The Muppets May Also Be Getting A Series Of Shorts On Disney+
Not too long ago, we learned that Frozen voice actor Josh Gad might be working with Once Upon a Time creators Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz on a new show that would bring The Muppets to Disney+. However, it sounds like that's not all Jim Henson's beloved puppet creations will be up to on the Disney streaming service.
A new rumor says The Muppets will also be starring in their own variety show-style shorts modeled after a trio of unscripted show formats. That sounds an awful lot like a throwback to the kind of sketches that The Muppets used to be part of on The Muppet Show back in the 1970s, as well as Muppets Tonight from the late 1990s.
The DisInsider has the latest rumor about The Muppets' attempt at another comeback after their short-lived mockumentary series on ABC back in 2015. The shorts intended for Disney+ are said to have segments of a game show, a cooking show and a talk show, the latter featuring an unnamed Muppet girlfriend, which clearly has to be Miss Piggy. Perhaps they'll be parodies of the kind of shows that have become popular on Netflix, such as Chef's Table. Each of the segments will be 10 minutes or less.
This rumor sounds fairly solid since the source has heard that production will begin sometime in June. And that likely means these shorts could be part of Disney+ as soon as the streaming service debuts this November. But for now, we just have to take it with a grain of salt.
Perhaps this is Disney+ testing the waters for the possibility of reviving The Muppet Show? If enough viewers check out these shorts, maybe they'll try to expand the concept into a full blown sketch show. Part of what made the original series so great was the combination of sketches and the meta approach that took us behind the scenes of the show itself, including great moments with celebrity guests. These shorts could also be used to gauge interest in the aforementioned Muppets project in the works.
Along with this rumor of The Muppets shorts, the other developing project was previously rumored to be a 2020 series called Muppets Live Another Day. Taking a cue from the recent trend in sequels, the film would pick up after the events of Muppets Take Manhattan. The Muppets crew is said to be disbanded by Kermit for some reason, but they all must come back together following the mysterious disappearance of Rowlf. There have been rumblings that this might be a movie instead of a series, but we haven't heard anything official yet.