Little Muppet Monsters rests in the space I call “I Like What You Were Trying to Do There: Muppet Projects that Almost Worked.” (I still maintain that The Ghost of Faffner Hall could’ve been awesome if not for that Mother Goose Stories era of nightmarish ”human” puppets.) When I watched it for the first time last year, I didn’t just enjoy the antics of three delightful monster kids. In trying to understand why the show was cancelled, I accidentally echoed its original purpose—I got inspired to make a new show of my own.
In this last aired episode, the kids find a dress-up trunk, and Tug and Molly decide to do an explorer show. They pawn off the unwanted magician’s outfit and spellbook onto their little brother, but—surprise!—the Magic Book [Noel MacNeal] is alive and starts giving Boo magic lessons. Boo’s new powers get out of hand as he Abracamelia-Bedelias his siblings into sandwiches and chickens, followed by several similar mishaps. Of course, it’s all eventually reversed with a heartwarming lesson, and overall it’s my favorite of the three episodes that actually made it to air.
I think LMM’s biggest problem is the lack of cohesion between the main puppetry storyline and all the cutaway segments. Storyboard director Scott Shaw once said:
The concept of this second half-hour was neither simple nor particularly well-developed. …I’ve always felt that the juxtapositioning of live-action and animated Muppets invited an unfavorable comparison, to which the cartoon version inevitably suffered; the puppetry was just too good. The combination of Muppet babies, adults and kid monsters was very disorienting. Also, due to a lack of development time, the concept—and therefore, the writing and designs—never quite jelled.
There was never a consistent theme to unify the main storyline with these cutaway segments. For the puppetry segments featuring our old buddies, you could still have Kermit and the gang showing off their expertise while weaving it into the kids’ storylines. Imagine if in “Space Cowboys,” the kids calls up Uncle Fozzie to ask how to tell which of two competing ideas is funnier. Imagine if Boo could have called up Aunt Piggy to ask about how to give his magic show real star quality. Maybe they ask Uncle Gonzo for advice on sound effects, and oh man, Uncle Gonzo would have so much fun showing us all how to put together a Foley table.
The cartoons are, unfortunately, the worst part of the show. But imagine if they had Uncle Kermit talking about his own creative struggles—“What! Even famous Uncle Kermit?”—and tells the audience, “Here’s how my friends and I did it when we were little” and then they play an on-theme Muppet Babies clip.
Then I let my imagination run away with me, and you know what happened?
“Now, from the creators of Platypus Junction, Cow World, and Village of Fish… You loved him in Little Muppet Monsters, now get ready for…Big Muppet Monsters!”
Meet Bumbleheart, my “Muppetborn” bard-barian character in Dungeons & Dragons. He’s your typical hulking monster with a heart of gold, like if Sweetums had fae ancestry and a disguise kit.
Just look at that face! Doesn’t he look like he could fix everything with a hug and a snack and a song and a bit of magic? (Yes, the antennae are…a problem. But that’s not his fault, that’s HeroForge’s fault. The Creature Shop would get it right.)
In his tragic backstory, there was a last-minute re-write to try and save LMM. Bumbleheart was brought on as caretaker to Tug, Molly, and Boo, an anchoring secondary character to help connect the world of the familiar Muppets upstairs with the Littles downstairs. He’d make an appearance once or twice an episode so the audience knows there’s a grownup around, to bring a tray of cookies and milk, magically heal a boo-boo, and get roped into a game now and then.
The basic idea to have kid main characters creating their own TV show—thereby showing real kids how they can actively engage with this medium and maybe someday work in television—is still a good one. Maybe Bumbleheart spends an episode trying to fix the broken magical TV while the kids struggle to figure out what to do without it, learning more about TV producing and what they need to do besides hit the record button.
It was supposed to be Bumbleheart’s Big Break, and then he’d get a starring role in the eventual spinoff, Big Muppet Monsters. The sky was the limit! But LMM got cancelled anyway. Bumbleheart eventually found work adventuring as muscle for hire, but he lost touch with those three Muppetborn child actors who played the kids. He ended up with a grudge against the whole messy ordeal, not yet ready to see that his Big Break was actually…not a great show. That is, of course, until he reconnects with the now-grown kids, and they can watch and laugh about it together.
As I scribble down snippets of Bumbleheart’s story, spilling out into something besides D&D one-shots, wondering what medium he’ll end up in—animation? printed comics? actual puppetry?—I think someday, someone will like what I’m trying to do here. At least I have better support than Boo did while I learn how all this magic stuff works.
When you’re trying to make a TV show, or much of anything else for that matter, there’s no spell book you can follow. Little Muppet Monsters had a lot of great people doing a lot of great work, but not every magic spell turns out exactly like you hoped. And if this weird little flop of a show is still inspiring someone, even forty years after being canceled, I wouldn’t call that a failure, just slow-acting magic. Even if Little Muppet Monsters leaves no legacy, I still think it’s worth any Muppet fan’s time to watch at least once, even and especially the unaired stuff—stay tuned for one final review next week!
Most Valuable Muppet: Boo, all the way. I could get more into all the classic Three Siblings dynamics in this episode, but that’s best saved for a different article therapy session.
Best Segment: As ‘meh’ as I found Fozzie’s Comedy Corner segments, I like that this third one wraps up exploring the same joke from different angles, ending with a pie-in-the-face gag that breaks the animation-puppetry barrier.
Weakest Segment: Animated Animal is just a worse Amelia Bedelia. A plate, batter, and a pitcher are all things you can find in a kitchen, but a live bat? They’ve written themselves into a corner, contorting Tug’s narration into absurd phrases like “try to get a hit off the pitcher” just to stay with this baseball premise without ever actually using the word ball. One cannot force Amelia Bedelia Energy, it must come naturally.
Dumbest Joke That I Laughed at Anyway:
Magic Book: [Booming laughter] Oh, that Fozzie Bear really flips my pages.
Me: [gay eyebrow lift]
First Appearance of: “Pigs in Space” sees the crew facing off against intergalactic sorcerer Milo Sockdrawer, who eventually takes off his Darth-Vaderesque voice-modulating helmet to reveal a goofy-voiced purple bat guy:
The poor guy gets Oops I Did it Again’ed by Piggy, who keeps stringing him along, so of course he vows to follow her “to the end of space.” Alas, we never see him again, but I think I have a new favorite Extremely Obscure Muppet Character.
(Shane claims his Discord username is merely a coincidence, but I remain skeptical. Perhaps a long-lost intergalactic sorcerer in the Keating family?)
Most Prophetic Cultural Moment: Magic Book claims to have warned Boo not to do too advanced magic (though we never see this), gets extremely passive aggressive, takes a freakin’ nap to deliberately ignore a child in distress, and only gives Boo the solution to fixing everything after things got a lot worse than they had to. Magic Book is Bean Dad, I said what I said.
Most Astonishing Cameo: Butch the tiger! Mickey Moose! Snake Frackle!
One More Thing: Before Milo Sockdrawer showed up, I wrote, “The only redeeming thing about this cartoon is being the catalyst for realizing that Twink Hogthrob should be someone’s drag king name. You’re welcome, some young queer Muppet nerd.”
Alaca-zoo and alaca-zord, click here to discuss in the ToughPigs Discord!
by Beth Cook
