Saturday Night has quickly become one of the most anticipated movies of the fall season, but has been getting some blowback on how it handles the depiction of Muppets creator Jim Henson. Directed by Jason Reitman, the film chronicles the ninety minutes before the first episode of Saturday Night Live aired. Following a report by Slate regarding Saturday Night‘s depiction of Jim Henson and The Muppets, various Muppets fans took to social media to express their displeasure with the early reviews for the film.
In Saturday Night, Jim Henson is played by Succession star Nicolas Braun (who also plays Andy Kaufman in the film), is depicted as being a straight-laced member of the Saturday Night Live crew who in the film is treated as a joke, often the source of ridicule, with Henson’s collaborator and fellow Muppet innovator Frank Oz being present but never being given a line of dialogue. An excerpt from Cracked‘s reporting on Jim Henson’s depiction in Saturday Night gained plenty of traction when it was shared by Kermitment – A Muppets Podcast saying, “This review of ‘Saturday Night’ from Cracked pretty much confirms our worst fears about the film.” The account Muppet History wrote, “If you think Jim Henson was a square. Then you have completely missed the basic concept of Jim Henson.”
Here are some other reactions to the news, with many frustrated by the depiction, while others are open to the film’s interpretation since it does match how the Saturday Night Live writers treated Jim Henson at the time.
Jim Henson’s Complicated Relationship on Saturday Night Live
By the time Henson joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1975, he had already established himself thanks to his groundbreaking children’s series Sesame Street, which made some of his Muppets household names. Yet Henson always knew The Muppets as a concept could be more than children’s entertainment and hoped to bring them to primetime television in adult-oriented programming. Henson and his Muppet crew were only part of the first season of Saturday Night Live with a series of sketches called The Land of Gorch, although the writers of SNL hated writing the segments with Michael O’Donoghue, played by Tommy Dewey in Saturday Night, famously saying “I won’t write for felt.”
After a hostile first season and The Land of Gorch sketches being universally panned by critics, Henson and company departed SNL and launched The Muppet Show in September 1976. The series became a major hit, running for five seasons and launching a massive multimedia franchise that still runs today.
Henson is a beloved entertainment figure and certainly has a lot more positive goodwill than Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Hence, it makes sense why fans obviously would be upset at Saturday Night‘s depiction of Henson being a joke within the film. However, it is worth noting that many commenting have not seen the film. While the film might portray Henson as a stiff, that might not be the movie casting judgment on him, but more having the audience be aware of the dramatic irony of what the future holds for Henson and The Muppets. This will certainly become more clear when the movie opens in theaters.
Saturday Night
opens in theaters on September 27, 2024.