Starring Danny Mulheron, Donna Akersten, Stuart Devenie, Mark Hadlow, Ross Jolly, Brian Sergent, Peter Vere-Jones, Mark Wright, Jay Snowfield, Doug Wren
Directed by Peter Jackson
Expectations: Moderately high. I expect to like this more this time.
On the general scale:
On the B-movie scale:
Meet the Feebles is a film chock full of wild & crazy stuff to talk about, but the sheer amount of wild & crazy stuff is also what makes it so hard to find where to start. Meet the Feebles is a film out of deep, deep left field and it takes a certain type of soul to enjoy it. You’ve got to be pretty warped, and I’m actually pretty proud to say that I enjoy it more and more every time I see it. This is also the first film where Peter Jackson and special FX wizard Richard Taylor worked together, forging a collaborative bond that continues to this day on the Hobbit films. And speaking of The Hobbit, the guy that played the dwarf Dori, Mark Hadlow, was the voice of Heidi the Hippo, Wobert Robert and Barry the Bulldog all these years back!
But what is Meet the Feebles about? That’s a hard question to answer. Its plot is loose and episodic, telling the story of an entire performing company’s downfall as opposed to just focusing on a couple of its characters. There is something of a hero, and a couple of villains, but mostly it moves seamlessly and quickly through its characters to tell the overall story of the day’s rehearsal leading up to the live Feebles Variety Hour. Oh, and they’re all puppets except for the big characters which are played by people in suits.