Scarborough Fair

Scarborough Fair was a large and complicated production number in episode 511 of The Muppet Show. Paul Simon sings the melody while playing a lute and strolling through a renaissance fair, complete with musicians, maypoles, and sheep. Miss Piggy chimes in with the "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" line in each verse; she begins the song in her sweetest voice, but is bellowing by the last verse. Scooter plays a flute. Fozzie wanders by and recites the nursery rhyme "Simple Simon met a pieman". At the end of the number Link, as the sheriff, arrests Paul for playing a "lute without a license".

The sketch is included on Playhouse Video: Muppet Treasures.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel had a hit with the same 19th century version of this traditional song set in counterpart to the anti-war "Canticle" that they wrote themselves; it was the title track on their 1966 album "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme".