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This page is a crude reconstruction of an old thread that had been formerly housed at Special:Forum. In October 2020, our host retired the feature in favor of an off-site discussion tool that the Muppet Wiki community opted not to use (Forum:Index is our preferred community messaging system as its mechanics are compatible with Special:WhatLinksHere and other MediaWiki functionality, while the replacement is not). Threads from Special:Forum exist in our database archives and, when possible, an attempt will be made to reconstruct notable conversations that are required as documentation of how we came to consensus on various issues on the wiki, why and how we made decisions on how to organize, and other announcements that were important to the growth of the wiki. To access the contributor of a particular post, 1) determine which "Board Thread" is associated with the comment in the code of this page, 2) find the corresponding link here, and 3) view that comment's edit history.

With the new Muppet Babies series coming up, I thought it would be a good time to focus some attention on our episode guide for the original Muppet Babies. It's going to be a popular search item with the new show ramping up, so I've put together a list of episode pages that could use some love.

As with everything on the wiki, this is an ongoing project. Sometimes new folks ask what they can work on, so I'll be including this thread at Special:Community which is linked in every welcome message for new contributors and is highlighted on the side of every article on the wiki.

If you worked on an episode page and feel like it's been sufficiently expanded on, respond here and I'll strike it out on the list mark it on the Sandbox linked below. As for what "expanding" means... well, there's really no rigid rules on that: an article is never "done" on a wiki. I'd say that if you added a couple of paragraphs worth of a synopsis to a page that only previously had a brief description, that qualifies for striking it from the list. We can always add to it later. As you do on wikis ;)

Please feel free to ask questions, but keep the thread conversation relevant to the expansion of Muppet Babies episode guides on the wiki. Off-topic responses will be removed, so thanks for your cooperation on that.

EDIT: a Sandbox incorporating the following list has since been established at Sandbox:Muppet Babies episodes <ac_metadata title="Muppet Babies episode pages that need some help" notify_everyone="1517435672" related_topics="Muppet Babies|Muppet Babies Episodes|Fraggle Rock (animated)"> </ac_metadata>

In addendum: there are lots of Muppet Babies songs redlinked on existing pages. I'm not sure all of those are accurately titled, but feel free to expand and create those anew, too. ASCAP and BMI have all the legal titles which can be found with a little digging around.

A reminder also that we don't transcribe lyrics, but you can detail what the song is about.

That line-up makes sense. As with other pages, we don't need a bunch of empty headers though (just mentioning this for newbies), but we can certainly add them when there's info to put there.

Cool, cool. I added the sandbox page to the first post in this thread.

Last bullet on Article Style.

Yeah, it's okay to links characters in both the synopsis and the character list.

Sweet! I see you already marked it on the Sandbox page. I took the list off my first post as I think it's easier for us all to just update the Sandbox as we go along.

Nope, there's no grace period :) We have a team of admins who watch Special:Recentchanges closely, so if you need any help, one of us will hop in.

Make sure you check out the FAQ (short) and the Guidelines (too long to read as a beginner, but something to be aware of) which are both at Special:Community which is linked in the "Get Started" button on the right side of every article, if you need to find it again.

Welcome!

Sure, I just added a field to the Episode template.

Just add |video= after the director field.

Would it make sense to do them like Muppet Babies Video Storybooks, or do you think there's enough to say about each of them to justify their own pages?

It sounds like you you've got a good handle on it. Why don't you give them a go as their own individual pages?

Nice! It's been wild watching the Muppet Babies content grow recently :)

I think the colon in "Muppet Babies: The Next Generation" is implied à la Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I agree about 207 and moved it to match the title card.

I'm less sure about Episode 714: ...At the Movies. It should probably be moved to accommodate the ellipsis, but we may have a precedent for that that I can't remember.

The eight season comes from the production history as documented here.

Agree with everything Andrew said. Renaming isn't right either for the categories or the article. Category redirects are the way to go.

I coded the "more" switch in the tv template so we could add it in as easily as possible without a lot of template trickery. In fact, if you look at the links in the "more" section of other shows, the template requires redirects anyway because direct links to categories was wonky. So really this is the way it properly works anyway.

Were any of these in that Spanish (?) collection of episodes you sent us?

I also support a consistent format for all of them.

I'll fix up a few of these if I can, but can I make a suggestion? I know only a handful have made it to video, but shouldn't we put the video releases into the episode template?

SchfiftyThree wrote:
 

Also, I agree with the Go-bye-byes being on their own page - why they were on some of those episode pages I don't know, but I don't like them there.

I think I'm the one who started that. I thought it would be cool to list what happens in the tags for each episode (giving them the "go bye-bye" header because I was unsure of the right word, which I eventually thought would be "tag" without making changes). They're like their own little segment for the show. 

BradFraggle wrote:

I'm sure there's more to be said about the catch-phrase too. In Episode 113 they break the fourth wall - after Animal dumps water on Baby Scooter he says "Go Bye Bye!" and Baby Piggy tells him the show isn't over yet. We could also mention how the "Go Bye Bye" tag is similar to adult Animal's post-credit tags in The Muppet Movie ("Go Home!") and The Muppets Take Manhattan ("Bye Bye! Bye Bye!").



And there's also the book Animal Go Bye-Bye. 

Is there an episode we'd consider the "gold standard" for a good Muppet Babies episode page? Looking at a lot of the episode pages right now, there is no clearly or strongly established format/template being used for organizing the pages.

Section headings (in no particular order) currently used on various episode pages:

  • Notes
  • Trivia
  • References
  • Clips/References
  • Rhymes (313 & 611)
  • Video Game Footage (701)
  • Go bye-bye!
  • Supporting cast
  • Roles
  • Songs
  • Gallery
  • Video Releases
  • Edits


Based on what we've done for other series, I propose we somewhat standardize the overall format, sections and order of information. My suggestion would be something along the following:

  • Introduction - No heading (pre-TOC), short episode summary (1-2 sentences) and info box.
  • Plot - Detailed episode synopsis (can be long and multi-paragraph)
  • Songs - List of songs in episode with links to song pages
  • References - List of film/TV/literary/etc references, video clips and film footage used, things parodied, etc.
  • Characters - List of the cast of characters featured in episode (good to note which ones had appearances by Busen/Beaker/Bean/etc.); could also note roles played if substantial/relevant/interesting - such as "Baby Gonzo (as Gon Zolo), Baby Fozzie (as Fozz-Wocka),.."
  • Video Releases - List home video releases
  • Edits - List any edits made for syndication, home video, international markets, etc.
  • Notes - Bullet-point list of additional notes, trivia or fun facts that don't fit elsewhere
  • Gallery - Gallery of additional pictures
  • Footer sections - See also, sources, episode navigation, categories, etc.


Thoughts?

SchfiftyThree wrote: Also, I agree with the Go-bye-byes being on their own page - why they were on some of those episode pages I don't know, but I don't like them there.

I created Go bye-bye! to track the tags. I think it's awkward to go into such detail on the individual episode pages (especially on pages where the description of the 15-second post-credit tag is longer than the whole plot summary of the episode).

Maybe we turn it into a table or gallery with photos of each one.

Scott mentioned that some may have been swapped for syndication and/or recycled so that might be fun to track too.

I'm sure there's more to be said about the catch-phrase too. In Episode 113 they break the fourth wall - after Animal dumps water on Baby Scooter he says "Go Bye Bye!" and Baby Piggy tells him the show isn't over yet. We could also mention how the "Go Bye Bye" tag is similar to adult Animal's post-credit tags in The Muppet Movie ("Go Home!") and The Muppets Take Manhattan ("Bye Bye! Bye Bye!").

I created Sandbox:Muppet Babies episodes to help us all track which pages have full plot summaries and/or more than one picture (not counting title cards).

Some notable/interesting episodes that may benefit from expansion:

Re "...At the Movies," I don't think there's precedent. It's just something that comes up so seldom at the beginning (it's usually at the end, i.e. Episode 221: And the Winner Is..., sometimes the middle).

I found one example though, a Farscape episode (Episode 305: ...Different Destinations). I'd be in favor of moving.

We do often use implied colons or hyphens for subtitles or stacked "One Phrase/Another Phrase" titles (and while on-screen evidence trumps packaging, the VHS release used the colon, and as Scott pointed out, ST: TNG doesn't have an on-screen colon either).

As far as titling, Brad started the first categories in caps (as opposed to the articles) way back in 2006, and so others just followed suit. Normally when there's a difference in category and show titling (see The StoryTeller since categories drop "The"), redirects are used. In this case though, nothing wrong with page moving. Feel free.

Well, the upper case example is basically adding a label for clarification (which "animated" is as well). But your bolding highlights something I forget: we don't lowercase in categories anyway, so of course Animated was capitalized. We keep terms we wouldn't capitalize in a list or article in caps for categorization (like Episodes and Characters or Merchandise) so the change just looks bizarre and actually would be harder for users to remember to switch cases.

I was originally thinking page move for categories (and renaming the show page is definitely a nono), but now I think just making category redirects would be simplest (and this probably should have been its own thread after all). Unless Scott has any thoughts, that's my recommendation.

I added a couple of relevant columns to the Sandbox list in order to highlight what's still missing. Didn't add one for songs, as I don't know if every single episode actually featured one. As for images, I figured three or more would constitute a check mark, for anything less I noted the number of images in parentheses.

Also, there are at least three episodes that we titled incorrectly, when our punctuation is compared to their respective title cards. These are:

Episode 207: I Want My Muppet TV! (actually "I Want My Muppet T.V.") (Edit: ✔)
Episode 708: Muppet Babies: The Next Generation (actually "Muppet Babies The Next Generation")
Episode 714: At the Movies (actually "...At the Movies") (Edit: ✔)

I see that the colon in episode 708 makes sense (🖖😉), but wonder if the other two shouldn't be corrected. Thoughts?

SchfiftyThree wrote: I just expanded a bunch on "Beauty and the Schnoz", so that can be struck out.

Striking them out is a good idea for the list, and maybe an incentive for us to work towards one that's entirely crossed out, so I just added it to the titles... :)

What about those three mismatch episode titles though? Was that ever discussed and agreed upon, or did they just slip through the cracks?

Yes, I implied being aware of the Star Trek reference with the LLAP emoji, though that might've not come through on all devices. As far as the remaining episode title, I'm in favor of the ellipses being added to 714 as well!

Heya, I just added all German titles to Muppet Babies (Germany), and realized that we had the original series' order split up in seven seasons before (the old links still exist, and redirect). As far as episode count per season (and specifically) the actual United States air dates go, this does seem to make a lot more sense! Where did we get the split into eight seasons from, and would it maybe be wise to reconsider; especially when looking at the air dates?

Also, I hope this doesn't constitute an entirely new thread, as it kinda has to do with titling as well:

I was going to add the expansion more=yes to the tv template on Fraggle Rock (animated), but realized that we're inconsistent with our capitalization of "animated" between our category pages (the sub-links to the "Episode Guide", "Characters" and "More" don't populate as we're listing those as "Animated"). I'd make the changes myself, but couldn't find a consensus. So, which is the correct way for us to go forward? I'd assume lower case, since Scott recently created Fraggle Rock (animated) style guides?!

Gotcha! But which way do we go?

Since category pages cannot be moved, do I create Category:Fraggle Rock (animated) Episodes and the like, and redirect from the existing category pages for old links to still work?

Or do we rename the show's page to Fraggle Rock (Animated), and redirect the old page there?

What's preferred for the "animated" moniker? Do we go...

Yeah, I realize it wasn't just as simple of an aside as I'd initially thought, and should've been its own thread. I'll wait for Scott to weigh in before making any changes, or let you guys implement those as you see fit!

(I hope it's alright to still use this forum before the threads are hopefully migrated over?! It just made the most sense to post this here, given that we get E-mail notifications containing the message -- something I'm going to miss.)

For the longest time, the Muppet Babies page listed December 29, 1990 as the series' final air date, and "Episode 808: Eight Flags Over the Nursery" still reflects that.

In this edit from December 2014, Ramon changed it to November 2, 1991, and I don't know of it just went unchecked ever since. But as we now have different dates in different places (for example, our top menu lists the new date under The Muppets > Episodes > Muppet Babies (1984-1991)), I was wondering if some of our later episode pages are off, if the 1991 date is wrong, or wherein the problem lies exactly.

Any ideas?

Yeah, the episodes have needed to be expanded for a long time now. Thanks for bringing this up, Scott.

I have quite a few episodes in the list there, so I could probably try and get around to adding more detail to their pages. Also, for what it's worth, a lot of the episodes have been posted on YouTube by spam channels, however, of course, they are modified to bypass the copyright filter. :-/

I'm in favor of an established format too - it's inconsistent throughout all the episodes. I would keep Galleries, with the section using only like 10-15 images (Noisy Neighbors has at least 20!). As for captions...I don't know if we need those. If we're going to have a detailed plot section for all the episodes, captions may be unnecessary at this point.

Also, I agree with the Go-bye-byes being on their own page - why they were on some of those episode pages I don't know, but I don't like them there.

Say, what's the rule for links on episode pages? It's kind of a minor question, but since we're having a characters section now (and including links for every character in it), do we include links to character pages in the intro/plot sections as well? I've been getting a little confused on what the convention is supposed to be.

I just expanded a bunch on "Beauty and the Schnoz", so that can be struck out.

This isn't quite in the scope of episode expansion, but I'm wondering if the Yes, I Can videos ought to get its own page. They're direct-to-video, have original storylines, and contain useful notes and credits which hardly exist around the site (I just added David Gumpel's directing credit to his page).

Does anyone else think it's worthy enough?

I probably would say the latter. For one, each video has its own title card, which could go in a video template at the top. Second, there's the souvenirs which came with the videos from during the time they were first being sold. And third, I noticed when watching them this week that the performers are different amongst the videos - for instance, Joey Mazzarino's an additional performer on one of them, and both he and Alice Dinnean are credited on another.

However, if the videos were all detailed on one page, like the Storybooks page, then it would allow some broader pieces of info, like the theme song, to be noted. There's also the montage of episodes during the theme, which probably would be useful to list, but it would be difficult to do that if the videos were broken into their own pages.

Thinking about this again, I feel the YIC videos might be better with one page instead. There's enough sections (Plot, Notes, Credits, etc.) that could detail the series as a whole, and I think having the videos' credits on individual pages would look kind of awkward compared to just a whole one, like on Sesame Street Stories (video).

With that in mind, I'll go ahead and get this started.

cool

Hey, I just signed on. Is edit permission universal or do I have to pass a Muppets themed exam to become accredited? I've got the first 2 or 3 seasons on my media server and I don't see why I shouldn't waste time I don't have contributing to a few pages. :D

Disregard, I reread above. Well, I had someone read it to me, anyway. 

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