Late Night Muppets - The Land of Gorch: Saturday Night Live's Ill Fated Muppet Show

Where can these shows be watched?

Fantastic Job

I remember The Muppets on SNL and I thought they were funny. I’ve asked a lot of people if they remember The Muppets on the show…..so far no one remembers. But I do!

Darn shame the SNL muppets didn't work out. And hardly the first time puppets were used as adult entertainment. At least they gave it a try, and the glass eyes were genius. Thanks for the video!!!

Man, this is some 'memory unlocked' stuff right here.

I loved Gorch and don't consider it a failure at all. I can remember sitting around with friends laughing our asses off watching it. I think it was all about expectations and the collective enhanced minds of the audience. Ours was very enhanced.

We absolutely loved The Land of Gorch! We tuned in every week mainly to watch it!

Mikey had imagination even back then. From what footage I've seen of the Land of Gorch, it's a shame that it didn't come about in a better situation where it could be treated right, because the designs are fantastic. In the end it did rather work out with him finally getting The Muppet Show, but Gorch deserved a real go of it's own.

Amazing to learn the whole story about how the Muppet show came to be. Also I had tried to do research about 'Land of Gorch' but for years had found so little I had given up.

I remember The Dark Crystal. I watched it alone as a latch-key kid. It perturbed me. I didn't like it, but they showed it about 10 times a day on the HBO. HBO ruined Poltergeist and Goodfella's the same way. How many times can I watch the same movie? Very few more than once.

George Lucas went to Frank Oz for his puppetry arts technical skills in creating 'Yoda' . That & other movies,TV shows proves that muppet art can be valuable in story telling. Movies like 'Empire' & 'Neverending Story' showed & proved that.😮😅😂. LOL.

I always looked forward to the SNL Muppets. I was disappointed when they never showed up anymore.

As a audience member. You could instantly see and feel a difference in puppetry and puppets in movies and TV after Jim's passing. It was like the magic died with him. His kids took everything in a weird direction that completely turned me off. And seeing the Jim Henson studio name became a reason to avoid movies rather than making an effort to go to a movie. They wanted to show they weren't their father so bad, that they ended up alienating me and probably others as well.
It's like seeing the Disney name today. All you can think of is what that name used to mean. Because it holds none of that emotion and meaning today.

Been a fan forever and never knew about their ABC specials, thanks for making this.

I was still living in England at the time & my whole family (husband, son, daughter) were agog with excitement. And The Muppet Show did not disappoint. In fact, it had a profound effect on English life, an effect that had not been experienced since the overwhelming success of the post-war "Goon Show" on radio, which shaped British anarchic humour for years to come. I think the Muppets had been on for half a series when they had to put back the show time from 5p to 5.30p because employers were complaining of all the adult workers (office, factory, etc) sluffing off early so they could be home in time for the programme (no DVRs, not many VCRs) That had happened with the Goons but not since then (30 years later?) Yeah, we Brits know a good thing when we see it! : D

For anybody curious, the Ploobis and Peuta puppets currently reside in Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, NY. I was just there the other day, theyre still in great condition!

they did a good job burying this fiasco

Trust me. For all the stürm und drang, the Land of Gortch segments were comedy gold back in the day — especially Skred, the King, and the Great Pavoo — were hilarious.

No one can do Kermit's voice like Jim Henson. The day he died, Kermit died, too!

I had gotten the season 1 dvd's of snl and watched through the whole series and quickly became disappointed with the land of gorch segments. Just very boring. But I remember the last 2 segments perhaps, they started making them more sillier and suddenly it felt like I was watching the muppets! It was interesting seeing that change and know seeing that was cause Jim was able to help write them

I didn't know they were in the muppet movie

It's not that hard to say The Land of Gorch was far ahead of it's time, being essentially an unintentional prototype for adult animation in later decades. In a way, you could say it was the first TRUE adult animated show, even though it wasn't animated. Of course, this was back in a day and age when animation (and puppets) were still seen as exclusively for children, so it's unsurprising that everyone who worked on SNL frowned upon Jim Henson's work, seeing him as an "outsider".

It makes me wonder if after The Muppet Show's success, the SNL writers, actors and executives who worked on the show during the Gorch days looked back and said "You know, maybe we were too hard on that Henson guy."

Maybe it's because I'm high, too. But those scripts they wrote sound hilarious 😂

I've been watching the first season episodes. They were funny, but the Muppet sketches seemed to bring the show to a screeching halt, and the audience didnt seem to really warm up to them much either.

This came out before the Muppets

I wish the Dark Crystal prequel had a season two

I loved Skred!

Imagine being such a dumb douche you didn't want to write for The Muppets.

Oh wow, so he couldn't even get the Muppets even made in the US during the time, kinda telling that they couldn't see the kind of gold they were sitting on till it was too late

I remember watching these when I was a.little.kid in the 70s. Wow, this takes me back.

I remember enjoying the Gorch bits on SNL when the show was still new. - but I was 11 years old at the time. Looking at them now I can see distinct hints of "Farscape" in some of those old routines - Brian Henson has certainly been his father's son.

Very interesting! Thank you. I'm here because of the Saturday Night film, I had no idea the Muppets were on their first season.

SNL and Muppets felt like a dysfunctional family with the Muppets being alienated, Im glad they separated and both found success with their audiences.

Uh, Captain Kangaroo educated and entertained children for YEARS before SS. Henson and company were great, but there were also Burr Tillstrom and Gus Allegretti who, on my opinion, had even more talent.

Oh, I’m thrilled that Gorch family died on SNL, as it lead directly to one of the greatest shows ever produced, The Muppet Show! It was literally the puppet version of SNL, inspired by their time there. Ntm, a lot of SNL players went on to become great regulars on TMS. And don’t cry for the Gorch family, they were reborn in much better form on The Fraggles.

For a short while NBC was showing entire episodes of the original cast SNL, they showed it late at night after Showtime at the Apollo. They played the entire shows (this is before the boxed set DVD came out) from the first through fifth series and continued into the 80's, those were the ones that I truly remembered. I remembered seeing those Muppet skits, and I thought they were pretty good! I have the box set of the original series 75' through 80' and I don't think those are on the boxed set, I believe it is because of licensing.

I feel like dinosaurs was that ultimate puppet entertainment, it was so good

Just goes to show even jim henson had to go through a LOT of trials and tribulations to get the chance to get in front of the cameras and do what he wanted to do with his characters.
Im just glad he was able to try even if he wasnt able to make all of the ideas he wanted.

Sounds like today’s censors

did you disable picture in picture for this video? so weird

I want to know about all the occult symbolism in the Henson SNL shorts. There’s quite a few very obvious symbols and temples and strange things included in the scenes. I’m sure it was just an interest of his or something more than anything nefarious but I’m still curious if he spoke about it or anything.

Glad that Jim and Lorne parted on good terms and also, SNL in recent years has done sketches with Muppet characters that I think Jim would've liked. I liked one with Justin Timberlake singing Rainbow Connection with Kermit and having a problem with the puppeteer, leading to a fight. Best part is puppeteer saying in Kermit voice, "Justin, can you say you're sorry to Bill for being a douchebag?"

The Museum of moving pictures in Queens New York has some of the land of Gorge puppets in the Jim Henson exhibit displayed and I got to see them !!

I was 11 living in NYC and would stay up to watch SNLs first season, probably because of the Muppets, lol. I met some famous people from the show once, before they were superstars, walking up to them in a Greenwich Village diner and asking for their autographs. They looked very surprised, lol. Memories.

They were the skeksis 's ancestors !

I suppose back then it was okay to be a drug addict 🤔

I had not like the show when NBC had took Jim out I thinking SNL was be bad and mad about it too,