Miss Piggy, Camp, and the Death of the Movie Star

[Music] in 1974 Jim Henson appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson performing a few select segments with fellow Puppeteer and artist Frank Oz one skip included two puppets lipsyncing to Lou Prima and key Smith's That Old Black [Music] Magic this wasn't the first time Hensen performed this routine by that point it was a tried andrue bit dating back to the 1950s [Music] however it was the first time audiences would get a glimpse of the puppet that would eventually become known as Miss Piggy fast forward 50 years and Miss Piggy has become a celebrity unto herself she's LED television specials written books sold calendars appeared on talk shows and even been the subject of an enthusiastic Oscar campaign for best actress 50 years is a long time to stay relevant let alone beloved which begs the question how has she or the puppeteers behind her done it what did Miss Piggy signify upon her debut and how has she evolved over time in response to a changing entertainment industry in this video I'll try to answer those questions and more specifically taking a look at how her Persona draws directly from Classic Hollywood and why I think bringing her into the modern age has been so challenging this video isn't entirely comprehensive and I'm sure the most fervent Muppet fans will have a thing or two they'd want to add but I hope to offer an overview that does the diva Justice there's a scene in the 1948 film Easter Parade in which Fred a stair playing a Broadway star in need of a dance partner bets he could take any one of the girls in a random bar and make her a star he walks over and who should be in the chorus but Judy Garland we know because we recognize Judy Garland that that character surely doesn't belong in the chorus that it's only a matter of time before she makes it big that's what it's like watching Miss Piggy in the first season of The Muppet Show take the title sequence for example she appears twice once at the beginning in a line of chorus girls and again at the end she's definitely there recognizable to us in hindsight but in 1976 not yet the icon she would eventually become that she would become an icon at all was far from inevitable puppet designer Bonnie Erikson was sculpting a generic girl pig character for a skit called return to Beneath the Planet of the pigs in the 1974 special The Muppet Show sex and violence don't worry we will come back to that title when Jim Henson asked her to craft a more glamorous version that he could use for some television appearances that Tonight Show clip that opened the video and a sketch on a special hosted by Trumpeter and music producer Herb Albert we quickly threw on um a new outfit for the pig I went to the eye drawer I got some big eyes I found some wigs some better than others I've noticed in the photographs that we've been looking at and I quickly threw on a satin dress uh and because I didn't have time to make new hands because originally she had Hooves I just wired some gloves she was named after Peggy Lee when I when I realized that I could give her a name and that was because I felt she was a very strong woman um very um you know had an opinion was very talented um and I loved calling her biggy Lee until um our attorney said maybe we'll drop the Lee part biggy come on in here biggy I'd like to meet biggy biggy dollby baby this is your letter to success piggy Donald I've been telling him all about you hello Mr Alf beautiful beautiful she and so the icon we know was born kind of Miss Piggy made her appearances and was quickly converted back into the generic Pig form with those beady little eyes for the Muppet Show sex and violence right so about that title in the early 1970s Jim Henson wanted to develop a variety show for The Muppets and chopped the idea around to various networks however Network Executives were hesitant believing that because tenson had created Sesame Street every puppet act he made was meant for children and that wasn't quite right for prime time so Henson produced two specials that served as Pilots of sorts meant in part to demonstrate that the Muppets could be mature and subversive enough to entertain adults too The Muppet Show sex and violence wasn't as controversial as it sounds in substance but the title was intentionally provocative with the show itself parodying the proliferation of sex and violence on TV and each of the seven deadly sins as characters in the show am I late unfortunately the pilots didn't actually convince those Executives of anything and three networks turned Hensen down fortunately however Lord Lou grade a former talent agent stepped in and agreed to produce and distribute a show from the UK offering Hensen not only financial backing but also the use of elre studios in England Henson agreed and they were off it's the show with our special guest star Miss Rita Moreno at some point during the transition from sex and violence to The Muppet Show Hensen and Company must have decided that this piggy had more potential than this piggy so the nice wig went back on and so did her blue eyes that said it's not as if they had a grand plan for Miss Piggy at this point she had no concrete Persona no dedicated Puppeteer and as you might have noticed by the few Clips I've shown already no consistent voice in fact throughout the first season her voice is interchangeably done by Frank Oz and Richard Hunt sometimes within the same episode my aunt has a chest that goes back to 1700 oh must make it tough on your uncle oh how kind my Kermit is not wanting me to overshadow Lena The Muppet Show utilizes an onstage backstage structure we watch the characters perform in sketches on The Muppet Show but follow them behind the scenes and watch them prepare for those same sketches communicate with each other and get to know the guest host it's a genius device at once making space for some truly wacky oneoff individual numbers while also allowing the audience to gain affection for the characters as they get to know their quirks more intimately backstage in season 1 Miss pigy appears in a number of onstage recurring sketches including at the dance in which various partygoers dance in front of the camera delivering quick onliners with charming but corny word playay she plays Nurse piggy in veterinarians Hospital a parody of medical soap operas with Rolf as a doctor who speaks almost exclusively in puns she's right I saved over 500 last year what patience no dollars she also features frequently in panel discussions sketches in which Kermit and his guests would debate a question of the day which was rarely answered before the group descended into madcap Antics do it broadly speaking however the moments that actually developed Miss Piggy's Persona into what we recognize today happened in the backstage plot driven scenes those sketches established the central tenant of Miss Piggy's character she is obsessed with two things Show Business and Kermit she angles for a better role or bigger billing Miss Piggy the gifted and glamorous beging sensuous and Sensational star of the muet show she flirts with Kermit or becomes wildly jealous of anyone who gets his attention instead of her oh that's okay I'm doing it with Miss Mousie Miss Mousie at first these facets of her personality come across as rather surface level as if they of just decided okay this character's thing is that she's hopelessly in love with Kermit and he's not into that I want to make you happy good when you're happy the pig is happy but eventually as Frank Oz spent more time portraying the character He Came Upon an idea that would give Miss Piggy immense depth and stirred the Curiosity of audiences Around the World opening up the potential of who Miss Piggy could become in rehearsal I had a scene with Kermit and I was supposed to slap him and for some unknown reason I karate chopped him and that just created piggy for me because she is really a truck driver underneath by the show's second season Miss Piggy had ascended the hierarchy of characters with a new and improved intro reflecting her status plucking her out of the chorus and placing her at Kermit's literal right hand the more frequent and complex Piggy's appearances on the show became the more critics attempted to out her rapid rise and widespread appeal many of them defined Miss Piggy by comparing her to actresses from the golden age or classical era of Hollywood for example Elliot sorin wrote in film comment the stately reserve of the Garson and the shearers the demure constraint of the de havins and the Deborah cars are well within Miss Piggy's range but she is above all a sister in that exclusive sorority that counts among its members Garland and holiday man and mororo Bankhead and burnhard and of course Davis one critic quoted in People magazine wrote Miss Piggy combines the explosiveness of Anne boft the vulnerability of Judy Garland and the soul of Greta Garbo in a body that drives men mad there's always something a little tongue and- cheek when talking about Miss Piggy particularly about her sex appeal but the truth is these quotes are right on the money because in my eyes at least Miss Pig is a wholesale caricature of the Classic Hollywood Diva lampooning the Dynamics and standards of stardom from the way she moves to the way she responds to threats Miss Piggy is the ultimate reflection of Hollywood ambition Obsession and glamour run rampant and it's absolutely fantastic the part shall be played by Mah by you Miss Piggy yes interviews with the cretive Minds behind Miss Piggy confirm that the actresses and films of Classic Hollywood inspired them When developing the character after Oz became the primary Puppeteer for Miss Piggy he devised An Origin story for her a four-page stanislavskian biography that informed how she saw the world as I see her he said she's had a couple of different Affairs before Kermit she was lonely she was hurt very badly and she'd rather not talk about it she was hurt in one Affair very badly and I think her mother mistreated her and her father died in an accident on the farm she left home after her mother noticed that Miss Piggy was getting more attention from people than she was so Miss Piggy left home began fending for herself and entered a lot of beauty contests she tried to threaten the judges beforehand but she wouldn't sleep with them she's a lady she won second or third place a lot she survived on the prize money for a while and when that ran out she really had to struggle did you let you first learn this Kermit you know that your the fiance your girlfriend left home as a teenager after graduating from Charm School that her first job was at a department store selling gloves I'm proud of that I was alone I was single I was I'm proud of that okay as a model she was forced to pose for certain ads one for a bacon product i' rather not talk about that that's outrageous you never told me that stuff piggy something a woman sometimes has to do the story Oz invented reads like it came out of photoplay magazine in 1938 or 1954 describing women like Marilyn Monroe Joan Crawford or Clara Bo themselves the subject of thinly veiled origin story films like the goddess and inside Daisy Clover the story of a woman who became a movie star I make $4,000 a week now Mama do you know that I'm not staying on this St a more Comic version of Piggy's past would be told in The Muppet Movie in 1979 which Chronicles how the main cast of characters first met up with Kermit and made their way to Hollywood we encounter Miss Piggy in the Bogan County beauty pageant a crown she obviously wins with ease this year's Miss Bogan County Miss Piggy and just as she's crowned she spots Kermit in the crowd and is transported into a Fantastical dream sequence in which she imagines her romantic life with him each vignette offering its own glossy escape again drawing from cinematic references like Tom Jones some of Piggy's most famous sequences like this introduction in The Muppet Movie are absolutely littered with specific references that the writers costume designers and the rest of the Hensen team explicitly included to evoke Classic Cinema specifically musical comedies from the 1930s and 40s the great Muppet Caper from 1981 for example includes two such numbers for Piggy the first a dining room dance sequence inspired by the 1935 film top hat which casts her as a Ginger Rogers type figure the second a water ballet inspired by million-dollar mermaid in which piggy takes up the Esther Williams role the TV special The Muppets go to Hollywood gives her an introduction echoing one of the most iconic entrances in all of Cinema One quite literally made for royalty an Egyptian parade just like Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra but it's not just these onetoone Recreations of cinematic moments that make Miss Piggy a reflection of the Classic Hollywood glamour Queen it's everything it's the way she carries herself her concerns the things she wears consider the physicality Frank Oz gives piggy she enters a room and leans melodramatically against the door she constantly whips her hair from side to side in a huff or swipes it away from her face she sigh each one heavy with emotion I'm too delicate for Show Business where acting in the 1970s skewed toward naturalistic finely detailed performances influenced by the method piggy wants to hit you with the emotion first she wants you to know exactly how she feels so Oz dials everything up to 100 a performance style so self-evident and big would have been seen as outdated by the 1970s hearkening back to the kind of acting done by actresses trained for early 20th Century Theater who relied on highly expressive flourishes to reach the back of the house or actresses trained in silent Cinema who needed striking demonstrative physicality in the absence of dialogue your betty Davis's or Gloria Swanson's variety shows in the 1960s and70s loved to parody the extremities and bigness of acting in the Golden Age by imagining that the women who acted this way on screen acted This Way in real life believing that they were the distant goddesses that the movie studios sold them as Carol Bernett provides probably the greatest examples of this some of her best remembered sketches are spoofs of films like Mildred Pierce and Gone With the Wind oh Max Max don't let the autograph hounds hurt me please Max please this sketch about Sunset Boulevard has the exact same comic logic as a Miss Piggy sketch an actress is doing the most none of which is actually justified by her surroundings no no please don't bother me no no no autographs no no no what I love about Piggy's physicality is that it feels like that's what she thinks or has learned an actress is like and that's why she does it Oz understands that a young pig trying to escape the farm might consciously put up a veneer of sophistication piggy acts the elegant Diva and mimics the things she seen them do on TV but doesn't understand that nobody actually behaves that way in real life it reminds me of this scene in The Comedy my man Godfree Carol Lombard's character is devastated that her Crush isn't returning her affection so she enters the room just like a distraught Miss Piggy leaning in doorways looking dramatically off into the distance and delivering the most unhinged melodramatic dialogue where do you want the sandwiches served Irene what is food something you eat silly you want the sandwiches served in here or don't you what difference does it make some people do just as they like with other people's lives and it doesn't seem to make any difference and how does her sister respond to her Antics by calling out that she's just acting oh I remember that pose so well I learned it in dramatic School is number eight isn't it yep that's number eight all right remember what Frank Oz said about Miss Piggy she is really a truck driver underneath she has a she has a she has an autograph that's all cticu MH she had to practice that for weeks yeah cuz if she actually did her her signature she puts on airs but the real Miss Piggy underneath is always perceptible her use of French is the perfect example of this French the Chic Continental language Piggy speaks it to project class and culture that she doesn't actually have so her vocabulary is humorously limited to words like Mah and Vu which she misuses most of the time paron us everyone paron us everyone what's that what is French when a guest star appears who can actually speak French she inelegantly tries to get out of this situation to avoid embarrassment I just remembered I have intis my vocal coach told me not to speak French the key to Piggy's comedy is that she is both undercut by reality and simultaneously refuses to be undercut by reality she believes more than anyone that she is a major star deserves everything that comes with that status and couldn't possibly have any flaws that detract from that Vincent cambi put it this way in his 1981 review of the great Muppet Caper she possessed possesses a curious but most winning lack of self-awareness the kind you sometimes see in miniature poodles that behave as if they were great danes one of her nicest traits is the gracious way she acknowledges compliments that sometimes haven't been given it's in The Confident expectation that they will be given that saves this essentially vulnerable Pig in situations that would embarrass a star of lesser stature kalista Hendrickson Miss Piggy's costume designer from the late 1970s through the late ' 80s told People magazine when she looks in the mirror Miss Piggy sees Twiggy and you better not forget it she doesn't try to hide her flaws she doesn't see them it's true her interviews from this time are so whimsically self assured that you can't help but laugh she told Vogue in 1978 my eyes are so beautiful it's a curse my fashion advice wear what suits you Luckily everything suits me I happen to be very fortunate everything I put on looks beautiful but don't ever tried to look prettier than me it's futile she would never bring up the fact that when most people think Pig they think but she does know that people think that which is why she immediately shuts down any and all jokes about mud or bacon or weight anything that could conceivably offend a pig pig solidarity always unless of course attention is at stake whoopy babe whoopy I can't hear you are you there oh my goodness it seems like we've temporarily lost our Uplink babe how right yeah that's one up link down at the same time the world constantly humbles her and exposes her as someone who aspires to stardom but apparently hasn't quite made it yet something is always just slightly off her television specials make this joke all the time the Fantastic Miss Piggy show opens with a glittering number befitting the major Diva she is yet as the opening credits roll we hear Miss Piggy screaming in the Back featuring Frank Oz get lad I got to do the show with guest stars John Ritter Tony Clifton the show is not running smoothly shattering the Flawless illusion she had peacock in the previous number in Miss Piggy's Hollywood a TV special from 1989 piggy gives a tour of Hollywood's most important spots one of which is of course her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as she runs through her list of famous peers who share the sidewalk with her Gonzo reveals her Star as a sham wa this is great Miss Piggy your star is portable this is basically the joke of the entire special she's constantly thwarted by celebrities who don't know her things she can't actually afford and opportunities she can't get and then imp improvises to save face of course these jokes require some cognitive dissonance you have to accept that Miss Piggy isn't actually very famous for the joke to work and yet she'd have to be pretty famous to get her own TV special complete with choreography celebrity guests costumes and dancers that irony allows the audience to enjoy the Aesthetics of Glamour without being alienated by it she can't sing she can't tell jokes she she she can't dance She's a pig yeah she's not attracted she's single but she she has this tremendous bravado the reason she's funny is she covers all the pain in spite of the semi delusional quality of Miss Piggy's confidence she remains an aspirational figure for a lot of people because of how smoothly she Soares through this kind of adversity and how she turns perceived negatives into positives she kind of represented something wasn't typically seen on television a kind of character that maybe was a little bit too edgy to assertive for human women to be able to go out there and be human woman she has a kind of puppet privilege if you will because she is a puppet she's considered non-threatening unserious and therefore allowed to do say or be things that might earn real women ridicu Oz recognized this telling one reporter Miss Piggy is the greatest character of them all she's got a lot of depth because she's been through a lot of pain she's been rejected a lot she has the courage to be koi and vulnerable bravado and narcissistic at a time when that is not especially okay for women her status as a sex symbol certainly applies here like most successful television shows there is some sex on The Muppets but the pig is so flamboyant she's har now the thing Miss Piggy loves most of all besides show business is Kermit with whom she has developed an are they aren't they push and pull Dynamic a dynamic with roots that date back to the screw ball comedies of the 1930s as film scholar Ed sikov wrote in the 1930s a whole genre developed around the perverse idea that love could only be enhanced by aggravation the thornier the relationship the better films like My Man Godfrey bringing up baby the lady Eve and The Awful Truth served up these battles of the Sexes with strong L struck women frantically pursuing passive hesitant men their Antics becoming more and more absurd and often physically combative Jane green continues The Eccentric behavior of the scre ball couple is often explained via a lay psychoanalytic reading the Sexual Energy suppressed under the watchful eye of the sensor Finds Its expression in an acceptable physical and verbal looniness by this line of reasoning the Wise Cracks cartwheels Pratt Falls and funny expressions of screw ball comedy are both a replacement for and symbolic of sexual desire because Kermit and piggy are um unlikely to be portrayed as physically intimate they are the perfect candidates for this kind of relationship piggy chases Kermit Dodges her advances without actually shutting her down he gives in just a little she is reassured and the cycle repeats and because they're Muppets the looniness and Pratt balls can be dialed up to the maximum piggy can karate chop him often and in highly creative ways you're forgiven as Marissa Fenley points out in her article about puppet Theory hence specifically developed characters whose personalities when paired together generate gags rather than justify them for instance the running gag of Miss Piggy and Kermit's relationship is her attempt to trick him into marrying her and Kermit's attempts to evade her traps this gag however is constitutive of their relationship rather than an obstacle to their having one for instance in Muppet's Most Wanted piggy discovers Kermit's impostor Constantine because the impostor Kermit willingly agrees to marry her she knows she is reunited with her one true fault she knows she's reunited with her one true frog when he reliably equivocates at the altar Miss Piggy's karate chop is as key to her character as anything else she doesn't slap the choice mode of aggression for real stars what's that for I do that in all my pictures she chops it's to use O's term probably Piggy at her most truck driver a raw reaction that she cannot suppress and that reveals the real pig beneath the pearls as impossibly dramatic and stereotypically unladylike as they come as often as Kermit is the victim of Miss Piggy's violence he also benefits from it often playing the Damsel in Distress who requires piggy to summon her superhuman martial arts skills to to defeat his Nemesis calm down one tricks me into and yes Miss Piggy did come under criticism from some social workers and psychiatrists who said she was too violent piggy occasionally flirts with people besides Kermit usually guest stars are celebrities whose Fame increases their value in her eyes remember in the movie when you held Lis Lane could you use my body as a visual demonstration although she'd never want Kermit to know that she was interested she's Kermit's for life at least until recently and some of the franchise's most beloved moments involve sincere interactions between the two of them Kermit finally capitulates the antagonism dies down for a brief moment and the audience can enjoy the payoff after a long battle we can't talk about Miss Piggy as a reflection of old Hollywood without talking about her Aesthetics the sculpt of her face has been tweaked many times throughout the years though the bones so to speak remain the same blond haired blue-eyed voluptuous Miss Piggy was carved in the image of the blonde Bombshells although in reality parts of Miss Piggy's original costume were designed by Bonnie Ericson for purely practical purposes I would just say that when we went from being beneath the planet of the pigs uh and they lost their costume and she had to become a little more glamorous for the other piece we did for her bartt you could see where her neck joined her body and so um the obvious thing to do was to add some pearls right at that point others served to underline Piggy's Persona her silver satin dress marked her as a more formal glamorous figure than the rest of the Muppets and indeed one of the very few feminine characters on on the show it's a flowing simple number that evokes hon a popular designer from the 1970s who himself Drew from 1930s Aesthetics eventually as she gained momentum as a character her world became more ornate a lavish dressing room a pet dog named Fufu and costume designer kalista Hendrickson convinced Hensen and Oz that Miss Piggy should have a bespoke wardrobe to match Frank came from a traditional family of PU teers were every puppet had their look in their costume and and they didn't change clothes and if you think of Howdy Duty or puppets that you remember they always wore the same thing so I suggested to Frank that because Miss Piggy is backstage and she's an actress she needs a backstage robe a kimono a penir whatever he agreed to try it out he made the most of it as Frank always did once he discovered the the possibility of the cost cumes he he really went with it so that that was the first hurdle and after that he he loved having more costumes she became more glamorous as the days went on the team also developed a number of rules for Miss Piggy's wardrobe like if she wears a hat she has to have one ear popping out some were again derived for her character Miss Piggy was an aspiring actress who came from the Barnyard she wanted out of that life so she didn't wear Earth Tones instead she wore Fantastical pinks purples and blues the colors that occur less often in nature the unnaturalness of piggy is actually a good transition into piggy as a camp figure really as Camp incarnate film scholar Richard Dyer wrote in his book heavenly bodies that when we read Stars through a camp lens we enjoy them not for any supposed Inner Essence revealed but for the way they jump through the Hoops of social conv vention seeing them that way is seeing them as appearance as image in no way asking for them to be what they are really Jack babuscio expands on this in his article camp in the gay sensibility to appreciate camp in things or persons is to perceive the notion of life as theater being versus role playing reality and appearance Camp is often exaggerated when the stress on style is outrageous or too much it results in in congruities the emphasis shifts from what a thing or a person is to what it looks like from what is being done to how it is being done Miss Piggy is a mass of in congruities the farm girl who is a movie star the pig who is a sex symbol the truck driver telling us she's a princess the puppet asking us to perceive her as a real speaking being we implicitly recognize the reality but choose to admire the image and the effort it takes to maintain that image instead it's significant that Miss Piggy's two most common states of being are combat or a model's pose it's a clash of masculine and feminine energies which fusio terms the most common of in congruous contrasts she constantly shifts between them yelling at someone with her full chest then quickly reverting back into her signature pose to reestablish the demure feminine illusion yeah but if I don't get back to the phone someone else will use shut up she fixes her hair right after a karate chop in that sense Oz being the man behind the woman also adds a drag element to Miss Piggy a performance of exaggerated gender funnily enough the Press did wonder how or why a male performer was able to so thoroughly interpret a female character and Oz definitely had a few uh I like girls moments in interviews in the 1970s but he was also actually very thoughtful about how those energies lived within him and how that influenced the character he said in one interview certainly Miss Piggy is the hardest character to do simply because she's the most complex she has the most depth it's a hard character for me to do because it brings out my own femininity it's hard for a guy to project that femininity I have enough in me to do it and at the same time enough Mas cinity to make me embarrassed to do it around other people so there's a whole dichotomy there that I think helps the character yes recognizable pop cultural tropes informed who Miss Piggy became but it's important to recognize how much Frank Oz as a human being influenced who she was the things he was thinking and feeling his relationship with Jim Henson how he thought about women and what he noticed about the entertainment industry when I created piggy with the writers um you know I created a a very neurotic character I mean she has layers of inner conflict layers um and that was me at that time at that time I had tremendous inner Conflict for with many things um one of which I didn't want to be a puppeteer I wanted to direct uh but I was too scared to say it to myself um Jim on the other hand always went with the flow always didn't go upam didn't paddle Upstream he always went with it always went and so that was our relationship in real life and that tend to be our relationship in uh with the puppets also and so Miss Piggy along with the rest of the Muppets was launched into super stardom like this the newest of Hollywood sex symbols is here with us tonight may I present the most beautiful pig in the world Miss Piggy 235 million people around the world tuned in to the show while A-list celebrities lined up to guest star on television and in the films Muppet merch became so omnipresent that one journalist remarked there are enough Muppet artifacts on the market now to convince future archaeologists that our civilization worshiped frogs and pigs Miss Piggy became an industry unto herself not unlike the studio system The Henson company set up an infrastructure to internally manage Miss Piggy's Public Image The Muppets resonated not as abstract pieces of felt but as real characters who audiences and critics felt were akin to real human beings their films well at least the first few were very well reviewed by critics in part for their genuine Innovations in puppetry that Jim Henson achieved but I mean when you think of Great Moments in cinema for example jolon sings Garbo laughs Barrymore talks perit rides a bicycle mhm but also for the humanity imbued in the characters there's more reality in this stuffed animal than in 97% of the characters in so-called real people sitcoms on TV Charles Champlin wrote in the Los Angeles Times the Perfection of Muppet puppetry is so complete that it's impossible not to accept these felt Creations as feeling beings it's quite refreshing to see the mainstream critical establishment so firmly in The Muppets corner Corner men you might expect to approach The Muppets with hearts of stone absolutely tripped over themselves to compliment them or to be more specific to compliment Miss Piggy every time she popped up on the screen I paid more attention to her and attention to the film I'm not saying that because I want to be cute or trendy with Miss Piggy I'm not even the biggest fan of the Muppet Show but she is a genuine actress in this film when they flip her upside down you notice how big her thighs are when she has her lines of dialogue and Her Fantasy it's interesting so I'm recommending the film only for those scenes in which she's on the scen Miss Piggy was different from real actresses not just because she was a puppet but because she represented unabashed Gody glamour in an age when quote unquote serious actresses weren't inclined to embrace that and because she appeared in that camp be material at a time when Hollywood was disinclined to invest in it as people who professionally monitor the industry learn its history and understand its Trends critic understood piggy as a nostalgic throwback who filled a gap in the then current roster of stars but look at the analysis that we're doing on this piece of foam rubber I mean this is why at least I think you got to grant me that this is a genuine character and this is what amazed me as I watched her I was saying how many musical comedy actresses who sing and dance do we have you know Liza Manelli doesn't make too many movies Sten isn't singing and dancing in the movies lately either but this pig is and this pig is interesting with critics and audiences so enthusi I asically supporting Miss Piggy it's no surprise that she was at one point actually in the conversation for the Best Actress Oscar in 1979 after the resounding success of the first Muppet movie a group of fans from Cincinnati Ohio founded the committee to award Miss Piggy the Oscar or Campo demanding the academy take her seriously as a Best Actress Oscar Contender there are thousands of people in this country who Believe Miss Piggy is more deserving of an Oscar than a lot of actresses one fan said and they weren't exaggerating over 25,000 fans sent letters to the academy in support of the campaign of course the academy didn't bite and she wasn't nominated for best actress but she was invited to the ceremony where of course she made a meal out of the situation well I I can see you're at a loss for words and that's understandable after all we have the most glamorous and glittering names the finest actors it's because I'm a pig isn't it she and Johnny Carson introduced best song for which Paul Williams and Kenny Asher were nominated for Rainbow Connection ladies and gentlemen mhm the first nominated song I wanted the nomination I so know you I took out don't feel badly about so if Miss Piggy recycles the tropes and behaviors of movie stardom what happens when the concept of movie stardom dies over the past last few years we have absolutely been inundated with articles musing on the state of the movie star as the industry has changed with the Advent of streaming the slow death of the theatrical release the rise of social media the dominance of an overreliance on IP it seems the modern industry doesn't quite need movie stars the way it used to and whether you think that is something to M or not it absolutely changes the logic of how Miss Piggy would move around in the world certainly some aspects of Piggy's character are Timeless for example I think the will they won't they screw ball Dynamic with Kermit will always feel current but many of the references that originally made her resonate aren't really relevant anymore it's not as potent of a joke to have her flop against doorways in a parody of the melodramatic actress because nobody has actually acted like that for decades it's not part of most people's visual vocabulary anymore except probably the people who watch this channel you are truly more likely to see someone parodying the body language of an NPC than you are a 1930s movie star it's not as if we're lacking parodies of aspiring actresses but they just don't quite take the same shape today they're usually awkward comedies of manners monologues in which the audience has to Intuit it why the actress would be humiliated despite what's actually coming out of her mouth Valerie cherished from The Comeback is the perfect example example oh no that's that uh independent film I did all right with those cute college kids well film school you know so it's a independent film we know a student film and an independent film are not the same thing but that she's trying to make the best of it to save face it's the modern version of a Miss Piggy joke the age of Instagram and Tik Tok comedy has also surfaced a number of straight to camera characters that achieve the same effect like outof work actress talks about a possible sequel to a movie that came out 9 years ago I would totally be down to do numeral do uh I don't know if they're going to do that or not um there's not really any talk about it but I just wanted to say and if anybody Claire is listening you know Jackson I I would totally like to get together and do that uh do a sequel to the movie cuz it was so much freaking fun the first time uh but yeah there's no talk short long story short there is absolutely no talk about doing another movie other examples you wouldn't in 2024 invent a character who fake speaks French as a projection of class because we don't necessarily value those Upper Crust pretensions the same way although to be fair it's idiosyncratic enough to be funny regardless Emily and Paris can't speak French but everyone knows it there's no veneer there [Music] and finally maybe this is controversial but I don't think we live in a very glamorous era there's definitely a lot of wealth but glamour I'm not so sure I know some people will say influencers are glamorous and yeah they get a lot of free stuff and get to go to parties that are basically advertisements but like Betty Davis never had to set up her own tripod so the question becomes how do you arrange the details to make Miss Piggy feel modern and not like a stereotype from a bygone era what should she wear what kind of physicality should she adopt what are her Show Business dreams for an industry where movie stardom isn't even the most lucrative or attention getting job you can have how do you answer all of those questions and still stay true to Miss Piggy there have been a couple high-profile updates that have attempted to answer those questions in 20 4 Disney acquired the Muppet IP from the Hensen Company formed the Muppet studio and began looking for new vehicles for the characters they began with some classic story adaptations and Christmas specials but eventually found success with the 2011 film The Muppets which served as a kind of franchise reboot the film follows a new Muppet Walter with his older brother Gary played by Jason Seagal as they try to get the gang back together to produce a charity event to save their old theater a classic musical comedy structure that dates back to the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland musicals of the 30s and 40s in a parallel to the original 1979 film Kermit tours the country in a car Gathering up the original crew and getting them ready for the show generally speaking I think this film does a really good job modernizing The Muppets while retaining the things that made them successful in the first place a muppet Super Fan seagull who co-wrote the screenplay really paid attention to the type of humor that made them up it's Unique and so universally appealing there's a ton of clever word play they constantly break the fourth wall and poke fun at filmmaking tropes the only major criticism I would lob at the film is that it centers Walter and Gary who function well enough as every man standin for the fans who want to see the gang back together again but whose centrality means they get a whole lot of screen time and to be blunt there is no world in which I would rather see these guys do anything instead of the right regular crew the second film The Muppet's Most Wanted even addresses this criticism this film also sets the precedent for the ways piggy has been adapted in the past decade or so they dispense with the irony of Miss Piggy as the diva Underdog and instead make her a Flatout Diva comparing the Muppets 2011 and the great Muppet Caper can tially illustrate that change in the great Muppet Caper Miss Piggy arrives at a fashion magazine with the biggest dreams of being a model she acts like she's a celebrity already is immediately undermined but happily accepts an assistant position anyway she just wants to be around the fashion magazine modeling is my life it is my destiny I shall accept nothing less I can offer you a job as a receptionist take to impress others she pretends that her boss's office is her own in 2011 she's in a managerial position at Vogue Paris she has her own office her own assistant respect and Authority in 1981 she's Andy in 2011 she's Miranda Priestley the analogy is easy to make given that they literally stunt cast Emily Blunt as her assistant I wouldn't say that a love of Show Business drives Miss Piggy's character in these films as it did previously either she returns to the Muppets out of fidelity to her friends and out of a love for Kermit not because she craves the age the second film 2014's Muppets Most Wanted picks up where the Muppets 2011 leaves off with the gang reunited an on tour performing The Muppet Show the performance of the actual show really has almost nothing to do with the plot itself which centers on Kermit's evil Russian twin switching places with him so he can steal Europe's most famous Jewels Piggy's scenes revolve mostly around her relationship with Kermit generally speaking these films want us to take their relationship much more seriously than the previous iterations her Obsession has transformed into a more formal desire for a mature relationship this is not a screw ball couple when they get upset with each other they are genuinely upset and have to work through their emotions the 2015 Muppet sitcom on ABC green lit after the success of the films shifted things again with variety shows a virtually dead format the Muppet came back instead with the 2010's format of choice the mockumentary a clear attempt to replicate the successive shows like the office and parks and wreck both of which had recently completed their highly successful runs in the show Miss Piggy hosts up late with Miss Piggy a typical late night show which welcomes weekly guests for sitdown interviews the rest of the gang are all there too on the staff of the show well except Walter who was sarily and unsurprisingly dumped although he did make it into the lady gagum up at Holiday Spectacular [Music] so good for him each of the Muppets Take on really intuitive roles Kermit acts as executive producer which primarily consists of handling Miss Piggy's demands fzy is a kind of warmup act the Electric Mayhem are the house band etc etc the series is a clear attempt to return to Henson's vision of the Muppets as being for adults as much as children and matures the characters and theme seems at least compared to its most recent iterations this was apparently confusing to some parents who I suppose have no conception of the history of the Muppets some parents groups even boycotted the series Without ever having seen an episode of course as a late night host Piggy's ambition is back on display although because she is in a position of authority and has the power to get what she wants to a certain extent her concerns are largely aesthetic it's not about dreaming big and masking her shortcomings as much as it is about maintaining an image she's already won her competitiveness is directed toward the guests she usually plays the underdog to other famous women who appear on the show like free Witherspoon for example who in Universe beat her for an Oscar I guess you've been pretty busy since you won your oscar but the underdog status she has with the guests certainly does not apply behind the scenes of the show where they lean hard into the idea of piggy as a Miranda Priestly like boss there are times when she's just kind of mean playing the extremity of her ego for Laughs characters constantly walk on eggshells around her delusion and confidence can skew toward arrogance and conceit if taken too far and this series isn't always Adept at striking that balance the series also threw a major wrench in the Kermit Piggy Dynamic with the introduction of Denise shortly before the show premiered ABC made the genius marketing decision to announced that Kermit and piggy had separated and that Kermit was dating a new Pig Denise from marketing this caused a frenzy in the media for weeks with people of all ages taking to the internet to claim their childhood was ruined I personally think this could have been a really smart way to refresh their dynamic or at least introduce a little conflict there are so many examples of screw ball heroins triumphantly breaking up boring couples for the writers to draw from plus this wasn't the first time they brought in another female pig to stir things up in season 3 of The Muppet Show Annie Sue was briefly introduced to stir jealousy and Miss Piggy now it's the Frog's turn like Annie Sue Denise was a short-lived presence in the Muppets she breaks up with k because he seems too committed to work and therefore to his ex Miss Piggy the series for me is a mixed bag the update is necessary but its execution also has a flattening effect that's hard to ignore despite the fact that they are still puppets and therefore in congruous with the human beings and Industry around them they're adhering quite closely to the standards of the mockumentary format which relies primarily on quiet private reactions think Jim's signature stare into camera in order to achieve this The Muppets are played as straight as possible the outrageousness is dialed down the campy sense of life as theater tuned more toward life than theater the results is a much less wacky slightly more cynical Muppet cast than I think audiences are typically used to and ultimately it feels less bizarre and experimental than the show from this era it is thematically most similar to 30 Rock actually Jenna is I think the character who best picks up Piggy's baton in terms of the delusional ambitious actress strope a trailer park girl who fought her way close to the top can't hide the fact that she's a trailer park girl no matter how hard she tries seees with jealousy for any competitors and yearns for any and all attention seriously look up any Jenner compilation on YouTube and a not insignificant portion of the clips could 100 100% work for Miss Piggy why don't you sing something for me oh no nobody wants to hear that I do folks like to get away but the new Miss Piggy doesn't even get anything as silly as Muffin Top Piggy and Kermit's combativeness stripped of the absurdity and frantic energy of the original Muppet series no longer feels silly and harmless but genuinely combative during the Press tour they appeared on Jimmy Kimmel to promote the series and throughout the interview they jokingly insult each other to emphasize the fact that yes they've broken up but it just kind of gets to the point that it feels a little too serious and Jimmy comments on it I have to say this is genuinely uncomfortable it really is when I first saw this interview I was glad he made the joke because I wasn't sure if it was just me who was feeling that way the YouTube channel mtown Funk did a deep dive on the sitcom that explains how during the show's Hiatus a new showrunner came in and the writer regrouped to consciously inject a little more trademark Muppet positivity and goofiness into the show the efforts at a turnaround didn't quite work and the show was cancelled after one season since then the Muppets have been in a kind of holding pattern occasionally wheeled out for wentoff projects or short things on Disney plus most recently The Muppet's Haunted Mansion premiered as did the series The Muppets Mayhem I have yet to catch either of these but I heard good things about the Muppets Mayhem which even won the EM for outstanding children series and was promptly cancelled by Disney so sick as good as I think the puppeteers Who currently voice Piggy and Kermit and the rest of the Muppets are it's not hard to think that the franchise lost something in the successive events of Henson's death in 1990 the Disney acquisition and Frank Oz's departure from the Muppets in 2002 Oz has been vocal about this shift telling the guardian he sees a demarcation line between the Jim Henson Muppets and the Disney Muppets there's an inability for Corporate America to understand the value of something they bought he said they never understood with us it's not about the puppets it's about the performers who love each other and have worked together for many years there are people at in the TV and Motion Picture area the thing is what they don't understand is that one can't just write for the Muppets there are performers who've been with Jim for decades yeah and they're not being part of the process those people those Baretta in here Dave gos they are brilliant they know the soul I can't I just wish they would be asked to be part of the creation and that's what would make a success for Disney really so I I have nothing against Disney Jim wanted to go to Disney if we actually the the characters could not be popular without us down below we know each other for so many years you can't just bring a new guy in right you just can't do it and it's also weird cuz it's like buying a thorough bread and not letting them race even the current puppeteers will admit to Nostalgia for the old days I miss the sense of play that comes from a company owned by a person when I was researching this video I obviously was plowing through seasons of The Muppet Show and I watched the episode guest hosted by Mark Hamel in 1980 just before the release of The Empire Strikes Back the episode plays out like a Star Wars film complete with C3PO chewbaca R2-D2 and Miss Piggy as Princess Leia of course the episode ends with the Star Wars and Muppets casts singing When You Wish Upon a Star from Disney's Pinocchio watching this it suddenly occurred to me these used to be three separate companies three separate Visions led by three genuine innovators who have all now been coalesced into a massive conglomeration that prioritizes brand consistency and shareholders over authorial voices the industry has only become less inclined to pay artists to create new and exciting material since the days when Lou grade took a chance on The Muppets when no one else would in a world where these corporations would rather let AI make decisions about a movie lot in themes it's bittersweet to look back at what Hensen and Oz and all of their collaborators achieved and remember what is possible when artists are trusted and given the resources they need to innovate I thought a lot about what the Muppets represent over the past month there are so many answers to that question but the one that stuck with me the most is and I'm so sorry about how corny this is going to sound how awe inspiring creativity is the the finale of the 1979 Muppet movie truly just hits me in the gut the cast start singing about how they've been bursting with creativity all their lives and now finally they have the opportunity to use it they're just having so much fun collaborating with friends cobbling together sets translating everything they experienced in route to Hollywood into a story that will make people happy it has to be one of the purest most magical scenes ever put to film what hits me is that this is how Jim Hensen must have felt too a guy with a dream who cobbled together a pingpong ball and an old coat infused it with his personality and life experience gathered together some equally creative friends and somehow created something that has entertained and delighted audiences for Generations it's so easy in the chaotic mess that is Show Business to forget how impressive and astonishing that is if you're leaving this video as Amazed by the Ingenuity of Jim Henson and Frank Oz as I was while writing it good they're genuine inators who deserve all the hype and admiration they're given and I'm not the only person who thinks that the Muppets for my money are the most original thing that ever happened on the box don't you agree so you want to learn more about them what do you do next well if you're in New York City I recommend visiting the Museum of moving image which has a per exhibition dedicated to Jim Henson and the Muppets you can see actual puppets character designs even models showing how sects were constructed to hide puppeteers I would also recommend watching Patrick Willams recent video about Muppet Cinema which dives into some of the troubles puppeteering has had in the age of CGI you can watch that right now add free on nebula as you may already know I'm a proud member of the nebula family which means that all of the videos I've made for YouTube are also currently streaming ad free on nebula and everything I make in the future will be too I love working with nebula because it's Creator founded and Creator Le meaning creators are encouraged to take risks and make things that they want to make without worrying about how an algorithm will respond because nebula doesn't even have one they're just people curating things they like what a concept nebula prioritizes The audience's Experience that's why when you watch something on nebula it is guaranteed to be adree everything on nebula from The Originals to classes led by creaders you know and love everything is paid for with subscriptions so signing up supports my channel tremendously as well as an entire community of creators if you sign up using the link in my description that's just a little over $2.50 a month and if you think you know someone else who would enjoy nebula great news nebula is now offering annual gift cards meaning you can share everything the platform has to offer with your family and friends for a whole year use a link gift. nebula.com rewind in my description to give a year of nebula to a friend for just $30 and just so you know this also applies to people who already have it they'll get a whole year free just adding into their account click the link in my description and start watching I'm going to see my lawyer why going to find out if you can sue a show for breach of taste oh please don't make us watch it again you know the trick I'd like the Frog to do what's that make us disappear did you ever see anything put together worse than that yeah my first wife That's all folks

Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 120,687

Keywords: the muppets, the muppet show, kermit, miss piggy

Id: mkvAckgH4Yw

Length: 62min 34sec (3754 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 07 2024