Muppet News Flash



Muppet News Flash segments were a regular feature of The Muppet Show for all five seasons. The segments starred the Newsman, a breathlessly emphatic anchorman. It is not to be confused with "Sesame Street News Flash," in which Kermit the Frog was the anchorman.

There were slight changes made to the News Flash segments after the first season. In the first year, the segments often featured interviews with a strange person played by the guest star. Starting with the second year, the Newsman would rush on to the scene, announcing an unusual story -- and he would then fall victim to the subject of the news story in some way.

The Newsman himself also changed during the first season, adding glasses to his costume. His voice originally was lower, closer to Link Hogthrob's, but that too would be modified in the first season.

After The Muppet Show finished production, News Flash segments went on in a photographed comic book style for one page in several issues of Muppet Magazine. Later in 2001, new segments were performed for The Muppet Show Live. For these skits, the audience members closest to the stage were given props to throw at the Newsman at the appropriate time. More recently, a number of new segments were produced for Disney Extreme Digital's website, under "gadgets."

A Muppet News Flash also opens "Kermit's Story," the first in Roger Langridge's four-issue run of The Muppet Show Comic Book. After reporting some of his usual bizarre stories (surprisingly, nothing happens when he announces that "produce market prices fell"), the Newsman announces that The Muppet Show is back on the air in a new "comic book" format, just in time for the page to turn, covering his face and interrupting his broadcast. Another News Flash appears in the second issue of The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson, in which The Newsman gives a report on the buried treasure.