Last month, I went to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City to celebrate Jim Henson’s birthday with a bunch of other Muppet fans. Maybe you read about it in Matthew Soberman’s excellent recap right here on this website. It was a pretty wild time. I’m talkin’ puppets, sing-alongs… and TWO CAKES!
Among the events happening at the museum that day was the cleverly named Swa(m)p Meet. There was this big room with a bunch of tables in it, and Muppet fans were selling their stuff to each other. It was a wide range of stuff — old and new, cheap and expensive, rare and well done. There was so much of it, and such variety! For much of the afternoon, I watched as my fellow Muppet fans excitedly entered that room and came out with bags full of Muppet swag.
But me? I waited until the Swa(m)p Meet was almost over before going in… and then I spent more time chatting with the buyers and sellers than inspecting the goodies. I just didn’t feel a burning desire to buy any of that Muppet merchandise.
Is something wrong with me?!
I haven’t always been like this. There was a time in my life when I couldn’t get enough Muppet merchandise. I think I used to believe that I would be a more dedicated Muppet fan if I bought more stuff. Or maybe I thought I was single-handedly keeping the Muppets afloat by supporting them financially. (Sadly, my purchase of TWO Up Late with Miss Piggy mugsxdccs did not earn The Muppets a second season.) Or maybe I was in training, subconsciously hoping that the Olympics would someday add an “Accumulating Images of Kermit the Frog’s Face” event and I would have a shot at the bronze.
I took great satisfaction in growing my collection. Old Sesame Street storybooks from my childhood that I haven’t read in decades? I better hold on to those! A little PVC of Gonzo from 1983 at a vintage toy store? Gotta have it! A weird big plastic button that plays music when you press it? I was thrilled to receive it for Christmas!
(To be clear, I was never the type to constantly buy Muppet merchandise on eBay. I’m very impressed by that type of Muppet collector, but I probably would have gone broke if I had taken that approach. Although I have been known to search for “jim henson hour lunchbox.”)
It’s not that I don’t care at all about Muppet merchandise. I still care somewhat about some Muppet merchandise. But at some point in recent years, things started to change. When the first waves of Diamond Select Muppet action figures started coming out, I wanted them ALL as soon as they were released. They were perfect companions to the now-legendary Palisades toys. But now I’m kind of… neutral? It’s been over two years since the Rizzo and Sam the Eagle figures were released, and I still don’t have them. And I don’t feel any urgency to get them. And I like Rizzo and Sam!
So what changed? Am I a less passionate Muppet fan now? I don’t think so. I still watch the new stuff and frequently re-watch the old stuff. I still talk about the Muppets with other nerds all the time. It’s not an exaggeration to say I think about the Muppets every day of my life — even more often than I think about macaroni and cheese!
So what is it? Is there something about getting older that makes all humans less inclined to accumulate stuff? No, that doesn’t sound accurate. There’s lots of people older than I am who collect baseball memorabilia, Precious Moments figurines, guitars, and cats.
And even as I buy less and less Muppet merchandise, I keep buying books and comics, as I’ve done since I was a kid. And in the past couple of years, I’ve been buying more movies on physical media than I have in quite a while — although that’s mostly because of my increasing concern that every movie ever made is going to disappear from streaming any day now.
Maybe it’s because those things feel more practical. I can re-read a book, and I can re-watch a Blu-ray, and get entertained by it all over again. But a single Kermit Bow Biter designed to clamp onto shoelaces, except it’s missing its mate, and I wouldn’t use it on my shoes anyway? It’s just going to sit there on a shelf or in a box doing nothing.
And in fact, I own a lot of Stuff that sits in boxes doing nothing! Old Happy Meal toys, Chuck E. Cheese prizes, vacation souvenirs… And you know what? I’m not in a hurry to accumulate any more of that stuff either! If I went to a birthday celebration for Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Chuck E. Cheese’s, and there was a “Swap(peroni) Meet,” I wouldn’t buy anything there either!
So maybe I’ve figured it out! Muppet merchandise that sits on a shelf: I’m over it. Muppet merchandise that I can actually use (books, Blu-rays, socks): Bring it on! That sounds right.
I’m so glad I wrote this article. Now I’m no longer worried that anything is wrong with me. But I still might go check eBay for one of those Jim Henson Hour lunchboxes…
Click here to sell your mint condition Muppet Classic Theater coloring book on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
