An hour-long Muppet TV special, syndicated in 1972 as part of the "Tales from Muppetland" series, following the 1969 special Hey Cinderella! and 1971's The Frog Prince. Bremen is a "modern" telling of the "Town Musicians of Bremen" fairy tale popularly recorded by the Brothers Grimm. In Aarne–Thompson classification it is a folk tale of type 130: "outcast animals find a new home".
"Modern" here means some time in 19 or 20th century Louisiana, and there are definate undertones of Black/White America in this produciton, with the animals speaking southern black parlance and the abusive owners/gang of theives speaking white. The musicans play something between jug and jazz, and some of it is really great, with superb singing from Catgut the cat. I actually discovered this film by coming across the LP, which for some reason seems to be easier to find than the film itself, in both vintage media forms and digitally as bit torrents.
I enjoy all these early Muppet productions, Kermit's a bit racier than he was on The Muppet Show, and Henson makes greater use of "big" puppets (people in puppet suits with moving puppet faces) which were always my favourite. However, traditional Henson themes of family and love are present, and like almost all his work they are musical. I think this is the final Henson film i had never seen. Time, i suppose, to start over. Dark Crystal is playing at Pacific Cinemateque next month....
[edit: for all i searched forever for this, it's of course up in pieces on the youtube, which i always forget to check...]
The thing about Oprah is... when she's cloyingly condescending to someone in regard to their mental illness, addiction, adultery, whatever... you just want to scream at the screen just how close to the precipice of disaster she clearly is herself. I haven't watched it yet because of the hollow, vaguely British tone she was taking with the younger Reynolds, but I'll get around to it. 
