ABC officially cancels "The Muppets"

[D'Snowth]

I think we have to come to terms with the fact that won't have a critically successful Muppet production again unless it's sickeningly sweet, all of the Muppets are nice to each other, and they sing Rainbow Connection and Mahna Mahna.

You do realize that that has been an actual complaint from people -including Frank Oz- right? That the Muppets have been come "too sweet," "too cute," and "too nice"?

I still say one of the reasons the show was doomed to fail was they relied on other writers from other mainstream sitcoms to come in and use formulas from other shows on this show in an attempt to give it a mainstream feel and hope it achieves mainstream status. That's not the Muppet spirit at all. The Muppets have always done their own thing in their own, unique and wacky way. Trying to make the show another carbon copy of THE OFFICE, and all sitcoms that follow the stale and tired mockumentary style, was a poor move to begin with. Again, had they actually had people like Kirk, or Jim Lewis, or maybe even Joey Mazzarino now that he left SST, things may have been different, and arguably, more Muppety. I mean, heck, we all know why THE LAND OF GORCH failed, right? Because Jim's team wasn't allowed to be involved with the writing process, and the SNL writers didn't know how to write for the Muppets. Or VMX? Who thought it was a good idea to bring Simpsons writers in to write a Muppet movie?

 

[Drtooth]

I think we have to come to terms with the fact that won't have a critically successful Muppet production again unless it's sickeningly sweet, all of the Muppets are nice to each other, and they sing Rainbow Connection and Mahna Mahna. Sorry, everybody. The Muppets apparently aren't allowed to experiment and *gasp* develop the characters in new ways. Nononono, the Muppets should be doomed to repeat everything that they're done from a show that premiered 40 years ago.

We've all the seen the headlines of those cheeky articles written by people with an over inflated sense of self worth. "When I turned on "The Muppets", Kermit wasn't sitting on a log and strumming his banjo. What the heck?" or "The Muppets isn't anything like the Muppet Show. Where's all muh nostalgia? I can't come to terms with change" or, even better "Why "The Muppets" sucks despite the fact that I stopped watching after the first episode".

I've said it so many times before, but seriously *&%^$ Nostalgia. Look at how nostalgia fans act like spoiled little children when they bring back something they grew up with that somehow was so important to them that the slightest change is worthy of sending death threats to the crew. And even when everything's exactly the freaking same they can't be happy because now things are either not exactly the same (but are, totally are) or too the same and offering nothing different. I'm not talking about the fan fic writers who get up in arms when characters are interpreted slightly different than their fan fic interpretations who then hypocritically turn on their critics for interpreting things differently (is this a specific burn? No...probably no).

I can agree there was a problem with the format and the writers trying to go for a feel that was more grounded (not realistic, but not arm flailingly wacky either). The show did need a little more wackiness and a little more song and dance, and we got that three episodes in. The show was slowly and naturally growing and turning into a show that had a good compromise between mockumentary and Muppet. But by then, the instant gratification culture of casual nostalgia Muppet fandom set in and they refused to give the show a second chance. You know what? When IDW relaunched the TMNT, I was incredibly dissatisfied with the first issue. I thought, hey I'll give this one more shot and found all the weird set ups from the first issue started to be rewarding, and overall vast improvement on their part and context on mine. I have every issue, maybe not all the mini series, but I went nuts tracking some issues down.

I've ranted about this with the new Powerpuff Girls "reboot" (screw that! It's a long awaited seventh season). Everything I hear about how incredibly terrible about it falls on deaf ears for me. Not just the fact the show is not that bad (just not as good as the chunk of seasons 2-early 5 to be generous when the show hit its stride), but it's the least awful reboot I've ever seen. Keep in mind, I saw George of the Jungle turned into a spazzy doofus devoid of any humor, Pink Panther having talentless sons with stock 1980's kid's cartoon tropes as friends, and of course the dreaded Yo Yogi. Yo Yogi is a project so bad, even the poorly cast, absolutely pointless, sloppily slapped together, snoozefest of a live action movie was still a huge improvement. I even got on an argument with some little twerp on DA about how they thought that Lola Bunny on The Looney Tunes Show was a travesty to the personality devoid, cynically thrown in by the studio, token girl appeal character introduced in Space Jam.

Actually, if there's anything that really honks me off, it's the fact that the same nostalgia that refuses to see the Muppets try something completely different (you know, because doing what they normally do worked so well for MMW) actually wants a doggone Space Jam 2! That's the power of nostalgia. A film drastically hated by the Looney Tunes fan community....who come to think of it hates everything done after the 50's, and there's even a segment that despises Chuck Jones for what he did to Daffy. But a film adored by 90's children...ironically!!!!

 

[Muppet Master]

I think we have to come to terms with the fact that won't have a critically successful Muppet production again unless it's sickeningly sweet, all of the Muppets are nice to each other, and they sing Rainbow Connection and Mahna Mahna. Sorry, everybody. The Muppets apparently aren't allowed to experiment and *gasp* develop the characters in new ways. Nononono, the Muppets should be doomed to repeat everything that they're done from a show that premiered 40 years ago.

We've all the seen the headlines of those cheeky articles written by people with an over inflated sense of self worth. "When I turned on "The Muppets", Kermit wasn't sitting on a log and strumming his banjo. What the heck?" or "The Muppets isn't anything like the Muppet Show. Where's all muh nostalgia? I can't come to terms with change" or, even better "Why "The Muppets" sucks despite the fact that I stopped watching after the first episode".

Was this show perfect? Nope. Far from it. But, that doesn't change the fact that it was a valiant effort to change up the formula for our beloved characters and was a very good effort at that. I enjoyed it and many other did as well.

Thank you, you hit the bullseye, The Muppets can never succeed or recieve critical acclaim because of nostalgia, the only thing the masses want is the billonth rendetion of Rainbow Connection or that one sing along VHS tape that they watched as a child, Muppets drinking alcohol *gasp* Kermie would never do such a thing where's his banjo and where's Elmo?! But if there isn't a new muppet project, "Disney reboot da muppet show already", but when the new show comes out people complain "This is ruining my chilehood wheres cokie monstr and big burd?", "This wud be so mud bedder if they usd the variety show furmat", the only way the muppets can do well is if they make muppet babies again.

 

[Muppet Master]

I still say one of the reasons the show was doomed to fail was they relied on other writers from other mainstream sitcoms to come in and use formulas from other shows on this show in an attempt to give it a mainstream feel and hope it achieves mainstream status.

How do you know that this show used formulas from other shows to give this show a mainstream feel if you haven't seen the show? There were tons of moments with heart and muppet feel, they did not use formulas from other shows, it was SATIRE of the mockumentary genre like the original TMS was making fun of variety shows, so are we to say that TMS was a rip-off of Laugh-In?

That's not the Muppet spirit at all. The Muppets have always done their own thing in their own, unique and wacky way. Trying to make the show another carbon copy of THE OFFICE, and all sitcoms that follow the stale and tired mockumentary style, was a poor move to begin with.

The Muppets have almost always done rendetions of different generes, GMC was a homage of 50's caper films, TMM was one of old road trip movies. This show was NOT a carbon copy of The Office, using the same style as a show does not make you a carbon copy. Can you just watch an episode before criticizing it?

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Aaahh, i've missed these little debates.

 

[JT Yorke]

Thank you, you hit the bullseye, The Muppets can never succeed or recieve critical acclaim because of nostalgia, the only thing the masses want is the billonth rendetion of Rainbow Connection or that one sing along VHS tape that they watched as a child, Muppets drinking alcohol *gasp* Kermie would never do such a thing where's his banjo and where's Elmo?! But if there isn't a new muppet project, "Disney reboot da muppet show already", but when the new show comes out people complain "This is ruining my chilehood wheres cokie monstr and big burd?", "This wud be so mud bedder if they usd the variety show furmat", the only way the muppets can do well is if they make muppet babies again.

Dont you think audiences do change so they are trying to play that card?

 

[Drtooth]

Like I've said dozens of times by now, I doubt we would have had the mockumentary concept if MMW was as successful as the first film. It really seems that those two movies would have otherwise set up a The Muppet Show 201X series that would have been an exact clone of the original show, just with different writers and celebrities (obviously), and would be the obvious Xerox of a Xerox. After audiences somehow avoided the Muppets doing their usual shtick, it's clear they wanted to shake things up. They already had a Mocukmentary concept floating around since before the movies, something tells me that was the safer option because they already had something similar, and it would fit closer to what's currently on television.

Except for the fact two of the big mockumentary series already ended. The Office didn't sell NBC on that admittedly terrible Dwight's Farm series. That backdoor pilot screams back door pilot no matter how hard they buried it in the series after it tested poorly...also screamed completely freaking unwatchable. We seriously dodged a bullet, or at least deflected it off the Joey bullet still lodged in our skulls. Also NBC just burned off the rest of Parks and Rec because screw the small, loyal, cult fanbase audience. We have a long line of shows that won't get any audience, so there!

So basically, a huge chunk of what was wrong with that format is that it was late to the party by several years. Sure, Modern Family is grandfathered in, but that's the absolute last show using that format. Still, it could have worked better and it showed signs it did eventually. It's the "eventually" that was the problem.

 

[Nasubionna]

This is extremely disappointing. I don't have TV, but was watching it On Demand at my sisters house whenever we got the chance, and we both loved it. Ugh.

 

[Drtooth]

I have tried very hard not to be really insulted by this show getting cancelled and replaced by something far inferior, since that's kinda what I expected all along here. But then I saw the trailer for ABC's next quirky family sitcom.

Speachless.

No...that's not what I am, that's the name of the program. And I can't even begin to describe how terrible it looks. Well, it looks like it has Minnie Driver in it. That proves how quality this show is to have Minnie Driver in the cast.

I hate Minnie Driver.

She's...she's awful.

 

[mr3urious]

I have tried very hard not to be really insulted by this show getting cancelled and replaced by something far inferior, since that's kinda what I expected all along here. But then I saw the trailer for ABC's next quirky family sitcom.

Speachless.

No...that's not what I am, that's the name of the program. And I can't even begin to describe how terrible it looks. Well, it looks like it has Minnie Driver in it. That proves how quality this show is to have Minnie Driver in the cast.

I hate Minnie Driver.

She's...she's awful.

I agree. I was willing to give The Real O'Neals a chance, and I ended up enjoying it especially once it started to find its voice near the end of the 1st season. But Speechless doesn't look very good, and the mother character feels derivative of the mothers on the other ABC comedies, barring the ones from Fresh Off the Boat and Black-ish. So I'm not willing to give it the same chance.

On the plus side, Uncle Buck was cancelled after 1 season of 8 episodes. I've never seen it, but I heard of nothing but bad things about it.

http://deadline.com/2016/07/uncle-buck-will-not-return-season-2-abc-cancelled-1201783204/