Muppets Tonight

I remember watching this show on the Disney Channel during the point when it transitioned from ABC. It was still quite hilarious and featured guests like Jason Alexander, Tony Bennett, Whoopi Goldberg, Rick Moranis and even Prince. Even though Kermit is in a producer's role, he still has a lot of influence on the format of the show with Kevin Clash's character of Clifford taking over as host. The show hasn't been seen since its initial airings, and it's not officially available on either disc or streaming. I really hope that Disney can work out a deal with the Jim Henson Company to make the show available on either one of those formats in the near future.

In Memoriam: Jerry Nelson (1934-2012) Richard Hunt (1951-1992) & Jim Henson (1936-1990).

This show very nearly captured the heart and soul of the original "Muppet Show" with its outlandish humor and hilarious guest hosts (whom I had actually heard of). However, apparently not enough people agreed with me, and the show was cancelled. They do not even have the Disney Channel reruns anymore. (Granted, since the show was only on for two years, the same episodes kept popping up over and over again. But this should never have been a problem in the first place!)

The Muppets Tonight was 1st serious attempt to make a dedicated television show for the Muppets. It was different, and it had potential. The guest stars of amazing quality, and new spin on how original Muppet Show was done.

However, it had to deal with changed world. After 2 brief seasons, Oklahoma City bombing accrued. Which rattled America, and it was key factors of the cancellation of the this young and potential show. The episode which was to be are, if memory services right few weeks after the bombing, introduced an old character. Crazy Harry, one of the Muppet show's original characters, a mad bomber. Television executives made the decision that this was too much and too soon after the Oklahoma bombing, so the squashed the episode.

Later entire show was squashed. America changed, it became hyper sensitive about its viewing content on Television. Thus, Muppet Tonight one of its very first victims. Disney owned show transferred the show to its Disney Channel and it quietly shown in reruns for short while and died. Creative of the Muppets had been lost with the passing of Henson, thus no new motivations to push keep the new show going and being original as "Show" was. This is a private view, but I believe is the correct one. As of that date of this review. No new original Muppet oriented material has come out since Muppets Tonight. Only re-has, redo, television movies and Direct to video material.

It's a travesty what happened to this show. In it's short-lived existence, "Muppets Tonight" was one of the best things going on television. Sadly though, it played out to an audience that apparently had been all muppeted out. A wonderful program with an incredible group of characters old and new, "Muppets Tonight" boasted a stellar ensemble of special guests. What other variety program could showcase such awesome star power like Garth Brooks, Michelle Pfeiffer, Prince and Cindy Crawford? What other show could pull off the unbelievable, like Rizzo the Rat belting out Right Said Fred's 'I'm Too Sexy' to a screaming mob of she-rodents? Or a life-sized grizzly-bear-security-guard trying to woo the aforementioned Crawford's affections? Or the hilarious Elvis Moments in History? Alas, "Muppets Tonight". We hardly knew ye. This crazy world just doesn't have room for those loony puppets anymore...except in Germany, apparently. Muppetheads across the globe await to see what happens next.

i remember when it aired that there was a long brake before new episodes came on the air. the last epidose before this brake had gonzo launching himself out of a cannon, then u heard a loud crash. i soon heard on the news that the gonzo puppet had done damage to the set when it was launched, they then took the break to fix the set. gonzo never launched out of a cannon again on the show. does any one else remembner this. this was a classic muppet piece of art better then that crappy nbc muppet christmas movie. they should release this as a dvd set with the full series and never before aired footage and episodes. it lived up to the muppet show if it wasnt better.