Muppet Comic Mondays: Muppet Snow White #2

Muppet Snow White #2 
Comic Book Review

James Gannon - You know... these things are a lot easier to review when you've read the whole series.  Doing it issue by issue, there are some details that would get overlooked otherwise.  So without any sort of  witty or clever opening, here's Muppet Snow White 2.

Considering this is a Disney license based on a story that Disney made famous as the first in their long line of animated features, references to that version are ubiquitous. Show of hands, who here has ever bothered to read the ACTUAL Snow White? It's pretty long, contrived and a bit disturbing (for starters, Snow White is 12). Anyway, we have the established 7 Dwarfs performed by the Electric Mayhem and their manager, Scooter. And of course, they have the Disney names attached. Dr. Teeth is Doc, Janice is Happy, Floyd is Grumpy, Animal is Sneezey, Zoot is Sleepy, Lips is Bashful, and Scooter is Dopey, mainly because he hasn't got them a good gig in 25 years. Of course, these are their stage names, and they do refer to each other, accidentally, by their actual names.

The gang comes home and finds their place has been completely cleaned up, with Snow White, Spamella Hamderson, sleeping in their bed. After an introductory scene later (harking back to their introductory scene in The Muppet Movie), they decide to keep Spamella on as a housemaid, and kick Scooter out of the band under Pepe's suggestion. There's a LOT of in-jokery here. I especially liked how the good Doctor mentioned that Lips never had enough face time to develop a personality.

Lest we forget, there's also the wicked queen to contend with. Still bitter that she's not the fairest in the land (which, as I always said in any version of Snow White, the queen shouldn't even be in the running after trying to kill Snow White in the first place), and presumably Spamella will wind up getting Kermit in the end, she hires two fan-favorites as assassins: Uncle Deadly and Crazy Harry. That's something the Disney version neglected to do, any actual plot-line that didn't involve the Dwarfs from the moment she ran away to the moment she ate the apple.

Speaking of the Dwarfs, since they're one short, they have to hold a casting audition for the next member.   Now, if you REALLY want to be surprised and didn't see the cover for the third issue yet, don't read the rest of this paragraph. But I might as well come clean and tell you it's Rowlf. I guess the original plan (at least according to the interview with the writer) was to have a rare character from The Jim Henson Hour as the 7th Dwarf, but I'm guessing some higher up twisted the writer's arm to get him another way. I'm not disappointed, and neither should you be, but I was kinda hoping Digit would get some page time in one of these things. The magic of these comics, though, is that you can have extended scenes featuring characters performed by the same puppeteer and it feels totally natural. it really is a shame that ol' Brown Ears and the Gold Tooth never got any conversation time together until now.

There really isn't much else I can keep ambiguous after saying that, but Harry and Deadly manage to stick around, there's a GREAT scene with Bobo, and it closes with a hilarious tirade about the poison apple from the Muppet you'd expect tirades from. This review doesn't do it justice. And Gonzo and Rizzo's interplay throughout the issue is as good as or even better than in those two classic retelling movies that their roles are clearly inspired by. Like I said last time, it's like they took the BEST stuff from Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island and condensed them into this comic.

Oh, and even though this is a Muppet blog, I'd lose all cartoon comic credibility if I didn't highly suggest checking out BOOM!'s Darkwing Duck series after you get this issue. The art is by Muppet King Arthur's James Silvani. If you love the Masked Mallard as much as I do, you're gonna love the amazing job they're doing with that title also.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier