Retroulette #7: Jim Henson's Muppets

Today's game is Jim Henson's Muppets , for the Gameboy Color.

Historically, The Muppets are only something I enjoy in their baby forms, but I guess I can give this game a shot.

The game opens up with a--What the hell?!

Co-developed by Epic Games (not pictured)

This might be the Muppet game I always wanted. Driving around an open world, running over muppets and getting in firefights with the police, taking on missions transporting whatever drugs Animal is always on. This could be the best game ever!

See, this is a Muppets game!

This is followed of course by some more trademark screens.

I don't think that's entirely accurate.

Then the main menu. The Muppets are playing some static-y song onstage. There's of course a High Scores menu. I mean, who wouldn't want to brag to their friends they got to the top of the Muppets for Gameboy Color leaderboard?

I've made it my mission in life to knock that smug-ass Lackey off the top of the charts. So I start the game. I'm treated to a clip of the gang of Muppets going backstage.

Including a horribly burnt Miss Piggy.

Later,  Kermit and Animal show up separately. Who knows what they were doing off by themselves. But they're locked out of the building. Inside, we see the rest of the Muppets happily walking into some machine and sizzling into nothing while Dr. Bunsen Honeydew looks on in delight.

"Where is my beloved Kermi-oh god my face!!"

I really have no idea what's happening here. Each one is incinerated yet the one behind them just continues smiling and accepts their fate. Turn back guys!! The door is locked from the inside! Unbelievably, something goes wrong with the machine powered by puppets.

You can't see the rest of the scrolling message, but it says: "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Next we see Honeydew and Beaker being blown up, and I'm glad right away. These monsters deserve no less than an eternity being ripped apart by Muppet demons in Muppet Hell. The explosion blows the door right off allowing Kermit and Animal to see what's up. Confusingly, we next see the disintegrated Muppets being absorbed into some Twilight Zone vortex.

And still absolutely ecstatic about it.

Disappointingly, Honeydew and Beaker survive the massive explosion and calmly explain the situation to Kerms and Animal. So now Kermit and Animal get into the machine, which I guess now works like a charm. Instead of being sucked into a vortex though, the two Muppets are at a control panel. Ok, so clearly this is a time machine. But even so, what the hell kind of rock show is this? The Muppets were clearly going backstage to get ready for a performance earlier. There's a banner with their name on it and people already waiting in line. I mean, yeah, going back in time sounds cooler than performing another lame ass Muppets song for the thousandth time, but you have obligations guys!

Anyway, there appears to be six time periods with a different Muppet in each.

The already horribly burnt Miss Piggy has about five minutes before she's bacon.

I decide to go back to dinosaur times to save the Swedish Chef, because I figure my experiences in Joe and Mac should come in handy here. I'm playing as Animal in this level, and my control options appear to be limited to "jump" and "throw drumsticks". The drumsticks have a range of about one foot before they disappear, and also they are weak as shit. The first enemy is a baby green dinosaur and it takes like eight drumsticks to kill him. Also they are finite. You have to collect drumsticks around the level or else you are even more screwed. The levels are a confusing maze and I have no idea where I'm going. There's all kinds of paths that go nowhere. I find myself face to face with a Saber-tooth Tiger, and no amount of drumsticks kills this jerk. He killed me like three times.

ohshitohshitohshit

Statler and Waldorf make fun of me for dying though, so that's pretty cool. I eventually find out where to go, and then I'm hit with an Iceman style disappearing platform section! The controls in the game are nowhere near accurate enough for me to pull this off, so I fall into some lava and it's game over.

Damn dinosaurs and their disappearing hover platform technology.

Next I decide to try to save Miss Piggy as Kermit. The difference between him and Animal is Kermit has a high jump (being a frog and all) and he throws paper airplanes instead of drumsticks. Paper. Airplanes. Kermit sucks ass. Anyway, this level is even harder than the last one. It's a maze of conveyer belts, more disappearing platforms, and lava. There's shit all over the place, like apples, bananas, stars, cupcakes, and I have no idea what any of them are for. And this level goes on forever. As soon as you get to the end of the stage, another screen appears and it's back to collecting cupcakes. And there's this mummy bastard that takes like twenty freaking paper airplanes to kill. Admittedly it would take far more paper airplanes thrown into my face before I exploded, but it's ridiculous.

This paper isn't strong enough Kermit, it's time to move onto throwing feathers at him.

Eventually some bird kills me and it's game over again. Is this supposed to be a kids game? I'm in my twenties and can't beat a single level!

Laugh it up Lackey, this isn't over.

HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

Well, this is a Muppets game, and those are some Muppets. As we all know though, Animal and Kermit went into the vortex after the rest of them, so this box art is a classic case of false advertising.