The Muppet Show live - it's time to play the music

Both of the great cultural comebacks of my childhood have landed in my middle-aged adulthood with mixed results. Neither had their original creators involved, but for completely different reasons.  

Star Wars creator George Lucas sold his company to Disney, which has gone on to huge success exploiting his universe to the full for a new generation. Though, in the process, while failing to offer closure to the older generation that embraced it in the first place.

Muppets man Jim Henson also was on the verge of selling his company to Disney. Though, unlike Lucas, he was to remain in creative control. At least, that was the plan. Alas, cruel fate stepped in, and he died suddenly of pneumonia, in 1990, aged only 53, and the merger was abandoned. The death of one of the most original artists of his generation was a tragic loss to both children and adults across every generation which followed his - such was the impact of his work. Henson had mastered all the mediums he tackled. Not just puppetry, but television, film and animation too. (One can only imagination how digital age would've inspired him.) It would be 2004 before Disney finally got their hands on his creations.

My sense of humor matured with Monty Python. But it was born with Sesame Street and blossomed with the subversive anarchy of The Muppet Show. So there was no question I would not be making a pilgrimage to the O2 in London - just as I did for Python before - to witness The Muppets first-ever live show (they have done a handful of live performances before, but nothing on this scale.)  Neither Jim, nor his partner in crime, Frank Oz (since retired from Muppetry), would be there. Many of the first-run gang are gone too, such as Richard Hunt, who performed Don Music, Janice and Scooter, and Jerry Nelson, who gave life to The Count, Floyd Pepper and Kermit's nephew, Robin The Frog. Yeah, that was Jerry as Robin on the lovely Halfway Down The Stairs. Not forgetting chief Muppet writer, Jerry Juhl, who passed away in 2005 - as much as Jim, he struck the irreverent tone that became the Muppet's voice.

The moment my partner and I stepped from the tube train to airs of Rainbow Connection from the buskers, we knew we'd arrived. The London Underground got on the Muppet train too with their escalator signage, and when we started to see adults with furry feet and Fozzie Bear noses, we knew we were in the right place. The 02 has a twenty thousand capacity, and tonight it was virtually sold out, jammed with a ratio of - I reckon - about seventy-five percent adults to twenty-five percent kids. Though this was an 8pm show; they were doing four shows over the weekend, two matinees and two evenings.

The clock struck eight and the drum rolls began...what followed over the next two hours was simply transcendental for this life-long Henson head.  After the familiar "It's time to play the music, It's time to light the lights…" came Kermit and Scooter - and their Muppet performers. One of the inspired elements of seeing them live would be to see the performers, too.  And though dressed in black, all of their skill was there to witness. It was an utter delight to see them in action, and it only added to the magic on stage. Front and centre was Matt Vogel, Kermit's handler, who started with Sesame Street in 1996. He has only recently been promoted to that prized position after Steve Whitmire, who originally inherited Kermit from Jim in 1990, was unexpectedly fired by Disney to some serious fan outcry.

In grand Muppet Show tradition, there was no shortage special human guests - I imagine they had a waiting list. In our show were Saturday Night Live's Bobby Moynihan, and the gate-crashing arrival of Doctor Who into Pigs In Space (complete with twenty thousand people spontaneously screaming "Spaaaace!").  Peter Davison (Doctor number five) was having an absolute ball. To the point at the end he said with glee to the crowd, "I just did a Pigs In Space!" Comedian Adam Hills interrogated the Swedish Chef about his accent, while preparing a haggis with a lamb. The lamb's reaction upon hearing exactly what a haggis is got one of the biggest laughs of the night.

Anthony Head, of Buffy The Vampire Slayer fame, attempted to bring some culture to the proceedings by reciting Wordsworth from a lectern. The Muppets were having none of this, and Pepi the King Prawn turned the whole recital into a Latin hip-hop dance-off. The amazing Dave Goelez, the original Great Gonzo, led a choral cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. He's one of the few remaining Muppeteers who goes right back to the early days, joining as a muppet builder having been enraptured by Sesame Street.

Like many of you out there, Sesame Street taught me to read, count, and love a diverse set of characters of all colours, both muppet and human.  It also did something Star Wars didn't do: scare me to my very core. More or less in a nice way. But I have to admit, some of those clips still manage to bring back childhood chills of the creature kind. The monster under my bed was most definitely a product of the Children's Television Workshop. On Sesame, he had the unlikely name of the 'Beautiful Day' monster. Perhaps it was his eyebrows that disturbed me most. Yet still, I kept watching, as it was too hilarious not to. A particular favorite of mine and my brother John's wasn't even a Muppet. It was the chef who kept falling down the stairs - as played by stuntman Alex Stevens. One time, our reenactments went too far and we managed to knock the chemical toilet from the upstairs landing down to the front door, miraculously, without spilling a drop.

Were Bert and Ernie television's first ever gay couple? The debate continues. Though they are essentially stand-ins for the personalities of Jim Henson and Frank Oz, who could improv and riff off each other like nobody's business. Everybody's best friend was Kermit The Frog, Jim's key creation and the one that more than any, really reflected the man's soul.

James Maury Henson was born in Mississippi in 1936, the son of an Agronomist (basically a soil specialist). He inherited his lankiness from his mother, Betty. Both his parents had a quick-witted sense of humor. But it was from his maternal grandmother, affectionately known as 'Dear', that he learned everything about craftwork and sewing. She taught him to how to make something out of nothing. To take a cast-off coat, for example, add a couple of ping pong balls, and, ultimately, produce a multi-million dollar industry.

The cornerstone of Jim's felt-laden empire was, of course, The Muppet Show. 120 episodes were broadcast from 1978 - 1981. It was a huge international success. And canceled at its height by Jim himself, as he wanted to expand his creative horizons into the world of cinema. The results were not only the original trilogy of Muppet movies (The Great Muppet Caper being my personal favorite), but through a series of collaborations, he introduced to us the unique visions of The Dark Crystal, inspired by the work of artist Brian Froud, and Labyrinth, with producing help from George Lucas, and a script from Monty Python alumni Terry Jones. But he didn't walk away from TV completely, building another world with the environmentally attuned Fraggle Rock, and the folk-tale themed Storyteller.

Following his father's sudden passing, Brian Henson took over the company reigns. Bringing us the gem that is A Muppet Christmas Carol, and the less successful Muppets in Space. For a spell, they disappeared from the public consciousness, save for an occasional TV special, as twenty-first century audiences sought more hi-tech entertainments. Frank Oz had long since moved on to become a successful Hollywood director in his own right, with the likes of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bowfinger. Now that they had them, Disney didn't even seem to know what to do with the gang. It took seven years from their acquisition of the characters, and the inspiration of uber-fan, Jason Segel, to produce the 2011 come-back hit, The Muppets. Winning an Oscar for Best Song, it has driven the Muppet engine onwards and brought them to a whole new generation - giving us '70s kids a major nostalgia injection of fuzzy subversiveness into our too easily cynical world.

The highlights of my night with The Muppets were musical.  Everybody ate up Mahna Mahna, of course. Miss Piggy's cover of Adele's Hello was unforgettable. Yet still, I melted as Rowlf the Dog sung I've Been Everywhere  and banged gently on the piano keys while tossing out pithy lounge singer observations. Then came the moment I was waiting for: the unparalleled greatness of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem with Can You Picture That? and With A Little Help From My Friends. I just wanted to reach out and hug them at that point. Alas, was restrained by my other half and Muppet monster security.

All they had to do was give me the stink eye with those brows.

The lawyers of Sesame Street recently sued the producers of the upcoming 'adult' puppet comedy thriller, The Happytime Murders, starring Melissa McCarthy, for using the tag-line on their poster, 'NO SESAME. ALL STREET'.  The court threw it out. Most of the reports seem to fail to notice an important detail - who actually directed the film: Jim Henson's son Brian. When it comes to being a subversive, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. From monsters and street life to mayhem and murder, the Muppet spirit marches on and on.

As Fiona and I marched on to the underground, I asked her what she thought of the show: "That was wonderful!", she said. "Bravo!I loved it!" I said. "That was great!"  "Well, it was pretty good." "Well, It wasn't bad." "There were parts that weren't pretty good, though." "It could've been a lot better." "I didn't really like it." "It was pretty terrible!"  "It was bad!" " It was awful! Boo! Boo!"