Meet the Feebles

Plot synopsis:
The eponymous theatre troupe is rehearsing the title song with hopes of finding success through being picked up for a syndicated television show. Heidi (a hippopotamus), the star of the show, is insulted by pornographic director Trevor (a rat) and complains to her boss and lover, Bletch (a walrus), who is actually in an adulterous relationship with Samantha (a cat). Meanwhile, Robert (a hedgehog), the newest member of the team, arrives at the theatre and immediately falls in love with another newcomer, Lucille (a poodle). Samantha confronts Heidi, insults her, and reveals her relationship with Bletch. Robert confesses his love to Lucille, and the two become engaged. Sid (an elephant) receives a visit from his ex-wife Sandy (a chicken) with his alleged son Seymour (an improbable-looking elephant/chicken hybrid). Sandy informs him she will be preparing a paternity case against him.
At the toilet, the second most important star of the show, Harry (a hare), is suffering from a mystery disease. Meanwhile, drug-addicted knife thrower Wynyard (a frog) tells Robert his story of Vietnam, and convinces Robert to give him $50 to buy drugs from Trevor. After seeing Trevor's latest porno film, Bletch decides they need a new porn star, and Trevor chooses Lucille; he drugs her and tries to rape her as an audition but is caught by Robert. When he walks in on the scene Robert thinks that Lucille was drinking and throwing herself at Trevor, and tells her he never wants to see her again.
After a good beginning – the Feebles sign with a TV chain to appear in a prime-time television show – Bletch confesses to Heidi that he actually hates her and wants to give the main role to Samantha. After trying unsuccessfully to attempt suicide, Heidi goes on a shooting spree and kills many of the cast.
=== Sub-plots ===
Love Triangle
A distraught Heidi runs to Bletch after being insulted by Trevor. Bletch is having sex with Samantha, but hides the tryst. Although Bletch is physically disgusted by Heidi, he insincerely comforts her since he needs her talent on the show.
Later Samantha insults Heidi, claiming Bletch really wants Samantha. Distraught, Heidi drowns her sorrows in an entire chocolate cake, as she reminisces about her past romance with Bletch in a black-and-white flashback to her days as a lounge singer. Belching caused by the cake causes Heidi to lay waste to the set during the rehearsal of a feature number; Sebastian (a fox) then lambasts her. Heidi rushes to Bletch for emotional affirmation, but he is unable to spare her the sight of Samantha performing oral sex on him. Heidi locks herself in her room and refuses to perform, but relents after Bletch has make-up sex with her.
Heidi's performance helps secure the Feebles a syndicated series. Shortly afterwards, Heidi attempts to seduce Bletch in his office, but Bletch completely disowns her since Samantha is now to be the star of the show. Unfortunately, Bletch is unaware of Heidi's extremely fragile mental state.
Robert and Lucille
Robert shows up for his first day as a cast member, and is accosted by F.W. (a fly), who tries to corrupt Robert into informing on the cast.
Arthur (a worm) rescues Robert and shows him around, where Robert sees Lucille for the first time. Although he is romantically terrified of her at first, he later summons up enough courage to ask her out and they fall in love. Later Trevor drugs Lucille to manipulate her into performing in his pornographic films. Robert walks in on the drugging, but misinterprets it as Lucille's decision, and disowns her for being a drunk. They make up later after Robert saves her from Heidi's crazed gun rampage, and they eventually get married and have two children.
The Big One
Dennis (an aardvark) is shown peeping on Harry in a threesome with two female rabbits. Harry feels physically ill after this episode and is accosted by F.W., who assumes he has a sexually transmittable disease (STD) and wants to publish the scandal. Dr. Quack (a duck) diagnoses Harry with "The Big One". F.W. publishes the scandal in a local tabloid – to the dismay of Bletch, who presumably wants to avoid negative press on the cast. Trevor lures F.W. into the bathroom, where Bletch tears his wings off and flushes F.W. down the toilet. After vomiting all over the stage in the live performance, Harry finally learns that he only has 'bunny pox'. Unfortunately, while rejoicing in the news that "The Big One" will not cause his death, Harry's head is blown apart by a gunshot during Heidi's rampage.
Sexcapades
Trevor is shooting a porn film in the basement with the Masked Masochist (a weta) and Madam Bovine (a cow). They are interrupted by Robert, who mistakes the scene for torture and tries to save Bovine, who in turn accidentally crushes the Masked Masochist, suffocating him. Trevor later replaces him with Dennis (who has a snout resembling male genitalia) to perform 'nasal sex' on Bovine.
Drug Running
Trevor is approached by a sniveling Wynyard looking for his fix, but the drugs have not yet been delivered. Bletch is later shown on a golf course consummating a deal with Cedric (a warthog). However, after testing on Dennis, the drugs provided by Cedric turn out to be household borax, infuriating Bletch. Cedric's agent Louie (a dog) is literally liquefied after being force-fed some of the borax by Bletch's henchmen.
Bletch and his cronies venture to the docklands to fight Cedric and his crab-crewmen. Bletch's side prevails after killing Cedric and the crabs, maneuvering past a huge spider, and driving through the insides of Cedric's boss Mr. Big (a whale). However, the spider eats the head of Barry (a bulldog).
When the drugs finally arrive at the theatre, Wynyard is finally able to get his fix, which puts him into a stupor.
The Show
While the cast performs an opera number, Sebastian lambasts Robert for not failing his part as an extra on the stage. As punishment, he assigns Robert the task of replacing Wynyard's assistant, who has just been killed by Wynyard's knife throwing while going through drug withdrawal. Wynyard guilt-trips Robert into giving him money for drugs, after telling him a horror story about his time in Vietnam (shown as a flashback parodying The Deer Hunter). He eventually gets his fix from Trevor and injects himself into a deep slumber.
The acts gradually disintegrate – Heidi nearly destroys the set by botching a swing, Abi the Indian mystic (a humanoid) incapacitates himself by contorting himself into a ball, and Sid's tribble-like pets are crushed by a barrel. Seeing his show in shambles, Sebastian tries to convince Bletch to feature his personal performance, the sexually explicit number "Sodomy" (which he claims to have done before). This is summarily rejected by Bletch, who physically throws Sebastian out of his office who curses Bletch for his inaction. Sebastian later decides to use the number anyway when the situation gets worse and performs it in front of the silent and unamused live audience, much to Bletch's horror (who then schemes to have him eliminated when he gets the chance).
The Elephant and the Chicken
Sandy accuses Sid of being the father of their chicken-elephant child, to his dismay and denial. During the live show, Sandy again accosts Sid on stage with the paternity suit, declaring she wants everyone to know. During a later tragic crossfire scene, Sid braves the crazed Heidi's automatic fire to save his son. His heroism costs the elephant two bloody knee wounds, and he accidentally crushes Sandy's shot-off head (when she demanded the crazed Heidi to shoot Sid, but was shot by Heidi instead) after it squawks out one final invective.
The Climax
While the live show is proceeding elsewhere, Heidi attempts suicide by hanging, but her weight breaks the chandelier from the ceiling and she falls through the floor. She makes her way to Bletch's machine gun and tries to kill herself, but at the last moment, Samantha shows up and taunts her. Heidi, fed up with the cat's taunting and meddling with her life, drops all thoughts of suicide and responds by killing Samantha with the gun. Meanwhile, Wynyard, in a drugged stupor, tries to kill Robert before accidentally killing himself with his own knife (and the cheering audience not knowing it is real). Sebastian does his "Sodomy" number before getting injured by a prop, while Heidi rampages over the entire set on a killing spree (even shooting down any cameras near her). She finally finds Bletch and pumps many rounds into him as well. Bletch lies to Heidi about loving her having regret for all his actions, which distracts and brings her back to her senses and into dropping her gun and defenses before he then orders Trevor to kill her. Trevor fires at Heidi and grazes her shoulder, but he then prepares to deal the finishing shot. However, Robert swings in just in the nick of time to kick Trevor, giving Heidi the chance to get her gun back first and shreds the rat. Heidi then literally blows Bletch's brain out when he tries to escape. Realizing that she killed her love and ruined her career, she gives up her gun (promising to turn herself over to the authorities) and sadly sings "Garden of Love", leading into the epilogue and the credits.
=== Epilogue ===
The epilogue reveals the fates of only six survivors: Sid gets extensive repair on his kneecaps after being shot by Heidi and works in an orchard as a struggling horticulturist with Seymour. Arthur received an OBE for his lifelong service at the theater and retires to the country. Sebastian recovers from his injuries and achieved worldwide fame for his best seller The Feeble Variety Massacre: One Man's Act of Heroism! and is negotiating film rights. Robert, now an award-winning fashion photographer for a women's magazine, and Lucille are married with two children. Finally, Heidi, whose spree resulted in her imprisonment in a women's penitentiary for ten years (implying that, although released in 1989, the film's events occurred in the 1970s), has been rehabilitated under the community and now works under a new identity on the check-out counter of a large supermarket.

Tags: comedy, dark, boring, cult, violence, flashback, insanity, psychedelic, satire, revenge

Review:
MEET THE FEEBLES is one of the most outrageously insane films I've ever seen, and I mean that in the BEST possible way...Another home-run from Peter Jackson (BRAINDEAD, BAD TASTE, and most recently LORD OF THE RINGS).
FEEBLES is a gleefully perverse film where all the actors are Muppet-like puppets or people in full costume.The very basic story is that the FEEBLES is a variety show similar to the Muppets and that they are getting prepared for their first live telecast, when everything goes horribly wrong.
Characters include (but are not limited to) a heroin-addicted frog, an over-sexed rabbit, a hippo with low self-esteem (and a short fuse...), a cow and insect porn film-making duo, a sleazy fly tabloid reporter...and a lovable and friendly porcupine.MEET THE FEEBLES is a gleefully twisted comedy that is often shocking and strangely endearing at the same time.
Sure, Meet the Feebles may not be director Peter Jackson (yes, Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings and King Kong) at his finest hour of directorial standing, but as a fan of a certain kind of really deranged and off-kilter cult movie, a lot of this made my night.
I just had a look on my face like 'what am I watching?' And, 'how can something like this actually exist?' It's not even so much a question of how well or how not well Jackson and his low-budget team pull it off, but how someone can take the time and energy to think this all up and put it all on paper.Let me try to sort through some of the varied story lines- there is Robert, a newcomer to the Feebles gang (and gang I mean in literal and figurative terms), who wants to impress a certain poodle-dog type of girl who really has him going to lengths to impress her.
With the exception of the naive, method-trained Robert, and maybe his love interest, every character in the picture is severely flawed in one way or another, or just really put to abstract lengths so mind-boggling they work only in conjunction with Jackson's unnerving, low-budget style.
It has the same jarring, diabolically juvenile and in-your-face comedy of some of the South Park guys stuff (Team America and Cannibal sort of come to mind), but without necessarily the sharp edge of satire.And at the end of it all, with all the laughs I had and shocked 'huh' moments at what Jackson had done with all these weird characters (some of which are outright perverts, drug addicts, criminals, egoists, adulterers, and even father half elephant-half chicken offspring), I wasn't sure totally what the point of it all was.
It's not great art by any means, and doesn't pretend to be, which is part of the dark fun of it all: Meet the Feebles, with its singing and dancing miscreants (quite a catchy theme song by the way), and numerous scenes of more-than-suggestive sexual moments and gory bouts of extreme violence, is a case of kamikaze independent film-making, where homage spreads out into the concept and becomes something very strange but, in its own world, sort of wonderful too.
Back then, this was the most cruel, disgusting thing I had ever seen and it sent me into shock.Now, at the ripe old age of eighteen, I can proudly say, this is the movie that made me the twisted monkey I am today.The film itself was done by the same guy who directed the infamously long "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Peter Jackson.
The film reeks of genius, taking something very fun and family friendly (The Muppets, and any other puppet-based kids show) and adding some not-so-family-safe elements (drugs, sex, killing, STDs, blackmail, date-rape, porn, swearing, toilet humour, homosexuality, eating disorders, emotional instability, smoking, suicide and excessive amounts of blood).But how does it add up?
Having seen a fair few puppet shows, it never crossed my mind about what Kermit would be like as a drug addicted ex-Vietnam veteran, or if the rest of the crew went bad.
And Peter Jackson brings out the depravity greatly, with most of the movie being filmed in a cramped back-stage area that is covered in filth.I would recommend this to anybody who has a very wicked sense of humour, since this has quite possibly destroyed more than a few childhoods.
Hollywood executives must have lobotomized Peter Jackson when he started the "Lord of the Rings" franchise, because his earlier New Zealand productions were so much better.Just look at this sickly cracking showbiz satire, complete with an array of mostly disgusting Muppets from hell, acting as a walking compendium of the seven deadly sins (and some more).
Nevertheless "Meet the Feebles" is a real cult movie because of its unique character and his inimitable sense for dark humor.
Maybe it is best described as "Bad Taste with puppets" or "The Muppet Movie in bad taste" but it is certainly a movie I would recomend to anyone of sufficient maturity (no children should EVER see this film).Like Bad Taste before it this movie features disgusting humour, lots of blood, and impressive low budget special effects, and the puppets in it have to be seen to be believed.
One of the best things about The Fellowship of the Ring (and I Love that movie as well) is that in the hype following it more people may see Meet The Feebles.
Maybe Meet The Feebles and Bad Taste will be released on DVD in Australia now (I have them both on VHS).I will say one thing tho, it is certainly a strange feeling to have been a Peter Jackson fan for 10 years before Lord Of The Rings was released and the whole world finally discovered him..
This difficult-at-times to watch movie will make the sick ones laugh, and I found myself laughing alot.It takes place in this weird freaking world where everyone is a puppet, and the feebles run this muppet-type show.
Right off the bat, I'd like to point out that I HATED the Lord of the Rings movies.Having said that, let's talk about "Meet The Feebles".
The scenes hold absolutely nothing back as you're bombarded with obscene images of funny-looking animals doing things they should not be.I think the overall feel of this film is great.
"Meet the Feebles" goes just about as far as any film can possibly go with it's gross-out humor and effects but the fun thing about this movie is that it is all done with live-action Muppet like characters.
This movie looks at such topics as homosexual puppets, drug deals gone bad, the tabloid press(the way most celebrities see it, I'm pretty sure, is just how he captures it) a sleazy producer who literally chews up some of his performers and spits them out.
Once he or his wife gets to know a person fairly well, the two of them invite that person over to their house for a viewing of "Shakes the Clown." If their guest is repulsed or just pleasantly amused, they don't hold out much hope for a long friendship, but if their guest thinks it's hilarious, they know they've got a keeper.I feel the same way about "Meet the Feebles." It's a little film that relatively few people have seen, and it can send people out of a room with disgust at what they're watching, but I think it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
First of all, if you have never seen a Peter Jackson movie before, do NOT start with this one."Meet The Feebles" is a movie that, whether you like or hate it, you won't forget it.
Though "Meet The Feebles" in now way compares to "Dead-Alive", it's still worth checking out for any Jackson fans.Still, I had some complaints about the movie:(1) The movie didn't have a high enough budget, making some sequences look TOO cheesy(2) An obnoxious music score(3) A musical score that doesn't know when to shut up(4) Too many characters(5) No characters get enough time to actually make them "main" charactersIt's possible that even if you are a Jackson fan, you might be disappointed with the movie.
If you prepare yourself for this movie having some major problems, and you are not expecting a masterpiece like Jackson's "Dead-Alive", then by all means see "Meet The Feebles".
As is usually the case with Peter Jackson's films, "Meet the Feebles" is over-ambitious and excessive (the running time should have been trimmed down), but also highly entertaining.
"Meet the Feebles" is better than "Bad Taste", but lacks the fluid balance of "Dead Alive"; still, it's one of the most ferociously tasteless (and hilarious) movies around, and makes "South Park" look tame by comparison.6.5/10.
Peter Jackson injects the child-like world of puppets with every vice and debauchery that can be thought of, ranging from SM sex to drugs to shooting sprees.The basic concept of the film revolves around a new television show "The Feebles Variety Hour" and the struggle to mount a successful production.
Out of all of Peter Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings films,(This, BAD TASTE, BRAINDEAD, HEAVENLY CREATURES, FORGOTTEN SILVER, and THE FRIGHTENERS) This would have to be my favorite of his.
although I like LOTR, King Kong, FS and Bad Taste as well)Meet The Feebles is basically a screwed-up version of Muppets...
Ten years later it is still the sickest movie I have enjoyed - I love the review provided by "the listener" magazine - whenever the reviewer is having a really bad day he imagines that somebody somewhere has rented this film by mistake to amuse a group of children thinking it is a Muppet's movie - only to walk in during the final sodomy sequence at the end, facing a room full of stony faced shocked children with more questions then he has answers.The film shocked and excited, leaving me in stitches whilst opening my eyes to a world of humor far sicker then I would ever find with Monty python Et Al. We (my friends and I) might have spent 4hrs watching this film -rewinding the best bits again and again.
How PJ became a Hollywood bigwig is as mysterious to me as how 2 brothers from Te Awamutu became the cutting edge of pop - seeing is believing (and watching this film is far cheaper then traveling to Waikato NZ, and less likely to involve GBH) Revealing the funniest (and best) parts of the plot would destroy the viewing experience, I can think of no equivalent to compare this film to - which is perhaps the the best review I can give it.If you need some big names to associate this with I can only give you references to 'Brain dead' and the organizer of the Toronto film festival, Noah Cowen "I think at that screening there was Quentin, bringing Harvey Keitel or Steve Buscemi, and they're going, 'Quentin, this is really sick sh*t!' He's saying, 'Look at that!
Sure, I love LOTR, and those films are certainly much better from a general cinematic perspective than something like 'Meet the Feebles' or 'Bad Taste', but these early films are just flat out incredible and hilarious.
While a good chunk of this film had me feeling, while not underwhelmed, compelled to say that Jackson didn't go "far enough" w/his perverted twisting of a Muppets-like family program (which comes to work as a general satire of the entertainment industry, particularly the delusions of grandeur brought upon by fame and the over-the-top gossipy media), but, in the final half hour or so, he makes up for all of that.
'Meet the Feebles' remains rather entertaining throughout, largely b/c of its odd, uncomfortable atmosphere and black sense of humour, but once it gets to the grand finale it really starts to shine and becomes a mind blowing extravaganza of gore and drugs and sex and ridiculous, heavy violence.
After his bad taste début, er, Bad Taste (1987), the young Peter Jackson made the decision to take his filth-laden sense of humour to a new level and direct Meet the Feebles, the kind of film you would expect Jim Henson to make if his life had gone in an entirely different direction and had formed a psychedelic drug habit.
The show comes under threat when sex-addicted Harry the Rabbit contracts an STD and is given a few hours to live, but is busted by the Fly, a pesky journalist.What Meet the Feebles lacks in taste and any sense of actual purpose, it makes up for in sheer invention and entertainment.
But here's a trick to watching the film, as most people will see the first 20 minutes and think: "Okay I've seen enough, another hour of just insanity and introductions to disgusting characters?
This movie was a brilliant idea to take adult humor, gore, sex, and muppets and put it all in one film, especially during that time period.
Before his seminal splatter picture DEAD ALIVE (and way before the brilliant LORD OF THE RINGS), director Peter Jackson crafted one of the most dead-on accurate parody of The Muppets with MEET THE FEEBLES.
She's depressed and stressed out on the eve of a major show the Feebles are performing, as is the director, Sebastion the Fox. And with good reason, just look at the rest of the cast:  The rabbit MC has a venereal disease, the rat who's making porno films in the basement between a cow and a cockroach is also in charge of Bletch's shady drug deals, the knife-throwing frog is addicted to heroin and suffers from Nam flashbacks, the animal-trainer elephant is trapped in a paternity suit with a chicken, and to top it all off, Heidi's mental condition is rapidly deteriorating.
Meet The Feebles was no mere puppet movie, the artistic and comedy stylings of director Peter Jackson coupled with fantastic dialogue and story-lines made for a nonstop ride of laughter, bewilderment and humorous shock; especially at the amount of profanity and puppet sex.With an overweight psychopathic hippo, a bumbling shy hedgehog, a porn directing Rat, a crack addict frog and a devious drug baron producer - how could this not be funny?
It has no need for expensive SFX as it uses whit and style to portray a message that "puppet movies don't have to be the bane of a movie-lover, just a part of a person which never grew up".To think Peter Jackson went on to direct the Lord of The Rings films is a testament to his abilities to sling together a slapstick comedy like this which keeps you laughing and giggling throughout to a sensible and downright amazing film such as LOTR.
There is something about Peter Jackson's movie "Meet The Feebles" that disturbs me...maybe it was because it was the first time I ever saw a movie that was originally classified as X in this country (what would be an NC-17 rating today) when it was released, now on video with no rating attached whatsoever.
I had mixed reactions to watching it, and I like Peter Jackson movies.
(It makes fun of people with AIDS, just for example.)  It's also really gory and disgusting (cute little fuzzy things are tossed out of someone's dressing room into a hallway, flattened by a runaway barrel, and the remaining roadkill is eaten by a rat.)  But like I said, there are elements of "Meet the Feebles" which are more intelligent than you might expect.
In Peter Jackson's second film, Meet The Feebles, he takes us into the gritty underworld of a muppet like variety show.
If one has yet to see Meet the Feebles, then one has no idea how a film should be made, a real movie that has no concept of culture, or has a good concept but is bored with it.
But even then, you'll be laughing, even if it's just in disbelief.This continues the Peter Jackson tradition that not only will none of his films be quite like anything you've seen, they won't even resemble one another very much.
I think Peter Jackson is at his best when making films with a small budget, that go further than you'd expect.
For those not in the know, it's a movie telling of the backstage antics of the performers in the "Meet The Feebles" variety show For 92 minutes, you watch these characters bed, spit on and in general abuse each other for their own selfish means.
This is one of the most disgusting, repulsive and revolting movies I've ever seen - so much so that I had to watch it three times because I'd laughed so hard that I didn't see all of it the first two times around.This is the muppets with sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
I have been a fan of Peter Jackson's work for a long time but when I saw Meet The Feebles i lost all my fate in him.First of all the movie feature no humans,just puppets.
There is very little gore in this movie at it features a lot of animal puppets which I think not is funny at all.I guess Peter Jackson's Splatter period is over because now he has started to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy.And that is a big budget adventure movie.So I advice everyone to see Braindead and Bad Taste instead of this awful attempt at a shocking puppet comedy.Stay away from 'Meet The Feebles'.
"Meet The Feebles" is the very sick and twisted take on the Muppets by (now Oscar-winning) writer and director Peter Jackson.
It's not perfect, but what it lacks in budget it makes up for in ambition and having a sense of humor about itself."Meet The Feebles" is a movie about puppets (both hand puppets and people in suits) who, like the Muppets, are not assumed to be puppets in their universe.
Now that it's 20 years since the movie has been made, it's high time they release a 20th Anniversary DVD of the film.Although "Meet The Feebles" is far from perfect, it's a great parody of not only the Muppets, but other puppet productions that contain wall-to-wall cuteness.