I guess we haven’t talked about this movie much on Tough Pigs, so in case you forgot, it’s a not-for-kids movie about a detective solving the murders of cast members from a children’s puppet show.  Variety describes the story as taking place “in a world where puppets and humans live together, but the puppets are viewed as second-class citizens,” so we can expect every review of the finished film to compare it to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Click here to point out that the really hip folks will be comparing it to Greg the Bunny on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Awards season is upon us!  Which means we’re here to ride the coattails of the Academy Awards with our very special movie-themed Muppet Vault!

That’s right, we’re reprising Muppet Vault: Movies (think of it as a sequel) on Sunday, February 19 at 2:00pm!  We’ll be showing the classic Muppets Go to the Movies, as well as some of our favorite movie-themed Muppet clips, including Oscar nominated actors and memorable movie spoofs!  As always, there will be drink specials, rare Muppet videos, trivia, and prizes! All that and more for just $8!  But really, it’s just an honor to be nominated.

Once again, the Vault will be held at Union Hall, located at 702 Union Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY. The venue is near the 2,3,4,D,N, and R trains. So many options! Union Hall has a fully-stocked bar, food options, a fireplace, a library, and two bocce ball courts. And on February 19, it will be lined with paparazzi!

Don’t let the bar atmosphere fool you, the Muppet Vault is all-ages! So bring your kids, bring your grandparents, and bring your miniature gold statuettes!

Want to be the first to know about the Muppet Vault? Join our mailing list! We promise, you’ll only get two e-mails from us per month: One when we announce the next Vault and another to remind you a week beforehand. And we won’t use your e-mail addys for anything else or sell them to the highest bidder. We’re cool like that.

We’ll see you in Brooklyn on February 19 for Muppet Vault: Movies!

Click here to thank the Academy on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

Thanks to Tough Pigs’ own Michal Richardson for alerting us to this!  Click here to paint the town red on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

I don’t know if there are any more of these hidden away, but if there are: Keep ‘em coming, AT&T!

Click here to wreak explode-y havoc on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

When the Tale of Sand script surfaced in the Henson Company archives, I’m sure the Henson folks were tempted to try producing it as an actual film.  With today’s movie technology, you can create all that stuff semi-convincingly with a greenscreen and some CGI.

But they didn’t make a movie, they teamed with Archaia Comics to make a graphic novel, which was (FINALLY!)  released last month. Archaia has done great work with translating existing Henson properties to comics, and the comics medium proves to be the right choice for this project.  With Jim and Jerry gone, any producers or directors would have had an enormous responsibility to do justice to their great “lost” work, and besides that, any kind of mainstream production would probably have required some cuts to the original screenplay, but this format allows us to experience Jim and Jerry’s entire story without constantly asking, “Is that really how they would have done it?”

The first thing you notice when you hold this book in your hands is how pretty it is.  The price tag reads $29.95, but I would have easily expected to pay ten dollars more than that.  It’s a lovely hardcover with a simple but appealing design, and it even has a little ribbony thing that I think is meant to be used as a bookmark.  As if any Henson fan could restrain themselves from devouring the whole book in one sitting!

I’m a pretty big comic book geek, but I had never heard of Ramón K. Pérez before this book was announced, so I wondered why Archaia and Henson didn’t choose a more high-profile artist, but now I can’t imagine another artist doing any better with the material.  I’d be interested to know how much instruction he got from the Henson Company and how much creative freedom he had in interpreting what was obviously a crazy script, but the result is fantastically readable.

The layouts vary — sometimes the pages are crowded with panels, sometimes there are full-age drawings with no panel borders at all.  Sometimes pages and pages go by without dialogue, so the art has to carry all of the action.  But it’s never confusing, which is pretty impressive for a story that features stuff like a guy getting chased through the desert by an Arabian army and a football team.

I also want to mention the colors, an aspect of comics that I don’t even notice most of the time.  Ian Herring is credited as colorist alongside Pérez, and the colors are just as beautiful as the art itself. The script is called Tale of Sand, and it takes place in the desert, so as you might guess, there’s an abundance of sand in it. But the clever, not-always-naturalistic coloring prevents the whole book from being page after page of orange or brown.

Oh hey, what about the story?  It’s good too!  Although Henson and Juhl were geniuses, not every single thing they ever worked on was pure gold, so it would have been unfortunate but not impossible for Tale of Sand to be lousy.  And it’s altogether likely that some of those Hollywood producers who rejected the project just didn’t like it.  But it’s a rollicking good time, with tons of weird, funny moments, and you really never can guess what’s going to happen next.  If you like Timepiece and The Cube, you’re going to like Tale of Sand.  It feels exactly like the next project Jim and Jerry would start on after The Cube, with similar themes and an all-around similar vibe.

In The Cube, you have a guy stuck in an inescapable prison which may or may not represent life itself, as a series of unusual characters enter, torment him, and exit.  Tale of Sand gives its lead character a bigger space to inhabit and the ability to explore it, but as in The Cube he’s hampered by bizarre happenings that are beyond his control or understanding.

The protagonist is Mac, a “muscular, stocky man in his late thirties,” according to the screenplay (excerpts of which are cleverly integrated into the art at various intervals).  As the story begins, he finds himself in an old Western town, where all the citizens have gathered for a celebration, which turns out to be in honor of Mac.  Apparently, he’s supposed to go on some kind of journey, and everyone is really excited about it.  The town sheriff gives Mac a debriefing that doesn’t explain anything at all, hands him a map, and sends him off into the desert.

And that’s pretty much the premise of the thing.  There’s no formal beginning/middle/end structure, and if Mac learns anything over the course of the book, I couldn’t tell you what it is.  There is conflict, though, and plenty of it… Mac has to pass numerous obstacles, some dangerous and some ridiculous, and throughout his expedition, a mysterious man appears to make life difficult for him. (He’s not identified in dialogue, but the script calls him Patch.)

Just as there’s no plot, there’s no character development to speak of.  Mac is just a guy — we don’t know anything about him, or where he came from.  He exists only to move from one strange and surreal situation to the next.  That’s probably another good reason this is a graphic novel and not a real film… If it were a film, we’d be talking about how a proper movie needs a three-dimensional lead character, but the visual emphasis provided by the comic book format makes it matter less.

I guess it’s cliché to make this analogy in a book review, but Tale of Sand is like a ride… There are sudden drops and turns and loops that are kind of disorienting, but it’s all so entertaining that it’s worth it.  It’s not like a Muppet production, but it’s unmistakably a product of the Muppet guys. Their sense of humor is present throughout, and as the Archaia folks have pointed out, even the western setting echoes (or whatever the opposite of echo is, as Sand was written first) the ghost town from The Muppet Movie.  For this screenplay to have been uncovered from the depths of the Henson archives and turned into a work of art that we can own and enjoy over and over again is the happiest possible ending this Tale could have had.

Click here to walk through a field of bear traps on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Check out some of his Muppet-related artwork right here!

Thanks to Dan Barrett for allowing us to repost your artwork!

Click here to fill out immigration form #4E.1A7Q on the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

I can’t be the only Muppet fan who watched this video and thought of  the Talking Machine and Sam the Robot, right?

Thanks to Tough Pigs’ own Staci for alerting us to this! Click here to get wound up on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Click here to lament the fact that “We Built This City” wasn’t eligible for a nomination on the Tough Pigs forum!

by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com

Cut scenes, missing celebrities, crazy rumors, and story beats in the novelization all suggest that there was a lot of material left on the cutting room floor.  With the announcement of deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray (in stores March 20th), we’re ready for a taste of what we missed.  But first, let’s take stock of what we know is out there, and what we’re most hoping to see.

The Muppets Get Arrested: In one of the many parody trailers, we saw the Muppets in jail, hosted by the reliably hilarious Wanda Sykes and tag-teamed by honorary Muppet Danny Trejo.  Sadly, the scene wasn’t in the final cut of the film, and neither actor received their on-screen credit.  Even worse, a potential entertaining subplot about the Muppets paying for their crimes (which, according to the novelization, was celebrity kidnapping) and the heroism of Walter the Prison Liberator was lost to the ether.

Head Bowling: In the film, Gonzo’s bowling ball act went quite awry, but a glimpse at one of the trailers told us that he actually had some skills by successfully knocking a pin off Gary’s head.  It didn’t seem like it was necessary to the plot, since we can all imagine what head bowling might look like, but considering Gonzo’s lack of screentime in The Muppets, maybe it would’ve been nice to have included.

Giant Thog: From what we heard, Thog was accidentally built much larger than the original puppet.  So in an inspired bout of inspiration, a joke was written into the movie in which Thog couldn’t quite make it through the Muppet Show arches.  But we also heard that there was an additional joke that explained Thog’s hugeness.  Did he eat his feelings after the Muppets disbanded? Did he have a growth spurt? Did he actually claim to have been built too large??  We may never know.

John Krasinski Breaks the Fourth Wall: In another filmed-but-not-shown joke, The Office’s resident prankster John Krasinski and Sam the Eagle shared a scene in which they trade glances at the camera.  Simple, but potentially hilarious.

Kermit the Hermit: In some of the making-of clips, Kermit has a line of dialog in which he explains that he’s not really a recluse, he only comes to the mansion once a week to check the mail and water the plants and whatnot (which explains why he’s holding a tool box when we first see him).  A lot of fans were upset at this edit, since they didn’t like to think of Kermit as the type to live in a fancy mansion, let alone lock himself in.  Personally, I was cool with this personality change, since Kermit gets the opportunity to rise up from his lonely lifestyle and head back toward the personality we all know and love.  But whatever, that’s just me.

Maniacal Laugh: The Opera: Possibly the biggest complaint about The Muppets was that we didn’t get the full story behind Tex Richman’s devious behavior.  Those complaints rose even further when we heard the soundtrack and the missing operatic verse in his song, explaining his lack of laughter, why he hates the Muppets, and the key to his eventual downfall.  Lucky for us, this is one of the few deleted scenes we know will be on the Blu-Ray, so we’ll finally get the full story! Maniacal laugh!!!

Wherefore Art Thou, Muppets Studio?: It seems that we’re finally getting used to seeing “Disney’s The Muppets”, which is fine with me as long as Disney keeps bankrolling quality Muppet productions.  But strangely missing is Muppets Studios’ own logo, not seen in the intro or in the credits of the film.  Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Muppets Studio had something to do with The Muppets.

Muppet Labs: CERN Edition: Did it seem odd to anyone else that Bunsen and Beaker were the only ones in the “montage” that weren’t carried away by oversized vaudeville stage hooks?  It even seems like Bunsen, who is clearly working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, is busy delivering an inaudible line when we first see them.  Call me crazy, but I bet that was part of a much longer scene in which Kermit finds some explanation for why The Muppet Telethon needs a scientist.

Redhead on the Red Carpet: After some photos leaked all over Twitter, we learned that there would be a scene with Kathy Griffin, Billy Crystal, and Ricky Gervais on the red carpet of some big awards show (Crystal’s appearance suggests the Oscars, Gervais the Golden Globes).  My best guess: It was to be included in a scene of the Muppets trying (and failing) at getting a celebrity host for their show.  Really, they should’ve kept it if only so we could’ve gotten more of Scooter in a tuxedo.

More celebrities? Don’t mind if I do!: Even more celebrities confirmed that they filmed scenes for the movie, including Liza Minnelli, French Stewart, Mila Kunis, and Sterling Knight.  I can’t even fathom what that odd quartet could’ve done, so I’m gonna hazard a far-out guess and say they were going to play a team of slapstick acrobats auditioning for the Telethon, only to be booed off stage by Link Hogthrob and surprise guest star Barack Obama.

Pig of the ’80s: What exactly were Kermit and Piggy fighting about?  In one of the tags at the end of the film, Piggy decides to share her newfound happiness with the paparazzi, much to the dismay of a certain frog.  But Piggy’s familiar attire hinted at something else, that maybe this scene was supposed to take place in 1984.  According to the novelization, Miss Piggy dragged Kermit to a door full of flashing cameras and newspapermen after their wedding in Muppets Take Manhattan.  Kermit, understandably upset about being tricked into getting married, responded by firing Piggy and forcing the two to go their separate ways.  And then, y’know, the movie.

This list doesn’t even count all of the hard-to-confirm rumors, including more scenes with ’80s Robot, the Moopets, and Gary and Walter’s mother.  We might’ve heard of Swedish Chef Pigs in Space sketches during the telethon.  The novelization mentions a bit where Statler offers the final dollar needed at the end (though it’s whisked away by the wind, and the broken money counter made it all moot anyway).  And probably dozens more that may or may not exist in some format.

So there’s a lot to hope for with The Muppets Blu-Ray, and deleted scenes are just the tip of the iceberg.  Here’s hoping we get to see everything we want and more!

Thanks to the members of the ToughPigs forum for their additional help!  Click here to squeeze through the arches of the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com

We’ve already told you about the first few sets of Muppet skins for your Sackpeople, including Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Piggy, Bunsen, Beaker, Statler and Waldorf, and the Electric Mayhem.  And now, there’s not only a new character skin, but entire levels dedicated to the Muppets!

Check out the images and video below for more about the new Rowlf skin and Muppet Show-themed levels!  And click here for more info about pricing, release, and other details.

Click here to dress your Sackperson up like the ToughPigs forum!

by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com