1. Ryan Gosling in The Mickey Mouse Club (1993-1995) with Britney Spears
2. Britney Spears in How I Met Your Mother (2008) with Jason Segel
3. Jason Segel in The Muppets (2011)

I’m not a true Muppet fan. In fact, I think I’ve only seen two Muppet movies total. But the beautiful thing about The Muppets is that it reflects on the long legacy of the puppets while at the same time acquainting new audiences with these characters.

From the first scene to the final musical number, The Muppets is pure movie entertainment. The jokes are old school and could have easily fallen very flat, but writers Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller (who worked together on the hilarious Forgetting Sarah Marshall) manage to add clever winks to the audience in every punchline.

And the musical numbers. Some of the songs, like Amy Adams‘ showcase “Party of One,” really detract from the story and add nothing to the movie at all (even though it’s a perfectly okay song). But when songwriter Bret McKenzie (TV’s Flight of the Conchords) gets it right, he gets it really right. “Life’s a Happy Song” (Spotify link) may be one of my favorite movie moments from this year.

Segel and co. are clearly having the time of their lives paying tribute to these classic Jim Henson characters. The Muppets is essentially a 100-minute tribute to The Muppets, and that’s perfectly fine. Add this to the fact that there’s a tribute band called The Moopets present in this movie and you have a mindbender along the lines of Inception.

See The Muppets. Have some fun.