Kagayake! Gorō Mapetto Geba Geba (輝け!五郎・マペットゲバゲバ90分!) 90-pun! (partially found Goro Noguchi TV special featuring the Muppets; 1976)

Kagayake! Gorō Mapetto Geba Geba 90-pun! (輝け!五郎・マペットゲバゲバ90分!) still.jpeg

An image from the TV Special, showing Goro Noguchi with the Muppet band The Electric Mayhem.

Status: Partially Found

Kagayake! Gorō Mapetto Geba Geba 90-pun! (輝け!五郎・マペットゲバゲバ90分!) was a TV special that aired on April 29, 1976. It featured Japanese pop singer Goro Noguchi, and the Muppets.

Description

The one-shot variety program was ninety minutes long, starred Goro Noguchi and showed the Muppets performing skits and songs. The Muppet characters it showed were the band members of The Electric Mayhem, Crazy Harry, Kermit the Frog, George the Janitor, a trumpeting Muppet, a variety of Frackles and Whatnots, Fozzie Bear, and potentially many others. Fozzie Bear's appearance here is especially notable, as, due to the air date of the special, this would be his first public appearance. The Muppets only appeared for around 20 minutes worth of the special, with sketches and songs.^[1] ^[2]

Due to the language barrier, much of the humor that was scripted was slapstick, which turned out to work quite well for Japanese audiences. Apparently, during the playback, "the Japanese crew practically fell out of their chairs laughing." ^[2]

Production

According to an entry of Jim Henson's Red Book, shooting started on March 20th, the same day Jim Henson and his family left New York, to go to Albuquerque, Hawaii, and finally to Japan, where they met up with Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, and Dave Goelz. Along with the aforementioned people, Jim Henson's family were also performers for the show.

Apparently, Diana Birkenfield, Henson's in-house producer, thought the script wasn't funny enough and wasn't going to work, so she told Henson to delay the trip until they received something funnier, so as to not put him and his team in a difficult decision. However, Henson was very excited to go to Japan for the first time, and wanted to go despite the script. Despite Birkenfield's worries, the script was a success, as the Japanese crew loved the script, apparently having "practically fell out of their chairs laughing." ^[2]

Availability

It was only broadcast once on Nippon TV as a part of the Thursday Special block. However, when Goro Noguchi appeared on the June 2, 2012 broadcast of Meringue no Kimochi, he showed the program again. Currently, only a 6 minute clip has been found. ^[3] ^[4]