https://twitter.com/TygerbugGarrett/status/1778404649462341712
I've revisited Miss Piggy's first appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This took several days of work, on top of the several days of work done on it originally. This episode circulates in current reruns of "The Johnny Carson Show" and indeed I have an off-air of it that I recorded myself, which was one of my sources here. However, Piggy's appearance, and discussion of it, is cut from these reruns for music rights. (Also the streaming and fan copies have screwed-up interlacing; this was a VERY tough one to edit.)The Johnny Carson website has uncut previews of the episodes for licensing, and they've changed their tactics over the years. The old versions were 240p and 10fps ... about half the size and 1/6th the intended frame rate. The current versions are 360p 30fps but have a big color watermark obscuring most of the picture.
You'd have to be absolutely nuts to think this is useable source material. But let's get nuts. I spent several days going in frame by frame and keyframing based on the best available source frames to generate new material. The Piggy segment is quite long so this was a real marathon of work, and one of the most difficult restorations I've done.
This also includes some material of Johnny and Jim which is cut from the reruns.
https://archive.org/details/jim-hensons-muppets-miss-piggy-gonzo-first-appearances-johnny-carson-herb-alpertThis led to a new edit of my Zoot endings reel, and I've even included a "Short" version in full quality for you faneditors out there. AI upscaling and frame interpolation was done on the Belafonte and "generic Season 4" Zoot.
https://archive.org/details/movies-the-muppet-show-itc-atv-zoot-ending-shots-and-promos