The Muppet Show meets the Office?
proposed new mini-series reunites Kermit the Frog and gang
Disney has been fighting to revive the Muppets for years. Will a mockumentary mini-series do the trick?
(Source: www.tvseriesfinale.com)
For children of the 1970's, The Muppet Show was a revelation. A far cry from the patronizing pap usually forced down kiddies' throats, Jim Henson's weekly TV series was subversive, lysergically surreal, often violent and (most important) really, really funny. Kids and their parents avidly watched as stressed-out host Kermit the Frog tried to put on his weekly variety show, fighting to control such over-the-top characters as the amorous diva Miss Piggy, the accident-prone Swedish Chef and missing link drummer Animal.
Oh yes, and there were the many guest stars, which included comedian John Cleese, singer Ethel Merman, horror maven Vincent Price, actress Julie Andrews, rocker Alice Cooper, and ballet star Rudolf Nuryev. The Muppet Show ran for five years, spawned numerous movies, TV specials and a ton of merchandising. It was counter-cultural programming at its finest.
The Walt Disney Company (the Muppets' current owner) has tried many times to revive the franchise over the years. Kermit and pals reinterpreting classics like Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol were modest successes; a direct-to-DVD version of The Wizard of Oz sank like a stone. A 1996 revival, Muppets Tonight, which featured a Rastafarian crayfish in the Kermit role, went nowhere. So did Puppet Up! Uncensored, an attempt to mix The Muppet Show with Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Now Disney has reportedly finished a 10-minute presentation pilot for a new muppet mini-series. This proposed series is a mockumentary, somewhat like The Office or Christopher Guest's comedies (This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman). Fictional British TV documentarian Ian Bascombe would follow Kermit as he tries to reunite the old gang for a revived Muppet Show, discovering what happened to characters like Miss Piggy or Sam the Eagle since the previous show went off the air. Veteran muppeteers like Steve Whitmire (who took over for the late Jim Henson on Kermit the Frog), Dave Goelz and Eric Jacobson are already on board; original Miss Piggy (and voice of Yoda) Frank Oz has declined, since he is working on his directing career.
If all goes well, we could be looking at this mini-series hitting the airwaves sometime in late 2007. And if that goes well, Disney will try to bring The Muppet Show back for the new millennium (any bets on whether Weezer will be a musical guest?).
As a fan of the original show, I would love to see more muppet mayhem. However, it's hard to say whether the Muppets' brand of lunacy will sell in a post-Simpsons, post-South Park world. The trick will be to keep it familiar enough so that the original fans will want to watch (and encourage their kids to watch as well), but not come off as a retread of Henson's subversive vision. Of course the bigger trick is to convince a big corporation like Disney to keep its hands off a revived Muppet Show so that it's allowed to be subversive. You can be sure I'll be watching this story carefully.
