The Land of Gorch
The Land of Gorch was a recurring adult puppetry skit that appeared in the first season of the American comedy television program Saturday Night Live, featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. His characters appeared regularly on the late-night comedy television program. Following the popularity of Sesame Street, which relied heavily on the use of Muppets, Henson feared he would become typecast into working on children's television series. His talent agent Bernie Brillstein, who represented Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Lorne Michaels, helped him transition to Saturday Night Live.
The premise of The Land of Gorch featured Muppet characters, who were members of a royal family, in a faraway locale. They behaved boorishly and made frequent references to drug abuse, sexual activity, and consumption of alcohol. Characters included King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, their son Wiss, and servants Scred and Vazh. These characters often consulted their oracle Mighty Favog for advice.
The writers of Saturday Night Live clashed with Henson's vision for the program. Michael O'Donoghue, Alan Zweibel, Al Franken, and Tom Davis often tried to avoid writing the weekly sketches. Henson felt they were trying to write for situational comedy rather than staying within his intended story. Frank Oz eventually agreed the partnership between Henson's team and the show's writers was imperfect, and was thankful they moved on to The Muppet Show.
Commentators agreed the reception for The Land of Gorch was universally negative; The A.V. Club said it was an in-joke that nobody wanted to keep the sketches on Saturday Night Live. San Francisco Chronicle called the characters the opposite of Kermit the Frog and compared them to trolls. DVD Talk called the feature the worst mistake in the first season of Saturday Night Live. Academic Michael J. Bernsten wrote in his essay "The Muppetry of Nightmares" that the idea failed because the characters were irredeemable and unfunny. Nonetheless, The Land of Gorch had a significant effect on later Henson works, including both the 1982 feature film The Dark Crystal and the 1991 television show Dinosaurs.
Premise
The Land of Gorch takes place in a world far away from contemporaneous society. The characters live on a fictional, swamp-like planet in a fantasy genre. The set includes volcanoes and prehistoric themes. The environment is dismal and the puppets have grotesque physical appearances.The creatures each have unique cultural identities and a sense of loyalty towards their inherent, traditional practices. The main characters comprise a royal family that includes King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, and a male child named Wiss. There are also a male servant named Scred, a female servant named Vazh, and a rock prophet named the Mighty Favog. Scred acts like a fervent supporter of dim-witted King Ploobis, while Vazh displays flirtatious qualities.
The Land of Gorch segments deal with adult themes; characters use euphemisms to refer to their sex drives and often consume alcohol. They often contradict each other and act obnoxiously and lasciviously. They grapple with adult issues including death, sexual intercourse, and alcoholism.
Production
Influences
Early in his career, Jim Henson's work was aimed at mature audiences. His television program Sam and Friends was designed for young adults. During this period, his characters often appeared on late-night, comedy television programs The Jimmy Dean Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. Throughout the 1960s, Jim Henson used his puppets for profane, irreverent comedy. These early Henson creations made references to substance abuse and sexual intercourse; The A.V. Club said Henson was probably influenced by the work of Ralph Bakshi, who was also active during the 1960s.Conception
Jim Henson originally conceived of his Muppets as characters aimed at an adult audience. He was disappointed that the popularity of the characters that appeared in Sesame Street, including Big Bird and Bert and Ernie, had solidified a public perception his puppetry was solely intended for educating children. Henson felt his Muppet characters should be able to be appreciated by individuals of any maturity level, and worried he would be stuck forever working on children's television series. Henson told The Saturday Evening Post he had constantly dealt with others looking down upon the idea of puppet performers. He envied ventriloquist Edgar Bergen for his ability to appeal to a mature audience. Henson said he wanted to work on a program that was broadcast during the peak adult-viewing time and said he had prior difficulty persuading the major television networks to create a puppet program for mature audiences.Bernie Brillstein, Henson's talent agent, helped him move away from working solely on productions for children. When Henson decided to engage Brillstein as his talent agent, Henson was not well known within the industry. Brillstein was an asset to Henson; his clients included Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels and three cast members: Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. Henson wanted Muppets incorporated into Saturday Night Live as a way to expunge the popular view his characters were only for young audiences. With help from Frank Oz, Henson generated The Land of Gorch characters for use on Saturday Night Live. His new characters were featured in the television program's first season. Henson designed the conceptual framework of The Land of Gorch characters to be eccentric.
Design
The designs for the characters and associated puppets in The Land of Gorch were created by Michael K. Frith and Henson. The characters were specifically created for Saturday Night Live and were not previously used in the Henson puppet universe. Their appearance was intended to be more realistic than Henson's previous puppet creations; for example, Henson used glass eyes in the models for the first time. "The Mighty Favog" character was co-designed by Frith and Henson. King Ploobis and Scred were designed by Frith. Jerry Juhl and Jerry Nelson assisted with the production of the Muppets during the program.NBC contract and marketing
asked Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels to add The Land of Gorch to the program to lighten its overall tone. In its initial contract for Saturday Night Live, NBC required producer Lorne Michaels to include short films by comedian Albert Brooks, and Jim Henson and the Muppets. Michaels said he was pleased to be working with Henson on his new show: "I'd always liked and been a fan of and Jim's work". He said he thought Henson's idea could support a weekly routine on the program. Henson initially called the segment "Muppet Night Creatures" before settling on its final name. "Jim Henson and the Muppets" were marketed as a regular feature of Saturday Night Live before its first episode was hosted by George Carlin.Writing conflicts
The writing staff of Saturday Night Live and Henson's team did share some qualities; each group formed a separate social clique and were independently opinionated and creative. They differed in age, experience, and lifestyle—producer Lorne Michaels was 31 years old in 1975, and Henson was nearly 40. Many of the writers were in their 20s. Most of the writers were single and Henson was married with five children at the time.Because of regulations imposed by the Writers Guild of America, only those employed as writers for Saturday Night Live were allowed to write sketches for the program. Henson and his puppeteers merely performed the scripts for the segments—they were not involved in the writing process.
Saturday Night Live cast members did not enjoy working with The Land of Gorch segments, generally regarded the routines as childish. Writing assignments for The Land of Gorch sketches were given to Saturday Night Live staff as a penalty for being the least-liked among the production team. Writer Michael O'Donoghue said, "I don't write for felt" and, in a 1977 interview for Playboy, called The Land of Gorch characters "mucking Fuppets" and "little hairy facecloths". Saturday Night Live writer Alan Zweibel said the writers drew straws to decide who would draft that week's Muppet routine. Zweibel said that in addition to himself, other writers who disliked working on scripts for The Land of Gorch included O'Donoghue, Al Franken, and Tom Davis. Zweibel had personal disagreements with Henson, who disapproved a few storylines. Henson's associate Jerry Juhl said John Belushi hated having the Muppets on the show. Juhl said they went through virtually every writer on the program trying to find one who would write sketches both parties could agree with.
Michaels said The Land of Gorch characters had been created without a set of rules or boundaries to govern the storylines. He said he felt his writing staff would have been able to work more effectively if there had been more guidelines on the characters' behavior and function. Henson said he felt the type of humor being written for the show was tedious and unimaginative.
Cancellation
Jim Henson said his ideas did not mesh well with those of the writers. He said his creative team did not form a bond with the writing staff, which, in his opinion, embraced a darkly irritating form of comedy.Frank Oz said The Land of Gorch experiment had its positives and negatives. Oz said he thought the routine was not a good fit for Saturday Night Live, and that the cartoon-style humor of their characters did not work well with the comedy of Saturday Night Live, much of which was initially derived from the Second City environment. Oz said he generally enjoyed working on Saturday Night Live and witnessing the skill of performers such as Andy Kaufman, Albert Brooks, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Dan Aykroyd.
The conflicts between Henson and the Saturday Night Live writers proving insurmountable, The Land of Gorch segments were discontinued from production with the agreement of all parties. By the time Lorne Michaels asked one of his producers, "How do you fire the Muppets?", Henson's staff had already begun to focus on production of The Muppet Show in London; Oz was thankful for the move. The Muppet Show, which was launched in 1976, featured new characters that were not previously seen on Saturday Night Live. Henson later confirmed that part of the reason he decided to stop producing the segments was to focus on The Muppet Show.