dir James Frawley, scrpl Jack Burns & Jerry Juhl, cin Isidore Mankofsky, ed Christopher Greenbury
“Read my lips. Hollywood. You know, HOLLYWOOD, the Dream Factory, the Magic Store. Hey, don't you ever go to the movies?” – Bernie the Agent (Dom DeLuise)
Blame it on the proverbial New Year's Day hangover, but for my first film, I wanted to ease myself into this and watch something a bit fluffy. I didn’t want to think too hard. So I picked the cinematic equivalent of comfort food.
When I was a kid, I was allowed to watch only one television program a week. In the five seasons that it was on, my entire exposure to TV was The Muppet Show. So, obviously there is a huge nostalgia factor for me. As the movie started though, I realized this was a perfect pick because it’s a movie about loving the movies, and about chasing your dream.
Sure, it’s also a corny Hope & Crosby road picture, by way of Mel Brooks. It’s probably no accident that both Bob Hope and Mel Brooks have cameos in the film. Early Henson influence Edger Bergen, with puppet Charlie McCarthy, also makes an appearance.
Television programs that make the move to the big screen tend to fall flat. With the possible exception of Star Trek, they either devolve into self-parody (sometimes intentionally) or simply fail to expand on what was good about the show, becoming kind of redundant.
But The Muppet Movie walks this line perfectly. It doesn’t lose its vaudevillian influence, or the parade of popular celebrities for the Muppets to interact with, and it expounds on the illusion of life that make Kermit and his friends seem so real, from playing the banjo in an actual swamp, to bicycling and driving cars the complexity of the Muppeteering has been sufficiently ratcheted.
The illusion is so complete that, like Disney animation, the anthropomorphism of Kermit and his friend was probably an early influence to my eventual vegetarianism. Does anyone else not get depressed when Kermit envisions “…millions of frogs on tiny crutches?”
I think of all of the Muppet films, this one is, by far, the most entertaining. That’s probably for two reasons. First, the Paul Williams score is actually memorable. Who doesn’t know The Rainbow Connection?
Secondly, I feel like while all of the Muppet’s movies are silly and entertaining, this one actually has something very real to say. It’s about following your dreams and refusing to quit in the face of adversity.
There is a moment near the beginning of the film when Kermit’s nephew Robin asks, “Uncle Kermit, is this about how the Muppets really got started?” and Kermit replies, “Well, it's sort of approximately how it happened.” Hearing this, I can’t help but feel that this is really the story of Jim Henson and how he built his merry band of Muppeteers.
Kermit (Jim Henson) first meets up with Fozzie (Frank Oz), and, before long, they’ve added more characters, like Gonzo (Dave Goelz) Sgt. Floyd Pepper (Jerry Nelson) and Scooter (Richard Hunt) to their entourage. By the time the film introduces the Electric Mayhem, the talents of all of the Muppet performers have been thoroughly showcased.
And when we arrive at the film’s climax, with Orson Welles in the role of studio chief Lew Lord, we realize that Kermit was telling the truth, this is “sort of approximately,” how the Muppets got started. Lew Lord is a stand in for Lord Lew Grade, who famously produced The Muppet Show, when the American networks had all passed.
As the music swells Kermit and his friends, standing in for their more anonymous counterparts, sing:
Life’s like a movie, write your own ending,
keep believing, keep pretending.
We've done just what we set out to do,
thanks to the lovers, the dreamers and you.
I came into my first film looking for something light, and rediscovered an affirmative message about creativity, art and following your dreams. This project is going to be fun!