The Muppet Show Returns -- and, man, do we need it.

We'll always have The Muppets.

In a world and nation overly focused on negativity, it's important and practically necessary to remind ourselves that there are many places and reasons to find joy in the everyday. And few "institutions" have the ability and reach to provide simple mirth to so many people in such simple ways as Jim Henson's magical world of friends like Kermit and Miss Piggy and Elmo and the Swedish chef and more.

And, in a time of reboots and remakes and rebrands of classic entertainment from the past fifty years, the return of The Muppet Show is a refreshing and comforting bit of news. I can still recall Sunday evenings at 6:00 PM with the purest of sketch comedy, and February 4 this year hearkened back to the halcyon days as a collaboration of Disney and ABC celebrated the 50th anniversary of the show. And as the New York Times reported, This Is Your Grandparents’ ‘Muppet Show,’ Fortunately:

Backstage on the new special, “The Muppet Show,” Sabrina Carpenter excitedly greets Miss Piggy, in whom she recognizes a kindred spirit. “I grew up watching you,” Carpenter says. “My parents grew up watching you. Their parents grew up watching——”
The joke, of course, is that Carpenter ends up offending the diva by implying that she’s old. But there’s a truth to it, too: Since the madcap critters lit the lights on the comedy-variety “Muppet Show” in the 1970s, every generation has gotten its own Muppets.

Sometimes we get them more than once. In 2015, ABC — which had aired the prime-time update “Muppets Tonight” in the 1990s — premiered “The Muppets,” an awkwardly edgy workplace mockumentary. (“This is not your grandmother’s Muppets,” the president of ABC promised/threatened at the time.) In 2020, Disney+ gave us “Muppets Now,” a streaming show about Kermit and company producing mini streaming shows, which lacked the original’s theatrical pizazz.

The premise for “The Muppet Show” of 2026, a (for now) single-episode special premiering on Wednesday on Disney+ and ABC, is comparatively simple: It’s “The Muppet Show.” And wocka wocka wocka, that’s all you need.