Fair warning, this review contains spoilers for The Muppet Show 2026 TV Special. And I don’t want to hear any of this ‘Carl, this is a puppet show for children, you don’t need to warn us about spoilers’ carry-on. That alone tells me you’re not taking this seriously enough, and I’d like you to leave right now. 

“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.”

This is how Kermit the Frog introduces the 50th Anniversary edition of The Muppet Show, a ‘once-off special’ produced by Seth Rogen, released by Disney Plus on Wednesday. Kermit’s anxious vulnerability has always been central to his charm, and in an admirable display of candour, he opens the show by telling us what we all already know. If people don’t watch this special, we’re probably not getting another go-around at The Muppets until the next time Disney is hard-up for ideas.

They’ve gone A-list with their special guest Sabrina Carpenter, and only seconds pass between the conclusion of the iconic theme song and a performance of her hit Manchild during which she dances around a dive bar, clobbering a rogue’s gallery of nameless, secondary Muppets. Please keep watching, it screams, as Sabrina picks up a furry little monster and swings him over her head and crashes him into a wall. 

That kind of calculation is perceptible in almost every element of the show. The in-universe premise of the special is that there are simply too many acts to cram into the 32-minute runtime, leaving showrunner Kermit in a dilemma over who to cut. Cutting acts for time was always a plot point in the series original run, but in this case, it seems to be more suggestive. Look how much we have to offer, think about all the characters you’re not getting to see, imagine what we could do if you only gave us more time. 

While this is billed as a special, it’s really a pilot for a show waiting to be picked up. It’s just like Kermit’s old song says. It’s not easy being greenlit. 

Some of the major Muppets that have been heavily characterised by decades of feature-length movies, like Gonzo, are inevitably a little sidelined by the show’s narrow scope. The absence of a Fozzy Bear stand-up set — the original Seinfeld, some would argue — is either a mistake or a strategic choice, a withholding of sorts. You want Fozzy’s back and forth with Statler and Waldorf? Then you’re going to have to bear with us. Waka waka. 

Some segments are undeniably light. Pigs in Wigs, a sort of Bridgerton mockup starring Piggy and Pepe the King Prawn, feels hastily written with no major payoff at the end. When one considers how long it’s been since there was a major Muppets project, any moment of low-effort feels inexcusable. This is too important to take your eye off the ball, Seth. We need to get this made, 25 episodes a year, just like the old days.

Another prevailing critique around the return of the Muppets is that Kermit sounds off, which he does. Jim Henson himself performed the voice of Kermit until his death in 1990, at which point the role was taken over by Steve Whitmire, who was fired from the role in unclear and controversial circumstances a decade ago. Matt Vogel is our new Kermit, and to call a spade a spade, his voice is markedly different from the original. 

Some naysayers will argue that ‘Surely there are thousands of people who can do the Kermit voice’. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many expert puppeteers who can do a Kermit voice, puppeteering now firmly in ‘lost art’ territory. In the end, it seems much truer to the spirit of the Muppets to have a Kermit with a janky voice, or indeed an entirely new conceptualisation of Kermit’s voice, rather than some kind of AI ghoul voice transplanted into his little green body. 

The rest of the show delivers fulsomely, and it probably delivers even more if you’re not watching through the same lens as me (completely freaking out that if they mess this up, then I can kiss The Muppet Show goodbye for another 45 years). 

There are several laugh-out-loud moments that stick. “Emmy Award-winning comedy icon Maya Rudolph is DEAD” is a particular highlight, as is the introduction of a second-order Muppet who ignores Kermit’s inspiring plea for trust because he’s been “burned before”.

Rizzo’s performance of The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Muppet rats in revelry beneath neon lights, before the Chinatown signs start exploding and the cops show up, is the perfect example of what the Muppets can offer that nobody else can. 

It’s as much fun as it is funny. It’s whimsy without all the algorithmically induced effort of which everything else smacks so heavily these days. In a world where wholesomeness is so often a byword for trite, the Muppets leverage their gallery of lovably deranged little freaks, frogs, rats, pigs and whatever Gonzo is to create a nonpareil variety show with a vision of the world so far removed from the hellscape that exists outside the doors of the Muppet Theatre that we should be begging for more. 

One segment, Muppet Labs featuring Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker (two life partners who seem to be engaged in levels of full-time kink unfathomable to the rest of us), directly tackles the question of ‘distraction’.

“These days, everything is competing for your eyeballs. Mobile devices, televisions, and the day-to-day terrors that consume our brains when we aren’t looking at the first two,” the good doctor tells us. He’s got a solution, one which temporarily kills Maya Rudolph and mutilates Beaker.

Fortunately, there is a better solution, and it’s right in front of us. Greenlight a full-season of The Muppet Show, and let’s see if they can save us from ourselves.