Recently, Tough Pigs’ own Joe Hennes and I hosted one of our regularly scheduled Muppet Vault events, where we show people Muppet stuff at a venue in Brooklyn. We had a completely full house, which was great, but something surprised us about the audience: They were laughing.
Let me hop back a few steps. The Muppet Vault was scheduled for Valentine’s Day, so we went with a love and romance theme. There were some lovey-dovey Kermit and Piggy bits, some scenes with Muppets falling in love with guest stars, and so on. One of the clips we chose was “May You Always,” the UK spot from the Avery Schreiber episode of The Muppet Show. The number starts with Rowlf singing affectionately to a picture of Lassie, and later he’s joined by two other Muppet dogs and a cat (presumably because the other dog puppets were in storage that day).
Joe and I watch a lot of Muppet stuff, so the number was nothing new to us. We had seen Muppet animals singing many times before. We had even seen Muppet animals singing love songs many times before. But Mr. and Ms. Audience Member apparently don’t watch TV shows about piano-playing dogs on a regular basis, so to them the sight of domestic animals harmonizing beautifully on a love song was novel enough to elicit laughter. Which is when I looked at Joe and said, “Oh yeah! This stuff is funny.” Later in the show, we would be reminded that chickens in formal wear and Miss Piggy are also funny.
I’m exaggerating somewhat. Of course I think the Muppets are funny. I still laugh at jokes in The Muppets Take Manhattan, a film I’ve been watching and rewatching for approximately my entire life. But somewhere along the line, the fact that I grew up with the Muppets and never strayed from them desensitized me to some of their brilliance. I’m ashamed to say it now, but there was a time not so very long ago when I even took Lew Zealand for granted. Sure, I loved the guy like he was my own fish-throwing brother, but did I appreciate him?
I think a lot of it has to do with my late-blooming awareness of the fact that there were people who wrote the jokes and gags the Muppets executed. As a small person, I enjoyed the heck out of those movies and shows, but as far as I was concerned, The Muppet Movie might as well have been a documentary. The Muppets were just the Muppets, and when the cameras started rolling, they acted like themselves. With my limited experience on planet Earth, I just accepted the fact that there could be a glamorous pig diva, and a blue guy who’s attracted to chickens, and a melon-headed scientist with no eyeballs, all putting on a variety show. It never occurred to me that somebody had to dream up the characters, the stories, and the puns.
I know some folks who started out the same way, but they grew out of the Muppets for a while — usually sometime around middle school — before returning to their senses and becoming grown-up fans. Coming back to the Muppets as an adult after years away, a fan views them with new eyes. The shows and movies are the same, but their way of watching and evaluating entertainment is different. A four-year-old might see the Muppets breaking into the Mallory Gallery in The Great Muppet Caper and just go, “Ha ha! Muppets FUNNY!” A 34-year-old can watch the same sequence and marvel at the inspired absurdity of all the characters wearing Groucho glasses, or chuckle at the clever wordplay of the Baseball Diamond. (Though there are probably those 34-year-old fans who still go, “Muppets FUNNY!”)
In recent years it’s dawned on me to celebrate the writers as much as I’ve always celebrated the characters. It’s helped immensely that we now have more behind-the-scenes information than ever. Although the Muppet Show DVDs have been depressingly light on insightful extras (especially compared with the feature-packed Fraggle Rock DVDs), the first season came with those delightful “Muppet Morsels” that offered interesting tidbits about every episode. That’s where I first learned that the name of the planet Koozebane was inspired by Coo’s Bay, Oregon, and my life is all the richer for it. There’s also a shelf full of Muppet-related books out there, including Joe Bailey’s terrific memoir. Not to mention numerous interviews with people who were directly involved in the creation of Muppet productions, on websites such as Muppet Mindset, The MuppetCast, and this one!
When I’ve watched the Muppets in recent years, it’s been with a fresh perspective on the funny bone-tickling prowess of the humans who made them funny. A guy dressed as a clown who throws fish that come flying back to him? Professional comedy writers willed that into existence, and not only is it funny, it’s brilliant! And don’t even get me started on the wonderfully twisted musical numbers from The Muppet Show. “Night and Day” rendered by mummies! “The Lullaby of Broadway” performed by Eskimos! A boatload of penguins dressed as Pilgrims singing “Alabamy Bound!” I’d pay a million dollars to go back and be in the writers’ room when they came up with this gold. (If I had a million dollars. As it is, I would give this bottle of Fanta Orange.)
And now, thanks to Mr. and Ms. Audience from the Muppet Vault, I’m going to try to expand my horizons of Muppet appreciation even further. The next time I see Miss Piggy make a grand entrance in an impeccably tailored costume and proceed to sincerely sing a duet with a human guest star, I’m going to remind myself that she’s a talking lady pig. And I’m going to laugh.
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by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
