It’s time to re-meet The Muppets, in my mature adult life

Walking into a movie theatre at 6:45 p.m. on a Friday night is not what I consider to be a typical evening out. As a general rule, I like to think it's commonly accepted that any movie showings prior to 8:00 p.m. are reserved for individuals with curfews and parents who need to pick them up, or for families who have young children. Regardless, with an obnoxiously gigantic pop corn and soda in tow, myself, along with a group of friends and family entered the theatre and eventually found seats amongst entire families and children under the age of 12-years-old.

It's a weird experience to be an adult going to see a children's movie without an actual child to see it with. For one, you feel a little uncomfortable sitting next to an 8-year-old and laughing just as hard as them, never mind dealing with the glares from parents who are wondering why you don't have anything better to do. Seeing The Muppets, however, was a little bit different. Even though there were families there with their children, the adults were just as excited to see the movie as their kids. The adults in the theatre were all around the 25-year-old mark (maybe a few years older), and gave nods of acknowledgement and solidarity as we shuffled past them to our seats (I may have just imagined the physical nod, but their faces said it). Yes, we were adults going to see a children's movie, and, yes, we maybe felt a little immature about it – but, we did not care. The Muppets was a staple in our childhoods, and even though we didn't have our own children to bring to share in that viewing, the adults in the theatre who did have children knew exactly why we were there.

If I were to write a movie review on The Muppets, it would probably read something like"OMGITWASSOGOODANDIALMOSTCRIEDAFEWTIMESREMEMBERWHENKERMITDIDTHATTHINGWITHHISFACEWHENHEWASCONCERNEDUGHEASILYTHEBESTNIGHTOFMYLIFE", but that certainly wouldn't be too helpful or easy to understand. Yet, one long entirely caps locked sentence summarizes how I felt about it – and not just because the movie was incredibly well done. At the risk of sounding like a total loser (it would not be the first time), The Muppets represent so many other things for me, aside from a fun night out pretending to be a kid again.  

 Watching The Muppets is one of the first memories I have with my family. Every Sunday night we would eat dinner together and then spend the evening watching an episode of The Muppets followed by whatever Disney movie might have been showing on television that night. As a child, my brother, sister and I did not understand the humour in The Muppets the way that our parents did, but we all laughed the same amount at more-or-less the same things. The humour presented represented something that my family could all mutually share – my parents weren't bored to tears and didn't spend the entire episode rolling their eyes because it was too juvenile for them to deal with, and my siblings and I maintained interest past the first 30 seconds because we understood what was going on. Yes, we might have laughed a little harder whenever Bunson would do something horrible to Beaker, but my parents would laugh a little harder whenever Fozzy used a horrible pun in one of his jokes. It all equaled out in the end.

The Muppets incorporated children and adult humour long before Pixar movies started to realize that this key duality was needed to draw in viewers. Furthermore, the show was just as clever as it was silly, and allowed for its audience to forget about the real world and all its crap for an hour or so and just enjoy spending time with eachother. It allowed the children to fantasize about visiting Kermit at his pond, or actually witnessing Gonzo being shot out of out a canon. It allowed brothers and sisters (my family included) to pretend to be Muppets, or make their own Muppet-esque puppets to re-enact their favourite scenes. It allowed parents to watch their children enjoy themselves and belly laugh at Pigs in Space, while they belly laughed at the same thing.

Society is changing. Traditions take the back seat to work and social commitments, and family dinners are few and far between. I would strongly encourage anyone who remembers The Muppets as fondly as I do and remembers a simpler and more family-oriented time, to see the movie – children or not.

- Katherine Gottli