Pop Vultures

If last week’s post on the best musical performances on Sesame Street taught me anything, it’s that people really, really want to talk about the The Muppet Show. Here, then, is undoubtedly the hardest Friday 5 I’ve ever written. The criteria were fairly specific: I looked for a strong guest performer with some excellent Muppet interaction. Even so, my original short list consisted of fifteen clips. The process of whittling it down to a mere five was painstaking, I assure you, so you can skip the comments that I “forgot” anything. Slowly, over time, some were eliminated, often at great personal pain. Elton John, I tried, but there was just no room for you. Here, then, are the five great Muppet performances that made the cut.

5. The artist: Debbie Harry
Why it’s great: I’ve read that, in her heydey, Debbie Harry had such a fierce reputation that some journalists refused to be alone in a room with her. You’d never know it from this clip, in which the blond badass somehow manages to rock an orange jumpsuit while frantically pursuing a blue muppet that looks only too happy to be caught.

4. The artist: Lou Rawls
Why it’s great: The man is the king of smooth. First, he attempts to teach Kermit the secrets of singing jazz and, when that doesn’t quite work, chooses to demonstrate instead, backed by the Muppet band. Last week, I thought it was great when the Sesame Street characters scatted with Cab Calloway, but that has nothing on Doctor Tooth and Animal contributing their own vocal stylings to this jazzy number.

3. The artist: Rita Moreno
Why it’s great: With her sultry vibe and fabulous voice, no man should be able to resist Rita Moreno. Animal, however, is no man. Frustrated by the percussive restraints in the song “Fever,” he instead chooses to do whatever he pleases — much to the fiery Rita’s displeasure. The battle of wills that follows is a Muppet classic. I don’t know what she says when she gives him a tongue lashing in Spanish; I just know that anyone but Animal would have quickly buckled. Good thing Animal is what he is, then.

2. The artist: Buddy Rich
Why it’s great: It’s another Animal-centric performance, but I think my blogger’s license would be revoked if I failed to include this one. In a sense, nothing much happens; Buddy Rich and Animal play drums. But, oh, the way Rich plays the drums is something to see. He’s like an octopus with a highly developed sense of rhythm, and poor Animal can only try to keep up. It’s a drum battle for the ages.

1. The artist: Alice Cooper
Why it’s great: Do I really need to explain this? Because it’s Alice Cooper and the Muppets. Alice Cooper, the man who once staged his own mock executions on stage, who pretended to hack up dead babies and was close personal friends with his very own boa constrictor, appeared on The Muppets. I was pretty sure that I’d dreamed this episode until I found it again on YouTube. If television gets much more surreal than this, I’ll end up questioning the very laws that hold the universe together.