Jim Henson.
That’s not a sentence, but dropping the name is a cheap and easy way to inspire goodwill at the top of your DVD column – at least for anybody 26 and older. I can’t speak for kids today, and I know it’s possible that a majority of those taking their SATs right now are only vaguely aware of Kermit the Frog, which seems like a damn shame.
Or maybe it’s liberating? For all his inspirational humor, you could argue that Henson was a brutally monopolistic power over family entertainment for about three decades: First, they started you on Sesame Street, just to make sure you could count the cash in your parents’ wallets. In a few years, you were ready for the musical hippie vibe of Fraggle Rock. Then, just when you’re starting to learn the value of melancholy and double entendres, POW! They hit you with the classic Muppet Show and subsequent Muppet movies.
But I digress…for now…and greet with warm enthusiasm the recent news that Jason Segel (currently starring in I Love You, Man) has convinced the Walt Disney Corporation – who snatched the Muppets up back in 2004 – to let him script a revival for their foamy, felty careers in an edgy new movie. We’re a year or two from knowing whether his plan will work, but it’s only a short trip to your local independent video store to enjoy years of classic Muppetdom on VHS or DVD. Avoid buckling under the stress of picking one with this handy guide.
The Muppet Movie (1979)
“Opportunity knocks once, let’s reach out and grab it/Together we’ll nab it/We’ll hitchhike, bus, or yellow-cab it.”
Totally.
The first Muppet Movie is, as Kermit tells his nephew Robin at the start, “more or less” the story of how the Muppets got together. It begins as all good things do, with Dom Deluise wandering aimlessly in a rowboat through the swamp bandying about a trade publication. Kermit decides he wants more out of life, and travels the country in search of other talking animals and a career in Hollywood.
No other Muppet movie has this many top-notch songs. And no other Muppet Movie will get more dated every second of every day – if cameos from Bob Hope and Milton Berle weren’t enough, it’s now puzzling why Kermit and his friends don’t just start a YouTube channel and twitter like mad.
The Muppets Take Manhatten (1984)
The alleged inspiration for Segal’s comeback effort, the Muppets Take Manhatten was the third and final film starring the Muppet Show gang before Jim Henson’s untimely death six years later. It also came several years after the Muppet Show ended, so it was kind of a revival at the time. Now it’s just an overly sentimental retread on the first movie.
That said, it does feature: Joan Rivers going insane; Kermit the Frog wearing a fake mustache; Ed Kotch; one culturally-insensitive joke by Rowlf the Dog; and the following rejoinder:
Ronnie Crawford: But, Pop, I told you – I want to do something different!
Bernard Crawford: So put some Jell-O down your pants.
Sesame Street presents Follow That Bird! (1985)
The ‘Street came first, and gave us Kermit, but it was 15 years in before it got a full-length feature all its own (though Big Bird has a key cameo in The Muppet Movie.) Nevertheless, this is another fine buddy road comedy, with several batches of buddies – Bert and Ernie among them – hitting the road in search of Big Bird, who is kidnapped by an evil, ultraconservative segregationist who believes he should be living with a bunch of giant Dodos.
Speaking of which, his clueless Dodo foster family is one of the funniest bits ever committed to celluloid. Big Bird was miffed enough after being ripped from his friends on Sesame Street, but five minutes with these folks provides him with the pure blind rage needed to ignore everything Gordon and Maria told him about getting into cars with strangers. So he hitchhikes across the country and at one point squats in some guy’s barn. It’s alright, because the lesson is eventually learned that this kind of thing only leads to non-consensual circus performing, after he’s kidnapped – again – by SCTV’s Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty.
Also, Cookie Monster eats a car.
Winner – The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Sacrilege, I know. How could the best Muppet movie have been made after Jim Henson’s passing?! And the Muppets are role-playing here, not advancing the tight continuity and deep narrative arch of the original films!
But this is the best Muppet movie. It’s funny, it’s touching, it’s even kind of spooky. Michael Cane takes the lead in a story that’s remarkably faithful to Charles Dickens’ original tale. Henson will not curse me for this choice, I think – he created these characters and his very own son directs.
Case closed. The Muppet Christmas Carol is a fitting tribute, suitable for both Halloween and Christmas, and good God that Death Muppet is no less cold and creepy than death itself.
(photo-illustration courtesy of James V. Carroll)