The Muppet Show Is Exactly What We Need Right Now. Give Us More of It!

In the decades since viewers in the Washington, D.C., market got their first glimpse of Kermit the Frog, in the 1955 sketch series Sam and Friends, there have been many Muppet shows. Eighties kids were raised on Muppet Babies. A short-lived 2015 sitcom titled, simply, The Muppets chronicled Miss Piggy’s stint as a talk-show host in the trendy mockumentary style of The Office. But if we’re being honest, there has only ever been one great Muppet Show—and the majority of Muppet TV projects, from Muppets Tonight in the 1990s to 2020’s single-season Disney+ variety show Muppets Now, have been thinly veiled attempts to revive it. Which raises the question: In this era of endless reboots and sequels, why not just bring back The Muppet Show?

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Well, it’s finally happening. On Feb. 4, ABC and Disney+ will unveil a program that actually calls itself The Muppet Show—and, more importantly, recaptures both the format and the soul of the ’70s original. For this estimable achievement, we can thank a team of executive producers that includes Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, on a hot streak following The Studio, as well as plenty of Jim Henson Company and late-night veterans. Guest starring is Sabrina Carpenter (also an executive producer), whose Miss-Piggy-meets-Betty-Boop persona makes her the ideal current celebrity for the gig. Every beloved character is back. The revival is so satisfying that I only have one complaint: There’s too little of it. The single half-hour episode is billed as a special event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show. The public demands more Muppets!

Of course, that’s precisely the response Disney seems to be seeking. Our host and showrunner of the Muppets’ show-within-the-show, Kermit, wryly acknowledges as much in an anxious opening monologue that touts the characters’ return to the original Muppet Theatre: “We are so excited to be back on the very stage where it all started, and then ended, and then is maybe starting again, depending on how tonight goes.” (I won’t spoil the derisive Statler-and-Waldorf banter that follows; just know that it happens, and it’s delightful.) Some savvy executive clearly realized that it would be more effective to juice demand for a full season by airing one stellar episode that leaves viewers wanting more than to add The Muppet Show to ABC’s weekly schedule and let it get lost in a sea of 9-1-1 spinoffs.

If that was indeed the plan, then it has been smartly executed. Maybe the key was to not fix what was never broken. The balance of variety acts and behind-the-scenes shenanigans is very close to what it was in the original series. The segments are mostly familiar crowd pleasers, from the Great Gonzo’s inept daredevilry to the mad science of Bunsen and Beaker. Carpenter gets several musical numbers, an obvious but entertaining love triangle with a sheepish Kermit and an incandescently jealous Miss Piggy, and plenty of opportunities for self-aware, PG-13 humor. (Kermit: “We’re still working out a few kinks.” Carpenter: “That’s all right. I love a kink.”) Instead of overloading the special with celebrity cameos, we get appearances by Rogen and Maya Rudolph, who appeal to a broad audience and are always a pleasure to see (though it does seem like a bit of a waste to book Rudolph for this kind of gig and not have her sing).

A few adjustments have been made to make the show work in 2026. Sketches are a bit punchier and backdrops more elaborate, though not in a way that undermines the Muppets’ scrappy, analog aesthetic. The cultural references are just current enough to feel fresh, with a minimum of internetty pandering. This subtlety seems wise. Muppets Now tried to update The Muppet Show for the streaming era, and while it did a fine job, that wasn’t really necessary. The original series took cues from vaudeville, which was certainly not a cutting-edge genre in the disco era. But those tropes felt classic, not dated; half a century later, they still do. And it’s comforting to revisit them, paired once again with a couple dozen immortal marionettes that have been part of the family-entertainment firmament for as long as most viewers have been alive—especially in the depths of this winter of our collective discontent.

It’s going to be hard to maintain the quality of the special over a full season, but I sure hope Disney gives this set of producers the chance to try. Because they evidently understand, as much as any steward of the franchise has in the decades since Jim Henson’s death, that The Muppet Show is timeless. Muppets now? No, Muppets forever.