The Muppets Episode 2 - Hostile Makeover

[dwayne1115]

Ugh. You know, I was going to bring that up. I disagree. That's worse. MUCH worse than the Zoot thing. The Zoot thing has the angle of "there's one in ever office" and, remember, in context the joke was that the rest of the cast was reviled with what he did. That poster is just "Hey 20 year old college kids. Private parts joke!" And that was something Henson did. Yep. Back when Henson was still in control.

And let's not forget Pepe's mispronunciation of "Miss Congenitalia."

I swear. I'd love for someone to dig up the Fox pitch script. It was far more immature and Family Guy-esque than this show could ever be accused of being. And dated as freaking heck. Much more so than VMX. it had a couple nuggets of goodness in there, but they were few and far between.

If anyone's picking apart the Zoot birthday card joke, I highly suggest looking up "New Zoo Revue Bloopers." (unless you're very very prudish... it's...kinda bad) That's a real life example of doing something extremely dirty to get a laugh out of the staff behind the scenes. It was a wrap party, and the staff was very depressed the show ended, and by gum, they did something so over the top filthy to keep that staff smiling it was actually the most heartwarming sex joke I've ever seen. Remember, people who work on the staff of a show tend to do these sort of things because putting together a show is so stressful, you'd lose your mind otherwise. I doubt this joke came that far out of left field. Seems like something one of the writing staff experienced.

Now, at the risk of doing a *** for tat thing, to me the nadir of terrible Muppet jokes done in poor taste, we have this "classic" from the original show.

Offensive, unfunny, and even if there was a clever bit in there, it was ruined by lazy, unfunny, 1940's cartoon style racism. And they couldn't even get the *&^% stereotype right. The "Japanese" caricatures are wearing stereotypical Chinese peasant clothing! Bad enough they all speak like Scooby-Doo. I do like the Mutations dressed as Samurai though. If they did more of that and less "Da Ramry berong roo rah rand," they would have had something. It's not even funny in the South Park "City Wok" kinda way. That was at least kinda clever. It's an embarrassing skit that's a disappointingly out of character moment for the entire staff. And don't give me no "Waaaah PC police" stuff either. People who complain about things being PC are the most easily offended people out there.

And yes. You do indeed have a right to disagree, sure, but we also have the right to disagree with your disagreement.

I honestly would never have thought about that skit being offensive, but I do see your point.

 

[Ladywarrior]

I honestly would never have thought about that skit being offensive, but I do see your point.

I think it's only offensive if you're looking for reasons to be offended. It's like people who claim the swedish chef is offensive to swedish people when he's not.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Anyone else worried that they are going to cancel this show.
I hope not it is a good show.
Do you think that they are working on other Muppet projects along with this show ?
just wondering .

Yeah. Hopefully they won't cancel before Kermit and Miss Piggy get back together, if that does happen.

What i meant was i heard that Netflix was wanting to do a Muppet tv show.
so if it gets the ax on ABC, they could always see if Netflix still wanted to do it.

Yeah. That seems to be working with "Full House." Though Disney picked up MT! for it's second season as well, so that may be in the cards. Still it would be nice to keep in on a regular network so those of us who only get basic cable and don't get Netflix can watch as well.

IT'S A VERY MERRY MUPPET CHRISTMAS MOVIE.

Don't sweat it, initials used to throw me off around here too; I think people decided to go with 'VMX" because it required less typing than IAVMMCM.

Yeah. That always confused me to, but Ivamicmum sounds like a computer virus or something. Lol. But VMX does get confusing as well, so it is hard to tell by abbreviations.

I will agree bringing in random writers from other shows is not what the Muppets need. They have a lot of great writers and not uesing them is sad.

Well, we know Jerry Juhl is no longer with us. Makes me wonder how many of the original Muppet writers are still around.

 

[dwayne1115]

Yeah. Hopefully they won't cancel before Kermit and Miss Piggy get back together, if that does happen.



Yeah. That seems to be working with "Full House." Though Disney picked up MT! for it's second season as well, so that may be in the cards. Still it would be nice to keep in on a regular network so those of us who only get basic cable and don't get Netflix can watch as well.



Yeah. That always confused me to, but Ivamicmum sounds like a computer virus or something. Lol. But VMX does get confusing as well, so it is hard to tell by abbreviations.



Well, we know Jerry Juhl is no longer with us. Makes me wonder how many of the original Muppet writers are still around.

I talked to Mike Quinn on Facebook the other day and he said he meets with Jim Lewis on a monthly bases.

 

[Drtooth]

I think it's only offensive if you're looking for reasons to be offended. It's like people who claim the swedish chef is offensive to swedish people when he's not.

A mentality that bothers the heck out of me. Anti-PC types say that everyone else is overly sensitive about things, but in turn, their offense to anything the slightest bit sexual is equal to or greater than that outrage.

I can dig politically incorrect humor if it's done right. South Park's City Wok. Monty Python's Elizabeth L. Heck, even the Chinese Gorilla getting angry and storming off shouting Chinese menu items elicits a guilty chuckle from me. Now, Jim and the rest of the staff clearly meant no malice with this skit, and this sort of thing was on the last gasp of being acceptable. But considering how respectful the 1971 Sesame Street Japanese stories skits were, this is a little awkward.

But what really offends me is this. I watch a LOT of old cartoons. Ones that were made back in the day where everyone was racist. And with the worst of those cartoons, they made unfunny, unclever, lazy jokes about "Hey, people who aren't a certain kind of white look and talk funny. Let's throw a lazy caricature in instead of writing jokes." I have to admit, I cringed and couldn't get through Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves (which, to the contrary was the gulp respectable caricature of black people for its day), it at least has substance. It's a war time propaganda cartoon that's a giant middle finger to Disney. There's something there. But when they just throw "Monkey faced Irishman," "Buck toothed Pan-Asian," or "Fish lipped, jive talking black guy" in just because they were too lazy to write a joke, that's not just offensive to a race of people, that's offensive to comedy and comedians.

What makes this skit offensive is that if they were going for a hilarious culture clash, they could have gone with Ninjas vs. Cowboys. Instead, they did a lazy "All Asians are Chinese" thing with "Asians get their R's and L's confused exactly" (which to an extent is true because there's no distinct R or L sound in their language with foreign words, leading to some actually funny Engrish). So it's not offensive because it's a racist skit, it's offensive because it's a bad skit that came off as a lazy bit.

And frankly, that's a lot less Muppety, mature, clever, or overall well done than Zoot drawing a thing that an adult in showbiz would draw in a card.

(side note: Go to a tacky gift shop, one that doesn't carry Hallmark cards and look at the cards section. You want immature things adults send out? Try fart jokes, the ever popular "HAHA! We're mocking your mortality to cheer you up," and my personal favorite, the stock photos of obese women where the punchline is essentially "HA! Look at this hogbeast! She wants to boink you! Yuck! Can you imagine?"

Seriously...*&^%$ off brand greeting cards.)

 

[CensoredAlso]

I highly suggest looking up "New Zoo Revue Bloopers."

That stuff is funny (and it is quite funny, lol) because it's a contrast to the cute little costumed characters we've gotten to know. That doesn't mean anyone wants the actual show to be like that. I mean Star Trek's bloopers are hilarious too, but I prefer the show to have higher standards, lol. And maybe I'm jaded, maybe I didn't grow up in a particularly conservative area, but none of those New Zoo Revue bloopers are all that shocking to me anyway, lol.

Offensive, unfunny, and even if there was a clever bit in there, it was ruined by lazy, unfunny, 1940's cartoon style racism.

Ehhhh, I've watched a lot of 30's and 40's content too (movies, radio, etc.). Yes, the Asian jokes could be laughably stupid at times (though I can half understand the wartime stuff, Japan wasn't making a lot of friends in, say, Asia or Australia at the time either). But I will say, some stuff people today claim is offensive was actually just American culture clumsily trying to understand a culture they had no experience with, but at the same time were fascinated by.

Anyway, this Muppet sketch isn't trying to be malicious, they're just poking some fun at foreigners, no different from making fun of European groups, expect no one complains when that's done. We forget that in Vaudeville, everyone was made fun of like this, and I do mean everyone. And btw, foreigners make fun of us too in the same way. Human beings find differences funny, that doesn't mean they're always trying to be mean.

The "Japanese" caricatures are wearing stereotypical Chinese peasant clothing!

Um, this is the Muppet Show. Getting things right isn't exactly their thing, lol.

And don't give me no "Waaaah PC police" stuff either.

Well I will say this. This is 2015 and Asian American actors are still never cast in lead roles, unless it's a martial arts movie, or when they need a "magical Asian" character. And when I point this out to people who support political correctness, they turn a blind eye or clumsily try to explain to me why it doesn't count.

 

[Drtooth]

Anyway, this Muppet sketch isn't trying to be malicious, they're just poking some fun at foreigners, no different from making fun of European groups, expect no one complains when that's done.

I said that, actually. It's not meant to be offensive, it just comes off that way. And lazy. It's just such a painful misfire. If they're going to be offensive, they can at least push it. My point is, not every one of the original show jokes were gems either. And that's a shame because the writers put so much work into making the show "bad" that they cleverly play the so unfunny it's hilarious angle to a Bullwinkle-ian levels of brilliance. I feel they could have ended it with a chaotic Samurai and Cowboy battle, but they didn't. I read about the skit years ago, and it seemed like the funniest thing on paper. I expected ninjas and samurais to battle and destroy the scenery (as per a regular Muppet Show skit), but when I watched it year later, I was disappointed by them just popping up and not even getting the stereotype right. I find it more insulting to say "every Asian Culture is Chinese," especially since Korea, Japan, and China all hate each other and have their own stereotypes of each other as well (Example of a Chinese Sterotype made by Japanese manga artists). There's even this Chevy (or some other American made vehicle) commercial where they have a Japanese voice over talk about Japan with Chinese music. That drives me nuts!

Also, the worst Chinpanese accents a white guy could do is no match for actual Engrish. You don't know how many times I double up in laughter at Anime theme songs that sort of use English phrases. There's a Japanese Beast Wars theme song that includes the spoken phrase "All de Beasts on Cybah-tron! Get Ready to Transufohm! Dat's da Roger!" I can't listen to it with a straight face.

That said, you don' have to be offensive to be offensively unfunny. The Rich Little episode sketches pretty much proves that. Gimme all the immature dong jokes there are, I'd rather hear those than ever see that one again. shudder!

Seriously! His Statler impersonation is a generic old man voice! That's not an impression! WHY did they even book him? Only person worse was that British game show host! GAHHHHH!!!!

Well I will say this. This is 2015 and Asian actors are still never cast in lead roles, unless it's a martial arts movie, or when they need a "magical Asian" character. And when I point this out to people who support political correctness, they turn a blind eye or clumsily try to explain to me why it doesn't count.

And yes, you've found something that ticks me the heck off a LOT worse. I'm very happy for Fresh off the Boat barely squeaking through the Minority Show Ghetto. Unless I'm mistaken, the longest running show with an Asian cast is Jackie Chan Adventures! A freaking cartoon with a popular action star attached. Latino and Black comedian based sitcoms also dry the heck up fast, and the only roles these guys get are tokens where they basically have to act as far from any stereotype as possible that they don't even ring the slightest bit realistic. And it's essentially not to offend white people. There's a lot of self censorship there, but also due to horrible crap about Demographics. I'm sure we're all familiar with the fact Cedric the Entertainer had a show Fox cancelled because (ahem) not enough white guys were watching it! I was. I totally was. But since I didn't have a Nielsen box, didn't matter. Hollywood is only liberal when it's convenient, that's one thing, but if the viewers can't relate to problems outside their scope, any show about anyone besides them is doomed to fail. Both side of that make me rip out my hair in frustration.[/QUOTE]

 

[CensoredAlso]

It's just such a painful misfire.

For you. VMX is the thing that gave me nightmares, lol.

and not even getting the stereotype right.

Again, they're clearly not trying to, lol.

Also, the worst Chinpanese accents a white guy could do is no match for actual Engrish. You don't know how many times I double up in laughter at Anime theme songs that sort of use English phrases. There's a Japanese Beast Wars theme song that includes the spoken phrase "All de Beasts on Cybah-tron! Get Ready to Transufohm! Dat's da Roger!" I can't listen to it with a straight face.

Um yeah, you're highlighting the issue here. You grew up at a time when Japanese stuff became huge in pop culture, you so know all these little details about Engrish humor and Anime theme songs. So you're basically complaining that the writing staff didn't have the encyclopedia knowledge you personal have. No, what they had was Vaudeville humor where, again, everyone was the victim. It's not meant to be sophisticated, it's just playing on human being's natural amusement at differences.

The Rich Little episode sketches pretty much proves that.

If you mean the impressions Rich Little was trying to do, I doubt he had much to work with, considering the show was still new and the writers still pretty confused themselves, lol. They probably should have held him off until like Season 5. But again, we grew up after all these characters had already become iconic.

Gimme all the immature dong jokes there are, I'd rather hear those than ever see that one again. shudder!

You can't take the moments where the Muppet Show stumbled (for you at least) and use that to defend jokes that are completely out of character in this new show. The new show should be able to stand on its own.

There's a lot of self censorship there, but also due to horrible crap about Demographics.

Well yeah, that's the real problem. Hollywood nowadays is run entirely by guys and gals in suits going, "But the chart says..."

 

[Blue Frackle]

And that was something Henson did. Yep. Back when Henson was still in control.

Really? I assumed since it had the new-age Muppets logo on there it was done well after his passing.

 

[D'Snowth]

Really? I assumed since it had the new-age Muppets logo on there it was done well after his passing.

By "Henson," I believe he means the Jim Henson Company, prior to Disney's purchase.