Since their first appearance on “Sam and Friends” in 1955, the Muppets have come to leave an indelible mark on not just the entertainment industry, but the entire world. After all, you’d have to look pretty hard to find someone that doesn’t know about Kermit, Miss Piggy, and the rest of the gang.
In that time, the Muppets have appeared in countless movies, books, video games, theme parks, live performances, and, of course, TV shows. Some of those shows, however, were better — and more successful — than others. Ranging from the wildly popular and familiar to a few that you may have forgotten all about, here’s our list of the five best Muppet shows of all time.
5. The Muppets
In the late ’00s, a new form of comedy started to dominate broadcast TV: documentary-style workplace comedies that relied heavily on talking head interviews to deliver jokes. Shows like “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation” helped popularize the format, and it wasn’t long before several copycats emerged.
In 2015, ABC decided to break the Muppets out of retirement for another attempt at a workplace sitcom. “The Muppets” saw the gang running a late-night talk show called “Up Late with Miss Piggy.” This was the first attempt at a primetime show featuring the main cast of Muppets since the mid-’90s. It was full of nostalgia and had all the trappings of classic Muppet comedy — like goofy jokes and famous guest stars — but attempted to ground the characters a bit more than previous shows.
Unfortunately, “The Muppets” was met with mixed reviews and never became the ratings hit the network was expecting. ABC pulled the plug after just one season — which seems ironic, since both “The Office” and “Parks and Rec” very nearly met similar fates after their first seasons … before going on to become smash hits.
4. The Jim Henson Hour
Jim Henson was no one-trick pony. Not only did he redefine children’s programming with “Sesame Street” while pivoting to more adult-friendly humor with the Muppets, but he wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries of his imagination even further. Enter “The Jim Henson Hour,” which was essentially two shows in one. The first half hour was a revamped version of the original “The Muppet Show,” with Kermit and company attempting to run a cable network. The second half was a little bit of everything — including reruns of Henson’s “Storyteller” series, which combined the latest in puppetry technology with dark takes on classic fairy tales.
“The Jim Henson Hour” also allowed Henson to tell a different type of story altogether. In addition to the handful of “Storyteller” reruns, a few episodes were presented as hour-long mini-movies — such as “Dog City,” a gangland story inspired by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, and “Secrets of the Muppets,” a behind-the-scenes look at how the Muppets come to life.
“The Jim Henson Hour” was groundbreaking, innovative, and … perhaps a little too off the beaten path for regular Muppet fans. A late-season addition to the schedule, it turned out to be a ratings disaster, ending up as the lowest-rated show among the three major networks at the time. It was canceled after one season, with only nine of the 12 episodes airing. The remaining three would be shown as specials years later.
3. Muppets Tonight
If you were a fan of the original “The Muppet Show,” then chances are you got pretty excited in the mid-’90s, when ABC announced it would essentially be rebooting it with a new show called “Muppets Tonight.” The series debuted 15 years after the original show and promised to bring back all the glorious insanity that fans were used to seeing — with a few new additions to the cast.
While the first episode made it seem like everyone’s old favorites would be playing major roles on the new show, it quickly became clear that this would not be the case. For starters, “Muppets Tonight” was the first Muppet television endeavor following the death of Jim Henson, and some of the characters he’d brought to life hadn’t yet been recast. Another issue was Frank Oz and his busy directing schedule. Oz hadn’t yet passed off his characters like the very popular Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear, so they rarely appeared on the show.
“Muppets Tonight” got off to a decent start ratings-wise, and the show certainly had the look and feel of the original, but viewership fell off quickly. After one season of 10 episodes, ABC gave up on the show and passed it off to the Disney Channel, where it aired for one more season before the curtain fell for good.
2. Muppet Babies
Believe it or not, the Muppets were never intended to be for children — after all, that’s what “Sesame Street” was for. Instead, the Muppets were specifically designed to provide countercultural humor for adults. As they grew in popularity, however, kids couldn’t help but be smitten by the vast array of characters, even if they didn’t understand all the jokes. So, three years after the flagship show left the airwaves, “Muppet Babies” was added to the Saturday morning TV lineup.
The concept for “Muppet Babies” was actually conceived during the filming of 1984’s “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” which featured a musical flashback featuring several Muppets as toddlers. The scene went over so well that the idea of an animated spin-off version came soon after. The show was an instant hit, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for its first four years on the air. “Muppet Babies” would run for a total of eight seasons, making it the longest running Muppet-related television show of all time. It was rebooted in 2018 for Disney Junior, with that version running for five years.
1. The Muppet Show
“The Muppet Show” is widely regarded as one of the best sketch comedy shows of all time. The idea for the show came about while “Sesame Street” was emerging as a dominant force in children’s programming, as Jim Henson wanted to create something for adults to enjoy.
Henson created two specials that would act as pilots for his series idea. The first, “The Muppets Valentine Show” featured Mia Farrow as the guest and a Muppet named Wally as the central figure. The second attempt, “The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence,” really tried to hit the point home that this was not geared towards children at all. The latter show looked a lot more like “The Muppet Show” we know and love, only with a Muppet named Nigel as the host.
After failing to get much interest in the U.S., Henson managed to convince British producer Lew Grade to give his show a shot, and “The Muppet Show” debuted on the U.K.’s ATV network in 1976; by then, Nigel had been reduced to the role of orchestra conductor while Kermit took over hosting duties. The show became a critical and cultural success both in the U.K. and in the U.S., where it ran in syndication. By Season 2, it had become the most-watched primetime syndicated series in America.
“The Muppet Show” ran in syndication for five seasons before calling it quits. But despite the many movies, shows, games, and songs the Muppets have given us over the years, the legacy of “The Muppet Show” remains stronger than ever. With any luck, the story’s not over yet, either: There’s been no word yet of Disney giving the “Muppet Show” reboot a series order, but fans of Kermit, Piggy, and the rest will no doubt be hoping to hear some good news before too long.
