The Muppets: 6 Highlights And 4 Lowlights From The Pilot
5. Lowlight: Fozzie And His Girlfriend
The B-plot of this episode is Fozzie visiting his girlfriend's parents and trying to impress them, and this was probably the weakest element of the pilot. Basically the entire joke is that it's silly to see this serious dinner scene with a bear puppet inserted in the middle of it, and the scenario of a girl's parents disapproving of her animal boyfriend is ridiculous. It's pretty much that joke repeated over and over, and it never amounts to much that's clever or interesting. Maybe this is one for the kids in the room.
Fozzie wants to impress the parents, but they don't like him because it's weird for their daughter to date a bear. Honestly, they kind of have a point. He brings them to the set, they still don't like him, and that's about it. The idea of a boyfriend trying to impress his girlfriend's parents is something we've seen a million times, and the only new element here is that now it's a Muppet. The show doesn't put a spin on a familiar trope; it just plays it out with a few gags about salmon thrown in.
Though the series has plenty of time to grow and change, so far the idea of Muppets interacting with humans in the real world isn't working.