The Muppets
A cappella has made its mark all over the movie world across the years. In At the Movies we spotlight highlights and lowlights from the musical form we love in motion pictures.
This time, we spotlight The Muppets.
Like the films that preceded it, The Muppets, the 2011 addition to the eponymous clan’s catalog, highlighted its share of musical numbers. Perhaps the least expected of all was the entry of a barbershop quartet that gave an all-too-reluctant Jack Black a trim and shave whilst singing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” In a film chock full of silliness, this marks one of the most random points in the narrative—sans any real context, rhyme or reason. And perhaps that’s what’s best about it. In this sampling of four-part vocal harmony, The Muppets communicated some of the quirky, nonsensical fun of a cappella, more particularly barbershop, to a general audience.