The Muppet Show is returning to TV with a contemporary grown-up reboot.
The show has been commissioned by ABC and promises a “more adult” take on much-loved characters such as Kermit.
The Muppet Show series will be filmed in a “contemporary, documentary-style” and will explore their personal lives and relationships.
For the first time ever, the series will explore the Muppets’ personal lives and relationships, both at home and at work, as well as romances, break-ups, achievements, disappointments, wants and desires.
The Big Bang Theory‘s producer Bill Prady is behind the series.
The recent pilot got a standing ovation at an ABC screening last month, according to Entertainment Weekly.
The Muppets, created by puppeteer Jim Henson, first appeared on TV in the 1950s, getting their own show in the 1970s.
They recently made a return to the big screen in 2011’s The Muppets and 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted, featuring Ricky Gervais.
Their TV comeback series is one of several new comedies picked up by ABC after the US pilot season.
The Muppet Show, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock’s puppets have been donated to the Museum of American History in Washington.
Miss Piggy has now joined her on-screen paramour Kermit the Frog and other 19 puppets created by Jim Henson in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection.
Cookie Monster, Bert, Ernie, Elmo and Fozzie Bear were also “inducted” during a special ceremony on Tuesday.
The event took place on what would have been Jim Henson’s 77th birthday.
Jim Henson died in 1990, while his wife and collaborator Jane died in April this year.
Their daughter Cheryl, who is president of the Jim Henson Foundation, said she was “so happy to have [her] father’s work be part of the cultural heritage of this country”.
“When you look at these different characters, you can hear their voices,” she said.
Miss Piggy has now joined her on-screen paramour Kermit the Frog and other 19 puppets created by Jim Henson in the Smithsonian Institution’s collection
“They are like living beings.”
The fame-seeking Miss Piggy will be on view within the museum’s American Stories exhibition, which starts in March 2014.
Several other Muppets and Sesame Street characters will be part of a broader puppetry display that will open this November.
“The Muppets are very much a touchstone to my childhood,” said museum director John Gray.
John Gray called comedy and variety programme The Muppet Show, which ran from 1976 to 1981, “the best example of American vaudeville”.
The donation also includes Scooter, the Swedish Chef, Grover and Count Von Count, as well as Boober Fraggle and Travelling Matt from Fraggle Rock.
Many of the puppets show the characters as they were first constructed.
These include Rowlf, a scruffy brown dog created for a dog food commercial in the early 1960s who later joined The Muppet Show as a pianist.
“Kermit was Jim’s alter-ego, but Rowlf was Jim’s alter-ego without the ambition,” said Karen Falk, an archivist with The Henson Corporation.
“He was Jim on the weekend, Jim in a hammock.”
The Museum of American History is already home to Oscar the Grouch, Kermit and the cast of Jim Henson’s early TV show Sam and Friends.
Jane Henson, the Muppets designer and ex- wife of puppets creator Jim Henson, has died aged 78 after a long battle with cancer.
Jane Henson helped design many puppets for the Muppet Show, whose characters include Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, and also worked as a puppeteer.
A statement from the Jim Henson Company – owned by the couple’s five children – described Jane Henson as an “integral creative and business partner” in the Muppets.
Jane Henson, the Muppets designer and ex- wife of puppets creator Jim Henson, has died aged 78 after a long battle with cancer
Jane Henson, born in New York in 1934, died at her home in Connecticut.
She met future husband Jim Henson in a puppetry class at the University of Maryland in the mid-1950s and the pair created the five-minute TV sketch show Sam and Friends, a precursor to the Muppets that featured an early incarnation of Kermit.
Sam and Friends first aired in 1955 and ran for six years, with Jane Henson giving up puppetry in the early 1960s to raise the couple’s children. However, she went on to make occasional appearances in Sesame Street, which featured some of their creations.
The Muppet Show made its TV debut in 1976 and has enjoyed enduring popularity. The 2011 film The Muppets won an Oscar and was a box office hit.
British actor Ricky Gervais is playing the lead role in the sequel The Muppets… Again, which is due out next year.
Jane Henson separated from her husband in 1986, four years before his death from infection-induced organ failure aged 53.
She went on to found the Jim Henson Legacy to preserve his artistic contributions.
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