Most adult Muppet fans have a strong connection with the franchise, stemming from childhood. You can usually tell when a Muppet fan was a kid based on which films they favor the most. Even if the film is nothing spectacular, they have a deep sense of nostalgia for it, bringing fond memories of rewatching a particular film over and over again as a child.
Well, except for me. I never watched The Muppet Show or any of the Muppet movies as a kid. I knew who the characters were, because who doesn’t, but I didn’t know anything about them. I didn’t get into the Muppets until my senior year of highschool when I was eighteen, long after most fans would have been introduced to them. I don’t have that same nostalgia for these characters and their movies like other fans do.
The only slight exception to this though, is Muppets from Space.
I remember being about ten years old and waking up on a weekday morning, sitting on the couch next to my sibling while our dad began preparing breakfast. He came over to the couch and turned on the TV, surfing the channels until he found Muppets from Space had just started. My mom came into the kitchen and we all watched the movie together while my dad made pancakes. I don’t know why this memory stuck with me, since I never watched the movie again after this until adulthood, but I remember all of us laughing and having such a nice morning together.
I say this to establish that if I were to be biased towards any Muppet movie because of nostalgia, it would be this Muppet movie. However, while I hold that memory close to my heart, I do not feel the same warmth towards this movie.
Muppets from Space is a movie that came at the end of an era. Coming out in 1999, it was the final Muppet movie with Jerry Juhl as a writer, and with Frank Oz as a performer. Both of these men were with the Muppets from the very beginning, shaping the Muppets into what we know them as today. It was also the last Muppet film before the Jim Henson Company was taken over by Disney. It’s unfortunate that the old Muppets era was capped off with this incredibly mediocre, and slightly disappointing, film.
The plot of Muppets from Space is simple enough: Gonzo feels outcast and alone, not knowing what he is or where he comes from. He discovers that he is an alien and his alien brethren are trying to reach him. This gets him abducted by the government, so Kermit and the gang have to come rescue him. Once Gonzo escapes, he meets his alien family and almost goes with them before realizing that his real home is with the Muppets. The end.
The movie lost about two million dollars at the box office, is seen as a disappointment by many of its creators, is largely forgotten about by general audiences, and is typically one of the least favored Muppet movies by Muppet fans. But, why? What is it about this movie that just doesn’t work?
My main issue after rewatching this movie, is that it just doesn’t feel like a Muppet movie. It feels a heck of a lot like a 2000’s Nickelodeon or Disney TV film, but not a Muppet movie. I think there are three main reasons for this: no original songs, a dedication to “realism,” and a misunderstanding of characters.
Muppets from Space was the first Muppet film to not include any original songs, instead choosing to mostly use funk music for comedic scenes. While I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing, it does lead to it feeling like a more generic sci-fi kids movie than a Muppet classic. Muppet original songs can significantly elevate or destroy a Muppet film. Although the plot of Muppets Most Wanted is not my favorite, the songs, written by the incredible Bret McKenzie, are absolutely the highlights of that film and make otherwise uninteresting scenes very memorable and noteworthy. The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, on the other hand, is a film I’ve blogged about already, with my main critique being that the poorly composed music drags the film down significantly. So, choosing to go with popular hits is definitely a safe choice, but one that neither brings the movie up or down, leaving it squarely in the forgettable center.
The best musical scene, and my favorite scene in the entire film, is definitely in the very beginning as all of the Muppet characters chaotically get ready for breakfast while The Commodores “Brick House” plays in the background. Many of the most notable Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight characters are all living in the same large house together, in what I can only describe as an incredibly fanfic-y moment (like a goofy Slendermansion). The song is interpreted very literally as the characters all intermingle in their own brick house, but they also dance and sing along to the song, making it feel like it's more than just a backing track. It’s a great scene and incredibly well put together. I can only imagine the logistical nightmare this would have been for the setmakers and puppeteers.
Unfortunately, none of the other musical moments stand out like this one. The rest feel less connected with what we are seeing on screen, or can even cheapen the moment. The final song that the aliens sing when they finally meet Gonzo is Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration,” a song that I mostly associate with children’s birthday parties and bowling alleys. It works great in those settings, but less so in a moment where Gonzo’s long lost family is reconnecting with him for the first time. It feels far too generic for this scene, making the whole thing feel unemotional and bland. If they were to put an original song anywhere, this would have been the place. Heck, we don’t even get an Electric Mayhem moment! They could have at least had Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem do a cover of a song, right?
One of the writers of this film, Joseph Mazzarino, spoke in a 2009 interview with ToughPigs that he found the experience writing for Muppets from Space to be “miserable.” He had originally written a very parody-heavy script with a much more Muppety sense of humor, only for the new director, Tim Hill, to cut all of that out since he wanted the film to be more real.
I have no idea if Mazzarino’s script would have made the film more enjoyable, but I definitely think the direction that Hill took it in was the wrong one. Something that many people don’t consciously recognize about Muppet films is that they are very self aware. The Muppet movies are unique in that the characters you see on screen are simply that, characters, and the Muppets are their actors. In the Muppet universe, all of the films are put on by the Muppets, instead of being genuine looks into their lives like we may be used to. This is why Muppet films often have numerous fourth-wall-breaking jokes and meta humor in them. The original Muppet movie started with all of the Muppets getting together in a private theater to watch the movie they made together, while The Great Muppet Caper has a scene where the entire plot stops because Kermit is criticizing Miss Piggy’s acting. These jokes are a staple of Muppet comedy and really shape their world in an interesting way. Trying to make the film more “real,” misses the point that none of the Muppet films are supposed to be real. They are movies within a movie. There is only ONE joke that breaks the fourth wall in Muppets from Space, and it is an hour and five minutes into the movie.
The celebrity cameos also feel like they misunderstand what Muppet movie cameos should be. Celebrity cameos, no matter how famous the celebrity is at the time, will always age. Because of this, the celebrity cameo should be short, sweet, and funny even if the audience has no idea who the celebrity is. The Peter Falk cameo in The Great Muppet Caper, is a great example of this. In the scene, Peter Falk comes up to a dejected Kermit and tells him that he knows what’s wrong with him, listing out his assumption of Kermit’s life story and problems in a Columbo parody. Kermit tells him he is completely wrong about every single thing he said, and the joke is over. It’s a great scene because if you are familiar with Columbo, you’ll understand the reference and parody, however, if you don’t, you’ll still understand the joke. The scene should work just as well with a background extra as it would with a celebrity, otherwise the joke will age poorly and make little sense to any audiences unfamiliar with the source material.
This is not how the cameos work in Muppets from Space. In one scene, famous wrestler, Hulk Hogan, appears as a government security guard. The cast literally announces who he is in awe, and then he makes a joke about being a wrestler that is very Hulk Hogan specific. This joke falls completely flat if you don’t know who Hulk Hogan is (and it isn’t even very good if you are familiar with him).
Music and comedy aside, probably the element that makes this film feel the least Muppety of all is the way the script misunderstands the Muppet characters.
Clearly inspired by Gonzo’s beautiful song in The Muppet Movie, the entire plot is built around the idea that Gonzo is alone in the world as a weirdo freak and is upset by this. This is what moves the plot from beginning to end, and it is completely and utterly wrong.
Ever since his early appearances on The Muppet Show, Gonzo has always been an oddball. He is a strange looking creature who valued abstract performance art, which later turned into an obsession with thrill seeking and dangerous stunt performances. In many instances, other characters have questioned what Gonzo is, typically choosing to label him as a “thing” or a “whatever.” In The Great Muppet Caper (apologies for referencing this movie so much, I just love it), Gonzo is placed into a cage labeled “whatever,” and in The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, Gonzo does not play the Tin Man, but instead, the Tin Thing. Most importantly though, this has never bothered Gonzo. Gonzo never tried to put himself into boxes, instead always being aware of who he was: The Great Gonzo. In a now iconic comic strip, Scooter desperately asks Gonzo “what the heck are you?” only to be met with the response, “Oh Scooter… I thought you knew. I’m an artist.” To me, this perfectly encapsulates Gonzo’s character and identity. This is also why so many people identify with him as a Queer and particularly nonbinary character.
To see all of that suddenly change in Muppets from Space is quite jarring. Gonzo no longer understands who he is when no one else quite does, but is instead deeply disturbed at being the only one of his species. This feels out of place even in the context of this movie, since we watch the “Brick House” scene at the beginning where all of these oddball creatures are living in strange ways with one another, only to immediately be followed by Gonzo dejectedly telling Kermit that he feels like a lone weirdo “Whatever.” Gonzo is far from the only weirdo in the Muppets, as Sam Eagle would gladly point out, and he isn’t even the only unique creature. Is Animal also not a strange creature who has no direct family that we know of? He doesn’t even speak English the same way everyone else does! What about Sweetums, or Beaker, or any of the other strange Muppet creatures?
According to Joey Mazzarino, his script’s ending was entirely different. In his version of the story, the aliens that come to Earth are not Gonzo’s brethren, but instead had been getting all of their information from old episodes of The Muppet Show, which then inspired them to make themselves look like Gonzo since they saw him as the ultimate being. They would reveal themselves to be strange alien creatures and Gonzo would remain an unknown “Whatever” with no clear origin, choosing instead to see the Muppets as his true family.
This ending is so much better than what we got. Mazzarino seemed genuinely upset that the script was changed to identify Gonzo as an alien in the end, and I completely understand his frustration. Not only does this go against Gonzo’s previously established characteristics and qualities, but it’s also just a cheap character decision. It is so much more impactful to have a character deeply desire one thing, only to not get what they want and instead find what they need. Gonzo already had a family and a place to call home, and I don’t know why he has to find out what species he is to learn that. I much prefer when characters are allowed to remain ambiguous and unknown. Who cares what Gonzo is, when we know who he is.
All that being said, this movie isn’t bad. I like Miss Piggy as an aggressively aspiring news anchor. It’s a very fitting interpretation of her character and she gets a stunning purple outfit out of the whole thing. I also always love Muppet rat moments in Muppet movies, and this film definitely delivers. I love the scenes with the lab rats, and the new rat characters have such fun designs. The jokes are generally decent to pretty good as well (except for the one where an invisible Animal sexually assaults a random woman… I hate that actually). And although I hate what they did with the ending, I do still find the scene where Gonzo says goodbye to everyone to be really sweet and genuinely touching.
So, there you have it, a pretty meh movie to end the pre-Disney Jim Henson Productions era. It’s a movie young kids will probably enjoy the most, but it lacks as a Muppet film and is generally too mediocre to be memorable. Thank goodness there’s no real “Muppet canon” though, because I refuse to accept the idea that Gonzo is an alien and not forever a strangle little “Whatever.”
