The story goes that at one production meeting the Muppet Creator Jim Henson told his senior creative staff that he wanted to “make a children’s television program that would bring peace to the world.” No surprises there, if you know Henson’s work. That’s what it did; that’s what it does. The Muppets, especially in their massively popular TV variety show incarnation and its expansion in The Muppet Movie (1979), along with the show he was proposing (Fraggle Rock) and especially the profound fantasy film The Dark Crystal really do present the possibility of a more peaceful world. The Muppet Movie regularly appears on my top ten lists, and not ironically. Or at least not only ironically, for irony is one of what we might call the four pillars of Muppetdom. The others are chaos, community, and compassion – if only there were a synonym for irony that begins with a “C” we could write an opera skit for Miss Piggy.
The Muppet Movie surmounts the challenge of converting a TV show into a film. It’s not just a bigger budget remake of the original show, but a genuinely well-written, directed, and paced expansion. It is also – truly – a musical, consciously locating itself in the tradition with Busby Berkeley-scale set pieces, intimate torch songs in a smoky lounge, and mopey-folksy ballads by a campfire to boot.
Opening up from backstage at a crumbling theatre, we witness the mythic origin story of how Piggy, Kermit, Fozzie, and the rest of our surrogate family made it in Hollywood. The Frog with his banjo on a lily pad, the Bear sweetly participating in his own harmless humiliation at a terrible comedy club, the Pig utterly secure in her beauty and merely waiting to be swept off her feet, Rowlf offering spiritual solace from a lonely piano.
The fact that I can name those starting points from memory – and could do the same for a dozen others in The Muppet Movie – is testimony to the depth of imagination Henson and friends brought to the shaping of distinct and lovable characters. And the other meaning of character is why I adore the Muppets the most: they’re full of love.
Then there’s the hilarious and really smart fourth-wall-breaking introduction of Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, found first in a church, and who are brought up to speed by literally pausing the movie so they can read the script thus far. It’s not the only time in a Henson production where the existence of the spirit of the Muppets in the world inhabited by the audience is taken for granted. I’ve heard that human actors privileged to have worked with the Muppets experience them as utterly real; apparently each Muppet has a human assistant (who knew?), but when acting with the Muppets, one must speak to the Muppet-like any other person. And the Muppet will speak back.
While anarchic action is never far from the scene (Gonzo’s stunts are indeed death-defying), no one is ever permanently exiled from the community. You get the sense that even the evil Doc Hopper, whose dastardly scheme to force Kermit to advertise a chain restaurant specializing in his cousins’ legs forms the inciting incident in this epic drama, would be welcome at the Muppets’ table, as long as he agreed to revise his menu.
The madness and glory of Kermit on a bicycle, Orson Welles offering a standard rich and famous contract, and a rainbow bright enough to bathe everyone in holy light are just three of a hundred moments that make The Muppet Movie a film of sheer delight. But the end of the story, when the set collapses to let the rainbow in, isn’t just happy pandemonium, for the collapse doesn’t merely let the rainbow in, but lets the magic of the Muppets out. It’s a signal to those of us watching that everything good in the lives of these characters can belong to us too.
— Gareth Higgins (2022)
- Directed by: James Frawley
- Produced by: Jim Henson; David Lazer; Martin Starger; Lew Grade
- Written by: Jerry Juhl; Jack Burns
- Music by: Kenny Ascher; Paul Williams
- Cinematography by: Isidore Mankofsky
- Editing by: Chistopher Greenbury
- Release date: 1979.
- Running Time: 95 minutes.
- Language: English
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