Muppets Haunted Mansion
The Halloween special from Disney+ combines lively adventures with the Henson gang, celebrity sightings, songs and just-scary-enough good times for younger kids.
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At age 11, my oldest son is probably right on the bubble of still being able to enjoy Muppets shows and movies without it being deemed uncool. My 8-year-old is right in the sweet spot for the latest, “Muppets Haunted Mansion,” a collaboration with Disney+ that is a tie-in with both the creepiest of holidays and the theme park attraction.
As for me, at age (mumbledy-mumble), I take no shame in admitting I still enjoy a good romp with Kermit & Co.
It does behoove me, therefore, to point out that Kermit the Frog (voice by Matt Vogel), Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobsen), Fozzy Bear and the other “main” Muppets are not the stars of this show. That would be Gonzo (David Goelz), the vaguely vulture-like daredevil, and Pepe the King Prawn (Bill Barretta), a relatively newer and lesser-known character who thinks he’s quite the ladies’ man.
(How a shrimp like him — I’m talking critter classification, not just size — got a top spot, we’ll never know… along with how he breathes outside of water.)
The setup is pretty ghoulish. Gonzo and Pepe decide not to attend the Muppet Halloween party in order to take up a challenge to spend one night in a haunted mansion in return for some vague reward. Gonzo is in it because of his insatiable need to bolster his title of Gonzo the Great, constantly seeking out death-defying experiences.
“You don’t have to be Gonzo the Great to be great,” Kermit gently advises.
Will Arnett plays their human host, a sort of butler/host/gamesmaster who walks them through the challenge, dropping taunts amid the advice. Taraji P. Henson turns up as Constance Hatchaway, a lonely gal who’s constantly seeking out a new bridegroom, even though she’s already a widow six times over. She soon sets her red-glowing eyes on Pepe.
Other celebs turning up in cameos include the late Ed Asner, Danny Trejo, Yvette Nicole Brown, Chriss Metz and Darren Criss. Most everybody bursts into songs at one point or another, usually twists on familiar tunes.
I liked how the show takes us deeper into the Haunted Mansion backstory, almost like taking a behind-the-scenes tour of the ride. So we get to dance among the ballroom revelers, belt a tune with the singing possessed bust sculptures and other fun stuff — with all the denizens rendered into Muppet form, of course.
Director Kirk Thatcher, who wrote the script with Kelly Younger, employs some deliberately old-school techniques rather than newfangled CGI to give it something of a throwback look. There’s a lot of glowing ghost imagery superimposed on the live action, and I liked the ghost-like versions of the Muppets. Sam the Eagle as the doomsaying judge looks particularly forbidding.
My favorite running bit is a mummy and skeleton duo whose job is to show up and deliver the famous “bum-bum-BUM!” musical cue whenever something especially scary happens, but they keep screwing it up.
And that’s the sweet spot “Muppets Haunted Mansion” aims for, and achieves. It’s got just enough frights to give it a solid Halloween feel while not gruesome enough to give the tykes nightmares. My (not-so) little guys lapped it up, and there are inside jokes and sufficient imagination to keep parents engrossed, too.