Some thoughts on Muppet Treasure Island

[Beauregard]

I'm watching Muppet Treasure Island at the moment, and keep having a few random thoughts about it, so thought I'd start up a thread and keep editing the post as I go along with some commentary.

My goodness do I love the soundtrack for this movie. It helps hat I'm a HUGE Treasure Island fan as well and love Pirate music. This movie had a huge budget, right? The colour is so colourful, the puppets are AMAZING and it is easily the most 'produced' of the movies, if that is a phrase that makes sense.

Gah...Billy Connelly is SO annoying. I've always always hated Billy Bones in all the versions of Treasure Island, but this one really takes the biscuit. So gross and drunk and annoying. Haha...Star Trek reference from Gonzo. LIKE. "Hose nose" Double LIKE. Jennifer Saunders. LIKE LIKE LIKE!

The 'Father issues' storyline that they added to Jim's character for this movie was a little strange and forced. In the book his dad just died sometime after Billy Bones arrived.

"To the Northwest, dirty dishes!!!"

Interesting trivia fact, Kevin Bishop went on to produce his own sketch-show and also starred in a naughty comedy series that parodied stars biographies. BOY his voice is high.

LOVE Gonzo's "Ha ha HA HA!" in this song. Can totally picture Steve and Dave working in this scene, playing off Jim. Fun fun fun.

Oh Billy...you are quite scary actually.

But scarier still...BLIND PEW. (Yes, I will be giving running commentary on the entire movie it would seem). AMAZING Pew performance! What a gorgeous puppet!!! MOOSE! (Love that the Moose is alive with literally no explanation). I think that same cat sound is used in MFS...interesting.

LOVE that scream. The one good thing that Billy does in this movie.

Is Rizzo usually a nervous character? It works for him here for sure, but is it a new aspect for this movie? He has SUCH a great shake on him when Billy dies. Love.

GAH!!! This scene is plenty scary. Mad Dog (character from the book, but a literal Dog here) is also very frightening. In fact one of my favourite things about this movie is the wonderful design of all the pirates. They are so interesting and wonder(mcmooch)full. "I think I smell something burning, no?"

Interesting fact about me, this was the first Muppet movie that I actually remember actively watching. I had seen them as a kid, of course, and sort of knew who most of the characters were, but didn't even realize that Squire Trelawny was Fozzie...so it must have been quite early in my Muppet fandom. (Hi, Jerry Nelson as butler!)

Beaker exploding through the door scared me SO much as a child. Dr Livesy had a lot more to do in the book...and was a doctor of medicine. Does anyone know why Fozzie appears to be really young in this movie? HI SWEETUMS! Hi Camilla! Bye camilla! Hi Statler and Waldorf! HI CLUELESS MORGAN!!! Hi creep Punch-and-Judy inspired Puppet that I never feel should be in this movie. Hi joke about the "helm" that I still to this day don't get.

Long John, I love you.

Now Rizzo proceeds to eat a Chicken, and Gonzo is not at all disturbed by that fact.

Hmm...rude of Jim and Gonzo to recoil so obviously from a disability. Tsk tsk.

SAM! I mean, MR ARROW! Mr Arrow is just so incredible in this movie. It may also have been the last time that he seemed to have this character of distain for everything, and since then has been mostly just Patriotic to a fault. (Sidenote: I LOVE the green woman who shouts "MANIAC!")

Wow...Fozzie is really unresponsive in this scene...I wonder who's performing him.

Sweetums, on the other hand, is awesome.

This scene is just stuffed full of beautiful puppets! I love the cat-like/bear-ish pirate and the stripey bird one. The inclusion of Lew Zealand is kind random. Have we ever seen so much of his chest before? HI SAM! Clueless Morgan has an awesome eye-twitch. Silver sure can sing, Jim sure can not. Sweeeet. Hi party rats. Hi Bigfatuglybugfacedbabyeatingobrien.

Captain Smollet, maybe you should have checked the crew BEFORE you left port. LOVE poor Beaker picking up and putting down the glass for the alcohol. Quite enjoy the use of "Sail to heaven and back" in exchange for the normal pirate version of that saying. Now calm down Rizzo...I'm sure its not intentional speciesism that has Jim hanging out with Long John, it was just foreshadowed by Jims father having left him as a kid you see. But that compass really annoys me...not being in the original book AT ALL.

Can I say that seeing Kermit actually in love with Miss Piggy, even when alone in his cabin, it all kinds of greatness!

Mad Monty, on the other hand, is all kinds of evil. Mr Arrow is SO disturbed when he opens that door. So many comments, none of which I shall make here.

Its good to see that Kermit is still a good leader and is prepared to order Jim to give him the map (also that Mr Arrow was listening at the door).

What was that song that just happened? You know. Cabin. Fever. Aaahhh.

Angel Marie. Reminds me of a joke that my dad would always say at this stage of the movie, "Imagine, on someone's cv is must say 'Puppeteer of Angel Marie's Behind'".

Haha. Sam's feet.

Also, this is the second movie in a row where Kermit has had to essentially say a eulogy. How sad. On the other hand, I've never noticed Mad Monty and Clueless argueing about "After you" "No, after you" to get out of the prison. Hehe. "Can we make a rug out of him?"

Poor Jim's disillusionment as he overhears Long John. That's what we call acting.

Hi Electric Mayhem. So underused during this era, but still golden.

 

[Beauregard]

GAH! I just lost loads off my comments on the second half of this movie because the editing time was passed...

I just LOVE Miss Piggy in this movie though, was sort of what I had to say about that half.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

I just watched MTI last night....
Well, it's better than MCC but the songs are terrible but the score is just great!
Overall I liked the movie, I don't know the original Treasure Island story, I don't know The Christmas Carol story either. But I still liked MTI. An exciting and hilarious movie

 

[Beauregard]

Did you really feel the songs were weak? Maybe because I heard them when I was young and grew up with them, I've always really loved them. Especially Sailing for Adventure and Cabin Fever. None of the songs progress the story, but they sure set the scene and they are great production numbers.

Love Led Us Here is in my top Muppet songs (behind Rainbow Connection, Being Green and maybe just a little ahead of Everyone Matters)

 

[Muppet fan 123]

Well Love Led Us Here was okay but other than that it wasn't good songs and it didn't fit in (that's my opinion).
Also in the last scene of most Muppet movies there's a song but in this one there is no song but thinking about it I'm pretty glad there wasn't.

 

[Beauregard]

It does any me that they end the movie with that, slightly, annoying "Love Power" tune...but even that sure beats what they did with MFS. I'm a huge fan of the soundtrack (songs and background music) for MTI though...but they'd never be released as singles, the way that the original songs can be.

 

[zoebell]

not a big fan of the songs in this one. love led us here is ok, but i think they kind of ruined it by having it play with them hanging upside down in the scene, it's too silly

 

[Puckrox]

Rizzo's always been somewhat nervous... but I don't know if that's the right word. Hesitant? Lazy? Well, he's definitely the more hesitant of the Gonzo-Rizzo duo dynamic. He'd much rather be eating food than going off on an adventure.

Great movie though. I know I watched the older Muppet movies when I was younger, but I can remember seeing MTI in theaters as a kid. I remember being scared when Miss Piggy and Kermit were hanging upside down because I was worried about their well being. Of course everything turned out all right in the end, but being a six year old I didn't know that and thought they were in great danger! "Something Better" is still one of my all time favorite Muppet songs. Sooooooo easy to relate to. And MTI definitely has a lot of my favorite Gonzo-Rizzo moments.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Is Rizzo usually a nervous character?

I think that was a new development. He wasn't really like that in Muppets Take Manhattan; more the jaded, cocky New Yorker, lol.

 

[Drtooth]

But scarier still...BLIND PEW. (Yes, I will be giving running commentary on the entire movie it would seem). AMAZING Pew performance! What a gorgeous puppet!!!

I love how Jerry turns Blind Pew into a clumsy, Inspector Clouseau type character yet manages to make him threatening at the same time.

I say a lot of things about MCC... I love it as a Christmas Movie... I love it as a character interpretation of Christmas Carol (though it would be third to Magoo and Mickey)... but it lacks something. The songs are good, but the 2 funnest songs are left out of the film. And I say this all the time, the Muppets feel like guest stars in their own movie. Sort of like A Very Special Sesame Street Christmas in reverse. The characters seem pasted in.

But MTI is different. It's like they were forbidden to have too much fun on MCC... not the case here. While the main Muppets are stuck in some pretty secondary roles, the movie more than makes up for it with crazy Muppet ideas like that Rat tour. And let's not forget those very Muppety new pirate characters. I mean, Ghost of Christmas Present was Muppety... but Christmas past was Creature Shop like, and Yet to come was played too straight. But a lobster instead of a parrot on Long John's shoulders? Clueless Morgan? A bunch of other deranged pirates and very Muppety jokes coming out of their mouths? This movie is a thousand more times a Muppet movie than MCC would ever be.

And come on... Cabin Fever is a VERY Muppet song. It embodies the wackiness inherent. I do agree Love Power makes no sense and feels alien to the film's soundtrack.