Destination: Home

[TogetherAgain]

The Story of the Start of the Story, part II

The beginning was one of the hardest parts to write. Most notably because I wanted to post the story, but I didn't have a title or a name for my villain.

I was racking my brain for a title. What could possibly work? I thought about how muppet movies always have the word "muppet" in the title. The Great Muppet Escape? No... The Great Muppet Chase? No... The Muppet Escape? The Muppet Chase? No, nothing was quite getting the true essence of the story across.

Well, it just so happens that I was listening to Muppet Central Radio, as usual. I heard a song that I absolutely love, called "Sweet Vacation". Or, as it would appear in the little player window, Kermit, Gonzo, and the Muppets- Sweet Vacation -The Jim Henson Hour.

I was singing along with this song, particularly the chorus, when it hit. Why not just use one of my favorite lines of the song? It worked perfectly!

If you're curious, here's the words to "Sweet Vacation"

Even when I'm weary and I just can't carry on
And the world is like an endless debt for me to pay,
Even when the neon seems to shine more than the sun
And the secret place I live in feels so far away,

Still I've got a ticket for a magic holiday
And it's always booked and ready come what may.

(Woah woah)

Sweet Vacation
Recreation
Destination: Home,
My friends can take me!
Sweet Vacation
Recreation
Destination: Home,
My friends can take me home.

(Instrumental)

Still I've got a ticket for a magic holiday,
And it's always booked and ready come what may.

(Woah woah)

Sweet Vacation
Recreation
Destination: Home,
My friends can take me!
Sweet Vacation
Recreation
Destination: Home,
My friends can take me!
Sweet Vacation
Recreation
Destination: Home.
My friends can take me home.

Good song, don't you think so? Oh, so anyway, I still had the problem of the villain. He didn't have a name, and names tend to be important when you're writing something. So, I inspected my bookshelf.

Let's see, we've got Frank Lloyd Wright, we've got something by Terry Longhurst, we've got The Works, we've got Atlas Shrugged, um... we've got a dictionary... a book of quotes... got some stuff by Avi, got To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, A Tale of Two Cities, um.... hm, this wasn't quite working. Well, maybe if...

And then I had it.

Lloyd, because I have a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, and Galt, because I have Atlas Shrugged, which has a character named John Galt. So, we do a little combining, and we have Lloyd Galt, a scum bag of a man who will stop at no evil to get the muppets to do a sick movie.

Maybe I should send thank-you notes to the authors of those two books...

And hey, speaking of books. There's a scene where I have a bunch of muppets all crowded around Gina while she reads a book to them. I couldn't figure out what book she was reading. It needed to be child friendly for Robin, but it still needed to be interesting... well, that rules out that book shelf. Hm, maybe The Giving Tree? No, it needs to be longer.

So after searching through the bottom shelf of my bookcase, I came up with Black Beauty. I started to read through it to find the right passage to throw in, and I realized it didn't quite work as well as I had originally thought. So I kept looking. I came up with Old Con and Patrick. It's a sweet little story about a boy who was left somewhat paralyzed by polio during World War II. The boy, Patrick, is slowly growing stronger, and he can walk with crutches. But he still has a lot of obstacles, and that's what the story is about. Patrick, his grandfather, his mother, his dog and his bluejay, overcoming Patrick's obstacles together. It's more of that "togetherness" stuff that Destination: Home is really about.

 

[redBoobergurl]

Yea! We get to dig deeper into your creative process! I love it!

 

[TogetherAgain]

We interupt this program for a brief message from our sponsor.

screen goes black. white text appears.

What happens to villains after they have been defeated?

the text fades, and we see fully uniformed frog scouts in a dark cold room. Robin is the only one awake. He is looking around.
We cut to a shot of the telephone on Kermit's desk at the muppet theater. It rings. A green hand picks it up, and the camera follows the telephone to Kermit's head.

Kermit: Hello, Muppet Theater.

we hear a man's voice coming from the other end of the phone.

voice: I'm afraid I have some bad news for you...

we cut to the back seat of a car. Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Rowlf, and Rizzo are screaming. Rizzo flies through the air and smacks into the car window.

Rizzo: OW!

he slides down the window.

we cut to the muppet boarding house. The muppets are sitting around the table. Gonzo pushes a pile of roadmaps towards Kermit.

Gonzo: Tell us the plan.

we see a montage of shots of Robin on a skateboard, riding a muppet deer's antlers, dodging a large butterfly net, looking at something in his hands, hiding behind a log, strapped to the back of a motorcycle, and clinging to the back of a bus. Through the montage, we hear Kermit's voice.

Kermit: My nephew is in trouble, and I am NOT letting this guy get him. I'll go alone if I have to. But I'm going.

we cut back to the scene around the table at the muppet boarding house.

Animal: COME WITH! COME WITH!

we cut to Clifford standing next to a red convertible

Clifford: We got a frog to catch!

We cut to a thunderstorm. Lightening strikes in the distance, creating a momentary silhouette of a pick up truck on an otherwise empty road.
We cut to Scooter, talking on the phone in the Muppet Theater.

Scooter: Don't worry, Kermit, you'll find him first!

We cut to the front seat of a car, where Bunsen is driving. Beaker falls into the car through the missing roof.

Beaker: MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Bunsen: Oh, there you are, Beaker! Where have you been?

We see a montage of an old Cadillac, the Electric Mayhem bus, a Volkswagon beetle, a red convertable, and a black pick up truck going by as we hear an announcer's voice.

Announcer: Can the muppet's save Robin from an old nemesis? Find out in "Robin's Story." Coming soon to a forum near you.

The screen goes black.

Kermit: And Robin?

Robin (over a telephone): Yes, Uncle Kermit?

Kermit: I love you.

Robin (over a telephone): I love you, too, Uncle Kermit.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bonus feature.

 

[redBoobergurl]

Preview!!!!!!! I can't wait! It looks wonderful!!!!! I really want to post a preview for mine, but I promise to at least finish my commentary first. Anyway, I cannot wait for your next story!!!!

 

[TogetherAgain]

The Story of the Start of the Story

Ever since I first started to read posts here at Muppet Central, I've seen the same thing over and over. "The first three movies are the best," "There haven't been any good movies since Jim died," "The magic is gone," on and on and on. Now, not everyone says this, and I'm not sure that I agree with it. But I really wanted everyone to like this little story of mine, so I thought, Well, what was in those first three movies that hasn't been in the later movies? I came up with a list, and I tried to get as much of it as I could into Destination: Home. So here's the list, in the order that I think of them.

Fantasy sequence.

In each of the first three movies, Miss Piggy has a fantasy sequence. In The Muppet Movie, it was when she first saw Kermit. In The Great Muppet Caper, it was when she was modelling. In The Muppets take Manhattan, it was during the carriage ride. Each sequence has it's own song. Each sequence ends with Miss Piggy snapping back to reality just in time to be incredibly embarassed. Each moment of embarassment is completed with a quick interchange between her and Kermit. Now, I didn't quite make it on that last point, but the rest is all there. Miss Piggy has a fantasy sequence, falls into the water, and tries to cover with the comment "Can't show off for too long, can we?" So she didn't speak directly to Kermit, but I think I did fairly well.

Electric Mayhem song.

"Can You Picture That," "Nightlife," and "You Can't take No for an Answer." They don't always necessarily focus on the Electric Mayhem, but you don't forget them. I didn't quite make it in this form of Destination: Home, but the movie version does contain a song. Haven't quite written the song, but trust me, it's there....

Kermit doubts himself.

In The Muppet Movie, there's that classic scene of two Kermits talking to each other. In The Great Muppet Caper, it's harder to spot- it's just a minute or so of Kermit sitting on the park bench, looking very depressed. In The Muppets Take Manhattan, he has several moments. Most notable, however, is the part where he goes to the top of a building and shouts out for all to hear, "THE FROG IS STAYIN'!" And in Destination: Home, he has several moments, as well. First he talks to himself under the road sign in the desert. Then he sits on a log at the Brinks summer home. And finally, he mulls things over in a jail cell at Galt's house.

A muppet send-off.

In The Muppet Movie, Animal shouts at us to "GO HOME! GO HOME!" In The Great Muppet Caper, Gonzo floats down our screen and says "Say Cheese!" Then he snaps our picture and says "I'll send you each a copy." And in The Muppets Take Manhattan, after they finish singing, we hear the muppets bid us farewell, ending with Animal saying "BYE-BYE! BYE-BYE! BYE-BYE! HASTA LUEGO!" This didn't make it into my story in the text version. But I figure in the movie version, something could be easily improvised.

Something waltz-able

I'm no dancer, but I can fake a waltz to one song in each of the first three movies. In The Muppet Movie, it's Rainbow Connection. In The Great Muppet Caper, it's Couldn't We Ride. And in The Muppets Take Manhattan, it's Saying Goodbye. I just plain didn't make this one. Sorry, folks.

Yay, a song! Oh, and by the way, we're doing a movie, too...

At the beginning of each of the first three movies, we have maybe a little bit of talk, and then we launch right into a song. After or maybe during the song, we get to the plot. But first we have to sing. This didn't quite make it into my final draft. But before I decided that most of the muppets had moved out of the boarding house, I had a great opening number planned. I never really finished it, but it contained a lot of shots of different muppet's hands grabbin different newspapers as they flew onto the front porch. And then at the end of the number, Kermit was going to look around, see everyone with a different newspaper, and say, "How did we end up being subscribed to so many different newspapers?" And someone would answer, "Because they all offered us a free subscribtion if we did an interview." Once I finish writing that opening, it will be a deleted scene.

Ok, I had some more differences, but I can't quite think of them at the moment, so I'll get back to you when I do.

 

[Beauregard]

OMGosh! That preveiw has been totally leapign off my seat here! Especialy the Beaker and Bunsen bit! And the Clifford bit! And all of it! Oh My GOSH! Get on with writing it you, you, Lisa person. Hurry! I can NOT wait!!!!

EDIT: Oh YES! I see you have psoted your first chapter! And I loooooooove it! For the first time, I'm begining to wish I'd picked a lighter subject for my story because yours is....wow!

 

[TogetherAgain]

No fears, we'll get around to some good laughing in Chasing Robin around... oh, chapter five. Ish. Actually, I've been trying to throw some laughs in as much as I can, since it is kind of a rough topic. I'll be honest, I've only written up to about chapter five and I've already had to stop so I wouldn't cry... Oh, I'm saying this in the wrong story thread! Oh good, I can attract readers. ...I think...

 

[Beauregard]

Oh, what I meant, Lisa,was that I was laughing at yours a lot! And relaised mine will be sparce in laughes, since it is set in a dark alternate reality world! But that's ok, I like darker stories. *sniff* Poor Gonzo, I know what's coming...and who the three badies are!

 

[TogetherAgain]

The Story of the Start of the Story, part um, uhoh

A suitcase and a teddy bear.

Ok, so I don't remember if we see Kermit's suitcase or Fozzie's teddy bear in The Muppet Movie. But in The Great Muppet Caper, we see Kermit's suitcase and Fozzie's teddy bear. Kermit has some sort of back pack in The Muppets Take Manhattan, but Fozzie definately still has that same teddy bear. So in Destination: Home, we most definately have Kermit's suitcase, and Fozzie's teddy bear would fit in quite well in the movie version. But the point is that they travel.

Muppets on bicycles

Kermit has his famous bicycle scene in The Muppet Movie. The Great Muppet Caper has "Couldn't We Ride." And during "Saying Goodbye," Scooter rides away on a bicycle. Unfortunately, I didn't get a bicycle into Destination: Home.

But enough about that. I think it's about time we get some deleted scenes in here, don't you?

 

[Beauregard]

Yes! Yes I most certainly do!

Ooooh, and Lisa, you sure did your research! Wow! Aweinspiring! I'm finding it hard to keep up with the reaseach for my new story, and, trust me, there's a lot of alternate universe to watch. I already made one mistake with Fozzie's clothing...luckily I got time to change it...*heads off to watch Snowman deleted scene inVMC*