The Muppets

Yes, place your bets now.

I have chosen 1996's Muppets Treasure Island.

Good choice.

Very good choice.

The follow-up to Muppets Christmas Carol.

I will say it's not as good as Muppets Christmas Carol.

No, well, what is? I know.

That is a high watermark.

I think I've made up my mind Now I understand That's what I am

That was Man or Muppet from the Muppets 2011 movie.

But now we're going to head all the way back to 1982 to learn about the production of The Dark Crystal.

Jim Henson had only produced two movies before this, and The Dark Crystal was very different from his earlier works.

I've seen a, a few of the other ones, uh, over the years.

Um, this reminds me a lot of, of the Muppets, the, uh, the Jason Segel Muppet movie.

Mm-hmm.

Where, you know, Jason Segel's the guy who just fucking loved the Muppets [laughs] and made what I think is probably one of the best Muppet movies, you know? And it, it's really, like-

Mm-hmm

... self-aware and stuff.

Something you feel about.

They could do a track with Fozzie from The Muppets.

Oh.

Burn your badge.

It'd be brilliant.

He was in The Muppets film, wasn't he, Dave Grohl? He had a little cameo.

Do you want?

Did he?

Muppet movie? I don't, okay, so here's the thing.

I don't like the Muppets.

How are we married? I don't.

I like, I love the Muppet Variety Show.

That's the one that sticks with you.

Because I don't remember seeing the actual Muppet movie until well much later in life.

And I had seen The Muppets Take Manhattan as a kid.

And that was my favorite.

[laughs]

And then everybody starts looking at you like those Muppets.

See, ev-

[laughs]

People have an expectation with these.

So you have to, same with the Muppets, right? It's like, why haven't we found the thing for the Muppets? It's because people have an expectation on what it should be.

Until you hit that expectation, it's going to fall flat.

These are institutions.

Like the Acme is a cynical corporation and a great stand in for Apple, Amazon, you know, and not, not even counting the, the Warner brothers of, of it all.

But, um, Acme is very cynical, but the movie doesn't have much cynicism to it.

And, uh, that's, that reminded me a little bit of that, of the Muppets movie, the 2011 Muppets movie, um, really struck a good, a good chord there.

That movie, you know, we talked about at the beginning of the year relies a little bit more on nostalgia, uh, Then this does.

So to me...

It kind of had, and you know I love the 2011 Muppets movie, it kind of had the same vibe as the 2011 Muppets movie with Jason Segel and Amy Adams, where it was like, take an old forgotten, semi-forgotten, don't come after me, forgotten, generally, IP, put it in the modern day where the world has just kind of moved on and have real people interact with these classic iconic characters from a forgotten age in a very self-aware way.

That was kind of the gist of it.

That I loved, dude.