Meet the Feebles

New Zealand, 1989

Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson, Danny Mulheron
Genre: Comedy
Running time: 97 minutes

Cast (voices):

Background

In the future, Peter Jackson will be known for two things; the director of The Lord of the Rings movies, and as the king of splatter movies such as Bad Taste and Braindead. The most hysterical of them all must be Meet the Feebles, though. To put it short, it's the Muppet Show on crack, and it is probably a bit much for even devoted puppet fans.

Peter Jackson conceived the idea for the movie while he was working with special effects maker Cameron Chittock on the set of Bad Taste. Their original plan was to make a TV-series for adults called Uncle Herman's Bedtime Whoppers. The idea caught on with a japanese investor, but on the condition that they made a motion picture instead. Jackson was given full freedom and financial backup. Meet the Feebles violates most taboos. The movies doesn't just parody the Muppet Show. Oh no, it visits the russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter, the massacre in The Wild Bunch, and A Chorus Line. And all this with just puppets.

Plot

Twelve hours remain before "The Feebles Variety Show" is being broadcast on live TV, and chaos reigns behind the scenes. Bletch the walrus, the feebles' leader, is trying his best to sort things out with his crew, among others Heidi the hippo, his girlfriend since he discovered her many years ago. However, Bletch is having an affair with one of the backup singers of the show, Samantha the cat, and is secretly planning to dump Heidi. The overweight and mentally unstable Heidi is already close to a nervous breakdown, and when she finds out about Bletch's plans, she gets the last push over the edge.

The other members of the crew have their own problems as well. Harry the rabbit thinks he's dying with AIDS, and is being chased by a pushy tabloid reporter in the body of a shit-eating fly. Wynyard the frog is the show's heroin addicted knife-thrower, and is struggling with flashbacks from his days in Vietnam. Trevor the rat is making porno movies in the basement (starring none other than a cow and a beetle!), while Abi the fakir has his head up his arse. Yes, literally.

And as if that wasn't enough, the show's director is a homosexual fox who's aching to perform his song Sodomy. And we shouldn't forget Sid the depressed elephant either, who's having problems with a pregnant chicken(!) who claims he's the father of her child.

Conclusions

All in all, Meet the Feebles is about gore, goo, drugs, feces, vomit, kinky sex, a hedgehog who's falling in love with a poodle... and much more. Needless to say, this is a puppet show far beyond the ordinary. With a running time of 97 minutes, though, it may be a bit long and tedious for some, but it's a geniune and unique pearl and a must-see for those of us who appreciate the crude humor of it all.

Oh shit

Peter Jackson's second film. A milestone in cinema.

MORE CARNALITY FROM THE DIRECTOR OF BAD TASTE! -

MEET THE FEEBLES, a puppet tragedy of gross proportions, relates the fateful events that lead up to the infamous Feebles Variety Massacre - a day that rocked the puppet world!

Bletch, a cigar chomping Walrus has his hands full with his cast of egocentric show-biz stars. When you've got an incompetent panic-stricken fox as a director, a junkie knife-throwing frog, and hare with a fatal disease as an MC, things do not look too sunny. But Bletch's biggest problem is with his star and long time lover, Heidi the Hipppo, who suspects that he is having an affair with a Siamese cat named Samantha. With two failed suicide attempts and her mental balance totally destroyed, Heidi makes an unannounced entrance center-stage.
Color. 92 Minutes.
  - From the DVD packaging

Do you really think people are interested in nasal sex?

Meet the Feebles is the vilest feature-length puppet movie ever made, and will likely continue to hold this record for some time to come. It's the only time that plush toys have made me feel nausea. It's funny too. I loved it.

That rash on your groin looks pretty ugly. Don't taste too good neither.

This film shows that Peter Jackson's extraordinary talents are largely wasted on Tolkien. The only moment that comes close to his earlier work is the looks like meat's back on the menu, boys! scene in The Two Towers.

This is a television variety show, not a homage to Soviet Realism. Good Grief! I asked for a pennant not a pedant.

Warning: Lots of spoilers below. Read no futher if you don't want to spoil the fun.

The plot, such as it is, depicts a variety show, "The Feebles Variety Hour", which is having problems on the day before opening night. The temperamental star, Heidi the Hippo (modelled on Miss Piggy) is overeating again, her boyfriend, the sleazy Bletch (a Walrus) is doing drug deals, marketing the porn made after hours by his dirty rat of a stage manager, and screwing a chorus-cat. Everyone seems to be having some kind of crisis or vice. In the case of the rabbit with an STD and the knife-thrower with drug withdrawal shakes, crises caused by vices. The exception is the naive new guy, Robert; and Lucile, the sweet young poodle he is smitten with. Hilarity and death ensues.

Oh god, not another panty-sniffer. He's going to want me to piss in his mouth next.

This movie contains sex, oral sex, interracial sex and resultant mutant offspring, a paternity suit, group sex, panty sniffing, peeping tom masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, making kinky interracial porn, zit-popping, bulimia, cannibalism and subsequent vomiting, raw roadkill consumption, overeating, shit-eating, golden showers, a song about gay sex, gutter journalism, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, recto-cranial inversion, drug deals, drug use, drug withdrawal, intravenous drug use and drug overdose, drugging and rape, murder, accidental death in several forms, bungee suicide, a headless chicken, a machinegun massacre, true love and a chorus line.

I'll have to change my suit. I'm covered in ambergris.

Obtaining a copy of Meet the Feebles is difficult. In Australia you may be lucky - specialist sci-fi and cult film shops have been known to stock it. Otherwise, you may have more luck a dodgy sale on with Ebay or an illicit download than on Amazon.com. This is sad, as this unique artistic vision deserves a financial reward. Not that Peter Jackson needs the money anymore after Lord of the Rings.

He he. You liquidated him real good, boss.

All text in italics is dialogue from the movie.

I remember all right. I had to go the hospital with severe chaffing.

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