It's a Muppet's Show Tonight

My family kind of has a love affair with the Muppets.  It's something we grew up watching... and somehow we identified with the characters and the special guests.  My older brothers, Ben and Scott, really should be writing this post. They could give a better tribute to it than myself.  You can even see hints of the Muppets throughout "Yo Gabba Gabba" (the TV show they have), indirectly (some of the music and characters), and directly (Paul Williams' guest starring singing "Rainbow Connection"). Jim Henson and Paul Williams are pretty big celebrities to us.  Am I wrong, Scott, but you pretty much worship them right? :)  (I personally love Paul Williams because of his hand in the music for The Carpenters, but that's just me. We love him all the same)

Porter, Piper & Rocky-(this is the picture we actually took that night. The one above is just from the internet)

So, when the new movie was coming out, it only seemed fitting that our whole family see it together.  And of course we had to go to El Capitan theater in downtown Hollywood.  Wikipedia's description of its history says it better than I can "El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is owned by Pacific Theatres and operated by the Walt Disney Company. It serves as the venue for many of Walt Disney Pictures' movie premieres."

El Capitan has a special place in my heart. I spent many years living in the Hollywood area, and when I didn't live there, I at least worked there. The girls and I attended so many movie premieres there and all their events. When they were premiering Princess Diaries 1 and 2, we attended the full-out tea parties with the princesses in attendance and the pre- and post-shows too!  Disney usually goes all out to premiere these movies here and it's a regular every year for Nightmare Before Christmas. I have attended many-a-showing of Nightmare, including the first one when Danny Elfman and many of the famous actors gave a Q&A panel afterward. Now it's kind of a cult following with people dressing up as the characters and coming to watch the show, year after year.

Didn't get any pictures myself (bummer for me) so I'm using Nanette's pictures (Nan, wanna just copy this post? haha).  They're fun for my family back home to see themselves there, so I'm posting almost all of them.

Ruth & Scotty!

Archer, Nancy (Grammy), Harry (Grandpa), Lulu

James, Heather & Lily

Waitin for the show to start!

Myles & Archer

Piper (with Ruby, right? and Porter)

Sam Schultz and new bambina, Seattle

Lily, Amber, Eliza and Rocky

Eliza and Rocky in front, Max and Xanthe (second row), Sharla, Mossi, Ryan (making the silly face) and Heather. And you can kind of see the only picture of Brian right behind Ryan.

Ollie, Xoe & Xanthe (I just love this picture at how excited they all were with their popcorn boxes, and the fun of the characters and bubbles during the pre-show)

Afterwards, Disney usually always has some sort of display.  For the Nightmare show, they usually always have models of the claymation sets for you to see how they did it, or they'll have interactive games for the kids. This year they had sets from the movie (Kermit's office, and Miss Piggy's dressing room) which was fun, with Miss Piggy's costumes on display too. They had this backdrop to take pictures in front.  We kind of monopolized it at one point. I'm sorry for the horrible pictures.  For as many photographers and nice cameras we have in our family, no one remembered to bring one.

Cousins!

Scott's family

Trying to get a picture of the whole family... not happening.  haha.

And of course, US!

After the show, we started walking along Hollywood Boulevard. I was dumbfounded that my own girls who had been here a LOT of times, acted like they had never seen the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Graumann's Chinese (Mann's) Theater and Ripley's Believe it or Not. Kinda made me wonder if doing all the fun things we do with our kids even makes a difference (I know there's a great psychological answer to it like it bonds us, etc. but at that moment I was a little exasperated).

And of course, true to form for X&X, all they wanted to do was souvenir shop while walking to find something to eat. (This is Xoe)

(Xanthe in green)

Xoe, Xanthe & Rocky

Xoe, Rocky & Xanthe (this was outside the Disney store shop and they thought it was so fun!)

I could see how much all the kids were enamored with Hollywood and since I love it so much too, I told the kids that I would take them all down to walk around and take pictures and most importantly, to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. You'da thought I'd promised Disneyland.

Schultz Brothers and Sisters of mine, did I leave any details out?  I need Amber to post her Schultz Heritage about that day. It was classic! :)