45 years of The Muppets on the big screen. When I noticed that this was an anniversary year, albeit an odd one, I wanted to tackle this because we just had Jim Henson: Idea Man, and even then I felt like I needed to review something Muppet related. This isn’t where it began, but it is the first of the film franchise.
I’m also not here to try and tip the scales on what is clearly a time honored classic. No one has been waiting 45 years to hear if I endorse The Muppet Movie. This is not my first time seeing the film, but probably the first time since elementary school. It is on Disney Plus, and it has audio description. So, I just want to focus on this, because I feel like Disney is allowing some fuckery to abound.
It is true, that aside from Statler and Waldorf, who are (I believe) the first official Muppets, everyone starts having what they are in their name. Kermit The Frog sings Rainbow Connection, and other than promoting size relativity so a new youngster will know how big he is, most people conceptually understand a frog. And Fozzie bear and Miss piggy are also helpful giveaways. Again, size relativity. But, when we get to Gonzo, we get “a blue muppet”.
You know who else is a blue Muppet? Grover. You’ve essentially just described Grover. Now, to a sighted kid, they can clearly tell the difference between those two, but since this is technically chronologically the start of Gonzo in the Muppet film universe, you would think we could probably do better than “a blue Muppet”.
That one, I think is on the AD team. This next thing, feels very Disney.Disney loves to have a set of demands as to what can and cannot be said in the audio description, even if it is obvious to sighted viewers. That’s how Disney propagates segregated film experiences, where we can sit right next to a sighted person and have a very different experience. They did this with their Rescue Rangers feature, and this is right up that alley.
This film is *full* of cameos by stars who would be instantly recognizable, especially in 1979. The whole point of having them here, was obviously homage to TheMuppet Show that featured humans mixing in with the Muppets. Steve Martin, Bob Hope, Madeline Kahn, Richard Pryor, and a number of stars pop in and out, and a blind person would never know. These are clearly very intentional cameos, and there’s a way to do this. The Flash movie made sure the cameos stood out. You could do that.
So I’m not thrilled with this audio description track. I love the Muppets, even if this isn’t my favorite version of them, but I love how it is good clean fun. Universal comedy, for all ages, without directly pandering to kids. I remember being a kid, and growing up with Muppet Babies, and going to Disney MGM Studios where they had Muppet Vision, and there was a store that had all this cool shit I swore I’d be rich and buy someday, because it wasn’t all just the main Muppets. They went fairly deep in the merch for a lot of the featured Muppets. I want these guys to always be featured in the best way possible, and even if this isn’t my favorite, it still should have audio description that best represents the franchise, and desegregates the experience, so blind and sighted people watching this together can have as close to the same experience as humanly possible.
Final Grade: B+
