The original movies -- The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan -- remain entertaining regardless of age.
If you’re looking for goofy, ridiculous, clean fun, you can’t do better. The Muppets are absurdity at its finest. People who take themselves too seriously need not apply.
You can split hairs over which old-school Muppet movie is the strongest, but the award for best Muppet bad guy definitely goes to the first -- The Muppet Movie’s Doc Hopper, played superbly by the late Charles Durning.
Consider Kermit’s goals in the movie. He wants to become a famous performer so he can make people happy.
Doc Hopper wants Kermit to become his mascot to sell french-fried frog legs.
So we have an intersection of motivations. Doc Hopper would indeed grant part of Kermit’s wish. He’ll make him a famous performer, but it would be a perversion of why Kermit wants to perform.
The bad guy, then, helps highlight the virtue of the good guy, as a proper antagonist should.
Plus, the notion of Kermit being asked to shill for french-fried frog legs is creative and just plain silly, and it’s the sort of silliness that comes at no one else’s expense. Good Muppet humor never relies on ridicule. Really, we should all avoid resorting to ridicule.
As a side note, The Muppet Movie DVD has a great extra feature -- screen tests. There's nothing like watching the great Jim Henson and Frank Oz mess around as Kermit, Fozzy, and Miss Piggy.
See for yourself:
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