A section of the opening musical number from The Muppets, titled "Life's A Happy Song," already went online a few weeks ago-- and you really ought to watch it a few dozen times both to make your day better and to be familiar with the song before watching the video below. Bret McKenzie, known as one half of Flight of the Conchords, also wrote the songs for The Muppets, and for some reason he and Kermit the Frog participated in a video at the New York Times in which they dueted on "Life's A Happy Song" together. You really shouldn't need any better reason to watch the video, so take a look.
There are a lot of great musical numbers in The Muppets, but "Life's A Happy Song" might be my favorite, for being exactly the buoyant song you need to open a movie as cheerful as The Muppets, and for also providing the visual spectacle of an entire small town dancing together in the streets-- it's a classic musical movie move, and it's used really well here. Obviously Bret and Kermit's version of the song is more stripped down and simple, but it kind of lets you focus on some of the clever lyrics, all building up to my favorite joke-- "Life's a fillet of fish. Yes it is!"
The Muppets opens on Wednesday and goes head-to-head with two other children-focused movies, Hugo and Arthur Christmas. It's kind of a crazy stunt for three studios to go after the same audience in a single weekend, and I'll be anxiously watching to see which family film comes out on top (it doesn't help that all three movies are really good-- none of them deserve to lose!) But with the power of nostalgia, the overall appeal of The Muppets and of course some great musical numbers, The Muppets may very well have the edge. I mean, after watching Bret and Kermit sing, do you really think you can resist them?
