Muppets could go back to basics

Fresh from sharing screen time with a rehabilitated Britney Spears in How I Met Your Mother, series star Jason Segal is ready to assist in another reinvention: The Muppets.

 

Making the rounds to promote his new film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Segal says its time to light the lights on a brand new movie that will hopefully make all well in the land of Henson.

 

"I've just grown a little disappointed with Muppets in the Old West, Muppets Under Water and all these weird concept movies," the 28-year-old actor told MTV.

"I just want to take it back to the early '80s, when it was about the Muppets trying to put on a show. That's what I'm trying to bring back."

 

Segal, who takes a huge step forward for equality by being the one who takes his clothes off in his new movie, says the idea came to him while shooting Marshall. In the film, his character fantasizes about making a puppet show out of Dracula's life.

 

“When you see the movie, you’ll see that there’s a puppet musical at the end," he says. "I’ve always loved puppets, and the Henson Studios designed those puppets for us. While I was there, I was talking to them and asking when the next Muppets movie was coming out, and they said ‘We don’t control the Muppets anymore, Disney does.’ And that just made me think back to those early '80s Muppet movies, and The Muppet Show."

 

Segal said that, like The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan, he wants to enlist big-name stars for the film, having already approached the Judd Apatow stable that includes Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig and Paul Rudd.

 

"I remember thinking that Kermit was the original Tom Hanks... he was the everyman for a kid," Segal said, revealing that the plot would focus heavily on the banjo-picking frog. "I remember watching Kermit and thinking ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up.’ I don’t think I realized he was a puppet."

 

Segel said he hopes to dive head first into the Muppet movie after shooting this summer's I Love You, Man.

Angela D'Amboise © 2007 GayWired.com; All Rights Reserved