Gregory Avery-Weir

(I just noticed that @cofruitrigus did basically this exact post almost a month before I did.)

It's interesting that there's an internet meme about someone being "the only human" in a Muppet movie, when there is no theatrical Muppet movie where that's the case. It's the norm on The Muppet Show for the guest to be the only human on-screen¹, but Muppet films fall into two categories:

1. The Muppets exist in a metafictional human world, usually as performers playing performers in a normal human world where they are the only puppets²:

• The Muppet Movie
• The Great Muppet Caper (not performers, but a bunch of fourth-wall breaking)
• The Muppets Take Manhattan
• Muppets from Space
• The Muppets
• Muppets Most Wanted (haven't seen it yet, but it's a direct sequel to The Muppets)

2. The Muppets interpret a classic story, with multiple humans playing pivotal roles:

• The Muppet Christmas Carol (the Scrooge family and their partners are human)
• Muppet Treasure Island (Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, Billy Bones, and Mrs. Bleveridge are human)
• The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (TV movie; Dorothy, Uncle Henry, Aunt Em, and every other Kansas resident are human except Toto, who is a non-Muppet prawn until entering Oz)

I find it provocative that our cultural imagination has the Muppets living in a puppet world with a single visiting human, while the works are much more often about the Muppets struggling to exist in a world that is not meant for them.

1. Even on The Muppet Show, the Muppet Theater clearly exists in our pop-cultural world, where other humans exist in the world outside.

2. Sometimes there are Muppets who are not with the main group of The Muppets. Bobo the Bear appears multiple times as the stooge of a villain.

I'm watching all of the mainline¹ Muppets works (or as many as we can find) with @justlucy, and here's my current feelings on what we've watched so far, in release order:

• Pilot 1, The Muppets Valentine Show: It's fine! Feels a lot more like a "family" show, despite having filth like Mia Farrow making out with the 9 1/2 foot Thog or the first airing of the Koozebanean Galley-o-hoop-hoop. The host is insufferable.
• Pilot 2, Sex and Violence: Yes... ha ha ha... yes! They hadn't yet figured out that they needed a host with charisma, but this has all the thematic touchstones of a Muppets production. I liked how personifications of concepts showed up; that sort of metaphysical thing doesn't tend to happen moving forward.
• The Muppet Show: It's perfect. Horny and weird yet earnest and relatable. Most of the human guests end up flirting with a Muppet, often asking them back to the dressing room. There's a reason this show became wildly popular. My only big criticism (other than consistently ignorant portrayals of East Asian cultures) is that the Muppet News Flash guest interview segments from the first season are the opposite of humor.
• The Muppet Movie: It's fun! Some of the best songs of the Muppets (if not all time). The celebrity cameos get a bit exhausting, especially when a lot of them have aged into obscurity. Establishes the very versatile metatextual approach of most Muppet movies moving forward.
• The Great Muppet Caper: A perfect film. Some special effects that make you forget you're watching puppets. The Muppets seem to be just as unfamiliar with the fourth wall as they are with the concept of death. Some all-time best running gags, such as Kermit and Fozzie being identical twins.
• The Muppets Take Manhattan: This is just fine? It rehashes Movie's motivation to put on a show, but with more complications, and the show they want to put on is pretty bad. It ends too abruptly.
• "MuppeTelevision," The Jim Henson Hour: Oh, no. I've only seen one episode, but I think this is bad. New headliner Digit is genuinely unsettling in a bad way, they are way too into now-cringy digital compositing and editing effects, and there's little-to-no sense of place. I'm sad to say that Space Ghost Coast to Coast did this better.
• The Muppet Christmas Carol: A classic! Pleasantly faithful to the original text (including using some of its best lines) while still having hijinx. Solidifies the sublime pairing of Gonzo and Rizzo as viewpoint characters. The spirits are legitimately scary. Michael Caine put his whole ass in this.
• Muppet Treasure Island: It's good, but I feel like it lacks some teeth. The casting of everyone is great, including Tim Curry as a delightful Long John Silver. But I can feel the Disney in this one; it's not very horny and it has a bit of a school-pageant feel. "Jungle Fever," while fun and very memorable, particularly sticks out as a non sequitor "big-lipped alligator moment."
• Muppets Tonight: I watched some of this as it came out, but have only seen one episode so far in my rewatch. And it was pretty great! Clifford is a very good host, and it's nice that the OG cast of Muppets still appears, but with some additions. I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.

1. Loosely, we're watching all the shows and films featuring adult versions of the core cast (Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo, et al).

Many Star Wars fans have a tradition of watching The Star Wars Holiday Special, a strange corny TV special that is so bad it was never distributed. However, there are a few problems with this: it's hard to find, it's 98 minutes long, and it's really bad. Let me suggest instead that you watch The Muppet Show, Season 4, Episode 16: The Stars of Star Wars.

I'm rewatching the Muppet oeuvre with a previously-uninitiated partner, and it almost entirely holds up except for a cavalier attitude toward sexual harassment and some very occasional ethnic caricatures (that Disney+ warns about on relevant eps). It's very funny. It's very strange. It's bizarrely horny and somewhat queer, with liberal use of felt body horror such as Muppets getting dismembered, eaten, or transformed.

As a variety show episode, this ep has everything you want from a strange Star Wars tie-in. It's got Chewbacca and C-3PO dancing. It's got musical numbers. It's got a three-foot-tall felt pig trying to convince Actual Luke Skywalker that she's Princess Leia. It's got all of the original performers playing the Star Wars characters that appear (with the exception of Kenny Baker, since the ep uses the remote-control version of R2-D2). It has the first public appearance of Luke's outfit from Empire Strikes Back, as well as what seems to be the first public hint that Darth Vader has a secret identity. It's actually well-made and only lasts 25 minutes or so.

There are all sorts of bizarre and lovely bits in the episode. The basic premise is that somehow Luke's ship has crashed into the Muppet Theatre, and so these are not guest actors, but the actual Star Wars characters, searching for Chewbacca. Highlights:

• There's a running gag about Mark Hamill being Luke's cousin, which means we get to see Hamill sing, dance, and do impressions without making Luke break character.
• Kermit and C-3PO share a moment of commiseration about how weird humans are.
• Bizarrely, there are segments that have nothing to do with Star Wars or Hamill, including a very charming musical number from otherwise-detestable character Scooter.
• It's all run through with the Muppets' weird brand of meta blurriness, such as when the character Dearth Nadir (played by the Muppet, Gonzo [played by Dave Goelz]) is able to summon the Muppet, Angus McGonagle (played by Jerry Nelson) despite them existing on different levels of the narrative.

Check this shit out. It's clearly made by people with a love for the original film back when it was just titled Star Wars and didn't yet have a sequel. Turns out that the Muppets (and Star Wars!) are pretty darn good.

You can watch The Muppet Show S04E16, "Mark Hamill/The Stars of Star Wars", on a friend's Disney+ account or your favorite Bittorrent tracker.