Muppets Now is a Disney+ Original miniseries, starring The Muppets. It premiered on July 31st, 2020.
The show consists of recurring segments, tied in with a frame story depicting Scooter's hassles in getting the segments uploaded on time every week.
The segments:
- Lifesty with Miss Piggy: Miss Piggy gives out lifestyle tips.
- Økėÿ Døkęÿ Køøkïñ: Swedish Chef and a real-world celebrity chef compete to make the same dish.
- Muppet Masters: Walter interviews another Muppet on a field that they have expertise in.
- Mup Close and Personal: A Muppet attempts to interview a celebrity guest.
- Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show: Pepe hosts a game show whose play is conducted on his own whim, much to Scooter's dismay.
- Muppet Labs Field Test: Bunsen and Beaker hold demonstrations relating to scientific principles.
The show contains examples of:
- Accidental Misnaming: Pepe can't get anyone's names right.
- Adaptational Dumbass: The Swedish Chef's culinary skills vary in older productions, but he is generally a competent chef, whose failures were more derived from his odd methods of preparing food, the food itself fighting back, or other comical mishaps. Here, he is barely capable of making anything besides a mess, and can hardly cook simple dishes, such as rice, spaghetti, or even his famous Swedish meatballs.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- In older Muppet productions, Bunsen's absent-minded attitude prevented him from realizing how much Beaker gets hurt from their inventions, and he is otherwise very kind and reassuring to him. Here, he treats Beaker with more open malice and disregard for his safety.
- The Swedish Chef has a competitive/jealousy streak not seen in earlier appearances, and his general persona is more hostile and bitter (in one episode, he attempts to start a fistfight with the guest), rather than the jolly, friendlier Chef seen in The Muppet Show.
- Amusing Injuries: Beaker, as is expected. Field Test occasionally shifts to artistic depictions of the scientific principles being demonstrated, usually showing him getting injured in ways the puppets wouldn't allow.
- Ascended Meme: In the first episode, while Kermit is photo-bombing Sam the Eagle, one of his photo-bomb poses is him drinking tea, a pose which strongly resembles the "But that's none of my business" pose from the Lipton Tea adverts.
- Beleaguered Assistant:
- Beaker, as always, is this to Bunsen.
- Deadly to Miss Piggy.
- Scooter to Pepe on Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show.
- Blowing a Raspberry: When Roy Choi guest stars on Økėÿ Døkęÿ Køøkïñ, Beverly asks the Swedish Chef how the rice is cooking, telling him they don't want to spoil the dish with bad rice. Chef, who is particularly cranky that day, only responds with a raspberry.
- Buffy Speak: Uncle Deadly describing the aspects of a sword, unlike Walter, who does know what bit is what.
- The Bus Came Back:
- Walter sat out the last TV show but returns for this one.
- The second episode features an appearance from "Mean Mama", a brown monster puppet from The Muppet Show (albeit referred to as "Carol") that hasn't been seen in quite a while.
- Miss Poogy shows up as a guest on one segment of Life Style, though she doesn't seem aware of it.
- The sixth episode features Robin, who barring a brief cameo in Most Wanted which lampshades his disappearance and a supporting role in an episode of The Muppets (2015), hasn’t been seen in decades.
- Calvinball: Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show has rules set out by Scooter, but Pepe prefers to have the contestants do whatever his whim decides instead.
- Cultural Posturing: Danny Trejo informs Beverly that the taco he's prepared is much better than any kind of food you might get from, oh, Sweden. Beverly has to stop him and the Swedish Chef fighting.
- The Dog Bites Back: After Beaker is pushed aside for Bunsen’s new assistant, Beak-R (basically an Alexa), and constantly being insulted by Beak-R, Beaker takes the speaker and puts it in the incinerator.
- Don't Try This at Home: Bunsen and Beaker's segments are always preceded by a message from Kermit and Joe From Legal advising viewers not to try what they're about to see at home.
- Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In-universe. Joe shows up in the Chemistry short after his disclaimer to try to prevent Bunsen and Beaker from doing anything that might be easily imitable and unpredictable. Cue him listing off oddly specific examples which Bunsen and Beaker both decide to do immediately.
- Epic Fail: Swedish Chef's attempts at making meatballs. Somehow, he only manages to make one, which is not only larger than the pan he made it in, but larger than his head. Then, trying to lift it, he manages to get his head stuck in the meatball.
- Fake Guest Star: Due to Miss Piggy's show being the only show to appear in every episode of the season, Taye Diggs and Linda Cardellini are the only two guest stars to appear in every episode of the show.
- Fake Static: Kermit tries doing this, but it doesn't really work on a video conference call where everyone can see what you're doing.
- Fictional Social Network: "Socialized" features a Twitter-like site called The Pad, and a crowdfunding site called Piggy Bank.
- Flat Joy: Aubrey Plaza doesn't emote when Ms Piggy interviews her. Uncle Deadly, meanwhile, is able to get emotional reactions from her.
- Framing Device: Scooter putting together and uploading the episode segments, while dealing with incessant notes from the other Muppets.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the premiere episode, when Scooter gets several instant messages from Muppet characters about the show, you can read them if you pause. Most are about the content of the show, but the one from Bobo is asking how to join a streaming service.
- The files on Scooter's computer screen in general qualify as this. This includes a picture of himself from Muppet Babies, a folder labeled "RPG Ideas", and some folders labeled as "swimsuit pics".
- The videoconferencing system the characters use is called "Connector" and has a rainbow logo. It's the rainbow Connector.
- Episode 2 has Fozzie send Scooter a hundred suggestions for show ideas. Some of them appear to be repeats.
- Gratuitous French: Naturally, with Ms. Piggy around. The final part of each Lifesty show is "Le Chat Room".
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: During one of her guest appearances on Miss Piggy's show, Linda Cardellini advises this as a means of getting over a breakup.
- Improv: The sketches with human guest stars have the basic flow of the scene mapped out beforehand, which the actors are then free to fill out however they want.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Joe From Legal makes a quip about lawsuits (because he's a lawyer, wearing a suit). He's the only one who laughs.
- It's All About Me: Miss Piggy, as always, makes everything about her.
- Kill It with Fire: The first Muppet Lab segment is testing what melts and what burns. With flamethrowers.
- Lethal Chef: Swedish Chef's efforts are always absolutely terrible, especially in comparison to the celebrity guests, who actually know what they're doing.
- Literal-Minded: Swedish Chef, seeing Danny Trejo making Mole Tortilla, starts trying to make a tortilla using an actual (Muppet) mole. Living, for the record. Just covered in spices and tortilla wrap.Mole: (giggling) That tickles!
- Mythology Gag:
- Underneath all the clutter, Scooter's desktop image is that of his Muppet Babies self.
- There are several files amongst the clutter with names like "Problems_With_Ken_1004", referencing his antagonistic relationship with his mother's boyfriend in The Muppets (2015).
- In the episode "Socialized", Scooter's "Groups" tab on The Pad includes "Beatbox Enthusiasts" and "Pottery". He previously demonstrated his beatboxing skills in the live arena show The Muppets Take the Bowl/O2, and his interest in pottery is possibly a reference to the 2015 series episode "The Ex-Factor", where he paints ceramics.
- "No. Just… No" Reaction: Scooter's reaction when Fozzie suggests a cooking show where the ingredients date each other and sends a prototype picture.Scooter: Can't unsee that...
- Noodle Implements: Gonzo proposes a show to Scooter that involves him just living in the wild armed with nothing but a fork. Gonzo being Gonzo, he doesn't bother to take his camera.
- N-Word Privileges:
- Kermit can use the phrase "bottom-feeder" because he's a frog.
- Piggy shuts down a question from a viewer when it asks about "pigging out".
- Offscreen Teleportation: Kermit is so good at photo-bombing that he can cross a room to get behind someone just in time for the picture to be taken and then back again by the time it's done, or without moving even while the camera's still on him.
- Oh, Crap!: Scooter, when he realizes the test audience for the show is Statler and Waldorf.
- Pet the Dog: Turns out Dr. Honeydew actually made Beaker a cake when he started working for him... then blown out of the water when he tries to splat it against a wall For Science!, then takes it away from Beaker to eat it.
- The Points Mean Nothing: Pepe gives points on his gameshow for no reason whatsoever, including even asking the contestants how much they'd like.
- Product Placement: The sixth Lifesty(le) segment is brought to you by... Leaky Bucket. Ms. Piggy gets increasingly irritated by this, eventually deciding to take her anger out on the bucket, only to find it's surprisingly durable.
- Running Gag: Piggy wants to call her show Life Style, but it keeps getting listed as Life Sty.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: How Pepe manages to override Scooter on his gameshow.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- When Kermit realizes that he's been tricked into joining a Life Style segment on getting over being dumped (which Piggy is just using to bash him for the end of their relationship), he quickly tries several ways to get out of the group call.
- Aubrey Plaza walks out of her Mup Close interview due to Piggy not taking it seriously.
- Piggy herself walks out on the Life Style segment on self-affirmation after Deadly uses it to Troll her by making her relive some unpleasant memories.
- The sound guy walks out of Pepe's game show. Pepe declares the guy the smartest person present for it.
- Kermit flees one segment when it turns out someone, possibly Joe, broke Miss Piggy's favorite cup, and now she's on the warpath.
- Tempting Fate: Scooter comments that putting up with a test audience couldn’t possibly be worse than dealing with Joe the Weasel. Cue Statler and Waldorf entering the video call.
- The Unintelligible: Swedish Chef, as always. In the first episode, he sends Scooter an email with some notes on the show, which is gibberish that he can't understand.
- This Is Gonna Suck:
- Kermit's reaction when Walter decides to photo-bomb Ms. Piggy. The poor frog can only cover his eyes as Walter gets Punched Across the Room by Piggy.
- Scooter’s reaction to learning that the test audience Joe is making him take feedback from is none other than Statler and Waldorf.Scooter: What did I do to deserve this?
Waldorf: Don’t worry... we’ll tell you everything you did. - When Piggy asks Uncle Deadly to describe her less attractive qualities, he immediately tries to opt out. No luck.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Bunsen undergoes this in the Muppet Labs segment in "The I.T. Factor". Usually, when it comes to Bunsen and Beaker sketches with the latter as a butt monkey, it's usually something relatively harmless or if he's oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Here, in order to demonstrate today's science topic, he knowingly destroys Beaker's possessions and doesn't feel regretful.
- Unwanted Assistance: Episode 5 has Chip the IT Guy trying to update Scooter's computer just as he's trying to upload the latest episode. And it turns out the upgrade isn't anything impressive anyway.
- Verbal Tic: Beak-R occasionally prefaces her statements with "Meep". She also stretches out the word "burn" in a slightly worrying fashion.
- We Will Meet Again: Beak-R's final words before being immolated are vowing vengeance on Beaker.
- You Are Number 6: Bunsen and Beak-R take to referring to Beaker as "Beaker 1.0".
