In 1976, the genius puppeteer Jim Henson released his masterpiece The Muppets Show. Despite early versions of the characters in decades before, such as Kermit the Frog in a short-form production in the 1950s, the TV show popularized Kermit and his gang. Again, Henson crystallized himself in the American popular culture after creating the puppets for Sesame Street, a groundbreaking production for children’s television. Kermit, Ms. Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, and the rest of the crew would present their show at the Muppet Theater, a vaudeville theater where they would perform music, sketches, and other segments in the show. Initially, the program had five seasons, from 1976 to 1981. After that, it would generate plenty of films, short-form programs, and other shows that kept the characters in the popular culture. Fifty years later, Disney+ presents The Muppet Show special, bringing back the beloved characters to their vaudeville venue, and with special guest Sabrina Carpenter.
The new show positions Kermit (Matt Vogel) as the showrunner of the long-anticipated performance of the gang. Here, the frog is a Lorne Michaels-type, balancing the flow of the sketches, which he organized, and the relationship with his two central performers: Carpenter and Ms. Piggy (Eric Jacobson), who clash over Piggy’s accusations that the superstar is stealing her visuals. The entire project is directed by Alex Timbers, a specialist in live recorded events. In this sense, he manages to visually organize the chaos, creating an atmosphere similar to a human special, although his stars are two-foot foam-built performers. However, those entertainers are the most iconic ones to ever appear on a TV screen.
In the 2026 homage, Timbers balances the fresh, new generation take with the classical. In this sense, the first music performance embodies that. It is Sabrina Carpenter singing her hit Manchild, in an SNL-like atmosphere. However, her setting is a bar, and she is a server. She sings lines like “I like my boys playing hard to get, I like my men all incompetent” with a chicken’s choir while she throws puppets across the bar, emulating the fierce reaction to unbearable and childish men. At the top of that, the light puppet reverses the settings to the hurricane option, plucking all of their feathers that glue into Carpenter’s white dress. In the very first segment, the special event showcases a clever visual comedy, combining the fresh – a singer who represents the new generation, while introducing the usual hilarious comic nature of the puppet gang.
Accordingly, each subplot and parallel sketch converses with the two different timelines: the old and the new. Kermit’s assistant, Scooter (David Rudman), needs to condense the sketches. In one of the punchlines, he wants to cut Seth Rogen’s participation, despite Rogen being one of the executive producers on the project. The show shifts from the clash between the blonde divas, Carpenter and Ms. Piggy, to Kermit’s difficulties cutting sketches, and the abundance of performers in the theater waiting for their segment. Another hilarious moment is Maya Rudolph’s guest appearance, where she is in attendance as an audience member, a paper ball gets thrown in her direction, and she swallows it. One of the puppets working announces the death of the Emmy Award-winning star, but she is resurrected and states she had a vision. Likewise, the human interactions outside of the central characters work well to create a cohesion, a sense of unhingedness in the returning performance of that show. Structurally, the audience is never tired of the sketches and awaits the next punchline. It introduces the core of the Muppets’ comedy, a sassiness in some of the jokes, with fresh writing.
Fifty years later, The Muppet Show is still a joy to watch. The Alex Timbers special event masterfully casts a charismatic Sabrina Carpenter to perform and clash with Ms. Piggy, while Kermit is the same old control-freak that we love. The return of the loved characters is a brilliant revival of a classic show, more prominently when compared to the shallow options in today’s children’s programming. It reminds us of the brilliance of those characters that returned to our TVs, even for only thirty minutes.
The Muppet Show is now playing on Disney+.
Learn more about the special at the official website for the title.
You might also like…
