The Muppet Show (with Sabrina Carpenter)
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Muppet Show, the half-hour special brings the Muppets back to the Muppet Theater for sketches, musical numbers, and classic backstage antics. Special guest Sabrina Carpenter is on hand both on and off the stage as the Muppets raise the curtain, light the lights, and play the music. I'm open for as many of these as Disney wants to put out and as often as possible.
Along with the loving recreation of the theater (including a balcony set aside for the wise-cracking Statler and Waldorf), and the recreation of the classic show opening, we also get plenty of old school vibes as Kermit (Matt Vogel in one of the only Muppet voices that didn't always hit with me) and Scooter (David Rudman) struggle with egos and backstage problems including the overbooked show, and various performers deal with on-stage issues on the fly such as Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobson) finding her co-star for "Pigs in Wigs" replaced at the last minute by Pepe (Bill Barretta).
We get a a Muppet News Flash and a classic Muppet Labs segment featuring Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (Dave Goelz) and his unwitting guinea pig Beaker. The one major addition to the special is to add shots of the audience throughout which includes a mix of humans and Muppets. We even get some short audience scenes such as Maya Rudolph and Seth Rogen talking to their neighbors between sketches.
Musical numbers include Sabrina Carpenter performing "Manchild" in a rough-and-tumble Muppet bar with chicken backup dancers, an all-rat rendition of "Blinding Lights" led by Rizzo (Bradley Freeman Jr.), a rendition of "Don't Stop Me Now" that gets many of the Muppets involved including the Electric Mayhem, and Kermit and Sabrina Carpenter's duet of "Islands in the Stream" which turns into a duet between Carpenter and Piggy.
- Title: The Muppet Show (2026 Special)
- IMDb: link
