Southern Creature Comforts

The last Tale from Muppetland featured a different kind of fairy tale.  Having dealt enough with princesses and kings and witches, Henson turned to the Grimm tale The Town Musicians of Bremen.  However, while the original referenced the German city of Bremen, Henson moved the tale down south, to the bayous of Louisiana.  And, aside from the setting change and the jazz music, The Muppet Musicians of Bremen was a straightforward adaptation of the original story.

Everything about this image is straightforward.

For the uninitiated, the original story is about four old, worn-out farm animals (a donkey, rooster, dog, and cat) whose masters kick them out for being off little use to them.  They come across a bunch of musical instruments and they decide to travel to Bremen in order to become famous musicians.  Along the way, they stop at a house that is filled with robbers and all around bad guys.  They try to play their music for them so that they may have some food and shelter.  The robbers, thinking the noises are witches or ghosts or whatever, flee the scene, and the animals inhabit the house.

And the moral of the story is...monsters aren't real, only tuba playing donkeys are?

Anyway, the Muppet version follows the same path, except to fill out the hour, each animal is given some backstory to make us care about them more.  Apparently, their evil masters are also the robbers in the house, so we've got our heros and villains.  Since the story is practically unchanged, what makes this special so...special?  The puppets.

Check out the villains:

Sweet dreams!

In case you can't tell, those are full-bodied puppets.  Rather than go with humans, as in the previous specials, Henson decided to try something new for the villains.  This is unlike the Taminella/Goshposh technique, where the puppet was controlled like any other puppet and the puppeteer hunched over, creating an obese character.  Here, the heads of the puppets were actually on the heads of the puppeteers!

So, how did they get them to talk and move?  Well, it's actually all done through clever camera edits.  The mouths would flap in long shots, but in close ups, the puppeteer would control the face with their hand.  Still, it's not very obvious when watching the show.  In fact, the effect was so convincing that Henson received praises from a makeup artist who thought that he had discovered a new type of face makeup that could incorporate puppetry!

Because that's the most logical explanation.

The heroes of the story were not simple puppets either.  Each one of them incorporated elements of marionettes along with the traditional hand puppet (possibly originating the rumor that "Muppet" means "Marionette + Puppet").  Leroy the Donkey in particular is very large, and at times it's hard to tell exactly how he is being controlled.

Yeah, that picture above isn't just a promo image.  We actually see the whole thing walk.

The decision to move the story to the American south helps lend a unique flavor to the special.  Henson was born in Mississippi, so he was returning to his roots (much as he liked to do whenever Kermit went back to his southern swamp).  But there seems to be more at play here.  The relationship between the animals and the humans in the story seems very similar to the relationship between slaves and slave-owners in the American south.  The language of the characters and dialogue that they have seem to reinforce this theme.  The music they create is influenced by that of early African-American culture (jazz, folk songs, and even the Rooster has a blues number).  If you close your eyes and just listen to the story, the similarities between the two cultures (fictional and non-fictional) is uncanny.

Racial commentary and civil rights history in a Muppet special?!

I've not found any other literature supporting this theory, especially not from Henson or his sources, but I couldn't help but think that that was at the back of the creators' minds as they were making this special in 1972.  Had the story remained set in Germany, there wouldn't have been any connection.  But Henson's a smart man, and he chose to set it in Louisiana for a reason.

Whatever the case may be, this is still a great special, from a technical and stylistic standpoint.  It manages to set itself apart from all other Muppet productions with its distinct music and dialect, and it managed to stay faithful to the original material, while at the same time being a unique property.  This was also the first Muppet production to use rats and chickens, Muppet species staples, so you know it has great importance in Muppet history.  A great end to the short-lived Tales from Muppetland.

A Different Kind of Prince

Following the success of Hey Cinderella! and the popular new series Sesame Street, Henson returned to the land of fairy tales to present The Frog Prince.

With Kermit!  But not starring Kermit.

Hoping to turn the fairy tales into recurring specials, this was branded as part of the Tales from Muppetland series, which would retroactively include Hey Cinderella! But, unlike the prior special which had to cut a lot of material to condense it to an hour, this special had to add a lot to meet the required length.

The original tale can be easily told in a sentence: a prince who was turned into a frog by a witch can only be changed back by the kiss of a princess.  Well, actually the original original tale involved bashing the frog against a wall to cure him.  Good ol' Brothers Grimm.  But the point is that the story is quite short and needs a lot of padding.

First we meet the frogs of the pond, consisting of Kermit and his pals, each named after one of the Knights of the Round Table.  That would have been an interesting angle to take with the story, having many men turned into frogs.  But no, the names are just a coincidence.

That should be "Gareth," not "Garth."  This isn't Wayne's World.

Little Robin hops up and begins explaining that he is actually Sir Robin the Brave, a prince.  The frogs don't believe him, so he tells the tale of how an evil witch transformed him into a frog for no real reason.  This tale is told in flashback, and we see the human form of Robin, who...is nothing like Robin the Frog.  Frog Robin is just as we picture him, meek, timid, and young.  Human Robin is bold, righteous, and mature.  You'd think they would try to match the personalities a bit.  Or the voices.

Maybe becoming a frog makes you more timid and gives you Jerry Nelson's voice.

The witch is none other than our good friend Taminella Grinderfall, and her puppet has become a lot larger, becoming a not-quite-so-full bodied puppet, similar to King Goshposh.  And speaking of the king, he returns as well, with his servant Featherstone.  However, now he is called King Rupert the Second, possibly so we don't get confused as to why he now has a daughter as opposed to a son like in the last special.

Also, he wears yellow now.

His princess daughter Melora has also been cursed by the witch, causing her to speak improperly by switching the letters at the beginnings of words, making it impossible for her father to understand her.  See, Taminella has convinced the king that she is his long-lost sister and Melora knows she is a fraud.  Robin, however, is able to understand her (because it's not that hard to figure out) and rescues her gold ball when it falls into the frog pond (as in the original story).  Now, here would normally be the part where the situation is explained and the princess kisses the frog and everyone lives happily ever after.

But no, we have 40 minutes left.  So we've got to stall.

Princess Melora brings Robin home and after they schmooze for a while, she prepares to kiss him, but Taminella ruins the mood and prevents the kiss from occurring.  She invites them to dinner where Kermit gets drunk and Kermit gets drunk in a children's show and that's just so weird to think about that I cannot move on from this plot point.

Everyone else stuffs their faces with popovers.

Eventually, Taminella throws Robin in her dungeon to be eaten by her ogre Sweetums.  As we know, Sweetums will later become Robin's best friend, but for now, he is pure antagonist.  Robin lulls him to sleep with a condescending lullaby and an intoxicated Kermit tries to get him to unlock the cage by posing as Taminella.  Unfortunately, Sweetums snaps to and flies into a chaotic rage, destroying the entire set.  It's quite exciting.

Friendship will have to wait.

The frogs escape, summon the other frogs to help them attack the witch, and all right before the witch is about to be crowned queen.  And then finally, after a good half-an-hour, Robin realizes that when Melora said to "bake the hall in the brain's candle," she meant to "break the ball in the cane's handle" to remove the witch's power.  Why she couldn't do this herself, I'll never know.

When Taminella's magic cane breaks, all the spells but one are reversed and she transforms into a bird, flying away from the special, never to be seen again in any Muppet production ever.  I'll miss her.

Finally, the princess kisses Robin and everything turns out hunky dory.  Robin reverts back to his human form, along with his bland personality, which makes me wonder who she really loved...Robin the Frog or Robin the Human?

I would have stuck with the frog.

Apparently Robin made a decent human, though, because nine months later we are treated to the young Prince Kermit, named after a certain frog with a drinking problem.

Yay, a baby!

Compared to the prior special, this one falls a little flat.  The avoidance of resolutions that would make the plot a lot simpler found during the ending of Hey Cinderella runs rampant all throughout this special.  There is no reason everything should take as long as it did and it could have been fixed with some different character interactions.  Involving the original frogs more could have helped, and making Taminella more like her Tinkerdee character would have made things a lot more entertaining.  There, it was funny when she stood in the way of the heroes.  Here, it's just grating.

Still, this was the special that gave us Robin who, in his frog form, is a very compelling character.  The Sweetums dungeon scene is probably the best in the whole episode, and it's clear why the duo remained permanent members of the Muppet cast to this very day.

Henson will have one more shot at combining Muppets with fairy tales, so hopefully things will pick up as we look at the next Tale from Muppetland.

A Different Kind of Princess

After Tales of the Tinkerdee failed to find a producer, Henson and his team turned to a more traditional fairy tale setting.  Their next television project came in 1964, where they attempted to turn Snow White into a long-running series.  Similar to movie serials or soap operas, each episode would end on a cliffhanger, encouraging youngsters to tune in next week.  Along the way, Snow White was dropped and Cinderella was made to be the main star.  However, this too failed as no one was really up for a fairy tale that stretched out on a weekly basis.

However, the scraps from that project were reassembled in 1968 to become the first stand-alone Muppet special: Hey Cinderella!

Every title is better when it begins with a "Hey!"

The Henson-directed, hour-long special told the basic tale of Cinderella with some added twists and Muppets.  King Goshposh returned as the father to Prince Arthur Charming.  Unlike the original story, Prince Charming actually gets fleshed out and has a personality.  With his father having decided that it's time he found a princess to marry, Arthur laments his fate, for every princess he had ever met was a stuck-up snob for knowing royalty.  The king decides to throw a masquerade party so that Arthur may meet a princess in disguise to see their true character and hopefully fall in love.

Thank goodness he didn't inherit his father's felt complexion.

Arthur, still weary of the prospect of marrying a princess, blows off some steam in the royal gardens and chats with his good friend, Kermit the Frog (who is officially a frog for the first time on screen).  Kermit lends him some advice, but mostly wallows in self-pity at the fact that he is treated like a lower class citizen for being a frog.

He's got his frog collar and everything.

Suddenly, straying from the original story even more, Cinderella comes to the garden and meets the prince well before the ball.  Since the prince is dressed in his gardening clothes, she doesn't recognize him for being royalty and the two form a fast bond.  Arthur appreciates her for being down to earth, unlike any snobby princess.  He realizes that he must invite her to the ball so that he may be allowed to choose her as his bride.  After convincing his father to extend the invitations to the whole kingdom, he arranges with Cinderella to each wear a geranium from the garden so that they may spot each other at the ball.  Unfortunately, the king decides to give each citizen a geranium as his gift to them for attending his party.

Geraniums for all!

Cinderella's wicked stepmother and Muppet stepsisters receive their invitations to the ball, and tell Cinderella that she would be unable to come if she doesn't have a proper dress, shoes, or a carriage to arrive in.  However, due to their wording, they never explicitly forbid her from attending the ball.

And sometimes I forget which one is not a Muppet.

After they leave, Cinderella frets in despair as she'll never get to meet the prince, or see her new friend Arthur either.  As luck would have it, her Fairy Godmother appears, after having spent the first half of the special performing shoddy magic tricks at a comedy club.

"What's the deal with magic carpet food?"

See, this Fairy Godmother has great trouble performing magic.  Fortunately for the story to progress, she manages to conjure a pretty dress, some glass slippers, and finally turns her pumpkin into a carriage.

Also, Splurge is involved.  Some things are best left for you to discover on your own.

Giant, purple things.

Cinderella makes her way to the ball with Kermit as her coachman (frogs weren't invited, you see).  And tries to track down Arthur the gardener.  Prince Arthur also tries to find Cinderella, and, knowing that she is a commoner, expects her to be wearing a, to put it mildly, "non-fancy" dress.  The two run into each other anyway, but are unable to recognize each other.  The prince introduces himself as the prince and assumes that Cinderella is a princess.  They dance together anyway, making the best of a bad situation.

We hope you have a huge suspension of disbelief in order for this plot to work.

At midnight, just before the masks are to be taken off, Cinderella leaves so that her magic outfit doesn't vanish.  She leaves behind a glass slipper, and Arthur, chasing after her to catch her name, steps on the slipper and crushes it!

What a twist!

Well, now, anything can happen.  Sure, some liberties had been taken with the story before, but now a major plot point has literally been pulverized!  What follows is what makes this a more politically correct version of the story.  The king, having decided that the mystery princess from the ball should wed his son, sends out a message, seeking her out so that they may be married.  Cinderella, realizes that she is the one everyone is looking for, but she doesn't want to marry the Prince even if she did have a nice time with him.  It wouldn't be fair to Arthur the gardener.

How's that for a modern take on the classic tale?

Months pass and eventually, the king realizes that the princess must be hiding.  He sends Arthur to look for her at Cinderella's house (since that'd been the last place one would expect to find a princess).  There, the Prince and Cinderella finally meet and she learns the truth that he was the gardener all along.  She tries to prove that she was the princess, but all she has left is the other glass slipper and her dog Rufus buried it.

Oh yeah, Rufus is in this.  Remember?  From The Land of Tinkerdee and The Muppet Valentine's Show?

Eventually, the Fairy Godmother shows up to set things straight and...sends Cinderella off to Kansas.  After multiple failed attempts to bring her back (and summoning every other character into the house), Cinderella finally reappears in her famous dress.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The special did a great job of combining that Muppet humor with a classic story.  The characters were well-developed, more so than the Disney version that would have been fresh on people's minds at the time.  In watching the special, I legitimately forgot that half of the cast were Muppets because their interactions with the human characters are so seamless.  For an audience seeing this in 1969 for the first time (before Sesame Street), this would have been their big introduction to the Muppet world.  Although the Muppets mostly played supporting roles, their influence was all over the show.  The popularity of this special would warrant a couple more returns to "Muppetland" as more fairy tales were brought to life with their own Henson flavor.