{"id":45941,"date":"2024-12-20T08:30:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T13:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=45941"},"modified":"2024-12-19T19:04:24","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T00:04:24","slug":"the-bootleg-files-a-muppet-family-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/20\/the-bootleg-files-a-muppet-family-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: A Muppet Family Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 890: <\/strong>\u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d (1987 television special with Kermit the Frog and a lot of friends). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On YouTube. <\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> On VHS and DVD, but in edited versions.
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\nREASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> Rights clearance issues.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Not unless someone pays a lot of money to straighten things out.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s column is different from its predecessors because the subject in the spotlight, the 1987 television special \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas,\u201d has been commercially released on VHS video and DVD. The problem is that the North American home entertainment format releases were forced to edit out a significant amount of musical numbers due to the problems in clearing the music rights for the songs. Even worse, the production has never been on Blu-ray, has never been on any streaming service and has been absent from broadcast television for decades \u2013 with little to no hope of being seen again in its entirety.
\n<\/p>\n

Mercifully, some enterprising TV viewers had the foresight to videotape the show when it was first broadcast and it can be seen in its entirety \u2013 complete with the original commercials \u2013 in an unauthorized YouTube posting. Or, at least it hasn\u2019t been detected by the rights holders and, thus, has avoided the dreaded cease-and-desist notice.<\/p>\n

This is truly an unfortunate situation because \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d might be the best Christmas season television special of all time. Yes, better than Charlie Brown and his fercockt<\/em> tree, better than the Grinch and his endless side-eye glances to the viewer, better than the arthritic stop-motion characters in those Rankin-Bass romps, and better than any musical-comedy romp featuring whatever unemployed pop stars and sitcom actors could be corralled into reading bad jokes from cue cards amid the howls of laugh track jollity.<\/p>\n

The brilliance of \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d is based in its complexity, with characters from four different Jim Henson franchises \u2013 \u201cSesame Street,\u201d \u201cThe Muppet Show,\u201d \u201cFraggle Rock\u201d and \u201cMuppet Babies\u201d \u2013 and 12 different musical numbers (including a 12-song medley) put together in a 52-minute production. Even better, there is an original script that is both laugh-out-loud funny while being warm without getting stuck in treacly sweetness.<\/p>\n

The basic concept of \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d is simple \u2013 Fozzie Bear\u2019s mother is planning to rent her farmhouse to Doc and his dog Sprocket (from the North American version of \u201cFraggle Rock\u201d) for the Christmas holidays and enjoy a vacation in Malibu. To her less-than-delighted surprise, her son shows up with most of his \u201cMuppet Show\u201d friends for a surprise visit. Doc is initially aggravated to discover Mother Bear has decided to stay and provide accommodations for the \u201cMuppet Show\u201d crew, but he eventually drops his unhappiness and begins to construct bunk beds for the unexpected guests. Absent from this arrival in Miss Piggy, who is in the city for a photo shoot and last-minute shopping.<\/p>\n

More guests show up when the \u201cSesame Street\u201d cast arrives as carolers. A home movie showing the Muppets in their infancy \u2013 from the \u201cMuppet Babies\u201d franchise, albeit in puppet form rather than animation \u2013 is presented, and Kermit ventures underground to meet the Fraggles from \u201cFraggle Rock.\u201d A snowstorm traps everyone in the farmhouse, and Kermit becomes worried because Miss Piggy is out in the storm trying to arrive in time for Christmas. It is not a spoiler to state the obvious \u2013 the porcine icon comes through safely and all involved enjoy a merry round of Christmas songs.<\/p>\n

The genius of \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d comes in the blending of the franchises into a single work. There is a lot of fun with Swedish chef trying to figure out how to turn Big Bird into a Christmas dinner (he doesn\u2019t, of course) or how Muppet dogs Rowlf (who speaks and plays piano) and Sprocket (who only barks) can\u2019t figure each other out. There is an amusing staging of \u201cA Visit from St. Nicholas\u201d with the \u201cSesame Street\u201d characters \u2013 a mortified Bert plays the mother (he lost the toin coss to Ernie) while the Two-Headed Monster is Santa Claus.<\/p>\n

There are also a few new interesting characters introduced here (but, sadly, not used again) \u2013 Fozzie\u2019s patient and loving mother, a fast-talking snowman who teams with Fozzie on a comedy act (and gets roasted by trash-talking Waldorf and Statler, who are friends of Fozzie\u2019s mother!) and Maureen the Mink, who is Kermit\u2019s gift to Miss Piggy (who was expecting a mink coat but accepts Maureen\u2019s slavish devotion as her number one fan).<\/p>\n

As for the music, there is a great mix of old favorites and a couple of newly crafted tunes. The Christmas soundtrack is entirely secular \u2013 the one religious song, \u201cI Saw Three Ships,\u201d is heavily truncated to give The Count the chance to show off his numerical-declaring talents. Nonetheless, it is a great score, especially the rollicking riff on \u201cJingle Bell Rock\u201d and the \u201cSesame Street\u201d gang\u2019s take on \u201cHere We Come A-Caroling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d was, arguably, the last artistic peak achieved by Jim Henson during his lifetime (he passed away three years after this production was shot). Henson clearly knew he had a winner in this production, as he made a rare on-camera appearance with his creations at the end of the show in a wry gag where he admires the happening but then retreats to the kitchen to begin washing stacks of dishes. Gerry Parkes as Doc was the only other human on camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d premiered on ABC on December 16, 1987. It didn\u2019t turn up on UK television until two years later, although it may have confused some British viewers since the Doc character was only used in the North American version of \u201cFraggle Rock\u201d \u2013 the UK version had The Captain (played by Scottish actor Fulton MacKay) as the token human and Sprocket\u2019s owner. <\/p>\n

\u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d was released in North America on VHS and DVD, but not in the complete televised version. Henson\u2019s company licensed the songs for television broadcast, but needed to relicense them for the home entertainment format. Five of the songs were not cleared for home entertainment and were cut, including the \u201cMuppet Babies\u201d sequence and the \u201cSleigh Ride\u201d number that introduced the Snowman as Fozzie\u2019s comedy partner. A couple of brief comic exchanges were also edited out.<\/p>\n

Re-releasing \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d is unlikely, given the rights issues on the four franchises used in this show \u2013 after Henson\u2019s death, these franchises were no longer under a single ownership, so there would need to be more negotiating to secure the rights for a new broadcast, either on television or streaming.<\/p>\n

Mercifully, the original uncut version of \u201cA Muppet Family Christmas\u201d is on YouTube. If you\u2019ve never seen it, you\u2019re in for a treat. And if you haven\u2019t seen it in years, consider this a holiday gift that you deserve!<\/p>\n