The Muppets: A Review
For over 40 years, Jim Henson’s Muppets have been entertaining families and kids. It all started with a prime time variety show in 1976 (two pilots aired previously in ‘74 and ‘75). The success of that show transitioned soon after to film. That eventually segued into direct-to-video offerings, spin-off TV shows and cartoons, and a couple dozen TV specials. The Muppets were a ubiquitous part of every childhood in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The effect Henson’s Muppets had on Generation X and Xennials led to their revival by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller in the early 2010s, which lead to 4 more TV shows and cartoons since.
Out of all of this there have been 8 theatrical motion pictures released in the 35 years between 1979 and 2014. It seemed like a good idea to revisit these films, assess which ones hold up the best (because, surely, not all of them are great, right?), and rank them. Because celebrity cameos are a major element of most Muppet movies, I will note the cameos for each film.
Let’s get started.
The Muppet Movie (1979)
Cameos: Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy), Milton Berle, James Coburn, Dom DeLuise, Elliot Gould, Bob Hope, Madeline Kahn, Carol Kane, Cloris Leachman, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, Telly Savalas, Orson Welles, and Paul Williams
Apparently, Jim Henson long dreamed of a film based around puppets and puppetry. After years of doing TV specials he finally had a hit TV show with The Muppet Show. Now he was finally able to make his dream come true. And it was a big deal. The Muppets are the center of the film. People go in and out of it and are completely ancillary to the Muppet characters. That’s very unusual. Henson also did not play it safe with this film; he knew he needed his Muppets to go out into the world and appear to exist within it. That required a lot of challenges. He hired TV director and actor James Frawley to direct the film in order to navigate those challenges. It’s unclear what it was about Frawley’s work on The Monkees, That Girl, and Columbo that suggested he was the right guy to problem solve puppetry challenges, but it ultimately worked out.
Reportedly, it didn’t go without trouble. Apparently, Frawley was displeased with the job and filming was so laborious that nearly every minute of filming took about a day’s worth of work. That equaled a challenging 87 days of principle photography where most shooting schedules allowed for less than 60 days.
Regardless, the blood, sweat, and tears are on the screen. We have an origin story via a road movie that allows the cast to snowball as the story goes along. But it all starts with a single frog on a log with a banjo singing the Paul Williams song, ‘Rainbow Connection’. All of Williams’s songs for the film became instant classics: ‘Rainbow Connection’, ‘Movin’ Right Along’, and ‘Can You Picture That?’ are some of the most memorable Muppets songs, with the first becoming a pop culture touchstone.
The film itself is incredibly charming, heart-warming, and pure. It’s the sort of thing that is so magical a simple shot of clouds with music in the background can bring one to tears. As referenced before, there are plenty of ‘how did they do that?’ moments throughout that seem challenging even today. It’s an incredible start to a film franchise and no wonder it became a staple of so many family video libraries.
The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
Cameos: John Cleese, Peter Falk, Jim Henson, Robert Morley, Peter Ustinov
A couple of years later Jim Henson released his directorial debut with the first Muppet sequel. In this film the Muppet characters play characters rather themselves. This would be the first of several films to do this. With this film the Muppets star in a story about jewel thieves and reporters. Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo are the reporters and photographer. Charles Grodin (Midnight Run) plays the head of the jewel thieves trying to steal regularly from a fashion designer played by Diana Rigg (Game of Thrones).
I think what’s notable here is how the human cast work on the same level as the Muppets. They aren’t trying to outshine the Muppets. But they also don’t get overshadowed by the Muppets. In fact, Charles Grodin, whose character falls completely for Miss Piggy, who plays an aspiring model, has been praised for his ability to treat the Muppets as equal performers.
That said, a lot of the magic from the first film is missing here. The film opens with a big musical number that is a bit more chaotic than it needs to be even for the Muppets. And the most clever thing that can be said of the movie is the hot air balloon pre-title and parachute end credits. While there’s still some ‘how did they do that?’ moments of puppetry, there just isn’t a lot else to love. Even the music, now by Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo, is surprisingly forgettable compared to Paul Williams’s songs before.
Ultimately, The Great Muppet Caper is a letdown after the instant classic that was The Muppet Movie. It’s now clear why this entry is barely ever mentioned when people talk about Muppet movies.
Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
Cameos: Art Carney, Elliott Gould, Gregory Hines, Mayor Ed Koch, John Landis, Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, Brooke Shields
For the third film - and last Muppet movie produced during Jim Henson’s lifetime - Henson looked at his schedule for the year and decided to hand directing duties to Frank Oz, who co-directed The Dark Crystal with Henson previously and is the voice of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam the Eagle. This film sees the Muppets as a theatrical troupe in college (which breaks canon from the first film) who decide to take their stage production to New York City to pitch as a Broadway musical. After striking out with several Broadway producers the group decide to go their own ways to earn livings while Kermit stays behind to find someone who’ll finance their musical.
This film works better than Caper and is close to having the magic of the original film back. This film doesn’t feel the need to create a villain and that’s to its credit, because the relentless frog legs restaurateur (Charles Durning) was one of the original film’s weaker elements. Here the situation is the conflict. It does go a bit too far with an unnecessary development 20 minutes before the end of the film where a major character gets amnesia. But we get to see Kermit (and Miss Piggy in hiding) existing in the Big Apple during much of the runtime. Along the way, Kermit befriends Jenny (Juliana Donald), a waitress and aspiring fashion designer who helps him prepare for pitch meetings. Jenny is actually one of the best human co-stars, as she has a warm and kind presence that is memorable.
Jeff Moss, composer of some of the most popular Sesame Street songs and creator of Cookie Monster, took on songwriting duties this time around. While they may fall short of the original film’s songbook, there’s some great songs this time around with ‘Together Again’, ‘You Can’t Take No for an Answer’, and ‘I’m Gonna Always Love You’. That last one was featured in a fantasy sequence that introduced the Muppet Babies. A cartoon sprung from that concept and premiered 2 months later. It was a huge success.
It’s worth noting that, because the film was distributed by Tri-Star Pictures, The Walt Disney Company does not own rights to the film. Sony Pictures eventually bought Tri-Star Pictures and so that company still has the rights to this film and Muppets from Space. Therefore, both films are missing from the Muppets collection on Disney+.
Muppets Take Manhattan is a lovely sequel with a lovely human co-star, delightful cameos, a plot that just falls short of flawless, and a songbook that almost hits as good as the original.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Cameos: None.
Jim Henson died in 1990 of pneumonia. And Richard Hunt, who previously played Beaker, Janice, Scooter, Statler, and Sweetums, died in 1992 of AIDS. Jim Henson Productions took a huge hit in the early ‘90s. It’s remarkable they were all able to press on to make this film. Jim’s son, Brian Henson, who had assisted with puppetry on most of the Muppet productions, took charge and directed this film. It’s worth noting that most of Hunt’s characters are absent here and Steve Whitmire steps in as Kermit the Frog, a task that was no doubt daunting, but was accomplished adequately. He went on to play the character for the following 25 years.
So, as the name suggests, this is an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel. It is considered one of the most faithful film adaptations of the material. Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge. It’s hard to believe he was the fifth choice, as he is a natural in the role.
What sets The Muppet Christmas Carol apart, aside from being the troupe’s first adapted screenplay, is usually the Muppets exist in our world and are therefore surrounded by people, including famous cameos popping in and out of their pictures. Here the opposite is true: there are so few humans - maybe only a couple dozen in all - so it’s as if the humans exist in the Muppets’ world. Therefore there are also no cameos this time around. The focus is strictly on the source material with a bit of Muppet flair. As such, there is less of a focus on puns and jokes as previous productions. Maybe that makes for a less sunnier production, but the magic is still there: it’s just shifted slightly to a more deeply emotional experience.
Credit must also go to Paul Williams, who came back to songwriting duties. ‘Scrooge’, ‘Marley and Marley’, ‘It Feels Like Christmas’, and ‘Thankful Heart’ make for one of the troupe’s best songbooks thus far.
A curiosity surrounds this picture: one of Williams’s songs, ‘When Love is Gone’, a pivotal piece for the Christmas Past sequence, was cut by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was chairman of Walt Disney Studios at the time (he would go on to co-found DreamWorks and found the short-lived mobile platform Quibi). He thought the song wouldn’t appeal to kids. Henson objected to the decision and the choice to put the song in the credits in direct conflict with the closing song ‘The Love We Found’. The song was included in the VHS full screen version. The LaserDisc print is the only one that includes the song in widescreen. The full version is included on the DVD as a full-frame option. But not the Blu-ray. The Blu-ray did include a digital download of the song in widescreen. And the Disney+ listing of the film favors the theatrical cut with the full cut listed as an extra feature.
It’s crazy that one decision by one guy over 30 years ago still so complicates viewing what is one of the best Muppet movies.
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Cameos: None.
It was decided the next Muppet film would be another adaptation of a classic story. This is the second consecutive film where the Muppets play characters and not themselves. While The Muppet Christmas Carol had few human characters, making it feel like they existed in a Muppet world, the ratio of Muppet to human in Muppet Treasure Island is more balanced, making it as much a human world as a Muppet one.
But things start to take a turn with this film. The tone is a little zanier, skewing more towards a younger demographic than any previous film. The songs written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (with a score by Hans Zimmer) are lively, but underwhelming and forgettable compared to previous songbooks. These are two of the biggest ingredients in any Muppet movie and if those fail to hit the mark then there’s a big problem. And yet there’s more problems.
Most of the Muppets are sidelined except for Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat. That’s because originally they were conceived as the lead characters: Jim and Hawkins. The main character of Treasure Island is Jim Hawkins. It was decided best to cast an actor to play Jim Hawkins and have Gonzo and Rizzo accompany him on his adventure as comic relief. Sure, fine. However, that requires casting someone who is equally as charismatic and interesting as any Muppet on screen, something Michael Caine accomplished effortlessly. Kevin Bishop, the chosen actor, is fairly flat and is far from capable of carrying the film. On top of that, Kermit the Frog is sidelined to being captain of the Hispaniola, which means he is absent for the first third of the film and probably has less than 20 minutes of actual screen time in a 100-minute movie.
Lastly, this is an adventure story. The Muppets are a comedy and music troupe. The film ultimately tries turning them into action adventure heroes, which doesn’t feel natural. Aside from Miss Piggy, none of the Muppet characters have ever really been fighters. They’re harmless, warm-hearted entertainers. Watching them try to cross blades with bad guys is weird.
On the plus side, Tim Curry really hams it up once Long John Silver’s plot is revealed and you can always rely on Curry to provide some level of fun. The film would end up losing money, earning only $34.3 million against a budget of $31 million plus marketing and distribution costs. Ultimately, Muppet Treasure Island represented a downhill creative trajectory for the film series.
Muppets from Space (1999)
Cameos: Kathy Griffin, Hulk Hogan, Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, and Ray Liotta
The main raison d'être of this film is to answer the question: what is Gonzo? Is that a question we really needed answered? No. This movie proves it.
Now there was an early draft of the script where it turned out Gonzo is not an alien and that a species of aliens had received transmissions of The Muppet Show and thought Gonzo was the ultimate being, worshipped and made themselves to look like him. But Gonzo’s species would remain unknown outside of being one of the Muppets. I won’t spoil how the shooting script ends, but I will say that original ending was much better. However, it isn’t enough to have saved this film.
This is the first post-Henson movie where the Muppets play themselves in an original story. It is so far removed from the magic and sharpness of the original film and Manhattan, though. There were probably three times I laughed during the film’s 87 minutes. What few parodies are left from the earlier parody-heavy draft of the script with the original ending are dim and dated. The jokes are among the weakest of the series. The best bit in the entire film is in the beginning when we’re introduced to the characters living together in the same house and witness how difficult that makes the morning bathroom routine.
This film made only $22.3 million against a $24 million budget plus marketing and distribution (it needed to earn at least $50 million to break even). Even Frank Oz would express disappointment in the film a year later when he announced his retirement from being a Muppet performer. Muppets in Space killed the Muppets movie series.
The Muppets (2011)
Cameos: Alan Arkin, Emily Blunt, James Carville, Bill Cobbs, Feist, Donald Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Dave Grohl, Neil Patrick Harris, Judd Hirsch, Ken Jeong, John Krasinski, Jim Parsons, Rico Rodriguez, Mickey Rooney, Kristen Schaal, Sarah Silverman
Way back in 2008 Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller pitched a Muppets movie to an executive at Walt Disney Studios. The idea was to bring back the Muppets with an “old school” movie that would have the troupe putting on a show to save their studio. It is very clear this film is made with love of the Jim Henson era by people who grew up with The Muppet Show and the original films.
The film follows Walter and his brother Gary (Jason Segel). They’re fans of the Muppets, having grown up watching The Muppet Show. When Gary goes on a vacation to Los Angeles with his girlfriend (Amy Adams), he brings Walter with him to also visit Muppet Studios. While there Walter overhears a plan by Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to buy the studio so he can tear it down and mine for oil underneath. Walter takes it upon himself to find Kermit the Frog and warn him and then they decide to reunite the Muppets to put on a show to raise money to buy back the studio.
This film does a lot of things well, including acknowledging the Muppets’ absence in the culture (it’d been over 10 years since Muppets in Space) and creating a similar second-act structure to the original film’s plot, except in this case, instead of the Muppets meeting each other for the first time via a road trip, they’re being reunited. There’s even a moment with Sweetums at the same used car lot from the original with a man dressed in the same suit Milton Berle wore (it’s one of three direct references to the original film).
It’s worth noting that the human cast of characters are among the best the series has ever seen: Jason Segel is a delight, but is also able to step out of focus in favor of his Muppet brother Walter. Amy Adams, who had already played a Disney princess (Enchanted) and was also balancing a career between dramatic and lighter fare by this time, brings some of that Enchanted charm here with some comedic vocal performances, as well. Chris Cooper, an actor usually associated with serious films like American Beauty and The Town, plays one of the best villains in the series, unafraid to get silly, but also takes a back seat, providing just enough to create conflict in the film. That’s a very welcome balance when compared to the other four villains in the past who were either over-the-top or too present. Even Jack Black plays himself as a captive celebrity host of the telethon.
This film also brings back the musical with one of the best songbooks in the film series. Bret McKenzie of The Flight of the Conchords wrote the music. It’s probably the most consistent songbook since the original with songs like ‘Life’s a Happy Song’, ‘Pictures in My Head’, ‘Me Party’, and the Oscar-winning ‘Man or Muppet’. But it isn’t without it’s own peppering of non-original tunes a la Muppets from Space, as there are two montages to ‘Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard’ and ‘We Built This City’ and Muppet stage performances of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and ‘Fuck You’. It is the first time a Muppets film used both original and non-original tunes, but the latter integrate well without distracting or feeling inorganic to the rest of the film.
Overall, this is one of the best and most successful films of the series. It earned widespread praise from critics and a whopping $165 million at the box office, making it the biggest hit in the series, earning more than $140 million more than the bomb Muppets from Space and $100 million more than the original film, which was, until that point, the series’s biggest hit (note: the original film didn’t have the benefit of international box office).
Muppets Most Wanted (2014)
Cameos: Tony Bennet, Hugh Bonneville, Jemaine Clement, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Rob Corddry, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Josh Groban, Salma Hayek, Tom Hiddleston, Frank Langella, James McAvoy, Chloe Grace Moretz, Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci, Usher, Christoph Waltz
The final Muppet movie in the series takes place immediately after The Muppets. The opening number claims, ‘Everybody knows the sequel’s never quite as good.’ Unfortunately, that is true in this case. The idea was to have a story akin to The Great Muppet Caper and crime capers of the ‘60s. Basically, right after the successful show of the previous film the troupe is talked into signing with an agent (Ricky Gervais) and going on an international tour. However, the agent is working with a notorious criminal frog named Constantine and the venues on the tour are in proximity to museums where they scheme to steal artifacts that lead to the Crown Jewels of London. In the meantime, Constantine impersonates Kermit the Frog while the real Kermit is mistaken as Constantine and sent to a Russian gulag.
All of this is fine and works rather well. But it is a disappointment overall after the previous film, especially since the creative team of director James Bobin, writer Nicholas Stoller, and songwriter Bret McKenzie were back. There is a warmth and emotional core that is missing in this film, unfortunately. A theme about family is attempted, but it feels half-hearted and shoe-horned in. So, the film doesn’t measure up to the best Muppet movies. But it’s still enjoyable and its humor operates at the appropriate level that doesn’t seem to target little ones specifically.
Instead of a human ally helping the Muppets through the plot we have Ty Burrell working with Sam the Eagle as Interpol and CIA agents, respectively. This actually works pretty well and offers one of the film’s musical highlights even if their scenes are superfluous. Meanwhile, Tina Fey plays a gulag prison guard with a crush on Kermit. One can understand on a script level that something has to happen with Kermit while he’s in prison, so it makes sense that he’s tasked with putting on an annual talent show with Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo, Jemaine Clement, and Dylan “Hornswaggle” Postl as fellow prisoners. But all of this does feel slightly overkill and stretches the film’s length to a record 110 minutes (there’s a 125-minute director’s cut, also).
It’s worth noting that Christoph Waltz originally was cast as the Interpol agent, but had to reduce his involvement down to a cameo. And planned cameos for The Muppets made their appearances here: Ricky Gervais, Lady Gaga and Danny Trejo.
Muppets Most Wanted is a pretty good entry into the series, but a disappointing follow-up to the shot in the arm The Muppets was. Thanks to international grosses, however, Muppets Most Wanted became the second-highest grossing film of the series, despite earning half as much as its immediate predecessor. However, its budget was $50 million, which meant it needed to earn at least $100 million in order to break even. It fell $20 million shy of that, making it one of the three biggest financial failures of the series. There hasn’t been another Muppet film for the following decade. Instead, a failed adult-leaning prime time series and a limited streaming series were released. Another streaming series focused on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem is aiming for a May release. All of this feels like table scraps. With all of the original performers retiring or dying it’s enough to wonder if it’ll ever be time again to play the music and light the lights on this beloved family film series.
The Ranking:
The Muppets
The Muppet Christmas Carol
The Muppet Movie
Muppets Take Manhattan
Muppets Most Wanted
The Great Muppet Caper
Muppet Treasure Island
Muppets from Space
That completes our look at the Muppets film series. It’s definitely one with its share of highs and lows. Regardless, most of the time a Muppet movie is much better than the average movie made for kids or families. But, because the series has spanned multiple generations, every film is someone’s favorite Muppet movie. I think that’s interesting and unique. It speaks to the characters’ ability to appeal to everyone no matter who they are or when they are. Perhaps that provides some hope for the future of these beloved characters.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my reviews and rankings? Comment below.