Like my co-worker Amanda Wilkins, I really enjoyed the pilot episode of The Muppets on ABC. It remains to be seen whether the series can maintain (or improve on) the quality of its first episode, but the show I watched was promising.
Many on the Internet, however, disagree.
That's fine, of course. Everybody has different tastes. One man's trash is another man's treasure, whatever. But one of the most common complaints I've seen both on social media and in some reviews is that this new show is too "adult" in tone.
The question I have for people making that criticism is: Have you ever seen The Muppets?
Let's take a quote from Grantland, for example:
"...perhaps you should not be in the Muppet-selling business if you can't sell the Muppets in 2015 without adding the implication that Kermit f***s, let alone that Miss Piggy wants to f*** Nathan Fillion."
Hello, let me introduce you to Miss Piggy. She'll hit on any attractive man with a pulse, and she's not shy about telegraphing her not-family-friendly intentions.
Take, for example, that time Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev was on The Muppet Show in the 70s. He and Piggy both appeared in nothing but towels, yet Piggy still suggested they were both overdressed.
"You have a marvelous mind. And the other parts 'aint bad either." Come on, that's not children's show humor.
"But The Muppet Show was always weird and more for older audiences," you might say (in which case, what's the problem? So is the new ABC show). "The movies I grew up with never had jokes like that."
Ahem. From Muppet Treasure Island:
Long John Silver: Touching reunion, Benjamina. This seems to be your day for renewing old... acquaintances.
Benjamina Gunn: Oh! Well... hello, Looooong John.
Captain Abraham Smollett: Oh, no! Him too?
Benjamina Gunn: Well, if you'd married me...!
Captain Abraham Smollett: Well, what does that have to do with it?
Benjamina Gunn: I'm a pig! I need commitment!
Captain Abraham Smollett: Commitment?
Hey, kids, let's gather around and listen to Kermit and Piggy argue about the fact that Piggy was out enjoying life with other men because Kermit liked it, but wouldn't put a ring on it.
You don't have to look far to find other "cheeky" Muppets moments. There might be more of them than you remember or expect.
And it's not just sexual innuendo. Alice Cooper was a controversial musical act at the time of The Muppet Show, and his song "School's Out" was banned from some radio stations out of fear that it would encourage young people to be more rebellious.
So Muppets creator Jim Henson went and booked him to guest star on The Muppet Show and perform the song.
In that same episode, Cooper tries to sneakily convince Kermit to sign a contract selling his soul to the devil so Kermit can become a rock star/astronaut.
Another complaint about The Muppets on ABC is that the characters are dealing with behind-the-scenes issues that feel too real, too stressful for their usual cheery personalities. To quote the io9 review:
"The result is a show that's much more 'real' and less joyfully silly than anything the Muppets have ever done before, and it's kind of depressing to watch. Even though some of the jokes work as jokes, they feel wrong, and kind of unpleasant, coming from the Muppets."
That might be a fair point until you remember that the entire plot of The Muppets Take Manhattan revolves around the Muppets being scammed by a con artist while trying to make their Broadway dreams come true, which leads to a stressed out Kermit snapping at his friends and driving them away to try to make ends meet individually.
And if you think the Muppets must always be cheery and can never tackle subjects like loss and sadness, let's look at their tribute to Jim Henson.
Again, this is not to say that you're wrong if you don't enjoy the new show. It's clearly not for everybody. But even that aforementioned io9 review, which carries the headline "How the hell did they screw up The Muppets so badly?" says that some of the jokes were "super funny," but that the concept is "just wrong for the freaking Muppets."
That seems to be the hang-up for most people. I don't know if we're all just looking at these characters through very differently tinted nostalgia glasses or what, but let's stop pretending that the Muppets were always 100 percent wholesome. They weren't. And that's OK.
