The Muppets, Part 3: Trapped in the Past

With less than a day to prepare, the Muppets return to the Muppet Theater.  The theater is in less-than-pristine condition, although, considering the chaos that went on during The Muppet Show, it's surprisingly clean.

In fact, it's cleaner!

The Muppets and Walter's group decide to clean up the theater to a musical montage.  And, rather than sing an original song, like they would have during the first three films, they sing "We Built This City on Rock and Roll."  I assume this is to remind us of all the covers that the Muppets performed on The Muppet Show, but those songs at least parodied the originals with visual puns or frantic violence.  The montage is great, and we get to see a lot of familiar faces who didn't easily fit elsewhere in the film, but the song is an odd, bland choice.

Like Kermit's Rolodex of '80s celebrities, this sequence leaves me wanting more.

After the montage, we move through a few more plot points.  Miss Piggy arrives to help with the show and replace Miss Poogy, but she makes it clear that she is NOT there for Kermit.  This human development creates a nice internal tension for the film.  Ultimately, the main goal is to put on the show and Kermit's broken relationship with Piggy doesn't really play into that, but it's believable and treats our characters as real people behaving normally (something sorely missing from certain previous films).

And speaking of human relationships, Mary leaves Gary behind to continue working as he is oblivious to their crumbling relationship.  Checking back in with the original plot (which is now a subplot) introduces a big motif for the film, in that the humans act less realistic than the Muppets do.  Keep this in mind for some of the later scenes.

Back with the Muppets, the rehearsals are going terribly, and both Kermit and Walter are placed into positions in which they are expected to perform.  Walter is allowed to participate in the show and he racks his brain searching for a talent while Kermit learns that people expect him and Piggy to do a duet.  Unfortunately, Piggy has found a new partner in Pepe the Prawn which is a huge relief for anyone that was worried that the "new Muppets" would dominate a film devoted to the "classic Muppets."  Instead, his appearance is just a cameo.

Post-1990 Muppets in my Muppet movie?!  I'll allow it.

We now abruptly segue into what I like to call "A Flight of the Conchords Segment Disguised as a Muppet Song," when Mary and Piggy sing about the perks of being alone with "Me Party."

For those of you who aren't familiar with this film's songwriter Bret McKenzie, he is part of the comedy music duo Flight of the Conchords and their short-lived television show was comprised of songs exactly like this.  Very explicitly stating the obvious with a multitude of lyrical synonyms and fancifully wordplay, "Me Party" was the only song that really took me out of the film, thinking, "Huh, I guess they couldn't fit that into one of their episodes."

Seriously, imagine Bret or Jemaine singing this.  It makes a lot more sense!

Back to the movie, Kermit stresses over having to find a celebrity to host the show.  With less than 12 hours to go, he decides to beg Tex Richman for the theater back so that the whole situation can be avoided.  Wow, Kermit, you gave up pretty quickly, especially for you... But that means we get to visit our favorite villain again, so it evens out.

Yay, Uncle Deadly!

Tex Richman refuses to sympathize with the Muppets and justifies his actions because he is the evil villain.  Oh, and he does this via a hip-hop number that comes so far out of left field that it makes up for the fact that it's fake rap.  This moment may not connect with everyone, but it worked for me because of how far out of place it was (unlike "Me Party," which was only mildly out of place).

Perfectly imperfect.

Now, apparently, this number ("Let's Talk About Me") was twice as long and featured an operatic interlude that explained why Tex Richman hated the Muppets and why he always said "Maniacal Laugh" as opposed to actually laughing.  Apparently, during his 10th birthday, the Muppets performed at his party, but he was physically unable to laugh.  So everyone else laughed at him and he grew bitter and resentful.  Normally, I would save the discussion about alternate scenes and storylines for my final recap, but this point is so crucial to his character (and it fills in a major plot hole later in the film) that I consider it part of the movie proper.

You didn't see this scene, but you should have.

After that jaunt, Richman reveals that not only will the Muppets lose the theater, but also the Muppet name itself.  And who will become the new owners of that name?  Why the horrible Moopets of course.

And now they are joined by a fake Fozzie who is probably a reference to this.

Kermit feels that all is hopeless (man, Kermit, where's your spirit?), leaving it up to the rest of the gang to get their celebrity host to save the show.  Meanwhile, Gary nearly gets dumped by Mary for hanging out with the Muppets all day and blowing off their anniversary dinner.  IT's hard keeping track of both of these movies at once, but this is leading somewhere good, I promise.  Until then, here are the Muppets securing their new guest host.

I feel like that was a parody of something...Nope, it couldn't possibly be.

Tomorrow, we answer the age-old question, "Are you a man...or a Muppet?"

The Muppets, Part 2: It's Time to Re-Meet the Muppets

Walter, Gary, and Mary convince Kermit to try to reunite the gang in order to put on one more celebration.  Now the movie kind of takes an odd turn during this section as Walter, Gary, and Mary take a backseat to the rest of the Muppets and their story.

Literally.

Yes, they occasionally pop in with a few words of encouragement, but the next 20 minutes are all about the Muppets.  Kermit first tracks down Fozzie in Reno where he is performing at a casino with a Muppet tribute band known as "The Moopets."  They catch Fozzie singing a parodic version of "The Rainbow Connection" that alerts customers to the discounts of the casino.  This song is just so sad and wrong (like, why isn't the Kermit stand-in singing the song?), that it's perfect.

There's low, and then there's Reno low.

A little aside, here.  Here comes the first issue I have with the movie.  I hate the Moopets.  Yes, they are supposed to be hated within the context of the film, but I hate the idea of the Moopets.  If they are a Muppet tribute band, why do they hate the Muppets so much?  They are just nasty and rude for no reason, especially towards Fozzie.  That would be like a Beatles tribute band constantly belittling their lead singer, Paul McCartney.  Ringo, I'd understand.  But basically they are mean just to make it easier for Fozzie to leave them.  They don't sit well with me.

Dave Grohl as Animal is great, though.

Next stop is Gonzo's Royal Flush.  Remember how he was a plumber in the first movie?  Well now he is the richest plumber in the world.  And he acts like a corporate tool now which...his hard to buy.  Having traced Gonzo's history for the last year, I've become pretty familiar with the kind of whatever Gonzo is.  And Gonzo would never sell-out, even for a second.  Fortunately, Gonzo reveals his daredevil costume at the last second and plummets off his building to join the Muppets.

There's the Gonzo we love.

He also blows up his plumbing business, to prove his priorities.  Good.

Finally, the gang picks up Animal at a mental institution where he is undergoing anger management therapy with Kristen Schaal and Jack Black.  This scene makes sense in it's premise, but it creates a weird mood for Animal to be in during the whole movie.  I'll show you the clip to explain what I mean.

As soon as the Muppets mention drumming, he clearly gets excited and wild, then has to revert back to being "in control."  This will become a recurring bit throughout the movie, even though it's clear Animal can go back to "normal" at any time.  It would have been stronger to have Animal remain completely calm and unnatural until a crucial point later in the film.  Otherwise, we just get awkward Animal fluctuations.

The rest of the Muppets are picked up via montage and we see our other issue.  Some, like the Electric Mayhem, are down on their luck, but others, like Scooter or (as we saw earlier) Gonzo are doing very well for themselves.  Some of them could even be considered famous for the new roles they have found themselves in.  I thought the whole point of the movie is that the Muppets have disappeared from the public consciousness.  Clearly, that isn't the case for about half of the gang.

Even though this just furthers my point, Sam the Eagle on Totally-Not-Fox News is perfect.

Compare this to The Muppets Take Manhattan, when the group had to go their separate ways and leave Kermit in New York.  The Muppets all found menial jobs and were struggling to stay afloat.  Fozzie even went in to hibernation.  That's how they should have disappeared here, not just become rich superstars in other fields of work.

However, the one person who would be acceptable to have achieved their dream job is Miss Piggy, and lo-and-behold, she is working as an editor for Vogue Paris.  This takes us back to The Great Muppet Caper where Miss Piggy tried to get into modeling.  It seems to be a natural evolution of the character, unlike rich Gonzo.  Piggy is now highly exclusive and the Muppets have to sneak in to her office by doing...Muppetman.

Okay, this is cheesy and weird, but I'll admit that as a kid, I may have taken my Muppet plush toys and done the exact same thing while playing...

Unfortunately, Piggy refuses to rejoin the Muppets.  After her falling out with Kermit following her trick wedding at the end of The Muppets Take Manhattan (wait, so all of these movies are canon with each other now?), she had her heart broken.  She is doing well for herself in Paris and will not come back.  Finally, a plot point that make sense!

Stupidly, the gang decides to try their luck by using "Miss Poogy" from the Moopets as Piggy's replacement, and they go from television network to television network to pitch their comeback show.  I wonder how Walter, Gary, and Mary are doing... Oh well!  The Muppets finally arrive at a network called CDE after being turned down by everyone else.  They plead with network exec Rashida Jones to give them a chance, and she only reluctantly allows them a two-hour timeslot when the hit game show "Punch Teacher" is pulled at the last minute.

The Muppets are coming to television!

Tomorrow, we return to the Muppet Theater and Walter starts to find his place in the world.