Muppets Music

A friend and I went to one of the events at the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts Muppets tribute tonight. It was "Muppets Music Moments" and it was really fun. I think the Jim Henson crowd were and are a brilliant bunch, so when the request went out to see if there was any interest, I immediately responded.


We bought two of the last five tickets, and the audience was between the ages of 25 and 40 (except for one family's toddler and one guy's dad). Everyone loved the show, with clapping for Kermit singing "The Rainbow Connection" with Debbie Harry, and loud guffaws for Elton John's pink sparkly pantsuit.


Speaking of guffaws, I'd forgotten the pigs. Miss Piggy gets all the press but the gang (?) of pigs come out styling in "Macho Man" and "In The Navy." During "I Get Around" there was some footage of the Muppeteers singing and manipulating the motorcycles, which was interesting to see; there were five pigs and about a dozen people in the skit. The Swedish Chef, Beaker, and Animal sang an almost unintelligible "Danny Boy" that had me almost crying with laughter at the end. I said to my friend, "The genesis for this skit must have been one Muppeeter asking the other, 'What if the craziest voices in the cast sang a song together?'"


Once again I found myself thinking about how much more real the Muppets seemed than a CGI extravaganza would have. I'd seen a couple of the numbers recently, and even so it was like receiving a visit from old friends from my childhood.

I'm not going to embed a picture, but if I could it would be this one.

The show ended rather suddenly and several (adult) voices let out a loud "Awww" as the screen went black.

Brilliant

This isn't the word the Daemon provided but it's my project, I'll mess with it if I want to.

My brother and future sister-in-law gave me the first season of The Muppet Show for Christmas. I have long thought that Jim Henson and Company were a brilliant bunch of people, and talented. They invented the muppet, a combination puppet-marionette, and they acted, danced, and sang as those muppets. They wrote pun after pun after pun for The Muppet Show, as well as for The Muppet Movie, which includes my favorite joke of all time:

Kermit The Frog: At the fork in the road, bear left.
Fozzie The Bear: Right, frog.

The last time I saw Labyrinth I was impressed all over again that JH & Co. pulled that movie off without CGI. Think of the scene in which Sarah winds up with the orange creatures who toss their heads back and forth like basketballs. As difficult as writing CGI programs must be, while filming this scene the Muppeteers had to wear all black and be lintbrushed every few minutes - filming against a black cloth, not a green screen, and with film cameras, not video, let alone digital.

It turns out that Jim Henson's first TV project, Sam and Friends, premiered in 1955. How can Kermit be 50 years old? I always thought they debuted on Sesame Street, which premiered the same year I did, but Jim Henson Productions has produced some fascinating work in the last fifty years (besides muppets continuing to appear on Sesame Street). If you haven't seen MirrorMask, you should. Lots of CGI there, but a definite muppet-y feel to it - and you should especially see it if you like Cirque du Soleil shows.

The only bad thing about the Muppets is that I have never been able to take Yoda seriously. He sounds like Gonzo!

The most sensational
Inspirational
Celebrational
Muppetational
This is what we call The Muppet Show!