Welcome to another review here at B-Movie Enema, ya filthy animals! Yeah… I suppose that’s a proper way to start because we have some animals who have filthy lives in this week’s movie. This week, I’m going to be digging deep into the nether regions of Peter Jackson’s 1989 musical black comedy Meet the Feebles.

Now, when you think about Peter Jackson, I think what comes to mind is his very polished films like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the remake of King Kong he made, or maybe the unpopular, but reevaluated, fun romp that was The Frighteners. The point I’m trying to make is that he’s well-known today as a very top-tier filmmaker. Think of him as the George Lucas of the 90s and 00s. He set up his own special effects company, Weta Workshop. He does nothing half-assed. He has big visions and ideas and it usually pays off in moola for studios.

He’s been nominated for nine Academy Awards (and won three of them), he unearthed and revived a lot of old Beatles footage for a hugely successful documentary, and he’s done more to popularize Hobbits and Elves and Wizards than maybe even Wizards of the Coast has, but let’s back it up a little bit to the early part of his career, shall we?

Meet the Feebles is Jackson’s second film. his first was 1987’s Bad Taste. Bad Taste was one of those movies that stood out at the video store. You have this bulbous-headed alien guy giving everyone the finger and holding a machine gun. That’s a hell of a statement. But between that movie, this movie, and the follow-up, 1992’s Braindead (also known as Dead Alive), Jackson was in what is best known as his “splatter” phase.

His splatter films were very low budget and mostly featured his friends doing a lot of stuff for little to no pay. Bad Taste was even filmed over the course of years because most of the filming had to be done on weekends as everyone had regular full-time jobs. This caught the attention of the executive director of the New Zealand Film Commission, Jim Booth. Booth thought Jackson was very talented and had a lot of great ideas. He would leave the commission to become Jackson’s producer. He worked on this film, Braindead, and 1994’s Heavenly Creatures before he passed away from cancer before his 49th birthday.

These splatter films would feature over-the-top ideas, crazy gore (see Braindead if you want to see the pinnacle of gore in film), and a lot of good old-fashioned elbow grease to make a movie come together and work. In Meet the Feebles, imagine characters from The Muppet Show but as real-life characters and people who all have the same experiences, sex drives, and more as normal people with maybe not-so-great morals would. It’s bonkers. And we’ll be getting into it shortly.

The turn for Jackson from making these wildly inventive and near-exploitation level of bonkers movies to catching the attention of the world as a very serious filmmaker came with 1994’s Heavenly Creatures. That film is a masterpiece on such a small, personal scale. That is about two school girls becoming very close friends and then something much more. It’s a true tale about these two girls committing a murder in the 50s in New Zealand. It’s a truly fantastic film and it did not go unnoticed. Also, it gave the world Kate Winslet who was making her big screen debut. Her very next role was for Sense and Sensibility for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Since Heavenly Creatures, pretty much everything Jackson has done has either been well-liked or built a following. The big achievement, though, was the massively popular and profitable Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those three films, which he directed back-to-back-to-back as one giant film that later got cut into the proper trilogy, were so loved and made so much money for New Line Cinema, that he basically could do whatever he wanted for the rest of his career. New Line also became a major player on the stage of Hollywood studios. His third LotR film, The Return of the King, won every single Oscar it was nominated for (11 in all), and he himself swept Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay (which he shared with his wife and long-time collaborator, Fran Walsh who is also a co-writer on this film).

The movie opens with someone introducing us to the Feeble Variety Hour. There’s a catchy little tune the different Feeble characters sing. We’ve got various creatures from cats to dogs to rabbits and elephants. The star, though, is Heidi the hippo. Think of her as Miss Piggy.

As the song ends, Heidi is insulted by Trevor. Trevor is a rat. Guess what he does… Yeah, he’s a porn director. Trevor is told that he should probably ease up on Heidi. She’s the star and without her, there is no Feebles show.

Heidi stomps off stage and nearly tramples a little worm guy. She wants to blow off some steam with her boyfriend, Bletch, the walrus. However, Bletch is currently balls deep into Samantha the Siamese cat. When Heidi knocks on Bletch’s door, he’s frustrated because, as he says, he was about to pop his cookies.

Bletch tells Heidi that he’ll give that rat a good talking to for offending her. Heidi claims she smells perfume, and we see that Samantha is currently hiding in the safe in the wall, but Bletch just says she’s imagining things. He gets rid of her and Samantha comes out from hiding. She says she wants Bletch to get rid of Heidi because she wants the big guy all to himself. He says Heidi is too big of a draw to upset too much, but he’s working on it.

I’m still trying to figure out what kind of kittens Samantha would have if Bletch had popped his cookies in her. Good god, that’s some nightmare fuel there. I mean a walrus and a hippo… I can get behind that. Hippos and walruses have some similarities, but a walrus and a cat? Egads.

Anyway, enter the newest member of the cast and crew, Robert. Robert’s a hedgehog. He has a letter telling him to report to the stage manager. He asks a couple members of the team, but they aren’t very helpful. He gets help from a fly named F.W. Fly. F.W. tells him he can take him to the stage manager, but he also says the production is gonna chew him up and spit him out. He would be interested in whatever stories he wants to share.

Arthur, the stage manager, is the worm that Heidi nearly trampled. He tells Robert that F.W. is a muckraker and he should watch out for him. When Arthur introduces the rest of the chorus to him, the poodle Lucille, another new member of the chorus, catches Robert’s eye. The other girls tease Lucille about him fancying her.

While Robert watches the chorus practicing, he meets Trevor. However, Trevor has no desire to talk to just some hedgehog noob and tells him to piss off. This leaves Trevor alone to fantasize about fucking Lucille. Trevor’s interrupted again, this time by Wynyard. Wynyard is a drug-addicted frog who throws knives. He’s looking for his fix, but Trevor says his latest shipment of drugs hasn’t come in yet today.

Arthur spots Robert trying to practice how to give Lucille flowers and ask her out on a date. He decides to help the smitten lad out. Elsewhere, Bletch decides to go for a game of golf while Heidi goes for a jog. Heidi sees Samantha outside having a smoke while she takes a break from running. Samantha tells Heidi that, at her age, she should just let her figure go. This insults Heidi and she slaps the cat. Samantha tells Heidi that Bletch can’t stand her. To top it off, Samantha says that Bletch can’t get enough of her. Heidi slaps her and the two fight which ultimately leads to Heidi tossing the cat into a box out in the alley.

Inside the theater, Robert, at the suggestion of Arthur, is dressed as a mariachi with a guitar and serenades Lucille. The act works. She chuckles at first but confirms to Robert that she loves the gesture. She pulls Robert into her dressing room to make love.

This movie is a little more than just “What if the Muppets, but with drugs, fucking, and fucking drugs?” There’s a lot going on here with all these characters. Heidi tearfully reminisces about her time as a nightclub singer with a jazz band. Robert is a bashful guy who likes a girl. She likes him back so much that they end up almost instantly getting engaged. Bletch is a typical gross producer who uses people and screws around. There’s a drug connection around the crew. There’s sex everywhere.

What makes this movie so interesting is kind of twofold. On one hand, Meet the Feebles is insanely juvenile. To pull from the paragraph above, I’m sure this did start with “What if the Muppets, but…” and then Jackson and crew just went crazy with all the juvenile sex jokes and lowest of the low-brow stuff. But then, on the other hand, when they actually had to make the movie, they got really creative.

The suits and the puppets are fantastic. In some ways, they look like cartoons come to life. What’s more, the articulation and acting with the suits and puppets are all very emotive and expressive. I’d say I sometimes forget that I’m watching puppets and people in big cartoonish animal suits, but the main reason why I can’t just forget is because I want to see what the next animal is and what their story is.

I pondered earlier if Bletch could have popped his cookies inside Samantha what the hell that would have created. Well, we learn that, at one point, a stagehand elephant fella had an affair with a chicken lady. They had a baby that looks mostly like a chicken but has an elephant’s face. That’s bonkers!

But it’s also really inventive and I just have to shrug my shoulders as to say to myself, “Yeah, that’s the world of the Feebles, get over it, grandad.”

Another mishap occurs in the basement. Trevor was shooting a bondage porno in the basement of the theater that starred a cow lady who was getting whipped by a weta man. When Trevor had to call cut because Robert accidentally stumbles onto the production, the cow lady accidentally kills the weta when she sits on his face. But… you know… not THAT kind of sitting on his face. The accidental smothering to death kind of way…. not the sexy kind.

Anyway, Trevor disposes of the weta’s body by throwing it in a pit in the basement that appears to have a giant monster in it that eats Feebles. He says that he’s got the perfect person to replace the weta in the film. Trevor finds the perverted aardvark, Dennis. He tells Dennis he has just the job for him. Dennis is brought in so he can replace the weta, but Dennis can only get aroused by sniffing panties. Daisy, the cow lady is frustrated by having another panty sniffer in a movie and laments that “he’ll probably want me to piss in his mouth!” The dialog and the individual scenes with the various characters are so bizarre, so R-rated, it’s pretty crazy and makes this a fairly special movie.

That weta fella isn’t the last person to die today. That knife-thrower frog, Wynyard, is having withdrawals from not having his fix earlier. He accidentally kills his assistant by throwing a knife right into her torso. When Arthur tells the director, Sebastian the red fox, that Wynyard’s assistant isn’t going to pull through, he decides that the perfect replacement for her is none other than Robert who has been annoying the director during the rehearsal.

So, not only does this movie have muppets who fuck and do drugs and generally have no morals but this movie also has a Vietnam flashback. When Robert goes to Wynyard’s dressing room to report as his new assistant for the knife-throwing act, Wynyard discusses his experiences in ‘Nam. It even ends up having a parody of The Deer Hunter where Wynyard is forced to play Russian Roulette.

We also have the portion of the movie that had to be somewhat inspired by John Waters. The second-billed member of the cast, the rabbit Harry, is in the bathroom having some sort of existential crisis. He keeps saying he doesn’t feel good. Soon, he learns that F.W. Fly is in one of the stalls… having lunch. We then see a nice close-up of F.W. eating a turd with a spoon in one of the toilets. Never seen Rolf do anything like that. At least I don’t think I’ve seen an episode of The Muppet Show where he’s rooting through a litter box to find a nice morsel of shit.

Trevor shows his newest porno starring Dennis the aardvark and Madame Bovine to Bletch. Bletch is okay with the movie as long as it is called “Anal Antics”. He does have an issue though… He thinks their former star Madame Bovine is getting a little long in the udders. It’s time to find a new porn star. Trevor, seeing Lucille on stage not too far away, says he definitely has someone in mind.

This is a world in which humans exist… Except they are puppets too. The show’s contortionist act is a Hindu guy named Abi. He manages to roll himself into a ball he can’t get out of because he managed to lodge his head up his own ass. I think it’s safe to say that the show is falling into a bit of a downward spiral.

What’s more, Harry passes out. Dr. Quack, a duck doc, tells Harry, who has developed oozing pimples and sores all over his body, that with the symptoms he’s got on display, it’s the BIG ONE. Dr. Quack says he’s got about 10 to 12 hours left. Harry wants to do the show tonight and asks Dr. Quack to not tell anyone. F.W. Fly is literally a fly on the wall and plans to sell the story to the tabloids.

While Lucille gets ready to dress for tonight’s show, Trevor comes into her dressing room. He tells her that they have something to celebrate. He says he’s going to put her in the movies. He gives her champagne that’s drugged. Robert walks in and discovers Trevor trying to rape her. Thinking she’s been on a drunken bender, he calls off their engagement and walks out.

After another disastrous rehearsal, Sebastian accuses Heidi of not sticking to her contract about her diet. Heidi storms off saying no one understands what she’s dealing with. She runs to Bletch’s office to discover Samantha blowing the walrus. She storms off to her dressing room and trashes the room Charles Foster Kane style.

Later, Bletch gets his drug delivery. When he offers Dennis a line of what he thinks is cocaine, Dennis liquefies because it’s actually borax and not coke. When the drug dealer gives Bletch information about where the real coke is, Bletch has one of his goons pour the borax down the dealer’s throat melting him.

Sebastian informs Bletch that the show’s off. Heidi refuses to perform and has locked herself in her room. The network won’t air the show without Heidi. Without the network, there is no show. Bletch goes to Heidi’s room to have a quickie with her and tells the production to call the network because the show’s back on. Bletch and his men go to the docks to get his real shipment of coke but one of Bletch’s men gets his head chewed off by a giant spider. Trevor drives Bletch’s car through drug kingpin Mr. Big (a whale) by driving into his mouth, through his guts, and out his asshole.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we, kiddos? We’ve all had to watch someone get eaten by a giant spider and our only way to escape is to literally drive THROUGH someone’s asshole. Amazing. This movie has so many things in it that I’m trying to describe which only turns into me typing sentences I never expected to ever type.

The show goes on and is a huge success. The network says it wants to pick it up as a syndicated series. Backstage, Harry is popping nasty boils on his face trying to get in shape to go out on stage. Trevor tricks F.W. Fly by saying there’s a big giant shit in one of the bathrooms. Bletch catches F.W. Fly, rips his wings off, and flushes him down the toilet.

Bletch goes to his office to find Heidi waiting for him. She wants to celebrate the show’s success with a little bit longer of a lovemaking session than what they had earlier that day. Bletch tells her she sucks and stinks and this was her last performance. Now that he’s got a syndicated series, he’s going to replace her with Samantha. In her despair, Heidi hallucinates all the Feebles laughing at her ruination. She goes to her dressing room to kill herself. Her first attempt fails when she tries to hang herself on the chandelier. She’s a hippo. She falls through the floor and bungees back up. The chandelier falls on her head once she lands to rub salt in her emotional wounds.

Back on the stage, things begin to go off the rails. Harry makes it to the stage but ends up vomiting all over the place. The elephant guy gets berated by his chicken ex-lover while on stage to try to distract and take over for the sick Harry. Sebastian plans to move up the knife-throwing act, so he finds Wynyard in a stall after he got high on smack. Wynyard gets on stage, and he begins to think Robert is one of the North Vietnamese soldiers who forced him to play Russian Roulette. He accidentally tosses a knife up into the air and it comes down landing straight through his skull killing him.

The crowd cheers.

Heidi’s next attempt to kill herself is to use a machine gun. Why does a stage show with variety acts have a machine gun and a whole shit load of bullets? Because it does. Shut your fuckin’ face. Anyway, Samantha comes in and Heidi decides to turn the gun on her. She shoots the cat dead.

Harry gets a call from Dr. Quack with the test results. Turns out, he doesn’t have AIDS. He just has bunny pox. He’s told to stay in bed for a week. Harry starts celebrating but gets cut down by Heidi who is now going on a murderous rampage with the machine gun.

Trying to get the show back on track, Sebastian decides he’s finally going to do his song on stage. The song’s called “Sodomy” and it’s about gay sex. It’s amazing.

While he performs his song, Heidi continues to massacre the cast and crew of the show backstage. As the chorus begins to perform the “Meet the Feebles” song to close out the show, Heidi comes swinging in and starts opening fire on everyone. She hears the elephant-chicken baby crying and Heidi looks to see the mother trying to pull it out of danger and she shoots the mother. The elephant comes to the baby’s aid to protect it. I guess, in the long run, it only took a crazed, homicidal hippo lady to start shooting up the place for the elephant dude to recognize that this half-elephant/half-chicken kid that is very obviously his.

Heidi shoots Bletch out of his balcony box. To keep her from killing her, he tells her he still loves her. This distracts her long enough for her to lower the gun. She gets winged by Trevor who has a pistol. Before he can kill her, Robert swings from the catwalk where he learns from Lucille about the rat drugging her, and knocks the gun out of his hand. Heidi picks up her machine gun and blows the rat away. She then sticks the barrel of the gun into Bletch’s mouth and blows his brains out. Arthur tells Heidi he has to turn her in once the police arrive, but he also honors her last request by letting her perform her “Garden of Love” solo once last time on stage.

The movie ends with us learning all about what happened to the lucky few who survived the massacre. Sidney the Elephant had operations on his kneecaps that got blown out by Heidi and bought an orchard to become a horticulturist with his son Seymore the Elechicken. Arthur received an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for his service to the theatre and retired. He lives in the country now. Sebastian wrote a book about the massacre and is now negotiating the rights for a movie. Robert and Lucille married and had two children. Robert is now a fashion photographer. Heidi spent ten years in prison and was rehabilitated. She now has a new identity and works as a checkout girl at a supermarket.

It’s amazing to think that the guy who made this incredibly lewd and low-brow movie is one of the great visionaries of the 21st century. You look at a movie like this and see that in only five years’ time, he’ll make this wonderfully deep movie about two schoolgirls who are lovers and murderers and tell it with the utmost respect and maturity, it’s such a huge growth in his sensibilities. Then, only 12 years after this movie, he’s taking us all on this grand epic saga in Middle Earth. You really can hardly tell it’s the same guy.

Or is that the case?

Say what you want about Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, or Braindead. Yes, they are low-brow. Yes, as is the case mostly with Braindead, they are gross and gory. Yes, as is the case mostly with Meet the Feebles, they’re rather rude. Again, this is mostly a teenage boy’s idea of a joke at the expense of something like The Muppets. These things are all true about these movies. But they are also incredibly inventive and really show a hell of a range for Peter Jackson as a filmmaker. Bad Taste is the elbow grease movie made over years with buddies all working for free because they believed in what the guy was cooking up. Meet the Feebles is the one that shows design work. If nothing else, he shows how good he is at envisioning characters. Every one of these characters is unique and they are all sorts of different animals. Then, by turning them into anthropomorphic puppet creatures, they are wonderfully unique and come off as real characters. Braindead was the one that just showed how much fun a movie can be even if you’re watching a guy chopping zombies to tiny pieces with a lawnmower.

What puts this movie on a different level is the music. The songs are wonderful in this movie. Yes, some of them are cheeky in their lyrics, but they fit and they tell a story. There’s a build-up all through the movie for Sebastian’s song “Sodomy”. He constantly requests that it gets placed into the show. He is constantly rebuffed and you don’t really know why… until he forces his hand and performs it. It’s funny, but the song is good too! “Garden of Love” is a legitimately good song.

This is a movie that has long been only available in lower-grade DVD and VHS quality. It’s been long in the works for a new restoration, along with Bad Taste and Braindead, directly from Peter Jackson himself. Hopefully, that gets here soon because I’d love to see this movie in a much better definition.

But it’s time to close up shop and lock the theater. Next week, I’ve got a movie to review that is a little bit of a gem. It’s from Scream Time Releasing and it’s one of those HorrorHound convention purchases that turned out to be a pretty good buy. Pack a bowl and join me as I look at Bong of the Living Dead!