This is the end of the Muppets – theatrically, at least, for this unread blog is solely concerned with theatrically released franchises. And their final real movie, Muppets from Space, has astoundingly little to do with any other theatrical Muppet movies. It’s surely not a part of the rather aborted literary adaptation experiment the Muppets attempted under Disney with The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island. Nor is it a part of the original, Jim Henson-led Muppet films of the 80s. Consider this: Muppets from Space is not about show business, it leaves the fourth wall mercifully unmolested, and it is decidedly not a musical. There’s hardly anything in here to peg it as a Muppet movie, except for the presence of Muppet “characters.” So what is this, then? Well, it’s 1999 now, and what Muppets from Space really seems to be is a precursor to the bland pop kulture kiddie comedies that would follow it.
One look at the film’s director strengthens that impression. Replacing anyone intimately connected with the Jim Henson company (like, say, a Henson), we now have untested helmer Tim Hill. Is it fair to judge a director on what he would go on to do? Sure, why not! For Hill has proven in our days his meager family mediocrity chops with epics like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (a movie with two separate awful puns I have great difficulty convincing my fingers to type). In Hill’s defense, he is also one of the top creative minds behind “SpongeBob SquarePants,” but that’s hardly enough in light of his theatrically patronizing efforts.
In treating the Muppet menagerie as characters, we have, for the first time ever, a film that is truly about them. I’d say Henson’s earlier Muppet marvels, like The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan, used the Muppets more as a vehicle for Jim to explore entertainment and show business and, ultimately, veiled autobiographical issues. But now, with even Brian Henson out of the picture, there is nothing personal left to be said with the Muppets. They’re simply a vehicle for underwhelming kiddie yuk yuks – the chance for an uninspired journeyman to plop out something for his resume.
So, what sort of drama could be wrung from the desiccated husk of Jim Henson’s personal cast of 1970s icons? Eh, whatever. Seriously, whatever! Gonzo’s a whatever, and this movie purports to answer the never-asked question about just whatever a whatever is. Trust me, it’s not as wildly self-reflexive as it sounds from that phrasing. This is simply the Great Gonzo as the headlined Muppet, undergoing a so-very-familiar tale of bland yearning and “X-Files” pastiches. It’s like giving Dr. Zoidberg an entire episode, only stretched to feature length, and we know how those tend to turn out.
Post-space credits, the movie opens with a tired spoof of Noah’s ark, with F. Murray Abraham as Noah (it’s the role he was born to play, baby). I’m not going to dwell on this stuff, since the movers are coming and I have to write this in a hurry, spelling erereers and all. Of note, though, is that the scene ends with Gonzo delivering a big, unironic “Nooooooooooooooo!”
Gonzo awakes from this dream (resolving the Muppets’ first ever flirtation with blasphemy) in a contemporary house, awakened by the movie’s overeager funk soundtrack. Yeah, of all the things from the ‘70s to remember including… And it seems, now that the Muppets have to carry themselves with personalities and arcs and such, they need some real world existence. Let’s just say they’re a mass of wastrel layabouts, partying drunkenly in their filthy hovel, bringing down property values all around the neighborhood with their PG-rated (I assume, ‘cause only Disney then could get the mythic “G,” and now they were with Columbia) Animal House antics. Ugh, what an ugly sentence that is!
In a response to the dearth of Muppetry goodness in the literary efforts, this opening includes every Muppet I could care to name, and many I still cannot. Here is an attempt at a comprehensive list, written at the same speed as the beasts appear: Rizzo the Rat, Kermit the Frog, Robin the Frog, Miss Piggy, Statler and Waldorf, the Swedish Chef, Dr. Teeth and his pals (and ANIMAL!), Fozzie, penguins from a throwaway joke in Take Manhattan, whatnots, Sweetums, Rowlf, Dr, Bunsen, Beaker, Sam the Eagle, Camilla and the chickens, Lew Zealand, an old man Muppet I do not recognize, and a singing mounted moose head. Also, there is Pepe, a grotesque looking pile of fuzziness that I couldn’t positively identify until 3/4ths through the movie when someone states he is a prawn. Look at him. Does he look like a delicious decapod crustacean to you?
Gonzo has come under a funk having nothing to do with the soundtrack – the funk of Muppet ennui. Ah, the existential plight of a whatever. It seems he longs for a family of his own, wishes triggered by the framed photos of the other Muppets’ families that have now been invented to convince us of this problem. And in a universe where a frog and pig are allowed to marry (Massachusetts, perhaps), just what is keeping Gonzo from finding a love? At least his always-sickening chicken fetish has completely faded from memory now, so they never have to broach that off-putting narrative possibility.
A message spells out in Gonzo’s off-brand alphabet cereal, saying to “Watch the sky,” and asking “R U there.” My God, Gonzo is being haunted by text messagers!
…Or aliens, really. Yeah, the particular venue of pastiche this time is sci-fi, in that vague and under-researched way you’d expect from a kid’s film. The only references you need know (if even) are MiB, ID4, and the non-abbreviated Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Oh, and “The X-Files!” Let us never forget in any genre piece put out in the ‘90s that “The X-Files” existed! Of course I loved that show, once. Anyway, here we have C.O.V.N.E.T., the standard top secret alien investigation government setup conspiracy cabal amalgam whathaveyou – if all movies were of the same universe, there’s gotta be about 200 different secret conspiracy organizations without any knowledge of each other. General Pat Hingle pays a visit to C.O.V.N.E.T.’s fearless leader, Jeffrey Tambor (as K. Edgar Singer). I’m not going to bother learning a new name, so I’m just going to call him Tambor, or occasionally George Sr. when I get confused. And furthering the confusion, he’s basically the same character as in the Hellboy films. And of course, Tambor is our villain and he’s looking for aliens. But you guessed that.
Gonzo scans the skies at night with a telescope he found in his cereal box. Soon, possibly the hallucinogenic result of eating too much expired cereal, Gonzo finds himself flying randomly through outer space, while the soundtrack’s funky funk funkage funks us all out. Two space fish pay Gonzo a visit, rather putting me in the mind of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. They explain how Gonzo is to contact the aliens, for apparently this doesn’t count – mow a message in the lawn. “Mow it and they will see.” Oh yeah, I guess there’s a little Field of Dreams referencing going on in here too.
The plot sort of meanders a bit, as for once the Muppets have to fill out a feature film without time-stalling musical numbers to fall back on (though funk-based montages, or really the montages in any film, eat up just as much time, ‘cause no one outside of the early ‘30s wants just pure yakkin’ in their films). Ultimately things progress, as the gang sits uselessly around their gross living room watching Andie MacDowell anchor “UFO Mania” on TV – like an even cheaper version of those ‘90s conspiracy shows, like “Hard Copy” and…whatever the conspiracy phenomena ones were.
Gonzo picks up the show’s signals, mistakes them for alien contact, and thus races straight off to the nearby studios where this world-famous program is aired (that’s the sort of convenient development that I’m entirely OK with in kid’s films). Also, it turns out Miss Piggy works as an assistant here at WWHZ TV 9, the chance for her to have a fame-whoring subplot (in favor of the de rigueur romance with frog). Soon enough, Gonzo bum rushes the broadcast, which of course happens to be done live, just like nearly 0% of such shows in real life. Show producer Rod Schneider (aaaaah!) is unhappy with this development, then happy with it, as he realizes Gonzo is an alien. Ah hah, that’s the achingly obvious truth behind Gonzo’s mysterious whateverness! Meanwhile, the wicked, wicked Tambor is now aware of Gonzo’s presence, so evil schemes may hatch.
Soon two MiBs (that’s what I’d call ‘em) are at the studio, where they whatever-nap Gonzo, along with Rizzo the Rat for good measure (because in the ‘90s, Gonzo and Rizzo were the unlikely comic duo that kept on giving). Miss Piggy confronts one MiB (Josh Charles – not much of a cameo), beating him senseless with her Piggy Power. And as if to prove what sort of Tim Hill kiddie drek this movie is, here is the first groin attack in any Muppet film – that casual fallback for fart-happy pabulum merchants. To further clue you in on the strangely off-color comedy of this film, Piggy then later says “Oh oh oh oh, I’ve gotta pee!”…I miss Jim Henson.
Okay, so this movie is told in irritating fits and starts, no single thread taking hold, so it’s up to me to focus on one thing, and then another, and drink my tasty coffee all the while. Piggy returns home to the disheveled Muppet manse, where a throng of hippie-dippy UFO cultist nuts are amassed to worship Gonzo with Close Encounters references. The various A-list Muppets (and Pepe the inexplicable prawn) vow to go and rescue Gonzo, armed with random gadgets given to them by Bunsen in full-on Q mode. Here they are, ogling Miss Piggy’s rippling porcine flesh:
Gonzo (and Rizzo), meanwhile, have been whisked over to C.O.N.V.E.N.T. (or whatever), where Tambor and his inevitable Muppet assistant (Richard the Bear) can proceed to run through all those late ‘90s alien story points –threats of autopsy, mostly. First up, Tambor dons rubber gloves, prompting Rizzo to make another rather off-color reference, because that’s what the Muppets were missing up ‘til now, sodomy and buggery humor. And here is “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan (as himself), called in for the difficult task of hurling Rizzo down a tube. Sure, that’s something they couldn’t have accomplished without an over-egged celebrity wrestler cameo.
Rizzo tumbles into a brief, underdeveloped gangster movie pastiche, which I’d welcome because it means these people have seen Goodfellas. It’s like the Goodfeathers skits from “Animaniacs,” only with rats instead. But here is David Arquette (aaaAAAHHH!), head lab rat technician. For entirely no reason having to do with anything other than the running time, Arquette cackles and hurtles Rizzo through a montage of “humorous” tortures, all done to funkage tunage songage.
Tambor hurls Gonzo into a prison cell, where he (Gonzo) has a spiritual encounter with a sandwich (I had one of those once, but it was a really good restaurant). It’s really the aliens speaking through Gonzo’s grinder. Gonzo arranges a further rendezvous with the extraterrestrials, at Cape Doom…Cape Doom? Ah, yes, a really uninspired, unnecessary Cape Fear reference. Man, The Muppet Movie might have been about movies, but it didn’t stoop to such boring, boring referencing without having some deep meta-narrative reason for it. Oh, and Tambor’s minions have overhead the loquacious sandwich. But you knew that; this story is rather predictable (at the macro-level), despite being an “original” unlike the past few.
The other Muppets arrive at C.O.R.N.E.T.T.O. (or whatever), utilizing their wacky Q-gadgets to sneak in. You know, maybe the writers (including, sadly, the once-great Jerry Juhl) didn’t see Goodfellas, because if they had, surely they’d be able to do more with their Ray Liotta cameo than simply have him get horny for Miss Piggy. (And – ew!) But the next guard cameo (Kathy Griffin – man, this stuff is random) gets pretty much the gender reverse equivalent of that gag, as she falls for…ANIMAL! Actually, first things first: an invisible Animal chases Griffin down the halls, PG-rated rape on his mind (anyone seen Hollow Man here?). It’s only later that Griffin becomes dependent, long after Animal has had his way with her…You know, in Tim Hill’s endless, childish quest for the Almighty Fart, he somehow managed to make even Animal more off-color.
Soon Rizzo and the rats have escaped, Gonzo has escaped, and an ID4 reference has been made. I don’t know why I still recognize that all the way in 2010. All make it out of the C.O.R.N.U.C.O.P.I.A. (or whatever) compound, on their way for the finale at “Cape Doom.”
The funniest moment in the movie comes courtesy of Jeffrey Tambor’s innate comic ability. He wanders down the hall, and says apropos of nothing, “I’m gonna kill somebody.” I swear I laughed for at least a minute straight at this – it’s totally the sort of understated line delivery I’d expect from an exasperated George Senior.
Here we are at Cape Doom, where all of those nutbar nutjobs have assembled to continue their Gonzo worship. I forget precisely why they knew to go here (it has something to do with Miss Piggy being a bad person), but it is totally justified in the movie. And for all the times for Muppets from Space to be totally sincere and humor-free, it’s in presenting this lame spiritualist craze which preceded the surely doom-filled year 2000 (just as we’re only starting to get with those diamond-lickers and 2012, the hip new doomsday). And because they were available that day, here are Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson lamenting how Dawson isn’t here…A “Dawson’s Creek” reference?! Okay, Muppets from Space, you’ve officially gone beyond the pale here! Oh right, the ‘90s were when the mere act of acknowledging another media property counted as humor.
The grand dramatic finale of Muppets from Space is basically just a lesser replay of the final moments from Close Encounters of the Third Kind – with Muppets. A red, egg-shaped spaceship lands – totally unconvincing, late ‘90s CGI in a low-budgeted kiddie flick. Man, it’s like kicking a paraplegic, criticizing such stuff! Ah, but then the real Mother Egg descends, runs through what might be a pastiche of The Day the Earth Stood Still if I were feeling generous, and opens up. Here on stage is a mass of whatevers, Gonzo’s long-lost-for-millennia family, displaying their timeless funkitude with a celebratory song made of pure funkosity – Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.” All dance, sing and kill screen time, as we pass straight over a screen cap to discover that –
Tambor is here, with a great big freaking mofo gun! I predicted his return to the second, as I’ve seen the happiness interrupted in such a manner in countless flicks. I could also predict his comeuppance with nearly the same success, as…the gun doesn’t work. The Gonzaliens, wise beings are they, recognize Tambor’s untapped comic potential (they’ve been to the future and seen “Arrested Development,” methinks), for they invite Tambor come with them as an ambassador. Good enough.
From the movie’s premise alone, you could functionally anticipate the final 5 minutes of this opus with a 90% accuracy. That is, Gonzo will be invited to go home with the aliens, he’ll contemplate it whilst bidding his Muppet buddies farewell, then ultimately choose to stay with his friends instead. It’s the ending we would expect from Close Encounters, if Spielberg wasn’t interested in upending the clichés he was just then creating, all in the celebration of arrested male adolescence. But I digress. So the movie ends with Gonzo, surrounded by the crazed Muppet coterie, bidding His Holy Funkiness adieu. The spaceship doors close, Tambor surrounded by felt space aliens. It flies away, and I suspect that Tambor is instantly devoured by the Gonzaliens.
Considering the release date for Muppets from Space, it seems the producers somehow felt it could compete directly against Episode I. I mean, artistically this imagination-deprived kiddie flick is superior, but commercially it was a dud. That (the theatrical flopping) is what surely killed Muppet movies, for it’s clear now they weren’t gonna die for aesthetic reasons. (Oh, let’s also toss in the commercial doddery of 1999’s “Sesame Street”-based Elmo in Grouchland for good measure.)
Of course the Muppets would continue on, for they were never wholly reliant on the cinema for their popularity, with a series of TV movies that rather follow the vein of what we’ve just seen. Consider the more recent It’s a Very Muppet Christmas Movie and The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, things I have not and will not see, things I am told via the all-knowing Internet are affronts to even the dignity of Muppets from Space. Yeah, after 2005, they wouldn’t even make Muppet movies for television anymore! There’s still the occasional DTV stuff, naturally, but the monsters are pretty much done with now. Which is surely not what Disney wanted (or was it?) when they officially took over nearly all Muppet rights in 2004. Who knows?
We’ve yet to see Disney do anything really concrete with their acquired properties, such as the Muppets or the whole of the Marvel Universe. But give those mouse merchants time, for rumor has it a new Muppet movie is in the works. (Of course it is, since the Muppets were popular in the ‘80s, which is where all of Hollywood’s ideas come from nowadays.) I have little faith, really, in the Muppets’ renewed viability. They’re puppets, for one, and their best stuff (The Muppet Movie) had directly to do with a really specific mixture of attitudes I am sure no corporate behemoth can will into existence again.
This overall franchise has been a strange descent from the very best art-film-as-kid’s-film experimentation I could imagine, all the way to sub- and proto-Dreamworks fartery. It’s sort of a depressing franchise path to take, though at least 95% of all franchises must undergo a similar de-evolution. It just feels that, in the long run, film was not the ideal setting for the Muppets, who worked so well as a felt-based SNL. Oh well, it just shows franchising isn’t the best move for every single property under the sun.
Uh oh, the movers are here!
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Muppet Movie (1979)
• No. 2 The Great Muppet Caper (1981)
• No. 3 The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
• No. 4 The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
• No. 5 Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
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