Picture from It's Nice That

The unveiling of this year's Christmas adverts happened far too early (they'll be premièring the John Lewis advert in June at some point during my lifetime and that I will put money on) and by now they have been reduced to edited highlights and everyone has forgotten about them already. Sainsbury's and Co-op have caught up having not bothered to try and get a look in on the same day that John Lewis threw their effort out, and they haven't done too badly. Sainsbury's are going to make a superstar out of Mog the cat and Co-op followed John Lewis with the lonely elderly theme but did it far better. 2015 is certainly not a vintage year for the Christmas adverts, or indeed television in general but the best advert of the season, if not the year, has dropped. 

I have written before about how since the death of Jim Henson, his creation The Muppets have drifted around in search of a decent vehicle. The Muppet Christmas Carol stands out as the only truly decent project among the sea of straight to video specials and weak television appearances. Several attempts have been made to keep their profile up but for who? They aren't sophisticated enough for today's techno kids and the older people like myself who have a deep affection for them do not want to see the legacy weakened with every new idea. This rudderless feeling soon turned itself around at the release of The Muppets, written by a true fan who had obviously paid attention. The follow up film, Muppets Most Wanted, saw the standard fall a bit again mostly because they borrowed too much from one of their classic movies The Great Muppet Caper and turned it into a decent enough film that could have been both better and worse.

However, not only have the Muppets triumphed with their latest venture - an advert -  but they have also wiped the floor with every Christmas advert made this season, and they haven't even made a Christmas advert. Warburtons, a bakery based in Lancashire, have followed an advertising campaign starring Sylvester Stallone with this latest campaign starring The Muppets. How Warburtons keep managing such scoops is beyond me but I assume they can afford it. 

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