There’s everything from knock-knock jokes and groan-worthy puns to references to Stephen Sondheim and The Fast and the Furious. The trajectory of Leroux’s novel is totally intact, but I tailored it to showcase the trademark sophisticated silliness Jim Henson & Co originated. Muppet fans, Phantom fans, and anyone who appreciates an irreverent collision of highbrow and vaudeville. And of course Miss Piggy rightly demanded a diva role, and you don’t get more authentically diva than an opera star, right?
(I made sure to include some Easter eggs for those fans.) All the heightened melodrama in the tale proved pretty fertile for comedy. In addition to the universal love for Gaston Leroux’s haunting story, there’s also the cult of the Broadway musical, still going strong more than 30 years after its debut. Like The Muppet Show, the novel centers on a theater, so all the onstage and backstage parallels hopefully make it a good way to ease in readers. What makes The Phantom of the Opera a great vehicle for the Muppets? One of the questions was, “What do you want to see more of in our pages?” And kid Erik had written, “The Muppets, Queen, and Dom DeLuise.” Hundreds of hours of psychoanalysis probably couldn’t define me more accurately than this appropriately odd Patronus triumvirate does.
Inside was a questionnaire I’d filled out and never mailed. Hard evidence exists: A few years ago I was visiting my parents in Texas, where I grew up, for the holidays and I actually ran across an old issue of Dynamite, which was a pop culture magazine for teenagers. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What’s your personal history with the Muppets?ĮRIK FORREST JACKSON: I was a giant fan of the original Muppet Show and the movies.
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