Is there an overrated/underrated Muppet production?

[Drtooth]

I understand Simpsons are really cool and all, but you have to keep in mind, the Simpsons and the Muppets have two very different styles of humor, and you can't really expect writers from to try and write that kind of humor for the other and vice-versa. Simpsons humor doesn't work with the Muppets, and I doubt Muppet humor would work with the Simpsons unless they did it intentionally in a parodic way. Not to mention, as Drtooth has mentioned several times before, just look at all the pop-culture references that are painfully outdated now. And yes, I'm aware MOZ had similar problems with adult/Simpson-esque humor, but it was a bit more stealth that time around.

I sort of agree and don't. The movie is terribly dated in tone, but there are nuggets of pure Muppetiness through the film that manage to shine through. I'd say this film is the exact moment Steve was comfortable with Kermit, and he managed to have that nice balance of sweetness and frustration that was missing from most of the projects before. Especially MFS, where Kermit was just there for licensing purposes and felt like he was lobotomized the entire film. The moment between him and alternate world Piggy brought back the sweetness of the Kermit/Piggy relationship that was long lost.

But above all, the movie was made back in 2002. Well before everyone started hating the Scary Movie franchise. And the film takes all its humor from there. It's basically Christmas Movie with The Muppets at points. And there are some great moments (The Mel Brooks Sam the Snowman expy, the Gift of the Magi reference...a double reference as a different set of Muppets did that before) and some ones that are just painful (the whole Fozzie segment could have been cut in half, and that NBC plug for Scrubs written with absolutely no research) and ones in between (Moulin Scrooge is dated as frak, but that movie was such an overrated piece of epilepsy, it gets a pass from me).

MWOZ I feel the opposite. I could go on for pages about what's wrong with the darn thing, but the most glowingly obvious problem is that it so wanted to be VMX. It dressed like it, it talked like it, it went to the same stores and ate the same thing, but in the end we got someone poorly dressed talking slang uncharacteristically, and was so far removed from an imitation, it managed to be completely different by doing the same things, and poorly at that.

I'd say out of the two, as negatively as one can express for either, VMX was a necessary weasel. It just doesn't play well much anymore.

 

[Ladywarrior]

The muppets from Oz movie just left me confused most of the time. The only thin I found rather clever was the frank oz reference.

 

[D'Snowth]

I think the main problem with MOZ was that everybody was clearly expecting a tribute to the 1939 MGM movie, even though we were told ahead of time that MOZ was going to stay truer to L. Frank Baum's original books, which I doubt many people today are even familiar with.

 

[Ladywarrior]

i can't be too biased with it though. I have never read the book OR seen the MGM movie. if they ever do alice in wonderland dr. teeth better be the cheshire cat like he was in that muppet show episode.

 

[Drtooth]

I think the main problem with MOZ was that everybody was clearly expecting a tribute to the 1939 MGM movie, even though we were told ahead of time that MOZ was going to stay truer to L. Frank Baum's original books, which I doubt many people today are even familiar with.

I don't care what it was homaging or tributing, the pop culture-y bits were out of place and sloppily dumped in. I can forgive VMX for being Scary Movie but with Muppets and Christmas, but the overall tone of MWOZ was a dark, pseudo-edgy farce trying desperately to capture the lightning in a bottle VMX captured. While VMX is a horrible dated piece, it took only a couple years to really get dated. MwoZ was dated out of the gate.

 

[Ladywarrior]

both those films are horribly dated. the first three muppet films are also dated (lol) but who cares? they're still very enjoyable even though MTM makes me really sad, especially when they all leave.

 

[Drtooth]

I don't believe in true timelessness as everything is the product of when it was created. Look at Looney Tunes. Best case scenario you get an episode not made during WW II where they make references to savings bonds and rationing, or an episode that doesn't have television in it because of all the 1950's-ness of the references. I'd venture to say the 1940's Horton Hatches the Egg cartoon is as dated as a Dreamworks movie, if not more. Not that they can't be enjoyable and there are indeed "timeless" enough ones that work on their own humor without too much of their 40's-early 60's ness showing.

TMM has a lot of very 70's cameos. Even those who are well known today like Mel Brooks and Steve Martin were very much at high points in their careers then. But the difference between TMM and VMX/MWOZ is the difference between G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe Extreme. Sure, the original cartoon was very much a product of the 80's, but some of it does indeed hold up. G.I. Joe Extreme, on the other hand, isn't a product of the 90's. It IS the 90's concentrated down into a Rob Liefeld -esque cacophony of buzzwords, brooding, and pseudo-anti-Heroness. It barely held up the second it premiered, and blew through all its relevance. VMX's Scary Movie when people actually liked it like humor didn't have much of a shelf life, but MWOZ tried so hard to be the same thing when that sort of humor was wearing out its welcome. Say the least of the chaotic mess of what it was trying to be by itself. At least VMX had that whole Christmas Parody movie thing going.

 

[minor muppetz]

Even those who are well known today like Mel Brooks and Steve Martin were very much at high points in their careers then.

With Steve Martin, while his stand-up comedy shows were successful and he was one of the best SNL hosts, his film career was just starting. This movie came out the same year as The Jerk, which is often cited as his first movie (though I think Internet Movie Database lists TMM before The Jerk on his filmography page, haven't actually checked release dates to see which came first).

Though now I wonder, while many of his movies were successful, were any of them as successful as his stand-up comedy and such?

Thinking of the Looney Tunes example, I can't see much dated-ness in, say, the Road Runner cartoons or Duck Amuck and Rabbit Rampage (there's the fact that CGI dominates animation now, but I can't imagine how those kinds of shorts could be done in CGI).

 

[Ladywarrior]

okay can we not talk about cgi looney tunes? The idea gives me the creeps.

 

[Bliffenstimmers]

(there's the fact that CGI dominates animation now, but I can't imagine how those kinds of shorts could be done in CGI).

okay can we not talk about cgi looney tunes? The idea gives me the creeps.

Reel FX, in my opinion, has done a fine job in transitioning the Looney Tunes cast into CGI though "I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat" and "Daffy's Rhapsody," both adapted from Mel Blanc's Capitol Records singles from the late 40s/early 50s. There's also apparently a series of Road Runner shorts by the same studio, which I haven't seen, but I can assume they're just as good. I'd say they're some of the closest to capturing the spirit of the classic Looney Tunes in this era. I can imagine a remake of something like "Duck Amuck" could work well in a style like this. Some people might say they're not as good as the classics, but for what they are, they're pretty good to me. It could be far worse, mind you. You can thank your lucky stars that they're doing things such as this and not some of the generally considered mediocre post shut down Warner Bros. cartoons of the mid-to-late 60s, or several other things the Warners tested the waters with; the Muppet Babies clone, that Loonatics thing, etc. Then again, those last 2 aren't fair comparisons, they're reboots/reimaginings rather than following the standard Looney Tunes formula.

On the subject of under-rated Henson projects, it's a shame the Jim Henson Hour didn't last very long. I guess it was a little bit ahead of its time to be fully appreciated. That or some other reasons I haven't done enough research to know about. Also, though not exactly Muppet related, I've been wandering and YouTube watching the Henson Co.'s "Puppet Up" improv sketches, simple as they are, I get a kick out of watching them. Maybe it has something to do with them doing funny unscripted character dialogue, or hearing puppets talk about more mature subjects (talked about through varying levels of maturity) or both...