Muppets Now Episode 2 - Fever Pitch

[Phillip]

Episode 2 - Fever Pitch
Disney+ Premiere: Friday August 7, 2020

Fozzie Bear has some big ideas for Muppets Now, and there’s no time like the deadline to start pitching! He’s found a very tough audience in Scooter, who just wants to finish uploading the latest delivery.

We see the very first episode of a game show that Pepe the King Prawn totally just made up. The Swedish Chef tries to cook a better molé sauce than his competitor, Danny Trejo. Dr. Bunsen Honeydew has replaced Beaker with a new smart assistant, and things get fired up. Miss Piggy and her guests, Taye Diggs and Linda Cardellini, show viewers how to work it out when they share the secret to staying healthy.

If you saw "Fever Pitch" on Disney+ please like this post and share your thoughts below.

 

[antsamthompson9]

I liked Beaker destroying the Alexa spoof. It was nice seeing Bubba and Yolanda.

 

[Muppet Master]

I was very critical of the pilot but this was actually a fairly solid episode. The skits this time around were all enjoyable with Muppet Labs and the Swedish Chef vs Danny Trejo ones being particularly entertaining. I'm also really liking the Beverly Turkey character and hope she appears in future muppet productions. Pepe's game show was also a fun ride and it was rather refreshing seeing his character be utilized well again. The Piggy sketch was passable but had its good moments as well, always glad to see Bobo get more screen-time.

But even with the sketches being fun and engaging, my biggest problem with Muppets Now is still the fact that the story connecting these sketches together is paper-thin. The concept of Fozzie pitching horrible show ideas to Scooter was an amusing premise but it was treated more as a running gag instead of the interesting plotline that it could have been. I think a big factor that hinders the narrative is the Zoom/Facetime set-up. I wouldn't mind it if they used it every once in a while but it'd be a lot better if Scooter and Fozzie were interacting backstage somewhere instead of chatting through a computer screen. I really feel like the 2015 series could have fleshed out the premise into a full-fledged story but we barely get a few stray clips of the two interacting here.

Overall though, this was a major improvement over the very tedious pilot. I'd give Due Date a 4/10 and Fever Pitch a 7/10. This one restored my fate in Muppets Now and I hope to see the series evolve some more.

 

[Oscarfan]

Overall, I think I enjoyed it marginally more than the previous. Miss Piggy's segment hasn't been working for me aside from Uncle Deadly. And I dunno, Bubba's obsession with baked ziti got a laugh from me.

I thought Pepe's thing would be better, but it wasn't awful either. Muppet Labs was fun too, but I wish the duo were more involved in the proceedings.

 

[wiley207]

Is it just me, or did Fozzie get a new puppet again recently? He looks a little different from the design they came out with for the 2011 "The Muppets" film. And then they showed a couple of those 90s-2000s stock photos with Fozzie's "older" design a few times!

Heh, during the field test segment, I knew EXACTLY what Beaker was going to do to Beak-R, but it was still played out pretty funny!

Nice to see Bobo again, too!

The first episode I found to be a good start as well. Nice to see the Muppets back in a variety sketch show format, albeit an online version.

 

[Old Thunder]

From Discord:

Muppets Now, Episode 2

It’s almost like everything I disliked about last week’s episode was straight up removed. This episode was legitimately great. The format still works. Every single skit was good to great (Piggy’s being the low point, but not a bad low point). The commercial aspects I complained about were gone this time, replaced with a modern take on traditional characters. The game show was fun, the Chef actually had a method to his madness (bringing out a mole for mole was right in his line I felt), Bunsen and Beaker knocked it out of the park (you could see where the skit was going from a mile away and the payoff was still great), and Piggy had a funnier piece this time around too. This is everything that last week’s wasn’t. I’m feeling a strong 7 to a light 8 for sure.

 

[Cookie Chris]

In comparison to the pilot episode, this episode was a noticeable improvement in quality. The Muppet Labs segment with Dr. Busen Honeydrew, Beaker, and Beak-R was the major highlight of the episode. The Swedish Chef segment was also funny. Miss Piggy's lifestyle segment was just okay. One major flaw as pointed earlier is the Fozzie puppet because it looks terribly put together and they use vintage pictures of him that only further point out the inconsistencies.

 

[DARTH MUPPET]

I liked it a lot more then last week's show!

 

[Muppet 13]

This episode was pretty good. The Miss Piggy segment was even better, the Chef segment was way better than the one in the first episode, and I LOVED the Pepe game show segment! The running gag with Fozzie and Scooter was pretty good as well. People are saying - there's not much to connect the segments and I think I know the reason why. The last Muppets show wasn't a success and it focused more on the backstage drama and stories and barely had any recurring skits. This one seems like the opposite. I liked The Muppets (2015), but I will admit that it had it's flaws, like I missed the segments themselves. I would rather a show like The Muppet Show that balanced both the backstage and segments, but I still think this can work for now.

 

[Luke]

I thought it was a massive improvement over the pilot - much funnier and true to the characters, and with a far better line-up of them.
I do agree that the whole social media construct for the plot doesn't work that well, it feels flimsy and pointless.
I really liked the Pepe Gameshow, Piggy (mostly due to the added rats and penguins), Muppet Labs. The Swedish Chef segment was ok but again, i think a better construct could have been found for him to have his zany crazy chef moments.
A really solid episode!