The weirdest Berenstain Bears book I had as a kid was "How to Get Along with Your Fellow Bear," a book-and-record set with black-and-white illustrations and no narrative. It was all about being a good citizen, but the only lesson I recall is not to play pranks on people like tricking them into kicking a brick.

About once a year I search for that on eBay. One of these days I'm going to click the buy button.

Yeah, he didn't work as well there. On The Jim Henson Hour, and in the Muppets at Walt Disney World, the Muppets explicitly indicate that Bean is there to be cute. The cynicism is clear. On Muppet Babies, I think he was just kind of there.

It's a film noir parody. Film noir has gun play. My favorite inappropriate moment is when the gangster moll dog taunts the other female character… Something to the effect of "I've seen girls like you doing tricks on street corners! 'Catch a Frisbee for a dime, sir? Jump through a hoop for a quarter, ma'am?'"

I won't argue with any of that. And a lot of the Muppets from that era that were made with harder materials are pretty off-putting. But other than Bean (who had already been introduced in the Bunny Picnic special), I think Digit was the best of the new characters from the show. It feels like the writers knew who he…

You're thinking of Lighthouse Island, a stand-alone second-half-hour and one of the weaker segments of the show: http://www.toughpigs.com/my…

That's right, the Soldier traps Death itself in his magic sack, which ruins everything because no one can die anymore until he lets it out. The episode ends with the Storyteller roaming the Earth, unable to die and banned from Heaven and Hell. Watching this as a kid, I was so fascinated by the darkness and…

Great summary of an unusual show. I'll always love The Jim Henson Hour, as one might guess from my avatar, and while I understand that it was probably too weird and unpredictable to be a huge hit, I don't get why it failed so hard. 72nd out of 77 shows? Surely people had more fondness for the Muppets than that!

The solution to that mystery was not what I expected.

I've long been fascinated by the fact that every conversation about half-remembered childhood TV shows will eventually turn to Today's Special, but most people have only retained a few details: "There was a mannequin? And maybe a mouse? What was that show called?"

Only it's not Little Richard, it's "Little Robert!" It's a Little Richard impersonator! I am not making this up. Presumably they couldn't get Little Richard, or because they thought they could but he dropped out at the last minute.

It was so exciting that it existed, though. Like, kids at school on Fridays would say "Today is Zelda Day!"

This is a nice thing. A lot of people have grown up with Whitmire as Kermit, so it's good to see him get some recognition.

"I wuld liyke to buy a hemburgur!"

It seemed like he never ran out of new ideas for talk show appearances. When he was promoting Father of the Bride II on Letterman he brought a clip of the film… which he explained was actually on film, and then they set a projector up in front of the audience to show.

At least Martin had the record for several years. And he could still get it back!

I think they're different enough that it makes sense to call them different things. A character being aware he's in a movie/TV show/book really isn't the same as talking directly to the audience. But I'm aware I may be fighting a losing battle.

How did you find out my secret identity?!

A lot of people on the internet don't know what "breaking the fourth wall" means. If a character says to another character, "Good thing this is only a movie!" that's being reflexive. If a character turns to the camera and says to the audience, "How are you liking our movie?" that's breaking the fourth wall.

Aughra and Yoda were both puppeteered by Frank Oz!