The Swinetrek

The Swinetrek hurtles through space.

The over-sized Swinetrek set, as photographed for Of Muppets and Men

The USS Swinetrek is Captain Link Hogthrob's spaceship in the Pigs in Space sketches on The Muppet Show. The Swinetrek's crew includes the indominatable First Mate Piggy, the inscrutable Dr. Julius Strangepork and twenty-two other pig crew members. Several missions have required the ship to land on the planet Koozebane.

The exterior of the ship is porcine in appearance. The ship's interior, as displayed on screen, is limited to the bridge area, which includes three chairs for the crew, a control console, and a viewscreen. The actual Swinetrek set is a wide-spaced area, with the viewscreen and ship's walls and entrance portals raised several feet behind the crew area. This presented some difficulties at first. Jim Henson recalled, "I remember that the first time I saw the Pigs in Space set, I was horrified. There was enough room in there to play basketball, but we overcame the problem by using a very wide-angle lens."

In 2003, Palisades Toys released a Swinetrek Playset reproducing the interior of the ship.

On Muppets Tonight, a retooled version of the ship appeared in Pigs in Space: Deep Dish Nine. The crew of the new Swinetrek included Captain Pighead, First Mate Piggy, and Craniac.

Sources

• Finch, Christopher. Of Muppets and Men. p. 121.