A "Place Not So Nice" for dinosaurs.
In many mythological, folklore and religious traditions, hell is a place of eternal torment in an afterlife often populated with demons and devils. The term is also commonly used as an expletive, not always necessarily directly referring to the place of fire and brimstone.
References
- In The Muppet Show episode 213, Miss Piggy says being with Rudolf Nureyev is heavenly, but Nureyev says it's more like "the other place."
- When Lew Zealand tries to do his act on The Muppet Show in episode 310, Kermit tells him that "some very warm places will freeze over" before he books a boomerang fish act on the show.
- Janice sings that "the whole joint's gone to hell" during the "Happiness Hotel" musical number in The Great Muppet Caper.
- Kermit remarks, "Hell hath no fury like a grumpy grapefruit" in the January 4, 1982 edition of The Muppets comic strip.
- The gates of hell are shown in The StoryTeller episode "The Soldier and Death." The soldier, unable to die, eventually walks all the way to the gates of hell to surrender his life. However, a devil refuses to let him in, and gives him directions to heaven and 200 souls to take with him and go away. This version also appears illustrated by Darcy May in the book adaptation.
- Hades (and the Greek underworld) are featured in The StoryTeller: Greek Myths episode "Orpheus and Eurydice." The term "hades" in Western/Christian theology refers to the abode of the dead, although the Christian concept of hell is more akin to the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of the underworld used by Hades as a dungeon of torment and suffering.
- In the Dinosaurs episode "The Last Temptation of Ethyl," a nearly-deceased Ethyl is warned by Grandpa Louie that if she does not change her ways, she could end up going to the "Place Not So Nice," a personal hell consisting of dozens of Earl clones.
- When Robbie Sinclair seeks a cure for his transformations into The Wereman in the Dinosaurs episode "Little Boy Boo," he tells an old woman (played by Ethyl Phillips), "Nothing could be more horrible than this living hell!"
- When Clifford meets the Pipkin brothers in Muppets Tonight episode 207, he asks if they were from the "place with the fire and brimstone and little demons." Marty responds "You mean the network?" and Artie answers "No, no. Definitely not the network."
- In From the Balcony episode 7, Statler and Waldorf review the film Just Like Heaven. Statler remarks, "If this movie is just like Heaven, I'm glad I've been a bad person."
- In Elmo's Christmas Countdown, Stiller the Elf says that the odds of repairing The Christmas Counter-Downer are the same as "a snowball's chance in..." but is cut off by Stan the Snowball, claiming that families are watching.
- In the 2015 pilot for The Muppets for ABC, Kermit says that his life has become a "bacon-wrapped hell-on-Earth." The line is reused for "Episode 101: Pig Girls Don't Cry" at the end of the first act, when Sam the Eagle, the network censor, informs Kermit he "can't say 'hell'".
- In The Muppet Show special, Maya Rudolph, being revived after choking on one of Beaker's eyeballs, says she saw a bright light, followed by a river of souls, a wall of fire, and she did award show patter for a man dressed in red. She assumes it was heaven, but the description matches that of the other place.
Notes
- In Muppets Tonight episode 103, when Sam the Eagle gets stuck on his political talk spot with Andy and Randy Pig, he comments, "and they say purgatory doesn't exist."