Only 2 ‘Muppet Show’ Episodes Are Missing From Disney+, and Fans Have a Disturbing Theory About 1
Jim Henson‘s creations, The Muppets, have a long and illustrious history that has permeated almost every form of media. The Muppet Show went off the air in the ’80s but remained relevant. Disney+ gave the characters a streaming series titled Muppets Now. However, two episodes of Muppets Now are missing from Disney+, and fans have a disturbing theory about one.
The premise of ‘Muppets Now’
Muppets Now is a series on Disney+ that consists of several different segments bridged together using a framing device. The segments include a cooking show, a talk show, and a game show. Miss Piggy has her own segment Lifesty(le) with Miss Piggy, where she offers her audience lifestyle tips with help from celebrity guests.
In another smaller segment, Miss Piggy tries exotic foods and a beauty regimen and discusses a topic with the guest star. And in yet another segment, the Swedish chef takes on an Iron Chef type of format by competing against celebrity chefs.
In Mup Close and Personal, various Muppets have heart-to-hearts with celebrity guests. And in Muppet Labs Field Test, the characters Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew conduct their experiments in the open with safety warnings to their audiences. The show is run by Scooter, the stage manager and utility stage crew member.
The Muppet characters debuted in 1969 on Sesame Street. Henson later created programs for an adult demographic like The Muppets Valentine Show and The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. However, the two shows were never ordered to series.
Henson continued to work in the industry, and his characters were featured in Saturday Night Live. His involvement with SNL was short-lived due to conflicts with the show’s producers and writers. But he left with a ton of valuable insight, which he later used to create The Muppet Show.
The series debuted in 1976 and became an instant success. The Muppet Show lasted for five seasons ending in 1981. The Disney+ Muppets Now was released on the platform in February 2021, but a few episodes are missing.
The disturbing theory that fans have regarding the missing episodes from ‘Muppets Now’
When Disney+ dropped the new The Muppet Show, Muppets Now, eagle-eyed fans were quick to notice an issue. Three episodes from the series were missing, with no explanation. The series has 120 episodes, but it had 117 episodes when it debuted, with two missing from season 5 and one from the first season.
The missing episode from season 1 featuring Kaye Ballard was restored with a Disney+ rep clarifying that its omission was a mistake. However, Brooke Shields and Chris Langham’s episodes weren’t restored, leading fans and outlets to speculate on what could have happened.
Entertainment Weekly theorized that Langham’s sex offender conviction might have played a part in his episode’s removal. According to the outlet, Langham, a writer on the show, took over from Richard Pryor as a guest star at the 11th hour.
However, in 2007 Langham was found guilty of child pornography possession and ended up spending six months in prison. EW tried reaching Disney+ for a comment on the issue, but the streamer declined the request.
Why Brooke Shields’ episode is missing
Disney+ faced some issues with music copyrights and licensing when working on the Muppets Now. Since Shield’s episode is a full parody episode of Alice in Wonderland, Decider speculates that the holdup might be because Disney+ has yet to get approval from author Lewis Carroll’s estate.
The site also speculates that the episode might have been pulled down because of Shields herself, but there’s been no news about why her episode isn’t up.
