Muppets Tonight (1996-98, TGIF)

About

The '90s revival of The Muppet Show, featuring an assortment of classic characters and new Muppets (some of whom have gone on to become standards).

This hard reboot hit the air just as ABC was bought by Disney. The show was originally a midseason replacement on Friday night's TGIF lineup, alongside the Henson company's other show, Aliens in the Family, but both were quickly dropped. It briefly returned on Sunday nights, and was renewed for a second season... which ABC kicked to The Disney Channel. The show's biggest issue was that the established characters only did guest appearances; potential viewers didn't know the new characters, so they mostly tuned out. The premiere got 17 million viewers, but the numbers had dwindled to 5 million by the end of its ABC run.

Half of these are ripped from the BBC masters, the other half are from VHS transfers of the Canadian broadcasts (at a glance, this Disney Channel dupes on YouTube look cleaner, but in addition to the stupid mouse logo that covers 1/4 of the screen, they've been upscaled from old avi rips and have lost a lot of detail). Also includes an assortment of promos, many (but not all) of which were amassed from YouTube. The quality of those wildly varies. Plus there's a Muppet V-chip ad which isn't specific to this show, but it was one of Pepe's first spotlight moments after he mysteriously dumped Seymour.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

The Internet Archive states none for this item.

Credit

The Jim Henson Company

Language

English

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Kids profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed