Retro Review: Meet the Feebles

Any review of Peter Jackson's Meet the Feebles ought to begin with the story of how the reviewer came to learn of its existence. Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste are in all likelihood Jackson's least seen films (the next closest is Heavenly Creatures, the bridge between his early films and The Lord of the Rings), and the fact that anyone sees them passes like a meme from viewer to viewer. The Cap'n was in high school when a friend said "you have to see this demented puppet movie. There's a rabbit that gets AIDS and screams 'Yippeeeeee! Blech!'" and then made a hideous vomiting sound.

Meet the Feebles was not an easy movie to find - to this day, it isn't available on Netflix, is incredibly rare to see at a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video, and is frequently checked out without hope of return at what's left of the "Mom and Pop" chains. Outside of a major metropolitan area, you're going to have to do some serious searching for it. The DVD has its own sordid history, as I can't tell if any of the US releases are "legit" - the copy I have is out of print, looks like it was mastered from VHS, and has a half dozen unrelated trailers for softcore porn murder mysteries as "extras."

All is is my way of setting the stage for Meet the Feebles's place as one of the most viewer unfriendly, disgusting, underground examples of a "Video Nasty" as you're likely to see in the age where Battle Royale can be ordered on Blu-Ray. Seriously, it's easier to buy I Spit on Your Grave and Faces of Death in HD than it is to find an authentic release of Meet the Feebles. There's a good reason for this, and it goes back to the "yippeeee! blech!"

Meet the Feebles is Jackson's twisted take on the Muppets as told through the sleaziest soap opera imaginable. If the film was one or the other, it might not be so disturbingly revolting, but taking the sordid backstage details of a TV show and replacing the humans with cutesy puppets has never failed to increase the "gag" factor for me. The film is a comedy, and it is funny, but if you have any attachment to Jim Henson, it's going to be a rough ride. Unless of course you wanted to see puppets vomit, wallow in filth, bleed, make pornos / snuff films, or eat each other.

On the surface, it's your standard tawdry backstage melodrama: Robert (Mark Hadlow) is a new arrival to The Feebles Variety Hour, a struggling show getting its big break in twelve hours. Its star, Heidi (Danny Mulheron) is a past her prime diva who thinks she's carrying on with Bletch (Doug Wren), the boss and overall lothario. There are muckraking journalists, drug addicts, bad deals with criminals, and two-timing opportunists, as well as a stage manager with a taste for... well, I'll let you find out.

If this sounds like Soapdish, with a dash of All About Eve or any number of other "behind the scenes" pictures, it is. The difference, as I mentioned, is that instead of humans, Feebles deals with puppets, so you get things like sex scenes involving a walrus and a cat. That's the tip of the iceberg, and considering that Meet the Feebles is the bridge between Bad Taste and Dead Alive, feel free to appropriately insert Jackson's stomach-turning gore into the proceedings.

The cast is split up between actual puppets and humans in oversized puppet costumes - ala The Muppets, Sesame Street, et al - which are done well for their crude appearance on-camera. It's impossible to separate Meet the Feebles from The Muppet Show because Jackson stages a musical number at the opening of the film reminiscent of the opening of Henson's TV series, but the film quickly moves backstage into soap opera tropes, just with deliberately cutesy animals just waiting to do filthy things.

The closest thing I can compare Meet the Feebles to is the live action Saturday TV Funhouse that Comedy Central ran several years ago, and believe it or not but that's tame compared to how filthy this film is. There's a pervasive grime to Meet the Feebles, visually and thematically - I've never actually seen a "restored" print, so it's always looked grainy and damaged, but the lighting often casts against the puppets in ways I can only describe as "greasy." It's actually better if I let you find out the context of Harry the rabbit's line (mentioned above) other than it involves an STD called "The Big One" (not officially identified as AIDS in the film).

Please don't take this to mean you shouldn't watch Meet the Feebles; the film is actually rather amusing, and it is entirely possible that you won't have the same "dirty" feeling after watching the film. It is vile, but intentionally so, and you're going to be humming the songs (hopefully not singing the last of of them aloud in public, unless you want strange looks). For Peter Jackson fans this is as important to track down as Forgotten Silver in tracing his path as a director, even if it's not the easiest search. There aren't many films left that are tricky to find with good reason, but Meet the Feebles is quite unlike anything you're expecting.