Books That Should Be Made Into Muppet Movies, Jules Verne Edition
Nineteenth century adventure fiction and I do not agree with each other. Now you might imagine that this is because nineteenth century adventure fiction overbrims with imperialistic projects and unexamined sexism and racism, and that certainly doesn't help, but in fact our disagreement is even more fundamental than that: I find it boring.
I was thinking about this as I slogged through Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, which features Phileas Fogg, the most boring hero in the history of stalwart and boring heroes. Verne makes a point of mentioning how utterly uninterested Phileas Fogg is in actually seeing the world; he's merely going around it to fulfill a bet, and steadfastly doesn't see anything anywhere. Why is this a selling point?
Therefore I spent a lot of the book thinking about how to make it more entertaining, and came to the inevitable answer: MUPPETS.
Kermit would play Phileas Fogg, obviously, and in his capable green hands would imbue him with way more warmth and feeling than Phileas-Fogg-he's-like-a-human-clock ever has in Verne's hands.
Fogg's French manservant, Passepartout, would clearly be played by Fozzie. Fozzie is a bear, and that gives him a naturally Gallic air. (Doesn't France have some symbolic thing going on with bears? Maybe I just made that up?)
Also, there is a scene were Detective Fix, the police inspector who is chasing Phileas Fogg around the world on the suspicion that he's a bank robber, gets Passepartout drunk, plies him with opium, and then leaves him zonked out in an opium den, thus throwing Fogg's plans into confusion because Passepartout doesn't show up with the tickets when he's supposed to. This is clearly something Fozzie would do.
(Gonzo and Rizzo will probably just tag along after Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, because we clearly want as much of them in the movie as possible. Unless we want to save Gonzo to be the guy that Fogg has a duel with in America?
This is the best scene ever, you guys, even Verne can't quite destroy the entertainment value. So Fogg and the American dude are going to have a duel, except, oh no! the train is late, so it's not going to make the scheduled stop. The conductor is so apologetic about the fact that they can't have their duel when they planned that he clears out a train car for them, so they can shoot each other on the moving train.
Detective Fix is like "WOE IF FOGG DIES THEN I WON'T BE ABLE TO MAKE AN ARREST. Also I am beginning to be concerned that someone so honorable that he would do something as stupid as fight a duel on a train would never rob a bank.")
Detective Fix! Detective Fix is my greatest achievement, the triumph of my casting. Because Fix will be played by...Miss Piggy!
Think about it. Chasing Kermit around the globe with the goal of karate chopping him at the end is totally something Miss Piggy would do.
I was thinking about this as I slogged through Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, which features Phileas Fogg, the most boring hero in the history of stalwart and boring heroes. Verne makes a point of mentioning how utterly uninterested Phileas Fogg is in actually seeing the world; he's merely going around it to fulfill a bet, and steadfastly doesn't see anything anywhere. Why is this a selling point?
Therefore I spent a lot of the book thinking about how to make it more entertaining, and came to the inevitable answer: MUPPETS.
Kermit would play Phileas Fogg, obviously, and in his capable green hands would imbue him with way more warmth and feeling than Phileas-Fogg-he's-like-a-human-clock ever has in Verne's hands.
Fogg's French manservant, Passepartout, would clearly be played by Fozzie. Fozzie is a bear, and that gives him a naturally Gallic air. (Doesn't France have some symbolic thing going on with bears? Maybe I just made that up?)
Also, there is a scene were Detective Fix, the police inspector who is chasing Phileas Fogg around the world on the suspicion that he's a bank robber, gets Passepartout drunk, plies him with opium, and then leaves him zonked out in an opium den, thus throwing Fogg's plans into confusion because Passepartout doesn't show up with the tickets when he's supposed to. This is clearly something Fozzie would do.
(Gonzo and Rizzo will probably just tag along after Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, because we clearly want as much of them in the movie as possible. Unless we want to save Gonzo to be the guy that Fogg has a duel with in America?
This is the best scene ever, you guys, even Verne can't quite destroy the entertainment value. So Fogg and the American dude are going to have a duel, except, oh no! the train is late, so it's not going to make the scheduled stop. The conductor is so apologetic about the fact that they can't have their duel when they planned that he clears out a train car for them, so they can shoot each other on the moving train.
Detective Fix is like "WOE IF FOGG DIES THEN I WON'T BE ABLE TO MAKE AN ARREST. Also I am beginning to be concerned that someone so honorable that he would do something as stupid as fight a duel on a train would never rob a bank.")
Detective Fix! Detective Fix is my greatest achievement, the triumph of my casting. Because Fix will be played by...Miss Piggy!
Think about it. Chasing Kermit around the globe with the goal of karate chopping him at the end is totally something Miss Piggy would do.