The Muppet Show – it’s back, and they did it the RIGHT WAY!!

I approach rebooted shows with a mixture of apprehension, curiosity and dread. I worry that the show’s return will diminish its original greatness, I’m curious how a reboot will work, and I dread when the returning show flounders from its over-arching aspirations.

The return of The Muppet Show, the classic 1970’s-era variety program that featured Jim Henson’s characters interacting with famous actors and singers, brought me to that same sense of apprehension, curiosity and dread.

I say this because the last few times someone had this “great idea” to reboot The Muppet Show, the results were – shall we say – less than satisfying. Agonizing is a better term. Even bordering on sacrilegious.

There was the 1990’s “Muppets Tonight,” which tried to recapture some of the charm of the original series, but it just felt … off.

Then there was the attempt to turn The Muppets into a comedy-drama a la The Office or Modern Family, which was absolutely dreadful.

And there was that spinoff series featuring Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, and the less said about that show, the better.

So when I saw this clip promoting a brand new Muppet Show … I worried. What godawful tweak would they do to this classic program? Would they have the whole program look like an Instagram / TikTok doomscroll? Would they introduce ten new characters that will absolutely bomb – yet somehow stay in the Muppet roster for ages afterwards? Would they even have the greatest hecklers in the world, Statler and Waldorf, in the balcony?

You tell me. Here’s the clip.

Disney+ says the show will premiere this morning. So I woke up early … and watched it.

And for the next 30 minutes … I was happy.

I laughed at the corny jokes. I smiled at the performance numbers. I loved all the call-backs to the original series – how the show stayed true to itself without adding anything too wacky (trust me, that take on “Bridgerton” / “Downton Abbey” is hilarious).

And the characters are still as funny as ever. Hey, we got a Muppet Labs segment! Rizzo and the rats are here! There’s Rowlf on the piano! Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem are the house band again!

And I’m thinking to myself at this moment … please, can we have a full season of this?

Please? Pretty please?

Can we have this? Can we have a new Muppet Show episode with, oh I don’t know, let’s just swing for the fences – does Taylor Swift have a free evening?

Or can we get Jeff Dunham and his crew to join the program? Miss Piggy versus Peanut? Kermit versus Walter? Gonzo and Achmed in a death-defying coterminous stunt?

Here’s the thing. I’m hoping that whatever I saw this morning is just a glorified pilot for a brand new Muppet Show, and that if I get my wishes, it will return to television in a weekly iteration in some way, shape, form or fashion.

I’d be good with that.

I’d be incredibly good with that.

I need a few happy things in my life.

This would qualify as one of those things.