Return of the Con

The San Diego Comic Con was this past weekend, and although thousands of people were able to attend, I was not one of them. That's some sad news right there. But the good news is that we got a few Muppet-related news tidbits which we'll report as if I was actually the one doing the news gathering. Don't tell the Associated Press!
The Guinness Book of World Records went to Comic Con to award a few world records plaques to things such as Detective Comics for being the Longest Continuously Published Comic Book and The Simpsons for being the Longest Running Animated TV Series. They also awarded Brian Henson with the plaque for Farscape, which has the Most Digital Effects in a TV Series. Good work, Farscape! You look pretty!
Archaia Comics announced that the upcoming Labyrinth and Dark Crystal comics will feature covers by the great Brian Froud, who will also be serving as the Creative Consultant for both titles. That's some great hiring there, Archaia! Now if you can only convince him to do some interior art for the comics, I'd be happy as a baby being tossed in the air by David Bowie.

Archaia also gave us a few more details on the upcoming Fraggle Rock comic book. It will be in anthology format, with both long and short stories. The books will be a bit smaller than a comic book, coming in at just 8"x8". The comics will also contain "new levels of interactivity," which could mean just about anything. Maybe they'll come with instructions on how to grind the pages down and make your own Doozer sticks.
BOOM Studios didn't have much new information about the Muppet comics at their panel, but they did say that they're planning on getting rid of the 4-issue installments of The Muppet Show Comic Book and turning it into an ongoing, which will make it so much easier to keep track of the numbering. And I know you're all very concerned about keeping your Muppet comics organized to an obnoxious degree like myself. The image above is the pencils for the cover of the Pigs In Space one-shot comic, which will be written by Roger Langridge and illustrated by an unidentified artist.
eFX Collectibles had the first signs of their upcoming Muppet Photo Puppets on display, including Rizzo, Reporter Kermit, and a piece of Miss Piggy. Rizzo looks fantastic. I'm tempted to buy him and make him carry my luggage. It's hard to judge that Reporter Kermit, since they made no effort at all to make him look good in that glass case. Muppet News Flash: Nobody wants to buy an ugly Photo Puppet! And the Piggy face looks like they're on the right track, with a chubbier Piggy like we used to see in the Muppet Show days, as opposed to the newer, slimmer Piggy we've gotten used to in recent years. Though I'm staying dubious until we see what her hair and costume will look like, since we all know that the clothes make the pig.
Oh, and these guys were there. Do you think Bunsen is a DC or a Marvel fan? UPDATE: Looks like they did a sketch for the Comic Con masquerade! Enjoy the nerdiness!

Click here to do whatever a spider can on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Review: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #1

Last month, The Muppet Show Comic Book ended forever. Until this month. This month, The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson begins its four-issue run with a brand-new #1 issue. It's written and drawn by Muppet comics superhero Roger Langridge, and as its name suggests, the story arc is about the Muppets searching for a pirate’s buried treasure in the Muppet Theater. The Muppets haven't seen this much booty in years!

Issue #1 has a lovely cover A:


But cover B is truly fantastic:


If I weren’t already buying the Muppet Show comics every month, that cover would definitely pull me in. What the heck is going on with Animal?! (Also: Did he tie that tie himself?) Animal's seeming identity crisis is the ongoing mystery in this, part one of the story, which is called "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral."


There are a few ongoing storylines here, which is probably for the best... There are still three issues after this one, so it's best not to rush any of them. In story A, Scooter finds a treasure map. Some rats overhear him talking about it, and they want the treasure for themselves, so they start digging.

In story B, Animal is just not himself. He's wearing a suit, and correcting people's grammar... and worst of all, he's drumming like a wuss, which greatly worries the other members of the Electric Mayhem. How will it affect the band's big number in the show? Each issue of the original four-issue run of The Muppet Show Comic Book focused on one character, telling "Kermit's Story" and "Fozzie's Story" and so on, and it looks like this subplot is essentially going to be "Animal's Story" stretched over four issues.

In story C, Kermit is acting pretty strange himself.


"Sweaty orange guy." I love that. I have a pretty good idea what's going on with Kermit based on cover images that have been released for future issues, but I won't speculate here, in case a) You haven't seen them yet, and b) I turn out to be wrong.

As for the onstage acts, this issue has the most consistently entertaining batch since the previous issue #1. There's a Muppet Sports sketch, with a Louis Kazagger who somehow looks more like Howard Cosell than the puppet Kazagger. The sport in question is long-distance toast-hurling, which is bloody brilliant.

There's a Swedish Chef bit that's only one page, but which is sublime in its brevity. And it has an explosion.

Also: Pigs in Space, Fozzie, a musical number about the sinking of the Lusitania starring two obscure characters, and more. And all of it is entertaining and Muppety.

I guess this review is going to be shorter than usual, but I really have nothing negative to say about this issue. The ongoing plots are all funny and intriguing, and while they're all left "To Be Continued," there is a conflict that's resolved by the end of the issue, so there's some sense of closure. The treasure itself actually doesn't play much of a part... All we find out about it is that it exists, and Scooter and the rats want it, but I have no doubt it'll be satisfyingly fleshed out in later issues. I can't wait for the next one!

Oh, and more thing: For those of you playing the "Which new character would be performed by which Muppeteer?" game, I just want to say that "Ninja Rogers" in this issue would totally be a Jerry Nelson character.



Click here to hurl toast on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

ToughPigs Outing: CANCELED!

Due to crummy weather, the ToughPigs Outing scheduled for Sunday, July 26, at Governors Island has been canceled. Unfortunately the threat of thunderstorms (and the lack of an indoor venue) is keeping us from having our fun.

Thankfully the summer is far from over, so you'll bet your bippy that we'll try this nonsense again next month. Keep an eye on this space for details on the inevitable ToughPigs Outing 2.0!

Though if you're still hankering to meet some of your fellow Muppet fanatics this week, a bunch of us will be at the Muppet Movie and Muppets 201 screenings at BAM on Tuesday, July 28. Click here for details.
Click here to stay dry on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Christmas in July: Revisiting "Letters to Santa"

A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa aired way back in December of oh-eight, but the DVD won’t come out until September (Click here to see the recently released, craptacular, PhotoShopperifc cover image, and click here for ToughPigs readers’ clever redesigns). I wanted to revisit the special, but I’m way too impatient to wait until September, so I recently watched it again to see how it looks all these dozens of weeks later.

Right after the special aired, we had a poll on the Tough Pigs forum called “What did you think of Letters to Santa?” My vote was for “I liked it,” which means I wasn’t willing to go so far as “I loved it,” but I enjoyed it more than to say “It was somewhere in the middle there.”

The first time I see a new Muppet production, the "new show smell" can be intoxicating. There are some fans who immediately look for things to complain about, because they’re just itching to have more evidence for their theory that the Muppets have been RUINED. I, on the other hand, get so excited to see Kermit on my television screen that I tend to laugh a little too loud at all the jokes, and I’m a little too quick to overlook the flaws. (Except in the case of Studio DC Almost Live. I knew that thing was a stink bomb from the very beginning.) Was that the case with Letters? Would I like it more or less when watching it out of season?


As my viewing gets under way with the Muppets waiting in line at the post office on Christmas Eve, I’m reminded of a criticism voiced by Tough Pigs forum member (and occasional Tough Pigs website contributor) Anthony: The Muppets seem so ordinary in this special. And it’s not because the post office is an ordinary location. It’s the dialogue, which just kinda sits there when it should be popping in our faces like comedy popcorn. Kermit says he wishes it were snowing and Fozzie says “Me too,” Miss Piggy says the line is taking too long and Kermit says “We have to be patient just like everybody else.”

Yeah, I’m unfairly picking on just a few lines. But my point is that the Muppets spend a lot of time in this production talking like normal people when they should be talking like... well, like the Muppets used to. The Muppet Movie begins with a roomful of gags as a roomful of Muppets gather to watch their own film. The Great Muppet Caper opens with Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo in a hot air balloon trading lines that make us chuckle while perfectly re-establishing their characters. Even the more recent TV movie It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie starts with a backstage party with a series of “Gift of the Magi” jokes.


Oh, but hold on: There’s a musical number! I like “Delivering Christmas," which is by far the best of Paul Williams’ new tunes for the special. It’s jaunty, it makes the most of the TV-level budget, and even Sweetums gets to sing a line. All the Muppets accidentally get pulled into a baffling mail-sorting machine, except for Gonzo, who deliberately jumps on the conveyor belt. Isn’t that just like the crazy, incorrigible Gonzo we all love? Yes, it is… and unfortunately, that concludes the “Gonzo in character” portion of Letters to Santa. From here on out, he’s soulful, earnest, and sad. Very, very sad.


Soon enough we see the gang at home, and that brings me to what is probably my favorite thing about this special: Muppet camaraderie. This is the first time in years that we’ve seen all the major characters together where they really feel like a group. The character dynamics were lacking in The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz because they weren't playing themselves, and Studio DC stuck them with a bunch of snot-nosed kids.

Here, the Muppets all live together on one floor of a New York City apartment building. It’s kind of like a college dorm, but with less vomiting. And I’m getting ahead of myself here, but although the song “It's All About Heart” is really boring, I loved seeing Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo doing choreography together. When was the last time we actually saw those guys all acting like buddies? They act like buddies here, and I buy it completely. I would almost go so far as to say it reminded me of The Great Muppet Caper. Almost.

So anyway, the Muppets have a pleasant but not especially memorable little friend named Claire, who lives on the same floor along with her mother, played by Jane Krakowski. Krakowski's attitude toward the Muppets -- she's polite, but obviously repulsed on the inside -- is one of the script’s better ideas, and Krakowski gives good funny. In fact, if I had to describe Krakowski’s performance in one word, it would be “goodfunny.” While I'm at it, let me go ahead and describe a few more of the celebrity cameos in this special in one word, but using words that are real:

Nathan Lane: Amusing
Uma Thurman: Delightful
Jesse L. Martin: Brief
Paul Williams: Elfin
Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Unnecessary
Whoopi Goldberg: Pointless

Sorry, Whoop.

And then the Muppets forgot to mail Claire’s letter to Santa, and now they find themselves with a handful of other letters for Santa, but uh-oh, the post office is closed. Pepe guesses Santa’s e-mail address: JollyFatMan@completelymadeup.coms (I'm pretty sure that's not a real e-mail address. Actually, I'm completely sure, because I tried writing to it.) But Bunsen confirms that Santa can’t get wireless internet.

So what to do with Claire’s letter? Scooter says, “Maybe if we look around, we can find someone to help us!” Which is a really vague and not-very-useful thing to say, but it’s nice that Scooter gets some lines. I don’t think David Rudman’s Scooter sounds quite as much like Richard Hunt’s original Scooter as Rickey Boyd did in Wizard of Oz, but he's Scooterly enough.


Miss Piggy doesn’t care about kids’ Santa letters. In fact, she doesn’t care about anything except her vacation to the Caribbean with Kermit. Over on the Tough Pigs forum, we’ve had a lot of discussion about exactly what makes Piggy Piggy, and why it's been so hard for recent writers to get her right. She’s not in this special much, but her limited time onscreen is mostly pretty unpleasant. She’s just so cranky all the time... I don't claim to be the world's biggest Miss Piggy expert, but instead of yelling at Mayor Bloomberg at the post office and demanding he let her cut in line, shouldn't she have batted her eyelashes at him and tried to charm her way in before resorting to aggression? I do laugh when she slams the door and smooshes Kermit's face, though.

Then we have the UPS (United Pigeon Service) scene, which adds absolutely nothing. Then Pepe talks to some mobsters, which is all right. The absolute highlight of that scene is the Swedish Chef’s fake Italian moustache over his real Swedish moustache. But I have to confess something: You know that joke where one of the Sopranos guys says “We better not catch you around here again, or you’re gonna sleep with the fishes!” and Pepe says, “Oh, I already do.” I don’t get that. Is it supposed to mean Pepe has sex with fish? Or just that he sleeps underwater, because he’s a prawn?

You know what happens next. All the Muppets leave town for vacation, but sad Gonzo is really, really sad about those letters, so he talks Kermit and Fozzie into delivering them to Santa themselves, and Rizzo and Pepe tag along, despite the fact that they don’t believe in Santa Claus. Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo don't get many jokes, so it's all up to the rat and the prawn. A lot of their lines sounds like ad libs... Rizzo initially says he and Pepe can’t go to the North Pole because their flying unicorns are "in the shop,” then as they exit laughing, Pepe says, “Because flying unicorns aren’t real!” to which Rizzo responds, “Yeah, and they don’t go to shops either!" Which, I just realized, doesn't translate to the printed word at all, but I thought it was funny.


Then it's off to the airport, and thank goodness for Bobo. He makes all his scenes funnier just by being in them, and he works well with Nathan Lane. There's not an ounce of tension when the Muppets get detained at airport security -- we don't believe for a second that they're not going to get to the North Pole -- but “He’s got cards! He’s got cards!” just might be the best two seconds of the whole special, and “Ding da-ding ding ding" is funnier than it should be.

Come to think of it, there's a whole stretch of time in the special – from the Muppets’ arrival at the airport to the moment when Elf Paul Williams leaves them out in the cold – where this is a Pretty Good Muppet Production. Take the exchange that happens while they’re hanging for dear life from the wing of the North Pole Airlines plane:

PEPE: What are we doing?
FOZZIE: We’re winging it!
KERMIT: That’s not funny!

Three hours later…

RIZZO: I don’t know if I can hold on any longer!
PEPE: I don’t know if I can scream any longer!

See? Those are jokes! So why aren't there more of those? And then they jump off the plane wing, and Kermit frantically tries to dig Gonzo out of the snow, and Fozzie loses his hat and then it falls from the sky. Cute gags all around. If the whole show had been as good as these eight or ten minutes, I bet a lot more folks would have voted "I liked it" or "I loved it" in that Tough Pigs poll.



But they're too late, and soon Gonzo is sad again, very, very sad, and he sadly sings the sad song “I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus” sadly, which might have been a lovely, serious moment for him if he weren't so subdued throughout the special. What’s up with that guy? His character has always been tinged with melancholy, but he’s so depressed it makes me want to show him something funny to cheer him up. Like, say, Gonzo bits from old episodes of The Muppet Show. Dave Goelz gives a great performance here -- you really do feel bad for Gonzo. But where's the guy who lusts after chickens and puts starfish in his pants?

And then Santa magically shows up and saves the day, which raises the question of why couldn't Santa have just teleported into the Muppets' building and read those letters in the first place. Then some stuff happens, and everyone ends up spending Christmas at Claire’s place (“Let me put some newspaper down first!” says Claire’s mom). The resulting parade of Muppets is lots of fun – Lew Zealand (bearing a gift of fish), a Muppet turkey bawling over a roasted Christmas turkey, a penguin, Rowlf, the Electric Mayhem (Zoot’s “Happy Hannukah” cracks me up). Hey, does Sweetums have bangs?


The song “My Best Christmas Yet” is upbeat and heartfelt, but the musical arrangement is anemic. It’s lite smooth jazz when it should be a big, boffo number that expresses the Muppets' love for December 25th, which is their favorite holiday to star in specials about. Was the music in this special synthesized? That's probably another concession to budget concerns, but it would have been great to hear a real orchestra.

Still, the song manages to capture some of that Christmas vibe. And it's packed with Muppets who are all happy to spend the holidays together, and you know, I love those guys so much that I can’t help but get a pleasant sensation somewhere in my torso.

So. Letters to Santa. It has its faults, and watching it again some months removed from the novelty factor, I found a few more faults. A truly great Muppet production is like a comedy salad with musical dressing and just the right number of croutons of sentimentality. In this special, there are so many croutons, it's almost impossible to taste the Romaine lettuce.

But I'm still going to say it’s a step in the right direction. The Muppets playing themselves, working together, multiple musical numbers... These are all things I want them to do.

My suggestion for the next Muppet thing, then, is as follows: Do the same stuff, but do it all better. More jokes, more memorable songs, more in-character Muppets, more ambitious musical numbers. And how about doing a new Muppet project soon, instead of making us wait three years?

To put it in Christmas terms: With Letters to Santa, the Muppets have about four of those eight tiny reindeer hitched to their sleigh. If they can give us all eight next time around, they’ll really be flying.

Did I really just say that? Jeez, that was cheesy.


Click here to re-evaluate Christmas on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Crater Haters (or, No Praises for Lunar Phases)

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and people all over the world watched in awe as the first human beings set foot on the big rock in the sky. Four months later, Sesame Street premiered, and completely spoiled the excitement of space travel.

As exciting as it was to see two guys bounce around on the Moon, Sesame Street didn’t take much time before turning that crowning achievement into nothing more than a blip in aeronautic history.

Ernie himself has expressed his distinct disinterest in lunar travel and the eventual colonization of the Moon. In “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon,” he compares living on the Moon to the horror of trying to survive underwater, living amongst dangerous animals in the jungle, and a lifetime of running from man-eating dinosaurs. Thankfully, Ernie’s warning has given us the comfort of knowing that our lives are much better without the possibility of having to live on the Moon, especially one with so little real estate that it can barely hold one Ernie-sized Muppet.

In his opus, “C is for Cookie,” Cookie Monster declares that “the Moon sometimes looks like a C, but you can’t eat that.” Of course, that wouldn’t stop him from trying. Sesame Street’s resident overeater once compared the Moon to his most desirable temptation in “If Moon Were Cookie.” In the song, he fantasizes about riding in a convertible-style rocket ship to the Moon, and then eating and digesting that giant satellite that gives us moonlight and controls our tides, thus tossing civilization on earth into utter chaos. He then discovers that the whole endeavor would be catastrophic and regrets thinking of it in the first place. How great could the Moon be if Cookie Monster is so willing to abandon the embodiment of his obsession?

Even “Other Guy on the Moon” Buzz Aldrin had to disillusion Cookie Monster by explaining that the Moon is made of boring old rocks, as opposed to totally awesome cookies. Why does the Moon have to suck so bad, Buzz Aldrin? Why???

In 1998, five brave worms ventured into outer space to wriggle on the Moon (while forming letters and numbers in zero-G, because that’s totally what I’d do if I could float around weightlessly). Though their vessel was blessed by Mr. Tony Bennett, their trek into the void is marred by one thought: Why worms? Is it because they eat less, take up less room, and can use a toothbrush holder as a spacesuit? No, it’s because they chose the most inferior species on earth to send to the lifeless rock in the sky, where they’ll most likely burn up on reentry. Sorry worms, but this mission isn’t even worth the time of our space monkeys, let alone human beings.

Sesame Street has never steered me wrong before, and if they’re going to come straight out and say that the Moon is a useless splotch in the sky, one which nobody in their right mind would ever even consider visiting, then I’m happy taking their word for it. The Moon sucks, and I am willing to get punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin to defend my position. Besides, it seems like they’ll let just about anybody onto the Moon these days.
Click here to boldly go where no Muppet fan has gone before on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

News and Goings-on 7/18

Hi, fans of Muppets. It's been a while since we did one of these news round-ups, so we have several things to talk about...

"I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus" nominated for Emmy
This year's Emmy nominations were announced this week, and the nominees in the "Music and Lyrics" category included one of Paul Williams' songs from the Muppet special Letters to Santa, "I Wish I Could Be Santa Claus." That's the one where Gonzo sings about how depressed he is that he's not a fat bearded man, and then Fozzie gets depressed for the same reason. Will it win the award? Well, the competition includes a Saturday Night Live song about Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg having sex with each other's mothers. So... probably not.


Swedish Chef Hallmark ornament
Speaking of Christmas, is there anything that captures the true meaning of the holiday better than a befuddled Scandanavian man being held at gunpoint by crustaceans? That's right: This Christmas season, $18.50 will get you Hallmark's new Swedish Chef ornament, complete with sound clips. It's so strange, I can't wait to put it on my tree.


The Muppet Show Comic Book's Roger Langridge at Comic-Con
Roger Langridge, the writer and artist of the universally-loved Muppet Show Comic Book, will be at this year's Comic-Con in San Diego, giving fans the opportunity to tell him personally how much they loved the talking cheese in issue #2. Langridge will be at the Boom! Studios booth during the convention, and he'll be hosting a Muppet Show Comic panel on Sunday, July 26th at 10:00 AM. Chances are he'll be teasing the upcoming Peg-leg Wilson storyline and the Pigs in Space one-shot we've been hearing about.


A Whole Lot of Muppets
In honor of Sesame Street's approaching 40th anniversary, NationalPost.com posted an amazing drawing of 101 Muppets who have appeared on the show over the four decades. Rolling over each character pops up a tidbit of information... and the source cited is none other than Muppet Wiki! But how many can you name without rolling over? I'll confess I didn't recognize Poco Loco or Jamie Fox...


Lady Gaga wears Animal
Remember a while back, when photos hit the internet of a fashion show in which all the outfits were made of Muppets? This week, Lady Gaga wore Animal's head as a skirt. In public! Animal's head was unavailable for comment. If you don't know who Lady Gaga is, you are incredibly uncool and out of touch with popular entertainment. (She's a pop singer.)


USB Crunching Elmo
This one was spotted on a website called CraziestGadget, and it is, in fact, the craziest gadget. See, it's Elmo, and he's doing stomach crunches, and you plug him into your computer, and... yeah. I don't understand it either, but that photo made me giggle for an hour.

Click here to join us on the Tough Pigs forum, where we're having lively and devastatingly witty conversations about all this stuff!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

NYC ToughPigs Outing: July 26

Back in the early years, when ToughPigs was still but a babe, Muppet fans were known to gather together in the spirit of brotherhood and fanaticism to discuss things of a Muppety nature whilst (and at the same time) enjoying the niceties that the outdoors has to offer. It's been a while since we've visited that tradition, so grab a frisbee, brownbag your lunch, and let's go island-hopping!

The first ToughPigs Outing of 2009 will be held in New York City on Sunday, July 26 on Governors Island. The Governors Island Ferry is directly to the left of the Staten Island Ferry (which you can reach via the 1, 4, 5, R, and W trains) and leaves Manhattan every hour on the hour (so plan on arriving early so you won't have to wait for the next ride). The ferry is free and only five minutes long.

We'll plan on being on the 11:00am ferry, so we'll meet either in the waiting room or on the boat around 10:30 (if you don't know what we look like, just look for a few blokes wearing Muppet t-shirts). Once on the island, we'll head straight to the Parade Ground, which is a large empty field with a few trees in the middle. We'll make the trees our home base for any latecomers.

Once we've settled, we'll eat some lunch (feel free to bring your own, or if you're feeling generous, bring something Muppety to share, like "Swedish Chef" meatballs, Munchos chips, or French Fried Frog's Legs), toss around the frisbee, fly some kites, play with puppets, and whatever else it is that people do in the outdoors. We encourage you to bring your own toys, puppets, cameras, or whatever else you can think of. To keep things relevant, we'll hold some Muppet trivia games, complete with prizes!

And what ToughPigs Outing would be complete without a visit from a Muppet Show guest star? Judy Collins will be joining us... kinda. She'll be performing a free concert on Gov's Island, and I'm sure once she finds out that we're all there, she'll put down her guitar and toss the frisbee around with us for a while. Judy's concert starts at 2:30 at Colonel's Row.

Even if you just want to stop by and say hi for a little and then ditch us, there's plenty to do on Governors Island. There's lot of pathways for exploring, bike rentals, kayaking, mini-golf, historical tours, and much more.

If you're in the New York area and are thinking about coming, drop by the ToughPigs forum or send me an e-mail. I'll send out an e-mail reminder as it gets a little closer to the 26th, and I'll keep you informed in case there are any weather issues. General questions (and answers) will be posted on the forum.

This event should be a blast! I'm looking forward to meeting a lot of our readers, and I hope you're not sorely disillusioned after meeting the faces behind ToughPigs.
Click here to chat about this upcoming event on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Yes, But Is It Cultural?

Back in May, MacFarland Publishing released Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives of Jim Henson’s Muppets, an academic anthology using the Muppets as the stock in their smartypants soup. Some of the essays relate directly to the Muppets (for example, “Gonzo, (the Great) Cultural Critic”, which analyzes and compares the methods of Gonzo and Sam the Eagle), while some use the Muppets as a gateway into a larger issue (for example, “The Uniquely Strong but Feminine Miss Piggy”, which studies Piggy as a non-stereotypical woman). In any case, this is the kind of book that seems to be written specifically for us: the Muppet fanatics who have nothing better to do than overanalyze the films and episodes we’ve seen dozens upon dozens of times.

I must admit, when I first heard about this book, I (selfishly) wondered why we at ToughPigs weren’t contacted to contribute. I mean, we write about Muppets every day. Wouldn’t we have a unique perspective, not to mention an overabundance of research materials, to crank out an essay or two? But two pages into reading the first article gave me my answer: I am not nearly smart enough to write an academic essay. These 16 writers do have the chops, which do a great job at covering both the Muppets as well as the issue at hand.

One blatantly absent part of most of the writers’ research was one for which they can’t be blamed. Aside from the readily-available films, they mainly focused on episodes from the first three seasons of The Muppet Show, which are not-so-coincidentally the only ones out on DVD. A few episodes from the Time-Life releases are cited, but two-thirds of the series is all but ignored (thankfully, the Muppet Wiki serves as a reliable source for most of the essays). There’s nothing we can do but blame Disney for not hurrying up and getting these DVDs out, but this might serve as a glaring omission when re-reading the book after we’re all more familiar with seasons 4 and 5.

Because this is an academic anthology, I expected it to be rather heavy (content-wise, not weight-wise… try saying it like Marty McFly), and it didn’t disappoint in that regard. The fact that this review is coming out over a month after its release might give you some idea of how long it took me to get through it. Some articles dragged on to a painful degree, with an overabundance of five-dollar words and unnecessary elaboration. The worst culprit of this was Hugh Davis, who wrote “The Muppets and Shakespeare.” Now, you’d think that an essay comparing The Muppets and Shakespeare would be fascinating, but instead it reads like a list copied from the Muppet Wiki of Shakespeare references in Muppet productions stretched out to 10 pages. Go ahead and click on the link above to the Wiki's Shakespeare article. And now you’ve read everything Hugh Davis had to say.

On the other hand, some of the articles are rather compelling. “The Muppet Show Re-Forms the Fringe” by Anissa M. Graham (who also served as one of the editors) illustrates the different ways guest stars would interact with the Muppets. Some were in on the chaos, some were victims of the chaos, and some invited the Muppets into their own chaos. It’s an interesting way to categorize the episodes, and Graham did a fine job at keeping it interesting. Likewise, Ginger Stelle’s “Starring Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit: Muppets as Actors” discusses the idea that the Muppets are actors unto themselves, as opposed to puppets who can become anyone the puppeteer chooses. Both of these subjects are exactly the kind of thing I (and presumably, my fellow fanatics) would obsess over after a few too many viewings of the Alice Cooper episode.

Eagle-eyed ToughPigs readers might recognize one of the authors as being our own Andrew Leal. Andrew has guest-written for ToughPigs, and he serves as an administrator on the Muppet Wiki. Of course, since I know Andrew personally, I was deeply afraid that it might not be good, and because we’ve got a reputation for being jerks, I’d have to be honest and say so. Thankfully, Andrew’s article, “Muppets and Money” (which serves as the caboose to the anthology train), is one of the highlights of the book. He took a subject that could very well have been another list of facts about the Muppets’ history with economics and turned it into a quasi-narrative about how Jim funded his career, as well as money’s role in the fictional universe of The Muppets. Nice work, Andrew, and we’re happy to have you on our team!

At the $35 asking price for "Kermit Culture", I’m hesitant to recommend it, because I’d say only about 50% is worth the price of admission. For the uber-fan like myself, it’s a must-read. For the casual fan, it’s your call. For the casual fan who happens to be a college professor who might use the book as a textbook, you should have ordered yours yesterday. The bottom line is: Nothing pleases me more than the fact that an academic anthology all about the Muppets exists.
Click here to visit McFarland Publishing's website where you can order Kermit Culture.

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joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

ToughPigs Art: Katie Cook!

Every so often, we're lucky enough to stumble upon a talented artist with a good deal of Muppet illustrations in her portfolio. And sometimes we're even luckier because she agrees to let us showcase her work here on ToughPigs.

We're pleased to present artist Katie Cook, who has a lot of geeky illustrations on her website including Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC and Marvel superheroes, and more.

First up is a group of trading card-style pictures of all your favorite Muppet Show characters (and Gonzo in that weird jumpsuit the Palisades folks put him in). The second pic is Kermit and Piggy dressed as DC Comics' Green Arrow and Black Canary. Or if you don't know who they are, feel free to pretend they're Robin Hood and a hooker.

Next up is Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem and the Riverbottom Nightmare Band. Can you imagine the two of them at a Battle of the Bands? My eardrums are already vibrating.

Lastly, we've got a quintet of Fraggle Rock illustrations. Now that we know Fraggle comics are on their way, I hope the folks at Archaia Comics are paying attention!

UPDATE: Looks like one more image slipped past my radar. Here's a sketch Katie did with a helmet wrapped in a bow (and, y'know, Gonzo and Camilla or whatever).
Special thanks to Katie Cook for being supertalented and superawesome!

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joe.toughpigs@gmail.com