If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already seen the new Muppet Show special, which is currently available to watch on Disney+. If you haven’t, what are ya doing here? Go watch it and come back; I’ll wait.
Actually, I’ll join you! It’s been a few hours since I rewatched it…
You’re back? Pretty good, right?
That Sabrina Carpenter sure can sing, huh? When she was first announced as the guest star, I was very excited. Not just because she’s one of the few modern Western pop stars I actually listen to (no offense to those who enjoy that music; I’m just a K-Pop fan who also mentally lives in 1978). But because she’s shown that she has the fun energy, the campiness, and the kind of timeless theatrics that would be a perfect fit with the Muppets, especially in a classic theater setting.
But on top of that, I also knew that she has a lot of innuendo and outright sexual themes in her music and stages. She’s pretty good at turning the level on that stuff up or down, depending on the audience, but the potential to recapture that sometimes adult energy that was a real part of the original Muppet Show left me in eager anticipation.
And to my delight, we did get some of that! The “I love a kink” joke that was included in some promotional videos is probably the most blatant example. But there’s also things like the lyrics to “Blinding Lights” including references to being turned on, or the lyrics to “Manchild” alluding to, uh, let’s say finishing a task early.
Nothing really stood out to me as explicitly inappropriate, though. Even the kink joke is the kind of thing that parents will chuckle at, but kids won’t think about too much. There were certainly a lot of things like that in the stuff I watched growing up, but that’s a larger conversation.
However, while the new special has gotten overall positive reviews, there’s some folks out there that think this is all still too much for kids. Some think there’s too much innuendo. Some think there’s too much violence. Some think there’s too much peanut butter on this sandwich– wait, no, that’s me talking about my lunch.
Maybe these people (or even you, reading this) haven’t seen the original show since they were kids themselves, or they’ve just never really paid attention to these things. Or maybe they’re used to other, more recent Muppet productions, that stay more family friendly. (Though that’s debatable, especially with Pepe in the troupe.) It’s been 50 years since The Muppet Show went on the air, so I wouldn’t blame people if their memory differs from reality.
So I’ve compiled a (non-comprehensive) list of some more adult moments from the original Muppet Show, to give us all a little refresher on the types of things the Muppets were putting out back in 1976 to 1981. We’ve written about this type of thing before, but it’s been 11 years since then! Besides, I decided to focus entirely on The Muppet Show this time, the most direct and obvious comparison to the new special.
Let’s start off with some Muppet violence! Yay, we love to see those guys get beat up!
Let’s see, there’s of course the Piggy karate chops, the Crazy Harry explosions, and the monsters eating smaller characters. But how about characters shooting each other with guns, like in the Super Sheep sketch in the Lynda Carter episode, or Eric the Parrot shooting the Swedish Chef in the face in the Glenda Jackson one?
A hunter shoots at some cute rabbits during “Run, Rabbit, Run”, while Fozzie scrambles to save them. There’s a murder mystery sketch in the Joel Grey episode that depicts a dead Muppet with a bullet wound in his back, and the whole Liza Minelli episode is a murder mystery that has multiple Muppets killed on screen. And heck, the “Comedy Tonight” number is full of Muppets blowing things up, shooting each other, and throwing knives!
But if I included all the times the Muppets were violent to each other, this would be a really long article. So how about some instances where the guest star gets in on the violence, the way Sabrina did when she flung Boppity around like me on bowling night (like Animal, I bowl overhand)?
The Rita Moreno episode is a classic (she even won an Emmy for it!), and one of the major numbers is “I Get Ideas“, where she performs with a full-bodied Muppet man and flings him all over the place like a ragdoll. But she’s not the only one throwing a few punches. Jaye P. Morgan tosses Scooter a bomb that explodes in his face, Peter Sellers contorts Link into an uncomfortable pretzel, and Linda Lavin literally slaps some sense into an anxious Piggy before stealing her musical number.
Zero Mostel points a gun at Sam before putting it into his own mouth, Roger Moore tosses some villainous Muppets around, and Alan Arkin aggressively terrorizes those poor bunnies again. And then there’s one of my favorite numbers: Marisa Berenson sings “You’re Always Welcome in Our House”, a darkly comedic song where various Muppets are trapped in a deceptively innocent house.
Perhaps you’re already aware that the Muppets are cartoonishly violent quite often. But that’s very much what it is, right? Cartoonish. Crazy Harry’s dynamite doesn’t feel so different from Wile E. Coyote’s. There’s always something tangible with puppets that makes things feel a little more real, but at the end of the day, the characters all stand back up and are fine by curtain call, just like in a cartoon.
But how about what you’re probably really here to read: some instances where things are a little more specifically adult?
Let’s start at the beginning, and the most noted example folks cite: the sheer fact that the pilot episode of The Muppet Show is called Sex and Violence. That set the tone and helped show audiences that this is a show more aimed at adults. And this pilot is no Sesame Street. It’s hardly crass, but a Gene Shalit parody, a rock group performing “Love Ya to Death”, and Muppets depicting each of the Seven Deadly Sins (yes, including Lust), isn’t exactly children’s programming. Jim himself said of the pilot: “we hope to be able to demonstrate that puppetry can be very solid adult entertainment.”
Past that pilot, the show continued to have moments that fit that bill. Twice the show featured the classic “galley-oh-hoop-hoop” sketch, depicting an alien mating ritual (featuring aliens that are somewhat suggestively shaped). The John Cleese episode has the number “Waiting at the Church”, in which Piggy plays a pregnant bride who’s been jilted by a man who’s already married (performed by Kermit). Sandy Duncan does a line of shots and dances with some monsters in a dive bar while performing “A Nice Girl Like Me.” Then after the song ends, Statler and Waldorf have this exchange:
Statler: “You know, she makes me feel like a young boy.”
Waldorf: “Yeah, she makes me feel like a young girl. I think I’ll go find one.”
(Yeesh, I forgot about that line until I rewatched the clip the other day.)
And my goodness, the Raquel Welch episode alone is filled with moments that would probably have some of the currently scandalized people protesting in the streets. Welch wears some revealing outfits, male characters are outwardly lusting over her throughout the episode, she’s extremely flirtatious with Fozzie (even calling him “sexy” and “sex-sational”, and inviting him up to her dressing room), and she is referred to as an “international sex goddess”.
Miss Piggy’s had plenty of moments herself where she’s coming on quite strong to the handsome male guest stars. Fawning over Christopher Reeve, flirting with Roger Moore and Mac Davis, swooning as Kris Kristofferson sings to her, and kissing Elton John‘s bare chest during their duet of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Then there’s the “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” number with Rudolf Nureyev, where she comes on so strong in a sauna that he escapes her advances by crashing through a brick wall, losing the towel that’s covering him in the process.
And there’s plenty of more lowkey moments that still would probably turn some heads if the Muppets did them today. Flirtations between Muppets and humans is pretty common: Juliet Prowse comments on how handsome Kermit is, calling him the “Robert Redford of frogs”, Charles Aznavour drives Piggy wild with his French “sweet nothings”, Statler refers to Valerie Harper as a “hot looking tomato”, and Sly Stallone has a group of ogling Muppet fangirls in the theater that are referred to as “groupies”.
Then there’s things like (the shady and constantly smoking) Bobby Benson getting arrested in the Victor Borge episode, the titular Gambler dying on screen as Kenny Rogers sings, and countless smoking jokes. And let’s not forget that the entire backstage plot of the Alice Cooper episode is Alice trying to persuade the Muppets to sell their souls to the devil. But every one of these examples (even that last one) is lighthearted and funny and written in a way that’s perfectly in line with the Muppets.
So, what does all this mean for the Muppets going forward? Well, it means that there’s a precedent set for adult humor, especially in this setting. I’ve seen some people claim the Muppets’ target audience is toddlers; but as we’ve seen, that’s not the case, and never has been. Perhaps these people are confusing the Muppets with Sesame Street. That would be ironic if so, considering it’s exactly the pigeonholing Jim was trying to avoid by creating this very show.
Sesame Street was airing its sixth season when Sex and Violence premiered on ABC, and it was difficult for the company to get The Muppet Show picked up. This was in part because they were known for the work they were doing in children’s media, but also because puppetry in general, especially in the United States, was seen as “kids’ stuff”. It could be argued that The Muppet Show was a major success, very much because it included adult humor, not in spite of it. And I do think there is a larger conversation to be had about what we shield the kids in our lives from viewing, what we don’t, and why we draw the lines that we do.
Now here we are 50 years later, back on ABC, with The Muppet Show (2026). With as faithful as this new special has been to the original show, it’s only natural that that adult humor comes along with all the lights, curtains, and rubber chickens. The 2015 series had more adult humor, but it was quite different in tone. If this new special gets picked up as a series, I’m very curious to see if they can keep up with striking the same chord the original show did. I, for one, would love to see it.
Okay, break’s over! Time to watch the special again.
Thanks to Muppet Wiki for many of these images! Click here to get a picture spread on page three on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by Meagan Barbeau
