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.

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.