The Muppets Go Hardcore
The makers of “Sesame Street” tried and failed to block the release of the R-rated film the “Happytime Murders.” The film is scheduled for an August release. It has a human detective who teams up with a puppet partner to investigate grisly puppet murders. The movie is loaded with every form of sin that could be imagined; with explicit profanity, drug-using, prostitution, violence, copulation, and even ejaculating puppets.
The Sesame Workshop owns the rights to puppets like the Cookie Monster, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and Big Bird. They were all created by the Jim Henson Company, which controls the Muppet Show characters like Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. The Happytime Murders movie has all new puppets.
The lawyers for Sesame Street argued that the film’s tagline “No Sesame. All Street” infringes on the Workshop’s trademark. Judge Vernon Broderick said that the tagline actually distinguished the upcoming film from Sesame Street in a “humorous, pithy way.” The Judge also ruled that the film’s endless filth did not tarnish Sesame’s brand.
Jim Henson must be spinning in his grave right now. He was a man of very high morals, and would be absolutely horrified to see what has become of his creations. The Jim Henson Company is run by Jim’s son Brian Henson, who has sold out to the recent trend that calls for adding vice to movies that were once aimed at kids. The movie “Ted,” with the foul-mouth teddy bear, gave the signal to go blue in his market when it became a huge hit in 2012.
One sign of shame over the making of the movie is that it was produced by the company’s subsidiary, “On The Day Productions.” Brian Henson claims to have argued against the reference to Muppets and Sesame Street, but he said “contractually we don’t have the right to change it,” according to court papers.
He said he didn’t want to have the film viewed as a debauched parody of the Muppets. “…Therefore, trading off the famous Muppets to sell the film is exactly what we did not want to have happen,” said Henson in court records. This is just a mind game that people play. They say they don’t want to do something, and then they do that exact thing under some pretext.
The movie has Muppets performing acts that would be seen as X-rated a generation ago. It’s telling of how we are in the last days when evil finds its way into everything that was once seen as virtuous or wholesome. Even Christian movies are now being produced that have profanity. You can’t even trust the rating system. The day will come when a G-rating will mean that there is only a small amount of nudity in a film.
Another sign that this world is becoming totally depraved was the recent vote in Ireland to repeal an amendment banning abortion. The referendum saw 66.4 percent of the electorate voting to make abortion services legal by January 2019. People were dancing in the streets like Ireland has just won the world soccer championship. Years ago, the ability of a woman to murder her unborn child would be welcomed with regretful silence.
Ireland’s first openly gay Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, gave the most fitting reaction to this travesty: “I said in recent days that this was a once-in-a-generation vote. Today I believe we have voted for the next generation.”
Ireland is in the new generation, but it’s the type that leads to self-destruction.
It just seems like humanity is on a huge ship that is in the midst of a hurricane that is constantly getting more furious. The moral anchors that have been resisting the storm have been snapping one by one from the stress. I can only think of the storm that Jesus and his disciples faced on the Sea of Galilee. In our case, the calming of the waves only comes when the rapture takes us away from this turmoil.
“Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm” (Matthew 8:23-26).
–Todd
Elam Prophecy in View?
Israel, always in the news while planet earth closes in on Christ’s Second Coming, again is drawn into the center of stage-setting for prophetic fulfillment. I’m referring specifically to prophecy involving ancient Persia–modern Iran.
We’ve looked at the prophecies involving these end-times players over the past number of years. Dynamics generated from things going on in the region have increased in intensity as of late. It is therefore worthwhile to catch up with developments involving Israel and its biblically foretold enemies.
Iranian leaders are angered over the Trump administration’s taking the U.S. out of the “nuclear deal.” They are threatening the Jewish state and vowing that soon Israel will feel their wrath.
Development of nuclear weaponry is at the heart of the threat. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have both vowed that Iran will not have nuclear weapons. However, it is known that they already possess missiles thought to be capable of carrying nuclear payloads. And, their centrifuges and nuclear laboratories, deeply ensconced within Iran’s mountainous regions, are beyond inspection by the people who came up with the “worst deal in history,” according to President Trump.
A primary reason Trump considered the “deal” as such is because the inspectors could neither “trust” nor “verify,” as President Ronald Reagan insisted in the case of dealing with the Iranian’s chief ally, Russia.
A Jerusalem Post article reports Israel’s present mindset.
Netanyahu said he spoke over the weekend with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and expressed Israel’s appreciation for the strong and determined position the US administration is taking against the Iranian nuclear agreement and the Islamic Republic’s aggression in the region.
“The regime in Tehran is the main factor undermining stability in the Middle East,” he said. “The campaign against its aggression is not over, and we are still in it.”
Netanyahu said that Israel is working against the Iranian regime on three fronts: preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons, working against its military entrenchment in Syria, and working against the transfer of game-changing weapons from Syria to Lebanon, or the manufacturer of that weaponry in Lebanon.
“Those weapons are intended for use against Israel, and it is our right – by virtue of the right of self defense – to prevent its production or transfer,” he said. (Netanyahu says campaign against Iran ongoing on three different fronts, by Herb Keinon, Israel News – Jerusalem Post, May 27, 2018)
As mentioned, we have previously, and on several occasions, covered the threat to Israel from its prophesied enemy, Persia (Iran). That nuclear threat hasn’t gone away since we last paid attention in one of these commentaries. It has, as a matter of fact, progressed toward becoming not just a threat, but, possibly a real assault. The former U.S. presidential administration aided and abetted that ratcheting-up of Iran’s eventual achievement in producing atomic weapons. Israel’s military posture as of late, combined with Netanyahu’s elevated words of concern, illustrate, I think, just how near might be some action to neutralize Iran’s growing danger to not only the Jewish state, but to other nations as well.
I wrote the following in a commentary on June 14, 2014:
My friend, Bill Salus, has just released an especially fascinating book relative to our time. NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN IN IRAN: The Ancient Prophecy of Elam points to a particular prophecy in the book of Jeremiah that the author believes foretells a devastating blow to a certain part of Iran–the area of ancient Elam.
One of my own burning questions has been: Why does Persia (modern-day Iran) seemingly intend to attack Israel alongside Russia in the Gog-Magog attack of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 without apparent deployment of nuclear weaponry? –Thus, since Iran is obviously developing such weapons as fast as it can.
That prophecy that both Bill and I had and still have in mind is the following:
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might. And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them: And I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the Lord. But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 49:35-39)
The title of Bill’s book–NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN IN IRAN: The Ancient Prophecy of Elam–might itself prove to be prophetic, as things wind up for the end of the age.
–Terry