The 10 Worst Muppets
Posted at 5:03 AM Apr 28, 2008
By Zac Bertschy
If you grew up in the 1980’s, the Muppets are a likely a staple of your childhood. Everyone has a favorite character, and people still look back fondly on the old Muppet Show or the early films, like The Muppet Movie or The Great Muppet Caper.
But it’s impossible to deny that there are plenty of suck-ass Muppets that screw up the movies and TV shows they’re in. Some of them are one-note, one-gag characters that tell the same tired joke over and over again. Some of them were created after the death of Jim Henson, who apparently took many of the secrets behind what it takes to make the Muppets not terrible to his untimely grave. The one thing they share in common: they’re awful.
10) Robin
Nobody’s going to argue that over the years the Muppets haven’t gradually lost a lot of the satirical and sarcastic edge they had in the '70s and '80s, and nobody is a better bellwether for that than Robin, Kermit the Frog’s nap-inducing, obnoxiously sincere nephew whose primary purpose is to kill time or sing some kind of bizarrely sugary song that seems out of place. The fact that Robin has never once appeared in a funny sketch and has always felt out of place among the rest of the show’s cast due to a total lack of sarcastic humor and yet has appeared more and more in films and television specials as the years have gone by definitely illustrate how obnoxious sincerity can completely destroy any notion of “edginess”. Remember, the Muppets were once considered cutting-edge enough to appear on Saturday Night Live. Not so much anymore. Robin has to be at least partially to blame for that.
9) Janice
Janice started out okay—a hyper-stylized Janis Joplin/Mick Jagger mash-up with a stereotypical valley-girl voice. Over the years she’s mutated into being particularly freakish; each design revision makes Janice look worse, and she’s contributed little more than her “fer sure, really!” catchphrase, which wasn’t really even funny in the late '80s when people would actually say that. What’s worse, the repeated changes to Janice’s look are obviously designed to transform her from a '70s rocker into an annoying pastel-colored '90s valley girl stereotype.
8) Elmo
It seems pointless for an adult to complain about Elmo, since he’s on a show clearly designed for preschoolers, but given that since Elmo’s inexplicable rise to power in the late 90’s his dead gaze and ear-piercing voice are inescapable inside the U.S. border, it seems fit to have him here. Elmo made the transition from childlike supporting cast member on Sesame Street to unstoppable bloodthirsty global marketing juggernaut some 12 years ago with the staggering popularity of a doll based on his likeness that vibrated erotically when prodded. Now, Elmo’s mug can be found on literally every single commercial product known to man and even appeared in his own intolerable theatrical film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, (alternately titled The Final Nail in the Coffin for Mandy Patinkin’s Flagging Career). Plus, he’s pretty much made Grover obsolete on Sesame Street, which is a shame considering Elmo is basically a tremendously annoying and substantially less endearing version of Grover.
7) Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Christmas Carol
Anyone who’s sat through The Muppet Christmas Carol will agree that while this film features a frog puppet named Kermit, it bears little resemblance to the beloved, easily-irritated host of The Muppet Show. This film was the first Muppets production after Jim Henson’s untimely death, and also the first time Kermit was voiced by Steve Whitmire, whose voice really just doesn’t cut it. He sounds like he’s being voiced by someone doing a terrible Kermit the Frog impression, with about a mountain of saccharine sincerity heaped on in place of Kermit’s usual pragmatic-but-irritated demeanor. It doesn’t help that the movie itself is terrible, the songs are awful and the whole thing looks and feels like an elaborate soft-focus McDonald’s holiday commercial. Whitmire improved in later (but still inferior) Muppet movies, but this one stands as the worst version of Kermit ever.
6) Animal
Some people like Animal. Those people can usually be found wearing an XXL t-shirt with a bad drawing of Animal drumming wildly with the slogan “I’m an Animal!” on it. They can also be found at Wal-Mart on the weekends buying bulk beef jerky and yelling at their ten children.
Animal has one gag: he’s a feral drummer who chases women around while yelling “WO-MAN”, presumably to satiate his craven lust for rape. That’s it. There’s nothing else to him. Yet he appears in nearly every Muppets-related production ever committed to film or television, maddeningly popular for no apparent reason. Every time he’s on screen you’re waiting for him to not be on screen anymore so they can move on to something that might be clever or funny. Also: Animal was the worst Muppet Baby. And that’s saying something, since they were all pretty bad.
