Zach Galifianakis to Cameo in Muppets Movie

Zach Galifianakis is filling a cameo role in Disney’s reunion of Jim Henson’s classic characters, tentatively titled The Muppets and also known as The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made.  Jason Segel and Amy Adams are starring, along with Rashida Jones and Chris Cooper.

In a video interview with E! Online for their comedy release Due Date, Robert Downey Jr. said, “So you’re doing a couple days on the Muppets movie.”  Galifianakis’ face just fell.  It seems the studio wasn’t exactly ready to make the announcement and they’re still “talking about it,” according to Disney’s damage control in EW.

Segel will play Gary, a man who, with the help of his girlfriend Mary (Adams) and his life-long Muppet friend Walter, goes in search of the classic Jim Henson Muppets to bring them out of retirement and reunite them for a big show to save their old TV studio.  The villain, Tex Richman (Cooper), who smells oil beneath the studio.  Jones plays an ABC television executive who risks her job to broadcast the show.

This movie will be absolutely loaded with celebrity appearances and Galifianakis is just one of many funny, often self-deprecating cameos written by Segel and Forgetting Sarah Marshall writer/director Nicholas Stoller.  For example, Sean Penn has a few self-aware lines while undergoing anger management with the crazed Muppet drummer, Animal.

Aside from its star-studded appearances, the script is a throwback to the silly, pun-filled humor of the Muppets, as well as their natural propensity to break into song.  It’s also peppered with “Family Guy”-style flashbacks — or more appropriately, “How I Met Your Mother” style — that expand on the line that sent the plot zipping briefly into the past.  It’s a whimsical story and may be the only time you’ll see Galifianakis on screen in a PG movie.