Summary
Some masterful puppetry and a strong cast can’t overcome a familiar setting and a low-brow series of gags intended for an ambiguous audience.
In THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS, the noir puppet film from The Jim Henson Company’s Alternative banner, there’s a scene where puppet P.I. Phil Philips (Bill Barretta) ejaculates white silly string for what feels like minutes. It’s as uncomfortable as it is misguided, and it goes on for far too long. Never before has a jizz gag been a perfect microcosm of an entire film.
After all, we’ve been down this rocky road many times before. Sitting somewhere between Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Avenue Q, Henson’s film is a basic hard-boiled plot with the addition of naughty puppets. In a world where puppets live a sometimes uneasy coexistence with humans, disgraced former cop Philips reluctantly teams up with his ex-partner Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) to solve a series of murders connected to the 1980s TV series The Happytime Gang.
THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS is not the first time adults have been the target of Henson’s brand of sophisticated puppetry. Brian Henson’s pioneering father frequently injected subversive elements in his earlier work before becoming known as a king of children’s television. Yet Todd Berger’s screenplay revels in the low-brow. It’s concept of “edgy” never progresses beyond a grade school fascination with the word “fuck,” before giggling and running off into the bushes.
Speaking of bushes, key plot points revolve around a Basic Instinct inspired exposure of purple pubic hair. A porno shoot involving a lactating cow puppet is the centrepiece of an extended sequence in an adult video store, and Henson clearly loved the vision: he returns to it at least three times throughout the film.
Let’s be clear though: the issue is not one of crude humour, as Henson and Berger don’t go much further than an average episode of Family Guy or South Park. The humour is barely present, tangled up in a noir plot that never quite finds its own voice, and fails to deliver a single memorable moment of genuine gut laughs. The filmmakers rely too much on McCarthy’s ad-libbing to prop up the comedy gaps, but even that isn’t strong enough to make up for the lack of structure.
As the credits roll, we get to see the hardworking puppeteers who seamlessly brought puppets to life alongside the humans. There’s clearly been a lot of love put into the technical side of the production, as is true of all Henson productions. Sadly for THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS, the work is wasted on a meagre script and a forgettable plot.
