Posted on 02/04/2026 8:02:03 AM PST by Cronos
Backstage on the new special, “The Muppet Show,” Sabrina Carpenter excitedly greets Miss Piggy, in whom she recognizes a kindred spirit. “I grew up watching you,” Carpenter says. “My parents grew up watching you. Their parents grew up watching——”
The joke, of course, is that Carpenter ends up offending the diva by implying that she’s old. But there’s a truth to it, too: Since the madcap critters lit the lights on the comedy-variety “Muppet Show” in the 1970s, every generation has gotten its own Muppet
...The premise for “The Muppet Show” of 2026, a (for now) single-episode special premiering on Wednesday on Disney+ and ABC, is comparatively simple: It’s “The Muppet Show.” And wocka wocka wocka, that’s all you need.
There’s no newfangled hook, no contrived rationalization to bring the characters up to date, no pretensions toward heft or hipness. There are songs and slapstick and jokes, and nobody, blessedly, stayed up too late thinking about the reasons why.
The opening makes this attitude clear, as Kermit enters the familiar Muppet Theater to a melancholy rendition of “The Rainbow Connection,” walking past black-and-white photos of past guests like Harry Belafonte and Steve Martin. He plops himself with a sigh at his backstage desk, where he notices that the musician Rowlf is plinking out the song at the piano. “What’d you think this was, some kind of sentimental montage in your head?” Rowlf asks. “We’re doing the show again, frog!”
...“The Muppet Show,” it turns out, doesn’t need to be retooled for a new era, because the Muppets exist outside of time. These are, in fact, your grandparents’ Muppets, and your parents’. And yet they’re exactly the Muppets you need right now.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Statler: “I can’t believe they’re doing the old show again.”
Waldorf: “Well, if it ain’t broke...”
Statler: “No, they are broke! That’s why they’re doing it!”
The guest host is a woman who teaches her pre-adolescent fans how to give blow jobs in her strip-tease concerts.
I would expect it to be super woke. Hope I’m wrong.
Sabrina Carpenter? Isn’t she the one who posed on all fours crawling toward a man, while staring at his (clothed) crotch? This was on the cover of her last album entitled:
“Man’s Best Friend”. THAT Sabrina Carpenter?
I’d never heard of her, so I checked out her Wikipedia entry. Judging from the fotos in the Career section, she started out as a nice all-American Disney girl and became increasingly slutty with each new album and concert tour. She has begun adding “sexually suggestive outros” to her videos, and they’ve served to boost her popularity even higher.
I first saw the Muppets when they had a 5 minute show in the middle of the news in D.C.
Good call by the creators. Muppets don’t age. They don’t even wear trendy clothes. To the degree they mock or parody, they stick with decades-old tropes. Changing them would be like updating Mutt & Jeff, Maggie and Jiggs, Peanuts, or Calvin and Hobbes. They are in a self-contained universe with its own set of rules and conventions.
I don’t know or care who this floozie is, but it’s pretty clear that the Muppets have gone a long way downhill from the days when Orson Welles made guest appearances.
This is Your Grandparents’ ‘Muppet Show,’ Fortunately”
Promise?
When ever I hear Queen’s song Under Pressure, I can only picture the Muppets performing it on the show.
According to copilot ai, “Orson Welles never appeared on The Muppet Show itself, but he did work with the Muppets in 1978–1979 while filming The Orson Welles Show”.
Alice Cooper was on the show in 1978, and he was not exactly family-friendly at the time in his professional persona. Not exactly high-culture.
Some don't wear any clothes. Some just forego pants.
I remember watching it in the 80s, and while not every guest was Orson Welles or Peter Ustinov, most of them weren't complete trash either. Today's pop tarts are basically just strippers with autotune - they make Alice Cooper look like Wilhelm Furtwaengler.
They had Johnny Cash on the show...
I liked Kermit better when he was trying to sell Wilkins Coffee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K33mMjsjbdA
Alice Cooper was the best host.
Nice to see Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer enjoying a night out at the theater...
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