5 Hours of 40 Years

I wish all my friends were more like Sesame Street, because Sesame Street has been celebrating its own birthday by giving us a ton of great presents. One of these, which I just finished consuming, is the two-disc DVD set 40 Years of Sunny Days.

Every season of the show is represented with at least one segment on this set, which pretty much guarantees you'll see some stuff you've known all your life, some stuff you've seen a time or two before, and at least one thing you've never seen.

For example, I had never seen the very first appearance of Telly Monster, in his initial incarnation as "the television monster." That's here, and it's almost worth the price of the DVD just to see it. That voice! Those swirling eyes! Boy, Telly's come a long way.

Then there's an appearance from the Fonz, and Bob and Linda performing "Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood" with an elevator operator, and some clips from the Hawaii episodes. (My goodness, but Mr. Hooper was hairy!) Oh, and Batman shows up at some point. It's a pretty comprehensive selection that goes way beyond the obvious.

The disc covering the first 20 seasons is a bit longer than the one covering seasons 21-40, and I'm guessing nobody's going to have a problem with that, as it's the old stuff that most people buying a Sesame retrospective DVD are looking for. So you got your Teeny Little Super Guy and your "Put Down the Duckie," and it all looks really fantastic, but there's plenty of great stuff from recent years, too. Mr. Noodle... Destiny's Child's cover of "I Got a New Way to Walk" with Zoe, Elmo, and Grover... season 40's groovealicious "Dance" iPod commercial parody... and "Can't Say the Alphabet Enough" by Gabi, Maria, and Gina, which I happen to love.

The extras are delightful too. There's a pretty healthy dose of "Behind the Street" footage that shows the cast and crew working on the show, and most of these focus on scenes that are included on the discs. As some folks on the Tough Pigs forum have noted, it seems like few people outside our little world of Muppet geeks would really be interested in a lot of this stuff, but that just proves that the Sesame people know we're out there and they want us to be entertained. (Hi, Sesame people! Thanks for the cool DVDs!)

My one and only fan-geek complaint is that I wish some of the clips were longer. I'm mostly talking about the street scenes... We get a few minutes of Snuffy being revealed to the grown-ups, and Gabriella's birth, and the hurricane, and so on, but it sure would have been nice to see a little bit more. It seems like we get an impression of what the episodes are about, and then it moves on to the next clip just as things are getting good.

My favorite part of the Snuffy story is when Phil Donahue comes in and hugs everyone, but that's not included. My favorite part of the baby Gabriella story is when Oscar sadistically withholds the news of the new baby from everyone, but that's not included either.

But that doesn't prevent this from being a dynamite DVD set. If you don't already have it, I suggest adding it to your Christmas wish list. If you do already have it, I suggest buying it for all your friends and family for Christmas. If they ever watched Sesame Street, chances are they'll dig it, and they'll thank you for getting "Ladybug Picnic" stuck in their heads.



Click here to talk about the 40th anniversary DVD on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Review: Muppet Peter Pan #3

Boom! Kids' Muppet Peter Pan #3 by Grace Randolph and Amy Mebberson flies into comic book stores tomorrow, Wednesday, November 25th, and in a development that should surprise no one, it is a good comic book.

This one picks up right where we left off last issue, with all the characters spread out over Neverswamp. Peter Pan/Kermit introduces John/Scooter and Michael/Bean to the Lost Boys, Captain Gonzo is hunting for Peter, and Wendy/Janice is trying to figure out where the heck she is.

I won't tell you who the Lost Boys are, though you can probably guess by now. I've been wondering how writer Grace Randolph would choose to depict the Indians from the Peter Pan story in this adaptation, and her solution is delightful. The Electric Mayhem shows up as "the Hippen Grovee tribe," who welcome Janice into their fold. If you're a Mayhem fan, you should like this issue... They get the first 10 pages of the story! [Note: A reliable source at Boom! Kids has informed me that artist Amy Mebberson was largely responsible for conceptualizing the Hippen Groovee characters, among her many other creative contributions to the book]


There's some really interesting stuff with the Peter Pan & Wendy dynamic in this issue, with Wendy coming to realize that maybe a boy who never grows up might not be the most responsible person ever.


It's a bit startling to see Kermit and Janice getting mad at each other, but it's surprisingly compelling, and adds another dimension to the storytelling on top of just being a silly spoof. And as you can see, Mebberson's art continues to convey the characters' emotions nicely without ever doing anything so cartoony that they don't look like the puppets. And just look at that beautiful Piggy on cover B up there... zowie.

And then the whole thing ends with a cliffhanger even more urgent than last month's, involving the lovely Piggytink and a really mean pirate rat. To be continued!


Click here to yell at Kermit on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Michelle Obama, Cameron Diaz, and the Letter H

Maybe you heard: The season premiere of Sesame Street aired yesterday. (What season are they on now, anyway? I'm not sure.) It was episode 4187 -- that's the four thousand, one hundred and eight-seventh episode -- and when 7:00 AM rolled around, I was sitting too close to my TV impatiently waiting for the show to begin. It was exactly like it was when I was four years old, only I was slightly stubblier.

I've been doing jumping jacks of anticipation for season 40, but I'll confess that when I heard that the show was switching to a "block programming" format hosted by Murray Monster, I was a little nervous. Of course I trust the Sesame people to know what holds a child's interest better than I would, and I think Murray is great, but I was crossing my fingers and hoping it wouldn't feel like a completely different show. In fact, it feels a lot like Sesame Street, which is good, because it would have been very difficult for me to type this with my fingers still crossed. Here's what we saw in this show:

● A new theme song sequence. I think it's actually the same arrangement of the theme as last year but with a nifty new animated chalk drawing motif.



It's interesting to note that the itty-bitty Zoe puppet is seen here... In early 2009 we heard that they were switching permanently to the smaller Zoe, but in recent interviews she's been back to her normal, non-freakishly-small self. I wonder if she'll grow and shrink throughout the new season, kinda like Oprah.

● The street story. When Big Bird complains about the cold on Sesame Street, he's ambushed by Frank Flapman from Flychert Real Estate, who insists that what Big Bird needs is a new habitat. (Habitat! That's the Word on the Street! Take a shot!) Flapman is played by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Broadway's In the Heights, and as he takes Big Bird on a virtual tour of various habitats, he raps about them. Man, how great would it be if all real estate agents rapped their descriptions of their properties? I'd love to hear a rhyme for "Jacuzzi bathtub."

So Big Bird decides to migrate ("migrate" being a sort of secondary Word of the Day, apparently) away from Sesame Street and go to live in the rain forest. He says goodbye to everyone, and everyone is completely baffled, but then it becomes clear that Big Bird doesn't quite realize how far away the rain forest is. Hooper's doesn't deliver there, and Snuffy won't be around, so Big Bird decides to stay, and he sings a nice-but-forgettable song about how Sesame Street is his habitat, and then everyone's happy again. "Welcome back, Bird," says Snuffy, which is a lovely thing to say even though that he didn't actually go anywhere.

This was a fine street story: I'm always happy to see all the humans, and it's great to have the season start off with a Big Bird-focused show. It was lacking in silliness, but we still have the rest of the season for that.

● Cameron Diaz and some Muppet animals explain habitat. Have we ever seen that raccoon before? He looks less Muppety than his pals there, somehow.

● The Letter of the Day. Today it's H, and Murray talks about H words before introducing a film about kids looking for H words. Is it me, or did they used to spend more time focusing on the Letter of the Day?

● Abby's Flying Fairy School. The new show-within-a-show took up a pretty large chunk of the episode, as an animated Abby and her fairy friends chased down Niblet, the class pet gerbilcorn. It's definitely kids' stuff, but it's bright and colorful, and it had a few pretty good jokes. (Fairy kids: "We'll never find him!" Teacher: "Never? Do fairies say never?" Fairy kids: "NEVER!") "Gerbilcorn" is supposed to indicate the fact that Niblet is a gerbil with a horn, but it kind of sounds like a brand of pet food. The fairies end up jumping into a crayon drawing in their pursuit of Niblet, and I was halfway expecting them to take a wrong turn and end up in Elmo's World.

I'm sort of hoping Flying Fairy School doesn't show up every day, so as to make room for other material, but it's charming enough. But wow, it's weird to see Abby blinking.

● Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures. I think this was recycled from last year, but I had never seen it: Bert and Ernie are detectives investigating a maltese duck. Pretty good, but I hope we see the puppet Ernie and Bert on the show soon, even if it's in an existing sketch.

● Elmo's World. It's a plague of frogs! And Kermit makes a very brief cameo! That's pretty amazing right there. But hey, if this is a new episode, it looks like Elmo's World is still being shot in a standard 4:3 ratio, while the rest of the show is in widescreen. I hope Elmo asks about aspect ratios sometime this year so we can figure that one out.


And that's pretty much it. I was entertained by this episode, and while I hope they vary the format a bit from day to day, I have no major complaints. Oh, and I almost forgot... Michelle Obama showed up to teach kids how to bury things.



Yay! Golly gee whiz, I want to be the First Lady when I grow up, so a tomato will cheer for me. So did you see the show today? What did you think? Drop by the Tough Pigs forum to let us know!

Click here to migrate to the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Review: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #4

The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #4 is due in stores this week, thus concluding the second chapter of Roger Langridge's Muppet epic. Thankfully for everyone involved, Langridge keeps the momentum that he's built up over the previous 7 issues to give us a story that ties up all of our loose ends while still keeping that Muppet Show voice that the kids seem to like.

In this issue, Rizzo and Kismet the Toad and the Seven Dwarfs are racing to see who can find Peg-Leg Wilson's treasure first, no matter how much of the Muppet Theater they have to obliterate. Meanwhile, Animal is still acting like he's one of the Boston elite, Miss Piggy is after Kismet the Toad's blood, and Kermit is left trying to keep the show running (while keeping a roof above their heads). It's a lot to cram into one issue, but Langridge managed it without a hitch. Unfortunately, some mainstays had to take a back seat, like Pigs in Space. Short skits of Vet's Hospital, Muppet Labs, and Gonzo's daredevil act are the only on-stage scenes, as well as one sketch featuring Robin and Sweetums discussing stamp collecting is featured, which is definitely the dud of the issue. But I'm alright with that, because I'm a sucker for some satisfying closure. And closure is what we get with all these strange plotlines that were set up way back in issue #1.

So how does this story compare to the first 4-issue arc of The Muppet Show Comic Book? Well, they're the same size. Is that what you meant? Or did you want to know about the stuff inside? Yeah, I can talk about that stuff. The done-in-ones from the first arc definitely had more in common with The Muppet Show, but the more recent miniseries was much more satisfying. Beyond the fact that it allowed Langridge to tell larger stories, and beyonder the fact that it gave us an additional reason to look forward to the next issue, the beyondest is that Langridge has had the time to hone his artistic style and voice to the point where it doesn't feel like he's copying the Muppets anymore. Instead, he's put himself in the same category as Jerry Juhl, being a real visionary behind The Muppet Show (comic).

The other fantastic thing about the latest issue is how it sets up the next story arc: On the Road. I am absolutely loving the anticipation of getting something Muppety every month (which is only second to the satisfaction of actually having something Muppety in your hands every month). Of course, before the Muppets hit the road, we'll have the Pigs in Space one-shot to look forward to. (See what I mean? Looking forward to stuff is the second-best feeling ever!)

The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson #4 will be at your local comic book store on Wednesday, November 11.
Click here to talk about your stamp collection on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Review: Muppet Peter Pan #2

Last Wednesday, October 28, saw the release of Muppet Peter Pan #2, another fine Muppet comic book from Boom! Kids, written by Grace Randolph with art by Amy Mebberson. If you haven't already, I recommend shooting yourself out of a cannon pointed at your local comic book store to pick it up.

In issue 1, Peter Pan/Kermit showed up to take the Darling children to his homeland of Neverswamp. This month, we meet Peter's arch-enemy Captain Hook, and his crew of pirates. (I'm not sure his name is really "Captain Hook" in this story... I noticed Janice calling him "Captain Gonzo," but I didn't see anyone actually calling him Hook.) If the Muppets ever did a full-blown movie or TV special adaptation of Peter Pan, I reckon the role of Hook would be played by a human guest star, but Randolph casts Gonzo, who's quite effective. I mean, he's not especially villainous, but he's funny.


The crew of Hook's ship includes a few other folks we know, like these guys:


Meanwhile, Miss Piggy as Piggytink continues to be written as a sympathetic-but-feisty character, just the way we like her.


As you can see, Amy Mebberson's art is lovely, and I just realized that I really like the way she draws the Muppets' eyes. They look just like real Muppet eyes! In particular, there's a brief scene in this issue with some very obscure old characters, and she gets them all exactly right.

As I said in my review of issue 1, I'm not all that familiar with the original Peter Pan story outside of other adaptations, so I don't really know how much plot there is or how quick the pacing is, but Muppet Peter Pan feels like a pretty loose adaptation, and one that takes its time. It's really more concerned with being silly and entertaining than sticking to the source material, and it's a successful strategy.

That doesn't mean nothing happens... In fact, the issue ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, so we'll all have to come back next month. And that's perfectly fine with me.



Click here to be sympathetic but feisty while talking about Muppet Peter Pan on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Review: Sesame Street: A Celebration - Forty Years of Life on the Street

How do most average schmos mark their 40th birthday? They might have some cake, get some crappy novelty gifts like a “40 Isn’t Old If You’re a Tree” t-shirt, and endure a lot of jokes about being over the hill. But Sesame Street is no ordinary schmo. It’s one of the greatest TV shows of the last five centuries, which is why it deserves a big fancy book like the brand-new Sesame Street: A Celebration – Forty Years of Life on the Street by Louise Gikow. That's a pretty long title, but then, Sesame Street is a pretty long street.

The first thing you’ll notice about this book is that it’s massive. It’s a coffee table book, yeah, but you might just have to get a bigger coffee table to accommodate it. And if you were to hand the book to a small child of Sesame Street-watching age, he would most likely wobble unsteadily for a moment before adorably toppling over. This is a good thing: The bigger a book like this is, the more comprehensive it's likely to be, and we've been waiting for a Sesame book that we can not only sink our teeth into, but devour hungrily, Cookie Monster-style.

The second thing you’ll notice about the book is that the pictures are amazing. Even if you’ve read the previous behind-the-scenes books, seen the various TV specials about the show, and downloaded Muppet Wiki directly into your brain, I gurantee you will come across pictures you’ve never seen before.

It’s just as well the book is too big for me to take on the subway, because I would constantly be disturbing my fellow passengers with exclamations upon seeing all these cool and rare photos. Hey look, it’s Brian Meehl in China, wearing Barkley's head and feet! Hey look, it’s a promotional shot of the entire Muppet and human cast having a huge party on the “Around the Corner” set! Hey holy crap, it’s a shot of Jim Henson trying on Bert and Frank Oz trying on Ernie at an early workshop session!

The third thing you'll notice is that the book is equally perfect for the casual fan and the hardcore geek. About half of it is all the expected stuff, like how the show got started, how Maria and Luis got married, yada yada yada. That's all well and good for most of the book-buying public. But those of us who know how to spell "Snuffleupagus" without looking it up need more, and this book delivers. There are sections about how the set is built, how the music is recorded, the cartoons seen on the show, the various studios the show has occupied... and there are lots of tidbits throughout the book that I never knew: Slimey the worm's voice is that of sound effects editor Dick Maitland! Caroll Spinney still uses the exact same monitor when performing Big Bird that he used in the first season! Bobby Payne performed Telly in his first appearance! And so on.

And consider the fact that by the halfway point of the book, Sesame camera operator Frank Biondo has already been mentioned, like, eight times. That's right -- cameraman Frank Biondo is a major character in the book, and that is awesome. These shout-outs come during the pages that describe production on recent and yet-to-be-aired episodes, which really make you feel like you're there. Louise Gikow was a great choice to write this book, as she’s more than just a casual fan, she's an insider, having worked with the Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop on numerous projects.

I was initially a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a 40th anniversary TV special, but now I think this book is actually better. At 300 pages, it can delve into a little bit of everything instead of just showing us the same old boring clip of Ernie singing “Rubber Duckie” again.

As I said, it’s great for both geeks and normal people, and anyone can pick up the book and either read it straight through from beginning to end, or open it to any random page and find something to love. If you get sick of reading, you can stick the bonus DVD in your DVD player and watch the show’s first episode. Sure, you’ve already seen it, but it’s always fun to watch orange Oscar yell at Gordon #1.

So this is a book for anyone, basically, who’s ever heard of Sesame Street. I'm so glad it exists, and from cover to cover, it reminds me how glad I am that Sesame Street exists.



Come back later this week for part two of our interview with this book's own author Louise Gikow! And click here to give Sesame Street a crappy novelty 40th birthday gift on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Yo, Where My Wild Things At??

On those few occasions when we’re not talking about Muppets or Fraggles or Gordon’s mustache, chances are we’re taking a long, hard look at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Usually that ends with a discussion about a flash-in-the-pan straight-to-DVD special that will be forgotten after your morning mimosa, but this time it surprised us with the cinematic epic that is Where the Wild Things Are.

In case you’ve been living under a pile of monsters lately, Where the Wild Things Are is Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak book. The story revolves around Max, the wolf costume-wearing, ADD-riddled child who runs away from home and into a fantastic world of his own imagination. In this new land, he meets a clan of beasts voiced by an unlikely cadre of celebrities: James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper, and Lauren Ambrose. Naturally, Max becomes their king and has a whole lot of fun Wild Rumpusing and making us wish we were 12 again.

Jonze does a phenomenal job at putting the audience into such a strange world while still making it feel natural. The Wild Things are fully fleshed-out characters (which must’ve been difficult when your source material is a picture book) who would have been comfortable in any pre-teen’s imagination.

Of course, a big part of the success of the film’s realism is due to the Creature Shop. The creatures are essentially full-bodied puppets with CGI faces. But after maybe two seconds of trying to imagine people inside the costumes, you’ll forget about the science of filmmaking and fall backwards and upside-down into movie magic. The puppetry was flawless and natural, while the CGI was used lightly enough to be hardly noticeable. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, Spike Jonze actually held auditions for real Wild Things to cast in his movie, because those things look pretty dang life-like.

Of course, the real magic of the film is how it really makes you feel like a kid again. And I’m sure that the one thing that everyone reading a Muppet blog would agree on is that there’s nothing greater than a film that puts adults like us in that ageless mindset. It’s why the Muppets and Sesame Street have stayed so fresh and entertaining over the years, and it’s all thanks to the brilliant minds of Spike Jonze and the visionaries at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

This is far from the first time the world of Wild Things and the world of the Muppets have crossed paths. Maurice Sendak was on the National Board of Advisors for the Children's Television Workshop during Sesame Street’s early days. He also contributed several sketches for Sesame Street, and Where the Wild Things Are was read by Bob on the test pilot (though it’s sadly absent from the Old School DVD). The book also appears in Sarah’s bedroom in Labyrinth, and Sendak got a “Special Thanks” credit at the end of the film. And of course, there’s always Doglion.

But don’t take LeVar Burton’s word for it! Here are some reviews of the film from some of the toughest critics in the biz (“biz” is what we call “business” in the biz).

Beautiful. I want to go see it again as soon as possible.
-ToughPigs’ Own Anthony

I really felt like a kid.
-ToughPigs’ Own Scott

The movie was so, so good. Beautiful puppets, too. And everything.
-ToughPigs’ Own Marianne

I can't wait to see it again.
-ToughPigs’ Own Michal

The movie was amazing!
-ToughPigs’ Own Max

It brought back such rich childhood memories. Fantastic film. I couldn't believe how intensely emotional it was for a so-called kids flick. Just beautiful.
-ToughPigs' Own Daniel
Click here to let the Wild Rumpus start on the ToughPigs forum!

joe.toughpigs@gmail.com

Kid-Tested, Dino-Approved

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you’ve got problems at home. You have a little Girl Who Likes Dinosaurs, facing off every morning with your little Boy Who Likes Trains. They do nothing but fight over what to play, because she’s only interested in DinoPark and he only cares for his Thomas PVCs.

Fortunately for you, the Jim Henson Company has devised a solution: television! More specifically, Dinosaur Train, the first show designed to bring together children with diverse interests by catering to dinosaur and train aficionados alike. Finally, a little peace and quiet after breakfast.

In fact, Dinosaur Train, which debuted in September, revels in diversity. Although you may look different, enjoy unusual talents and pastimes, and eat a diet that should almost certainly include your siblings, Dinosaur Train promises that you and your natural enemies can live together in harmony. The show stars three baby Pteranodons – Shiny, Tiny, and Don – and their brother Buddy, a Tyrannosaurus who just happened to hatch in their nest alongside them. And until Buddy inevitably succumbs to the call of the wild, the foursome has set out to explore the Mesozoic together.

These explorations involve the chums embracing new differences (Buddy’s a better tracker, but Tiny can hide in crawl spaces), and itching to learn more about a particular dinosaur in each episode – the fastest one, the largest one, or that thing with feathers. Invariably, intellectual curiosity leads the gang to… wait for it… the Dinosaur Train! The kids will chat with the Barney Fife-like conductor before stepping off to visit with Mrs. Velociraptor or Mrs. Argentinosaurus (somehow it’s usually the mom) and her child, play a few games, learn a bit of dino-trivia, and take the train home. Enter the live action paleontologist Dr. Scott and a gaggle of human children to elaborate on a couple of details, plus a businesslike fellow in a fedora popping in with downers such as, “Point of fact: Dinosaurs did not put on fashion shows.” Rinse and repeat.

The show gives kiddie and adult viewers plenty to enjoy. We get catchy songs and off-the-cuff rhymes (check out the teacher guide and video page for the rockabilly theme song and further treats) along with a kicky score, sparkling views of the Pteranodon family’s seaside nest, and a fully fleshed-out cast. Buddy and Tiny, clearly the stars, find non-irritating ways to conduct their investigations, using the word “hypothesis” at least once per episode. Shiny acts and talks uncannily like Lucy van Pelt. And Don may be a bit slow on the uptake, but his habit of collecting odd curiosities and his affinity for spontaneous silly dances have thoroughly won my heart.

Dinosaur Train-watching only becomes harrowing if you expect a logical, feasible story about plausible characters set in a fact-based environment. I can accept the idea of a family of friendly, talking cretaceans, and even their vaguely anthropomorphic games like Dinosuar Hopscotch and Dinoball. Matters start to get sticky, though, when the show’s double agenda of depicting a relatively peaceful society, as well as some degree of scientific accuracy, necessarily undermines itself.

Countless creatures on the show – from Troodons to frogs – exchange lighthearted chit-chat with our heroes, who could easily start eating them, or each other, any minute. To learn a species’ full rap sheet we need the basics: How many football fields long, and elephants heavy, is it? Is this creature a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore (or more specifically, a fish-hunter like the Pteranodons)? Rather than avoiding the subject of food, Dinosaur Train jumps through hoops to address it. To get around potential ickiness, the fish on the show conveniently don’t talk, and Tyrannosaurs’ favorite dish is the shadily procured “carrion,” an ambiguous pile of bones and viscous red goo. Could Shiny’s elderly Aunt Cloise have gotten mixed in there? Too late now.

Another device that fits the show’s storytelling methods, as well as my penchant for finding loopholes, is the way each species occupies its own corner of this veritable zoo. Valerie the raptor can only leave Velociraptor Valley by taking the Dinosaur Train through a Time Tunnel (even traveling within one’s own time period always incurs a Time Tunnel, and probably a Time Tunnel Toll). Why doesn’t traveling back to the Triassic ever disrupt the space-time continuum? More pressingly, why can’t multiple species coexist on the same soil? What kind of scientific authenticity, not to mention healthy social model, is this? It’s as though the U.N. sat down and laid out its very own prehistoric partition plan, so that Pteranodon Terrace wouldn’t include enough T-rexes to constitute a majority voting block.

I ask this as though 3-6 year olds really give a hoot, and they surely don’t. In the Dinosaur Train universe, relationships between the characters carry far more weight than their place on the food chain. In my favorite episode so far, Dolores Tyrannosaurus and her daughter Annie stop by for a visit, with mauling nowhere on their agenda. Buddy enjoys sharing his T-Rex talents with Annie so thoroughly that Tiny, feeling unneeded, sulks off on her own; Buddy wins Tiny back by reminding her that as siblings and best friends, they have far more commonalities than differences – and therein lies the true charm of Dinosaur Train. In episodes to come, Dolores and Annie will welcome our adventurers into Rexville as equals, and meanwhile I’ll welcome them all equally into my living room.

Click here to discuss Dinosaur Train on the ToughPigs forum!

Elmo and Al Roker Spank the Recession

Hey, did you see the Sesame Street special Families Stand Together, which aired a couple weeks back on PBS? It was scheduled for a Wednesday night, but then Barack Obama went and decided to talk about health care or some crap like that, so it got preempted on many PBS stations. What's the big idea, Obama? I thought you liked Sesame Street! Who do you think you are, anyway -- the prime minister?!?!


But heck, who cares? Only old people still watch TV on their televisions! If you haven't seen the special, you can click this link right here to watch it on Sesame Workshop's website.


So, the point of the show was to help families deal with financial crisis in the recession, so I can't make fun of it or I'd be a big jackass. (Although I have to say the title's not very memorable -- I keep calling it "Families Standing Up" or "Families Hanging Out" or "Families Falling Off the Monkey Bars.") And anyway, it's a very good special.

It's hosted by Al Roker and his wife Deborah Roberts, who are hanging out on Sesame Street on the day of the big "Community Market," which is apparently a fancy name for a flea market. I love that Elmo and Grover and Chris all act like Al Roker is their best pal whom they've known for years. There are many reasons I'd like to live on Sesame Street, but that's a biggie -- the fact that I'd automatically be friends with any celebrity guest who dropped by.

Speaking of biggies, Al Roker sure looks different since he lost all that weight, doesn't he? I can't help but feel like he's the wrong shape somehow... he's kind of like a Stretch Armstrong that's lost all its elasticity. I wasn't expecting so much Grover in this special, but it's great to see so much of him. He has some great, Grovery bits with Chris, as he tries to buy a community at the community market and looks for a job.


Meanwhile, Elmo's family has run into trouble: His mom has lost her job. And so, as we see in scenes interspersed throughout the special, they're making a few changes in their lifestyle and cutting a few corners. But that doesn't mean they can't have a good time as a family! You know, I have to wonder how much money they've spent on fish food for Elmo's goldfish Dorothy over the past 12 years. That's one old fish.

So then there are real, human families who are not as loveable as Elmo and his parents, but who have also found themseles in tough situations after losing jobs and such. I really don't know how a child might respond to all this stuff, but the dominant theme is always "It's going to be okay because we're still a family," which is nice without being too unrealistic. It wouldn't really do any good to tell them, "Soon we're going to be able to take that trip to Disney World after all!" because it probably won't happen, but telling them they're going to be okay is probably... okay. There's a song about that too, but unfortunately it was super-bland.


So, yeah. This was a good TV special, and thank goodness Sesame Street is around to do stuff like this (I was surprised to see that they got some help producing this show from Worldwide Pants, which is David Letterman's company. I always got the impression Letterman didn't even like Muppets!). Of course, it would be even better if the economy hadn't gotten so bad and they had never had to do this special in the first place, but for all the tickle hands and silly Elmo birthday DVDs, it's great to see Sesame still doing something so important.


Oh, but I just want to point out one thing: Toward the end of the show, the kids from one of the featured families are selling lemonade for 25 cents a cup. Al Roker pays them a quarter and takes a cup... and then Deborah takes a cup too, but they never pay for it! It's a hot cup of lemonade! THE ROKERS STEAL LEMONADE FROM FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING CHILDREN -- PASS IT ON!

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Double-Shot Review: Muppet Peter Pan #1

Guess how many Muppet comic books are coming out this week? If you said "two," you're absolutely right! If you said "five," you're wrong! If you said "raisin bran!" I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Anyway, you can read my review of Muppet Peter Pan #1 right here, and then scroll right down or click here to read Joe Hennes's review of The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-leg Wilson #3! Whee!


So, Muppet Robin Hood ended last month, and this Wednesday sees the release of Muppet Peter Pan #1, written by Grace Randolph and drawn by Amy Mebberson. While Robin Hood had its moments, it didn't convince me that two Muppet comics per month are really necessary... I would have been satisfied with continued "adaptation" comics, but I wasn't exactly dancing jigs of excitement in my bathtub in anticipation for each new issue.

But Muppet Peter Pan? Now this is a good Muppet adaptation comic. First of all, there's the art. Amy Mebberson's renditions of the Muppet characters look just like the Muppets, but they're so expressive you can practically hear the tone of the puppeteers' voices. If you've been merely tolerating the cartoony art of The Muppet Show Comic Book and the messy art of Muppet Robin Hood while staring out the window dreaming of a Muppet comic with on-model Muppets, your wait is over. Just check out Sam the Eagle on the first page:


It looks just like Sam! Of course, the writing is important too, and I have no complaints with Grace Randolph's script this issue. I guess I could complain about the fact that Sam here is obsessed with American patriotism, when that was only one aspect of his character on The Muppet Show, but then I would be a Big Fat Complaining Guy. This comic's version of Sam feels like our favorite bald eagle. And all the other characters feel like themselves too, even Bean Bunny, who joins Janice and Scooter as the Darling children who get to meet Peter Pan.

Speaking of which, one of my favorite things about all the Muppet comics is that we get to see obscure and semi-to-completely forgotten characters have a moment in the spotlight. Bean's a funny character who really hasn't gotten to do much in the last, oh... 20 years of Muppet productions.

Kermit is Peter Pan, of course, and Piggy is his fairy sidekick Piggytink. I can't say I'm intimately familiar with the original Peter Pan book (or play? It was a play first, right?) so I don't know how closely the Peter Pan "origin story " in this issue follows what was in the book, but I've never seen any other version of Peter Pan that presented the first meeting of Peter and Tink, so it's cool to see it here.


A question we ask a lot around here whenever there's a new Muppet thing is: "Is Piggy Piggy?" It's been so tricky for recent writers to get her right, but she sounds just like herself here, even if she is a fairy. She gets a little cranky at one point, but she's not just cranky. And she looks purty.

I can't help but compare this thing to Muppet Robin Hood, and here's what I've come up with: Whereas Muppet Robin Hood felt like a retelling of the Robin Hood story with Muppet characters crammed into all the roles, Muppet Peter Pan feels more like the Muppets we know and love putting on a performance of the Peter Pan story. Does that make sense?

So, yeah. Read Muppet Peter Pan and you will believe a frog can fly.

Now scroll down or click this link to read Joe Hennes's review of this week's other Muppet comic book, The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-leg Wilson #3. And click here to fly to the Never-Swamp on the Tough Pigs forum!

ToughPigsRyan@yahoo.com

Double-Shot Review: Muppet Show Comic Book: Peg Leg Wilson #3

Hey, you know what's great? The Muppet Show Comic Book. We're already seven issues in, and it doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon. And that's just fine and dandy with me, because I'll never get tired of Roger Langridge's fast-paced antics or wacky character designs. No wonder so many animated movies draw their inspiration from the Muppets; it works so well for the illustrated Muppets themselves.

The penultimate issue of The Treasure of Peg Leg Wilson arc continues all of those stories that were going on through the last two issues: the rats are digging for buried treasure (along with a sudden infestation of dwarves), Animal wouldn't hurt a flea, and Kismet the Lizard is still causing havok backstage (and no, the coincidence of a "replacement Kermit" in this comic hasn't been lost on us). Add a collection of on-stage acts, and it's starting to feel a little overcrowded in 22 pages. In fact, I'm having trouble remembering which of these stories is supposed to be the main one. But I'm not sweating it, because the calamity of disorganization is just the kind of chaos a Muppet Show comic book demands.

I was tickled to see "Animalopoly": a one-page board game that both entertains and informs the reader about what Animal's been up to lately. Strangely enough, his ups and downs mimic my Uncle Tito's stint in rehab to a T. I tried playing the game and lost. Not because of any unfortunate dice-rolls, but because I was playing a fake board game by myself at 9:00 on a Saturday night.

Of all the subplots, the one I'm having the most trouble connecting with is the one with the titular Peg Leg Wilson. Ol' Peg Leg makes his first appearance in this issue, giving us a full page of backstory. And although it contains some of Langridge's signature silly poetry, I'm left wondering why we should care about this guy (other than the fact that he's filthy rich) or why we're spending a page on him and not, say, Lew Zealand.

Naturally, this issue of The Muppet Show Comic Book is just as great as the rest. Even my gripes aren't all that gripey. And if I had my way, I'd find a way to have Roger Landridge grow an extra pair of arms so he could churn these out twice a month.

Oh, and Miss Piggy is a Cylon.
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