The Muppet Movie

Grade: B

The Muppet Movie played in theaters recently, as a Fathom Event, to celebrate its 45th anniversary. This wasn’t my first time seeing it on the big screen; this isn’t even my first time writing about it. You can’t find my original review anywhere, unless you still have an email that circulated in 2001, but the grade is the same, for now. I’m glad I saw it again, and I would go in 5 years when the film celebrates an even bigger birthday, and will inevitably come back to theaters. It’s like Die Hard. You know it will come back to the silver screen from time to time.

3 years into a successful TV variety show, the Muppets tried their hands at Hollywood, with The Muppet Movie landing in theaters on June 22, 1979. Not just hands, we also see legs, as the movie makes a very big deal of showing us Kermit the Frog riding a bicycle. Look ma – no visible wires. Most of it is a movie within a movie. It opens with the rambunctious Muppets at a screening room getting ready to watch their film, then we are off to the races, with the origin story beginning, as Kermit sits at the swamp plunking out that iconic Oscar-nominated waltz on his left-handed banjo. An exuberant Dom DeLuise paddles up on his canoe, and gives Kermit a heads up that Hollywood is auditioning for frogs. And from there, he sets his sights on those western stars, and assembles his lifelong crew.

I have lamented about the famous Kermit/Fozzie relationship taking a back seat in most Muppet movies from the 90s to the present. They were our Lennon and McCartney, our Henley and Frey, and our Daltrey and Townshend at the beginning, until minor characters crept into the spotlight more. It’s nice to see them back at the forefront, moving right along together, as it should be. The plethora of famous-at-the-time human cameos are sometimes too easily and cheesily telegraphed (Who’s it gonna be when they take off that helmet? Who’s it gonna be when they swivel around in their office chair?), but they all have the energy to match their less human counterparts – particularly Mel Brooks, who was about 52 at the time. Steve Martin’s little role is my favorite. He plays a waiter, unusually dressed, with questionable social, not to mention customer service skills. It’s exactly the kind of random humor that tickles me.

Other bits I enjoy include the running gag about characters reading the screenplay to get caught up on what’s happened so far, or to find out where others will be. The movie can feel dated when it so proudly shows off practical effects that would be easy peasy 45 years later, but I suppose that’s par for the course. The Muppet Movie is a fine first chapter of the franchise, and it’s not hard to see why it still mostly holds up. That humble frog playing the left-handed banjo is gonna be somebody someday. Just you wait and see.

Grade: B