“Let us always love each other;
Lead us to the light.
Let us hear the voice of reason
Singing in the night,
Let us run from anger,
And catch us when we fall.
Teach us in our dreams, and please–yes, please–
Bless us, one and all.”
Author: Mary A.
Second Day of Muppet Christmas: “I Hate Christmas”
Ah, from the sublime to…well, as close as Sesame Street gets to the profane:
I don’t hate Christmas, but I love Caroll Spinney, whose birthday is today. Happy birthday, dear Mr. Spinney!
First Day of Muppet Christmas: Bert and Ernie’s sacrificial giving
Merry Christmas, all! I have tears in my eyes as I share this classic Sesame sketch. I was going to talk about it, but what can I say that hasn’t already been said? There’s no improving on perfection.
“Here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.”
–O. Henry, “The Gift of the Magi”
Twelve Days of Muppet Christmas
A lot of people seem to have the mistaken notion that the “12 days of Christmas” refers to the week and a half or so leading up to Christmas. To be fair, I used to think the same thing.
Traditionally, however, according to the church calendar, the Christmas season starts on Christmas Day and continues for 12 days until January 6th, which is the feast day of the three kings, otherwise known–and I swear I am not making this up–as “Epiphany“.
I knew I wanted to do some kind of twelve-day event to celebrate not only the Christmas season but the Muppets’ longstanding tradition of creating Christmas content. Originally, I wanted to look at and review 12 different Muppet Christmas productions, but I didn’t have time to do justice to them this year, so that will have to wait until next year. Instead, I’m going to look at snippets of Muppet Christmas things and talk about them as appropriate.
I know that some people tend to get Christmassed out by the time Christmas actually gets here. I empathize with that; last year my family had Christmas a week early, as my brother was here in town for a concert. Subsequently, someone in the grocery store asked me if I was ready for Christmas, and I said something to the effect of: “For me, Christmas is already over.”
Nevertheless, there is an apropos song to apply to this situation that is from a Muppet production even though it doesn’t have any actual Muppets in it:
My intention is to keep Christmas with me, and share it with you, for at least a week and a half.
“One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas”
I’m trying to remember the issues I used to have with Muppet Christmas Carol. Nothing’s coming.
Policy Reminder:
I apologize to those of you who don’t need the reminder, which is most of you.
For those few who do need it, here is a reminder of my comment policy:
Commenting on someone else’s blog is a privilege–NOT a right! Comments on this blog will be permitted as long as they are respectful. Rude, inappropriate, or hateful comments WILL NOT be tolerated, nor will spamming, trolling, or bullying behavior of any kind.
“Muppet Family Christmas”: The gift that keeps on giving
This is my 100th post on this blog, and I wanted it to be something special. So I want to go a little more in depth about my thoughts and feelings on “Muppet Family Christmas.”
Let me take you back to a time in December 1987, when I was a tender and callow seven-year-old. I had seen The Muppet Movie and The Muppets Take Manhattan, (and possibly The Great Muppet Caper, although I think that actually happened later) so I wasn’t unfamiliar with the Muppet Show troupe, but we didn’t own any of those movies on home video yet, so while this wasn’t my introduction to the Muppet Show gang, it was the means by which I got to know them. This was also one of the two times in my young life that I ever got to see the Fraggles on television, so that was really exciting for me.
Doubting the existence of the Great Bell
“WHAT?!? The cave is…is empty! There is no bell! It’s all a lie!”
–Gobo Fraggle, who apparently never thought to look up to see if there was a clapper in the ceiling of the bell-shaped cavern.
In starting a Muppet blog, my goal was to try to strike a balance between the serious and the silly, as the Muppets have always done so effectively. While I’m still proud of the content I have created, I do feel that perhaps I’ve been less than successful in that regard.
I hoped that Christmas would be a time that I could lean more toward the lighthearted side of the spectrum, back off a bit from the Schism, and temporarily beat my sword back into a ploughshare.
(Although you don’t want to try plowing this time of year; at least in this hemisphere, the ground is frozen.)
Throughout this month, I’ve been watching Muppet Christmas productions in preparation for an article series that I see now that I’m not going to have time to do properly until next year. However, instead of being a temporary respite from the Schism, they reminded me of it all the more, especially the productions made subsequent to 1990.
Graphic depiction of the souls of Congressional Republicans
I’ve seen Muppet Christmas Carol more times this month than in the previous 25 years combined, and I’m finally warming up to it. Nevertheless, I was struck by the fact that, notwithstanding the lyrics of the song, the Marleys’ dialogue suggests that they haven’t quite learned their lesson yet.
Sesame Sunday: Muppets talk to Olympic athletes
Okay, so a couple things you need to know about me: I am not an athlete at all; generally speaking, I am severely disinterested in sports…except as it relates to the Olympics.
And of the Olympic sports, my favorite is figure skating. I am a complete figure skating nerd.
So I’m completely geeking out about this adorable video in which some of my favorite skaters (and some I’m not familiar with) teach Elmo and Cookie Monster vocabulary words from the world of skating:
My first instinct when they asked, “Do you know what a Salchow is?” was to say yes, because I know that it’s a figure skating jump, but I couldn’t have explained it in any more detail than that.
“Who is that strange, bearded man?”: Muppet Family Christmas at 30
Today is the 30th anniversary of the special “A Muppet Family Christmas.” I watched it originally when it aired in 1987. We taped it off the television (except that we apparently were not prepared to do so and missed the first 6 minutes or so–tragedy!), and I’ve treasured it ever since. I’ve watched it unabashedly at all times of the year, not only at Christmas. After Jim Henson died, it was one of the sources available for me to turn for comfort.
Phantom of the Opera: Everything’s better with Muppets
“Faust, a five-act grand opera, is by Charles Gounod with a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. It is loosely based on Faust, Part I, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe’s lesser-known follow-up, 2 Faust 2 Furious, focused on a man who made a deal with the diesel.”
–Erik Forrest Jackson, pushing all my geeky English-major buttons in an explanatory footnote of Muppets Meet the Classics: The Phantom of the Opera
When I opened the book and saw that the epigraph was a quote from a renowned French philosopher and a line from an old infomercial, I knew I was going to like this book.
When I started laughing hysterically at the table of contents, I knew I was going to love this book.
When I finished reading it, I wanted to go back and read the original novel again to compare the two; the mark of a good book is that it makes you want to read more.
The ‘Phantom of the Opera’ is here…
…inside my house!
*dramatic organ music*
Remember when I entered a contest by The Muppet Mindset in which I drew a picture of Walter as Harry Potter and somehow won a copy of a free Muppet book, even though Walter looks like he only has one arm and the rampant Gryffindor lion on his Hogwarts insignia looks more like E.T.?*
Well, my 15 minutes of sketching and two months of patience have finally paid off, because today went to the mailbox (for the first time in the better part of a week) and received my Muppetized version of Phantom of the Opera!
YAY!
Before I forget, a big thank you to Jarrod Fairclough and Mitchell Stein at The Muppet Mindset for hosting fun contests and giving out free stuff, and specifically for their very generous assessment of my drawing.
Even more fortuitously, I have today, tomorrow, and most of next week off from my part-time job, so I really have nothing to do in those evenings except read. So I’ll go start it now, and when I finish, I’ll come back and tell you what I thought about it.
In the meantime, give yourselves in to the “Music of the Night”:
______________________
*Although I am proud of one subtle Muppet reference that I put in there: the Ravenclaw crest is supposed to be a bronze eagle on a blue background, but I made the background bronze and the eagle blue as an homage to Sam the Eagle. “Is nothing sacred?”
“Oh…may I?”
When I was a kid, I never understood this scene from The Muppet Movie. I never understood why the waiter (Steve Martin) was being so mean to Kermit, why the scene was supposed to be funny, or really why it existed at all.
Eventually, of course, I grew up. I entered the workforce and have had several jobs which involve customer service in some capacity…
…And now I understand.
I recently took a second job that once again requires me to interact directly with other human beings, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to bite my tongue to avoid imitating Steve Martin’s sarcastic, “Oh…may I?” when customers (or managers) ask/tell me to do something in a tone of voice that implies that they think they’re bestowing a great boon upon me.
“Which one of you is the real Kermit?”
Answer: Neither of them. It’s a trick question.
So…this last Monday that just happened, there was a Pentatonix Christmas special on TV, and the report was that Kermit was going to make an appearance. I debated with myself about whether or not to watch it, and ultimately I compromised with myself that I would watch it, but only with the sound down and the captions on. And I hoped that Kermit would appear early on, because watching a musical program with the sound down didn’t really appeal to me.
Frog of La Mancha 