Narrated by Kermit the Frog, first aired in broadcast syndication and later rerun on HBO during the '80s, this special is a retelling of The Bremen Town Musicians, moving the location from a city to a southern town in Louisiana. It involves four runaway barn animals—Leroy the Donkey, T.R. the Rooster, Rover Joe the Hound Dog, and Catgut the Cat—whose mean-spirited owners have either thrown them out or were set to kill them. With Leroy hauling a wagon of instruments (which his owner, Mordecai Sledge, had stolen), Leroy decides to become a traveling musician, in hopes that families will give him food and shelter. As he finds the other animals, they all join together to become traveling musicians.
This special was a little different from Jim Henson's past productions, in that very few of the Muppet performers lent their voices. Aside from Henson and Jerry Nelson, all of the voices were provided by outside talent. This special also featured impressive puppetry effects, particularly with the villains, who switch from being hand puppets in close-ups to full-bodied costumed characters in wide shots.
The Muppet Musicians of Bremen contains examples of
- Adaptational Skill: The original Bremen Town Musicians were implied to be horrible singers. Here, the four animals are actually pretty skilled with their instruments and make a snazzy Louisiana jazz band.
- Animal Talk: Inferred. The animals often talk with humans in earshot, but the humans don’t respond or seem to understand them. The closest to them understanding the animals would be when Caleb Siles tells Catgut she's sung her last song.
- Aside Comment: The animals occasionally direct comments to the audience, such as Leroy clarifying things Mordecai says.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Mordecai makes one to Leroy after the loot stolen from a boxcar turns out to be musical instruments instead of jewels or money.Mordecai: It's time for you to retire.
Leroy: Retire? I'd love to retire.
Mordecai: I'm gonna get me my gun and retire you proper! [Goes in to get it.]
Leroy: But not that way! - Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: When the animals take a wrong turn and find themselves lost, Leroy sees a shack, thinks it's the home of a family, and that they'll adopt the animals when they hear their music. T.R., skeptical, suggests that Leroy go check it out to be sure. As Leroy is standing by a shaded window, trying to see what's going on, the scene changes to show the robbers having a meeting inside the shack. Since the shade is drawn, all Leroy can see is the silhouettes of the robbers, and he can't hear any of the action. This leads to such mistakes as thinking that, when the robbers are bending their heads over their money to count it, the family is saying grace before supper.
- Big Eater: Lardpork.
- Butt Biter: Rover Joe bites Mean Floyd on the backside after Floyd steps on him, thinking he’s a ghost. He later bites Lardpork on the butt during the climax.
- Carnivore Confusion: Lardpork blatantly intends to eat T.R. for forgetting to wake him up. Granted, it’s not clear if the humans know the animals are sentient, but the audience knows, which results in this.
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: T.R. used to crow at dawn every day, but lately he's had a few spells of oversleeping, because of his "whooperooing" with the hens half the night. Lardpork decides to stew him because he hasn't been waking him in time for breakfast.Lardpork: T.R., that's the second time this week I've missed my breakfast on account of you!
- Comically Missing the Point: When Leroy, T.R., and Rover Joe first find Catgut lying motionless on a tombstone, Rover Joe remarks, "It's a lady cat and she's dead." "No, I ain't," says Catgut, and Rover Joe replies, "You sure look like a lady cat!"
- Composite Character: Unlike in the original story, the robbers based in the cottage are the animals' former owners.
- Deadpan Snarker: Every character has moments of this, but T.R. gets the most quips.
- Destination Defenestration: Mean Floyd throws Rover Joe out the window—and he doesn't even open it first!
- Disproportionate Retribution: What leads to Leroy, T.R., Rover Joe, and Catgut's departures from their homes. Mordecai blames Leroy for the fact that the loot turns out to be musical instruments and decides to "retire" him by shooting him. Lardpork misses breakfast (for the second time in one week) because T.R. overslept and didn’t crow, so he decides to eat him. When Mean Floyd finds out that the ghost sounds were actually Rover Joe's snores, he throws him out the window (straight through the glass). Similarly, when Caleb Siles finds Catgut singing to and befriending the rats, he immediately throws her out the window and into a barrel of water.
- The Dog Bites Back: Or cat, in this case. After thirteen years of chasing rats out of Caleb Siles's pantry, only to receive little in return save beatings when a rat occasionally got past her, Catgut decides she's had enough and lets the rats have their way with the place.
- Establishing Character Moment: At the beginning, Kermit says that the animals used to be sad because of the people who owned them, leading to a montage showing each owner expressing his main character trait—Mordecai getting angry, Lardpork eating, Mean Floyd looking scared, and Caleb Siles counting money.
- Fantasy Sequence: We get one when the animals sing "Family Song," imagining the lovely family that they believe lives in the shack—though the audience knows it's the robbers' hideout. To drive home how Entertainingly Wrong the animals are, the sequence shows the robbers in an old-fashioned picture frame, with each of them dressed to resemble a different person in a family: Mordecai as the father, Lardpork as the mother, Mean Floyd as the son, and Caleb Siles as the daughter.
- Fat Bastard: Lardpork.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Mordecai used a lot of made-up swear words that sound close to Angrish.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Mordecai.
- Interactive Narrator: Kermit, who ends up being the one who convinces Leroy to become a travelling musician.
- Just Following Orders: Leroy does not approve of his master's robberies but has no choice but to haul them off (until he runs away). Similarly, when Catgut makes friends with rats, she tells them it was all because of Caleb Siles, who would "knock out all her stuffin'" if she missed a rat.
- Kick the Dog: Mean Floyd invokes this trope when he throws Rover Joe through a window (see Destination Defenestration).
- Meaningful Name:
- Lardpork, the Fat Bastard.
- Subverted with Mean Floyd. Despite his name, he is a lot more cowardly and childlike, the least mean of the bunch. The only really mean thing he does is throw Rover Joe out for not coming when he thinks there is a ghost.
- Misplaced Retribution: Mordecai blames Leroy for the fact that they only had time to steal one bag of goods before the guard got unstuck from the drain pipe the crooks stuffed him into and that it turned out to be musical instruments. When Mordecai trips over the wagon, he blames Leroy for that as well.
- Mondegreen Gag: When Leroy and T.R. invite Rover Joe to join them...Leroy: Uh, by the by, how are you with a trombone?
Rover Joe: I'm very good with a ham bone!
T.R.: Uh... yeah... well, if you practice a little bit, I think you'll see the difference between the two of 'em. - No Honour Among Thieves: The four crooks/owners clearly don’t trust each other even though they work together.
- Non-Indicative Name: Catgut, despite being named after a term for violin strings, plays the trumpet.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: For the most part, Mean Floyd doesn't exactly live up to his name, being more of a childlike coward (though the others have their fears as well). However, when Rover Joe wouldn't attack when Floyd thinks there is a ghost (Rover Joe is sleeping and his snoring sounds like ghost sounds to him), and finds out that it had been Rover Joe the whole time, he throws him out through a window.
- At first, Mordecai is the only one who is mentioned to be a robber, with the others just being jerkasses to their pets (and arguably having a point with their treatment of the animals), but in the last half, it's established that they are all crooks who work together in their illegal deeds.
- Oh, Crap!:
- T.R., when Lardpork interrupts his song by slamming his axe onto a log right beside him.
- Catgut, when Caleb catches her singing to the rats.
- Mean Floyd, when he realizes it's midnight in the swamp where he and the other robbers are meeting, as it's rumored that swamp demons are stirring at midnight. The others tell him not to be a coward but get scared as well when they hear Leroy and the others walking around outside.
- Setting Update: The story is moved from Germany in the original tale to somewhere in Louisiana, although it’s not clear what time period.
- Skewed Priorities: While being attacked by T.R., Lardpork desperately tries to ignore T.R. while eating an apple.
- Something Blues: T.R., when saying goodbye to the other chickens, sings "Cock a Doodle Blues."
- Unknown Rival: While maybe not rivals, during the final confrontation, the animals do not realize their former owners are the "family" or even the people they think scared off the family (Leroy later commenting, "Now, I wonder who they were?"), and as they attack, in the dark, their former owners think the animals are the very things they are afraid of.
- The Unintelligible: While Mordecai can be understood for the most part, he frequently lapses into Angrish cursing that’s hard to follow. As Kermit notes, "It's hard to understand what Mordecai is saying sometimes, and I think that's a good thing."
- Worthless Treasure Twist: In the beginning, coming back from their latest heist, Mordecai notes that they were working so fast that his band didn't see what they were stealing. He is outraged to see that instead of precious jewels or some such, it's a bunch of musical instruments. When he meets with the rest of his gang, they point out that they can still sell the instruments, and are angered when he admits to losing them.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Why each animal departs from their owners. In the case of Leroy and T.R., their owners want to kill them over it (while T.R.'s owner, Lardpork, pretty much quotes this trope, he decides that he might still be good enough to eat), while Rover Joe and Catgut pretty much just get thrown out by their owners.
