"Muppet Movie" Bloopers..

[Tim]

O.K., we've all seenthe film a million times, and thanks to the dvd freeze button, we know the film frame by frame. So what bloopers left in the film have you noticed? I'm not talking about plot holes like in the "Max As A Phoney Office" thread, I 'm talking about technical bloopers that should have been corrected (restaged, edited, etc.) but are still there for all to see.

In addition to assorted sleeves, wires and equipent showing, here are my three favorites:

1. As Kermit rides his bike past the first "Doc Hopper" bilboard, the shadow from the cherry picker holding the puppeeteer (who in turn is holding Kermit up) is clearly seen.

2. When Kermit and Fozzie first turn down Hopper's offer, Fozzie says "Would you consider a bear in a frog suit?" and gets called away by Kermit. Watch his reflection in the T.V. Store window, and you will see Fozzie drop down right after he leaves frame.

3. (My all-time fave!) After the fight in the cabin, Piggy gets a phone call. Kermit answers and "hands" her the reciever. After she finished talking to her agent Morty, she hangs up the phone, turns to Kermit, and says "Goodbye!". Not only is she still holding the reciever, she runs out of the cabin with it!

Now..what have you noticed?

 

[Gonzo14]

As the Electric Mayhem is Waving at Kermit and Fozzie, you can see a head below Zoot

 

[Barry Lee]

Kermit Arm-Rods Were Visible Several Times.

Um, the arm rods are ALWAYS visible!

 

[MeepBorkMeep]

Um, the arm rods are ALWAYS visible!

Well, I think they tried to hide them, at least for the movie, to make it more realistic. But on the show, they make an appearance pretty often.

 

[puppetise]

oh when sweetums burst out of the tent and swings his head you can see hunt a bit

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, I think they tried to hide them, at least for the movie, to make it more realistic. But on the show, they make an appearance pretty often.

It seems like in The Great Muppet Caper and Follow That Bird, they had the arms posed a lot and didn't have arm wires. In GMC, the only times I saw arm wires were in the Hey, a Movie! number, as Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo run from a taxi (Kermit oves his arm and his wire can be seen), and whenever Floyd and Janice play their instruments. Otherwise, rod arm characters either keep their arms n one position or are holding something when they move their arms, and those object are attached to the muppets hands, and the movements of the objects move their hands.

I didn't see any arm wires at all in Follow That Bird.

 

[Barry Lee]

Not Always Barry.

Well the thing is, Jim never really wanted the muppets to be real, in one interview on "Henson's Place", he talked about how he didn't want Big Bird to seem real but they made him look like he was real. The arm rods have been shown almost always on TMS, SS, JHH, MT etc. I do remember some arm rods on TMM and other movies. But Jim was never set out to make the muppets look real.

 

[Frogster]

In the old DVD of The Muppet Movie, when you see Kermit wearing boots as he's marching out of Bunsen's lab, you can look at the very top of the screen, you can see hands holding the top of the legs, making them walk out.

 

[DanDanStrawberry]

Man I wish I was more observant

 

[anathema]

Bear in mind that if you're watching a 4:3 version of the film, you're seeing a good deal of picture that was never intended to be seen and would have been cropped off when the film was shown in the cinemas (and obviously is also cropped off on the widescreen DVD).

So far as I know, all VHS and laserdisc releases use this version, and puppeteers, wires, crew, rigs, equipment and all sorts of other stuff is clearly visible at the top and/or bottom of many shots. (Try watching it on a compter rather than a TV, and you'll see even more, as your TV crops the picture down even further.) This isn't strictly speaking a 'blooper' as the production crew would have known that these things would be visible to the camera, but removed again during post-production.