FRANCHISE ME - Discussion Thread - Page 2

I'd rewatch these, but sadly I no longer have a working VCR. Damn it all!

Great as usual!

Absolutely brilliant, Joshua. You clearly put more thought into these than some of the franchises have deserved, and I'm delighted to see you cover material deserving of the effort.

Love me some Muppets. You aren't kidding about the golden Age of creative output Henson and Company delivered in the 80's; the decision to limit your run on this franchise to theatrical releases comes from a concern for quantity of articles, not the quality of any of Henson's work. It's all amazing.

Joshua, just wanted to say that the "Franchise Me" series has become, far and away, the best column on CHUD. I've been coming here for a long time (and even had a brief period posting in these forums, before D*vin "The Assmunch" F*raci chased me away with weird ad hominem attacks), and the quality and consistency you've demonstrated with this column is exemplary. Love every word of it. Thanks!

 

With that out of the way, I'm a rabid Muppet fan, and couldn't be more tickled that you're tackling the house that Henson built. I absolutely agree that Henson was one of the most important creative icons in the last century, and it's a goddamn shame that his influence isn't more widely felt in "family entertainment." The man was a motherfucking genius, who instinctively knew how to draw the strings of sentimentality, irreverence, corniness, and chaos into one giant balloon cluster that lifted the Muppets and elevated them to something that puppets had no business achieving. (Okay, that was a little fucking corny, but I've had a few rumo-and-Cokes, and am contemplating busting out my copy of "John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together." On November 7th. Sue me.)

 

My idolatry of Jim (I call him "Jim") may have caused me to loathe the post-Henson material more than a reasonable person might. I can't wait to read your pieces on the Disney-era films, and see how they come out. It wasn't until "Muppets From Space" that I felt the ol' spark trying to flicker back to life, but even that film ultimately amounted to, "Well, it's not as bad as the literary adaptations." I hope, in particular, that you discuss the bizarre shift-of-focus from Kermit/Piggy/Fozzie to Gonzo/Rizzo, which was not only misguided, but completely off-key. Kermit (along with Fozzie and Piggy) represented an idealization of hope. Gonzo and Rizzo (while excellent supporting characters) represented insanity and cynicism, respectively. Good stuff, but not qualities around which the Muppets were built. It left a bad taste in the mouths of the faithful. 

 

Um, so... yeah. Anxious to see what you make of the franchise.

 

And now that I've spent the better part of ten minutes writing like one of those weird nerds who post in online movie forums, I'm gonna go back to lurking. Dig your column, thanks for tackling the Muppets.  :)

 

Can't stop the signal,

Captain Mal

I suspect we were all lurkers once.  Can't wait for the next piece, Josh!

This is the only (theatrical) Muppet movie that I don't own...........................which is something I need to rectify immediately.

Yeah, that's about how I feel regarding Manhattan. Ironically, I actually thought The Muppet Movie was *more* successful emotionally, thanks to the excellent villainy of Hopper and the campfire scene.

Behind on the viewings, but I plan on marathoning the first three tomorrow (or later today, whichever way you want to look at it).  Picked up The Great Muppet Caper at WallyWorld earlier, only to get home and realize that I don't own Muppet Christmas Carol on DVD.  Looks like I'll be stopping by Wal-Mart again later in the week.........

I suppose I agree with this, though you're correct in that it's a perfectly fine family and Christmas film.

 

Ironically, you'll probably end up liking Muppet Treasure Island more as a Muppet movie; it is gleefully unconcerned with reality, Gonzo is more in-character, the Muppets themselves are cast better, and Tim Curry might as well be a Muppet himself with how gloriously hammy his Long John Silver is.

Agreed 100%.  Great family film, but terrible as a "Muppet movie".

Have you thought about going back and revisiting Police Academy? It would be interesting to hear what you think about the cartoon and the live action tv-series from the 90s.

Oh, I guess they havent been released on dvd.

Kermit: "Who hired this crew?!?!?!?!?"
Fozzie: "Mr. Bimbo"

Kermit: "Your finger hired the crew?!?"

Fozzie: "No, that's silly!  The man that lives in my finger hired the crew!"

It's not as good as the first three, but I'll be damned if I don't love it anyway.

 

 

"Oh Jimmy Jim, Jimmy Jim, Jimmy Jim Jim!"
"I'm not Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim Jim!  He's Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jim!"

Treasure Island was always one of my favorites growing up, so it's nice to see it get a fair shake here. Although I will say I remain baffled by the bashing poor Steve Whitmire has received ever since he took over the role of Kermit.

 

What exactly is so bad about his portrayal? No, his voice isn't exactly the same, but that's kind of unfair. I've always enjoyed Whitmire in the role, even if Henson was transcendent.

OK, I just wanted to clear that up. I agree that Whitmire's not as good when Kermit is on the sidelines, though I do think he has a lot of good moments in Treasure Island ("WHO HIRED THIS CREW?!" is a *great* Kermit flip-out).

 

Also, I can't be the only one who still laughs their ass off at Kermit and Miss Piggy getting the big love song in Treasure Island. Whitmire and Oz really throw themselves into it too.

Joshua, when you've got enough material maybe you would consider publishing FRANCHISE ME in a book format.

 

I know they did a compilation of the AV Club's "Year of Flops" previously.

I'll definitely get a copy. I count those RAMBO Installments as some of the best articles CHUD has ever done.

 

Also they are still loads of franchises still avaliable for you to go through. Maybe the TWILIGHT series for laughs in the future?

Actually, I've been wondering about whether you have any Franchises planned after the Muppets. It's definitely become my favorite CHUD feature.

...Silent Night, Deadly Night is actually a franchise? I thought it was just the two movies.

 

American Ninja should be fun, if only because everything I've heard about that series makes it sound like the epitome of dumb low-budget 80s action.

American Ninja? Screw American Ninja! The Crow! The Crow!

 

Dear Christ, man! 

 

Crow could be fun, if only for another round of "Watching A Franchise Die A Slow Death".

The Crow franchise died after the second movie. Everything after is beating a dead horse.

That TV Series with Mark Dacascos honestly wasn't that bad. It's watered down Crow mythology of course (for TV), but i enjoyed the series as a whole. They even had Bobbie Philips (Dr Bambi from The X-Files) as a female Crow in 2 episodes.

 

The TV series may complicate things for you Josh, but I really would like to see you take on Highlander. 

Well, considering how entertaining this series has been even with the franchises I haven't seen, I say go for it!

 

Back to Muppet Treasure Island for a moment: you're dead-on about Sam the Eagle's awesomeness in it. He was always one of my favorites as a kid, even more so now, and he is ridiculously perfect as Arrow. I do love the moment where he poses as his own ghost to scare the rest of the pirates off the ship: "Boogie, boogie, boogie! I am the ghost of Samuel Arrow!.... BOOGIE!" *pirates scream and jump off*

 

Also, no mention of Statler and Waldorf as the ship's figurehead ("Could be worse, we could be in the audience!" "DOH HOH HOH HOH!")? I thought that was brilliant, and they even tie it into the plot! And the callback to the original Muppet Movie with Sweetums ("Are you kidding? I love you guys!") is another great meta-bit.

I for one will be disappointed if you don't follow the Muppets directly with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series.  It just seems like common sense.

I've never even heard of that until now. It might be interesting to start throwing in some more obscure stuff amongst the more recognized franchises. 

It'd be fun to read, as I only recall two of them and I like reading about lesser known stuff, but not the hit-gettingist of titles. Do it for you if you need a break from the well-trod geek properties, but keep the momentum going soon after.

There's a Poison Ivy franchise? What?

I recommend not reviewing a franchise just because it has a lot of sequels. It's more interesting to read about franchises with sequels of varying quality. There are too many franchises where the first movie is good, and then the rest are just varying degrees of bad. I'd avoid those. I'd rather read about franchises like Star Trek, The Muppets, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, the Hannibal Lecter movies, Die Hard, Terminator, Rocky, Batman, James Bond, X-Men, or Mad Max. With these movies, there can be a lot of discussion about which installments are better because they aren't franchises where everyone agrees that one installment is great and the others suck. Different people have different favourites because the quality fluctuates from one sequel to the next for various reasons, instead of everything going downhill after part one.

How has this column not covered the Karate Kid yet? Perfect for this column! Morita and Chan!

 

BTW, this is really a fabulous column. I love rereading them, even movie series I don't care for.

 

If you are looking for Christmas flavoring, why not try Home Alone series?

Definitely do Twilight, but you might as well save that for next year when the (hopefully) final one comes out.

 

Both should be incredibly entertaining.  Make it so!

 

 

I'd still love to see you cover Highlander at some point.  Six seasons would be ridiculous, but you could easily just do the pilot for the show.........which Lambert actually appears in.

 

The Crow would be fun as well.

 

 

Go for it!