Meet the Feebles

Overview

A very dark comedy by director Peter Jackson, Meet the Feebles features Jim Henson-esque puppets, in a perversely comic satire. Like Henson's Muppets, the Feebles are animal-figured puppets assembled together as members of a theater troupe. However, whereas Henson's Muppets characterize positivity, naive folly, and innocence in humanity, the Feebles present negativity, vice, and other misanthropic characteristics.

Plot Summary:

Meet the Feebles tells us the story of the Feebles theatre troup. They are a group of performers who, that night, are going on live network TV. If they're good enough, they'll get picked up for a syndicated network show and everyone will get rich. Scenes involving violence, sexually explicit images, drug dealing, back stabbing, date rape, and death (including a snuff film within the film) follow.

Character List

• Heidi (Hippo) - the star of the show. Severly bipolar. When upset, she overeats.
• Bletch (Walrus) - The boss. He runs the Feebles troup. He's in a relationship with Heidi (this is never elaborated on), while in an adulterous relationship with Samatha.
• Samantha (Cat) - Bletch's mistress
• Harry (Rabit) - satyristic narrator who contracts the big one, a fatal STD
• Trevor (Rat) - Bletch's enforcer. Directs pornography on the side.
• Arthur (Worm) - Stage manager
• Seymore (Elephant) - Animal trainer
• Sandy (Chicken) - Has Seymore's child out of wedlock. He denies it is his
• Robert (Hedgehog) - A new member of the troup. He has no vices. He falls in love with Lucile
• Fly-in-the-sky (Fly) - stereoypical paparazzo bent on breaking Harry's story
• Sebastian (Fox) - the Homosexual stage director with a penchant for sodomy - including an entire song about it
• Winyard (Frog) - Addicted to "every barbituate known to man"
• Lucile (Poodle?) - Singer in the feebles. Robert falls in love with her.
• Mr. Big (Whale?) - Sedric's boss.
• Barry (Bulldog) - Bletch's driver and enforcer
• Sedric (Hog) - Tries to double cross Bletch in a drug deal
• "The Masked Masochist" (Cockroach) - Actor in Trevor's porn. Dies after Madam Bovile uknowingly sits on his face and suffocates him.
• Dennis (Unknown - very simliar to Gonzo the muppet) - After the "masked masochists" death, he is convinced by Trevor to take a part in the porn movie.
• Louie (Dog) - Sedric's side-kick
• Madam Bovine (Cow) - Heavy pierced cow who does Trevor's porn.

The ending sees Heidi go on a shooting spree with an M16 and kill most of the troupe.

The movie has become a cult classic, and has enjoyed great popularity since Jackson's success with Lord of the Rings.

Money ran out during production, so the flashback to Vietnam was quietly filmed separately as (with a different budget) as The Frogs of War