What I’m Watching: The Muppets

The Muppets: Season 1, Episode 5 “Walk the Swine” (B+)

This episode wins for its terrific title, as well as a great guest appearance by Reese Witherspoon. The main theme of this show seems to be that Miss Piggy holds a grudge against pretty much every female celebrity, mainly because she thinks that they’ve wronged her in some way. Being upset that Reese took the role she wanted in the movie that ultimately won her the Oscar led, naturally, to Piggy being the one to first bring up the Oscar and then give Reese a hard time for responding to it by talking about the things she’s been able to do as a result. Competing with her to try to do charity work was a humorous sight that predictably went south. Reese’s attitude was entertaining, and I liked her proud assertion that she did all of her own walking in “Wild” (which, by the way, is a superb film). Fozzie finding that his comedy routine went over a lot better when he made fun of his human girlfriend Becky, who we haven’t seen since the pilot, didn’t work out so well for him in the short term, but it was nice to see that she encouraged him to continue mocking her in good fun, fully prepared to give him a hard time back. Every episode of this show has its hilarious moments of misunderstood speech uttered by muppets, and this installment’s key scene involved mentions of Sean Penn that were misheard repeatedly as champagne, making a very different point than the one actually being made.