Funny / The Great Muppet Caper

"Say cheese!"

This film is widely regarded to be one of the funniest Muppet movies, if not the funniest, and given the large amount of hilarious moments it features, it's not hard to see why.

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• The boss at the beginning at the movie takes a glimpse at the photo of him and Kermit's and Fozzie's dad, an odd looking bear-frog hybrid.
  • He put the photo in his desk drawer so he wouldn't hear him firing his sons.
  • Also this hilarious meta exchange:
    Fozzie: We'll do better next time.
    Mr Tarkenian: "Next time"?? "Next time"??? What makes you think there's gonna be a "next time"?
    Kermit: Well if there isn't it's gonna be a real short movie.
• The fact that jewels are stolen in the most conspicuous way, with Holiday's necklace stolen right off her neck in public. She even notes worriedly that she feared this would happen!
• Miss Piggy thinking that Kermit couldn't get her out of jail...because he had to go to law school.
  • The exchange is hilarious:
    Jailer: Miss Piggy, your lawyer's here.
    Miss Piggy: I don't have a lawyer.
    Jailer: Ah, sure you do! Little green guy.
    Miss Piggy: Oh, Kermit! No wonder he didn't visit me...he had to finish law school!
• "You can't even sing! Your voice was dubbed!" It actually wasn't.
• The goldfish randomly appearing in Miss Piggy's fantasy sequence.
• Gonzo hailing a cab. By throwing himself down into the middle of the street right in front of it.
  Kermit: Uh, that's very effective.
  Gonzo: Yeah, it's great when it works!
• Peter Falk's cameo, wherein he lampoons himself as Columbo, telling Kermit that he can tell his whole story just by looking at him. Kermit humors him, and Falk lays out a story that couldn't be further from the events of the movie, even going as far as to name Kermit's faux-brother-in-law "Bernie." Kermit's reaction is pure deadpan goodness. "You know, it's amazing, you are 100% wrong. I mean nothing you've said has been right." Falk's response is "Really?" then begins to launch into another guess — unfortunately, we never get to hear it.
  • In the script, he did get at least a few sentences into his second guess before Kermit cut him off. If the script is any indication, his second guess at Kermit's story likely wouldn't have been much better than the first.
  • Better still, Peter Falk was crashing the scene.
  • He then proceeds to try and sell Kermit a watch.
• During the "Happiness Hotel" song, Pops and Kermit discuss payment;
  Pops: How're you fixin' to pay?
  Kermit: What are our choices?
  Pops: A) Credit card, B) Cash, C) Sneak out in the middle of the night.
  Fozzie: We'll take "C".
  Pops: Very popular choice...
• The scene where both sides (Nicky and his cohorts, the Muppets) are checking their equipment before moving out. While Nicky's gang have the usual stuff, the Muppets' list is a bit...strange.
  Fozzie: Wax lips.
  Zoot: ...Man, I just had 'em!
  Dr. Teeth: Did you leave 'em in your other pants?
  Zoot: I don't have no other pants!
  • It isn't just strange...they don't actually have any of the things they supposedly need to foil the crooks. "Whoopee cushion?" "I think it's in the bus." "Rubber raft?" "It’s got holes in it." "Fake vomit?" "It’s all on order!""Frisbee?" "Uh...lost." "Peanut butter?" "Animal ate it!" "Saaah-reeee..."
• Building on the above, the Muppets actually attempting to break into the Mallory Gallery's front gate takes Unspoken Plan Guarantee and Noodle Implements to their logical—and hilarious—conclusion.
  Kermit: Rowlf, hand me the blowtorch!
  Rowlf: ...blowtorch? Who said anything about a blowtorch?
  Lew Zealand: I GOT SOME PAPER TOWELS!
  • Lew's line becomes a Brick Joke when the Muppets later have to lower themselves into the Baseball Diamond's showroom from the roof. Kermit remarks that they'll need to make a ladder, and Lew excitedly brings back the paper towels to help.
• Fozzie and Gonzo excited to be in London.
  Fozzie: Yaaaaay! We're finally in London, we made it!
  Gonzo: Is that the Eiffel Tower!
  Fozzie: Yeah!
  Kermit: No.
  Fozzie: Umm...no.
  Gonzo: (while they're crossing the Thames) What do you call this river?
  Fozzie: I think it's called the "English River".
  Gonzo: Oh. (beat) I'll take a picture of it! Say cheese!(flash)
  Fozzie: Oh, sorry. Did I get my elbow in the shot?
  Gonzo: Don't worry. It adds human interest.
  Fozzie: (beat) But I'm a bear.
• The whole "17 Highbrow Street" scene, from the fact that the address actually exists to John Cleese's completely nonchalant reaction to finding Kermit and Piggy in a closet and recommending a restaurant to them. Although it's really more of a supper club.
• Gonzo attempting to pay for dinner... by selling pictures of the diners for ten dollars a pop. Keep in mind that the dinner was in the thousands of dollars. And one of the couples was a cheating husband and his mistress.
  Man: No thanks. No pictures.
  Gonzo: Aw, come on. It'll be a great memento for you and your wife.
  Man: My wife isn't feeling very well.
  Gonzo: That's too bad. Maybe she should be at home.
  Man: My wife is at home!
  Gonzo: (Stammers incoherently) Yes. Uh… next table!
• Fozzie starting a chain of blabbing about Kermit's date, and then inviting everyone at the hotel to go along with him.
  Kermit: Fozzie, this is all very embarassing!
  Fozzie: Don't worry, it won't leave this room.
  Newsman: This is a Muppets News Flash! Kermit to date Lady Holiday! Details at eleven.
  (Kermit makes a face)
• The entire first ten minutes, which take a complete and total wrecking ball to the fourth wall by starting with the Muppets lampooning the opening credits and follows it up with a musical number called "Hey, a Movie!".
  Fozzie: Nobody reads those names anyway, do they?
  Kermit: Sure they do! They all have families.
• After the Happiness Hotel song, Sam the Eagle peeks out of his room to say: "You are all. Weirdos!"
• Kermit taking one look at the supper club's menu and just about having a heart attack.
  Kermit: It's just sort of amusing that the roast beef is the same price as an Oldsmobile.^note The car company he refers to has since gone out of business. At the time the film premiered, an Oldsmobile would've cost around $7,000, or around $25,000 today.
• This exchange between Lady Holiday and Nicky:
  Lady Holiday: I feel as if thieves are breathing down my neck.
  Nicky [while breathing down her neck]: Thieves aren't breathing down your neck!
• Kermit and Miss Piggy having an in-character argument about why Piggy lied about being Lady Holiday, which devolves into an out-of-character argument about Piggy's overacting. It really has to be seen to be believed.
  Miss Piggy: Please don't go. Kermit, please. Oh, please, I'm sorry. Please! Please!
  Kermit: Piggy, hold it.
  Miss Piggy: Please! Please! Please!
  Kermit: Piggy...? Piggy? You're overacting.
  Miss Piggy: ... What?
  Kermit: You're overacting. You're hamming it up.
  Miss Piggy: I am not. I am trying to save this movie.
  Kermit: (getting annoyed) Oh, yeah? Well, save your performance instead.
  Miss Piggy: I am playing eight hundred different emotions!
  Kermit: Well, try to play one of them right.
  Miss Piggy: Oh, oh! I have a career of my own.
  Kermit: I know all about your career, Pig.
  Miss Piggy: I don't need this lousy duck pond here.
  Kermit: Sure, you don't need a lousy duck pond.
  Miss Piggy: I'll just walk.
  Kermit: (angry) Okay, sure. Go ahead and walk.
  Miss Piggy: (briefly turning to the camera) Should I walk? Then I'll walk!
  Kermit: Walk! Go ahead and walk! (Miss Piggy turns away and whimpers) Oh, Piggy. (He sighs) Listen.
  Miss Piggy: [in tears] I'm doing my best.
  Kermit: Well... I know you are. (He moves in to comfort her) Piggy, I'm sorry. We gotta get back to the movie, though.
  Miss Piggy: (trying to collect herself) All right. All right, all right, all right. (She heaves a heavy sigh and resumes acting)
  
• Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo arriving in England by being shipped ninth-class (in boxes that resemble jail cells labeled "Frog" "Bear" and "Whatever") and then thrown out the plane into a pond. (Gonzo, of course, loves it.)
  Steward: All out for England!
  Kermit: Oh goody! The plane is landing!
  Steward: The plane? (opens cargo door) No, the plane lands in Italy! You land in England!
• Kermit proposes a counter-offensive to prevent Nicky's gang from stealing the Baseball Diamond. He emphasizes the danger, and says, "if anyone wants out, now's the time to say it." Immediately, everybody except Gonzo and Fozzie starts opting out!
• The entire scene where the Muppets and villains begin to play an impromptu Baseball game with the Baseball diamond, complete with Louis Kazager doing commentary!
  • Don't forget Scooter selling popcorn and the rats acting like fans!
    Scooter [to Camilla]: Popcorn, chicken?
• When sneaking in the museum, the Muppet cast don Groucho Marx glasses.
• Kermit's disguise when trying to get Piggy out of jail. A lawyer named Rosenthal. The fact that the name is repeated in exaggerated fashion is pretty funny "ROSENTHAAAL". When "Rosenthal" & Piggy share a kiss from both sides of the screen for the prison visitation booth, Piggy remarks "...you have mesh-marks on your face" and he does.
• After breaking herself out of Prison, she tries to hitch a ride with Peter Ustinov in a garbage truck. He tells he that he can't take passengers...so she says "Well, I tried to be nice" and drags him out of the truck, tosses him to a pile of garbage, where he meets Oscar The Grouch! After carjacking the truck for her getaway, Piggy does a "Convoy/CB Radio" bit.
  Oscar: Hey...what's all the racket?
  Ustinov: What're you doing here?
  Oscar: A very brief cameo.
  Ustinov: (Sadly) Me too.
• The very first thing you see is Animal, who makes a noise as a parody of the MGM Lion logo. Then he starts eating the rest of the scenery.
  • No, no...he's chewing the scenery.
• A couple lines from the bus ride to the dinner club:
  "You'll have to get in the front seat; the back seat's been quarantined!"
  "Are these your friends?" "Just the ones on the fenders."
• Miss Piggy meets Lady Holiday;
  Lady Holiday: (Speaks into an intercom) We're going to have to make drastic changes before the show tomorrow, all my girls are going around looking like barnyard animals. (Piggy clears her throat) Good heavens, who are you?
  Miss Piggy: My name is Miss Piggy, and I would like to be a high-fashion model.
  Lady Holiday: (Wryly) Doesn't surprise me. Seems to be the way we're headed.
• When Miss Piggy is showing off her modeling portfolio, she declares that modeling is her destiny and she'll accept nothing less. Lady Holiday simply says she can only give her a job as a receptionist. Well... based on Piggy's reaction, at least you can't say she wasn't grateful.
  Miss Piggy: (jumping up and down and shouting) AAAAAAAHHHHH! I'll take it! I'll take it! Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, you won't be sorry, I promise. I can type, I can take shorthand, I can make coffee, I can do it all!
  Lady Holiday: Sit?
  Miss Piggy: (Quickly sits down and calms herself) I can sit. I'm very good at sitting.
• "Why are you telling me all this?" "It's plot exposition. It has to go somewhere."
• Fozzie's little one-liner upon seeing the Happiness Hotel for the first time.
  Fozzie: Ugh... if that's the Happiness Hotel, I'd hate to see what the sad one looks like.
• Rowlf pacifying the museum's guard dogs:
  (to the gang) "Let me talk to them. (to the dogs) Woof woof! Woof woof! (the dogs settle down and he turns back to the gang) It pays to know a second language."
• Some of the signs posted: At the Mallory Gallery warning anyone attempting to break in, "Don't try it. You'll be torn to shreds." Or the sign on the door to Nicky's office, which calls him an "Irresponsible Parasite", or the sign in Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo's hotel room informing guests that elephants are not allowed in the room after 6.
• At the end of the movie, the Muppets are flying back to America...in the luggage hold.
  Fozzie: It was nice of the Chronicle to pay for our flight home.
  Pops: Yeah, but a man should be treated better than his luggage!
  Scooter: Yeah, well, my luggage was sucked out the door. Luckily my radio's frozen to my wrist.
  Steward: (Enters) Okay, guys! Everybody out for the USA!
  Fozzie: Oh, boy! How close are we?
  Steward: Oh, about thirty thousand feet.
  Kermit: You mean-?!
  Steward: Yup! (Opens door) Happy landings! (Starts throwing out Muppets)
• Practically every appearance of the "Kermit and Fozzie are identical twins" concept, from their boss at the start Lampshading the inherent stupidity of it and then mere seconds later not being able to tell the two apart once Fozzie's wearing his hat, to Fozzie himself apparently not being able to tell them apart while looking in a mirror.
  • Also, there's when their boss says they look nothing alike when Fozzie isn't wearing his hat, and yet Kermit is wearing a hat, so he should have mistaken them for each other. In fact, he should have said they looked nothing alike when they were both wearing their hats.
  • Later in the movie, when Kermit is by himself at the park, a passing girl points and says, "Look, there's a bear!" but her father replies, "No, that's a frog. Bears wear hats."
  • After the "Stepping Out with a Star" number, Kermit looks himself over in a mirror and asks Fozzie how he looks. Fozzie can't tell which reflection is which.
• The whole Drives Like Crazy sequence with Beauregard.
  Beauregard: What's your room number?
  Fozzie: Wha— I don't know. We're on the second floor!
  Beauregard: Oh, I'm sorry! I can only take you as far as the lobby!
• Janice's out of nowhere non-sequitur when the Muppets are discussing their plan to foil the heist.
  Janice: So I said "Look Mother, it's my life, okay? So if I wanna live on a beach and walk around naked— (realizes that everyone has stopped talking and are now staring at her) Oh."
• The very cheap Happiness Hotel is located in the Cheapside section of London.
  English Gentleman: How cheap?
  Fozzie: Free.
  English Gentleman: That narrows the field down a little. (Begins reading from a brochure) "Places where you can park your carcasses: Bus terminals...riverbanks...the Happiness Hotel..."
  Kermit: Happiness Hotel? That sounds great!
  Gonzo: What's wrong with bus terminals?
• Kermit notices Animal frantically hammering at the drums.
  Animal: AaAaAH!
  Kermit: What's wrong with the drummer? He looks a little crazed.
  Zoot: Oh, he's just upset about missing the Rembrandt exhibit at the National Gallery.
  Animal: RENOIR!
• When Piggy is stranded across town and has no way to foil the robbery at the Mallory Gallery, she wonders aloud what she can do...and at that precise moment, a moving van drives by, and a motorcycle (complete with a riding outfit exactly Piggy's size) just so happens to fall out the back. It's Piggy's Lampshade Hanging—naturally delivered directly to the camera—that truly makes the joke: "What an unbelievable coincidence!"

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