10 films that deserve the Mup­pet Christ­mas Car­ol treatment

One of the best things about being an adult at Christ­mas, beyond the fact no-one can shout at you for drink­ing in the morn­ing, is mak­ing your own tra­di­tions. One of mine, per­haps I think my most cher­ished one, is The Mup­pet Christ­mas Car­ol. Specif­i­cal­ly, The Mup­pet Christ­mas Car­ol Sing-Along screen­ing at the Prince Charles Cin­e­ma just off London’s Leices­ter Square.

A sto­ry of the ills of cap­i­tal­ism, greed and iso­la­tion­ism, The Mup­pets’ take on Dick­ens’ clas­sic tale con­tin­ues to rep­re­sent the best and truest adap­ta­tion of the text. Clever, self-ref­er­en­tial and dar­ing, I remain con­vinced it is per­haps the best thing ever com­mit­ted to cel­lu­loid. As the sea­son returns, the ever rel­e­vant ques­tion returns of what oth­er clas­sics The Mup­pets could, and should, add their con­sid­er­able act­ing chops to. In the spir­it of the giv­ing sea­son, here are ten suggestions.

I don’t want to say Peter Jack­son is a cow­ard, but his inabil­i­ty to bring to an on-screen con­clu­sion the raw sex­u­al and roman­tic ten­sion between Fro­do Bag­gins and his ever duti­ful ​‘gar­den­er’ Sam­wise Gamgee remains a blight on an almost per­fect trilogy.

It’s a ten­sion – nay, a promise! – that could per­haps only be realised through the raw dynamism of Gonzo and Riz­zo the rat, step­ping in to bring cli­max to the great­est untold gay love sto­ry of our times. The Rings of Pow­er we actu­al­ly deserved (sor­ry). Oth­er high­lights include Kermit’s Aragorn, Miss Piggy’s Eowyn (I am no man!) and Ian McKellen’s Gan­dalf con­tin­u­ing to steer the increas­ing­ly chaot­ic ship towards the fiery slopes of Mount Doom.

While Luca Guadagni­no has appar­ent­ly found his reboot Patrick Bate­man in Austin But­ler, he’s real­ly missed a trick. The per­fect actor already exists in the form of Sam Eagle. It is, after all, the Amer­i­can way. (Fear not, Jared Leto repris­es his role as bru­tal­ly mur­dered Paul Allen)

Miss Piggy’s ver­sion of the ​‘I am your moth­er’ mono­logue would win the Oscar so cru­el­ly kept from Toni Colette as she strug­gles to reck­on with the decap­i­ta­tion of Robin at the hands of Alex Wolff’s Peter before acci­den­tal­ly immo­lat­ing dad­dy Kermit.

A spin on the clas­sic ​‘keep one human’ Mup­pets for­mu­la – The Sub­stance, but Miss Pig­gy plays every char­ac­ter. I’ll be tak­ing no more questions.

You come to me, on the morn­ing of Fozzie Bear’s daughter’s wed­ding? Look how they mas­sa­cred my Pepe the Prawn. Just get in the fish­ing boat Gonzo, every­thing will be fine, I promise. Janet’s Appol­li­na will be griev­ed for­ev­er. Al Pacino’s star turn as Michael Cor­leone, with Kermit’s Tom Hagen and Miss Piggy’s Kay Adams-Cor­leone is ready to bring the God­fa­ther Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse to a whole new generation.

Ani­mal shines as Beg­bie. Baby Ker­mit trau­ma­tis­es a whole new gen­er­a­tion by posthu­mous­ly crawl­ing across the ceil­ing. Fozzie Bear takes a wrong turn post break-up and trag­i­cal­ly dies from AIDS. The Swedish Chef’s Moth­er Supe­ri­or steers the crew down the wrong path. Beaker shits the bed. Ewan McGre­gor stays. Choose Life. Choose the Muppets.

Ben Affleck stands bereft. Amaz­ing Pig­gy is miss­ing. Around him, cam­eras flash. Chief of Police Fozzie Bear stands along­side Miss Piggy’s par­ents as they make a des­per­ate plea for her to return. Affleck, in a state of shock, pos­es next to the pic­ture of his wife. He smiles.

Tell me you wouldn’t want to hold space for Kermit’s Elpha­ba? Gonzo’s Boc? Sam the Eagle’s Wiz­ard? That Miss Piggy’s ​‘Pop­u­lar’ wouldn’t pop off? Jonathan Bai­ley, of course, stays.

Lis­ten – if we’re gonna retell a clas­sic Christ­mas sto­ry, let’s go with a mod­ern fave. McCauley Culkin stays, fend­ing off Riz­zo and Gonzo as the Wet Ban­dits in increas­ing­ly cre­ative ways. Mean­while, Miss Pig­gy and Ker­mit fran­ti­cal­ly try to get a plane back to their acci­den­tal­ly aban­doned son, and Sam the Eagle stuns as Old Man Marley.

I decid­ed, in my wis­dom, that my first (and thus far only) watch of Lars von Trier’s sex addic­tion epic was to be the day after a par­tic­u­lar­ly big week­end. Six hours of increas­ing­ly depress­ing rumi­na­tions on the nature of sex, human rela­tion­ships, pow­er, abuse, and wom­an­hood could only real­ly be made bet­ter via the medi­um of Miss Pig­gy (which I guess is true of all things).