The Muppets are coming out with a new movie next week and I’m almost as nervous about it as I was about that game where the Patriots could have done something incredible that had never been done before, but then my worst fears were realized and they didn’t do it. Is that rational? Probably not, but I grew up loving the Muppets and I hold them in high regard.

The Muppets, Richie Valens, The Monkees, and The Four Seasons are what started my love of music at the age of three. Music now plays a pretty big part in my life so the roots of that interest take on a bit more importance. I’ve seen other terrible remakes of things I loved when I was a kid and was offended and disappointed and I don’t want that to happen with the sacred Muppets.

I’ll liken it to the time I met Larry Bird. Larry Bird has been my sports hero since I can remember. I ran into him at the 2008 Draft Lottery and having heard stories of how mean he could be I didn’t want to risk ruining my entire childhood so I didn’t attempt to engage him in any lengthy conversation. I just gave him a quick “Hey how ya doin’?” and the Legend responded with a “Hi” and a smile. That’s all I needed. I didn’t want to risk ruining anything.

Now if I had run the risk of ruining my childhood and Mr. Bird would have been friendly, it would have been absolutely amazing. Say we struck up a conversation and became friends. I could hang out with Larry Bird every once in a while, maybe swim in his pool, play some H-O-R-S-E, or just pick his basketball genius brain. That would have been awesome, but I didn’t want it to go the other way of having Larry tell me to scram by using some unkind language.

This Muppet movie can go two ways as well. It will either be disappointing, boring, poorly done, corny, a reach. Or it will be very well done and capture the magic that the original Muppet productions did. For my sake as well as anyone else’s who is excited about this movie, let’s hope the Muppets become best pals with Larry Bird.

On the music front the Muppets just released the preview of their soundtrack on Youtube. Check it out below and click here if you’d like to preorder it.

BONUS: There was also a covers album of all Muppets songs that was released this past summer. If you want a piece of that, check it out here.

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