No, Janice, We Don’t Say That Word

Something you might not know about me is that I don’t swear. You definitely don’t know that if you don’t know who I am, which is the case for most people, but that’s beside the point. There’s no particular reason why I don’t swear. I don’t have a religious objection to it, but I guess I’m sensitive to the fact that many do.

I’m also a Caper Boy. That’s the term I coined for people whose favorite Muppet movie is The Great Muppet Caper. It might be my favorite movie ever! There’s just one little problem: Janice swears in it. Yes, it’s very brief, but in the “Happiness Hotel” sequence, she remarks in song that “the whole joint’s gone to [H-E-double-hockey-sticks]”.

Goodness gracious! Well I never! I thought this was supposed to be a kids’ movie! Or, if not a kids’ movie per se, it’s still a G-rated family film, isn’t it? I mean, a key detail you might have noticed in this movie is that it stars Kermit the Frog, a character from the popular children’s television program Sesame Street. So what in blazes does Janice think she’s doing singin’ the H Word?! It’s just awkward. It makes this movie uncomfortable to watch with children and old people.

There are so many words in the English language that aren’t profane! Choose any one of them, Janice! I honestly can’t imagine why she wrote this song this way. It doesn’t have to be like this, and I can prove it. My goal for this article is to determine the best way that this one line could have been written differently. It’ll probably turn out to be a very simple thing.

The obvious approach is to switch out the curse in question with a word that functions the same way while feeling more true to the Muppets. Fortunately, the Muppets already have a phrase that makes such a substitution: “what the hey”. You may have heard Cookie Monster exclaim it before as he gives in to the temptation to eat a cookie, and I know I’ve heard at least one of Jim Henson’s characters employ it. With this in mind, Janice’s new line is, “Still the management is cheerful, though the whole joint’s gone to hey”. It’s simple, straightforward, and logical.

In my first draft of this article, that’s where I started to wrap up, but then I realized something that no one without my incredible intellect possibly could have: This is a song lyric. Song lyrics are supposed to rhyme. “Hey” does not rhyme with “hotel”. To fix this, I have simply adjusted the latter lyric to fit the needs of the former, as follows.

Now, some astute readers may have noticed that “hotay” is not a word. Our uptight and pedantic readers who are bothered by this trivial detail will be pleased to know that it’s easy enough to put a real word in its place and get a grammatically correct sentence.

See? It’s really not that complicated. Although, I suppose this doesn’t tell the viewer as much as the original line. Are they being welcomed to the place or to the emotion? Are we asking if they’re okay with sitting with their feelings?

To make the song about a place again, the sensible thing to do is slightly change the epitaph to a word with better rhyming options more suitable to our needs. The obvious choice for a substitute for the H Word is, of course, heck. This greatly simplifies our songwriting process by allowing for rhymes about how the place is such a wreck, and it also helps bring our attention back to the location, as follows.

Now, if any youngsters are reading this article, they may need to look up the pronunciation of that word to know that this is a rhyme, but it is in fact a rhyme. A perfect rhyme.

Admittedly, this change does raise some complications, but nothing major. The rhyme is so good that I think it’s worth making the necessary changes to keep it, which shouldn’t be too hard. First, the arrangement of the song should be changed to disco to fit the new setting, like so:

Then, every time the Happiness Hotel is mentioned in the screenplay, we’ll simply swap it out for the Happy Discotheque and adjust the lines around it accordingly. It’s that easy!

In this new version of the story, Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo are looking for a place in London where they can crash, and also where they can get down with their bad selves. This requires only very subtle tweaks to the dialogue in scenes like the one in which our heroes land in a pond and ask British Gentleman on Bench (Robert Morley) where they can stay.

Most casual fans wouldn’t even notice a little change like that. Of course, if they did notice, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, showing how discotheques suffered in the aftermath of the Disco Riots grounds the story in the social environment of its time.

On the other hand, perhaps that goes against the timeless quality that makes this movie so special. I suppose it shouldn’t be dated this way. Fortunately, finding an alternative to that rhyme is easy-peasy.

Rather than focusing on substituting hell as an expletive, I’ll try a different way of expressing what the word means. I believe the simple, direct approach is best. We can just state very literally what it means to have actually gone to hell, as follows.

In this exciting new version of the story, instead of going to London, the Muppets die and go to Hades. Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo play reporters for the archangel Gabriel at The Herald. They travel down to Hell to catch the thieves who stole Lady Helliday’s soul, and the rest of the movie plays out about the same way as before. It’s pretty self-explanatory.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. I always know what you’re thinking. It’s one of my many magic powers from Lord Satan, but that’s beside the point. The point is, you might assume this version of the story would be more confusing. After all, how can we expect audiences to understand that the story they’re watching takes place in Hell when Hell looks so much like London?

Elementary, dear reader. There’s already a whole song in this movie that only exists to establish where the characters are! All we have to do is add a little expository dialogue to clarify that the Happiness Hotel has been cast into the lake of fire, and then everything will make sense, as follows.

And there you have it. See? I told you and told you that it would be an easy fix. It all turned out to be a very simple thing.

Oh, I am so embarrassed….

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By J.D. Hansel