Nether regions

Miss Piggy bares much in a pin-up poster (historically displaying sex symbols) from her 1983 calendar.

#UnveilTheTail

Animal magnet and sticker.

Goggles' pantsless behind.

A pirate squirrel shows off his "booty".

Nether regions is a term used euphemistically for someone's genitals and/or buttocks. The Muppets have made several jokes about their nether regions over the years, often stemmed from the fact that they generally don't have them. While many Muppet characters appear naked (fully or partially), references to unmentionables are often sexual in nature, or refer to this area in a sexualized context.

The majority of these types of jokes in popular culture are geared toward the male anatomy; one famous example coined by Mae West, "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just excited to see me?" Most instances of the Muppets making these types of jokes fall into a similar indirect delivery.

Male anatomy

• When Kermit appeared on her show in November 1975, Cher asks him if he has a belly button. Kermit looks down and says, "there's a lot of stuff I don't have, actually."

• Standing in for Dr. Bob in The Muppet Show episode 418, Dr. Reeve (Christopher Reeve) tells Rowlf the Dog (laying on the operating table in Veterinarian's Hospital) that he'll have him fixed in no time. Rowlf pleads with him to not say "fixed" to a dog, referring to the surgical removal of a canine's testicles when neutered.

• Gonzo embarrassingly covers his eyes in The Great Muppet Caper as Kermit pulls up his pants and zippers his fly during the "Steppin' Out with a Star" musical number (although he also sneaks a peek).

• An officially licensed magnet was produced featuring Animal removing his pants with the caption "Wanna see why they call him Animal?," thus implying he is well endowed.

• In Muppet Treasure Island, Benjamina Gunn greets Long John Silver with an innuendo-laden inflection on his name that reveals to Captain Smollett that she and Long John were ex-lovers (and perhaps there is a reason he is called "Long" John).

• Later in the movie, while fighting pirates in an epic battle, Benjamina delivers a swift kick to the crotch of one pirate as the camera centers on the area.

• In a parody of The Emperor's New Clothes, Clifford and Bobo arrest the emperor in the Fairyland PD sketch from Muppets Tonight episode 203. The cops immediately notice that he is naked and point out that they can see his "cute little doublet."

• During a June 1996 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Miss Piggy is interviewed from behind Jay Leno's desk, sitting very close to — and flirting with — the host. When she looks down and asks, "Excuse me, is that your knee?," Leno does a take to the camera and responds, "No, that's not my knee." Following a reaction from the audience, Piggy gasps, "Good lord!" and gawks at the camera.

• During a scene in The Muppet CD-ROM: Muppets Inside serving as a transition between mini-games, Statler asks Waldorf, "Do you have a floppy disk?" Waldorf replies, "Hey, at our age, everything is floppy!"

• In Muppets from Space, Miss Piggy delivers a crippling punch to the crotch in order to escape Agent Barker's noogie-ing.

• Pepe the King Prawn asks, "Are you busting my shells?" in A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa, as a stand-in for "are you busting my balls?", an idiom used to give someone a hard time.

• Zoot signs Sweetums' birthday card in The Muppets episode "Hostile Makeover," but Yolanda warns him not to make any dirty drawings. Having already started, Zoot says he might be able to turn it into a saxophone.

• During Elmo's appearance on German show TV Total on October 5, 2015, the character was asked whether he was a boy or a girl, to which the monster looked between his legs and answered, puzzled: "There's so much fur... but... generally... well... I think I'm a boy. Right?" then asking host Stefan Raab "What would you say? What are you?" Raab responds, "Yeah, I'd say a boy. 'Cause women aren't that hairy in general..." Elmo agrees, saying, "Not the ones that I know. Not that I know the circles you're in..."

• Stephen Colbert asks Kermit if he thinks money can buy happiness during a 2016 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kermit responds, "I sure hope not. You're talking to a guy who doesn't have any pockets." When Colbert reminds him that he also doesn't have pants, Kermit, who has been laying on a blanket with his legs spread, pulls his knees together in an attempt at modesty.

• A blooper reel screened at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con shows an outtake from Episode 4118 in which the camera shows Telly Monster below the waist, exposing his performer Martin P. Robinson. Telly cries out that his private parts can be seen.

Female anatomy

• Disgusted at the tabloid headlines in Daily Mouth magazine as seen in the May 27, 1984 edition of The Muppets comic strip, Kermit decides to buy a copy after finding one that reads, "Does Miss Piggy Have a Curly Tail?"

• Don Rickles tells Ernst Stavros Grouper in Muppets Tonight episode 205 that he's so ugly, "You must have come out of your mother and hit the wall."

• After discussing her plot to foreclose on The Muppet Theatre with her "Handsome Executive" (Dan Payne) in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, CEO Rachel Bitterman leads her subordinate away to "decorate my tree". The executive understands the implied sexual servicing and takes Bitterman's instruction to "oil your chair" as another innuendo.

• Jack Black's face is comically muffled by Piggy's crotch during a kung-fu fight in The Muppets.

• The plot of The Muppets episode "A Tail of Two Piggies" largely revolves around Miss Piggy's tail popping out of her dress in front of the press. Initially played for laughs, the situation becomes an opportunity for body positivity, turning what was once branded as a shameful experience into a moment of empowerment. The device draws similarities to modern culture's struggle with what parts of a person's body (overwhelmingly applied to women) are appropriate to bare in public. In this case, Piggy's species provides the twist of applying the controversy to a unique part of her posterior nether regions.

See also: Boob jokes

Buttocks

Baby Piggy exposing Baby Scooter's bum.

• When Rowlf the Dog believes that Jimmy Dean won't be inviting him along to tour the country in the April 1, 1966 broadcast of The Jimmy Dean Show, he begins unpacking his bag. The last item garners a whistle from the audience: his long winter underwear. Rowlf admits that "it's very warm, but sometimes I slip through the back door."

• "Some folks remember their mothers" in the song "Memory Lane" from The Muppet Show episode 219. And others, Gonzo adds, their girlfriends' behind.

• When Paul Revere suggests that Bob Hope isn't a real cowboy in The Muppet Show episode 221, Hope claims that he's got a big spread in Texas. The horse, on whom Hope is sitting, responds that he's got one south of the border, too. Hope looks at his posterior and acknowledges the rub as a fat joke.

• In a promotional image for Muppet Babies, Baby Piggy inadvertently exposes Baby Scooter's bum by pulling on his diaper, when Baby Gonzo cuts the babies' imaginary hot air balloon's ropes with his imaginary airplane.

• When describing her attributes, Frank Lloyd Left saucily exclaims that 2102 Shady Lane has "the cutest back porch you've ever seen."

• Seymour is disappointed that has decided to change his look in Muppets Tonight episode 201 because he ruined an expensive pair of leather pants by cutting holes in them. "Assless chaps" were a known sexualized garb worn by the artist for his concert performances. In a blooper during the episode's credits, Pepe kisses Seymour's bare buttocks through the pant's holes.

• K. Edgar Singer straps a rubber glove on his hand in Muppets from Space and asks Gonzo, "May I?" Rizzo the Rat replies, "I think, before you answer that question, you'd better be real clear on the final destination of that finger."

• Howard Tubman gooses Kermit in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie and comments on his "tushie."

• Blotch insults Kermit, Croaker and Goggles in Kermit's Swamp Years, calling them the "Soggy Pants Brothers." Goggles asserts that they don't even wear pants and flashes his bare bottom, which only infuriates Blotch further.

• Bert laments never gaining his "buns of steel" with the pace the Number of the Day gym is going in Super Grover! Ready for Action.

• Super Grover crashes on top of Stiller the Elf during Elmo's Christmas Countdown, causing pain in Stiller's "little elfin buttocks."

• Iron Monster claims to have dented his "derrière" after crash landing in the Laundromat in Sesame Street Episode 4216.

• When Zoe asks Elmo to hold Rocco's hand while she's gone in Sesame Street Episode 4258, Elmo reluctantly complies. Upon her return, Zoe informs him, "That's not Rocco's hand, that's his butt." Elmo responds in disgust.

• Sesame Street Episode 4425 shows Bert acting in a movie helmed by Ernie. As they shoot a pirate scene, they uncover a treasure chest. Inside is a squirrel, who shakes his tail to show off his "booty" (a play on both a term for buttocks and the term for pirate treasure).

• Miss Piggy checks out Nathan Fillion's butt in an ABC promo for The Muppets.

• Miss Piggy points to her butt saying, "I'm getting this thing hiked over hiatus" in The Muppets episode "Pig Girls Don't Cry" to which Elizabeth Banks says "You must have a long hiatus coming up."

• Piggy tells the surveyor to snap pictures of her walking away, because "that is the money" in The Muppets episode "Walk the Swine".

See also

• Muppet Nudity

External links

• Tough Pigs Commentary: Characters Whose Names Sound a Bit Rude