Recommended music: 3 Doors Down – When I’m Gone
It’s #SomethingElseSunday, and we’re still marking 70 years of the Muppets! Today, from Diamond Select Toys, it’s Statler and Waldorf!
For over 50 years, Statler and Waldorf have been the classic “old guy” Muppets sitting together in their balcony box at The Muppet Theatre. Famous for their grumpy opinions and love of heckling, they make fun of everything on The Muppet Show. Since they’re almost always together, it can be hard to tell them apart. Statler has a longer face, bushy gray eyebrows, and a cleft chin. Waldorf has a rounder face, white hair, and a mustache—think of the mustache as a “w” for Waldorf. Usually, Statler sits on the right and Waldorf on the left, but sometimes, like in the photo below, they switch places.
The Waldorf puppet actually appeared a year before The Muppet Show, first as a character named P. Fenton Cosgrove in a couple of Muppet Meeting Films and on the Cher show. In 1976, he also made a brief appearance on the UK variety show ‘Des O’Connor Entertains,’ where he was called “Conrad Waldorf.”
Statler was first paired with Waldorf in the 1975 pilot episode of The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, where they watched the show on TV from their den while sipping brandy. When the proper series started the following year, the pair would be seen sitting in a stage left balcony box. Waldorf appeared in all 120 episodes, and Statler missed only one. They love heckling the show, especially Fozzie Bear, but they also appeared on stage a few times, like in episode 517, when they hosted while Kermit and Fozzie watched from the balcony.
Palisades Toys released a few versions of Statler and Waldorf in its Muppets action figure line, and I also picked up these figures in a 2-pack from the Muppets Select line by Diamond Select Toys. I usually skip the DST line since it’s a bit smaller than Palisades, but I had to get this set because it came with chairs and a full balcony in the blister box packaging. Maybe one day I’ll build a bigger balcony for them, but for now, they’re happy heckling my Palisades Fozzie.
I know the 70th anniversary of The Muppets has already passed, but I still have lots of characters to feature on the blog. Also, if you missed The Muppet Show’s 50th-anniversary special, it’s now streaming on Disney+ and is really wonderful!
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