The Importance Of The Muppets
It’s time to play the music
Last Tuesday the new primetime TV show, The Muppets, premiered on ABC, marking the return of the beloved Muppets to broadcast television. As a lifelong Muppets fan, raised on the original TV show, The Muppet Show (which aired from 1976 through 1981) and the classic trilogy of theatrical movie releases, it goes without saying that I have been immensely excited for this show from the moment it was announced.
After a summer of quiet anticipation, featuring what I consider to have been a genius promotional and marketing campaign through social media, the premiere of the show was finally at hand. After reading several media outlets post some not-so-glowing reviews, I approached watching the pilot episode with a bit of trepidation. After already living through one of my childhood loves coming back to the pop culture landscape with spectacular diminishing returns (*cough* Star Wars*cough*), I felt as if there was a lot riding on this premiere.
After sitting down and watching the first episode of The Muppets, it occurred to me some of the reviewers misunderstood the point of The Muppets and decided to come here and collect my thoughts about the premiere.
Before I could start, I became aware of a groundswell of criticism from parents groups decrying the series. To be honest, I wasn’t aware that their disdain for the show had begun weeks before it aired in reaction to some of the show’s advertisements. Now that the show had aired, these complaints piggybacked (no pun intended) with the negative reviews by critics and it appeared as if public opinion wasn’t going the Muppets way.
Through a curious case of occurences, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion about The Muppets pilot on HuffPostLive. After sitting down for this roundtable conversation and hearing first hand from a concerned mother disapproving of the show along, with critics who entirely missed the point of The Muppets(one who hilariously blamed the tone of the new show on Frank Miller), I realized that what I had originally planned to write here would have to change slightly.
It’s time to light the lights
The years of sub-par Muppets movies and TV specials in the 1990s pained me, because those were not the Muppets I grew up with. When the amazingly talented people who created The Muppets of the ‘70s and ‘80s — such as Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt and many others — set out to create The Muppet Show, they were in a unique time in history. After the idealism of the hippies of the 1960s led to the disappointment and frustration of the early 1970s, the world was a wary place. These talented puppeteers, writers, and musicians created a world of anthropomorphic animal puppets and positioned them as a way to create some of the best parody entertainment we’ve ever seen.
These puppets had already delighted millions of children on the television show Sesame Street. The friendly faces of Kermit The Frog and Fozzie Bear lured us in through a familiar sense of safety. But unlike Sesame Street, which has always been for children as a vehicle for education, The Muppets stood for something different. The Muppets were always, and when they’re at their best, positioned as All Ages entertainment. This meaning that both kids and adults can watch and enjoy them, often on completely different levels. The unspoken slogan of The Muppet Show could have been: “Bring the kids for the cute and funny puppets, stay for the innuendo filled parody.” It’s for this reason, I believe, that The Muppets were so successful, sustaining a primetime television show for 5 years and spawning a successful movie franchise. The Muppets could be equally enjoyed by young and old alike.
I may be speaking here from an overly sentimental place, having grown up watching The Muppet Movie (along with Star Wars) on constant on the family VCR. But in the past 30+ years since those days of sitting too close to the TV, I’ve examined and deconstructed what it was about The Muppets that enamored me so. Through these puppets, Henson and crew created a window into an absurd world that was, in reality was a mirror reflecting back to us the bizarre aspects of entertainment and human nature, giving us both the good and the bad, as well as the ridiculous. By watching The Muppets, I learned important values that I hold dear to even today:
- Having a dream and doing the hard work to chase it into reality.
- How to appreciate a good pun and/or play on words
- The value of loyalty to friends and family
It’s these important values that led me to my belief:
The world is a better place with The Muppets in them.
As we embark on a new chapter with The Muppets on ABC, it’s my hope that the creative people behind the show not forget these values imparted by Jim Henson and the rest of The Muppets crew, and instill the show with the cleverness, wit, and sense of family that The Muppets were built on. Much has been made on this new show’s attempt to make The Muppets more current to today’s times and that’s where we run into trouble with this new show.
It’s time to meet the Muppets
Much has been made of the promotion leading up to the premiere of The Muppets. Most notably, making the public aware of the fact that the leads of the show, Kermit The Frog and Miss Piggy are no longer a couple. We’ve also been introduced to the new paradigm as The Muppets are producing a late night talk show, hosted by Miss Piggy. Similar to the “show within a show” concept of The Muppet Show in the ‘70s where the Muppets were producing a variety show, this new production is the backdrop for most of the show’s events. The other most notable aspect about this new show is that it’s shot in the “documentary style” format, made popular by shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation and Modern Family, where characters from the show speak directly to the camera, which has helped to usher The Muppets into a more “modern” setting. It’s these elements that appear to have come under the most fire by critics, pretty much across the board.
While many people seem to have reacted to Kermit and Piggy’s breakup with confusion and denial, it’s clear that this move was made to create conflict from the get go. Having a launchpad for stories related to this emotional turmoil gives us the main through line of the show. After watching the first episode, it’s clear that Kermit and Piggy belong together, and now we’re simply going to watch the long and winding (and bumpy) road that will bring them back together. By the way, this isn’t the first time we’ve gone down this road, in fact it’s one of the basic tenets of The Muppets, and to be honest, the least surprising aspect of the new show.
In addition to the Kermit/Piggy conflict, we’re introduced to a sub-plot featuring Fozzie Bear agonizing over meeting his girlfriend's parents. I was shocked and surprised to hear that this sub plot, along with the Kermit/Piggy breakup, was upsetting people. With the disapproval of Fozzie’s girlfriend’s parents over their inter-species relationship, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pick up on the social allegory of inter-racial dating. The inherent awkwardness of the situation, and Fozzie’s reaction to it all, leads to comedy while at the same time referencing a very present social issue.
In the discussion on HuffPostLive, one of the other panelists expressed her disapproval of these two specific plot points in relation to her children watching the show. She did not want to have The Muppets in her household spawn conversations about break-ups, divorce, and inter-racial dating. I didn’t say it on the broadcast, but all I could think about was how sorry I was to hear that and how bad I felt for her and her children. Where better than to address the world we live in than through the absurdist lens of The Muppets? The world can be a difficult and uncomfortable place, but sticking your head in the sand doesn’t change that. Even Kermit the Frog knows that. While on the broadcast, I made the argument that The Muppets have never been just for kids. As mentioned earlier, the All Ages content that The Muppets can provide is exactly the kind of entertainment that we all benefit from, adults and kids alike, and this could be a prime place to introduce complicated concepts and kick off discussions with our children.
That said, while I stand in strong support of the new show, it wasn’t perfect. Very few pilot episodes of TV shows are perfect or are an exact reflection of what the show ends up being. I think that given a few episodes to develop their rhythm and to figure out the strengths of the format, The Muppets could be poised for another long run on primetime. Astute TV watchers may recall that the initial batch of episodes of The Office (the American version, not the wonderfully perfect British original) weren’t very good either. But after a rocky first season, the show found its own identity and style and became one of the biggest hits on television.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the good and the bad of The Muppets pilot from my point of view:
GOOD:
- The morning meeting scene with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem was pure gold. It was a great setting to let the large cast shine. I laughed out loud several times in that one scene.
- Gonzo and “Dancing with the Tsars.” I’m looking forward to more Gonzo and the writing staff.
- Fozzie Bear. Every scene with him was fantastic.
- The emotional punch of the flashback to when Kermit and Piggy broke up. This pivotal moment tied into the main plot of the episode while laying the groundwork for the rest of their journey back together.
BAD:
- Janice. They definitely need to find someone who does the voice of one of my favorite characters better. That wasn’t Janice.
- Too much reliance on the relationships storylines and not enough on the show within the show. I assume/hope that we’ll see this balance out as more episodes are aired.
- The Scooter/Elizabeth Banks fight. I understand that celebrity cameos are a part of Muppet tradition, but this was not my favorite.
- Too many shots of Muppet feet. I love The Muppets. I do not love seeing their feet. They freak me out. Some Muppet feet is okay but between multiple shots of Fozzie warming up the crowd to Scooter’s full body being thrown from the golf cart, they went overboard in this episode. Dial down the feet.
Overall Grade: B-
As you can tell, I love The Muppets themselves and I’m willing to give The Muppets some leeway as they get the new series off the ground. I think given the room to grow, we have a great opportunity to make these lovable characters relevant in today’s world and deliver that classic cleverness and absurd parody that we first fell in love with 35 years ago.
Oh, and one more thing…for those who found The Muppets to be vulgar or inappropriate, I remind you of one of my favorite moments from The Great Muppet Caper, a movie that was rated G:
Special thanks to fellow Muppet appreciator Conor Kilpatrick (@cskilpatrick) for his edits of this piece.
