The Muppets Take Manhattan

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The last of the original trilogy of Muppet feature films made by Jim Henson, released in 1984. It was also Frank Oz's directorial debut.

Another take on the origins of the Muppets, this has them having all known each other during college, making a musical show together called Manhattan Melodies and upon graduation, they decide to go to New York City and try to put the show on Broadway rather then just split apart. But with countless failures in trying to sell the show, the group splits apart and go to different parts of the country while Kermit gets a job at a diner and still tries pursuing the dream of getting the show produced. Just as he succeeds and calls all the others back though, he is hit by a car, goes missing and gains a case of amnesia and starts to work in advertising slogans. With the show a week away, the Muppets have to try and find him or try pressing on without him.

One of the musical numbers, featuring baby versions of some of the characters became Muppet Babies and helped to kick-off the whole Spinoff Babies craze.

Tropes used in The Muppets Take Manhattan include:

• Accidental Marriage: At least if you consider the original script, or the comic book adaptation. The movie itself never actually confirms this.
• All Part of the Show: It is made intentionally vague whether or not Kermit and Piggy's wedding was this or something that happened for real and took place after the show they were putting on.
  • "Interviews" of Kermit and Piggy after the movie was released had Kermit stating it was all part of the show, while Piggy insisted it was real.
    • Joan Lunden of Good Morning America even gave them a toaster.
• Big Applesauce
• Bindle Stick: Fozzie during his part in the "Saying Goodbye" number.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Surprisingly, subverted. This is the only major Muppet movie where nobody breaks the fourth wall, even once.
• Chekhov's Gunman: In a "Blink And You'll Miss It" moment, Ronny Crawford can be seen during the Travelling Salesman Montage. One of the cops who comes to arrest the con artists also reappears, when Piggy borrows his skates.
• Darker and Edgier: It's still basically a comedy, but compared to the two previous Muppet movies, The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, this is a darker, more solemn movie with much less over-the-top silliness. This was, apparently, because The Great Muppet Caper, by far the craziest and least serious Muppet movie, hadn't done particularly well in the box office, so they toned the wackiness down for this one.
• Deadpan Snarker: Rizzo the Rat, here in his first major film role and seriously starting his career as the resident cynical wiseguy.
• Dissimile: "Ocean Breeze Soap: It's just like taking an ocean cruise, only there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere"
  • Kermit suggests Exactly What It Says on the Tin, "Ocean Breeze Soap will get you clean." Brilliant!
• Early-Bird Cameo: In the scene where Kermit tells the assorted characters that they can all be in the show, check out the bear standing in the back of the group. That's Bobo Bear, although he wouldn't actually be Bobo for 12 more years.
• Easy Amnesia: Happens to Kermit, he remembers nothing. His reaction to news of his relationship with Miss Piggy is priceless.

Kermit: Me? In love with a pig? Wait 'til I tell the guys in marketing! Ha ha! Maybe you expected me to go HOG-wild? Perhaps you could bring home the BACON! Ahhh... the sounds of love, SU-EEEEE! Oink, oink! Miss Piggy: Cancel the show! Hi-yah!

• Gallows Humor: Right before they walk into Pete's, knowing they have no money to pay and will have to beg:

Kermit: Well, we've got to eat. Floyd: Why start now?

• Get the Sensation
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: At one point everyone is loudly talking at the same time, and Scooter calls for them to be quiet, which they do...except for Janice:

Janice: ...So I told him, "Look, buddy, I don't take my clothes off for anybody, even if it is 'artistic', and..." Oh.

• • Running Gag: Janice's Seven Minute Lull with Gonzo listening to her has been in all three main films.
• Greasy Spoon: Pete's Luncheonette
• Hash House Lingo: "Two zeros on a trampoline with a side of Joan of Arc", which means 2 fried eggs on toast with steak fries.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: The cast of Sesame Street show up in the audience of the Frog-Piggy wedding in Manhattan Melodies. In addition, Baby Rowlf has a Big Bird doll.
  • If you look closely, you can see Uncle Travelling Matt in the audience (in the chapel) during the wedding scene.
• Interspecies Romance: Pig and frog, of course, plus chicken and... whatever. Also, at one point:

Masterson Rat: Do you believe in interspecies dating? Brooke Shields: Well, I've dated some rats before if that's what you mean. [Masterson faints]

• Line-of-Sight Name: Kermit does this, going by the name of "Phillip Phil", because he doesn't know his real name when asked by the frogs in marketing.
• Our Slogan Is Terrible
• Pet the Dog: For someone as self-centered as she is, Miss Piggy has a rare early-movie moment of compassion when she asks Gonzo if Camilla's alright after the incident with the alleged producer.
• Plucky Comic Relief: The rats, most notably Rizzo.
• Retail Therapy: Miss Piggy is given a cheer-up makeover.
• Sanity Slippage: Joan Rivers and Piggy suffer one during the aforementioned Retail Therapy.
• Saw Star Wars 27 Times: Lew Zealand has seen the In-Universe 3D film Attack Of The Killer Fish ninety-seven times. His favorite part is when the fish attack, at which point he tosses boomerang fish around the movie theater to add to the excitement (the other moviegoers think it's All Part of the Show).
• Shout-Out: Word of God states that the entire movie is an Homage to the old Judy Garland / Mickey Rooney "Let's make a musical!" films.
  • Rizzo.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:

Kermit: Piggy? I thought Gonzo was going to play the minister. (Piggy's only response: a guilty, nervous chuckle.)

• Take Me Instead!: Gonzo's plea when a villain has grabbed Camilla. And he takes them both instead.
• Train Station Goodbye
• Travelling Salesman Montage: It's really no surprise that it fails, however. You can't have twenty pairs of eyes staring through a cafeteria window watching someone take a bite out of a sandwich and expect that you're going to endear yourself to that person.
• Understatement

Rowlf: [Getting the show on Broadway] is turning out to be tougher than we thought.

• The Unintelligible: Pete, sort of.

Pete: Hey, I tell you what is. Big city, hmm? Live, work, huh? But not city only. Only peoples. Peoples is peoples. No is buildings. Is tomatoes, huh? Is peoples, is dancing, is music, is potatoes. So, peoples is peoples. Okay? Kermit: (blankly) Uh, yeah.

• What Could Have Been: In-universe: Miss Piggy wonders what it would be like if they've done each other since they were babies.
• Who's Watching the Store?: They must have closed Pete's for the musical, because everyone is there.