Hey folks, Harry here with a rundown from that (pant pant pant pant) girl that teases all the best places of geeks... I'm talking, of course, about Junior Mintz. This usherette from heaven and hell decided to check out the goings ons of the Muppets this past December and decided to finally hit us with the results. Apparently she had a short fling with Kermit and has been holed up on some damn lilypad in the swamps of Los Angeles (Where Dreamworks was trying to build). Anyways, here's her report...
Hey Crazy Harry,
JM here with an interesting tidbit or two from Muppetland, along with an account of last month’s LA-based Muppetfest. For those of you only hearing about this for the first time, Muppetfest was a two day celebration of all things Henson held over the weekend of December 8th. Yes, rather than troop down to Austin again and subject my tiny hiney to God knows how many hours of stinkers from Boss Man Knowles film collection, I opted to stay in LA and hang with Kermit and crew. Part sci-fi style convention, part performance, Muppetfest was sponsored by Creation Conventions with the approval and contributions from the Jim Henson Company. People who attended the two day gathering at the Santa Monica convention center were treated to question and answer sessions with the Muppet performers, screenings of rare Muppet TV bits from early in creator Jim Henson’s career, an elaborate museum gallery of Muppet characters and a hands-on puppet workshop. One of the most interesting items on display was a series of designs for a new Muppet flick currently in the planning stages which deals with Kermit’s early days (pre "Muppet Movie") in the swamp. There were a number of sketches of Kermit and a bunch of his frog pals, as well as a shadowy image of the probable villain of the piece, a very monstrous-looking wild boar. As this feature is currently on the drawing boards, it’s anyone’s guess as to when it will start production, but based on the somewhat Pogo-like renderings of the film’s key scenes, the "Early Kermit" movie looks very promising indeed.
The highlight of Muppetfest was a special performance by the Muppet performers given on December 9th at Hollywood’s Palace theatre. This was a one-time live 25th anniversary edition of the Muppet Show, said by the Henson Company to be the only time the show was ever performed on stage for an actual audience. I wondered how they would pull that off as, from a technical point of view the Muppets work best in movies and on TV, where they have the luxury of stopping and starting when things go wrong. Yet the show went off reasonably well, with the Muppet performers (Jerry Nelson, Kevin Clash, Steve Whitmire and Dave Golez, to name a few) adding funny ad libs to cover the handful of technical gaffs that popped up during the evening. Encouraged by the show and the audience’s very positive reaction to it, the Jim Henson Company is now seriously looking into mounting a Broadway stage version of the Muppet Show. This would not be a cheesy "Disney On Ice" thing with people in oversize Fozzie and Kermit costumes, but the actual show done on stage with the real puppeteers in full view of the audience. This is the way the Dec. 9th show was performed, with the puppeteers dressed in black and the Muppets cavorting over their heads. Rather than be distracting, it added to the charm of the performance, and once the Muppets distinctive characters took over, you forgot the puppeteers were even there. I don’t know how the show will change when and if it eventually comes to Broadway, but for those interested, here’s a run-down of some of that evening’s highlights:
First off, I knew they were doing it right when I entered the theatre and glanced up at the audience box nearest the stage. Yes, there were the two seats, ready and waiting for their crotchety inhabitants. When the lights came up, aged hecklers Statler and Waldorf were in place, sadly bemoaning the fact that after twenty-five years, they still keep showing up for their nightly dose of bizarre acts and corny jokes.
Then the Muppet theme played and the curtain went up, revealing a pretty fair reworking of the Muppet theatre backstage area. From there on it was business as usual with Kermit and Rowlf the dog trading wisecracks and Gonzo intruding on every opportunity to inject his own brand of craziness into the proceedings. One classic musical bit revived from the Muppet Show (and earlier as an Ed Sullivan bit) was the song "Ma-na-ma-nah" in which a strange orange creature punctuates parts of a song by warbling its odd-sounding title at various intervals. At one point the creature left the stage, then (as we saw via a large video screen) left the theatre, jumped in a limo, went down the street into Hollywood, gobbled down a fast burger at In and Out, then hurried back and made it on stage in time to croon out the last "Ma-na-ma-nah". Hysterical.
The evening’s best, and in many ways most poignant moment came when Muppet band members Floyd and Zoot stepped out from the curtain to play a doleful blues ballad. After a few bars, Floyd turned to Zoot and said, "Hey, man. Where’s the rest of the band?" To which Zoot quietly replied, "Late." There were a few "Awws" and a smattering of applause from the audience, as the savvier members knew this was a bow to the departed Jim Henson and Richard Hunt. But the blue mood vanished a second later as Janice happily trotted on stage, guitar in hand, ready to jam. The audience simply exploded. Cries of "Fer sher"and "Rilly" went up from the crowd, and a chick in my row wearing a Janice button on her hippie hat nearly fainted. LA is always happy to give it up for a hometown girl, but Jan’s appearance also meant that there are still some sparks left in the old Electric Mayhem band. The cheers grew louder as Animal loomed up ominously behind his drums and began to pound away, and by the time Dr. Teeth took his place in regal splendor at the keyboard, more than a few audience members were on their feet, ready to rock out with him. It was easily the best number of the night. The replacement voices for Hunt, Henson and the AWOL Frank Oz were spot-on, hopefully signaling a future return to the spotlight for the long-neglected Muppet Show house band.
Newer characters such as Clifford, Sal the monkey and Pepe the prawn were also there, fitting in nicely with old favorites Rizzo Rat, Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. Notable by their absences were most of Frank Oz’s characters, as Frank himself, busy director that he is these days, was otherwise occupied. Special guest Brooke Shields, wearing a plastic pig snout and long gloves gamely tried to substitute for Miss Piggy, to the chagrin of Piggy herself who did appear thanks to a pre-tapped bit that dovetailed perfectly with the action on stage. Other celebs doing Muppet turns included John Voight, dressed as the sole turkey member of Gonzo’s chicken band (you had to be there) and Paul Williams, who came on last to sing a number of popular Muppet tunes with Kermit and the gang at the piano. The closing number of course, was "The Rainbow Connection", which Kermit prefaced by saying, "Come on, you all know the words." We did. Every being in the theatre, frog, human, monster and otherwise joined in, bringing the evening to a very happy end. If the Henson Company makes good on their plan to stage this live Muppet Show on Broadway, (or anywhere else, for that matter) I could see it easily eclipsing both "The Lion King" and "The Producers" in audience appeal and box office take. Here’s hoping it hits the boards soon.
Junior Mintz
