In Defense of "Muppets From Space"

(0:36-end mark from the theme from the final season of American Gladiators original run play the camera moves back to see James on top of the slab with the words “The Last Of The Americans” on it then cutting to James in his chair)

I’m James Faraci, The Last Of The Americans and the views I’m about to express are that of my own & some of yours and welcome to another edition of "In Defense Of..." (Show pics of maligned pieces of pop culture while the fanfare from the Olympics  play and James comes up after Vanilla Ice slides back and his right hand thumbs up and the words "In Defense Of..."  appear to the left of James then cutting to clips of The Muppets in various projects from "The Muppet Show" to "The Great Muppet Caper" to "Muppets Most Wanted")

TLOTA (Voice over): Recently, there have been rumors that The Muppets were coming back to the small screen with a re-boot of "The Muppet Show" under Bill Prady who had worked in the past with The Muppets on a few projects but he has a big set of shoes to fill. Whose shoes you may ask, well Jim Henson's of course but after Jim Henson's passing things weren't easy but there were decent projects including "Muppet Christmas Carol" & a kind of a Reboot of "The Muppet Show" called "Muppets Tonight" which while it didn't last long was pretty good. (Cut to James Physically)

TLOTA: But there was one project that didn't seem to make an impact and did more to knock The Muppets out of prominence and nearly sent them to obscurity. I am of course talking about "Muppets From Space" (Cut to clips of "Muppets From Space" while James does a voice over)

TLOTA (Voice over): And to be honest, it is not as bad as everyone says it was. So this time I will defend probably what many Muppets fans like myself consider a REAL low point. (Cut to James physically)

TLOTA: So let's start with where it failed. (Cut to clips of "Muppets From Space" while James does a voice over)

TLOTA: Okay first off the timing wasn't good because it came out the SAME YEAR as "Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace", "Austin Powers: The Man Who Shagged Me", "American Pie", "The Matrix" and "Star Trek: Insurrection". So no wonder  "Muppets From Space" was given the short end of the stick in terms of getting recognition. There were so many big effects "Blockbusters" that a movie about something with The Muppets would be considered second class. Also The Muppets had movies with original musical numbers. Here there was no such consideration to original musical numbers. We had Kermit and the gang shaking their collective groove things to The Commodores' "Brick House" and a number with Gonzo's relative dancing and singing to "Celebrate" originally by Kool And The Gang and while they were good moments without any original musical numbers to compliment them it looked like the producers of the movie didn't even try to do anything to remedy the situation and the pop culture references they used by todays standards is out of date. Also a lot of the celebrity cameos were either below Muppets standards or wasted. I mean seriously Andie MacDowell, you were in "Groundhog's Day" with Bill Murray and Ray Liotta you were in "Goodfellas" and they gave you a meaningless cameo and they tried to hook Animal up with Kathy Griffin and don't get me started on "Hollywood Hulk Hogan" and UGH Rob Schneider. (Cut to James physically)

TLOTA: But was there anything good about it? YOU BEST BELIEVE IT BUB! (Cut to clips of "Muppets From Space" while James does a voice over.)

TLOTA (Voice over): First off, we get actual focus on a Muppet outside of Kermit.  We don't know much about Gonzo outside of he's abnormal and that's it. We don't know if he's from this planet or was from a time far different from ours, so to discover that Gonzo is an alien from outer space makes some sense. Plus the journey he has to go through to find out who he is and where he can go to discover where he can meet his people is fascinating also the fact the antagonist played by Jeffrey Tambor who is so bent on being seen as the authority when it comes to aliens. Seriously Fox Mulder is snickering at how idiotic this guy's theories are and how out of it Jeffrey's character acts. But there is an enjoyably ability to seeing this guy just slowly go off the edge. Also the narrative was well thought out and a lot of what we do see in The Muppets even though not used properly tried to use them but the potential was WASTED big time.  BUT I personally would take this over certain family movies that claims it was "A Family Film" (Cut to cover of "Fish Tales"  with James shouting "I WANT "MUPPETS FROM SPACE" OVER THAT!" before cutting back to the movie with James doing a voice over) Regardless I feel if you look at it as a satirical farce of Bad "Family Films" it works like that. But as a Muppets Movie yes it does fail but again that's why it feels like a good satirical farce. There could never be an amazing Muppet Movie without smart writing, original musical numbers and of course a focus ON The Muppets. So as far as I'm concerned this movie it's an amazing Satire starring the Muppets and I did enjoy it as the farce staring The Muppets. (Cut to James physically)

TLOTA:  And as far as I'm concerned Watching "Muppets From Space" is more entertaining than seeing a little over two hours of Keanu Reeves going (Sounding like Keanu Reeves saying Whoa! before going back to his normal voice). I'm James Faraci The Last Of The Americans and That's My Opinion! Wocka-Wocka!