Muppet Retro Reviews: Rocky Mountain Holiday

Michael Wermuth, Jr. - The Muppet Retro Reviews article series is among my favorite Muppet Mindset articles (along with Weekly Muppet Wednesday and The Great Muppet Survey), but one thing I've noticed about the article series is that, as of this writing, all of the reviews have been positive. Well, I'm gonna attempt to change that. So today I'll review one of my least-favorite Muppet specials, Rocky Mountain Holiday. It's not a bad special, but it's also one of my least-favorite pre-1990 Muppet productions. It was only broadcast once, in 1983, and when it was first released on DVD ten years ago, I was happy to have this once-rare special, and yet all of the problems I have with it now I had even back then.

Anyway, Rocky Mountain Holiday is the second of two "John Denver and the Muppets" specials. This one doesn't have much of a plot, which can be summed up in one sentence: John Denver takes the Muppets on a comping trip to the rocky mountains, and they sing many songs. There are a few other running gags and "plot" points--Statler and Waldorf also camp out in the Rockies and observe the Muppets, Fozzie has trouble interacting with nature, and there's a nice bit where John gets mad at Robin for only setting up the clothesline as high as John's ankles, causing him to trip, but then apologizes because that's as high as Robin could reach. But most of the special is singing, with a number of flashbacks thrown in. The second half takes place at nighttime, where they sing more campfire songs, and John tells a story about a giant man-eating chicken, and then becomes surprised when he learns that the giant man-eating chicken is real.

I'll talk about what I dislike about this special first, before I get to what I like. First of all, the special kinda drags a bit after the first 15 minutes or so. While John Denver is a good singer, he gets a few solo numbers which are hard to sit through, made even more hard to appreciate when his singing plays over wildlife footage. Some moments feel a bit awkward, such as when (after being there for at least half an hour) the gang suddenly notices bad odor from a letter Miss Piggy had given Fozzie to give John, only for John to have Kermit read the letter, which concerns a previous camping trip Kermit didn't know about, with some suspiciously romantic language, and ends with Piggy asking John not to let Kermit read (too late!). That's just... a really awkward scene.

Another thing I don't like is the small group of characters. John only brings a small amount of major and secondary characters (and Rizzo, who was a minor character at the time) on the trip. Specials don't really need a lot of characters to be great, but many of my favorite specials have a lot of characters, major and minor. It would have been great to have seen Bunsen, Beaker, Link, Sam, Beauregard, Sweetums, Lew Zealand, and The Swedish Chef on this trip, and I feel they would have all fit in with the camp setting. I especially wish that the whole Electric Mayhem would have gone on the trip. Floyd, Janice, and Animal are the only members who go on the trip, though for some reason Zoot makes a random appearance playing the saxophone at one point (though it is one of the specials best scenes). It would have been great if Dr. Teeth joined them, and of course I really wish Lips was in this special. I'm not bothered by the fact that Miss Piggy only appeared in a couple of flashbacks, though, as she was never one of my favorites (though I appreciate her better now), and I am glad that Lubbock Lou and His Jughuggers made a cameo.

And now it's time for what I liked about this special. Well, I like the first fifteen or so minutes, which contains four great numbers, which all belong on a comprehensive collection of Muppet music (if one ever comes out). I especially like "Gone Fishing", sung by John Denver and Floyd, and the environmental "Take 'em Away", performed by the Jugband. This was the Jugband's last number, and it's a great last appearance. A few scenes feature an animatronic version of Robin, which is cool, and it's great to watch Miss Piggy riding on a real horse. While I am bored with the numbers that feature John's vocals over wildlife footage of the Rocky Mountains, I do like to watch the nature setting, especially during the nighttime scenes. There's also quite a few scenes where we see full body shots of Rowlf. That might not be much, but it's not often we see Rowlf's legs.

And that's Rocky Mountain Holiday. It's not the greatest special ever, but I recommend seeing it if you can. And if there's ever a "John Denver Mindset" I'd like to see a review from a John Denver fan.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

Muppet Maestros: John Denver

Hilarie Mukavitz - Once, when I was a teenager, my friend Ben was giving me a ride somewhere.  As I got in the car he didn't say a word, and just turned on the tape. The song was John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed." As soon as it got to the refrain I joined in: "It was nine feet high and six feet wide..." Ben broke into a huge grin and said "That was a test. You passed!" Ben had also uncovered my deep dark secret: I was a closet John Denver fan.

I was a teenager in the cynical, irony-infested 1990's. With the majority of my group of friends, liking someone as corny as John Denver just was not going to fly. So when I bought a John Denver CD as a Christmas gift for my mother one year, I felt the need to point out to the cashier that it was a present for somebody else. Even though, at that very moment, my hard drive was loaded with John Denver songs I had gotten from Napster.

Then two things happened that changed my point of view. The first, like happens to so many of us, was I got my butt kicked by adulthood and dealing with the real world. I struggled to find work my first few years out of college, and wound up spending a chunk of time underemployed and living with my parents. The experience deflated the rather snobbish attitude I'd had until then. One December, my mother and I were watching the Osmond Family Christmas special together. Mom and I found ourselves both getting misty-eyed, and laughed at ourselves for getting choked up by the Osmond Family. However it was then that I realized life is too short to like what you are "supposed" to like. I stopped hiding the fact that there's a part of my personality that is quite sentimental and a little bit corny.

The second thing that happened was a road trip. In the summer of 2008, I was going to go to Iowa for a writer's workshop and then do a small road trip through the Dakotas and Minnesota. That happened to be a year of major flooding in Iowa. The workshop was cancelled. I now had an extra week free. So I called a friend who had recently moved to Colorado. "Could you use a visitor? I can be there by Sunday." Thus began a 5000 mile road trip I took through the western states. Until that time, I had been kind of perplexed by people who were enthusiastic about nature. However, driving across Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana... like Fozzie Bear I felt the urge to start belting out a chorus of "America the Beautiful." Later when I talked about the trip to my mother she said "You had a John Denver experience!"

John Denver was born Henry John Deutschendorf on New Years Eve, 1943, in Roswell, New Mexico. With a father in the military, his family moved often, and John found it difficult to make friends. When he was 12, his grandmother gave him a Gibson guitar. John didn't show a lot of interest in the guitar, until Elvis Presley started playing on the radio. He began playing in folk music groups. Eventually, he dropped out of college to pursue music full time. He changed his name to Denver, because of his love of Colorado, and because he was advised that "Deutschendorf" was too long to fit on a marquee.

In 1969 he had his first major success when Peter Paul and Mary covered his song "Leaving On a Jet Plane." In 1971 he had his first breakout hit as a solo artist: "Country Roads." In 1972 he released "Rocky Mountain High" which would later become one of the official state songs of Colorado. Denver would continue to have a string of hits such as "Annie's Song," "Sunshine on My Shoulders" and "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" throughout the 1970's.

Denver's first collaboration with the Muppets was in 1979 when he guest starred in Season 4 of The Muppet Show. He was featured singing "The Garden Song" (a David Mallett song that would later be covered by Kermit and Rowlf) and "Grandma's Feather Bed." Two other John Denver songs were performed on The Muppet Show by other guest stars; Jim Nabors sang "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and Cheryl Ladd sang "Sunshine On My Shoulders." All of these songs can be seen on our John Denver on The Muppet Show YouTube Playlist.

1979 was also the year when John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, both the TV special and the album, were released. The entire television special can be seen on another YouTube Playlist we've put together. When I was growing up, we had two copies of the album. One copy I was allowed to touch.  The other copy was my mom's, so that we could listen to it without any scratches. The album features two John Denver compositions: "A Baby Just Like You" (about John Denver's son Zachary) and "Alfie the Christmas Tree." Besides the Muppet humor, and John Denver's crystal clear tenor, one of the greatest pleasures of this album for me is that you hear some songs that you rarely hear anywhere else during the holidays such as "The Peace Carol," "The Christmas Wish," "When The River Meets the Sea," and "It's In Every One of Us." 

In 1983 the Muppets and John Denver did another TV special called Rocky Mountain Holiday, which also included another album they recorded together. While not as well-remembered  or delightful as the Christmas special, it does have some great songs, and classic Muppet moments like the giant man-eating chicken. again, you can check it all out on our Rocky Mountain Holiday YouTube Playlist.

After the 1980's, John Denver's musical popularity began to go downhill.  He began to focus most of his time on political causes such as fighting for the environment. John Denver passed away when he crashed in an experimental aircraft in 1997.

While many celebrities have worked with the Muppets over the years, John Denver had a special chemistry with them. John Denver tapped into the Muppets' innocent, idealistic, and gentler side in a way few others could. The only others that spring to mind are Julie Andrews, Paul Williams, and Harry Belafonte. One of the things I liked best about The Muppets movie was that I felt it was the strongest we have seen this aspect of the Muppets in years. While, sadly, John Denver and Jim Henson are no longer with us, they left us a Christmas gift that we'll treasure for many years to come.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, ryguy102390@gmail.com

The Diary of an Obsessed Muppet Fan - Rocky Mountain Holiday

The Diary of an Obsessed Muppet Fan - Entry 7, May 2, 2010

Dear Diary,
Is it bad that I'm too tired to come up with something rude to say to you? ...Don't give me that look! You don't know my life! You just automatically assume that I'm tired because I was out late fondling some sleezy journal? How dare you, madame? To think, after all of these months of me only dedicating my inner-most thoughts to you that you suddenly decide I'm unfaithful and just plain gross. How dare you.

Anyway, last night I watched John Denver and The Muppets: Rocky Mountain Holiday on--gasp!--VHS. Talk about taking a trip to the stone age, eh? The special has a very simple premise: John Denver invites the Muppets out to the Rocky Mountains for a camping trip. Easy enough, right? Wrong. The special becomes very confusing and diluted and loses any semblance of a plot as soon as they step out of the truck and start singing. Thankfully there's plenty of fun, Muppety mayhem throughout to buffer this.

The first confusing aspect of this special that I came across was the fact that I couldn't help but wonder... Is this a John Denver special or a Muppets special? Quite frankly, it doesn't work terribly well as either. What I think would have worked better is sending the Muppets out on a camping trip and they just happen to run into John Denver in the woods. Along with John Cleese, Phyllis Diller, and other stereotypical 1980's guest stars. Doesn't that sound like more fun than hiking with John Denver and singing around a campfire for twenty minutes?

Another annoying/confusing part of this special is that there is literally no plot. The only things that happen are the Muppets walking to the campsite, running into a jug-band (that we never see or hear from again), Fozzie gets beat up by nature, Floyd and John go fishing, Robin is too small, and then the rest of the special is spent singing around the campfire. Everything else that happens in the special takes place in flashbacks of other Rocky Mountain holidays they've taken--which makes no sense because as soon as they get to the campsite John says, "I've been wanting to bring you guys up to the Rockies for a long time now." Umm... since last summer, John?

I just don't understand why all of those flashbacks (e.g., Miss Piggy comin' 'round the mountain, Rowlf floating in an inner-tube down the river) couldn't have taken place on this particular Rocky Mountain holiday. They sure like a lot more fun than all of the stuff they're doing..

And then... there's the music. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy John Denver as much as the next guy, I just think it's a little much to have at least ten, maybe more, songs performed by him in the span of 45 minutes. Yes, the Muppets get to pop in and provide back-up harmony every once in awhile, but the overwhelming majority is just John sitting with a guitar on a stump singing about rocks or trees or something. Literally the entire last half of the special is spent around the campfire singing. It gets to a point where it's just overwhelmingly boring and I think it's why there's no real plot--they had to fit in too many songs!

Then at the end there's this weird thing with a giant, man-eating chicken... and then Robin goes to sleep and everyone else follows suit. That's basically Rocky Mountain Holiday in a nutshell: too much singing and a giant, man-eating chicken. In the end there's just too many songs and too little plot in this special. There are some fun Muppety moments (Fozzie's hands catching on fire, Robin trying to break John's neck by tying the clothesline too low, Floyd and John fishing, the version of "She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain" where Miss Piggy is she who'll be comin' round) but far too much of this one-hour special is dedicated to John singing while the Muppets stare at him. Enjoyable for one or two songs, but for ten or twelve it's just painful.

Ah well, maybe there was just more to the camping trip we didn't get to see. Or... maybe not.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier