Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there’s not been a whole lot on television this week. Oh sure, there’re the Olympics, which are awesome and inspiring, and on the other end of the spectrum, there’s American Idol, which I have somehow never managed to fall victim to, but other than that, it’s been pretty low-key. There was no new Project Runway last night, most of the big dramas are on hiatus, and the funniest thing I saw yesterday was Jon Stewart interviewing Tracy Morgan on The Daily Show. (Close second being the intro to that episode of The Daily Show, in which Jon Stewart apologizes for casting aspersions on my beloved alma mater.)

And so, in lieu of further commentary on Tracy Morgan’s proposed male strip club/chicken restaurant (Chickendales), you get a vintage clip from The Muppet Show. I love everything about this, and have watched it probably seven times since I discovered it a few months ago when it got linked on NPR’s Monkey See blog.

As I am industriously reminding myself how to conjugate verbs into the preterite, I leave you today with two clips from Sesame Street. Hulu has posted a whole collection of Sesame Street celebrity guest appearance clips, and I’ll admit to having wasted a little more time than was probably necessary watching some of my favorites (Anderson Cooper, Yo-Yo Ma, Jack Black and Natalie Portman are up at the top). The celebrity guest appearance doesn’t always work quite as well as planned – some people are too stiff (Nancy O’Dell), while some of the concepts are surprisingly inappropriate for children’s television. Who thought it was a good idea to let Chuck Close come talk about painting with Big Bird?

But when it works, it works really, really well. Here are two appearances by Patrick Stewart, equally delightful in their own ways.