ABC officially cancels "The Muppets"

[Daffyfan4ever]

I'm just trying to remind myself that there are still Muppet appearances to be made.

• Steve and Eric in New York.
• Pepe just appeared on The View.
• Animal just went to that Disney thing.
• The Electric Mayhem doing that Outside lands thingy.

It's not over. It's not over. It's NOT OVER!

That's good hopefully the Kermit/Piggy finale will be 'splained, maybe during Steve and Eric's NY appearance. We'll see.

 

[Drtooth]

To be perfectly honest, if this show were to somehow survive by streaming, I kinda want them to go another angle. Something (sigh) more familiar so that the uptight nostalgiaphiles will be on board. What I'd like to see is "Late Night with Miss Piggy" as the show. Keep the behind the scenes arcs in the show, but have them be more serialized. Plus, every episode could be a bottle episode, and if that keeps costs down, it wouldn't be so much of a gamble.

And maybe it's me - The Simpsons is as old as I am (if you count their beginnings on Tracy Ullman) and I remember how parents were so up in arms because Bart would say eat my shorts and was such a troublemaker. Of course, fast forward to college when South Park came out and parents lost their minds because violence in a cartoon - which FYI parents, not every cartoon is meant for kids. You actually wouldn't believe how many parents took their young child to the South Park movie.

Let's not forget Beavis and Butt-Head as well. Though, unlike SP and B&B, The Simpsons was marketed towards kids. Always has been, always will be no matter how adult the situations get, Simpsons toys and collectibles for kids will always pop up from time to time, along side adult collectors merchandise. As in they had a Back to School Burger King Promotion as recent as last year.

The problem with those shows is that the satire of B&B and South Park wasn't really known by the general public then. B&B unfortunately gained the audience of the kind of kids that the show made fun of, and South Park was only known for little kids behaving badly in universe (which, the boys are frighteningly accurate to what 9 and 10 year olds were like when I was growing up). While B&B were always more subtle making fun of people the writers knew, South Park always managed to dig into social issues to the point where it's all about social issues and commentary the past decade and a half.

When it comes to The Muppets, I tend to think the problem was that the writers were trying to balance adult situations and humor with more family friendly fare. And by adult, I don't mean parodying a format of entertainment that was parody of parody by the time it aired. Between that and the balance of trying to mesh the adult production behind the scenes subjects and Muppet humor, this show really had a learning curve. Which makes the cancellation all the more frustrating. First seasons are usually weak overall because characters don't have the room to grow and flourish and the show never gets too far past the establishment phase. When you can play with what the show establishes, then you hit it. The show almost hit it. Another season could have made something special. It would have been great had they gave it enough room. They didn't. Show was rushed to production, the writers thought they wrote something that would resonate, and it didn't.

 

[D'Snowth]

At the risk of being the, "I told you so," Guy, I told you guys this whole, #RenewTheMuppets thing wouldn't work. Networks DON'T listen to people. . . they don't ... if they did, there wouldn't be half the garbage on today that there is: networks don't care about quality anymore, they're all about the money and the numbers. Apparently sex is the only thing bringing that in for the networks.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Apparently sex is the only thing bringing that in for the networks.

Um, no. Most of ABC's popular comedies don't even have much to do with sex. Sure the subject of sex is occasionally hinted at, but it's rarely a major plot point. Modern Family, Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, The Middle, The Goldbergs, none of these shows are about sex. If you even watched one single episode of any of these shows you would know that.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Um, no. Most of ABC's popular comedies don't even have much to do with sex. Sure the subject of sex is occasionally hinted at, but it's rarely a major plot point. Modern Family, Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, The Middle, The Goldbergs, none of these shows are about sex. If you even watched one single episode of any of these shows you would know that.

That's one of the things I enjoy so much about ABC. They always try to make shows that the whole family can watch.

 

[charlietheowl]

I'm far angrier that there is an audience for NCIS than I am at ABC for canning a show running against it. But I digress.

The fact of the matter is this. The show probably wouldn't have been cancelled so abruptly and callously had it not been for the fact that the television division of Disney wasn't losing money because no one watches TV anymore. They had a steady stream of hit movies that were making a crapload of money, but the investurds saw a dank spot, panicked, and dropped the stock down, leading the new ABC president having to hack and slash at TV shows on the line up, and corporate synergy be d**ned. Had this not been the case, I have every reason to expect this would have got a pity renewal midseason. But no. They pretty much destroyed their profitable Disney Infinity, not even so much as trying to get a third party to resurrect it because their gaming division is down. Heck, they're even getting rid of Disney Dollars!!! No crap. They're going friggin' insane because the darn stock fell.

Disney's stock is being hammered partially because of ESPN losing money. They paid big-time money for all sorts of rights packages and now with people cutting the cable cord, they're beginning to have to pinch pennies there. A handful of big-name sports personalities have left there and the network is clearly re-structuring things. Which makes me more surprised they didn't keep the Muppets for another season since it's not like it's an outside property that they had to go out and acquire to develop. It was in-house and shouldn't have been something that would be ultra-exorbitant.

Anyway, the same thing will happen to Fox in 2-3 years. They're sinking huge money into Fox Sports 1, paying hand over fist for golf and stuff, and like 5 people watch their network daily.

 

[backpackmina]

They always try to make shows that the whole family can watch.

Families still do that?

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Families still do that?

Well, families don't watch TV together as much as they used to but ABC still has shows that people of any age can watch.

 

[dwayne1115]

I have an idea...A few years ago I started a thread on here called " What do the Muppets mean to you?"
The stories that where shared would tug at anyone's heart.
The idea is to print them off and send them to The Jim Henson Company The Muppet Studios and ABC. Now I know that this will do nothing to help put the show back on the air, but it wikk show that Muppet fans are not just any kind of fan base, it will show that they are special. Now if you've posted in this thread great, but if you have not and would like to here is a link.

http://www.muppetcentral.com/forum/threads/what-do-the-muppets-mean-to-you.54408/

This may also help the folks who worked so hard on the show. It may give them a better sense of purpose.
I will give folks a week to post on the thread befor drafting out the letter. So let's show them what the Muppets truly mean to us.

 

[Muppet Master]

I honestly wish they had never greenlighted the show, it was such an awful experience seeing the ratings decline and decline, people constantly bashing the show online and everywhere calling it "the awful muppet reboot", it was just sad to watch it all unfold and for what, a cancellation so ABC could make room for this.