“The lovers, the dreamers, and me.” These are the words that Kermit sang at the end of “Rainbow Connection”. The Muppets, created by Jim Henson, took the world by storm in the 70s and 80s. The Muppet Show was the number one television program in the whole world for a while. During the run of the show, The Muppets became more famous than the actual celebrity guests. Kermit and Miss Piggy would appear on Late Night TV and talk about the will they won’t they of their relationship, while Jim Henson and Frank Oz were puppeting under the couch. Three movies were created at the peak of The Muppets. The movies made around 50 million dollars in the box office. Sadly, in 1990, Jim Henson died and The Muppets never topped their 80s and 90s work.

Disney acquired The Muppets in 2004. They tried to get The Muppets back into the limelight multiple times, with the reboot film The Muppets and its sequel The Muppets Most Wanted. Yet neither were a huge hit with public audiences (even though both were fantastic movies.) The voice actor for Kermit, Steve Whitmire, was fired in 2017 for “creative differences” with Disney. He believed that they did not understand the soul of The Muppets and would argue against the crew and writing staff. Disney quickly fired him after 27 years of work as Kermit. After the reboots of The Muppets Movie, Disney has mostly forgotten about The Muppets. The most recent project was this year in May, which was a comedy series based on The Electric Mayhem Band trying to go platinum. The series was well received, yet got no media and commercial attention. Ever since the reboot of The Muppet Movie in 2014, the world has fallen to pieces. Nothing good has happened since The Muppets took the stage. I think the only way to fix this world is to bring back The Muppets into their prime. 

The Muppets stand for inclusivity and bring a little more silly into the world, which we need more than ever. Everyone is so serious all the time now and rich white men are passing laws that take away people’s rights. The only way to fix all these problems is for younger people to get into positions of power and for them to be kind and compassionate. And those are the main themes of The Muppets. bringing a little more silly and kindness into the world. Most TV and streaming shows today don’t really have messages and are just mindless entertainment, especially kid shows. One of the only really good children’s shows with valuable lessons is Sesame Street. Sesame Street (which was made by the same creators as The Muppets) has always been a progressive show for its time. When it first aired it was the only children’s show with a diverse cast. It faced a lot of backlash, but it is one of the show’s best features. The show has been on TV since 1969 and is still running. If Sesame Street can be relevant for this long, it is possible to do the same with The Muppets. The solution for this is a revival of The Muppets Show on Disney Plus.

Disney Plus is one of the biggest streaming services in the world, and The Muppets have already called it home a few times before. The revival of The Muppets Show should be a weekly release schedule just like all other big Disney Plus shows. They would need to put a good amount of money into it and get big guest stars every week, just like they used to. Another key part of it would be to try to do all of it practical. The Muppets are known for their beautiful practical puppetry, but recently they have started using CGI. And the CGI does not measure up well with The Muppets. So practical must be done. They would also need good writers, and it seems like the people who made The Electric Mayhem Band are up for the job. With all of this together, I think a Muppet Show revival could work. Yet the number one thing is to make it silly, make it wacky and insane. Who knows, this show may just fix the world.