Every Christmas, I watch The Muppets Christmas Carol. To my father, a man who loved the story by Charles Dickens most of all, there was no better version of the Christmas classic than the one where Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy’s son was a frog Tiny Tim. It’s perfection and is the kind of movie you point to when you ask why we don’t make Muppet movies like this anymore. That being said, I don’t really need a commercial trying to recapture the magic. Walton Goggins does help though.
A new ad for Walmart titled Walmart Presents: A Who Knew Carol features the Muppets dressed in their outfits from The Muppets Christmas Carol and singing a song about Scrooge (Goggins). We briefly see Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz singing and then at the very end, Goggins says Scrooge’s iconic “Bah humbug” while knocking Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat out of a window.
It’s cute, its nice, but in a world where we are lacking where the Muppets are concerned, a commercial like this just continues to prove that the Muppets deserve more than they are currently getting! We should have a new Muppet movie a year with one actor committing to the bit while acting opposite Fozzie Bear!
Look, it’s fine to use nostalgia for a commercial. People do it all the time. Remember when Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) reunited for a Super Bowl ad? That being said, fans of the Muppets have been waiting for another movie like this for decades at this point. And every time, we end up getting one special that is successful and then nothing for years. How’s that fair?
Can we get more movies with the Muppets please?
The success of things like the special of The Muppet Show does give us insight into how desperately we want more of the Muppets together. Maybe not a return to The Muppet Show as a whole but something would be nice. I grew up in the age where Kermit the Frog was always talking to one human actor in a film and trying to fight for his fellow Muppets.
Remember when Tim Curry was Long John Silver? Why are we not making more movies like Muppet Treasure Island to teach kids the classics? The Muppets bringing us The Old Man and the Sea with Harrison Ford as the one human? That’d be amazing! But instead, we’re getting scraps like this fun Walmart commercial.
Imagine an entire movie with Walton Goggins and the Muppets. That’s what we deserve this holiday season. Yet we get a brief moment in a commercial with him and that’s it. Who knows, maybe Walmart has more in store for us but even so, it is not a holiday movie we can watch every year. But maybe this commercial can be the start of something new?
The Walmart ad is cute and fun and if it leads to us finally getting another movie from the Muppets than it will be worth it.
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