Enjoying the View from the Third Row

When I was dating the young woman who was eventually convinced to become my wife, I wanted to impress her with my good taste, my worldliness, just my overall Catch Quotient. So in the finest tradition of the dandy who would invite a lady to see his etchings, I would at times bring her to my place to view… The Muppet Show.

I may be a little different than most Muppet fans of my approximate vintage because I didn’t catch the bug on Sesame Street; I don’t remember ever seeing it before my own kids were small (not only was I 7 by the time it debuted, but when I was a kid it was not a trivial matter to tune in a UHF station). In my teens, however, I was casting about for funny stuff, and that’s how I discovered Monty Python, SCTV, Benny Hill, Dave Allen, Saturday Night Live, Letterman… and The Muppet Show.

Sadly, when it comes to one’s own children, introducing them to Letterman or Python, to say nothing of the late Mr. Hill, is not usually considered exemplary parenting. So in an effort to entertain them, as well as in search of common ground, a few years ago I bought Season One of the Muppet Show.

I was mainly aiming at my son, who almost literally loves nothing more than watching a TV show that makes him laugh. Maybe watching it while eating Peanut Butter Pandemonium and having his feet rubbed, but still. At first he didn’t seem to care at all, then suddenly – maybe because he was just a little older – he wanted to watch one or two episodes a day.

He loves it. He loves it all, musical numbers, slapstick, one-liners, the whole deal. So when he saw there was a movie coming out (you might have heard about that), he began almost vibrating. Each time he saw the ad, if I was in the room – even if it had just run during the last break – he’d say, “We have to see that, Dad.” Even though I already saw my movie for the year!

I knew that if we didn’t get there on Thanksgiving weekend, he’d be vastly disappointed, so on Sunday we squeezed into a matinee… I didn’t even know it was possible to have seats behind the screen. Fortunately, the proprietors considerately provided 20 minutes of previews so I could get used to looking up everyone’s nostrils.

As much as I was looking forward to it, I was also a little bit worried. I have a healthy respect for the genius of Jim Henson, but this one was of course coming from a different source. Plus, I knew a new Muppet was being featured and I was skeptical about how that might affect the “group dynamic”, if you will. And I had read the articles raising some questions about whether this movie was truly in the traditional spirit of the Muppets.

When it was (finally) time to play the music and light the lights, I felt like I was holding my breath a little bit. But before the movie was more than a few minutes old, I found myself literally unable to stop myself from grinning from ear to ear. And since I can’t do anything like this without also monitoring my brain to see how I’m reacting, I was conscious that my second emotion was gratitude… to Jason Segel. It was immediately clear to me that he totally got it, that he understood what makes the Muppets funny and awesome, and that all he wanted to do was honor and carry on the Muppet legacy.

The secret of the movie, and in fact the secret of the Muppets themselves, I think, is that they don’t care about being cool, or even really about “doing comedy”. They just want to entertain you, whether with a laugh or a cheer or a musical groove or even a cry. And I’m happy to say that the movie absolutely delivers on that; it’s funny and touching and nostalgic and just totally likable. I’m not claiming that it’s the best or even the funniest movie ever… but I don’t remember ever leaving a theater just feeling any better than I did that day. Maybe it’s just easier for a movie to be heartfelt when it already has the felt going in.