"The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland"
Mandy Patinkin knows how to make an impression. He’s been Saul on “Homeland,” George in “Sunday in the Park with George,” and Inigo Montoya in “Princess Bride” -- the guy’s a legend. But I think his most indelible creation is one you likely haven’t seen: Huxley, a kleptomaniac hoarder who goes to war with the titular fuzzy three-year-old in “The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland.”
Huxley is the illiterate mob boss of Grouchland, a place of filth, garbage and nastiness that made Oscar into the muppet he is today. Huxley has giant caterpillars for eyebrows, lives in a mountain redoubt overflowing with pilfered clutter, and has a thing for suspenders. He doesn’t quite rule Grouchland, but he does dominate it. He claims whatever items he wants, and the grouchizens have no choice but to cower and make way.
But Elmo is not a grouch. He does not know the local customs. So when Huxley steals Elmo’s blanket, Elmo will not bow. He will not give up. He will instead undergo an epic quest -- replete with musical numbers! -- to reclaim what is rightfully his.
Yeah, along the way Elmo learns a lesson about sharing, and yeah, I could relate that to some philosophical musing about teaching my 1.5-year-old to trade instead of snatch. But the movie is too good for all my usual murmurings about how special it is to be a parent and cherish life and blah blah blah. This film has Vanessa Williams vamping as the queen of a garbage dump! Let’s focus on what’s really important.
You already know the plot without ever having seen the movie:
Elmo loves his blanket.
Elmo loves it so much he doesn’t want to share it.
Blanket gets taken from him accidentally.
He chases it and stumbles into a wormhole — isekai-style — that brings him to Grouchland. (Elmo: “Elmo doesn’t think he’s on Sesame Street anymore.”)
Huxley steals the blanket and punishes anyone who still calls it Elmo’s blanket.
Elmo sets out to find the blanket.
Many obstacles — including a giant chicken — get in Elmo’s way. He has to overcome self-doubt to persevere.
In a climactic scene, he reclaims the blanket from a half-naked Huxley with the help of his friends.
It’s the details that matter, not the plot. Details like these:
The movie starts with a framing device in which Bert and Ernie directly address the viewers to ask for help getting Elmo through his quest. Throughout, they interrupt the movie — literally pausing the action — to check in with its young audience and remind them that everything is going to be OK. I usually have to sit on the couch to keep N, my 4.5-year-old, company whenever the music gets tense in a movie, but Bert and Ernie did that for me. More movies should do this.
The soundtrack is full of bops, perhaps none more so than “I See a Kingdom.” Midway through the movie, Vanessa Williams emerges in silhouette and reveals herself to be what can only be described as a sexy garbage peacock. She then sings a song that is Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” if it were on “The Lion King” soundtrack. Forget “Espresso,” this is my song of my summer.
Or maybe it’s this ode to courage in the face of huge-and-hard-to-accomplish feats, which happens to be sung by a bewhiskered weed?
The only way Elmo can get out of Williams’s clutches is if he gives her 100 raspberries. The fruit, he asks? No -- that fart sound you make with your mouth. He has 30 seconds to blow 100. He realizes he can’t do it alone and turns to us for help. Will we? N verbally volunteered without hesitation. J, my 1.5-year-old, was already blowing raspberries before Elmo asked. “Sesame Street” is alchemy.
The wordplay is divine:
When Oscar returns to his ancestral homeland, he takes a look around at the decrepitude, and tells somebody, “You look like a million yucks.”
Huxley lives atop Mount Pickanose.
When it’s clear Elmo’s friends have to go through Oscar’s garbage can to get to Elmo, he warns, “Be careful. I just had the rugs dirtied.”
It’s 77 minutes long, which is good because all kids movies should be shorter than 80 minutes.
And of course there’s Patinkin. Somehow he plays the most cartoonish character in a movie starring muppets. At one point Huxley says he’s feeling saucy, and then lapses into an Italian accent to say the word “parmesan” like he’s a teenage Tony Soprano on his first trip to Italy.
In Patinkin’s hands, Huxley is a villain whose flaw is that he’s as selfish as the audience on their worst days. It’s not just that he can’t share; it’s that he wants to take. “Some may call it greed. It's not, it's need. A need I love to feed. The need to have a lot. I give my all to all I seize, see? And all I see I give to me,” Huxley sings. As Elmo himself learns, there’s a little Huxley in all of us, whether we like it or not. The question is about what we do with that impulse.
Just a great movie. Highly recommend. Think you won’t like it? Inconceivable!
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Thanks to Eric for asking me what movie he should put on for a sick 4-year-old. If you want to put it on for your kid, it’s available to stream on Amazon Prime Video or to rent/buy on whatever video-on-demand service you like best. It’s strangely no longer available to stream on Max, the home for all things “Sesame Street.” Really looking forward to one of my children growing up to be the person who figures out how to solve our scrambled streaming landscape.
Thanks for taking a step into this wormhole every week, and I’m glad you brought your special blankie. Have somebody in your life who could learn a thing or two from Huxley’s cautionary tale? Tell them about Writ Small. It’s the best way to help the newsletter. And if you’re that person, this is a safe space where we believe in rehabilitation. Subscribe for more life lessons.
We’ll probably be back to our usual earnest-and-bordering-on-saccharine essays next week, unless you come up with a better idea. Have one? Send it my way over email, in the comments, or with the button below: