As a lifelong Muppet obsessive, I awaited the new Muppet movie (which opens today) with a combination of giddiness and dread. Having grown up on the Jim Henson classics (“The Muppet Movie,” “The Great Muppet Caper,” and “The Muppets Take Manhattan”), and then held my nose through the post-Henson missteps (“Kermit’s Swamp Years,” anyone?), I knew that there was perilous room for error.
I’m happy to report that Jason Segel and company have returned the Muppets gloriously to form. How did they do it? Below, the fundamentals of Muppet cinema.
The Muppets should play themselves.
The off-the-wall humor of the Muppets works best in contrast to reality—the haute London of “The Great Muppet Caper” or the grimy New York of “The Muppets Take Manhattan.” The films of the nineties, “The Muppet Christmas Carol” and “Muppet Treasure Island,” lazily shoehorned the characters into preëxisting narratives. By 2005, they were doing “The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz,” a dismal TV movie starring Ashanti as Dorothy. Which brings us to Rule No. 2.The Muppets should have bigger parts than the humans.
It seems obvious, but who goes to a Muppet movie to see Michael Caine as Scrooge or Tim Curry as Long John Silver? The humans should function as minor players in a Muppet-led adventure, as Segel and Amy Adams do in the new movie. That said…You need great cameos.
Orson Welles. Steve Martin. Mel Brooks. Carol Kane. Richard Pryor. Dom DeLuise. And that’s just “The Muppet Movie.” For truly outstanding human-Muppet acting, check out Charles Grodin, lusting after Miss Piggy in “The Great Muppet Caper.” And “The Muppets Take Manhattan” is like a who’s who of eighties showbiz: Brooke Shields, Liza Minnelli, Gregory Hines, and, in a makeup party for the ages, Joan Rivers. The new movie has a couple of good ones, the weirdest being James Carville. Then again, he is pretty Muppety.Among the Muppets, Kermit and Piggy must have top billing.
“Muppets in Space” was all about Gonzo. “Muppets Tonight,” the short-lived mid-nineties TV series, was hosted by Clifford, a catfish-type creature who was rightfully never heard from again. The new movie introduces a character named Walter, a sort of Muppet stand-in for Segel, but his devotion to Kermit and Piggy—who get plenty of screen time—make up for his prominence.Go easy on the lessons.
Unlike most other kiddy entertainment, the Muppets were never didactic. They’re flawed, eccentric, anarchic personalities. Miss Piggy, let’s face it, is a borderline narcissist. Gonzo is in love with a chicken. Kermit has a quiet dignity, but he’s easily aggravated. In the Muppet world, character trumps discipline—but when it comes time for morals, they’re kept simple and classy. Leave the “I love you, you love me” garbage to the singing dinosaur.Throw some jokes to the adults, too.
In recent years, there’s been a noxious trend in Disney movies to pack in sarcastic pop-culture references as a way of pandering to parents. The Muppet scripts did better: they had an understated wit that often slyly broke the fourth wall. When Diana Rigg, in “The Great Muppet Caper,” gives an unprompted character description of her wayward brother, Miss Piggy asks, “Why are you telling me all this?” Her reply: “It’s plot exposition; it has to go somewhere.”Lavish musical numbers.
I leave you with the greatest of all Muppet production numbers: “Piggy’s Fantasy,” the synchronized-swimming tour-de-force from “The Great Muppet Caper.”
