flipit
12-22-2008, 09:59 AM
A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa
Are you ready for some Christmas?! By the time you read this, the holiday may have passed but never fear, the Muppets Christmas recap is here! The special opens with a rousing rendition of Santa Claus is coming to town. I guess there’s nothing wrong with spreading the myth of this sneaky old man to another generation.
We catch up with the Muppets at the post office. It’s a good thing they showed the post office sign because at first glance I thought it was a homeless shelter. Miss Piggy, who has borrowed from the ‘Lady Gaga’ wig collection for the film, begins her first rant of the night about being late for their island vacation and demands that Kermit hurry up and lick the stamp. This is probably what their honeymoon sounded like. Remember how Miss Piggy tricked Kermit into marrying her in Muppets take Manhattan? Once a pig always a-well you know where I’m going with this. At that moment, our first guest appearance is made by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who promptly turns around and asks Miss Piggy to stuff it before he serves up a Christmas ham at Gracie Mansion. By the way, who mails letters and presents anymore? Why aren’t we e-mailing Santa? Better yet, we could just e-mail pictures of what we would like to buy each other and that way it would truly just be the thought that counts.
Fozzie begins lamenting the fact that all of his friends are leaving town and he is decisively ignored. No one recognizes his cry for help and I am convinced that he is here as the token black character needed to make some SAG requirement.
The Muppets then enter the post office and break into song. Normally this would make me change the channel or cry but I have a duty to the recapees of America. Our next guest of the evening is Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order fame. Exhibit A of why you should never leave a successful franchise… They launch into an ode to the post office. WTF? The post office now lets Muppets inside and has employees dancing? No wonder my gift card hasn’t arrived from reallifedoll.com! The Muppets are here to perpetuate this Santa myth to the masses and the post office workers drank the Kool-Aid. At one point, the postal workers begin passing invisible packages to each other-fire the prop master! Grover then cranks up some ancient 1945 style lever to a super fast speed to get Miss Piggy to shut up about being late for their impending vacation. When Kermit gets sucked into the machine, everyone else naturally follows suit. Anyone else disturbed by the image of Gonzo going through that machine face up? Well the Muppets mess up the mail processing machine and Jesse takes revenge on the Muppets by tossing them out onto a curb.
The Muppets go back to their apartment building and our next guest is Jane Krakowski. She announces that she has an inflatable Santa (someone else visited reallifedoll.com!) and I can’t help but wonder if she’s just been dying to tell someone this to gauge their reaction or interest in participation. She looks very single and bored. Jane is mom/guardian of a little girl named Claire who looks like the result of a Jane/Jesse rendezvous and that’s a compliment. In my defense I may have missed their defined relationship due to me losing the remote to my DVD player and being unable to rewind. Claire is upset that the Muppets won’t be there for Christmas and Gonzo demands that she get over it and requests an air kiss from her. Dude, you were big in the 80s, you better be glad someone wants to kiss you and plant some lips on that cheek! As they leave, Gonzo discovers he has letters to Santa stuck in his clothing-Claire’s included! He has to mail Claire’s letters even though she wasn’t even worthy of a lip to cheek kiss.
The Muppets race to the post office but it’s closed, duh, for Christmas Eve. Fozzie is about to commit a crime and open the letters. See what they make the token black guy do? Why couldn’t Grover do it since he was sooo concerned?!?! Just then a big, blue Keith Olbermann-esque Muppet stops him and informs him of the legal repercussions. Grover and Fozzie don’t want to be on Santa’s naughty list and we are left with the first cliffhanger of the night. Will they get the letters to Santa? Dunh, dunh, DUNH (THAT’S ALARMING MUSIC BY THE WAY)!!!
It’s about to get dicey because I’m not sure of all of the Muppets names; bear with me. Pepe the prawn greets Fozzie and the crew when they get back to the apartment and mocks their belief in Santa. He then asks for Santa’s e-mail address. Finally, someone agrees with me. Beaker/Carla from Top Chef and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew reveal that Santa cannot get e-mail due to the flux capacitor at the North Pole or something like that. However, the good doctor has invented a wish granting machine and they can wish the letters to the North Pole. It seems to me that since it’s Christmas Eve, it’s already Christmas in some part of the world and Santa has already left home but whatever! Beaker wishes for something naughty and our next guest, Petra Nemcova, shows up. Dr. Bunsen demands that Beaker send her back but Beaker does them dirty and disappears along with the wish granter. This proves my theory that supermodels ruin everything. Miss Piggy then announces that she has called a car to get to the airport. Kermit doesn’t move fast enough and since she isn’t interested in watching her husband run himself ragged to please another female, she slams the door in his face.
Kermit and the crew are still on a quest to get these letters to the North Pole and go to UPS, United Pigeon Service, and employ some seemingly Jewish stereotypes for cheap laughs. Needless to say, the pigeons do not take the letters to the North Pole because we still have 35 minutes to fill. I thought we’d gotten our fill of racial humor when I hear some old school mafia-type music playing. I can only assume these dudes are from The Sopranos-shoot, does that make me racist? I didn’t have HBO for years so I am not so familiar with the actors. Pepe asks them about getting letters to the North Pole and they reveal that they know a guy who knows a guy who knows a cousin of a guy who knows a guy who schtupped a guy who can get the letters to Santa. Rizzo pops up and the mobsters recoil in disgust; they don’t deal with rats and they do not want to end up on the naughty list. Huh? It thought the mafia owned Santa.
The failed Muppets return home and are about to solve all of their problems with the use of a handy laptop when Animal enters the hallway with a bat and smashes the computer for no other reason than to drive the plot along. Gonzo decides to go to North Pole himself. Enter Miss Piggy to remind us all that Kermit made a previous commitment to go on their island vacation. I have to agree with Miss P; you keep your word and your commitments. Miss Piggy traipses off a la Vicky Gunvalson and all the boys suddenly want to follow. Fozzie, Kermit and Gonzo are left behind but Pepe and Rizzo soon return. Fozzie is still the trusty black sidekick and Gonzo is now Screech. I have determined this because Screech/Gonzo has to be with Zack/Kermit in order to be relevant. Remember Screech on SBTB: The New Class, not so interesting. They break into some inspirational song and I really want to change the channel. Gonzo exclaims that he wants a happy ending because that’s what’s in his heart. Sure Gonzo; a happy ending is in your “heart”.
The Muppets hop into a taxi to get to the airport and it is revealed that our next guest star is Whoopi Goldberg who moonlights as a taxi driver. She demands cash from the Muppets for the ride, they all mutter indistinctly and next thing you know, they’re inside the airport. Either Whoopi got some hot Muppet action in exchange for the cab ride or she will be appearing on the back of a milk carton soon.
Inside the airport, the Muppets make it to ‘North Pole’ airlines. Ok-even Kermit looks at the camera incredulously as if to say “that’s the best you could come up with?” Uma Thurman pops up at the check-in counter and she’s getting all hot and bothered over Kermit. Why couldn’t Miss Piggy be there? I’d PAY to see an old fashioned chick fight. Kermit and the crew get to security and the writers make sure to dabble in a little inter-species love to make it clear that the Muppets are an evolving species. Pepe pulls a picture of Halle Berry out of his bag and kisses it and it was actually kind of cute. Fozzie is dropping jokes left and right, probably trying to get a spot on the Kings of Comedy tour, but instead gets assaulted by airport security. I knew it was inevitable, the black character always dies first. RIP.
But wait! We come back from commercial and Fozzie’s not dead! They’re all being interrogated and I’m hoping this goes the way of the scenes in Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Those were the best interrogation scenes ever, forget that Sharon Stone broad and her fozzie bear. Our next guest is none other than Nathan Lane and his black bear co-worker. He plays a bitter security guard who never got a tricycle from Santa because he was put on the naughty list. What is it with these grown men and the naughty list? Nathan ends up letting them go but detains the big black bear co-worker who’s in for a beating just because.
Kermit & crew are late to the plane so they have to fly to the North Pole on the wing. I’m pretty sure that’s the prescription for instant death and that would make little Claire really sad. They conveniently decide to let go of the wing 300,000 feet above a sign the size of a snickers bar that says North Pole. They’ve missed Santa, duh he had an entire world to circle, and Gonzo launches into another sappy song. What is the extent of Gonzo’s relationship with Claire? Did he marry her for citizenship or something? Is she harboring info on his secret Kermit crush? Unfortunately, these questions aren’t enough to distract me and I feel a lump in my throat. Every Muppet movie makes me cry darn it! They break into song and Fozzie is still trying to get jokes in. Give up already! You’re on MY naughty list now.
Through my tears I see magic sprinkles and Santa lands in his sleigh. Hooray!! Santa takes the letters and that blonde Uma-whore pops up and seductively mentions that they don’t want to miss this flight. Since when does Santa have a flight attendant? Ladies, never trust a man who stays out all night because he plans on flying around the world via magical reindeer to give gifts to children of the world. I fell for that once; twice in a lifetime is just too much. We discover that Pepe the prawn, who originally mocked Santa, wrote him a letter. Santa makes Pepe the Prawn an opera singer. What in the world?! Since when does Santa deliver talent? I thought it was gifts only. If I’d have known that I would have asked for x-ray vision a long time ago. Anyone else wonder what Tony Danza looked like under the apron? Santa gets Nathan Lane’s letter and he just wants to be off the naughty list...and a Birdcage sequel. Santa grants the wish and Nathan gets his red tricycle. The black bear is understandably grateful for the distraction and begins singing. Nathan tells him not to start lest he beat black bear for old time’s sake. Santa opens Claire’s letter and it turns out that all she wants is for her friends to be home. Hold the heck up. Claire could have just written a letter to the Muppets or ‘flipped” them an e-mail or nuzzled up to Gonzo and threatened the exposure of their sham of a marriage. Postage wasted for naught!! Santa flies the suckers back home.
The Muppets are back home, Claire’s happy and Jane Krakowski proceeds to put down newspaper as they walk into her apartment. Umm Jane, they’re Muppets not real animals. Miss Piggy came back all Mariah Carey’d out when she realizes that no one wants to rub sunscreen on their potential breakfast and Kermit looks resigned to his fate as permanent whipping boy. Gonzo starts off a song again; this dude’s really trying to get a record deal huh? Gonzo is starting to remind me of Cousin Larry Appleton and I’m ready for this to end. They try to point out the commercialization of Christmas in the song with lines like “sing hallelujah and silent night like we used to”. Yes Muppets denounce the commercialization of this sacred Christian holiday with your CHRISTMAS special about SANTA’S letters. It begins snowing and Kermit proclaims it will be a white Christmas. The two old, cranky Muppet men say they didn’t get their wish because they still live next to the Muppets. Hey, old guys! Did u not read the script? You’ve gotta get off the naughty list and THEN your wish to become a space cowboy or Jessica Biel’s thong will come true. Kermit then turns to his pals and delivers the typical Merry Christmas to all and to all-but Miss Piggy interrupts to emasculate him one last time before the New Year and demands that he tells us, the audience, not them. Kermit ably delivers his line and I feel that lump rising in my throat again. The Muppets do it to me every time….
Are you ready for some Christmas?! By the time you read this, the holiday may have passed but never fear, the Muppets Christmas recap is here! The special opens with a rousing rendition of Santa Claus is coming to town. I guess there’s nothing wrong with spreading the myth of this sneaky old man to another generation.
We catch up with the Muppets at the post office. It’s a good thing they showed the post office sign because at first glance I thought it was a homeless shelter. Miss Piggy, who has borrowed from the ‘Lady Gaga’ wig collection for the film, begins her first rant of the night about being late for their island vacation and demands that Kermit hurry up and lick the stamp. This is probably what their honeymoon sounded like. Remember how Miss Piggy tricked Kermit into marrying her in Muppets take Manhattan? Once a pig always a-well you know where I’m going with this. At that moment, our first guest appearance is made by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who promptly turns around and asks Miss Piggy to stuff it before he serves up a Christmas ham at Gracie Mansion. By the way, who mails letters and presents anymore? Why aren’t we e-mailing Santa? Better yet, we could just e-mail pictures of what we would like to buy each other and that way it would truly just be the thought that counts.
Fozzie begins lamenting the fact that all of his friends are leaving town and he is decisively ignored. No one recognizes his cry for help and I am convinced that he is here as the token black character needed to make some SAG requirement.
The Muppets then enter the post office and break into song. Normally this would make me change the channel or cry but I have a duty to the recapees of America. Our next guest of the evening is Jesse L. Martin of Law & Order fame. Exhibit A of why you should never leave a successful franchise… They launch into an ode to the post office. WTF? The post office now lets Muppets inside and has employees dancing? No wonder my gift card hasn’t arrived from reallifedoll.com! The Muppets are here to perpetuate this Santa myth to the masses and the post office workers drank the Kool-Aid. At one point, the postal workers begin passing invisible packages to each other-fire the prop master! Grover then cranks up some ancient 1945 style lever to a super fast speed to get Miss Piggy to shut up about being late for their impending vacation. When Kermit gets sucked into the machine, everyone else naturally follows suit. Anyone else disturbed by the image of Gonzo going through that machine face up? Well the Muppets mess up the mail processing machine and Jesse takes revenge on the Muppets by tossing them out onto a curb.
The Muppets go back to their apartment building and our next guest is Jane Krakowski. She announces that she has an inflatable Santa (someone else visited reallifedoll.com!) and I can’t help but wonder if she’s just been dying to tell someone this to gauge their reaction or interest in participation. She looks very single and bored. Jane is mom/guardian of a little girl named Claire who looks like the result of a Jane/Jesse rendezvous and that’s a compliment. In my defense I may have missed their defined relationship due to me losing the remote to my DVD player and being unable to rewind. Claire is upset that the Muppets won’t be there for Christmas and Gonzo demands that she get over it and requests an air kiss from her. Dude, you were big in the 80s, you better be glad someone wants to kiss you and plant some lips on that cheek! As they leave, Gonzo discovers he has letters to Santa stuck in his clothing-Claire’s included! He has to mail Claire’s letters even though she wasn’t even worthy of a lip to cheek kiss.
The Muppets race to the post office but it’s closed, duh, for Christmas Eve. Fozzie is about to commit a crime and open the letters. See what they make the token black guy do? Why couldn’t Grover do it since he was sooo concerned?!?! Just then a big, blue Keith Olbermann-esque Muppet stops him and informs him of the legal repercussions. Grover and Fozzie don’t want to be on Santa’s naughty list and we are left with the first cliffhanger of the night. Will they get the letters to Santa? Dunh, dunh, DUNH (THAT’S ALARMING MUSIC BY THE WAY)!!!
It’s about to get dicey because I’m not sure of all of the Muppets names; bear with me. Pepe the prawn greets Fozzie and the crew when they get back to the apartment and mocks their belief in Santa. He then asks for Santa’s e-mail address. Finally, someone agrees with me. Beaker/Carla from Top Chef and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew reveal that Santa cannot get e-mail due to the flux capacitor at the North Pole or something like that. However, the good doctor has invented a wish granting machine and they can wish the letters to the North Pole. It seems to me that since it’s Christmas Eve, it’s already Christmas in some part of the world and Santa has already left home but whatever! Beaker wishes for something naughty and our next guest, Petra Nemcova, shows up. Dr. Bunsen demands that Beaker send her back but Beaker does them dirty and disappears along with the wish granter. This proves my theory that supermodels ruin everything. Miss Piggy then announces that she has called a car to get to the airport. Kermit doesn’t move fast enough and since she isn’t interested in watching her husband run himself ragged to please another female, she slams the door in his face.
Kermit and the crew are still on a quest to get these letters to the North Pole and go to UPS, United Pigeon Service, and employ some seemingly Jewish stereotypes for cheap laughs. Needless to say, the pigeons do not take the letters to the North Pole because we still have 35 minutes to fill. I thought we’d gotten our fill of racial humor when I hear some old school mafia-type music playing. I can only assume these dudes are from The Sopranos-shoot, does that make me racist? I didn’t have HBO for years so I am not so familiar with the actors. Pepe asks them about getting letters to the North Pole and they reveal that they know a guy who knows a guy who knows a cousin of a guy who knows a guy who schtupped a guy who can get the letters to Santa. Rizzo pops up and the mobsters recoil in disgust; they don’t deal with rats and they do not want to end up on the naughty list. Huh? It thought the mafia owned Santa.
The failed Muppets return home and are about to solve all of their problems with the use of a handy laptop when Animal enters the hallway with a bat and smashes the computer for no other reason than to drive the plot along. Gonzo decides to go to North Pole himself. Enter Miss Piggy to remind us all that Kermit made a previous commitment to go on their island vacation. I have to agree with Miss P; you keep your word and your commitments. Miss Piggy traipses off a la Vicky Gunvalson and all the boys suddenly want to follow. Fozzie, Kermit and Gonzo are left behind but Pepe and Rizzo soon return. Fozzie is still the trusty black sidekick and Gonzo is now Screech. I have determined this because Screech/Gonzo has to be with Zack/Kermit in order to be relevant. Remember Screech on SBTB: The New Class, not so interesting. They break into some inspirational song and I really want to change the channel. Gonzo exclaims that he wants a happy ending because that’s what’s in his heart. Sure Gonzo; a happy ending is in your “heart”.
The Muppets hop into a taxi to get to the airport and it is revealed that our next guest star is Whoopi Goldberg who moonlights as a taxi driver. She demands cash from the Muppets for the ride, they all mutter indistinctly and next thing you know, they’re inside the airport. Either Whoopi got some hot Muppet action in exchange for the cab ride or she will be appearing on the back of a milk carton soon.
Inside the airport, the Muppets make it to ‘North Pole’ airlines. Ok-even Kermit looks at the camera incredulously as if to say “that’s the best you could come up with?” Uma Thurman pops up at the check-in counter and she’s getting all hot and bothered over Kermit. Why couldn’t Miss Piggy be there? I’d PAY to see an old fashioned chick fight. Kermit and the crew get to security and the writers make sure to dabble in a little inter-species love to make it clear that the Muppets are an evolving species. Pepe pulls a picture of Halle Berry out of his bag and kisses it and it was actually kind of cute. Fozzie is dropping jokes left and right, probably trying to get a spot on the Kings of Comedy tour, but instead gets assaulted by airport security. I knew it was inevitable, the black character always dies first. RIP.
But wait! We come back from commercial and Fozzie’s not dead! They’re all being interrogated and I’m hoping this goes the way of the scenes in Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Those were the best interrogation scenes ever, forget that Sharon Stone broad and her fozzie bear. Our next guest is none other than Nathan Lane and his black bear co-worker. He plays a bitter security guard who never got a tricycle from Santa because he was put on the naughty list. What is it with these grown men and the naughty list? Nathan ends up letting them go but detains the big black bear co-worker who’s in for a beating just because.
Kermit & crew are late to the plane so they have to fly to the North Pole on the wing. I’m pretty sure that’s the prescription for instant death and that would make little Claire really sad. They conveniently decide to let go of the wing 300,000 feet above a sign the size of a snickers bar that says North Pole. They’ve missed Santa, duh he had an entire world to circle, and Gonzo launches into another sappy song. What is the extent of Gonzo’s relationship with Claire? Did he marry her for citizenship or something? Is she harboring info on his secret Kermit crush? Unfortunately, these questions aren’t enough to distract me and I feel a lump in my throat. Every Muppet movie makes me cry darn it! They break into song and Fozzie is still trying to get jokes in. Give up already! You’re on MY naughty list now.
Through my tears I see magic sprinkles and Santa lands in his sleigh. Hooray!! Santa takes the letters and that blonde Uma-whore pops up and seductively mentions that they don’t want to miss this flight. Since when does Santa have a flight attendant? Ladies, never trust a man who stays out all night because he plans on flying around the world via magical reindeer to give gifts to children of the world. I fell for that once; twice in a lifetime is just too much. We discover that Pepe the prawn, who originally mocked Santa, wrote him a letter. Santa makes Pepe the Prawn an opera singer. What in the world?! Since when does Santa deliver talent? I thought it was gifts only. If I’d have known that I would have asked for x-ray vision a long time ago. Anyone else wonder what Tony Danza looked like under the apron? Santa gets Nathan Lane’s letter and he just wants to be off the naughty list...and a Birdcage sequel. Santa grants the wish and Nathan gets his red tricycle. The black bear is understandably grateful for the distraction and begins singing. Nathan tells him not to start lest he beat black bear for old time’s sake. Santa opens Claire’s letter and it turns out that all she wants is for her friends to be home. Hold the heck up. Claire could have just written a letter to the Muppets or ‘flipped” them an e-mail or nuzzled up to Gonzo and threatened the exposure of their sham of a marriage. Postage wasted for naught!! Santa flies the suckers back home.
The Muppets are back home, Claire’s happy and Jane Krakowski proceeds to put down newspaper as they walk into her apartment. Umm Jane, they’re Muppets not real animals. Miss Piggy came back all Mariah Carey’d out when she realizes that no one wants to rub sunscreen on their potential breakfast and Kermit looks resigned to his fate as permanent whipping boy. Gonzo starts off a song again; this dude’s really trying to get a record deal huh? Gonzo is starting to remind me of Cousin Larry Appleton and I’m ready for this to end. They try to point out the commercialization of Christmas in the song with lines like “sing hallelujah and silent night like we used to”. Yes Muppets denounce the commercialization of this sacred Christian holiday with your CHRISTMAS special about SANTA’S letters. It begins snowing and Kermit proclaims it will be a white Christmas. The two old, cranky Muppet men say they didn’t get their wish because they still live next to the Muppets. Hey, old guys! Did u not read the script? You’ve gotta get off the naughty list and THEN your wish to become a space cowboy or Jessica Biel’s thong will come true. Kermit then turns to his pals and delivers the typical Merry Christmas to all and to all-but Miss Piggy interrupts to emasculate him one last time before the New Year and demands that he tells us, the audience, not them. Kermit ably delivers his line and I feel that lump rising in my throat again. The Muppets do it to me every time….