So, I watched the new Muppets tv show this week, called, creatively enough,The Muppets (you can watch it too at the link if you missed it), which premiered to positive-to-mixed reviews this week. The premise is not-too-dissimilar to the original The Muppet Show back in the 70s, merely replacing the live theater variety show with the “Up Late with Miss Piggy” late night talk show, and implementing a few modern documentary/behind-the-scenes reality-tv tropes to the presentation; it’s still showbiz, and the characters generally fall into the same slots on the org chart, so to speak.

For my part, I enjoyed it; it mostly felt “Muppet”, if through the The Office/30 Rock lens. The jokes felt mostly right (cutting, slapstick, sarcastic, and occasionally warm), even if I found the “modern” shooting style a bit distracting (but I’ll get over that). The pilot was a little rough, but pilots often are, and I’m pretty confident that pre-air testing has already started ironing those out. I’ll keep watching.

Most of the reviews I’ve read (here are a few, from io9 and AV Club) were a little mixed, but a common thread between them (heck, even the expected protest from the always-offended American Family Association got in on the same thing) was the fact that the show was maybe too “edgy” or “adult”; and wasn’t the Muppets of their childhood.

I’m not necessarily on that train. The Muppets, especially in their Muppet Show guise, were always a little racy, and never afraid to push the envelope. We kids who watched in the 70s didn’t always notice the “adult” humor, but it was always there. Heck, the original Muppet show pilot/tv special was called “Sex and Violence”, and kind of lived up to the name, even if not to Meet the Feebles levels. Henson and company were always about working in service to the idea and not just making a kids’ show.

Sure, in the decades since, the Muppets characters have done a lot of stuff that might be considered less “adult” than The Muppet Show, including more than forty years on Sesame Street, shows like Fraggle Rock, and many of the 90s movies (particularly Muppet Christmas Carol), but the snark’s really always been baked in – this isn’t really different, other than the fact that TV standards might be a bit more permissive today than they were during the original 70s run.

the other “problem” people seem to have is with the “shake-up” of the status quo – i.e. – the “public” break-up of Kermit and Miss Piggy trickling out into regular real-world media, particularly people’s reaction to Denise, the new, Natalie Dormer-looking pig in Kermit’s life (““it’s the curly tail”). That people are so upset and concerned, to me, and as Steve Whitmire explained at Dragon*Con this year, that people are still invested in these characters after all these years, and that now is perhaps exactly the time for them them to make a comeback into the public consciousness. So, not really a problem at all, and, as Whitmire posited during one of the panels I sat in on, “maybe, you know, this breakup thing isn’t permanent?”.

So yeah…I feel generally pretty good about the new Muppets show, and am confident that the nostalgiac fans will come around to their love of and investment in the characters.

Maybe not the AFA, but then, I don’t expect them to get it anyway.

Me, I’m really pretty happy to have them back – the Henson Company and the Muppets specifically are a big deal to me.