Jim Henson’s The Muppets are back with a new series focused on modern age tech & modern age problems in Muppets Now. In the short form comedy series Kermit the Frog and Scooter work together to build a streaming show adaptation of The Muppets Show. As one could imagine with Kermit’s planning things don’t go as they should. As Scooter deals with the insanity surrounding the tech, Kermit has to please his fellow Muppets.

Muppets Now is a 2020 comedy series, it is produced by The Muppets Studios and distributed by Disney Platform Distribution. It is available in it’s entirety on Disney+

Editor’s note: Slight spoilers for Muppets Now may be present within this review.

Following it’s 2015 TV attempt The Muppets return with an internet series both literally and in series canon in Muppets Now. While there isn’t too much overall plot throughout the show most of it focuses on Kermit & Scooter giving the launch of a stream series a whirl as disaster strikes from within. Each episode consists of broken down segments with a single or multiple Muppets & guests starring.

THE GOOD: Muppets Now is for what it is an entertaining show in it’s bite sized, segment by segment format. I do wonder if this was originally meant to be some kind of YouTube show at times due to the formatting, and quick frankly it probably would work a bit better as a series of small shorts instead of a 25 minute episodic show packed with several segments from within. The show is spread out with about six segments randomly aired between the six total episodes including: Lifestyle with Miss Piggy (which has a running gag of “Lifestyle” in the title being botched), a Swedish Chef cooking show featuring celebrity guests in competition with Chef, Muppet Masters featuring Walter (yes that one from the recent films) discovering unrealized talents of the Muppets, Mup Close & Personal a Muppet/Celebrity interview segment, Muppet Labs Field Test where Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker do science experiments, and finally Pepe’s Unbelievable Game Show which randomly changes the rules as the segment goes.

The show’s simplicity makes it easy to digest and it shows some real brilliance here and there with the celebrity interaction. I’m happy to see they brought Walter back from the recent films run after he was mysteriously absent from 2015’s The Muppets. The celebrity guests are fun and you can see they’re really enjoying themselves here, especially Danny Trejo and Linda Cardellini. The Muppet Masters & Game Show segments are my favorites due to them being one of the few instances where the characters get some kind of development. Not to mention Pepe is always hysterical. 

THE BAD: Muppets Now has a ton of potential, but you won’t get that with six episodes packing in bite sized segments. The lack of any real character development outside of maybe Kermit, Scooter, Miss Piggy, and Uncle Deadly hurts the show not to mention the absence of plot. Why Disney decided on making this a regular formatted 30ish minute show excluding these key details I’ll never understand. There’s also a near abandonment of the vast Muppets roster. And whenever they do tend to change it up from an apparent core cast of Muppets the appearances are so minimal that they tend to be forgettable at most.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: It’s rather unfortunate that Disney may have already given up on the series as they may have expected it to not be much from what seems like a short-form format. With enough time and development for a second season Muppets Now could really be a good Muppets series. The limited characters that are there are really on and the spats with celebrities, especially Piggy’s little feud with Linda Cardellini showcases the series’ real potential. It’s just so limited in what it could be by so many weird restrictions that it’s just a solid good ride for its six episode run. Otaku Dome gives Muppets Now a 68 out of 100.