[Note: I wrote this piece in, I think, about 2014; a different age. For a while I was trying to sell it to a Respectable Outlet, but it wasn't fated to be. It's sat in my drafts folder since, but for no particular reason I've opted to finally share it aloud with you, The World. You'll sense a lot of naivette, and some opinions have curdled, but I think it remains a pretty good representation of what I love most about the Muppets. Hope you dig.]
They say it, right up front.
“It's time to play the music.”
Never accuse the Muppets of subtlety. From the very first line of their original theme song, Kermit and the gang promise that when they stage a production, music is to be involved. This Fall, ABC has brought the merry, furry misfits back to prime-time with a series they've creatively entitled “The Muppets.”
“The show's gonna be all about our personal lives – behind the scenes, our relationships – sort of an adult Muppet Show,” Kermit explained in the debut trailer.
“How about we film the series in that crazy, handheld documentary style, and have cutaways to one-on-one interviews?” suggested Electric Mayhem guitarist Floyd Pepper. This fall, fans will go backstage with the Muppets as they parody the TV format popularized by “The Office (UK),” and the like -- but will they hear them sing?
This new series' very existence is proof that Disney's recent investment in the Muppets – a pair of feature films, countless promotional appearances where the puppets are allowed pass as real life celebrities everywhere from the venerable talk show circuit all the way up to the reality TV one – has paid off. But franchises assert their value through their potential to continually grow, delivering more and more. The campaign to revive the handheld celebrities has mostly been received positively, but a nagging sense that something is either missing or fleeting has occasionally made loyalists wince. It's almost like Disney takes its custodial responsibilities so seriously, and is so invested in protecting the brand, that it has hampered some ability to take certain creative risks. There are moments, though, that capture a bit of the original spirit. The barbershop quartet version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or the chickens clucking “(Forget) You,” in 2011's “The Muppets” film worked for the same reasons so so many Muppets acts had before; the juxtaposition of songs and singers were as clever as they were well-executed. Ours is a modern age of made-to-order, commodified nostalgia and passionate niche demographics, so perhaps if they producers can modestly recreate “Muppets Tonight,” ABC's last foray into an ongoing series, the project will be deemed a success. But considering a television landscape where soundtracks to “Empire,” “Glee,” and “Nashville,” have all scorched their way up to the top of sales charts, ABC/ Disney should take a hard look at what placing a premium on the music could bring to their new Muppet show.
Like The Monkees, Spinal Tap, or the Spice Girls, manufactured beginnings never stopped the Muppets from being standout performers. Their celebrity was cemented when Kermit the Frog charted a genuine Top-25 Billboard single with 1979's “The Rainbow Connection.” Anyone that cares to dispute whether mere puppets should be considered real artists is welcome ask a working musician for thoughts regarding the Grammy's.
The Muppets' music and musical performances played a huge role in securing their lasting purchase in our cultural imagination. It always had heart, even if, sure, it needed to be given a hand. Who in show biz doesn't, amirite? (Wocka wocka...) The campaign to restore Kermit, Piggy, and the gang to the B-list is great, but the characters' faux-fame is only a satisfying punchline when the actual art – funny puppets joyfully making creativity and originality onscreen – delivers on substance. It's not enough to be rooting for the Muppets, they have to also make you believe in their talent. In order to do that, they need to put on a show.
The last decade has seen a few non-sanctioned, Muppets-inspired projects hit the bigtime online. The Sad Kermit versions of “Hurt,” “Creep,” and “Needle in the Hay,” mercilessly thrust its fist into the chest cavities of Gen Xers in the mid-2000s, tearing out their innocence and leaving them to curse their own internalized cynicism. A transcendent one-man musical recording of “Muppet Christ Superstar” made the rounds around last Easter, demanding praise if only for its outlandish conceptual precision, which showed such a perfect amount of irreverence that you could nearly imagine the characters themselves having made the ill-advised decision to stage it. A recent run of throwback hip-hop lip-sync YouTube mashups by Mylo the Cat – in which Gonzo freaks to “The Humpty Dance,” Animal fronts a Beastie Boys tribute on “So What’cha Want,” Rowlf does his Biz Markie impression on “Just A Friend,” and the whole gang gets together to throw a “Hip-Hop Hooray,” – has children of the '80s like myself tipping to Peak Nostalgia Ratings. Because it's not fair we were robbed of more Muppets during hip-hop's ascendance.
The viral sensations all capture some authentically original essence of “The Muppet Show,” where nothing was allowed to be sacred, least of all its stars. Each juxtaposed songs and imagery to bring something inspired out of both.
To really get with the times, the Muppets need music. In the '70s, they could play a mix of the standards and contemporary hits, furnished by guests or otherwise. Today, as the creations of Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, Frank Oz, Richard Hunt, Dave Goelz, and company return to the medium for which they were designed, they should turn to the pop charts for tunes to tackle. For a moment, let's pretend that the fates of these songs do not lie with tyrannical multinational recorded music corporations or artists that might not co-sign a Muppet version of their song. Let's just let our imagination run wild.
The goodwill surrounding the revival is born of an audience eager for the chance to love new things Muppets, and the viral success of the unlicensed web-fodder (including the classic Kermit-sipping-tea meme) proves that if it's funny, eyes will come. Until the show premieres, fans are in that sweet spot where they know something they love is coming back, and can become intoxicated at the unlimited prospective potential of their wildest dreams to be made manifest. Until we know otherwise for sure, the new Muppets show could be the greatest success since the original.
Let’s believe it will be as great as it could be, that it will work so well its only hecklers will be Statler and Waldorf. After all, irrational optimism is a big part of the world of the Muppets.
Here are 12 songs the Muppets should perform on their new Muppet show. It is our professional opinion that you should sing them all in your head, where the voices of the Muppets' original performers remain perfectly preserved for all time.
Daft Punk's GET LUCKY
Janice fronting The Electric Mayhem
She may not fit into Pharrell's hat, but Janice's sunny, California-soaked vocals nicely match his falsetto register on Daft Punk's smash “Get Lucky,” and her Valley girl inflections and ad-libs promise to take that song you've heard a jillion times and turn it into something special and new.
“Random Access Memories” was an exercise in analog for traditionally techno Daft Punk, who drilled down their sound to a core that ended up calling to mind classic disco funk. To fer'sher, rilly do this summer jam justice, Janice and her Electric Mayhem bandmates should play the song relatively straight, set with a casino backdrop, perhaps – because, jokes – with few frills. The world famous Roots crew aside, they don't make house bands better than The Electric Mayhem, who have always had the chops to handle the classics, and can be psychedelic enough to experiment. They take hits and deliver the goods.
Daft Punk wears their helmets, y'know, always, so they're more likely than most to be sympathetic to the whole performance-as-construct thing. And “RAM” does nothing so well as it hearkens to a strong nostalgia for the '70s. Admit it, you can already hear Janice's voice singing “Like the legend of the phoenix...”
Katy Perry's HOT N COLD
Statler and Waldorf
There will never be a more sublimely Muppetational version of “Hot N Cold” than that of Ukranian polka band Los Colorados. Their viral smash had a perfect ratio of earnestness, cheesiness, quirkiness and catchiness, just like the best Muppets' material. This is the arrangement that doddering haterade addicts Statler and Waldorf should ape, taking the accordion accompaniment and adding a little Vaudeville to smugly celebrate their inability to ever be pleased by anyone but themselves.
Statler and Waldorf take all their satisfaction from the simplicity of their favorite, evergreen prank – moving the goal posts on approval-seeking performers at every opportunity for the purpose of utterly crushing their spirits. Mean is the joke that never gets old, that is, provided you have the malicious, unyielding hearts of these guys. Their core is one of antagonism, which is the central frustration of “Hot N Cold.”
But where Perry is suffering from someone's fickleness, the Muppets' resident hecklers revel in it, so the staging of this performance would require some creative inversion of the song's perspective and lyrics. Flip to “I'm hot when it's cold,” and other contrarian jibes, and punctuate it with a lot of one-liners and Ho-Ho-Ho's. Being mercurial can be a power move, which is what Perry is really railing against on this song, and the Muppets' resident hecklers embody that certain kind of control. The bit would have to end with Fozzie jeering the pair's performance, seeking justice for his years of torment. He'd fail, though, and end up the butt of the joke. Those that entertain themselves always get the last laugh.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's MAPS
Gonzo the Great
Gonzo is a guy that could never quite catch a break, but for his nose. His outlying weirdness, even among a pack of weirdos, and subsequent self-awareness, always gave the character a lonely sort of depth. He seemed driven by his fascinations and fixations, from chicken-girlfriends to explosions to heights, and he committed to them all wholly, brashly, and to glorious catastrophe. The best quality of his music was a delicate soulfulness, never better evidenced than on his original “Muppet Movie” solo ballad, “I'm Going To Go Back There Someday,” although his version of Sinatra's “My Way,” was similarly fantastic. Gonzo puts himself out there, which is what makes him the Muppets' resident expert on the pangs of heartbreak.
He's not a sad character, exactly, he just seems to need things to love. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' mid-aughts anthem for romantic despair is an ideal platform for Gonzo to bare his weirdly unique soul once again. Merely summoning his scratchy voice pleading “Wait... They don't love you like I love you,” serves as a reminder that not every Muppet moment is born of slapstick or catastrophe. Their ability to move audiences and connect better than many human celebrities is what historically made them so worthy of celebration.
Gonzo loves his Things, whichever ones happen to have captured his imagination at a given moment. He's never too proud to be vulnerable, which is the key to unlocking “Maps'” beauty.
Fiona Apple's EVERY SINGLE NIGHT
Rowlf the Dog
When the Muppets want honor the best composers, Rowlf gets the call, and Fiona Apple is among the standout pop composers of her musical generation. The piano jazziness of her work is right in Rowlf's doghou-, er, wheelhouse. Both started their careers early – Rowlf was actually the first Muppet with a regular TV gig, going from Purina Dog Chow pitch-dog to sidekick on "The Jimmy Dean Show" in the early '60s before Henson finally sold his prime-time variety show, and Apple was only a teenager when her smash debut album, “Tidal,” went gold. While Rowlf moved beyond Purina, he remained a musical purist, which is why, given a field of modern singer-songwriters to choose from, he would probably pick Apple. And let's not pretend any red-blooded American dog can resist a “FiFi.”
Fiona Apple is the kind of artist that's always had a home with the Muppets. A distinct and original talent, she's been beating to the sound of her own drum ever since the time she hijacked the MTV Video Music Awards and turned an acceptance speech into a rejection of conformity and a testimonial to individuality. “Every Single Night,” the lead single on Apple's 2012 “The Idler Wheel...” album, has terrific pace for a Muppets sketch, its swells and releases afford built-in dramatic pressure and relief. The perfect sketch for this song would involve the gravely-voiced Rowlf simply trying to play this beautiful song on his piano while repeatedly being interrupted by chaotic distractions courtesy the rest of the gang. The concluding resignation would make for vintage Muppets morality. “Every single night, I endure the fight.” There's no quality the Muppets value more than resolute endurance, except perhaps the desire to “feel everything.”
Justin Timberlake's MIRRORS
Johnny Fiama and Sal Menila
“Kermit! Fozzie! Piggy! And some incredibly obscure Muppets that no one remembers!” This was the promise made in the premiere trailer for ABC's "the muppets." series. Well, meet the vaguely obscure Johnny Fiama and Sal Menila. Conceived during the Muppets' last foray into regular primetime, for "Muppets Tonight," Fiama is a sendup of mid-20th century hearthrob crooners (who are past their prime but whose bloated egos remain) and his monkey-mook bodyguard Sal, who is unnaturally attached to his boss and always hunting for a fight to prove it. They're a fun little send-up of the bubble of celebrity. Plus, I mean, one is a monkey.
No pop tune provides a better opportunity to poke at the preposterousness of celebrity and ego than Justin Timberlake's ode to the girl so beautiful she makes him think of himself. JT fancies himself a Rat Pack-type anyway, and Johnny Fiama probably remembers himself as a member, because he has hung with a pack of rats before and he's delusional.
This scene pretty much plays itself, with Sal and Johnny doing the old mimic-the-guy-opposite-you routine, hands making circles in synchronicity, and Sal persistently screwing up the duet by singing out of time. At “I don't wanna lose you now,” someone gets flung through a window. Cut to JT and Jimmy Fallon sitting next to Statler and Waldorf, jeering wildly. The joke's reflection bounces off itself for eternity.
Beyonce's XO
Beaker
Some songs are so powerfully sung that the vocal performance eclipses the importance of the lyrics. “XO” is Beyonce at her most iconic, a stirring showcase of her precision and command that encapsulates her diva persona at its best. It might be the most Beyonce song of all-time, and would remain recognizable even were it boiled down to a series of “mi mi”s.
Beaker is the put-upon Muppet, his gift is suffering through anything, so his attempts to sing Queen Bey's soaring ballad would have to be met with disaster. I'm thinking that Beaker is attempting to perform the song in a dark area, lit only by a single hanging bulb. And every time he Mi-Mi's his way through “Love me, lights out,” someone pulls the bulb's chain, and out they go. Combine the visual pun with the classic case of mounting frustration, ratchet things all the way up until they reach a vintage Muppets explosion, and this bit would deliver exactly the kind of payoff a Beyonce song demands.
Jay Z and Kanye West's OTIS
Rizzo the Rat and Pepe the “King” Prawn (feat. Rowlf the Dog as “Otis”)
“I invented swag, hokay?”
One is a streetwise, back-talking New Yorker, and the other is a boisterous and magnetic self-proclaimed king with some strained connections to the sea. Unlike Kermit, Piggy, and Fozzie, Rizzo and Pepe are Muppets still played by their original performers. Steve Whittmire and Bill Barretta are not living in anyone's shadows in these roles, just like Jay and Kanye proved they were in no one's shadow when they delivered the classic “Watch the Throne.” And nothing could more befit a Muppet show than having their two smallest take on two of rap's biggest.
Rowlf is best qualified to handle the Otis Redding accompaniment for this song, which would require some punchy lyrical rewrites.
“Dang Pepe and Riz, where the heck you been? Rats are getting so reckless -- stuntmen.”
[In full daredevil regalia, Gonzo wanders onstage]
“(Not now, you.)”
No one ever had more fun in a video than Jay and Kanye did tearing up that Maybach and stunting in front of that American flag in “Otis,” and that joyful extravagance is worth a Muppets revisit. Rizzo has Jay’s Brooklyn cool, and Pepe might be as self-congratulatory as West. Say it with me; R-to-the-izzo, P-to-the-Pepe-hokay?
Britney Spears' TOXIC
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, Dr. Julius Strangepork and Dr. Phil van Neuter
Put all of the Muppets' mad scientists in a room and something dangerous is bound to come out of it. Suddenly Britney's intoxication transforms into a nightmare where a monstrous creation of the doctors reigns down destruction on its makers in the confines of their laboratory. The creature would fly, of course, so when they sang “Too high, can't come down,” it would carry only innocuous, family-friendly, literal meaning.
“Toxic” is peak Britney, and is already pretty haunting as is. Its screechy strings feed an overall claustrophobia that's the perfect pitch for panic. Beaker and Honeydew are already favorites, but in 2015 it's all about the team-up, so get “Pigs in Space” vet(eran) Dr. Julius Strangepork involved and bring in “Muppets Tonight” vet(erinarian) Dr. Phil van Neuter to round out the doomed mad science-team. Maybe Britney Spears songs weren't written to be performed by guys in lab coats languishing in terror at what sins they have wrought against nature, but that doesn't make the concoction any less radioactive.
Kanye West's ONLY ONE
Robin the Frog
Robin is a sensitive little frog. He's soft-spoken, which puts him at odds with the guy that wrote this song in a session with Paul McCartney, but he's reflective, and perfect match for Kanye West's dreamy prayer of self-affirmation.
“You're not perfect, but you're not your mistakes,” is a sentiment in exact lockstep and philosophical alignment with the Muppets, who are never quite so good as they mean to be yet are all the more lovable for it. On the original show, Robin's greatest hit was “Halfway Down The Stairs,” a musical interpretation of an A.A. Milne poem that found profundity in the simplest of childhood discoveries. That juvenile serenity is exactly what Kanye's lullaby aspires to. Kanye's talked a lot about his admiration for the unchastened way five-year-olds engage the world around them, with wonder and innocence, and how he strives for that kind of creative freedom in his work.
The purity to those first experiences feeling small, devalued, isolated, and even invisible make them universal, which is the kind of acceptance Kanye strives for and what feeds his Michael Jackson fixation. It would be all too appropriate if it took a Muppet playing a Kanye West song for some people to take his artistry seriously.
Taylor Swift's OUT OF THE WOODS
Whatnots
If you're doing a Muppet show covering new pop songs and leave Taylor Swift out, you're doing it all wrong. There's nobody more original, playful and multi-talented in pop. The Muppets are one of the last refuges for unadulterated, puntastic literalism, and Swift's walking meme nature makes her ripe for spoofing. “Whatnots” are the made-to-order Muppets cast extras and role players, and for “Out Of The Woods,” it would be from their ranks that we find our Wolf and Red Riding Hood, negotiating their way through the forest in the scene.
To flip paradigms a bit, Red could be chasing a laid-low Wolf out of the woods, causing him to sing the Taylor banger in a panicked frenzy. Swift's best music has a timelessness to it, befitting the timeless fairy-tale imagery of the not-so-grim sketch. Besides, “Out of the Woods,” has the quality most essential to any Muppets musical performance – it makes for a terrific singalong.
Sia's CHANDELIER
Kermit the Frog
Occasionally, the burden of leadership gets to Kermit. Being responsible for the creative dreams of his every loved one, not to mention his own, is a job that's big, like a mountain, and important, like a river. His most memorable musical moments all involve him tipping his hand, and sharing some of his pressures and sorrows. In fact, it seems that sharing and acknowledging his anxieties with an audience is actually how the frog sheds them. “Rainbow Connection” and “Bein’ Green” are the most beloved examples of this, but I find “This Frog,” and “A Song From Kermit,” 1977 Sesame Street numbers, to pack equal emotional thrust. Making songs about the complexities of loneliness and interpersonal dynamics that are elemental enough that children can digest them is laudable for its creative ambition, a degree of ambition it shares with Sia's summons for the strength required to break self-destructive habits.
The reclusive Sia doesn't seem to want people to see the person behind the curtains any more than the Muppets do, and although we've already seen a performance of “Chandelier” by Possible Muppet Relative Kristin Wiig, giving Kermit a crack at it could recontextualize it for audiences. Sia and Kermit don't nurse the same wounds, but they are both largely shaped by social pressures. Neither wants to be a disappointment. Tailor the song for a Kermit-is-overwhelmed episode plotline, adapt the lyrics some so that the problem-solving frog could incant to himself “One, two, three/ One, two three- Think!” instead of slipping into Sad Kermit-ish dark recasting, and you could have a new iconic Kermit the Frog song.
Kermit's best songs share an aspiration for a certain kind of catharsis. He's always holding on for dear life, clinging to the hope that someday, he'll find it. They resolve exasperation and doubt with surrender and acceptance. As lessons go, like this song suggests, it's not an easy one.
Rihanna's BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY
Miss Piggy
Kicking down a helicopter door, decked out in electric green boas, performing in front of A-listers and demanding what she's owed – Rihanna had to have considered the original boss (hog) bitch for a moment before she strutted out to debut “Bitch Better Have My Money” at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. Disney won't allow for the PG-13 cursing, but “pigs” substitutes for “bitch” well enough, and this matching promises to sizzle. Miss Piggy and Rihanna literally have everything in common. They are both iconic divas, share a love for a good song-and-dance man, both live by no laws other than their own, and they both own, generally.
Ri-Ri has never been more strident than on “BBHMM,” making it the perfect vehicle for Piggy, who embodied female forcefulness for a generation. Maybe Miss Piggy didn't karate-kick down doors so women could run in real life, but doesn't it feel like it happened? And even though Rihanna is an actual human being, doesn't she kind of feels like a fiction, a casual goddess of hedonism we collectively dreamed up? Their characters are strong enough, independent enough, that they can self-sustain. Neither woman would ever let someone else's truth get in the way of the story they have decided to tell.
A great performance is about the proper motivation. On “BBHMM,” Ri's motivated to get all she deserves. All Miss Piggy has ever wanted was to be considered a peer to divas like Rihanna, so here's her shot. Besides, those boas are in her favorite color.
Don't act like you forgot. Hi-yah-yah-yah.
