The Muppets: 6 Highlights And 4 Lowlights From The Pilot
7. Lowlight: A Few Too Many Sex Jokes
The Muppets has never been just for kids, and the writers have always snuck in innuendos that the parents in the room can chuckle at. This new series has been marketed as being much more adult than before, though, and the pilot takes the inappropriate jokes just a little too far.
Really, a good 40% of the gags in this episode are about Muppet sex. There's a joke about Animal banging women on the road, Rizzo tries to seduce a female rat and is about to have sex with her, Kermit discusses sleeping with Denise while she sucks on a straw very seductively, Fozzie makes a gay joke, and it goes on and on. The franchise becoming slightly more aimed at grownups is a welcome change, but this is a bit too far in that direction. An occasional dirty joke is fine, but that shouldn't be the main source of the humor. More slapstick and puns, less jokes about puppets banging each other, please.
What the series needs to do is make these jokes a little more subtle. Take the gag where Zoot mistakes the work meeting for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It's clever and goes by quickly so that grownups will laugh but kids won't even process it. That's the tone The Muppets should aim for, as opposed to constantly showing off just how naughty it can be.