“The Happytime Murders” footage opened with Detective Connie Edwards (star and producer Melissa McCarthy) listening to Kermit’s “The Rainbow Connection” during a listless drive down a country road. Her passenger and fellow police officer — a blue puppet named Phil Phillips — grouses, “What the fuck is this? It’s like a tampon commercial in here,” angering Edwards enough to fire shots into her radio.
The mismatched duo investigate a spree of killings against the puppet cast of The Happytime Gang, an ’80s TV touchstone. Also populating their world are puppet strippers, streetwalkers, and gamblers who goad Edwards into snorting a mysterious purple substance with Twizzlers. Human characters are portrayed by Joel McHale (an FBI agent), Elizabeth Banks (a burlesque dancer), and Maya Rudolph as Bubbles, a beleaguered secretary unable to cover for her puppet boss while he has sex in his office, a scene that ends with an extended, window-splattering ejaculation. (“It’s like two or three cans of Silly String per take,” Fogelman said.)
STX hopes “The Happytime Murders” proves to be another raunchy hit for the four-year-old company; “A Bad Mom’s Christmas” was the highest-grossing indie of 2017, earning $130 million at the worldwide box office.
