The Muppet Movie is a 1979 American musical road comedy film directed by James Frawley, produced by Jim Henson, and the first theatrical film featuring the Muppets. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, the film was written by The Muppet Show writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. Produced between the first and second half of The Muppet Shows third season, the film tells the origin story of the Muppets, as Kermit the Frog embarks on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, encountering several of the Muppets—who all share the same ambition of finding success in professional show business—along the way while being pursued by Doc Hopper, a greedy restaurateur with intentions of employing Kermit as a spokesperson for his frog legs business. The film stars Muppet performers Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Dave Goelz, as well as Charles Durning and Austin Pendleton, and it features cameo appearances by Dom DeLuise, James Coburn, Edgar Bergen (in his final film appearance before his death), Steve Martin, and Mel Brooks, among others. Notable for its surreal humour, meta-references and prolific use of cameos, The Muppet Movie was released by Associated Film Distribution in the United Kingdom on May 31, 1979, and in the United States on June 22, 1979, and it received critical praise, including two Academy Award nominations for Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher's musical score and their song, "Rainbow Connection". The success of The Muppet Movie led to several other feature films and television series starring the Muppets across different media. In 2009, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Plot The story opens with the Muppets sitting down at a private screening to watch a movie, for not only a screen testing, but as a pastiche of how they all met. Kermit the Frog lives a simple life in a Florida swamp. After he plays his banjo and sings "Rainbow Connection", he is approached by Bernie (Dom DeLuise), a talent agent who encourages Kermit to pursue a career in show business. Inspired by the idea of "making millions of people happy", Kermit sets off on a cross-country trip to Hollywood. Kermit meets Fozzie Bear, who is working as a hapless stand-up comedian, and Kermit invites Fozzie on his journey. The two set out in Fozzie's 1951 Studebaker,