The Muppet Movie came out 30 years ago. Wow, that makes me feel old. I remember watching it multiple times as a young boy and loving it. After rewatching it today, I found that my love for this movie hasn't dimmed all that much. I was still able to watch it with nearly the same sense of boyish wonderment as I did so many years ago. It holds up very well.
In plot, the movie is a road picture. Kermit is sent on his way to Hollywood by an agent who visits his swamp. Along the way Kermit meets Fozzie, Miss Piggy, Gonzo and all the other muppets. Adding tension is Doc Hopper, the owner of a chain of Frog's Legs restaurants who wants Kermit to be his spokes-frog. Kermit and co. go through all sorts of adventures, meet lots of different people and sing lots of songs along the way. Although Hollywood is their destination, the journey is the real reward here.
What allows this movie to stand up so well after 30 years and what allows it to be entertaining to me now as well as then, is the smartly written script. There are jokes here that were over my head as a boy, some that I laughed at more then, and most that I laughed at then and still laughed at now. Part of the brilliance of the script is that although the lead characters are all Muppets, they behave like adults and not cutesy children's characters. They fall in love, they drive cars, they drink alcohol and they speak like grown-ups. They and the script never speak down to the children in the audience.
The movie is also loaded with famous cameo appearances. As with the Muppet Show before it, Jim Henson was able to attract celebrities seemingly with ease. Old-time Hollywood stars like Bob Hope, Orson Welles and Milton Berle are featured as well as more contemporary performers like Richard Pryor, Steve Martin and Madeline Kahn, among many, many others. Seeing them now meant more to me then it did as a kid, especially since so many of them have now passed on.
It is impossible to write about this movie without mentioning the songs. Kermit's song, "The Rainbow Connection", was nominated for an Oscar and deservedly so. We owned the soundtrack back then (on vinyl!) and I had it memorized. I was amazed to discover that without having heard any of the songs in over 20 years, that I still knew them by heart. Several tunes, particularly "The Rainbow Connection" are filled with a melancholy sense of longing that still managed to affect me. They're not all winners. Dr. Teeth's "Can you picture that" is a clinker, but that's about the only exception.
Along with the songs, I also remembered so many of the lines. Lines that I know my brothers will still remember as well. In fact, believe it or not, there are lines in this movie that I still quote, but had almost forgotten where they originally came from. I can't count the number of times that I've opened a bottle of something and said, "Don't you want to smell the bottle cap?" as Steve Martin says in this movie. How about Fozzie's line, "Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear."? Gonzo's "You could get lost in a sky like that."? And can anyone who's seen this movie forget the response to "Bear left"?
Too often movies that we saw when younger just don't stand up to the test of time. Happily, this one does. It not only recalled the boyish wonderment that I felt while watching it all those years ago, but I enjoyed it through the eyes of a grown-up as well.
