The 70s were an odd time on prime-time television. We had a lot of variety-type shows, some funny, some stodgy, some kind of weird (The Shields and Yarnell Show, anyone?). But one really stood out, and that was The Muppet Show. It had comedy. It had music. It had Muppets. It had a perfect blend of kid-silliness and adult humor. And it had an amazing lineup of guests – everybody who was anybody at the time wanted to be on The Muppet Show, even though working on a stage full of marionette-puppets can be a grueling experience.
In Season 1, one of those guest stars was Vincent Price. You’re probably familiar with him from horror movies, he made a lot of them. Or maybe from his voiceover on “Thriller”, as an animated version of himself on Scooby Doo, or reading Poe – I mean, I can’t stand The Raven, but I’ll listen if it’s Vincent reading it. What you may or may not have realized is that he could be really, really funny, so when they put him in a studio full of Muppets he stole the show.
YouTube had a lot of clips from this episode but not the full thing, so this one comes from Daily Motion.
The Muppet Show S01-E19 – Vincent Price shared by Miroslav Sekulić
After multiple samplings, Google Translate finally settled on Croatian as the language the subtitles are in – Bulgarian was a close second. But mapete is Croatian for Muppets, apparently, when used in context of the show’s tagline – Vreme je da vidite Mapete (It’s time to see the Muppets).