By The Muppets did well over the holiday weekend, both a critical darling and a financial success. Because of the film, NBC is currently developing a new show with muppets with Jim Henson Studios. It’s not the Muppets, but you figure some more Muppet films and related stuff will follow in the future. While it may be premature, you might as well scream “Yay!” while flopping your felty arms around.
It turns out, there was a different ending to The Muppets than what showed up on screen. No, it wasn’t a demented bloodbath like in Meet the Feebles, nor did Lew Zealand kill Dante Hicks with a boomerang fish.
We’ve got the info on the alternate ending after the jump, as well as information on a deleted scene. Obviously there are SPOILERS, so abandon hope of surprise all ye who enter below.
[Via Hollywood Reporter, Badass Digest]
Well okay. Here’s a description of the alternate ending:
The endings diverge when the big tote board comes up one dollar short. In the released film, Fozzie bumps it and we see they’re actually millions short. In the original film, they’re always one dollar short, and when it looks like all hope is lost, Waldorf and Statler pipe up from the balcony. “That wasn’t so bad after all,” they say, and toss down a dollar. The Muppets are victorious.
If it ended like that, I would have wanted Statler, Waldorf, and company to break out into David Bowie’s “Heroes.”
So as for that deleted scene we mentioned. Turns out a lot of cameos and secondary character material wound up getting cut as director James Bobin was crafting the film. One bit in particular involves Chris Cooper’s character, Tex Richman (maniacal laugh), and also ties into the alternate ending:
Another deleted sequence involved a flashback to Tex’s childhood. We learn that he was entertained at his birthday by the Muppets (remember him saying at the beginning of the film that he’s been a fan since he was a kid?), but for some reason Tex can’t laugh. He can’t receive the third greatest gift the Muppets have to offer. It’s traumatizing for him…
…At the end of the film, Gonzo would still have hit him with the bowling ball, which would knock loose the block that kept Richman from laughing — we actually see him laughing in his hospital bed in the finished film. So while Richman would have lost the day he would have won back his ability to laugh.
So what do you think of these alternate scenes?
