Versions by the Muppets
In 1969, the first season of Sesame Street featured a sketch featuring two Muppet girls who are unsure of what to do, until they decide to sing a song, enter an unusual-looking version of the latter Muppet character Mahna Mahna (whose named was later changed to Bip Bippadotta, so as to differentiate him from the Mahna Mahna character on The Muppet Show) who begins singing \"Mahna Mahna\", prompting the girls to join him.[3]
In 1976, the first episode of The Muppet Show to be recorded (featuring Juliet Prowse), used \"Mahna Mahna\" as the first sketch. It was performed by Mahna Mahna and the Snowths, two creatures that resembled cows. As a result, the original Piero Umiliani recording finally became a hit in the UK (#8 in the UK charts in May 1977), where the Muppet Show soundtrack album featuring the Muppets' version went to number one.[4]
A snippet of the song \"Lullaby of Birdland\" is 'hummed' during one of the improvisational passages.
The later Muppet TV series Muppets Tonight (19961998) revisited it in a sketch with Sandra Bullock where Kermit the Frog visits a doctor to complain about weird things that happen to him whenever he says the word phenomenon.
