Hello everyone, this is Joshua Gillespie, aka “JG TheMuppetMan” as some like to call me, and I hope you’re all having a wonderful Summer. I can’t believe we’re already this far into the year. Now while you could be outside burning up, sweating, feeling awful and all that fun stuff, why not stay indoors and read a book about our favorite characters enjoying the great outdoors?…or at least trying to. Today I’ll be looking at the book The Muppets Go Camping from 1981, written by Jocelyn Stevenson, who would later go on to write for Fraggle Rock. This book was also released 2 years before they went camping with John Denver. So how does their first endeavor in the wilderness turn out?
The Story
Kermit the Frog is relaxing in his pad when he notices a note from Robin. He’s gone out into the woods to earn a Frog Scouts badge for “Frog-in-the-Wilds” and he’ll be back tomorrow. The next day Kermit tells Fozzie and says he wouldn’t mind spending a night outdoors. However, Fozzie gets the wrong idea from the note. In his mind, Robin is IN DANGER! He could freeze or possibly get attacked by bears…because irony. And it’s up to Kermit and Fozzie to go protect him.
But before they can leave, Gonzo, Sweetums, Floyd, Animal and even Miss Piggy show up ready to help. So the search is on for Robin, and they try to find a place to set up camp. They try a swamp (Gonzo’s idea), a tree (Animal’s idea), and finally they decide to stop in a ditch. Then it’s time to find some food. Fozzie looks for berries, so he can make a cheap BEAR pun, and Gonzo goes fishing. They end up with shoe-and-berry stew (a delicacy in Milwaukee). After eating they go out searching for Robin in the dark. They find his hat, a match, and some footprints. They follow them, leading them to a cave, a spooky house then finally back to the campsite where they find Robin, who has set the fire and gathered fish and mushrooms. In the end Robin was able to take care of himself and earns TWO Frog Scout badges. The Frog-in-the-Wilds badge and also “For Helping Campers in Trouble.”
So, what did I enjoy about The Muppets Go Camping?
The Positives
The illustrations. This book is fantastic from a visual standpoint. The background art is wonderful, has an overall watercolor style which I dig and all of the Muppets look great. These expressions are outstanding and perfectly replicate the puppets. A lot of times in books (or early Disney VHS artwork) characters are depicted with wrong coloring but here it’s all correct.
Bruce McNally was even able to sneak in a couple cameos such as Beauregard and this dragonfly from The Muppets Go Camping. Also, there’s this creature holding onto butterfly wings.
Gonzo. Gonzo is my favorite Muppet. He does a lot in this book and it’s nice to see him get some love, especially since he barely gets any these days. (Hoping the new show fixes that)
And unfortunately, that’s about it for positive things.
The Negatives
It feels too cramped. It’s nice to have all of these Muppets along for the ride, but it also means most of them don’t get any attention. Floyd Pepper does more in this book than Miss Piggy. There’s something wrong with that. Speaking of Piggy, she does practically nothing. I was expecting her to complain and be the bossy pig we all know and love, but instead we get ONE line that feels “in-character”, when she says “If helpless little Robin can camp without food, so can we. So why doesn’t somebody just run down to the store.”
Kermit. Okay, now I’m asking for trouble. Here’s the thing: outside of the cover, Kermit is shown smiling on THREE of the pages. The rest of the time he’s either irritated or sad. Kermit is supposed to be our source for positivity but instead with each page he’s regretting this more and more.
It just isn’t funny. There are a few jokes that made me laugh such as Fozzie freaking out about Robin, but overall (and maybe this is because I’m an adult now) the book isn’t funny. If anything it’s depressing; look at some of these drawings.
Instead of being the fun-loving Muppets we know, they’re terrified and sad. It’s not as much The Muppets Go Camping as it is The Muppets Nearly Die in the Woods. The cover is even more misleading. If only we could have had the happy book it makes us believe it’ll be.
Overall
At the end of the day, this is a book for kids. It doesn’t need a deep storyline, or even good structure. I could see myself as a kid enjoying it just for the pictures. There are a lot of problems though; it’s cramped and feels rushed. I think it would have been fun to show the parallels throughout the day, like Robin collecting food with ease while the grownups have so much trouble with it. It’s also not a happy book. Most of the time the Muppets are sad or scared. While it does nothing offensive (it’s not like they start trying to kill each other), there are much better Muppet books which I plan to review in the future. But as for The Muppets Go Camping, unless you collect Muppet books, this one can be skipped. Show your kids Rocky Mountain Holiday instead.
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