The Muppets and the Phantom of the Opera don’t quite mix (Review)

Erik Forrest Jackson aimed to mash the Muppets and the Phantom of the Opera together, but while there are some legitimately clever points, it’s not perfect.

Even if you’re more familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s take on the story of Christine Daaé, Erik, and Raoul, Erik Forrest Jackson’s Muppet-ified version, Muppets Meet the Classics: The Phantom of the Opera, should not be too much of a stretch for you. Does it follow Gaston Leroux’s original more closely? Well, of course it does. That’s why Leroux’s name is also on the cover.

But that doesn’t stop Jackson from taking shots at the better-known musical, either. For those who are completely unfamiliar with the story, a brief summation: Christine is an ingénue who catches the eye of the Phantom of the Opera, who lives under the Paris Opera House, and so he decides to teach her (and also generally be obsessed with her). Meanwhile, Raoul is the Vicomte de Chagny, Christine’s childhood friend, now grown up and in love with her. And Christine? Well, she has a really great singing voice.

Jackson asks us to picture Miss Piggy as Christine, which is funny mostly in the sense that Miss Piggy is absolutely nothing like Christine, and puts Kermit in the role of Raoul, so it’s Piggy Daaé and Kermit de Chagny, with someone else entirely in the role of the Phantom. He’s right there on the cover, so it’s not a spoiler to say it’s Uncle Deadly, right?

Piggy as Christine alone is enough for humor, but every character here has been replaced with a Muppet, and Jackson certainly does an able job of reminding us of the basic character traits of each. Pepé says “okay,” Honeydew forgets the common names of things, Beaker says “meep,” Fozzie tells bad jokes, and so on and so forth.

At least Gonzo’s also here, as are Statler and Waldorf.

The main problem with this book, though, is that it’s quite short (less than 300 pages in the edition sent to me for review), and Jackson packs in the jokes. Does he ever pack in the jokes. Anachronisms abound, and they stop being funny quite quickly because they’re just too easy. Though I think it’s supposed to be funny that Spotify apparently exists, but Pong is only being worked on, it just doesn’t fit, and then in come all the other Muppets to remind you of their character bits.

As a result, there’s no real room for a reader to process every single joke and reference, and it just starts to become tiring after a while. A perspective change towards the end of the book ends up really helping because it’s mostly funny in a different way and not trying quite so hard for laughs.

However, there is one uniformly good part of this book. That would be the full-page illustrations that accompany every chapter, done by Owen Richardson. They are appropriately dramatic, but still convey humorous bits of the text, and, well, it’s still the Muppets!

Ultimately, though, even with the tried-and-true method of sticking the Muppets into a piece of famous literature, Muppets Meet the Classics: The Phantom of the Opera probably won’t capture readers quite like A Muppet Christmas Carol.

For big fans of the franchise, though, this might be more of a must-read.

Next: Doctor Tenth: Christmas Surprise! reviewed

(Also, how precisely does one make “Mahna Mahna” operatic?)