Three Muppet-related stories from TV Squad, in no particular order:
The Muppet Show 2007?
PBS budget to be cut
The Muppet Show season one DVD
I’m most excited about the DVD news. I don’t own any of the original episodes on DVD, but I see the Time-Life ads in my Google AdSense ads all the time. Looks like I’ll be holding off making that purchase until Holiday season.
The other two stories, I think, are somewhat related. If PBS gets less funding, less kids may get exposed to Sesame Street. Less Sesame Street means less Muppets. Less Muppets means less need/interest for a new Muppet Show. No new Muppet Show, despite my feelings about the quality ratio of Muppets Tonight as compared to The Muppet Show, would be a bad thing.
DVD sales of the original show might fuel desire for a new show, but if you’re not enticing/enchanting a whole new generation of fans, you’re sunk. Creepy, pasty, bearded dudes like me with questionable morals and cheesy URLs do not a sound financial decision make.
That said, I hope that DVD sales are high.
I hope that the CPB/PBS survive and that Muppets are an integral part of that equation.
And I hope the new Muppet Show is fun, funny, irreverent, stupid, silly, almost profane and totally Muppetational.
This is what I’d call the Muppet Show.
UPDATE: Fraggle Rock coming to DVD