“Greatest Muppet Movie Of All Time” Script Details

Let me start off by saying… thank god it is not being called “The cheapest Muppet Movie of all time” as was originally proposed. The new details which came to us via The Playlist by way of Collider definitely give us at least a little bit of hope after the last few strike outs from the Muppets.

First, let’s see what Playlist had to say.

“The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time is about Gary, Mary, and Walter (a man, his girlfriend, and the man’s life-long nondescript, brown puppet best friend) getting the old Muppet gang – now retired entertainers known for the same Muppet show we know them from – together to save the TV studio that the original show was shot in. A villain, Tex Richman (nice name, on par with Doc Hopper), bent on drilling for oil underneath the studio, is due to take over the studio in weeks, and the only way to stop him? Putting on a show that draws ten million viewers (see also “Heartbroken: The Conan O’Brien Story”).

This is a pretty safe story, but that isn’t a complaint. There’s a whole generation who needs to be introduced to the Muppets to it may as well happen in the kind of story where everyone gets their own re-introduction. Also, I’m looking forward to what I hope will be some interesting “Where are they now” moments to see what Muppets do after they retire. My one real concern is that whenever I see a story where the bad guy is an oilman, I start to get nervous that the story is going to get all heavy handed and preachy about the environment. They’ve got a big opportunity to blow with stupid jokes about how it’s not easy being green.

“It’s a solid attempt at recapturing what made The Muppet Show and the first two Muppet movies so great, but The Great Muppet Movie of All Time is no Great Muppet Caper – Caper being to the first Muppets film, what The Empire Strikes Back is to Star Wars – but it is a fresh, younger approach. Stoller and Segel have fun with the characters, are aware of what made the Muppet early years so great (winks to the audience, friendly musical numbers, single gag repetition, friendship and togetherness being the answer to everything), and hit the mark 65% of the time. We’re hoping the songs (the majority of which were missing from the script) help elevate the script from a harmless Muppet flick to a more memorable one, but there’s more work to be done first. But what their script lacks (oddly enough, this being a Muppet movie and all) is forward pulse. The Muppet Movie is about a frog’s drive to get to Hollywood and the people he meets along the way and the friendships he makes.”

These comments give me a little more pause. There is no way that The Great Muppet Caper is better than The Muppet Movie. Maybe I just have a personal vendetta against Charles Grodin… you know what you did… but The Muppet Movie has always been the best of all the Muppet films. The second thing that worries me here is the comment about script not having a forward pulse. It was the road story aspect of The Muppet Movie that helped make it so special. Even in the aforementioned Muppet Caper, they were on a quest. From the sounds of this I feel like I’m going to be getting a musical Muppet version of UHF… not that I don’t love UHF, but it just isn’t what I’m looking for in a Muppet film.

…Although, I have the perfect Muppet in mind for the Wheel of Fish!