The Insolent Waiter - The Muppet Movie

By 1979, Kermit the Frog and Steve Martin were already good buddies and had several encounters on-screen from The Muppet Show. Kermit’s likable character and Steve’s hilarity always make for good comedy, but there is one scene from The Muppet Movie that really takes the cake.

A little over halfway through the movie we find the cheerful green frog already waiting at the table in his red velvet suit for his enamored swine, Miss Piggy, who enters the unremarkable outdoor moonlit restaurant wearing her pink dinner gown, purple satin elbow gloves, and a frilly fuchsia scarf.  After a small bit of chit-chat, Kermit mentions that he took the liberty of ordering them some wine and proceeds to call out “Oh, Waiter?” which is when we meet the real star of this cameo, The Insolent Waiter, played by Mr. Steve Martin who turns around with a look of true disgust on his overly-cocked head.

“Yes? May I help you??” says Steve in a most aggravated tone as he walks toward the table revealing his outrageous sport coat and shorts getup. “The wine please?” a simple request made by the frog, and fairly reasonable considering his felt hands are controlled by moving two sticks, not exactly prime for opening bottles of wine. After the waiter begrudgingly shows them the bottle, Miss Piggy mistakes it for champagne and she is quickly corrected. “Not exactly,” says the waiter, “sparkling muscatel, one of the finest wines of Idaho.” and as he sets the bottle down on the table, Kermit says smugly, “You may serve us now.” to which he replies incredibly sardonically, “Oh, may I?”

He then removes the foil from the top of the bottle, revealing the next gag, a bottle cap instead of the cork. The waiter wads up the foil and tosses it over the railing, then grabs the bottle opener that is chained to the pocket on his jacket. After Steve pries the top off he utters what is arguably the most hilariously ridiculous line in this sketch, “Don’t you want to smell the bottle cap?” Kermit plays along and after sniffing he says it’s good. This joke is probably not always understood, but any invariable wine-drinkers should certainly get it.

Steve says, “Would you like to taste it first?” and after a quick consultation with Piggy, Kermit asks, “Would you taste it for us, please?” After a cheeky nod and a quick roll of the eyes, he takes a sip from the glass, holds it in his mouth for a split second, and then immediately spits every last drop of it out, dramatically spraying it toward the ground, then wiping his face off in revulsion. And like the flip of a switch, he turns back around to the Muppet couple with a smile and in all seriousness says, “Excellent choice.”

“Should be for .95 cents.” states Mr. The Frog, then as Steve fills their glasses, he is politely asked for straws by the small well-dressed amphibian. Our waiter is ready for this request, pulls them conveniently from behind his lapel, and places them promptly into their drinks. “Thank-you. That’ll be all for now.” states the green one with his matter-of-factness, and the waiter is finally relieved. “Oh, thank-you, thank-you very much, thank-you.” He bows out gracefully as he exits the patio, still absorbed in the phony graciousness that we have come to know so well in these past two minutes, but then turning at the end just so we can catch one last quick glimpse of irritation and ultra-sarcasm stretched across his no longer fake-smiling face. Classic.

Kermit is then so inclined to say, “Here’s to you Miss Piggy, drink up.” He takes a reasonable sip, but she continues to slurp hers down to the last drop, which is interesting from a puppeteer’s standpoint as to how this part of the scene was actually created, since puppets can’t really sip from a straw, so the table must have been built with some kind of drain in the bottoms of the glasses.

Then, just as the scene starts to get all sappy and mushy with our odd couple of interspecies lovers, and the camera starts to zoom in slowly and their fuzzy faces get closer and closer, and just when you think they are going to swallow each other’s heads, the romance is badly sliced like a hideous golf swing by our favorite waiter, who pops in real quick asking for Miss Piggy. After agreeing that she is, in fact, Miss Piggy, he says just one word with exasperation, “Telephone.”

Piggy regretfully informs “Kermie” that she had placed a call to her agent and that it will only be an “eensy-teensy” moment, and then she leaves him all alone. Time lapses and now his drink is as low as he feels. The faint sound of a piano starts to fade in and the in the next scene Kermit the Frog meets Rowlf the Dog (both voiced by Jim Henson). They do a fun little number together about the joys and heartaches that come tied with women called, “I Hope That Somethin’ Better Comes Along.”

As soon as the song comes to a bluesy end, it’s that pesky waiter again, this time asking for Kermit the Frog. “Phone call for Kermit the Frog! You Kermit the Frog?” he shouts across the room to the little guy. Kermit says, “Yeah.” and Steve says his last word in the sketch, “Phone.”  He points at it quite obviously and then walks away. A tasteful exit that leads to Rowlf’s punchline, “It’s not often you see a guy that green, have the blues that bad.”

This scene would not have been possible without the genius of Jim Henson who is talented enough to not only sing a duet solo, but bring this magic film to life with the help from people like Frank Oz who plays the extravagant Miss Piggy (among many other characters), and the hundreds of people it takes to produce such fantastic creations.