Save for the fine reboot movie and the intermittent good stuff in the recent ABC show, Disney has never really known what to do with The Muppets. Frank Oz said it’s because he thinks the company doesn’t understand the “true rebellion and true affection” that drives the characters, but either way, the mouse people are going to take another crack at it with a “shortform unscripted series” on the Disney+ streaming service. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says the show will be about “startling silliness and heartfelt fun,” with the Muppets appearing alongside celebrity guests.
Oddly enough, THR makes it sound like this show—which is called Muppets Now—is not the previously rumored Muppet show that Disney has been supposedly working on, which we heard about back in February and which apparently involves Josh Gad. A premiere date for Muppets Now was not released and we don’t know much else about it, but here are some intriguing details that we have confirmed: The pig is in love with the frog, the guy with the big nose is in love with a regular chicken, and the two guys in the balcony would love nothing more than a little peace and quiet.
73 Comments
I was all for the ABC muppet show!
I was too! (Until I watched it.)
This comment is inexcusably missing a Statler & Waldorf-ian “oh-HOHOHOHOHO!” at the end.
Of all the properties Disney has been swallowing up, The Muppets are the one I most wish they would lose control of.
I thought the self-titled reboot movie was mostly a disaster (and based on screentime, should have been titled The Humans) and I’ve always been confused by the praise it received, whereas Muppets Most Wanted was a major step up, imho, so naturally it bombed and killed the franchise.
The Muppets TV show had its moments but Frank Oz was right in that it fundamentally misunderstood its characters. It seemed to be improving when it got the axe but even at its best, it never even reached the heights of Muppets Tonight. It may well be that now that most of the original Muppeteers have moved on (either to other work or from this earthly plane) it will never be possible to recapture the old magic, but I don’t see why this has to be true. I will give any iteration of The Muppets a chance but I ain’t gonna pretend I have high hopes.
I’d say I’d agree with your last point – everyone who made it magic is dead or rich.
I 100% agree with those first two paragraphs. I hated The Muppets. I really hated Walter and don’t see what people seemed to like about it. But, overall Muppet love drug me back to the theater for Muppets Most Wanted, which I absolutely loved; I laughed harder than any kid in that theater. My very favorite scene in Muppets Most Wanted also perfectly described how I felt about The Muppets (helped by the fact that Rizzo is one of my favorites) CONSTANTINE: Comrades, I’m afraid I have bad news. Walter and Fonzie had quit the Muppets.LEW ZEALAND: Wait. You can quit the Muppets?
Rowlf: Wait a second. Walter quit the Muppets? We just did a whole movie where he joined the Muppets.
Floyd: Yeah, we sure spent a lot of time on it.RIZZO: Ha! I’ll say. Maybe even at the expense of other long-standing, beloved Muppets. Come on, Robin.
Agreed, MMW is very, very good. The Interrogation Song is most Muppety thing they’ve done since Henson died.
Agreed, MMW is very, very good. The Interrogation Song is most Muppety thing they’ve done since Henson died.
Does Disney have the rights to The Muppet Show? If so, could they just put that on Disney+? I’d love to see ’70s-era stars hamming it up on a variety show. Plus, PIIIIIIIIIIGS IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!
I had a Pigs in Space lunchbox! Other kids had lame Star Wars lunchboxes, and I pitied them for their lack of coolness.
What did you do after the Star Wars/Pigs in Space crossover???
I have no memory of this. Perhaps it was too much for my 10-year-old brain to process and for the sake of my sanity it was repressed.
Wow, did you miss out. Off to youtube you go!
Pretty sure they own the brand part and parcel, and yes, I would love that, too.
They own the rights to the show itself, but they don’t have rights to stream the music that was used in the show (which is also why only the first three seasons were release on DVD). I mean, they’re Disney, so they could no doubt afford to get those rights, but sadly I don’t know if they will. Fingers crossed, though.
I’ve wondered why those Muppet Show DVDs just stopped but should have assumed that was the reason because music rights holders are the goddamn worst!
I really don’t want to deny folks the opportunity to profit from their assets — honest! — but holy shit I wish some of these fuckers would make an occasional exception to WE WANT ALL THE MONEYS! to preserve our collective cultural heritage. (See also: WKRP.)
Yeah, I honestly don’t get the logic. “We want a billionty-seven dollars for the music that was already used on the show when you release it on DVD!!”
“Well, that’s not feasible, because we won’t make that much from the DVD.”
“OK THEN! YOU DON’T GET MY MUSIC! Now I don’t get paid ANYTHING and nobody gets to watch those shows! EVERYONE LOSES!”
None of these fuckers have ever heard the story of the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Some gold is better than no gold, guys.
I knew I was forgetting another good example. The redubbed WKRP is so soulless and weird.
It’s extra irksome because so much of the music they couldn’t get the rights to is literally just a few seconds long. At least the songs from The Muppet Show are full, unique performances.
And speaking of WKRP, whoever owns “Fly Me To The Moon” can really fuck off! Frankly, I think that’s an example of a music rights issue that needs to be changed legally. Shouldn’t a song’s use fall under the legal protection that parodies do if it’s only going to be heard in the form of a doorbell?!
This would be a huge draw for Muppets fans and go a long way toward restoring the brand to its original luster.
That said, since so many shows with music rights issues never get seen again, it seems like both sides would rather no one gets paid than the other side gets paid too much. (RIP, Northern Exposure, Ed, so man others.)
You just had to go and remind me that I’ll never get to see Ed again, didn’t you…. :-/Stupid music rights!
The rights to the Muppet Show are, unfortunately, very obscure due to all the guest stars and music performances. The previous Muppet Show home releases didnt do well enough to justify the fight to get the remaining series out out, so its unlikely Disney would bother unless this new show does well.
The thing I don’t get is why the shows on the Disney season sets are incomplete. Of course music rights issues have forced all sorts of shows to be cut up and altered and whatnot, but… the thing is, prior to the Disney season sets, Time-Life had some single-disc releases (with I think three episodes per disc), and while they didn’t release the whole series that way, the individual episodes they did release were complete. When Disney began releasing season sets, though, episodes were cut up – even episodes that Time-Life had previously released in their entirety. What kept Disney, of all entities, from releasing complete episodes that Time-Life had already managed to do?
They could just show the original Muppet Show and the underrated Muppets Tonight and that would be perfectly fine.
I don’t know what this is, but an unscripted Muppet show with celebrity guests sounds like an actual version of the Kermit talkshow that was the show-within-a-show from the ABC sitcom, and I would be absolutely fine with that. Kermit behind the desk, Fozzie as Andy Richter, the band, occasional skits, and stars coming on to do stupid stuff like on James Corden or Jimmy Fallon would probably be a perfectly pleasant half hour.
This really makes the most sense. This or a “Got Talent” type show mixed with all the behind the scenes stuff.Statler and Waldorf ,Mrs. Piggy along with a weekly special guest judge could be a fun format to play around in. I don’t know if that is too much S&W though. I knda feel like it is. Maybe King Prawn, Piggy, and some newer one I’m not familiar with, and a weekly guest.Make S&W the ones who tell people how to vote.Edit: Kermit can be the Seacrest.
It sounds a bit like ‘No, You Shut Up!’ with Paul F Tompkins.
Which is a good thing.
Apparently you never even watched the ABC series, since Miss Piggy was the star/host of the show-within-a-show and Kermit was the behind the scenes exec producer!
I’d love it if it were just Kermit hosting a talk show, like a whole series as a spiritual successor to that one time Kermit guest-hosted The Tonight Show back in the ‘70s when Johnny Carson was on vacation.
Kermit also guest hosted “Larry King” in the 90s.I think the Muppets work better in the sketch format, though. Short form pieces, silliness, musical numbers, etc. Not saying that couldn’t be structured around a talk show, as long as there were plenty of other bits in there.
Let’s hope that Disney will move right along to some other ideas.
I don’t think the Muppets have ever recovered from the loss of Jim Henson. He gave them their heart, and perfectly balanced the blend of child and adult that they represent. The Muppets were, to me, about putting these characters in a facsimile of the adult world (work, friendship, a hint of romance) but keeping the hope and resourcefulness and kindness that a child believes the world can have. After he died the doubling down on the wackiness and craziness started, and the characters just became one-note. They slowly but surely slipped from the public mind. As soon as I saw all the press for the Muppet TV show was based on Kermit and Miss Piggy breaking up, I knew it was going to fail. Many people don’t care enough about the Muppets to be interested in a bad soap opera plot, and many of the remaining people who do wouldn’t want to sit through it either.
I legitimately think it was the combination of losing Jim Henson and Richard Hunt, who seemed to embody and echo Henson’s sentiment as much as anybody else. They did okay in the 90’s, but losing Jerry Juhl really put the nail in the coffin.Honestly, I treasured the Muppets when I was a kid and I still do, but it’s entirely possible they were simply a wonderful moment in time, and it’s okay if they remain that way. My interest in current Muppet stuff stems entirely from how much I enjoyed them as a kid, rather than the content of said current stuff, which usually feels pretty lacking. The only time they really came close was the 2011 reboot, and that’s thanks almost entirely to it being about our nostalgia for the Muppets, plus the charm of Jason Segel.
I think a shortform series is just what the Muppets need until they build the characters and brand back up again. Think of it as the Muppets having their own YouTube channel where they release ten-minute skits or whatever a few times a week. They need to build new bits, new character arcs, stuff like that. The old show is a stone-cold classic, but it’s all been seen before. If they want them to become as popular as they once were, they need to start over.
They did exactly that! The Muppets YouTube channel was great for the year or two it was around, almost acted as a testing ground before the 2011 movie. Most people only remember the Bohemian Rhapsody parody they did, but they also did Swedish Chef skits and weird Gonzo stunts, I think they may have even briefly brought back Pigs in Space and Veternarian’s Hospital.I never understood why they abandoned it completely once the movie came out, or why the sitcom went for an Office/Larry Sanders vibe when they clearly could’ve just taken the YouTube channel and turned it into another, slightly more modern, sketch show.
The show was just such a massive misjudgment of what makes The Muppets work. The Muppets are, fundamentally, corny vaudeville-style jokes, barely controlled chaos, and the giddy joy of “let’s put on a show!” with or without the skill to actually do so. Changing that into a “The Office” style ‘work sucks’ drag was an awful idea.
I used to go to a drag show in San Francisco way back in the ‘90s called Trannyshack (I had friends who performed there on a weekly basis, and also it was just fun), and before the show started every Tuesday night, they’d play the Muppet Show theme song. When I stood there listening to it waiting for the festivities to begin, it sometimes reminded me of what made the Muppet Show work. It was a bunch of weirdos goofing off, having a laugh, and putting on the most outrageous, laugh-out-loud funny show they could possibly muster with everyone’s collective talents and quirks on full display. It was the perfect song for Trannyshack to play, really, as it honestly had the same feel. Let’s all just get together and put on a show for the sake of doing it. Because we love it. Because that’s what we’re here to do.So yeah, trying to change all that for the sake of trying to fit into whatever format was popular at the time (in this case, the Office-style show) was a huge miscalculation. It’s not who or what those characters are at all. It’s not what we know or have ever known them to be, so why the hell did they think it was going to work? Why reinvent the wheel? You wouldn’t try to put a bunch of drag queens into an office mockumentary setting (sure, that might be funny for a few minutes, but not much longer), so why would you try to do it with the Muppets?
Like the Sesame Street videos parodying things in current pop culture?
Thanks for this. Their version of Eleven made me smile (as does Cookie Monster eating, well, anything.)
Nothing involving Cookie Monster can ever be wrong.
I have no clue why they didn’t stay on the trend of making YouTube stuff. They got millions of hits, won them Webby Awards, they were funny.
Maybe they got too confident. Here’s to them getting back to it. YouTube videos are the new variety shows, really. You can do anything you want, and string it all together with little trouble. Being that the old show was a variety show format, I think it’s a perfect fit.
Precisely. They tried to keep things going with those “Thoughts of the Week” videos, but they were just lame extensions of their social media accounts (which sadly is the only thing they do consistently).
And the old series was styled as a variety show with short skits and musical numbers, so it’s not like this would be anything new for the Muppet gang.
Why don’t they just show the original series but, like, digitally update the haircuts or whatever?
Kermit: “You had to bring HAIR into this!!” *sobs*
Now for the REALLY dark version of the Muppets.
If Disney were willing to invest in a budget for the show and then walk away, the show might approach what the original was and why so many people still care.Disney will never do that. Even if they did, even if the show were a perfect match for the tone and attitude of the original, the audience would probably reject it anyway. Too much schmaltzy emotional crap (some of it intentionally fostered by the Muppets writers/performers) is in the way now.
Just. Do. A sketch show. That’s what the Muppets are best at, it’s what they were largely designed for, it’s a formula that’s worked twice before (yes even Muppets Tonight was pretty good). Just. Do. A sketch show.Hell you could even modernize it for the times! If The Muppet Show was kind of a riff on Laugh-In and Muppets Tonight was SNL, why not do one that’s similar to a Key & Peele, where they do more elaborate and cinematic single camera pieces with stuff in front of a studio audience as wrap-arounds?I’d watch that!
People tend to forget that Jim Henson himself was in negotiations with Disney to sell them the business when he died in 1990. I distinctly remember an editorial cartoon from the time depicting an engorged, Godzilla-sized Mickey Mouse, with Muppet limbs dangling from his lips, stomping down the middle of a street as the Looney Tunes characters and assorted other classic cartoon figures ran fleeing in the foreground. Bugs Bunny was center frame, screaming, “Head for the hills! It ate Miss Piggy!” To be fair, this was in the immediate wake of “Little Mermaid” when people were overly optimistic that the creatives had regained a foothold in the company. Still, the Henson family subsequently called the deal off citing Disney’s obvious greed about the deal.The funny thing is Jim himself seemed to have had a premonition of the inevitability of all this decades before:
He was in the process of selling the Muppets to Disney, but even he was starting to question that decision. From what I’ve read/heard, he did this as a way of taking his life focus away from managing a company, and back toward creativity and innovation. He’d started working on some ambitious material for a Muppet theme park within Disney World, but even in 1990, Disney was balking at some of his decisions and you could sense they weren’t necessarily the right fit for the Muppets. It probably would have worked out just fine, but it wasn’t a perfect marriage even when Henson was behind negotiations.
To be fair, the Muppets got screwed up a good 40 years ago.
So, when the first movie came out?
First off, I’m glad they officially announced something after rumors.Second, this seems like a nice, safe way to get some new stuff out there before trying anything on a grander scale (sad, but I’ll take what I can get. Except those stupid “Thoughts of the Week” videos).
Disney©® uses a cattle prod on the corpse of The Muppets© once again. What a surprise
B- for the 2011 reboot? Harsh. It’s the second best Muppets movie.
It’s the second best Muppets movie of the 2010s, but that’s about it.
Yeah right more like Muppets LEAST Wanted. (Things are heating in the Muppets fandom)
Muppets Donny Most Wanted.
Here’s a reminder to everyone to watch the extraordinary multi-part docu-series on the life and work of Jim Henson that youtube channel “Defunctland” recently put out.Defunctland: It’s not just for Michael Eisner snark anymore!
Use of Pantone 15-0343 now requires a direct license from Disney.
Mahna mahna.
flagged for feltism.
Two for feltching.Doo doo do do.
^hawtt
Recently watched a great documentary on the history of Jim Henson and from that I’m pretty sure even he didn’t know what did and did not work with the Muppets. We act like the pre-Disney muppets were pure and great but they had more misses then hits as well. When the Muppets are working they are amazing. When they are not they still can be fun but they aren’t drawing the ratings.
It was really Jerry Juhl who understood the heart of the Muppets more than anyone else. He had a hand in writing most of the Muppet stuff that’s so beloved today.
How about a Muppet / Marvel crossover, Disney? It’s be like LEGO Batman. Make IronPig go up against ….Feltron? with Stadler and Waldorf heckling the fight.
The reason a Muppet show of any kind won’t work for anyone other than kids is because that rebellion and true affection was fresh in the 70s. It has been copied over and over. The recent movie was very good, but only for the nostalgia.
However, if the show could somehow keep the zany antics and show characters that care about each other, that would be a breath of fresh air. Haven’t had a show consistently do that since Parks and Rec.
Cconsidering they fired Kermits voice actor when he objected to them having Kermit lie to his nephew, my expectations are so low they’re chthonic.
Disney needs someone that understands lovable losers to helm The Muppets. They need someone along the lines of Taika Waititi or James Gunn, who understand the bonding of underdogs in the face of adversity to get the spirit of The Muppets.