THE MUPPETS is more than the triumphant big-screen return of Jim Henson’s beloved creations; it’s also the most exuberant movie musical to come along since HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (and you’re welcome to that quote, Disney). And in these fractious, cynical times, a little Muppet song and dance is precisely what we need.

While Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller deserve a tremendous amount of credit for initiating this Henson revival, the whimsical spirit of the film will be instantly identifiable to anyone who watched FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS during its two-season run on HBO. This is the influence of James Bobin and Bret McKenzie, director and co-star/songwriter of the frustratingly short-lived show – and if they stay on with the franchise for another decade, you can rest assured that there will never again be a need for a Muppet revival. Visually and musically, they nail the good-natured, playfully punny vaudeville tone of THE MUPPET SHOW and THE MUPPET MOVIE. These are the Muppets I grew up watching.

Unsurprisingly, Bobin is a lifelong Muppet fan as well. Though he got his start writing and directing episodes of Sacha Baron Cohen’s scabrous DA ALI G SHOW, Bobin’s work has gradually become less confrontational. As he explains in the below interview, he could sense that there was a growing appetite for comedy that didn’t go for the jugular – which led him to co-create FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS and, eventually, brought him to THE MUPPETS. Bobin’s not quite ready to commit to the Muppets for the long term, but if his film catches on with moviegoers (as it should), I imagine Disney will make it worth his while to hang around for at least one more movie.



Mr. Beaks: Thank you for bringing back THE MUPPETS.

James Bobin: Ah, well, my pleasure. It’s one of my fondest childhood memories, watching THE MUPPETS at my grandmother’s house, so the chance to work with them is one that you simply can’t say “no” to. Obviously, I was excited. It’s like working with Luke Skywalker. “This is crazy!”
Beaks: When you were starting out, did you ever in a million years think you’d ever direct the Muppets.

Bobin: It’s funny because… obviously, today, it feels like a very logical progression. I did [FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS] on HBO, then straight from CONCHORDS musical comedy to THE MUPPETS. That feels very logical if you look at it now. But if you asked the same question twenty years ago, if I could have imagined that I’d do a MUPPETS movie, I would have said, “That seems very unlikely.” (Laughs) But you know that’s just how the world is. You just day by day do what you do, and some things just feel right. When I was talking about this job initially, it felt like the job that I was supposed to do. Comedically, I felt that the tone the Muppets has was coming back into fashion, that kind of innocent charm, pun making and fourth-wall-breaking humor. It was sort of taking the place of that kind of cynical, slightly mean-spirited humor - which I love. But I think comedy, like everything, moves forward in a cyclical way. Things always move forward, and something is a reaction of a reaction of a reaction… and having just done CONCHORDS, which was also of the same area [as THE MUPPETS]. CONCHORDS is very much an innocent show about innocent people telling funny jokes. So it felt like this is the thing I should be doing because it was where I was going comedically myself. I felt that it was a good time in the world, too, for this comedy to be happening.
Beaks: Directing a Muppet movie, did you have to acquire new skill sets?

Bobin: Completely. I had never worked with puppets before. The learning curve on this movie was exponential. You learn a lot very quickly, but… people are very keen to help you. As a director, you still are making the movie you want to make. There are certain things you can’t do, but you always work towards that and get as close as you can. In terms of how the sequences are built, I’m delighted with the end result because it feels to me like a big movie. It feels like I’ve created a world whereby puppets and humans co-exist very happily and no one questions that - which I love. Because obviously that’s the most important thing to me as a director: bringing that world alive, creating a world that people just believe and accept. You create the rules, and as long as you stick by your own rules then everyone is going to be very happy.
Beaks: And then integrating the musical numbers into this.

Bobin: Again, I kind of had a dry run at CONCHORDS. I had a lot of practice with how songs work within a narrative and how they work within a structure. It’s obviously a bit different, but not hugely different. You know, when I got the scripts there were songs in it, but the songs that are in it now aren’t the same as the ones that were there two years ago. They changed. I brought my experience from CONCHORDS with me and… I was very keen to integrate songs when I felt there’s a crux emotionally, or where there’s a time where it’s maybe funnier to say it in a song. Working with the Conchords the entire time worked really well because Bret and Jermaine are so kind of shy and demure, and [the songs] kind of brought themselves out of themselves. With THE MUPPETS, it was kind of similar. You had these situations where it was an emotional scene, and it felt like “Why not sing this song?” And it also helps in this movie particularly; I wanted to set the world up in a song. [“Life’s a Happy Song”] is a very clear song. It’s like “This is about a guy and there’s a puppet. They wear bright clothes in a bright world. They live in a town where everyone sings and dances the entire time, even though they get tired of doing it.” It’s that whole thing whereby you would set it up, but then slightly undercut it to give it a contemporary edge.
Beaks: Story-wise, it’s interesting. You’ve got several different arcs going, but it feels like Walter is the protagonist. He’s certainly the spiritual center of the film.

Bobin: It very much felt to me there needed to be a central thread to bring you through the movie. Walter is basically us. Walter is the audience who perceives the Muppets. He also is the world’s biggest Muppet fan, but also he leads us through the story and the idea of a fan coming to belong to the thing that he loves. It’s just a sweet idea. When I met Peter Linz who plays Walter, I just knew you were going to be able to follow this guy; he is such a lovely guy that you really feel for him. He’s very vulnerable, but charming and sweet. He’s also the torchbearer for the Muppets; he’s the guy who has always believed in them when other people maybe haven’t. So once you have this central spirit of Walter, it’s a question of threading those other stories around him. Whenever you do a movie of this scale, where you know you have a lot of characters in it, a lot of Muppets and then twenty or so secondary characters… and you’ve got Jason and you’ve got Amy and Chris Cooper. There are a lot of stories to interweave, and that was one of the challenges in the edit was trying to kind of create the central theme, but have these other things complementing it and working together towards the end.
Beaks: Did you have a personal favorite Muppet that you were trying to work in as much as you could?

Bobin: (Laughs) Yeah. You’ll notice there’s a character called Bobby Benson, who is from Season Three of THE MUPPET SHOW. He has always been my favorite Muppet. He’s kind of a weird seedy guy, and he’s in this movie way more than he should be. (Laughs) But I always loved his babies, too. He has a band of babies, and it’s that genius of Jim and Frank that those babies aren’t cute; they are chilling and scary, which, in regards to THE MUPPET SHOW, is the exact opposite of what you would expect.

Mild spoiler ahead.


Beaks: I love how the film acknowledges the entirety of Hollywood history. I love that you have a Mickey Rooney cameo.

Bobin: You know, it’s an amazing thing. The Muppets themselves are both part of entertainment history, but they also lived in that world for a while. When I spoke to Steve Saklad, my designer, I was very keen that we create a world which reflected the history of entertainment. So The Muppet Theater is a very old vaudeville musical style theater. The Muppet Studios is this kind of old, 1930s Paramount-y kind of place. It’s obviously not the Henson lot, but that kind of mock ‘20s Chaplin style. It was brilliant. It very much feels like the old way that Hollywood once was - and the Muppets really thrive in a vintage history setting. I really wanted that to be built into the movie, so it felt like they were really part of this old, slightly decrepit world.
So, yeah, it was that thing where we included great movie stars who are still around today. Mickey Rooney was someone I always loved. When I met him, he said he’s been making movies since 1927 or something. That’s incredible! I was just delighted to have him. Obviously, he’s go the best stories ever. I arrived on set the day we had dancers there, and there was a crowd of like sixty dancers seated on the ground as he spoke and told stories of old Hollywood. It was just amazing.


Mild spoiler behind.


Beaks: You also used the 1925 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA set on the Universal lot for the Muppet Theater.

Bobin: I’m not from around these parts, so when I come to America I love the idea of being part of this Hollywood culture. I like the idea that they made that movie in 1924 there, and it was a set they’ve built and they’ve kept ever since. I thought it was perfect that we could build a theater like the Muppet Theater around an existing old theater in Hollywood. It felt very serendipitous. It felt right to do.
Beaks: What were the most difficult shots to pull off logistically?

Bobin: Puppets are rather like special effects: the more you put in the scene, the harder it gets. We had scenes where we had sixty puppets in, or scenes like the final Kermit scene where he makes his speech in the lobby of the theater - there’s a hundred puppets there. And even though we shot it bit by bit, it’s still 120 puppeteers underneath eighty puppets or so. Whenever that happens, it takes a very long time and that’s the challenge, the time thing. I think in the olden days when they shot MUPPET movies, they probably had a slightly longer schedule than we do these days. So it was certainly a question of the more Muppets were on set, the harder it got .But at the same time the shots that resulted in it are so fantastically colorful and beautiful - like that shot where Rashida says “You’re not famous anymore” and we cut back to the Muppets. There’s a hundred Muppets in this room, and it’s just so great. It’s just so awesome.
Beaks: I like Thog’s ears in that shot. He’s so big, and just hanging out in the background.

Bobin: (Laughs) I know! And his ears fly up! That’s how he reacts. It is so sweet. I love that. And that was day one of filming. I felt like “Let’s jump in the deep end! Let’s get sixty puppets in a room and see how it goes!”
Beaks: Are you keen to stick with Muppets if they make another Muppet movie?

Bobin: The things I love in the world are comedy and music, so who better than the Muppets to do that? But at the same time I’m keen to do other things. I like working with people, humans, the people who have legs. We will see. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m incredibly proud of what we have done. I’m thrilled to see what people will think of it. I’m really excited to see the reaction, because it’s been with me for a long time.
Beaks: And any more FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS?

Bobin: (Laughs) Good question.
Beaks: Please?

Bobin: As you know, Bret and I work a lot, and Jemaine and I are constantly in touch. And they talk to each other all of the time. I’m sure we will do something together in the future in some form. It may not be the show again, but we will do something. We have such fun working together and we are good friends. I love working with those guys. You couldn’t imagine nicer people to work with. That’s the secret of happiness, I think.


THE MUPPETS opens November 23rd. You’re going ‘cuz it’s THE MUPPETS, and it’s the happiest film of the year.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks

THE MUPPETS is more than the triumphant big-screen return of Jim Henson’s beloved creations; it’s also the most exuberant movie musical to come along since HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (and you’re welcome to that quote, Disney). And in these fractious, cynical times, a little Muppet song and dance is precisely what we need.

While Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller deserve a tremendous amount of credit for initiating this Henson revival, the whimsical spirit of the film will be instantly identifiable to anyone who watched FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS during its two-season run on HBO. This is the influence of James Bobin and Bret McKenzie, director and co-star/songwriter of the frustratingly short-lived show – and if they stay on with the franchise for another decade, you can rest assured that there will never again be a need for a Muppet revival. Visually and musically, they nail the good-natured, playfully punny vaudeville tone of THE MUPPET SHOW and THE MUPPET MOVIE. These are the Muppets I grew up watching.

Unsurprisingly, Bobin is a lifelong Muppet fan as well. Though he got his start writing and directing episodes of Sacha Baron Cohen’s scabrous DA ALI G SHOW, Bobin’s work has gradually become less confrontational. As he explains in the below interview, he could sense that there was a growing appetite for comedy that didn’t go for the jugular – which led him to co-create FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS and, eventually, brought him to THE MUPPETS. Bobin’s not quite ready to commit to the Muppets for the long term, but if his film catches on with moviegoers (as it should), I imagine Disney will make it worth his while to hang around for at least one more movie.



Mr. Beaks: Thank you for bringing back THE MUPPETS.

James Bobin: Ah, well, my pleasure. It’s one of my fondest childhood memories, watching THE MUPPETS at my grandmother’s house, so the chance to work with them is one that you simply can’t say “no” to. Obviously, I was excited. It’s like working with Luke Skywalker. “This is crazy!”
Beaks: When you were starting out, did you ever in a million years think you’d ever direct the Muppets.

Bobin: It’s funny because… obviously, today, it feels like a very logical progression. I did [FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS] on HBO, then straight from CONCHORDS musical comedy to THE MUPPETS. That feels very logical if you look at it now. But if you asked the same question twenty years ago, if I could have imagined that I’d do a MUPPETS movie, I would have said, “That seems very unlikely.” (Laughs) But you know that’s just how the world is. You just day by day do what you do, and some things just feel right. When I was talking about this job initially, it felt like the job that I was supposed to do. Comedically, I felt that the tone the Muppets has was coming back into fashion, that kind of innocent charm, pun making and fourth-wall-breaking humor. It was sort of taking the place of that kind of cynical, slightly mean-spirited humor - which I love. But I think comedy, like everything, moves forward in a cyclical way. Things always move forward, and something is a reaction of a reaction of a reaction… and having just done CONCHORDS, which was also of the same area [as THE MUPPETS]. CONCHORDS is very much an innocent show about innocent people telling funny jokes. So it felt like this is the thing I should be doing because it was where I was going comedically myself. I felt that it was a good time in the world, too, for this comedy to be happening.
Beaks: Directing a Muppet movie, did you have to acquire new skill sets?

Bobin: Completely. I had never worked with puppets before. The learning curve on this movie was exponential. You learn a lot very quickly, but… people are very keen to help you. As a director, you still are making the movie you want to make. There are certain things you can’t do, but you always work towards that and get as close as you can. In terms of how the sequences are built, I’m delighted with the end result because it feels to me like a big movie. It feels like I’ve created a world whereby puppets and humans co-exist very happily and no one questions that - which I love. Because obviously that’s the most important thing to me as a director: bringing that world alive, creating a world that people just believe and accept. You create the rules, and as long as you stick by your own rules then everyone is going to be very happy.
Beaks: And then integrating the musical numbers into this.

Bobin: Again, I kind of had a dry run at CONCHORDS. I had a lot of practice with how songs work within a narrative and how they work within a structure. It’s obviously a bit different, but not hugely different. You know, when I got the scripts there were songs in it, but the songs that are in it now aren’t the same as the ones that were there two years ago. They changed. I brought my experience from CONCHORDS with me and… I was very keen to integrate songs when I felt there’s a crux emotionally, or where there’s a time where it’s maybe funnier to say it in a song. Working with the Conchords the entire time worked really well because Bret and Jermaine are so kind of shy and demure, and [the songs] kind of brought themselves out of themselves. With THE MUPPETS, it was kind of similar. You had these situations where it was an emotional scene, and it felt like “Why not sing this song?” And it also helps in this movie particularly; I wanted to set the world up in a song. [“Life’s a Happy Song”] is a very clear song. It’s like “This is about a guy and there’s a puppet. They wear bright clothes in a bright world. They live in a town where everyone sings and dances the entire time, even though they get tired of doing it.” It’s that whole thing whereby you would set it up, but then slightly undercut it to give it a contemporary edge.
Beaks: Story-wise, it’s interesting. You’ve got several different arcs going, but it feels like Walter is the protagonist. He’s certainly the spiritual center of the film.

Bobin: It very much felt to me there needed to be a central thread to bring you through the movie. Walter is basically us. Walter is the audience who perceives the Muppets. He also is the world’s biggest Muppet fan, but also he leads us through the story and the idea of a fan coming to belong to the thing that he loves. It’s just a sweet idea. When I met Peter Linz who plays Walter, I just knew you were going to be able to follow this guy; he is such a lovely guy that you really feel for him. He’s very vulnerable, but charming and sweet. He’s also the torchbearer for the Muppets; he’s the guy who has always believed in them when other people maybe haven’t. So once you have this central spirit of Walter, it’s a question of threading those other stories around him. Whenever you do a movie of this scale, where you know you have a lot of characters in it, a lot of Muppets and then twenty or so secondary characters… and you’ve got Jason and you’ve got Amy and Chris Cooper. There are a lot of stories to interweave, and that was one of the challenges in the edit was trying to kind of create the central theme, but have these other things complementing it and working together towards the end.
Beaks: Did you have a personal favorite Muppet that you were trying to work in as much as you could?

Bobin: (Laughs) Yeah. You’ll notice there’s a character called Bobby Benson, who is from Season Three of THE MUPPET SHOW. He has always been my favorite Muppet. He’s kind of a weird seedy guy, and he’s in this movie way more than he should be. (Laughs) But I always loved his babies, too. He has a band of babies, and it’s that genius of Jim and Frank that those babies aren’t cute; they are chilling and scary, which, in regards to THE MUPPET SHOW, is the exact opposite of what you would expect.

Mild spoiler ahead.


Beaks: I love how the film acknowledges the entirety of Hollywood history. I love that you have a Mickey Rooney cameo.

Bobin: You know, it’s an amazing thing. The Muppets themselves are both part of entertainment history, but they also lived in that world for a while. When I spoke to Steve Saklad, my designer, I was very keen that we create a world which reflected the history of entertainment. So The Muppet Theater is a very old vaudeville musical style theater. The Muppet Studios is this kind of old, 1930s Paramount-y kind of place. It’s obviously not the Henson lot, but that kind of mock ‘20s Chaplin style. It was brilliant. It very much feels like the old way that Hollywood once was - and the Muppets really thrive in a vintage history setting. I really wanted that to be built into the movie, so it felt like they were really part of this old, slightly decrepit world.
So, yeah, it was that thing where we included great movie stars who are still around today. Mickey Rooney was someone I always loved. When I met him, he said he’s been making movies since 1927 or something. That’s incredible! I was just delighted to have him. Obviously, he’s go the best stories ever. I arrived on set the day we had dancers there, and there was a crowd of like sixty dancers seated on the ground as he spoke and told stories of old Hollywood. It was just amazing.


Mild spoiler behind.


Beaks: You also used the 1925 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA set on the Universal lot for the Muppet Theater.

Bobin: I’m not from around these parts, so when I come to America I love the idea of being part of this Hollywood culture. I like the idea that they made that movie in 1924 there, and it was a set they’ve built and they’ve kept ever since. I thought it was perfect that we could build a theater like the Muppet Theater around an existing old theater in Hollywood. It felt very serendipitous. It felt right to do.
Beaks: What were the most difficult shots to pull off logistically?

Bobin: Puppets are rather like special effects: the more you put in the scene, the harder it gets. We had scenes where we had sixty puppets in, or scenes like the final Kermit scene where he makes his speech in the lobby of the theater - there’s a hundred puppets there. And even though we shot it bit by bit, it’s still 120 puppeteers underneath eighty puppets or so. Whenever that happens, it takes a very long time and that’s the challenge, the time thing. I think in the olden days when they shot MUPPET movies, they probably had a slightly longer schedule than we do these days. So it was certainly a question of the more Muppets were on set, the harder it got .But at the same time the shots that resulted in it are so fantastically colorful and beautiful - like that shot where Rashida says “You’re not famous anymore” and we cut back to the Muppets. There’s a hundred Muppets in this room, and it’s just so great. It’s just so awesome.
Beaks: I like Thog’s ears in that shot. He’s so big, and just hanging out in the background.

Bobin: (Laughs) I know! And his ears fly up! That’s how he reacts. It is so sweet. I love that. And that was day one of filming. I felt like “Let’s jump in the deep end! Let’s get sixty puppets in a room and see how it goes!”
Beaks: Are you keen to stick with Muppets if they make another Muppet movie?

Bobin: The things I love in the world are comedy and music, so who better than the Muppets to do that? But at the same time I’m keen to do other things. I like working with people, humans, the people who have legs. We will see. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m incredibly proud of what we have done. I’m thrilled to see what people will think of it. I’m really excited to see the reaction, because it’s been with me for a long time.
Beaks: And any more FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS?

Bobin: (Laughs) Good question.
Beaks: Please?

Bobin: As you know, Bret and I work a lot, and Jemaine and I are constantly in touch. And they talk to each other all of the time. I’m sure we will do something together in the future in some form. It may not be the show again, but we will do something. We have such fun working together and we are good friends. I love working with those guys. You couldn’t imagine nicer people to work with. That’s the secret of happiness, I think.


THE MUPPETS opens November 23rd. You’re going ‘cuz it’s THE MUPPETS, and it’s the happiest film of the year.

Faithfully submitted,

Mr. Beaks