{"id":6770,"date":"2007-07-03T08:15:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T12:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6770"},"modified":"2010-07-17T06:27:28","modified_gmt":"2010-07-17T10:27:28","slug":"the-best-muppets-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6770","title":{"rendered":"The Best Muppets – part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

FINALLY!<\/a> Worth the wait. Again, the commentary is brilliant – made me cry with laughter and also made me cry some of those other tears.<\/p>\n

Some snippets I love:<\/p>\n

This pair of stalwart scientists serves as a wonderful example of the difference between Sesame Street (an educational show for children) and The Muppet Show (a variety show for adults). On Sesame Street, Telly wonders which of these things is not like the other. On The Muppet Show, Bunsen blows up Beaker\u00ef\u00bf\u00bds face. On Sesame Street, children are taught the permanence of death in an honest and heartfelt way. On The Muppet Show, Bunsen dissolves Beaker\u00ef\u00bf\u00bds head with sulfuric acid.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is a terrible person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

There are Muppets you can like because there is a lot of emotion behind their character or they have a lot to say, or you can like them because they can’t figure out how to hang a picture up or they just constrantly gorge themselves on food. Each one is different and there is a different reason to enjoy them. I try to like things for good reasons and try to be able to explain several reasons why I feel that way, but there are times that I enjoy something because it reminds me of being little and it puts a smile on my face. That’s what the Twiddlebugs are to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

He has no ulterior motives; he never loses his temper or complains. He simply wants to be a comedian and to help his friends the best he can, even though at times he isn\u00ef\u00bf\u00bdt successful at either endeavor. He is exceptionally pure of heart even for a Muppet, which makes it so hard to watch when he\u00ef\u00bf\u00bds sad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

He is not smart, or strong. He can’t sing or dance. He has no defining characteristics. He waits tables for a living. Grover is the absolute median of us all, letting kids know that if they don’t grow up to be a Romanian Count or a shop owner or an amnesiac cowboy they might grow up to be normal… and that that’s okay. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

I think Cookie, more than any other Muppet, is the purest representation of what Jim Henson was going for when he started out. He wanted to make something ridiculous to make people smile in a world that frowns on the ridiculous. The learning and the friendship came later. Before letters and numbers and musical acts with Elton John, he was sitting with a pad of paper and, for whatever reason, thought “very hungry” was all the character development he needed. And you know what? Almost 40 years later little kids are wearing bibs with Cookie Monster on them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

See, that makes me cry.<\/p>\n

Go read the whole thing<\/a>. Well done! Thank you so much!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FINALLY! Worth the wait. Again, the commentary is brilliant – made me cry with laughter and also made me cry some of those other tears. Some snippets I love: This pair of stalwart scientists serves as a wonderful example of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[1526],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6770"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22244,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6770\/revisions\/22244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}