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Muppet Madness

Muppet Madness December 19, 2011Film0 Comments

It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet show tonight…I think that may well be the most of the most memorable lines from my childhood.

It heralded the start of Saturday night television watching in our house at a time when family TV was a given and the whole family sat round to watch it together. (Good grief I am sounding old.) It was always hilarious – always clever – often a bit soppy and always peppered with a guest appearance by an array of people we often knew – but often didn’t!

It just didn’t matter, we just loved it. My generation grew up with the Muppets first on our beloved Sesame Street with its array of characters like Oscar the grouch and Big Bird and of course Kermit. Sometime in the 70’s and early 80’s, Kermit got a show of his own (with his many other pals) that ran for many years.

Slowly the Muppets faded out – after the death of Jim Henson, they just ran out of steam. Disney bought them 10 years ago, and then decided to relaunch them in a movie – and many of us grownups shuddered at the thought. The Muppets always had this slightly hocky sort of feel to it – with the puppet wires showing and in jokes abounding – and it was something we loved about it…

I for one was worried it would all get too slick. I really needn’t have worried. Director James Bobin (Not the Nine O’clock News, Ali G, Borat and Flight of the Concords) has done a stellar job of the Muppet relaunch. So much so that it hardly feels like they have been away. But boy we have missed you Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear and Gonzo. We had forgot quite how long you had been out of our lives.

My own children have watched all of the episodes of the show on DVD – so they were going to be pretty hard to please if they got anything wrong with the film version – and again, I needn’t have worried – they loved it. Our very own Bret McKenzie (from Flight of the Concords) got to write a couple of songs for the film.

All your favourites are there, with a couple of new ones to keep the plot humming along. Jason Segel (who also co-wrote the screen play) is Gary and the perkily perfect Amy Adams is Mary his girlfriend.

They travel to Hollywood with “The World Biggest Muppet Fan”, Gary’s brother Walter (who looks remarkably like a muppet) to go on the Muppets studio tour – only to find the studio rundown and just about to be sold to resident villain Chris Cooper (who gets to rap in the film). They decide to try and raise the money to save the theatre and studio and go in search of the disbanded Muppets in the hope of convincing them to save the theatre with one last performance.

Hilarity ensues – with the best collection of cameos in film history – obviously everyone wanted to get in on this one. My favourite is Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters who plays an ‘Animal-esque’ drummer in the “Mooppets” – Animool.

As well, look out for Alan Arkin, Feist, Emily Blunt as Miss Piggy’s receptionist (fabulous), Zach Galifanakis, Jack Black, Mickey Rooney and Jim Parsons (that one is just hilarious)!

This film is a rare beasty – it has been handled so well that those of us the know it and love it are made happy and we get to introduce it to a whole new (several generations really) generation of children that will instantly fall in love with the muppets they way we did.

It is one of those incredibly rare G ratings that you can take the whole family too – and we all firmly give it 5 out of 5. Go see it this holidays, and then go see it again – it’s that good! In cinemas 29 December.

By Anya Brighouse
19 December 2011