Beth is watching for the millionth time, Julia is watching for the first time in ten years, and Adam is watching for the first time ever! Is it a new episode of Fraggle Talk: Classic? Nope! As part of ToughPigs’ 40th anniversary celebration of The Muppets Take Manhattan, Beth seized the opportunity to watch one of her favorite Muppet productions with her friends and co-hosts.
Normally we watch episodes of Fraggle Rock separately and don’t discuss them until we’re recording, but this time we tried watching something together as a (virtual) group (after half an hour of technical difficulties across five different platforms).
Join us on our journey through The Muppets Take Manhattan as if you’re in the room with us! Hit “play” on your VHS or DVD or streaming network of choice and let’s hit it!
[Opening credits roll]
ADAM: So I have a question, and this doesn’t have to be a spoiler, but… do they give Manhattan back after?
JULIA: No. Never.
A: Good for them. Good for them, no, they should keep it.
BETH: [Lip-syncing along with Kermit’s da-da-dums] I promise I’m not gonna sing along the whole time. This is one that I had recorded on VHS so I just watched it over and over and over.
J: This is one I didn’t see until my 20s and I started really getting into the Muppets. I grew up with The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper.
A: I also grew up with The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper.
J: I know that Steve and Marty Robinson are in that crowd shot [in the audience at Danhurst College]. I found Marty, I don’t know where Steve is…Oh there he is, he’s in front of Marty.
B: I love these little checkered outfits.
[Animal chasing a screaming woman]
A: That didn’t age well.
J: Yeah, was literally gonna say the same thing.
[The Muppets arrive in New York, oo-ing and ah-ing at the bus station.]
B: I totally missed this moment as a kid, that they’re looking at the skyline, and as it zooms out it’s literally just a poster at the bus station.
A: That’s really good.
Fozzie: We’ll all be on Broadway tomorrow.
J: Exactly how getting on Broadway works.
A: Yup.
B: Definitely.
[Gates McFadden as Dabney Coleman’s secretary]
B: Hi, Dr. Crusher!
J: Oh, yeah!
Mr. Price: Songs. (Mm-hm.) Dances. (Mm-hm.) Shootings. (Nn-nn!)
A: Ha! God, I love the rhythm and the patter of this.
[Mr. Price seizes Gonzo and Camilla]
A: Well this is more tension than is usually seen in a Muppets movie.
B: Yeah, but look at the puppetry!
J: Just gonna be a wacky chase scene now.
A: Oh, yes! There’s the wacky chase scene… You can just say you wanna make out with your girlfriend, Gonzo, you don’t have to cage it in CPR. Although I guess it was the 80s. Ha! “I think we’re engaged.”
B: And he does the little eyebrow wiggle but with his eyelid mechanism.
[Pete’s Luncheonette]
J & B: Rizzo!
J: His first major role.
A: Is it really?
J: Yeah, he had like a line in The Great Muppet Caper.
Pete: Got two hands only!
A: Why do I feel like that’s unfortunate foreshadowing?
J: [Laughs] I don’t think that it is.
B: Don’t worry, it’s not.
Pete: Is special today: Yankee bean soup. With spoon.
A: HA!
B: ToughPigs has a T-shirt with that line.
A: Hell yeah.
[Pete’s “Peoples is peoples” speech]
A: Ha! I love that they chose to spoof the inspirational speech with just f***ing nonsense.
B: But it’s not nonsense if you look really closely at it!
A: No, it’s not, there’s actual genuine beauty in there. But like…
B: But yeah, that is a very popular line for that reason.
A: It’s so good.
[“Saying Goodbye” starts]
A: I’ve never kissed anyone through the window of a train. I don’t even think it’s legal… Did they get their soup??
B: Presumably!
J: I think they got their soup. This is just, like, the next day.
A: Hey look, it’s every single slightly pensive Fraggle Rock song ever. Although the chord progression is slightly better.
J: Yeah, this song’s great.
B: The songs were written by Jeff Moss, who wrote, like, at least half of the well-known songs from Sesame Street.
A: Yeah, this is… heartbreaking, what the f***. How does this hit so hard as a Millennial? It speaks to both the timelessness of the Muppets and the unchanging horrors of capitalism.
J & B: Yeah.
A: He’s got a teddy bear. Fozzie has a little teddy bear.
J: He’s riding the rails.
B: With his little bindle.
A: Mmkay, I take back what I said about how this is every generic Fraggle pensive song, this has much better chords and harmonies… Ohhh, the fade into just Kermit!
J: By himself…
[Kermit heads to the top of the Empire State Building]
A: Yo, what?
B: Don’t worry, it’s still a Muppet movie.
A: Okay.
J: That’d be a wild twist, 30 minutes into this film. He’s just takin’ in the city.
A: The contrast of him complaining that they lean on him too much and then just being devastated when they’re not there.
A: Ha! Rat Tatooey.
[Kermit in his Phase 1 getup]
J: Best Kermit look.
A: Oh my goood…
[Kermit blows past Leonard Winestock’s secretary and into the office full of businessmen]
A: Autistics masking rolling up to the neurotypicals like…
J: Who is that, is that…?
B: I’m on it!
J: He’s a director.
B: Yeah, they just did an article about all the cameos in this movie.
J: It’s John Landis. Oh, he’s so young.
B: [Sudden realization] Adam, we have a friend named Leni! I should be calling them Boffo Leni, Socko Leni at every opportunity!
[Piggy in a trenchcoat, sunglasses, and fedora, getting harassed by construction workers]
J: This is just commentary that women can be wearing anything and they’ll still get catcalled.
B: Right?
A: See I’m just excited ‘cause he’s about to get his a** kicked.
J: Little bit, yeah. Y’know, not exactly kicking their butts but showing that she very much could kick their butts.
Jenny: [Shrugging off Piggy’s screaming and pipe-banging] It’s just New York.
A: Ha! She’s not wrong.
[Piggy’s scene with Joan Rivers]
J: This is the cameo that I feel like everyone remembers.
A: …Is that…?
J & B: Joan Rivers.
A: Yup. It’s wild watching Joan Rivers struggle to be nice. This is just really sweet. I wonder how much of this was improvised.
J: Frank was a top-tier improviser, so I fully believe that they kinda just had an idea and they just ran with it. This must’ve been so much fun to film.
B: That’s another thing that we wish existed as real Muppets merch, Quelle Difference perfume.
[Yolanda serving food]
J: That’s Karen, right? It sounded like Karen Prell.
B: I’m gonna look that up!
J: I know Kathy is in here, but I think Kathy is Jill later?
B: That sounds right… Yes, Karen Prell is playing Yolanda.
[The rats cooking scene]
J: Rat Scat!
B: God, I love this scene.
A: What the—how in the world did they make that happen??
J: Mechanics?
A: What the s***?!… Oh, that can’t be up to code. That’s nasty, actually. Like, a rat skating around on butter is pretty great, but also people eat off that. [Rat hot-tubbing in the coffee] Ohhh, nooo!
J: Pete said out there that they weren’t waiting tables anymore because people complained so he had them cooking in the kitchen instead, as if that is the better option.
A: Well yeah, it’s America; as long as you can’t see the problem…
[Lew Zealand explains his boomerang fish to Scooter]
J: Oh, yeah, this movie is called Attack of the Killer Fish, so… right, naturally. Lew Zealand is my partner’s favorite Muppet.
B: Oh, wow!
J: The most one-note Muppet of them all. [Laughs] He loves him.
B: I mean, he’s got one shtick, and if it works…
J: It’s a good shtick!
A: If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. [As the fish hit people in the face] Ohh ‘cause he is the 3D! Oh, that’s great.
Fozzie: Dear Kermit, Wocka Wocka Wocka. But seriously…
J: [Laughs] That’s the best start to a letter.
Fozzie: I’ve been trying to sleep for days.
A: It me. Aw, he’s got so much anxiety.
[Beth Bear introduces herself and snuggles Fozzie.]
B: Ask! First!
[Piggy takes out her anger for a second time at watching Kermit and Jenny hug.]
A: Damn, Piggy, let a man have friends.
B: I like that every time they say “It’s just New York,” no, it’s just Piggy.
[Kermit enter’s Sardi’s in his Phase 2 getup]
A: Whaaaat. The ‘fit! The rizz! Oh my god.
J: That little pencil mustache.
A: [Laughs] God, I can’t get over the pencil mustache. Who needs an advertising agency when you have a bunch of rats? [As the rats cause chaos] Honestly? Praxis. Screw your rich-people dinners.
[Kermit is tossed out of Sardi’s.]
J & B: Yeet!
A: Haha, puppet yeet.
[Jenny makes Kermit go jogging with her.]
J: Weird PSA for exercise in the middle of this movie. And I love running, lie that’s the one form of exercise I do regularly, but… it’s so strange.
A: It’s a weird call, also, like, excuse you—Piggy does not focus on cardio because she’s powerful as heck.
J: Yeah, she’s too busy workin’ those arms.
B: Well she’s about to focus on cardio…
J: Oh, yeah.
[Piggy stomps her borrowed roller-skates and rushes off, screaming.]
A: Hell yeah.
B: And we get a rollerskating pig puppet!
J: No, it is somebody in a pig mask.
B: Yeah. Well, I say it counts.
J: Yeah, they do the same thing in The Great Muppet Caper in that shot where she’s walking away after she’s left the gala. It’s so weird, it’s just somebody wearing a pig mask and her wig.
B: Forced perspective, yeah.
J: It’s very Uncanny Valley.
A: Yeah, no, it’s thrown’ me off a little bit—a puppet that I’m used to having puppet body language have human body language.
[As Kermit and Piggy argue]
A: He’s not wrong, friends do not spy.
Roller-skater: Keep the skates. I never use ‘em anyway. I just like to run around in shorts. [Runs off.]
A: I can see why, sir. Hello.
B: Aww, RIP Gregory Hines.
[Kermit and Piggy start their carriage ride.]
J: This… we’re gonna go into maybe my favorite part of this entire movie.
B: Oh, yeah.
J: I don’t think Adam knows what’s coming. [Laughs]
B: Nope. No idea.
J: It’s so good.
[Baby Piggy appears and “I’m Gonna Always Love You” starts.]
A: Oh my god. Awww… AWW, BABY ROWLF. Wow, Kermit is just goin’ to town on that rocking horse.
J: I believe this was the inspiration for Muppet Babies.
B: It was.
A: Aw, Scooter!… Wow. Baby-talk backup dancers.
Baby Piggy: And practice neurosurgery—On! Your! Brain!
A: That’s… terrifying.
[As the sequence ends]
A: Bold.
J: There’s Brooke Shields.
A: I was going to say she looks very familiar. [As Masterson hits on Brooke Shields and then faints] WOOF.
B: Fortunately, when she was on The Muppet Show, no one was hitting on her because she was sixteen.
A: I mean, Brook Shields’ history… people started hitting on her when she was twelve.
J: Yeah.
B: That’s true.
A: It’s a whole f***in’ thing.
[Shnookums is being checked into the dog kennel where Rowlf works.]
A: That doorman is having so much fun being completely deadpan.
James Coco: Shnookums prefers the rubber Wall Street Journal to the rubber Washington Post.
J: I mean, I’ve worked with some clients who are… not far off from this on the particulars of their dogs… What was the Chinese joke that I don’t remember being in this movie??
B: Right? I was like, “Ugh, was that casual bit of racism always there?”
J: I mean, apparently. Not everything, unfortunately, ages great.
[Kermit says goodbye to Jenny and gives her a kiss on the cheek.]
A: Bro.
[Kermit tries to do the same for Piggy but she turns her back on him.]
A: Bro.
J: Elliott Gould!
Kermit: I’m sorry, but I have to get a contract so I can go out and kill ‘em!
A: Bro.
Elliott Gould: …Nah.
A: Yep, accurate depiction of New York cops.
[Kermit joyfully and obliviously walks into the street.]
A: Nooo, buddy!… [Kermit gets hit by a car] What the fff… What is this movie??
J: It can’t be that simple! They got their show approved, but something else gotta go wrong now.
A: So they hit him with a car?! I guess it is New York.
[Pete gives another baffling speech trying to cheer up Piggy.]
A: I… love him, actually?
B: Yup.
[Jenny asks Pete to send telegrams to Kermit’s friends.]
A: Those are gonna be the most illegible-a** telegrams.
J: [Laughs] “I write good.”
Pete: Dear bears and chickens and things. Is New York. Is play. Is time!
A: [Shrugs] That was pretty clear.
[The Muppets tell their new friends they’re going to New York.]
J: That bear appears in “Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree.” And that’s like an early Bobo right there… Beauregard’s there all of a sudden!
B: Beauregard! I just noticed that!
J: I love Beauregard!
B: I like that they all just assume their friends are coming with them.
J: Yeah!
A: I mean, that is how actual networking works.
[Kermit in the hospital.]
A: He’s so little and the bed’s so big!… Ohh, does he have amnesia?
B: Nailed it.
[Linda Lavin discharges Kermit with amnesia.]
J: That’s… terrible. Just go out—he can’t—he doesn’t have a social security number! He doesn’t have a home address! How could he get a job? It’s the 80s, so I don’t know if it was different back then, but it’s still wild to be like “You don’t remember your life, go out, just start over.”
[Kermit wanders around and finds the ad agency.]
J: I love his little hat!
B: So many good outfits in this movie.
J: You don’t get a ton of outfits in the first two movies, outside of Piggy, obviously. And there’s some good tux action in Caper.
B: I just noticed that Jill’s got her shoes kicked off and she’s got little Frog stockings.
J: Bill has ears…
A: Yeah, why does only one of the frogs have ears?
Gil: We can always use a frog with horse sense.
A: Beats the heck out of a horse with frog sense.
Piggy: That’s Jenny, she’s a friend of Kermit’s and… and mine.
A: Aww.
J: That’s nice, Piggy never has female friends.
B: Right?
J: It’s her whole shtick is she’s gotta be pitted against every woman.
A: here was a post that was going around that was like…
J: That’s very good. And very true.
[Bill, Gil, and Jill do their thing]
A: I love all the -ill, -ill, -ill bits.
B: Mm-hm. There’s no reason for it, it’s just delightful.
A: I love these frog businesspeople… It’s interesting, and I’m reading too deep into it, but the advertising agency that he winds up with A. come off as very soulless, but B. they don’t help him when he just gets kidnapped! They just sit there and watch him, like, there’s no loyalty.
[Kermit laughs uproariously at the thought of being in love with a pig and tells several pig jokes]
A: WOW, this is like… pig racist.
J: And then she murders Kermit.
A: Uh-huh, and then he dies.
B: You wanna cure amnesia, you gotta get a second head injury.
A: Oh yeah, that’s how that works.
J: Get karate-chopped by a pig.
Kermit: You’re not gonna watch the show, you’re gonna be in the show!
B: No rehearsal needed. They all just know the words.
A: Yeah, it’s fine.
J: It’s not even opening night, it is the show is starting.
[“Somebody’s Getting Married” starts.]
J: When me and Stephen got engaged, the Instagram post I put online was like “Cue the final song in Muppets Take Manhattan.”
B: Yes!
J: And multiple family members were like “I don’t get it” and I was like “I’m getting… I’m engaged… Sorry.”
[The chapel packed with Muppets from Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and everywhere else.]
A: Oh, wow!
J: All of them. Can’t do this anymore—everything’s owned by different companies.
[Bobby Benson in the background]
A: Well you couldn’t do that, he has a cigarette.
[Kermit and Piggy enter]
J: Have you seen the video that’s floated around for quite a while where someone shared their parents’ wedding footage where they spilled in images of the Muppets watching them walk down the aisle, like into their actual wedding footage?
B: Awwww.
A: That’s amazing, actually.
B: That’s delightful.
J: It’s goals.
A: Mmkay but Piggy rocks eyeliner. Why have we not seen her in eyeliner more?
B: See, for me it’s like a little too much.
J: I love some chunky eyeliner.
B: I guess for me it’s the stark contrast between the eyeliner and the wedding outfit.
A: Goths can get married, too, Beth. It’s allowed.
B: [Laughs] But Piggy’s never been a goth before!
A: Well maybe she wants to try it out for her wedding!
B: All right, fair enough.
J: This ending gets so surreal because, like, is this still the play? Because the Electric Mayhem are now on… would be on stage? It’s also huge. And, like, the audience is gone. They are in a chapel. Maybe we’re just in the world of the play.
A: Ha, she got an actual minister… Kermit, why are you scared of commitment? I know why.
Minister: I now pronounce you frog and pig.
B: What were they before?
A: Oh, they were also frog and pig, he just switched ‘em.
B: Oh, thank you.
A: Yeah, Piggy’s a frog now and Kermit’s a pig.
B: They just got married and she’s pleasantly surprised that he kissed her on the cheek?
K: I mean, he’s a commitment-phobe, and she consistently pushes him away.
B: Well, now she’s gonna make out with him.
A: Good for them.
J: And that’s the end of the movie… as it goes into Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge.
A: [Trying to stop the autoplay] That’s—no.
B: No!
J: Oh my god.
A: No, I don’t wanna listen up to anything, I’m quite good. [Stops the autoplay.]
B: Yay!
J: And that was The Muppets Take Manhattan.
A: That was… I think the most depressing Muppet Movie I’ve ever seen.
J: Yeah, I mean… I’m trying to think if any of the other ones are more depressing.
B: It’s certainly more grounded than the others.
A: That’s why it’s so depressing, yeah.
B: [Laughing] Yeah, exactly. It feels like real life.
J: I mean, Kermit goes to jail in The Muppets’ Most Wanted… I guess it’s like the Russian gulag, though, it’s so obscure.
B: Yeah, it feels cartoony.
A: Yeah, this is just like, no, hey, we all have jobs that suck and we hate them and we’re putting on a good face for our friends but we’re actually miserable.
J: Muppets From Space is pretty sad, that’s about Gonzo feeling like he’s all alone and he has nobody.
A: But then he finds his people at the end and it’s great! Also most of that movie is: “I got a clue! Aww, the clue got somehow slapstick destroyed, you just have to believe me.” “I dunno if we should believe you. Aww, we believe you.”
J: Yeah, I guess so.
B: Yeah, this one has a special place in my heart because of, y’know, the amount of times I watched it as a kid. And I think that’s why it feels so ground? Like, yup, the Muppets are struggling artists like all of us.
A: Yeah, it’s validating, honestly, to see a struggle like that. Also I love Jenny’s dad, Pete’s my favorite. I love all his weird nonsense wisdom, he makes me happy.
B: Pete is the very best.
A: I’m glad the Muppets at least waited to flirt with Brook Shields until she was over eighteen.
B: Right? Ugh, poor kid. Yeah, really good cameos in this one.
J: Yeah, some cameos I forgot about, lotta good moments. Solid music. Good movie.
B: Yeah, I love the songs from this one.
A: I think this is the first time Ive seen the muppets deal with actual real world problems. Usually their problems are somewhat fantastical, and the intermal logic the world they exist in follows that fantastical tone.
I think this might be the most real world Ive seen the Muppets get, and that makes it kinda beautiful that what solves their problems are the kind of things that help in the real world: kind community members pitching in, gruff people who’ve been through some shit helping out because they can, someone taking a chance on a new project.
B: Yeah, this movie taught me a lot about what I need to know about being a starving artist.
A: Thanks for watching this, y’all.
[Two hours later in the Fraggle Talk group chat]
B: OH!! I can’t believe I forgot to point this out—in the wedding scene at the end with all the crossover characters in the chapel? Uncle Traveling Matt is one of them.
A: ?
B: Feel free to come up with wild theories about how he got there
J: Oh, he 100% happened upon that wedding in his adventures and stuck around for it. He probably thought he was watching some strange silly creature ritual, and had a totally false theory.
B: Someone has a theory about it that I quite enjoy, but it’s a spoiler for a certain special that aired three years later that we’ll maybe do a bonus episode about someday
A: Travelling Matt has been designated as a Weave Anchor by Mystra without his knowledge, which has bestowed upon him immortality and a significant resistance to any non-superficial harm, as well as the ability to wander through adjacent dimensions. He has no awareness of this whatsoever, and, like a white dude named Mark working at his uncle’s office, he is completely convinced that every outcome is solely a result of his own merit.
B: Lol perfect.
Click here to swim in the coffee on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Beth Cook, Julia Gaskill, and Adam Z.
