Meet the Feebles
Since its release Meet the Feebles has met mixed critical reaction, Peter Jackson himself has remarked; “people will either love it or hate”. Whatever their reaction, most have acknowledged Jackson’s huge talents as a filmmaker.
 Meet the Feebles, New Zealand, 1989
Director: Peter Jackson
Production co: Wingnut Films
Producers: Jim Booth, Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Danny Mulheron, Frances Walsh, Stephen Sinclair, Peter Jackson
Director of photography: Murray Milne
Camera operator: Peter Jackson
Editor: Jamie Selkirk
Production designer: Mike Kane
Special effects: Steve Ingram
Puppet design: Cameron Chittock
Music: Peter Dasent
Puppeteers: Eleanor Aitken, Carl Buckley, Sarah Glensor, Danny Mulheron, George Port, Ian Williamson, Justine Wright, Terri Anderson, Sean Ashton-Peach
Puppet Co-ordinator: Tania Rodger
Models: Richard Taylor
With: the voices of Danny Mulheron (Heidi), Donna Akerston, Stuart Devenie, Mark Hadlow, Ross Jolly, Brian Sergent, Peter Vere Jones, Mark Wright
35mm, 90 minutes, R16
An adult fantasy film, Meet the Feebles relates the events that lead up to the infamous ‘Feebles Variety Massacre’ – the day that rocked the puppet world.
The film is set in a contemporary world like ours, with one major difference. There are no human beings. The Feebles world is populated entirely by puppets – living, breathing, eating puppets, with larger than life human characteristics and weaknesses. It takes the concept of the cute puppet show and turns it on its head. Meet the Feebles is a darkly comic satire on greed, lust and jealousy. A rich variety of characters form the basis of the multi-layered plot – a frog with a drug addiction, a rat making porno films starring cows and cockroaches, a journalist fly and many others.
Since its release Meet the Feebles has met mixed critical reaction, Peter Jackson himself has remarked; “people will either love it or hate”. Whatever their reaction, most have acknowledged Jackson’s huge talents as a filmmaker.
“In high-concept terms, Meet the Feebles is easily defined: it’s The Muppets Go Sleazebag. Aiming to do for the perky world of puppets what Fritz the Cat did for animation – i.e., overwhelm it with filth, sex and drugs – Peter Jackson’s film sets out to be relentlessly, gratuitously offensive. Most of the time, fortunately, it succeeds.” — Philip Kemp, Sight and Sound, May 1992
“The well-named Feebles are a raunchy troupe of show-biz puppets able to ooze, drool, sniff, retch and copulate in ways that would make the Muppets blush. Sprung from the febrile imagine of Peter Jackson, they run seriously amok in Meet the Feebles a film… destined to stand as an unfortunate footnote to Mr. Jackson’s career… Had Mr. Jackson not already used up the title “Bad Taste” on an earlier film, it would have fit Meet the Feebles well… It’s possible to appreciate Mr Jackson’s irrepressible fancifulness without remotely admiring the uses to which it has been put here. A flamboyantly vigorous filmmaker… From a technical standpoint, Meet the Feebles does an impressive job of staging action sequences that stretch the boundaries of ordinary puppet drama.” — ‘Playful Puppetry, for Adults Only’, Janet Maslin, The New York Times, 22/2/1995
“Meet the Feebles – like an episode of the Muppets directed by Peter Greenaway and/or David Lynch – should have something to offend everyone… Jackson has a wild imagination, and there are elements of brilliance that can’t be dimmed by the film’s obvious excesses.” — Des Patridge, The Courier-Mail, 16/3/1991
Screenings: Meet the Feebles screened on 3 October in a musical selection chosen by film writer Lawrence McDonald.
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