Just the fact that they always advertise it makes me think that ABC has no intention of cancelling it, if a show is a flop, like Blood and Oil or something, they more or less stop to advertise it, but The Muppets is still advertised regularly, fi ABC was planning to cancel it, they wouldn't put so many commercials.
To put things in perspective, Wicked City disappeared after 2 episodes and replaced by Shark Tank (which has the lowest quality of any of ABC's other shows I feel). Muppets is probably just low budget enough to be able to get at least a renewal as long as the ratings aren't awful. Probably on a probationary basis, I dunno. I wouldn't doubt (and this is something that I pointed out) the announcement of a "reboot" was going to lose viewers
and make the show a laughing stock. It's all but an admission that this was a mistake, though I think even if the Muppets did the same old thing they always do, the ratings wouldn't be that great either.
And yes, it's a real pain in the butt that the writers
finally turned the show into a show about The Muppets and not a show
with Muppets in it. The first season of a show (unless it gets really bad really fast) is never the point in the series where they nail it,
yet we don't have the grace period that kept shows like Seinfeld and Family Guy running long enough to find themselves anymore. I mean, ever
seen a first Season Seinfeld? It's...it's not hard to see why it was sop close to being cancelled so often. As long as episodes about relationships drive further behind the rear view mirror and we get Muppets doing Muppet things like this last episode, there's potential for this to be a far better, more Muppety series. I've said it before, a Muppet show with a sitcom format
can work, and the second season of MT proves it. Unfortunately, just when the writers were getting the hang of
that one, ABC and Disney were impatient. That would really be awful here.
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
). I took a day trip to NYC yesterday and went to the Paley Center for Media and spent the day looking up pure Muppet gold in their archive collection! I viewed episodes of The Tonight Show with Jim Henson from 1974 (a performance piece with a large rubberband face with Dave Goelz who looked so young and in awe that he was there!), 2 episodes from 1975 (Dr. Teeth and Kermit) and 1976 (Swedish Chef, Kermit and Fozzie) and an episode of The Cher Show from 1975 with the Muppets (the Electric Mayhem and Sweetums were featured). The only bummer was that the Tonight Show episode that I REALLY wanted to see from 1977 (Jim with Link Hogthrob!) hadn't been digitized yet and they needed a 24 hour notice to retrieve the tape from their archives. Oh, well. Another trip for another day. Muppet fans should definitely try to go there, the staff is so friendly and helpful. Getting back to Dr. Teeth, I think that the origins of his gold tooth were also mentioned on TMS episode with Cleo Laine while performing "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing". I'm glad to hear they are doing a Christmas episode next week! Hmm...who will be under the mistletoe?
