…with the news that the Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made, initially slated to arrive on Christmas 2011, has been pushed up a month to Thanksgiving (yes, we admit that this news is a little outdated, but we’d be remiss not to mention it at all). So rejoice this Christmas, Muppet fans, knowing that a new, fantastic, Muppet movie is less than a year away.
In very much related news, here’s Jason Segel on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon describing his first encounter with Kermit:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
We imagine we’d react the same way.
Anyone know if Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving next year? That would certainly qualify as a miracle.
It dawned on us a couple of weeks back when we caught Forgetting Sarah Marshall on TV (and cemented this past weekend when we suffered through The Muppet Christmas Carol on The Hub), that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jason Segel, as he’s almost single-handedly saved the Muppets.
We assume. Because for the second time in three issues Entertainment Weekly features a Muppet a full color Muppet photo across two pages. The first appeared in the recent “Reunions” issue, a Muppet Show cast photo, and the new issue of the magazine offers the first glimpse of the gang (along with Jason Segel) in their upcoming return to the big screen, The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made.
(click to enlarge)
The image also presents our first look at Walter, a new tech-savvy, young Muppet who reportedly plays Segel’s roommate in the film. He could also possibly be Guy Smiley’s illegitimate son.
One concerning omission in the photo: Pepe the Prawn is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t appear in the first photo, but that was appropriate because he joined the Muppets many years after the Muppet Show (for the Muppet Show redux Muppets Tonight), but he’s arguably been the most popular Muppet of the past 10 years or so, and the only new Muppet since the Muppet Show to truly become a core member of the Muppet troupe. It’s probably just an innocent mistake, but until we see another two-page spread in the Christmas issue, we’ll be holding our breath.
In last week’s Entertainment Weekly (on stands now) the Muppets, as the cast of the Muppet Show, reunited to talk about their old show, as well as, most importantly, their upcoming return to the big screen with Jason Segel. To be fair, it’s not like the Muppets needed to be reunited, as they’ve been pretty much working non-stop for 40 years (we’re also not sure there was any compelling reason to bring the casts of The West Wing, Will & Grace and Alias back together after like 4 months apart, but that’s a different complaint for a different blog), but any national magazine publicity is good national magazine publicity.
(click to enlarge, so you can see how they managed to sneak Mickey Mouse in the background)
And read the brief interview with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo here.
Sesame Street has long been in the pop culture parody business; in fact that’s basically it’s whole model, come up with concepts that will educate children but also entertain adults. But lately, they’re becoming kings of the genre, with Mad Men, 30 Rock and, most recently, True Blood parodies. And now they’ve moved even further from the mainstream with their version of Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man” campaign:
Between Grover and Justine Bateman we’re feeling really uncool.
Just going to do a little bit of Muppet housekeeping and get out a couple overdue Kermit & Co related items as we head into the long weekend.
First, as widely reported last week (thanks, Yahoo! News), the original Kermit the Frog and some of Jim Henson’s other early creations have been donated to the Smithsonian, where they will sit alongside another more modern Kermit that has been on display for several years. Many of the Muppets, including Kermit, are from Henson’s local DC television show Sam and Friends, which you may remember from “The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years” (because I certainly wasn’t around to see it when it originally aired in 1955). Scroll to about three minutes to see the Sam and Friends clips:
When there’s a crossover between two or more of our favorite things, like here, we like to think of it in terms of the intersection on a Venn diagram, where something awesome meets something equally awesome. However, College Humor went ahead and took that idea a bit further, creating a Venn diagram by parsing out just one thing we love, that thing, of course being the Muppets. Below, the Muppet Names Etymology:
I feel silly for never seeing this before. And I have a human name. So I guess I’d fall into the top left intersection. Very illuminating.
Coming up next week: More Muppet news and/or links and/or old videos!
Many years ago two of my greatest, if not my two greatest, passions united in a music video. I speak of course of Weezer and the Muppets, joining forces for the “Keep Fishin’” music video. Unfortunately, by that time Weezer was already on their way to retroactively ruining the fanatical affection I harbored for them during my high school years. The union was still unimaginably cool, but would have required a little bit more freak out control if it was made just a couple of years earlier (or perhaps that’s the benefit of time talking, as well as the carnage inflicted by Make Believe and The Red Album*).
However, I have no such bitterness about this new, brain-exploding team-up, the latest in the “Lost Slapdown” series. Yes, as odd as it may sound, God (and Disney corporate synergy) have brought together Lost and Kermit the Frog.
But although this is a monumental, colossal cross-over, I will not be getting a tattoo commemorating this meeting of Kermit, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, despite what some have suggested.
Make sure to check out the other Lost-Muppet joint ventures, including Pepe auditioning for the role of the Smoke Monster, Rizzo infiltrating the writers’ room and the Swedish Chef, an apparent avid Lost fan, running the ABC cafeteria.
*For a truly thought-provoking and thoughtful look at the devolution of Weezer, specifically Rivers Cuomo’s fall from ironic yet genuine songwriter to hackneyed hyper-self-aware song-crafter, we urge you to take a look at Chuck Klosterman‘s** essay on the subject in his anthology Eating the Dinosaur. And just go ahead and read everything else in the compendium, because it’s all genius.
**And if Chuck Klosterman*** does anything with the Muppets I’ll flip out just as much, if not more. Even if it’s an essay comparing Elmo to Helen Thomas.
***Just realized that “Klosterman” contains the word “lost.” Whoa.
As Entertainment Weekly so generously reminded me, this week is the 20th anniversary of the passing of Jim Henson. It’s sad to think that he’s been gone for so long, but it’s a testament to his work that I was not quite seven years old at the time of his death and yet he had already made an inedible, lifelong impact on me. He’s been gone for 20 of my 26 1/2 years, and yet in those first 6 1/2 he shaped the person I am years later. I remember even then being aware of this death, and saddened by it, and worried that it meant the end of the Muppets. In fact, it might have been my first experience with death; at least I can’t recall anyone passing before then.
And I still remember being moved by his memorial, which, per his request, was a celebration and not a dirge And it still moves me to this day.
And to the credit of the Henson family and the Muppet family they soldiered on, and soon after the memorial they allayed my fears with a special television tribute to Jim, promising me and all the despondent, confused young fans that Muppets would live on. The fact that they confronted his death head on was somewhat difficult for a 6-year-old to comprehend, and somewhat overwhelming, but it was also somewhat appropriate, for Henson made entertainment for both children and adults alike, and I’ll always appreciate the honesty in which the Muppet team handled his death. It was immensely sad, but also immensely inspirational.
For many years now my email signature has been a Jim Henson quote, “When I was young, my ambition was to be one of those people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for my having been there.” I think I first came across it when I read a Jim Henson biography at about 10 years old and it resonated instantly, so when I was young that was my ambition too. And it still is.
Because of Jim Henson I hope to leave the world a better place. And if I can make a hundredth of the difference that Henson made then I’ll feel like I accomplished my goal.
Thanks, Jim. 20 years later you’re missed more than ever.
However, Henson wouldn’t want his Jumped The Snark in memoriam to end on such a treacle note. And the good news is that it doesn’t need to: the Muppets are on the verge of returning to the spotlight. We’ve missed a lot of Muppet news over the past month and a half, but things continue to look up for Kermit and the gang. And luckily another one of our favorite Jim’s, Jim Hill, has taken the liberty of rounding up the latest Muppet developments over on his blog. Things are looking up.
20 years later, and the Muppets are still going strong. Jim would be proud.
Vulture reports that Disney is in talks with The Jim Henson Company to produce The Muppet Man, a Jim Henson bioipic that made last year’s “Black List,” the compendium of Hollywood’s “hottest” unproduced screenplays. Yay! With the new Jason Segel-penned Muppet movie seemingly on the horizon, could it be that we’ll soon be treated to two Muppet-related movies? Maybe!
Burning question? Who will play Kermit in the biopic? (Tina Fey?) And, for the record, I am available to play the Swedish Chef.
The film will undoubtedly touch on Henson’s personal life and his non-Muppet ventures, so with that in mind, here’s a clip from Time Piece, Henson’s trippy, experimental Oscar-nominated short film from 1966:
Only two Mondays into 2010 and things are already shaping up for the Muppets in the new decade. When we decided to institute Muppet Mondays we feared that we wouldn’t have enough material each week, or at least enough relevant material. But with Disney making the Muppets the face of their new volunteerism initiative, it seems like there’s a new Muppet story every day, and certainly no lack of content for Muppet Mondays. So thanks, Disney! And keep it up!
Speaking of Disney and Volunteerism, Disney was nice enough to post some rehearsal video of the new “Honorary VoluntEars Calvacade,” which, of course, stars Kermit and Miss Piggy (and, somewhat surprisingly, Sweetums). I was fortunate enough to get down to Disneyland last month, but it looks like I’ll have to make another trip (pilgrimage?).
However, while I previously emphasized the abundance of current Muppet news, I think for today we’ll highlight a classic clip, Pete’s insightful words of wisdom from The Muppets Take Manhattan:
As 
Jumped The Snark 