You know, I often hear about how Disney has been mistreating the Star Wars franchise ever since they bought it and I can't help but laugh and roll my eyes. Sure, with so much content coming out not ALL of it is going to be great, but at least there's new content coming out consistently! You REALLY want to talk about a franchise Disney bought and have been mistreating ever since? It's another property that started in the '70s and has made its mark on popular culture. That's right, I'm talking about The Muppets. Disney bought The Muppets in 2004, but really didn't do much with them except for a couple of TV specials, some YouTube videos, and special appearances on ABC shows like America's Funniest Home Videos and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They just kind of sat on them as far as major projects went. That was until 2011 with a theatrical film, simply titled The Muppets. I love this movie, I think it's great! It's both a tribute to the legacy of The Muppets and a new introduction to them for younger audiences who may be unfamiliar with them. This was my first major introduction and I was hooked! Next in 2014 was a sequel, Muppets Most Wanted. I thought this one was great too, but clearly I was in the minority because this movie did not do that well critically or financially. Next was a sitcom on ABC in 2015, also simply titled The Muppets. I didn't like this series as much as the recent movies, it was pretty derivative of other shows like The Office, but I still enjoyed its updated take on The Muppets that brought them back to their more adult-oriented roots. This series was not a hit, being cancelled after only one season. From what I heard, a lot of the criticism came from people complaining about the more suggestive jokes and storylines, but if you actually look at the history of The Muppets they've always had a more adult edge to their humour, much like the early seasons of The Simpsons or The Flintstones. The pilot to The Muppet Show was even called Sex and Violence! It was one of the things that differentiated The Muppets from their Sesame Street cousins, but it seems like most modern audiences look at The Muppets and automatically assume that they're just kids stuff. That's a very unfortunate mentality that I'll come back to later. The series also faced criticism for the storyline of Miss Piggy and Kermit breaking up, but their relationship as always been on-and-off. Again, there seemed to be a lack of understanding of the original Muppets. That's not really relevant, I just thought I should bring it up because when else can I? Anyway, ever since that series was cancelled, there's been radio silence. No new Muppets content for 5 years, except for some commercials or YouTube videos here and there, as well as a reboot of Muppet Babies. Not exactly the kind of Muppet content I was looking for. The announcement of Disney+ came with news of an ambitious-sounding new Muppets series, a sequel series to The Muppets Take Manhattan with involvement from people like Josh Gad. It had potential, but this project would never see the light of day. What we got instead was this series, Muppets Now. I freaking hated this show and here's why! First, let's start with the marketing. All over the place, this show was marketed as being "unscripted". After actually watching the show, what the HELL kind of "unscripted" series is this??? It's made to look like it's unscripted, but it's so obviously meticulously rehearsed and planned-out, which is understandable. Puppetry is seriously hard work and requires a lot of working parts to pull off, not easy to improvise. WHY, then, would they market this as being unscripted when clearly it isn't?? It's false advertising right off the bat! Second, I feel like I need to address the elephant in the room. Steve Whitmire, who had been performing the role of Kermit the Frog ever since Jim Henson's passing, had a really stupid falling-out with the Henson family recently and was replaced by fellow Muppet performer Matt Vogel. Vogel also recently took over the roles of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street full-time after the passing of Carol Spinney. The thing is though, he had been studying under Spinney for years to prepare for those roles, making for a much smoother passing of the torch between performers. The Muppets aren't just voices. They're extensions of the performers themselves. There's a sacred bond between puppet and performer, a bond that was broken when Whitmire was kicked out. Vogel was kind of thrown into the role of Kermit and he just doesn't sound or feel right. It's hardly his fault, he's clearly doing his best, but it's still distracting. It's going to take a long time to get used to. Kermit isn't really in this show much though so it's not THAT bad. The next issue I have with this show is the format. This show returns to the sketch format of the original Muppet Show or Muppets Tonight, if anyone remembers that. Get those on Disney+, by the way! And on DVD! Ahem, however, there are only 6 recurring segments that appear in every episode along with the decent framing device of Scooter uploading the video files on his computer. A good chunk of this show takes place on video calls, but before you get too excited they're not being current. This show was produced last year. They did the same thing in some of their YouTube videos back in the day. Put a pin in that, I'll come back to it later. The segments include a lifestyle vlog with Miss Piggy, a cooking show with The Swedish Chef, a game show with Pepe, a science demonstration with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, a Muppet interview and demonstration with Walter, and a celebrity interview. I'm gonna go through these segments from worst to best. The worst one is the cooking show. Sure, The Swedish Chef is always funny, and these segments would be funny too if they didn't have a damn turkey Muppet explaining every joke and focusing way too much on some celebrity chef that they bring on in every episode! What the heck, I come for The Swedish Chef only to find him sidelined! It's not funny, it just feels like some cooking tutorial on YouTube! Again, I'll come back to that. The science demonstration segment is also pretty terrible. Beaker is always funny, but again, it's not funny. It doesn't feel like it wants to make you laugh. It feels like it wants to teach you about science with some humour sprinkled in like Bill Nye the Science Guy or a BuzzFeed video. Noticing a bit of a theme here? Also, there's some really horrifying food waste in these segments that I was NOT here for. The next one up is the game show. Hey, remember the Nostalgia Critic's online game show, Pop Quiz Hot Shot? This is that but with The Muppets. It's cheap and poorly-done. I get that that's supposed to be the joke, but again, it's not funny. The next one is the segments with Walter learning a skill from another Muppet. These can also feel like a tutorial at times, but it takes itself less seriously and allows for more comedy. Too bad there's only two of these in the whole season! The next one up is the celebrity interviews. They heavily promoted these when marketing the show, but false advertising strikes again! There are only three of these segments! One with Kermit and RuPaul, one with Miss Piggy and Aubrey Plaza, and one with Fozzie Bear and Seth Rogen. These segments feel much more relaxed and spontaneous than the other segments, maybe this is what the advertising was talking about when referring to the show as "unscripted". They're still not that funny, but they do seem a lot more genuine than the other segments. The last and best segment in this show is Miss Piggy's lifestyle vlog. These are actually genuinely quite funny, Piggy is always an entertaining character and she has great chemistry with Uncle Deadly's deadpan and sinister mannerisms. This is definitely their attempt at being trendy, making fun of a genre of YouTube video and also the video chats come back in this, but I think it's an update that works and makes sense. These segments are pretty funny. Now, after all that, you probably noticed that most of these either A: recreate a genre of YouTube video, B: try to be educational, or C: both. It's like when coming up with the idea for this show, they just thought up what kids would like and what would be good for them. This whole series seems aimed less at adults and more at children. Young children, which has never been who The Muppets were only meant for! There is very little for an adult to enjoy in this series, classic Muppets like Statler and Waldorf barely even show up in this! I don't even know if kids would be that into it, why would they want to watch The Muppets do YouTube-style videos when they could just watch actual YouTube, especially if The Muppets have an entire back catalogue of MUCH better original content ON YouTube! This series just seems so cheap, soulless, and slapped-together. They couldn't even be bothered to make more than 6 episodes, but with how repetitive this show is I'm glad it's short! Overall, while Muppets Now is sporadically entertaining, it's a slog to get through and I do not recommend it. I'm glad to say I'm not in the minority, most audiences are not enjoying this show. Honestly, I can see this one getting cancelled after one season again, which is good because this show sucks, but bad because it sends a message that audiences don't like The Muppets. Well, we do. We just don't like BAD Muppets content like this. Come on, Disney. You can do better than this.
Review of Muppets Now
