Tag Archives: movies

Lanterns S1 E8

Posted on by

“Dirt and Stars”

The finale of Lanterns was really good, in my opinion, but I have a feeling that it may not be as well received as it should be.

The mystery of who killed Hal Jordan was wrapped up with an interesting twist when it was revealed that Sheriff Kerry did indeed shoot him in the head.

Motive? She was protecting her son, Noah, who was revealed as a Manhunter. Noah knew he was a Manhunter and had healed Hal when Hal got stuck in a burning building. Noah had confessed to John that he had killed Hal, in order to protect his mom. Noah was the one who freed Sinestro and convinced him to forge him a lantern in exchange. Noah got the drop on John and got ahold of the ring, but he and John had a powerful conversation inside a car.

I say that I do not think the finale will be as well received because there was not much action in the episode, and there was a lot of talking. I like that kind of writing, but I know there has already been criticism about the use of the Lantern powers in this show.

I do think the episode was strong for the character element though, and watching John Stewart claim the ring and use the forged lantern to charge his ring with his own distinct oath.

In Brightest Day
In Darkest Night
I’ll embrace my fear…
I’ll do what’s right
I choose this ring,
I choose this fight…
In service to this lanterns light

Guy Gardner made another appearance and John told him what it was going to be. It was great to see John become what he was destined to be, but taking it in his own way.

Great series. I am sad that Hal Jordan seems to be done for good, but, even still, this was very entertaining.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Posted on by

October 4

#3 out of 13

I adjusted the rules of the October 13 because I wanted to do a rewatch of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Typically, the October 13 is reserved for films that I have never seen before, and I did see this film in the theater back when it came out. However, I decided to include this one in the October 13 as a rewatch this year because I did want to give it a second chance, and I am glad that I did.

I remember not liking this movie at all when I saw it in the theater. I distinctly remember sitting in the Voy Theater and hating this film. I pulled it up today on HBO Max and thought it was much better. I still wouldn’t say that I loved it, but I did enjoy it more than that first time, and I am happy I did the rewatch.

According to IMDB, “An alien invasion threatens the future of humanity. The catastrophic nightmare is depicted through the eyes of one American family fighting for survival.”

One of the reasons why I think I liked this more this time than back then was I was not as familiar with HG Wells’ novel War of the Worlds at the time. Since I have read it and taught it at school and I have more of an appreciation for it. While they made many adaptations to it, there are several key scenes that come from the novel, including the scenes involving Ogilvy (Tim Robbins).

I was now familiar with the ending of the story, and how the alien tripods were brought down. I remember being really unhappy with the conclusion when I first saw it, but now it feels much more acceptable, if not even somewhat iconic.

Tom Cruise is solid as well, and we get some great scenes of him running. The two kids (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) were annoying through much of the film, but they grew on me as the story progressed.

The film looked great with the tripods and the aliens, and the scene where the long tentacle searched through the basement where Cruise and Ogilvy were hidden was very tense and suspenseful.

In the end, this was way better than I had remembered, and, while it is nowhere near the top of my Spielberg list of movies, it is no long near the bottom either.

Resident Evil (2002)

Posted on by

October 2

#1 of 13

The first film of The October 13 this year is the first film of a franchise based on a video game from 2002. The video game? Resident Evil.

I had kind of wanted to watch this before I went to the rebooted Resident Evil from Zach Cregger, but it was out in September and I did not want to wait. I really enjoyed that movie starring Austin Abrams. Unfortunately, the original film, starring Milla Jovovich and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, was nowhere a good as the 2026 film.

This was tremendously bad. The acting was just atrocious. Milla Jovovich, who starred in one of my favorite movies The Fifth Element as Leelo, was just going through the motions, and sadly, she was the best actor of the crew.

There was LOST’s own Michelle Rodriguez, but she was just not bringing the goods. The rest of the cast was as wooden as one could be.

There were some moments that made me laugh loudly, even though they were not intended to. One example was when Milla made an acrobatic kick after bouncing off the wall, into the face of a monster dog. It was so ridiculous that it was embarrassing even for a video game.

The film did not look good. It was 2002, but it still lacked what I would have hoped for from the day. It was predictable and, while at the time it might have been more than just another zombie flick, since I am watching this is 2026, this is just another zombie flick.

Milla Jovovich is gorgeous and definitely stands out among the images of the violence and the gore, but there just is nothing else here. I am so happy the new film took a different direction, because it was heads and shoulders above this mess.

The October 13 is not starting off strong.

Lanterns S1 E7

Posted on by

“The Jordan Boys’ Legacy”

The penultimate episode of Lanterns takes a look into the past of Hal Jordan, while John and the Hal-ogram continue to try to discover the killer of Hal Jordan in 2026.

The show started off in 1975 and young Hal did not want to give up a baseball to another player who was replacing him on the mound. He was two outs from a complete game and the coach tried to remove him from the game. Young Hal would have nothing of it.

The baseball thing was, of course, a direct comparison to the ring that Hal did not want to give up either.

The Hal-ogram was fun as he encapsuled a happier, kinder, though still an asshole version of Hal Jordan with John. John wanted the Hal-ogram to use his voice to open the mysterious vault, but the construct wanted to meet the sheriff first.

After meeting Sheriff Kerry, Hal-ogram stated that she had killed him. Of course, the construct had also accused John of the same thing.

Later, Hal-ogram admitted that his own father had committed suicide and that maybe Hal Jordan had done the same thing. He called it the Jordan Boys’ Legacy, as apparently the grandfather killed himself too. Hal-ogram thought that maybe the guilt that he thought he saw in Kerry’s face was from her covering up the suicide, much like young Hal had done for his father.

They also found a portal to another planet. This was the same planet that the aliens from earlier this season who were searching for the Manhunter lived on and had been killed on by a poison gas. The gas nearly did in John too, but Hal-ogram was able to stop John from killing himself.

They came across Sinestro on the planet as well, leading into the finale next week.

I enjoyed the talking time between John and the construct and this made me wish there was more of this between John and the real Hal.

Unabomber

Posted on by

I have always had a fascination with serial killers, and I remember when the chase for the Unabomber was going down in the 1990s and the capture and arrest of the Unabomber, Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski. When I saw the new film on Netflix entitled Unabomber, I put it on my queue. I saw some big named actors involved, including Russell Crowe, Jacob Trembley and Shailene Woodley. I was surprised to find out that it was Jacob Trembley who was playing Ted Kaczynski.

The film was told in two time periods. Jacob Trembley was playing Ted during his time as a 16-year old Harvard student and his involvement in a debate club led by Russell Crowe’s Professor Henry Murray. The second time period is the time period of the Unabomber Manifesto and the subsequent capture of Kaczynski, led by FBI Agent Joanne Miller, played by Shailene Woodley.

I thought that the casting of Trembley was Kaczynski was odd, but Trembley did a solid job in the role. His interactions with Russell Crowe were strong and both of their performances elevated the material.

Sadly, the basic idea of the film felt fairly low level and lacking some of the key components of the character. The psychological aspect of the film was questionable, and it even went as far as to imply that Crowe’s Murray helped turn Kaczynski into what he would become. I am not sure the writing of the film was to the level it needed to be, despite a couple of actors bringing the work to a higher level.

The present day storyline felt fairly typical of the true crime genre, without a ton of depth. Shailene Woodley was decent, but there just was nothing more to add to the story that hadn’t been covered before. The final scene of the capture of Kaczynski had some tension to it, but it was filmed straight up and simple when it could have had more layers.

There just was not much to the overall story, and that is a shame as the Unabomber was one of the 20th centuries biggest criminal cases.

2.8 stars

Avengers Endgame: Encore

Posted on by

Are the new scenes that were added to the end of Avengers Endgame: Encore necessary to see to understand Avengers: Doomsday coming in December? Maybe not… but I don’t care.

It was freakin’ epic.

Would I have gone to the theater had there not been new scenes? Damn straight. Avengers: Endgame is my favorite movie of all time (right up there with Princess Bride) and I loved watching this movie on the big screen. I was in the same IMAX theater where I saw this movie the first time.

This was my tenth time seeing this movie in a theater, and it was every bit as awesome as the first time. The big moments still brought tears to my eyes despite having seen it as many times as I have (including multiple times on Disney +).

No spoilers for the new scenes at the end, but I found all of them extremely amazing. They were short. There were four bits that were added in a way or another.

The film is very long, but I have to say that I never felt its length. Each aspect of the film worked so well and flowed beautifully. That third act is one of the best third acts in all of movies. Yet I believe the first two acts are as great as any as well.

Watching this movie, I am amazed at the cast that they brought back for this movie. We had the Avengers and Thanos, of course, but also actors such as Robert Redford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, Tilda Swinton, Frank Grillo, Rene Russo, John Slattery, Hayley Atwell, Jon Favreau, Angela Bassett, William Hurt, Hiroyuki Sanada, James D’Arcy, Jacob Batalon, Ken Jeong, and several surprise appearances in the new scenes.

I loved this experience again and the new scenes only helped but make me even more excited for Doomsday. Endgame remains at the top of my list of films.

5 stars, of course.

Primetime

Posted on by

I have been excited about this movie from A24 for awhile now. I did watch How to Catch a Predator at times, though not regularly (as the film tells us… it was up against LOST) and this sounded interesting.

I have to say that I did like this movie, and I think that Robert Pattinson did a great job as Chris Hansen. There was something about the film that just felt off. I am not sure what it is about Primetime that did not work as well as I would have liked it, but it was an interesting film.

The behind the scenes aspects of How to Catch a Predator was weird and strange. I am not sure what was happening with Chris Hansen. He was extremely creepy in the story as well. The film split the difference between Chris Hansen and Dan Plum (Skyler Gisondo) as what felt like the co-protagonists.

I had some issues with Skyler Gisondo. I think he is a great actor and he does an admirable job in this movie, but I just had a hard time thinking of him as a 13-year old. That might be just my own problem, but it was in my head the whole time.

The third act took all of the bizarre parts of the film and made it compelling during this over-the-top ending.

I think the film was not as strong as I thought it was going to be, but there were some great performances from both Robert Pattinson and Skyler Gisondo (and also Merrit Wever, whose Andie Bender was a real fascinating addition). The film felt psychedelic at times, which was both intriguing and weird.

I think I enjoyed the film more than what bothered me. It is a strange film but I liked it in the long run.

3.4 stars

Lanterns S1 E6

Posted on by

“Bad Optics”

John Stewart- grave robber.

After last week’s major conclusion of the 2016 storyline, we find ourselves back in 2026 to continue that story that dropped in episode one.

Hal Jordan is dead. Shot in the head.

There were a lot of speculation that Hal was not really dead from the online pundits, but that seemed to be definitively put to bed with this episode.

I really have some questions about John’s motives in this episode and the town’s anger and resentment toward Hal. We learned that Hal and Kerry had a relationship after she split with her husband. John had come back to Rushville because his mother had told him that Hal wanted to apologize. That was a surprise to Hal. John hit him, perhaps breaking Hal’s nose in the process.

We learned that Hal was shot point blank in the head, which was an odd situation. Just off the top of my head (poor pun there) I am guessing that Noah is the one who killed Hal. That would make sense why someone could get that close to Hal to kill him.

John Stewart contacted Guy Gardner with the Green Lantern-signal, which is in the middle of the town, provided by Guy. However, a bunch of men showed up, including Billy, Kerry’s ex-husband, to threaten John. John kicked all of their butts, and eventually ended up in jail for assault.

Guy showed up as John was behind bars. John asked Guy to retrieve Hal’s suit and decommissioned ring so they could bury him in it. Gardner was not anxious to help, seeing as that he would have to fly to Oa to get it. He wound up doing it after all because John had told him that everything he had was because John had refused the ring.

Guy dropped the piece of info that Sinestro had escaped from the space prison. He also confirmed the existence of the Phantom Zone in the DCU.

Carol Ferris made a debut in the episode as well. Carol had a previous connection to Hal Jordan, specifically a main love interest in the actual comic books. She apparently had become the Star Sapphire in the comics, which I did not realize since I do not collect the Green Lantern books.

John, Carol and Kerry were the only ones in attendance at the funeral, and they did bury Hal, only for John to come back at night and dig him up to retrieve the ring.

Did not see that coming.

I kept waiting for the ring to fly off Hal’s hand and choose John, especially as John was reading Hal’s handwritten eulogy. This scene reminded me of the episode of The Boys where Hughie read the letter written by Frenchie.

Of course, the ring had 5% power left for some reason and John used it to bring back the Hal-ogram with the intention of using it to help solve the murder.

Two more episodes remaining.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #87

Posted on by

DTF St. Louis

“Cornhole”

An Emmy winning limited series from HBO Max is the next show for the Sunday Morning Sidewalk and I am a little disappointed. Not with the show, I thought it was a compelling and gripping first episode that I am excited to continue. I am disappointed because I knew the premise of the show before I watched episode one.

I knew that there would be a surprising murder in episode one… truthfully, it was what attracted me to the show… but I really wish I had not known this fact because the surprise would have been monumental.

We got some hints at the non-linear storytelling techniques in the first episode as we did see David Harbour’s character Floyd Smernitch in flashbacks after his body had been discovered dead. I do enjoy the non-linear structure as the use of flashbacks can help tell the story extremely effectively.

Jason Bateman’s weatherman character Clark Forrest feels like the classic red herring, as he was arrested in the first episode. Linda Cardellini, who was Floyd’s wife, Carol, was purposefully made to look sinister at times in the episode.

It’s really early to try to make a judgment on whom the killer is, because there could be any number of factors that played into it that we do not know yet. The manner in which Floyd was killed does seem to limit the number of possibilities.

I love a good mystery and a major character being offed in the first episode is great. It reminded me of when Laura Palmer was found wrapped in plastic, though I do not expect any sort of weirdness like I got in Twin Peaks in DTF St. Louis.

I do love the dynamic between Richard Jennings (who played Detective Donoghue Homer) and Joy Sunday (who played Detective Jodie Plumb). They will be a fun pair to follow as the facts of the case are laid out before the audience.

Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour are awesome actors that I love in just about everything I have seen them in, so I expect this seven-episode limited series to be a fantastic ride. It already dropped a bunch of shocking reveals that I can’t wait to see play out.

Resident Evil (2026)

Posted on by

The Resident Evil franchise is one that I have only ever saw one film prior to this new version from director Zach Cregger. I saw the Resident Evil: The Final Chapter which I soundly hated. I do have the first film of the franchise schedule to be among the October the 13th-watch films this year. However, I went into this new Resident Evil film with a very hopeful attitude. I have found Zach Cregger’s recent films, Weapons and Barbarian to have been exceptional horror/thriller films and I had heard a lot of positive word of mouth. Still, I was not totally convinced of the quality this film would be.

After seeing the film, I am ready to declare that 2026 is truly the year of the horror film. Not only did we get Obsession, Backrooms, Buddy, Exit 8, Send Help, The End of Oak Street, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Deep Water, Hokum, Leviticus, and still have sever such as Clayface, The Other Mommy, Werwulf, and Godzilla Minus Zero still to come, but the new Resident Evil film was a fabulous film.

Bryan (Austin Abrams) was a hapless courier who was enlisted to take a medical package to the hospital in Raccoon City. As he made his way through the snowy conditions, Bryan encountered some monstrous creatures trying to kill him.

The number one thing that made this movie so awesome was the performance of Austin Abrams as our protagonist. Abrams had appeared in the HBO show Euphoria as well as Weapons and Wolfs before this role, and he showed that he was a charming, wonderful lead for the film. He delivered every line with such a flair that you could not help but cheer for the guy.

Again, with much thanks to Abrams, this film was just unexpectedly funny. I did not expect to laugh as much as I did in Resident Evil, and laughing when the film wanted me to laugh. I credit Austin Abrams’ work in the film for a large part of why it was so funny.

There were moments of the movie that were extremely tense too. The jump scares were kept to a minimum and were remarkably successful when they did show up. The tension was created from the situation and by placing Bryan into circumstances that the audience responded to effectively.

Without spoiling, the ending of Resident Evil (2026) did leave me a little dissatisfied overall, but it was not a deal breaker as some films have been. This third act resolution is not unwatchable by any means. I just wanted a different result.

I never played the video game that this franchise was based upon, so I do not know how the hardcore Resident Evil fans would take it, but I know I was never confused by what was on the screen. Could there be some Easter eggs that I did not realize? Sure, possibly, but I absolutely feel as if previous viewing was unnecessary to enjoy this movie.

This was a scary, funny, hoot of a good time movie with a lead actor who I think is going to be a superstar soon.

4.4 stars

Hope

Posted on by

My friend Chris asked me if I was going to see Hope this weekend. I had no idea what it was. He sent me a link, which introduced me to this Korean action/sci-fi/monster movie. I also heard some chatter about how wild this movie was, so when I saw the film available at Cinemark, it moved up my list.

Wild is not the appropriate descriptor for the film.

According to IMDB, “A mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. The residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.“

The movie starts off with the Chief of Police (Hwang Jung-min) getting called by his cousin Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung) to investigate a dead cow on the road that had gaping claw wounds on its body. This led to a pursuit of some kind of monster that is rampaging through the heart of the small town.

Another character that I enjoyed a great deal in this movie was Im Sung-ae, who was played by Jung Ho-yeon- one of the stars of the first season of Squid Game.

The first act of this movie is basically the monster and Chief going through the city and it was tremendous. There were so many epic action moments that were amazingly shot. Some of the CGI was a touch shaky, but there were also some awesome CGI as well. There were no moments of bad CGI that took me out of the movie.

There was a switch along the line when we discover something unexpected and it changes the perspective. It is still some greatness, as there are a ton of great action chases and exciting, thrill ride scenes.

There were some extremely funny scenes too. Especially some of the dialogue of the film was hilarious and my entire theater was laughing at it.

Hope, though I am not sure where that name comes from, is so great for most of this movie that the long run time of over two and a half hours did not feel that way for me. I really was considering this being the second 5 star review of the day.

However, without spoiling anything, the ending of this movie dropped a gigantic HUH??? on the audience and came from out of nowhere. I was totally confused at the end of the film, and it hurt a film that I thought was superb so far. It felt like the film was incomplete. It does sound like they are working on the sequel.

As with any foreign language film, I forgot the fact that I was reading the English dub on the screen as the film progressed. It just becomes part of the experience. I prefer reading the subtitles over having English actors dub the words because the performances always seem to suffer in that way. The tone of voices is as important as the words that they are saying.

This was a lot of fun even though the ending dinged it. It is a bat-shit crazy film that flipped the script a couple of times and kept me tense and anxious the whole time.

4.5 stars

Practical Magic 2

Posted on by

I was in the theater watching Practical Magic 2 and there were a couple of young women sitting a couple seats away from me. They were enjoying this movie so much. They were crying, gasping, leaning on each other and reacting to everything that was happening. It made me remember how I reacted to Avengers: Endgame on the first watch. There was an energy coming from them that was wonderful.

I wish I would have liked the movie anywhere near what they did.

I just watched Practical Magic for the first time earlier this week in preparation for this movie, and, while I did not like it that much, I am glad I watched it, because you needed to know the story of the original in order to know what is happening.

The curse of the Owens sisters (Sandra Bullock & Nicole Kidman) takes front and center once again as Sally’s husband Gary died off screen, confirming that the curse was still going on. The story transferred to Sally’s daughters, Antonia (Maisie Williams) and Kylie (Joey King), as they were coming to celebrate the birthday of Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest). Sally had kept her daughters in the dark about their background as witches so when Kylie came with a boyfriend (Xolo Maridueña), things take a turn for tragedy.

The actors are all likeable. I have to admit to only seeing Blue Beetle when Xolo Maridueña was on screen. I was also happy to see Stockard Channing, who I really thought was dead.

The story felt very shaky and I found it to be the biggest weakness of the film. The writing was silly and it was really predictable. I was rolling my eyes several times.

I am glad the young ladies in my row enjoyed this so much. I did not hate the film, but I did not find it any better than the original, which I thought was below level.

2.8 stars

Buddy

Posted on by

I have been trying to get to the movie, Buddy, for the last two weeks, but it just was not working out. So when I went to schedule this week’s movies, Buddy was the priority.

Man, am I glad I made this a priority. I loved this movie.

Buddy reminded me of the late WWE superstar Brey Wyatt, who had a stretch where he was playing a demented children’s host, much like Mr. Rogers. Instead of Mr. Rogers, this is a demented Barney.

Buddy is an orange unicorn who hangs out with a bunch of little kids who sing to Buddy and tell him how much they love him, but it turned out that there was something much more sinister than you expect.

The film started off showing what seemed like an episode of “It’s Buddy” and the first one felt fun. However, it definitely took a turn soon after. Everything looked like it was one of those cheap ’90s kiddies show, but that was what the creators of the film wanted it to look like.

I just thought this was so great as the kids slowly learned about Buddy’s true nature, and i found myself really cheering for these kids. Wade was my favorite one (played by Caleb Williams), and the kid seemed like her was absolutely in a Barney episode. I think that was intentional. Another of the lead kids were Freddy (Delany Quinn) and she did a great job as the overall protagonist.

After a point in the film, the story left the “It’s Buddy” set in the middle and we were in the real world. It was discombobulating at first, but the craziness of these scene, plus the awesome Cristin Milioti and Topher Grace were involved in the story. I was so into this movie that I was trying to guess what was going down during this time and I found myself yelling at Topher Grace for his character.

There are some legitimately horrifying moments in the film with some awesome gore. It was such an entertaining film that I was completely invested in. I was alone in the theater, which allowed me to be as expressive as I could be, and I loved what happened.

There were some real funny moments in the film too… in a really dark comedic manner. It is one of the most creative films of 2026. I loved Buddy and it is another odd film that I absolutely enjoyed completely.

5 stars

The Runner

Posted on by

Amazon Prime has had some big “winners” from their original films. Anyone who saw War of the World a couple of years ago knows to what I refer.

I did know that the latest Gal Gadot movie, The Runner, was being dropped on Amazon Prime. I saw that it was available to see free and I could not believe it.

I can see now why it was available free.

No one would pay for this movie. What in the heck was this?

First, Gal Gadot played Maia, a high-powered lawyer, whose son was kidnapped and the kidnapper blackmails Maia. The kidnapper (played by Damian Lewis) put her son into a diabetic coma and threatened to give him another dose that would kill him. He gives the boy an IV with a drip so there is a counting clock on Maia.

He wanted her to go and shoot her key witness who is going to testify against some mob boss. Then he had her run across London in order to get to kill the guy. It is like Die Hard With a Vengeance meets Speed, but way stupider than either one.

Gal Gadot is just not a good actress. She absolutely peaked with the first Wonder Woman. There were some unbelievably horrendous scenes with her performances. There is one moment where a train was going past her that was some of the worst acting I have ever seen. It was Tommy Wiseau level acting.

The situation is as stupid as it could be. How did this guy get his hands on the kid? Maia dropped him off at school. He wanted his mom to walk him into the school, but she ignored him. It was just a few scenes later when Lewis had the kid in a room and had him in the coma. There is just no way this set up worked in any fashion. Suspension of disbelieve is one thing, but this is just not possible.

The entire film makes zero sense. There is a moment where Maia runs down a subway train. I wish I was kidding.

The one positive of the film is that I did not see any Amazon Prime product placement, which is something they must have learned from War of the Worlds. Now… Nike shoes is a different thing.

The editing of the movie is just terrible. It is so noticeable that it is so obnoxious that I can’t even explain it.

It is only a 85 minute film, but it really felt like it was double that.

It is truly one of the worst movies of the year. Way to go, Amazon. You’ve got another winner.

0.5 stars

The Muppet Show S2 E16-E24

Posted on by

Spoilers

Guest Star: Cleo Lane

Guest Star: Julie Andrews

Guest Star: Jaye P. Morgan

Guest Star: Peter Sellers

Guest Star: Petula Clark

Guest Star: Bob Hope

Guest Star: Teresa Brewer

Guest Star: John Cleese

Guest: Cloris Leachman

I have to say that the Muppet Show truly got some of the biggest stars of the time to guest star on their show. Bob Hope, Cloris Leachman, Peter Sellers, John Cleese and Julie Andrews were iconic names that, even today, would be recognized by the public as superstars. Sure there was Cleo Lane, who I swear I have never heard of before, but most of this list was remarkable.

That was the power of Jim Henson and the Muppets. Everyone wanted to appear on the show and the entire second season was littered with amazing superstars as guests.

Even with the ton of superstar celebrities, it seemed that Rowlf had plenty of time to play the piano. Rowlf was given time to play a variety of musical pieces, even if they had to speed a few of them up because of time. My favorite one during this block of episodes was when he and Fozzie played the piano. I laughed out loud when Rowlf said to Fozzie that he didn’t know Fozzie played the piano, and Fozzie replied that he did not know it either.

The final episode of season two with Cloris Leachman featured the Muppet Show being taken over by pigs. They locked Kermit, Gonzo and Fozzie in the boiler room and they replaced all the main acts with pigs. Kermit the Pig took over the emceeing, there was a Swedish Chef-pig, Vegetarian’s Hospital among others. Miss Piggy was angry about Kermit being taken away until she found out that she was being featured in the opening number. The call of the stage was just too great for Miss Piggy.

It was nice to see Jaye P. Morgan on the show. I used to love her on the Gong Show, hosted by Chuck Barris, and she was funny. Jay P. Morgan passed away this year, so it was a nice way to honor her. RIP.

The Bob Hope episode was funny as Bob Hope was shown as so busy that he had to go between other gigs and kept returning to the Muppet Show. His “Don’t Fence Me In” song with a sarcastic horse was a highlight of the season.

Season three… here I come.