The zany, madcap action-comedy of Jim Henson's Muppets was a perfect match for the devilish shock rock of Alice Cooper, who joined forces in 1978 for one of the best-loved episodes of The Muppet Show.
Airing just after Halloween of that year - weeks before the release of his album From the Inside - the third season episode found the "talented but frightening" Cooper guesting on the show, performing favorites like "School's Out," "You and Me" and "Welcome to My Nightmare." He also offered the cast a bone-chilling bargain backstage: a contract promising a one-way ticket to fame. The cost? Their souls. (Yes, Muppets have souls!) While Miss Piggy and The Great Gonzo flirt with the devilish pact, it never pans out - and by the end of the episode, everyone finds something that frightens even Alice: the bill for the episode's special effects!
While Cooper was a self-professed fan of the program, he initially wasn't sure if he wanted to be on it. “I balked at first,” Cooper told Yahoo! Entertainment. “I went, ‘Oh man, I've been spending all this time building this villain image. Is this just going to water it down?’ I said, ‘Who's going to be on it?’ And they said Christopher Lee, Vincent Price...and I went, ‘I'm in!’ I didn't even have to think about it...If those guys can do it, I am privileged to do it.”
Today, he has nothing but warm memories of his time with the gang. "Kermit and I got along very well," he joked in 2016. "We were fast friends. The problem was Miss Piggy. She was coming onto me pretty strong." He even told fans in 2015 that he still gets birthday gifts from The Muppets.
READ MORE: February 1973: Alice Cooper Releases "Billion Dollar Babies"
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