Still Mad for The Muppets -- and That's a Good Thing, Right?

Early on in the 2011 movie The Muppets, a network executive (played by Rashida Jones of Parks & Recreation fame) gave an audiovisual presentation that portrayed the Muppets as being shamelessly unfashionable. So it became fairly obvious at that point that the movie was taking place in an alternative universe.

But seriously, folks.

Apart from being a trifle unbelievable -- after all, Hollywood is full of celebrities whose careers have come and gone within all the years that the Muppets have existed -- the scene in question also defines the major challenge facing The Muppets: the idea that American culture is no longer capable of accepting of accepting the gentle, humanistic humor of the original Muppets.

Of course, I would like to believe that idea is wrong. After all, as I've noted, this franchise has outlasted quite a few rivals -- so much so that I find it a bit disconcerting to realize that this movie has fans whose parents were not even born when the Muppets were first introduced to American TV viewers. And quite frankly, I find it hard to believe that everyone is necessarily into the hard, cynical humor that is usually promoted as an alternative to the Muppets.

Plus, as much as I hate to admit it, this movie is my favorite movie of all the Muppet movies I have seen -- including the first one.

Granted, there are some parts I could have done without -- the farting shoes jokes, for example. And I must admit that I found it hard not to roll my eyes when the writers chose to have a wealthy character blow up his own workplace rather than help solve a problem that could have been fixed by the simple writing of a check. And what was so bad about the characters played by Amy Adams and Jason Segel that so many critics refused to give them their due?

Oh, well. At least the movie got made. And better yet, it produced a sequel.

But will we see yet another Muppet movie after the most recent one? That, alas, is a question that has yet to be answered.

Random Thoughts


Cool! Miss Michigan aka Rima Fakih won the Miss U.S.A. contest. I guess our national image of beauty is changing. Plus it doesn't hurt that she hails from my home state.

I guess it's a good thing I don't have a burning desire to see the Grand Canyon this year because even if I could afford to travel, there would be no way short of a dire family emergency I would be caught dead going to Arizona. And it's not like I have relatives in Arizona anyway.

I used to find it frustrating enough that so many liberals are ignoring the drug-related violence occurring in Mexico right now but at least they're not using it as an excuse to tell anti-Mexican jokes like the good folks at Big Hollywood. And no, I don't really care whether or not site editor John Nolte has a Mexican wife, a Mexican niece, a posse of Mexican friends or a long-standing relationship with the President of Mexico. The minute he started allowing anti-Mexican jokes on his site, I stopped taking his political arguments seriously.

Where's Red Adair now that we need him? I'm quite sure he would have found a way to cap that oil leak even if he was more a specialist in oil fires.

If BP's handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is supposed to be an example of the superior way the British handle things, it's not working.

Oh no. Parks and Recreation is going on hiatus. That means I'll have to rely on old Office reruns and bad Hollywood movies to get my weekly Rashida Jones fix.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Parks and Recreation: “The Banquet”

I initially hated this show when it looked like little more than The Amy Poehler Show. Yes, it seemed nice to take the same approach to actual politics that the original Office took to office politics but the show still didn't seem all that appealing. Then I discovered that former Office cast member Rashida Jones was on it and my interest was piqued.

Even when I started watching the actual show, it took a while for my interest to build up. On one side, Amy Poehler's female bureaucrat Leslie Knope was a lot more sympathetic than Steve Carrell's Michael Scott character in The Office. She acted a bit childish at times but unlike Michael Scott, she really did seem to have the best interests of others in mind. On the other hand, the show's writers seemed to initially overestimate Ms. Poehler's appeal for it wasn't until they started fleshing out supporting characters like Ms. Jones' Ann Perkins that the show started to seem worth watching.

The show is still a bit cartoonish and it's hard to believe that a real-life version of Ms. Knope could be as clueless as Ms. Poehler portrays her. But around the time that this episode aired, the writing seemed to be improving and the sight of Pamela Reed playing Ms. Knope's mother made for a nice touch. Plus this episode came up with a valid excuse to put Ms. Jones in a hot evening gown and I can't really find fault with that.

So we'll see.