The Muppet Show

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

It does have Waldorf and Statler.

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Funny how shortly after these two mention the show (producers?) being broke, there's a quick reminder that Disney and ABC are behind it.

Umbran said:

That was a decade ago - "the muppets" was back in 2015. It ran for one season.

Personal opinion - in trying to make that series more "adult" they made the characters more mean-spirited, which didn't really fit their prior ethos, so people abandoned it and ratings crashed.

Muppets Mayhem, from 2023, understands what they characters stand for, and is delightful.

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I thought the Muppets was actually quite good. They were definitely in the humor vein of 30 Rock and The Office more than the original Muppet Show. But I thought it worked pretty well and expanded on some of the characters without contradicting what they stood for. People forget that one of Jim Henson's passions was adult puppetry and there have always been adult humor aspects of the Muppets as well as content directed at children.

Umbran said:

It was a pretty perfect "half hour to unwind" before bed kind of show.

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I will find out shortly...

billd91 said:

I thought the Muppets was actually quite good.

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You are welcome to that opinion, of course. The audience in general... didn't agree.

billd91 said:

People forget ...

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People forget that they shouldn't dismiss others by asserting that those who disagree are ignorant. Please don't do that.

Ulorian - Agent of Chaos said:

I will find out shortly...

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Excellent. Super faithful to the original format. I hope this canary in the coal mine survives so we can get more episodes. I'd like to see some Swedish Chef, Pigs in Space and Veterinarian Hospital skits. Sabrina Carpenter was a great host. Solid A from me.

Very much transported me back to my childhood.

It was ok. The music numbers where a little weak. I did get a laugh off the premature death of Maya.

billd91 said:

there have always been adult humor aspects of the Muppets as well as content directed at children.

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we got that with the "I like a good kink" line from Sabrina

Umbran said:

That was a decade ago - "the muppets" was back in 2015. It ran for one season.
Personal opinion - in trying to make that series more "adult" they made the characters more mean-spirited, which didn't really fit their prior ethos, so people abandoned it and ratings crashed.
Muppets Mayhem, from 2023, understands what they characters stand for, and is delightful.

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I feel like it is too bad, as they did course-correct towards the end (just too late, I guess).

Regardless, like many of the post-Henson projects, I think it is questionable whether the basic premise was a good fit. At least for what people want and expect from the Muppets. Admittedly, the Muppets peaked with cornball send-ups of (semi-) modern entertainment tropes (a variety show in the 70s which featured celebrities on their way up or down), so neither the in-fiction Ms. Piggy talk show nor the out-of-fiction (maybe really 15-minutes-past-fresh) sitcom tropes were obviously bad fits. However, it was basically an adaptation of an existing thing ('30 Rock, but with Muppets'). The Muppets adaptations that have stood the test of time and are wholly well-regarded are A Muppets Christmas Carol and...? I recently broke Muppets products down into good/bad with my most die-hard Muppets fan friend recently and even Muppets Treasure Island he called 'a good Tim Curry performance in a nonstellar Muppets movie.' I think that or worse can be said about their Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life adaptations as well.

billd91 said:

I thought the Muppets was actually quite good. They were definitely in the humor vein of 30 Rock and The Office more than the original Muppet Show. But I thought it worked pretty well and expanded on some of the characters without contradicting what they stood for. People forget that one of Jim Henson's passions was adult puppetry and there have always been adult humor aspects of the Muppets as well as content directed at children.

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No one forgets. No one doesn't know.
I said my peace on this years ago (probably on Dragonsfoot, but still) with the 10,381,496th D&D fan who acted like they were the first person who'd read the Silmarillion. But here in the last ~6 months it's happened with Muppets and the Rocky Movies and of course Star Wars & Trek. No one is distributing great unknown wisdom by repeating public knowledge about some of the most famous movies, books, and tv shows of all time. I want to be clear, I'm not angry and this isn't personal (or even directed specifically at this more than the other examples), I'm just baffled and I don't get it.

Regardless, overall, I think you are right -- IMO, The Muppets 2015 tv series was actually quite good (particularly the later half). It also wasn't what the audience wanted (of the Muppets). One issue I think was that it was 5-10 years too late. The Office (UK) was 2001-03, the US one was 2005-13, 30 Rock was 2006-13. To make a show which was a pretty straight copy of those (but with Muppets) really should have come out at/near their peak, not 2-3 years after they ended (2-3 years too late, according to no small part of their audience). The other part was that the 'but with Muppets' gag didn't add to the humor that much, with the two humors (understated office disfunction, zany puppet antics) either conflicting or just swapping in and out. A whole lot of ithe show was stuff that would have worked just the same with Steve Carell and Tina Fey, and then it would switch to throwing penguins around, but rarely did the two comedic styles amplify the other. When it worked, it worked.

Clint_L said:

The impulse to make beloved family friendly icons more "adult" crops up every now and then, and is typically disastrous - I remember the Velma show from a few years back, as well. Sometimes these reboots feel like they were made by people who don't really get what most fans love about the IP, and feel it can be improved by being made more edgy and current. I am really thankful that this trailer seems to celebrate all the things we love about The Muppets, and I can't wait! I hope it succeeds and we get a new series - I'm sure lots of us still rewatch favourite episodes from the original.

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Velma was a completely different level. The Muppets (2015) was imputing the Muppets onto an existing premise and tone, etc. -- something that they'd already tried before with mixed results. Velma was taking wholly different characters, story, tone, premise, and kinda painting the Scooby Doo characters (minus Scooby)'s names* and costumes over the top. You can change race**, or age (high school instead of young adulthood), or tone (lots of deaths instead of no-one-gets-hurt action), or premise (investigating real crimes, mostly murder, instead of assumed paranormal events that never turn out to be), or characterization (no one in the show had the same personality as any other iteration of them). However, if you change all of those things at once, then there's effectively nothing left to tie it back to the original you are trying to associate the thing with. Honestly, in that case, I'm not sure the 'made by people who don't really get what most fans love about the IP' point is accurate. I think the showrunners knew and didn't care. They were making something deliberately crass and confrontational -- they just thought the audience would be along for the ride (why they thought this, I cannot say).
*Shaggy's given name being Norville being a trivia deep cut that I think they used to generate buzz through reddit articles about 'who is this Norville guy instead of Shaggy?'
**and honestly, if that's all that had changed, it would would not have been noteworthy.

Umbran said:

Disney recently did "Muppets Mayhem," a miniseries about the Electric Mayhem. It was awesome.

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Mayhem was brilliant.

Clint_L said:

The impulse to make beloved family friendly icons more "adult" crops up every now and then, and is typically disastrous - I remember the Velma show from a few years back, as well. Sometimes these reboots feel like they were made by people who don't really get what most fans love about the IP, and feel it can be improved by being made more edgy and current. I am really thankful that this trailer seems to celebrate all the things we love about The Muppets, and I can't wait! I hope it succeeds and we get a new series - I'm sure lots of us still rewatch favourite episodes from the original.

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Muppets have always been adult.

Oh, great, it's a running gag.