The Muppet Show is back. After some false restarts, has it finally returned to its madcap roots?

Watching the 50th anniversary Muppet Show special is like travelling back in time to the 1970s. The curtains rise on the oh-so-familiar grand theatre, the big band strikes up, and the chorus line sings a tune we’ve heard a million times before: “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights”. The Muppet Show is well and truly back.

If it weren’t for the slightly better camera quality, I would have thought this special – produced by The Studio’s comedy duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg – was cherry-picked from Jim Henson’s iconic ’70s variety series. These were the peak days of The Muppets when pure chaos created absolute magic on screen. Now it seems they’ve finally recaptured that charm –so much so that it scored a rare 100 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Gonzo is back to his usual hijinks, attempting to jump through flaming hoops while naming every supporting actress Academy Award winner. Bunsen and Beaker return to their lab, this time accidentally making Beaker’s eyes pop out of their sockets. And, as usual, our favourite grumpy critics, Statler and Waldorf, heckle the hell out of everything. Meanwhile, Kermit is desperately trying to fix an overloaded call sheet. Our favourite frog still just as anxious and overworked as ever.

What truly sells this special, though, are the musical numbers. A group of street rat Muppets sing The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights on a Chinatown street. Guest star Sabrina Carpenter performs Manchild alongside a flock of hens, occasionally pausing to whack bottles over the heads of Muppet “man children”. None of it really makes sense, but nothing in The Muppet Show needs to be logical. It’s the birthplace of the Mahna Mahna song, after all: literal gibberish that has somehow stood the test of time.

These are signature Muppet moments – stupid, dumb fun – without a contemporising TikTok reference in sight. Therein lies the beauty of this special (which, if well received, could become a fully fledged new series). It isn’t derivative or revolutionary, and certainly not overthought. It simply recaptures the freewheeling spirit of Henson’s original creation.

Of course, there are some differences. Kermit’s new voice, for one, takes getting used to. Humans sit in the audience alongside Muppets, and the show also introduces some newer characters, such as ’90s favourite Pepe the King Prawn. But the chaotic heart of the show remains the same.

No one seems to understand this better than Carpenter. Her youthful energy fits into the Muppet world as seamlessly as that of the original show’s best guest stars, such as Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli. It helps that she’s basically the human version of Miss Piggy, a gag that the special leans into, putting the two in matching costumes and having the latter threaten the singer with a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Carpenter may occasionally poke fun at Miss Piggy’s age, but she’s ultimately awed by the porcine diva. As part of The Muppet Show’s “new guard”, she’s there to pay tribute to that which came before. We see this again when Kermit walks through the back halls of the grand marquee, passing various photos of some of the most memorable guest hosts from way back when – Steve Martin, Elton John, Harry Belafonte. This is clearly a love letter to a beloved childhood show.

Like Carpenter, I didn’t grow up with The Muppet Show. Instead, I discovered Kermit through ridiculous memes of him sipping Lipton tea and staring out windows. But this simply speaks to the legacy these madcap puppets have formed. It doesn’t matter whether you grew up watching the variety series or have just watched bits and pieces on YouTube, appreciation for The Muppets spans generations.

While catching up on some of the most beloved past episodes, I realised just how much of its spirit the new special captures. The needless violence in Carpenter’s Manchild performance reminded me of Rita Moreno’s inexplicably brutal I Get Ideas dance in 1976. Meanwhile, the duet of Islands in the Stream with Kermit was surely inspired by the frog’s Rainbow Connection duet with Debbie Harry.

The “at the dance” sequence with Miss Piggy and Pepe took me back to the very first Muppets episode, which famously saw Miss Piggy and guests get smoked out of the ballroom. And the piece de resistance was perhaps the callback to the hilarious “News Flash” segment, which this time saw guest star Maya Rudolph temporarily die and go to hell.

But beyond specific throwbacks, it was the general chaos that remained most true to the show’s origins. Watching The Muppet Show should feel like a fever dream filled with vaudeville skits, dumb jokes and delicious double entendres.

Other attempts to recapture this magic have been less successful. There was the 2015 mockumentary-style Muppets, which basically tried to make a puppet version of The Office. Five years later came Muppets Now, an attempt to pull The Muppets into the digital age (Miss Piggy vlogs, Scooter and Kermit video call – trust me, it’ll ruin The Muppets for you). And don’t even get me started on Muppet Babies. None of these really took off, with most being axed after just one season.

That is, perhaps, until this special. Ending with an ensemble rendition of Don’t Stop Me Now, the message is clear: they hope this one-off episode will lead to a whole new series, one that, as Miss Piggy says, finally “gives the people what they truly want”.

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