Mahna Mahna was written by Italian composer Piero Umiliani as Viva la Sauna Svedese for the 1968 film Sweden: Heaven and Hell. Jim Henson brought it to American television in 1969, when the shaggy orange Muppet Mahna Mahna performed it with the two pink Snowths on The Ed Sullivan Show. The routine became a signature sketch on The Muppet Show in the 1970s, and the tune has since lived on as a comedy interlude and internet meme, instantly signalling silliness wherever it plays.