My Sincere Pitch for a New Muppets Movie

When the pandemic started in 2020, part of my escapism from the dread of the moment was going back and rewatching the entirety of the old Muppet Show.  And it felt good, letting the nostalgia wash over me, but also it made me sad.  As I continued watching more Muppet content, the movies, then the later TV shows, I felt like something got lost along the way, and it was the earnestness with which the Muppets and even the humans around them behaved.  Even in moments of commentary or weirdo subversion, there was a genuineness that I felt fell away a bit.  Recent years felt like there was more snark, more bite, more irony,  even in how we as viewers engage with the Muppets.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Electric Mayhem focused show with Lilly Singh and Tahj Mowry from a few years back, that felt like a love letter to music through the heartfelt lens of the Muppets.  And it gave me hope that perhaps more Muppets could be coming.  Then news came that a certain Warner Bros owned streaming service might be looking to off-load Sesame Street, and I didn’t just have hope, I had an idea, a movie pitch for how to reunite the Muppets and the folks of Sesame Street for the first time since the early 2000s.  

I guess in order for this to happen Disney would have to buy the rights to Sesame Street to have them under the same umbrella as the Muppets.  I’m not here to discuss the pros and cons of monopolistic IP hoarding and such.  I’m here to talk about Muppets.  So…

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Ranking the Songs of ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’

Ranking the Songs of ‘The Muppets Christmas Carol’

Today is Christmas Eve, just one more sleep ’til Christmas as Kermit sings in The Muppets Christmas Carol. There are many, perhaps too many, film versions of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday novella. In my opinion, the only opinion that matters in this column, the Brian Henson-directed, Sir Michael Caine-starring, Muppet-filled musical version from 1992 is the only one that stands the test of time. It combines childhood nostalgia with legitimate humor and tender tugs at heartstrings with legitimate terror. It’s a tradition in my family to watch it while putting up the Christmas tree, so I have decades of experience in annually singing along. I insist on you watching the movie before reading, but if you want to do the reverse, how could I possibly stop you? So here is the definitive, objective ranking of the songs in The Muppets Christmas Carol.

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