The Muppets Episode 8 - Too Hot to Handler

[LinkLady77]

I never been so heart broken in my life, I watched last nights episode. and I was so hurt.

Aww...*hug*...what bothered you the most about last night's episode?

 

[LouisTheOtter]

I never been so heart broken in my life, I watched last nights episode. and I was so hurt.

I hope you can tell us why. I didn't want to come on here and mindlessly rave about how much I liked this episode after your post. Please know that you can go into more detail about your concerns if you feel up to it. (No pressure.)

In light of this, I'll only say a few things for now:

(1) I didn't like this episode as much as last week's, and yet I laughed out loud several times. I would honestly be willing to accept a tepid, so-so Muppet show but I'm so glad we have such a funny one.

(2) Another great look at the Kermit-Fozzie dynamic, somewhat similar to "Bear Left Than Bear Write." Nice to see Fozzie standing up for himself, too. (And the rapid-fire shooting-ads-for-the-affiliates sequence was a hoot.)

(3) This might surprise some of you but I drew parallels between Chelsea-Handler-and-Scooter and the Letters To Santa bits with Beaker and his new "girlfriend." If you recall, Petra Nemcova wasn't simply eye candy and added some humour by replicating Beaker's mee-mee-mees. Similarly, Handler's appearance could have been handled extremely poorly given her public persona but she was smartly re-purposed as a sweeter, more vulnerable version of herself that was a perfect match for Scooter. I enjoyed that infinitely more than I expected to.

(4) Was I the only one that thought the "Robot Kermit" EM plotline was a callback to the early TMS episode with the mechanical wind-up TV show host?

 

[JimAndFrank]

Right, looks like I have just enough time to add something I forgot to mention in my last post:

The thing about me is that I really don't laugh at anything unless it's completely hysterically funny. In this episode there were a few hilarious moments, but I didn't laugh out loud. I smiled, but didn't even snort in amusement.

The closest I came to actually laughing was Rizzo's spit take. It's always the completely unexpected visual gags that make me chuckle. Definitely something the show is consistently doing right.

 

[MelissaY1]

This episode was hysterical. Every episode is getting better each week, and I just love this show. My husband is now all on board with Pepe and loved the delivery of some of his lines especially "Your heart is very very stupid". We had to rewind that on the DVR and watch that scene again. I thought Chelsea Handler played off the characters really well, and I have to say I love that Uncle Deadly is a regular character now.

 

[D'Snowth]

I never been so heart broken in my life, I watched last nights episode. and I was so hurt.

Chelsea Handler was a terrible choice for a guest star, and it's further evidence that the writers and producers of this show really are intentionally making this show as adult as possible - Chelsea has built a "comedy" career out of being mean-spirited and trash-talking people, and otherwise loves playing shock factor with the public by doing very lewd, obscene, and offensive acts (including a sex tape) for the sake of publicity and feeding her massive ego. . . . and this is who Scooter's celebrity crush is? Who came up with that idea? The fact that Chelsea Handler was brought on as a guest on this show is Strike 2 for me.

 

[MelissaY1]

Chelsea Handler was a terrible choice for a guest star, and it's further evidence that the writers and producers of this show really are intentionally making this show as adult as possible - Chelsea has built a "comedy" career out of being mean-spirited and trash-talking people, and otherwise loves playing shock factor with the public by doing very lewd, obscene, and offensive acts (including a sex tape) for the sake of publicity and feeding her massive ego. . . . and this is who Scooter's celebrity crush is? Who came up with that idea? The fact that Chelsea Handler was brought on as a guest on this show is Strike 2 for me.

I've never seen Chelsea's show, but I personally like mean-spirited, shocking/cringe style humor. I think that's what made this episode work, because her and Scooter WERE such opposites, it was uncomfortable to watch in scenes, which to me is what makes this series funny in general on a whole.
I mean whoever thought we would've seen Dr. Teeth and Floyd physically fighting as we did in the Kristin Chenoweth episode?

 

[Ladywarrior]

Bobo giving kermit a hug was frigging adorable!

 

[D'Snowth]

But that's not the kind of humor Jim was about; even with Statler and Waldorf, they may have heckled the other Muppets (Fozzie in particular), but they were never intended to be mean-spirited. Caroll learned the hard way about going too far when he ad-libbed Oscar saying to Paul Simon, "So long, shorty!" Caroll could see he genuinely hurt Paul Simon when he said that. You have to know where to cross the line: even Don Rickles knows that, and has made it clear many times before that he never insults people with the intention of being mean or trying to hurt their feelings, it's just a way for him to actually interact with this audience and others around them in a no hard feelings routine; people like Chelsea Handler (and Joan Rivers) on the other hand, they do intentionally say things with mean-spirited intentions, and even when they do go too far, they couldn't care less.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

We need not worry about the major flaws of the show now. The show is being revamped presumably to fix the major issues it desperately needs to work out. So if the retooling does or doesn't work out,then that,I think is when we should truly judge the show.

 

[LouisTheOtter]

Chelsea Handler was a terrible choice for a guest star, and it's further evidence that the writers and producers of this show really are intentionally making this show as adult as possible - Chelsea has built a "comedy" career out of being mean-spirited and trash-talking people, and otherwise loves playing shock factor with the public by doing very lewd, obscene, and offensive acts (including a sex tape) for the sake of publicity and feeding her massive ego. . . . and this is who Scooter's celebrity crush is? Who came up with that idea?

Probably the same person that came up with the idea to stick Ricky Gervais in Muppets Most Wanted. Or the person who hired Raquel Welch to guest-star on The Muppet Show. Hey, it's The Hatrack! I never trusted that hatrack...

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I'll admit that I was surprised and just a touch rattled by the announcement of Chelsea Handler's appearance. Which is why I was delighted to watch the show and discover that the most "shocking" thing about her was how sweet and vulnerable she allowed herself to be. (Besides, how do we know Scooter doesn't watch her show with the sound off?)

Also, since I didn't mention it earlier, thumbs-up for: Denise's laundry list of embarrassing revelations when Kermit was trying to flush out Becky's past at Rowlf's Tavern; Rowlf hosting a trivia night (something I myself do on a regular basis); all the other characters chiming in with answers when Kermit was trying to sucker in Becky at the studio; Scooter's hand movements inside and outside Chelsea's dressing room (and the full-body shot of him landing in her arms after he tripped); Rizzo's spit-take; and Bobo offering Kermit a hug. That was wonderfully unexpected and a perfect way to end the scene before going to commercial.