The Great Muppet Caper audience. With only $12 for the trip, they're forced to travel in an aeroplane's baggage hold and are thrown out of the plane as it passes over Britain. They stay at the dilapidated (but free) Happiness Hotel, which is populated by other Muppet characters such as Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Lew Zealand, Rowlf the Dog, Sam the Eagle, Pops, Beauregard, Crazy Harry, Camilla the Chicken, and newcomer Rizzo the Rat. The next morning, when Kermit seeks out Lady Holiday in her office, however, he instead finds her newly-hired receptionist, the
The Muppet Show Prowse. The high cost and effort of creating these unique Muppets, scheduling conflicts, and potential legal issues contributed to the decline of this practice, although Muppet caricatures and parodies would continue to appear. The first episode opens on a character called Wally and develops as he types the script on his typewriter. In the second pilot, a new character called Nigel acts as the backstage boss. Statler and Waldorf grumble from a living room while watching the show on television (This setting for Statler and Waldorf would be revisited in the first series of "Muppets Tonight"). In both pilot episodes,