DailyView: Day 217, Movie 304

As the calendar changes over to December, the DailyView will be doing some selected holiday flicks during the month. I do not expect that we will watch as many Christmas movies in December as I did horror movies during October, but I will be doing some. The first one is today on Disney +. It was a film that I was going to do last week, but I pushed it back until December. It was A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa.

The Muppet Christmas Carol is perhaps my favorite Christmas movie of all time. I absolutely love that film and I watch it every Christmastime. So, when this popped up on Disney +, I was intrigued. I had never heard of this film, which felt like a made-for-TV special. Even still, I usually see a new Muppet project, so I was surprised when this showed up.

It is about what you would expect from a Muppet film. The typical group of Muppets, led by Kermit the Frog, had to go on a mission to help deliver a letter to Santa Claus after a mess up at the post office prevented Gonzo from mailing the letter as he promised he would do.

Of course, there are songs. These were, once again, written by Paul Williams, who wrote the classic songs from The Muppet Movie, including Rainbow Connection. Williams was also in the movie in a cameo role.

Cameos were a huge part of any Muppet film, and this had its share too. Whoopi Goldberg, NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Nathan Lane, Jane Krakowski, Richard Griffiths, Tony Sirico, Steven Schirripa, and Jesse L. Martin (from Flash and Rent) all had roles in the movie.

The story does seem to be rushed and could have been stretched out to allow some of the emotional beats to hit more than it does. Still, you can’t ask for much more than the Muppets at Christmas.