TV
“The Muppets Mayhem” – Peter Jackson’s Surprise Cameo Brings ‘Meet the Feebles’ Crossover to Disney+ Show
All ten episodes of “The Muppets Mayhem“ dropped on Disney+ earlier this week, sending beloved Muppet band, The Electric Mayhem, on a musical journey to record their first album. In true Muppet style, the journey comes with a slew of notable cameos, including a shocking horror crossover we never would’ve anticipated in a million years.
A surprising uncredited cameo by director Peter Jackson confirms that the characters from his raunchy spluppet feature (splatter + puppet), Meet the Feebles, exist within the same world as the Muppets, making for one of horror’s most surprising crossovers.
“Track 7: Eight Days a Week” is the seventh episode of the season, which sees the Muppets’ music exec Nora (Lilly Singh) attempt to create a documentary about the band. Enter director Peter Jackson, playing himself. The Award-winning director is there with a crew, and the band recognizes him instantly.
In a bizarre exchange, Muppet Floyd Pepper (Matt Vogel) reveals that not only does the band have a history with Jackson, but his Feebles as well. Jackson gives Floyd Pepper a grim update on the Feebles: “Two of them are in witness protection. The rest are in prison.”
That’s no surprise to those who have seen the spluppet feature. Poor Floyd seems a bit traumatized by the encounter, for good reason.
Meet the Feebles was the second film in Jackson’s splatter phase between Bad Taste and Braindead (Dead Alive). Originally intended to be a TV series, surprising enthusiasm from Japanese investors instead turned this into a feature-length film that followed the cast and crew behind the scenes of a Muppet-like variety show. There’s no concise central narrative to this film; Meet the Feebles is just an exploration of the sleazy underbelly of showbiz.
Though the audience spends the most time with aging star Heidi the Hippo and innocent newcomer Robert the Hedgehog, we also spend time with just about every character and facet of the show and every possible bodily fluid in the process. It begins tame enough as it introduces all the characters, mostly just sex and cursing. Still, it gradually builds into the most shocking puppet film that will likely ever be committed to celluloid.
There’s attempted rape, drug use, paternity battles, a Vietnam War flashback in the vein of Deer Hunter, puppet porn, puppet sex, murder, nudity, and almost every crude and rude vice or joke on display here. It’s also extremely gross.
“The Muppets Mayhem” was developed by Adam F. Goldberg, Bill Barretta, and Jeff Yorkes. Goldberg previously created the long-running sitcom “The Goldbergs,” which saw the return of Elvira and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger.
It’s clear that Goldberg is a horror fan, and we salute the boldness of creating this unique Muppet crossover.
All episodes of “The Muppet Mayhem” are available now, but you can check out the Meet the Feebles crossover exchange below.
Himesh Patel (Tenet, Don’t Look Up) will star opposite Danielle Deadwyler (The Woman in the Yard) in Ryan Coogler’s reboot of “The X-Files“, which has wrapped filming on the pilot.
Patel confirmed the news in a chat with The Direct, while reiterating that he and Deadwyler play new characters.
“I don’t want to say anything that’s going to get me disappeared. Needless to say, myself and Danielle Deadwyler are playing completely new characters, and we just wrapped on the pilot. If we get to do more… we’ll see where we go from there,” Patel said.
That last sentence is noteworthy, as Patel is reminding that Hulu has only ordered the pilot so far. A full series order has yet to be greenlit.
It’s a good reminder, considering that Hulu also ordered a pilot for the “Buffy: New Sunnydale” reboot that was filmed and delivered earlier this year, only for the streamer to send shockwaves when it opted not to move forward with the series.
As for “The X-Files” pilot, Sinners filmmaker Ryan Coogler writes and directs the pilot. Jennifer Yale (“The Copenhagen Test”) serves as showrunner.
Himesh Patel and Danielle Deadwyler play two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.
Patel and Deadwyler previously co-starred together on “Station Eleven.”
Other actors who have signed on for guest roles include Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi, Ben Foster, Devery Jacobs, Lochlyn Munro, Tantoo Cardinal, Joel D. Montgrand, and Sofia Grace Clifton.
“The X-Files” originally ran for nine seasons between 1993 and 2002, with two additional seasons arriving in 2016 and 2018. 218 episodes were produced in total, along with two feature films: 1998’s The X-Files: Fight the Future and 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
Himesh Patel in “Station Eleven”
You must be logged in to post a comment.