Jim Henson is a beloved figure in children’s entertainment. The late mastermind behind Sesame Street, The Muppets, and Fraggle Rock created countless iconic puppet figures that live on to this day. At the same time, Saturday Night Live is one of modern television’s defining institutions. But what do SNL and Jim Henson have in common?
If you’re under 65 years old, chances are you’ve never heard of The Land of Gorch. This recurring sketch in SNL‘s debut season featured Muppet characters created by Henson’s workshop. But since this was after-dark television, they weren’t exactly kid-friendly. The vile, disgusting residents of Gorch marked a sharp departure from the preschool-oriented Sesame Street. It also didn’t gel with the sketch show’s early brand of comedy, getting the ax after just one season. But how did a Jim Henson and SNL collaboration go so wrong? Today, The Land of Gorch is regarded as one of the worst failures of early SNL, and the show tried to erase most evidence of its existence. Let’s look at just what this sketch was about and how it bombed so spectacularly.
What Was The Land of Gorch All About?
The Land of Gorch followed the residents of the titular faraway fantasy land. There was King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, and son Wiss. Other characters included servants Vazh and Scred, as well as their god-like figure, the Mighty Favog. Both the set and the puppets were designed to be as strikingly different from Sesame Street as possible, with an emphasis on dark and dreary environments and grotesque physical characters. Segments typically revolved around the characters discussing their sex lives, drinking, using drugs, or just behaving generally awfully.
Early segments kept the characters confined to their own set. About halfway through the season, they began interacting more with the other cast members and guest hosts. This correlated to a drop in overall airtime, and the characters pivoted to breaking the fourth wall by appealing to get their sketch back in its original form. It didn’t work, and their last spot on the show came in the second season premiere. The Gorch puppets awake in a filing cabinet, recognizing this episode as their likely last chance to make it back on the show. Instead, they’re unfavorably compared to the family-friendly vibe of the then-brand-new series The Muppet Show. They don’t make it back and are never heard from again. While this was the end of Gorch, more mainstream Muppets like Kermit, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird would make cameos in the years that followed.
An Iconic SNL Partnership Doomed From the Start
In the 1970s, Jim Henson was just beginning his mainstream career in puppetry. Sesame Street was in its infancy, and The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock hadn’t yet arrived. SNL was also a rough experiment, far from the venerable institution it is today. Pairing these two icons in their formative years seemed like it would have been a slam dunk. Henson landed the SNL gig through his agent, who also represented SNL boss Lorne Michaels and OG cast members like Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner. Henson had always wanted to cater his puppets to an adult crowd, which he obviously couldn’t do on Sesame Street. Michaels agreed to add Gorch as a regular segment on SNL‘s inaugural season.
Rather than relying on Henson’s crew for scripts, the SNL writers penned each Gorch sketch, relegating Henson to solely puppeteering. The Saturday Night team intensely disliked having to write for the sketch, regarding the childish puppets as incompatible with the mature show. They reportedly even referred to the creatures as those “mucking fuppets.” Finding storylines that both the SNL writers and Henson would approve of was difficult. Henson thought the writers were approaching the scripts from a sketch comedy angle, as opposed to his more cartoonish puppetry viewpoint.
Performing live was not typical of Henson’s crew either. Cast members hated giving up their screen time to make room for Gorch, and things went downhill fast. All the mounting conflicts eventually led to the segment’s axing at the start of Season 2. But Michaels and Henson’s parting-of-ways may have worked out for the best. After SNL Season 1, Henson’s puppeteers began work on a new series called The Muppet Show. The rest was history.
Gorch’s Less Than Ideal Legacy on SNL
It’s safe to say that both SNL and Jim Henson exploded in popularity after they split. The Muppets have persisted as a cultural icon for decades, and SNL is gearing up for its landmark 50th season. Both have come a long way from their rocky beginnings, with the failure of Gorch likely being a blessing in disguise. It allowed SNL to move on from its more obscure segments to focus solely on the sketch comedy for which it’s so well known today. The Gorch team was also freed up to work on the wildly successful The Muppet Show, which might not have existed in its current form had Gorch continued. Frank Oz admitted the partnership with SNL wasn’t right and that he was grateful to move on to The Muppet Show.
The Land of Gorch isn’t one of those “so bad it’s good” ideas that get better with age, at least according to those who remember it. It’s still considered crude, disgusting, unfunny, and a low point in Henson’s and SNL‘s history. But Gorch hasn’t been completely forgotten, as it will be referenced in the upcoming Saturday Night origin film. And for the morbidly curious, a few surviving Gorch sketches are posted on SNL‘s official YouTube channel.