A Letter from the Publisher

After spending some time with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Trashman and the rest of Jim Henson's Muppets, the members of our staff who worked on this week's Show Business story underwent a remarkable transformation. They all began by assuming that Muppets were strictly for kids, but they ended up shaking Kermit's hand, being cautious in the presence of Statler and Waldorf, and avoiding the near lethal karate chops of Miss Piggy. "It's magic," says Reporter-Researcher Janice Castro. "The Muppets have something that is real: straightforward humanity. All of their feelings are right out front. How can you not believe that they are real?" When Castro donned Trashman's costume, she even found herself thinking like a Muppet. Says she: "I felt as if I could fly."

Los Angeles Correspondent James Willwerth, who covered the activities of the Muppets on the West Coast, had the pleasantly eerie sensation that he had wandered into a different world, a kind of Disneyland as imagined by Mad magazine. "Everyone needs a dose of cartoon fun at regular intervals," says Willwerth, "but cartoons without subtlety can be pretty flat, and the Muppets have something extra that leapfrogs-- forgive the pun--over the virtues of human acting."

Writer Jack Skow started out thinking the story was simple enough. "Then," he says, "I found myself feeling as if I were trying to stop 4,000 Ping Pong balls from rolling off a table." Trying to pin down the mystique of Muppet mania, Skow first tried to attack the question scientifically, only to throw up his hands cheerfully in the end. Says he: "The trick in writing the story was to analyze the magic without destroying it."

Picture Researcher Rose Keyser visited the workshop where the Muppets are "born" and came away a true believer, like the rest of her colleagues. Says she: "Kids pick up the nuances in the Muppets. They enjoy the Muppets because everything else is a rerun. This is fresh, with universal appeal." And then she had a happy thought for the holidays: "I only wish that I could have all the Muppets to my house for Christmas dinner." As you'll see in this week's six-page story, that would guarantee a very merry Christmas indeed.

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