It’s so weird to think about how very many department stores there used to be that just don’t exist anymore, and in particular how many boomed and busted in the 1970s through the early ’90s. As suburban shopping areas expanded, new chains came in that the city hadn’t hosted before, but they often didn’t last terribly long. The one I’m thinking of was a store called Big N, which opened in a weird suburban-like strip mall on Maxon Road in Schenectady, well out of downtown and not terribly near anything but the closed American Locomotive Company works. It was the K-Mart like concept of what had been Neisner’s, a fairly sizeable chain that started in Rochester in 1911. It was even a bit ahead of its time, as the Big N took over some Saveway grocery stores from the P&C chain and branded them as “Big N Discount Food Stores” in 1972, the earliest mix of discount retail and grocery stores in the tri-cities that I’m aware of . . . or did J.M. Fields do it too? (Here’s where I betray my endless curiosity about the local history of Albany, Schenectady and Troy, NY, which I write about at Hoxsie.org.) The Big N wasn’t a department store my family frequented – we made much more use of the downtown Schenectady stores when they still existed (but most were gone by 1973), the new downtown Two Guys, and the suburban Glenville stores. Big N closed at that location in 1977, maybe 1978, and probably the only memory I have of being in the store was when they were having a close-out sale and I rode my bike over to see if I could get any bargains from their somewhat limited record department. I took home two records that day, and this was one of them. (The other will be way off in the S’s.)
I was too old for Sesame Street (or even The Electric Company), but I was not immune to the charms of the Muppets, and when the original “The Muppet Show” hit, I was all about it. Did we know at the time that the show, rejected by American networks, was originally produced for British television? We did not. But that almost certainly accounted for its excellence, as Jim Henson and company were able to do pretty much what they wanted, and what they wanted was perfection. And as a major fan of comedy records generally (someday we’ll talk about Cosby. Someday), when I saw this new release (1977) on sale I had to have it. Remember that at that time, you couldn’t just watch a show whenever you wanted. Maybe you saw it once, maybe it had a repeat . . . that was it. So if you loved a show, the only way to keep any record of it was through other media — books, magazines, Viewmasters, soundtracks, and of course merchandise. So this was really the only way to keep the memory of The Muppet Show.
And, it’s a nice sampler that presents a sense of what went on on the show, absent any of the many famous guest stars. If some of it is more than a little dated, that was also the nature of the show, which itself was essentially burlesque with Muppets. One of the songs is certainly problematic today: while the most offensive lyric was changed, it’s hard to forgive or forget “Mississippi Mud’s” racist origins, and even just knowing it’s there turns me off to the idea of playing this record, as does the inexorable earworm of “Mahna Mahna.”
But in terms of plays? Well, this one’s infrequent, to say the least, and it probably hasn’t been on the turntable in a few decades. I don’t think I ever even played it for my kids, who knew their Muppets. By then, we not only had videotapes and cassettes, they had Little Richard singing “Rubber Ducky” and more. But, this is a fun reminder of the time.
