The Muppet Movie (August 5th at the Palace Theatre)

[THE MUPPET MOVIE screens Sunday August 5th at 2:00 pm at the Palace Theatre as part of Cinema at the Square.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Kids these days have it rough, between cyber-bullying, broken homes, flesh-eating bath-salt zombies, psycho gun nuts at the movies who think they're comic-book villains, and a beckoning adulthood of bleak joblessness, One Nation Under Wall Street, and no talk of "hope" and "change" anymore. You want to stress young people out even further? Tell them that before The Muppet Show was a syndicated 1976-1981 TV smash, Jim Henson's creations had a brief run as part of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players ensemble on Saturday Night Live. Yes, they did, right alongside John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner etc. there were "Jim Henson's Muppets" in recurring bits. No, they weren't Kermit or Fozzie. They were originals - grotesque, reptilian creatures, similar to those later seen in THE DARK CRYSTAL. The SNL Muppets dwelt in some kind of primordial landscape of jungle ruins and commonly told off-color jokes about their sex lives. True story!

It seemed to be a short-lived comedy experiment, and the Muppets straightaway got a different offer, to have their own TV variety show in England. And, with the success of that, came 1979's THE MUPPET MOVIE.