I'm trying
something different to get in the holiday spirit this year. Every
day, from now through Christmas, I will be watching a different
Christmas movie or television special. I have compiled the list of
features ahead of time and am drawing one, at random, from my
Christmas stocking everyday to determine what gets watched. Thank
you for joining me in this endeavor. Let's find out what the sixth
pick is.
A Muppet Family
Christmas (1987)
This Muppet special is one that my family used to watch
almost every year. I am pretty sure that we recorded it off of
television the year it aired and then later acquired a copy when it was
officially released on VHS. I have strong memories of eating
Schwan's Christmas Ice Cream Squares while watching this very
special. Regardless, the point is that we all watched this enough
times that we still make references to it to this day. However,
despite how much I enjoyed this growing up, with the decline of VCRs,
it has lapsed out of our family rotation. Therefore, I am very
excited to watch it for the first time in well over a decade.
Synopsis
A Muppet Family Christmas opens with the Muppet gang headed
to Fozzie's mom's farm house for a relaxing country Christmastime.
Fozzie has insisted that they not tell his mom as bears love
surprises. Meanwhile, Fozzie's mom was planning a trip to California
and was renting the house to Doc and Sprocket (of Fraggle Rock fame).
These plans change with the arrival of the Muppets and soon the
house is packed for holiday festivities. Kermit is saddened somewhat because Miss Piggy is the only one missing as her photo shoot went long
and she won't arrive until the evening.
Not long after the Muppets arrive carolers are soon heard
approaching. To the surprise of everyone it is the Sesame Street
gang. After their musical interlude, they are invited for the
holiday celebration and the farm house is filled even closer to
bursting. The Sesame Street crew puts on a performance of 'Twas
the Night Before Christmas.
News comes over the television that a fierce storm is headed in their
direction. This troubles Kermit even more as Miss Piggy still isn't
there and is likely caught in the storm. Doc, who has come to regard
the Muppets as friends, heads out to see if he can locate Miss Piggy.
 |
| Grover as a mouse who is clearly not stirring. |
After Doc begins the
search, Kermit's nephew Robin finds Kermit to tell him that he has
located a Fraggle hole in the basement of the farmhouse. Kermit and
Robin proceed down it to see if they can meet some Fraggles. They do
indeed meet Fraggles and soon teach them about Christmas while the
Fraggles teach them about their winter celebration. Heading back to
the farm house, Kermit and Robin are soon drawn outside to see Miss
Piggy arrive with Doc in spectacular fashion. With everyone finally
accounted for, they all gather in song and the holidays are complete.
 |
| Piggy makes a dramatic appearance. |
Final Thoughts
This special was one of the ones that I was most excited to
watch going in to this project. But, while I did still enjoy it, it
is a much weaker special than I remembered. Six features in, I am
realizing that sparse plots are common with Christmas fare, but the
plot to A Muppet Family Christmas is extraordinarily so. Easily half
the special is taken up with songs. This is not necessarily a bad
thing but when you are working with only 50 minutes it doesn't leave
a lot of room for story. That being said the special still has a lot
of enjoyable aspects. For one, it is extremely cool to see every
Muppet based project that was in production at the time cross over;
puppet versions of the Muppet Babies even make a cameo. By far the
most fun part of this is seeing the Sesame Street Muppets interact
with their non-educational programming counterparts.
I will definitely watch this again in the future as I do
still enjoy it. However, it also serves as a cautionary tale on the
power of nostalgia. I hadn't seen it in so long and had such
powerful happy memories built up around it that there was no way that
it could live up to them. Rare is the thing that given that kind of
space and time can. I still give A Muppet Family Christmas a recommendation
because, while there was some disappointment for me, it is undeniably
charming and, if you go in to it without preconceived notions of what
you are getting, I think you will find it enjoyable if slightly
mindless holiday viewing. Today ended up a bit shorter but that is
what the special gave me to work with. Besides I've had a headache
all day so I'm not going to stress out about that too much. Join me
tomorrow when I hopefully won't have to grapple with nostalgia lying
to me. See you then.
 |
| P.S. - Watch out for the icy patch. |
No comments:
Post a Comment