MT had tons of potentional but ultimately fell short of it. The reduced use of characters like Fozzie and Miss Piggy didn't help either.But the problem was it didn't know what it wanted to be, a sitcom, a sketch show, a late night show or a blatant copy of TMS.
TMS is a big shoe to fill. Even Jim Henson himself couldn't repeat that success. The biggest hit the Muppets had in the 80's was a cartoon series, one that proved to be pretty toyetic, which was such a powerful success that even today its
influence is still felt. That is, of course, "Muppets" as in the Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie kind. Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock did quite well for themselves. The Muppets didn't really hit TV again as a regular series until JHH, and even then it felt like its blessing and curse was trying to be the Muppet Show yet
not being anything like The Muppet Show at the same time.
Don't get me wrong, conceptually, I like JHH more than TMS. And for the record, I find Fraggle Rock to be a better show overall than TMS, especially with what it was trying to accomplish, and Sesame Street the most important of the three (telling that it's been the biggest mainstream Muppet success of all). But JHH really didn't know what it wanted to be, it couldn't find an audience, and even beggar NBC became a chooser, thus cutting the show down before it could really improve. MT was essentially the same deal but under different circumstances. Where as JHH was Jim trying to both break
out of the Muppets but keep them prominently in the spotlight to say "we still care about them," MT had a different identity crisis.
MT was a show that wasn't just trying to be TMS, it was trying to be the Muppets' identity post-Jim. That period saw Kermit in flux. He was still there, but in a diminished role, hence Kermit's roles in MCC and MTI. Even though he was still hosting preschool videos and such. That's why Clifford was the host. A hipper voice
and a newer puppeteer (newer being relative as he's been with them over 10 years at that point) so Kermit had time to stretch and have Steve find his inner frog. Meanwhile, this was before Frank's roles were recast, and the Muppets
without the pig was pretty uneven. Piggy brings a
lot to the Muppets, regardless of whether you like or dislike her. I mean, she was shoehorned into MTI when her character didn't really exist, and you can't deny that her appearances as Mrs. Cratchett were some of the highlights of MCC (that and "Light the Lamp, Not the Rat"). When Piggy was on MT, she seemed to be just there (depending on the episode). So already we had less Kermit and less Piggy. Fozzie's also lacking, but his lack of presence doesn't hit the show as hard as the lack of Piggy.
So basically, we have a show with new characters filling the roles of older, time tested, iconic characters, that's trying to be The Muppet Show but also trying not to be The Muppet Show, all while trying to be more hip and relevant, but still not knowing where it fits as a show or franchise. And I'll admit, they did the best they could under those circumstances, but in the end they really had no clue of what they wanted with the series and it went all over the place. It has to have that association with the classic characters
yet establish new characters to fill in roles left behind. And some of the mix worked, most of it didn't. We had about 4 of the new characters actually work (though i feel bad for Seymour, even though I'm struggling to see where he'd place if Pepe now plays off Rizzo) and had them integrated into the Muppets, at least until Brian left making the utter irony of new characters being recasted.
However, in trying to get the show to be what they wanted it to be, they had some great potential just before it ended. Just enough Muppet Show/TV schtick to satisfy that need, but enough sitcomy goodness to have them break out of a TMS retread.
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