20 Best Muppet Christmas Carol Moments

The Singing Vegetables from The Muppet Show (Image via Jim Henson Productions)

2. Those Singing Vegetables

You might need to re-watch the movie to catch this. If you’re like me, though, the image of singing vegetables might just be burned into your brain.

Am I nuts for remembering this? I didn’t hallucinate it, right? Early on in the movie, while the Muppets are singing about mean old Scrooge, the camera briefly moves over to a produce stall. Okay, fine. Normal, even.

Until you realize that cabbage has a face. And is it singing in harmony with a bunch of grapes?

So, these characters are actually called the Singing Food. They debuted in 1977 on The Muppet Show. They’ve actually got something of a history, believe it or not. I would pay good money to be at that first pitch meeting where someone, some hero of puppetry, said, “Why don’t we give that eggplant a face? And make it sing alto?”

Other Singing Vegetables include a cantaloupe, some cauliflower, bell peppers, potatoes, and a sack of beans. They all have totally black eyes, which is maybe why they periodically show up in people’s nightmares.

Okay, they’re also kind of cute. I’ll give you that. But eight year old me was still a little unnerved by the sudden appearance of a produce chorus in a Christmas movie. Adult me thinks that it’s delightfully weird, too.