Muppets Now

Muppets Now gives us the purest Muppet content in a very long time. ... Muppets Now is the total spiritual successor to the groundbreaking and iconic ’70s Muppet Show. Truly, the variety show of yesteryear would be a playlist of totally bonkers YouTube vids today.

It’s a bit like the old show in that it’s full of small sketches and segments, and in some ways, it reminded me of John Mulaney’s popular Netflix show for kids that adults also enjoyed, The Sack Lunch Bunch. ... The show really shines brightest when it’s about Miss Piggy.

Muppets Now delivers a continuous barrage of information — some educational, some silly, and all entertaining.

It’s got wit, warmth and charm in abundance, and although it includes adults in its fun it doesn’t cater to them.

Delightful. ... The felt-and-glue Muppets have always excelled at interacting off the cuff with flesh-and-blood humans, and some of these segments are certainly unscripted, if not entirely improvised, which leaves room for real reactions and interesting rhythms; it makes the show feel modern without being needlessly edgy.

I more than happily immersed myself in the first four episodes of the season’s six, which roll out one per week starting this Friday, and their recognizable mix of silly-meets-meta humor that has always defined the best Muppet comedy.

The Muppets have always been funniest when spoofing showbiz, and the same is true of Muppets Now. Though it lacks some of the warmth and sophistication of The Muppet Show, its characters have been smartly updated for the streaming era.

“Muppets Now” is a smart enough update of the franchise that it should have no trouble satisfying longtime fans while converting new ones.

For The Muppets, putting on the show has always been as entertaining as the show itself (often more so), and this format loses much of that element. ... Luckily, the characters, even those that have been entertaining us for decades, are so fleshed out and timeless in their personalities and quirks and silliness that they can make a project like Muppets Now work for both old fans and, hopefully, a few new ones.

The best segments of Muppet Now are the ones with the most in-person and in-puppet interaction.

The freewheeling and often frantically rib-tickling Muppets Now is as close as these puppet masters have come in a while to recapturing the joyfully anarchic spirit of the classic The Muppet Show of the 1970s. [3 - 16 Aug 2020, p.4]

“Muppets Now” improves on the ABC sitcom because it understands what the Muppets are and why we love them. ... But with the segmented format of “Muppets Now,” you lose the big-scale interaction among characters that animated the 1970s variety show. The connective tissue here mostly consists of Kermit and Scooter teleconferencing. There are some nice throwaway jokes there. But just like all the Zoom webinars you’re attending these days, it’s not quite the same.

There’s something comforting in how the writers blend in the familiar beats and strike a nostalgic chord for those of us who grew up with these characters. Like any sketch comedy show, it’s a hit-and-miss proposition, but it hit way more for me than I expected it to.

Its computer-desktop motif and Zoom-like video conferencing are rather prescient, given that the show was made months before the COVID-19 pandemic. But other attempts to freshen the Muppets formula felt unnecessary and gratuitous.

Basically, Muppets Now fits nicely in the filler bin of the streaming business model -- the kind of show that would motivate relatively few people to subscribe, but given that it's a recognizable commodity, you might watch if you're getting Disney+ already.

Although there is plenty of entertainment along the way, Muppets Now! doesn’t quite hang together. The different Muppets don’t interact with each other as much as would be ideal. As ever, a lot rests on the gameness of the celebrities.

The segments are a little all over the place, some funnier than others. But what makes Muppets Now gel is that it lets the Muppets be chirpy entertainers. ... Maybe the saddest thing about Muppets Now is that the show doesn’t seem to know what to do with the Muppets’ main Muppet, Kermit the Frog.

It rarely feels improvised except maybe in Q&A interviews with celebs and in “Pepe’s Unbelievable Game Show.” After four episodes, it’s safe to say “Muppets Now” is only occasionally funny, and the recurring segments grow repetitive.

Obviously with more episodes, there will be the opportunity to get more Muppet involvement. It's perplexing that in only a six-episode season, the four episodes I've seen already settle into a sense of sameness. Good thing there's a lot to work with here.

The segments can be hit-or-miss. ... Overall, though, the sketches are pretty good. The larger problem is that there are usually just two Muppets in any sketch, and almost always in the same combination. In addition, Muppets Now barely has any backstage component to speak of.

The belief that this is a show, specifically, never gets off the ground, leaving everything to feel clunky; it’s the “hello there, fellow kids” of the Disney+ world. This isn’t to say “Muppets Now” is bad. It’s great to see these characters back in action. “Muppets Now” just isn’t a great use of their talents, as always.

The rigid adherence to the recurring segments means Animal, Fozzie Bear and many other staples barely show up, while a lot of attention is paid to the rather unsettling "Okey Dokey Kookin," in which the turkey host gobbles excitedly over dishes featuring chicken and pork and the Swedish Chef wraps a Muppet mole (yes, the mammal) in a tortilla.

Disney and Henson Co. might be on the right track with the Muppets. But judging from the early episodes, they may have to beef up the writing and deliver some blunt “notes” to the performers. For “Now,” they’re just not getting it done.

Like a YouTube channel, “Muppets Now” needs to figure out what it does best and proceed. This isn’t “America’s Funniest Muppet Videos.” It’s “The Miss Piggy Show” with a few distracting bits thrown in for surprise.

Muppets Now is nostalgic, loveable and intermittently funny. It also lacks music, has a low gag ratio and is disappointingly uneven. You won’t quite be booing like Statler and Waldorf but you won’t be going wild like Animal either.