Image courtesy of Disney
For quite some time, Disney hasn’t really known what to do with the Muppets franchise. Jim Henson’s beloved creations have a special kind of humor and heart that is not always easy to work with while trying to keep relevance and popularity in the digital age, and trying to “update” the Muppets has often been a difficult endeavor. But with new series The Muppets Mayhem, following the original Muppet Show house band The Electric Mayhem as they record their debut album, Disney Plus has created something truly special – a show that, at its roots, really understands the Muppets and why they still work as modern characters. Bringing the weird and wonderful of Henson’s sensibilities, the show is a testament to how Disney should be treating this franchise, and does it in only ten episodes.
What works about The Muppets Mayhem is that it plays on the very idea that the characters don’t really fit in with our social media-obsessed, phone-toting world, and posits how they would react to being thrown into it, bringing each of their personalities out in the ways they react to trying to remain relevant in such a society. Effervescent frontmanDr. Teeth (Bill Barretta) malaprops his way into the heart of everything he does, while gruff, avuncular bassist Floyd Pepper (Matt Vogel) tries on a commercial jingle-writer’s hat. Hippy dippy Janice (David Rudman) finds self-care culture the perfect Mecca for her easygoing emotional journey. Zoot (Dave Goelz), the shutterbug of the Mayhem, finds having a camera always available to him the open road to art gallery stardom, his absent-minded wanderings giving him a success he doesn’t even realize he’s wandered into.
The Muppets always tend to work best when paired with human characters who try to work with them and understand their madcap sweetness, and this series uses music industry hopeful Nora Singh (Lilly Singh), her social media star sister Hannah (Saara Chaudry), and Electric Mayhem superfan Moog (Tahj Mowry) to ground the band as they try to have an album made before Wax Town Records CEO Penny Waxman (a Muppet character performed by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph) sells off the entire label. Trying to corral the Mayhem as a cohesive unit is a harder task than it would seem, and it takes numerous guest stars to help along the way – everyone from Kevin Smith and Paula Abdul to Billy Corgan and Nicole Byer, Cheech and Chong, and several others to spice things up even more. It’s a brilliant combination of the weirdness involved with pairing Muppets with men, and unlike some of the other more modern takes on Muppet culture, it works perfectly. The warmth of Henson’s original vision is carried out well here precisely because it remains the focus. The Muppets never forget who they are here, and instead, they bring the human world right into theirs, standing it on its head while becoming immersed in it.
For a generation that sees the Muppets franchise mainly as nostalgia fodder, The Muppets Mayhem understands how even nostalgia can become part of modern discourse, and it doesn’t shy away from blending the past with the present to create something new and exciting. Through all of their trials and conflicts, the characters never lose sight of who they are and how they fit into the narrative – not even the humans, who have to help push the story forward while giving the Muppets room to breathe and be themselves. If Disney Plus can use this formula to keep more Henson-based content coming, there could be a resurgence of interest in these characters, which could be an extremely positive thing for the streaming service.
Would we recommend The Muppets Mayhem? As Janice would say, “Fer sure!”
—Dana Culling