Chapter Two: The Great Muppet Caper
By Brett Beach
June 4, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
I pride myself on being critical and logical in my film evaluations - even if emotion is involved - but I find it truly difficult to be negative about the Muppets, because, well, they're the Muppets, dammit! (In the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that my adolescent nickname was Beaker). They're not just a part of my childhood; they seem so timeless they should be a part of everyone's childhood. I had the chance recently to see a good quality film print of Caper at a repertory theater in Portland, OR where I live. It was part of a month-long retrospective entitled Jim Henson's Legacy and covered all things Muppet and muppet (including The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth) on the big screen and small from the early ‘70s through Henson's death at the beginning of the ‘90s.
My first thought was how wonderful it was to see Kermit and the gang in a darkened auditorium again. This was immediately followed by a simple yet important observation: the reasons the Muppets work when they are used well is that they are as real as humans. Perhaps this elicits a "well, duh" from the reader. I feel strongly that the reason the Muppets have fallen out of commercial favor is that this elemental fact has been forgotten and they have been taken for granted and treated as mere props. Consider this: the cameos in the films by famous names (and the guest stars on The Muppet Show) work best when the humans play it straight and can treat their fine-felted friends as equals. Peter Falk's non-sequitur of an appearance in Caper, wearing Columbo's trenchcoat but seemingly improvising an epic monologue made for a Cassavetes film is a luminous example.
I don't begrudge any film that finds a reason to assemble The Muppets together again. Discounting my ever-increasing dissatisfaction with the larger parts accorded to Rizzo as time has gone by, the joy of seeing that cavalcade of characters interacting, for me, is primal. And yet, it is disheartening to me that Muppet became synonymous with literary adaptations in the last decade and a half, not to mention ever-dwindling box office returns. I am as weary and wary as many at BOP about the endless tide of reboots, reimaginings, relaunchings and franchise rebirths that Hollywood continues to surf but I am excited for Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller's planned revitalization for the characters. Segel plays the man-child convincingly in his performances and would seem an apt personality to bring the Muppets back to being adult entertainment that kids can also enjoy.
Where did the movies begin to drift away from what the characters are really about? By dropping the Muppets into pre-existing source material, for starters. But also by placing a greater premium on sentimentality and restraint. The Muppets have always had an air of anarchistic nuttiness about them and this is what I carry away from the 1970s television series. The show was an anything-goes spoof with the rapid-fire vibes of vaudeville. From backstage shenanigans to ridiculous recurring sketches to ready-made hecklers in the balcony (Statler and Waldorf, be still my heart!), The Muppet Show was a celebration of performing and a poke in the ribs at the silliness and ego and vanity and insecurity of performers.
The films go a long way towards restraining this inherent tendency towards insanity. I think an apt comparison is to the Marx Brothers and how most of their cinematic output kept them from giving free reign to their absurdist impulses and watered down the humor or balanced it with a romantic subplot or a conventional storyline. The Muppets shouldn't be fettered by storylines or plots. They should be given free reign to do whatever they want. Perhaps Soderbergh in Schizopolis mode might be the ideal forum for a free-form Muppet happening. Or perhaps that's too much for any of us to handle. If Caper resists the shackles of conventionality more than the others, it's largely in part, I would imagine, because Henson directed it.
Caper is, when all is said and done, a jewel heist film (the title does kind of give it away), but for large stretches, it doesn't really concern itself with that. It spins dizzyingly through breaking the fourth wall meta-commentary, a flashy backlot production number, the newspaper world, a road movie, the fashion industry, high society, romance, Busby Berkley-esque water ballet, and yes, whatever it is that Falk does when he shows up halfway through. Oh, and Fozzie the Bear and Kermit the Frog play identical twin reporters who can only be told apart because, of course, bears wear hats.
The opening sequence with Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo amiably riding a hot-air balloon through the sky and discussing the film they are about to star in and we are about to watch, sets the stage for a lot of the self-awareness that is to follow. They wonder how long the credits are going to be and express puzzlement over the abbreviation RSC in the cinematographer's credit. The opening number is even called "Hey, A Movie" and toys with the idea that the film could be about anything, which turns out to be the case. The fact that they know there is to be a caper (they like the title of the film, too) doesn't help them out at all: Gonzo (their photographer) gets distracted by a chicken on the sidewalk (of course) and all three miss the daylight robbery happening across the street. Kermit and Fozzie resolve to cover the story and solve the heist by heading to London and catching the thief or thieves.
No Scooby-Doo mystery here: the ringleader is quickly revealed to be the "irresponsible parasite"(that's what his office door says) and brother of the robbery victim, Nicky Holiday, played by an impossibly young-looking Grodin. From his first appearance snapping his fingers, hell his whole body, to a nightclub orchestra and curling his lips into a self-satisfied sneer, Grodin resembles nothing so much as a human-size muppet. Think Guy Smiley, only more ridiculous. I wrongly recalled from childhood viewings that Grodin wooed Miss Piggy only to set her up as the thief by planting evidence on her. In fact, Nicky has the hots for Piggy from the start and is actually torn up about having her take the fall. Odd as it is to type that sentence or to ponder Kermit and Charles Grodin competing for Piggy with a serenade, both work within the film.
Grodin's decisions as an actor are similar to how Bob Hoskins played Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Throw yourself in and don't wink at the audience. In Grodin's case, he goes the extra step of becoming like his co-stars and instead of conveying ironic detachment, he transforms his persona into that of an existential bizarre world muppet. Like Jessica Rabbit, he can't help being bad, that's just how his part was written.
A key moment of magic in The Muppet Movie is seeing Kermit out riding a bike and wondering how they pulled that off. Caper ups the ante by giving us Kermit, Piggy and the rest of the cast a day at the park on two-wheeled transportation. Kermit even does handstands, the showoff. Next time, he should watch out for those low tree branches. Caper also gives us Piggy on a motorcycle, a gaggle of Muppets shimmying up a drain pipe and a Muppet chain descending from a museum skylight during the climatic action sequence. I mentioned earlier that being taken for granted seemed to be the Muppets' fate. I am guilty of contributing to this. The Great Muppet Caper makes it seem effortlessly easy for its creations to do anything they want. What is needed is an outsize imagination like Henson's to once again let them do anything.