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The Land of Gorch was a recurring adult puppetry skit that appeared in the first season of the American comedy television program Saturday Night Live, featuring Jim Henson's Muppets. His characters appeared regularly on the late-night comedy television program. Following the popularity of Sesame Street, which relied heavily on the use of Muppets, Henson feared he would become typecast into working on children's television series. His talent agent Bernie Brillstein (who also represented Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Lorne Michaels) helped him transition to Saturday Night Live.
The premise of The Land of Gorch featured Muppet characters, who were members of a royal family, in a faraway locale. They behaved boorishly and made frequent references to drug abuse, sexual activity, and consumption of alcohol. Characters included King Ploobis, Queen Peuta, their son Wiss, and servants Scred and Vazh. These characters often consulted their oracle Mighty Favog for advice.
The writers of Saturday Night Live (to whom the Gorch sketches were assigned, rather than Henson's own people as with most other Muppet works) clashed with Henson's vision for the program. Michael O'Donoghue, Alan Zweibel, Al Franken, and Tom Davis often tried to avoid writing the weekly sketches. Henson felt they were trying to write for situational comedy rather than staying within his intended story. Frank Oz eventually acknowledged that the partnership between Henson's team and the show's writers was imperfect, and was thankful the former moved on to The Muppet Show.
Commentators agreed the reception for The Land of Gorch was universally negative; The A.V. Club said it was an in-joke that nobody wanted to keep the sketches on Saturday Night Live. San Francisco Chronicle called the characters the opposite of Kermit the Frog and compared them to trolls. DVD Talk called the feature the worst mistake in the first season of Saturday Night Live. Academic Michael J. Bernsten wrote in his essay "The Muppetry of Nightmares" that the idea failed because the characters were irredeemable and unfunny. Nonetheless, The Land of Gorch was to have a significant effect on later Henson works, such as the feature film The Dark Crystal and the television shows Fraggle Rock and Dinosaurs.
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