One of the most popular responses to a work’s entering the public domain these days is to suggest that there should be an all-Muppet adaptation with one human, and then a lot of discussion about who the human would be. And I am absolutely here for this idea; honestly, I’ve participated in more than one discussion about who that human would be in a few adaptations. That said, the idea that Muppets exist in a fully Muppet world is not Jim’s. It’s Brian’s. Further, it is only true of Muppet literary adaptations, not even the Brian-era movies set in modern times. This doesn’t make the idea of those movies a bad one, but it is an interesting thing to realize.

Now, episodes of The Muppet Show were generally an all-Muppet environment except for a single human, it’s true. It’s even true that they were presented to an all-Muppet audience, when we see the audience. You’d get Debbie Harry without Blondie; Gladys Knight sans Pips. Oh, sure, you’d get both Shields and Yarnell. And Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge, married at the time, appeared together. Naturally, there was all of Mummenschanz. Mostly, though, you were looking at one human at a time. However, that was inside the confines of the Muppet Theatre, and of course the existence of the other guest stars proved we were not in a fully Muppet world.

When they left the theatre in 1979, they moved among humans. The first character we see in the movie is of course Kermit, but he immediately sees Dom DeLuise. Not only is Doc Hopper played by Charles Durning, but everyone associated with Doc is human. All of the extras are humans—the other contestants in the beauty competition are all human. In 1981, the Muppets moved through both a New York and a London populated primarily in humans. In 1984, they took Manhattan. Brian didn’t direct 1999’s Muppets From Space, but he did produce it, and it’s another one with a large human population.

However, the two movies Brian directed—one co-directed and one solo—are both adaptations of classic literature. The Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the best adaptations of Dickens ever done, and Muppet Treasure Island is a lot of fun. And, yes, they are both almost solely Muppet-inhabited worlds. They are not actually “just one human” works; Scrooge’s nephew and niece-in-law and ex-girlfriend are all human, after all, and both Long John Silver and Jim are human, not to mention Billy Bones. However, both movies are at least primarily Muppet, including all the extras. Arguably, it has exactly the opposite ratio of human to Muppet.

So why is Brian’s version the version that sticks in pop culture? I strongly suspect it’s because a lot of the people talking about Muppet movies are of a generation that saw Brian’s versions in the theatre as children. Or they grew up with them on regular rotation at home. It could be just me, but the Jim movies were less likely to appear on TV in the ‘90s and ‘00s, when Millennials were watching TV. So unlike me and my Gen-X cohort with The Great Muppet Caper on VHS rotation, they were watching Tim Curry getting his recommended daily allowance of scenery.

I’m curious as to how my kids will think of the Muppets. They’ve got access to the show. The movies—Jim era, Brian era, and post-Brian era. My son, when asked what Muppet movie he thinks of, informed me he was thinking of “the one with the rainbow song.” Which is a fine choice, and also one with a lot of humans in it. In fact he hasn’t even seen Treasure Island yet, because it’s a lot lower on my favourites list than it is for most of my friends. Which is in part a generational thing; a lot of my friends are Millennials, after all. Still, we’ll see how things change if they never do make Muppet Great Gatsby.

The Muppets dip into public domain because it’s easier than negotiating rights for newer works; help support my newer works by contributing to my Patreon or Ko-fi!