"Muppets Take Manhatten" Revisited

[Princeton]

Yes, it's time for another "Revisited" thread, this time about one of the most underrated Muppet Films: The Muppets Take Manhattan!
-If this were a real college production, I doubt that the orchestra would be given a verse to sing.
-Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first of the 'dated' Muppet films. Didn't they know that Ed Koch wouldn't be mayor forever (thank God)?
-Is the Dabney Coleman scene necessary? Don't get me wrong, he's one of my favorite actors; I'm talking about the scene itself. It's a giant tease. Couldn't "You Can't Take No For An Answer" be the scene that establishes their bad luck?
-I posted this in another thread, but I think it bears repeating. Scooter's a bit of a tool in this movie. It was his idea to take their show to Broadway, as well as his idea to split up (which he was the only one that really liked that idea). So it seems a bit hypocritical that he has a verse in "Saying Goodbye", as well as being the first one to write Kermit a letter.
-Again I mentioned this before, but doesn't it seem weird to anyone else that this is the only film where Jerry Nelson is credited for playing Camilla? If any film should have this honor, it's The Muppet Movie.
-Has anyone else noticed that Richard's characters sound lower than usual? Maybe he had a cold.
-Louis Zorich (Pete) is one of those rare actors that is truly at home acting with the Muppets. Most actors in Muppet films practically have dollar signs in their eyes all the way through, so it's refreshing to see an actor who's so totally committed.
-Why didn't they include Lips in the Mayhem band? It just seems a little inconsistent since they made a point to use him in Great Muppet Caper.
-Well, Liza Minelli, at least Kermit made more than one good movie and isn't famous solely for his family and spouses.
-It's sad that it's taken a Muppet movie to realize this, but we really lost a great one when Gregory Hines passed away.
-So is 'Margeret' a man or a woman?
-I'm surprised they decided to work with James Coco again; supposedly he was hard to work with when he hosted The Muppet Show.
-Has anyone else noticed that the dog named Frank has a female voice?
-From about the one hour point onward, I really have a hard time watching it with two exceptions: Kathy Mullen's performance as Jill the Frog and Kemit's voice changing to that of Link Hogthrob.
-Anytime the Muppets appear outside, it's strangely captivating to look at. The brightly colored puppets against the dark grays of the city makes for a nice visual experience.
-Supposedly Uncle Matt Fraggle can be seen in the wedding scene. I've yet to find him; has anyone else had any luck?

 

[minor muppetz]

I have some things to say, but don't have much time right now so I'll just comment on a few things:

-Unless I'm mistaken, this is the first of the 'dated' Muppet films. Didn't they know that Ed Koch wouldn't be mayor forever (thank God)?

I've always thought this one looked the most like it's time period. The other movies either have a timeless quality or take place in the past. Muppets from Space and The Muppets also seem a bit modern, but I feel still feel that MTM is more obviously '80s than MFS is '90s or The Muppets is 2011 (of course The Muppets was just released... Maybe in a few years when some things in the movie are outdated that'll feel more a product of its time). Miss Piggy and Janice both seem to dress in modern '80s fashions, while that doesn't seem to be the case in any of the other movies where they play themselves. I feel there's other '80s elements that I can't quite remember/pinpoint right now.

-Is the Dabney Coleman scene necessary? Don't get me wrong, he's one of my favorite actors; I'm talking about the scene itself. It's a giant tease. Couldn't "You Can't Take No For An Answer" be the scene that establishes their bad luck?

You got a point there. That whole scene could have easily been edited, or it could easily be edited for time on TV. But I wonder how the movie would have been if he wasn't exposed as a conman right away. If he made a deal, and then the movie revolved around them working on the film and him constantly scamming them, maybe even getting the Muppets to fight and such, or get them arrested. Or maybe if he turned down the play, then the next producer they met with bought it, the musical got good publicity, he regretted turning it down and then decided to sabotage it.

-Why didn't they include Lips in the Mayhem band? It just seems a little inconsistent since they made a point to use him in Great Muppet Caper.

I wish they would have included him here as well. He could have been with the band, Foo-Foo could have been with Miss Piggy... And yet the one Steve Whitmire character to be heavily featured is Rizzo, who has no connection to other characters in the same way Foo-Foo and Lips did.

Lips was in Great Muppet Caper, which was made right after The Muppet Show ended and I guess they were still featuring him with the band. Then for the next few years the whole Electric Mayhem wasn't being used in anything (Dr. Teeth was practically absent from Muppet productions from 1982-1984, while Floyd, Animal, Janice, and Zoot were often used though not as a group). I guess they might have forgotten about Lips by then, though they did seem to make a point of including him as part of the band a few years later in A Muppet Family Christmas.

-Well, Liza Minelli, at least Kermit made more than one good movie and isn't famous solely for his family and spouses.

I didn't know Liza Minelli was famous for her family. But I also don't know what productions she's most famous for.

-So is 'Margeret' a man or a woman?

I used to think Margeret was a man and the mention of her name was just to be funny. I'm sure she's a woman, but I really don't know for sure.

On a similar note, when the Muppets learn that Martin Price's real name was Murray Plotsky and Fozzie remakrs "Murray? I thought his name was Martin", I mistakenly thought he said "I thought his name was Martha" (of course I hadn't paid attention to the character's name being mentioned, nor did I realise it was a scam). I first realised he used a fake name when I got the comic book adaptation of the movie, but even then when the others questioned his name being Murray instead of Martin, I suddenly wondered if Murray was short for Martin and they were making a joke, being confused by the shortening of a name.

-I'm surprised they decided to work with James Coco again; supposedly he was hard to work with when he hosted The Muppet Show.

Guest-starred on The Muppet Show!

-Supposedly Uncle Matt Fraggle can be seen in the wedding scene. I've yet to find him; has anyone else had any luck?

He's near the front rows, sitting with the bears.

 

[minor muppetz]

Some more thoughts on The Muppets Take Manhattan.

I liked this movie a lot better when I was younger, but now I like it a lot less. I think one of my reasons for liking it so much is because at the time it was the only Muppet movie I didn't have a copy of, and it was hard to find in stores, so in order to see it I had to either rent it or hope it'd be on TV.

Also, I used to feel like this one had the brightest picture quality of the first three movies (and of course The Muppet Christmas Carol had a brighter quality), and I liked the brightness of this film. The difference in picture quality was especially noticable when seeing clips from all three movies in Muppet Weird Stuff, A Celebration of 30 Years, The Secrets of the Muppets, and The World of Jim Henson (and all of those productions had many clips from The Muppet Show and yet as a kid I never quite noticed any difference in picture brightness on those, nor did I notice a difference in picture quality between the TMS clips and the new footage). I felt like The Muppet Movie looked really dark, The Great Muppet Caper was brighter, and this was brightest. Though when I finally got a copy in 1999 I felt it didn't look as bright as before, perhaps due to film restoration on the VHS (I think they were all restored, or perhaps it's because that was a new copy, in contrast to other copies I've seen which would have been watched over and over). Interestingly, I never had the 1993 reissues of TMM and GMC, but when watching the previews for them I felt the brightness was reversed, with TMM looking brighter and GMC looking darker.

I used to think this movie was titled "The Muppets Tape Manhattan". I felt like if Disney rereleased it on video (at the time I did know that Tri-Star released this, but didn't quite get a grasp on distribution rights so I wondered why Jim Hensin Video didn't release this one as well) that the free watch would need to show the Muppets taping something (now that I think about it, TMM and GMC were rereleased with new watches, but never wondered why MCC or MTI weren't packaged with free watches, though I think they discontinued the free watches by the time MTI was released).

For most of the last decade I pretty much felt like I liked all of the original trilogy equally, having trouble deciding which one I liked best. But now I feel I do like MTM less than TMM and GMC (and the newest movie, which ranks up there with the first two). I still like it fine, but not as much as I did (in fact when I was a kid I felt like The Muppet Movie was my least favorite Muppet movie, though I still liked that one fine).

I've seen some discussion on this film on the Tough Pigs forum, and I've read different speculation regarding the reasons for the Muppets splitting up. Some say it was because many of the performers were also busy with Sesame Street (which was also made in New York so wasn't too far away) and/or Fraggle Rock, while some think that movies shouldn't have too many main characters so while having everyone go their seperate ways helps the story focus on just Kermit and Miss Piggy. I'll believe either reason, though I've noticed that the majority of new characters in this are performed by the main Fraggle Rock performers, who would have needed to be farther away to do that show: Dave Goelz performs both Chester and Bill, Kathy Mullen performs Jill, Steve Whitmire performs Gil (and also has a major role as Rizzo), and Karen Prell performs Yolanda. Though most of the rats who aren't Rizzo seem to only have two lines each, and the frogs appear in the third act of the movie.

There's a bit of things in this that are left intentionally unexplained. Kermit mentions a three-part plan, but then gives up before the third part of his plan. I wish I knew what the third part could have been. And there's some intrigue regarding Ronnie Crawford's deal with Bernard Crawford to produce a play. He's about to tell Kermit what his agreement with his dad is before Bernard shows up and interrupts them, and we only know that Bernard promised him one chance to produce a play and would pay for things, and at the end of the scene he's about to talk about when he started out in show business only to be interrupted. I guess we really don't need to know what they were going to say, but it's still intriguing.

But with the agreement to produce, I guess it's a case where he wants to support his son's aspirations but doesn't want him to leach off his father so he's only going to help him once and then he'll be on his own if he wants to produce again.

It's interesting how Bernard doesn't seem to thrilled about Ronnie producing Kermit's musical (even before he knows what the play's about), but after they learn that he won't go back on his promise and Kermit leaves Ronnie and Bernard share afather-and-son hug as if Bernard is congraduating his son.

And it seems the deal was done without a contract. Kermit leaves without signing anything, and then gets amnesia and goes missing until right before the show starts. I guess they don't rely on contracts in this world. But I wonder if that might be what Ronnie came to Pete's fo (aside from informing them that the play has to start in two weeks).

 

[Oscarfan]

-So is 'Margeret' a man or a woman?

It's a man who's clearly unhappy to be in a large chicken suit. "Margret" is just a name Gonzo gives him, to make him fit in with the other chickens (the chickens are normally portrayed as female, remember).

 

[CensoredAlso]

-I posted this in another thread, but I think it bears repeating. Scooter's a bit of a tool in this movie. It was his idea to take their show to Broadway, as well as his idea to split up (which he was the only one that really liked that idea). So it seems a bit hypocritical that he has a verse in "Saying Goodbye", as well as being the first one to write Kermit a letter.

Like I said before, Scooter's always been very practical about show business. You start out with a dream but at some point you also have to admit when things aren't working and you need a plan B. Plus they feel guilty for depending on Kermit so much. I like that about Muppet Show Scooter, he's not particularly sappy or sentimental; he's more of a no-nonsense character.

 

[minor muppetz]

It would be interesting to know what everybody's "future plans" were before deciding to take Manhattan Melodies to Broadway. I'd be surprised if the jobs they took after leaving were what they majored in. The Electric Mayhem were probably planning on a music career of some sort (and they settled for a polka club), but I wonder if Gonzo was majoring in stunts or if Fozzie was majoring in comedy. Since they were all involved in a college musical, you could say they all had theater/acting plans, but then when they go out on their own, none of them seem to take roles in other Broadway plays. The only ones to take show biz jobs are The Electric Mayhem and Gonzo. Kermit wrote the musical, I would like to think that he was majoring in screenwriting, but it seems he never considered Broadway until the others talked him into it.

Many people have complained about Gonzo's reduced role in The Muppets, but I feel this one has less Gonzo as well. Gonzo's not as zany or show-stealing here as he is in many of the other movies, maybe it's because the main characters all knew each other at the beginning (in the previous movies Kermit and Fozzie knew Gonzo before they met Miss Piggy). Here, Gonzo really has one big scene, the water skiing act, but in The Muppets he has two, his re-introduction and his bowling act (not to mention the deleted practice scene). But having said that, in this movie Gonzo gets his own lines in most of the scenes he's in, while in The Muppets he's there in many group scenes but doesn't seem to get much dialogue in those scenes.

 

[minor muppetz]

One opinion I have which became my opinion a couple of years ago is that the movie is kinda slow and dull between "Saying Goodbye" and Kermit's meeting with Ronnie. There are still some good moments in-between (parts 1 and 2 of Kermit's three-part plan, Rat Scat, Scooter and Gonzo's post cards), but a lot of it is hard to sit through. The central park sequence is good but not great, I enjoy the Muppet Babies fantasy a lot less than I used to, some of the post card flashbacks are a bit dull (I think the Electric Mayhem scene would have been better if they didn't shorten it... We don't really know their opinions of their situation, aside from them seeming bored), and I never really enjoyed the Joan Crawford (any relation to Bernard and Ronnie?) cameo.

 

[minor muppetz]

Did anyone else ever think that the white dress Jenny wears at the premiere of Manhattan Melodies looked like a wedding dress? That's what I used to think, even though we didn't see her get married.

 

[Muppet Master]

Yes, it's time for another "Revisited" thread, this time about one of the most underrated Muppet -Has anyone else noticed that Richard's characters sound lower than usual? Maybe he had a cold.
Yeah I've noticed that a lot. It's a little odd, because Janice doesn't even really sounnd like a woman and Scooter sounds like a grown man. Maybe it had something to do with his illness that would sadly kill him 8 years later.
-

 

[sarah_yzma]

I am currently pulling my husband through all of Muppet-dom and really regretted picking this movie early on (Together Again nostalgia got me). It's pacing is awfully slow, the story doesn't pop like it does in other movies, and the only scene he really laughed at was Rowlf running the doggy daycare.

Of course when he was reading the wikipedia page, the movie he wanted to watch next was MWoO. I am trying to steer him toward something more classic. We will see how this goes.