11 Talk

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Released	April 18, 2008
Running time	112 minutes
Director	Nick Stoller
Written by	Jason Segel
Original music by	Lyle Workman
Studio	Universal Studios
MPAA Rating	R

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic comedy, directed by Nick Stoller and produced by Judd Apatow, focusing on struggling musician Peter Bretter. After celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall dumps him, Peter goes to Hawaii to forget, but can't get away from her, finally finding a new love in hotel employee Rachel.

In a climatic set piece, Peter writes and stages a puppet musical version of Dracula called A Taste for Love, assisted by his step-brother Brian. Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the Dracula puppets, not animatronic characters but hand and rod puppets performed by star Jason Segel, and based on his own personal idea. Peter Brooke served as creative supervisor and Michael Oosterom acted as production supervisor. The puppet entourage, made with fleece, included Count Dracula, Professor Van Helsing, a succubus (resembling the Sarah Marshall character), and an angel (modeled after Rachel), among others. The Henson puppeteers trained Segel, who sang and performed live as Dracula while Bill Hader (as Brian) sang and operated Van Helsing. Brooke noted that "We were concerned that the main hero puppet of Dracula was going to be performed by an actor, and not a professional puppeteer. But Jason is amazing and has taken to puppeteering like a duck to water." Henson puppeteers, some of whom appeared on-screen, operated the other characters and assisted Segel and Hader.

The Dracula Henson puppet was later performed by Segel on the 1,000th episode of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on December 15, 2009.

1 References
2 Muppet Mentions
3 Cast
4 Puppeteers
5 Sources
6 External links

ReferencesEdit

In a Twitter post dated January 26, 2012, as part of the Ask Kermit promotion for the United Kingdom premiere of The Muppets, Kermit tweeted about Jason Segel, "He was fun and I understand I inspired his opening scene in Sarah Marshall…..think about it!"^[1]

Muppet MentionsEdit

One scene in the movie features Peter weeping uncontrollably while he sings, and plays on the piano, the theme to The Muppet Show. This scene was later used to promote the movie in post-release television spots.

Dwayne, the bartender, urges Rachel to attend Peter's puppet musical, adding that he likes puppets, such as Fraggle Rock, Lamb Chop and Sesame Street’s Mr. Snuffleupagus and Ernie and Bert.

The film's publicity campaign created several fictional websites to promote the movie. The website ihatesarahmarshall.com, Peter's anti-Sarah blog, features a link to the Muppet fansite MuppetCentral.com.