As I write this, The Muppets ABC trailer (the pitch reel they showed to the execs) has been on YouTube for about 24 hours. So naturally, most of the known world has seen it. Maybe you have too. Every fan I’ve talked to – all 6 of them – thought it was on-pitch for a Muppet TV return, found it very funny, and wanted to see more.
There are already some well-written reviews for it, especially this one at ToughPigs, where Joe Hennes dissects the good and the not-so-good (although it’s admittedly hard to nitpick at this point). In fact there are so many articles reviewing it that I’m not going to write one.
The Muppets teaser reel, which is what I’m calling this video, did a thorough job of getting us ready to see what their lives are like behind-the-scenes. It puts them in a light we haven’t seen before, showing us something more “real.” It’s still wacky, witty, and entertaining, but in a way we aren’t used to. I really liked it, but it did leave me with a few questions, which I hope will be answered as time goes on.
Kermit has a girlfriend…and it’s not Miss Piggy? Let’s all take a second for that to sink in. Kermit the Frog famously rebuffed Miss Piggy’s romantic advances – then married her once or twice (which he’s debated the legitimacy of) – and now has moved on. Moved on?…okay. Kermit is officially dating another pig (“I have a type,” he says). Her name is Denise, she’s performed by Julianne Buescher, and according to the Muppet Wiki she’s going to be rebuilt to look less generic for the rest of the episodes (Where do they get their information? Those guys know everything!). Denise is a marketing executive at the network, which makes me wonder about Kermit. Pigs are his type, granted, but Denise didn’t seem to do much in this mini-episode. And Kermit never struck me as going for the quiet, demure, “stable” type. It made me think that maybe Denise isn’t going to be around long. I could see Denise being a device used to make Piggy jealous, and eventually “mysteriously disappearing”, allowing Piggy to close in on the frog again. After all, I don’t believe for a second that Piggy has, or ever will, move on from Kermit.
But either way, Kermit is unquestionably into pigs, and with the appearance of Denise, I have to wonder if there have been more pigs. Does this confirm my theory that Kermit and Annie Sue Pig had a side thing? I also have a developing theory that pigs are the root of everything for the Muppet Show Muppets, but more on that later.
Why are the Muppets so dependent on Miss Piggy? Do they really need her this much? The teaser reel has Miss Piggy starting out as being unavailable to be part of the Muppets’ new TV show, because she’s working on another TV show. Or movie. Or whatever. Her unavailability is a major roadblock to the Muppets moving forward on their own. We’ve been here before. In A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, Piggy walked out because she’d been hired to play a “major” TV role. Remember that? The difference was, that time she turned out to be only an extra, and this time she really does seem to have a big part. Both then and now, the Muppets seem immobilized by Piggy’s absence.
This Muppet fan remembers when times were different. Do you recall back on The Muppet Show, when Piggy was going to leave the show? In that situation the show was definitely going to go on, even though they were sad about her leaving (and sang a hilarious song about it). Why have things become different in recent years? Does Kermit absolutely need Miss Piggy to make the Muppets work? Does this fragile house of cards topple at the loss of, well, one very hefty card? It’s feasible to say that the Muppets don’t necessarily need Piggy, they need everyone. If one of them, be it Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Scooter (they could probably do without Scooter), left then they wouldn’t be the Muppets. They don’t just need Piggy, they all need each other. Awww.
Is Animal taking speech classes? I see him speak more and more as time goes on,and in my opinion he’s funnier when he’s more “primitive”. He’s a simple character, as Frank Oz succinctly describes him. He’s driven by 3 things: drums, food, and women. When he gets outside the boundaries of those things (like volunteering to pose for tasteful nudes), he loses the core element of his nature, and becomes something besides what he’s known for. I get it, he’s been around for decades and he needs to evolve a little bit. Maybe. Does he really? I’m not sure I’m interested in Animal’s intellectual journey. I want to watch him scream and play drums. And chase women.
Will Constantine be in this show? I’d love to see that. Walter, the second-newest Muppet character, is poised to play a major part in the Muppets of today. He fits right into the family. But what about Constantine? How does a villain who’s been foiled in a movie and thrown in a gulag become a part of a weekly TV show that doesn’t even take place in Russia? If Constantine does become a part of this show, what would he do? He would still be evil, of course. Maybe he’d be a network executive. Or if he wanted to get into acting, he could co-villainate some melodramatic scenes with Uncle Deadly. Maybe he could be a soap opera actor on ABC. Not on the Muppet show, I mean in real life. I’d DVR that every day.
Where does the Electric Mayhem live? Whether in a church, a hotel, or in bus lockers, it seems like the band has always co-habitated out of necessity. Since we get to see Muppet houses/apartments, do we get to see where the Mayhem lives? Do they finally have their own separate places? I’d have a hard time believing that, because they all seem so inept on their own. Honestly, can you see Animal keeping up with the rent? Or even Zoot? Or Janice? She’s a free spirit and it’s her life, you know, so if she wants to live on a beach and…Moving on, what would Dr. Teeth’s house look like? That would probably be exciting. Lots of sparkle and glitter.
Also, what about the singing food? Do we get to see them away from the limelight too? See what I did there?…limelight.
There are endless questions one could ask (Do we care about the Muppets keeping with continuity? I doubt it.), but instead I think I’ll just wait to see what happens in September, when the show premieres on the 22nd.
What am I saying…of course I’ll have more questions before then! I’m just too lazy to type them right now.
I’m more interested in what you think. What are your big questions about this big, bold new show?
The New York wing of The MuppetCast (Jarrid and Teresa) takes over this week, presenting the audio from a recent screening event at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI). The event is called “
