Light The Lights – Shannon Watkins On The Return of The Muppets

I’m just going to go ahead and assume you were as big a fan of The Muppet Show as I was when you were a kid. Can you really watch this without singing every word?

In the Muppets’ return to the big screen, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, discovers the evil plan of an oil tycoon to demolish the Muppet Theatre for the oil found beneath. Walter, his brother Gary, and his girlfriend Mary resolve to find the original cast of The Muppet Show and put on The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever to raise the money required to buy back the theatre.

Once I heard that Jason Segel had written The Muppets, I knew I had to see it. Not only for the nostalgia factor, but you remember Dracula’s Lament, from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, right? Here’s a reminder from the Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson:

The man is clearly genius with a puppet.

The Muppets follows Walter, Gary and Mary as they track down each of the original muppets. You find out what they’ve been doing since the show went off the air – the paths range from homelessness, to plumbing tycoon, to living in Paris as a high powered fashion editor (guess who). You get a bit of a chuckle along the way from clever self-aware jokes, and a pile of celebrity cameos.

As a member of the audience, you really get a sense of what a labour of love this film must have been. From the attention to detail in re-creating the stage, and preserving the songs, costumes and puppets, the film didn’t appear to be aimed at (re)launching a multi-million dollar franchise as much as it appears to be a celebration of the original show. Even if you are walking into the theatre with no prior knowledge of The Muppet Show, you’ll enjoy a good laugh. The film is sugar-sweet, charming and witty.