I have so much love for the frog-in-the-gray-flannel-suit sequence and the lesson that the answer when something's missing is *more* "frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and ... and whatever!"
Me glad me was able to shame you into watching this one — it great! Also, me mistakenly said me wasn't in that one, but me pretty sure me in that wedding scene. To be honest, me not can remember. It was long time ago, and me get pretty drunk at weddings.
And me do hope Muppets keep going and keep place in culture, and not just for selfish reasons as Muppet-American actor who wants to continue to get work! But as me wrote in piece for Dissolve many years ago, someone need to figure out what to do with Muppets besides A) let's put on show right here, and B) Tales From Public Domain. Me thought TV show was good concept that they not quite find right tone for — either updating Muppet Show for modern era of TV, or doing Larry Sanders with Muppets would have been great, but they try to do both at once and it not really work.
I think I shared this story back in the day on the Dissolve, but given the occasion, I think it's only right to share it again. Of all the movies I saw before the age of, say, six, I think this movie possibly had the most lasting psychological impact on me as a kid. Not necessarily because of the movie itself, but because during the scene when Kermit is walking across the street and he gets hit by an NYC cab, my dad, in a flash of inspiration, decided that it would be hilarious if he turned off the movie and told me that was the end.
Oh sure, I cried and cried during the immediate aftermath (I think my mom made me watch Sesame Street later that day to "prove" that Kermit was still alive), but in retrospect, I am pretty sure this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to me.
We had no luck with either of our kids and the Muppets either. I watched some Muppet Show episodes with them when they were younger and they were never all that interested. We took them to the Jason Segel Muppet movie and they thought it was fine but weren't super-excited about it. (The only thing from it that stuck with them is the old-school movie storytelling convention of "traveling by map.") Right before our youngest, Ash, went off to college last month, my wife and I resumed our project of streaming every Muppet Show episode on Disney+. (We'd gotten about halfway through Season 3 when we got busy and hit pause a year ago.) Ash was sometimes out in the living room with us playing games on the Switch while we were watching and I thought maybe at 18 years old they'd be hipper to what the show was doing. Nah. Not opposed to it; just not engaged at all.
It's my least favorite of the three canonical Muppet movies. This is apparently not an opinion that's widely held (and comes oh-so-close to "I Appreciate the Muppets On a Much Deeper Level Than You"), but my enjoyment of any given piece of Muppetry is inversely proportional to the emotional weight of the story. Those things just aren't meant to carry the weight of pathos. Give me the exasperated Kermit of the Muppet Show over any Muppet love story.
My kids are obsessed with the Muppets! I started them with a record of “Silly Songs” that I found at a Thrift Shop and showed them short clips and now I got them hooked on “Muppet Treasure Island” and the new “Haunted House” on Disney Plus. 👍🏻
I was also 11 when the movie came out. The Muppet Babies kept me away until my sister picked the movie as the family VHS rental one weekend. We were all glad we saw the film but I forward through that Muppet Babies dream sequence.
10 and 11 are the transitional age, I think. I tried to take my soon-to-be 11 year old to a rooftop showing of "Moana" in San Francisco Sunday, as it was a good 20 degrees cooler than where we live. After a fierce bout of eye-rolling, I took her to see "Marcel The Shell With Shoes On" in Berkeley. She was still dubious given the number of "little" kids in the theater, but by the end she was in on Marcel, laughs and heart tugs and all. It's now her second favorite movie of all time, after "Sonic 2" (can't win 'em all).
"Marcel The Shell With Shoes On" is my favorite movie of the year, and yes, this is entirely relative to my viewing experience.
I have a deep, deep affection for the Muppets and think their first two movies are brilliant. (I'm even of the minority opinion that "The Great Muppet Caper" is superior to the first one.) However, this movie stops me cold every time I try to watch it.
It starts off well enough, but then there are long stretches where it just seems listless, inert, even lost. And then all of a sudden there's a wedding! It's like a pastiche of several different scripts that was rushed into production. I'm mystified that anyone would find this satisfying as a complete movie (though I admit many of the individual scenes are charming on their own).
To me the big takeaway here was really that Frank Oz was directing for the first time, and it shows. If I recall correctly Oz even said that he didn't ask for the job but rather that Henson just told him, "You're gonna direct the next one." Of course he later really came in to his own as a directorial voice, but this one was an inauspicious beginning, for sure.
My kids have been as oddly averse to the Muppets as many of yours seem to be - my daughter even pooh-poohed Sesame Street as being for babies when she was 5 - with one major exception: A Muppet Christmas Carol. It's their holiday fave, and I still hold out hope it can be a gateway to more.
My soon to be 11 year old daughter is also insanely into those Warriors cat books at the moment. She got 5 omnibus volumes from the school library the first library day this year.
We've made some attempts to get her into the Muppets with moderate success. She swears she doesn't remember watching Sesame Street, but she loved it when she was little (unfortunately she loved Elmo and Abby Cadaby the most). After several abortive attempts over the years, we got her to watch Muppets Christmas Carol last year, and she really enjoyed it and tolerated Muppet Treasure Island. I've never even considered trying the Muppet Show (which I love!) on her. It's so very late 70s and early 80s that I can't imagine most of it would click with someone who is still skeptical that her parents could have been born in ancient days that were the late 1900s.
I have so much love for the frog-in-the-gray-flannel-suit sequence and the lesson that the answer when something's missing is *more* "frogs and dogs and bears and chickens and ... and whatever!"
Me glad me was able to shame you into watching this one — it great! Also, me mistakenly said me wasn't in that one, but me pretty sure me in that wedding scene. To be honest, me not can remember. It was long time ago, and me get pretty drunk at weddings.
And me do hope Muppets keep going and keep place in culture, and not just for selfish reasons as Muppet-American actor who wants to continue to get work! But as me wrote in piece for Dissolve many years ago, someone need to figure out what to do with Muppets besides A) let's put on show right here, and B) Tales From Public Domain. Me thought TV show was good concept that they not quite find right tone for — either updating Muppet Show for modern era of TV, or doing Larry Sanders with Muppets would have been great, but they try to do both at once and it not really work.
I think I shared this story back in the day on the Dissolve, but given the occasion, I think it's only right to share it again. Of all the movies I saw before the age of, say, six, I think this movie possibly had the most lasting psychological impact on me as a kid. Not necessarily because of the movie itself, but because during the scene when Kermit is walking across the street and he gets hit by an NYC cab, my dad, in a flash of inspiration, decided that it would be hilarious if he turned off the movie and told me that was the end.
Oh sure, I cried and cried during the immediate aftermath (I think my mom made me watch Sesame Street later that day to "prove" that Kermit was still alive), but in retrospect, I am pretty sure this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to me.
As a child, I had to be soothed to sleep on multiple nights because I found the song where the Muppets go their separate ways so unbearably sad.
I helped trigger a piece! About the Muppets! I feel so proud!
So glad the movie still holds up, but I’m also kinda sad to learn about all the star cameos we lost.
Ocean Breeze Soap: it’s like an ocean cruise, except there’s no boat, and you don’t actually go anywhere
We had no luck with either of our kids and the Muppets either. I watched some Muppet Show episodes with them when they were younger and they were never all that interested. We took them to the Jason Segel Muppet movie and they thought it was fine but weren't super-excited about it. (The only thing from it that stuck with them is the old-school movie storytelling convention of "traveling by map.") Right before our youngest, Ash, went off to college last month, my wife and I resumed our project of streaming every Muppet Show episode on Disney+. (We'd gotten about halfway through Season 3 when we got busy and hit pause a year ago.) Ash was sometimes out in the living room with us playing games on the Switch while we were watching and I thought maybe at 18 years old they'd be hipper to what the show was doing. Nah. Not opposed to it; just not engaged at all.
It's my least favorite of the three canonical Muppet movies. This is apparently not an opinion that's widely held (and comes oh-so-close to "I Appreciate the Muppets On a Much Deeper Level Than You"), but my enjoyment of any given piece of Muppetry is inversely proportional to the emotional weight of the story. Those things just aren't meant to carry the weight of pathos. Give me the exasperated Kermit of the Muppet Show over any Muppet love story.
Frank Oz seems like a genuinely good, thoughtful guy, but is anyone else kind of unsettled by the cameo from post-Twilight Zone John Landis?
My kids are obsessed with the Muppets! I started them with a record of “Silly Songs” that I found at a Thrift Shop and showed them short clips and now I got them hooked on “Muppet Treasure Island” and the new “Haunted House” on Disney Plus. 👍🏻
I was also 11 when the movie came out. The Muppet Babies kept me away until my sister picked the movie as the family VHS rental one weekend. We were all glad we saw the film but I forward through that Muppet Babies dream sequence.
10 and 11 are the transitional age, I think. I tried to take my soon-to-be 11 year old to a rooftop showing of "Moana" in San Francisco Sunday, as it was a good 20 degrees cooler than where we live. After a fierce bout of eye-rolling, I took her to see "Marcel The Shell With Shoes On" in Berkeley. She was still dubious given the number of "little" kids in the theater, but by the end she was in on Marcel, laughs and heart tugs and all. It's now her second favorite movie of all time, after "Sonic 2" (can't win 'em all).
"Marcel The Shell With Shoes On" is my favorite movie of the year, and yes, this is entirely relative to my viewing experience.
I have a deep, deep affection for the Muppets and think their first two movies are brilliant. (I'm even of the minority opinion that "The Great Muppet Caper" is superior to the first one.) However, this movie stops me cold every time I try to watch it.
It starts off well enough, but then there are long stretches where it just seems listless, inert, even lost. And then all of a sudden there's a wedding! It's like a pastiche of several different scripts that was rushed into production. I'm mystified that anyone would find this satisfying as a complete movie (though I admit many of the individual scenes are charming on their own).
To me the big takeaway here was really that Frank Oz was directing for the first time, and it shows. If I recall correctly Oz even said that he didn't ask for the job but rather that Henson just told him, "You're gonna direct the next one." Of course he later really came in to his own as a directorial voice, but this one was an inauspicious beginning, for sure.
My kids have been as oddly averse to the Muppets as many of yours seem to be - my daughter even pooh-poohed Sesame Street as being for babies when she was 5 - with one major exception: A Muppet Christmas Carol. It's their holiday fave, and I still hold out hope it can be a gateway to more.
My soon to be 11 year old daughter is also insanely into those Warriors cat books at the moment. She got 5 omnibus volumes from the school library the first library day this year.
We've made some attempts to get her into the Muppets with moderate success. She swears she doesn't remember watching Sesame Street, but she loved it when she was little (unfortunately she loved Elmo and Abby Cadaby the most). After several abortive attempts over the years, we got her to watch Muppets Christmas Carol last year, and she really enjoyed it and tolerated Muppet Treasure Island. I've never even considered trying the Muppet Show (which I love!) on her. It's so very late 70s and early 80s that I can't imagine most of it would click with someone who is still skeptical that her parents could have been born in ancient days that were the late 1900s.