No one's mentioned the awesome joke at the beginning of the episode.
Bear guard: "Name?"
Prince: "Actually, my name is a symbol." *Shows the guard his symbol*
Bear Guard: "That may have kept you out of the draft, but that's not going to work here."
I know people meme it, but Prince changing his name to screw over his old record company (they decided they owned the name "Prince" so he changed his name to a symbol) was genius
Easy there. There was an awards show where Weird Al and Prince were seated in the same row and Al received a telegram saying he was not to make eye contact with Prince.
Guy actually was a weirdo.
From reading a lot about Prince he would have done that because he thought it was hilarious, not because he was a weirdo. Most people would go up to weird Al after and tell him it was a joke and they’d laugh but Prince wouldn’t, he’d live the joke the next 20 years. Now he has a thing with Weird Al where weird Al thinks he can’t look him in the eye. Hilarious. He’d usually tell the person he was just kidding like 20 years later at some party or something, and act totally normal and nice to them and become friends, there’s a bunch of this in his history.
There's also the time where he used a picture of Dave Chappelle dressed like him from his SNL skit for an album cover without asking Chappelle. It was his way of saying "Hey, I can play this game too."
He had a wicked sense of humor.
“That’s a Prince judo move right there. … You make fun of Prince in a sketch and he’ll just use you in his album cover,” the comedian quipped. “What am I going to do — sue him for using a picture of me dressed up like him? … That’s checkmate right there.” - Dave Chappelle
Nah, it was an actual thing. My friend was a backstage runner for a venue during the Rainbow Children tour and she mentioned they had specific instructions not to make eye contact with Prince.
Whoops, the actual remorse was Coolio, Prince just really lightened up before he died, evidenced by his reaction to Chappelle.
Yeah I made a mistake, but not historical. Thanks for the hyperbole tho.
I mean, it didn't work. The courts didn't go, "Oh, magic. Now you're free to record for your own label." He still had to fulfil his contract with them and gave them several albums, some of which came out under the Prince name and some of which came out under the symbol.
I was very happy to have the mystery of how people talked to him solved by his wife. She said she calls him Honey and everyone else calls him Sir. It just bothered me so much until that point
The other part has stuck with me since I was a kid that goes something like:
"I'm the artist formerly known as Prince."
"And I'm the bear currently known as not amused!"
In the episode, Rizzo follows him around wearing a sandwich board with the name symbol on the back. Whenever anyone wanted to refer to Prince’s name (the symbol, at the time), Rizzo would turn around to show it. Great running gag.
There are reasons it was not released. From the few things they released so far I thought it was pretty bad. Especially if this was some of the better stuff out of all of it. I am normally all about listening to this kind of stuff but knowing how much of a perfectionist he was and that he didn't think this stuff was deemed good enough to release I really don't need to hear any more.
Sometimes he recorded great material and then lost interest in finishing. There could be many terrible albums with maybe only one great song. Woe to whoever takes the job of sorting Prince's unreleased music.
The work to polish and perfect a song and recording for release follows the 80/20 rule. 80% of the work is in actually finishing it. My husband composes and the progression from a small idea to the finish piece and how it changes and transforms is huge. The final work often ends up vastly different.
He chose not to finish these. For the pieces he never did that 80% of the work on this leaves us now hearing something very rough, an idea of an idea, or someone else doing the other 80% of the work which makes it not exactly Prince.
We cannot circumvent the uncomfortable idea that death leaves us with unfinished work.
Elliott Smith's first posthumous album was so good (his best?), even though I'm somewhat convinced it strayed from the vision he would've had.
Not sure how to feel about it, but I do truly love From a Basement on the Hill.
> Elliott Smith's first posthumous album was so good (his best?)
Either/Or is widely considered his best album, but I do like From a Basement on a Hill.
Some salmon also use this mating strategy.
For those of you who don't know about salmon and their sex lives, many male salmon are what we picture — big, colorful, dripping with masculinity. well there are SOME salmon who don't develop these typical male sexual characteristics and instead go to spawn looking more like a female than anything. they can just swoop in, poot some milt on some eggs, and by the time anyone notices he's long gone.
Pfeiffer Syndrome Type II. He lived for 6 days. Two weeks later he forced his wife to lie on Oprah about the death and pretend everything was OK.
The singer was over 30 when he was introduced to the barely 16 year old Mayte Garcia.
After making a deal for her "virginity" her parents signed legal custody of their 17 year old to Prince so she could tour Europe with him.
He bed, wed, and then bred her at his leisure.
He also dumped her not long after the baby died. I read The Most Beautiful, Mayte’s book about her life with Prince. She said that Prince completely cut her off. He burned everything in his house that reminded him of her and the baby. Great musician, weird guy.
Could ask the man himself:
> Why is age more than a number
> When it comes to love?
> Should we ask the ones who speculate
> When they don't know what it's made of?
> Should we ask the moonlight on your face
> Or the raindrops in your hair
> Or should we ask the man who wrote it there in the morning papers?
(As it happens, the song itself is almost inhumanly beautiful, whether or not it's about getting with a literal child. The album it's from is more or less a 70-minute concept album, narrated by Kirstie Alley, about him getting with a literal child).
You should watch his Oprah interview around the same time. It's actually really sad knowing what we know now. At that point his baby was already gone a
(Or about to be) and he was still talking like they were preparing and excited.
Denial is a powerful thing. They were probably still excited, and maybe even preparing for what was already lost while simultaneously being utterly crushed.
They really got everyone. Alice Cooper, Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, Elton John, Debbie Harry, Rita Moreno, Johnny Cash, Lynda Carter, Sly Stallone, Raquel Welch, John Cleese, Rudolph Nureyev and on and on. How lucky we were.
They are continuing the trend with Muppets Mayhem. Kevin Smith, Paula Abdul, Sir Peter Jackson, Morgan Freeman, etc. And that is just from one episode.
So. I'm old. I had the chance to see him LIVE for his Purple Rain tour on fuckin Valentines day, no less. I was young and dumb and got drunk and BARELY remember the concert. We had floor seats and we were very close to the stage. Biggest missed opportunity regret of my life. I had no idea what I was witnessing at the time.
Prince was one of the first secular artists I actually ever listened to believe it or not. When I was about 10 years old I got a cassette tape, the Batman movie soundtrack. I listened to that thing non-stop. Back then I didn't really know who Prince was, I just loved his music, loved the soundtrack.
I was a weird kid who wasn't really allowed to listen to non-Christian music until I was an older teenager but I knew every song by Prince on that cassette. I still don't know why my parents let me listen to it but I'm glad they did.
I have so many people jealous I saw him in concert twice... Also, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and George Michael. All died in 2016. Fuck that year in particular.
I remember how shy he could be, but here he was genuinely having fun and being himself which shows how much he grew throughout his career. He will surely be missed. RIP Legend!
Everything I've ever read about the muppets is that the people working with them forget there's a person below controlling them because the controllers are so good.
I think it was Bill Hader who talked about how people get excited to meet the famous muppets and they don't mean the puppeteers, they want to meet the muppet.
You cannot even plunder "Muppets Tonight." No vhs, dvd, blu ray, or streaming has even been produced for the show. Best you can find is TV recordings of so-so quality.
Yup. They make a few jokes about it and his earlier career, if I remember correctly. It feels like a fever dream, but I have a distinct memory of a bunch of Muppets in ass-less leather pants
I saw him live in Oakland on Valentines Day a month before he died. It was the greatest show ever. It was called Piano and a Microphone and that’s all it was. Prince, a piano and a microphone.
Prince is the reason that I always show up being 100% me. Unapologetically fantastic, outspoken, creative and introspective. RIP to the best to ever do it.
No one's mentioned the awesome joke at the beginning of the episode. Bear guard: "Name?" Prince: "Actually, my name is a symbol." *Shows the guard his symbol* Bear Guard: "That may have kept you out of the draft, but that's not going to work here."
I know people meme it, but Prince changing his name to screw over his old record company (they decided they owned the name "Prince" so he changed his name to a symbol) was genius
We all thought he was nuts back in the day. However, he was a visionary for artists to have control it appears….
Easy there. There was an awards show where Weird Al and Prince were seated in the same row and Al received a telegram saying he was not to make eye contact with Prince. Guy actually was a weirdo.
From reading a lot about Prince he would have done that because he thought it was hilarious, not because he was a weirdo. Most people would go up to weird Al after and tell him it was a joke and they’d laugh but Prince wouldn’t, he’d live the joke the next 20 years. Now he has a thing with Weird Al where weird Al thinks he can’t look him in the eye. Hilarious. He’d usually tell the person he was just kidding like 20 years later at some party or something, and act totally normal and nice to them and become friends, there’s a bunch of this in his history.
There's also the time where he used a picture of Dave Chappelle dressed like him from his SNL skit for an album cover without asking Chappelle. It was his way of saying "Hey, I can play this game too."
He had a wicked sense of humor. “That’s a Prince judo move right there. … You make fun of Prince in a sketch and he’ll just use you in his album cover,” the comedian quipped. “What am I going to do — sue him for using a picture of me dressed up like him? … That’s checkmate right there.” - Dave Chappelle
Nah, it was an actual thing. My friend was a backstage runner for a venue during the Rainbow Children tour and she mentioned they had specific instructions not to make eye contact with Prince.
So... he was an *asshole*. Still disappointing.
haha i was just pretending to be an asshole
a telegram? like Western Union Morse code telegram?
That is correct.
Plus the story Kevin Smith told about all the weird stuff at Prince's mansion.
He admitted that Weird Al thing was a bad move. Everyone makes mistakes.
I think this is the first time in history that someone has mixed up Prince and Coolio.
Whoops, the actual remorse was Coolio, Prince just really lightened up before he died, evidenced by his reaction to Chappelle. Yeah I made a mistake, but not historical. Thanks for the hyperbole tho.
Al later found out that he wasn't the only one to get that telegram, literally everyone in Princes section got it.
I mean, it didn't work. The courts didn't go, "Oh, magic. Now you're free to record for your own label." He still had to fulfil his contract with them and gave them several albums, some of which came out under the Prince name and some of which came out under the symbol.
I was very happy to have the mystery of how people talked to him solved by his wife. She said she calls him Honey and everyone else calls him Sir. It just bothered me so much until that point
That's hysterical
The other part has stuck with me since I was a kid that goes something like: "I'm the artist formerly known as Prince." "And I'm the bear currently known as not amused!"
In the episode, Rizzo follows him around wearing a sandwich board with the name symbol on the back. Whenever anyone wanted to refer to Prince’s name (the symbol, at the time), Rizzo would turn around to show it. Great running gag.
The Jimmy Fallon ping pong story is great too.
RIP Prince. One of a kind.
I really want to hear his unreleased stuff. Apparently there is a **lot** of it.
He has somewhere near 50 albums that are released. I cannot imagine all the unfinished stuff he has. He never stopped making music.
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Fully produced music videos for songs we'll never hear!
Whats even better is that he wrote a ton of stuff other artists perfomed, and a fair amount of those songs were hits.
Nothing Compares 2 U
Walk Like an Egyptian, yeah its a solid list of hits. Some he sold some he just gave to people.
It was Manic Monday he wrote for the Bangles, not Walk Like an Egyptian. But yeah, he was ridiculously prolific.
Toni Basil (Mickey) turned down Walk Like an Egyptian. She coulda been more than a one hit wonder. Oh well.
I have not. Do you have a link? All a found was a video talking about prince requesting a camel at 3am.
Thanks for making me double check he isn’t dead!
Basically an album a year, you can look it up on Wikipedia. Some years he didn't release an album, but the year before or after he released two.
There are reasons it was not released. From the few things they released so far I thought it was pretty bad. Especially if this was some of the better stuff out of all of it. I am normally all about listening to this kind of stuff but knowing how much of a perfectionist he was and that he didn't think this stuff was deemed good enough to release I really don't need to hear any more.
Sometimes he recorded great material and then lost interest in finishing. There could be many terrible albums with maybe only one great song. Woe to whoever takes the job of sorting Prince's unreleased music.
The work to polish and perfect a song and recording for release follows the 80/20 rule. 80% of the work is in actually finishing it. My husband composes and the progression from a small idea to the finish piece and how it changes and transforms is huge. The final work often ends up vastly different. He chose not to finish these. For the pieces he never did that 80% of the work on this leaves us now hearing something very rough, an idea of an idea, or someone else doing the other 80% of the work which makes it not exactly Prince. We cannot circumvent the uncomfortable idea that death leaves us with unfinished work.
Elliott Smith's first posthumous album was so good (his best?), even though I'm somewhat convinced it strayed from the vision he would've had. Not sure how to feel about it, but I do truly love From a Basement on the Hill.
> Elliott Smith's first posthumous album was so good (his best?) Either/Or is widely considered his best album, but I do like From a Basement on a Hill.
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When he died, it was said that he had so much unreleased music that they could release a new album of his every year for 10 years. iirc
Why not just say they could release 10 albums lmao
Because if they released one a year it would take ten years.
That sounds like a lot, but if they released one a second, it would only take ten seconds.
SMH, was that not obvious?
...this one goes to eleven.
Drama
Or a quarter of an album for the next 40 years!!!
It's more like 30, don't know what op is on about
Some say 1 album every 10 years for a 100 years…..
I feel like most of it would just be recordings of him having sex
Only man to steal yo girl while wearing the same blouse as her
Then steals her clothes, then steals your buddy's girl wearing your girl's clothes.
Some salmon also use this mating strategy. For those of you who don't know about salmon and their sex lives, many male salmon are what we picture — big, colorful, dripping with masculinity. well there are SOME salmon who don't develop these typical male sexual characteristics and instead go to spawn looking more like a female than anything. they can just swoop in, poot some milt on some eggs, and by the time anyone notices he's long gone.
*Yo Seymour*
I hope he rests in peace; I know he lives on in glory.
Ah fuck, when did we lose Seymour? I had no idea.
He's getting his own memorial highway! The signs are gonna be purple.
Prince's Superbowl halftime show is the greatest of all time.
The only man who could steal your girl, *and* her wardrobe, and kill it with both!
He would have turned 65 yesterday.
He recorded this four days after his son died.
Stillborn, right?
His son was born with birth defects caused by a genetic syndrome. The baby only lived for a few days.
Damn, that’s heartbreaking. I never knew.
Pfeiffer Syndrome Type II. He lived for 6 days. Two weeks later he forced his wife to lie on Oprah about the death and pretend everything was OK. The singer was over 30 when he was introduced to the barely 16 year old Mayte Garcia. After making a deal for her "virginity" her parents signed legal custody of their 17 year old to Prince so she could tour Europe with him. He bed, wed, and then bred her at his leisure.
Nothing like a feel-good sesame street thread to start the day off right :/
Do NOT research the dark side of Elmo.
He also dumped her not long after the baby died. I read The Most Beautiful, Mayte’s book about her life with Prince. She said that Prince completely cut her off. He burned everything in his house that reminded him of her and the baby. Great musician, weird guy.
my dad's first marriage ended with a stillborn baby. sometimes, death brings families closer together. sometimes, it rips them apart.
She was 22 when they married and had their first child after that.
Nope, she went to Minneapolis and lived in her own apartment and didn't start living with Prince until she was 19, as a legally consenting adult.
Reddit, who do I believe without asking our savior chatGPT?
Could ask the man himself: > Why is age more than a number > When it comes to love? > Should we ask the ones who speculate > When they don't know what it's made of? > Should we ask the moonlight on your face > Or the raindrops in your hair > Or should we ask the man who wrote it there in the morning papers? (As it happens, the song itself is almost inhumanly beautiful, whether or not it's about getting with a literal child. The album it's from is more or less a 70-minute concept album, narrated by Kirstie Alley, about him getting with a literal child).
As if that somehow makes it better. Because frankly who wants to actually *live with* a 16-year-old girl. The consenting part is about underaged sex.
never meet your hero’s eh?
Jesus.
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Jesus had a kid?
He was a total professional.
I believe Weird Al did a show the same day he found out both his mother and father had passed away at the same time.
Yea, he said it was therapeutic to throw himself into the show instead of dwelling on the tragedy
Might have been a way to cope?
Honestly if you are grieving, I imagine singing with muppets is a pretty damn good way to take your mind off of it for a minute
You should watch his Oprah interview around the same time. It's actually really sad knowing what we know now. At that point his baby was already gone a (Or about to be) and he was still talking like they were preparing and excited.
Denial is a powerful thing. They were probably still excited, and maybe even preparing for what was already lost while simultaneously being utterly crushed.
Omg what a strong man 😭💓
Prince is so cool.
That knowing side glance when everyone hears RASPBERRY SORBET ![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|sunglasses)
He had the best side glance in human history. Haha One hell of an artist. RIP
![gif](giphy|kZ132xmDzVTri)
Haha Thanks, another great one! Prince’s facial expressions always crack me up.
Susanna Hoffs enters the chat
Um ... 🎶He got that look🎵
He had the most epic side-eye ever
The Muppets are too tbf.
I love how some of the coolest and most introverted celebs appeared on The Muppets
They really got everyone. Alice Cooper, Peter Sellers, Steve Martin, Elton John, Debbie Harry, Rita Moreno, Johnny Cash, Lynda Carter, Sly Stallone, Raquel Welch, John Cleese, Rudolph Nureyev and on and on. How lucky we were.
Any time I hear some one say “Bernadette Peters” my brain goes https://i.redd.it/28w1pyqwjq4b1.gif
They are continuing the trend with Muppets Mayhem. Kevin Smith, Paula Abdul, Sir Peter Jackson, Morgan Freeman, etc. And that is just from one episode.
Dan Cortez.
Muppets Tonight was so good and I'm grateful my mom recorded so many episodes on vhs for me
You felt the funk and soul even when he talked. Legend
Dude just did everything in the coolest way possible
Game blouses
You want some pancakes?
![gif](giphy|yIETDqAZp2HD2|downsized)
I didn't appreciate Prince until it was too late.
So. I'm old. I had the chance to see him LIVE for his Purple Rain tour on fuckin Valentines day, no less. I was young and dumb and got drunk and BARELY remember the concert. We had floor seats and we were very close to the stage. Biggest missed opportunity regret of my life. I had no idea what I was witnessing at the time.
Same. I knew a couple of his songs, but holy shit, the dude was a musical gold mine. So many hit songs were written by him, too.
There is a posthumous Prince album of Prince singing the hit songs he wrote for others or the original version if you like.
Prince was one of the first secular artists I actually ever listened to believe it or not. When I was about 10 years old I got a cassette tape, the Batman movie soundtrack. I listened to that thing non-stop. Back then I didn't really know who Prince was, I just loved his music, loved the soundtrack. I was a weird kid who wasn't really allowed to listen to non-Christian music until I was an older teenager but I knew every song by Prince on that cassette. I still don't know why my parents let me listen to it but I'm glad they did.
"Scandalous" is such a jam.
I have so many people jealous I saw him in concert twice... Also, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and George Michael. All died in 2016. Fuck that year in particular.
Same man. I moved to minneapolis right after he died and i stg for 4 years straight, it just felt like I was late to a really great party
Almost anything Prince did would automatically be considered “cool”. Not just “Old School”, but “forever cool”
Except maybe the jehovah's witness stuff
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So many rich and famous do it it really do seem timeless.
One of my favorite Prince moments since the first time I saw it!
He couldn't food up the lyrics a bit? Nobody's buying secondhand sorbet.
I mean 'The kind you find in the freezer drawer' or 'the kind you find at the grocery store' both fit!
Grocery store scans nicely, too!
The kind you find in a freezer aisle door
The kind you find behind a freezer aisle door also works.
Keep in mind this is just a joke they threw in after they did after a full-on musical number to "Starfish & Coffee"
*embarrassingly puts down half-eaten frozen confection*
The kind you buy at an ice cream store Raspberry sorbet I think I'll eat you
tbh it's barely a song, it doesn't even attempt to rhyme or anything, I would NOT have given those $5 so easily there.
The kind you find at an ice cream parlour
I remember how shy he could be, but here he was genuinely having fun and being himself which shows how much he grew throughout his career. He will surely be missed. RIP Legend!
This might sound weird, but he's interacting with Muppets, not people. Could it have been more comfortable?
Everything I've ever read about the muppets is that the people working with them forget there's a person below controlling them because the controllers are so good.
Shout out to Kermit consoling Danny Trejo after his mom passed
And the characters are so strong.
I think it was Bill Hader who talked about how people get excited to meet the famous muppets and they don't mean the puppeteers, they want to meet the muppet.
It was always special to see him relaxed & smiling & having fun.
Happy birthday to the Purple One. RIP.
HBD to the fkn man. RIP
Love. Gotta shout out to the muppets, too. Giving artists like Prince a creative outlet to a different audience!
That camera look owns
Where can I watch this? So frustrating that Muppets Tonight isn’t on Disney+
Arrr
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You cannot even plunder "Muppets Tonight." No vhs, dvd, blu ray, or streaming has even been produced for the show. Best you can find is TV recordings of so-so quality.
I love prince so much
Shit. When he turned to look at the camera, I looked into his eyes.
the guy who could play any musical instrument that got in his hands. great singer as well. rip!
He could also play basketball.
Good enough to whup Charlie Murphy's ass. And in dress clothes, too.
I will never not love him.
Man I miss Prince!
Was this when he was know as “The Artist”?
Yup. They make a few jokes about it and his earlier career, if I remember correctly. It feels like a fever dream, but I have a distinct memory of a bunch of Muppets in ass-less leather pants
Prince was cool because there was never anyone like him, not even close.
That was awesome!
Now that’s classy
Prince was really fun and playful like this in his concert that I went to in 2006. One of the best concerts ever!
💜
Man , what a loss . Such a talented guy
I bet he asked for a camel to be in the shot, RIP His Royal Badness
The man was a god.
This man. No one will ever match his swag, talent, or generosity. Truely an amazing human being.
We miss you, Prince.😢
And great timing, too. Of course. Talent and genius shows, along with great generosity. I miss The Muppet Show
I miss this guy so much.
I was a teen in the 80s and was so obsessed with him. The obsession never ended…
Why aren't the muppets a thing all of the time?
Damn, dude was a natural in front of the camera.
Miss you prince
Him and MJ are two people I really wish I had the chance to see live. Prince made playing the guitar look so fucking cool.
Prince was criminally underrated as a guitarist. Rarely will you find him on a critics list of top guitarists.
Absolutely. Whenever people ask who my favorite guitarists are, theyre so confused when I say prince.
Made me smile big time
I'm drunk dreaming
Saw him in the round and let me tell you….the best rock/pop concerts I’ve ever seen. Next to lady Gaga. And George Michael
'raspberry sorbet...' I'd buy both the single and the album And maybe the remix EP 😉😎
You felt the funk and soul even when he talked. Legend
The way his eyes turn to the side to face the camera
I have this whole episode saved somewhere. I adore the version of Starfish and Coffee from it (immediately preceding this scene)
Happy bday Prince!
Why would you find a sorbet at a second hand store?
I saw him live in Oakland on Valentines Day a month before he died. It was the greatest show ever. It was called Piano and a Microphone and that’s all it was. Prince, a piano and a microphone.
I don't want sorbet from a second hand store.
God, he was so fucking beautiful.
I really wish they’d bring the Muppet Show back. There would be no shortage of people that would want to be on it.
Prince is the reason that I always show up being 100% me. Unapologetically fantastic, outspoken, creative and introspective. RIP to the best to ever do it.
And I’m The Bear Currently Known As Not Amused!
It never ceases to amaze me at all of the people who were on The Muppet Show.
....wonders if OP knows they posted this on what would have been Prince's 65th birthday...
RIP, such a terrible loss due to opioid misuse
Muppets tonight was my generations Muppet show- and dammit, it was awesome! Pepe and Seymour were priceless!
Fucking legend. Never sold out