Muppets' New Series is "New Now"

Miss Piggy is a Vlogger, Kermit is an online producer, Scooter is the tech supervisor and familiar media personalities abound in the latest entry in the Muppet video canon, this time in a six-episode sketch comedy on the Disney+ streaming series.

Produced by The Muppet Studio and Soapbox Films, this show replaces the vaudeville theater setting of the original Muppet Show with the PC and smartphone environment, but the combination of new and ongoing sketches is similar, missing are the musical moments. New characters include a “Joe the Legal Weasel" ( an inside joke as well as a nod to a famous Stan Freberg sketch), and a cooking show co-host with The Swedish Chef reminiscent of Julia Child who fawns over the guest chefs.

It’s a mixed bag, as any sketch comedy show is, but it does not have to compete with network prime time humor so the content is completely family-friendly. One claim that Disney+ can make is that it offers more options to keep parents less worried about what their kids of a wide age range are seeing, even between the shows (even a relatively wholesome commercial network can throw some pretty surprising ads at the breaks).

There is even some animation in the sketches with Bunsen and Beaker and an occasional appearance by a long-lost character from the first season of Saturday Night Live.

It’s cute and quite amusing, though it will be pretty dated as far at the “tech” gimmick goes, but it sure is nice to see old friends on the screen again. The creators of this show had no idea how much it would resound as a “Zoom” gathering of friends in this unexpected era. One might see it as a reassuring, lighthearted balm.