A tribute to treasure

A Sunday morning to remember at the Riverfront Theatre in Newport as the Puppet Folk Experience introduced a special screening of The Muppet Treasure Island with a tribute act. (The film is 30 years old this year.)

The Puppet Folk are puppeteer and singer Liam and guitarist Andy, who also proves to be a handy banjo player as well. Liam performed with Kermit and Ernie who appeared for a rendition of 'Rubber Duckie', which is one of his signature songs.

Costume change for Kermit

I was impressed with the way Liam captured Kermit's vocal inflections in the songs. I have read about plenty of fan criticism of how Kermit sounds in recent Disney productions. It's a hard voice to do well, and Liam gets him sounding like "original Kermit" (Cathy's words).

Overall what came through was the clear love and respect that Liam and Andy have for the characters and the source material. There was a mix of songs, some of them in a medley, covering everything from the original Muppet Show theme through to a song from the 2011 Disney reboot. (Which is itself a shocking 15 years old now!)

After the tribute was over, we watched the movie. It had been a long time since I had watched it. I had completely forgotten one set of characters until they popped up in a proper 'oh, yeah...!' moment. The gags were still funny. I enjoyed it. 

Like several other fans in the audience, Cathy and I wore suitable t-shirts for the occasion. Kermit commented on Cathy's t-shirt after we queued up for the post-film meet-and-greet.

After taking the photos with Kermit we chatted to Andy afterwards as he was on the merchandise stand. He told us there might be another show introducing The Muppet Christmas Carol at the end of the year, so hopefully that will be coming to South Wales!

Time to light the lights for the return of The Muppet Show

The big Muppet news of 2026 so far has been a one episode revival of The Muppet Show. It seems to have been championed by Seth Rogan (executive producer) and featured Sabrina Carpenter as the show's special guest.

There is always a worry when a beloved franchise gets a reboot - as I said when The Muppets was released back in 2011. But Disney has done a reasonable job as caretakers of the Muppet legacy in the past 15 years, releasing lots of new projects although not much has really made an impact.

There was a follow up film, Muppets Most Wanted, that was okay. I didn't like it as much as the 2011 film. Disney tried two series featuring the main characters (The Muppets and then Muppets Now!) and also did a short series about the Muppet Show band, The Electric Mayhem and a Hallowe'en special - Muppets Haunted Mansion. None of the series grabbed me and Cathy and we didn't finish watching any of them. (Maybe, as Gonzo sings, we're going to go back there again, someday.) 

So, I watched The Muppet Show special with low expectations but high hopes - fan chatter before the release seemed positive and I'd seen a couple of clips that made me feel less apprehensive than I would have felt going in blind. And overall, it was a decent epsiode that vibed very much with the feel of the original show.

It was the usual chaos behind the scenes, lots of recognisable background characters, fourth wall breaking comments, a guest star who leaned in and took it seriously but didn't take herself seriously, and some fun musical numbers. The duet between Kermit and Sabrina Carpenter featuring lots of harmonising muppet fish and swamp critters felt very OG Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf were back in their box. Rowlf was back on piano. Scooter was back backstage. It was all done very well.

I had a couple of minor quibbles. Bobo the bear shouldn't have been saying "It's good to be back" when he was a character first introduced on Muppets Tonight, not The Muppet Show. Pepe the Prawn was under-used and appeared in probably the weakest sketch of the show. I'm not sure what Beauregard was meant to be doing during the rats' musical number. 

However, those are really penickity issues. I'm quite happy that all I have are penickity issues as that's a sign of how much this one off special got right. Here's hoping it gains enough of an audience that Disney agree to doing more!

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas!

Music makes Christmas feel more Christmassy for me. For years we had a few Christmas CDs that were on heavy seasonal rotation in our house. However, in the last couple of years we’ve been collecting Christmas CDs by a range of artists.

Some of our Christmas albums...

Christmas albums almost always include several covers – and compilation CDs often include different classic Christmas songs covered by lots of different people. So, for example, I have fourteen different versions of White Christmas. Meanwhile I have eight different versions of Blue Christmas. (The colours don’t stop there – The Muppets did a song called ‘Red and Green Christmas’ and Barenaked Ladies recorded ‘Green Christmas’ plus I have two different recordings of 'Purple Snowflakes'.)

In the past month a couple of people have mentioned the Christmas Card audits that I used to publish every year. I’m not planning on restarting them this Christmas but I thought I could share some ‘stats’ about Christmas music. It’s not really an audit, more some number-crunching. (And if you want to enjoy the ACCAs of Christmases past, then they are all collected on this page!)

I currently have 34 different albums or compilations of Christmas songs and music entered onto a spreadsheet. It doesn’t include film soundtrack albums for The Muppet Christmas Carol or The Nightmare Before Christmas. Some of the compilations have multiple discs (anything up to five!). The total number of songs across all the albums in the spreadsheet is 821.

In terms of most popular songs, I decided to count this as different recorded versions. For example, Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens appears on four of the compilation CDs but would only count as one version of the song. It also throws up some quirks – I have five different versions of All I Want for Christmas is You, but I don’t have the original sung by Mariah Carey. Clearly, Mariah doesn't want to license it cheaply to the people compiling albums. 

So, with that in mind, I’m sure you are wondering what the most popular Christmas recordings in my collection are. Here are the songs that I have the most versions of by different artists.

Top of the heap is Winter Wonderland. I have sixteen different versions of this song, by a variety of artists. It also lends its name to one of the compilation albums – with tracks by different country artists.

White Christmas, Silent Night and Santa Claus is Coming to Town are in a three-way tie for second place with 14 different versions. Meanwhile, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is in third (or fifth depending how you count these things) with 12 recordings. The First Noel and Jingle Bells are both on 10 recordings. Only one version of Jingle Bells, by Barenaked Ladies, includes the alternate lyrics about how Batman smells. 

So, if you are picking up a collection of Christmas songs, I predict the most likely song you will hear on there is Winter Wonderland. I have enough versions that I could create a mixtape of just that song, sung by different people. Although you might yet hear it sung by someone else who I don’t have in my collection of tunes. Here’s my list of Winter Wonderland warblers for you to compare:

Kylie Minogue, Connie Francis, Darius Rucker, James Taylor, Macy Gray, Joy Electric, Johnny Mercer, Jason Mraz, The Saturdays, Elvis Presley, Norah Jones, Doris Day, Mickey Mouse & Friends, Jerrod Nieman, Louie Armstrong, Bill Doggett.

There are some famous names on that list! (I’m not a hundred per cent sure it is actually Mickey Mouse and the Disney CD this is on doesn’t give a list of vocal performers, as far as I recall.)

I’m hoping to blog some reviews of my favourite Christmas records. In the meantime, crank up the Christmas tunes!

A second "decade in review" blog post

Back in 2010 I did a summary of the preceding decade and concluded by saying “Roll on 2020!” (Oh, how that feels hilarious right now with 2020 being a terrible year in so many ways.)

Sometimes I find that when I go back to old blog posts, reading that review feels like reading the life of a different person. I've always been struck by that (possibly untrue) statistic that says all the cells in our body are replaced over an 8 year cycle, so in a way that blogpost was written by an entirely different person.  But, anyway, ten years later, I'm still here and still blogging, albeit not as frequently as I did back then. So, a decade on, I thought I may as well review what I have been up to from my early-mid-30s to my early-mid-40s. 

I’ll do this on a year by year basis and just pick a couple of things per year. Most of the links will be to my original blog posts about things.

2010

The big things happened here on 1 day in particular, the 1st April. This was the day I had a job interview to go and work in the NHS, returned back to my current employer where I was called aside and given my official redundancy notice, and then in the evening I went to the theatre and saw Dirk Benedict in a Columbo play. Dirk Benedict was Face Man in the A Team. We used to pretend we were the A-Team in the playground at school and we all wanted to be Face. I was star-struck, as you can tell in this photo.

On the 4th May (Star Wars Day) I started my NHS job and I have been proud to work in the NHS ever since. 

2011

The big thing about 2011 was becoming an uncle for the first time. Baby Joy arrived in our lives. She yawned while I was talking to her on the first day she met me and has been tired of my antics ever since.

I've subsequently accrued four more niblings (that's a real word!) during the decade. They're all cool.

The footballing highlight of the year was a trip to the Emirates to see Shrewsbury play Arsenal in the league cup. I bought my first half-and-half scarf. #NoRegrets. Shrewsbury were even winning for a bit and the fans sang that Arsene Wenger was getting sacked in the morning. He stayed on another 7 years.

2012

The big event this year was the Olympics. I remember getting up really early to see the Olympic Torch being carried through Grangetown. 

During the actual games, I went to see the Olympic football in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, including a double header of group games and the third place play-off match.Is still think it was a swizz that they promised us a medal ceremony then decided at the last minute that the third place winners would receive their bronze medals the next night in London. It gave me an opportunity to see a rare sight, a Great Britain international team.

I also almost got eaten by a hippo in Paris, when we visited the city for my sister-in-law Abby's 40th birthday.

2013 (there's a sort of review of the year here)

The stand out thing for me was going to London with Connor to see the Tragically Hip play a gig in Trafalgar Square to celebrate Canada Day. We then went the following night to see them play a gig in Camden. 

Later in the year Cathy and I spent our fifteenth wedding anniversary building a Lego camper van.

2014

I can't really blog anything about my experience doing Jury service, but I found it hugely interesting and there was an incident during the judge's summing up which made the national newspapers. 

I also did a work placement in a health board comms team that coincided with the Daily Mail spending an entire week running stories smearing the reputation of NHS Wales. They literally dug up story after story from the preceding ten years, many of which had been resolved, and ran them as if they were all happening that week. I learned a lot about what utter scumbags some sections of the press can be in that week. The photo is from the flu vaccination campaign I was involved in.

My work placement was based in Caerleon, where I also started my MSc course in Business Psychology. That had an unexpected outcome. In the first module we did a session on motivation and burnout and my scores were a lot higher than any of my fellow students. It was a good indication that I needed to move jobs.

2015

Three big things happened to me in 2015. Firstly, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in January. That came as a shock and I was put on some hardcore medication because I was extremely ill.

I lost weight (over 10kgs; 4 inches off my waist; 2 t-shirt sizes) and got my blood glucose back into the healthy range. For the last year and a half I have been off diabetes medication. I haven't blogged much about having Type 2 Diabetes. There is a lot of stigma attached to it, and it's the punchline in a lot of jokes. It takes a certain amount of confidence to tell people you have it

In June I started a new job, still in the NHS, taking on a national role as a clinical network manager. I'd spent 5 years in my previous job and had reached a point where I needed to move. I took a lot of good memories with me.

Two months after I started my new job my Grandma died. She had been hospitalised after a fall, but that was just toward the end of a long decline. I gave a tribute at her funeral. This photo taken in 2014 is one of the last photos I took of her. I like it because you can see the mischief in her eyes.

2016

I turned 40 in 2016 and had a big party. The next month we went on a massive road trip in the USA and Canada. We watched the Red Sox at Fenway on Star Wars night. We went to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We went on pilgrimage to Kingston, Ontario. We fell in love with Toronto and visited Niagara Falls.

(Those pancakes were the "healthy" breakfast option. They came with fruit!)

2017

Our holiday the following year was a bit more low key. We had a day exploring Lundy, which felt like visiting the end of the world even though we didn't even really leave the Bristol Channel.

I also graduated with my MSc. It was a lovely graduation ceremony and I felt very pleased to have completed the course, given some of the difficult things that had happened in the duration. One of my favourite pieces of work was analysing the psychology of Lego's marketing. My final piece of work seemed to uncover a link between personal self-worth and a diminished opinion of your manager.

My gigs this year were a bit eclectic. Midnight Oil in London (after many year thinking I would I never get the chance to see them in concert again) and Sir Tom Jones, recording a TV show in Cardiff Bay.

2018

Shrewsbury Town went to Wembley twice, and lost both times. They are five for five in losing there now. I can't even express how incredibly frustrating the 2017-2018 season ultimately was.

Cathy and I had a better time in London a couple of months later when we went and saw The Muppets live at the O2 Arena. It was brilliant. The Electric Mayhem rock!

The second half of the year was spent in a state of flux because we had our kitchen gutted and rebuilt. It was a very stressful experience. I really love our new kitchen but I've yet to take any photos that do it justice. Or show the finished floor.

Cathy had a lot of health news in 2018, beginning with a visit to Addenbrookes in Cambridge where she was given a diagnosis of lipodystrophy. It's an ultra-rare condition, affecting fewer than 4 people per million. I always knew she was special. Then towards the end of the year she was diagnosed with cancer and had to have surgery. We literally had the kitchen and other construction work finish on the Friday and she had her surgery on the Monday. Thankfully they got it all in one go. It was a stressful way to end the year and I was glad to see the back of 2018!

2019
The last year up for review. I went out to Pizza Hut with Cathy one night and didn't take my phone. Cathy had a message on her phone from my brother asking if she knew where I was. So I rang him. We were due to go on a fishing weekend together and I thought he was calling to get me to pay my half of the costs.

He wasn't.

When I called him back, he told me my Dad had died.

I'm still getting used to not having Dad phoning me every week. In my tribute to him at the funeral I told a story about a time he was described as being "stuck on transmit". I miss those transmissions.

I miss my Dad.

Trawling through photos for this blogpost I found a few of him that I'd forgotten. I really like this one of him with my nephew in 2014.

The rest of 2019 was a bit of a blur in comparison. There was the trip to Belfast to see Barry Town play in the Europa League, and we had a lovely week in Caernarfon in the autumn. But most of the year was spent helping my Mum sort out stuff in her house and slowly coming to terms with not having Dad around.

So that's where I will close out this inordinately long post. After the optimism of the post back in 2010, I have no desire to tempt fate by saying roll on 2030! Hopefully I will still be blogging then. If not, well, this was 2010-2019. 

2015 in review: Films I watched on TV or DVD

I've decided to list all the films I watched for the first time in 2015. I've already listed the 19 I saw in the cinema in another post because otherwise this would be crazily long. As previous, I've listed these films in the order I saw them rather than in order of quality. As I saw them on TV or DVD, some of them are a few years old, although some were released this year.

Freebirds
A fairly poor animation about a group of turkeys who travel back in time to try and stop the tradition of eating turkey at Thanksgiving (and the resultant slaughter of turkeys in the present day). It had its moments, but none of them memorable enough for me to recall for this review. The notion that turkeys suffer because humans want to eat them isn't really explored in any depth, but this film could provide a useful discussion starter with kids about animal welfare and vegetarianism, if you wanted something like that. But then Chicken Run probably does it better.

Identity Thief
Melissa McCarthy steals Jason Bateman's identity and he has to track her down to clear his credit rating. McCarthy is an acquired taste, but I quite like her. Jason Bateman raises the film slightly and it's nice to see him playing the wronged victim for a change.

The Smurfs 2
Sequel to The Smurfs from a couple of years ago, For me, the new characters didn't really work that well, but Hank Azaria as Gargamel puts in another scenery-chewing performance that ensure the film is better than many animated sequels. It's not as good as the first one, which I really enjoyed.

Hoodwinked Too
I didn't think I'd ever see this sequel to Hoodwinked, as it got pulled from cinemas before release for some reason. However, a fellow animation fan had it on imported DVD and loaned it to us. It was very funny, like the original, although not all the characters returned, sadly. It also suffered from the trope of 'baddie was just misunderstood and decides to help the good guys after a short heart to heart conversation', which even in a cartoon isn't really that believable. But easily deconverted villain aside, it was generally well-scripted and quite fun.

10 Years: The Reunion
A cheapie DVD we bought because it had Chris Pratt in it. (After Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Recreation, we got slightly obsessed with him.) So, about this film... It's basically the most photogenic bunch of friends who ever went to high school in America reunite for their reunion. Nothing much happens in the course of the film and there are no big questions here. Chris Pratt plays an obnoxious, high-spirited individual and gives some comedy value to the proceedings, but generally this is a forgettable film.

Delivery Man
I quite like Vince Vaughn and he lends a certain air of quality to this fairly average story that illustrates the 'great concept / poor story' conundrum that many films fall into. Vince plays a man who discovers his deposits in a sperm bank have been used to father over 500 children, many of whom are now joining together to find out who their biological father is. Unwisely, he starts to interact with them and it all gets a bit messy. Chris Pratt is his best friend and legal counsel and manages to steal the scenes he is in. Worth a watch, but not one for repeated viewings.

The Nut Job
Animated adventure featuring squirrels trying to steal enough nuts for winter after an accident wipes out their food supply. Covering similar ground to A Bug's Life and Over the Hedge and with a fairly obvious story, this was enjoyable, but not great.

The Five Year Engagement
Jason Segal proposes to Emily Blunt but then life gets in the way and the engagement drags on. It's a sort of anti-romantic comedy up until the happy ending. The stand out moment is Chris Pratt (again) doing a rendition of Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' listing all Jason Segal's former girlfriends at the meal celebrating his engagement. Cringe-inducing but hilarious. Rhys Ifans is also great as a seedy professor with eyes on Emily Blunt.

Crazy, Stupid Love
Steve Carrell is known for slapstick comedy, but it's his darker turns where he really shines. However, he kind of stumbles through this slightly sad film. When his character's marriage breaks down, he comes under the tutelage of ladies man Ryan Gosling who turns him into a hit with the ladies that doesn't help with the hurt and loss he is feeling. There's a twist at the end I didn't see coming and also a highly inappropriate plot-line involving someone taking nude photos of themselves. Despite an almost happy resolution, the film left me feeling a bit gloomy.

Mr Peabody and Sherman 
A big-budget flop and it's not hard to see why. The script cuts so many corners I imagine it was printed on circular paper. There's a villain who is a villain for no other reason than the plot needs a villain. Characters switch allegiances way too easily. The jokes don't work. It feels criminal to waste the talents of Ty Burrell (Phil from Modern Family) in this, but this is the second poor film I've seen him in after the Muppets sequel. Maybe he doesn't have what it takes to make the leap to the big screen.

Quantum of Solace
I watched this on TV to fill in the gap before going to see Spectre. It was alright. Not really sure it added much to the Bond mythos at all. The trope for the Daniel Craig era Bond films tends to be the women he sleeps with end up dead. It happens in this one too as Gemma Arterton gets drowned in oil. Bond doesn't seem to care. The next conquest will be along in a minute. It also suffered from the villain's base having 'Death Star syndrome' as the whole building blows up with the minimum of effort.

Cinderella
Disney's live action version of their cartoon. I really liked this, mainly for the theme of 'Have courage and be kind' - what a great motto! - and for Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. I don't like watching cruelty on-screen so actually found wicked stepmother Cate Blanchett quite hard to watch. They also made Prince Charming into an actual person with his own moral dilemmas. So, all told, well worth seeing.

Elf: Buddy's Musical Adventure
This is an animation using songs from the stage show and the plot-line of the film, Elf. Confused? Well, it's enjoyable nonetheless. The animation is pretty good. The songs are pretty funny. A good film for repeat Christmas-time viewings.

Home
This animation didn't do that well at the box office but I really liked it. The main character, an alien called Oh who is voiced by Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory), is a bit annoying, but bearable. The plot isn't totally unique but has enough charm to get past that. The bad guys have a reason for being bad guys, which gives the film an unexpected turn, and overall, this is different and funny enough to justify watching it more than once.

The Muppets: Letters to Santa
Before the Disney-backed revival the Muppets released occasional straight to DVD films. This one is from 2008. It's not terrible, but it's not brilliant either. The film title tells you what you need to know. There's a fun musical number in a post office. Uma Thurman and Nathan Lane appear in cameos. The late Richard Griffiths plays Santa. There's a heart-warming moral, as you'd expect.

Maleficent
Disney's live action retelling of Sleeping Beauty that explores the story of the villain, Maleficent. Some grown up themes of greed and betrayal, loss and vengeance, and a pre-Frozen exploration of the idea that a 'true love's kiss' might not be from a handsome prince. Overall I was impressed with the film. Angelina Jolie is other-worldly as fearsome faerie queen Maleficent, and Sharlto Copley plays the King, and father of Sleeping Beauty, with the right mix of wickedness and tragic doom.

Into the Woods
Disney does Stephen Sondheim in a musical mash-up of various fairy tales. It's very dark. We watched this on New Year's Eve and finished it just past midnight, but I'm counting it in the 2015 list. James Corden is a better actor than you might think and carries this. Emily Blunt is also very good. Johnny Depp steals his scene as the Wolf who encounters Little Red Riding Hood - "There's a difference between nice and good." I also like the Prince's line: "I was raised to be charming. Not sincere."

So, that's 17 films on TV or DVD, making for a grand total of 36 films I've seen for the first time this year. That's 3 a month. Not too shabby.

Movies of 2012

Instead of doing my round up of films I watched and saying which one was best, I've decided to try and present a few 'awards' in different categories. So, here goes...

Most surprising movie
Disney/Pixar's Brave was a big surprise. I'd been very disappointed by Cars 2 and didn't think the trailers were anything special. I thought it looked like a Scottish-set version of Mulan or something, but the story veered off in an unexpected direction. The animation was top-notch, it had some very funny scenes, and generally I thought it was excellent.

Most underwhelming movie
Prometheus promised much and delivered very little. It somehow managed to combine pretentious ambitions with weak characterisation and a plot that seemed to be mainly made up of holes. Very, very disappointing.

Movie that made me think a bit harder than I expected
I really liked Looper, although I'm pretty sure the central plot device of time travel unravelled right at the end. But it was very well acted - Joseph Gordan-Levitt was excellent, as was Bruce Willis - and the story kept me guessing right to the end. All-in-all, a sci-fi move that was well worth watching.

Enjoyable action movie of the year
I really liked Avengers Assemble. It may not be as cool as the recent Batman films, but it was fast-paced, the actors took the job seriously, but most of all it was the culmination of a series of films that all fed into a much larger picture. As such, it was a believable 'cross-over' film. The characters had back-stories, but this was a move forward for all of them. It maybe was a bit long, but that's about the only criticism I can make.

Movie that made me feel a bit 'meh' afterwards
Two movies vie for this award - The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. I don't think either enriched my life. The Batman film had an interesting political edge to it - that without the ruling 1%, all you get is anarchy and terror, while the James Bond film was nihilistic in the extreme (as I said when I reviewed it before). Nihilism can work in a movie (for example, I thought Dredd was very well done), but Skyfall was unremitting for a movie ostensibly about a 'hero'.

Comedy of the year
I didn't see that many comedies this year. Ted was funny, but a bit rude, so I'm going to give this one to Ice Age 4: Continental Drift, mainly because it made a joke about a previous installment in the series involving dinosaurs and said that it "didn't make a lot of sense." That amused me.

Film of the year
And so to the big one - my personal favourite film of 2012 and it has to go to... (drumroll) The Muppets. As I said when I reviewed it back in February, I liked the way the film treated the original Muppet ethos with respect. Disney did a very good job at capturing what made the Muppets work a few decades ago, and it was just a great family movie, with several jokes that made me laugh out loud. On another note, the recent acquisition of the Star Wars empire by Disney hasn't really worried me - given how Disney treated the Muppets, I have high hopes they will capture the spirit of Star Wars in the right way. (And as Cathy has pointed out, they really can't mess it up as badly as George Lucas did with the prequels.)

I'm already looking forward to some of the films due out in 2013, but that was 2012.

The Muppets - a glowing review

There is always a danger that a reboot is going to mess up a franchise or ruin childhood memories. We had some trepidation going to see The Muppets. Thankfully, our fears were unwarranted.

My main comment about this film is that it is so nice to finally see a new film starring old characters that is not a knowing, smart-arsed, mockery of the original. This is a respectful homage to the original Muppet Show and films, and recaptures the ethos of those movies. I am so used to cynicism in movies these days, this unabashed celebration of something that was ground-breaking in its day was really refreshing.

The rest of the audience seemed to think so too. We were in a full screen with hardly any kids and there was a lot of laughter.

Yes, the plot was a bit weak. It felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. I’m not really sure the bad guy worked. But generally, there was much to love about this. In no particular order…

The references to being in a movie – just like the old movies always had.

Re-uniting the Muppet gang in the same order and from the same sort of obscure locations that they were gathered from in the first movie.

Fozzie’s dressing room in Reno.

The set-dressing – Kermit’s mug on the desk from Muppet Show days, a picture on the wall of Jim Henson.

Beauregard’s appearance.

Dave Grohl’s cameo – keep an eye out for him.

Choosing to use a montage to speed things up, followed by travelling “by map”.

Camilla and the Chickens’ musical number.

The 80s robot using his mo-dem to help in the search.

Mary’s song as the rain started to fall on the window, and the subsequent pull-away shot.

Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) turning up unexpectedly mid-song.

The sell-out version of Rainbow Connection performed by Muppet wannabes.

A great sub-plot featuring Animal that meant he was more than just a one-joke character (for once).

Kermit’s song reminiscing about the old times.

Jack Black playing the least annoying film part he’s played in years.

Pepe the Prawn’s leather jacket in his cameo.

And Kermit’s first appearance, haloed in light and accompanied by an angelic choral arrangement.

Jongudmund's rating: 10/10 (for old time's sake)