Catch ‘Great Muppets Caper’ Sunday and Monday
Above: "The Great Muppets Caper" will screen exclusively in theaters at Northtown Mall and Coeur d'Alene's Riverstone Stadium on Sunday and the following Wednesday. (Photo/Universal Pictures)
I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that “Sesame Street” changed the world. At least the world to television.
When I was a kid, aside from maybe “Romper Room,” most TV shows aimed at children were all about cartoons, puppets and fun – not necessarily learning.
Fred Rogers would come along and help change things. As did “The Electric Company.” And, of course, “Sesame Street.”
“Sesame Street” in particular taught generations of children how to read. And count. And to have compassion for one another.
A large part of the show’s success was because of Jim Henson and his Muppets, who were popular in their own right. And who went on to have a movie career all their own.
In 1981, Henson directed a second Muppet movie, titled “The Great Muppet Caper.” Basically, it involves the Muppets Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and Gonzo the Great being investigative reporters sent to London to follow up on a jewel heist.
(By the way, the newspaper they work for coincidentally is called the Daily Chronicle – close to the Spokane Daily Chronicle, right?)
Anyway, eventually all the other Muppets get involved, including Miss Piggy, and even more crime occurs until … well, it’s a Muppets movie. You figure out how happy things will end.
Along with all of Henson’s characters, including him as the voice of Kermit, Frank Oz as Miss Piggy and Carroll Spinney as Oscar the Grouch, a number of humans star: Diana Rigg, for example, plus Charles Grodin, John Cleese and Peter Falk.
If you haven’t seen “The Great Muppets Caper” – or even if you have – you might be interested to know that an exclusive 40th-anniversary screening of the film will take place on Sunday and the following Wednesday at the Regal Cinemas theaters at Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium.
Sunday’s screenings will be at 3 and 7 p.m., Wednesday’s at 7 only.
Vincent Canby, writing for the venerable New York Times, was particularly complimentary.
As he wrote, “Here is a thoroughly genial movie, a combination of A.A. Milne, Busby Berkeley and a small bit of Blake Edwards, in which Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the other Jim Henson-Frank Oz puppets become involved with Diana Rigg, Charles Grodin and a number of guest stars in a not quite all-singing, all-dancing romantic melodrama about jewel thievery in the London of haute couture, great town houses and hotels where the bellboys are uniformed mice.”
Uniformed mice. What’s cuter than that? Maybe the younger kids can practice their math skills by trying to count them.