“Steppin’ Out With a Star” from The Great Muppet Caper

This song always has me feeling daydreamy—that feeling of getting gussied up for a special event where you know you’ll see a special someone. But it never occurred to me until watching the movie for this blog that all Kermit’s talk of fancy things in this song is happening against the backdrop of the Happiness Hotel. Fozzie plucks a flower for a boutonniere but then tosses it because it’s dead; Kermit gazes dreamily into an imagined image of Piggy a filthy mirror; he hops off the bed as it springs dangerously back up into the wall. And I guess that’s kind of the point of the song: a special person can make you feel like you’ve got everything.

After this song is one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever: John Cleese and Joan Sanderson as Neville and Dorcas, the painfully posh and proper married couple living at 17 Highbrow Street. Against a backdrop of Baroque music, Dorcas drones on about the disappointing weather while Neville nods along, stopping only to mention the pig climbing up the outside of the house. Later, Neville stalks after Piggy and Kermit through the house, then confronts them in the bathroom closet with a fire iron. British to the bone, he simply cannot be impolite, even to intruders in his own home, and so hides the fire iron behind his back and says, “Ah. Sorry… Uh, don’t think me rude, but is there in fact anything I can do for you, at all?”

Even as a kid I was able to appreciate a bit of the absurdity of this scene, and I only loved it more as I got older. What makes it truly great is that these actors played dire enemies Basil Fawlty and Mrs. Richards in the “Communication Problems” episode of Fawlty Towers.