Time to light the lights for the return of The Muppet Show

The big Muppet news of 2026 so far has been a one episode revival of The Muppet Show. It seems to have been championed by Seth Rogan (executive producer) and featured Sabrina Carpenter as the show's special guest.

There is always a worry when a beloved franchise gets a reboot - as I said when The Muppets was released back in 2011. But Disney has done a reasonable job as caretakers of the Muppet legacy in the past 15 years, releasing lots of new projects although not much has really made an impact.

There was a follow up film, Muppets Most Wanted, that was okay. I didn't like it as much as the 2011 film. Disney tried two series featuring the main characters (The Muppets and then Muppets Now!) and also did a short series about the Muppet Show band, The Electric Mayhem and a Hallowe'en special - Muppets Haunted Mansion. None of the series grabbed me and Cathy and we didn't finish watching any of them. (Maybe, as Gonzo sings, we're going to go back there again, someday.) 

So, I watched The Muppet Show special with low expectations but high hopes - fan chatter before the release seemed positive and I'd seen a couple of clips that made me feel less apprehensive than I would have felt going in blind. And overall, it was a decent epsiode that vibed very much with the feel of the original show.

It was the usual chaos behind the scenes, lots of recognisable background characters, fourth wall breaking comments, a guest star who leaned in and took it seriously but didn't take herself seriously, and some fun musical numbers. The duet between Kermit and Sabrina Carpenter featuring lots of harmonising muppet fish and swamp critters felt very OG Muppet Show. Statler and Waldorf were back in their box. Rowlf was back on piano. Scooter was back backstage. It was all done very well.

I had a couple of minor quibbles. Bobo the bear shouldn't have been saying "It's good to be back" when he was a character first introduced on Muppets Tonight, not The Muppet Show. Pepe the Prawn was under-used and appeared in probably the weakest sketch of the show. I'm not sure what Beauregard was meant to be doing during the rats' musical number. 

However, those are really penickity issues. I'm quite happy that all I have are penickity issues as that's a sign of how much this one off special got right. Here's hoping it gains enough of an audience that Disney agree to doing more!

Recap of the month - February 2023

This monthly round up is a bit late because the end of February and the beginning of March proved to be very busy with a work trip to North Wales, followed by adventuring to the eastern side of England - but there will be more about that when I review March!

I didn't blog much in February because it was a very busy footballing month, including a new milestone on the first Saturday when I travelled with one of my footballing friends called Paul to the Kassam Stadium in Oxford. This was my first visit to that football ground and it became the 100th ground I've watched football at since I started keeping a record of football matches in 1992. 

The Friday night immediately before hitting my century of grounds on the Saturday I went to Abergavenny Town's rather dilapidated old ground, which was my 99th ground where I've seen a game. On both the Friday and the Saturday I was supporting the away team - Barry Town and Shrewsbury Town - and both times the team I supported won 1-0.

In total I went to 8 games, which was a new record monthly total for February. In addition to Oxford and Abergavenny, I saw two games at different grounds in Port Talbot. The Viking ship on the Port Talbot Town logo caught my eye.

I went to two Barry home games, and saw Barry play a game in Taff's Well too. I dragged my buddy Connor along to one of the games at Jenner Park. It was the first time he'd seen them since before the pandemic.

I even had a trip to Caldicot where I saw my friend Ben play for Caldicot Town against Tredegar Town. 

Due to an injury crisis at the club, Ben was playing in an unfamiliar role at right back. Despite that his team won. 

It wasn't all football though. In the middle of the month, we had a lovely Saturday with my sister, Sarah, and her three kids. We met them in Bristol and visited The Wild Place, which is a well-planned zoo park with a variety of animals kept in nice environments. The highlight was the walkways through woods populated with lynx, wolves, wolverines and bears. The bears were hibernating but we were able to watch them snooze on the den-cam. (Even if they had been awake, you're not allowed to play with them anyway.)

I went back to Oxford for a second time later in the month, this time with Cathy. We stopped to have lunch with a friend on our way to Haddenham, which isn't too far away.  Our friend, Colin, had passed away and we were on our way to his funeral. 

We got to know Colin because we became good friends with his daughter, Viv, when we started attending the same church as her back at the start of the century. He was a kind, gentle man with a good sense of humour. He was also a skilled potter and he gifted us several ceramic items that will remind us of him. 

Colin's funeral was in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin in Haddenham. We had visited the church before, when Viv and Ian got married there just over 15 years ago. 

Outside the church is the village duck pond. This is an important cinematic landmark because it was the film location for the scene in The Great Muppet Caper when Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo land in the UK after being thrown out of the cargo hold of an aeroplane. I feel Colin would have appreciated that we stopped to take a selfie with it (see the picture at the top of the blog post).

The Muppets - a glowing review

There is always a danger that a reboot is going to mess up a franchise or ruin childhood memories. We had some trepidation going to see The Muppets. Thankfully, our fears were unwarranted.

My main comment about this film is that it is so nice to finally see a new film starring old characters that is not a knowing, smart-arsed, mockery of the original. This is a respectful homage to the original Muppet Show and films, and recaptures the ethos of those movies. I am so used to cynicism in movies these days, this unabashed celebration of something that was ground-breaking in its day was really refreshing.

The rest of the audience seemed to think so too. We were in a full screen with hardly any kids and there was a lot of laughter.

Yes, the plot was a bit weak. It felt like the ending was a bit abrupt. I’m not really sure the bad guy worked. But generally, there was much to love about this. In no particular order…

The references to being in a movie – just like the old movies always had.

Re-uniting the Muppet gang in the same order and from the same sort of obscure locations that they were gathered from in the first movie.

Fozzie’s dressing room in Reno.

The set-dressing – Kermit’s mug on the desk from Muppet Show days, a picture on the wall of Jim Henson.

Beauregard’s appearance.

Dave Grohl’s cameo – keep an eye out for him.

Choosing to use a montage to speed things up, followed by travelling “by map”.

Camilla and the Chickens’ musical number.

The 80s robot using his mo-dem to help in the search.

Mary’s song as the rain started to fall on the window, and the subsequent pull-away shot.

Jim Parsons (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory) turning up unexpectedly mid-song.

The sell-out version of Rainbow Connection performed by Muppet wannabes.

A great sub-plot featuring Animal that meant he was more than just a one-joke character (for once).

Kermit’s song reminiscing about the old times.

Jack Black playing the least annoying film part he’s played in years.

Pepe the Prawn’s leather jacket in his cameo.

And Kermit’s first appearance, haloed in light and accompanied by an angelic choral arrangement.

Jongudmund's rating: 10/10 (for old time's sake)

The meeping truth

This week's Basic Instructions strip is about the Muppets. Cathy, my Muppet-loving better half, will probably take offence, but I thought it was funny.

Actually I've just realised that calling Cathy my Muppet-loving better half implies that I'm a Muppet...

Muppet Marriage Advice

Cathy has a large number of Christmas CDs, which she often plays to get herself in a Christmassy mood when she's designing Christmas stuff in August. One of her CDs is the soundtrack to The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Listening to it yesterday, I reminded Cathy how back when we were discussing when to get married and whether we could afford it, she said it was like the heartbreaking scene when Scrooge's fiancee breaks off their engagement because he kept putting off the wedding until the "time was right". (Incidentally that scene and song has been cut from recent DVD editions of the film because it's so sad - which is another example of retroactively destroying a good film!)

We decided that the timing would probably never be "perfect", so we ought to go ahead and get married, and I'm glad we did because we faced enough stress in the next few years to tear us apart otherwise. The advice of Kermit et al has never steered us wrong really, and one of the messages of The Muppet Christmas Carol is stop waiting for the "perfect time" - get on and do it, or regret it forever.

Beaker sings Coldplay

If you ever thought Chris Martin was a muppet...

Today, it would seem that I'm Anglican

Still in Haddenham, a very pretty village in Buckinghamshire. For the first time ever I’ve gone to a church where they’re ringing the bells to summon people like me to church. This is St Mary the Virgin in Haddenham. It’s 10.30am. It’s time for the morning service.

I’ve often thought about becoming a mystery worshipper for Ship of Fools, but have never actually got round to doing it. I know you shouldn’t rate churches, but I enjoyed this service. It had a good talk on prayer, and it was nice to go forward and kneel to take communion. But – and it’s a big but – the opening children’s action song was excruciatingly cringeworthy, and the five minute notice from the bearded PCC chap about how people weren’t giving enough money to keep the church going was no doubt necessary, but off-putting.

The reality is that, whatever the downside of the ‘congregational’ style (and there are many), at least notices like that are only heard by relevant people. If we’d been completely uneducated in church culture what would our perceptions of this really quite good church have been?

On an interesting note, the duck-pond outside the church, which is home to some very funky white ducks, is the same duck-pond that Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo fell into in The Great Muppet Caper. Strange, but true.