I Admire Kermit the Frog’s Three-Step Plan in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
Shouts out to the citizens of Birmingham who showed up last night for Tape Night 2.0! (Or maybe Tape Night 1.2? Tape Night Vol. 1 Iss. 2? I’ll figure it out.) My editor John and I treated a lovely crowd at the Sidewalk Cinema to a screening of The Muppets Take Manhattan on warm, grainy VHS. And that means today’s newsletter serves as the dessert after that hearty meal of family-friendly cinema. (Be warned: Spoilers abound, but you kinda know what you’re getting with the Muppets.) Hope some of y’all can join us again for another Tape Night in August! And please keep supporting all things Sidewalk in their time of need! Now let’s get things started.
Jim Henson was a creative inspiration for many. His infamous Muppets have delighted generations with their crazy antics, silly jokes, and celebrity interactions.
But what I love most about the Muppets themselves is that they have ambitions. The Muppet Show literally took viewers behind the curtain with Kermit the Frog and his buddy Scooter as they tried to run it like producers, whether they’re workshopping jokes with Fozzie Bear or managing Miss Piggy’s diva tendencies. The Muppet Movie leans into metatextuality as well as the gang travels cross-country in hopes of hitting it big in Hollywood.1
After zagging a bit with The Great Muppet Caper, a heist film set in England, Henson and his collaborator Frank Oz returned to their introspective ways with The Muppets Take Manhattan. Here we see the Muppets as they graduate from college and set their sights on the East Coast this time, aiming to take their Manhattan Melodies show they developed in school all the way to Broadway.2 It’s a great setup because it’s a goal that most creatives can relate to. Who among us hasn’t dreamed of making a big splash in a bigger pond?
But this is Kermit the Frog we’re talking about, not just any recent graduate.3 Naturally, he moved to New York City with a three-part plan. And I think it’s a pretty good one.
The first thing Kermit and his friends do when moving to the city is walk right into a con artist’s trap.4 Though the police come and take the imposter agent away before he can complete the grift, it serves as a wake-up call for the Muppets, who discover that it’s not that easy to get a show produced on Broadway. They thought they could beat the odds, but pretty soon they wind up penniless and dejected.
As Kermit says once they’ve seemingly been turned away by every producer in the business, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” So he poses as an agent and goes door to door pitching Manhattan Melodies as if it’s the hottest property in the business.
It doesn’t work, of course. But I respect his game. As you know if you keep up with the trades, people in showbusiness are always stretching the truth as far as they can without getting arrested or sued. Kermit may have pretended to be somebody he’s not, but he’s just taking “fake it ‘til you make it” as far as he can. You have to do whatever it takes to open doors in the entertainment business! (Again, without getting arrested or sued.) If the product is good, the producers won’t care how it landed in their laps.
Kermit gets even more creative with his second step: “Have you ever heard of a whispering campaign?” Once again pretending to be an industry big shot, he grabs lunch at a restaurant known for serving Broadway ilk and sits below a strategically placed portrait of himself as his friends begin talking up the show as the next big thing. Pretty soon every table is talking about Manhattan Melodies.
It doesn’t work, of course. Mostly because Kermit’s friends in this case are hungry rats who cause a scene as soon as they get a whiff of the food. Still, the hustle simply cannot be knocked. These are victimless crimes that Kermit is committing. Again I ask, if the product is good, do the means not justify the end? If these movers and shakers aren’t keen enough to know that Kermit’s fake identity isn’t a real person, that’s on them.
This brings us to Kermit’s third step, which is…not really a step at all.5 In fact, he never really articulates more than a declaration that he’s giving up: “I feel like I’m being a phony, and I can’t take it anymore. I’m all out of ideas” It’s kinda devastating. But what happens next is, well, the third step finds him in a way.
Out of nowhere, Kermit gets a letter from a producer named Bernard Crawford saying that he’s interested in doing Manhattan Melodies with him. But when he arrives for a meeting, Kermit discovers that it’s actually Bernard’s son Ronnie who sent the letter. Ronnie has never produced a show before, and he’s eager to step out of his father’s shadow and make a name for himself.6
The beautiful irony here is that Ronnie used the same tactics Kermit did with his first two steps. And what do you know, the end justifies the means. Ronnie and Kermit strike up a beautiful working relationship because they were both willing to take a chance on each other.7
And that’s the most valuable lesson that aspiring creatives can take away from The Muppets Take Manhattan. It’s all about finding your people. Broadway shows, much like films, all rely on teamwork, and the art is only as good as the artists making it. It doesn’t matter where you are in your career—or whether you’re a Muppet or a man—as long as you’re on the same wavelength.
The Muppets Take Manhattan is not on any streaming services at the moment, but it is available to rent. Also you can borrow my videotape if you’d like.
The Muppet Movie was also the subject of the first issue of this newsletter! I like to think we’ve come a long way since then, but I still like this one as a table setter.
It’s very funny to me that the Muppets decided to go to college. How exactly does that work? Did they attend grade school? Why did they wait until their third movie to attend college? Did they fail spectacularly after the events of The Muppet Movie or did the timeline simply restart for no reason? Someone has to ask the hard questions.
John wisely pointed out that Kermit will be the University of Maryland’s commencement speaker later this month. That’s one inspirational frog.
This con artist is named “Murray Plotsky,” which is an excellent name for a con artist.
Granted, the first two steps aren’t really “steps” either. If the first step had worked, the second step wouldn’t have been necessary. My guy just had two ideas.
Blink and you’ll miss it, but Ronnie is one of the producers seen in an early montage when the crew is pitching their show to everyone who’ll listen.
Right after meeting Ronnie, Kermit gets hit by a car and suffers from amnesia, eventually stumbling into an accidental career in advertising before snapping out of it just in time to hit the stage. It’s an amusing subplot, but it’s also a reminder that Henson got his start in advertising. I think he’s reminding us here that his career could’ve gone another direction if he had “forgotten” about his dreams.
In regards to Muppet movie continuity: Every Muppet movie exists in its own continuity, except for Muppets Most Wanted, which is explicitly a direct sequel to The Muppets (2011). The Muppets are actors who just happen to use their own names and personalities for the characters they play (except when they play characters from a pre-existing book).
My favorite Muppets movie, by far