‘The Muppets Mayhem’ Is a Sharp-Toothed Satire of the Music Industry
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It’s always difficult for parents to find entertainment that bridges the gap between kid-friendly and not making you want to bore a hole in your skull with a giant-nailed Drilldo (look it up). In the past few decades, kiddie cartoon purveyors like DreamWorks and Illumination have attempted to bridge the gap by serving up cuddly characters spewing pop culture reference-laden dialogue, penned by Wesleyan grads with a minor coke problem. But the result invariably comes off as slick and cynical: the kids feel bored, the adults pandered to, the Wesleyan grads wish their wives didn’t make them stop taking UCB classes. When you try to appeal to kids and grown-ups at the same time, no one wins.
The one exception to that rule is the Muppets, easily one of the top five greatest pop culture creations of all time. Since their debut on The Muppet Show in the 1970s — a show that was strictly PG-rated, despite having a slew of celeb cameos and an inherently adult sensibility — the Muppets have been able to seamlessly appeal to audiences of all ages, simply by being their winsome, silly selves. And while recent attempts to revive the franchise for a Gen Z audience have fallen flat — remember when they tried to give Kermit a hotter, younger girlfriend? — classics like The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Great Muppet Caper, and Muppet Treasure Island have yet to lose their luster.
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Add The Muppets Mayhem, a sharp yet warm-hearted new series from Disney+, to the list. Centered around Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, the funky sextet that debuted as the house band on The Muppet Show, The Muppets Mayhem operates simultaneously as a satire of and a love letter to the old-school record industry. Is it a topic that will necessarily resonate with small children, many of whom have no idea what a record even is? Perhaps not. But will they raucously giggle, as my 6-year-old son did, at the antics of ditsy hippie Janice (David Rudman), manic drummer Animal (Eric Jacobson), and a gag involving a mean mountain goat named Darren? Yep.
As is the case with most entries in the Muppet/Muppet-adjacent canon, the plot is ultimately secondary to the zaniness and the general vibes. But the basic premise is this: Nora (Lilly Singh), a junior executive at a faltering record company run by Muppet Penny Waxman, an elderly, formerly promiscuous Jewish-coded woman (Leslie Carrara-Rudolph), is eager to establish her bona fides in the cutthroat music industry. Identifying a loophole in an old contract signed by the Mayhem, she reunites them to cut an album, enlisting the help of Mayhem superfan Moog (a near-unrecognizable Tahj Mowry) and her influencer sister (Saara Chaudry) along the way. Anders Holm also takes a turn as a delightfully smarmy music industry upstart, and there’s shades of a love triangle betwixt the three human characters, but it is largely chemistry and intrigue-free; Miss Piggy-meets-a-terminally-horny-Charles-Grodin-in-Great-Muppet-Caper it is not. And in true Muppets fashion, there’s a panoply of celebrity cameos, from Lil Nas X to Zedd to Cheech & Chong to deadmau5 and Ziggy Marley (who feature in a delightful episode about the band trying to record a superstar cover version of “Rockin’ Robin”) to Tommy Lee (who my son identified as “the guy who played drums for the Beatles,” to my eternal shame as a parent).
As Nora, Lilly Singh is game and affable; though she hardly tops the illustrious pantheon of “human actors convincingly playing opposite a hunk of foam rubber” (that honor goes to Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol, closely followed by Grodin), she more than holds her own. But the featured players are second fiddle to the Mayhem themselves, who have historically played second banana to characters like Fozzie Bear or Miss Piggy. Not including these characters is a gamble on creators’ Adam F. Goldberg, Bill Barretta, and Jeff Yorkes’ part, and it may not pay off for everyone (it did not for my 6-year-old son, who kept asking, “Where’s Kermit?” throughout the first two episodes). But for grown-ups who grew up on The Muppet Movie soundtrack, particularly the raucous tongue-twister “Can You Picture That?,” it’s a welcome shift in the status quo to see the Mayhem take center stage. Now can we please get the Pride and Prejudice remake featuring Brett Goldstein and Miss Piggy the fans have been clamoring for?
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