Personally, I’d always figured Prince was just going to be another flash-in-the-pan, one-hit-wonder, easily-forgotten 80’s act. I certainly never expected him to still be popular when “1999” became an outdated song. And I heard he’s just released 2 new albums.
Yeah… Nostradamus I ain’t.
Anyway, back in 1997, he appeared on the short-lived Muppet Show reboot “Muppets Tonight“. This is from that:
[Starfish & Coffee] (Viewer #3,681)
Tangentially related to the topic:
24 Outrageous Trivial But Moderately Interesting Prince Stories
UPDATE: From the comments, Zeke [High Praise!] clarifies on the video:
To give you a little context here, this “music video” is what happened after Rizzo the rat challenged Prince to make a song out of a random item on the cafeteria menu. Afterwards, Rizzo bets him $20 he can’t do it again. He picks another item, Prince immediately starts singing again, and Rizzo facepalms and hands him the money.
No wonder the show was short lived. The original Muppet Show was cute and funny, that was just creepy.
My lovely wife and I saw Prince perform in Cleveland a few years ago. We were really looking forward to it because 1) the tickets were free (given to us by someone who couldn’t go) and 2) he was an 80s icon and we were 80s kids.
Well, the concert sucked. The only old song he performed that was recognizable was “Raspberry Beret.” If it had stopped there, we could just chalk it up to being a bad concert and leave it at that. But, nooooooo…
The centerpiece of one of the final songs was some video rant about how Abraham Lincoln was a racist, and by implication all modern white people were therefore racist because we regard Lincoln highly. People were actually looking around in the audience, obviously confused, like “what the #e!! is he talking about?”
Thank heaven the tickets were free. I would still be beating myself up over it if I had actually PAID for that.
Wow! The big muppet in the middle, the one doing the singing, looks so lifelike! The Henson Creature Shop has really come a long way from the Dark Crystal days.
Man, I loved Muppets Tonight. It was the Muppet show I grew up with (I was just young enough to miss the original). To give you a little context here, this “music video” is what happened after Rizzo the rat challenged Prince to make a song out of a random item on the cafeteria menu. Afterwards, Rizzo bets him $20 he can’t do it again. He picks another item, Prince immediately starts singing again, and Rizzo facepalms and hands him the money.