Throughout this week we’ve been paying homage to the soon-to-be-departing MuppetVision 3D experience. We started with a walk through the Muppets Courtyard and waiting area, then we enjoyed a fun pre-show presentation, and now we’re at the main feature! The big show! The 3D a-poppin’ in your face!
As I’ve said thrice before, there’s a lot to love about the entire MuppetVision 3D experience. So much, in fact, I don’t even want to try to point out every great aspect of it. So I’m limiting myself to just five. Easier done than said! So let me tell you all about my faves, and I’d love to hear from you what I missed!
Cheap 3D Tricks
The 3D aspect of this show is a tricky one. When it premiered in 1991, the effects were state-of-the-art. But only a few years later, the technology in the other Disney World attractions surpassed it. Now, over three decades later, the 3D effects can feel very old. So how did they manage to stay relevant for all this time? By being cheap.
Kermit vows that the Muppets won’t stoop to cheap 3D tricks, but the rest of the Muppets must not have gotten the memo. Gonzo pushes a 3D logo right at the audience, Fozzie blows a swoopfoomer, Sweetums plays with a paddleball game, and so on. This isn’t Avatar. It’s not even Captain E-O. The Muppets are already spoofing their own conceit not by showing off how far they can push the tech, but by showing how unbelievably dumb it can be.
The Birth of Waldo
Bunsen and Beaker creating Waldo right in front of us is a bit of a cheat since he technically debuted a few years earlier in The Jim Henson Hour. But despite his clown-like attitude, he provides one thing that no other Muppet can do: Newness. By the time MuppetVision premiered, the Muppets are already beginning to feel like a nostalgia brand, so it takes a new character to bring us into the ’90s. And he’s not just another puppet – he jumped right out of a dang computer!
But don’t be fooled. Everyone thinks he’s talking to them, but he’s really talking to YOU.
Miss Piggy’s Big Number
Look, the “Dream a Little Dream” segment isn’t all that exciting in theory. But in this moment, introduced by Kermit and starring the diva herself Miss Piggy, it’s the closest any of us will come to watching a real performance of The Muppet Show. Especially when you consider where you’re sitting – in a facsimile of a real vaudevillian theater, complete with Statler and Waldorf in the box seats (more on them in a moment). If we ever got a chance to sit in the real Muppet Theater to watch the real Muppet Show, this is what it’d look like.
A Salute to All Nations (But Mostly America)
Speaking of Muppet Show realness, there’s nothing like a great closing number. And nothing more Muppety than the innate chaos that comes along with it. Sam the Eagle condenses his 3-hour finale into a minute and a half, bringing far too many “Small World” performers on stage, and seeing musical number devolve into an actual war. Explosions, fireworks, arrows, cannonballs, and a back-of-theater blunderbuss – it’s such sweet, sweet calamity. And I didn’t even mention Miss Piggy as the Statue of Liberty! It’s all enough to utterly destroy both the theater and our expectations.
Muppets in the Real World
Yes, we came to MuppetVision for the 3D show. But the real third dimension comes with the actual, real life effects that are happening right in front of our faces. Statler and Waldorf in one balcony, Bean Bunny in the other, Nicky Napoleon and his Emperor Penguins in the orchestra pit, and the Swedish Chef in the projection booth in the back of the room. It’s incredible that all of these actual Muppet characters are in the theater with us, and it adds so much realism to the attraction. But of course, the pièce de résistance is Sweetums, who comes running out into the theater. What a thrill to see another familiar character in real life, but he’s a real Muppet! Performed by a human being and everything!
Now, if this was an article about my least favorite moments, it would be this one. The attraction is over and we’re forced to leave the Muppet Theater and back into reality. What a bummer.
Thanks for joining me for these little looks at the MuppetVision experience! For those of you lucky enough to make the pilgrimage to Orlando before the attraction closes, please soak it all in and enjoy every detail for those of us who can’t be there as well. We’ll be enjoying it via YouTube, where MuppetVision can never die.
Click here to salute all nations on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
