Dance Your Cares Away – Ben Folds And Fraggles Make Beautiful Music

Chris Hardwick may currently have the greatest job on Earth. He gets to rub elbows with Doctor Who and Walking Dead muckity-mucks, run a whole channel of geek oriented programming as part of Nerdist Industries, and now, hang out with the Ben Folds Five and The Jim Henson Company as part of the 30th anniversary of Fraggle Rock. Here’s the scoop from the press release, in which Hardwick describes how this came together and the inherent awesomeness of his job:

In a meeting with Lisa [Henson, CEO, The Jim Henson Company], she casually said, ‘Next year is the 30th anniversary of ‘Fraggle Rock.’ Would you want to do anything with the Fraggles?’ ‘WHAT THE [expletive]?? That’s an OPTION?!’ I loudly replied. I think I scared her a little. I knew Ben [Folds] had a new album releasing in September so I threw his name out. Lisa said ‘that would be amazing’ without hesitation. It was beautifully serendipitous. It seemed like a no-brainer to me, but I still cautiously pitched it to Ben, not really knowing his relationship with the show. I think I just spit words out, ‘YOU. VIDEO. FRAGGLES. ME PAY FOR!’”

This video for the new single “Do It Anyway”, by Ben Folds Five, speaks to my inner child who had to sneak episodes of Fraggle Rock at friends’ houses because my parents refused to get HBO. It also speaks to my inner early twenty-something for whom Ben Folds Five’s Whatever And Ever Amen was the soundtrack to the year I moved out of the house after college. It also makes me question my life choices because, no matter what I might accomplish tomorrow, next month, or next year, it most likely won’t be a video shoot with Fraggles. This. This is how the full on midlife crisis starts.

Check out the video full of awesome win, in which Ben Folds and the Fraggles are joined by Chris Hardwick, Rob Corddry, and Anna Kendrick, after the jump!

Roger Langridge Gonzo From Marvel, DC

If you’re a casual comic book reader, you probably have no idea who Roger Langridge is. Here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, however, we are big fans, mostly due to his work on Boom Studios’ The Muppet Show comic back around 2009, when a Muppets movie revival was only the bulge in Jason Segal’s BVDs, and when reading a comic based on a childhood favorite TV show was a pleasant diversion from our constant morning joint pain.

(Digression before the meat of the story: if you are a Muppet Show fan, you owe it to yourself to find those issues. I don’t know how Langridge did it, but he distilled a visual show with a heavy musical element into a standard comic book, and he captured the tone flawlessly. Disney buying Marvel, meaning Disney suddenly had their own comic publisher for the Muppets and therefore could pull the license from Boom, has been, to us, the biggest tragedy of that merger to date).

Since that book folded, Langridge has been doing some work for Marvel on their John Carter books (See? Goddamned Disney merger fucks up all kinds of shit…), but no more. Following in the footsteps of Chris Roberson and announced, via the Internet, that he will no longer be working for either Marvel or DC due to “individual conscience”:

Muppet Vindaloo – No, Wait, There’s *Another* Muppet Movie Trailer

Ok, ok. I know that just two weeks ago I posted about what was supposed to be the final trailer for The Muppets before the movie is released a mere two weeks from today on November 23. However according to Bleeding Cool, in the UK the movie won’t be released until sometime next February – so they got an exclusive trailer in UK theaters (which is now on YouTube as of this past Nov. 7 – exclusive is relative in the age of the Internet, I guess).

More Hot Pig On Frog Action – Muppets Make Parody Of Parody Trailers

Over on The Mary Sue, they’ve been keeping track of all the various parody trailers that have been released this past year to promote The Muppets, a new installation of Muppet zaniness that is written by (and stars) Jason Siegel. One of the trailer parodies was even Green Lantern themed.

What does the new one spoof? Among other things Paranormal Activity, Twilight: Breaking Dawn and, well, itself:

The Muppets hits theaters nationwide November 23, 2011. Go blow off your Thanksgiving preparations and support interspecies dating, mediocre ursine comedians who wear farty shoes and Jason Siegel’s continued attempts to work on projects that are not How I Met Your Mother, animated, or produced by Judd Apatow. Stay strong. I believe in you, man.