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popculturebuffet · 11 months

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Monthly Muppet Madness: Muppets Mayhem

Hello all you happy muppets. For those of you new to this feature, i'm jake I review stuff and once a month I tackle all things muppets, from the troupe themselves to the various hensony spinoffs from Jim Henson and later Henson Workshop. If it has a muppet or something close to a muppet in it, it can go here. This marks a very special occasion for this feature as Muppets Mayhem is the first new Muppet project since I started doing this last march. It's also one I was entirely pumped for not just because I'd get to cover it whenever it dropped, but also for starring the electric mayhem, characters i've always liked and felt could front their own series.

It's also exciting as this is the first time in nearly a decade Disney has done a major muppets production. After the underperformance of Muppets Most Wanted and the quick cancelation of their sitcom, Disney has less cherished the muppets as anyone should and more.. trotted them out once every few years to do something with the property while not actually carring enough to do a new film or tv series and blaming the property itself for the fincial failures of Muppets Most Wanted and The Muppets... and not the fact the former was simply released against a pretty stacked theater and had a very diffrent (if still wonderful) tone from it's beloved predecessor, while the latter had a troubled production and while far from perfect had some good stuff in it.

Disney took a few setbacks as a sign that the muppets were done.. instead of a sign that maybe they just needed a new direction. Steve Whitmire's firing due to his increasing ego and Matt Vogel's rough go when he started as Kermit (not helped by not having the traning period whitmire did), really didn't help, but Disney didn't have a huge excuse. The Muppet Babies reboot happened and having watched some with my toddler nephew recently, it was pretty good, but as far as big mainstream attempts at reinviorating the muppets , Disney really didn't seem to give one iota of a shit and trotted them out for smaller projects like Muppets Now or the Muppets Haunted Mansion.

Disney Fucking up really isn't a suprise, especially given their recent debacle of removing a lot of disney+ shows including the muppet based earth to ned, which i'll be covering in july because fuck this decision entirely.

My point is, besides Disney can go eat a shoe sometimes, is that the Muppets really needed a full blown shot again and to try something new, something they'd adapted to. And Mayhem, for all it's faults.. is a good test of that: deciding to focus not on the core quartet of Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie, but on the wacky hippies on the side. It's honestly a brilliant idea to step away from the core cast for a sec and simply see if the various other weridos int he troupe could carry a story on their own. And Electric Mayhem are custom built for this test run: they provide an ensemble, so they don't have to explain why this set of muppets are off on their own adventure, one of their number is still one of THE most recognizable muppets, meaning they still get name recongition, and it leaves the creative team with a bunch of characters who while not BLANK slates, are still not as fleshed out enough to really get into.

So is this a great new direction for the muppets that will lead into a shared muppets universe as showrunner Adam F Goldberg hopes for.. or another horrible setback at a time when it's the last thing the muppets need? Hop in the van, and cruise with me under the cut as we find out.

So before we can get into the Mayhem themselves, let's get into the man

Let Me Take Your Picture, Add It to the Mixture. The genisis of this series is simple but fascinating: So in 2016. Bill Baretta, longtime muppet performer and the hand behind Dr. Teeth, was naturally there when the Mayhem did a set at the Outside LImits Music and Arts Festival. Baretta was stunned by the massive crowd.. and got to thinking, wondering just who these guys were outside of it and decided to start developing a series on the idea.

In true muppets fashion though.. he wasn't the only person to have the idea, as around the same time, Adam F. Goldberg's friend, editor Jeff Yorkes, cut him a sizzle real to sell him on the same idea. For those less familiar wtih him, Adam F. Goldberg was the creator of the long running 80's set sitcom the Goldbergs, and as happens often once he left the show hit it's seasonal rot HARD.

How both sides came together is unknown, my best guess being Disney realized they had two similar and awesome pitches for a show with the same concept in an IP they were barely using, so simply got the three together, the three gelling as they all had the same basic vision and simply used parts from both pitches to create the final show, with the same basic core of taking these obscure hippiees and fleshing them out. Part of the appeal for Goldberg, and something I strongly agree with is while the characters were known, there was just little enough known about who they were as people to give them wiggle room to develop.

And you can see a lot of The Goldbergs in Muppets Mayhem: it follows a cartoonish mildly disfunctional family, has schemes by one of the character whose a control freak usually cause the conlfict, and usually ends in a character developing button. And this could've been a disaster.. but the style does fit the muppets really well. The Mayhem are a family of choice, Nora works well in the beverley roll, more on her later, and while it has a bit of a formula to it, the episodes are still flexbile so that while most of the story is focused on the main plot of the band making an album, it uses it in a lot of creative ways: we see the band deal with electronic producing, accidently piss off every fan army on the globe, go for a marshmellow hallucination in the desert, save dr. teeth from his overbearing parents, do a documentary with Silent Bob, meet cheech and chong, paint danny trejo's house, nearly fall off a cliff and somehow record an album. Despite it's short run time the season goes a lot of intresting places and manages to expand the characters. It's clear while Goldberg has a style to his work that will likely carry to any future productions it doesn't really hamper a muppet production, and his , yorkes and of course baretta's clear love for the characters shows in tons of carefully picked archive footage and little continuity nods, from the mallory gallery to what have. you. There's even tiny bits of canon welding, with the band both apparently having beef with the river bottom nightmare band.. and having met the feebles.. which is now muppets canon. I didn't think anyone could top James Gunn making gobots canon to the mcu, but clearly I underestimated. The background does have it's drawbacks though: It's clear none of the three involved have really done a stremaing series , and as such ther'es a lot of little network watermarks, like uncessary cast photos and act breaks, sprinnkled throughout, things not really needed in a streaming series. There's also some bigger problems with the human cast but we'll save that for later. By now your all probably wondering what's this series even about? Okay most of you have probably binged the whole thing especially given how late after the series this is comign out. but bear with me

Use it If You Need It, Don't Forget To Feed It

The plot kicks off with the Band away from the rest of the muppets for a change, in the middle of a tour that's been going for the last 40 years ever since their Debut on the muppet show. It's a nice joke.. and also one that works well as given how loosey goosey the Mayhem are with anything resembling a plan, it makes sense they'd consider hanging out in a house with everyone else or working on miss piggy's show as her house band just part of a tour. It also points to another reason the Mayhem were a very easy fit to have their own show: it's not hard to explain why their not with everyone else. While chunks of the troupe have moonlighted, Bobo was an evil sidekick, Sam a government agent, as needed for the plot, with the Mayhem being musicians and party members them simply wondering off for a while makes sense. Kermit is probably so used to it he has a backup band on standby.

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Enter Nora Singh, played by Lily Singh, youtuber i'm not familiar with turned failed talk show host and now turned actress, a struggling assitant for Waxtown Records, once the height of the industry now about to close because it's head Penny wants to retire and is convinced the place is dead. While there are sadly no muppet skeletons this time, Penny herself IS a muppet, something I was glad ot hear: given this series only really has the Mayhem and two guest characters otherwise, I assumed Penny would be a human when I first heard about the character and the reveal in the first episode was all too welcome. She's played by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph, best known muppet wise as Abby Kadabby over on seasame street, which should tell you just how deep her range is. With Penny planning to shut down she has Nora shred all their old documents.. and it's there she gets her shot, as not only was Waxtown Electric Mayhem's label.. but their infamous in universe for never having done an album. It's also a nice bit of metatext as while they've done a decent amount of music, until there hadn't been a real life electic mayhem album, such a slam dunk marketing wise it's weird they never did it. As for why not in universe it's simple: They thought they had and simply forgot to. As the series establishes, and fits perfectly with what little we knew about them, they just sorta move from one thing to another on a whim, agree to most things. Their friendly and upbeat.. but getting them to actually stay on task is a challenge, something I deeply relate to as this coming out almost 20 days after the show came out can attest to. Even once that's in hand Nora still has a season's worth of problems both the bands and her own, as her sense of what a band needs to be to be profitable clashes with what the band is. Since the band is too nice to course correct her most of the time, a lot of this is left to Moog, the band's number one fan. Moog is played by former child star Taj Moowry and serves as the bridge between the band and nora: as their fan, he can explain a lot of intricacises about the band to our heroine and us in the audience, while also having a better grasp on who they are. If you've gussed a large chunk of the series is Nora ignoring Moog's entirely sound advice about how the band works, your right and it's only kept from being too tiring because we usually move on to the band doing something funny and Mowry's impressive comedic timing.

When not being her own worst enemy Nora has to deal with her more succesful sister Haanah Singh (Saara Chaundry), and her obnoxious wallpaper of an ex boyfriend JJ, who is trying to buy the record company and succeding at trying my patience every time he's on screen despite Anders Holm's best effort. The Mayhem, Hannah and Moog included over time, have to deal with all this and more, from their own personal demons, to trying to update the sound, to documentaries to Dr. Teeth's parents to the most amecae band breakup in history to Janice accidently starting a cult it's a long strange journey.. and now we have context for that journey we can dive into the meat of it: the muppets and all too many live action people and the plentifu and welcome cameos. Everybody's Lover, Everybody's Brother, I Wanna Be Your LIfetime Friend:

Now we've got context for them we can stage dive into our moshpit of a cast... and who better to start with than our headliners. The Electric Mayhem are awesome as hoped. The series was always going to live or die on if these 6 weirdos could be fleshed out enoguh comedically and emotoinally to carry a whole series, possibly whole seasons. While the series has other characters and almost all of them contribute to the story in some needed way, it was always going to be about these 6 weirdos and getting to know them better. The series really lets you get them to know them as much as a group as people. While they always had an air of being peace loving accepting hippie folk, the series simply takes that basic and gives them a fully fleshed out identity as a group and as people. In this case the Mayhem are accepting, warmly welcoming anyone to work with them, and gladly up to try anything wether it be edm or playing a concert in minecraft. It may not work but they'll at least try it. It also shows they , like many a muppet, are incredibly unfocused, running off to do a party or what have you when they get distracted. They can rock well together, but it takes some outside force to wrangle them. It's telling only Nora, who NEEDS this job tow ork and Kermit, whose simply used to doing this kind of shit with every singl eperson he works with bar scooter, are the only ones who've actually succeeded at getting them on task. And Nora often stumbles simply because of the size of the task. Not everyone is Kermit levels of able to take this and i'm pretty sure he's on like 9 types of anxiety medication with them only SLIGHTLY working.

What makes them work is their kindness: the only time they really get mad is when Nora , trying to fake it till she makes it, lies a bunch and triggers Janice's lie allergy. How she hasn't died with all the lies FOzzy and Sam tell themselves just to function is a mystery, but it's a neat enough bit. Only putting one of their own in the hosptial pisses them off and even then once Nora pours her heart out to the band and genuinely apologizes, they quickly forgive her. It's their endless optimism that drives the series, Nora's own development, and makes the series shine despite it's faults; Just a group of people who love those around them, will help anyone without a care and will genuinely not worry.

The last part holds them back. The only time they really fight with each other is episode 7, and for understandable reasons; Floyd is upset to find out a song he thought as he and janices was about how she loves the world, which is mildly dickish but understandable when you find someone you loved and assumed you were in a realtionship with dosen't seem to care at all back, while the band as a whole aren't happy Dr. Teeth took Penny, his girlfriend at the time's , suggestion to name the band after him. It's also telling that not only did Teeth never consider himself front man despite this, but once he realizes it's an actual problem, agrees to change it to just the electric mayhem. These guys.. are family. 6 very diffrent people who found each other somehow and who will gladly welcome anyone else in. While nora takes a while to bond with her new friends and soon surrogate family, they all welcome her from minute one and when Nora ends up homeless thanks to a spat with her sister, they welcome her in. When Moog dosen't understand why he's invited on tour at the end, as while he's become the album's producer, he assumes he'll just be following them as usual, they explain as if it was the most natural thing he's part of the band now. These are kind, loving, warm protaganists who simply live to play musuic, spread good vibes. It takes the good ideas of the 60's peace movement and applies them to today: simply show kindness, welcome people in as family wether your blood related or not, rock out, and do your best. That's all you can ask. I never thought i'd be deeply moved by the electric mayhem, but i'm glad I was. While the band is still mostly a unti, each one still gets fleshed out more. Three of them get full on origin storis Animal get shis first and it's truly touching and fleshes out how Floyd is always taking care of him. What was once more just a weird sort of friendship/beast taming, becomes a father and son, a development I utterly love: As it turns out whatever stygian being birthed animal left him on Floyd's doorstep with a note to KEEP, and Floyd being a kind, welcoming sort, gladly took in the small child and made him his son and adopted him with his commonlaw husband and wife. It also shows that while everyone's worried when Animal, thinking a joke about him being replaced by a drum machine is real, quits, Floyd is devistated and badly just wants his son back.

He may be a loved part of the mayhem and a treasured family member.. but he's Floyd's kid. It's why he's spent years helping him blend with others and keeping him form eating furintirue and why Animal ultimately comes back despite being a great hibachi chef. Floyd also gets some minor spotlight in Dr. Teeth's spotlight episode: when Teeth's domeneering mom and agreeable to said mom dad show up to drag him back for the 80th time we find out Teeth was a meek dental student content to follow his mom.. but meeting Floyd in a music store and then many other times because destiny ships these two as hard as I do, Teeth realizes what makes him actually happy and while he makes his grampy's floss case into a tooth, he ultimately becomes the rock god we know. And while Floyd does have at hing for Janice, the series still makes his and Dr. Teeth's orgiin story as gay as possible in the best way possible, with it being one long allegory for one person awakening anothe'rs sexuality, down to the disaproving parents. The fact the mayhem come off like they'd be very fond of open relationships makes neither this nor Teeth's actual love intrest in the series a problem. While the whole "son has parents who want to shove him into a career" is all too common a story trope.. and a thing that really happens in real life, it works well enough here as Teeth was never in a ton of danger of actually going with them, only breifly doing it when Nora interupts his normal process for this. It's stil lhealthier he finally made amends with his parents, but it works. The more compelling bit of his backstory, beisdes all the shipping in the previous bit, is Penny. Teeth broke her heart leaving a while ago and while they quickly get back together, and we sadly just as quickly find out he has a foot thing... and we see them playing this little piggy on screen

Look am I kink shaming dr. teeth? No. What they want to do to each other is their buisness and the relationship is oddly adorable outside of this scar to my brainpan. But do I want to see a muppets gross foot while Dr. Teeth implies he's going to do sex things to it? No. I'm sure even some foot fetishests would agree. The Dalmationatrix in the happy time murders was less overtly sexual. And also way hotter, but that may be a me thing and may make my point as i'm sure many of you shuddered a bit at that statment. Point is please no more stuff like this adam f goldberg. Implied muppet sex is fine, just don't show us muppet feet. Please no. No feet pics.

I was.. talking about something. Oh yeah. The problem is Teeth left her abrubtly earlier, and he find sout during the groups' marshmellow drug trip in the dessert it's because he has commitment issues, likely DUE to said parents. Penny isn't mad he coudlnt' commit forever, just that he couldn't FOR NOW. , and Teeth realizes this just isn't healthy, not only unblocking him writers wise, but letting him be open with their relationship, which not only gets Penny off the groups back, but onto his and OH GOD....

Okay for my sanity we're moving on to Janice. We get to see more of Janice's empathetic side: while she's still as fursurely as ever, we get to see she loves trying to help other people.. and much like Steven Universe, while this isn't a bad thing on the surface, it also means she never helps herself, something only her hallucination clone can get her to realize. It is nice to see her be so supportive, realize she needs self care, and generally get to be more than just "one of the only other female muppets" and "space case". She also forms a cult when the band gets addicted to the internet. This isn't a plot twist I saw coming but is it the best thing in human history? Probably. Fursurelian for life. Hopefully I will be spared when it happens. Animals as pointed out gets his backstory, and while he has a crush on NOra very early on, he later realizes it's because they both lost parents and becomes more protective. It's adorable. Animal dosen't change much but it makes sense: Out of the mayhem Animal was easily the most used and the one who could easily show up on his own for gags. Animal is often thrown in with the core four and has shown up in just about every muppet production. He's an icon for good reason: his simple antics and shouty performance just make him loveable as all hell. This series further highlights this by making him the mayhem's youngest, esspetainlly being a hyperactive 20 something. It also posititons hima s the heart of the gorup: they can't bring themselves to play when he leaves for an episode and their breakup to make tension for the climax mostly happens because he's too exausted from his side gig to stop it, and once he wakes up and finds noras gone missing he's the one to bring everyone back together. He's the core of the group: he may be the most popular but he wouldn't be without them. They need him and he would never leave them.

Finally we have Zoot and LIps. Zoot is the blue one and Lips is the one with an afro who I frequently forget is in the band because he disappears a lot. Zoot.. really isn't fleshed out that much. He takes photos and he's forgetful. They add nothing to him. He's easily the weakest character here. He does hang out with an anthromoprhic shoe, so there's that at least. In contrast Lips goes from being often wallpaper only there when needed, to quitely one of the best parts of the show. His gags now are that he's unitellgible and despite that has a LENGTHY and epic history. He's the one who convinced Kesha to drop the $.. which also implies he helped her breka free from dr. lukes' abuse. Zoot's a good one. He's also friends with Paul Mcartney and Paula Abdul among many others. It's just a nice gag and he's geninely fun and it's used in moderation enough to not wreck the show. So the band is solid as ever. The human characters.. are a bit more hit and miss. Starting with Nora, Lily Singh does her best, and she does have a nice energy that plays off the muppets well. She's trying very hard and i'd love to see her in another production as she has clear talent. The issue really isn't her.. it's the script. Nora is written however the episode needs her:, and thus is pulled between uptight nerd whose mildly out of touch with music, hence a running gag where she sees the lyrics of rock and roll all night "and part of every day".

Other times she has a deep love of rock, having a bob marely tatoo, well knows the modern scene, and her issues come more from simply not working with what she has in the band, of trying to make them what she THINKS will sell instead of what they are, which is a metaphor for how disney has treated the muppets and many ips at time if ever there was one. The latter just works better, and it's when it dips too far into one end or the other of her being uptight or into rock where it falters and singh can often come off stiff.. because I supsect she really dosen't know what this character feels. If the writers don't know who nora is how can the audience or the person playing her? Nora is supposed to be a major pillar of the series.. but the writers refusal to give her depth despite trying to plaster it on with her having had to raise her sister or her type a personality means the character flails next to the better defined muppets. It also dosen't help her most major human costar.. is given a more consitent and intresting character. Moog is easily the highlight of the show shuman caast, with Taj Mowry given way more to work with. Moog's character isn't super deep, but has just enough depth to work well: he intitially comes off as simply a fanboy, constantly asking Nora to look at his demo like any struggling musician.. but as the episodes go on we get to know him better. We see like any good fan the band mean a ton to him and his friendship with them is genuine: while he's a massive fan of theirs, they treat him with respect like they woudl anyone, gladly bond with him and are thankful he's there for him. IN turn he gets the band in a way Nora dosen't and part of her best moments is having him as contrast: he tells her very early on she simply dosen't have to posture because the band are the most acepting people. His best stuff comes in episode 5: while nora desperatelyt ries to get the band to make a "new sound", he gets angry.. but it's not fan entitlmeent as Nora thinks.. but because he's taken the time to actually listen. He get stheir sound and when nora finally listens to his demo.. she realizes, eventually at least, that his sound actually bridges their 70 vibes to modern production. He has real talent, and a real love for the band. We also get what I feel is one of the best seens for singh as a result: nora pouring over old footage as she goes from someone simply seeing the band as her next step.. to being a mayhead herself and knowing how to finally help them to their best. The show needed more of this, having nora as a symbol of a coprrate present.. and shedding that to be more herself, someone who really knows music and opens up.

Moog does take a hard nosedive in the last few episodes though. It starts to peak through when he gets jealous of Nora's ex jj and tricks him into bringing up the name thing, nearly breaking up the band.. but in the last two it really gets bad. Instead of telling Nora how he feels.. .he sulks in the background as she gets back together with human carpet, then blames her for the band's breakup because... she told them what the internet was. Which is something most acts need to know. They breakup because they all get hooked on various internet based things and because the writers forgot to write an actual reason for conflict and had to make something up fast. The romance with him and nora genuinely isn't bad at first: he has a crush on her, btu refuses to act on it because he needs this gig and she needs this to go well. It's when they make it love triangle stuff and turn him into a mopey dickhead who almost dosen't try to get the band back together till she apologzes, a band full of people who GENUINELY love him and see him as one of them that he genuinely loves and worships. Mowry does his best but like with singh when the material isn't great.. what can he honestly do. If behaviors bad enough an actor can make it hilarous or add a smuch depth as they can. But when all your given is a big spoonful of cliche, you can only do so much. i've hinted at the human embodiment of the color beige enough, let's talk about JJ. JJ is a character I think the right actor could've hammed up enough to be tolerable. Anders Holm by contrast is a guy who tends to paly his roless subtler. As such former bagle boy for waxtown and now rich tech bro is just... annoyingly bland. He shows up to try and buy wax town to win Nora back and just kinda shows up. He adds nothing to the plot. And look i'm someone who tries to not go too hard on actors in these reviews... but you could see the but coming from a mile away couldn't you? Anders Holm.. is awful in this. He tries, he does, but he's horribly cast. JJ needed someone with enough energy to make the bad writing on the character passible, someone who can really nail the "tech bro whose secretly just trying to be one because it's the kind of guy his ex wanted" charcter. Instead he's just the bland romantic false lead from every 90's film and romcom. Singh sometimes has weak material but does her best with it and that I can admire but Holm, even acounting for his character being supleforous at best is just so agressively bland it adds nothing.

What's extra annoying is that Ben Schwartz, who is an EXPERT at playing people with huge egos in suits, it's how his career started.

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Is instead left to just one episode working as Animal's job counsler. He's brilliant at it, deadpanning perfectly to Animal.. which begs the question why he wasn't given the part: At the time of this writing he isn't a regular on any live action or animated shows, he's experinced at the part and that small cameo showed he can play really well off the muppet JJ ends up interacting with the most. The result is a character who just sucks all the energy out when he's around. He's ONLY there for a very pointless love triangle no one asked for that goes EXACTLY how you'd expect with no varations toit. The idea they present in episode 7, that JJ became what he is to impress her is intresting.. but they do nothing with it and he spends the whole series as this bland cypher. You question why Nora's remotely intrested beyond "because the plot says she should be", and she suddenly moves back in with him. And he then easily blows it beause he dosen't understand why maybe the person whose dad died and mom impliclty abandoned her would bond with a band whose family. JJ just sucks, and he ends up making Moog suck as Moog spends the last two episodes moping and whining because Nora dosen't like him back when he NEVER TOLD HER. He did for good reason, this is his one shot and opportunity comes once in a life time, but it soon devolves into crap. It's the one part I genuinely hate about the series. Finally human wise we have Nora's sister, Hannah. Hannah is a character that didn't need to be in nearly as much of the series as she did. She's not bad, Saara does a decent enough job and unlike JJ the characters layers are explored well: Hannah took her sister in and let her stay on her couch.. but gets annoyed that her relationship with Nora has turned into all take and no give: Nora brings up raising Hannah after their father died and mother impliclty abandoned them a lot, and tends to put her wants over Hannah's, and is not so subtly jealous Hannah has easily reached what she wants in life, fame as an influencer, while Nora struggles and struggles and is only now getting anywhere. It feels like a real sibling conflict and the two actresses have good chemistry. It's just after Janice patches things up with the two... Hannah is reduced to influencer jokes. Once the series doesn't' really need her instead of writing the character off or finding something for her to do with the album, like I dunno work on costumes since she's shown changing costumes for her videos to pretend to be in fancy locales, or be the team's image consultant, she's just kinda there. While JJ is stapled onto the story to pad time Hannah is weirdly disconnected despite being vital to Nora's character and having plenty of ways she could be woven into it. A triangle between her, Hannah and Moog would've made WAY more sense. Instead Hannah is just there for the rest of the series.

Finally we have Penny. Penny is a great addition, being hilariously curmudgeonly and making a decent antagonist for the first half of the series without being overwrought: she hates the mayhem but doesn't actively impede them as she correctly figures win or loose, she get something out of it: the album actually happens, her protégé gets a win and she gets money. It fails, her ex falls flat on it's face and she just finishes selling the business like she was going to. Her relationship with Dr. Teeth is also genuinely sweet... I still did not need to know.. things, but it is nice and she slowly warms up to Nora, by the end ditching her vacation with Dr. Teeth to go help the band find her and willingly turning the business over to her.

Cameo wise the series is utterly stacked, with my co-pilot for this series, @jess-the-vampire often wondering how they got all these people. As it turned out from an interview most of it was just "Hey you want to be in muppets" "Done" "But I haven't even told you what you'll be doin.." "I SAID DONE". And thankfully for more Muppets tend to cast a wide generational net so there was only a few acts that had me going

Mostly confined to episode 2's cameos for Zedd and Sophia Carson. Otherwise it's filled to the absolute rim with great cameos. So just rattling off my faviorite in no paticular chronological order we have: The aformentioned bit with Ben Schwartz, Kesha showing up to jam with the band when Nora's trying to find someone to produce the album, Danny Trejo showing up in episode one for one of the best bits of the series as the band paints his house thinking it's theres and later warming to them saying "Those guys painted my house. And according to Bill Danny is apparently the easiest cameo to get and it's why he's become a muppet's regular himself at this point and it's easy to see why. Also really game was my boy Kevin Smith, who naturally was more than willing to take shots at himself, refering to himself as a one star director and letting them take a shot at yoga hosers, which I haven't seen, and god willing never will. He even gets to , as Dr. Teeth puts it be "Silent bob saying something meaningful at the end of the film. " We also get a nice Peter Jackson cameo that as I said confirms meet the feebles is canon to the muppets. How Goldberg got away with that I GENINELY have no idea. And in a long overdue team up we get Weird motherfucking Al Motherfucking Yankovic who appears to Floyd to tell him to stop being such a perfectionist.. and to remind him that yes, Al does more than parodies that criticism is fucking old please stop. Other great cameos include James Hong as Dan, the chef who declares Animal the Chosen one, Joe Lo Trugilo as a Mo Cap Maestro the band works with for their minecraft concert, Charlamange Tha God as himself interviewing the band when they have their contrived penultimate episode amicable breakup, Cedric Yarborugh as a cop who pulls the band over for holding up traffic, Tommy Lee as a walking STD, and most entertainingly Jack McBrayer, Rachel Bloom, Riki Lindholme and Nicole Beyer, always a highlight, all showing up as the heads of various fan armies when Dr. Teeth's autocorrect pisses off all of music.

So with that there's one last bit of business.. and frankly if your going to do a show about the world's greatest muppet band.. it's one of the most important

All of Us Are Winnin, Pickin and a Grinnin, Lordy But I Love to Jam The music was always going to be the thing that either made the series or ruined it for me. Can You Picture That? Is one of my faviorite muppet songs, and as the Mayhem's only original song up to this series it left some VERY big shoes to fill. I mean it's hard to go up against music legend paul williams and their VERY lucky Beef wasn't involved or they'd of been screwed.

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Luckily Disney brought in someone every bit Paul Williams equal, which is a sentence I rarely get to say: Micheal Gicchano, composer supreme best known for his jazzy as fuck scores for the incredibles, who got the band's style perfectly. With a 70's style groove that perfectly fits the band's vibe and most songs picked being along those lines. Paul Williams would be proud and probably is atop his magical cloud castle. As a result most of the original songs on the soundtrack are damn good and the covers are great. So let's run through them in order of appearance shall we? Rock On is the series theme and at first I wasn't a huge fan mostly because it sounded a lot like a sitcom theme. Eventually though I got over myself and asked the eternal question

It's still one of the weaker tracks as a song but as an opening it sums the band up decently, has a nice beat and is chopped up decently. I realize now they didn't do the obvious and use can you picture that as it's both hard to get to theme song length, and because it's such an icon it'd overshadow everything else. Rock On is a message that this show is still the mayhem but it's something new with them, and it's still damn groovy. Not the best song ever, i've seen better tv theme songs, but a solid enough one that really worms it's way into your brain.

The first song in the show proper, Rock and Roll All nite is a fine enough cover, it's just Dr. Teeth's vocal's weren't quite the best choice for this and they didn't really change the song any to fit his vocals. To contrast this to another mayhem cover, the band did a truly awesome one of Dancin in the Moonlight for Muppets Haunted Mansion. While that song also has a softer vocal track on the original, they balanced it by having Floyd do the voice and leaving Dr. Teeth for the chorus where his croakier style fits better. Neither's vocals are bad, it's just like any band you have to match them to the song or it turns out okay at best.

So i've spent two straight songs complaining, let's get some positivity back in here. The show's version of Can You Picture that is still damn awesome, letting the current performers for the Mayhem (Zoot excepted as he STILL has the same performer) jam to their greatest song. The lyrics are fun, bouncy, and really fit the band. Do they make a lick of sense? not entirely. Are they fun and get across the vibe of a bunch of people making music? Yes.

Finally for episode 1 , we have Have a Little Faith In Me, the joe cocker classic which the band utterly nails and emotionally, shatters me in show as it was the song Nora's dad sang to her.. and the band sing it for her as thanks for giving them a shot. It's a nice moment, her finally convinced to hang in there with them, as she realizes the true magic of the mayhem and Bill Baretta's vocals are absolutely perfect. Unlike Rock N Roll All Night, Teeth's rough vocals PERFECTLY fit this song.

Next we have episode 2's finale true colors, this time lead by Janice who has a shockingly great singing voice and the tenderness of this version really hits as the Band let Nora know she can be herself. It's the heart of these songs that really works: While True Colors has been used 998 times in the history of film and tv, it's used here not because "Well it pulls the heart strings" and more because it naturally fits the moment.. while also doing that previously mentioned thing.

The next song is a bit of a joke, as Zedd makes a song with the mayhem and sofia carson they gave to her. It's funny enough, nothing great music wise, but it's made to be played over the radio and even the album version lasts exactly a minute.

Next is Bridge Over Troubled Water, a song I honestly haven't heard a ton. While I absolutely love Paul Simon, I prefer his post garfunkel works. Especially when they involve muppets.

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It perfectly meshes with both the flashback to Animal and Nora turning up to stay with the Mayhem. One of the best tracks on the album.

We have a nice montage of the band trying to do diffrent versions of Rockin Robin. I'm disapointed we never finished Ziggy Marley's but hey, what happened with him and janice. I get it man. I get it.

We get a very nice cover of God Only Knows to show Moog knows what he's doing but what makes it work is it's paried with a truly stiring montage of the mayhem's history as Nora dives into it and finally really gets the band. Truly moving stuff.

Gonna Get There is a decent enough montage song, the first new song from the band in canon. It's pretty okay, mostly saved by the vocals.

Thankfully next episode makes up for it: Capping off what's already one of the best episodes of the season, we've got Gotta Be. Gotta Be has both one of the best performances but also just one of the best beats, being the kind of funky newmanesque groove that really fits the band, sung as Floyd convinces Teeth to be himself. It's one that not only perfectly fits the message of the band, but the uprorarusly joyful performance at the dental confrence is truly great. Baretta and Vogel play off each other perfectly, getting to do a full on deut and it's as awesome as it sounds. It's easily my faviorite song on the soundtrack.

Naturally the only way to follow this up.. is another cover. This time though it's of the freaking beatles, and frankly All You Need Is Love fits the band so perfectly, I don't see what else they could've gone with, especailly after an episode long homage to the documentary get back.

We Are One is another awesome 70's jam band style song, with the gang singing for unity and succesfully uniting the fan armies. It once again let's vogel vocally jam as Floyd, and there's a damn good reason they ping pong between him and Bill or both unite: they both have great vocals, and it gives the band a nice range. It's why the rock and roll all nite cover sticks out: it would've been better in Matt's hands.

So we're to the final episode as the band has seperated, hence no song for episode 9, and our first is the sound of us, another fun jam band style as Animal brings the band back together. It's perfect for a montage but far less bland Gonna Get There.

There's a fun cover of Join Together as they find Nora that once again fits the band. It feels like post poilot Goldberg and co realized what fit the band better and from that point on every song fits their style perfectly.

WE then get to the band's climactic hollywood bowl performance, belivie in us which is just.. beautiful. A joyous, uplifting celebration that fits everything perfectly and is exactly what you'd hope for. A nice power ballad using both baretta and vogel perfectly and incredibly well suited for Baretta's scratchy teeth vocals.

On Our Way is a nice U2 style song to finish out the song as the band sings us out. It's a good way to close the series and it's only real issue is that Janice, Teeth and Floyd's vocals don't really work together for the chorus. Janice might of been better left off the chorus but the bits between it are so well done, it dosen't matter.

Can You Even Find It? So we have one last odd to clean up.. so I guess it's also an end.

I WAS going to do an episode guide like i normally do.. but realized as I went that in addition to this review taking a very long time as is, I had already commented on most episode based things I wanted to as I went. So this section is more just for the bits I haven't talked about. The first is the only muppet characters besides the band and Penny, Dr. Teeth's parents. Their honestly fairly entertaining his mom going a mile a minute and not seeming to get her son is super succesful, as well as her passive agressive hate of floyd ("Maam") before finally coming around to her sons music and sexuality, while her husband always agreeing with a yup while being treated in charge works. I'ts nothing really new, but their in the episode just enough for the gag to not outstay it's welcome.

The second.. is less fun. The last two episodes.. are a complete mess. The episode before this foreshadows it: it's not a bad episode. The simple idea of the band getting online and autocorrect causing them to accidently pick a fight with every fandom in music is comedy gold. It just has some age signs like having a concert in a video game, something that still happens but not nearly as high profile as it once did, and the game being minecraft, which while I havent' played a ton is a game I like and my nephews and nieces adore, is a weird choice and feels like it was the only one that said yes or disney signed off on. I mean I don't want the muppets anywhere near fortnite, but it's not something minecraft's ever done and dosen't feel like enough of a joke to work. Or maybe it's just me

The last two eps though.. are not great. They have great moments and some good gags, but feel contrived: the band get hooked on various side projects. The side projects themselves are mostly entertaining, with only Teeth's (doing a spicy food tasting channel with penny ala hot ones) not really landing: We get Floyd getting hooked on jingle writing and soon having a jingle empire with Kristian Schaal as his assitant in the span of a week, Lips doing a ted talk, which while not the best ted talk gag of all time, this is..

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Is still harmless enough, Zoot getting into photography and forgetting nora exists, Animal getting big on tiktok by scratching himself, and my personal faviorite: Janice starts a cult. It starts with just having people follow her, slowly escalates, and she has a full on compound by the time Nora tries to bring her back into the fold.

The problem is it feels like the band breaks up, if as ambicably as expected, simply to have drama. They likewise don't listen to nora or she can't get to them. It feels like padding to get to ten episodes, especially when episode 7 has a far better reason than "because the internet", the name issue, for them to break up. We also get Moog bitching and moaning because nora "broke up the band" because.. she told the mayhem about the internet.

The actual finale at the hollywood bowl is great, as is them coming to get nora, but the road there feels like they ran out of ideas for this seasons overarching plot and just came up with something quick instead of just finding something weird to fill the space instead.

So with that we've come to the end of the road. The Muppets Mayhem is a promising first step for a new era of the muppets: it proves both a muppets production with a reduced cast can work and be pretty awesome, with lots of great gags, fantastic music and a nice heart. It just needs to either flesh out the humans better or focus more on what we came for, and rely less on stock plots the muppets have never really needed to play so straight. Also fire JJ, out of a canon.. into the sun. That'd be great. The pieces for Muppets greatness are there, they just need to get the bugs worked out of the felt. Still after a decade of no major productions, this is a very nice welcome back and hopefully the start of something fresh for the muppets. And I can certainly picture that. Thanks for reading Next Month: Daddy Daddy, take us underground as we're Returning to the Labyrinth!

#the muppets mayhem #electric mayhem #animal #dr teeth #floyd pepper #janice #zoot #lips #nora singh #hannah singh #moog #bill baretta #adam f goldberg #Youtube

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