Your Thoughts: Lady Gaga and The Muppets Holiday Spectacular on ABC

[jvcarroll]

JV, I know that he had major roles in MT, MFS, and TM 2011. That's exactly what I said in my post. I'm not saying that nobody has ever heard of Bobo. My point is that if we classified Muppets as A-listers (Kermit, Piggy) through D-listers (Angus, Brewster), Bobo would be somewhere in between: again, not as famous as Sam, Scooter and Rowlf, but certainly not like Droop or Angus. I guess I'm too familiar with the Jim Henson-era Muppets, because I never considered Bobo a major character. Anyhow, I enjoyed Bobo's appearance in the Gaga special and I hope that they continue to use him in future Muppet projects.

I pointed out that your post minimized his contributions and appearances when the truth is that Bobo has been around quite a lot since 1996. In fact, the character turns 18 next March. While hasn't achieved the stature of Kermit or Fozzie, I'd say he is right underneath them these days. At least with those who have been following the Muppets over the past two decades. Personally, I'm familiar with all the characters. I was raised on the Muppet Show and the first film I saw in the theaters was 1979's Muppet Movie.

 

[ryhoyarbie]

I figured something out. If this special was made back in 2000, either Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, or Destiny's Child would have been featured as the main star/stars.

You wouldn't have had Scooter or Rowlf (perhaps in the background but not saying anything), and have the Electric Mayhem regulated as the background band without saying anything sans Animal. Rizzo, Pepe. Bobo, Johnny, Sal, and Clifford would have been inserted in the special.

The Muppet franchise has certainly come a long way in 13 years.

 

[jvcarroll]

Just finished one, actually. Without the commercials, pre-commercial preview clips, and non-Muppet songs, it's around forty minutes. Will hopefully have it up sometime tomorrow, if anyone's interested.

Cool. Without commercials the entire special would be approximately 70 monutes. If the Muppets were in approximately 40 minutes, that works out to be nearly 60% of the entire special.

 

[Oscarfan]

Cool. Without commercials the entire special would be approximately 70 monutes. If the Muppets were in approximately 40 minutes, that works out to be nearly 60% of the entire special.

On Hulu, unless something was cut out, the whole special comes out to be just shy of an hour.

 

[jvcarroll]

On Hulu, unless something was cut out, the whole special comes out to be just shy of an hour.

Hmmm, really? I guess you're right. Did they cut something out? The initial special was 90 minutes on ABC. The average 30 minute television program has about 7 minutes, 30 seconds of commercials. Multiply that times three and subtract that from 90 minutes and it comes out to 67 minutes and 30 seconds. Dealing in estimated round numbers, i rounded up to 70 rather than down to 60. My math is likely correct unless there were a lot more commercials than usual. But if it is a shorter special, then the Muppets appeared in a higher percentage of it.

Edit: Yup. It had lots of commercials. The aired version came down to a total running length of 60 minutes and 20 seconds. This included the Muppets Most Wanted presentation and the bumpers in between the ads. Shave off the bumpers and that would probably bring it down to the Hulu running length of 59 minutes. Wow, that was a lot of ads! 29 minutes and 40 seconds of them.

As for the ratings. The special brought in 3.6 million viewers and a 0.9 rating among the 18-49 adult demographic. I'm not sure if this includes DVR, OnDemand and Hulu data or if it is a good or poor rating. Her last Thanksgiving special brought in an average of 5.5685 million viewers and a 1.7/5 rating in the 18–49 demographic. Not sure what that means either. It doesn't appear to have done poorly. I'm just not sure how well it did. Reportedly the Muppets Letters to Santa did special was considered to have done well when it averaged a 2.4 rating in adults 18-49, but that was before so many people started relying on other devices than simple home viewership. I guess we'll have to wait a while and see.

 

[JJandJanice]

I enjoyed this special. Truth be told, I have a sort of strange crush on Lady Gaga myself.

As people pointed out, it was more about Lady Gaga than it was about the Muppets, which I think is how it was suppose to be, much like how for some reason, when the Muppets appeared on WWE, people didn't like that there wasn't as much Muppets. Well of course, since it's still WWE's show.

 

[JonnyBMuppetMan]

Probably a little too late for me to review this, and in spite of having yet to see the special in full, I still feel like I can unashamedly give my upfront opinion on it ...in short, I didn't really like it. In long, there's sadly worse I can say about this than there is good. I watched most of this on Thanksgiving with my dad (who likes Gaga) and he became less enthused about this than I was. Perhaps that awkward viewing experience is a factor to my cynicism, but I digress.

Overall, this special felt lazy and rushed in more ways than one, right from it's opening number. I know some have complained about Gaga's skimpy outfit here, and I do agree in principle with arguments to that: the Muppets not being strictly kiddie kitsch, performing similar acts on the Muppet Show with Raquel Welch, and so forth. But, I would argue that there's a distinct difference between that episode's well-choreographed sequence with a Muppet spider, and this special's equivalent: just Muppet characters swaying and dancing around Gaga like a tribe while she stands and sings... whoopee!

The Muppet scenes were also pretty weak. While it was a nice surprise to see Carl (the Big Mean) again, that whole audition scene just looked like the puppeteers ad-libbed a buncha stuff and later they framed the subplot with Kermit and Scooter around it. They had the feel of the DXD bits, except less funny. For the most part, the characters were unusually slow and stale in terms of performance, to the point that some of the jokes, even ones that were meant to be bad, flopped; especially Ram-a-lot (UGH!). Having read some of the Jim Henson biography during the holiday week, it took a quote of Henson's for me to notice what exactly was wrong: "These puppets are not just characters up there telling jokes. If you just stand there and tell jokes, the whole thing will die." That's really all it was to me, just the Muppets telling jokes and letting them die. Not much in the way of actual character. I don't know if this was a weakness in Jim Lewis's writing or if it was lost in execution, but it just didn't work for me.

I could honestly prattle on about other gripes I had with this special (Gaga's "acting", lack of Muppet/guest-star interactions, and that tasteless comatose line from Gonzo), but I'm assuming that's already been talked about. I really don't want to continue being a whiny "things-were-better-back-in-my-day" type of fan, but I'll conclude by saying the Muppets have done better holiday specials (as referenced in the opening montage), and in the end, I was more thankful that I watched all of the Muppets Take Manhattan on TCM and I witnessed less of this. Simply put, this was not the best the Muppets have to offer, even by Disney's standards.

 

[Mo Frackle]

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

little late to the review game but here are my 2 cents..ive said it on facebook

but really the special was Meh...dont get my wrong the Muppet segments where fantastic. the chemistry between all the Muppeteers is really growing and you can tell by how they are intereacting with each other

it is so nice to have scooter, rowlf and the entire mayhem band back with all the muppets

now my big question is how was this a "Holiday" special aside from 2 mentions and one song this really had nothing to do with christmas or the holidays..its felt more like a gaga needs to sell her album special, and that is fine i have nothing against her

it really felt pasted together, and while some are saying its just studio DC all over again i have to disagree...this had more of a muppet show feel to it than those just executed wrong. where its just a random stage they could have used the muppet theater and so on so fourth

 

[jvcarroll]

little late to the review game but here are my 2 cents..ive said it on facebook

but really the special was Meh...dont get my wrong the Muppet segments where fantastic. the chemistry between all the Muppeteers is really growing and you can tell by how they are intereacting with each other

it is so nice to have scooter, rowlf and the entire mayhem band back with all the muppets

now my big question is how was this a "Holiday" special aside from 2 mentions and one song this really had nothing to do with christmas or the holidays..its felt more like a gaga needs to sell her album special, and that is fine i have nothing against her

it really felt pasted together, and while some are saying its just studio DC all over again i have to disagree...this had more of a muppet show feel to it than those just executed wrong. where its just a random stage they could have used the muppet theater and so on so fourth

I think this was shot only a month ahead of time. This seemed very much like a last minute sort of negotiation.