Meet the Feebles

Dir: Peter Jackson

1989

*****

Long before Peter Jackson was directing epics, winning Oscars and was a knight companion of the New Zealand order of Merit, he wrote, directed and stared in a vomit-inducing sci-fi splatter horror comedy involving aliens and a bloke called Derek who defeats the said aliens single-highhandedly with half of his brain missing. After that, in 1989 to be precise, he made an anti-muppet black comedy musical in which the puppets are involved in adultery, drugs, pornography, and murder and use bad language. It is a masterpiece. Back in the day, Meet The Feebles had a legendary status at school. Spoken of in hushed tones, someone would have claimed to have seen it and some even suggested that 'their brother's mate's dad could probably lend it to them' and there was always false promise that they'd lend it on. I and my mates were desperate to see it, even though we had no hard evidence that it even really existed. This was life -pre-internet. It did exist though and it took quite a long time to track down and buy a copy but it was well worth the wait. It's extremely juvenile, questionable in taste, rips the hell out of all things Jim Henson and is rather graphic but it's also hilarious. It's the dark, underground cult film that I had always hoped it would be. It keeps the format of the Muppet Show in that the puppets perform and are then seen socializing back stage, in the Muppet Show they generally interact with the guest star and mess about a bit, in The Feebles they argue, have sex, do drugs and kill each other. I'm a huge Muppet fan but to see the exact opposite of my childhood favourite, in all its spectacular depravity was quite a moment for me in my adolescence. The songs are outrageous and 'roll about on the floor' funny. It was one of those hard to get cult films that surpassed its reputation. There is so much to enjoy, indeed, there was nothing about it I didn't enjoy, and it contains what is probably the finest Vietnam flashback ever committed to film. It makes me wonder why Jackson and co spent millions on The Lord of the Rings films when they could have used less than half the money to make a Feebles Trilogy? The Feebles was initially intended to be a TV show, with Japanese investors keen to invest but alas, all we have is this treasured film. Some of the best films have come from funny people, with wild ideas and no money to make it, Meet the Feebles is probably the best example of that that I can think of. The stuff of cult legend.