Disney Enlists Segel & Stoller for new Muppets movie

[TheJimHensonHour]

Good lord what a great Muppet day in the blog worlds. Perez Hilton just posted this:

http://perezhilton.com/2008-04-04-caring-is-sharing


Everyone is going muppet crazy - yayayaya!

I wouldn't consider anything that um guy does great.....

 

[dwayne1115]

I think you have to take in to factor that back in the 70's and 80's T.V. & movies where a lot diffreent then they are today. Back when the Muppet Show came out we would have never seen a show like Crank Yankers on T.V. At that time as well we would never see a type of movie like knocked up.
So you may ask yourself as the comody changed? I don't think so, but i do feel that in the past say 30 years there have been a lot of things made funny that where not funny back in the early days of the Muppets.

You also have to take in consideration that Jim Henson had a vision he knew what would work with the Muppets, and what would not. After Jim passed away a lot of people that worked with the Muppets tried and take what they thought Jim's vision was and run with it. When it was nothing what Jim's vision had shown in the past, and was not up to par with what the Muppets standered was.

 

[Leyla]

Hmm... well, I must say it's really nice to see everyone coming to talk about the Muppets with such enthusiasm and passion. Enough to pull me out of lurking, which is my usual role these days.

I'll guess I'll start with the contention that the Muppets have or have not had an element of darkness in them. I think that depends on your definition of darkness really. They've never been Sesame Street to be sure, and even SS has a bit of... grit in it, simply because life is gritty, and kids are rarely spared that. I think some of Sesame Street's appeal is it's honesty. It's a gentle sort of honesty... but it's still got a lot of truth in it.

That's why SS isn't sweetness and light treacle. It has substance. That distinguishes it between a lot of TV geared towards young children. I'll offer a bit of personal history here to support my point. My father passed away when I was only 5 years old... It was sometime after that that I saw the episode of Sesame Street where Mr. Hooper died, and Big Bird and I understood each other.

They could have tiptoed, or hidden it away... lots of children's shows do these days... In fact, I feel like TV in general is polarised. If it's not avoiding the tough stuff... it's exaggerating it, using it for dark comedy, trying to shock people, as if that's creative.

As if it's even possible to shock most people now. We are become so jaded.

But I digress... the Muppets really are not, and have never been Teletubbies... if even SS isn't, and it's not... then you can't make that sort of claim for the Muppets. However... I don't actually see that anyone IS making that point.

Uppity, you keep mentioning a "purest"<sic> group that are advocating this... where are you seeing anyone say that? Maybe I'm missing it. You seem to point the finger at Beau, quite unjustly, to my mind, and perhaps you're directing to Heralde and Prawnie as well. I do agree with you that the "darkness" you attribute to the Muppets, is in fact, a sense of reality (Of which there is little in Reality Shows!). I like that about them too... it gives them depth... layers that draw me in, and KEEP me there.

You're right when you say that Jim... ah, dear Jim... was not afraid to push boundaries... nope, he wasn't, and he did it beautifully. Creative genius, doncha know. He also knew what boundaries to push, and how far to push them, which is where the real art of it came in.

Anyone can say... oh, this is stale! We need to break a few rules, raise a few eyebrows, make Sam the Eagle groan! And in fact, that seems to be an end we go to all too frequently. Oh, Big Brother is getting boring! Quick! Thrown in a lie! Throw in twins! Throw in scandal! Let's get the girls to mud wrestle! How else can we cheapen and degrade and shock people? Where can we get more fodder of human misery to thrust before a drooling crowd? Oh, I know... let's destroy REAL families now, not forced together strangers... and then "The Moment of Truth" was born.

I realise this really probably isn't where you want the Muppets to go.. that I'm exaggerating and generalising your words and opinions. It's not fun, is it? But you, whether you mean to or not... are doing that to other people in this thread. It cheapens their contributions, and it's very unkind. I apologise for doing it to you... my intention is not to upset of offend, truly; it's not.

I don't want the Muppets to be wrapped in pink fluffy clouds and thrust into our hands like bag of cotton candy. Watch! It's pure sugar! Let's remember when the world wasn't such a scary place! And... no one else seems to be advocating that view either, that I've seen.

I have no qualms at all about the Muppets pushing the lines a little bit, if it's done carefully, with love for the characters.

But I don't want to see character rape either... which is certainly possible, and really... has already occurred, particularly in Piggy's case.

I am plainly biased in this matter, because she is one of my very favourite characters. I think she has more layers and depth and personality than.... probably any other Muppet, and there are a lot of Muppets with intriguing personalities. If any of them has that connection with reality, that "darkness" to use your word, I do think it's her. I don't really want to get into a character analysis today, but it would be a very interesting one, I'm sure. Unfortunately, in recent years... certain aspects of her personality have been played up so heavily that... we've forgotten the other aspects. Someone else said, VERY aptly that the Muppets have become parodies of themselves. How sad that is!

And I will tell you, if you're looking to attract a new audience, as well as revitalise the one you already have... it is hard, if not impossible to love a parody. You can't love something you don't respect, and you can't respect something that is mocked in everything it is. Same things for the Muppets... I assume most people would love to see them succeeding, and being sucessful, and keeping that worn reputation for being classic characters... icons even.

They need, ultimately, to be true to the characters... with all of their layers. Not just the cotton candy side... and not the edgy, shock value. Either one of those would be... cheap, I think... and empty. Our Muppets would be shadows of themselves... or...or like lifeless stuffed animals in a taxidermy exhibit... only there to remind you that they used to be alive. We have certainly skirted that line recently... and for all that I am hugely enthustiastic about seeing them up on the big screen, and believe that this so far seems to have a world of wonderful possibilities...

I believe this could well make or break them... and it's all in whether we get real Muppets... or Muppet-shaped, hollow-eyed puppets, with nothing going on underneath.

Back to Piggy... and how her character has been raped... well, it's with the constant mockery of herself. Now, don't get me wrong here... I do like the pig jokes, don't get me wrong... when she is there, and can defend herself. (And contrary to popular (?)opinion, Kermit's crueller jokes don't so much hurt HER character, so much as they destroy HIS.) Worse than the jokes, which certainly CAN be funny, although with her not around, they begin to feel more like malicious gossip rather than the affectionate, exasperated gibing of friends, are the moments when Piggy herself lets us down, and I think the biggest example of that ever was in Muppets From Space. I liked the movie well enough, so long as I try not to look or listen to Piggy.

The stage fright(!), the obsequious behaviour... the desperation... To look at it in the kindest way possible, it is many step backwards to her earliest days on the Muppet Show, when she hadn't established herself or her character at all... to look at it more honestly...it was no less than an assault on her character. Did ANYONE find anything about her to respect in that movie? She was weak, and cheap... and a stranger to me. Would anyone show that movie to a friend as an example of how funny PIggy can be? Maybe so... but it certainly wasn't her at her funniest... if anything, it felt... sad.

She was certainly different from her established character in that movie... and I was certainly shocked... but it was a joyless shock... and I think the only way you could laugh at a moment of such patheticness is out of cruelty. I'm sure people DO hate her... they have the right... and if you hate Piggy, I suppose that would be fun, to see her down... AND out.

I'm okay with her being down... I'm okay with all of them being down... but not out... never out.

I suppose that would mean the Dream was over... and us with only a dreamless sleep.

 

[Louder&Funnier]

I thought I'd pass on a segment from this week's EW about Jason Segel and the muppets:

Meanwhile he and Stoller are penning scripts for (list of films) and a little project in the works for these creatures known as the Muppets. Seems at a recent meeting where Disney execs were laying a world of scripts at his feet, Segel made one gutzy suggestion: "I stopped them and was like, "These all sound great, thankyou, I'm very flattered. The thing I would really like to do is bring back the Muppet franchise.'" They bought his pitch- in which the beloved characters put on a show to save their struggling studio-on the spot.
No question he's the right man for that job: Sarah Marshall already includes a Dracula puppet musical with characters designed by Henson Studios. And because he's still a little goofy, Segel is planning to replace the statue of Shiva that looms over his living room with the dual Muppet deities of Statler and Waldorf. It's an appropriate tribute from a man who worships puppetry as "one of the most amazing things ever, cause you don't need actual friends."- though he has high hopes that his famous pals (Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill and a new acquaintance named Clooney) will join him in muppetland.
(from Whitney Pastorek, EW 4/11/08)

 

[uppitymuppity]

I did not intend to direct my "purists" comment on anyone in particular especially not Beau who made very logical points throughout.

It was a generalized statement brought on in part by the newer muppet movies lack of dimension and yes, I must admit that i've spoken to a lot of folks who don't find the dysfunction and darkness that I do. If Jim Henson did not have an interest in "darkness" he would not have had the guest star Alice Cooper who at the time (I remember) was biting heads off bats and throwing them into his audiences. That is just one example in many.

The muppets were originally infused with that 70's/80's era trippyness which i'm failing at the moment to find more words to describe. Anywho - yes, Jim had an edge - maybe it was the time but i'm more inclined to believe it was his psychology.

 

[TheJimHensonHour]

It's pretty obvious allot of Jim's work had an edge to it, people who don't see it need to take another look and view his work in all it's glory not just one thing he's done like the muppets or sesame street.
But even those had bizarre creepy moments to them also.
Jim's creations have inspired my own beyond words and I get comments from people all the time how my work reminds them of Tim Burton but it couldn't be further from the truth his work is dark. To me Jim's work is the bright Neon Light in the Darkness he doesn't push either away he embraces them both.
And that's exactly what I try to go with my own work and am usually drawn to others who do the same type of thing.
And if people don't understand that last part I just said, let me put it this way.
His work isn't one way or the other to me I view it as everything smooshed together into one, I think that's what made the stuff he did so real to me and will forever be close to my mind till the day I die.
But hey what do I know I'm just a wacky avant guard performance artist type of guy.

 

[uppitymuppity]

Well put and I gotcha. I like to think that he had a yin and yang type philosophy and that concept to me means there would not be light without darkness and vice versa:

The concept of yin and yang (or earth and heaven) describes two opposing and, at the same time, complementary (completing) aspects of any one phenomenon (object or process) or comparison of any two phenomena. They are universal standards of quality at the basis of the systems of correspondence seen in most branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy.

Yin (陰 or 阴 "shady place, north slope, south bank (river); cloudy, overcast"; Japanese: in or on; Korean: 음, Vietnamese: âm) qualities are characterized as passive, dark, feminine, negative, downward-seeking, consuming and corresponds to the night.
Yang (陽 or 阳 "sunny place, south slope, north bank (river), sunshine"; Japanese: yō; Korean: 양, Vietnamese: dương) qualities are characterized as active, light, masculine, positive, upward-seeking, producing and corresponds to the daytime.

 

[RealMissPiggy]

Jason Segel is Amazing! he truely is a creative mind = D
im excited to see the outcome

 

[RealMissPiggy]

It's pretty obvious allot of Jim's work had an edge to it, people who don't see it need to take another look and view his work in all it's glory not just one thing he's done like the muppets or sesame street.
But even those had bizarre creepy moments to them also.
Jim's creations have inspired my own beyond words and I get comments from people all the time how my work reminds them of Tim Burton but it couldn't be further from the truth his work is dark. To me Jim's work is the bright Neon Light in the Darkness he doesn't push either away he embraces them both.
And that's exactly what I try to go with my own work and am usually drawn to others who do the same type of thing.
And if people don't understand that last part I just said, let me put it this way.
His work isn't one way or the other to me I view it as everything smooshed together into one, I think that's what made the stuff he did so real to me and will forever be close to my mind till the day I die.
But hey what do I know I'm just a wacky avant guard performance artist type of guy.

*WOW* well said

 

[dwayne1115]

I really think that since Jim Died that the Classic Muppets have really just looked for a leader, and have yet to find one.