Director: James Frawley
Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt
Have I Seen it Before: You know… I can only say I’m kind of sure I have. Large portions call up a memory, but others are a complete blank. Ours may have been more of a The Great Muppet Caper (1981) house.
Did I Like It: Is it even possible to dislike the Muppets? Especially in that uniquely, brazenly period of cascading creativity when Jim Henson wielded these characters to their maximum potential?
No one would have been considered controversial if they spent the `70s convinced that Kermit (Henson) and company were a phenomenon that could not move beyond the scope of television shows like Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They are funny, and they are cute. But can anything surpass the confines of television when, by their very nature have to be shot from the waist up?
That wasn’t enough for Henson*. He proceeded to make a movie that is just as funny and charming as his television work, but credibly lets the characters inhabit the big screen. Cameos abound, and any movie filled with that many famous people would be almost automatically considered a case of subtraction by addition. But here, it’s somehow both expected and adds to the material. Everyone fits into the movie like. puzzle piece, and it’s just an absolute head scratcher that Orson Welles didn’t end up guest starring on The Muppet Show, considering how fond he was of Henson’s work.
And what’s more, this is just the opening salvo in Henson’s brief quest to see just how far his deceptively simple puppets could go. One could only imagine how far he might have gone if he had lived just a bit longer.
* He didn’t direct the film or write it, but anyone who thinks he’s not the author of any Muppet production prior to his death is kidding themselves.