Meet the Feebles

This deliberately gross movie uses mangy muppets to send up the backstage musical. As the cast of the 'Meet the Feebles' variety show lurch towards a live performance that may land them a syndicated TV series, we are party to the egomaniac excesses, tribulations and jealousies that beset corrupt producer Bletch the Walrus, star singer Heidi the Hippo, star-struck new boy Robert the Hedgehog, and a host of talentless performers and backstage johnnies. Tacky song-and-dance numbers punctuate the action, but despite the attention to set and puppet design, the penning of seven original songs, and Murray Milne's often inventive camerawork, the question remains: why bother to go to all this trouble in order to make a string of gags about vomiting, pissing, shitting, jissom pressure, bunnilingus, and knicker-sniffing anteaters? More generous observers might cite the parallel with bad taste guru John Waters; but compared to this shallow crap, even the Baltimore Bard's offerings run deep.