Exciting news for fans of Kermit, Piggy and co., as Disney has set a premiere date for the new CG-animated Muppet Babies, and announced another reboot for the classic foam-and-fur Muppets cast is in early stages.
Disney Junior’s Muppet Babies will premiere Friday, March 23 with two back-to-back episodes on Disney Channel (at 10 a.m. ET) and the DisneyNOW app. Ahead of the linear and digital double debut, the series’ soundtrack — featuring the theme song performed by Tony Award winner Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) — will be released digitally by Walt Disney Records this Friday, Feb. 23.
Based on the Emmy-winning original, Muppet Babies (22 x 11 min.) follows the fantastical adventures of Kermit (voiced by supervising director Matt Danner), Piggy (Melanie Harrison), Fozzie (Eric Bauza), Gonzo (Ben Diskin), Animal (Dee Bradley Baker) and new baby penguin Summer (Jessica DiCicco). From the playroom and expansive backyard of their urban brownstone, where they play under the watchful eye of Miss Nanny (Jenny Slate), the Muppet Babies transport themselves into imaginative worlds of adventure brought to life with a variety of styles from collage, comics and classic cartoons to live-action footage. Dropping by in season one will also be fan-favorite Muppets Statler and Waldorf, Bunsen and Beaker, Rowlf the Dog, Rizzo and Dr. Teeth.
Older audiences can look forward to a new Muppets series being planned exclusively for Disney’s yet-to-be-named streaming service, set to launch in 2019. The studio is reportedly in the process of finding a writer for the project. Jim Henson’s iconic characters got their big break with The Muppet Show, which ran from 1976 to 1981, and went on to enjoy several TV iterations and six films before Disney concluded a long acquisition process for The Muppet Studio in 2004. The Mouse House reintroduced the characters via YouTube and brought them back to the small screen with ABC’s The Muppets in 2015, canceled after one season. The 2011 feature film The Muppet Movie was a much bigger hit — a box office and critical success and Oscar winner (Original Song – “Man or Muppet”); a sequel, Muppets Most Wanted, came out in 2014.
[Sources: Disney Junior, TV Web]
