Tough Pigs -- My Week with Muppetfest

Sunday, Part 1:

How conventions work

When it was announced that Creation would be putting together a Muppet convention, some crabby Muppet fans worried that Muppetfest would just be a shorter, greener Star Trek convention. Well, I know Star Trek conventions. I've been to Star Trek conventions. And Senator, this was no Star Trek convention.

This is how Star Trek conventions work: Approximately nothing happens for the first forty-five minutes. The emcee is someone who works for Creation. Finally, a performer comes out and stands on stage for about twenty minutes, either talking about the space program (Nichelle Nichols) or taking questions from the audience (everyone else). Then the performer leaves and sits at an autograph table. They screen an old episode that everybody's already seen. Then another performer comes on for twenty minutes. Then they do a costume contest for about an hour. Then they do nothing at all for about two hours so you have plenty of time to stand on line for autographs and buy stuff in the dealer's room.

This is how conventions AREN'T supposed to work: The emcees are all Henson writers. The performers come out on stage for an hour. They take a little break, then come back for another hour. They show old clips that have never been seen before. The guy who performs the main character stays on stage for about three hours. When a panel is over, the guests are reluctant to leave the stage. The schedule is so packed with cool stuff that audience members actually complain about not having enough time to take a break and see the exhibit room.

Apparently, nobody briefed the Henson folks on how conventions work. Ssssh! Nobody tell them the truth. Act all cool about it. Let them think that this is how conventions always go. Let's see if we can make them do this again next year.

Honestly, though, this is fantastic. Regularly during the second day, people on stage mention that we already know all about the Muppets. They know that we've read the books and seen the documentaries, so they rack their brains thinking of new stories we've never heard before. They throw presents at us from the stage. And the coolest part is that they really care about putting on a good show for us. And y'know what? They already have our money. In fact, they could have put on half as much, and we all would have walked out satisfied -- but they're absolutely determined to show us a good time.

I've never been at a convention where there's so much respect and love, both from the fans and from the guests. And frankly, I've never been so proud to be a Muppet fan. These people really are as cool, as funny, and as nice as we'd always hoped they would be.

Plus, they're ganging up on each other. Check this out:

Elmo: What's your name?

Pepe: It's Pepe, okay.

Elmo: Hello, Pepe okay!

Pepe: No -- just Pepe.

Elmo: Hello, just Pepe okay.

Sal: NO! He's just PEPE! OKAY?

Elmo: O-KAY!

Bean: That monkey scares me.

Sal: You are such a little wussy.

Then Elmo tries to make a deal with Bean: "Bean... these are more adult characters. We're more daytime characters. We need to stick together."

I'm sitting with Bill, who works for Disney, and the whole time he keeps murmuring to me, "This would never happen with Disney people..." At Disney, they have a whole book full of the Official Answers to questions like, "How long have Mickey and Minnie been dating?" And woe betide the Disney employee who doesn't give the Official Answer. But these guys are just messing around.

Brian: The idea of Bean is that he's the anti-Muppet. He's sort of cute and sweet and sappy.

Gonzo: He's so cute, he's evil!

Bean: Thank you!

Sal: You are so disgusting.

Elmo: What does that make Elmo? If Bean is so cute that he's evil.

Floyd: You don't want to know.

And when an audience member asks about Pepe selling seafood for Long John Silver's:

Pepe: They pay me a lot of money, okay.

Sal: [to audience member] Yeah, what's your point?

Pepe: It's very simple. Money money money makes the world go round.

Kermit: I haven't done any frog legs commercials, actually.

Pepe: Oh, you should -- you make a lot of money, okay.

One more time from Bill: "This would never happen with Disney people..."

And an audience member asks why there aren't more female Muppets...

Gonzo: I'm a female character. A lot of people don't know that.

Sal: I didn't know that!

Gonzo: Yeah. But I play a male part, which is very liberating.

They're up there doing this for a whole hour. And then Craig Shemin, the emcee for the day, has to actually cut them off and get them off stage so they can do the next panel.

So please, please, please -- Nobody tell the Henson folks that this isn't how conventions are supposed to run. If you tell them, I will spank you. I will spank you like a bad, bad donkey.

Sunday, Part 2:

Episode IV

Next up is the Kermit's Swamp Years panel, so now I get to put on my Brenda Starr-Lois Lane hat and report some real news. They show the teaser trailer for the new Swamp Years video, and then they basically bring out the entire production staff to talk about it.

So here's what we learned from this panel. Stop me if I get too CountingDown.com on you.

Kermit's Swamp Years is the new direct-to-video Muppet movie, coming out in late summer/early fall 2002. It's the story of Kermit at age 12, first learning about the world outside his swamp. Kermit's got two frog friends, Goggles and Croaker, and they're menaced by humans who are stealing frogs from the swamp for dissection. Goggles gets frognapped by the dissectors, so it's up to Kermit and Croaker to leave the swamp, travel to the big city and rescue their friend.

And, by the way -- it looks great. We got to see the trailer and a rough cut of one of the action scenes, and so far it looks like fun. The Young Kermit has a very high "awwww" factor. To put it bluntly, he's adorable, and you're gonna want a Young Kermit doll. Goggles is played by Joey Mazzarino; Croaker by Bill Barretta. John Kennedy plays Blodge, a big mean toad that menaces the frogs. The clips we saw looked funny and energetic, and the exterior shots (filmed in real Florida swamps) were fantastic.

And here's some good news for us all -- They actually care about making a film that the fans are going to like. Writer Jim Lewis promises, "There are lots of little easter eggs throughout for the fans." He didn't want to spoil any of the surprises, but one fan-fave detail that snuck out was that KSY includes an appearance by Arnie the Alligator, who chased Dom deLuise out of the swamp at the beginning of The Muppet Movie.

"This is actually Kermit's Swamp Years: Episode IV," Jim says. "We're gonna go back... The next one is actually called The Search for Nanny's Head."

You see? This stuff is in good hands. Even Steve Whitmire is happy with it. He said he was pleased with the idea of exploring Kermit's character, saying, "I've tried to not let him just become a corporate icon." After a while, he just started gushing about the film: "It feels more like The Muppet Movie than anything we've done since Jim passed away. A really good feeling. I'm SO excited about it!"

Me too. Principal photography finished before Thanksgiving, and now it's being edited for a summer release. An audience member asked about a sequel, and Jim's response was: "From your mouth to God's ear... We'd love to. These are a rich group of characters. If it does well, we could do many more. It's kind of like DC Comics' Elseworlds -- a whole mythology all to itself. It's a fun place to go."

So there you have it. Once again, I was really impressed with the passion and energy that these folks have for working with the Muppets. They're not just Hollywood hacks squeezing out another direct-to-video sequel. They're not exploiting the franchise; they're expanding it, making it bigger and deeper. They're on the right track. Now buy the video so they keep making more.

Sunday, Part 3:

A lesson for everyone

So I'm sure you've noticed by now that this is one marathon of a My Week column, huh? I've actually spent longer working on this column than I spent at the convention, and I'm still only halfway through Sunday. I should get an award for this.

Oh, wait -- I DID get an award for this. The emcees gave out prizes during the con to fans who could answer trivia questions, and I got two of the coolest prizes of all. At the Kermit's Swamp Years panel, they asked who Kermit's friends were. I knew it was Goggles and Croaker, and I got a cool Kermit's Swamp Years hat. Later on, Craig asked who performed Taminella, and I knew that it was Jerry Juhl -- and I won an autographed script for Sunday night's live Muppet Show. It was the most amazing thing. Treasure was just falling from the sky right into my hands.

And you know how I knew the answers to those two questions? Because I read ToughPigs.com. I wrote about Kermit's Swamp Years a few weeks ago, and Taminella was the star of Tales of the Tinkerdee, which I wrote about last month. Let this be a lesson to all of you: Read Tough Pigs every day. It's bound to pay off sooner or later.

Meanwhile, there's so much more that happened at Muppetfest, but this is all taking so long that I'm tempted to just wrap things up and put everything else into the Muppetfest Memories zine. I think you're getting the point anyway, which is the following: Coolest weekend ever.

I wish I had the patience to describe the Digital Performance Control System, which Steve and Dave demonstrated as a digital Kermit and Gonzo, because it was really quite cool, and it made me optimistic about the possibilities of 3D computer-animated Muppets. I wish I had the time to describe the bizarre practical joke that they demonstrated that involved Jerry picking his nose behind Michael Eisner's back. I wish I could explain to you why a little guitar signed by Kermit was auctioned off for $720, but a set of the scripts for The Muppets Valentine Show, The Frog Prince and The Great Santa Claus Switch only got $380. I wish I could explain the look on my friend Bill's face later that night when he bought a box full of Miss Piggy's accessories for $1,850.

But I'm tired. So very tired. Muppetfest was so big, and so beautiful, and such an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience that there's just no way I can capture all of it.

And the best part is that it's not really over. During one of the panels on Sunday, Steve said, "So many people have come up, saying, Thank you, thank you for being here. And I just want you to know, we feel the same way about you. There's a big gap [the stage] between us here, but really, we're here with you."

They gave us an amazing show, and they entertained us and revealed themselves to us for a weekend -- but I think we did something for them too. All of the Henson people that I talked to over the weekend just seemed thrilled to get all this love and energy back. They kept saying that they never get direct feedback from fans like this. Everybody was just feeling so good. And I'd like to think that maybe we inspired them.

It's been a hard year for the Muppets. Actually, it's been a hard decade. If you think about where the Muppets were in 1991, before anybody was sure that the company would even survive, you can see what a crazy roller-coaster the last ten years have been for them. First Disney came in to save them, then Sony, then EM.TV. All those movies, all those TV shows, all those comebacks. It wouldn't have been a surprise if they'd just given up and closed down the shop.

Muppetfest was a chance for all of us to come together and say, Please don't stop. You mean too much to us. It was kind of a call to arms for the Muppet Reserves, Lovers and Dreamers Division -- with two months' notice, how many Muppet fans can we assemble in one place, and how happy can we make them? Turns out the answer was: Lots, and very.

I like to think that over the next year, when they're working on Kermit's Swamp Years, or pitching the new Muppet Show, or negotiating the distribution for the next Muppet movie -- whenever they get discouraged, they're going to think about us, cheering and laughing and giving standing ovations to Gonzo.

I think they'll smile, and keep going.