Stranger Things

Social media "retro" style poster advertising the Sesame Street spoof of the series

Stranger Things is a drama series that premiered on Netflix in 2016, set in the 1980s and combining scifi and horror elements.

Mentions

• In season one of the series, Mike has a poster of The Dark Crystal in his room.

• In the season three episode "The Case of the Missing Lifeguard," Will uses "The Pod Dance" from The Dark Crystal to underscore his speech as "Will the Wise."

• In the season three episode "The Bite", multiple Fraggle Rock plushes can be seen in the background at the 4th of July fair grounds. In one shot, Big Bird and Elmo plushes can be seen in the background as well. Later in the episode, when Steve and Robin are talking about a former classmate, Steve does an impression of her (the subtitles indicate he is singing like Kermit the Frog). Robin says "You sound like a Muppet". Steve says "She sounds like a Muppet. She sounds like a Muppet giving birth". During the mall scenes at the end, Steve, Robin, Dustin and Erica are hiding in the "Great Cookie" booth. There's a poster with Cookie Monster inside the booth and an Oscar the Grouch design on the front desk.

• In the season three episode "The Battle of Starcourt", Suzie has a Muppet Movie poster on the wall above her desk. In one shot, when Suzie first hears Dustin's voice over the ham radio set, the bottom half of the poster can be seen, with Miss Piggy's hand brushing the water and the tag line "More Entertaining Than Humanly Possible!" In a second shot, as Suzie tunes the radio, we get a closer look at the bottom right corner, listing some of the Muppeteers and human stars, and the text "Read The Bantam Muppet Movie Book".

• In the season four episode "The Hellfire Club," Steve and Robin re-acknowledge that their former classmate Tammy Thompson sings like a Muppet. Robin's bandmate overhears and agrees she sounds like Kermit, while Robin replies, "I was thinking it was more like Miss Piggy." Steve refers to his "Muppet joke" again in the following episode, "Vecna's Curse."

• In the season four episode "The Dive," a full view of The Muppet Movie poster in Suzie's room is seen, along with another poster for the film on a different wall.

References

Primark t-shirt

• A series of "MuppFronts" were presented during The Muppets Take the Bowl. One of the items skipped past in the Netflix-style queue spoofs the series as "Weirder Stuff."

• A t-shirt sold at Primark stores bears the Sesame Street title in the style of the Stranger Things font with Big Bird, Grover, and Elmo riding bikes, while Cookie Monster eats a bicycle wheel.

• On Thanksgiving 2017, Sesame Street released an online spoof of the series entitled "Sharing Things," starring Grover as Lucas, Ernie as Dustin, Cookie Monster as the "Cookiegorgon," and Slimey as "Dirt" (spoofing D'Artagnan). The video also features caricatures of Joyce, Hopper (portrayed as a rabbit), Will, Mike, Barb, Max (wearing a Frazzle mask), The Mind Flayer (actually an octopus), Eleven and Eight (portrayed as the numerical characters). Oscar the Grouch appears in a trailer for the video, issuing a "spoiler warning," and during its opening sequence. (YouTube)

Will
Performer: Jennifer Barnhart

Mike
Performer: Martin P. Robinson

Lucas
(Grover)

Dustin
(Ernie)

Eleven
Performer: Pam Arciero

Max
Performer: Jennifer Barnhart

Joyce
Performer: Stephanie D'Abruzzo

Barb
Performer: Jennifer Barnhart

Hopper
Performer: Tyler Bunch

Eight
Performer: Stephanie D'Abruzzo

Dirt
(Slimey)

Flayer
Performer: Martin P. Robinson

Notes

• Josh Gad compared his concept for Muppets Live Another Day to Stranger Things, explaining that it "was going to be Muppets by way of Stranger Things and feel like a movie spread over 6-8 episodes."

Connections

• Matthew Modine played Dr. Martin Brenner
• Paul Reiser played Dr. Owens