The Jim Henson Company Presents The Sam Plenty Cavalcade of Action Show Plus Singing! is a live action web-series from the Jim Henson Company. The series was created and directed by Paul Rugg and Mitch Schauer.
Synopsis
The series is designed as a Western comedy musical with science-fiction and action adventure elements, starring cowboy hero Sam Plenty. Victor Yerrid described Sam Plenty in a 2007 interview as "a throwback to the old Gene Autry Show". In particular, the premise recalls Autry's 1935 serial The Phantom Empire, in which Autry and friends must battle an evil queen, robots, and various sci-fi devices.
The show is an over-the-top tongue-in-cheek parody of classic television serials. The first serial in "The Sam Plenty Cavalcade of Action Show Plus Singing!" was titled "Sam Plenty in Underdoom". The first installment of the five-episode serial debuted on the web on March 10, 2008 (although adding the parody element, the episodes begin at "part 3").
The cast consists of a mixture of television and film actors. The Sam Plenty troupe also includes several veteran Henson puppeteers includes Yerrid (as Bob Choppy), Drew Massey (as Sam Plenty), and Allan Trautman (as the professor). Emmy-winning composers Julie and Steve Bernstein (Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and many others) wrote the music for the series. A sample of the project was screened at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con.