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.
Best known to horror fans for playing Rupert Giles in 121 episodes of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” actor Anthony Head (aka Anthony Stewart Head) has passed away at 72 years old.
Daughters Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement to the BBC that their father “passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family.”
Their statement continues, “It has been, and forever will be, an honour and a privilege to be his daughters, and to have witnessed firsthand the impact both he and his work have had on so many. We know how dearly he will be missed by friends, colleagues, and fans of the shows he was in — he loved his job very much, and he always considered himself incredibly lucky, to have been able to work alongside such exceptionally talented people, in such wonderful productions, across a career that spanned several decades.”
Anthony Head more recently played Rupert Mannion in 18 episodes of “Ted Lasso,” with the English actor’s film and television credits dating back to 1978. On the horror front, Anthony Head starred in Darren Bousman’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, as well as 2011’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Let the Wrong One In, “Warehouse 13,” and “The Canterville Ghost.”
Also of note here in the world of horror, Anthony Head once played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a London stage production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show back in the 1990s.
Outside the horror world, Anthony Head’s film and television credits well exceed 100 different productions and include “Highlander,” “NYPD Blue,” “Silent Witness,” “Doctor Who,” And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself, “Little Britain,” The Magic Door, “Sensitive Skin,” Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, “Free Agents,” The Iron Lady, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, “You, Me & Them,” “Dominion,” A Street Cat Named Bob, and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight.
“Buffy” actor James Marsters writes on Instagram, “There’s a hole in the World. Anthony Head has passed on from us. He was an unflaggingly kind and steady presence on the set of Buffy, and the best actor in the cast. He was the best of us. I was lucky to have known, and learned from him. He left the world a better place for his presence. Thank you Tony for all you gave.”
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