By Geno McGahee
When I was a kid, I used to really look forward to catching the Jim Henson/Paul Williams collective effort: EMMET OTTER’S JUGBAND CHRISTMAS. So, I’m now in my forties and decided to give it another go…
Emmet (Jerry Nelson) lives with his mother, Ma (Marilyn Sokol), and they don’t have a pot to piss in. Emmet does odd jobs to turn a buck and Ma does about the same, but they’re not getting ahead. They keep talking about “Pa”, who died, and how things were better. I’m not sure how long ago Pa dropped dead, but what the hell was Ma doing all this time? She should have figured shit out and got a job and taken care of poor young Emmet instead of sending him out to these jobs that a kid his age shoudn’t be doing. He should be out there being a kid!
Emmet hangs out with a complete idiot, Wendell (Dave Goelz). I’m not sure why he has him around other than to make himself seem smarter. Wendell has nothing good to say and his voice is really irritating. At one point, Wendell gets a gig and offers Emmet half of 50 cents to help him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Emmet screwed Wendell over. “Yeah, Wendell, half of fifty cents is ten cents. Here’s your half you complete idiot.”
Christmas is around the corner and Emmet wants a guitar, but it’s 40 bucks and that’s not going to happen, even though Ma wants to make it happen. She notes that she has sold everything that she had to sell. GET A JOB MA! I’m not sure what an otter can do, but there’s a bunch of animals in town that live well and have jobs, apparently. Hell, there is a fucking bullfrog that owns a store and an otter has more potential than a bullfrog. I am amazed how that frog gets dressed. With his money, he probably has chicks that do it for him.
With Emmet shit out of luck for Christmas, Ma decides to sell his tools to buy money for a dress for a talent show. Emmet teams up with his friends to start a jug-band and also compete in the same talent show. He has to put a hole in his mother’s washtub to make an instrument, but he’s also hoping for the prize money to buy his mother a new washtub and a good Christmas gift.
As they prepare, we have the coolest part of the film, the River Bottom Nightmare Band, a group of punks that include a rat, a bear, a snake, and a fish and they are all dickheads. At one point, they drive and run over a fruit stand, prompting the owner to run over to the car and yell at them. The fish spits water right in his face. That was some funny stuff.
The talent show happens and there is a lot of complete shit competing. Emmet and his band and Ma do their acts and they both get the reaction from the crowd, although I thought Ma’s song really stunk. I think the crowd was humoring her, realizing that she was old and didn’t have a man and didn’t have a life.
Stealing the show was the Riverbottom Nightmare Band with their metal tune, singing their own praises. That fat ass bullfrog was also a judge and he knows his shit. The frog, known as “Doc Bullfrog”, is one of the most respected guys in town. I wonder if he’s a doctor too. I thought he just owned a store, but apparently the frog does all kinds of shit.
In the end, Emmet and Ma both lose, but they aren’t too upset about it. They walk home and sort of laugh about the whole thing, but Emmet is still fucked out of his guitar, but things work out as Emmet and his mother get a gig singing.
EMMET OTTER’S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS is pretty good. I am not in love with it as I was as a child, but it was worth a watch, especially the Riverbottom Nightmare Band. Ma needed a big boot in the ass and Emmet was a whiney bitch, but that aside, this was a pretty good watch. I recommend it.
