Wayne & Wanda

Wayne & Wanda

Wayne & Wanda are a singing duo from The Muppet Show. They first appear in the unreleased pilot version of episode 101 and become a recurring part of the first season, where they are usually introduced by Sam the Eagle. Their act is presented as wholesome and polite, but it repeatedly falls apart before they get past the first verse of a song.

Style and routine

The pair perform sentimental love songs, often drawn from musicals and operettas. Their sketches begin in a calm, elegant manner and then end in failure, with the song title often seeming to foreshadow the collapse. Their style is compared with the kind of duet associated with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. They also perform “Indian Love Call”, a song associated with Eddy and MacDonald through Rose-Marie.

Appearances on The Muppet Show

Wayne & Wanda first appear in a clip during an extended version of “The Muppet Show Theme”, where Kermit introduces them singing “You Made Me Love You”. Wanda’s first official appearance is in the “At the Dance” segment in the same episode, where she dances with Mahna Mahna. The duo are properly introduced as a pair in a backstage scene in episode 102, where they complain that their act has been cut and speak critically about guest star Connie Stevens before realising she is listening. Their first onstage performance is “Stormy Weather” in episode 103.

They appear in most of the first season, but are removed entirely from the second season. This happens partly because Wanda’s performer, Eren Ozker, leaves and partly because Jerry Juhl becomes head writer and shifts the show away from running gags toward character-based comedy. Because Wayne and Wanda rarely appear backstage in the first season, they do not develop as separate characters.

Later Muppet appearances

Wayne returns in the third season as a solo performer, singing numbers such as “My Wild Irish Rose” and “Dog Walk”. He also appears as the hero in a set of Muppet Melodrama sketches, where he tries to rescue Miss Piggy from Uncle Deadly’s schemes. The Wanda puppet continues to appear as a Whatnot in “At the Dance” segments and as a background puppet for the following four years of The Muppet Show.

In episode 406, Wanda returns, now performed by Kathryn Mullen, and rejoins Wayne. They guilt Kermit into rehiring them, but he changes his mind after they begin singing. Wayne appears once more in the fifth season. Wanda later appears in the background of Muppets Studios Presents: You’re the Director, a View-Master video game. The pair also appear as finger puppets in The Muppets Big Book of Crafts, designed and built by April Asher.

Comics and other print appearances

Wayne & Wanda also appear in BOOM! Studios comic books. In The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson issue #1, they perform “When the Lusitania Went Down” with their usual introduction by Sam the Eagle and an early ending. In Family Reunion issue #3, they perform “Mighty Like a Rose”. In Pigs in Space, Rizzo the Rat suggests the idea of “Wayne and Wanda Night Fever”.