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The Muppet Movie, 1979
When a very lost movie agent ends up in Kermit the Frog’s swamp, Kermit is convinced to pursue a career in Hollywood. Traveling across the country, he is soon joined by companions Fozzy the Bear, Gonzo, and Miss Piggy. But unfortunately for Kermit, Doc Hopper (Charles Durning) and his reluctant assistant Max (Austin Pendleton) will stop at nothing to force Kermit to become the face of Hopper’s frog leg food chain.
Full of engaging music and fun cameos, this is a fabulous road trip comedy.
This movie is one of those half-remembered films from my childhood. It’s the kind of movie where I didn’t remember all of the specifics, but at times a character would begin to say a line and I would know how the rest of it would go right down to the intonation.
It’s interesting what you click with watching this kind of movie as an adult. As a child I didn’t really know who Elliot Gould or Richard Pryor were, much less understand the general cheekiness of having a certain actor show up as the boss of all of Hollywood. And while I know that I picked up on it as a child----because it’s so overt---I was generally more aware of the meta-textual nods that the film makes. (For example, at one point they let a character know what’s happened so far by simply handing him a copy of the script).
One thing that I was very pleased to discover is that the music is really solid. I normally don’t have much patience for slow songs in musicals, but dang were these all winners! Paul Williams---whom I now know visually from his role in Phantom of the Paradise---and Kenny Ascher put together a fantastic line-up of songs. “Rainbow Connection” is probably the best and most well-known of the bunch, but I also have to give a mention to Gonzo’s strange, melancholy “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” which definitely made me feel weird as a kid and made me unsettled this time around as an adult. The final lyrics in the film, “Life is like a movie/write your own ending/Keep believing/Keep pretending” are just perfect.
The cameos in the film, a staple of the Muppet movies, are for the most part pretty brief, but they get some good one-liners, such as James Coburn as a man who has been thrown out of a wild bar, or Richard Pryor as a man determined to sell Gonzo as many balloons as possible.
As befits a road movie, the action moves from a swamp, to a rowdy bar, to a rural church, to a southern fair, and so on. Everywhere they go, Kermit and his friends pick up more hopefuls---not counting Big Bird, who is determined to make his way east and break into public broadcasting---so that eventually they have a busload of dreamers heading for Hollywood.
There wasn’t much in this film I didn’t like. (Though, wow, I sure didn’t remember there being so many confederate flags being waved around during the fair sequence!). I know that a sequence with Mel Brooks as a sort of Nazi doctor who intends to torture and essentially lobotomize Kermit bothered and scared me as a kid, and even as an adult I found the scene uncomfortable to watch. It’s a bit too violent, despite the cartoonish performances, but that may be some leftover memory of how it made me feel.
A very funny and hopeful film full of great songs and some wonderful/terrible puns. (Myth! Myth! Yeth?).
The Muppet Movie, 1979
When a very lost movie agent ends up in Kermit the Frog’s swamp, Kermit is convinced to pursue a career in Hollywood. Traveling across the country, he is soon joined by companions Fozzy the Bear, Gonzo, and Miss Piggy. But unfortunately for Kermit, Doc Hopper (Charles Durning) and his reluctant assistant Max (Austin Pendleton) will stop at nothing to force Kermit to become the face of Hopper’s frog leg food chain.
Full of engaging music and fun cameos, this is a fabulous road trip comedy.
This movie is one of those half-remembered films from my childhood. It’s the kind of movie where I didn’t remember all of the specifics, but at times a character would begin to say a line and I would know how the rest of it would go right down to the intonation.
It’s interesting what you click with watching this kind of movie as an adult. As a child I didn’t really know who Elliot Gould or Richard Pryor were, much less understand the general cheekiness of having a certain actor show up as the boss of all of Hollywood. And while I know that I picked up on it as a child----because it’s so overt---I was generally more aware of the meta-textual nods that the film makes. (For example, at one point they let a character know what’s happened so far by simply handing him a copy of the script).
One thing that I was very pleased to discover is that the music is really solid. I normally don’t have much patience for slow songs in musicals, but dang were these all winners! Paul Williams---whom I now know visually from his role in Phantom of the Paradise---and Kenny Ascher put together a fantastic line-up of songs. “Rainbow Connection” is probably the best and most well-known of the bunch, but I also have to give a mention to Gonzo’s strange, melancholy “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” which definitely made me feel weird as a kid and made me unsettled this time around as an adult. The final lyrics in the film, “Life is like a movie/write your own ending/Keep believing/Keep pretending” are just perfect.
The cameos in the film, a staple of the Muppet movies, are for the most part pretty brief, but they get some good one-liners, such as James Coburn as a man who has been thrown out of a wild bar, or Richard Pryor as a man determined to sell Gonzo as many balloons as possible.
As befits a road movie, the action moves from a swamp, to a rowdy bar, to a rural church, to a southern fair, and so on. Everywhere they go, Kermit and his friends pick up more hopefuls---not counting Big Bird, who is determined to make his way east and break into public broadcasting---so that eventually they have a busload of dreamers heading for Hollywood.
There wasn’t much in this film I didn’t like. (Though, wow, I sure didn’t remember there being so many confederate flags being waved around during the fair sequence!). I know that a sequence with Mel Brooks as a sort of Nazi doctor who intends to torture and essentially lobotomize Kermit bothered and scared me as a kid, and even as an adult I found the scene uncomfortable to watch. It’s a bit too violent, despite the cartoonish performances, but that may be some leftover memory of how it made me feel.
A very funny and hopeful film full of great songs and some wonderful/terrible puns. (Myth! Myth! Yeth?).