The Muppet Movie (1979)

The Muppet Movie is a 1979 musical road comedy film, directed by James Frawley and produced by Jim Henson, and the first theatrical film to feature the Muppets. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film was written by The Muppet Show writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. Produced during the third season of The Muppet Show, the film tells the origin story of the Muppets, as Kermit the Frog embarks on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, encountering several of the Muppets—who all share the same ambition of finding success in professional show business—along the way while being pursued by Doc Hopper, a greedy restaurateur with intentions of recruiting Kermit to promote his frog legs business.

The film stars Muppet performers Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Dave Goelz, as well as Charles Durning and Austin Pendleton, and it features cameo appearances by Bob Hope, Dom DeLuise, James Coburn, Cloris Leachman, Richard Pryor, Telly Savalas, Edgar Bergen (in his final film appearance before his death), Orson Welles, Madeline Kahn, Milton Berle, Carol Kane, Steve Martin, Mel Brooks, Elliott Gould, and Paul Williams. Notable for its surreal humour, meta-references and prolific use of cameos, The Muppet Movie was distributed by Associated Film Distribution in the United Kingdom on May 31, 1979, and in the United States on June 22, 1979.

The film received critical praise, including two Academy Award nominations for Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher's musical score and their song "Rainbow Connection". The film grossed $65.2 million worldwide against an $8 million budget. The Muppet Movie was followed by seven feature films starring the Muppets as well as several more television series and media. In 2009, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.