text: The third Muppet movie is perhaps the most relaxed and pleasing, with the gang taking their modest college musical to the bright (yet volatile) lights of Broadway filled with typically naïve optimism. Of course, their first attempt fails and Kermit (leader of the group and author of the show) blows his top; so, the others all go their separate ways so that he won't have to feel responsible for them. Kermit himself befriends a young wannabe fashion designer making ends meet by serving food at her father's diner (the old man, then, has a line in particularly tortuous non-sequiturs!). We get the usual cameo appearances by a variety of stars: Art Carney (as a producer), James Coco (as an overzealous dog owner), Dabney Coleman (as a confidence trickster), Elliott Gould (who was also in THE MUPPET MOVIE [1979]), Gregory Hines, Liza Minnelli (as herself  having her portrait at a classy restaurant replaced by Kermit's, sporting fake moustache, as an ostensibly celebrated entrepreneur in a ruse to attract publicity to the Muppets' show), Brooke Shields, and even director John Landis (in possibly the film's funniest scene as a Broadway producer before whom Kermit appears acting streetwise and chummy and hilariously donning shades and an Afro wig!). The other Muppets more or less go through their typical paces, with (regrettably) less space given to Gonzo this time around; while Miss Piggy is something of an acquired taste with me, the scenes in which the latter spies on what she takes to be Kermit's romance with the waitress  and especially her violent reaction to this  are undeniably funny. What disappoints, however, is the climactic show itself (after a fairly redundant midsection wherein Kermit gets amnesia and eventually picks up advertising on Madison Avenue) which, rather than the expected splashy routines, procures nothing more original than the wedding ceremony of Kermit and his eternal flame Miss Piggy!