It has been 22 years since Disney bought the Muppets. That is over two decades of misses, near-misses, and the occasional good project that somehow got buried (Muppets Mayhem) or from which they learned entirely the wrong lesson (the 2011 The Muppets theatrical film). We got an inoffensive but unremarkable Haunted Mansion Halloween special. We got a sitcom that came across as the Muppets trying to do The Office that was JUST starting to figure out how to make that formula work when they cancelled it. We got an avalanche of internet videos that Disney prayed would go viral and, occasionally, they succeeded. And we lost the Disney World attraction – Muppetvision 3-D – that was the last project the great Jim Henson was involved with before his tragic passing. But hey, they’re adding the Electric Mayhem to the Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster to make up for it. So that’s…something.

And in all that time, there’s only been one thing the fans have REALLY wanted to see.

This week, we finally got it.

Because this week, Disney dropped the first new episode of The Muppet Show in over 40 years.

Now let’s be clear here – although this is what we CALL The Muppet Show, it’s not a series. It is (at the moment, at least) a one-off special that aired on ABC and is now streaming on Disney+. However, it has been made ABUNDANTLY clear, not only by the creatives who made the special but even by the characters themselves DURING the show, that the fervent hope is it will perform well enough to justify Disney bring it back as a regular television series again. I’ve been anxious about this one ever since it was announced last year. On the one hand, bringing the Muppets back to their roots by doing a classic musical variety show in the vein of their original series from the 70s is what Muppet fans have wanted since…well, since the 80s. (There was, of course, the two-season Muppets Tonight series from the 90s about the Muppets doing a sketch comedy TV series, which wasn’t bad, but never felt exactly right either.) But Disney has done a lot of stuff with the Muppets in the past two decades that SEEMED like a good enough idea, but didn’t quite pan out in execution. 

The announcement that Seth Rogen was among the executive producers was further disturbing. Rogen’s work is hit-or-miss for me, and even the stuff that I’ve enjoyed has never given me the notion that he would be a good fit to bring back The Muppet Show. Even the guest for the special gave me pause: Sabrina Carpenter is one of the biggest stars out there, and I had no doubt that having her on the show would get eyes on it, but I’m not personally a fan. (Put down your torches and pitchforks – I’m not saying I think her music is BAD, it’s just not typically my jam.)

But frankly, we live in a world that needs the Muppets now more than ever. So despite any misgivings I may have had, Erin and I sat down last night, Eddie between us, and hit PLAY.

And for the next 30 minutes, I was seven years old again, sitting on the living room rug with a bowl of cereal, singing along with the theme song, and laughing my head off. Miss Piggy’s green-eyed rivalry with Carpenter, the Great Gonzo’s latest stunt gone awry, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s magnificent experiment that did something to Beaker that was JUST funny enough to make you forget how horrific it actually was, the Electric Mayhem bringing the house down, and Kermit the Frog busting his skinny felt-covered ass off trying to keep everything from flying off the rails. It wasn’t just good, it was CLASSIC.

There have been a lot of revivals of old TV shows in the last several years. There have been a lot of good ones. There have even – they’ve been rare, but they exist – been a few great ones. But this is that most precious of productions. This is a revival that feels as though they never left.

Okay, some of the voices are different. That was inevitable. The musical numbers were a bit more modern. And some of the Muppets who have joined the troupe in the years since the show went off the air, such as Bobo the Bear and Pepe the King Prawn, got plum roles. None of these are bad things. What matters is that the heart is there – the good-natured humor, the indomitable spirit of a bunch of performing lunatics who are each, individually, absolute disasters at what they’re trying to do, but who somehow come together and create a masterpiece of entertainment. The Muppets, at their best, are like watching a scientist mix together vials full of volatile chemicals that, by all rights, ought to create an explosion that wipes the lab off the face of the Earth but instead somehow makes a pile of diamonds. And this special – I cannot believe I am saying this – feels like the Muppets at their best.

The only thing that makes me happier than watching this special is looking at the reaction online and seeing that I am by no means alone in my love of this new incarnation of our old friends. Reading the response on social media and on sites like Letterboxd is showing me almost universal acclaim – nearly everybody who has watched this show seems to love it. The fans have been effusive in their praise; everybody is telling everybody else to watch this special right away. The few voices of dissent I’ve heard seem to be people complaining about a couple of mildly off-color jokes who I have to imagine haven’t actually watched the Muppets in the past 30 years, because they’ve ALWAYS been a property that caters to adults and children alike. As I write this, the special is sitting at a 97 percent Fresh critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, which doesn’t actually mean anything because who gives a crap what the critics have to say? Far, FAR more importantly, it’s got a 99 percent Fresh AUDIENCE score. 

In 2026, it is astonishingly difficult to get any sort of movie or TV property to have such universal acclaim. It’s even harder to get this kind of positive word of mouth. The Muppet Show has both. And although it is by no means a done deal that we’ll get more, all of this combined with the fact that Disney’s newly-announced CEO Josh D’Amaro is reportedly a huge Muppet fan has me more optimistic about the future of this franchise than I’ve felt since the 2011 movie hit the screen.

I talked with Erin and some friends about this, all of us expressing our hopes for more Muppet Show. The goal, the brass ring that we’re all reaching for, is a full-scale revival of the series with new weekly episodes that run until the end of time. At the very least, we’re hoping that Disney orders a ten-episode run to kick it off. This, of course, leads to the question of who future celebrity guests should be.

Virtually every person I’ve posed this question to has had the same name at the tip of their tongues, and it’s the name that’s been on mine from the beginning: “Weird Al Yankovic.” My goodness, is there anything in the universe that would make more sense than having Weird Al host an episode of The Muppet Show? Their brands of comedy are almost EXACTLY the same – bizarre, silly, just subversive enough to have an edge but still at the same time being something that is appropriate for the entire family. For decades now, one of the greatest cultural tragedies is that the ascent of Weird Al came too late for him to face off against the Great Gonzo in a Weirdness competition on the Muppet stage. At last, the opportunity to rectify this horrible injustice is upon us.

I would suppose that Disney will want to dig into their stable of big names: stars like Robert Downey Jr., Pedro Pascal, or Zoe Saldana are likely on their wish list. And I’ll be okay with any of those. But the greatest Muppet hosts from the Golden Age of the show are those that went all in as part of the world of the characters, basically being human Muppets themselves, and for that reason I think the best superhero actor they could get would be Jason Momoa. Momoa comes across as the type of guy who is utterly without ego, willing to do anything for a joke and never blanching if a joke is at his expense. I’m picturing a Game of Thrones parody with Piggy filling in the Daenerys role and Momoa pushing that line just as far as Disney would allow. I’m picturing him and Animal facing off and roaring at each other like wild men, or him hearing Statler and Waldorf mocking Fozzie and stepping out on stage in defense of everyone’s favorite ursine stand-up comic. 

One of the guys in my comic book group also floated having Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel host. They’re both good choices, but of the two, I think Bell feels like the more natural fit. Like Momoa, she’s shown herself to be utterly fearless in her comedy, and very much the sort of performer who would immerse herself in the world of the Muppets. I’m picturing her in a Muppet Labs segment where Bunsen is building a (living) snowman and singing her legendary song about such activity, with Beaker filling in the Idina Menzel half of the duet.

“The Kelce brothers should host,” Erin said to me. “They’re basically Muppets. Oooh, and I want Patrick Mahomes to host and have Miss Piggy overhear him talking on the phone and thinking it’s Kermit.”

I hate that she said this, because it’s one of the greatest comedy pitches I’ve ever heard in my life and I’m going to have to give my wife credit for it every time I tell it to somebody. Imagine Piggy standing on one side of the dressing room door while Mahomes calls Brittany and mistaking his voice for the amphibian of her dreams.

MAHOMES: Yeah, I can’t wait to come home and see you after the show.

PIGGY (Behind the door): What?

MAHOMES: I love you too.

PIGGY: Oh Kermie, how could you?

MAHOMES: Are the kids okay?

PIGGY: (Gasps in abject horror)

We could play this game all day, of course. I’m imagining episodes where Kendrick Lamar and Pepe drop diss tracks about each other. I’m thinking of Gordon Ramsay in the Swedish Chef’s kitchen absolutely losing his mind. I see Miss Piggy having an existential crisis at how fabulous everybody backstage thinks Zendaya is. 

This stuff writes itself.

For four decades now, we’ve been watching reruns. And every one of them ends with Kermit saying “We’ll see you next time on The Muppet Show!” He said it again on the new special, too.

And for the first time in 45 years, I think he really will.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. If you haven’t watched The Muppet Show yet, what are you waiting for?