By Maggie Hoppel
The curtain rises. A little green frog waves at the audience.
“It’s The Muppet Show with our very special guest star, Harry Belafonte, yaaay!” (Juhl & Harris, 1979). Fans of 1970s popular culture know what happens next. Each Muppet Show episode consists of musical and sketch comedy performances punctuated by behind-the-scenes gags featuring the guest star of the evening. The guest participates in at least two performances; a humorous skit featuring Muppet staple characters like Kermit the Frog or Fozzie Bear, and a more genuine song or dance similar to their creative work beyond the Muppet studio. Belafonte’s appearance was no different. He opened the show with a comedic performance of the hit song “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” and later in the show, he debuted the song “Turn the World Around” (Juhl & Harris, 1979). Singing alongside the Muppet cast, this performance extends through the end credits, replacing the usual theme music. Consequently, “Turn the World Around” became one of the most well-known Muppet moments and reportedly solidified Belafonte’s appearance as creator Jim Henson’s favorite episode of the show. Beyond the music and laughs, “The Muppet Show: Harry Belafonte” participates in a decades-old civil rights legacy by integrating world cultures with Black American history to deconstruct racial and cultural biases in 1970s America.
It’s Time to Play the Music
A posthumous New York Times feature describes Harry Belafonte’s public image as an uncompromising combination of “radical activism and mainstream appeal” (Betts, 2023). He collaborated with stars such as Julie Andrews and Charlie Parker in TV and music, and he also built personal relationships with civil rights activists Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Baldwin. Born in Harlem to Jamaican and Martiniquais immigrants in 1927, Belafonte’s entertainment career began on Broadway and quickly migrated to films such as 1954’s Carmen Jones and1959’s Odds Against Tomorrow (Ramon, 2023). Belafonte was among the earliest successful Black actors, becoming the first Black performer to receive an Emmy award with the 1959 TV special Tonight with Belafonte (Smithsonian, 2023). He was additionally a close confidante of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his family. During his time with the Civil Rights Movement, Belafonte helped organize the March on Washington and was later the facilitator of King’s estate and memorial. In the following years, his advocacy for world music led him to partner with UNICEF and the ACLU to assist in global education and food access (Hall, 2023).
An untrained singer before his first Broadway appearance, Belafonte’s 1956 album Calypso became the first in history to sell over a million copies (Petrusich, 2017). The album brought the calypso style, originating in folk songs from Trinidad, to American audiences. In an article for the Library of Congress, Smith writes, “Belafonte was not seeking to embody one particular cultural tradition, but instead to present himself as a Black world citizen who drew from and respected multiple traditions” (Smith, 2017). In doing so, Belafonte portrayed a variety of Black cultures with dignity in a deeply segregated America. His music quickly became synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement. Calypso’s opening track, “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” was sung by protesters in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, and the Freedom Riders famously changed the chorus from “daylight come and me wan’ go home” to “freedom’s coming and it won’t be long.” Belafonte was sharply and humorously aware of his music’s significance in the political climate of the time. In his 2011 memoir My Song, Belafonte writes:
If you liked Harry Belafonte, you were making a political statement, and that felt good, the way it felt good to listen to Paul Robeson, and listen to what he had to say. If you were a white Belafonte fan, you felt even better. You were connecting with your better angels, reaching across the racial divide (Belafonte & Schnayerson, 2011).
After the Civil Rights Movement, Belafonte continued to use his celebrity status to advocate for world cultures. In 1985, he organized the charity single “We Are The World” for African famine relief, including artists such as Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, and Bob Dylan (Waxman, 2024). Through “We Are The World,” Belafonte encouraged Black Americans to consider themselves as a part of a greater global community, laying the foundation for his later role as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Having built a career as a public figure from a young age, Belafonte knew the power of Black representation on television to combat racist propaganda and dehumanization. In February 1968, he was invited to host The Tonight Show in place of Johnny Carson for one week—the first time an African-American hosted a late-night television show for this length of time. In a 1996 New Yorker article, author Gates recalled, “Night after night, my father and I stayed up late to watch a black man host the highest-rated show in its time slot—history in the making” (Gates, 1996). Belafonte maximized each night to produce unprecedentedly integrated programs, interviewing Black icons such as Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Wilt Chamberlain, and Sidney Poitier on a predominantly white television program viewed nightly across America. Also among the interviewees was Martin Luther King, Jr., less than 2 months prior to his assassination (Drost, 2023).
In an article for The Nation reflecting on Belafonte’s legacy, Walsh writes: As I learned more about that week, I felt as if I’d opened a magical wardrobe into a world where black and white people met as equals and enjoyed one another, for a few hours, anyway. It was like seeing a luminous parallel America where everything seemed possible, even if it wasn’t in the end (Walsh, 2017). By welcoming a wide variety of civil rights leaders on The Tonight Show in five groundbreaking episodes, Belafonte took charge of the broadcast narrative at a time when change was uniquely attainable for Black Americans. Through Belafonte’s work, Black voices reached white audiences in their everyday entertainment media. This transformed the civil rights message into something accessible, digestible, and human for a traditionally prejudiced group—breaking down racist propaganda and cultural biases one conversation at a time. Betts of The New York Times writes, “For a moment, the face of a beautiful and smiling Black man was the last image America saw before it went to sleep” (Betts, 2023). It’s Time to Light the Lights The word “muppet,” coined in 1955 by puppeteer Jim Henson, combines the word “puppet” with “moppet,” a dated term for a cute or endearing child (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). A muppet is both an original Henson character and a modern type of puppet designed for television—“a muppet” indicating the puppetry style and “the Muppets” referring to specific individuals of the franchise. Most muppet puppets include a foam-rubber interior covered with felt or fleece, and they often incorporate hand rods and bulging, humorous eyes (Abrams & Henson, 2017). A muppet’s head contains no additional stuffing, allowing the puppeteer’s hand to create more precise expressions with a twitch of the hand or wrist (Henson, 1955). Kermit the Frog himself is perhaps the most prominent example of a muppet’s expressive potential, with his now-viral “face scrunch” popular in modern memes indicating a strong distaste for something.
The Muppets first appeared on the 5-minute live show Sam and Friends, created in 1955 by University of Maryland students Jim Henson and his future wife Jane Nebel (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2025). In 1969, Henson and Nebel’s creations earned a permanent place on the national children’s program Sesame Street. A frequent joke within the Muppets franchise is their pathetic lack of marketability, and in a real-world parallel to this gag, Henson tried and failed for to solidify The Muppet Show on American television. According to Brian Jay Jones, author of Jim Henson: The Biography, “Nobody really thought that puppets could stand on their own for half an hour on TV… This was something really controversial and groundbreaking” (Farley, 2024). In 1975, a full 20 years after Henson created the first Muppet, British media producer Lew Grade offered to produce The Muppet Show in London and broadcast it in both the United States and the U. K.. The show continued to air for 5 seasons from 1976–1981 (Abate, 2009) and was followed by a collection of Muppet movies as recent as 2014. The Muppet Show combined the themes of love and friendship modeled on predecessor Sesame Street with the adult humor of its contemporary Saturday Night Live. However, children’s literature professor Abate claims that its effective use of “nonsense” differentiates it from both programs (Abate, 2009). According to Abate, nonsense as a rhetorical device can be categorized in 3 ways: inversion, reversal, or disorder. The Muppet Show inverts audience expectations through fourth wall breaks and abstract and gender ambiguous creatures; reverses roles such as Kermit’s “servant leader” approach to the show’s creative direction; and creates disorder through characters such as the explosion-loving Crazy Harry or the elderly hecklers Statler and Waldorf. This nonsensical humor style follows the tradition of Dr. Seuss and Lewis Carroll in using abstraction to reflect an uncertain world. The Muppet Show’s 6 years on television saw a continuation of the Cold War and the consequent arms race, the end of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, the birth of the modern gay liberation movement following the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, and an American political restructure through the Reagan administration. The Muppets address the tension and instability of 1970s society through a variety of sketch comedy routines, and one of the most direct and recurring gags was the “Muppet News Flash.” This sketch parodied a grave news anchor reporting on ridiculous stories, such as the scientific discovery of knitting Italian dinners out of wool (Juhls & Harris, 1977), in acknowledgement of the paranoia surrounding American nightly news. While early viewers saw a country in a time of social and political transition, The Muppet Show grounded their uncertainty in the timeless virtues of kindness and neighborly love. In 1986, Jim Henson wrote the following for the unpublished anthology Courage of Conviction: At some point in my life I decided, rightly or wrongly, that there are many situations in this life that I can’t do much about—acts of terrorism, feelings of nationalistic prejudice, cold war, etc.—so what I should do is concentrate on the situations that my energy can affect. I believe that we can use television and film to be an influence for good; that we can help to shape the thoughts of children and adults in a positive way … My hope is still to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here (Finch, 1993). The Muppets’ humanitarian association began with its earliest pilot episodes. The 1974 pilot “The Muppets Valentine Show” featured an opening number with celebrity activist Mia Farrow titled “Love is a Simple Thing,” and the secondary pilot “The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence” jokingly touted itself as “the end of sex and violence on television” (Chapman & McKim, 1998). Most famously, the 1979 song “Rainbow Connection,” sung by Henson performing as Kermit the Frog, captures the beauty and resilience of human hope. However, Muppet resistance also reached surprising levels of specificity and directness. A 1978 episode featuring Elton John portrayed the uptight—and symbolically patriotic—character Sam Eagle overcoming his initial disdain for John’s brightly colored and feminine clothing style to join the entire Muppet cast for the closing musical number “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (Juhls & Harris, 1978). This episode premiered two years after John came out as bisexual in an interview with Rolling Stone (Jahr, 1976), reflecting more accepting attitudes in the midst of social controversy. Theatre and performance professor Schildcrout writes: Sam sees John’s presence as a threat to patriarchal normativity, but he is fighting a losing battle; by the end of the show, all the Muppets, including Sam, are wearing outrageous costumes in a glam rainbow of glitter and plumes…. To be a performer is to be a freak, and both those “queer” roles are regularly celebrated on The Muppet Show (Schildcrout, 2008). Because the Muppets deal in inversion, reversal, and disorder, The Muppet Show is uniquely positioned to overturn cultural biases and stereotypes. Being “different” is the unifying factor among puppets, guest stars, and the “show business” industry in its entirety, so the Muppets approach all individuals with curiosity and kindness. Therefore, The Muppet Show creates a radically compassionate environment in both 1970s entertainment and in American homes—inviting guest stars and viewers alike to an escapist pocket of media where everyone’s differences are truly celebrated.
It’s Time to Meet the Muppets
“That was beautiful,” says Fozzie Bear in what was famously Jim Henson’s favorite episode of The Muppet Show. He’s talking to guest star Harry Belafonte, who has just sung thestarting melody of “Day-O” for the first time on public television. As Belafonte continues his performance, Fozzie and his cohorts bumble across the stage, bringing props and Muppet backup singers to “do it up really perfect” (Juhl & Harris, 1979). In 1979, it is the first time this iconic Civil Rights era song has been broadcast across America and the world, and the Muppets, with Henson behind them, are striving in their own zany way to make it special. Through Frank Oz’s character Fozzie Bear, Henson Associates treats “Day-O” with a subtle, but poignant, gravity. From “The Muppet Show: Harry Belafonte”’s first act, the Muppets model a softhearted approach to the Civil Rights Movement in direct defiance of the systemic racism of the 1970s. During this time, parents who grew up within a segregated school system were sending their children to desegregated institutions. Affirmative action was a topic of significant debate. In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration required federal agencies to submit detailed, attainable plans to increase employment opportunities for women, people of color, and people with disabilities (AAAED, n. d.). However, this progress met resistance in 1978, when the Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke ruled that public universities could not set aside specific admission slots for nonwhite students (Oyez, n.d.). The late 1970s found white Americans on the defensive; in perceived competition with Black Americans for jobs, schools, and homes. While American society was fully desegregated, internalized feelings of “otherness” had not evaporated. In 1968—the same year as Belafonte’s Tonight Show appearance—Bitzer outlined the “rhetorical situation” as a creative jumping-off-point comprised of an exigence, audience, and constraints (Bitzer, 1968). In the case of Harry Belafonte and the Muppets, the exigence is the racial hostility of the post-Civil Rights era. As an influential figure within the Civil Rights Movement, Belafonte recognized that any efforts to reinvent oppressive legislation or societalstructures would be unfruitful if not motivated by a genuine belief in world equality. Therefore, his appearance on The Muppet Show, like his previous work in music and television, targeted racism as an abstraction rather than a sociopolitical system. This choice made The Muppet Show an ideal medium for Belafonte’s message—using nonsense as a tool to expose and combat the logical fallacies of racism. The audience, in this instance, is characterized by uncertainty—of world events, societal structures and traditions, and their own futures. For Black families, the American Dream was more accessible than ever, but the continued survival of internalized hate and oppression limited their exploration of an integrated America. For white families, affirmative action felt synonymous with joblessness despite the current population of Black university students reaching a mere 7.8% of total attendees in 1970 (Clinton White House Archives, 2000). Additionally, Harry Belafonte’s Muppet Show appearance was a mere 4 years after the return of American troops from Vietnam, and controversy surrounding veterans and the antiwar movement continued to divide America. Robert Timberg’s book The Nightingale’s Song includes this quote from Milt Copulos: “There’s a wall ten miles high and fifty miles thick between those of us who went and those who didn’t, and that is never going to come down” (Timberg, 1995). The same audience who tuned in to The Muppet Show every week had, four years earlier, watched the televised deaths of thousands of their husbands, sons, and brothers in Vietnam. Belafonte’s message of respecting others’ differences and celebrating world cultures reached the ears of a traumatized and isolated generation. This produced “The Muppet Show: Harry Belafonte”’s constraints: the message it broadcast would have to be lighthearted and transcendent in its deconstruction of hateful thinking in order to provide its audience with the clarity and comfort they needed to move forward.
In addition to the “Day-O” sketch, “The Muppet Show: Harry Belafonte” includes a jazz performance with Muppet band members Floyd and Zoot, a “Pigs in Space” gag where Kermit and the Swedish Chef become victims of a body-swapping space ray, and a drum duo with Belafonte and growling Muppet drummer Animal. However, the episode reaches its peak with the final performance, Belafonte’s original song “Turn the World Around.” Belafonte introduces the song to Fozzie Bear and the audience with this speech:
I discovered that song in Africa. I was in a country called Guinea, and I went deep into the interior of the country. In a little village, I met with a storyteller. That storyteller went way back into African tradition—into African mythology. He began to tell a story about the fire—which means the Sun—about the water, about the Earth. And he pointed out that all of these things put together turn the world around. And that all of us are here for a very, very short time. And in that time that we are here, there really isn’t any difference in any of us, if we take time out to understand each other. And the question is, do I know who you are? Do you know who I am? Do we care about each other? Because, if we do, together we can turn the world around (Juhl & Harris, 1979).
This introduction provides insight into the lyrics of “Turn the World Around.” The song begins with this four-line refrain: “We come from the fire / Living in the fire / Go back to the fire / Turn the world around” (Belafonte, 1977). With Belafonte’s introduction speech as a guide, these lyrics suggest that all humans, despite their differences, are united in birth, life, and death. While this is an easy cliché to appreciate, applying this thinking to the time would have challenged post-Civil Rights America, which lacked unity due to racism, antiwar protests, and economic instability. For many, the divisions were so personal and visible that it felt impossible to find common ground even with their neighbors. Yet, when viewers looked to Belafonte’s left andright on screen, they saw something altogether different—absurd, even. They saw Muppets. And they were dancing.
The Muppets appearing in the “Turn the World Around” performance were uniquely and intentionally crafted with Belafonte’s input, according to the book Of Muppets and Men by Christopher Finch. The puppets featured African-looking masks with grass skirts and adornments. While these masks lack the diversity and specificity characterizing tribal masks from West Africa (Goody, 2000), Belafonte remembers that each design was double-checked by Henson because “he didn’t want to cause offense by choosing masks that would have some religious or national significance” (Finch, 1981). The muppets themselves, known as the “African Masks” by Muppet fans, were gender ambiguous, but their voices and bodies varied in masculinity and femininity depending on the puppeteer’s portrayal.
As the African Masks parade across the screen, Belafonte continues the song: “Do you know who I am? / Do I know who you are? / See we one another clearly / Do we know who we are?” (Belafonte, 1977). As he sings, he turns directly to an individual muppet, addressing thecharacter onscreen, and all the African Masks begin to harmonize in response. Belafonte’s interaction with the African Masks grounds the piece in its alleged world heritage and demonstrates the Muppets’ nonsensical brand of acceptance by treating a puppet as a dignified equal and fellow performer. Through “Turn the World Around,” Belafonte seems to say: “If I can find common ground with a Muppet, can’t you find empathy for those around you?” The producers further extend this message by welcoming the entire Muppet cast to end the song with Belafonte, including Fozzie, Zoot, Gonzo the Great, and Rowlf the Dog. In a rare moment of levity, curmudgeonly hecklers Statler and Waldorf are also shown singing and dancing along (Juhl & Harris, 1979). As a great variety of characters, creatures, and voices, they sing, “Oh, oh, so is life / Abatiwaha, so is life” (Belafonte, 1977). Onscreen, their differences are absurd and comical, but their nonsensical humor style only underscores the song’s message about the universality of the human experience. Muppet fan forums suggest the word “abatiwaha” could mean “of fortunate existence” in Swahili (Fozzie Bear [username], 2020) or “they don’t care” in Zulu (nellaf_fallen, 2023). However, it is more likely that the word is percussive nonsense similar to American scat singing, which has its roots in West Africa (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2025). Eschewing the usual closing number, Kermit the Frog ends the song and the show by thanking Belafonte, to which he replies, “This is the greatest group of singers I’ve ever worked with. To the Muppets!” (Juhl & Harris, 1979). When working with Henson Associates to write and produce the show, Belafonte especially valued the opportunity to appeal to both adult and child audiences. Hosting The Tonight Show empowered him to speak to the current political climate, but the Muppets acted as a mouthpiece to the next generation as well. In his introduction to Jim Henson: The Works, Belafonte wrote that the Muppets impacted “millions of children all over the world, children who would have never smiled, nor dared to dream, had it not been for Jim Henson” (Finch, 1993). The Muppets’ signature nonsense humor, while containing a subtle depth for adult audiences, is also uniquely approachable for children, as demonstrated in the work of Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and in English nursery rhymes such as “Hickory Dickory Dock” (Abate). Belafonte’s “Turn the World Around” performance might prompt adult audiences to reflect on their current behavior. However, it also lays the foundation for love and acceptance in children before they come of age to confront issues such as racism, war, and economic instability. Together, Belafonte and the Muppets battled the cycle of internalized hate by educating viewers both young and old through music and humor. On May 21st, 1990, Belafonte performed an encore of “Turn the World Around” with Henson Associates—this time for Jim Henson’s funeral. During the song, attendees waved colorful butterfly wands, and as instructed by Henson, no one wore black. The wands came with a note from Henson attached: “Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it” (Blau, 1990). In a short eulogy following the performance, Belafonte said this: There is no question about Jim Henson’s great artistry and the extent to which we have all been touched by it. But greater than his artistry was his humanity (Blau, 1990).
On PBS Tonight
On May 1st, 2025, the White House issued an executive order to cease funding for public broadcasting networks PBS and NPR. Included in the order was this statement: At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage….The CPB [Corporation for Public Broadcasting] fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens (EO 14290). Since 1969—6 years prior to the premiere of The Muppet Show—the Muppets have appeared on PBS through the children’s show Sesame Street. Their message follows the tradition set by Henson Associates: love, kindness, and unity overcomes all differences. In 2011, Bruno Mars joined the Sesame Street muppets to sing “Don’t Give Up,” an original song about working hard through challenges (Weidman, 2011). Three years later, Janelle Monae appeared on Sesame Street with her song “The Power of Yet” about positivity in the face of adversity (Ferrero, 2014). The following episode, 12 Years a Slave actress Lupita Nyong’o joined Sesame Street character Elmo to teach viewers about differing skin tones and how to “love the skin you’re in” (Mazzarino, 2014). Sesame Street features muppet characters who are neurodivergent, whose families struggle with poverty and addiction, and who experience a variety of disabilities (Merrill, 2019). While Sesame Street appeals to all viewers, its target audience is children in urban Black communities (Hechinger, 1979). By stripping PBS of its funding, EO 14290 endangers Sesame Street as a source of representation and social inclusion for the next generation, and a continuation of the Muppets’ and Belafonte’s use of broadcast entertainment to promote racial and cultural equality. With the current U. S. president’s background in the entertainment industry through the reality TV show “The Apprentice,” he is almost certainly aware of public television’s potential to break down cultural biases. When Belafonte hosted Martin Luther King, Jr. on The Tonight Show in 1968, Donald Trump was 22 years old. When Belafonte appeared on The Muppet Show 11 years later, his oldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., was a toddler. The elder Trump was among the audience in Bitzer’s rhetorical situation when Belafonte and the Muppets first sang “Turn the World Around,” and his son was a part of the next generation that Belafonte claimed would never have dared to dream if not for Jim Henson. However, rather than turning the world around, Trump has elected to turn the Muppets off—for the entire nation. In 2020, Belafonte wrote the article “Trump is Standing in Our Way” for The New York Times. His words echo the story of his “Turn the World Around” appearance—a long and challenging climb for equality, a cultural high point of escapist television, and a return to the harsh reality that America still has a long way to go in its battle against racial and cultural hatred. Belefonte would not live to see past this reality. He died in 2023.
However, in his New York Times article, he leaves America with this message:
Too often, the victories we have won have proved to be ephemeral or incomplete, and our full acceptance as Americans has once again been denied. We have learned to trust only those who will stand with us against the worst storms, who have proved themselves to be our friends not out of electoral expediency but through our shared belief in the best principles of this country and our common humanity … Well, I am still old but I am also still here, at 93, and for all the bitter lessons we have learned from Mr. Trump’s term in office, I can tell you that the wheel is turning again. That we have never had so many white allies, willing to stand together for freedom, for honor, for a justice that will free us all in the end, even those who are now most fearful and seething with denial (Belafonte, 2020).
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