Videos: Muppets Most Wanted videos with Ross Lynch and Debby Ryan

[Drtooth]

I'm going to try to be as fair as I can here.

While I do think the fact that Disney is pushing tween stars (something they've started up again) is a damper on the film, I'd only complain about it if they were the main characters or had a large role. They clearly won't. There is one more piece to this...

No matter who owns the Muppets or who produces the movie, some studio would force employee cameos in the film. Just be thankful the Muppets aren't owned by Universal Studios, or we'd really have vertical product integration. Any movie Universal does either features actors predominantly from NBC programming (not exactly terrible. Despicable Me 1 and 2 didn't suffer from that too much), AND it would feature nothing but promos of NBC shows clumsily shoved in. Let's look at Get him to the Greek. Aldos Snow is on the Today Show to perform his greatest hits. Other than the fact the scene is noticeably lengthy, it's not terrible. Terrible, however, is what I can only describe the COMPLETELY shoehorned reference to Sean Comb's character and his family's favorite show being The Biggest Loser. I LOVE that movie. I seriously do... but that reference was unnecessary and completely and utterly enforced by UniversalNBCGE.

Except, that did already happen with VMX. Now, I love VMX and all, but the special was made of NBC employee cameos and promos (including the clumsily written Scrubs bit that was made without the slightest nuance of research). I'm starting to think the fact Fozzie got cut off at the end of the song by the American Dreams promo (remember that show? Oh, NO ONE does?) was part of the film. If they did a Muppet special today, I'm sure that it would turn into a 50 minute infomercial for Comcast.

So Disney basically put a tiny bit of vertical integration in the film by putting all of 2 of their tweeny boppers in a cameo that can't last more than 30 seconds at most. It does suck a little, I can't lie, but I'm going to suck it up. For the reason said and the fact it's hardly the worst (ROB SCHNEIDER) cameo ever associated (KELLY OSBORNE) with a Muppet fi(JOE ROGAN AND THE ENTIRE REFERENCE TO FEAR FACTOR)lm.

And also, Mickey in Avengers 2 would be awesome.

 

[AquaGGR]

At least they're not constantly looking down at the Muppeteer (like some celebrities often do), I'm fine with them being in the movie as long as they have good chemistry with the Muppets.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

I can completely understand people not liking the NBC cameos in VMX. That being said, I actually found the Fear Factor and Scrubs bits kind of funny, along with Kermit's "corporate synergy" line before the NBC logo mysteriously shows up on his flipper. But hey, that's me.

If you really want to grumble about corporate synergy, we could point out that this is the second consecutive Muppet movie featuring stars of ABC's Modern Family. I, however, won't be one of the grumblers, because I happen to think Emmy-winner Ty Burrell is hilarious and is also a perfect fit for the Muppets. I honestly think I would pay to see any movie featuring him in a major comic role.

So hey, sometimes corporate synergy works in our favour. (And no, neither ABC nor Disney paid me to say that.)

 

[Drtooth]

Ty stepped in for Christopher Waltz (sp?) who wound up having a cameo in the movie anyway. Strangely enough, Ty also stepped in for Robert Downey Jr. backing down off of Peabody and Sherman which, even stranger, comes out the same month.

I can completely understand people not liking the NBC cameos in VMX. That being said, I actually found the Fear Factor and Scrubs bits kind of funny, along with Kermit's "corporate synergy" line before the NBC logo mysteriously shows up on his flipper. But hey, that's me.

The Scrubs cameo bugs me because it was made too soon in the show's existence and without any real reference to the actual show. Somehow, it seems that they wrote an ER cameo, and NBC said "Nah, make it Scrubs." It's more a lost opportunity than anything, if you ask me. I think the better Scrubs crossover was the Sesame Street characters in J.D.'s imagination.

I'll say this... more people seem to be okay with the totally dated reference to Fear Factor than the CGI'd Cars 2 poster that appears for a whole of 10 seconds in The Muppets. Of course, it was to replace a certain movie Disney didn't like at the time because they were basically contractually forced to release it.

 

[Mr Sweetums]

I know we're all busy talking about actors, characterizations and performances, and what may or may not be wrong with them, but back to some of what was said about the movie ...

There's a royal wedding with crazy hats. Is anyone else envisioning some Muppet hats? I don't mean hats on Muppets, but hats that are Muppets. If you saw the actual hats from the royal wedding, you could practically slap some eyes on those and they'd be perfectly suitable Muppets.

That would be an awesome idea! I love it! That would truly make it a Muppet movie, in my opinion those are the little fun scenes kids will remember when they're older... not fart shoes. Gonzo flying away on balloons in TMM, the Monster in the van at the start of TGMC, Rats in the kitchen in TMTM, singing fruit in TMCC, Vacation Rats in MTI... the Muppet Hats would have fallen right along that list

 

[AquaGGR]

The fact that tween stars get forced into the film kinda got lampshaded with Selena Gomez's "My manager told me to be here" line in TM.

 

[Duke Remington]

That would be an awesome idea! I love it! That would truly make it a Muppet movie, in my opinion those are the little fun scenes kids will remember when they're older... not fart shoes. Gonzo flying away on balloons in TMM, the Monster in the van at the start of TGMC, Rats in the kitchen in TMTM, singing fruit in TMCC, Vacation Rats in MTI... the Muppet Hats would have fallen right along that list

There was nothing wrong with the fart shoes. People need to get over it!

 

[AquaGGR]

There was nothing wrong with the fart shoes. People need to get over it!

The infamous "fart shoes" joke really rustled a lot of fan's jimmies. I'm not really bothered by it at all, it's just one joke. Some other (typically CGI) movies have way more rude jokes that make the fart shoes innocent in comparison. The joke was probably inserted to get the movie PG rated, because kids disregard G movies nowadays.
(I'm not gonna get into a long lecture about "Avoid the Dreaded G Rating")

 

[Mr Sweetums]

I believe the fart shoes could have been handled much better, I for one think they failed there as they did with Miss Piggy wanting to pee in Muppets From Space.

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

They're going to throw talentless Disney Channel kids at us. It's just a reality we have to deal with. No use getting angry about it. At least we have The Muppets.