Meet the Feebles

(1989) Directed by Peter Jackson; Written by: Fran Walsh, Stephen Sinclair, Danny Mulheron, and Peter Jackson; Starring: Danny Mulheron, Donna Akersten, Stuart Devenie Mark Hadlow and Ross Jolly. Available on DVD.

Rating: ***½

Note: Back in 2018, Peter Jackson announced that he was supervising the 4K transfers of his early works, including Meet the Feebles. Sadly, we have yet to enjoy the fruits of his labor in UHD (as nature intended) or HD. As a result, I hope you’ll excuse the shoddy quality of the screenshots below, taken from a (presumably) gray market DVD.     

“If we’re satirizing anything it’s the squeamishness of people, breaking taboos – but just for fun. Using puppets allowed us to do a lot of things I never would have tried with humans, we got away with murder, and made a lot of people blind to the film’s subversivness. But some found it sacrilegious to make an adult puppet film with sex and splatter violence.” – Peter Jackson (excerpt from 1992 Film Threat interview)

“I had a phone call recently from a couple of people in Los Angeles who had seen the film the night before and they were talking about the fly: ‘We were just assuming it was some really nice blue-screen work and motion control,’ and I said, ‘No, we just dragged it on the end of a piece of string.”’ – Peter Jackson (excerpt from 1990 interview)

If you ever watched The Muppet Show and wondered why it didn’t have more sex, scatological humor, and general nastiness, my first question would be, what’s wrong with you? On second thought, I might have exactly what you’re seeking. How do you follow up a debut called Bad Taste (1987), which suitably lived up to its title? With something even more objectionable, of course. Director/co-writer/camera operator Peter Jackson’s sophomore effort, Meet the Feebles*/** was promoted with the tagline: “The adult puppet movie with something to offend everybody!” In this case, it’s not an idle boast, featuring every imaginable form of effluvia (Yes, even THAT) leaking from every orifice for your stomach-turning pleasure. Filmed over 12 weeks for an estimated $750,000 (NZD),*** Jackson and crew used an abandoned railway shed in Wellington as their base of operations. When production went over-budget and over-schedule, the crew were pressed to complete the film with deferred salaries. 

* Fun Fact #1: Meet the Feebles wasn’t originally intended to be a feature film, but a 30-minute (or 20-minute according to another article) short for a proposed New Zealand television show, Uncle Herman’s Bedtime Whoppers. 

** Fun Fact #2: Meet the Feebles marks the first of many collaborations with Jackson’s longtime creative and life partner, Fran Walsh (who met Jackson during a screening of Bad Taste). 

*** Fun Fact #3: Although partially funded by a Japanese distribution company, it was mostly paid for with money from the New Zealand Film Commission. When the Commission reviewed a copy of the script, they subsequently pulled funding for Jackson’s movie (which they later reconsidered).

Meet the Feebles chronicles a day in the life of a troupe of performers in a variety show, leading up to their big TV debut. As with all good backstage dramas, it provides a warts-and-all peek behind the curtains, with a collection of scandals that would make Kenneth Anger blush. The show’s producer, an unscrupulous walrus named Bletch, has his fingers in several pies, including cheating on his slightly over-the-hill girlfriend Heidi the Hippo with a petite feline ingenue, while running a drug ring on the side. He’s accompanied by his sleazy henchman/enforcer Trevor (a rat who sounds like Peter Lorre), who has a side-business of his own, making porn and snuff films. Meanwhile, star performer Harry the Hare has contracted a deadly STD (aka: “The Big One”),** with his doctor (appropriately named Dr. Quack) informing him he only has several hours left to live. Add to the mix Sid the Elephant, who’s slapped with a paternity lawsuit by his chicken ex-girlfriend (Guess what the baby looks like?). Basking in the glow of all these trespasses and tragedies is a muckraker journalist fly,** gleefully compiling material for his tabloid. The only character in this frenzied, backstabbing soap opera who appears to be innocent of any wrongdoing is naïve young performer, Robert the Hedgehog,*** who serves as our guide to the ensuing insanity. 

* Fun Fact #4: According to a couple of articles, Harry is suffering from an acute form of myxomatosis, a potentially fatal disease that affects rabbits. 

** Fun Fact #5: According to Jackson, “The way I try to deflate that scene with humour is that he’s eating the shit with a nice silver spoon and he has this really funny line of dialogue. Ninety-nine per cent of people won’t hear that line because they’ll be far too busy freaking out.” 

*** Fun Fact #6: The Robert puppet required up to five operators for body movement as well as facial expressions.

Although Jackson insisted none of the puppets were intended to be direct parodies of specific Muppets (something he probably said to keep Jim Henson’s lawyers appeased), it’s impossible not to see the multiple parallels in the chaotic behind-the-scenes drama. Heidi the Hippo is analogous to Miss Piggy, down to her flair for diva antics. The knife-throwing Wynard the Frog, a chronic PTSD sufferer and heroin addict, seems to be an amalgamation of Muppets Signor Baffi and Lew Zealand (we learn more about his traumatic past, with a flashback parody of The Deer Hunter, containing some ill-advised Asian stereotype rodents). Another famous Muppet makes a stealth appearance when Harry the Hare (hoping to make it through the night’s performance) prays to a frog on a cross. Another unmistakable nod to The Muppet Show are the film’s various musical numbers, including the jaunty title track, Heidi’s schmaltzy “Garden of Love,” and Blech’s stage director Sebastian’s would be show-stopper, “Sodomy” (Did I mention this film is anything but subtle?).

It’s hard to believe that the road to Jackson’s runaway commercial success with the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises was paved with such early works as Meet the Feebles, when a “try anything” approach ruled the day (and try anything, he did). If Jackson had never experimented with throwing stuff at the wall to see what stuck, it’s questionable that he would have adequately refined his filmmaking skills. Given the time, resources and budget, it’s a minor miracle that Jackson and company were able to create such an impressive array of Mup- (Ahem!) Feebles. As strange as it may seem, the film’s numerous creations* were a dress rehearsal for the many wondrous Wētā Workshop** creatures and effects that would follow. Compared to his considerably more polished later films, Meet the Feebles is crude, tasteless, and scattershot. It’s also quite funny, forcing audiences to laugh despite their better nature. We may never see anything like it again, which is, perhaps, at once a shame and a relief. 

* Fun Fact #7: Cameron Chittock led the construction of various puppets, ranging in size from tiny fly puppet to the appropriately named whale Mr. Big, which was approximately 20 feet long. 

** Fun Fact #8: Future Wētā Workshop founders Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger cut their teeth on the film’s production, as model maker and puppet coordinator/maker, respectively. 

 

Sources for this article: “Spluppet on a Shoestring,” by Steve Menzies, Onfilm (1989); “Jackson’s Movies: Meet the Feebles,” Film Review Special. 2005, Issue 60, p50-51; “Just the Feebles,” by Sheldon Teitelbaum, Cinefantastique, 1990, volume 20; Braindead: An Interview with Peter Jackson,” by David E. Williams, Film Threat (February 17, 1992); “Meet Your Creature Feature,” by Ian Prior, Illusions (Issue 13, 1990); “Braindead: An Interview with Peter Jackson,” by David E. Williams, Film Threat (February 17, 1992); “Sex, Drugs and Soft Toys,” TVNZ (1989)