The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

In 7 words or less: Here we go again muppet fans

What's it all About? Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo are reporters for a newspaper and when an English fashion designers gets her jewels stolen while in New York, our boys travel to London to solve the crime.

Best bits? Miss Piggy's song is ace. It's full of parody and tongue in cheek mockness. Piggy blowing bubbles out of her nose while underwater doing a synchronised swimming skit is priceless. The Peter Faulk cameo is a thing of genius. I guarantee not one single kid in the audience will understand the scene but it had me rolling around in stitches. In fact I just watched it again whilst writing this review. I'll tell you what. I'll stick it in here for your pleasure.



Did it make you think thoughts? It sure did. Unfortunately The Great Muppet Caper suffers like the vast majority of sequels. It just can't match the first installment. The writers try to keep things fresh by having the muppets play characters and appear in an actual story as opposed to just playing themselves. The problem here is that I'm a big fan of the muppets just being the muppets and doing muppety things. Fozzie telling bad jokes, Gonzo getting fired from a cannon, Piggy trying to get her trotters on Kermit, Animal bashing drums and chasing women, Dr Bunsen using Beaker as a science experiment, Dr Teeth rocking out and The Swedish Chef simply managing to be one of the funniest characters ever to appear on a tv screen. Ever.

I like gurrrls!

Also, the story takes ages to get going. The fact is, our guys are trying to solve a crime but this plot thread isn't really picked up until we get to the last 20 mins. The main guts of the flick are about our intrepid heroes bumbling adventures in London town.


Like the first muppet movie we get some cameos but they don't hold a candle to the previous ones with the exception of the aforementioned Faulk and a certain garbage dwelling grouch named Oscar. On a final note, although the songs aren't awful, again they can't match the quality of the dittys from 3 years previous.

Would you watch it again? It's The Muppets so of course I will.

Rating (out of 100%): This review may seem overly harsh but that's only because I am a massive fan. It is still watchable but just lacks certain things that I personally wanted to see. Others may find it just as good as the first outing. I give The Great Muppet Caper a disappointing 50%