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

The Mystery of the O-Sleeve: Results!

A few weeks ago, I called upon you to submit your own redesign to the upcoming Letters to Santa DVD, which will sport the mysterious and captivating O-Sleeve. Much to my surprise, a few of you actually sent pictures in! Well done, few-of-you!

Let's take a looksee at what ToughPigs readers think of Letters to Santa and that pesky O-Sleeve.

Scott H.

Phil

Rob Z.

Ryan R.

Eli C.

Joe H.

Anthony S.

Allison

Special thanks to everyone who submitted a picture! You guys are all aces in my book.

Click here to discuss Stephen King's level of talent on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Guest Review: Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas

The following review was written by Tough Pigs' close, personal friend Peter Papazoglou. Here, Peter shares his thoughts on the Jim Henson Company's live stage musical version of Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas, which completed its run at the Goodspeed Opera House in Haddon, Connecticut on January 4. Take it away, Peter!

I have a confession to make. Until a couple of hours ago, I had never seen Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas. Worse yet, it’s not for lack of opportunity; I’ve had in my possession for over three years now not only the HIT! Entertainment-released DVD (gifted to me by my then-girlfriend, now-fiancé, and sometime-Tough Pigs contributor Leah) but also a copy of the much sought after original cut of the 1977 HBO special.

When I shared my secret with Tough Pigs’ own Joe and Ryan last month, they were, of course, shocked. After all, in certain Muppet fan circles, this surely amounted to nothing less than blasphemy. But luckily for me, they had a touch of the Christmas spirit about them, and rather than run me out of Riverbottom, they took their seats beside me as I was introduced to Russell and Lillian Hoban’s story in a brand new way - on stage.

And having finally seen the television special, I can confirm that Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, the new musical produced by the Goodspeed Opera House in association with the Jim Henson Company, adeptly and (for the most part) faithfully adapts its source material.

The story, for those of you fellow cretins unfamiliar with it, tells of Emmet Otter and his ma, Alice, two of the poorest residents of rural Frogtown Hollow, where bartering is common practice and even fifty cents can make a difference. Since the death of Pa Otter, the two have barely managed to sustain themselves with odd jobs and a laundry service. But just as they resign themselves to another year without gifts beneath the Christmas branch, word comes out of nearby and newly electrified Waterville that Doc Bullfrog is hosting a talent contest with a first prize of fifty dollars cash.

In a plot twist that borrows from O. Henry’s short story, “The Gift of the Magi,” Alice and Emmet, both inspired by Pa Otter’s legacy of foolhardiness, decide to enter the contest so they can afford a treasured gift for the other - for him, a guitar with mother of pearl inlays; for her, a down payment on a used piano. But when Alice hocks Emmet’s tool chest to buy fabric for a dress to perform in and Emmet puts a hole in Alice’s only washtub to fashion a makeshift bass for his jug band, they put their only sources of income at risk. So when the Riverbottom Nightmare Band, a devilish but talented rock quintet (whose incongruous style foreshadows the juxtaposition of the funky Electric Mayhem with the vaudevillian setting of The Muppet Show) wins the contest, Emmet and Alice are left to put a brave face on their impending destitution.

This being a Christmas story, all ends well for the Otters when Jane, who had previously sacrificed her place in the talent contest roster to Alice, who had showed up moments too late to register, realizes that the songs performed by Alice (“Our World”) and Emmet’s Frogtown Jubilee Jug Band (“Brothers”) could be performed in counterpoint as “Brothers in Our World,” just in time to convince Doc Bullfrog to hire the newly formed quintet to perform nightly at the Riverside Rest.

What’s that? You don’t remember Jane? Oh, come on. Jane. You know...little girl? About eleven, maybe twelve. Short. Brown hair. Human?

That’s right. Human.

I guess I forgot to mention Jane. You see, it’s Christmas in Jane’s world, too - the first since her mother’s passing - and she’s pushing her father, Russ, away. What has this got to do with Emmet Otter, you ask? Well, it was (conveniently, of course) her favorite book when she was a child, one that her mother had read to her and left a heartfelt inscription in. So when her father suggests he read it to her, she grudgingly concedes.

And before you can say deus ex machina, Jane is magically transported to Frogtown Hollow, where nobody seems to notice that she’s the only one around without her species as a last name. So, quite naturally, she sings a song, solves a plot complication that wouldn’t have existed if she had never showed up in the first place, saves the day, and then - get this! - wakes up.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in a plot line lifted straight from a short story I wrote when I was eight years old, in which Alice (of Wonderland fame) fell into the wrong rabbit hole and ended up in Sherwood Forest instead, our heroine wakes up at the end of the story to discover that the whole thing was just a dream; she had never been to Frogtown Hollow at all. What a cop-out.

I want to be clear. What bothers me about Jane is not that Timothy A. McDonald and Christopher Gatelli, who adapted the work for the stage, felt that the story needed a framing device. After all, the original special was bookended by scenes featuring Kermit the Frog, who could obviously not be reused here due to copyright issues. It’s that the playwrights don’t trust their material.

Because the rest Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is wonderful and remarkably complex. Like all good Christmas stories, it weaves together themes of commercialism, charity, and sacrifice. But unlike so many stories written for today’s children, its protagonists are passionate and reckless, sympathetic but tart. Its lessons are far from simple; the villains, after all, walk away with first prize. And its grief is real. Emmet and Alice don’t miss Pa in some abstract way; they reminisce about him and obsess about him. They blame him for their predicament and look to him for a way out. Nothing about Emmet Otter is simple, so it’s a testament to the strength of the source material that the play shines in spite of the framing device, which is at best an unnecessary way to give children a way into the story.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the production is beautifully designed.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas uses a costume-based approach for the majority of the main characters, who wear full-body outfits that only expose the actors’ make-up laden faces. The costumes, impeccably designed by Gregg Barnes (Fred Lizard, Harrison Fox, and Wendell Porcupine are favorites), achieve the aesthetic of the original puppets while also allowing the actors the physical versatility to perform their roles. The only snag, and it’s a minor one, is that the furry, mittened hands are distracting, pushing the costumes just a bit in the direction of the theme park variety.

More minor characters like Doc Bullfrog, Yancey Woodchuck, and Old Lady Possum are performed as bunraku-style puppets, with their performers either hidden among the scenery or dressed in black against a black background. Doc Bullfrog, in particular, is meticulously recreated and expertly performed by Tyler Bunch. And Yancey Woodchuck is built so that his puppeteer, the talented David Stephens, can effortlessly change from rod-operated hands to live ones to play the banjo on “Barbeque” at the talent show.

The remaining characters are performed as hand puppets based on the original Muppet creations. These include Howard Snake, who is seamlessly handed off from one onstage character to the next; Catfish, who spews water in other characters’ faces after appearing in the most unexpected of locations; George and Melissa Rabbit, and a quartet of gibberish-speaking squirrels who steal the show in their quest to grow a Christmas tree from scratch overnight. Even woodland creatures that appear only momentarily in the television special have been faithfully recreated for the stage: the ducks on the river in “The One Bathing Suit,” the egret at the end of “Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub,” and the owl at the end of “When the River Meets the Sea,” to name a few.

It is of note that while the majority of the puppets were recreated for this production at a larger size, so as to be more easily viewed by the audience, the puppets of Alice and Emmet that bookend the production are, in fact, the refurbished puppets from the original production.

The sets by Anna Louizos are versatile and make adept and surprising use of the small stage, most impressively conveying the illusion of Alice and Emmet rowing along the river on their way to and from Waterville. And the lighting by Brian MacDevitt effectively conveys the woodland mood while also carefully obscuring the puppeteers as necessary, particularly in the talent show climax in the second act.

As with recent adaptations of children’s films, the book and score for Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas has been expanded in order to fill the longer running time required of a stage musical. Composer/lyricist Paul Williams does an admirable job of matching the style of his new musical numbers to the ones ported over from the original score. And the revisions to the book do quite a bit to flesh out the history of Alice and Pa Otter, explaining, for example, the significance of Emmet’s wanting to give his mother a piano for Christmas. The additional material also serves to more fully develop the residents of Waterville and Riverbottom. And while the television special is remarkably efficient in its exposition, the pacing in the musical is definitely an improvement over the original, which now feels a little rushed by comparison.

Although there is some consolidation of minor characters (Yancey Woodchuck, for example, serves as the fruit stand owner in the stage version; and Will Possum’s role has been greatly reduced, split between Yancey and Old Lady Possum), only Shirley and Nat Muskrat (and their act, Carrots the Dancing Horse) appear to have been cut entirely. Most minor roles have been expanded, especially musically. Harrison Fox, performs the bouncy new song “Waterville” ; his jealous wife, Gretchen, attempts to sabotage the talent show with an incognito aria; and the heretofore unnamed Mrs. Mink gets two musical numbers - the brand new “At the Music Store,” the most lackluster and, frankly, unnecessary of the additional songs (which was also hindered by unfortunate staging that caused her to be constantly upstaged by the set), and the delightfully burlesque “Born in a Trunk,” which was written and recorded for but ultimately cut from the original special. Even Jane gets to sing with the scene-stealing squirrels, and “Trust” is one of those moments where you almost forget that she doesn’t belong in the story in the first place.

Aside from Jane and Russ, two brand new characters round out the cast. The first, Madame Squirrel, now leads the formerly haphazard acrobatic squirrels. The more notable addition, however, is the ghost Pa Otter, who appears to sing the lovely ballad, “Alice, Keep Dreaming,” when his widow has been disqualified from competing in the talent contest and is at her lowest. Tony Award nominee Alan Campbell, who appropriately doubles as Russ, captures Pa’s mischievous and compassionate spirit in his subtle, understated performance.

The rest of the cast is similarly talented, bringing vitality to roles that could easily suffer under the weight of their costumes or become mere caricatures. It is, unfortunately, the younger characters who have the most trouble. Instead of seeming like children, Daniel Reichard as Emmet, Jeff Hiller as Charlie Muskrat, and Daniel Torres as Harvey Beaver, all seem a little older, at least in part because of their height. And in trying to play the correct age, they sometimes come off as slower than they ought to be.

Out of the Frogtown Jubilee Jug Band, only the intentionally dimwitted Wendell Porcupine is spared this fate, in part because performer Robb Sapp so fully captures the character and voice created by Dave Goelz. Still, they all do admirable jobs, and their performances, especially Reichard’s, ring emotionally true if a little physically and vocally awkward.

And finally, even though it is, by definition, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, the show at the Goodspeed Opera House belonged to understudy Lisa Howard as Alice Otter, a role usually played by Cass Morgan (Howard usually performs Gretchen Fox). If Reichard’s Emmet runs a bit on the older side, Howard’s Alice is a more youthful creation than Frank Oz and Marilyn Sokol’s original, artfully melding the character’s maturity with an impish playfulness on display in numbers like “Ain’t No Hole in the Washtub.” Howard inhabits the role completely and is especially heartbreaking in “When the River Meets the Sea” (arguably the best song in Paul William’s score), in which she sings, in her lilting soprano, of birth fulfilling itself in death, invoking the truest meaning of Christmas.:

Like a baby when it is sleeping
In its loving mother's arms
What a newborn baby dreams is a mystery
But his life will find a purpose
And in time he'll understand
When the river meets the sea

Word on the street is that Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas may return as a perennial Christmas performance, with the hope of expanding nationally. If the production at the Goodspeed Opera House is any indication, it’s poised to be a classic. Let’s just hope its creators trust the story of Emmet and Alice Otter to tell itself, unencumbered by the modern trappings that threatened to drag down the first incarnation of this beautiful tale.

Our thanks to Peter for his review. Click here to discuss the Emmet Otter musical on the Tough Pigs forum!

Better to Have Gifts Than Receipts

Over the years, there have been way too many Muppet Christmas specials, and they all do their best to teach us what the holiday is all about. But we already know what the holiday is all about: presents.

I got to thinking... Of all the Christmas presents exchanged in all the Muppet Christmas productions, which are the good ones and which ones should have stayed under the tree? (All of these specials are look-up-able on Muppet Wiki.)

The production: A Muppet Family Christmas

The gift: Kermit gets Miss Piggy a mink

Piggy is initially excited when Kermit announces that he got her a mink for Christmas, less excited when the mink turns out to be a living, talking specimen, then thrilled when Maureen Mink turns out to be Piggy's biggest fan.

I remember seeing the first airing of the special on TV, and thinking, Cool, a new character! I guess she'll be part of the Muppet gang now! Of course, we've never seen Maureen again, so I can only assume Piggy either returned her for store credit, or... well, I won't say any more lest I get Piggy in trouble with PETA.

Score: 7.5/10

Kermit probably spent a lot of money on Maureen... but what do minks eat?

The production: "The Bells of Fraggle Rock" episode of Fraggle Rock

The gift: Doc and Sprocket get mittens and dog biscuits, respectively, inside a piñata from Doc's coworker Señor Gomez

While Gobo is busy learning about faith and causing his friends to freeze to death, Doc and Sprocket get a subplot in which Doc tells Sprocket about winter holidays from around the world. So Señor Gomez's piñata is a fine gift, both educational and fun. Too bad nobody wants mittens for Christmas.

Score: 5.5/10

The production: The Christmas Toy

The gift: Jamie's parents or possibly Santa (I'm not sure it's made clear which) give Jamie a Meteora action figure

What is up with Meteora? Supposedly Jamie really wants this toy, but come on. She looks like a dominatrix. Did Jamie ask for a dominatrix for Christmas? And Meteora's all about, like, attacking people and taking over the planet. The same little girl who was thrilled to get an adorable stuffed tiger last year now wants an unattractive, warmongering spacewoman with a serious frizz problem? At the end of the special, Jamie kisses Meteora and tells her she loves her, but it seems highly unlikely to me.

Score: 2/10

The production: Elmo's World: Happy Holidays
The gift: Elmo gives Dorothy a drawing he made

Elmo spends this entire special trying to think of a good present for Dorothy, but gifts such as a new sweater, a bottle of wine, or a puppy are just not appropriate for a fish. On a suggestion from a fat guy in a red suit, he uses his imagination and comes up with an original work of art called "Dorothy's World," which depicts Elmo inside Dorothy's fishbowl. (Presumably in Dorothy's World Elmo has gills.)

Score: 4/10
This is a last-minute gift that looks like something scribbled by a three-year-old. I'm only scoring it this high because Elmo trekked all the way to North Pole and sat through a boring song about the Christmas spirit in order to get Santa's advice.


The production: A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa
The gift: The Muppets' neighbor Claire asks Santa for, and receives, Christmas with the Muppets

Santa grants a few different wishes in the new Muppet Christmas special from this year: Nathan Lane gets a tricycle, which, sadly, we don't get to see him ride. Pepe gets an opera voice, which should really come in handy when they get around to making The Muppets' Gotterdammerung. Claire's letter to Santa, the plot device that drives the whole special, is simply to spend Christmas with all her Muppety friends.

Score: 8.5/10
Claire lives in the same building as the Muppets, so she gets to see them every day anyway. So I was going to rate this one pretty low... but then I got to thinking, How great a present would it be to have the Muppets come to your house on Christmas Eve? It would blow 1987's ThunderCats Cat's Lair playset out of the water, that's for sure.


The production: A Special Sesame Street Christmas
The gift: Big Bird gives Leslie Uggams a hat that everyone hates

This is the little-seen Sesame Christmas special (Danny wrote about it on this site a while back) in which Leslie Uggams is inexplicably hanging out on Sesame Street on Christmas. The humans all chip in to buy her a present, and they entrust Big Bird to pick it out, which is a pretty terrible idea. Was he established as being six years old back then? I wouldn't want a six-year-old picking out my present. Anyway, Leslie doesn't even pretend to like the hat, but she turns it into a cue for an inspiring song about really crappy Christmas presents.

Score: 1/10


The production: Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas
The gift: Emmet attempts to give his Ma a piano, while she attempts to give him a guitar

You know the story. The otters have noble gift-giving intentions, but each of them sacrifices the other's prized possession, then they both lose the talent contest, so they don't make any money, so they can't buy any presents so they did it all for nothing. But they still have each other... and then there is that happy ending. Hmm.

Score: I can't decide. What do you think?


The production: The Great Santa Claus Switch
The gift: Santa Claus gives Thog and Thig a toy truck and a teddy bear, respectively.

In this very first Muppet Christmas special, the guy who played Ed Norton on The Honeymooners teaches two naked, monstrous beasts that Christmas is all about giving toys away without expecting anything in return. Rumor has it that Thig was so touched by this lesson that he quit the Muppets and became the head of the Salvation Army.

Score: 7/10


The production: A Muppet Family Christmas
The gift: Robin gives Grover a Fraggle pebble

A tiny rock is just about the cheapest, most worthless gift you could ever give... but when it's changing hands between the two cutest Muppets in the world in a gesture of selflessness, it seems a lot better than one of those XBox 3whatchamacallits. Besides, Grover seems genuinely touched to receive it, and he's not one to fake sincerity. This gifting also happens to connect three different Muppet worlds, which is the point of the whole special.

Score: 10/10
The best part of the Fraggle pebble is that Grover can pawn it off on the first monster, rat, or chicken he sees, and rather than seeming ungrateful, he's just following the tradition!


The production: Christmas Eve on Sesame Street
The gift: Mr. Hooper returns Bert's paper clip collection and Ernie's rubber duckie to their rightful owners

If only they used money on Sesame Street, this story never would have happened. Bert trades Mr. Hooper his paper clips for a soapdish for Rubber Duckie, and Ernie trades Mr. Hooper Rubber Duckie for a cigar box for Bert's paper clips. Then Mr. Hooper gives everything back, which means he gets absolutely nothing from the whole deal except the satisfaction of selflessness, which, of course, is the true meaning of blah blah blah.

Of course, it's not like he would have had much need for a used rubber duckie anyway. The really important thing here, though, is this: Is this the only time a grown-up human was ever seen in Bert and Ernie's apartment? He looks very tall.

Score: 9/10

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you get presents that don't suck!

Do you agree with my assessments? Disagree? Which ones did I leave out? Click here to talk about this article on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Reviews to Santa

Missed the special? It's available online here until December 31!

This week, the Muppets did something we haven’t seen them do in about three and a half years: they made a new TV movie. And SPOILER ALERT: It’s pretty dang good.

In A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa (sometimes incorrectly, yet better-sounding, “A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa”), Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Pepe and Rizzo embark on an international voyage northward to deliver mail to an old man who has some shipments to deliver himself. And someone might or might not learn the true meaning of Christmas.

The story was pitched by Paul Williams, who you should know as the writer of the Carpenters hit song, "We've Only Just Begun," and as Virgil from Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Oh, and he wrote the music from The Muppet Movie and Muppet Christmas Carol and appeared in the Paul Williams episode of The Muppet Show. I know, I just blew your mind.

Having grown up in a Jewish household, I never paid much attention to Christmas specials. Only in the past few years have I bothered with the non-Muppet ones, and really appreciated the Frog-centric ones on the same level as any other fanatic. So it’s with thought in mind that I say this: This movie had too much Christmas.

What I mean by that is that Christmas movies tend to come with a certain level of schmaltz, and a story about delivering a little girl’s letter to Santa Claus is chock full of it. But what saved us all from ODing on schmaltziness was the Muppets’ new writing team of Hugh Fink, Scott Ganz, and Andrew Samson. Their combined knowledge of Muppet history and their ability to write a successful prime-time special turned this movie from a potential schmaltzfest into a wonderful movie that’s both great for the family and fun for nostalgia buffs.

Despite the schmaltzitude, Paul Williams did come up with a fun story to toss some Muppets into. He also wrote four new songs for the special. The first, “Delivering Christmas,” was the absolute best. It was maybe even the best Muppet song since the Muppet Christmas Carol soundtrack. That also might be due to the myriad of Muppets and choreography going on in the background of the song. Next was “What’s in Your Heart,” which was nice, though not the most memorable song I’ve ever heard (I’m trying hard to hum it right now, and it just ain’t happening). The next song, “I Wish I Was Santa Claus,” was the clinker for the special. I found it hard to believe that Paul Williams wrote it, as the lyrics were eye-rolling and the tune made me want to use the song’s 45 seconds to run to the bathroom. Though it did give us (as far as I know) Gonzo and Fozzie’s first duet, which is nothing to be ashamed of. The final song, “My Best Christmas Yet,” picked the pace up again and sounded like a song on the Muppets' repertoire for years. Whether Paul’s music was a success or not, he made it up to us by appearing as an elf, which is the most appropriate casting in the history of motion pictures.

Letters to Santa brought the Muppets back to A-list (or at least close to it) celebrity cameos. Uma Thurman was utterly adorable as Joy the ticket agent. Nathan Lane stole the spotlight as TSA Agent Officer Meany. Those two guys from the Sopranos reprised their roles as Ernie and Bert from Elmo’s Christmas Countdown. Jesse L. Martin did a song and dance, just like he does on Law and Order. Petra Nemcova has a name that’s hard to pronounce. Whoopi Goldberg portrayed God, taking human form and judging mankind in the guise of Alex Reiger. Michael Bloomberg ran for a third term. But the star of the cameo show was Jane Krakowski, whose every smirk was hilarious, and not to mention realistic for someone who shares a brownstone with a bunch of weirdos.

The terrific Muppety moments were a-plenty. The stamps on the intro. The Muppet employees of the post office. The Great Muppet Caper-esque “delivery” to the apartment. Fozzie being funny instead of pathetic. Sam’s PSA for the USPS. Beaker’s wish (and her speech impediment). Bunsen’s latent jealousy. The Swedish fish head pizza. The Electric Mayhem’s voices (especially Zoot’s trailing off). The two names being paged at the airport. Where Gonzo stores his trumpet when he travels. Bear-on-bear violence. A worse way to travel than like your luggage. A turkey serving a turkey. Lew Zealand’s Christmas present.

Of course, nothing is perfect. Some moments left me a little flat. For example: Gonzo not acting like Gonzo. He was surprisingly melancholy and muted, only breaking out to have fun in the mail sorter, in the x-ray machine, and possibly while jumping off the plane. Also, Rizzo was given very little to do, considering he had just as much screen time as the other leads (I’m ok with Piggy’s lack of screen time, as we shouldn’t be forcing her into the main story just because we can). I thought David Rudman did a fine Scooter voice, but he’s got to work on that “Scooter Fist.” The scene with the pigeons was completely forgettable (and I’ll bet it took you a few seconds to remember what I’m talking about). Everyone’s favorite Muppet, Animal, was given a total of one joke, which is more surprising than upsetting. But these are all minor complaints, and I’m sure Messrs. Fink, Ganz, and Samson are hanging on my every word and will write the next Muppet movie specifically to my personal tastes.

Despite my complaints (because we really do like to complain ‘round these parts), I thought Letters to Santa was a great success. The Muppets sounded and acted like Muppets. There was comedy and heart. And there were times when it really felt like it could have been from the era of the original Muppet movies. The Muppets very well might be moving into a new age for a new audience, and we’re off to a great start with a genuinely good movie.

But I do have one last nitpick. The plot revolves around a little girl’s wish to spend Christmas with her friends, the Muppets. But she lives in an apartment building with all of them for the other 364 days of the year. Greedy much???
Click here to share your thoughts on Letters to Santa on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Reminder: Letters to Santa

We have no doubt that you've set a myriad of alarms to remind you about the new TV movie starring the Muppets coming up this Wednesday. But in case you haven't...

Letters to Santa premieres on NBC this Wednesday, December 17, at 8pm EST!

I hope that was bold enough for you. In the meantime, here's a couple ways to get yourself primed for such a momentous event:

-Click here to add the event to your Facebook page, courtesy of writers Andrew Samson and Scott Ganz.

-Click here to read a recent interview with all three writers, Andrew, Scott, and Hugh Fink at our "rival" fan site, Muppet Central.

-Click here to watch some teaser videos.

-Come back here to ToughPigs on the day after the special for our review of Letters to Santa.
Click here to get into the Christmas spirit on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Vids for the Masses

Wow, it really looks like this YouTube thing is taking off! People really seem to like watching things move on their computer screens. And who can blame them? I've been watching things move in real life for years now.

The Muppets have been tossing videos online a lot recently, and we don't want any of you folks to miss out on the good ones. Which is all of them. So get your popping corn ready, because it's Movie Sign!

First up is an official (read: not fan-made) music video to promote Letters to Santa, featuring clips and outtakes from the movie. Be cautious, as spoilers abound.


Next is the furry, the funny, the fabulous Fozzie Bear, along with Bobby Flay, demonstrating how one might go about building their own Whatnot. After the show, Bobby Flay served his Whatnot with a light raspberry creme sauce and braised asparagus on the side.


Live from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, here's Kermit singing the brand new song, "I Believe". This is not to be confused with the opening lyrics of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All".


Here's a backstage view of the brand spankin' new Emmet Otter musical. Click here and scroll down a tad for the vid. It's times like these when I wish I knew anything about embedding videos in HTML. Sorry folks.

Kermit and Piggy made it to the lighting of the giant mutant tree at Rockefeller Center. Here they are introducing the very talented, and very off-screen, Harry Connick Jr.


Lastly, here's four teaser videos from NBC.com for Letters to Santa. Put your spoiler goggles on, as we've entered the SPOILER ZONE! Someone wake Kenny Loggins up.




We now return you to your regularly scheduled ToughPigs blog, now more motionless and static than ever before!

Click here to view video responses on the ToughPigs forum! Or, y'know, regular ones.

Bonus: Click here to see a fun Muppet comic strip from PvPonline.com!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Two Exciting New DVDs, and the Reasons to Complain About Them

On Tuesday, November 4th, two Jim Henson Company DVD releases went on sale: the Fraggle Rock Complete Series Collection and The Christmas Toy, which is on DVD for the first time.

The Fraggle Rock set's release means that all 96 episodes of the series are now available, from Beginnings to Change of Address, with lots of songs and fun and life lessons and Doozers in between.

But here's the thing: If you're like me (and who isn't?), you already bought the first, second and third seasons on DVD as they came out individually. Those are some beautiful collections, with the episodes looking great and a ton of lovely and informative extras, and they were well worth the $40 or so I paid for each one. But as of now, there are no plans to release a fourth season DVD set. So if you want every episode, you have to buy the first three seasons all over again. The list price is $139.98.

Basically, Henson and HIT Entertainment are saying, "Hey there, loyal fans! Thanks a lot for buying those first three seasons on DVD, thus proving that Fraggle Rock is commercially viable. We'd like to reward you by making you pay 140 bucks for three-fourths of a series you already own! We sincerely hope you have lots of fun giving us more of your money!"

Now, it's possible they'll release a season four set in the future, and when they do, I'll stop complaining. But for now I'm going to sit here and kvetch. Oh, and the other thing -- when they first announced the complete series set, the special features touted included a new short starring Red Fraggle, which was pretty exciting news for the fans. But don't look too hard on your DVDs for this extra, 'cause it's not there. Apparently they made the announcement before the short was actually filmed, and whoops, they ran out of time to make it.

Wasn't there a Fraggle episode where Mokey learned why you should never make promises you can't keep? Maybe the Henson people should have watched that one.

As for The Christmas Toy: It's a classic, and I haven't seen it in years, so I'm pretty happy that I'll be able to own it. But that doesn't mean I couldn't be happier.

As soon as we heard that the Jim Henson Company was releasing this special on DVD, we expected that Kermit would be edited out, and sure enough, the frog is nowhere to be seen. I happen to think the whole "Henson can't release any DVDs with Kermit because he's owned by Disney now" thing is really, really stupid. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm willing to accept the possibility that it's easier legally to just leave him out. But if Fox could release Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium on DVD with Kermit's very brief cameo intact, why can't Henson keep Kermit in a special they've owned the rights to since 1986?

But that's not all! According to this review from DVD Talk, the new disc includes no special features, and no menus. No menus! Can you believe that? I mean, it's not like I love and cherish DVD menus. Usually I don't even pay much attention to them. It's just that their absence makes it seem like Henson and HIT didn't even try. To not bother with menus indicates that they didn't put any more effort into this release than any number of those no-name companies that produce the DVDs littering the dollar bins, with names like Murder Explosion and The Man With the Ugly Hat. The Christmas Toy is such a good TV special; it really deserves more.

Maybe I'm sounding ungrateful, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. Come on, guys. We've been good fans and loyal DVD-buying customers. Can't you try just a little bit harder?

Click here to complain about cool DVDs on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

My Day on a Muppet Movie Set: Part 2

Has everyone read Joe Hennes' article from September 9th, in which he told the story of visiting the set of the new Muppet TV special Letters to Santa? (If you haven't, you should click on this link right here and read it.) In Joe's article he mentioned that he was invited by some of the Muppet people to come back for day of studio shooting. He recently took them up on that offer, and this time I got to come too.

I met Joe at the studio in the early afternoon. As we entered the stage, Joe said, "Nathan Lane is here," and yeah, actually, there he was. He's playing an airport security official in the special, which will also include appearances by Uma Thurman, Jane Krakowski, Jesse L. Martin, Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa from The Sopranos, Richard Griffiths, Disney Channel star Madison Pettis, and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. But with all those celebrities, is there any space in the special left for Muppets?

As a matter of fact, there is space, which is good, because the first scene I saw them shoot featured Bobo, and the Bobo puppet is frigging enormous. He's so bulky that when Bill Barretta performs him, he has to wear a harness kinda thing to keep Bobo steady. One take ended abruptly with Bobo toppling over, which cracked up everyone in the room, including Nathan Lane. Lane found Bobo pretty hilarious in general, and he struggled to get through a few takes without laughing. Hearing Bobo speak inspired several people in the room to do their own Bobo impressions, which makes me wonder if the annual informal holiday Talk Like a Pirate Day should be replaced by Talk Like Bobo Day.

Between takes, Joe introduced me to director Kirk Thatcher, who told us that Letters to Santa was greenlit and put into production quite suddenly. The whole shoot, in fact, will total only 15 days, which is less time than I take between trips to the laundromat.

After the scene was finished, I met and chatted with Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, and Noel MacNeal. Here's the thing about real live Muppet people: They're impossibly friendly, and they're almost as interested in the Muppet fan community as we are in them. Several of them commented on the recent New York Times article about Disney's big plans for the Muppets, which they described as "mostly accurate." They did not, however, comment on the difficulty of the Sudoku in that issue of the Times.

After the scene was finished, it was time for the cast and crew's favorite part of the day: lunch break! Joe and I talked some more with Steve and Kirk, as well as Bill Barretta. Among other things, they mentioned that Frank Oz had briefly dropped by the set last week to say hello. Apparently he's a bit of a Muppet fan himself.

One thing that came up over and over again throughout the day was a feeling of optimism among everyone involved. All the puppeteers believe Letters to Santa is a genuinely good Muppet production in the spirit of the classic stuff. Dave Goelz described it as the best thing they've done since Muppet Treasure Island, with "the perfect mix of lunacy and heart." I think every single puppeteer we talked to used the word "heart" in their assessment of the new special. This thing is lousy with heart. Which is great news for all the fans, unless maybe there's a faction of fans who've always felt the Muppets would be better if they were really mean.


During the break, we also got to talk to Andrew Samson and Scott Ganz, two of the writers on the project (along with Hugh Fink, who wasn't there that day). They have a lot of ideas for the Muppets, and I really got the impression that they're One of Us. Or Two of Us, or whatever. They're a couple of guys who grew up watching and loving The Muppet Show and the movies, and they want to see the characters get back to doing the kind of material they did in their heyday. Also notable: Scott's wife Brooke ran the "Sesame Seventies" fan website a few years ago, which was a fun and groovy celebration of Sesame Street's crazy disco records.

Soon it was time to start shooting again, and it was more airport stuff. One thing that struck me as the day went on was the fact that, although we only saw a tiny portion of the production, every single shot we saw them do had a joke in it, and all the jokes were funny. Unless we just happened to see the only funny scenes in the entire special, that bodes well. And as Joe pointed out, the performances seemed to get funnier with every take. If that's always the case, how do they know when to stop?

Another thing I noticed: Muppet performing is hard work. The scenes we saw them shoot had several human extras, but the sets were not "built up" to allow the puppeteers to perform standing up, so they had to sit and kneel and crouch and contort and roll around on wheely things (which probably have a real name other than "wheely things"). And while we tend to take for granted that a Muppet can do anything a human can do, the mere act of Rizzo putting his coat in an airport security bin required several attempts to get right.

Of course, it would have been easier to just cut the Rizzo coat-placing. I'm sure it's not crucial to the plot, but they kept doing it until it worked. I know this is going to sound cheesy, so maybe you want to skip this paragraph, but somehow it seemed very true to the spirit of the Muppets, and even to Jim Henson's own creative philosophy. From Kermit playing the banjo in an actual swamp in The Muppet Movie to Gonzo driving a lawn mower in Muppets From Space, it's always been about creating a world in which the Muppets are real, living beings. So they did take after take until Rizzo got it right. Man, if it had been a real airport, the people in line behind Rizzo would have been seriously ticked off: Just drop your coat, already! (And by the way, what's this talking rat doing at the airport?)

And after all that trouble with the Rizzo shot? They immediately did it again, with a shot requiring Pepe to hold various objects in each of his four hands, and drop them in the bin one by one. This required Bill Barretta, Matt Vogel and Peter Linz to squeeze in close together so they could each perform a prawn hand or two. I couldn't help but think it's a good thing none of the Muppet performers smell bad. Marty Robinson called that gag "a joke that's easy to write, but hard to do"... but once again, they did it until it worked.

While this stuff was going on, Joe and I got a chance to talk to the aforementioned Marty, Matt, and Peter, and they were all a bunch of jerks. No, of course that's not true at all. Like everyone else, they were as nice as could be and very enthusiastic about the new special. This was also about the time I saw one of the puppet wranglers stapling Kermit's winter shoes together so he could hold them in the next scene. I think it would be amazing, when your friends ask you what you've been doing at work, to be able to say, "Oh, today I stapled Kermit the Frog's shoes together."

To a humble, slack-jawed yokel like myself, the whole process of shooting a big TV project like this is pretty impressive. Great care was taken for every shot to ensure that no puppeteers' hands or heads were seen onscreen. Kirk Thatcher made sure Fozzie carried the same candy cane from shot to shot, for "continudity" purposes. And a few times, Kirk and the writers had to confer on whether or not a particular joke would be allowed in a Muppet special.

Speaking of which, here's an interesting tidbit: Remember Gonzo/The Tin Thing's line "Those are my nipples" in The Muppets' Wizard of Oz? I thought that was pretty darn funny, but I was surprised it made the cut. Well, the story behind that came up during a discussion about what the Muppets can and can't get away with: Dave Goelz thought up the line and jokingly suggested it to Kirk Thatcher, prefacing it by saying, "We'll never actually use this, but it would be funny if Gonzo said..." And then Kirk put it in the movie! And that's the story of Gonzo's nipples.

The next scene we saw was an interaction between Fozzie and Bobo. Have we ever even seen those two talk to each other before? Here you have two of the greatest fictional bears ever (equal to Winnie the Pooh, and miles above Andy Williams' Cookie Bear) and they're both part of the same entertainment franchise, but I really don't remember ever seeing them in the same scene. I predict that once viewers find out about this moment, they'll flock to the special by the billions.

During this scene, Scott Ganz told us that a lot of the last-minute additions to this production were "stolen" directly from the script he and Samson and Fink wrote for the now-canceled election special. Which is reasonable. If you're working on a new Muppet special, and you happen to have a perfectly good, unused Muppet script lying around, you might as well use it, right?

At one point, there was a young kid present on the set... I'm not sure who he belonged to, but he was having a good time. As things were getting set up for one of the last scenes of the day, Bill Barretta brought Pepe over to talk to him, which was pretty great, although I'm not sure the kid had any idea who Pepe was. Pepe asked him about school and his favorite subjects, but he politely rebuffed the kid's attempts to stick a candy bar wrapper in his mouth.

It was also around this time that some glossy photos of the main Muppet cast (not to be confused with The MuppetCast) were making their way around the room. These were being autographed to give away to kids, and each puppeteer actually signed his characters' names on each copy. Of course, they could have easily gotten some intern to do that, but instead they guarantee that those kids get the authentic John Hancocks of Kermit, Bunsen, Animal, et al. And for the record, Eric Jacobson does a lovely Piggy signature.

The last shot of the day required Kermit, Gonzo, Pepe, Rizzo, Fozzie and two penguins, so it was all hands on deck for the puppeteers (For those of you keeping score: Steve was Kermit while Noel was Rizzo, Peter was Fozzie's right hand, and Matt and Marty were the penguins). This was some kind of POV shot, apparently taken from the perspective of another character watching the Muppets from a distance, and there didn't seem to be any specific scripted dialogue.

This allowed the puppeteers to ad lib, and danged if they didn't come up with something different to say for every single take. Once, Gonzo confided to Kermit, "If you run fast enough [through the metal detector], you don't have to take your belt off." Another time, Kermit noted that the security checkpoint is easier to get through when you don't wear clothing.

After a few successful takes of this shot, Kirk Thatcher announced that it was a wrap for the day, and everyone quickly dispersed. Joe and I, amazed that we were allowed to stay so long without being politely kicked out, said our thank-yous and exited to the real world, a world where prawns can't talk and bears rarely wear sweaters.

There's still a lot we don't know about Letters to Santa. And we know even less about the Muppet feature film that's being planned for 2010. But I have to say, I'm feeling more optimistic about the future of the Muppets today than I have in quite a while. The creative people know -- and they know that we know -- that not every production from the last 10 years or so has been a home run. But the enthusiasm on that set was pretty infectious, and while I've been "cautiously optmistic" about most of the recent Muppet productions, this time around I think I'll drop the adverb and just look forward to seeing what my favorite characters are up to this Christmas.

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ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com