Music by | Frederick Loewe |
Lyrics by | Alan Jay Lerner |
Date | 1956 |
Source | My Fair Lady (musical) |
"I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," the closing number from My Fair Lady, is about someone realizing that he has fallen in love only after the object of his affection has left him. The song has been recorded by a variety of artists over the years, including Rosemary Clooney, whose version (entitled "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face") was used in a comic sketch that the Muppets performed on several different variety shows.
In the sketch, Kermit (performing as Kermeena)[1] lip-syncs to the Clooney recording, singing to a small creature that is covered entirely by a piece of cloth with a face drawn on it. As Kermeena sings, the creature eats the mask off its own head, revealing itself to be the ever-hungry Yorick. Kermeena keeps singing while trying to fend off Yorick, who leers and starts munching on her limbs.
Jim Henson and Jane Nebel performed the sketch for the Muppets' first network television appearance in 1956 on Steve Allen's Tonight! (which was preceded in its time slot by Sam and Friends on WRC-TV), providing the Muppets their first national exposure.[2] The sketch is considered a classic example of the Muppets' variety show act, and excerpts are often used in documentaries about Jim Henson.
On Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch sang a parody of the song during the middle of his performance of "People, Who Needs 'Em?" in Episode 1564. He also sings "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Fur" to his Grouch dog, Cranky in Episode 4127.
The sketch was revived for the Henson Alternative show, Stuffed and Unstrung, with an unnamed female puppet in place of Kermit, and a redesigned version of Yorick bearing a fuller chin. This version was performed at the 2011 D23 Expo by Brian Henson and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph.
Performances[]
- Not pictured
- Tonight!, October 11, 1956
- Sam and Friends, December 2, 1958[3]
- Sam and Friends, November 9, 1959[4]
- Today, January 19, 1961 and October 2, 1962[5]
Releases[]
- Video
Sources[]
- ↑ Shemin, Craig. Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show, BearManor Media, 2022, pp. 59.
- ↑ Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones, p. 59
- ↑ Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show page 308
- ↑ Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show page 405
- ↑ Henson Archives document