mrfletchy

I was gonna post this on the Muppet Central forum, but I felt like it was hard to find a context to post it in so I'm not just randomly posting my thoughts and also, I got a little worried of what they might think of me and think I'm mad, but I still feel like sharing my nerdy muppet-y thoughts so I thought I'd post them h'yah

The latest news in Muppet fandom is that the new Muppet flick is currently filming and I, like everyone else is very excited and I hope before it's release in X-mas 2011 (hopefully it'll be released at X-mas here in the UK too), we'll get see a clip or teaser or two. But I do have certain worries and also current gripes with the way certain characters/performers are being treated.

In other words, here's the rant I wrote:

I really don't want the new movie to mainly involve what these days is the main group of characters: Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Rizzo and Pepe, with slightly secondary characters Bunsen & Beaker and Statler & Waldorf and Animal to an extent really, followed by the usual appearances of The Swedish Chef or Sam. And I don't want to feel lucky to even see other characters like Scooter, Rowlf, Robin, The Electric Mayhem, etc, right there on the screen or manage to get a line or two out of them. I don't mean this to sound harsh if it does but I feel that these days there's just no excuse for it. I don't know if it has to do with scheduling since Matt and David work on Sesame Street but so does Steve, Eric and Bill. These characters have new performers now and lately I've started having this feeling and annoyance that they are not being used more and not allowing these performers to grow more into the characters and for us to get used to them. Now, I don't mean that last bit in a negative light but I truly want to see and hear more of David Rudman's Scooter and Janice, Matt Vogel's Floyd, Robin or Crazy Harry and Bill Barretta's Rowlf. A lot of thought has been brought into choosing who these character's new performers should be and why and that's great but it feels like a bit of waste if you're still not going to use them much.


I want to see more of Bill, David and Matt working with these characters partly 'cause I feel they have gotten better and better with each appearance they've made. The latest viral videos have been great and I've felt a sense of that old Muppet Show feeling from them but if they do more viral videos I don't want to see yet more videos featuring The Swedish Chef, Animal, Bunsen and Beaker. I don't hold any resentment towards these characters of course, I love them and they're there for a reason and great characters too but the Muppet Family is a big family with a wide variety of characters to choose from and like I said earlier, they have new performers now. I really want to see The Electric Mayhem and/or Rowlf do a song for a viral video or a number going wrong with Kermit and Scooter trying to keep it going and all together. Something like that that harkons back to The Muppet Show days and 70's/ 80's peroid like recent viral videos have.

At the end of the day, it just feels somewhat like "hey, these characters have new permanant performers now but we're still not going to use them much because we can't be bothered trying to intergrate them back into the mix properly and we're just going to shove the usual current group down your throat, the bunch who are currently on most or all the merchandise at the mo".

It bugs me aswell that so far this year there's not been one new appearance of my favourite character Scooter. Once David Rudman came to play him, it felt like they were starting to fully bring him into the mix - in 2008, he made an apperance on "Studio DC: Almost Live" and then "Letters To Santa". In 2009, he was at the D23 Expo, appeared on the Bohiemian Rhapsody video and then the "12 Days of Christmas" song with Jimmy Fallon. You would think that more would follow the next year, but no, we got less -- less than less really

Last night, I found myself having two misleading dreams in a row. The one's where after you wake up, you feel a bit sad after being hit by crummy reality haha.

The first one involved one of my heroes, the late great muppeteer Richard Hunt. I guess it proves just how nerdy I am having dreams about things I'm a fan of but it's not the first time I've had dreams involving that stuff. But I guess you can't control your dreams and this is actually the first time Richard Hunt made an appearance in one of my dreams. Anyway, it started out like this - there was a party thrown for Mr. Hunt in his honor by his family and friends shortly before he passed away. I was suddenly there! It was weird because I knew in the dream that this is most likely a dream and I had somehow gone back in time to this party. The dream was actually a little grim because Richard Hunt was there but in a wheelchair and not in the best health but he was still laughing and smiling at times. I felt a little uncomfortable and like an intruder but I said to myself "What other chance am I going to get to meet this great guy and let him know of the impact he's had on my life even after death?" I had to pluck up the courage to go to his family and friends and ask them if I may go to speak to Richard. I think I woke up and the dream ended before I actually got the nerve to go to them.

After going back to sleep again, I dreamt that the rest of my family were heading on vacation and tomorrow I'd be going off on a plane by myself to somewhere else. I think it was to Florida which is not where I'd choose to go but I went with it anyway. In the dream, I thought it was odd that was I going on vacation since I don't have a lot of money and was wondering where all this money came from but I was heading off back home to get ready for my trip to the airport the next day. Then I woke up, and after a couple minutes coming to, it sunk in that I was not going to be going on a plane tomorrow. Oh well.

Today I started off a discussion topic on my "We love Scooter the 'gofer'"  group. Thought I'd post it here too as a good Journal entry. Think of me what you will heh.

Scooter's treatment and importance on The Muppets -

I'm gonna sound a little biased here I know. I have a lot of favourite muppet characters but if I had to pick a No. 1 favourite, it would be Scooter. He's just always stuck out to me for some reason. When I was a kid, he always struck me as an elusive character in some way. There weren't a lot of Muppet stuff I watched as a kid. I constantly watched 'Muppet Babies' and caught 'Christmas Carol' and got 'Muppet Treasure Island' on video as a Christmas present one year and I watched 'Muppets Tonight' when it was on in the UK. But I remember one time, finding a VHS tape with various shows and movies taped on it, one of them was 'The Muppets take Manhattan' and I was really shocked and surprised to suddenly see a grown-up version of Scooter on there when I watched it for the first time. I remember wondering why Scooter wasn't seen in every other Muppet production I had seen.

Last year when I found myself revisiting my muppet memories and becoming a fan, Scooter pretty much became my favourite character and when I learned more about the behind the scenes aspect of The Muppets and their performers, Richard Hunt became my favourite.

After watching all the movies and as much TMS episodes as I can and the productions that came after Jim and Richard's deaths, it made me a little sad to see how Scooter's been treated over the years even a little bit before Richard passed away. In 'The Muppet Movie' he was The Electric Mayhem's Road Manager and didn't join Kermit & Fozzie on their road trip to Hollywood. I think there's an argument to be made that he would have really. Granted, he showed up with the rest of the band later on but I think he would have earlier. As a Richard Hunt fan too, there was a point in the movie that bothered me a little. In the car just before it breaks down in the desert, the main gang so far consists of Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Rowlf and Camillia the Chicken - basically characters by Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson and Dave Goelz but not one Richard Hunt character there. Like I said earlier, I may sound a little biased but I can't help it if I'm a fan.

Out of the original trilogy of Muppet movies, there's a big part of me that actually prefers 'The Muppets take Manhattan' just cos I felt more of a family sense with the gang in that one, them being all together and I really liked the main group being Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Scooter, Gonzo & Rowlf. Scooter even showed his leadership qualities in the movie with the rest of the gang when Kermit's not there to lead them. Don't get me wrong, I love all three of those movies, they each have their own strengths and weaknesses IMO.

Scooter's absense after Richard's death was understandable although there's part of me that wonders why he was the only core character of the original group to not even make a background silent appearance. I could understand if the case was that everyone there felt it was hard to see the go-fer since he embodied more of Richard's soul than any other character, as I understand it. I would think there's a definite possibility that was the case on 'Christmas Carol' at least.

I went to a local store recently and in the clothing section I saw a pair of pajamas with Animal on the shirt. The pajamas are hung on this little plastic board with a Muppets logo and signatures from various characters such as Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Rowlf, Rizzo, Pepe, Sam, Bunsen, Beaker, Dr. Teeth, Floyd, Zoot, Janice, Animal, Swedish Chef, even Camilla the Chicken and I think Johnny Fiama also. All those characters and I was sad and disheartened to not see Scooter's signature in there at all. It doesn't stop there either. The Muppets Studio logo has characters like Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo,Animal, Statler & Waldorf, Rowlf, Swedish Chef, Bunsen & Beaker and Camilla. It looks like they're showing the original core group too since Rizzo and Pepe aren't there. That's great but where's Scooter? He was just as much a part of the core group as Swedish Chef, Camilla and Bunsen and Beaker. Another thing I noticed from the Muppet Studios Twitter is their main pic which is really a lovely photo of the group (a1.twimg.com/profile_backgroun…). It has the usual gang and the Mahna Mahna guy & a Snowth but yet again, no Scooter? C'mon.

I think he's just as much a part of the core group and I think he derserves a little better. I'm hoping now that it seems David Rudman will be permantly performing the character, Scooter can make more of a comeback. It does look like it might be starting to look that way considering his recent appearances - I was so surprised and happy to see him on 'Late Night with Jimmy Falllon' performing '12 Days of Christmas' with the others and thankful that they didn't replace him with someone else on his 'six geese a-laying' part.

Well, that's my nerdy rant over heh.

I said in my last blog past, I was planning to continue where I left off and I said maybe tomorrow... well, a week or so later, here I am. It's been a horrible week last week so now I've found some time to write on.

With what I was saying about me watching movies, missing key points and what-not - the same thing happened again tonight. I went out to town today in search of a flick on DVD called "Repo! The Genetic Opera", it's directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, a guy who directed "Saw II - IV". After hearing "Repo" get mentioned a number of times on a couple of the Saw commentaries and reading more about it on the net and finding out that one of the cast members is Anthony Stewart Head (I'm a big Whedonverse fan!!), I felt it was inevitable I would see this flick at some point. I couldn't find it on DVD but managed to get a blu-ray version of it for a good price.

Anyway, I just watched it and by the end of it, I felt so down and tired. I didn't get the ending of the movie and what it was trying to say (this is why these days, I'm not so keen on watching new films. By myself at least. Sadly, it seems to be a challenge for me ) and I went to IMDB to see if anyone else was as confused as I was. I looked in a thread posted by someone who was kinda somewhere on the same lines as me. After reading it, I realised I had missed an important plot point that I couldn't hear at the time and didn't register to me. I'm still not sure how I feel about the flick really. I'm lucky if I can manage to watch one whole film, no matter if I've seen it before or not and considering I've grown up watching many shows and movies that appeal to me over and over again over the years, it just breaks my heart that I've lost a lot of easy joy and good times I used to get from it. Hopefully I can get it back at some point in the future. I miss being able to do things I love without thinking too much and judging myself. I don't mean to sound somewhat self-dramatizing if that's how it may sound when reading this. And I don't think I'm the only one in the world who goes through this. And I'm not looking for sympathy either. People post what's going on in their lives in these blogs and what their daily lives are like. This is part of mine and it's kinda helpful to me. A good way to vent in a way.

Back to the aftermath of the film-viewing, I remember thinking "Oh great, so I guess this is another time I listen to the commentary or read reviews/opinions to know what certain scenes were about or the film as a whole. Gah! I'm so dumb!". I try not to be hard on myself like that, and just take the day as it comes but there's always something to bring that feeling inside me and I try to fight it and carry on.

I'm feeling a little relief at the mo after writing this, still down but not as bad as before. Wish I could think of a better or witty way to end this heh.

A couple weeks ago on a depression group on facebook, I had created a topic entitled "does anbody else go through this" where I basically posted this message in the hopes of a response -

"One of the biggest problems I face constantly is concentration levels and memory problems. I think these two might be a big factor in me always feeling like I'm basically dumb.

For instance, whenever I'm watching a TV show or a movie. I always feel I'm not concentrating enough and missing the meanings of the piece, be it in characters, writings, etc. I read reviews or hear/read other people's opinions on the things I watch and most the stuff I read are really insightful and clever and I end up thinking to myself "Aww, man, how'd I not get that" Geez, I'm really dumb!".

It's always been a problem especially since I want to be a writer or work in the media in the future like TV or Film but then a lot of the time I feel I might not be smart enough, or imaginative enough and other things I feel I lack a lot of the time. I try to tell myself that this is most likely part of my depression but it's hard to fully get that. I wonder if it is or I'm just dumb.

Sorry if this sounds really odd but I know there are a lot of people out there who suffer from depression and other forms of it, like myself, and wonder if anyone else goes through these things."

After that I had gotten quite a handful or responses with people sharing some of their similar experiences and incidents mainly involving low concentration, low self esteem and depression. All of three are really a daily factor in my life and people who know me well seem to see things about me that I don't really catch on too per se.

I remember last week at home, some neighbours had come over talking to my parents and I joined in the conversation. One of my brothers had started taking driving lessons and they were talking about that, one of the neighbours (Christine) looked at me and asked "You not thinking of doing some driving?". I just kinda laughed nervously and said I didn't have any desire to because I don't trust myself behind the wheel due to my poor concentration, and jokingly I'm usually in own little world 24/7 so I'll most likely crash or something at some point. I remember her eventual response was "God, don't you think really negatively!" That's kinda been in my mind since.

After a soul-crushing experience with uni, I became more anxious even doing things I usually love to do like watch TV shows, flicks or read. But due to my fears with my concentration levels and fearing I may not be brought into whatever world the show, flick or book is providing me, cos my mind is elsewhere and can't fully get into it, resulting in me feeling dumb, there was a long period where I just didn't do the things I love a lot. It's still a difficulty for me today but I'm a bit more better with these days compared to two years ago.

There's more I want to type on this but feeling tired at the mo so I may have to continue this tomorrow if or when I get the energy and passion in me. I don't know if anyother will read this anyway heh.