Snow! And Muppets!
Two quick yet exciting notes about today.
One:
It is only November and yet tonight I heard the weather forecast mention the blessed word, “snow.” Sure, they were just baiting to get me to stick around during the commercials, but still. There is snow in the mountains and it’s possible that a flake or two could fall tonight or in the morning. Improbable, but still possible. And this excites me. Because it’s only November, and perhaps this bodes well for a white and wintry winter. Woo!
Two:
Muppets! There’s a new Muppet show on TV. It’s on TBS at 11PM on Monday nights. Why so late? Because these are naughty Muppets. It’s puppeteers from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop (including Brian Henson, Jim’s son) in an improv setting called “Puppet Up.” And any resemblance to the phrase “Fuck it up” is entirely intentional. In fact, that was rhyme used during the opening song of the inaugural episode.
Now this is how Muppets were meant to be. The early years of the Muppets were marked with ribald, off-color humor. Even The Muppet Show was filled with adult references just subtle enough to fly under the radar of censors and entertainment watchdogs. Guests like Alice Cooper and Rip Torn were controversial back in the day. But after The Dark Crystal in 1982 and Labyrinth in ‘86, Henson and Co. stuck to more kid-friendly fare. Not that I don’t love the Muppet movies (from the Great Muppet Caper to Muppets in Space, they’re all beautiful and funny), but something was missing. Perhaps it was the death of Jim Henson, or the maturing of the company itself, but a certain sense of cryptic wonder and wry spunk was lost.
The reprise of the Muppet Show seemed promising, but even that couldn’t find purchase with a new audience. And the sale of the Henson company to a German conglomerate, and then to Disney, nearly broke my heart. Seeing Kermit hawking insurance and SUVs was both painful and troubling. Jim would have never pimped out the frog like that!
And though there’s no Kermie in this new endeavor, there’s still a glimmer of what used to be. The puppeteers seem to be having fun again–there’s a sense of wicked delight in their naughtiness–and I can’t help but be pleased by that.