Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jason Tabrys | TV | September 11, 2026
In a Deadline article touting the Emmy success of the recent-ish Sabrina Carpenter/Seth Rogen-driven Muppet Show special, Nellie Andreeva mentioned that there are currently “no active conversations” about an ongoing series. The reason? According to Andrews, “there have been difficulties cracking a premise for an ongoing Muppet Show series.” I feel concussed.
As has been pointed out by several people on social media (I am sorry, you missed your chance to be the first to post), the premise is in the name and vast history of the thing. It’s The Muppet Show. Take a celebrity, a gaggle of Muppets, and put on some silly sketches that everyone loves.
Everyone?
As the Deadline article pointed out, the special pulled in a robust 8M viewers over its first week. Add to that the flummoxed reaction to this news, and it’s pretty clear people are crying out for more Muppets. And the executives keeping them at bay are seeking answers in spreadsheets and up their own asses, trying to find a way to predict the future, eliminate risk, and figure out a way to ensure that they get all the credit if a new Muppet project hits.
It’s a real stunner, but apparently the people who attached a syllabus to Marvel movies and gave us an extra-long episode of TV revolving around a yoked Jabba the Hutt as the first big-screen Star Wars movie in 7 years are screwing up the Muppets IP.
Perfect isn’t the primary enemy of good; studio executives are.
The niche-rich splintersphere of our pop culture is often seen as devoid of monocultural draws, but it’s not us; it’s them. We want to gather around big things and characters we love. And we want to pass them down like an heirloom, creating a pocket universe of intense geeky fandom with our kids and our friends. A lot of the time, it’s how we picked up our love for these multi-generational characters in the first place.
Won’t someone/anyone take a lesson from the success of Coyote vs. ACME? That film sat on a shelf for four years as some corporate schmuck’s idea of a cost-saving strategy. Once it saw the light of day, it scored 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and has already made nearly $60M worldwide while revitalizing the Looney Tunes characters for a new generation (assuming they’re allowed to break containment again). Imagine that: a franchise that’s been celebrated for decades upon decades hitting the mark with a new and old audience. It’s as if there’s something inherently transcendent about those characters.
The disease of overthink and the idea that creative instincts are dark magic, but data analytics are next to godliness, is bottlenecking the good stuff, like a new Muppet Show.
This is not the age of bold experimentation that the abundance of streamers, studios, and distribution/promtion avenues should inspire. This is the era of eleven meetings about a title font and PR rollout on a film that starts shooting without a finished script. And it is so excruciatingly dumb.
Here’s a premise: a ragtag gang comes together to liberate a theater company of felt frogs, pigs, bears, weirdos, prawns, and other assorted creatures from the clutches of the megacorporation that “owns” them. Then they give those, let’s call them “Muppets,” back to an adoring public who will support them as they make the world just a little more tolerable.
I know I sound like a raging Pollyanna right now, but so much attention is paid to the idea of who “owns” things like the Muppets, and it should be more complicated than all that. Disney bought The Muppets in 2004 for $75M, but it’s been shortsighted in its stewardship, with limited new projects that they fail to support adequately. The only reason the Muppets have any value beyond the trivial is that fans keep the flame alive. Where’s our reward?
