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Our timeline page for 1960 lists "The Muppets appear for the first time on The Today Show." That was added way back in May 2006 by Danny. Our page for Today lists January 19, 1961 as their first known appearance on Today; and while a Henson Archive document also lists January 19, 1961 as their first date-known appearance, it also lists 5 earlier bits presumably performed prior to January 19, 1961 (the "earliest we can remember") with no date(s) attached. Additionally the page for Dave Garroway says he introduced Jim Henson and the Muppets in their first appearance on The Today Show on April 10, 1961. Any insights on when Jim and the Muppets actually first appeared? -- BradFraggle (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- I updated the passage on Garroway's article (as the April 10, 1961 appearance is citably not the Muppets' first appearance on the show). Still no source on anything before January 19, 1961. -- BradFraggle (talk) 17:00, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Jim Henson: The Works, which is riddled with miscellaneous errors, also has 1960 as the Muppets' first Today appearance in their "Chronologically Speaking" epilogue, so I would wager that's where it comes from. — Jon
(talk) 21:52, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Jim Henson: The Works, which is riddled with miscellaneous errors, also has 1960 as the Muppets' first Today appearance in their "Chronologically Speaking" epilogue, so I would wager that's where it comes from. — Jon
- Of note, Kermit says in a 2002 appearance celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Today Show (alongside Frank Oz's final performance of Piggy) that the Muppets have "been on the show over a hundred times. It was January of 1960 that was our first show." (YouTube) It's possible that Kermit/Steve mispoke or were mistaken when saying "January 1960," because the Henson Archive documents and Red Book list the earliest known as January 1961. Also our list of Muppet appearances up to that point only account for about 60 appearances (plus another dozen appaearances by Henson or Oz sans puppets)... still shy of Kermit's claim of 100. -- BradFraggle (talk) 16:59, 24 April 2024 (UTC)