I’ll start with this, if you want to see something involving puppets acting in a raunchy manner, Team America did it better. Happytime is terribly disappointing and simultaneously boring. Somara and I already knew there was an adult-side to Jim Henson and company; the Muppets used to be on the first season of SNL which he got expunged. This attempt is just vulgar for the same of vulgarity wrapped around a predictable Film Noir story involving a former puppet cop and his ex-partner trying to solve a string of killings. As the movie progresses, you learn more about this alternate universe in which puppets co-exist with people but they’re second-class citizens. Much like humans, they also have vices (porn), addictions (sugar is their drug, preferably in syrup form) and bad life decisions (they’re allowed to join Scientology). It just isn’t funny. Maybe if you’re 13 it could be, especially when you see Happytime‘s nod to Basic Instinct they could get away with since it’s a puppet not a human.
If this appears on a streaming service, Red Box or wherever you get your movies from, avoid it all costs. I do hope Brian Henson tries to do something more adult with the Henson Workshop again yet only if he gets help from people who know how to write better jokes and plots.
Alamo Extras: Sesame Street in Spanish (Spain I think based upon the accents I heard); Howdy Doody plugging Colgate Toothpaste; scene from The Predicament which has puppets cursing; puppet band singing about dying on the sidewalk (Pantridge Enemy); trailers for The Maltese Falcon, The Long Goodbye (the Elliott Gould version) and Puppet Master II; sock puppets as bullies who drink, rap and smoke weed; an ad plugging a balanced meal with puppets I remember from my childhood; ad for those old 900-phone numbers with Freddy Freak; Alamo’s seven favorite puppets:
- Gremlins from Gremlins
- Kim Jong Il from Team America
- Chucky from Child’s Play
- Robert from Meet the Feebles
- Ghoulies from Ghoulies
- Howard from Howard the Duck
- Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors (1986)