Recommended music: Taco – Puttin’ On The Ritz
It’s #SomethingElseSunday, and we’re still celebrating 70 years of the Muppets. Today, let’s check out the Palisades Toys Uncle Deadly!
Uncle Deadly first appeared in episode 119 of The Muppet Show, alongside the ‘Master of Horror’ Vincent Price. Two episodes later, he became part of a running joke where various Muppets reported seeing ‘a phantom’ to Kermit. When Deadly is finally revealed, he explains that he once performed at The Muppet Theatre and was killed by critics on the opening night of Othello.
Apart from joining the chorus in The Muppet Show’s opening theme from seasons two to five, Deadly appeared in just 10 episodes overall. He showed up in the background of many Muppet projects over the years, but returned to the spotlight in the 2011 film The Muppets as Tex Richman’s henchman, and later had a bigger part in the 2015 The Muppets TV series.
Although Uncle Deadly’s body shape is similar to Waldorf’s, he is actually more reptilian and is even referred to as a dragon in The Muppets novelization and the Muppet Babies reboot. His legs, feet, and tail were not shown on The Muppet Show, but a 1978 comic strip revealed these features. For the Palisades Toys Muppet toy line, Uncle Deadly was fully sculpted with a large tail hidden inside his tuxedo jacket. The figure, released as an online exclusive for the now-closed OMGCNFO.com, came with a Muppet Ghost from episode 119 and a Yorick skull accessory from episode 418, where Christopher Reeve performs lines from Hamlet.
In addition to the regular figure, there was a blue ‘Steppin’ Out’ version with a clear Muppet Ghost and a glow-in-the-dark variant. A black-and-white version and a clear Uncle Deadly were also planned, but these were never produced because the toy line ended soon after the figure’s summer 2005 release when the company went out of business.
I know the 70th anniversary of The Muppets has already passed, but I still have a handful 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 it’s great … even with just a brief appearance from Uncle Deadly.
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