The Muppets Make the Big Move

Even now they are closing in on Tinsel Town

The scene: An amiable frog enters the El Sleezo Cafe and perches at the bar. A thug who looks amazingly like a malevolent Kojak starts eyeballing him. The creature, a popeyed Candide named Kermit the Frog, had just hopped in for a quick one en route to Hollywood, but now Madeline Kahn, slinking alongside him, coos: "Buy me a drink, sailor?" Soon Kermit the Frog finds himself arguing with Telly Savalas about warts. Behind them a sinister crew of rogues are tearing up the place. This is clearly no club for an honest frog; the menu even features french fried frog's legs.

Weird kiddie cinema? An outtake from National Lampoon's Animal House? Nothing of the sort. It's just the Muppets, the world's most popular television stars, making their first movie--an $8 million comedy called simply The Muppet Movie. The film is a "road" epic about the puppet gang's perilous trek from the Deep South to Hollywood.

They have plenty of help from some very well known human friends. "My kids gave me a proposition I couldn't resist--do it or else," says Telly Savalas of his cameo as the barroom brawler who is intolerant of warts. Other humanoid notables in the cast are Orson Welles, Bob Hope, Richard Pryor and Dom DeLuise. But to the Muppets' 235 million worldwide fans, the real heros of all this silliness are sensitive Kermit the Frog; his friend Fozzie, the stumbling bear; Miss Piggy, the porcine blonde caught achingly between show-biz ambition and true love; and a star-struck turkey, Gonzo the Great.

"There's a void in the motion picture world for ... whatever this is," smiles the movie's Executive Producer Martin Starger, U.S. representative of British Producer Sir Lew Grade. Just what it will be is hard to pin down: maybe something like Punch and Judy done according to Mad Magazine.

The movie is being shot in Georgia and California without any animated effects. Beyond the clever scenes and imaginative facial sculpting, its success depends on a proud and well-paid crew of 20 invisible performers who are the real actors. The Muppeteers must crouch uncomfortably below the set's surface with their Muppet-covered arms stretched painfully skyward, as they stare into reverse-image video monitors to see what their arms and fingers are doing. "Think of dancing, which is a physical extension of internal feelings," explains Muppeteer Jerry Nelson, 44. "In a smaller way, pushing creative energy through your arm into the puppet is the same thing."

The human actors are mildly envious. "Those puppets get acting moments that most actors never have," observes Austin Pendleton who plays the movie's softhearted villain. Director James (Kid Blue) Frawley has already suspended disbelief. Says he: "My work with Kermit the Frog is as specific as it would be with Bobby Redford."

The master manipulator is Muppet Founder Jim Henson, 41, who introduced his creatures 21 years ago as Sam and Friends on local television in Washington. Henson was a University of Maryland freshman at the time. By graduation, he had made enough money letting his Muppets shill for TV commercials so that he could arrive to pick up his diploma in a Rolls-Royce. The Muppets traveled to New York next for dates on the Ed Sullivan Show. Jane Nebel, a Sam and Friends partner, had by now become Jane Henson; and Frank Oz, a journalism student from San Francisco, had joined up to create Fozzie the Bear and then Miss Piggy. Other Muppets (the term is a cross between a hand puppet and a marionette) were born through the years according to need and inspiration.

In 1970 Henson's creations took the U.S. by storm as the puppets on Sesame Street. Then three years ago Sir Lew Grade decided to back a worldwide syndicated show featuring Kermit the Frog as M.C. With 156 outlets in the U.S. and 106 overseas, it is the most popular first-run TV show internationally. Henson still picks the translators meticulously for their ability to mimic the English-speaking characters.

This week Henson will not be doing anything like auditioning Japanese Gonzos. He will be over his head in swamp water, encased in an aluminum tank that is equipped with a video monitor and earphones. Through rubber arms on the top of the casing, Henson will be guiding Kermit the Frog as he sits on a log playing his banjo. Dom DeLuise, a Hollywood agent, sloshes into view, lost on a fishing trip. Kermit the Frog spots an ad in Dom's copy of Variety announcing auditions for "frogs wishing to become rich and famous." He sets off and, in true road picture tradition, picks up Fozzie, Miss Piggy and Gonzo along the way.

Work on film forces subtle, close-up shooting. A half-inch of movement can spoil a sequence. (For one scene, a room ful of Muppets must be in motion, restlessly sitting through a preview of the movie. Says one: "I've seen a detergent that leaves better film than this.") Still Henson runs a happy set. Edgar Bergen, 75, who does a bit with Charlie McCarthy, believes that the Muppets "have given puppetry a new dimension. It's awfully good theater." But Comic Steve Martin best explains their appeal: "Pretty soon you don't want to talk to people anymore. You just want to talk to the Muppets."

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