Trivia / The Great Muppet Caper

• Blooper: One of the lack of amenities provided by the Happiness Hotel is that of a kitchen. However, after Beauregard crashes into the hotel, the Swedish Chef comes out of the suddenly appearing kitchen.
• Channel Hop: Kind of. Due to the disastrous failures that were Raise the Titanic! and Can't Stop the Music, Lew Grade and EMI's joint American arm Associated Film Distribution (which had distributed The Muppet Movie) was ruined; they sold their remaining backlog, including this movie, to Universal. Since then, rights have, naturally, come under Disney's control, though the theatrical rights to this film and The Muppet Movie remain with Universal.
• Creator Backlash: In a 2000 interview for the fan site Muppet Central, puppeteer Dave Goelz (Gonzo, among other characters) admitted that he found the film's constant Medium Awareness and Breaking the Fourth Wall to be "smug and awkward."
• The Danza: Christine, the girl in the park who mistakes Kermit for a bear, is played by Christine Nelson.
• Deleted Scene: All of them can be found in the 1980 draft of the script.
• Kids' Meal Toy: McDonald's sold a set of four glasses based on scenes from the movie. These consisted of Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo in a hot air balloon, the Muppets on bicycles, the Muppets in the Happiness Hotel bus, and Miss Piggy on a motorcycle.
• Non-Singing Voice: Charles Grodin is clearly dubbed in his big musical number, as Miss Piggy points out afterward.
• Production Posse: Joe Raposo, who besides writing the Sesame Street theme, "Bein' Green", and dozens of other Sesame Street songs, also wrote the songs for Hey Cinderella! and Tales from Muppetland: The Frog Prince, did the film's songs.
• Real-Life Relative: Muppeteer Jerry Nelson has a cameo alongside his real-life daughter Christine.
• Technology Marches On: The scene with Gonzo using the restroom as a dark room to develop his film would be lost on modern younger audiences as most cameras are now digital, and probably wouldn’t understand why the print of Nicky stealing Lady Holiday’s necklace was ruined.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jim Henson considered several other actors for the role of newspaper editor Mike Tarkanian before finally settling on Jack Warden, including Edward Asner, Hume Cronyn, Harvey Korman, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.
  • Early sketches for the end credits sequence reveals that Oscar the Grouch was to have gone back to America with the Muppets.
  • The cameo role of British Gentleman was offered to Trevor Howard.
  • An early draft of the script had Queen Elizabeth II as Miss Piggy's cellmate.
  • Lady Holiday was supposed to meet the Muppets at the Mallory Gallery after Nicky is caught and she is astonished to find out that he committed the crimes. This scene is featured in the movie storybook. You can read it here: https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780394852669
  • In the July 1980 draft of the script, Nicky was originally going to be Lady Holliday’s nephew.
• Working Title: The Muppet Movie 2.

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