzing character design issues, the team hired Frith to sketch what the characters should look like to solve the issues. Moving forward quickly, other design elements were incorporated into the show.