Ode To Kermie And Them

(from Sunday's Times and News-Star)

I nearly pulled seven leg muscles getting to the picture show and “The Muppets,” the seventh feature film but first in 12 years for this band of fits. If they were misfits they would not have already grossed an opening week haul of nearly $50 million (a solid No. 2 last week behind That Big Vampire Movie) after a dozen years on the shelf.

My son Casey is a hard-to-believe 22 now but humors me in that we’ve been quoting the movie all week, as if it were “Caddyshack” or “Arthur.” Like ice cream, The Muppets are generationally friendly.

I love me some Muppets. When they had their regular TV show 30 years ago, entertainers from John Cleese to Elton John to Don Knotts to Linda Rondstadt appeared. Rich Little. Steve Martin. Superman and Raquel Welch and Carol Burnett. They all wanted a piece of the action.

Today’s generation is not familiar with the not-in-syndication Muppets, which hurts me. (I might ask for a Season Two or Three DVD for Christmas?; it’s between that and a shoe horn.) But the current movie would make a fine introduction or, if you’ve missed these guys (and the irrepressible Miss Piggy, and who hasn’t?), a fine re-introduction. The old dudes smarting off from the balcony and Bobo The Bear alone are worth the price of admission.

It takes a poet to express how I really feel about The Muppets, and since I know no poets, I had to write the poem myself. Sorry! I hope if they get a copy, The Muppets will accept this for what it is, just a small but sincere love letter from a man fan.

Ode to Kermie and Them

Is a Muppet
Just a puppet,
Or is it something more?
Seems to me
The Muppets be
An entertaining metaphor.

Don't mutt turn into
family pets
When on your bed they sleep?
‘Just food’ becomes
A banquet
If it’s at your mom’s you eat.

Is it water
Or an ocean
When you’re standing on a shore?
Doesn’t golf
Turn into dodge ball
When you hear a guy yell, “Fore!”?

Is it sky
Or is it heaven
When you’re looking up at night?
Wasn’t Ali
Verses Frazier
More than just another fight?

In a world of
Fickle facebook friends
Where people come and go,
The Muppets --
More than puppets --
Stick around after show.
(A lot more fun
Than many of the
Humans that we know!)

They’re honest as
The day is long
They tell you how they feel;
Made of cloth
And buttons, sure -- but
Otherwise, they’re real.

Things aren’t always
As they seem
Despite what grownups say.
The Muppet that you meet
By chance
Could be your friend someday.

Daily Muppets laugh
And cry
And hope upon a star.
My prayer for me:
I hope to be
As human as they are.
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