For their debut appearance at Comic-Con a couple of weekends ago, the Muppets brought along this footage of the pilot presentation that ABC picked up to series. The network posted it today. Celebrity guest stars were a major feature of the original The Muppet Show, and it looks like that’ll be the case this time around on The Muppets.
Bringing the Muppets into the 21st century, the new show will present a mock-doc-style look at their personal lives, partly using the behind-the-scenes device of Miss Piggy’s late-night TV show. All the original characters are back plus a few who are either new or were overlooked. What the show will retain, hopefully, will be the topical humor based on current events and pop culture that made the original so popular — it was at its peak one of the most-watched TV series in the world.
Creator Jim Henson produced his weekly half-hour independently in London. It was broadcast over ITV in the U.K. and distributed via syndication elsewhere so he could keep control of the content — poking fun at all kinds of supposedly sacred cows. How times have changed from 40-odd years ago.
This time around, Disney owns The Muppets and the show will be on ABC, premiering September 22. Broadcast networks can still run afoul of the FCC, they get away with a lot more than they used to. Poking fun is still the point, and consensus at Comic-Con seemed to be that this could work. See what you think.
Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy.