The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984 Movie)

~ Bookstooge

The Muppet Gang all graduate from college and have big dreams of making a play that will storm Broadway. So they write a play, travel to Manhattan and present their play to a famous director, telling him they hope it will make them all rich and famous. The director slowly looks at them and proceeds to throw the manuscript away. The rest of the movie is kermit trying to get the play accepted and all the other muppets giving up and going elsewhere. Once Kermit does succeed, he gets the gang back together, only to get amnesia and go missing. He’s found, Miss Piggy karate chops his memory back and the play is a smash hit and Kermit and Piggy get married.

This was definitely the weakest of the 3 movies. While as self-referential as the others, it lacked the cozy bonhomie of the first and the zany over the top situation of the second. I’m not a Broadway Play kind of guy so the whole situation didn’t work for me. Second, and more important to me, was just how mean Kermit could be. It was a very sharp departure from the carefree, optimistic Kermit of the first movie.

The Muppet show had ended in 1981 and the animated tv show, the Muppet Babies was to start in just a few months. This movie felt like a promotional ad for the Muppet Babies and as a “Happily Ever After” for fans of Kermit and Piggy. For me, Piggy and Kermit should have been eternally engaged, with all the drama and antics that go along with it.

I bought this but to be honest, I’ll probably watch it once or twice more and call that good. I felt too “meh” about this for most of it for me to give it anything else than a thumbs sideways.

35 thoughts on “The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984 Movie)”

  1. Have got a review of this one on ice…it seems that Dustin Hoffman was going to play the agent character, but pulled out, and most of the big-name stars left with him. So the result doesn’t have the formula of the first two films…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Do you think you’ll ever post that review? Or just leave it alone?
      That explanation about Hoffman and the others explains a LOT. I was just figuring I didn’t recognize the stars.

      I’m going to be watching the first 3 seasons of the show next. After those, I’m not sure what direction I’ll go.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

                    1. Doesn’t surprise me one bit. I was like the Shadow Godfather of Hollywood back in my heydey of diapers.

                      obviously, I’ve since washed my hands of the position, as even I couldn’t stomach the vain and shallow actors. Some things are just too dirty.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    3. * shrugs *
                      It always puzzled me too. Maybe they needed a boogie baby so they could feel important?

                      But that’s why the Muppets were ok in my books. They were just regular joes doing their thing. Hollywood should have taken their cue from Jim Henson.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    8. The stratified society of Fraggle Rock. The Gorgs live in their garden, the fraggles live cheerfully beneath them, the dozers do their construction work for them. Polarization of society, full critique. It was the subject of a fairly hard-hitting tv show.

                      Liked by 1 person

                    9. Fraggle Rock, yeeeeeeeees, that does seem somehow familiar, like I’ve heard that name before?
                      Nope, never seen it.
                      Thanks for the explanation. Now I don’t have to see it either 😀

                      Liked by 1 person

  3. I grew up with the muppets because of Sesame Street, but this movie isn’t my favorite of the three actual movies though, and likely because they get a hefty dose of real life. My grandfather and I used to sing ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ when I was little. Good memories. Kermit is a favorite, but Animal was always number one. Enjoyed your review. ☺️

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I know that after this movie, the muppets tried to do some “Muppet Classics” in the 90’s, which is where Christmas carol, treasure island came from. THAT idea died when they did Wizard of Oz but totally woke’ified it.
      I think they rebooted in the mid ’00’s? had several failures of a tv show then too. I’ll be poking around once I’m done with the available tv show from the 70’s and 80’s.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  8. Pingback: March ’21 Roundup & Rambling – Bookstooge's Reviews on the Road

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s