ma-na-ma-na

I loved The Muppet Show as a kid. But when I heard about the new Muppet movie, I confess my first thoughts began with the words ''I'd rather bleed to death''. Fast-forward to this afternoon, two-thirds into a fairly shitty day from my perspective and not much hope of it improving. Three clicks of the Apple TV remote later, the girls were entranced. I have to admit I avoided the first two-thirds, apart from the opening which gave me the general gist and enough cheesy musical numbers to see me through. But what I did catch turned out to be quite the therapy session.
Imagine my horror to find that one of the muppets to get a gig in this new movie is the very same muppet that caused some of my childhood's most horrific nightmares. It was a blue dragon, and I didn't know its name at the time but apparently it was Uncle Deadly. That's right, Uncle. Deadly. Quite pleased I didn't have that dimension added to my six-year-old fears. I recall he was in an episode of The Muppet Show with Vincent Price (again, what were they thinking?) and as Wikipedia tells it, he only made a couple of appearances in the show's history. So why, oh why, did they have to bring him back in 2012 to scare the shit out of me and possibly my children?
But then, the magic of the muppets came back to me too. When they're back in the theatre and the curtain rises on all the little arches .. it's time to put on make-up, it's time to dress up right .. I just felt really inexplicably happy. Like I did as a child when that music started at the same time every week. There was something very comforting about it. Throw in Kermit, a riverbank log and a reprise of Rainbow Connection and I was ready to give Jason Segel an Academy Award.