The new Muppet Movie, called The Muppets, opens in November and the tie-in publicity is gearing up. Out on August 23rd “Muppets: The Green Album” contains 12 covers of popular Muppet songs by a variety of artists. Amy Lee (of Evanescence) sings a nice version of Robin the Frog’s sweet gem “Halfway Down the Stairs” (Robin’s version on YouTube) based on the A.A. Milne poem. NPR has the entire album available to stream online right now. Not exactly related to the upcoming movie, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a piece on Henson Alternative, the adult-oriented arm (ha!) of the Jim Henson Company. They’ve been doing puppet improv, partnering with a Groundlings improv troupe instructor to bring an ad-libbed live show to adult audiences. Their group, called the Miskreant Puppets, is performing “Stuffed and Unstrung” in San Francisco this month. I guess they didn’t want “Avenue Q” to have all the mature fun. But to really feel our age, let’s go back to 1979 for the original Muppet Movie theatrical trailer.