The trailer for Disney’s Muppet Show special opens with Kermit the Frog walking past a series of photos from the show’s 1970s heyday while wistful-sounding piano music plays.
As he sits down at his desk backstage, Kermit notices the music is coming from Rowlf. “Have you been playing this whole time?” Kermit asks.
“What did you think it was — some kind of sentimental montage in your head?” Rowlf replies. “We’re doing the show again, frog!”
That’s the general vibe of the trailer: The Muppet Show is returning (for at least one time) more or less as people remember it. The opening number plays the music and lights the lights, Statler and Waldorf heckle from the balcony, and human guest stars — Sabrina Carpenter, Seth Rogen and a newly announced Maya Rudolph — interact with the Muppets. Watch it below.
The special, streaming on Disney+ starting Feb. 4 and airing on ABC that night, is intended as a back-door pilot for an ongoing show. The show is the latest attempt to bring the Muppets back to primetime TV, following a string of shows that include the mid-1990s effort Muppets Tonight, ABC’s 2015-16 comedy The Muppets and more recent Disney+ efforts Muppets Now and The Muppets Mayhem.
Rogen and Carpenter are executive producers of the show, with 20th Television, Disney Branded Television, The Muppets Studio and Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures producing. Point Grey’s Evan Goldberg, James Weaver and Alex McAtee also exec produce along with David Lightbody, Leigh Slaughter and Michael Steinbach for The Muppets Studio, Albertina Rizzo, Matt Vogel, Eric Jacobson and director Alex Timbers.
