Why a Shockingly Dark Muppet Show Was Pulled From the Airwaves
Even all these years later, people still love the original 1970s Muppet Show — with the exception of all of those episodes featuring “negative stereotypes,” and also that one where the guest hosts were a creepy as hell mime couple.
But there is seemingly less affection for Muppets Tonight, the ‘90s Muppet Show reboot that aired for just two seasons (first on ABC and then the Disney Channel). In its defense, Muppets Tonight was the only TV show that gave us legendary comedian Don Rickles dressed as Kermit the Frog and Coolio dressed as Steve Urkel in the same episode.
Weirdly, one episode of Muppets Tonight ended up being more controversial than the later series in which Fozzie Bear dates a human woman, and was yanked from the schedule to avoid offending the public. The 1996 episode featured host Sandra Bullock appearing in a variety of typically wacky Muppet sketches, including comedic riffs of her own films, such as the While You Were Sleeping parody While You Were Slapping.
But the episode’s narrative through line was surprisingly dark, involving a mysterious villain who calls the Muppets and informs them that there’s a bomb somewhere in their studio. “I know, I read this week’s script too,” replies the security guard, Bobo the Bear.
In addition to the fact that this was a pretty intense twist for a series that canonically exists within the same world as Sesame Street, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The episode was coincidentally scheduled to air on the one-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing, which is still considered the “deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in U.S. history.”
ABC took the drastic step of pulling the show, and since no other episode of Muppets Tonight was ready to go, they ended up replacing it with Boy Meets World. The Bullock episode was eventually allowed to air, but not until several months later, as part of the show’s summertime run.
The move may have been a tad oversensitive, in retrospect. The bomb storyline, though atypically grim for a piece of Muppet entertainment, wasn’t intended to poke fun at any real-life tragedies, it was very obviously a spoof of Bullock’s hit film Speed. Eventually the mad bomber reveals that the explosive device that he’s planted will only explode if Muppet Tonight’s ratings “fall below 50.” And, incidentally, by the end of the episode, it’s revealed that Bullock herself was behind the bomb threat, because she wanted the show to be a big success so the Muppets would invite her back again.
Perhaps ABC also wasn’t thrilled that the Muppets respond to this admission of guilt giving Bullock a heartwarming pep talk that boosts her self-esteem, instead of calling in the authorities to haul her off to federal prison.
