"The Muppet Show" Returns 50 Years Later and It’s Like It Never Left

It’s been 12 whole years since the Muppets last graced the silver screen in Muppets Most Wanted – the imperfect but charming, second best Muppet heist film – and those years have not been kind to Jim Henson’s felt creations. I’ll never forget the abject terror I felt when I watched Kermit the Frog’s head gruesomely emerge from a hideous snail costume on The Masked Singer. A severe lack of direction ate away at the soul of the Muppets and a once proud and creative voice in entertainment withered into a meek, confused, Matt-Vogel warble. Yet, while newer Muppet media struggled to find its footing, the love for each iteration that came before continued to swell. Newer generations discovered the magic of the Muppets from the classic humor of the original Henson years to the sincere parodies of the 90s to the polished meta comedy of the later period. Miraculously, despite a decade and a half of failed tv series, streaming specials, and unfortunate reality television appearances, goodwill for the Muppets was at an all time high. With a newfound, cultish reception, Disney thought it was just about time to return to the run-down, perpetually broke theatre where it all began 50 years ago. The Muppet Show (2026) is a best case scenario return to form for Kermit and co., a funny and tender variety special whose greatest strength is a total self-contained confidence.

The first noticeable distinction in this modern reimagining is the sleek production value. While the original Muppet Show was quite the production marvel in its own right (puppets do not come cheap let me tell you), there’s a noticeable dynamism and attention to detail in the production design and camerawork. For one the camera is no longer fixed, we’re now granted closeups and moving dolly shots, which – while jarring – nonetheless give The Muppet Show a unique edge in the realm of variety television. 

Of course, you would want a more mobile camera when you’re exploring a set so rich. The Muppet Show has always been subtly impressive when it comes to their set design, and once again no expense has been spared. No matter how brief the segment, each puppet and set detail is painstakingly imagined with careful craft and boundless creativity. The neon-lit city set for Rizzo’s rendition of “Blinding Lights” is a marvel, even more impressive – the individual letterman jackets and denim vests made for each rat and pigeon on screen. In the age of streaming, television with this much visual flair and technical competence is a rarity, and the team behind The Muppet Show delivers some of the most technically dazzling and colorful television production this decade.

However, it isn’t production alone that makes The Muppet Show a worthy addition to the Muppet canon. What the Muppet content of the past several years has struggled with is a litany of writing problems, chiefly among them, misguided characterization. Nobody really knew what to do with these characters after Henson. Jason Segel shifted them into a better direction, but what began in 2011 quickly shifted into a meta mess of characters that look like the Muppets, but do not act like them, certainly they didn’t sound like them either. The Muppet franchise struggled to adapt and what should have been evolution quickly became exaggeration. In this new Muppet Show, restraint makes room for writing that’s both familiar and a natural next step. Simplicity is key, bringing puns, sight gags, props, and parodies to the table instead of aiming to reinvent the wheel. What works is that the jokes are good, great in fact. Maya Rudolph’s small side arc with the Beautiful Day Monster is prime Muppet humour. What doesn’t land is still charming and what does land is everything that made the Muppets a household name to begin with.

Perhaps the greatest strength of The Muppet Show is how unconscious it feels. That isn’t to say effortless, the effort shows in spades, however it hardly acknowledges its existence as a reboot/sequel/remake. The Muppets have always been a self referential group of oddballs – see the original film where they manage to make it out of a tight spot by reading ahead in the script – but it’s a difficult task to thread the meta needle in a way that’s funny without compromising sentimentality. The Muppet Show manages to accomplish this in a way that’s both satisfying and wildly entertaining. In a break with the previous 2011 reboot, The Muppet Show is occupied with being meta, but it all but abandons nostalgia. It hardly brings attention to the fact that we’re watching The Muppet Show, it merely is The Muppet Show. Rather than acting as a celebratory return to the limelight, it picks up right where the other left off, acknowledging the decades in between with a handful of light jokes. The sentimentality is there, the Muppets are an inherently loving mismatched little family, but the sentiment has been shifted from the centre to the fringes where it can comfortably mix with the narrative. 

The Muppet Show is a direct and simple shot of Muppet magic. It brings back a great formula but applies it to something fresh. The Muppets feel like one group again, with each relationship given room and time to grow, showing how the strength of the group was always in how uniquely mismatched it was. On top of the Muppet antics are some truly great guest stars who know exactly how to play to the strengths of Henson’s creations. Seth Rogen and Maya Rudolph make great supporting characters, but Sabrina Carpenter is really given the space to flex her comedic muscles. Her multiple SNL appearances in recent years have certainly sold her as a comedic force, but her musical numbers, banter with the cast, and two-faced feud with Miss Piggy in The Muppet Show is an incredible display of comic versatility. Carpenter – along with her few musical numbers – are packed into the show so tightly that they feel essential without being show stealing, and that’s what The Muppet Show is all about: The creative liberty to get a little bit weird and a little bit corny with it.  It’s business as usual with these Muppets, and the business is as sweet and funny as ever. If this is the start of another Muppet era (again…), it’s an exciting one to be seated for. So play the music, light the lights, and keep it coming!