AUSTIN, Texas—Recent films about Jim Henson's famed Muppets have focused on single stars, incluidng Carol "Big Bird" Spinney and Kevin "we don't talk about him anymore" Clash, but Henson always manages to steal the story spotlight. You might think that Muppet Guys Talking, a documentary starring a whopping five Muppet-eers, might prove an exception to the rule.
Not a chance. If anything, this new film, directed by and co-starring the legendary Frank Oz, puts five times the focus on the man who made the Muppets—and may very well be the most touching and fully fledged tribute to the man since his 1990 memorial service in New York City.
Unlocking the door for Fozzie
Of the assembled actors, Oz will probably be most familiar to Muppet fans, thanks to his range of popular characters (Yoda, Cookie Monster, Miss Piggy, Bert, etc., etc.). The rest of the assembled group represents a ton of Muppets, including Jerry Nelson (The Count, Mr. Snuffleupagus), Dave Goelz (Gonzo, Bunsen Honeydew), Fran Brill (Zoe, Prairie Dawn), and Bill Barretta (Pepe, many of Henson's original creations).
The film, filmed shortly before Nelson's death in 2012, is made up almost entirely of one informal conversation, broken up by occasional single-actor breakouts. One of the film's more surprising facts doesn't become apparent until halfway through: these people haven't gathered for over five years. This is surprising mostly because of how much chemistry and comfort the actors have around each other, whether they're finishing each other's sentences or affectionately chiding each other. (At one point, the actors chant at Oz in hopes that he'll do his "camel" impression, and the in-joke, which is never revealed, makes the film's director noticeably blush.)
You won't find full personal histories of any actor, let alone a major Muppet history retelling. Still, some of the actors recall major professional and personal histories, and a few of these surprise the fellow castmates. The common thread is vulnerability and insecurity, which the actors express in different ways.
Oz and Goelz talk about their characters reflecting elements of their personalities, which they said they explored through their characters as a sort of therapy. One telling detail is Oz's description of Fozzie Bear as the one Muppet who "didn't have a key" to get into the Muppets studio building, yet he banged on the door every day anyway. In a post-screening Q&A at the film's South By Southwest world premiere, Barretta clarified a point from the film by telling a story about his father calling his Muppet work "acting shit." Then he gestured to his castmates, saying, "I was able to find a place that was safe to do my acting shit."
(While the film's title mentions Muppet Guys, Brill points out that she never truly felt like "one of the guys." She emphasizes how comfortable and accepted she felt among her castmates, but she attributes her characters' quirkier, more assertive streaks to her own standing as one of the few women in the Muppets fold.)
An elevator full of Muppets
The cast's TV and film set anecdotes included remarkable revelations about the rigging required for certain scenes. The most astonishing came from Muppets Take Manhattan, in which about seven Muppet characters climb up a giant pole. The idea of simply dragging lifeless characters up a pole wouldn't do for Henson. Instead, his crew built an elevator with thin slots on which the puppeteers actually laid, belly-down, while holding their hands out and manipulating arms and legs the entire way up. Oz complained on his castmates' behalf, saying that if any part of the rig broke, the actors would have crushed each other.
The conversation revealed a few other insurance-busting rigs. A motorized crane would have severed one puppeteer's arm if an Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas rig had broken in any way, while actors in the John Denver Muppets special had to spend hours sitting in a pit next to an exposed flame, a giant propane tank, and individual cups to urinate in. Everyone laughed at this, as if a compelling "Muppets at a campfire" sequence was worth the trouble.
Through the entire conversation, the callbacks to Henson were consistent and seemingly non-stop. Henson was the reason for everyone's career in one way or another, they all admitted, and Dave Goelz in particular was surprised at how his Muppet interview turned out. Goelz flew to Los Angeles for a big Henson chat, but the boss was gone. Henson's mother had just died the day before. Goelz was informed that the interview would be delayed... one day. He was astonished and tried to relent, but Henson insisted. "That's just how Jim was," Goelz said.
"I think about Jim every day," Oz later says, and the rest of the cast nods in fervent agreement. Their professional lives were forever changed, but it wasn't just Henson's tireless work ethic, nor his insane ability to direct a gang of puppeteers while simultaneously performing. Henson had a way with getting the loudest, zaniest, most full-of-life performances out of his cast without even telling them to do so. (A few cast members agree that he would simply repeat a request during filming takes to "do it again" until each had stretched their acting limits; at that point, he'd finally respond, "that's good.")
In addition to taking part in strenuous puppeteering situations—like the one where he was submerged in a tank so he could put a banjo-playing Kermit on a pond—the director also extended incredible generosity to everyone else in the cast and crew. The group here fondly remembers an anecdote about Henson not chastising a young, clearly over-his-head crew member on his first day on the job. "It would've ruined the kid," Oz points out, and he then clarifies that nobody else in Hollywood would do the same thing.
Not much here for Labyrinth fans
These anecdotes never feel overwrought or out of place as the actors sum up decades of their craft. Henson was simply a common workplace element—like giant, googly eyes or colored felt—and even the youngest member of the crew, who barely worked with Henson before his death, reflected on the Muppet creator's impact in the post-film Q&A. "Everything I learned about Jim, I learned through the people I work with," Barretta said. "It’s a feeling, how you relate to each other... that's what Jim created."
This isn't a fancy-looking film by any stretch; you're getting little more than a single, overlit loft space. And in terms of historical record, the film has a few major gaps, none larger than the cast's memories stopping right around 1990. Conversation about the Henson Company's weaker output during more recent decades never comes up, and while the cast pays tribute to the company's formative puppeteers and artists who have since died, they have barely anything to say about Spinney or any other cast members.
For these cast members, as much as for many fans, a specific subset of the Henson era is frozen and crystallized in time—and the conversation's focus on that limited period is to the documentary's benefit. These actors' heartfelt, off-the-cuff odes, aimed as much at Henson as at each other, are quite touching, in spite of incredibly low production values. Muppet Guys Talking won't take long to turn into Muppet Fans Crying.
The film is not yet set for wide release. Visit its official website to sign up for updates.
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