While it has come out that Miss Piggy used to be a stripper, Gonzo was twice arraigned on charges of buggery for his chicken fetish, and Rolf had an affair with Liberace, nothing can compare with the most shocking of all discoveries: Sam the Eagle was a Nazi.

He was indeed part of a close inner circle with Hitler presiding at the center. They grew up together in Braunau, Austria and were close childhood friends. Together they experienced the joys of youth as only a little boy and his angry bird of prey can. It is suspected that Hitler’s love of Sam compounded his confused nationalism, due in part to Sam’s twisted views about genocide and his infectious disdain for humanity.

During the war Sam played a key role in strategizing the occupation of France, and also worked as a major producer of propaganda films. However, he and his lifelong friend, Adolph Hitler, did end up having a falling out when Sam had a steamy affair with Eva Braun. Although angry beyond measure, Adolph could not bring himself to have Sam killed, partly because of the complete psychological control that this feathered bigot had over the little man. So a dejected and betrayed Hitler sent Sam to the Russian Front where he hoped that he would die in battle. No such luck. That nefarious bird whom many suggest could be the true mastermind behind the Nazi scourge... who makes one almost feel compassion for the most hated man in history... this sinister betrayer sadly lived on.

At the close of WWII, with Hitler’s regime fallen, Sam fled to Argentina to escape the war crimes tribunals. There he got work with a traveling improvisation comedy troupe that eventually came to America. Their popularity caught the eye of producer Jim Henson, and the rest became history.

While many were taken in by his act as an American patriot, we can now finally see where his true loyalties lied. Experts suggest that his America fixation was an over-compensation intended to cover up his blemished past. In reality he pined in exile for the Fatherland, and hoped one day to resurrect its glorious past. However, Sam’s abject cowardice kept him from returning to Germany and trying to restore fascist rule, while it also exaggerated his performance as the U.S. patriot for fear of being discovered. He seemed the very embodiment of the fanatical patriot – in hindsight, an act too good to be true.

While his career was on the straight and narrow, in actuality he was anything but reformed. In a notorious but covered-up incident, he attacked Fozzie the Bear while screaming anti-Semitic slurs at a private cast party. The skirmish was quickly broken up, and Sam reportedly took quite a beating that night at the hands of Kermit the Frog, who was actually a well-trained fighter that often sparred with Bruce Lee in his younger days.

Such turmoil and tension eventually erupted onto the set of the Muppet Show, ruining the chemistry between cast members and leading to the show’s cancellation in 1981.

Ten years later Sam the Eagle died alone in his Brooklyn apartment from a long bout with lung cancer. None of the cast members showed up at his funeral.