The Secret Weirdo Underbelly of The Muppet Christmas Carol - Reactor

The last time I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, I had a thought. It is the sort of thought that will ruin some peoples’ days and infinitely elevate others’, so I give you (somewhat) fair warning. The thought was this:

The frame device of this film is that we’re being forced to watch a kink roleplaying scenario between Gonzo and Rizzo.

Sorry.

Sorry! But hear me out.

I can feel you rolling your eyes. It’ll only take a minute.

All muppet movies are a treasure, but I have a special spot reserved in my heart for movies where the muppets aren’t playing themselves. The conceit of every muppet movie (and, indeed, their eponymous variety show) is that the muppets are technically actors and performers, and the question of how many fourth wall breaks we’re supposed to infer in that is entirely up to the viewer. For example: Are the backstage shenanigans on The Muppet Show a part of the show itself? Or are we actually seeing what goes on backstage when we’re not supposed to? How do you know your interpretation of this is correct?

It’s part of what makes muppet stories so delightful—you genuinely can’t know what the narrative intends, or when you’re observing their “reality.” You can decide for yourself in the moment, but you can have a completely different viewing experience if you decide something new at a later date.

So I love the movies where the muppets aren’t playing themselves because it plays further into their conceit as actors and creates even more layered opportunities for fourth wall breaks and metatext. But, obviously, some muppets are better at playing parts than others. Or, I should say, more willing. Which is why, when The Muppet Christmas Carol opens, Rizzo is perplexed to find Gonzo insisting that he’s Charles Dickens.

On its face, the device is genius for tackling one of the most difficult parts of film adaptation: the loss of authorial voice. While it certainly isn’t necessary (or preferential) to place swaths of written narrative into a film, it is often the most prominent aspect that separates the two mediums out. In a movie or television, the author of the story can no longer set scenes, give the audience essential information, or add a sly aside. For certain authors, this can feel like a much greater loss—there’s a reason The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie took great pains to preserve Douglas Adams’ narrative sidetracks within the film itself, and even then, the film still lacked much of his style (and so many of his best jokes).

Charles Dickens famously used to perform A Christmas Carol in public for audiences during the season; his readings of the book are part of the story’s legacy and historical makeup. And there’s something about how Dickens unspools this story in particular that captures the imagination—this isn’t the only version of A Christmas Carol to figure out ways of shoving his exposition into a movie, though that’s perhaps a discussion for another time.

The point is that having a muppet take on this role to narrate the tale makes sense on multiple levels. It doesn’t change the fact that Rizzo is baffled that Gonzo has decided to be Charles Dickens in this instance. In fact, the suggestion via their opening dialogue is that Gonzo was possibly intended to be “the narrator” of the movie, without an explicit character to take on. He begins by simply saying “I am here to tell the story,” but then gives us a name that is not Gonzo the Great, which puts Rizzo in a tizzy:

Gonzo insists upon the character, and then his grasp of the narrative forces Rizzo to concede and play along. By the end of the sequence, he’s referring to Gonzo as “Mr. Dickens,” albeit with scathing sarcasm. When Gonzo later can’t see into the window of Scrooge’s office, he uses Rizzo’s body to wipe the window clean, and Rizzo adds, dejectedly, “Thank you for making me a part of this.”

Part of what, Rizzo? A part of what?

And this would be the end of my (extremely lacking) argument, if something peculiar didn’t continue from that point on: Gonzo is Charles Dickens for the rest of the film… but he’s also Gonzo. He has to be because of Rizzo’s presence, which keeps reasserting his true identity within the context of the film. In the midst of the narrative, Gonzo keeps acting on Rizzo’s body for the purposes of humor and pushing his boundaries into scenarios that don’t feel safe to Rizzo: going ice skating together; using Rizzo as a bellows to stoke a fire mid-narration; promising to catch Rizzo on a jump from a fence and failing; accidentally lighting him on fire and dropping him into a bucket of ice water. It’s this interplay that makes me absolutely certain my interpretation is correct.

Rizzo is humoring Gonzo in this really strange kink he wants to try for the evening.

If it only ran in one direction—Rizzo being dismayed at Gonzo demanding this scene—I’d be less confident in my analysis. But Gonzo also cares about Rizzo’s investment in what they’re doing. At one point, our narrator gets so put out by Rizzo finding the jelly beans he’d been searching for all scene in his pocket that Rizzo has to kiss him on the nose to make up for it.

I’m sure “Charles Dickens” loved being kissed on his furry blue nose.

But it gets more absurd. When they follow Scrooge into Christmases Past, the duo get dragged through the area via a connecting rope and manage to pick up a chicken. This leads to a particularly damning exchange:

Uhhhh. Sorry, did The Muppet Christmas Carol just subject us to a scene where Rizzo is annoyed with Gonzo for getting his ex a part in the movie?

A reminder on muppet lore: Gonzo loves chickens, in general. It’s a little weird how much, namely due to the marked species preference and the fact that the chicken muppets don’t talk? He was in a relationship with Camilla the chicken for a long while, and it’s suggested that he flirts with and dates chickens pretty frequently. (He gets distracted by another one while looking for a place to shatter the ice popsicle that forms around Rizzo’s body following the ice bucket incident.) So exactly how are we meant to read Rizzo’s irate, long-suffering “We’ve met” as anything other than what is she doing here?

And why is it in the movie?

There are countless exchanges where Rizzo checks in with Gonzo about their continuing shenanigans to let him know how he feels about being dragged into this scenario without proper prep. Lots of “I suppose I should be grateful?” and “I suppose you enjoyed that?” There’s also my personal favorite—when Rizzo complains at falling down the Cratchits’ chimney and landing on their “flaming hot goose,” Gonzo sits down heavily beside him and replies, “You have all the fun.”

Yet by the end of the film, Gonzo is taking Rizzo’s needs into consideration with the lengthy scene he’s strong-armed him into. He even lets Rizzo opt out of the Christmas Future segment entirely—and opts out with him for solidarity purposes.

That’s how you take care of your partner! And the payoff is worth it: By the ending musical number, Rizzo is thanking “Mr. Dickens” for the story, and all is well.

And I think I have further proof that Gonzo went “off-script” here, metatextually speaking… but you’ll have to take the following film into consideration. Because Muppet Treasure Island is also based on an old novel with reams of exposition that could be mined for setup. But is Gonzo playing author Robert Louis Stevenson in that movie? He is not.

He’s playing himself. Just like Rizzo.

Which would seem to indicate that someone took Gonzo aside and let him know he needed to stay on-book for this one. (This seems even more likely when you notice that the joke “How does he/she do that?” gets used in both films—but in Christmas Carol it’s directed at Gonzo’s omniscient narrator abilities, while in Treasure Island it’s directed at Jennifer Saunders’ Mrs. Sarah Bluveridge, the woman who owns the inn that Jim Hawkins works at. They’re repurposing his schtick.) They even let him and Rizzo be best pals with the main character in Muppet Treasure Island to achieve that end.

Some folks might point out that it’s weird for Gonzo and Rizzo to never get “characters” to play within these films where most of their buddies are acting, but that actually makes more sense in terms of Gonzo’s artistic style within the muppet troupe. It’s easy to forget, but Gonzo’s initial work on The Muppet Show was as a highly abstract performance artist who created acts the audience did not understand. Gonzo’s not really an actor in the traditional sense, unlike the rest of his friends. Neither is Rizzo, for that matter—he sort of detached himself from the rat muppet group, only to reattach at Gonzo’s side. (There are real-world human performer reasons for this, of course, but they don’t apply to the muppets-as-performers meta narrative.) Their double act is largely happenstance, an accident built on great chemistry.

And yes, I do mean chemistry.

Sorry!

So you can ignore the clear extraneous layer of narrative weaving its way through The Muppet Christmas Carol, if you like. For my part, the story is better when you enjoy that layer the whole way through. Because nothing quite says “the holidays” like the myriad things we do to make our loved ones happy. Even if those things happen to be extremely weird, and should probably come with safewords.