Your Thoughts: The Muppets' Wizard of Oz

[GelflingWaldo]

I was offended right away by Ashanti's comments about "getting out of Kansas to become someone". I am from the midwest, and I'm really sick of the entertainment industry treating us as a bunch of red neck losers who never leave their state because they have no ambition. Did you ever see that sitcom about the guy from the coast who married a farm girl and went to live with her family in Kansas? Another ABC productions, and I hated that one too.

Kermit, Piggy, and Ashanti explained all of this in a video clip that can be found here: http://www.kake.com/news/headlines/1565121.html

 

[LadyHyde]

"The Wiz" was disturbing...however, Gonzo's nipples were LESS disturbing. Man, I know they work on 2 levels of humor, but MAN, that was a total shock to hear it...

Anyway, it was good, but-

-Kelly Osbourne cameo was cut out, and I suspect Quentin's was shortened (I remember a photo of him showing a storyboard to Kermit on the ABC site) and I hope that comes in on DVD.
-I'm admit I was all cringy when Sweetums showed up...ever since that "Cosby Show" episode, I've been afraid of him for some reason...no offense, it's just how I feel.

But, putting Statler and Waldorf in it? Genius.

I hope we get that long-rumored "Alice in Wonderland"...

 

[MWoO]

Sweetums has become al ittle scary. I think it's the voice and the fact that his part is limited now.

I think bad editing is really hurting them uppets these days. Editing and directing. The ideas are there and the scripts are ok but when they get hacked by editing it creates a sub-par production.

 

[Vic Romano]

Calm down MWoO; people have the right to their opinions.

 

[Kermienme]

Waste of Time

I think this is the first time in my entire life that I've walked away from a Muppet movie and wanted to puke. This thing was a nightmare. What happened to all the humor? There were maybe 5 or 6 good lines throughout the whole thing and most were from Pepe! The story itself was fine, but boring and that's where the humor should have come in. I've been waiting for this movie since it was first announced and now I'm disappointed that I wasted my Friday night watching it. My dad, who is the one that got me into the Muppets from birth, and I watched the movie together and he left about half way through because he knew that it wasn't going to get any better. YUCK!!! At least I have the Dark Crystal 2 to look forward to, but if its as disappointing as this one, there are going to be some major issues!

 

[beaker]

to be fair as i can i onlt saw the last hour. Ashanti sucked I thought it was a cheesey way to appeal to the hip hop culture be adding a nearly all black cast. And Please, Please, Please , Don't Let The Muppets Go Hip Hop

Wow, another ignorant white person who thinks all black culture is hip hop! Hooray! Dem dar blacks should be in bow ties shinin' my shoes and callin me massah! first off, Ashanti doiesnt sing rap...David Allan Grier has nothing to do with hip hop culture, and there was no one rap reference. It was good seeing Grier, I ahevtn seen him since Elmopalooza and he works great with the Muppets.

um, johnny was wearing the plastic so the blood wouldnt get all over his new jacket.

Right, does this not sound pretty un Muppet like to you? It sounds down right disturbing in fact.

Sadly, not everybody shares our enthusiasm or love of the Muppets. If you ask many people to name a muppet they could probably name Kermit and Miss Piggy.

Actually, more like Big Bird and Elmo. I want the Muppets back in the spotlight mor ethan anything, but at what price? With Oz? If I was to reintroduce Muppets to the public, I would have chose a much mroe exciting way. Will people accept just anything because Muppets are in it? Or can we care about quality and presentation? Man I wish that 2002 planned edgy Fox prime time show would have happened, I guarantee that would have been sweet.

It is precisely love of the Muppets which makes me want to see them in better productions with good, sharp, witty scripts, and not just settle for anything that comes down the pike with them in it. It's painful to see them in substandard projects.

Exactly! I love the Muppets in more ways that I can describe, and WANT that magic back. Badly. But when a production faisl to give me even one modicome of awe, well its not good.

They gave us diehard fans so much in characters and references, so they know we are out here.

Whoah, for real? Besides the Frank Oz reference, I felt AVMMC had infinite way more Muppet references for the more hardcore Muppet fans. As for turning on the Muppets...a lot of us are stills cratching our heads ont he choice to sell off the Muppet brand to Disney.

You're right, it wasn't the greatest choice of stories to tell. But given that, I think they did a good job with it overall.

Again, the second it was annoucned the next Mupept hign would be an Oz retelling, I just knew it was bad news. So the blame really lies with JHC.

Also, ditto to everything beaker said on Page 5 of this thread. Beaker, "the Abu Ghraib of Muppet films", excellent and right on. What a total trainwreck.

As someone who has been a massive conscious Muppet/JHC fan since I was in diapers, there is no reason I would want to see the Muppets failure...so it is with a heavy sorrow I begin to realize just how detrimental and bad this was. And I dont want to say the film just 'sucked'...there are very vexing, deep reasons why this was just total garbage from so many standpoints. I feel this is a big black eye on Muppetdom and nothing to celebrate.

This was the worst waste of two hours in the history of mankind, and the saddest introduction of the Muppets to a new generation of small kids they could ever have come up with.

I agree...this special went beyond the realms of bad in my mind. As far as Im concerned, I seriously HOPE noone saw this stinker, as its almost the final nail in the Muppets coffin. How can anyone respect the Muppets after having seen this? What little street cred they had is all but gone. I seriously loathe this film, in a way I never could with MFS or KSY. Those had some ogod moments, this to me was just a horror show.

Puppets in pieces, Kermit's disembodied head on the ground, grotesque melting, gee, great way to turn on the little ones to the Muppets, oh yeah.

Exactly! What is this, footage from Iraq? The dismemberment, beheading, and
scenes of attempted filmed killing really did not sit well with me at all.

And, uh, note to Henson:

This is 2005, not 1984---lose the '80s ponytail on Janice! Jeez!

If they can update Piggy's hair with every project, they can certainly update Janice's once...

exactly...why cant they give electric mayhem some modern stuff? Heck I like Digit's look from 1989 better. Heck, make the electric mayhem indie rocker hipsters, heh.

Question: Is there magic in the film?

Much magic?

I wish! The magic is all gone...whereas the first three Muppet films were magical, this one just flat out sucked. I think the magic left when Juhl stopped writing.

You begin to realize how much we Muppet geeks know when you have a conversation with someone who would

I haven't been impressed with Kirk Thatcher's work. I enjoyed his effort as MC during MuppetFest so it's nothing personal.

1. Yay for Muppet geeks. There's a bazillion Star Wars, Trekkie, etc geeks...heck theres a lot more Farcsape geeks than there are Muppet geeks. Us Mupept fans, the big Muppet fans online, are very underground. The few, the proud, the elite

2. Hey, you were at Muppetfest too? Sweet! I loved him as MC there.

I just thought I'd add my 2 cents as well. I personally feel that the only things that the Henson Company has put out that capture any of Jim Henson's magic are Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island.
I gave Muppet Cristmas Carol the benefit of the doubt because it was the first thing they did after Mr. Henson passed away and it wasn't bad. I had to get used to a new voice for Kermit (Steve Whitmire) but he didn't do a bad job.
Muppet Treasure Island was hilarious! I laughed at everything on that. The music the acting was pretty good and I still enjoy it to this day.
A Very Merry muppet Christmas sucked.

I actually cant stand MCC or MTI, but felt VMMC had some good stuff in it.

 

[beaker]

just as a black person is entitled to hate heavy metal or woody allen movies if they are so inclined.. I used the wiz reference to drive home a point, that it is ok to not meddle with a formula that works..

I love New York Jewish comedy! But its funny how when people think black, they automatically think urban yo wassup hip hop. I didnt get that vibe at all from MWOOz.

Everyone thinks the Muppet have always been these clean non-sexual, non-violent plush toys. Well it isn't true. They always had a darker side and a sexy side.

Yeah, because Muppet Show: Sex and violence, Land of gorch(one episode was about doign drugs, another one was about something I cant even reference here), etc was fun and loveable!

People who are easily offended offend me.

I can't be offended...then again I have a very edgy sense of humor. No, but I do get annoyed by bad humor. Attempt at sophmoric humor, by even the Muppets comes off as desperate.

Now that almost every TV series/cartoon has been trashed by the film industry, it does not surprise me that greedy Disney Corporation (a.k.a., slave owners, ask their employees)

If youa re alluding to how Disney uses slave labor from 3rd world countries to make their garbage, than yes I concur.

 

[MuppetsRule]

Exactly! What is this, footage from Iraq? The dismemberment, beheading, and
scenes of attempted filmed killing really did not sit well with me at all.

OK, maybe you didn't like the movie. But comparisons to the war in Iraq, or any other war for that matter, is a bit over the top. Let's keep this in perspective. It's puppets people!

 

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Who did Scooter's voice? Was it Brian Henson? It sounds a LOT better than it did in Very Merry Muppet Christmas.

Yes, his voice was MUCH better! It actually sounded pretty much like Scooter this time!

Now if only Brian had been given a chance to improve Janice's voice...*sigh*...

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

Adult Humor does not mean dirty humor, I liked the muppets for there adult humor but it's not because it was dirty it was because it was intelligent...

I agree. I didn't say it was dirty or anything like that. I just meant that the humor seemed to be meant for adults as well as children. That's what made it a good family film.