The Muppets - Muppet Hits (CD)

All Music Guide

Parents and Generation X-ers who remember the original Muppet Show with fond nostalgia (and regard the post-Jim Henson Muppet products with ambivalent suspicion) should not be fooled by BMG's overly colorful '90s kiddie packaging. All of these songs and sketches originally aired on The Muppet Show in the late '70s and early '80s (and most of them also appeared on a pair of out-of-print record albums from that period). The Muppets' cross-generational humor does not feel at all dated, and today's kids will undoubtedly enjoy these recordings as much their parents (1970s Sesame Street sketches, after all, are still watched by hordes of MTV-era tots). Highlights include "The Rhyming Song," in which various Muppets take their turns attempting and failing to improvise in a simple A-B rhyme scheme ("What do we do now? I don't know./ The rhyming song, the rhyming song/ Let's all jump up and down and wave our arms, and get off the stage"). The intermittent clips of sardonic commentary by Statler... and Waldorf showcase the pair's top-notch comic timing. And the patently absurd "Mahna Mahna" has become something of a Gen-X anthem, like the Schoolhouse Rock songs of the same era. - Darryl Cater, All Music Guide Read more Less