The Happytime Murders – the R-rated Brian Henson project starring Melissa McCarthy – is coming out on August 24th, and it’s the closest we’ll be getting to an actual Muppet movie in the theaters for a good long while. So let’s just go ahead and pretend it’s a legit entry in the franchise for the purposes of, oh, every article I’m gonna be writing this month.
The Muppets franchise is children’s entertainment designed to be appreciated by audiences of all ages, which isn’t an entirely unusual idea. However, these days that usually means either making jokes about asses or being a brutal emotional sledgehammer (cough cough Pixar). Where the Muppets get things right is by approaching everything they do with earnest, honest depth of feeling that doesn’t dumb things down.
An unfortunate side effect of being quality family entertainment is the fact that I get a lot of dust in my eye while watching certain Muppet projects. Here are the five moments that never fail to make me well up.
#5 Baby Piggy’s Love Song
Not all tears have to be sad ones, and there’s nothing sad about “I’m Gonna Always Love You.” This musical interlude/backdoor pilot for Muppet Babies was shoehorned into the middle of The Muppets Take Manhattan and for all it gums up the workings of the actual plot, it’s so freaking adorable I don’t know who could possibly care. These are tears of the purest joy, captured in the perfectly soft, round baby Muppets with their giant eyes designed to be concentrated cuteness at its most potent and effective.
#4 The Triumphant Return of “The Rainbow Connection”
The 2011 film The Muppets is the first big screen feature for Kermit and the gang since 1999’s Muppets from Space (a film that I actually like, but is patently not present on this list). This is the first Muppet project I ever saw, so when the group finally gets together to put on a show and save their theater, this was the first time in my life I ever heard the song “The Rainbow Connection.” I cried all over my damn face, because even though I didn’t have the necessary background to appreciate it to its fullest, I could tell how important this song was to both its performers and the audience. The raw power of that Paul Williams tune is undeniable, and now that I know my Muppet history, my face briefly converts into a firehose for two and a half minutes after Kermit strums that banjo.
#3 Look, I Really Like “The Rainbow Connection”
In episode 7 of the first and only season of the tragically axed Muppets sitcom, Kermit is feeling stressed out by the rigors of running the late night talk show “Up Late with Miss Piggy.” The stinger scene at the end revealed that he’s decided to go back to his roots and update his Hollywood lifestyle with a little taste of home. Of course that home involves “Rainbow Connection,” and of course I immediately had to reach for the tissues. I’m a weak man.
#2 It’s Not Easy Being Blue
A lot of Muppet musical sequences either draw on the traditions of old vaudeville routines or the grand production numbers of Busby Berkeley, but one notable exception is “Pictures in My Head,” the melancholic ballad in the first act of 2011’s The Muppets. Rather than employing stage tradition or going full-tilt pure cinema, this song quietly slips into a fantasia of memory and regret, brings back hope and wonder by building to a dazzling musical crescendo, then strips it all back to underscore the loneliness of the performer. Who, I might add, is Kermit the Freaking Frog. It’s a rough go, and a splendidly delicate approach to bringing the old band back together.
#1 Gonzo is Going to Go Back There Someday
Rightfully, the iconic song from 1979’s The Muppet Movie is “The Rainbow Connection,” and I hope I’ve already made clear my attachment to that particular composition. But there’s nothing more unexpectedly touching than the solo number from Gonzo, who is usually just there to be a one-note weirdo full of crazy ideas and fevered enthusiasm for his ridiculous stunts.
However, in this origin story for the Muppet crew, we get to see Gonzo discovering his passion for midair stuntery, and as wacky as he is, we learn what it means to him. The song “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” is a boldly earnest paean to discovering your true nature and chasing your dreams, about getting a taste of the thing you love and committing yourself to following it from that day forward. Gonzo’s simple character suddenly gives way to a million-yard deep well of yearning to feel a sense of belonging, and finally finding where that might be able to come from. It’s a steep drop, and an exquisitely emotional one. Now I’ve gotta stop typing because my keyboard is starting to get wet.
Brennan Klein is a writer and podcaster who talks horror movies every chance he gets. And when you’re talking to him about something else, he’s probably thinking about horror movies. You can find his other work on his Dread Central column applying film school theory to silly horror movies, his Ghastly Grinning column pairing the week’s releases with the perfect classic horror double feature, and his blog Popcorn Culture where among other movie reviews, he is running through every slasher film of the 1980’s. Also check out his podcast, Scream 101 where he and a non-horror nerd co-host tackle horror reviews with a new sub-genre every month!