The Ghost of Faffner Hall now on the Roku Channel

[Grumpo]

The thing that stuck out to me was how boring the celebrity bits were. As talented musicians as they are, their material was often overlong, sluggish and not funny/engaging as it should have been.

It's the writing... usually we do not realize how much our love for the movie stars we adore actually depends on the screenwriters.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

To be fair, I've only watched the first episode. Maybe things will pick up as the series moves along. I will likely try to finish watching the whole series when I can. It is part of Henson history after all and I'm still glad for a chance to finally see it.

 

[minor muppetz]

I watched the whole series on Roku last year, I've been meaning to talk about it here. And now I am (not long after Henson content was removed from Roku to Shout!).

I liked the show enough. It's not among the all-time-best, but also not the all-time-worst, not even if you limit the worst/least favorites from Jim Henson's life (it is better than Peek-A-Boo, and maybe Neat Stuff).

I actually do like many of the puppets. I like the looks of The Wild Impressario and the kids (wow, right now I forget their names), and Farkas Faffner. I also like the woman who was once in a band with Wild Impressario, I think her name was Angie. Fughetta Faffner, on the other hand, kind of looks like a puppet sold at Pizza Hut (I'm thinking of the Casper puppets of 1995).

One thing I noticed is that some of the characters switch from arm wires to live hand puppets when they play instruments, including guitar-like instruments. I would think a guitar-playing Muppet should be a rod puppet. I also noticed that many characters have five fingers on each hand.

I was expecting the whole show to have a timeless or English appearance, so I was surprised by some of the '80s fashions and set pieces (I should have known by some of the guests). Most of the '80s stuff is in one of the rooms, I guess it's a downstairs room. Reminds me of the basement from Little Muppet Monsters and the attic from the Playhouse Videos.

It would have been great if some of the guests could have done more than just one scene. It is good when they are just staying at the hotel, we don't need the same guest to be all over the place (though that would be the best way to incorporate them into more of the episode). Many of the guests performances were presented as flashbacks or on a video cassette. I do like these lead-ins, reminds me of the Muppet Show and Sesame Street video compilations.

What is up with the eyes of the Muppet chickens on this show? They are replaced with some black eyes and look weird.

Seems like none of the puppets created for the show were ever reused or recycled into other productions. There was an alien I liked, kind of looked like a Twiddlebug, and there was a robot who looked good.

The last episode is actually a good last episode. It has Farkas getting amnesia or something and suddenly liking music. He ends up back to normal by the end, but it still is a good way to close the show, whether they planned to end it then or not.