10 TV Shows That Should Be Redone With Muppets

Posted on by Amanda Russel

Warning: Spoilers

Hear me out: Muppets make everything infinitely better.

From nonbinary icon Gonzo the Great to unconventional couple Kermit and Piggy, the Muppets offer an entire universe of diverse character options. And with the reboot trend sweeping TV, I present to you the following evidence that ALL TV shows would be better if redone with Muppets:

The White Lotus

In Muppet White Lotus, Miss Piggy plays Jennifer Coolidge’s character beautifully and we get to watch her have a nervous breakdown, drink excessively, and throw her mother’s ashes into the sea dressed like a Sicilian widow. Meanwhile, sober hotel manager Big Mean Carl has confiscated a bag of drugs from poolside peanut gallery Statler and Waldorf, and he’s about to relapse, hard.

Yellowjackets

The Electric Mayhem are on their way to a gig with their manager and a handful of roadies when their tour plane crashes in the wilderness. The band slowly runs out of snacks. The rest of the first season is a flirty will-they-or-won’t-they waiting game between Dr. Teeth and Janice while viewers wait eagerly to see when the Muppet cannibal bloodbath will finally happen.

The Great British Baking Show

The show that normally has xanax vibes is given a chaotic twist, with the Swedish Chef both hosting and judging. No one knows what’s going on. When it comes time to be judged, the Chef waves his weird human hands maniacally, spews gibberish and throws thebaking back at the contestant. Again, no one knows what’s going on, and everybody loses.

Queer Eye

A complete life makeover: Canonically Queer muppet Uncle Deadly throws all your clothes away and replaces them with new, better ones. Kermit life-coaches you until you cry and finally love yourself. The Swedish Chef teaches you how to boil rice correctly. You and Miss Piggy jade roll together and talk about self care, then she frames your face with some subtle highlights. Underappreciated Scooter redoes your entire house in three days.

Law & Order: SVU

Five hundred seasons later and still, no one has seen SVU like this before. Criminal Muppets guilty of the most egregious sex crimes are caught and served piping hot justice while we’re made privy to the inner workings and complicated relationships within the bureau and their puppet families. Every episode is an on-the-edge-of-your-seat cat and mouse chase as we cheer for the core team of Rowlf, Sweetums, Yolanda the Rat, and Animal. Produced by Muppet Dick Wolf.

Euphoria

Debauchery, sex, and violence know no bounds in the Euphoria universe, which will be lovingly reanimated with only Muppet actors in this reboot. You have not seen Euphoria until you have seen Janice nod out on fentanyl. Or seen Sam the Eagle, a father who is leading a double life and desperate to get his sex tape collection back, beat the shit out of his blackmailing son, Bobo the Bear.

Squid Game

The show everyone was talking about in 2021 just got a whole lot better, because Muppets Squid Game has something the original Netflix show does not: Desperate Muppets playing brutal life-or-death children’s games and turning on each other, with the only human actor being Michael Caine, playing his role as serious as a heart attack. The games come to a head when childhood friends Kermit the Frog and Fozzie the Bear are made to fight to the death in a muddy field. In an unbelievable twist, we find out the unlikely overlord is bored, dying billionaire, Joe the Legal Weasel. The show remains emotionally devastating.

Breaking Bad

Nerdy, mild-mannered and newly cancer-stricken chemistry teacher Dr. Bunsen Honeydew has medical bills to pay, so he teams up with street-savvy meth addict Rizzo the Rat to cook the finest blue artisanal crank. They expand business through local money-laundering chicken chain restaurant owner, Pepe the Prawn. Business booms and shit gets more and more complicated.

Too Hot to Handle


We have gathered all the sexiest Muppets and put them on a picturesque tropical island together, where they will try their hardest not to fuck each other. Will they succeed and learn there is more to a good relationship than felt-on-felt sucking and fucking? or will they descend into the full-on Muppet orgy we know we all secretly are yearning and watching for?

Fear Factor

Watch your favorite Muppets as they face their deepest fears in front of a live audience. Will Camilla the Chicken be able to eat chicken eggs without puking? Will Kermit be able to eat a porkbelly sandwich in front of Miss Piggy? Will anxious Walter break through his many neuroses and be able to sit in a closed coffin full of worms without losing his shit? These challenges and more will no doubt have you cheering for the contestants. Or not, you sick fuck.

Mission Impossible 7 and 8 Delayed Upon News of Xenu’s Return

Posted on by Ben Friedman

LOS ANGELES — Production of two new “Mission Impossible” films came to a grinding halt after Tom Cruise received news that dictator of the galactic confederacy Xenu’s return is imminent, Paramount Studio executives have reported.

“The ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise has been our cash cow for over 25 years now, and the one time we decided to roll two of them into one production Tom has become convinced that a serial murderer from planet Zorp Zop is about to unleash deadly space lasers and only he can stop it. Excuse me for not getting the fucking memo,” said studio head Brian Robbins. “I don’t know what bullshit intergalactic transmissions his buddies at Gold Base have been relaying to him, but we can’t take a hit like this. Of course we took out an insurance policy for every conceivable disaster under the sun except for aliens attacking our studio with bad vibes.”

The ramifications of the shutdown have had a ripple effect through Hollywood, as crew members have suddenly found themselves out of a job.

“I moved all the way here from a backwater town in Tennessee to pursue my dream of working in movies, and I worked every shitty job I could find before landing what I thought was the entry-level gig of a lifetime. That is, until the ‘aliens’ arrived,” said PA Tom Chambers. “I thought I’d be doing stuff like grabbing coffee orders or picking up dry cleaning, not running to Home Depot for materials to build battle armor for my mom’s celebrity crush. My question is, will he still be doing his own stunts when he’s trying to stab space invaders with a trowel tied to a PVC pipe?”

The Church of Scientology attempted to quash rumors that the almost billion-dollar production has been single-handedly shut down by their biggest star.

“Tom is one of the greatest actors of this or any generation, and his dedication to his craft goes beyond method acting. The films are on a temporary pause so that he can prepare his body for the grueling 12 hours scenes which will happen to take place in the exosphere above an active volcano,” said church spokesperson Michelle Dennings while loading a rifle. “We do not foresee this as a long-term setback, as even the definitely hypothetical report of a certain out-of-this-world, genocidal warlord escaping from his secret mountain prison shouldn’t impede production of several future projects.”

As of press time, Paramount immediately restarted production of the films after replacing Cruise with the much more expendable John Travolta.

Study: Single Parent Needs to Strike at Three Jobs to Meet Basic Needs

Posted on by James Howe

EVANSTON, Ill. — Economists at North Western University published a new study this week showing a single parent of two must distribute their collective bargaining efforts across multiple low-wage positions to afford life just above the poverty line.

“This is the new normal,” reports lead researcher Elizabeth Lhodi. “Data from more than 3,500 families reliably shows that additive-collective-organizing, particularly if you are a single parent, is the only way to accumulate benefits and cobble together something that resembles a living wage. On the bright side, our study makes it plain that the negotiations between management and workers will become more efficient when they incorporate several managements. We did test cases with Carls Jr./Granger/Hostess; and Miracle Whip/Raid/Hilton. We found that if negotiating together, three low-paying employers could provide wages and something like a social safety net for an individual working 105hr/week supporting 1.55 children.”

Lindsay Ramirez, 32-year-old mother of two, is one of the many Americans who participated in the study.

“I’m looking for insurance from Kellogg, child care from KFC, and tuition assistance from United. I can usually put together rent and groceries from the three wages, but my kid broke his wrist running for the school bus and those medical bills are sinking me,” said Ramirez. “For the most part my schedule was working out. I was able to take quick naps at the longer red lights on my commute between jobs, but once KFC said we couldn’t take home any of the leftovers at the end of the night I knew something had to change.”

Service Employees International Union rep Howard Rutger shrugged off any optimism for brass tacks pragmatism.

“Look, we’re all used to working a few gigs to make ends meet,” said Rutger. “But if we’re being frank, no one company’s ever going to voluntarily pay enough to afford groceries, clothes, housing, internet, a phone, insurance, dental, vision, all of the above plus school supplies for two elementary school girls. Only rational thing is to triple up your efforts. Collective organization can improve your station in life, but there’s really no future where workers at these multinational corporations will be able to survive on fewer than three jobs, so you’ve got to work to make them all better.”

Lhodi looks forward to expanding this practical research with her next study entitled Advantages of Corporate Fiefdoms In the Age Of An Impotent American Political Left.

Could Reading an Article About a Guitar String Breaking and Slicing Your Eyes Open Make You Obsessively Afraid of It for the Rest of Your Life?

Posted on by Heather Cook

Imagine this: It’s a perfectly sunny day and you decide to sit outside strumming your acoustic guitar under the shady branches of a towering oak tree. You notice your guitar is a little out of tune so you start adjusting the knobs accordingly until one of the strings is starting to feel a little tight… too tight. Then suddenly, the D string breaks and whips across your face, slicing both of your eyes wide open. Your pupils are splattered across the fallen leaves of the shady oak and nobody is around to hear your cries. Your mahogany Fender has betrayed you.

Don’t worry. The chances of this happening to you are slim, but totally possible. Depending on the guitar, a steel string tends to break once every four months. That’s four chances a year that a string could come barreling towards your eyeballs, leaving them severed in the jam room of a Guitar Center. In fact, in 2021 there were about 300,000 cases of string-to-eye incidents in the United States alone, and eight of them were fatal. You might be thinking, “That’s a lot of incidents. Should I be worried about this?” Maybe not, but you will absolutely worry anyway.

Basically you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than getting your eyes sliced by a broken guitar string. Then again, you don’t dick around with lightning storms for hours every day, so, weigh it against that.

Many renowned guitar players take preventative measures to protect their eyes when tuning their guitars. Even Eddie Van Halen would put on a pair of goggles when he was tuning during his concerts, and Neil Young wears an entire welding mask to protect his face when it’s time to tune. With more than eight hundred guitar string related eye injuries reported every day in the US, it’s no wonder even the greatest guitar players of our time are obsessively scared out of their minds.

Unfortunately, a guitar string can also sporadically snap when you are not tuning. Experts suggest changing your strings frequently to avoid this, but it might be best if you just give up on playing guitar forever. Do you want to end up like Jane Dollman? Oh, you’ve never heard of her? That’s because her career ended as soon as her eyes were sliced open by a flailing guitar string. But don’t worry, that will never happen to you… Until it does.

When We Were Young Festival Designates Parking Area for Teens Waiting to Pick Up Parents

Posted on by Ben Friedman

LAS VEGAS — Organizers of the When We Were Young Festival announced that they have set aside 700 parking spots specifically for teens waiting to pick up their parents from the festival grounds.

“My wife and I lost our shit when we saw the line-up, but the excitement ended almost immediately once I realized that our transportation situation was fucked. I’m not such a great night driver anymore, plus my wife insisted we Robotrip during Jimmy Eat World. Luckily for us, our daughter Brannon just got her learner’s permit,” said Aaron Carmichael. “She made it explicitly clear she wanted nothing to do with ‘our music,’ but she’s being a good sport and agreed to wait outside for us with the other kids. At least she and his grandfather will have something to commiserate over next Thanksgiving, right?”

Children of the festival’s target demographic were ambivalent about having to chauffeur their parents around the city.

“All of our moms and dads are going apeshit over this thing, it’s all they talk about and spam Instagram about. My parents brought up carpooling and I was, okay cool, have fun, but then they had the balls to ask me to drive them and their little friends! My brother and I drew straws and I got stuck picking them up. Is this karma for replacing their vodka with water?” said Logan Stills while gassing up the family minivan. “Last thing I want to do on a school night is wait around 12 hours just to cart a bunch of drunk 40-year-olds home through the desert while they scream Hawthorne Heights songs.”

Festival organizers at Live Nation have promised that the auxiliary pickup lot will give concertgoers and their offspring the best of both worlds.

“With an event of this magnitude, we needed to ensure all of the bases were covered. We hope it’ll allow our ticket holders to rip whippets in the portable toilets with peace of mind, knowing their children are just outside the venue,” said logistics coordinator Chad Williams. “But the main takeaway is that we’re trying to help recreate that magic of seeing your favorite bands in 2002, which was usually capped by wandering through a sea of agitated parents who had better things to do. Now their kids can be part of those memories as well.”

Live Nation also announced plans to make the experience even more authentic by placing the exits to the parking area as far as possible in order to make it a complete clusterfuck when trying to leave.

Every Person at This Show Except Me Needs a Shower

Posted on by Ryan Casey

Can you believe these people? I walk into this show, pay my five dollars, and I’m greeted by a wall of B.O. Have some respect for yourselves! It’s as if every person in the room ran a quick 5k, cooked 3 pounds of onions, and snacked on some mung bean sprouts right before they walked in. How are these people so blissfully unaware? I feel like I’m the only person here who had the decency to shower this month.

Sure, the crust punks have an excuse. Not showering is just part of being a trust fund kid who hates their parents. I’m sorry, I meant their “political views.” But so far I’ve only seen two of them. And while I’m sure under the right circumstances their stench could kill a horse, I seriously doubt they’re solely to blame for the fog of stink I’m currently engulfed in. So what’s everyone else’s excuse, huh? Didn’t have time? Who doesn’t have the 18 seconds needed to take a full shower and brush your teeth?

Whatever happened to deodorant? Too capitalist? It is for me, but I happen to have fragrantless pits. If I were them, I’d be applying whatever didn’t spell like GG Allin’s ball sweat. Because let’s just say this show smells way more legendary than it is.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking right now. Is it possible that I’m the problem? Absolutely not! Just like I’m not the reason every gaming convention, gym locker room, and sewer I go to always smells like death. Now, if those smells are rubbing off on me then maybe I could conceivably smell less than pristine. But that’s what the monthly showers are for!

Dry Cleaner Calls David Byrne To Remind Him They’ve Had Giant Suit For 30 Years Now

Posted on by Patrick Crooks

NEW YORK — A local dry cleaner called Talking Heads frontman David Byrne this morning informing him that they still have the giant suit he dropped off nearly 30 years ago, sources report.

“Yeah, I was going through the racks of unclaimed stuff and found this huge suit and thought it was weird because I remember some scrawny dude who seemed equal parts nervous and confident bringing it in decades ago,” remarked owner Pete Esposito. “It’s a nice suit and all so I figured he’d probably want it back and probably had a hell of a time wondering what happened. Plus, it’s been taking up the extra-wide, extra-tall garment rack, and it’s the only one we have like that. Anyway, I left him a voicemail.”

Byrne, when reached for comment, confirmed this version of events.

“Oh, yeah, the suit. I have a couple of those so I just must’ve forgotten to pick up that one,” the singer explained. “I think people are under the misconception that those are a regular part of my wardrobe, but I keep a healthy rotation of everyday items like shag carpet suits, and other monochromatic items cinched together. Usually, I keep those giant ones in storage, so that’s probably why I didn’t notice it was missing. Plus, getting those things pressed is a real pain in the balls, so it’s kind of one of those outta sight, outta mind things.”

“It’s not like I still wear them around the house or anything. That would be weird, right?” he added.

Music and fashion critics were quick to note that incidents such as this were not out of the norm.

“Musicians are just like the rest of us and occasionally forget things, clothing included,” noted fashion blogger, Heather Clark. “Particularly, these people are often eccentrics who own numerous garish and bizarre clothing items, so it’s probably more common to lose something like a giant suit or a dress made entirely out of raw meat. So to the average person, something that might stand out as missing would likely get lost in the pile for someone like David Byrne.”

At press time, the dry cleaner was asking if that weird European lady ever picked up her bird costume.

We Sat Down With Operation Ivy To Confirm Rumors of a Possible Reunion Between Me and My Ex

Posted on by Bobby Korec

As rumors continue to swirl of a long-awaited reunion, we sat down with the legendary ska-punk band “Operation Ivy” to ask some questions. While the break up may have been long ago, recent social media posts suggested a possible reconciliation and we were determined to get to the bottom of this. Anyway, here’s what Op Ivy had to say about the possibility of me and my ex getting back together.

The Hard Times: What an incredible honor. You can probably guess the one thing on everyone’s mind right now.

Operation Ivy: Oh yeah. We get this question all the time.

It’s a real “will they or won’t they” situation, isn’t it?

You could say that.

So let’s get right to it then. Are the rumors true? Is Brenda going to take me back after dumping me six months ago for that jerkoff Todd?

I’m sorry, what?

Just look at these text messages from last week. She basically said right here that she can’t stop thinking about me. She’s, like, so obsessed with me.

Looks like the text says she wants you to stop messaging her at two in the morning.

Ok, but do you at least think I have a shot at a “friends with benefits” type situation?

I think you should move on. It’s like how bands break up. Some get back together but most never do. Who knows? I wouldn’t get your hopes up. That’s not what music or relationships are about. Just get over it, dude.

So, no reunion sex?

Not looking good. But there is a possibility of you two going out in a group setting. Not getting back together or anything. But maybe going out to a bar and reliving some of the good times with a couple of mutual friends.

I gotta be honest that sounds kind of underwhelming.

Well that’s all we can promise you at the moment.

I understand. Hey, while I’ve got you all here, can you play “Energy” in its entirety?

Dumpster Diving Punks in Tennessee Slowly Becoming Most Literate, Multicultural Population in North America

Posted on by Tom K

ATHENS, Tenn. — Punks across Tennessee sifting through dumpsters for “perfectly good food” are inadvertently becoming the most well-educated people in America thanks to multiple statewide book bans, confirmed sources currently finishing Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-prize winning work “Maus.”

“What started as a routine once-over for day-old bagels turned into a journey of enlightenment, self-discovery, and a situatedness within my own lived experiences,” reports one such dumpster diver referred to only as Keek. “The books that this school throws away have changed the way I look at the world, history, everything. Maybe if some of these conservative congress members were allowed within 100 feet of a school, they’d find some of this stuff isn’t half bad.”

McMinn County Director of Schools, Lee Parkison, has weathered recent criticism on his bookshelf-to-receptacle pipeline, but has assured taxpayers he takes pride in being the cultural epicenter of the Athens vagabond population.

“I’m kind of a history buff. I learned about World War II just like everybody else did, by looking at statues, and I know for a fact that there were no mice in the Holocaust. This type of fiction, much like certain health textbooks we’ve banned that spout ludicrous fantasies of something called a ‘clitoris,’ does not belong in the modern classroom,” said Parkison. “However, any escapism we can donate to the less fortunate going through our garbage is just another example of our schools giving back to the community.”

Tennessee punks like Keek may be getting more of an opportunity than they realize, as the Library of Congress archive curation team has long held the Southern Rejected Literature genre in high regard.

“We often get jealous of Tennessee School Dumpster Collection,” said Dana Sanchez, who has been tasked with keeping track of each piece of media Tennessee lawmakers suddenly despise. “It’s very influential on the literature and film we end up saving for preservation in our own archives. We have a saying in academia, ‘to see the future, look in Tennessee’s trash.’ This can also be literally true when finding abandoned babies wrapped in discarded sex-ed curricula.”

At press time, Keek has teamed with Athens-area activism groups to start rumors that non-perishable, canned goods are “gender-affirming and woke” in order to facilitate donations to people experiencing homelessness.

Photo by Jana Miller

If Johnny Knoxville Can Still Do Jackass Movies, You Can Still Crush 20 Beers, Get In a Fight, and Pass Out in a Pool of Vomit

Posted on by David Arriaga

Hey old timer! Getting kind of up there in age, aren’t ya? Well that’s no reason to stay in tonight. You’re still young at heart! You can totally go out and do what you spent your 20s doing: getting blackout drunk, getting in a fight, and waking up covered in sticky, chunky success juice. Hell, if Johnny Knoxville can still make Jackass movies, what’s your excuse?

Despite the fact that in the next decade Johnny Knoxville will basically become his character from “Bad Grandpa,” he spent his downtime during the pandemic being shot out of a cannon. All we’re saying is if a 50-year-old man can still fight a bull with no training, you can still pick a fight with a much smaller guy in a bar. Just like you did in your 20s.

While you’re at it, now’s about the time to hit up your local skate shop and recapture your dream of being a pro skater. If Johnny Knoxville can almost die for our amusement in his 50s, the least you can do is try to finally land a 360 flip. This is best attempted after polishing off about 20 beers but before getting your ass kicked by that tiny guy at the bar. You’re still youthful but use some common sense.

After all that, you can proudly stumble back home, fire up a Jackass compilation on YouTube, and finish whatever booze you have left. Eventually, your body will reject your life decisions and send you stumbling to the bathroom to puke. You’ll wake up covered in your own vomit, feeling the pride that can only come from recapturing your youth. Your reckless, wasted youth.