Dream a Little Dream of Meep; or, The Subconscious and the Frog

Although my dreams continue to be vivid and enjoyable, I haven’t shared here lately.

The other day, however, I put together such an interesting vision in that odd twilight state between dreaming and waking up that I can’t help but write about it. While I tried my best to stay in it, I was aware that I was beginning to come out of it and I probably have my emerging consciousness to thank for its being so brief as well as having an ending — a pretty rare thing for dreams, which in my experience tend to slide into one another or quickly slip away. It was also rare in that I wasn’t actually in the dream, neither as myself nor even as a POV character.

Just so that I don’t bury the lead any farther, I’ll mention now that the dream starred the Muppets.

Or in point of fact it starred the voices of the Muppets. The dream opened with a sweeping camera shot over some city skyline, which I was barely aware was actually being projected on a screen within the proscenium of a movie theater. A couple of announcers handled what began as a traditional film-trailer voiceover, interrupted by the Muppets themselves in the kind of “meta” fashion common to many Muppets projects. I pieced the dialogue together as best I could when I typed it up, holding onto the strangest, funniest bits as closely as possible, but of course despite the fact that I remember the gist of dreams quite well, quite often, I won’t claim that the transcript below is all recalled verbatim from the dreamscape.

Announcer #1 was none other than Don LaFontaine, the Voice of God, Mr. Low Stentorian Subwoofer of Impending Doom, who actually passed away in 2008. He was virtually an industry unto himself, one that included self-parody; I mean no disrespect by dragging him into this. Announcer #2 was one of those guys with the jaunty baritones; he pops up at the end.

When the double-spacing between lines becomes single-spacing, that’s the Muppets talking to each other with increasing rapidity, eventually all but talking right over one another. Do your best to read the voices in character in your head...

Ready?

Announcer #1: “In a world... where movie-trailer announcers... sound like this...”

Gonzo: “Ooh! I love this guy!”

Announcer #1: “... a throat lozenge... is a man’s best friend — outside of a dog.”

Rowlf: “Thanks for the shout-out.”

Announcer #1: “Inside of a dog, of course... it’s still too dark... to read.”

Fozzie: “Wait a minnit. You stole that line from Groucho!”
Kermit: “Fozzie.”
Rowlf: “He did.”
Fozzie: “And it doesn’t make any sense with ‘throat lozenge’ instead of ‘book’.”
Pepé: “I would call eet artistic license, okay.”
Miss Piggy: “Is it just moi, or does the word ‘lozenge’ sound really weird?”
Scooter: “Yeah.”
Rowlf: “It does.”
Janice: “Rilly, rilly weird.”
Beaker: “Meep meep meep!”
Swedish Chef: “Eh? No no no. Soop fur de soor troat! Chickee soop!”
Kermit: “Everybody...”
Animal: “Lah-zinj! Lah-zinj!”

Kermit: “... qui-ahhht! I say we let the man talk. Mr. Announcer?”

Announcer #1: “I have completely... lost my train... of thought.”

Fozzie: “May I take over? I am now guild-certified for movie-trailer announcements.”

Scooter: “Uh, Kermit? We’re only budgeted for ninety sec—”

Announcer #2: “The Next Muppet Movie. Coming to theaters this summer.”

Most of my dreams are pretty danged interesting, but I would pay to have a dream like that again.


Related: Muppet Monday (Oct. 17th) • REM Brands • Fight
and Flight • New Dream Titans • Muppet Monday (Nov. 21st)